Mischief in Regency Society: To Catch a Rogue
Mischief in Regency Society: To Catch a Rogue
Amanda McCabe
To Catch a Rogue When antiquities begin to go missing from London drawing rooms Miss Calliope Chase doesn’t have to look much further than Cameron de Vere, Earl of Westwood, for a suspect.What she doesn't realise is that her determined pursuit of a criminal looks like a budding romance. Until Cameron kisses her, and her ordered life is thrown into appalling confusion! To Deceive a Duke Clio Chase is hoping for a quiet season in Sicily with her family to forget about enigmatic Duke of Averton and the strange effect he has on her. That is until he unexpectedly arrives, shattering her peace and warning her of trouble… and Clio knows there is only so long she can resist her mysterious duke!
SEDUCTION in Regency Society August 2014
DECEPTION in Regency Society September 2014
PROPOSALS in Regency Society October 2014
PRIDE in Regency Society November 2014
MISCHIEF in Regency Society December 2014
INNOCENCE in Regency Society January 2015
ENCHANTED in Regency Society February 2015
HEIRESS in Regency Society March 2015
PREJUDICE in Regency Society April 2015
FORBIDDEN in Regency Society May 2015
TEMPTATION in Regency Society June 2015
REVENGE in Regency Society July 2015
Mischief in
Regency
Society
To Catch a Rogue
To Deceive a Duke
Amanda McCabe
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
AMANDA McCABE wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA® Award, the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma, with a menagerie of two cats, a pug and a bossy miniature poodle, and loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs and watching the Food Network—even though she doesn’t cook. Visit her at http://ammandamccabe.tripod.com (http://ammandamccabe.tripod.com) and http://www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com (http://www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com).
Table of Contents
Cover (#u6c0b8802-2f46-5146-a0be-01e4a27b23be)
Title Page (#u6a909227-e650-57fd-922c-4464c3951c5c)
About the Author (#ua86dc07c-79c3-5f99-b837-afce6944a734)
To Catch a Rogue (#u8af08137-cf0d-5b79-abde-0c6689781b51)
Dedication (#u6e6a4df8-3179-5bd8-91a0-8ca359344515)
Prologue (#ulink_cf146135-39d0-502b-bd5a-5af08069ee1c)
Chapter One (#ulink_95c9e41e-8802-5730-a1d0-1dc8ff90bbee)
Chapter Two (#ulink_5ce0d981-7969-55d3-a741-70c12b44f2a4)
Chapter Three (#ulink_1420d403-49c2-5148-9d1b-b4c90424f198)
Chapter Four (#ulink_42ca9107-173f-50e8-8f88-3416763e0aed)
Chapter Five (#ulink_25cfba43-8033-5c9b-bb1f-ce5fcd0e1346)
Chapter Six (#ulink_2531b5f3-1509-5ff9-a6cf-36c5bf686526)
Chapter Seven (#ulink_912fd0a1-e259-59b6-878d-88ac3125357a)
Chapter Eight (#ulink_57448a1a-cca7-52d1-aba0-a1fed04d504b)
Chapter Nine (#ulink_c0e00d2e-2de0-58fa-ac55-aa9c6a5a18e6)
Chapter Ten (#ulink_cf4300da-7340-56a1-ae2e-51ec01c39a53)
Chapter Eleven (#ulink_bbd838df-9c44-5f39-abe6-b34b286cbe30)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
To Deceive a Duke (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
To Catch a Rogue
Amanda McCabe
To Laura Kay Gauldin,
who has been brave enough to be my friend since we were
teenagers! If not for the three Gauldin sisters there
never could have been three Chase sisters.
Prologue (#ulink_f10806cb-7e6f-5d42-b38a-987010e4622c)
“Where’er we tread ’tis haunted, holy ground;
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould
But one vast plain of wonder spreads around,
And all the Muses’ tales seem truly told
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon…
Lord Byron
Never had a night been as dark as this one.
The moon was a mere sliver high over the crooked rooftops of London, nearly obscured by scudding clouds. There were no stars at all, not even a tiny, bead-like sparkle, and an infamous London fog was creeping inward over the sluggish Thames. Heavy and greasy, a noxious grey-green, it would soon blanket the city, cutting off even the dull shimmer of that tiny moon.
But all the guests at the Marchioness of Tenbray’s ball—and that was nearly everyone in the ton who mattered at all—cared not a whit for the ominous night outside the brilliantly lit mansion. They were far too busy moving through the crush of the ballroom, laughing, dancing, trading the latest on dits behind silken fans, drinking champagne, stealing kisses under concealment of the terrace’s potted palms. All the world seemed compressed into this one marble-and-gilt room, a swirl of music and chatter and clinking crystal rising up and up with no care for the dark chill outside.
Not one of them—not even the marchioness herself, deeply preoccupied by a sudden shortage of lobster tarts—noticed a window in the library sliding silently open.
Someone else was taking full advantage of the darkness, and not for surreptitious caresses on the terrace. No, this person had something far more important, far more devious, in mind.
As the window swung all the way open, this person, tall and slim, muffled and masked all in black, climbed inside and hopped lightly to the Aubusson carpet laid over polished parquet. The figure made no sound, as soft as cat’s paws on the silken weave. It went automatically down into a low crouch, breath held as bright eyes, revealed through the slits of the satin mask, darted from left to right. The library, as expected, was deserted, lit by only one small Colza lamp on the polished desk. It cast a circle of golden glow, flickering, sweetly scented, and all the far corners were deep in gloom. Bookshelves rose to the ceiling, crowded with leather-bound volumes that looked scarcely touched, let alone read and loved.
Well, thought the intruder. Old Lady Tenbray is scarcely renowned for her brains, is she?
Yet the late Lord Tenbray had been renowned for his passion for Italian antiquities, and this was what drew the black-clad figure’s interest. Once assured of being alone, the intruder rose from that crouch and moved stealthily across the room. The shadows were no deterrent—the library’s layout had been carefully studied, every chair and table mapped. This person knew what they sought.
At the far end of the space, on either side of the carved fireplace, were glass-topped cases, each one filled to the brim with the marquess’s ill-gotten gains. In his youth, long ago, he had served as a diplomat to the kingdom of Naples. From there, he sent home crates full of statuary, jewellery, frescoes, vases. Only a small part of the collection resided in this library.
The very best part.
“Ah, yes,” the intruder whispered. “There you are.”
From a pocket tied around the waist came a thin piece of metal, which was carefully inserted into the case’s lock. One upward twist, and the mechanism popped free.
“Lax, lax,” the person murmured, lifting up the lid. Really, people who could not take care of their possessions did not deserve them.
The object of desire lay in the very centre of the display, an Etruscan diadem of gold hammered very thin and formed into the shape of delicate leaves and vines. Once, it had graced the head of a queen. Now it satisfied an old Englishwoman’s vanity.
But not for long.
The figure reached for it with black-gloved hands. Even in the shadows the diadem glowed like the Italian sky, so light and perfect. It seemed so fragile, yet had survived so much for these thousands of years.
“You will soon be safe,” came the reassuring whisper, as the diadem disappeared into the pocket.
As its glow vanished, there was a loud thump outside the library door. The figure’s masked head whipped around, eyes wide, heart pounding.
“No, Agnes, we shouldn’t!” a man groaned, his words slurred, overly loud in the quiet room.
“Oh, but we really must!” a woman answered. “We haven’t got very long. My husband will soon leave the card room and be looking for me.”
There was another thump, then a click of the door handle as someone, either Agnes or her drunken companion, groped for the entrance.
Time to be gone. One more object emerged from that pocket, a perfect white lily that was carefully placed in the diadem’s abandoned spot. Then the figure sprinted lightly across the floor, jumping up on to the window ledge. Just as the door flew open, the thief was gone, disappearing into the gloomy night.
The Lily Thief had struck again.
Chapter One (#ulink_b70080b2-5d86-54aa-b969-f3e308efba5c)
“I call this meeting of the Ladies Artistic Society to order,” announced Calliope Chase, sounding her gavel on the table in front of her. “Our secretary, Miss Clio Chase, will take the minutes.”
Slowly, all the teacups and plates of cakes were lowered to laps and tabletops, and the members of the Society turned their attention to their founder and president. Bright sunlight flowed from the tall windows of the drawing room of the Chases’ townhouse, warm and bright after the chilly misery of the night before, casting pastel spencers and muslin gowns in a brilliant light. Everything in the fashionably appointed room was just as expected—the ladies seated in pretty groupings of chairs and settees, china tea sets, silver services, hovering housemaids, the soft sound of Mozart from the pianoforte in the corner.
All expected and proper. Except for one thing. Behind Calliope, set high on its pedestal, was a marble statue of Apollo. An anatomically correct, completely naked statue of Apollo.
But then, what else could be looked for in a house belonging to the famous scholar of Greek history, Sir Walter Chase? A house where his nine daughters, named after the Greek Muses, resided and pursued their own, not always completely ladylike, interests.
Calliope, the eldest of the Chase Muses at age twenty-one, was also not all that was expected. She was quite attractive, taking after her late mother’s French family with her black hair and brown eyes, her flawless fair skin; and those good looks—with the Chase fortune—had attracted more than a few offers from very eligible partis. Yet she had turned them all down. “They just don’t care about history and antiquities,” she told her father, and he immediately agreed that those young men would never do for one of the Chase Muses.
She also cared little for fashion or for dancing or cards, preferring to spend her time in study, or in conversation about her studies with like-minded people.
That was why she founded the Ladies Artistic Society in the first place, so that she and her sisters could reach out to other females with more on their minds than hemlines and hats. “Surely there must be others like us here in London,” she told her sister Clio. “You know—ladies who wish they could take books with them to pass the dull hours at Almack’s.”
And so there were. Their membership now included two of their friends, along with the three eldest Chase daughters (the other six still being in the schoolroom, and therefore members-in-waiting). There was also a waiting list, though Calliope suspected that many of those just wanted a glimpse of Apollo. They met once a week during the Season to talk about history, literature, art, music. Often a guest lecturer, provided by the Muses’ father, would speak, or a painter would give a demonstration. Sometimes they would just discuss amongst themselves a book read or an opera seen, or Thalia, the third Chase sister and an ardent musician, would perform a scandalous, passionate Beethoven piece.
Not today, though. Today there was very serious business to discuss, and obviously everyone discerned that from the stiff set of Calliope’s shoulders in her white muslin day dress. A hush fell over the bright room, all clinkings and rustlings stilled. Even Thalia ceased playing the pianoforte, swivelling around to face her sister.
Calliope lifted up a copy of the Post, pointing at a black, shrieking headline: The Lily Thief Returns!
“It has been many weeks since this criminal struck,” Calliope said softly. Her voice was quiet, but she felt her cheeks burn with the force of her inner anger. Many weeks—and she had thought the Lily Thief gone, vanished like so many other ephemeral sensations in Society. A two-day scandal, and then something else, an elopement or divorce, or other such harmless trifle. “I suppose he realised that attention was drifting from his foul deeds.”
Her sister Clio glanced up from the minutes, her auburn brow arched above the gilt frames of her spectacles. Clio said nothing, though. Merely went back to her note-taking. It was Lady Emmeline Saunders who spoke. “Perhaps the Lily Thief has very good reasons for what he does.”
“Reasons such as profit and riches?” Thalia cried from her piano. Her golden curls, so shiny and pretty, trembled with indignation. Thalia might look like a china shepherdess, but she had the heart of a gladiator. And that accounted for the many scrapes she always found herself in. “I am sure he saw a pretty penny from the sale of Lord Egermont’s Euphronios krater and the Clives’ Bastet statue.”
“Antiquities have more than a monetary value, you know,” Clio said quietly. “Something their previous owners seemed to have lost sight of.”
“Of course they do,” Calliope said. “And that is what makes the exploits of this Lily Thief so heinous. Who knows where these objects have gone, or if they will ever be seen again? We will have no access to the lessons they could teach us. It is a terrible loss to scholarship.”
Clio bent her head back over her notes, murmuring low enough for only Calliope to hear, “As if there was much scholarship going on in Lady Tenbray’s library.”
“The Lily Thief does not just steal money or jewels, as a common burglar would. Objects that could easily be replaced,” Calliope said. “He steals history.”
The other Society members glanced at each other. Finally, Emmeline raised her hand again. “What must we do about this, Calliope? Perhaps engage a don from Cambridge to speak on cultural thefts?”
“Or tomb-raiding!” cried Miss Charlotte Price, the youngest and most excitable of the Society. She had an unfortunate predilection for reading horrid novels, but her father was a friend of Sir Walter Chase. He hoped the Society would help her expand her horizons. So far the hope was in vain, but one never knew. “I did read about a cursed tomb robber in The Baron’s Revenge—”
“Yes, indeed,” Calliope said, interrupting smoothly before Lotty could be carried off into a rambling synopsis. “But I have something rather more—personal in mind.”
“Personal?” the others chorused.
“Yes.” Calliope placed her palms flat on the table before her, leaning towards her audience. “We are going to catch the Lily Thief ourselves.”
A great sigh went up, floating to the plaster-ceiling medallion in a wave of exclamation.
“Oh, how very thrilling!” trilled Charlotte. “Just like The Curse of Lady Arabella—”
“We are to turn amateur sleuths?” Thalia said, clapping her hands. “What a marvellous idea!”
“Indeed,” agreed Emmeline. “Scholastic inquiry is all very well, but sometimes we need to move.”
Clio’s pen stilled, her brows drawn down in a puzzled vee. “How do you propose we go about this task, Calliope? If even the Bow Street Runners could not find the Lily Thief…”
Honestly, Calliope had not thought quite that far ahead. The idea of taking action themselves had only occurred to her at breakfast that morning, as she read the papers in mounting anger over the harmful exploits of that show-off Lily Thief. She had some vague notion that, as ladies of the ton, they could move about more freely and with far more stealth than those Runners. They could listen and observe with no one being the wiser, and perhaps catch the villain at a vulnerable moment.
For she was sure of one thing—the Lily Thief was a member of the ton. He had to be, to possess such knowledge of the houses and schedules of lords and ladies. But she was not entirely sure how to begin catching him in their net.
“I suggest,” she said slowly, “that we begin with last night’s theft of the Etruscan diadem. Was anyone at Lady Tenbray’s rout?” Calliope herself had not been, turning down the invitation to what was sure to be a dull crush to attend the theatre with her father. Macbeth, she had thought, was sure to be more exciting. If only she had known the Lily Thief was to strike again!
Clio and Thalia were of no help, having chosen to stay home with their studies. There must have been someone there whose observations she could trust!
Finally, Emmeline raised her hand again. “I was there, but I noticed nothing untoward, I fear.”
“No one behaving oddly at all?” Calliope asked hopefully.
“Just Freddie Mountbank,” Emmeline answered. “But then, what does one expect of him? I would have been suspicious if he behaved normally.”
The ladies all giggled. Poor Mr Mountbank—he was so earnest, so very much in love with Emmeline, yet he had the unfortunate tendency to lose his temper and blurt out curses when he was nervous in a lady’s presence (which was always). He had launched more than one dance set into disarray by knocking down all the participants. Unless Mr Mountbank was very clever indeed—and, judging by his parents, that was not likely—he was not the Lily Thief.
“Nothing else?” Calliope asked.
Emmeline shook her head regretfully. “I fear not. It was so very crowded. And my mother insisted I dance with Mr Mountbank, so I was rather distracted in dodging him.”
More giggles rippled around the room, and even Calliope had to laugh at the vision of her rather tall friend ducking behind curtains and potted palms to hide from her persistent suitor.
“I’m sorry,” Emmeline said. “If I had known…”
“Yes.” Calliope sighed. “If only we all knew.”
“What shall we do now?” asked Thalia, her tone suggesting that she would prefer to armour up like a Valkyrie and go marching out into Mayfair to destroy all villains in her path.
“I am not entirely sure,” Calliope admitted. “But I think I do have an idea where the Lily Thief will strike next.”
“Really?”
“Where?”
“Oh, do tell us!”
Calliope had not completely worked out all this in her mind. Yet sometimes, she thought, intuition was the best guide. “The Duke of Averton’s ball.”
“Oh!”
“Of course.”
“The Alabaster Goddess,” Thalia said. “Lud, but that is clever of you, Cal.”
“I’m surprised the Lily Thief hasn’t made a move towards it yet,” Emmeline said.
“He is obviously growing in audacity,” Calliope said, gesturing towards the newspaper. “To snatch the diadem in plain sight indicates confidence.”
The Alabaster Goddess was a rather small, perfectly preserved statue of Artemis with her bow, taken only a few years ago from a ruined Greek temple on the island of Delos and purchased by the Duke of Averton (or Duke of Avarice, as he was known in certain circles) for his famous collection. She was quite unblemished for being thousands of years old, and the duke loved to show her off, strangely enough, for he was a well-known recluse. The goddess had even sparked quite a fashion in society for “Artemis” hairstyles and “Artemis” sandals. The duke had made it known she would soon be moved to his heavily fortified castle in Yorkshire. But next week she could be seen at a grand masked ball the duke was hosting. His first ball in years.
The ball had a Grecian theme, of course.
Yes, Calliope thought, suddenly sure. The Lily Thief would strike there.
“We must all go to the ball, and there we will—”
“Oh!” Calliope’s instructions were cut off by a sudden cry from Lotty, who sat closest to the window. She pressed her nose to the glass, leaning forward precariously. “Oh, it is Lord Westwood! And your beau Mr Mountbank, Emmeline.”
Those words, of course—Lord Westwood—caused a great rush to the windows, silks and ribbons furiously a-rustle. More noses and fingers pressed to the glass, unheeding of smudges and dignity.
“Oh!” cried Thalia. “He is in his beautiful phaeton. I wish Father would buy one for me, I’m sure I would be a rare hand at the reins. But Westwood appears to be in some sort of altercation with Mr Mountbank. How fascinating.”
Oh, what a great surprise, Calliope thought sarcastically. Where Cameron de Vere, the Earl of Westwood went, “altercations” were sure to follow.
“Cal, Clio, come, you must see this. It’s too amusing,” Thalia said.
Clio left off her scratching of pens and joined the others, peering down as if observing some scientific demonstration.
Calliope did not want to go and gawk with her friends, as if they were all silly schoolgirls who had never before seen a man rather than the intelligent, rational women they were. She did not want to give Lord Westwood the satisfaction of yet more attention. Yet, somehow, she could not help herself. It was as if a thick cord suddenly tightened around her waist, pulling her inexorably towards the window. Towards him.
Calliope dropped the newspaper and strolled reluctantly towards the others, peering past Thalia’s shoulder to the scene below. It was indeed Lord Westwood, his bright yellow and gleaming black phaeton wedged into traffic, at a complete standstill. His matched bay horses snorted and pranced restlessly, as Mr Mountbank, in his own conveyance, blocked Westwood’s way, shouting and gesticulating, as he was wont to do. Mr Mountbank’s face was an alarming shade of purple above his overly starched cravat, yet Westwood looked on with an expression of amused boredom on his ridiculously gorgeous face, as if the quarrel had nothing at all to do with him, and he merely watched the action at Drury Lane.
“Really,” Calliope muttered. “Our street is hardly Gentleman Jackson’s saloon.”
“Oh!” Thalia exclaimed. “Do you really think they might come to blows? How terribly interesting.”
“How very handsome he is,” sighed Lotty. “Just like the comte in Mademoiselle Marguerites’s Fatal Secret.”
Handsome—well, yes. Even Calliope had to admit that, albeit grudgingly. Westwood was sometimes called “the Greek God” in more florid circles, and strictly from an aesthetic viewpoint it was all too true. He could have been their Ladies Society Apollo statue come to warm, vivid, breathing life, if he were to shed his buckskin breeches and exquisite bottle-green coat. He was hatless now, despite the sunny skies, his glossy, sable-dark curls tossed by the wind until they fell in artistic disarray over his brow. His skin was always a golden-bronze, his eyes dark and maddeningly unreadable.
No, Calliope thought as she watched him now, trying to reason with Mr Mountbank with a half-grin on his lips. He was not so much a god, as a young Greek fisherman, virile, earthbound, as secret as the deepest sea. Surely he got that sense of otherness from his mother. Like the Chases’ own mother, the late countess had hailed from more exotic climes. She came from where else but Athens, the daughter of a famous Greek scholar.
For an instant, it seemed as if Westwood would actually alight from his phaeton and face the apoplectic wrath of Mr Mountbank. The ladies at the window held their collective breath, but, alas, fisticuffs—and shirtsleeves—in Mayfair were not to be. Mountbank, faced with an opponent potentially closer than several feet away, backed off and hurried on his way, steering his carriage precariously around the corner.
The ladies, disappointed, also backed away, leaving the view to return to their seats. The drawing room was soon filled with the mingling of chatter, music, tea being poured into delicate cups. Calliope, though, could not yet leave with them. Could not break that cord. Something tightened, binding her there, staring down at Cameron de Vere.
He laughed aloud at Mountbank’s precipitous retreat, his head thrown back with the unbridled freedom of his humour. His hair fell away from his chiseled face, the sharp angles of his cheekbones and nose. He leaned back easily on the cushioned seat, free as a corsair at the helm of his ship. Passers-by paused to stare at him, as if drawn by the sheer life of him, yet he noticed not at all, so comfortable in his own skin, his own world.
Blast him, anyway, Calliope thought wryly. Blast for being—him. For being all she was not. For being so free. Not bound to family responsibilities.
Calliope leaned her forehead against the cool glass, watching as Lord Westwood’s laughter faded and he once again collected the loosened reins. Even his casual movements were filled with a smooth, unstudied grace.
She watched him, and remembered their first meeting, at the beginning of the Season. Was that only weeks ago? It felt a lifetime. Or mere moments. That night when…
No! No, that didn’t bear thinking of. Not now. She was in the middle of a Ladies Society meeting! Her friends were nearby. Thinking of Cameron de Vere, seeing him, fantasising about him as some Greek fisherman on a beach, would only discompose her. Her friends were sure to ask questions, and that would never do. She was always collected and calm. Always in control. She had to be, her family relied on her.
Why, then, did she tremble so much, just from watching him down on the street? It was ridiculous!
Calliope reached up for the fringed edge of the satin drape, clutching at it to draw it over the window. Before she could do so, concealing herself and all her unruly emotions, Lord Westwood glanced up and saw her there. Saw her staring at him.
For an instant, it was as if a cloud passed over the Grecian sun. He frowned, his velvety brown eyes narrowing. Then, as swiftly as it came, the cloud vanished. He smiled, a wide, white Corsair grin, and gave her a jaunty salute.
Calliope gasped involuntarily, and yanked the curtain closed. The rogue!
She spun away from the window, wrapping her cashmere shawl tighter around her shoulders—only to find Clio observing her closely.
Calliope adored her sister, the closest to her in age and in artistic inclination, but sometimes, just sometimes, she was a bit uneasy to be faced with those unerring, unwavering green eyes.
“You should stay out of the sun, Cal,” Clio said quietly. “It makes your cheeks so flushed.”
Calliope Chase.
Cameron frowned as she thrust the draperies shut, as if to block out a demon from her home. To bar all laughter from the premises. To bar him.
He shouldn’t care. He didn’t care. Calliope Chase was beautiful, it was true. Yet London was filled with lovely ladies, most of them far less prickly and mysterious than Miss Chase. Yet somehow, ever since their first meeting—or first clash, as he thought of it—he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Was he becoming like his rather bizarre cousin Gerald, who paid lightskirts hefty sums to whip his bare backside with a riding crop, pain and aggravation equalling pleasure?
Cam laughed aloud as he guided his horses back into the flow of traffic, picturing Calliope Chase wielding a leather whip with fire in her brown eyes. It was not an unlikely vision. She was named after the wrong mythological figure, surely. She was not a Muse, changeable and capricious and seductive. She was Athena, goddess of war, marching into battle to defend what she believed in, right or wrong.
An Athena with such an intriguing sadness behind her gaze.
Cam glanced over his shoulder before he turned the corner of the street, but the Chases’ house was closed up tight. There was no flash of shining raven curls, no glimpse of fair skin and sparkling eyes. Yet he knew she was in there. Could still see her in his mind.
As he headed off into the park, a shortcut to his own home, he let his horses have their head a bit. He saw Mountbank far ahead. Such a silly puppy, getting so upset because Cam had danced with Lady Emmeline Saunders! Anyone could see he was no rival for her affections. She was a pretty girl, and full of interesting conversation (unlike most of the society chits mothers were always pushing his way!). She had a quick humour, too, despite being bosom friends with Miss Chase. But there was something missing when he talked to Lady Emmeline, looked at her.
There was always something missing. Something so empty and hollow at the centre of his life, something that was not filled by all his pursuits—his clubs, his horses, women, even his studies. It was a cold and echoing spot, always with him. He only really forgot it, felt a new warmth spark on that ice, when he crossed swords with Calliope Chase.
Curious. Very curious indeed. And not something he cared to think about too deeply.
His horses were now a bit winded after their gallop through the park, so he eased them out of the gates towards home and their own mews. But they were blocked by an unexpected traffic obstruction, a tangled knot of vehicles and horses and pedestrians that brought all movement to a temporary standstill.
“Blast!” Cam muttered, craning his neck to try to peer past a lumbering barouche. He was meant to attend a musical evening later, one he was rather looking forward to as it featured a speculative reconstruction of ancient Greek theatrical music. “What is it now?”
Then the barouche lurched to one side, and he understood. A great crowd had gathered in front of the Marchioness of Tenbray’s home, gawking up at the window where the infamous Lily Thief had climbed in to snatch away her ladyship’s Etruscan diadem. The thief had been gone from society for a while; his reappearance was the latest sensation.
Cam chuckled, and sat back on the seat to wait for the crowd to clear enough for him to pass. The Lily Thief—how dramatic the moniker was! And how amusing his exploits were, tweaking the noses of some of the ton’s most misguided collectors. If only…
If only it was not so dangerous, and destructive. Cam was usually the first to applaud daring, to laud independence, even eccentricity. Look at his own family! Eccentrics one and all. But some things were simply too important to trifle with, including objects of immense cultural heritage. Like that diadem, or the other antiquities that fell into the Lily Thief’s hands. Who knew where those precious pieces had gone? What would become of them?
And then there were objects that had not yet fallen to the Lily Thief. Objects whose fate was even more vile. Averton’s Artemis, for instance.
Cam’s gloved hands fisted on the reins, causing the horses to toss their heads restlessly. He forced himself to relax, murmuring to them soothingly, but by damn, there was nothing that made him more furious than the Duke of “Avarice”!
That Artemis was snatched from her home on Delos, the place where she had belonged for thousands of years. She was Greek, and now she was merely an object of greed for an English lord. A vile man who had no care for her true worth.
“You know of Artemis?” Cam could almost hear his mother whisper so long ago, her accent as warm and musical as her Athenian home. “Zeus’ favourite child, the goddess of the moon and the hunt, the Maiden of the Silver Bow. She races through the forest in her silver chariot, always free, never the possession of any man. Once she shot an arrow into a vast city of unjust men, and the arrow pierced all of them, never ceasing in its flight until justice was served…”
And now she was a prisoner, locked away from the Greek moonlight for ever.
What would the learned Miss Chase say about that? For Cameron was certain she had an opinion about the Duke of “Avarice” and his newest prize, his famed Alabaster Goddess. But would she tell that opinion to him?
The traffic snarl finally eased a bit, letting him guide the horses through on their way home. Yes, indeed. Calliope Chase was sure to have something to say about it all. And he very much looked forward to hearing it.
Chapter Two (#ulink_fbb2aee3-6480-5016-9368-7f117534a36b)
Calliope watched in her dressing table mirror, distracted, as her maid brushed out her hair in preparation for the evening ahead. A musicale, featuring not the usual young and untalented misses with their harps and pianofortes, but a recreation of music that might have been performed at plays by Aeschylus and Euripides at the great festivals of ancient times. She had been very much looking forward to it, it was just the sort of thing that most fascinated her. But now her thoughts were scattered and hazy, scudding here and there like springtime clouds.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Lord Westwood. He just kept popping into her mind, the vision of him outside her window, laughing and windblown and carefree.
“Pfft,” she sighed impatiently, reaching for one of the small white roses on the table and tearing at the soft petals. It was ever thus when she saw Cameron de Vere. He unsettled her, made her feel so ridiculously flustered and foolish. His smiles, so mocking, made her angry and impatient. So disordered.
He was an impossible man, with such incorrect ideas. But why didn’t he like her?
“Miss Chase!” her maid protested. “There will be no flowers left for your hair.”
Calliope glanced down, startled to see that she had destroyed two roses. “Sorry, Mary,” she muttered, dropping the denuded stem.
“Shall I try that new Artemis style, miss? It’s ever so popular!”
“No, thank you,” Calliope said, shuddering at the thought of appearing at the party with the same coiffure as everyone else. “Just my usual.”
Mary pouted a bit. She had surely long thought her talents were wasted on Calliope and her conservative tastes! But Calliope could not help it. She knew what suited her, what she liked.
And she had even dared fantasise once that Cameron de Vere would “suit her”. When he first arrived back in London, after a very long voyage to Italy and Greece, rumours raced through the drawing rooms of how handsome he was, how dashing, how scandalous. But that was not what fascinated her. She was interested in the fact that he was a student of art and history, as she was. She longed to hear tales of his travels, to see the beautiful antiquities he had surely brought back with him for study and preservation.
It seemed they were destined to be friends, as their fathers had once been many years ago. Sir Walter Chase and the late Earl of Westwood were both scholars and collectors, great rivals as well as friends. The earl finally pulled the trump card in their collecting race, a bride who was actually Greek, not just French as Lady Chase was. Calliope and Cameron both grew up surrounded by the glories of the ancient world, though they never met after the de Veres departed for their incessant travels when their son was small.
When he came back to London, a grown man, the earl in his own right now, Calliope listened to the whispers about him and dared to let a tiny hope grow in her heart. Could this, then, finally be a man who could understand her? Share her passions, as none of her suitors could?
Those hopes were blighted when they at last met in person, at a reception he gave at his parents’ townhouse, his house now.
From her earliest childhood, Calliope remembered an antiquity she had adored, a bust of Hermes that once graced the foyer of that house. Her father had tried to buy it, but the old earl refused all offers, much to Calliope’s sadness. She loved Hermes’ mischievous smile, carved to be almost lifelike in the cold marble, loved his winged helmet and the swirls of his curling hair. She was so very excited the night of that reception, so looking forward to seeing Hermes again.
But he was not there! His niche was empty, as were all the others that had once held exquisite vases and goblets. Stunned, Calliope stayed there in the foyer as her father and sisters joined the gathering in the drawing room. She stood below that empty niche, staring up as if she could make her Hermes appear. Her plans for this reception—seeing all the lovely antiquities, meeting the new earl, talking with him about those cherished objects and perhaps forming a bond—were completely thrown awry.
Calliope did not much like having her plans upset.
“Well,” she heard a voice say, deep and velvety, faintly amused “you must be the missing Miss Chase.”
Calliope glanced over her shoulder to find a man standing a few feet away, a faint half-smile on his lips, as sensual as that of her lost Hermes. He was dressed most properly, in buff breeches, a dark blue coat, and a pale grey brocade waistcoat, his cravat simply tied and skewered with a cameo pin. Yet he seemed an alien creature dropped into the sumptuous foyer, a man of bronzed skin and too-long, glossy dark curls. Of flashing, familiar brown eyes.
“The Greek god,” she remembered Lotty sighing. “Oh, Calliope, he is a veritable Greek god!”
“And you must be Lord Westwood,” she answered coolly, disconcerted by her reaction to him, to that smile of his. This was not how she pictured their meeting!
“I am indeed,” he said, moving closer, graceful as a cat. He stopped close to her side, so close she could smell the faint lemony scent of his cologne, feel the heat of his skin, reaching towards her enticingly. She stepped away, closer to the reassuring chill of the marble wall.
“There used to be a bust of Hermes here,” she said, swallowing hard to still the sudden tremor of her voice. “A most beautiful piece.”
“Most beautiful,” he answered, gazing not at the niche, but at her. Steadily. “I returned it to Greece. Where it belongs.”
And that was when she knew they could never be friends…
“Miss Chase? What do you think?”
Calliope jumped a bit in her seat, startled out of her memories by the sudden sound of Mary’s voice. She glanced into the mirror, only to find that her cheeks were flushed, her eyes too bright. As if that scene in the de Vere foyer, weeks in the past now, had only just happened.
But her hair was tidy, swept back in her usual braided knot and decorated with the remaining white roses, her curls perfectly smooth.
“It’s lovely, Mary. As usual,” Calliope said breathlessly.
Mary nodded, satisfied, and went about finding Calliope’s shawl and slippers. Calliope reached for her pearl drop earrings, trying to forget that past evening, to focus on the soirée ahead. Cameron de Vere did not matter in the least! He was merely a misguided individual. Albeit a handsome one.
As she clasped on the earrings, there was a knock at her chamber door. “The carriage is waiting, Miss Chase,” the butler announced.
“Thank you,” Calliope answered. She took a deep breath, and rose slowly from her seat. It was time for the show to begin.
“If Lady Russell’s plumes were any higher, I fear she would launch up into the sky like some demented parrot and leave us quite without a hostess,” Clio whispered, leaning close to Calliope’s ear.
Calliope pressed her gloved fingertips to her lips, trying not to laugh aloud. The hostess of the musicale did indeed look a bit like a bizarre parrot, with towering, multi-coloured feathers spraying forth from a purple-and-green satin turban. Clio always did this; she was so very quiet that everyone believed she had nothing to add to any conversation and thus ignored her. This was a great mistake, for her sharp green eyes observed everything, and she sometimes broke forth with startling—and acerbic—insights. Comparisons to jungle parrots were quite mild for her.
“But what of Miss Pratt-Beckworth?” Calliope whispered back. “I’m afraid someone told the poor girl that orange stripes were all the rage this season and she believed them.”
“Indeed. It is better than that chartreuse creation she wore to the opera last week. Perhaps the Ladies Society needs to take her under its wing?” Clio shook her head sadly.
Calliope joined her in perusing the room, turning away from the mediocre painting of a stormy sea she and Clio had been pretending to admire. An evening of ancient Greek music would surely not sound too jolly to most of the ton, but Lady Russell was popular, turban or no, and tended to attract around her those of a more philosophical bent. So the room was quickly filling up, people milling about between the rows of gilt chairs, chatting and sipping lemonade—and stronger beverages—before the music began. It was not a “dreadful crush” by any means. There was no danger of overheating, or fainting, or having one’s train trodden on. But the colours were vivid against Lady Russell’s collection of bad paintings and very good antique statuary, a swirl of pastels, blues, greens, reds—and one orange—mingling with the hum of conversation. Talk of music and history were de rigeur tonight, exactly what Calliope usually loved.
But she could not entirely concentrate on the classical world. She still felt so restless. Unfocused.
Next to Calliope, Clio removed her spectacles, squinting out at the crowd as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. Unlike Calliope, who usually wore Grecian white muslin because it was the simplest choice, Clio was clad in emerald-green silk embroidered with a gold-key pattern, her auburn hair bound back by a gilded bandeau. A parrot of a far more subtle sort.
“What do you think, Cal?” she asked quietly. “Is the Lily Thief among us tonight?”
Calliope stiffened. The Lily Thief—how could she forget? Her gaze quickly scanned the gathering, jumping lightly from one young man to the next. There were so many there, tall, short, plain, handsome. Yet not the one she sought.
Could that possibly be the cause of her strange restlessness?
Certainly not! Calliope shrugged that away. The doings of Cameron de Vere were none of her concern. Just because she had been certain a Greek evening would appeal to him…
“I don’t believe so,” she said.
“Then you do suspect his identity?” Clio asked. “You know?”
“I don’t know,” Calliope answered impatiently. “How could I? I simply have an idea.”
“Yet he is not here, your suspect?”
Calliope shook her head.
“But then how…?” Clio could not say more, though. Thalia called to her from across the room, where she was closely examining the musicians’ instruments—much to their chagrin. Clio wandered away, leaving Calliope alone.
There were several friends she could join—indeed, a few people she really ought to speak to. She feared she would not be good company at the moment, not with such wild thoughts of de Vere and the Lily Thief whirling through her mind. She placed her half-empty glass on the nearest table and drifted away from the crowd towards the doors of Lady Russell’s conservatory.
The glassed-in space was invitingly warm, scented with the rich, green fragrance of geraniums, lavender, mint, the earthiness of the damp soil. The room was empty now, though softly lit and furnished with scattered wrought-iron settees for visitors. Calliope welcomed the silence, the moment to collect her thoughts and become her usual calm self again.
At the far end of the conservatory was a cluster of antique statues, a stone Aphrodite and her scantily clad acolytes. They watched all the horticulture with expressions of impassive, scornful beauty. They were quite stunning, and their cold perfection drew Calliope closer.
“If only I could be like you,” she whispered to the disdainful Aphrodite. “So very—certain. So unchanging. No doubts or fears.”
“How very dull that would be,” Westwood said.
“Did you follow me in here?’ she asked, not surprised, glancing over at him.
“On the contrary, Miss Chase,” he said, giving her one of his too-charming smiles. “I was in here enjoying a quiet moment to finish my wine…” He displayed a half-empty glass. “And here you came, talking to yourself. One couldn’t help but overhear.”
Calliope reached behind her to plant her palms on the cold stone base, trying to hold herself upright, to maintain some dignity. His cognac-coloured eyes, so deep and opaque, seemed to see far too much. She didn’t know where to look, where to turn.
“I, too, was looking for a quiet moment,” she said finally. “Before the music begins.”
He nodded understandingly. “Sometimes people ask for too much. The only recourse is solitude.” He took a step closer, then another. Calliope shivered in her thin gown, yet he no longer watched her. He gazed up at the statue.
“You chose a fine confidante,” he said. “She looks so very—knowing. As if she has seen everything in the long years of her life.”
Calliope, too, glanced up at Aphrodite, her pointed, cracked white chin, the clusters of her rippling hair. She did seem knowing, mocking even. Just as Westwood himself was. “I wonder what she makes of Lady Russell’s routs? How they compare to the revels of Greece.”
He laughed, that rich, rough sound that touched her to her very core. “I am sure she thinks them very tame affairs indeed! For did she not come from the inner sanctum of a temple to Aphrodite, where there were, er…”
“Orgies?”
He glanced towards her, his brow arched in sudden amusement. “Miss Chase. How very shocking.”
Calliope could feel her cheeks heat under his regard, but she forced the horrid blush away. A scholar did not always have time for niceties. “My father possesses an extensive library on the ancient world. I have read much of it, including John Galt’s Letters from the Levant. And Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s narratives of her travels.”
“Of course. Well, after the orgies, she must find musical evenings a bit tedious. I’m sure she was most happy you chose to converse with her.”
Calliope reached out to touch Aphrodite’s sandaled foot, the stone cold through the thin kid of her glove. This was the best sort of confidante—the mute sort. “If it was up to you, she would surely be sent back to moulder in the ruins of her erstwhile temple, with no one to talk to at all.”
“Ah, Miss Chase.” He leaned even closer to murmur in her ear, his warm breath lightly stirring the curls at her temple. “Who says all the orgies have ended?”
Calliope stared up at him, captured by his voice, his breath, his gaze—everything. It was as if she was suddenly paralysed and could not move, could not turn away. All time was suspended, and there was only him.
He, too, seemed startled by whatever this moment was. He watched her, his lips parted, the glass in his hand perfectly still.
“Miss Chase,” he murmured. “I…”
Outside their green sanctuary, the sound of music tuning up began, and it was as if the prosaic noise burst some enchantment, some spell. He shifted back, and she turned her head away, sucking in a deep breath. She felt as though she had just run a long distance, all achy and airless.
“Shall we go in?” he said, his voice taut, even deeper.
“Of course,” Calliope whispered. She spun around and marched back along the flagstone walkway, smoothing her palms over her warm cheeks. He was behind her. She could hear his steps, the soft rustle of his superfine coat, but mercifully he did not offer his arm or touch her.
She wasn’t sure what she would do if he did.
Chapter Three (#ulink_a19376c4-a5f3-52e5-92d5-2475f30e5d4c)
Calliope slipped into the empty chair next to Clio just as the musicians finished tuning their instruments. Her throat ached as she tried to draw in a calm, normal breath, tried to still the clamorous beating of her heart.
Clio gave her a sidelong glance as she slid a handwritten programme into Calliope’s hand. “Where were you, Cal?” she whispered.
“Just in the conservatory,” Calliope whispered back, resisting the urge to fan herself with the thin parchment. Why did Lady Russell insist on keeping her room so warm? “Looking at the Aphrodite statue.”
Clio’s expression was unreadable as she glanced at her own programme, her lips pursed. “Oh? Did you suspect she would be the next victim of the dreaded Lily Thief? Spirited away into the night for nefarious purposes?”
Calliope bit her tongue to keep from laughing aloud. “Certainly not. Aphrodite is solid marble and at least six feet tall. Unless the Lily Thief is the reincarnation of Hercules.”
“One never knows. He could then lift the statue up through the skylights and…” Her words trailed away as Lord Westwood appeared in the room, leaning carelessly against a pillar at the very periphery of the audience. His gaze met Calliope’s as she watched him warily, and then, slowly, audaciously, he winked at her.
Blast him! Calliope’s stare shot back to the front of the room, her face burning. Where was the cold marble of Aphrodite when it was truly needed?
“Were you quite alone in the conservatory, Cal?” Clio murmured.
“Lord Westwood might have wandered in just as I was leaving,” Calliope answered reluctantly.
“And did you two quarrel again?”
“I never quarrel with people!”
“Never? With anyone?”
“You and Thalia are different. You are my sisters; I’m allowed to quarrel with you in the privacy of our home. But not with people at parties. Lord Westwood and I merely discuss our artistic differences.”
“Hmm,” Clio said, very non-committally. “I do believe our hostess is about to say a few words.”
Calliope had seldom been more grateful to anyone than she was to Lady Russell for her timely interruption. Usually she felt she could tell Clio anything, and her sister’s quiet understanding could soothe any hurt or trouble. There was no use in trying to articulate what a meeting with Cameron de Vere made her feel, though. It was a tangle of temper that could never be unwound.
Calliope hated—hated—to be so discomposed! The solution would be never to see him again. Yet he always popped up wherever she was! If only he would go back to Greece, and carry on with his misguided, dangerous work far away from her…
Calliope folded her gloved hands tightly in her lap to still their trembling, staring straight ahead at Lady Russell’s multi-coloured plumes, now even more lopsided than before.
“Good evening, my dear friends,” Lady Russell said, holding up her hands so she did indeed seem to be a parrot about to be borne aloft. “I am so glad you could join me on this very special occasion. We will hear for the first time in centuries the strains of music last heard in ancient Greece. Using a fragment of measures copied from a work by Terence, fortunately preserved during the Renaissance and hidden away in an Italian monastery, we have reproduced a ‘Delphic Hymn to Apollo’. The instruments used tonight greatly resemble the lyres, aulos and citharas seen here.”
She waved her hands, and two servants appeared carrying a large blackwork krater. A gasp rose in the room. This was one of Lady Russell’s greatest treasures, borne out of Greece decades ago by her grandfather. She seldom displayed the vase; it was rumoured she kept it locked up in her own bedchamber where only she could view it. It was exquisitely lovely, completely intact except for some thin cracks and a missing handle. The decoration was a party scene, graceful dancers, musicians, reclining drinkers. The ancient instruments they held did indeed resemble the gleaming new ones held by the musicians seated now in Lady Russell’s drawing room.
That vase would make a prime target for the Lily Thief, Calliope thought, examining its gleaming elegance.
“Now, my dear guests,” Lady Russell said. “Close your eyes and imagine you are sitting in a Grecian amphitheatre thousands of years ago…”
“I’m surprised she didn’t make us all wear chitons and sandals tonight,” Clio muttered. “What a sight we’d make then. Especially old Lord Erring. The poor man must weigh three hundred pounds. I doubt there would be enough white muslin in London.”
Calliope laughed behind her programme. She could think of one man who could do a short chiton justice, and it wasn’t poor old Lord Erring. She peeked at Lord Westwood over the gilded edge of the parchment. He was also watching the krater, a small frown etched across his brow. An unhappy Apollo.
What could he be thinking of?
Cameron’s gaze followed the krater as it was carried from the room. How lovely it was, and how tragic it was so seldom seen. Seldom loved. Like Lady Tenbray’s Etruscan diadem, it had been snatched from its home and locked away for the selfish delectation of a tiny group, its true purpose long forgotten. Lost in time. That krater was made for parties and merriment.
Yet at this moment it was not the vase’s sad fate that preoccupied him. It was the carefully etched figure of a woman along one polished curve of the krater. Her slender body, draped in the fluid, graceful folds of her robe, was bent over her lyre. Dark curls, bound by a bandeau across her forehead, sprang free around her oval face. Her expression was serious, pensive, in contrast to the merrymaking dancers gambolling around her. She seemed to hear only her own music, lost in her own thoughts and feelings.
The image was ancient, and yet the artist’s model could have been Calliope Chase. The slim, dark beauty, the seriousness, the single-minded purpose—it was all Calliope.
As the music, a strange, discordant, haunting tune, filled the room, he glanced from the disappearing krater to its living embodiment. Calliope had been giggling with her sister, but now she stared raptly at the musicians, her pink lips parted and dark eyes shining as if she, too, could see things that were long dead living again, bright and vibrant. When Cameron saw ancient temples and theatres on his journeys, he saw not just the broken, silent ruins they were now, but the centres of life they once were. Places where people gathered, where they talked and laughed and loved, where they created art and beauty that were the greatest heritage of flawed mortals.
Calliope Chase shared this ability to see the vibrancy of the past, the living arc of history. He could see that in her eyes as she gazed at a sculpture or vase—as she listened to lost music roused to life again. But he could never understand her despite what they shared. If she could sense what he did, sense the true value of the heritage left to them by their ancestors, how could she advocate that these objects be locked away, unseen, far from their homes?
She was beautiful, just like that ancient woman with her lyre. Beautiful and intelligent and spirited. But as stubborn as a wild horse in the valleys of Greece.
Seeming to sense his regard, she glanced towards him. For a fleeting moment, she lacked the protective veil she usually drew around herself. Her gaze was open, vulnerable, gleaming with unshed tears. The eerie beauty of the music had moved her, as it did him, and for an instant they were bound together by the enchantment of the past.
Then the veil fell again, and she turned away so that he saw only her black curls, the pale curve of her neck and bare shoulder. But the magic was still there, a shimmering web of connection that urged him to press his lips to that white hollow at the nape of her neck, to trail kisses along her spine, breathing in the warm scent of her. Feeling her tremble under his touch until she cried out and that maddening veil vanished for ever, and he could see her true self.
Yet what would that true self be? A beautiful muse in truth—or a gorgon of destruction? Only a madman would take on one of the Chase Muses, and Cameron wanted to hold on to his tenuous sanity for as long as he could.
Suddenly, the music, the overheated room, the strange allure of Calliope Chase were too much for that thread of sanity. The old wildness was rising up in him like a fever. He spun around and left the room, the strains of music trailing behind him. In the foyer, the servants were placing the krater on a high pedestal where it could be viewed in distant safety after the performance.
It was too high to be touched without the stepstool the servants took when they left, yet from his vantage point Cam could clearly see the lyre player. The jewels in her headband, the delicate sandal peeking from the hem of her robe. From here she was even more like Calliope Chase. Beautiful and untouchable.
“Are you trying to decide how to steal it?” Calliope asked.
Cameron glanced back to find her standing in the drawing-room doorway, watching him with those steady brown eyes. Her face was a smooth and unreadable piece of marble, yet he could feel her tense wariness.
He should not be surprised at her suspicion. They had been at odds ever since that reception at his house, when she found Hermes missing from his niche. Their arguments only grew with every meeting after that. Yet still it hurt, like the sharp pinpricks of a tiny but fatal poisoned arrow. As he listened to the ancient music, as those strange, intimate thoughts of her neck and skin bombarded his mind, he felt so bound to her. So close to discovering the mystery of her.
But she seemed to think him a thief. The connection was not there for her. Not a muse then, or a gorgon either. Just a cold judge. The cool Athena he had once thought her.
He buried that hurt, shoving it down deep and piling other emotions on top of it—carelessness, insouciance. A chill to match her own.
“Perhaps you would care to come closer, Miss Chase, and ascertain for yourself if I carry a fresh lily in my pocket,” he said lightly, as if he did not care one whit for her suspicions. He stepped forward, holding out the edges of his coat so she saw the smoothness of the silk lining.
She did not move away, but her shoulders stiffened. “I am not a fool, Lord Westwood.”
“Indeed not, Miss Chase. ‘Foolish’ is the last word anyone could use to describe you. ‘Misguided’, perhaps.”
Something flared deep in those unreadable eyes, a flash of some black fire. But still she did not rise to his bait. She seldom did. “I am not the one so misguided as to turn to crime in order to prove a point! I am not the one who holds the honour of my family or the claims of scholarship so cheap. Those of us with the advantages of education and travel have a duty—”
“And who are you, Calliope Chase, to lecture me on duty? Or honour?” His temper, tamped down so carefully for so long, burst out in a veritable Catherine wheel of sparks. His desire for her, her beauty and stubbornness, his frustration—it would all drive him mad, in truth!
He stalked closer to her, so close he could smell the summer scent of the roses in her hair, see the delicate blue tracery of veins under her ivory skin, the throb of her life pulse at the base of her throat. That wild urge to grab her and kiss her until her chilly frostiness thawed and flowed away, leaving only her, them, was nigh undeniable.
She did not turn away, just stared up at him, still and wide-eyed, that pulse beating until he swore he could hear it. Hear her heartbeat. He even reached for her, his fingers aching to clasp the smooth, bare inch of skin above her kid gloves, but some last flicker of sanity made him drop his hands, back away from her.
“How can you know me so little, Miss Chase?” he said hoarsely.
Her lips parted, yet she said nothing. For a second, a whisper of doubt floated across her face. A hint of puzzlement. Then it was gone, hidden again.
“What else am I to think?” she said. “How can I know you at all?”
Cameron could bear it no longer. He spun away from her and left the house, storming past the startled footman who appeared at the front door. The night air was chilly and clammy as he strode along the quiet street, leaving the lights and music of Lady Russell’s house behind him. He could not quite leave Calliope Chase behind, though. Her quiet, accusing ghost seemed to follow him as he turned the corner.
“Infernal woman,” he muttered. There was only one place he could exorcise her—the most raucous, most disreputable gaming hell he knew, far from these genteel squares and solemn prosperity. The Devil’s Dice. There not even Calliope Chase’s ghost could survive.
As Lady Russell’s front door slammed behind Lord Westwood, Calliope sagged against the base of the krater’s pillar. Every ounce of willpower that held her upright, that kept her from fleeing, flooded away in a cold rush, leaving her weak and trembling. Why did she feel this way every time she saw him? Why did they always quarrel so?
Behind her, she heard the click of the drawing room door opening and closing, the rise and fall of music, the patter of slippers against the parquet floor.
“Cal?” Clio whispered. Her steady arm went around Calliope’s waist, and Calliope turned into her gratefully. “What is wrong? Are you ill?”
“No, no. I just—needed some air,” Calliope answered.
“So you came out here alone?”
“I was not quite alone. But then I said something wrong, as I always do with him, and he left. Just ran out the front door into the street rather than be here with me!” Calliope realised she was not making any sense. She hardly understood herself! Why did she care at all if Cameron de Vere, a reckless probable-thief, ran away from her? She didn’t want to be with him, either.
Did she?
Clio glanced towards the door, frowning. “Who ran out into the street?”
“Lord Westwood, of course.”
“You mean you were speaking with Lord Westwood out here, and he became so angry he just ran off…” Clio’s stare shifted to the krater above their heads, and her green eyes hardened, turning oddly intent. “Oh, no, Cal. You surely did not accuse Lord Westwood of being the Lily Thief!”
Calliope covered her hot cheeks with her gloved hands, trying to blot out the memory of his anger. Of her own impulsive ridiculousness. “I—may have.”
“Cal…” Clio groaned “…whatever has come over you? I could see Thalia doing such a thing. She would challenge the devil himself to a duel! Not you. Are you ill? Do you have a fever?”
“I wish I did, then I would have some excuse.”
Clio shook her head. “Poor Cal. I am sure he will not speak of it to anyone, since his father and ours were such friends.”
“No, he won’t speak of it. Except maybe to the governors of Bedlam.”
Clio laughed. “There, you see! You made a joke. All is not lost. Perhaps next time you see him you can say you were simply overcome by the power of the music.”
“Or drunk on the wine,” Calliope muttered. She smoothed her hair and shook out her skirts, feeling herself slowly coming back to her usual calm presence. “I wish we never had to see him again at all.”
“That’s not likely, is it? Our world is so very small.” Clio looked again to the krater. “But tell me, Cal, what made you suspect Lord Westwood of being the Lily Thief?”
Calliope shrugged. “It seems the sort of hot-headed thing he would do, does it not? He sent his own antiquities back to Greece; perhaps he thinks others should do the same, willy-nilly. I don’t know. It was just a—a feeling.”
“Now I know you have a fever! Calliope Chase, going by a mere feeling? Never.”
Calliope laughed. “Tease all you like, Clio. I know that I usually have to carefully study a thing before I make my point…”
“Study it to death,” Clio muttered.
Calliope ignored her. “I like to be certain of things. But don’t the exploits of the Lily Thief just seem like something he would do? A person must be clever to get in and out of such fine houses undetected. They must be knowledgeable about art and antiquities, for only the finest and most historically important pieces are taken. They have to be sure of their cause, as Lord Westwood is. And they must be very misguided. As Lord Westwood also is.”
“Why, Cal,” Clio said softly. “It sounds as if you admire the Lily Thief.”
Calliope considered this. Admire the Lily Thief? The most dangerous of criminals, for he stole not only objects but history itself? Absurd! “I admire his taste, perhaps, but certainly not his goals. I abhor the disappearance of such treasures. You know that.”
Clio nodded. “I do know how passionate you are in your own cause, sister. But pray do not let it overcome you again when it comes to Lord Westwood! We have no proof he is the thief.”
“No proof yet.” Behind the closed drawing room door, the strains of music faded, replaced by the ring of applause. “It seems the concert is ending. Shall we fetch Thalia and go home? It grows late.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_6b1ca7d6-e74d-5e30-80b2-874442bd0292)
“Good morning, Miss Calliope!” Mary sang as she drew back the bedchamber curtains, letting the greyish-yellow light of late morning flood across the room.
Calliope squeezed her eyes tighter shut, resisting the urge to draw the bedclothes over her head. How could it be time to wake up? She had only just fallen asleep. The long hours of the night she had spent tossing and turning, going over and over her hasty words to Lord Westwood. The anger she saw in his eyes.
Clio was surely right. She was fevered. It was the only explanation for showing her hand so early. She would never catch him now.
She needed to regroup. Strategise. It would surely all come back together at the Duke of Averton’s Artemis ball. The Ladies Society would see to that.
“Did you enjoy the musicale last night, Miss Calliope?” Mary asked, arranging a tray of chocolate and buttered rolls on the bedside table.
“Yes, thank you, Mary,” Calliope answered. She propped the pillows up against the carved headboard, pushing herself upright to face the day. No one ever won a battle lolling around! “Tell me, are my sisters up yet?”
“Miss Thalia has already departed for her music lesson,” Mary said, rifling through the wardrobe. “And Miss Clio is at breakfast with your father and Miss Terpsichore. She left you a note on the tray.”
As Mary organised the day’s attire, Calliope munched on a roll and reached for Clio’s message.
Cal, it read in Clio’s bold, slashing hand. I think we need an outing to clear our heads. Shall we take Cory to see the Elgin Marbles? She loves them so much, and we can talk there without Father overhearing.
Calliope sighed. Perhaps Father would not overhear them at the British Museum, but the rest of London would. Still, Clio was right. They needed to clear their heads after last night, and where better than among the glorious beauties of the Parthenon sculptures? Terpsichore—Cory—was a delightful girl, just turned thirteen now and wanting so much to be a young lady, and she deserved a treat after being separated from their younger sisters, who stayed in the country with their various nurses and governesses.
And surely they wouldn’t run into Lord Westwood there. The man probably didn’t rise until two at the earliest, and the Elgin Marbles must represent all he abhorred: treasures taken from Greece and displayed for Londoners.
“Mary, I shall need a walking dress and warm pelisse,” she said, swallowing the last of her chocolate. “And my lap desk. I need to send notes to the Ladies Society.”
They had battle plans to draw up.
The Chases’ de facto second home when in town was always the British Museum. They had been brought there since earliest childhood, escorted from artefact to artefact by their parents, instilled with a love for the past by the beauty of the pieces and by their father’s vivid tales. Many of their favourites—Greek vases, Egyptian sculptures, Viking helmets—were immortalised for them in their mother’s sketchbooks, kept by Clio since Lady Chase’s death in birthing the youngest Muse, Polyhymnia, three years ago.
But their mother had never seen the sisters’ favourite room of all, the Temporary Elgin Room—which was showing signs of becoming rather more permanent. This was where they went now, after climbing up the wide stone steps and passing through the massive pillars into the sacred hush of the museum.
“May we visit the mummies after we see the Marbles?” Cory asked eagerly.
Clio laughed. “Morbid child! You only want to scare your little sisters with gruesome tales of them in your next letter. But we can visit them, if there is time.”
Cory wrinkled her nose. “There won’t be. You two always spend hours with the Marbles.”
“You enjoy them, too, silly monkey, and you know it,” Calliope said. “Perhaps after the Marbles and the mummies we can have an ice at the shop across the way.”
Smiling happily with the promise of dead Egyptians and a sweet, Cory went off to sketch her favourite sculpture yet again, the head of a horse from the chariot of the Moon, his mane and jaw drooping after an exhausting journey across the heavens. Calliope and Clio strolled over to the back wall, where the frieze depicting the procession of a Panathenaic festival was mounted. It was quiet there for the moment, despite the milling crowds, tucked behind the massive carved figures of Theseus and a draped, headless goddess.
Calliope stared up at the line of young women, all of them gracefully poised and beautifully dressed in chitons and cloaks, bearing vessels and libation bowls as offerings to the gods. They were not as well displayed as they deserved; the room was cramped and ill lit, the walls dark. But Calliope always loved to see them, to revel in their classical beauty, in the procession that never ended. And today she was glad of the dim light, for it hid the purplish circles of her sleepless night.
“I have called for a meeting of the Ladies Society tomorrow afternoon,” she told Clio.
Clio’s gaze did not turn from the figure of the head girl in the procession, the one that held aloft an incense stand, but her lips curved down. “So soon? We usually only convene once a week.”
“This is an emergency. The Duke of Averton’s ball is coming up soon. We must be prepared for whatever might happen there.”
“Do you still think you-know-who plans to snatch the Alabaster Goddess away that night?”
“I’m not sure. That is why I said we need to be prepared for anything. Even nothing. The ball might pass off quite peacefully—or as peacefully as anything could at Averton’s house. The sculpture will stay in place…”
“But it will not stay in place!” Clio hissed. Her hand tightened on the head of her furled parasol, and for a moment Calliope feared she might stab it into the air, or at an unwary passerby. “Averton is sending it off to his infernal fortress in Yorkshire, where no one will ever see it again! He is a vile, selfish man with no care for his collections. Do you think that is a better fate for poor Artemis than to fall into the hands of the Lily Thief?”
Calliope bit her lip. “It’s true that he is well named the Duke of ‘Avarice’. I like him no better than you, Clio. He is a very—strange man. But at least we would know where the statue is, and one day a museum or legitimate antiquarian could acquire her. If the Lily Thief took her, she would vanish utterly! We would learn nothing from her then.”
“Honestly, Cal! I do love you, but sometimes you don’t seem to understand.” Clio stalked away, her parasol swinging, and left Calliope standing alone.
Calliope stared up again at the carved procession, swallowing hard against her pricked feelings. She and Clio were as close as two sisters could be, drawn together by their love of history, by the need to be “mothers” to their younger sisters in the wake of their own mother’s death. And she knew Clio had a temper that subsided as quickly as it flared. That did not make their little quarrels any easier, though.
What was it lately, Calliope wondered, that caused such arguments? First Lord Westwood, now her sister. Her eyes itched with unshed tears, and she rubbed at them hard. When she looked up again, she feared she was hallucinating. Lord Westwood stood right beside her, staring down at her solemnly, his glossy curls brushed carelessly from the sharp, shadowed planes of his face so that he seemed one of the sculptures himself.
She blinked—and found he was still there. She drew in a steadying breath, and offered him a tentative smile. “Lord Westwood.”
“Miss Chase,” he answered. “I trust you are enjoying your outing?”
“Yes, very much. My sisters and I visit the museum whenever we can.” She gestured towards Cory, who was still sketching the horse’s head with Clio leaning over her.
“I come here often, as well,” he said.
“Do you? I—I imagine it reminds you of your mother’s homeland,” she said carefully, wary of yet another quarrel. How could one speak of these controversial carvings without starting a fuss, though?
But he simply answered, “Yes. Her tales when I was a child were always of gods and goddesses, and even muses.”
Calliope smiled. “Perhaps then you have an understanding of how changeable a muse can be?”
He smiled in return, a quick grin that seemed to light up their dim corner of the room. “I have heard tell of such things. One day the muse will smile on you, the next she has vanished. Perhaps that is simply part of her allure.”
Allure? Did he then find her—alluring? She would have thought “prickly” or “annoying” more likely adjectives he would use. But then, did she not think the same of him? Annoying, and yet strangely alluring. She shrugged away these distracting thoughts and said, “Sometimes, too, a muse forgets her manners. Says things she should not. Then she must apologise.”
“Is that what this is, Miss Chase? An apology?”
Calliope sighed. “I fear so.”
He clutched at his heart, staggering back as if in profound shock. “Never!”
She laughed. “I would not have you think I was not properly brought up, Lord Westwood. I should not have said those things to you last night. My sister says I should blame it on the spell of the music or on the wine, but in truth I do not know why I said them. I was just rather out of sorts.”
“I suppose I have been out of sorts with you in the past as well, Miss Chase. Perhaps we can start anew. Cry pax.”
“Pax, then. For now.”
“For now. Come, let me show you my favourite of these friezes.” He offered her his arm, and though she only laid her fingertips very lightly on his fine wool sleeve, she could feel the warmth of his skin, the strength of his coiled muscle beneath the layers of cloth. His arm tensed under her touch, as if he felt it, too. That strange, gossamer tie. “There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?”
“Not at all,” Calliope answered.
He smiled, and led her to the end of the marble procession, where it curved around to the next wall. There was etched the very reason for the procession—Athena, seated in profile as she observed her offerings. She did not wear her usual helmet on her curled hair, but held her aegis on her lap and bore a spear in her right hand.
“She is your favourite?” Calliope asked.
“You sound surprised.”
“Perhaps I imagined you preferred one of the Lapiths and centaurs from the metope, drunkenly breaking up the party. Or Dionysus over there with his leopard skin.”
He laughed. “Oh, come now, Miss Chase! I do enjoy the pleasures of life, but I am hardly a centaur. Or a Dionysus. Were we not just speaking of orgies last night? His soirées tend to end so badly, with the participants tearing each other limb from limb and devouring the raw flesh. No, indeed, cannibalism is not for me.”
Calliope felt herself blushing again, an embarrassing red heat flooding up her throat to her cheeks. “I never quite imagined cannibalism as one of your vices, Lord Westwood. But tell me why you like Athena here so very much? She seems too rational and measured for you.”
“It is exactly those qualities—her rational calm, her dignity. My life has never held much of those qualities, pulled from pillar to post with my parents, and I crave them. I can find them right here, carved in this marble.”
Calliope blinked in surprise. True, the two of them had declared peace only moments before, but she could never have expected such an instance of confidence from Cameron de Vere, of all people. A wistful longing was etched on his handsome face, driving out the careless mockery.
“She is my favourite, too,” she admitted.
“And so she should be, for you are very like her.”
“I, like Athena?” she said, startled. “She would never have been rude to you at a musicale.”
“No, she would have struck me down with her spear. I must feel fortunate you wield no such weapon. Your tongue is quite sharp enough.”
Before Calliope could answer, there was a sudden commotion in the doorway, disturbing the church-like hush of the room. A ripple of comment, of tension. Calliope peered around the bulk of a headless goddess to see that the Duke of Averton had just made an entrance.
He was a handsome enough man, Calliope thought, she would give him that much. Tall, slim, with flowing red-gold hair that fairly shimmered in the dim light, and bright green eyes that took in everything around him in one penetrating glance. The only flaw on his handsome face was a slightly crooked nose, as if it had once been broken and not healed straight. His dramatic, almost Celtic looks were emphasised by his flamboyant way of dressing—a long cape where all the other men wore wool greatcoats, a yellow satin waistcoat, tasselled boots, and jewelled rings on his fingers. Rubies and emeralds.
The duke stood there for a moment until he was certain everyone watched him, then he swung his cloak from his shoulders in a great arc and deposited it with one of the many lackeys trailing behind him. The sweep of his arm seemed to encompass and embrace all the sculptures as if they belonged to him alone.
“Ah, the glories of Greece, the ancient spirits—we meet again,” he said, softly but carryingly. Then he turned and made his way towards the metope section, his entourage hurrying behind him.
Calliope almost laughed aloud. The Duke of Averton so seldom went about in town; it was part of what made his upcoming ball the talk of the ton. But when he did it was more amusing than Drury Lane.
“Ridiculous toad,” Lord Westwood muttered darkly. “What is the purpose of such a preening display?”
Calliope glanced up at him to find him glowering towards the duke, his long fingers curled into fists. Where was the lighthearted Apollo now? Westwood resembled no one so much as the ill-tempered Hades, lurking in his black underworld, wishing he could feed the duke limb by limb to his snarling Cerberus.
Calliope had to admit she rather liked that image herself. Of all the selfish collectors in London, all the people who hoarded their treasures while denying scholars all access, Averton was the worst. He never scrupled about where or from whom he bought his treasures, and the precious objects always disappeared into his Yorkshire fortress. But she had not known that Westwood had a quarrel with him. Indeed, Westwood seldom seemed to dislike anyone—except her, of course.
Yet it was more than mere dislike she saw on his face now. It was dark, unadulterated hatred, raw and primitive. And very frightening.
Calliope shivered despite the warmth of the close-packed room, and edged away from him until she felt the hard edge of a stone base against her hips. He seemed to notice her wide-eyed regard, and that glimpse of jagged emotion was quickly concealed behind his usual smile.
“I did not realise you knew the duke well,” she murmured.
“Not well,” Lord Westwood answered. “Certainly better than I would like. We were at Cambridge together, and the Duke of Avarice has certainly not changed much since those days. Except to grow even more vicious and brainless.”
Vicious and brainless? The duke was a menace, certainly, and had a reputation for eccentricity and rapaciousness. But vicious? Calliope waited, full of anticipation, for Westwood to elaborate, but of course he did not. Their brief moment of confidence was gone, and Calliope was soon distracted by the sight of the duke drawing close to Clio.
Clio did not even seem to notice the man’s theatrical entrance, or his stately parade around the room as everyone cleared a path for him. She was leaning close to a goddess sculpture, frowning as she examined it through her spectacles. The duke, much to the consternation of his followers, suddenly veered from his trail to stop at her side.
As Calliope watched, puzzled and concerned, he edged closer to Clio until his bejewelled hand brushed her arm. Clio spun around, startled, bumping into the goddess.
“Your sister should have a care around that man,” Westwood muttered.
“I have no idea what he could be saying to her. We hardly know him.”
“That won’t stop him when it comes to ladies. Even respectable ones like your sister.”
Calliope saw Clio’s hand edging back and up, towards the sharp pin that skewered her silk bonnet. Clio’s frozen expression and demeanour never altered, yet Calliope knew she would have no compunction about driving that pin into the duke’s arm. Or more sensitive areas.
Calliope took a step forward, intending to intervene, but Lord Westwood was there before her. He strode across the room, reaching out to practically shove the duke away from Clio. As the duke smirked at him, Westwood leaned in to mutter low, harsh-sounding words that carried to Calliope’s ears as only the rushing noise of a stormy sea. Clio eased away from the men, her hand dropping to her side, as everyone else in the room edged closer. A quarrel between a duke and an earl in the middle of the British Museum was not something to be seen every day! This was certain to be much talked of for days to come.
If only she and her sister were not in the midst of it, Calliope thought, perturbed. Yet even she could not help but stare at the two men, Westwood so full of barely leashed anger, Averton still smirking but growing in agitation, if the spasmodic opening and closing of his fists was any indication. It was a scene that hardly belonged in civilised London. More like those Lapiths and centaurs, wrestling in ancient stone.
Calliope shook off the strange spell that urged her just to stare at the growing fight, and hurried to Clio’s side. She took her sister’s arm and whispered, “We should take Cory out of here, don’t you think?”
Clio shuddered, as if she too were bound by some strange, wicked enchantment and only Calliope’s voice shook her out of it. “Of course,” she said, and rushed over to where Cory still sat sketching. Clio overcame her protests with renewed promises of mummies, and ushered her out of the Elgin Room.
As soon as they departed, Westwood and Averton broke apart, Westwood striding from the room without a glance backward. The duke straightened his waistcoat and returned to his friends, laughing as if nothing had happened.
Puzzled, Calliope stared after Westwood. How very angry he seemed! And to think, for a moment there, when they smiled and talked together so easily, she had thought herself silly for imagining him the Lily Thief.
Now, after witnessing that strange scene with Averton, she was more convinced than ever that he had to be the thief. And she was determined to prove it. One way or another.
Chapter Five (#ulink_a70ce78b-256e-57ca-a46f-99323e4223ea)
What does it matter, de Vere? The girl is a tavern wench, free for the taking!
Cameron heard the echo of Averton’s voice in his mind, the laughing, mocking words from many years ago. He saw the man’s smile, that knowing smirk of smug entitlement, that only vanished when Cameron had planted his fist in Averton’s face, bloodying that aristocratic nose. It had been small comfort indeed to the girl, no more than sixteen years old, who had run away sobbing, her dress torn. And it was hardly a balm to Cameron’s white-hot fury, for he knew he would not be there to rescue the next girl. Or the next purloined vase or sculpture.
As Cameron’s friends had dragged him away, he had been able to hear Averton mutter, “Let him go. What do you expect from the son of a Greek street mouse?”
It had taken ten men to pull Cameron out of there that day, and he had soon left the suffocating confines of Cambridge to begin his travels anew. To find himself among the “street mice” of Italy and his mother’s beloved Greece. Those years of wandering had erased the memories of Averton’s words, of the feeling of his fist meeting bone and flesh. Until today.
The sight of Averton hovering so close to Clio Chase, of Calliope’s helpless concern, had brought back that day in the dingy tavern, that girl in the torn dress. Brought it back with a vicious immediacy that frightened him.
Averton was known as an eccentric now, a semi-recluse who only came out to show off his ancient treasures. His Alabaster Goddess. Cameron had not even seen the man since he returned to town. Yet surely the duke’s vices were only hidden now, tucked away behind his stolen antiquities. Who would dare challenge him? Who would even seek out the crimes of a rich and powerful duke?
Cameron stopped at the museum gates, roughly raking his fingers through his hair until he felt his anger ebb. Cold thought was needed now, not the impulsive fisticuffs of his youth. No Dionysus. Athena was the god he required.
He stood there for a long time, the wind catching at his hair and his coat, ignoring the flow of London life around him. He thought of his mother, of her tales of great warriors like Achilles, Ajax, Hector. Their downfalls always seemed to be their tempers, their rush to battle without planning, without forethought, driven by their passions.
“You are too much like them, my son, and it will get you into trouble one day,” she would say. “There are better ways to win your fights.”
As he stood there, leaning against the cold metal gates, the doors of the museum opened and Calliope and Clio Chase emerged, their younger sister between them, holding their hands. She chattered brightly, but the two older Muses seemed silent and serious, as if their thoughts were far away from the windswept courtyard. Calliope kept shooting Clio concerned little glances.
Cameron ducked behind a large stone planter as they passed by. He could not speak to Calliope now; she had been taken aback by his violent behaviour, and he could not explain it to her. He could not even explain it to himself. But he fell into step several feet behind them, watching carefully until they climbed safely into their carriage and set off for home, without being accosted by the duke or any of his minions.
If Averton thought he could get away with meddling with any of the Chases, he was very much mistaken.
“Lord Mallow. Mr Wright-Helmsley. Mr Lakesly.”
Calliope stared down at her list, biting the end of her pencil as she examined each name by the light of her candle. They were certainly all men of means and some intelligence, as well as collectors of antiquities. Could they really be candidates for the Lily Thief?
She tapped her chin, running through all the men of her acquaintance who were not children or infirm. Or who showed not a speck of ingenuity, like poor Freddie Mountbank. “Lord Deering. Sir Miles Gibson. Mr Smithson.”
Yet, in the end, she always came back to one name. Lord Westwood.
She had begun by being so very certain it was him! He had all the necessary qualities—intelligence, interest, plus a certain recklessness, probably born of his years in Italy and Greece. He had the courage of his convictions, as misguided as those convictions were. But now something bothered her, some irritating little voice at the back of her mind that whispered doubts. Could it be—was it—that she was growing to like him?
“Piffle!” Calliope cried, tossing down her pencil. Of course she did not like him. How could she? That very recklessness went against all she believed was important. That voice was surely just her inborn female weakness, lured by a smile and a pair of handsome eyes.
He was still the most likely candidate for the Lily Thief. His dark, sizzling anger towards the Duke of Averton only emphasised that fact. Westwood had an edge to him, like the fire-honed blade of a dagger that was usually hidden in its velvet sheath, but could flash out and wreak destruction in only an instant. Lady Tenbray’s diadem had already fallen victim to its slice. Was the Alabaster Goddess next?
Calliope stared down at her list, and slowly reached for her pencil. Lord Westwood, she wrote.
Her bedchamber door creaked, warning that she was no longer alone. Calliope hastily shoved the list under a pile of books and drew her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
“Are you working, Cal?” Clio said quietly, slipping into a chair next to the desk.
“Just reading a bit before I retire. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me, neither.” Clio fiddled with the edge of one of Calliope’s notebooks. She seemed rather pale tonight, her green eyes shadowed and large without the shield of her spectacles. Calliope had noticed she didn’t eat much of her dinner, either.
Blast Averton, anyway! Why did the man have to go parading through the museum today, upsetting their outing, pestering her sister? Why did he choose Clio? And why couldn’t he just stay hidden away at home with his ill-gotten Alabaster Goddess?
Yet if he did that, she wouldn’t have the chance to catch the Lily Thief once and for all. The Alabaster Goddess was an alluring bait like no other. If only Clio didn’t have to be caught in the middle of it all.
“What did he say to you this afternoon, Clio?” Calliope asked.
Clio stared down at the notebook. “Who?”
“Averton, of course. You have been so quiet tonight. You didn’t even seem to be listening when Father read from the Aeneid after dinner.”
Clio shrugged. “I am just tired, I think. As for Averton, he is of no importance.”
“But his behaviour this afternoon—”
“Is of no consequence! He is like so many men of his exalted ilk, he thinks all women are his for the asking. No, not even asking, just taking. Like an ivory box, or an alabaster statue from a Delian temple. When he meets one who wants nothing to do with him, it only makes him more determined. But I have twice the determination he does.”
That Calliope knew to be true. No one was more determined, more single-minded than Clio. Expect perhaps Lord Westwood. “I did not realise you even knew the duke.”
“I don’t. Or about as much as I want to know him. I have encountered him once or twice at galleries and shops. He seems to have taken a ridiculous fancy to me of some sort.”
Calliope stared at her sister in astonishment. She always thought they were as close as two sisters could be, yet she had no idea of this “fancy”. “Clio, why didn’t you say something?”
“I told you, Cal, it is of no importance!” Clio cried, slapping her hand down on a pile of books. The volumes toppled, revealing the list beneath. Clio reached for it. “What is this?”
“Nothing, of course,” Calliope said, trying to snatch it away.
Clio held it out of her reach. “Lord Deering, Mr Smithson, Mr Lakesly. Is this a list of your suitors?”
“Certainly not!” Calliope finally succeeded in retrieving the list. She folded it in half and stuck it inside one of the books. “I would never consider a suitor like Mr Lakesly. He gambles too much.”
“I noticed Lord Westwood’s name on there, too. Certainly you would not call him a suitor, though I did notice you two were having quite a coze at the museum.”
“We were discussing Greek mythology, that is all. And this list is merely something for our Ladies Society meeting tomorrow.”
“Ah, yes, the meeting. What is it really all about, Cal?”
“I told you. To make plans for Averton’s ball. We must all be extra-vigilant that night, so there is no repeat of Lady Tenbray’s rout. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
Calliope bit her lip. “Unless you don’t want to go to the ball. It would be completely understandable, given the duke’s deplorable behaviour! We don’t even have to talk about this any more, if you don’t care to.”
Clio slumped back in her chair, arms crossed and face set in stony lines. Calliope had seen that mutinous pose since childhood. “Cal, really. It’s not like the man tried to slit my throat in the middle of the Elgin Room. He merely said some—words to me. Nothing I cannot manage. Surely you know better than to treat me like a piece of fragile porcelain.”
Calliope smiled reluctantly. Oh, yes, she did know that. When they were children, Thalia could always outrun them all in foot races, a veritable Atalanta. But Clio was the first to climb up trees—and leap down from them as if she had wings. The first to swim streams and scramble up peaks.
The duke didn’t know what he was up against.
“Of course,” Calliope agreed. “No more porcelain.”
“So, tell me about this list. I would guess they are your candidates for the Lily Thief.”
Calliope drew the list back out, smoothing it atop the desk. “Yes. Some of them are a bit far-fetched, I know.”
“A bit? Mr Emerson couldn’t tell an amphora from a horseshoe. And Lord Mallow is shockingly myopic.”
“Hmph.” Calliope pushed the list towards her sister. “Very well, Clio, since you’re so clever, who would you put on the list?”
Clio pursed her lips as she examined the names. “Not Mr Hanson. He would be utterly paralysed at the thought of his mama’s disapproval. And not Mr Smithson—he is far too honest. What about Lord Wilmont?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of him! That’s very good. Remember that krater he had that no one had ever seen before?” Calliope added the name to the others. Now Westwood was no longer at the bottom of the list.
“And Lord Early. Remember when he nearly fought a duel with Sir Nelson Bassington when that unfortunate man declared Early’s Old Kingdom stela was clearly Amarna Period?”
“What bacon-brains the two of them are. I think they should both be on this list.”
They sat there long into the night, debating the merits of each suspect. Names were added; others erased. The only one that stayed in place, black and solid, was Lord Westwood.
Chapter Six (#ulink_05aacf97-33ba-5dca-805d-e4b42e6d364c)
“I call this meeting of the Ladies Artistic Society to order,” Calliope announced. “Miss Clio Chase will take the minutes.”
The chatter and rustling among the members slowly ceased, as they put their teacups back on tabletops and faced Calliope once again. Their pretty faces were alight with curiosity.
“What is our subject today, Calliope?” Lady Emmeline Saunders asked. “It must be something very important, since this is not our regularly scheduled day to meet.”
“Oh, something truly dreadful must have happened!” moaned Lotty Price. “A murder. An illness. A poisoning!”
“Someone needs to take away that girl’s novels,” Clio muttered under her breath.
“Do let Calliope talk, Lotty,” said Emmeline.
“Indeed there hasn’t been a murder, by poisoning or any other method,” Calliope said. “And I hope that we may prevent one from ever happening.”
Emmeline gave her a sharp glance. “You suspect a murder is about to occur?”
“I knew it!” Lotty cried. “There is a dreadful plot afoot.”
Calliope sighed. “I fear Lotty is not far wrong this time.”
“Whatever do you mean?” asked Thalia. “Who is to be killed? Should we not arm ourselves?”
“No, no, I don’t mean it in that way,” Calliope said quickly, trying to stem the rising tide of panic she sensed among her friends. “I have no knowledge of any human murder being planned.” Yet. “The plot I refer to concerns the Alabaster Goddess.”
The ladies subsided back into their seats, yet there was still a distinctly unsettled feeling in the air. “So, you still think the Lily Thief intends to steal her?” Emmeline said.
“Yes, probably from the duke’s masquerade ball, as we discussed at our last meeting,” Calliope answered. “We must formulate a plan to prevent it.”
“I am ready to defend her at any moment!” Thalia cried. She leaped up from her chair, eyes aglow as she no doubt imagined herself wielding a sword against any would-be thief. “Only give me the signal and I shall do battle.”
“Thalia, dear, do sit down,” Clio said, shaking her head. “We don’t need Boadicea and the Iceni hordes to keep an eye on one little statue.”
“You never know,” Thalia said, plopping back into her seat. “What if the Lily Thief has a partner? An army?”
“Even if he had a battalion—which he does not, for how could a battalion sneak into Lady Tenbray’s library?—he could not get by us,” Calliope said.
“What is the plan?” asked Emmeline. “What are we to do?”
“I made up a list of anyone who might even remotely be suspected of being the Lily Thief,” Calliope said, holding up her list from last night’s sleepless hours. “Everyone in the ton received an invitation to the ball, so they are sure to be there. You will each be assigned one or two names. Your task will be to ascertain what each man’s costume is, and then keep an eye on them, make certain they do not try to slip away.”
“I hope you do not want me to trail Freddie Mountbank,” Emmeline said. “He’s already made himself a nuisance in my life!”
“Mr Mountbank is not even on the list,” Calliope answered, remembering the quarrel Mountbank got into with Lord Westwood right in view of these very windows. “And we must not be at all obvious about our observations. We wouldn’t want to give the wrong idea.”
“Perhaps we should work in pairs,” Lotty suggested. “That would make it easier for us to trail anyone who might try to slip away.”
“Oh, very good idea, Lotty,” Calliope said. She reached for Clio’s pen and quickly made the amendments to the list. “All right, then, ladies, here are your assignments.”
Thalia handed out the papers to the Society members. They bent over them eagerly, laughing and exclaiming.
“Mr Emerson!” Lotty said. “It would certainly be no hardship to watch him. He is so handsome.”
“Nor Lord Mallow,” said Emmeline. “But what of Mr Hanson? I wouldn’t have thought he could plot a stroll to the end of the street, let alone a theft.”
Calliope rapped her gavel against the table, bringing order back to the gathering. “Now that you have your assignments, this is how we shall proceed on the night of the ball…”
“Do you think it will work?” Emmeline asked quietly, coming up next to Calliope, who stood staring out the window.
Calliope glanced back at the others, gathered around the pianoforte as Thalia played them a Beethoven nocturne. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “The ball is sure to be a dreadful crush. How can we watch just a few people? People in disguise, no less. Yet I can’t just stand here and let that statue be stolen without at least trying to do something.”
“I know. We all care so very much, we want to save them all. Make sure they are all properly looked after and studied,” Emmeline said. “There are only five of us, though. But we will do our very best to save the Alabaster Goddess, Calliope, never fear. She never had more devoted acolytes, even in her temple in Greece.”
They were quiet for a moment, listening to Thalia’s beautiful music, watching the traffic on the street below. Emmeline leaned closer to murmur, “Did you assign yourself Lord Westwood to watch, Calliope?”
Calliope looked to her, startled. “I thought Clio could do that.”
“Oh, no, I really think it should be you. The two of you are always circling each other like wary hawks anyway.”
“We do not!” Calliope cried. The others glanced towards them, and she hastily lowered her voice. “I do not circle Lord Westwood, Emmeline. Whatever do you mean?”
“Oh, Calliope dear. Everyone sees it. Whenever you are in a room together smoke practically billows. My brother even tells me you are in the books at his club.”
“The books! People are wagering on me?” Calliope felt a sick, sour pang deep in her stomach, an ache of sinking embarrassment. “How dare they! What—what are they saying?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” Emmeline said, her eyes full of concern. “I should never have brought it up.”
“Of course you should. If people are talking about me, I want to know.”
“Well, half of them wager you will be married by the end of the Season. The other half wagers one of you will be in Newgate for murdering the other.”
Calliope pressed her hand against her stomach. “What does your brother wager?”
“Calliope! He would never do that to a friend.”
“Come now, Emmeline. He is a man. Wagering seems to be in their very veins. They cannot help themselves.”
“Well, if he does he doesn’t tell me about it. I was much too angry with him for not putting a stop to it.”
“People are always full of such tittle-tattle. They must be desperate for gossip indeed to make up Banbury tales about such a dullard as me! Where do they find that kind of nonsense?”
Emmeline eyed her closely. “It is not entirely made of whole cloth, you know. You and Lord Westwood snap and quarrel every time you meet, or if you don’t speak you glower at each other from across the room. What are people to think?”
Calliope now felt ill in earnest. She sat down heavily in the nearest chair, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.
“Calliope, dear, you really didn’t know?” Emmeline asked.
“I have been so engrossed in my own studies,” Calliope murmured. “Worrying about the Lily Thief. I suppose I was just oblivious. My mother always did say that living in my own little world would get me into trouble one day.”
“It is hardly trouble,” Emmeline said. “It’s not as if you were caught kissing him! You’re right, it’s just silly gossip from people who have nothing better to do. It will soon be gone, replaced by something else and forgotten. My brother says they also wager on whether or not Prinny is the Lily Thief, so you see how serious their betting books are!”
Calliope laughed reluctantly. The vision of the prince, fat, red-faced and encased in a creaking corset climbing in windows and picking locks was so absurd it nearly drove out those sick feelings.
“Just ignore them, Calliope,” Emmeline said. “Their ignorance deserves no response. In the meantime, why don’t we go for a stroll in the park? It is too fine a day to stay indoors, and we all need time to think over our plan for the ball.”
“I would like some fresh air,” Calliope admitted.
“Excellent! I will tell the others.”
Calliope caught Emmeline’s arm as she turned away, staying her for a moment. “Emmeline, what do you think of Lord Westwood and me?”
Emmeline gave her a gentle smile. “How can I say? I’m just an unmarried lady like you, with Freddie Mountbank my most serious suitor. I know little of romance. You say you dislike him. Very well. But are you sure that’s all there is to the matter? Maybe you should ask Lotty what would happen in one of her novels.”
Calliope watched Emmeline walk away, more confused than ever. Antiquities she knew about; they could be studied, classified. Men never could. Especially Westwood.
Maybe she really should take up reading horrid novels, and not so much Aristotle and Thucydides. It was obvious that her powers of observation, her knowledge of modern life, of what passed for romance, was sadly lacking. Would The Prince’s Tragic Secret fill that gap? Surely everything could be learned, with the right tools. Herodotus was no help here. Perhaps By An Anonymous Lady could be.
Calliope pushed herself up from her chair and made her way resolutely towards her friends, who were gathering up their shawls and bonnets in preparation for their walk.
“Lotty,” she called. “Could I speak to you for a moment?”
As it was a fair day, cool and dry after the morning’s rains ceased, Hyde Park was quite crowded. Riders cantered along Rotten Row, stopping by the barriers to chat with each other, or with friends who rolled past in their open carriages, showing off their newest fashions. Nannies in starched caps and cloaks watched their charges as they sailed tiny boats on the calm, murky waters of the Serpentine or rolled hoops along the gravel pathways.
Calliope smiled as she watched them, their laughing faces turned like smooth-petaled flowers to the sun. She remembered days when her own nannies, or sometimes even her mother, would bring her and her sisters here. They would pretend the Serpentine was the Mediterranean, the trees and rocks the grove of Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi, and they were Muses in truth. The fount of all art and wisdom.
Suddenly, she felt a sharp pang, a yearning for that innocence that seemed so far away now. The days when she thought any dream was possible, that she could attain any goal she longed for. Even the wisdom of the Muses. Now—well, now she wondered if somehow their father had cursed them by giving them their names!
Yes, she did wish now for childhood’s blissful oblivion. For as she walked the pathways now, she imagined every person, every polite greeting, concealed smirking laughter. There is Calliope Chase! You know, the one who is pursuing Lord Westwood.
Emmeline linked arms with her, smiling in her cheerfully determined way. “There now! Is the fresh air not bracing?”
“Yes, indeed,” Calliope answered. She could be cheerful, too. After all, Emmeline was quite right. Any rumours about herself and Westwood were merely the product of idle minds and sure to pass soon. Especially if she gave them no more heat for their scandal broth.
“Oh, look! There is Mr Smithson. Was he not on your list of suspects?” Emmeline said.
“Hmm,” Calliope said, watching the gentleman in question as he strolled past, politely doffing his hat. “I will admit he is a bit of a long shot. He’s so slender, one can hardly envision him pulling himself through a window.”
“And not Lord Deering over there! They do say the dowager Lady Deering is such a dragon. She would incinerate her poor son if he disgraced the family name.”
Calliope laughed. “Quite so. But I think we must examine every possibility, no matter how farfetched.”
“Yes. Appearances can be so deceiving.”
Calliope nodded. Surely no one knew that better than herself, after all her studies of the ancient world. The ancient Greeks had such an appearance now of rationality, of cool, pale beauty. Yet in truth their statues and temples, which were so slavishly recreated now in Adam foyers and white muslin gowns, had been brightly painted. Their ideas of order, their great philosophy and tragedy, concealed a love for madness, ecstasy, the paranormal that was distinctly irrational.
People were like that, too, in modern London or ancient Athens and Sparta. Layer upon layer, concealing whatever truly lurked at their core. A mystery.
And the greatest mystery of all was strolling into her view. Lord Westwood himself, of course. No wonder people gossiped about the two of them, Calliope mused, for he so often appeared just where she happened to be!
Unlike when he stormed out of the British Museum, all Hadean fire and anger, he was back to sunny Apollonian charm. A small parcel was tucked under his arm, half-hidden by the folds of his greatcoat. He smiled at the people he passed, pausing to kiss giggling ladies’ hands or chat with friends.
Layer upon layer. Where was the real man?
Calliope’s steps froze as he moved nearer, bringing Emmeline up short.
“What is amiss?” Her eyes widened as she followed Calliope’s gaze. “Oh. The man himself, I see. And so handsome today!”
“Perhaps we should turn back,” Calliope said. “We’ve left the others so far behind….”
“Nonsense!” Emmeline said, continuing on their path so resolutely that Calliope had no choice but to follow. “It would only fuel the gossip if you were seen avoiding Lord Westwood, Calliope. We must be polite and say hello.”
When Lord Westwood saw them, Calliope thought she saw a frown between his eyes, a whisper of solemnity. But whatever it was quickly vanished, replaced by a sunny smile, a flourishing bow.
“Miss Chase, Lady Emmeline,” he greeted. “A lovely day for a walk, is it not?”
“Indeed it is. We were just discussing our costumes for the Duke of Averton’s ball, weren’t we, Calliope?” Emmeline arched her brow at Calliope so she had no choice but to nod, even though they had been discussing no such thing. “A Grecian theme, of course, so we were hoping some of the park’s statuary would inspire us.”
Westwood’s lips tightened. “I am sure that whatever you two ladies wear you will be the loveliest in the room.”
Emmeline laughed. “Miss Chase might. She looks like a Greek statue all the time!”
He glanced at Calliope, but she could read nothing in his eyes. They were as opaque as the waters of the Serpentine. “That she does.”
“Oh!” Emmeline suddenly exclaimed, detaching her arm from Calliope’s. “I see someone over there I absolutely must speak to. Excuse me for a moment, Calliope. Lord Westwood.”
What on earth was her friend up to? Calliope tried to catch Emmeline’s hand, but she was off, dashing away like the traitor she was. Leaving Calliope alone with Lord Westwood.
Well, not entirely alone, of course. Not with half of London around them, and Clio and the rest of the Ladies Society not far away. Yet it felt as if they were alone. Calliope felt dizzy, her vision blurring until she saw only him, not the crowds.
She clasped her hands together, reminding herself of her purpose. Cause no scenes; act perfectly calm and normal. No scandal broth.
“So, you plan to attend Averton’s ball?” he said. His voice was as unreadable as his face.
“Of course. Isn’t everybody? I do long to see the Artemis again. Unless…”
“Unless?”
Calliope remembered how murderous he looked at the museum, when the duke edged so close to Clio. “Unless there is a reason it might be unsafe.”
“And you think I might know that reason?”
“Perhaps. Better than some. And I would hope, Lord Westwood, that you would tell me if you know of any reason why my sister or I should not go. I know that you and I are not exactly friends…”
At last there was a glimmer of emotion, a tiny smile like the sun peeking through grey clouds. “Are we not, Miss Chase? Friends, that is.”
“I—well,” Calliope said, flustered. “Perhaps we could be.”
“If we were not both such stubborn spirits?”
Calliope took a deep breath. Infernal man! Just when she thought she had him figured out, he fooled her. Revealed another layer. He lured her from her resolve to be cool and polite. “Lord Westwood, tell me! Is there a reason Clio and I should not go to the ball?” A reason such as that he was planning to snatch the Alabaster Goddess while everyone else danced in oblivion?
He shrugged. “As you say, everyone will be there. Averton won’t try anything in front of the entire ton. You should be safe enough. As long as you don’t do anything rash.”
“Rash?” Calliope cried. “What do you think I would do? Rashness is much more your style than mine, Lord Westwood. I merely plan to examine the statue, have a glass of the duke’s fine champagne, and depart. In peace.”
“Of course. As befits a Muse,” he said. His smile was now that maddening full-fledged grin.
Cool and polite! Calliope berated herself. “Will you be there?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it. I always enjoy fine—champagne.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Calliope asked doubtfully.
“I never overly imbibe, Miss Chase. Not in polite company.”
She had to resist the urge to childishly stamp her half-boot on the walkway. “You know what I mean.”
“Oh, yes. You are remembering our scene in the Elgin Room. I do so often seem to show myself at my worst to you, Miss Chase, and then I have to apologise. It’s true that I have no liking for the duke, or he for me. But I do know better than to cause a scene at a ball, though I’ve given you little cause to trust my word on that.”
“I don’t believe you would cause a scene at a ball,” Calliope admitted, bemused. “It doesn’t seem your way to turn a grand ballroom into Gentleman Jackson’s parlour.”
“Just a museum, eh? Well, you and your sister may attend the ball in peace. We’ll all be masked, won’t we? Averton himself won’t even know I’m there. Neither will you.” He bowed to her again, the paper of the parcel under his arm rustling. “Good day, Miss Chase. Enjoy the rest of your walk.”
Calliope turned to watch him leave, to watch him greet Clio and the others, then hurry on his way, obviously a man with an errand on this fine afternoon.
Oh, but you are wrong, Lord Westwood, she thought. For I will certainly know if you’re there.
Cameron leaned back in his chair, surveying his library. At least nominally it was “his” library, but ever since he returned from his travels to take his place as Earl of Westwood it felt like his father’s library. His father’s house. Everywhere Cameron looked he saw his father’s furniture and carpets, the niches where his collections once resided. Their country seat was one thing; the furnishings there were old family pieces and not personal. This townhouse had been his father’s, the place where he indulged his love of Greece, his passion for collecting.
But that was about to change. For too long now Cameron had lived with someone else’s life. It was time to begin his own. One piece at a time.
He stood up and reached for the parcel on the desk. It was small, flat, carefully wrapped in brown paper. Cameron carried it over to the carved fireplace mantel, gazing up at the painting that hung there. It was one his father had acquired on his own Grand Tour many decades ago, an indifferently executed murky scene of Egyptian pyramids. Cameron had never much liked it, even though it hung there through his childhood. The perspective was all wrong, the colours dim, conveying no sense of the desert brightness, the mystery of the Egyptians.
He reached up and unhooked it from the picture rail, lifting it down at last. It left a pale square on the topaz-coloured silk wallpaper. Then he tore the wrapping from his new package and lifted the pyramid’s replacement into its place.
Cameron stepped back to survey the image. He had seen it in that gallery window and knew it was meant to be his. Meant to hang just here, where he could see it every day as he worked at the desk.
It was an image of Athena, standing framed between the shining white pillars of her temple. The sacred fire burned behind her, outlining her slim figure in pleated white silk. One arm was outstretched, holding her grey owl, while the other hand rested on the shield propped beside her. Her golden helmet rested at her feet, and her hair, a river of glossy raven-black, flowed over her shoulders.
Her beautiful face, a pale oval set with wide-spaced grey eyes, was solemn and knowing. She was beautiful, oh so serious, set on her own course come what may.
She was, in short, Calliope Chase. Or very, very like her.
Cameron smiled up at her, not sure she would appreciate such levity. The real Calliope Chase certainly wouldn’t appreciate knowing he had her double hanging in his library. Yet he could never have passed up this painting. It was so lovely, just as her modern counterpart was.
Why was he always so drawn to her, when their meetings so often ended in strife or farce? He should stay far away from her, from all her family. The Chases were trouble he did not need, now most of all. He had important work to do, and couldn’t afford to be distracted by a beautiful Athena with fire in her eyes. Fire just waiting to scorch him if he got too close.
Yet he never could stay away. Every time he saw her he was pulled to her side, he couldn’t help himself. Lately it seemed quarrelling with her was more fun than making love to another woman would be. The thought of quarrelling and making love with Calliope was enough to make his head explode! Her fiery nature would surely take hold even in bed, and her pale skin and black hair against his sheets…
“Blast,” Cameron cursed, spinning away from Athena’s knowing gaze. The chances of Calliope Chase ending up naked in his bed were slim to none. She wouldn’t even come near his house once she found out what he had done with his father’s antiquities. Not even Aphrodite could help him with that Muse, no matter how much he desired her.
But he could keep her safe from Averton. Safe from her own folly concerning the Lily Thief, perhaps. She said she would be at Averton’s ball. Well, so would he. And he would not let his Athena out of his sight.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_ed122083-2d3e-5107-a253-a8156f07e118)
“Oh, Miss Calliope! You look lovely,” Mary said, putting the last touches on the hem of Calliope’s costume.
From her perch atop a stool, Calliope surveyed herself in the mirror. “You don’t think it’s too much?”
“Not at all. It’ll be the finest costume there.”
Calliope did rather like it. She had worked closely with the modiste to replicate an etching her father owned of the Athena statue that had once stood in the Parthenon. The soft, thin white muslin was pleated and fastened at the shoulders with gold brooches, bound at the waist with gold cord. The sandals were also gold, and she wore antique bracelets and earrings that had once belonged to her mother. Waiting for her by the bedchamber door was a helmet, shield and spear.
Calliope fiddled with the cord, unaccountably nervous. Ordinarily she would be excited about a Grecian masquerade. Yet this was no ordinary ball.
What if the Lily Thief did appear? It was one thing to talk about catching criminals in her own drawing room, quite another to face a real, living thief bent on taking the Alabaster Goddess. What if she could not stop him? What if Artemis did indeed vanish, never to be seen again?
Don’t be faint-hearted! she told herself sternly. You can’t fail. This is much too important.
She glanced towards the spear and shield. The weapons, pasteboard and glitter, would never hold against steel. But they reminded her of her purpose. She had to be Athena, and protect those in her charge from harm.
No matter who the Lily Thief was. No matter what might happen.
“Shall we finish your hair now, Miss Calliope?” Mary asked, putting away her needle and thread.
“Yes, thank you,” Calliope said. She stepped down from the stool and went to her dressing table, where gold ribbons and combs waited. “We don’t have much time left, the carriage is ordered for nine.”
Mary had just started brushing out Calliope’s hair, twisting the strands into long ringlets, when there was a quick knock at the door and Clio appeared.
“Oh!” Calliope gasped. She hadn’t yet seen her sister’s costume, or even known its theme, and the effect was dazzling. Dazzling and strange.
Clio was not an Olympian goddess, all pale perfection, or even the Muse of their namesakes. She was instead Medusa. Her gown was of vivid green silk, the sleeves like long wings, split and folded back from her shoulders. The green robe revealed glimpses of a gold-tissue underdress, embroidered with tiny green glass beads that winked and sparkled. An emerald kirtle, a rare medieval piece that had also been their mother’s, caught the rich fabric around her waist.
But it was her headdress that was truly extraordinary—a twisting, tangled nest of gold-tissue snakes, their scales overlaid with greenish, brassy embroidery. More of the beads formed their eyes, and they seemed to gleam malevolently, as if the snakes were alive. Only a few long tendrils of Clio’s own auburn hair escaped, revealing that here was a real woman and not a vengeful Gorgon.
“What do you think?” Clio asked, twirling around in all her frightening splendour.
“I think there will be no one else like you at the party,” Calliope answered, bedazzled by those snake eyes. “Wherever did you find such a creation?”
“Madame Sophie made the gown,” Clio answered, adjusting her sleeves. “And I did the headdress myself. Cory helped me, you know she’s quite the budding artist. They look quite fearsome, don’t they?”
“Terribly,” Calliope said with a shiver. A frown from Mary made her sit still again, facing the mirror so her hair could be finished. “I doubt the duke will attempt to harass you with those staring at him.”
Clio laughed. “I’m not afraid of the duke!” She brandished her staff, a tall gold-and-green, ribbon-wrapped pole topped with yet another snake, a puffed-out cobra. “I shall just turn him to stone.”
“If only it was always that easy to deal with men,” Calliope muttered. “What are Thalia and Father dressed up as?”
“Thalia is Euridice, and Father is Socrates, of course.”
“With his cup of hemlock?”
“Hmm, yes,” Clio said. She stepped up to Calliope’s mirror to make sure her snakes were straight. “Or rather a cup of lemonade with sprigs of mint floating in it. We shall have to make sure he doesn’t bore everyone in sight at the ball, for he is already wandering around the drawing room, declaiming to the furniture.”
“If there is no youth to corrupt, a hassock will do. Is that a direct quote from Socrates as he drank the hemlock? If not, it should be.” Calliope watched as Mary finished the curls and ribbons and carefully lowered the helmet over her creation. “How do I look, Clio?”
“Perfect, as always. Surely there can be no finer Athena,” Clio answered. “Too bad Cory’s pet owl died last year, it would have made an excellent prop.”
“A prop that would fly off and get lost in the chandeliers. I told Cory a barn owl didn’t want to be a domestic pet. This one here will do very well.” Calliope hoisted up her shield to display the enameled owl on its face. “Shall we go?”
Athena, after all, was never late to battle.
The Duke of Averton’s grand townhouse, Acropolis House, was lit up like the Colossus of Rhodes set down in the middle of London. Even from their place far back in the long line of carriages, Calliope was dazzled by the amber glow.
Acropolis House was not the usual among aristocratic townhouses. No plain white stone, no mellow red brick set in tidy rows for the duke. No. Acropolis House was like a vestige of medieval London, a fortress of solid, dark rock, turreted and many-chimneyed, the shutters of all its mullion windows thrown open to let out all that candlelight. It was set back in its own small garden, surrounded by high walls. The iron-tipped gates were usually closed and chained tight, but tonight they were open to admit the flood of carriages, the gawking curiosity seekers. As their own conveyance entered the gates, Calliope peered out to find leering gargoyles staring back at her. They topped the gates and lined the walls, discouraging the curious.
Calliope shivered and drew back into her shawl.
“You’d think the duke was Charlemagne,” Thalia sniffed. “And look at that obelisk over in the corner of the garden! Twenty feet high at least.”
“Terribly pretentious,” their father agreed. But Calliope thought she saw a tiny glint of envy in his eyes as he peered at the towering obelisk. “I wonder where he obtained it? The hieroglyphs are quite fine.”
“Somewhere he had no business being, I’m sure,” Clio said tartly.
Calliope did not answer, for their carriage at last rolled to a halt before the massive, iron-bound front doors and it was their turn to alight at last. The duke’s footmen, clad in chitons and sandals for the evening, hurried forward to assist them. Calliope held tight to her spear and shield as she followed Clio’s glittering green train into the very lair of the Duke of “Avarice”.
The foyer, where they surrendered their cloaks to more classically garbed servants, was a soaring, octagonal space with black-and-white marble floors and walls inlaid with dark wood panels. Tall, wrought-iron candelabras provided the only light, flickering on tightly closed doors, on Minoan frescoes of slim bull jumpers, on suits of armour, and bristling maces and swords, and on two massive Assyrian lions guarding one of the doors, as if ancient Persia rested just beyond that portal.
“My, what eclectic tastes our host has,” Clio muttered, as they joined the line of revellers making their way up the twisting staircase towards the ballroom.
“To say the least,” Calliope answered, eyeing the treasures tucked in niches. Sculptures, vases and amphorae, even Byzantine icons. They were all impressive pieces, beautifully restored, elegantly displayed. Yet Calliope noticed something odd about them all. Unlike her father’s own antiquities, which depicted the gods and Muses, wise scholars, merry parties, the finest of human endeavours, these pieces all had some element of violence about them. Battles, fights, sacrifices. Even the icons depicted martyred saints: Catherine and her wheel, Sebastian and his arrows, and St George driving his sword into the dragon.
Calliope turned away from them, disquieted.
“Or perhaps not so eclectic as all that,” Clio said quietly. “Murder and bloodletting are sadly a part of every civilisation. The duke seems bent on reminding us of that fact.”
“Indeed he does,” Calliope said.
The higher up they went, the more the noise of the party grew, a hum that expanded into a vast river of sound as they spilled into the ballroom. Calliope usually had little use for balls and routs that earned the coveted society accolade of “dreadful crush”. There was little real conversation possible amid such clamour, just overheated air and far too much noise. Tonight, though, she welcomed the crowd. It seemed a bright haven of normalcy in this very bizarre house.
The ballroom was not as eerie as the foyer and staircase, but was merely a large, bright space with white walls and gleaming parquet floor. The domed ceiling was painted with an elaborate fresco of an Olympian banquet where, thankfully, no one was killing anyone else. Around the walls were more ancient frescoes, no doubt snatched from some Italian villa, scenes of cosy domestic life. Marble statues were interspersed with the paintings of scantily clad nymphs, satyrs, gods and goddesses that echoed the costumes of the revellers.
As Calliope expected, there was no one quite like Clio among the crowds who were forming a dance set or milling among the statues, sipping champagne and nibbling on lobster patties and mushroom tarts—rather unGrecian hors-d’oeuvres, Calliope thought. There was a Minotaur, hulking and hairy, flirting with Ariadne and her ball of twine; several Achilles and Hectors; some giggling Aphrodites with various versions of Ares and Cupid. Their father soon joined a cluster of other philosophers in the corner to argue about how man could examine his reasons to be in harmony with the cosmos, and Thalia was swept into the dance by an Orpheus, their respective lyres deposited with a footman.
Calliope tucked her spear under her arm and reached for a glass of champagne from a passing servant’s tray. It was the finest quality, of course, a rich, tart golden liquid that blended well with the exotic setting, the swirl of music and laughter. For a moment, she felt transported from London, from everyday life, and lifted into some phantasmagoric fantasy world where reality was gone, vanished amid the sea of masks.
She held the glass up to the light, wondering if the enchanting little bubbles concealed some hallucinogenic elixir, some Shakespearean “love in idleness”.
“Is something amiss with the champagne, Miss Chase?” an amused voice asked.
Calliope whirled around to find their host standing behind her, a smile on his lips. He was as unusual as his house, dressed as Dionysus with a leopard skin over his chiton, his long, red-gold hair loose over his shoulders. Dionysus, the god of wine and revels. Of maddened followers who tore their victims limb from limb in their bloodlust.
Or stole treasures that did not belong to them.
Calliope stiffened under his intense regard. “Not at all, your Grace. The champagne is excellent, as are your arrangements. Your house is most—extraordinary.”
“That is high praise, indeed, coming from a Chase. For you are all experts in art and antiquities, are you not?”
“I would not say expert. We are all students, in our own ways.”
“And is your interest strategic warfare?” he said, gesturing towards her Athena shield.
“Or perhaps olives,” she said flippantly.
“Ah, yes. For it was Athena who ordered olive trees planted on the hills of her Acropolis. The very foundations of her followers’ prosperity.”
“Until rapacious thieves ordered them dug up, in search of buried treasure. Now glorious Athens is just a dusty little town. Or so I hear.”
The duke laughed. “My dear Miss Chase, how kind of you to defend a people you do not even know! Yet if your so-called rapacious thieves did not dig on the Acropolis, think what would be lost to us. So much beauty and learning. Is it better that these things should moulder in the ground, disintegrating in the care of people who have no regard for them?”
Calliope grudgingly had to admit that he said nothing she herself had not argued. But his smug tone of voice, his patronising smile, made her want to quarrel with him. To slap that expression off his face. She shrugged, and drained her glass of champagne.
“Come, Miss Chase, let me show you one of the treasures that would have been lost for ever,” he said, taking the empty glass from her hand.
“The Alabaster Goddess?” Calliope asked.
“Are you trying to gain an early glimpse of the masterpiece of my collection? No, she will be revealed later. At the right moment.”
“One last chance for her to be admired before she is shut away?”
“She is hardly a cloistered nun. She is being taken to a place where she can be properly protected, unlike other antiquities in our fair city of late,” he said. He took her arm in a light clasp, steering her around the edges of the crowd, calling jovial greetings to the noisy guests.
Calliope had to grit her teeth to resist the urge to pull away, to run from him. When Lord Westwood took her arm just so at the British Museum, it was warm and easy. The duke’s touch felt like a cold shackle. She pinched her lips together and walked faster as they moved past candelabra and frescoes.
He led her to the end of the room, where tall glass doors led on to a dark terrace. The crowd was lighter here, the air cooler. Calliope almost feared he meant to lead her out on to that terrace, away from the noise and light, and then—then what? Push her off to the stone walkway far below?
Calliope almost laughed aloud at her own foolishness. He did not know of her plans to keep his Alabaster Goddess safe, to prevent her from being stolen like all those other lost pieces. To keep her from disappearing into Yorkshire, too, if she could help it at all. He did not know of her great aversion to him, of how frightened she was by his behaviour towards Clio at the museum. He couldn’t know any of that.
Nevertheless, when his clasp on her arm loosened, she wasted no time in moving away.
“What do you think of this, Miss Chase?” he asked, gesturing towards another statue displayed between the glass doors.
Calliope forced herself to turn her wary attention from him, to take in a deep breath as she examined the piece. Art, as it always did, slowly worked its magic on her senses. The duke and the crowd subsided to a whisper.
It was beautiful, of course, as everything in the duke’s collection was. Beautiful in a strange, violent way. This depicted not a battle or brawl, but Daphne at the very moment she was transformed into a tree by her father Peneus, after Daphne called on him to stave off Apollo’s unwanted advances. She was running, her body twisted as she looked frantically back over her shoulder. Her legs and upflung arms were turning to branches. Her long hair flowed back like a river.
“What do you think, Miss Chase?” the duke asked.
“It is lovely. The sense of movement, the way the flesh of her arms transforms just here into wood—extraordinary.”
“Exactly so. It is a Roman copy, of course, but still its great beauty is evident. And her face looks rather like your sister, does it not?”
Startled, Calliope stared up at the duke, shaken from the reverie the Daphne invoked. He did not watch her; all his attention was on Daphne’s cold, carved face. He reached out one fingertip to touch her cheek, sliding a slow caress along the angle of her cheekbone.
It did look like Clio, Calliope had to admit. With that hair, and the sharp, thin angles of the face and bare shoulders. And that made his rapt attention all the more chilling.
“She has the same independent spirit, you see,” the duke murmured. “But in the end, one way or another, she will belong to the gods. Run though she will.”
Calliope’s throat was dry, and she knew she had leave, to find Clio. She slowly backed away from the duke, who still seemed lost in his own world. His own fantasies of poor Daphne.
“Excuse me,” Calliope murmured. “I see someone I must speak to.”
She hurried back into the midst of the crowd. There seemed to be even more people packed into the ballroom than before, knots and skeins of humanity laughing and drinking, oblivious to any nightmarish quality this house might hold. Yet there was no Clio anywhere, not even a glimpse of her shimmering green silk. Thalia was still dancing, as she probably would do all night. Their father was nowhere to be seen. Probably he had gone off to the card room with his philosopher friends, continuing their discussion over a hand of vingt-et-un. She did see Emmeline, dressed as the Delphic Oracle, talking with one of her assigned possible thieves. She gave Calliope a small nod and smile. All was going as planned in that corner.
If only Calliope could say the same! She so hated when her plans went awry. But then, what could she expect from someone like the Duke of Averton? He was a strange one, to say the least, and there could be no predicting what might happen in his house. She had to stay calm. Remember her goal—to protect the Alabaster Goddess.
And surely in such a vast crowd Clio was safe enough. The duke couldn’t hurt her here, couldn’t turn her into a tree. He probably couldn’t even find her. Still, Calliope would feel better if she could talk to her sister, warn her to be on her guard.
Hoisting her shield higher, Calliope threaded her way through the ballroom. Several friends greeted her, but there was no Clio.
“Where are you?” she muttered, straining on tiptoe to see over the crowd.
“I am here, grey-eyed Athena,” a voice said, slightly muffled, close to her shoulder.
Half-fearing the duke had crept up on her again, Calliope turned. There was no Dionysus, though. It was Hermes, in his winged sandals and helmet, muscled arms bare in a white chiton. The visor of the helmet was down, but Calliope recognised the unruly dark curls that escaped its golden confines. She also recognized Hermes’ scent, the clean smell of citrus soap with something darker, more complex and alluring, underneath, like cinnamon or sunshine, salty sea air.
A strange sense of relief flowed over her. She was not alone in this crowd any longer! “My eyes are brown, Lord Westwood,” she said, resisting the urge to hug him, to cling to those strong arms. It was surely just another measure of how bizarre this evening had become that she was so very happy to see him.
“Always so logical,” he said, pushing back the visor to reveal his smile. “How did you know it was me?”
“Your soap.”
“My soap?”
Calliope shook her head. “It’s not important. Have you by any chance seen my sister?”
“Miss Clio? I don’t think so, but then anything is possible in this crowd. What is her costume?”
“Oh, you couldn’t miss her. She is Medusa, in a green-and-gold gown, with snakes on her headdress.”
“Snakes? Never say she brought reptiles in here! But then, I would not really be surprised. You Chases always do things in your own fashion.”
Calliope had to smile in spite of herself. “I dare say Clio might have brought real snakes in, if she didn’t know how I dislike them. But she only has cloth snakes. With green glass eyes.”
“I fear I’ve seen no Medusas at all. Is something amiss?”
“No, I just need to tell her something. I’m sure I will see her later. Unfortunately, I can glimpse little in this crowd.”
“Did I not predict it would be a ‘dreadful crush’?”
“You did. Surely what every hostess most desires.”
“Or host.” His expression hardened. “I saw you were speaking to Mr Dionysus.”
“For a moment,” Calliope answered cautiously. “He was showing me a statue of Daphne.” The memory of the duke’s hand on that marble cheek made her feel cold all over again, and she trembled.
“Are you cold?” Lord Westwood asked solicitously.
“Just a bit. Though I’m not sure how I could be, it’s so overheated in here!”
“Such a mausoleum as this place can never be truly warm. Come, Miss Chase, dance with me. I think the exercise will do us both good.”
Calliope glanced towards the dance floor to find a new set forming. Emmeline was there with Mr Smithson, as was Thalia with the strange Minotaur. Still no Clio. Yet surely a dance would do her good. Take her whirling thoughts from the duke and his bizarre actions, the Alabaster Goddess and the Lily Thief, and warm her chilled bones. Westwood was right—this place was a mausoleum. Only music and dancing could bring it to life again.
Especially a dance with Lord Westwood, for surely no one could be more alive than he was. His cognac eyes, the golden glow of his smooth skin, fairly breathed youth and vitality and strength. After the duke’s brief, cold touch, the breath of his corruption, she craved that heat. Yearned for it. Even if it was with Westwood.
But he was not Westwood tonight. He was Hermes. She was Athena. And this was not an ordinary London ball, but an Olympian revel. For the length of one dance, anyway.
“Thank you, Lord Westwood,” she said. “I would be happy to dance with you.”
Chapter Eight (#ulink_6abbd87c-760c-55aa-bbc6-f4e947a26c9a)
Clio glanced back over her shoulder as she tiptoed along the narrow corridor. Empty. No one followed her. Probably they did not even notice her absence from the ballroom, not in such a crush.
Perfect.
It was silent here, unlike the roar of music and shallow conversation. So quiet it was almost like a cave, lit only by a few lamps built to resemble flickering torches. The shifting light touched the dark, linenfold panelled walls, the low, carved ceiling and the gilt-framed paintings, making them glitter and waver as if alive.
Clio paused to slip off her heeled shoes, peering closer at one of those paintings. It was a modern creation, an oil of the Minotaur in his labyrinth. A great, hulking, hairy beast with red, fiery eyes, lurking in a dark space much like this corridor. All around him were smoking torches, stone walls painted with strange, glowing symbols.
The duke must feel some affinity for this particular myth, Clio thought as she studied the scene. She had seen several depictions of it tonight, in stone as well as paint, and in that one odd costume in the ballroom. Well, she knew that everyone had within them a dark heart—a Minotaur. And that sometimes a person had to venture into the labyrinth to confront that side of themselves. To confront the truth.
Was that not what she was doing now?
Clio turned her back on the Minotaur and hurried on stocking feet to the end of the corridor where there was a small, winding staircase, a miniature of the grand one soaring up from the foyer. The duke was being very cagey about the Alabaster Goddess’s whereabouts tonight. But his servants were not all so secretive. Clio was able to persuade a footman to tell her where Artemis waited.
At the top of the stairs ran a long gallery, almost the entire length of the front of the house. Its bank of windows, uncovered, looked out at the front garden and the street beyond, the open gates that still admitted latecomers to the ball.
The gallery was dotted with tall, heavy iron branches of candles, half of them unlit. No doubt waiting for the “grand reveal” after supper, when they would spring to life as if by magic. Right now the light was dim, falling only in shimmering bars on some of the treasures displayed there, leaving others in darkness.
Clio found herself holding her breath as she crept along the gallery, peering right and left at all the wonders jumbled together. Her father’s friends were all great collectors and loved to show off their prizes, so she had grown up surrounded by beautiful antiquities. But this—this was something else entirely. A cabinet of curiosities such as she had never seen before.
The gallery almost resembled a warehouse, it was so thick with objects. Ancient stone kouros, stiff and precise, their empty eyes staring back at her. An Egyptian sarcophagus, with traces of bright paint still clinging to its surface. Bronze warriors; marble gods finer than any she had ever seen; cases full of gold Etruscan jewellery, lapis scarabs, tiny cat mummies in gold coffins, jewelled perfume bottles. Steles propped against the walls. Shelves of vases, kraters, and amphorae. All jumbled together, just to serve one man’s vanity.
Clio frowned as she remembered the duke at the British Museum, pressing so close to her she was overcome by his spicy cologne. That strange light in his green eyes…
She shook her head, her satin snakes trembling. She couldn’t think about him now. She didn’t want to think about him ever.
At the end of the gallery, alone in a pool of candlelight, was an object covered in a drape of black satin. Only a bit of the separate coral-coloured marble stand was visible. Clio approached it carefully, half-expecting some sort of trap, some alarm. All was silent, except for the whining hum of the wind past the windows. She reached out and carefully lifted an edge of the drape, peering beneath.
“Oh,” she sighed. It was really her. The Alabaster Goddess. Artemis in her solitary glory.
The statue was not large. It was easily dwarfed by many of the more elaborate creations in the gallery. But she was so perfectly beautiful, so graceful and elegant, that Clio could understand why she had become such a sensation.
Carved of an alabaster so white it seemed to glisten, almost silver, like a first snowfall, she stood poised with her bow raised, an arrow set to fly. Her pleated tunic flowed over the curves of her slender body as if caught in a breeze, ending at mid-thigh to reveal strong legs, tensed to run. Her sandals, the little, ribbon-laced shoes every lady had copied this Season, still bore bits of gold leaf, as did the bandeau that held back her curled hair. A crescent moon was attached to the band, proclaiming her to truly be the Goddess of the Moon. Her gaze was focused intently on her prey, not heeding mortal adulation.
Clio stared up at her, enthralled, as she imagined the Delian temple where this goddess once resided, where she once received her worship from true acolytes of the moon. Not just ton ladies with their “Artemis” coiffures.
“How beautiful you are,” she whispered. “And how sad.”
Clio reached out to gently touch Artemis’ foot in a gesture of silent sympathy. As she did, she noticed that the goddess stood on a modern wooden base, a thick block of mahogany. A thin crack ran along its centre. She leaned closer, trying to see if that crack was a fault or deliberate. It seemed such a strange perch for a beautiful goddess.
“Ah, Miss Chase. Clio. I see you have discovered the whereabouts of my treasure,” a voice said, quiet, gloating.
Clio ducked away from Artemis, spinning around to find the duke standing halfway along the gallery, watching her intently.
Even in the dim light, his eyes gleamed like the snakes in her headdress. He smiled at her gently, shrugging his leopard pelt back from his shoulders. Clio thought of that scene from the Bacchae, where Agave, under the evil influence of Dionysus, tore her son Pentheus to death, thinking him a lion. Then she carried his severed head back home, still delusional.
He moved closer, light and silent, as if he was a leopard himself. “She is beautiful, is she not?” he said, still so quiet. So soft. “I knew you would be drawn to her, as I was. She is quite—irresistible, in her mystery.”
Clio edged back against the goddess. She had indeed found Artemis irresistible. So much so that she let her guard down, and that was not like her. As the duke came closer, she reached behind her, her fingers just touching Artemis’ cold sandal. She slid her touch down, finding that strange crack in the wooden base…
Calliope took her place in the set with Lord Westwood just as the music began, a quick, lively tune that made her toes tap in her sandals. She was not Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance, but she did love the movement, the rhythm of the music, the swirl of other dancers around her as they formed the patterns and picture of the dance. Usually, it could lift her out of herself for a few moments, send her into a world where there was only the music.
Tonight, though, the beat was not soothing, not transporting. There was so much in her mind—Clio’s disappearance, the plan to protect the Alabaster Goddess. And, not least, the fact that her partner for this dance was Cameron de Vere.
Never would she have imagined they would be dancing together at a ball, quite as if they were—well, as if they were friends! No one was shouting or scowling or throwing things. He stood across from her in the line, smiling at her. Calliope smiled back, and all at once she felt the old magic of the dance come upon her once more. A new energy surged through her veins, lifting her up on to her toes as she stepped forward to meet him. Their hands touched, and they turned to move down the line, swirling among the other dancers in a quick, intricate rhythm.
He was a good dancer, light and graceful, but then she did not expect anything less after seeing him drive his phaeton. No jerky, ham-handed movements for him. He moved his horses—and his dance partners—with gentle persuasion, and made it all look easy. Calliope barely felt she had to move, so easily did he twirl her from step to step, spinning her until she vowed her feet left the floor and she was flying!
As they were separated by the design of the dance, Emmeline leaned close and quickly whispered, “Is he the thief, then, Calliope?”
As Calliope turned in a circle, she glanced towards Lord Westwood. Surely he had the fleetness to climb in a window, the strength to carry off the Alabaster Goddess. But…“I don’t know. What of Mr Smithson?”
Emmeline shrugged, and was spun away into another circle. Westwood caught Calliope’s hand again, drawing her near as they turned in allemande. “You are a fine dancer, Miss Chase,” he said, not even out of breath.
Calliope, though, felt suddenly winded as she stared up into his eyes. “I could say the same about you,” she answered. “Where did you learn such grace on your travels?”
“Oh, I am a man of many talents, Miss Chase,” he said, catching her against him for a moment, so very close she could feel the damp heat of his body, the tense strength of him. Their bare arms brushed together, and his skin was so smooth and warm. “You have no idea.”
No. But Calliope thought maybe she was beginning to have an inkling.
They slid back into their own places in line as the music ended, and Calliope ducked into a curtsy. Her heart fairly pounded, as if she had run a mile rather than just danced an easy reel. It was as if the earth shifted under her feet, an earth she had always been so certain of, and it had not yet re-formed. Perhaps it never would.
Westwood held out his hand to help her rise. She slid her fingers into his clasp, still warm from the exercise, and let him lead her from the dance floor. The ballroom was even more crowded than before, newcomers swelling the throng until it reached the very walls, spilled out on to the terrace and the grand staircase. Yet Calliope could hardly hear them for the humming in her head, could not feel their press, their clamour. She only felt his hand on hers.
“Did I tell you that you look quite lovely tonight, Miss Chase?” he said, so close to her ear that his breath stirred the loose curls at her temple.
Calliope shivered. “I—thank you, Lord Westwood. You did say I made a plausible Athena.”
“I would not be surprised if you started a battle right here, leading us to victory over the Spartans.”
Calliope laughed nervously. “I don’t think I could, Lord Westwood. Even Athena could not find her way through this crush. And I can’t find my sister. A poor goddess I would make.”
“Perhaps she went to peek at Artemis,” he suggested.
“But the Alabaster Goddess is hidden! The duke said she would only be revealed later.”
“Ah, yes, you did speak to our notorious host. Or should I say inadequate host, for I have not seen the man since I arrived.”
“Yes, I did see him, but not in quite a while. It was over there, by that Daphne…” Calliope paused, remembering the duke’s caress on Daphne’s cold cheek. “I would feel better if I could find Clio.”
“I’ll help you search,” he said. “This is a big house, to be sure, but she has to be in it somewhere.”
“Oh, would you? I don’t want to take you away from the dancing. Or the cards.”
“A mystery is always more fun than a game of loo, Miss Chase. And ‘find the missing muse’ should be more interesting than a dance—unless it’s with Athena, of course.” His tone was light, but Calliope thought she sensed disquiet in his eyes, in the tight line of his jaw. It made her own uncertainties stronger. She was very glad of his help, not at all sure she wouldn’t get lost in this vast mausoleum on her own.
Plus, if he was with her he couldn’t steal the Alabaster Goddess!
“Thank you, Lord Westwood,” she said. “I appreciate your assistance.”
“What!” he cried in mock astonishment. “Calliope Chase appreciates something about me? Never say so.”
“I won’t let it become a habit,” she said. “And I will appreciate it even more if you actually find Clio.”
“Then let us waste no time. I’m sure two instances of gratitude in one evening would be quite more than I could bear.”
He steered her adroitly through the crowd, deftly sidestepping human barriers and looming statues until they found their way out the ballroom doors. There were also people in the small foyer at the head of the grand staircase, and in the card room and antechambers, but none of them were Medusa. Clio was also not in the ladies’ withdrawing room, which Calliope checked without Westwood’s assistance. Nor had anyone seen her.
Even more unsettling was the fact that no one had seen the duke for quite a while, despite the persistent buzz of gossip about him.
Calliope rejoined Westwood in the foyer, removing her helmet from her aching head. The headache forming behind her eyes was pounding and persistent, insisting that something was amiss.
“Did you say you know where the Alabaster Goddess is?” she asked Westwood.
“I’ve heard a rumour.”
“I think we should look there, then. Unless you think Averton has a secret dungeon somewhere?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “I wouldn’t put it past him. But we’ll ask Artemis first.”
He turned on his heel and set off from the foyer, finding a deserted narrow corridor. Calliope followed closely as they left the light and noise of the party behind. The duke’s house was even more of a crypt than she had first thought, or perhaps more of a catacomb. An odd, twisting series of corridors and chambers. Unlike the Roman version, though, these catacombs held not human bones and ashes, but the bones of civilisations. A jumble of marble and basalt and mosaic, all piled together with no concern for the various cultures and time periods.
Calliope thought of her father’s own collections, so carefully labelled and placed neatly in glass cases. How much each piece meant to him, and his daughters, so much more than a mere beautiful object. More than something to possess and show off, they meant knowledge, a link to lives long turned to dust. A way to understand the past, or at least begin to understand it.
It was obvious from this opulent clutter, this clash of Minoan, Archaic, Classical, Egyptian, Assyrian, Roman, Celtic, that the duke did not see them in this way. Their true value was lost to him.
As was surely the true value of her sister. Wherever Clio was.
At that unsettling thought, Calliope stumbled, reaching out to catch herself on a stone Egyptian lioness.
“Ouch!” she gasped.
Westwood spun around, and her hand landed not on the cold statue but on warm, shifting flesh. His arm went about her waist, holding her steady.
Only she felt even dizzier now, pressed so close to him, than she had falling towards the ground.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice rough.
“Yes,” Calliope answered slowly. “I must have stumbled on something.”
“Easy enough to do in this warehouse.”
Calliope eased herself away from him, leaning back against the kore until she could catch her breath. “I was just thinking it was a catacomb.”
“A most apt description, Miss Chase. A pile of dead things, hidden away from the daylight.”
Calliope studied the reclining Egyptian lioness, her muscles coiled and massive paws flexed, as if she would rise at any moment. How fierce she looked! How unhappy at being caged. Would she try to run away like Daphne? “Do you think they are dead?”
“Let us say sleeping, rather,” he said. He ran his hand over the lioness’s head, and Calliope felt as if she, too, could experience that touch. Rough and chipped, battered by the centuries, but still holding the imprint of her creator. “They can’t breathe in such a gloomy place.”
“Exactly. With no one to see their true worth.” She paused, turning her gaze from the lion’s obsidian stare to meet Westwood’s. In this shadowed light his eyes were just as dark, just as mysterious. “But we don’t agree on what their worth is.”
“Do we not?” His hand tightened on the rippled stone. “I think we agree on far more than is first apparent, Miss Chase.”
If only that were true! Calliope remembered her long-ago daydreams, that he could be the one man who understood her, who shared her dreams. Those hopes were shattered when she had found the Hermes statue gone. “How so, Lord Westwood?”
Instead of answering her, of telling her what she found she yearned to hear—how they could find common ground and be friends at long last—he just smiled. “Do you not think that sometimes you could call me Cameron? I still look around for my father when I hear ‘Lord Westwood’. Everyone I met in Italy and Greece called me Cameron. Or Cam.”
“I’m not sure.” Cameron. How informal it sounded. How—inviting.
“Come, now! No one can hear us but our friend the lioness. And she won’t tell. She loves to keep secrets.”
Indeed, there did seem to be a satisfied gleam in those obsidian eyes, as if she relished having one more secret to add to the vast store she had collected in her long lifetime. Like the Aphrodite statue in the conservatory, and her remembered orgies. “Do you not think she holds enough secrets as it is? I’m sure this house has more than its share.”
“No doubt you are right. Nasty secrets. But, while she is the duke’s captive, she is our friend. She wants us to be in accord.”
“Very well. I suppose I could call you Cameron, when only inanimate objects can hear us.”
“Shh!” He put his hands over the carved ears. “She’s not inanimate, remember? Only sleeping.”
“When will she awaken? When she’s taken from this place at last?”
“When she sees the sunlight again?”
Calliope remembered Lady Tenbray’s Etruscan diadem, far from the sun of its homeland. “And will you be the one to liberate her—Cameron?”
He gave the lioness a considering glance. “Do you think I’m strong enough, Miss Chase? Calliope?” he said teasingly, flexing his—admittedly impressive—arm muscles.
“Are you a hidden Herakles, then?”
“Ah, fair doubter! But as I am not Herakles, merely Hermes, I fear your doubts are justified. She would be much too heavy for me, winged sandals or not. One day, though, someone will free her from this place. Free all these things.”
“Send them back where they came from?”
He shrugged. “Some place where they can be safe. I don’t think anything can be safe here.”
“Oh!” Calliope cried, sharply reminded of their errand. “Clio.”
“Yes, we should move on. If you’re quite recovered?”
“Of course.”
He held out his arm and she accepted his support, letting him lead her down yet another corridor towards a narrow, winding staircase. She couldn’t help but glance back at the lioness, so silent and stolid. Except for that gleam in her eye. That secret glint.
Had she seen Clio tonight?
“The Alabaster Goddess is up here,” Cameron said, clambering up the steps.
Calliope looked up. She saw only a stout wooden door, somewhat ajar, and yet more shadows. More darkness. “How do you know?”
“Still so suspicious! And after I asked you to call me by my given name and everything.”
“The duke said her location was a secret.”
“I have my ways. Come, do you want to see or not, Athena?”
She glanced again towards that doorway. It could conceal anything at all. She half-expected a many-headed Hydra to leap out at them, snarling and slavering. “I want to see.”
“Follow me, then. I may not be Herakles, but I promise I’ll keep you safe.”
He held out his hand, beckoning, and Calliope reached out and clasped it. Held fast to it, like a lifeline in a stormy sea. They climbed up the last of the stairs together, and slowly pushed open the silent door.
That entrance led not to Hades or a vast black river, but to a long, narrow gallery. Tall windows let in moonlight, which mingled with the glow of sputtering candles and cast a soft illumination on more antiquities, more statues and stele and sarcophaguses. Calliope blinked at the light, at first unable to see anything beyond the rich clutter.
Next to her, Cameron stiffened, and a curse escaped his lips in a soft, ominous explosion.
“What…?” Calliope began. Then she saw it.
The Alabaster Goddess, the pride of the Duke of Averton’s collection, lay on her back on the floor, her bow aimed upward at the inlaid ceiling. Her gleaming alabaster body seemed intact, tangled with a length of black satin, but her wooden base was split and splintered.
And, at her feet, lay the duke himself.
Cameron dashed forward, Calliope close on his winged heels. The duke’s bright hair was darkened with a spreading stain, his eyes closed, his skin as pale as Artemis’s. His leopard skin was torn beneath him, and the coppery tang of blood was thick in the cool, dusty air.
“Is he dead?” Calliope whispered.
Cameron knelt down beside the prone duke, reaching out to touch the base of his bare neck. “Not yet. I can feel a pulse, but it’s thin. See here,” he said, gesturing to a gash along the duke’s forehead. “It matches Artemis’s elbow.”
Calliope glanced at the goddess and saw that her arm was indeed stained, a dried smear of rust-coloured blood. “He must have been here for quite a while, for it to dry like that. Do you think the statue fell on him?”
“Maybe her base broke as he was gloating over her. It would seem to be poetic justice of a sort.”
“Or maybe…” Calliope leaned closer, pushing down her nausea. “No. It can’t be.”
“What?”
Shivering, Calliope gestured towards the duke’s hand.
Clutched in his fist was a ripped swathe of green-and-gold silk. Half-hidden underneath his arm was a scattering of sparkling green beads.
“What is this?” Cameron asked tightly.
“Clio,” Calliope groaned. “These are from her costume.”
Cameron straightened, peering intently into the shadows. But Calliope could not be so cautious. She shot to her feet, dashing behind the marble plinth Artemis fell from. “Clio!” she cried. “Where are you? Clio!”
“Shh!” Cameron caught her hand, pulling her up short. “What if whoever did this is still lurking about? What if your sister…?”
“No! Clio couldn’t do this, or if she did I’m certain she had a good reason. You were at the British Museum, you saw. We have to find her.”
“And we will. But there are no other bloodstains on the floor, are there? She isn’t hurt. We need to get help for the duke first. He’s still alive.”
Calliope looked at the man sprawled on the floor. He was still pale, yet she could see that he stirred. “You would help him? Even though you loathe him?”
He laughed wryly. “I may be tempted to leave him to die, done in by his famous Alabaster Goddess. But I would loathe myself even more than him if I did that. I will run back to the ballroom and fetch help, if you think you can stand guard for a few moments. I promise I won’t be gone long.”
Calliope sucked in a deep breath. “Yes. I can stay.”
He studied her closely, as if to gauge her words. Finally, he nodded. “Of course you can, you’re Athena. When you hear people approaching, hide behind that sarcophagus. It would never do for anyone to know that we were alone here!”
Calliope thought of the rumours Emmeline told her about, the gossip about Westwood and her, the bets. How upset she had been by that! Now it hardly seemed to matter. “Not at all,” she said tartly. “Then you would be forced to offer for me.”
“A dreadful fate.” He caught her close in a swift, hard embrace, pressing a kiss to her brow. “I won’t be gone long.”
Calliope watched as he dashed back down the gallery and out the door, as fleet as any true Hermes. When he was gone, the silence gathered around her, thick and muffling, like a true London fog. The shadows also seemed to gather closer, creeping around as if they sensed doom, fed off it.
Calliope wrapped her arms tightly around herself to ward off the cold, to hold Cameron’s embrace close. Some of her stout, Athena-ish courage was ebbing away without him to hold it up, but she knew she had to hold strong. Hold on to her composure. So much depended on it.
Steeling her nerves, she knelt by the duke and reached for his hand. Swallowing a sudden bitter rush of bile, she loosened his fingers to pull free the strip of telltale silk. His grip tightened, as if reluctant to relinquish his prize, but she tugged it loose. Then she set to gathering the green beads, the scattered snake eyes.
As she picked up the last one, she noticed the broken wooden base of the statue. Even though it was splintered, it appeared to not be broken so much as split along an opening. Calliope peered closer, and saw that a tiny, torn bit of paper protruded.
“How odd,” she whispered. A secret compartment? To conceal—what?
Before she could investigate further, she heard the echo of voices and footsteps coming up the staircase. Gripping the silk and beads, she ducked back behind the sarcophagus, lying on her side. It was even darker, colder back there, the floor hard on her hip. She pressed herself tight against the carved, painted hieroglyphs, holding her breath as she listened to the shouts and exclamations.
She had never felt more alone in her life.
Chapter Nine (#ulink_3c7f3890-4e86-5f90-9f85-bb631a133b68)
Calliope crept up the stairs of her own home, her steps weary and slow. The house was quiet; no one expected them back for hours yet, and the servants were tucked away in their own quarters. Her father and Thalia were still at the duke’s, her father to observe all the excitement, and Thalia to look for Clio. Calliope had come home to see if Clio had returned, but she had also come for herself. For the comfort only her own surroundings, her own well-ordered space, could provide.
After such a long, bizarre night, there was something in her that craved the sight of home.
“Perhaps I will write my own horrid novel,” she muttered, catching up a warm shawl draped over a chair and wrapping it tightly around her bare shoulders. Wouldn’t Lotty enjoy that?
She would call it The Duke’s Revenge. Or perhaps Vengeance against the Duke. Yes, that would be more fitting.
Calliope shuddered. It would be a very long time before she forgot the way Averton looked, so pale except for that crimson gash. The confused clamour when the crowd burst into the gallery and carried him away, while she huddled behind that sarcophagus.
“Oh, Clio,” she whispered. “What has happened to you?”
And what had happened between Calliope and Westwood—or Cameron? For those brief moments it seemed they were allies, united in one cause. That was something she never thought to see happen. Never thought to be so affected by. But his humour, his kindness, the quick, cool way he dealt with the duke…
No. She couldn’t think about that right now. It was too baffling, too dizzying. And she had to find her sister. Find out what had happened in that gallery.
There was a thin line of light beneath Clio’s bedchamber door, flickering and shifting like flames. Calliope didn’t even knock, just gently eased that door open, holding her breath as she paused on the threshold.
And Clio was there. After all the searching through the labyrinth of the duke’s house, she was in her own chamber. The room was in darkness except for the blazing fire in the grate. Clio knelt beside the flames, wrapped in a white dressing gown, her auburn hair loose down her back. The red-orange glow reflected on her spectacles as she fed scraps of green silk into the fire. Her face was utterly expressionless.
“Clio,” Calliope called softly.
Clio jumped, spinning around on her heels, crouched for battle. “Calliope!” she cried. “Don’t creep up on me like that. I nearly had apoplexy.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t even sure you were here or just a mirage.” Calliope slowly moved to Clio’s side, hands held out as if in surrender. She knelt beside her sister, studying the torn remains of the Medusa costume.
“What happened tonight, Clio?” she said. She reached out to touch the ragged edge of a gold sleeve. It was stiff with smeared blood.
Clio stared straight ahead into the flames. “What do you mean?”
“Lord Westwood and I found him. The duke. He held a scrap of this very silk in his hand.”
“Was he—dead?”
“No, not yet.”
“And what did he say?”
“He was unconscious. Lord Westwood went for help, and when they carried the duke away I came home. To find you.” Calliope couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She seized Clio, drawing her into a fierce hug. “Oh, Clio, I was so frightened!”
Clio held herself stiff for a second, then she gave a great shudder and fell against Calliope’s shoulder, clutching at her. “Cal! It was—was horrible.”
“My dear, you’re safe now. We’re all safe, I promise,” Calliope said, struggling to convince herself as much as Clio. “Why were you alone with him?”
“I was a fool.” Clio drew away, wiping her cheeks with her dressing gown sleeve. “I wanted to see the Alabaster Goddess without all the gawking crowds. I got one of the footmen to tell me where she was, and I slipped away for a peek. But he must have been watching me. He followed me to that gallery, and just as I saw the goddess, he…”
“He what?”
Clio shook her head fiercely. “I don’t want to say. I swear he did not get very far, though, Cal. He just kissed me. Artemis saved me.”
Calliope gave her a gentle smile. “You mean she leaped off her pedestal and coshed him on the head?”
Clio laughed. It was a strained, choked sound, but very welcome none the less. “Well, she did need a bit of mortal help. I grabbed her by that wooden base and swung it towards him. I just wanted to scare him, make him back away. I thought for a moment he was dead, and I didn’t mean to kill him! I wouldn’t mind if he was dead, but I don’t want his blood on my hands.” She held out one trembling hand, palm up. “Of course, it’s there anyway.”
“No!” Calliope took that hand, holding it tightly. “He is alive, and will probably recover, more is the pity. Hopefully his wits will be scrambled enough, though, that he won’t hurt anyone else.”
“And so he won’t talk of this to anyone?”
“Why would he? Being known as an attacker of women—and being so weak a woman could attack him and bring him low—could hardly be what he wants.”
“For a normal man, perhaps. I don’t have any idea what a man like the duke could want.”
They sat there for a long moment, clinging together, the only sound the snap of the fire. Outside the window the sky was beginning to lighten, a lark twittering in the trees. London coming to life again for one more day.
“There is something I want to show you, Cal,” Clio said. She rose unsteadily to her feet and crossed the room to her bed. From under the mattress she drew a folded, rumpled sheet of paper, covered with a spidery black hand. One corner was ripped away.
“What is it?” Calliope asked, as Clio came back to the fireside.
“I’m not sure. When I—well, when Artemis made contact with the duke’s head, the wooden base split and this paper came out.”
“Oh, yes!” Calliope exclaimed, remembering that broken base, the tiny scrap of parchment. “I saw that it was broken. But what is the paper?”
“A list of some sort.” Clio smoothed it out on the hearth rug. “I can’t quite figure it out, though.”
Calliope leaned closer, peering at the tiny words. “Cicero. The Grey Dove. The Sicilian. The Purple Hyacinth. Nicknames?”
“Perhaps. There are ten of them in all, and they’re each so strange. I wouldn’t have thought the duke was one for secret societies, he seems so solitary, but after seeing his Gothic horror of a house I know anything is possible. What could they be nicknames for?”
Calliope ran her finger down the baffling list. “Charlemagne. The Golden Falcon. I have no idea. It must be very important, though, to hide it in the Alabaster Goddess like that.”
“Important—and illegal, no doubt. Immoral goes without saying.”
Illegal contacts? “Oh, Clio,” Calliope breathed. “Do you suppose the duke is the Lily Thief?”
Cameron splashed cold water over his face, hoping the icy drops would finally wake him from the bizarre dream this whole evening had been. It didn’t work, though. When he opened his eyes, slicking back the wet strands of his hair, his rumpled Hermes costume was still tossed over a chair. And he faced himself—eyes bloodshot, face strained—in the mirror.
In his travels to Greece, he and his companions were chased by bandits and rebels on occasion, running through the rocky hills with bullets zinging at their heels. That was surely dangerous, but also exhilarating. Life-affirming. After a narrow escape, they would drink and sing around campfires until dawn, when they would run again.
Why, then, did he feel so weary now? So—old, almost. Was it because bandits and bullets had a strange honesty to them? Unlike whatever it was that had happened at Averton’s house tonight. That had a murky, corrupt air, a mystery he didn’t care for.
Would he have left Averton to die, if Calliope Chase’s solemn dark eyes weren’t watching every move he made? He was surely tempted to, and the world would be better off. In the end he couldn’t. He couldn’t even let a man he detested die. Because of some weakness in himself? Because he didn’t want to seem less than good, seem the flawed man he was, in front of Calliope?
Cameron shook his head, droplets flying, and reached for his dressing gown. He drew the warm brocade over his chilled nakedness, watching as the first light of day, grey-pink and fuzzy, peeked through the window. Now wasn’t the time for agonised self-examination. He had never been good at that, anyway; he was no poet. Now was the time for action, for solving whatever it was that had happened last night. Someone had tried to kill the duke. Perhaps they had tried to steal the Alabaster Goddess.
The duke himself was always up to something. What did he want with Clio Chase? What did she have to do with last night’s events? What was going on with the Chase sisters?
Cameron went to the window, staring down at the street coming to life for the day. Milkmaids and greengrocers hurried along on their errands; a maid scrubbed at the white steps next door. She yawned as she worked, but Cameron, despite his long night, was suddenly wide awake, his earlier weariness quite forgotten.
Something had happened between him and Calliope Chase, as they made their way through those dark, mouldering rooms. He had always thought her beautiful, of course. And sharply intelligent, sure of herself as only a truly clever person could be. But also stubborn and maddening!
Last night there was a new connection, a new spark that intrigued him, drew him in, even as his suspicions grew. He would find out what was going on with her, with his deep Athena who hid so much. It wouldn’t be easy to gain her trust, her confidence. In fact, he had the feeling it would be the most difficult thing he would ever do. But something was afoot in the small world of antiquities collecting, in the world of the Chases, and he was determined to find out what that was.
Even if he had to spend time—lots of time—with Calliope Chase. Not that that would be a terrible hardship, he thought, remembering the way her Athena costume clung to her bare, white shoulders. But someone had to solve this riddle, before more artefacts like the Alabaster Goddess fell victim to its spell.
And he was just the person to do it.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_a37fd635-8323-5122-a86b-c07a7b543a92)
Calliope tied the ribbons of her bonnet into a jaunty bow just under her left ear and examined herself in the mirror. Did it really look well on her? It was her favourite hat, chip straw trimmed with blue satin ribbons. But was it too—plain?
And why was she so very worried about hats, when there were so many other more important things to be concerned about? Clio and the duke, the Lily Thief, the Ladies Society.
She knew why the sudden preoccupation with fashion, though, and she didn’t like it. She was worried because she was to wear the bonnet to go driving in the park with Lord Westwood.
Cameron.
With a frustrated sigh, Calliope pulled off the bonnet, completely disarranging Mary’s careful construction of curls, and reached for the note that had arrived over breakfast.
“Miss Chase, would you do me the honour of driving with me in the park this afternoon? I think that there, surrounded by hundreds of people, would be the only place where we could really talk. If you are agreeable, I will call for you at half past three.”
If she was agreeable. The gossips would certainly have a splendid time to see them together in Cameron’s yellow phaeton. Calliope idly wondered what the betting books would say. She didn’t want to be talked about, especially now, when she needed to move as unobtrusively as possible in society to discover the Lily Thief. Was it the duke? Westwood? The mysterious Minotaur from the ball? Or someone she had not yet even thought of? She could never find out if everyone was watching her, laughing behind their fans.
But she did need to talk to Westwood. He was the only one, besides Clio and the duke, who knew what really had happened in that dark gallery. Perhaps he could help her now, but she had to be careful. It was possible he was also her biggest obstacle.
Calliope pushed the bonnet aside and reached for the newspapers from that morning. The more disreputable ones were full of news from the masquerade ball, nearly all erroneous. One had the duke’s head split completely open, blood and brains spilling forth on to the floor. It didn’t mention how the man still lived after such carnage. One had jewels stolen from the house, ladies fainting, masked thieves brandishing pistols. Or swords. Or daggers.
None of the accounts were as bad as her own memories, though. Of the smell of coppery blood mingling with dust. Of that scrap of silk in the duke’s hand.
Calliope shuddered and shoved the papers away. Under all those black headlines, under her own confused memories, there lurked the truth. And she intended to find it. Surely it was the only way to stop the Lily Thief, and keep Clio safe.
Yet she couldn’t do it alone. She was no Athena. She needed as many allies as she could find. Her sisters, the Ladies Society. Cameron de Vere?
Could she trust him? Last night he had been like a rock amid chaos and confusion. But that did not erase his old attitudes towards antiquities, their old quarrels.
There was only one way to find out. Talk to the man. Try to see beneath his light, charming façade to the truth beneath.
Calliope reached again for her bonnet and popped it on her head. She wished it had some flirtatious feathers or bright fruit and flowers, or that she herself possessed Thalia’s blue eyes or Emmeline’s fine figure. Brown eyes and skinny limbs, clad in classical white plainness, weren’t likely to coax secrets out of any man, let alone one as admired by the ladies as Westwood.
It was no use worrying about it, though. She was who she was, and there was nothing to be done about it. And she was going to be late if she didn’t hurry.
Calliope retied the bow under her ear and reached for her blue spencer. Maybe she didn’t have flirtatious azure eyes, but she did have one thing she shared with Cameron—a knowledge of history and antiquities. They could speak the same language, if they just tried.
As she pinned a tiny brooch, a golden owl of Athena, to her collar, a knock sounded at her chamber door.
“The Earl of Westwood is waiting for you in the morning room, Miss Chase,” the footman announced.
“Thank you,” Calliope called. “I will be down directly.” She touched the owl and whispered, “Courage.”
The fashionable hour was just beginning as Calliope and Cameron turned into the gates of Hyde Park, his dashing yellow-and-black phaeton rolling smoothly along the lane, joining in the bright parade. Calliope opened her parasol, turning it over her shoulder to block the afternoon sunlight—and some of the stares of the curious.
“Are you quite well today, Miss Chase?” Cameron asked, steering his horses down a slightly quieter pathway. She had been right about his driving skills. His gloved hands were featherlight on the reins, his horses perfectly responsive to his slightest touch. Just as she had been responsive when they danced.
“A good night’s sleep and a strong pot of tea can do wonders,” Calliope answered, nodding at Emmeline as they passed her and her mother in their carriage.
“Did you sleep well, then?”
Calliope laughed ruefully, and shook her head. “Hardly at all. I had such dreams!”
“Dreams of falling statues?”
“Of being chased by hairy Minotaurs down endless corridors.”
He gave her a sympathetic smile. “That house would be quite enough to disturb anyone’s dreams, even without other—events.”
“Quite. I hope never to see Acropolis House again.”
“Or its owner?”
“Him, too. Will he live, do you think?”
“The doctor who was summoned last night says his prognosis is quite good. Once his brain is set right. Whatever right might be for such a man.”
Calliope swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. “And have you heard what the events of the night are supposed to be?”
“That the duke was examining his treasure, and she fell from her unsteady base. A tragic accident.”
“At least until the duke awakens and tells the truth.”
“Until then. How is your sister today?”
“Quiet, but well enough. Clio does not stay discomposed for long. But her account of events is much what you would think, I fear. The duke surprised her as she examined the Alabaster Goddess, and when he tried to do—something, she hit him with the statue.”
“Well done for her.”
Calliope laughed. “I think she is mostly disappointed she didn’t finish the job.”
“Well, I’m sure one day someone will—finish the job. The duke has many enemies.”
“Like you, Lord Westwood?”
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Perhaps. One can never predict what might happen in the future. And I thought I asked you to call me Cameron.”
“When we are alone.”
“Aren’t we alone now?”
Calliope looked around at the crowd of carriages and equestrians. “Hardly.”
“No one can hear us.”
“All right, then—Cameron. I hope that, if something does one day happen to the duke, it won’t be by your hand.”
“You wouldn’t like to see me in Newgate, then?”
Calliope had a vision of him locked behind stout bars, dishevelled, waiting for the noose or the ship to Botany Bay. Once it might have made her laugh; now it made her shiver. “Not for the likes of the Duke of Averton. I don’t want to see you or my sister hurt because of him.”
“I don’t want to see such a thing, either, believe me.”
“Then how can we prevent it?”
“We?”
Calliope examined the passing scenery, the neat rows of trees, feigning a carelessness she was far from feeling. “I think we worked together well last night, did we not?”
“Yes,” he agreed slowly. “Certainly we prevented anyone knowing what really happened in that gallery, though I’m sure there is no power on earth that could stop speculation.”
Calliope thought again of those rumours Emmeline told her about. The wagers on how soon she and Westwood would be betrothed—or would kill each other. “No, indeed. People do like their gossip.”
“But not us,” he said teasingly. “We are above all that. We care only for the benefit of art.”
Calliope laughed. “I am not so high in the instep as all that, I hope! I confess I do indulge in a spot of, shall we say, speculative conversation now and then.”
“Never! Not Miss Calliope Chase.”
“Sad, I know, but I must be honest.” Calliope sighed.
“And what do you speculate about?”
You, she almost said. She bit her lip, turning away again to peer at the passing pedestrians on the walkways. They were in a more sparsely populated part of the park now, most of the stylish gawkers behind them. Here were mostly serious strollers, nurses with their charges, footmen with dogs on leads. The phaeton rolled past them slowly, at a snail’s pace. “Oh, this and that. Bonnets, of course. Parisian fashion papers. Fans and plumes. Don’t ladies always interest themselves in the latest styles?”
Cameron shook his head. “Some ladies perhaps, Miss Chase. Not you, nor, I dare say, your sisters, or your friends in that Ladies Society of yours all the females of the ton are so anxious to join. You can’t fool me.”
She hoped she could fool him, at least some of the time. He couldn’t know how much they really did talk about him at Ladies Society meetings, how most of her acquaintances were half in love with him, called him their “Greek god”. He couldn’t know why she needed his help so much now. Why she had to keep an eye on him.
And he really couldn’t know that she was beginning to like him.
There. She said it, at least to herself. She was beginning to like him, to look forward to his conversation, his smiles. It surely wouldn’t last, though. Such silliness rarely did. She knew this from watching ladies like Lotty, who were infatuated with a different gentleman every week.
It was like one of Lotty’s beloved novels, turned farce rather than Gothic tragedy. The Folly of Calliope. At least it was folly with a purpose.
“Very well,” she admitted. “Sometimes we do talk about hats, and sometimes suitors. Mostly we talk about art and history. And books.” No need to mention that once in a while the books were things like Lady Rosamund’s Tragedy.
“I knew it. Did I not say you cared only for the benefit of art?”
“You did. And that, Lord Westwood—Cameron—is why I need your help.”
He glanced at her, his brow arched. “My help? Dear me, Miss Chase, I fear I shall swoon!”
Calliope lightly slapped his arm. “Don’t tease! I’m serious.”
“As am I. Who would have thought this day would come? I’m quite dizzy with surprise.”
“Hmph.” She snapped her parasol closed, just in case she was required to rap him over the head with it. “Do you want to hear what I have to say or not?”
“Always.”
“Very well, then. I think we both agree the duke is an odious man, yes?”
His smile melted, the corners of his beautiful, Greek god-ish lips turning down. “Of course.”
“You know that better than I, I’m sure. You went to university with him. I only have his behaviour towards my sister to judge by. And his rapacious collecting habits. Those are quite vile enough.”
“Believe me, my dear Miss Chase, you don’t want to see what the man is like outside of polite society,” he said darkly.
My dear? Calliope peered closer at him, trying to read his face under the shadowed brim of his hat. It was as smooth as a statue, as Hermes. Only an obsidian glint in his eyes betrayed the depths of emotion roiling inside.
“No, I don’t,” she said softly. “But I will, if that’s what it takes.”
“If that is what what takes?”
“To protect my sister. And the Alabaster Goddess.”
“The Alabaster Goddess?”
“Of course. It is too much to think I could protect all those objects in that dreadful house. The lioness, the sarcophagus, Daphne. But I think Artemis is in the most immediate danger. Both from the duke and from whoever might think to take her from him.”
“The Lily Thief again?”
“Perhaps. He is not the only petty criminal about, you know. She could be in danger from any number of people.”
“You think some pickpocket from Whitechapel is likely to break into Acropolis House and steal a Greek statue? Maybe some of those cat mummies while he’s at it?”
Calliope sighed. “Put like that, it does sound silly. No, I don’t think some cutpurse is going to haul the goddess away. There are plenty of criminals with more sophistication who could carry off such a crime, though. She is a prime target. Not too large, in beautiful condition…”
“Too famous to sell on the open market.”
“That wouldn’t stop a collector who wants only to gloat over her in private.”
“As the duke has done?”
“Yes, just so.”
He turned the phaeton on to yet another lane, this one more crowded. Their progress slowed even further, caught in a knot of vehicles. “Say the Lily Thief—or someone else—does steal the Alabaster Goddess. How is she worse off than she was in Averton’s possession?”
“At least with him we know where she is. There is a chance she could pass to a museum or a respectable scholar one day. If she is stolen, she would likely never see the light again. Never be studied properly.”
Cameron shook his head. “Calliope, she has been studied, as much as can be. Taken from her original context, most of her lessons are lost for ever anyway. The duke does not deserve her.”
“I won’t argue with you about that. He doesn’t deserve any of those antiquities in his house! But he does own them, for good or ill, at least for now.”
“And so you think that gives him the right…”
Calliope reached out and pressed her fingers to his tense arm, stilling his angry growl. This was that old quarrel of theirs, and there was just no time for it now. She needed him. “Please, Cameron. I need your help. Let’s not argue.”
He stared down at her intently, perfectly still under her touch. “My help with what exactly?”
“I told you—to keep Artemis safe. No matter what our disagreements are, we both want that, yes?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then can we declare a truce? A new alliance, to save the Alabaster Goddess?”
He was silent for a long moment, until Calliope half-feared he meant to reject her truce, to set her down here in the park and drive away, laughing at her folly. Finally, though, he pressed his hand atop hers. “Very well. A truce. Now, how do your propose we protect our divine charge? Put surveillance on the duke’s house? Follow him around town—once he is conscious, of course.”
Calliope laughed in sheer relief. “I’m afraid I haven’t thought that far ahead. That is one reason why I need your help.”
“I thought strategy was Athena’s strong point.”
“I fear I had to put my helmet and shield away and don this bonnet instead. But I am sure we will soon think of something. Come to my house tomorrow evening. My father is having a small card party, and we can talk more there.”
“Strategise over a game of astralasi, eh?”
“Perhaps if the Trojans had done so rather than make war, things might have ended better for them.” Calliope sat back in her seat, opening her parasol again. She felt a new, warm glow of satisfaction. The truce was begun; a new game was afoot. “Thank you, Cameron. You won’t be sorry, I promise.”
You won’t be sorry.
Cameron laughed aloud as he bounded up the steps of his house. That was where Calliope Chase was wrong, for he was already beginning to be sorry. If he joined forces with her, allied with her to protect the Alabaster Goddess, he would have to spend time with her. And then how would he ever stop himself from kissing her?
When he looked at her today, the sun dusting her fair skin with glistening gold, her cheeks flushed with the excitement of her mission, her lips parted on a breath, it took everything in his power, every ounce of self-control, not to grab her. Not to pull her close and kiss those pink lips, feel their softness, their warm yielding. He was so hot to kiss her, embrace her—her, Calliope Chase of all women! A woman who always seemed to regard him with suspicion and disapproval. A woman who was beautiful, but oh so stubborn.
Until that blasted masquerade ball, anyway. The drama and danger, the strange nightmare quality of that evening, had changed something between them. The old distrust cracked and broke, but hadn’t yet reformed into something he could identify.
Except lust. And he’d always had that for her.
Now they were to be allies in some scheme she had to “save” the Alabaster Goddess from the Lily Thief, the duke, and who knew what else.
Cameron opened the door to the library and found Athena’s painted image, her solemn grey-eyed stare. Aside from the fact that Calliope’s eyes were brown—a deep, melting chocolate brown that a person could drown in, happily unable to extricate himself—they were the mirror image of each other. He wondered if Athena had been a member of a Ladies Society, too.
They were certainly up to something, Calliope and her Ladies Society friends. He knew that even before they found the duke in his gallery, when they were dancing and she and Emmeline Saunders kept exchanging glances and whispers. Everyone thought they were some sort of harmless study group, a way for ladies to occupy themselves before they married, yet Cameron had always suspected otherwise. Any society with the Chase sisters as members could hardly be called “harmless”. And now he was somehow a part of it all, God help him.
If he was truly wise, he would stay far away from Calliope and her plans, would pack his bags and retreat to the countryside. Retreat, though, was never his way. Nor was running away from an intriguing puzzle. His curiosity had always got the better of him, especially since life was so dull since he had returned from his travels.
Cameron remembered the way his father would look at him, puzzled, taken aback, as if this son wasn’t what he bargained for. He would shake his head, and say, “You are Greek, aren’t you?” And he was. That insatiable curiosity, that temper that so often got the better of him—that weakness for a pair of dark eyes.
He laughed ruefully, as the painted Athena gave him a scolding stare. He was her acolyte now, a soldier in her adventure. Perhaps it was foolish of him. The last thing he wanted was to be involved in the Duke of Averton’s sphere again, in any way. Perhaps he would be sorry. It was obvious Calliope and her sisters trailed trouble in their beautiful wake.
But he very much looked forward to it. He had been rather bored lately, floundering in his new English life. Unsure of his place, even though he was brought up to it. He was far from bored now.
Yes. He would not be sorry.
Chapter Eleven (#ulink_58166950-789f-5e1a-9c5b-bf37767a294b)
Calliope surveyed the tables set up in the drawing room for the card games. All seemed to be in tidy readiness: the neat white cloths, the new decks of cards, the tea table for refreshments. Through the half-closed doors of the dining room she could hear the servants setting the table for a late supper. The clink of silver and china, the soft murmur of voices.
Drawing her shawl over her shoulders, she stopped to straighten some of the teacups, twitch a crooked cloth into place. There was nothing left to do in here. She should go up and dress, get ready for the guests’ arrival. She was too restless, though. She wanted to keep moving, keep adjusting cloths and fidgeting with cards, not sit down to have her hair dressed!
Calliope stopped at the window, peering down at the darkened street. It was quiet now, a calm lull between the bustle of the day and the flow of evening partygoers. She should feel calm, too. There was surely no need for nervousness. She had played hostess for her father since her mother died, and while they certainly did not entertain as much as they once did, she could manage a small card party.
Perhaps it was not the party itself, but the guest list. Or one guest in particular.
Cameron de Vere was coming to the party tonight. And, what was more, he was going to help her in her schemes to save the Alabaster Goddess. Of course, she didn’t yet know what the scheme would be, but surely with his help things would soon be figured out. He disliked the duke as much as she did. He wanted to see Artemis safe.
A lone carriage rattled down the street, a phaeton hurrying homeward. It was not bright yellow, yet for a moment she remembered staring down from here to see Cameron’s equipage in that very spot, his laughing face turned towards the sun, hair tossed in the breeze. Free. He was always so very free, so careless of what others thought of him. So secure in who he was.
How she envied that.
Calliope sighed, and drew the curtains closed. Free or not, she had a job to do and not much time to do it. She was wasting precious minutes, reflecting on Cameron’s handsome face, his self-confident ways. She just couldn’t seem to help it, though! Thoughts of him crept up on her at the oddest moments. Perhaps she was infected by Lotty’s novel-reading habits, after all.
But then, maybe in a situation like this—stolen antiquities, wicked dukes, mysterious thieves—horrid novels could be more help than Plato or Aristotle. Too bad those novel heroines always seemed to be such fainting cabbage-heads.
“Calliope? Are you not dressed yet?” she heard her father say. She turned to find him in the doorway, leaning on the walking stick he seemed to employ more and more these days. He glanced around with a puzzled air, as if surprised to find himself in his own quiet drawing room, and not the bustling Athenian agora of his studies.
Calliope gazed at him with concern. How frail he looked since her mother died! How distracted and distant. As if he was not of this world, but living more and more in the ancient past. Who could blame him, really, with so many daughters to worry over? So many wild Muses. At least his distraction gave them lots of free time. Time to track down thieves.
“I just wanted to be sure everything is in readiness,” she said. She hurried to his side, taking his arm to lead him to his favourite armchair. “We want our guests to be comfortable, do we not?”
“Ah, Calliope. So much like your mother,” he said with a sigh, patting her cheek.
“Am I, Father?”
“Certainly. Oh, Clio looks the most like her, with that red hair, but you have her spirit. Always thinking of other people, always wanting things to be right for them.” He chuckled. “Whatever you think right is. You and your mother—always so certain of everything. How I always relied on her sureness…”
Calliope gently took his hand in hers. “You miss her very much. Just as I do.”
“Indeed. She was an excellent companion, your mother, so intelligent and steady. Practical, as you are. And beautiful, of course. I can’t seem to find my way without her.” He covered her hand with his, holding her close. “But she left me you and your sisters. I’ll always have a part of her. I tell you, Calliope, my dearest wish for you, for all my Muses, is that you find such a partner in life.”
“Oh, Father,” Calliope said carefully, fearful she might start to cry, “you and Mother were so fortunate to find each other. I fear I’ve never met anyone I could be so compatible with. Could love that way.”
“No one? What of young Westwood?”
Calliope stared at her father, startled. Had he, too, heard those rumours? She thought he noticed nothing that hadn’t happened thousands of years ago! “Lord Westwood? Of course not him, Father. We argue too much.”
“So did your mother and I, when we first met. It’s a sign of passion, y’know.”
“Father!” Calliope cried, feeling hot embarrassment flood her cheeks. She turned away to fuss with an arrangement of chairs.
Her father chuckled. “You don’t want some milquetoast who would just agree with everything you say, would you? Not my Calliope. You would be bored within an hour. And Westwood appreciates the same things you do. Art, history.”
“His father appreciated those things, too, and you two were great rivals.”
“So we were. And enjoyed every moment of our rivalry. One wants to be opposed at times. Life is so dull otherwise.”
“I don’t think I would want a rival as a spouse, though,” Calliope protested. “And Lord Westwood’s views are so different from mine.”
“I’m sure he would come round to a more correct way of thinking, with my Calliope’s help. One more for our cause, eh? You always did enjoy a challenge, my dear.”
Calliope had to laugh. “I do indeed. He might prove too great a challenge, though.”
“For a Chase Muse? Never!” He gave her a sly wink. “Lady Rushworth tells me Lord Westwood is considered quite handsome among the ladies. An Apollo to adorn your side?”
“Father!” Calliope said, kissing his cheek amid helpless laughter. “You should not try to matchmake, you do it ill. I will find the right gentleman, never fear.”
He patted her hand. “I just want to see you happy.”
“I am happy. But I will be even happier once I dress, so I don’t have to greet our guests in my round gown and shawl.”
“You run along, then, Calliope. I will sit here and savour the anticipation of trouncing Mr Berryman at cards. He won ten shillings off me last time.”
“Such shocking extravagance, Father,” Calliope teased. “While you sit here, make sure the servants properly arrange the cakes for the tea table.”
“I shall, my dear. You can always trust me with cakes.”
Calliope left the drawing room and went up the stairs, past servants bustling with final preparations. She should be thinking about refreshments and the guest list, too, but instead she thought only about her father’s words.
For a man with such a crowd of daughters, he seldom showed any concern for their matrimonial prospects. He lived in his own classical world, where dowries and betrothals had little place. Had he really been looking to Lord Westwood with an eye for an engagement? Scheming a match, along with his friend Lady Rushworth? Was everyone around her expecting her to marry Cameron, simply because they were prone to quarrels?
Calliope stepped into her bedchamber, watching as Mary prepared yet another white evening gown. Had she grown so predictable, then? She feared she had—white gowns, arguments with Lord Westwood, the evening was set. Too bad life couldn’t follow such easy patterns. It always insisted on throwing obstacles in one’s path. Things like thieves, and dukes obsessed with one’s sister.
And handsome young earls.
Calliope pushed all that away, and discarded her shawl to begin her evening toilette. A card party was not the place to suddenly become unpredictable. But if society thought they really knew Calliope Chase—well, soon, they would just have to think again.
The scene in the Chase drawing room was a distinct contrast to the one that happened in the duke’s grand ballroom. There were no fantastical costumes, no gods and monsters and nymphs, just ordinary mortals in stylish, if subdued, evening dress. No wild dancing, no crowds packed to the walls, and much less artwork. But at least their statues, Calliope thought with satisfaction, were legally obtained and properly looked after.
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Amanda McCabe
To Catch a Rogue When antiquities begin to go missing from London drawing rooms Miss Calliope Chase doesn’t have to look much further than Cameron de Vere, Earl of Westwood, for a suspect.What she doesn't realise is that her determined pursuit of a criminal looks like a budding romance. Until Cameron kisses her, and her ordered life is thrown into appalling confusion! To Deceive a Duke Clio Chase is hoping for a quiet season in Sicily with her family to forget about enigmatic Duke of Averton and the strange effect he has on her. That is until he unexpectedly arrives, shattering her peace and warning her of trouble… and Clio knows there is only so long she can resist her mysterious duke!
SEDUCTION in Regency Society August 2014
DECEPTION in Regency Society September 2014
PROPOSALS in Regency Society October 2014
PRIDE in Regency Society November 2014
MISCHIEF in Regency Society December 2014
INNOCENCE in Regency Society January 2015
ENCHANTED in Regency Society February 2015
HEIRESS in Regency Society March 2015
PREJUDICE in Regency Society April 2015
FORBIDDEN in Regency Society May 2015
TEMPTATION in Regency Society June 2015
REVENGE in Regency Society July 2015
Mischief in
Regency
Society
To Catch a Rogue
To Deceive a Duke
Amanda McCabe
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
AMANDA McCABE wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA® Award, the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma, with a menagerie of two cats, a pug and a bossy miniature poodle, and loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs and watching the Food Network—even though she doesn’t cook. Visit her at http://ammandamccabe.tripod.com (http://ammandamccabe.tripod.com) and http://www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com (http://www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com).
Table of Contents
Cover (#u6c0b8802-2f46-5146-a0be-01e4a27b23be)
Title Page (#u6a909227-e650-57fd-922c-4464c3951c5c)
About the Author (#ua86dc07c-79c3-5f99-b837-afce6944a734)
To Catch a Rogue (#u8af08137-cf0d-5b79-abde-0c6689781b51)
Dedication (#u6e6a4df8-3179-5bd8-91a0-8ca359344515)
Prologue (#ulink_cf146135-39d0-502b-bd5a-5af08069ee1c)
Chapter One (#ulink_95c9e41e-8802-5730-a1d0-1dc8ff90bbee)
Chapter Two (#ulink_5ce0d981-7969-55d3-a741-70c12b44f2a4)
Chapter Three (#ulink_1420d403-49c2-5148-9d1b-b4c90424f198)
Chapter Four (#ulink_42ca9107-173f-50e8-8f88-3416763e0aed)
Chapter Five (#ulink_25cfba43-8033-5c9b-bb1f-ce5fcd0e1346)
Chapter Six (#ulink_2531b5f3-1509-5ff9-a6cf-36c5bf686526)
Chapter Seven (#ulink_912fd0a1-e259-59b6-878d-88ac3125357a)
Chapter Eight (#ulink_57448a1a-cca7-52d1-aba0-a1fed04d504b)
Chapter Nine (#ulink_c0e00d2e-2de0-58fa-ac55-aa9c6a5a18e6)
Chapter Ten (#ulink_cf4300da-7340-56a1-ae2e-51ec01c39a53)
Chapter Eleven (#ulink_bbd838df-9c44-5f39-abe6-b34b286cbe30)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
To Deceive a Duke (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
To Catch a Rogue
Amanda McCabe
To Laura Kay Gauldin,
who has been brave enough to be my friend since we were
teenagers! If not for the three Gauldin sisters there
never could have been three Chase sisters.
Prologue (#ulink_f10806cb-7e6f-5d42-b38a-987010e4622c)
“Where’er we tread ’tis haunted, holy ground;
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould
But one vast plain of wonder spreads around,
And all the Muses’ tales seem truly told
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon…
Lord Byron
Never had a night been as dark as this one.
The moon was a mere sliver high over the crooked rooftops of London, nearly obscured by scudding clouds. There were no stars at all, not even a tiny, bead-like sparkle, and an infamous London fog was creeping inward over the sluggish Thames. Heavy and greasy, a noxious grey-green, it would soon blanket the city, cutting off even the dull shimmer of that tiny moon.
But all the guests at the Marchioness of Tenbray’s ball—and that was nearly everyone in the ton who mattered at all—cared not a whit for the ominous night outside the brilliantly lit mansion. They were far too busy moving through the crush of the ballroom, laughing, dancing, trading the latest on dits behind silken fans, drinking champagne, stealing kisses under concealment of the terrace’s potted palms. All the world seemed compressed into this one marble-and-gilt room, a swirl of music and chatter and clinking crystal rising up and up with no care for the dark chill outside.
Not one of them—not even the marchioness herself, deeply preoccupied by a sudden shortage of lobster tarts—noticed a window in the library sliding silently open.
Someone else was taking full advantage of the darkness, and not for surreptitious caresses on the terrace. No, this person had something far more important, far more devious, in mind.
As the window swung all the way open, this person, tall and slim, muffled and masked all in black, climbed inside and hopped lightly to the Aubusson carpet laid over polished parquet. The figure made no sound, as soft as cat’s paws on the silken weave. It went automatically down into a low crouch, breath held as bright eyes, revealed through the slits of the satin mask, darted from left to right. The library, as expected, was deserted, lit by only one small Colza lamp on the polished desk. It cast a circle of golden glow, flickering, sweetly scented, and all the far corners were deep in gloom. Bookshelves rose to the ceiling, crowded with leather-bound volumes that looked scarcely touched, let alone read and loved.
Well, thought the intruder. Old Lady Tenbray is scarcely renowned for her brains, is she?
Yet the late Lord Tenbray had been renowned for his passion for Italian antiquities, and this was what drew the black-clad figure’s interest. Once assured of being alone, the intruder rose from that crouch and moved stealthily across the room. The shadows were no deterrent—the library’s layout had been carefully studied, every chair and table mapped. This person knew what they sought.
At the far end of the space, on either side of the carved fireplace, were glass-topped cases, each one filled to the brim with the marquess’s ill-gotten gains. In his youth, long ago, he had served as a diplomat to the kingdom of Naples. From there, he sent home crates full of statuary, jewellery, frescoes, vases. Only a small part of the collection resided in this library.
The very best part.
“Ah, yes,” the intruder whispered. “There you are.”
From a pocket tied around the waist came a thin piece of metal, which was carefully inserted into the case’s lock. One upward twist, and the mechanism popped free.
“Lax, lax,” the person murmured, lifting up the lid. Really, people who could not take care of their possessions did not deserve them.
The object of desire lay in the very centre of the display, an Etruscan diadem of gold hammered very thin and formed into the shape of delicate leaves and vines. Once, it had graced the head of a queen. Now it satisfied an old Englishwoman’s vanity.
But not for long.
The figure reached for it with black-gloved hands. Even in the shadows the diadem glowed like the Italian sky, so light and perfect. It seemed so fragile, yet had survived so much for these thousands of years.
“You will soon be safe,” came the reassuring whisper, as the diadem disappeared into the pocket.
As its glow vanished, there was a loud thump outside the library door. The figure’s masked head whipped around, eyes wide, heart pounding.
“No, Agnes, we shouldn’t!” a man groaned, his words slurred, overly loud in the quiet room.
“Oh, but we really must!” a woman answered. “We haven’t got very long. My husband will soon leave the card room and be looking for me.”
There was another thump, then a click of the door handle as someone, either Agnes or her drunken companion, groped for the entrance.
Time to be gone. One more object emerged from that pocket, a perfect white lily that was carefully placed in the diadem’s abandoned spot. Then the figure sprinted lightly across the floor, jumping up on to the window ledge. Just as the door flew open, the thief was gone, disappearing into the gloomy night.
The Lily Thief had struck again.
Chapter One (#ulink_b70080b2-5d86-54aa-b969-f3e308efba5c)
“I call this meeting of the Ladies Artistic Society to order,” announced Calliope Chase, sounding her gavel on the table in front of her. “Our secretary, Miss Clio Chase, will take the minutes.”
Slowly, all the teacups and plates of cakes were lowered to laps and tabletops, and the members of the Society turned their attention to their founder and president. Bright sunlight flowed from the tall windows of the drawing room of the Chases’ townhouse, warm and bright after the chilly misery of the night before, casting pastel spencers and muslin gowns in a brilliant light. Everything in the fashionably appointed room was just as expected—the ladies seated in pretty groupings of chairs and settees, china tea sets, silver services, hovering housemaids, the soft sound of Mozart from the pianoforte in the corner.
All expected and proper. Except for one thing. Behind Calliope, set high on its pedestal, was a marble statue of Apollo. An anatomically correct, completely naked statue of Apollo.
But then, what else could be looked for in a house belonging to the famous scholar of Greek history, Sir Walter Chase? A house where his nine daughters, named after the Greek Muses, resided and pursued their own, not always completely ladylike, interests.
Calliope, the eldest of the Chase Muses at age twenty-one, was also not all that was expected. She was quite attractive, taking after her late mother’s French family with her black hair and brown eyes, her flawless fair skin; and those good looks—with the Chase fortune—had attracted more than a few offers from very eligible partis. Yet she had turned them all down. “They just don’t care about history and antiquities,” she told her father, and he immediately agreed that those young men would never do for one of the Chase Muses.
She also cared little for fashion or for dancing or cards, preferring to spend her time in study, or in conversation about her studies with like-minded people.
That was why she founded the Ladies Artistic Society in the first place, so that she and her sisters could reach out to other females with more on their minds than hemlines and hats. “Surely there must be others like us here in London,” she told her sister Clio. “You know—ladies who wish they could take books with them to pass the dull hours at Almack’s.”
And so there were. Their membership now included two of their friends, along with the three eldest Chase daughters (the other six still being in the schoolroom, and therefore members-in-waiting). There was also a waiting list, though Calliope suspected that many of those just wanted a glimpse of Apollo. They met once a week during the Season to talk about history, literature, art, music. Often a guest lecturer, provided by the Muses’ father, would speak, or a painter would give a demonstration. Sometimes they would just discuss amongst themselves a book read or an opera seen, or Thalia, the third Chase sister and an ardent musician, would perform a scandalous, passionate Beethoven piece.
Not today, though. Today there was very serious business to discuss, and obviously everyone discerned that from the stiff set of Calliope’s shoulders in her white muslin day dress. A hush fell over the bright room, all clinkings and rustlings stilled. Even Thalia ceased playing the pianoforte, swivelling around to face her sister.
Calliope lifted up a copy of the Post, pointing at a black, shrieking headline: The Lily Thief Returns!
“It has been many weeks since this criminal struck,” Calliope said softly. Her voice was quiet, but she felt her cheeks burn with the force of her inner anger. Many weeks—and she had thought the Lily Thief gone, vanished like so many other ephemeral sensations in Society. A two-day scandal, and then something else, an elopement or divorce, or other such harmless trifle. “I suppose he realised that attention was drifting from his foul deeds.”
Her sister Clio glanced up from the minutes, her auburn brow arched above the gilt frames of her spectacles. Clio said nothing, though. Merely went back to her note-taking. It was Lady Emmeline Saunders who spoke. “Perhaps the Lily Thief has very good reasons for what he does.”
“Reasons such as profit and riches?” Thalia cried from her piano. Her golden curls, so shiny and pretty, trembled with indignation. Thalia might look like a china shepherdess, but she had the heart of a gladiator. And that accounted for the many scrapes she always found herself in. “I am sure he saw a pretty penny from the sale of Lord Egermont’s Euphronios krater and the Clives’ Bastet statue.”
“Antiquities have more than a monetary value, you know,” Clio said quietly. “Something their previous owners seemed to have lost sight of.”
“Of course they do,” Calliope said. “And that is what makes the exploits of this Lily Thief so heinous. Who knows where these objects have gone, or if they will ever be seen again? We will have no access to the lessons they could teach us. It is a terrible loss to scholarship.”
Clio bent her head back over her notes, murmuring low enough for only Calliope to hear, “As if there was much scholarship going on in Lady Tenbray’s library.”
“The Lily Thief does not just steal money or jewels, as a common burglar would. Objects that could easily be replaced,” Calliope said. “He steals history.”
The other Society members glanced at each other. Finally, Emmeline raised her hand again. “What must we do about this, Calliope? Perhaps engage a don from Cambridge to speak on cultural thefts?”
“Or tomb-raiding!” cried Miss Charlotte Price, the youngest and most excitable of the Society. She had an unfortunate predilection for reading horrid novels, but her father was a friend of Sir Walter Chase. He hoped the Society would help her expand her horizons. So far the hope was in vain, but one never knew. “I did read about a cursed tomb robber in The Baron’s Revenge—”
“Yes, indeed,” Calliope said, interrupting smoothly before Lotty could be carried off into a rambling synopsis. “But I have something rather more—personal in mind.”
“Personal?” the others chorused.
“Yes.” Calliope placed her palms flat on the table before her, leaning towards her audience. “We are going to catch the Lily Thief ourselves.”
A great sigh went up, floating to the plaster-ceiling medallion in a wave of exclamation.
“Oh, how very thrilling!” trilled Charlotte. “Just like The Curse of Lady Arabella—”
“We are to turn amateur sleuths?” Thalia said, clapping her hands. “What a marvellous idea!”
“Indeed,” agreed Emmeline. “Scholastic inquiry is all very well, but sometimes we need to move.”
Clio’s pen stilled, her brows drawn down in a puzzled vee. “How do you propose we go about this task, Calliope? If even the Bow Street Runners could not find the Lily Thief…”
Honestly, Calliope had not thought quite that far ahead. The idea of taking action themselves had only occurred to her at breakfast that morning, as she read the papers in mounting anger over the harmful exploits of that show-off Lily Thief. She had some vague notion that, as ladies of the ton, they could move about more freely and with far more stealth than those Runners. They could listen and observe with no one being the wiser, and perhaps catch the villain at a vulnerable moment.
For she was sure of one thing—the Lily Thief was a member of the ton. He had to be, to possess such knowledge of the houses and schedules of lords and ladies. But she was not entirely sure how to begin catching him in their net.
“I suggest,” she said slowly, “that we begin with last night’s theft of the Etruscan diadem. Was anyone at Lady Tenbray’s rout?” Calliope herself had not been, turning down the invitation to what was sure to be a dull crush to attend the theatre with her father. Macbeth, she had thought, was sure to be more exciting. If only she had known the Lily Thief was to strike again!
Clio and Thalia were of no help, having chosen to stay home with their studies. There must have been someone there whose observations she could trust!
Finally, Emmeline raised her hand again. “I was there, but I noticed nothing untoward, I fear.”
“No one behaving oddly at all?” Calliope asked hopefully.
“Just Freddie Mountbank,” Emmeline answered. “But then, what does one expect of him? I would have been suspicious if he behaved normally.”
The ladies all giggled. Poor Mr Mountbank—he was so earnest, so very much in love with Emmeline, yet he had the unfortunate tendency to lose his temper and blurt out curses when he was nervous in a lady’s presence (which was always). He had launched more than one dance set into disarray by knocking down all the participants. Unless Mr Mountbank was very clever indeed—and, judging by his parents, that was not likely—he was not the Lily Thief.
“Nothing else?” Calliope asked.
Emmeline shook her head regretfully. “I fear not. It was so very crowded. And my mother insisted I dance with Mr Mountbank, so I was rather distracted in dodging him.”
More giggles rippled around the room, and even Calliope had to laugh at the vision of her rather tall friend ducking behind curtains and potted palms to hide from her persistent suitor.
“I’m sorry,” Emmeline said. “If I had known…”
“Yes.” Calliope sighed. “If only we all knew.”
“What shall we do now?” asked Thalia, her tone suggesting that she would prefer to armour up like a Valkyrie and go marching out into Mayfair to destroy all villains in her path.
“I am not entirely sure,” Calliope admitted. “But I think I do have an idea where the Lily Thief will strike next.”
“Really?”
“Where?”
“Oh, do tell us!”
Calliope had not completely worked out all this in her mind. Yet sometimes, she thought, intuition was the best guide. “The Duke of Averton’s ball.”
“Oh!”
“Of course.”
“The Alabaster Goddess,” Thalia said. “Lud, but that is clever of you, Cal.”
“I’m surprised the Lily Thief hasn’t made a move towards it yet,” Emmeline said.
“He is obviously growing in audacity,” Calliope said, gesturing towards the newspaper. “To snatch the diadem in plain sight indicates confidence.”
The Alabaster Goddess was a rather small, perfectly preserved statue of Artemis with her bow, taken only a few years ago from a ruined Greek temple on the island of Delos and purchased by the Duke of Averton (or Duke of Avarice, as he was known in certain circles) for his famous collection. She was quite unblemished for being thousands of years old, and the duke loved to show her off, strangely enough, for he was a well-known recluse. The goddess had even sparked quite a fashion in society for “Artemis” hairstyles and “Artemis” sandals. The duke had made it known she would soon be moved to his heavily fortified castle in Yorkshire. But next week she could be seen at a grand masked ball the duke was hosting. His first ball in years.
The ball had a Grecian theme, of course.
Yes, Calliope thought, suddenly sure. The Lily Thief would strike there.
“We must all go to the ball, and there we will—”
“Oh!” Calliope’s instructions were cut off by a sudden cry from Lotty, who sat closest to the window. She pressed her nose to the glass, leaning forward precariously. “Oh, it is Lord Westwood! And your beau Mr Mountbank, Emmeline.”
Those words, of course—Lord Westwood—caused a great rush to the windows, silks and ribbons furiously a-rustle. More noses and fingers pressed to the glass, unheeding of smudges and dignity.
“Oh!” cried Thalia. “He is in his beautiful phaeton. I wish Father would buy one for me, I’m sure I would be a rare hand at the reins. But Westwood appears to be in some sort of altercation with Mr Mountbank. How fascinating.”
Oh, what a great surprise, Calliope thought sarcastically. Where Cameron de Vere, the Earl of Westwood went, “altercations” were sure to follow.
“Cal, Clio, come, you must see this. It’s too amusing,” Thalia said.
Clio left off her scratching of pens and joined the others, peering down as if observing some scientific demonstration.
Calliope did not want to go and gawk with her friends, as if they were all silly schoolgirls who had never before seen a man rather than the intelligent, rational women they were. She did not want to give Lord Westwood the satisfaction of yet more attention. Yet, somehow, she could not help herself. It was as if a thick cord suddenly tightened around her waist, pulling her inexorably towards the window. Towards him.
Calliope dropped the newspaper and strolled reluctantly towards the others, peering past Thalia’s shoulder to the scene below. It was indeed Lord Westwood, his bright yellow and gleaming black phaeton wedged into traffic, at a complete standstill. His matched bay horses snorted and pranced restlessly, as Mr Mountbank, in his own conveyance, blocked Westwood’s way, shouting and gesticulating, as he was wont to do. Mr Mountbank’s face was an alarming shade of purple above his overly starched cravat, yet Westwood looked on with an expression of amused boredom on his ridiculously gorgeous face, as if the quarrel had nothing at all to do with him, and he merely watched the action at Drury Lane.
“Really,” Calliope muttered. “Our street is hardly Gentleman Jackson’s saloon.”
“Oh!” Thalia exclaimed. “Do you really think they might come to blows? How terribly interesting.”
“How very handsome he is,” sighed Lotty. “Just like the comte in Mademoiselle Marguerites’s Fatal Secret.”
Handsome—well, yes. Even Calliope had to admit that, albeit grudgingly. Westwood was sometimes called “the Greek God” in more florid circles, and strictly from an aesthetic viewpoint it was all too true. He could have been their Ladies Society Apollo statue come to warm, vivid, breathing life, if he were to shed his buckskin breeches and exquisite bottle-green coat. He was hatless now, despite the sunny skies, his glossy, sable-dark curls tossed by the wind until they fell in artistic disarray over his brow. His skin was always a golden-bronze, his eyes dark and maddeningly unreadable.
No, Calliope thought as she watched him now, trying to reason with Mr Mountbank with a half-grin on his lips. He was not so much a god, as a young Greek fisherman, virile, earthbound, as secret as the deepest sea. Surely he got that sense of otherness from his mother. Like the Chases’ own mother, the late countess had hailed from more exotic climes. She came from where else but Athens, the daughter of a famous Greek scholar.
For an instant, it seemed as if Westwood would actually alight from his phaeton and face the apoplectic wrath of Mr Mountbank. The ladies at the window held their collective breath, but, alas, fisticuffs—and shirtsleeves—in Mayfair were not to be. Mountbank, faced with an opponent potentially closer than several feet away, backed off and hurried on his way, steering his carriage precariously around the corner.
The ladies, disappointed, also backed away, leaving the view to return to their seats. The drawing room was soon filled with the mingling of chatter, music, tea being poured into delicate cups. Calliope, though, could not yet leave with them. Could not break that cord. Something tightened, binding her there, staring down at Cameron de Vere.
He laughed aloud at Mountbank’s precipitous retreat, his head thrown back with the unbridled freedom of his humour. His hair fell away from his chiseled face, the sharp angles of his cheekbones and nose. He leaned back easily on the cushioned seat, free as a corsair at the helm of his ship. Passers-by paused to stare at him, as if drawn by the sheer life of him, yet he noticed not at all, so comfortable in his own skin, his own world.
Blast him, anyway, Calliope thought wryly. Blast for being—him. For being all she was not. For being so free. Not bound to family responsibilities.
Calliope leaned her forehead against the cool glass, watching as Lord Westwood’s laughter faded and he once again collected the loosened reins. Even his casual movements were filled with a smooth, unstudied grace.
She watched him, and remembered their first meeting, at the beginning of the Season. Was that only weeks ago? It felt a lifetime. Or mere moments. That night when…
No! No, that didn’t bear thinking of. Not now. She was in the middle of a Ladies Society meeting! Her friends were nearby. Thinking of Cameron de Vere, seeing him, fantasising about him as some Greek fisherman on a beach, would only discompose her. Her friends were sure to ask questions, and that would never do. She was always collected and calm. Always in control. She had to be, her family relied on her.
Why, then, did she tremble so much, just from watching him down on the street? It was ridiculous!
Calliope reached up for the fringed edge of the satin drape, clutching at it to draw it over the window. Before she could do so, concealing herself and all her unruly emotions, Lord Westwood glanced up and saw her there. Saw her staring at him.
For an instant, it was as if a cloud passed over the Grecian sun. He frowned, his velvety brown eyes narrowing. Then, as swiftly as it came, the cloud vanished. He smiled, a wide, white Corsair grin, and gave her a jaunty salute.
Calliope gasped involuntarily, and yanked the curtain closed. The rogue!
She spun away from the window, wrapping her cashmere shawl tighter around her shoulders—only to find Clio observing her closely.
Calliope adored her sister, the closest to her in age and in artistic inclination, but sometimes, just sometimes, she was a bit uneasy to be faced with those unerring, unwavering green eyes.
“You should stay out of the sun, Cal,” Clio said quietly. “It makes your cheeks so flushed.”
Calliope Chase.
Cameron frowned as she thrust the draperies shut, as if to block out a demon from her home. To bar all laughter from the premises. To bar him.
He shouldn’t care. He didn’t care. Calliope Chase was beautiful, it was true. Yet London was filled with lovely ladies, most of them far less prickly and mysterious than Miss Chase. Yet somehow, ever since their first meeting—or first clash, as he thought of it—he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Was he becoming like his rather bizarre cousin Gerald, who paid lightskirts hefty sums to whip his bare backside with a riding crop, pain and aggravation equalling pleasure?
Cam laughed aloud as he guided his horses back into the flow of traffic, picturing Calliope Chase wielding a leather whip with fire in her brown eyes. It was not an unlikely vision. She was named after the wrong mythological figure, surely. She was not a Muse, changeable and capricious and seductive. She was Athena, goddess of war, marching into battle to defend what she believed in, right or wrong.
An Athena with such an intriguing sadness behind her gaze.
Cam glanced over his shoulder before he turned the corner of the street, but the Chases’ house was closed up tight. There was no flash of shining raven curls, no glimpse of fair skin and sparkling eyes. Yet he knew she was in there. Could still see her in his mind.
As he headed off into the park, a shortcut to his own home, he let his horses have their head a bit. He saw Mountbank far ahead. Such a silly puppy, getting so upset because Cam had danced with Lady Emmeline Saunders! Anyone could see he was no rival for her affections. She was a pretty girl, and full of interesting conversation (unlike most of the society chits mothers were always pushing his way!). She had a quick humour, too, despite being bosom friends with Miss Chase. But there was something missing when he talked to Lady Emmeline, looked at her.
There was always something missing. Something so empty and hollow at the centre of his life, something that was not filled by all his pursuits—his clubs, his horses, women, even his studies. It was a cold and echoing spot, always with him. He only really forgot it, felt a new warmth spark on that ice, when he crossed swords with Calliope Chase.
Curious. Very curious indeed. And not something he cared to think about too deeply.
His horses were now a bit winded after their gallop through the park, so he eased them out of the gates towards home and their own mews. But they were blocked by an unexpected traffic obstruction, a tangled knot of vehicles and horses and pedestrians that brought all movement to a temporary standstill.
“Blast!” Cam muttered, craning his neck to try to peer past a lumbering barouche. He was meant to attend a musical evening later, one he was rather looking forward to as it featured a speculative reconstruction of ancient Greek theatrical music. “What is it now?”
Then the barouche lurched to one side, and he understood. A great crowd had gathered in front of the Marchioness of Tenbray’s home, gawking up at the window where the infamous Lily Thief had climbed in to snatch away her ladyship’s Etruscan diadem. The thief had been gone from society for a while; his reappearance was the latest sensation.
Cam chuckled, and sat back on the seat to wait for the crowd to clear enough for him to pass. The Lily Thief—how dramatic the moniker was! And how amusing his exploits were, tweaking the noses of some of the ton’s most misguided collectors. If only…
If only it was not so dangerous, and destructive. Cam was usually the first to applaud daring, to laud independence, even eccentricity. Look at his own family! Eccentrics one and all. But some things were simply too important to trifle with, including objects of immense cultural heritage. Like that diadem, or the other antiquities that fell into the Lily Thief’s hands. Who knew where those precious pieces had gone? What would become of them?
And then there were objects that had not yet fallen to the Lily Thief. Objects whose fate was even more vile. Averton’s Artemis, for instance.
Cam’s gloved hands fisted on the reins, causing the horses to toss their heads restlessly. He forced himself to relax, murmuring to them soothingly, but by damn, there was nothing that made him more furious than the Duke of “Avarice”!
That Artemis was snatched from her home on Delos, the place where she had belonged for thousands of years. She was Greek, and now she was merely an object of greed for an English lord. A vile man who had no care for her true worth.
“You know of Artemis?” Cam could almost hear his mother whisper so long ago, her accent as warm and musical as her Athenian home. “Zeus’ favourite child, the goddess of the moon and the hunt, the Maiden of the Silver Bow. She races through the forest in her silver chariot, always free, never the possession of any man. Once she shot an arrow into a vast city of unjust men, and the arrow pierced all of them, never ceasing in its flight until justice was served…”
And now she was a prisoner, locked away from the Greek moonlight for ever.
What would the learned Miss Chase say about that? For Cameron was certain she had an opinion about the Duke of “Avarice” and his newest prize, his famed Alabaster Goddess. But would she tell that opinion to him?
The traffic snarl finally eased a bit, letting him guide the horses through on their way home. Yes, indeed. Calliope Chase was sure to have something to say about it all. And he very much looked forward to hearing it.
Chapter Two (#ulink_fbb2aee3-6480-5016-9368-7f117534a36b)
Calliope watched in her dressing table mirror, distracted, as her maid brushed out her hair in preparation for the evening ahead. A musicale, featuring not the usual young and untalented misses with their harps and pianofortes, but a recreation of music that might have been performed at plays by Aeschylus and Euripides at the great festivals of ancient times. She had been very much looking forward to it, it was just the sort of thing that most fascinated her. But now her thoughts were scattered and hazy, scudding here and there like springtime clouds.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Lord Westwood. He just kept popping into her mind, the vision of him outside her window, laughing and windblown and carefree.
“Pfft,” she sighed impatiently, reaching for one of the small white roses on the table and tearing at the soft petals. It was ever thus when she saw Cameron de Vere. He unsettled her, made her feel so ridiculously flustered and foolish. His smiles, so mocking, made her angry and impatient. So disordered.
He was an impossible man, with such incorrect ideas. But why didn’t he like her?
“Miss Chase!” her maid protested. “There will be no flowers left for your hair.”
Calliope glanced down, startled to see that she had destroyed two roses. “Sorry, Mary,” she muttered, dropping the denuded stem.
“Shall I try that new Artemis style, miss? It’s ever so popular!”
“No, thank you,” Calliope said, shuddering at the thought of appearing at the party with the same coiffure as everyone else. “Just my usual.”
Mary pouted a bit. She had surely long thought her talents were wasted on Calliope and her conservative tastes! But Calliope could not help it. She knew what suited her, what she liked.
And she had even dared fantasise once that Cameron de Vere would “suit her”. When he first arrived back in London, after a very long voyage to Italy and Greece, rumours raced through the drawing rooms of how handsome he was, how dashing, how scandalous. But that was not what fascinated her. She was interested in the fact that he was a student of art and history, as she was. She longed to hear tales of his travels, to see the beautiful antiquities he had surely brought back with him for study and preservation.
It seemed they were destined to be friends, as their fathers had once been many years ago. Sir Walter Chase and the late Earl of Westwood were both scholars and collectors, great rivals as well as friends. The earl finally pulled the trump card in their collecting race, a bride who was actually Greek, not just French as Lady Chase was. Calliope and Cameron both grew up surrounded by the glories of the ancient world, though they never met after the de Veres departed for their incessant travels when their son was small.
When he came back to London, a grown man, the earl in his own right now, Calliope listened to the whispers about him and dared to let a tiny hope grow in her heart. Could this, then, finally be a man who could understand her? Share her passions, as none of her suitors could?
Those hopes were blighted when they at last met in person, at a reception he gave at his parents’ townhouse, his house now.
From her earliest childhood, Calliope remembered an antiquity she had adored, a bust of Hermes that once graced the foyer of that house. Her father had tried to buy it, but the old earl refused all offers, much to Calliope’s sadness. She loved Hermes’ mischievous smile, carved to be almost lifelike in the cold marble, loved his winged helmet and the swirls of his curling hair. She was so very excited the night of that reception, so looking forward to seeing Hermes again.
But he was not there! His niche was empty, as were all the others that had once held exquisite vases and goblets. Stunned, Calliope stayed there in the foyer as her father and sisters joined the gathering in the drawing room. She stood below that empty niche, staring up as if she could make her Hermes appear. Her plans for this reception—seeing all the lovely antiquities, meeting the new earl, talking with him about those cherished objects and perhaps forming a bond—were completely thrown awry.
Calliope did not much like having her plans upset.
“Well,” she heard a voice say, deep and velvety, faintly amused “you must be the missing Miss Chase.”
Calliope glanced over her shoulder to find a man standing a few feet away, a faint half-smile on his lips, as sensual as that of her lost Hermes. He was dressed most properly, in buff breeches, a dark blue coat, and a pale grey brocade waistcoat, his cravat simply tied and skewered with a cameo pin. Yet he seemed an alien creature dropped into the sumptuous foyer, a man of bronzed skin and too-long, glossy dark curls. Of flashing, familiar brown eyes.
“The Greek god,” she remembered Lotty sighing. “Oh, Calliope, he is a veritable Greek god!”
“And you must be Lord Westwood,” she answered coolly, disconcerted by her reaction to him, to that smile of his. This was not how she pictured their meeting!
“I am indeed,” he said, moving closer, graceful as a cat. He stopped close to her side, so close she could smell the faint lemony scent of his cologne, feel the heat of his skin, reaching towards her enticingly. She stepped away, closer to the reassuring chill of the marble wall.
“There used to be a bust of Hermes here,” she said, swallowing hard to still the sudden tremor of her voice. “A most beautiful piece.”
“Most beautiful,” he answered, gazing not at the niche, but at her. Steadily. “I returned it to Greece. Where it belongs.”
And that was when she knew they could never be friends…
“Miss Chase? What do you think?”
Calliope jumped a bit in her seat, startled out of her memories by the sudden sound of Mary’s voice. She glanced into the mirror, only to find that her cheeks were flushed, her eyes too bright. As if that scene in the de Vere foyer, weeks in the past now, had only just happened.
But her hair was tidy, swept back in her usual braided knot and decorated with the remaining white roses, her curls perfectly smooth.
“It’s lovely, Mary. As usual,” Calliope said breathlessly.
Mary nodded, satisfied, and went about finding Calliope’s shawl and slippers. Calliope reached for her pearl drop earrings, trying to forget that past evening, to focus on the soirée ahead. Cameron de Vere did not matter in the least! He was merely a misguided individual. Albeit a handsome one.
As she clasped on the earrings, there was a knock at her chamber door. “The carriage is waiting, Miss Chase,” the butler announced.
“Thank you,” Calliope answered. She took a deep breath, and rose slowly from her seat. It was time for the show to begin.
“If Lady Russell’s plumes were any higher, I fear she would launch up into the sky like some demented parrot and leave us quite without a hostess,” Clio whispered, leaning close to Calliope’s ear.
Calliope pressed her gloved fingertips to her lips, trying not to laugh aloud. The hostess of the musicale did indeed look a bit like a bizarre parrot, with towering, multi-coloured feathers spraying forth from a purple-and-green satin turban. Clio always did this; she was so very quiet that everyone believed she had nothing to add to any conversation and thus ignored her. This was a great mistake, for her sharp green eyes observed everything, and she sometimes broke forth with startling—and acerbic—insights. Comparisons to jungle parrots were quite mild for her.
“But what of Miss Pratt-Beckworth?” Calliope whispered back. “I’m afraid someone told the poor girl that orange stripes were all the rage this season and she believed them.”
“Indeed. It is better than that chartreuse creation she wore to the opera last week. Perhaps the Ladies Society needs to take her under its wing?” Clio shook her head sadly.
Calliope joined her in perusing the room, turning away from the mediocre painting of a stormy sea she and Clio had been pretending to admire. An evening of ancient Greek music would surely not sound too jolly to most of the ton, but Lady Russell was popular, turban or no, and tended to attract around her those of a more philosophical bent. So the room was quickly filling up, people milling about between the rows of gilt chairs, chatting and sipping lemonade—and stronger beverages—before the music began. It was not a “dreadful crush” by any means. There was no danger of overheating, or fainting, or having one’s train trodden on. But the colours were vivid against Lady Russell’s collection of bad paintings and very good antique statuary, a swirl of pastels, blues, greens, reds—and one orange—mingling with the hum of conversation. Talk of music and history were de rigeur tonight, exactly what Calliope usually loved.
But she could not entirely concentrate on the classical world. She still felt so restless. Unfocused.
Next to Calliope, Clio removed her spectacles, squinting out at the crowd as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. Unlike Calliope, who usually wore Grecian white muslin because it was the simplest choice, Clio was clad in emerald-green silk embroidered with a gold-key pattern, her auburn hair bound back by a gilded bandeau. A parrot of a far more subtle sort.
“What do you think, Cal?” she asked quietly. “Is the Lily Thief among us tonight?”
Calliope stiffened. The Lily Thief—how could she forget? Her gaze quickly scanned the gathering, jumping lightly from one young man to the next. There were so many there, tall, short, plain, handsome. Yet not the one she sought.
Could that possibly be the cause of her strange restlessness?
Certainly not! Calliope shrugged that away. The doings of Cameron de Vere were none of her concern. Just because she had been certain a Greek evening would appeal to him…
“I don’t believe so,” she said.
“Then you do suspect his identity?” Clio asked. “You know?”
“I don’t know,” Calliope answered impatiently. “How could I? I simply have an idea.”
“Yet he is not here, your suspect?”
Calliope shook her head.
“But then how…?” Clio could not say more, though. Thalia called to her from across the room, where she was closely examining the musicians’ instruments—much to their chagrin. Clio wandered away, leaving Calliope alone.
There were several friends she could join—indeed, a few people she really ought to speak to. She feared she would not be good company at the moment, not with such wild thoughts of de Vere and the Lily Thief whirling through her mind. She placed her half-empty glass on the nearest table and drifted away from the crowd towards the doors of Lady Russell’s conservatory.
The glassed-in space was invitingly warm, scented with the rich, green fragrance of geraniums, lavender, mint, the earthiness of the damp soil. The room was empty now, though softly lit and furnished with scattered wrought-iron settees for visitors. Calliope welcomed the silence, the moment to collect her thoughts and become her usual calm self again.
At the far end of the conservatory was a cluster of antique statues, a stone Aphrodite and her scantily clad acolytes. They watched all the horticulture with expressions of impassive, scornful beauty. They were quite stunning, and their cold perfection drew Calliope closer.
“If only I could be like you,” she whispered to the disdainful Aphrodite. “So very—certain. So unchanging. No doubts or fears.”
“How very dull that would be,” Westwood said.
“Did you follow me in here?’ she asked, not surprised, glancing over at him.
“On the contrary, Miss Chase,” he said, giving her one of his too-charming smiles. “I was in here enjoying a quiet moment to finish my wine…” He displayed a half-empty glass. “And here you came, talking to yourself. One couldn’t help but overhear.”
Calliope reached behind her to plant her palms on the cold stone base, trying to hold herself upright, to maintain some dignity. His cognac-coloured eyes, so deep and opaque, seemed to see far too much. She didn’t know where to look, where to turn.
“I, too, was looking for a quiet moment,” she said finally. “Before the music begins.”
He nodded understandingly. “Sometimes people ask for too much. The only recourse is solitude.” He took a step closer, then another. Calliope shivered in her thin gown, yet he no longer watched her. He gazed up at the statue.
“You chose a fine confidante,” he said. “She looks so very—knowing. As if she has seen everything in the long years of her life.”
Calliope, too, glanced up at Aphrodite, her pointed, cracked white chin, the clusters of her rippling hair. She did seem knowing, mocking even. Just as Westwood himself was. “I wonder what she makes of Lady Russell’s routs? How they compare to the revels of Greece.”
He laughed, that rich, rough sound that touched her to her very core. “I am sure she thinks them very tame affairs indeed! For did she not come from the inner sanctum of a temple to Aphrodite, where there were, er…”
“Orgies?”
He glanced towards her, his brow arched in sudden amusement. “Miss Chase. How very shocking.”
Calliope could feel her cheeks heat under his regard, but she forced the horrid blush away. A scholar did not always have time for niceties. “My father possesses an extensive library on the ancient world. I have read much of it, including John Galt’s Letters from the Levant. And Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s narratives of her travels.”
“Of course. Well, after the orgies, she must find musical evenings a bit tedious. I’m sure she was most happy you chose to converse with her.”
Calliope reached out to touch Aphrodite’s sandaled foot, the stone cold through the thin kid of her glove. This was the best sort of confidante—the mute sort. “If it was up to you, she would surely be sent back to moulder in the ruins of her erstwhile temple, with no one to talk to at all.”
“Ah, Miss Chase.” He leaned even closer to murmur in her ear, his warm breath lightly stirring the curls at her temple. “Who says all the orgies have ended?”
Calliope stared up at him, captured by his voice, his breath, his gaze—everything. It was as if she was suddenly paralysed and could not move, could not turn away. All time was suspended, and there was only him.
He, too, seemed startled by whatever this moment was. He watched her, his lips parted, the glass in his hand perfectly still.
“Miss Chase,” he murmured. “I…”
Outside their green sanctuary, the sound of music tuning up began, and it was as if the prosaic noise burst some enchantment, some spell. He shifted back, and she turned her head away, sucking in a deep breath. She felt as though she had just run a long distance, all achy and airless.
“Shall we go in?” he said, his voice taut, even deeper.
“Of course,” Calliope whispered. She spun around and marched back along the flagstone walkway, smoothing her palms over her warm cheeks. He was behind her. She could hear his steps, the soft rustle of his superfine coat, but mercifully he did not offer his arm or touch her.
She wasn’t sure what she would do if he did.
Chapter Three (#ulink_a19376c4-a5f3-52e5-92d5-2475f30e5d4c)
Calliope slipped into the empty chair next to Clio just as the musicians finished tuning their instruments. Her throat ached as she tried to draw in a calm, normal breath, tried to still the clamorous beating of her heart.
Clio gave her a sidelong glance as she slid a handwritten programme into Calliope’s hand. “Where were you, Cal?” she whispered.
“Just in the conservatory,” Calliope whispered back, resisting the urge to fan herself with the thin parchment. Why did Lady Russell insist on keeping her room so warm? “Looking at the Aphrodite statue.”
Clio’s expression was unreadable as she glanced at her own programme, her lips pursed. “Oh? Did you suspect she would be the next victim of the dreaded Lily Thief? Spirited away into the night for nefarious purposes?”
Calliope bit her tongue to keep from laughing aloud. “Certainly not. Aphrodite is solid marble and at least six feet tall. Unless the Lily Thief is the reincarnation of Hercules.”
“One never knows. He could then lift the statue up through the skylights and…” Her words trailed away as Lord Westwood appeared in the room, leaning carelessly against a pillar at the very periphery of the audience. His gaze met Calliope’s as she watched him warily, and then, slowly, audaciously, he winked at her.
Blast him! Calliope’s stare shot back to the front of the room, her face burning. Where was the cold marble of Aphrodite when it was truly needed?
“Were you quite alone in the conservatory, Cal?” Clio murmured.
“Lord Westwood might have wandered in just as I was leaving,” Calliope answered reluctantly.
“And did you two quarrel again?”
“I never quarrel with people!”
“Never? With anyone?”
“You and Thalia are different. You are my sisters; I’m allowed to quarrel with you in the privacy of our home. But not with people at parties. Lord Westwood and I merely discuss our artistic differences.”
“Hmm,” Clio said, very non-committally. “I do believe our hostess is about to say a few words.”
Calliope had seldom been more grateful to anyone than she was to Lady Russell for her timely interruption. Usually she felt she could tell Clio anything, and her sister’s quiet understanding could soothe any hurt or trouble. There was no use in trying to articulate what a meeting with Cameron de Vere made her feel, though. It was a tangle of temper that could never be unwound.
Calliope hated—hated—to be so discomposed! The solution would be never to see him again. Yet he always popped up wherever she was! If only he would go back to Greece, and carry on with his misguided, dangerous work far away from her…
Calliope folded her gloved hands tightly in her lap to still their trembling, staring straight ahead at Lady Russell’s multi-coloured plumes, now even more lopsided than before.
“Good evening, my dear friends,” Lady Russell said, holding up her hands so she did indeed seem to be a parrot about to be borne aloft. “I am so glad you could join me on this very special occasion. We will hear for the first time in centuries the strains of music last heard in ancient Greece. Using a fragment of measures copied from a work by Terence, fortunately preserved during the Renaissance and hidden away in an Italian monastery, we have reproduced a ‘Delphic Hymn to Apollo’. The instruments used tonight greatly resemble the lyres, aulos and citharas seen here.”
She waved her hands, and two servants appeared carrying a large blackwork krater. A gasp rose in the room. This was one of Lady Russell’s greatest treasures, borne out of Greece decades ago by her grandfather. She seldom displayed the vase; it was rumoured she kept it locked up in her own bedchamber where only she could view it. It was exquisitely lovely, completely intact except for some thin cracks and a missing handle. The decoration was a party scene, graceful dancers, musicians, reclining drinkers. The ancient instruments they held did indeed resemble the gleaming new ones held by the musicians seated now in Lady Russell’s drawing room.
That vase would make a prime target for the Lily Thief, Calliope thought, examining its gleaming elegance.
“Now, my dear guests,” Lady Russell said. “Close your eyes and imagine you are sitting in a Grecian amphitheatre thousands of years ago…”
“I’m surprised she didn’t make us all wear chitons and sandals tonight,” Clio muttered. “What a sight we’d make then. Especially old Lord Erring. The poor man must weigh three hundred pounds. I doubt there would be enough white muslin in London.”
Calliope laughed behind her programme. She could think of one man who could do a short chiton justice, and it wasn’t poor old Lord Erring. She peeked at Lord Westwood over the gilded edge of the parchment. He was also watching the krater, a small frown etched across his brow. An unhappy Apollo.
What could he be thinking of?
Cameron’s gaze followed the krater as it was carried from the room. How lovely it was, and how tragic it was so seldom seen. Seldom loved. Like Lady Tenbray’s Etruscan diadem, it had been snatched from its home and locked away for the selfish delectation of a tiny group, its true purpose long forgotten. Lost in time. That krater was made for parties and merriment.
Yet at this moment it was not the vase’s sad fate that preoccupied him. It was the carefully etched figure of a woman along one polished curve of the krater. Her slender body, draped in the fluid, graceful folds of her robe, was bent over her lyre. Dark curls, bound by a bandeau across her forehead, sprang free around her oval face. Her expression was serious, pensive, in contrast to the merrymaking dancers gambolling around her. She seemed to hear only her own music, lost in her own thoughts and feelings.
The image was ancient, and yet the artist’s model could have been Calliope Chase. The slim, dark beauty, the seriousness, the single-minded purpose—it was all Calliope.
As the music, a strange, discordant, haunting tune, filled the room, he glanced from the disappearing krater to its living embodiment. Calliope had been giggling with her sister, but now she stared raptly at the musicians, her pink lips parted and dark eyes shining as if she, too, could see things that were long dead living again, bright and vibrant. When Cameron saw ancient temples and theatres on his journeys, he saw not just the broken, silent ruins they were now, but the centres of life they once were. Places where people gathered, where they talked and laughed and loved, where they created art and beauty that were the greatest heritage of flawed mortals.
Calliope Chase shared this ability to see the vibrancy of the past, the living arc of history. He could see that in her eyes as she gazed at a sculpture or vase—as she listened to lost music roused to life again. But he could never understand her despite what they shared. If she could sense what he did, sense the true value of the heritage left to them by their ancestors, how could she advocate that these objects be locked away, unseen, far from their homes?
She was beautiful, just like that ancient woman with her lyre. Beautiful and intelligent and spirited. But as stubborn as a wild horse in the valleys of Greece.
Seeming to sense his regard, she glanced towards him. For a fleeting moment, she lacked the protective veil she usually drew around herself. Her gaze was open, vulnerable, gleaming with unshed tears. The eerie beauty of the music had moved her, as it did him, and for an instant they were bound together by the enchantment of the past.
Then the veil fell again, and she turned away so that he saw only her black curls, the pale curve of her neck and bare shoulder. But the magic was still there, a shimmering web of connection that urged him to press his lips to that white hollow at the nape of her neck, to trail kisses along her spine, breathing in the warm scent of her. Feeling her tremble under his touch until she cried out and that maddening veil vanished for ever, and he could see her true self.
Yet what would that true self be? A beautiful muse in truth—or a gorgon of destruction? Only a madman would take on one of the Chase Muses, and Cameron wanted to hold on to his tenuous sanity for as long as he could.
Suddenly, the music, the overheated room, the strange allure of Calliope Chase were too much for that thread of sanity. The old wildness was rising up in him like a fever. He spun around and left the room, the strains of music trailing behind him. In the foyer, the servants were placing the krater on a high pedestal where it could be viewed in distant safety after the performance.
It was too high to be touched without the stepstool the servants took when they left, yet from his vantage point Cam could clearly see the lyre player. The jewels in her headband, the delicate sandal peeking from the hem of her robe. From here she was even more like Calliope Chase. Beautiful and untouchable.
“Are you trying to decide how to steal it?” Calliope asked.
Cameron glanced back to find her standing in the drawing-room doorway, watching him with those steady brown eyes. Her face was a smooth and unreadable piece of marble, yet he could feel her tense wariness.
He should not be surprised at her suspicion. They had been at odds ever since that reception at his house, when she found Hermes missing from his niche. Their arguments only grew with every meeting after that. Yet still it hurt, like the sharp pinpricks of a tiny but fatal poisoned arrow. As he listened to the ancient music, as those strange, intimate thoughts of her neck and skin bombarded his mind, he felt so bound to her. So close to discovering the mystery of her.
But she seemed to think him a thief. The connection was not there for her. Not a muse then, or a gorgon either. Just a cold judge. The cool Athena he had once thought her.
He buried that hurt, shoving it down deep and piling other emotions on top of it—carelessness, insouciance. A chill to match her own.
“Perhaps you would care to come closer, Miss Chase, and ascertain for yourself if I carry a fresh lily in my pocket,” he said lightly, as if he did not care one whit for her suspicions. He stepped forward, holding out the edges of his coat so she saw the smoothness of the silk lining.
She did not move away, but her shoulders stiffened. “I am not a fool, Lord Westwood.”
“Indeed not, Miss Chase. ‘Foolish’ is the last word anyone could use to describe you. ‘Misguided’, perhaps.”
Something flared deep in those unreadable eyes, a flash of some black fire. But still she did not rise to his bait. She seldom did. “I am not the one so misguided as to turn to crime in order to prove a point! I am not the one who holds the honour of my family or the claims of scholarship so cheap. Those of us with the advantages of education and travel have a duty—”
“And who are you, Calliope Chase, to lecture me on duty? Or honour?” His temper, tamped down so carefully for so long, burst out in a veritable Catherine wheel of sparks. His desire for her, her beauty and stubbornness, his frustration—it would all drive him mad, in truth!
He stalked closer to her, so close he could smell the summer scent of the roses in her hair, see the delicate blue tracery of veins under her ivory skin, the throb of her life pulse at the base of her throat. That wild urge to grab her and kiss her until her chilly frostiness thawed and flowed away, leaving only her, them, was nigh undeniable.
She did not turn away, just stared up at him, still and wide-eyed, that pulse beating until he swore he could hear it. Hear her heartbeat. He even reached for her, his fingers aching to clasp the smooth, bare inch of skin above her kid gloves, but some last flicker of sanity made him drop his hands, back away from her.
“How can you know me so little, Miss Chase?” he said hoarsely.
Her lips parted, yet she said nothing. For a second, a whisper of doubt floated across her face. A hint of puzzlement. Then it was gone, hidden again.
“What else am I to think?” she said. “How can I know you at all?”
Cameron could bear it no longer. He spun away from her and left the house, storming past the startled footman who appeared at the front door. The night air was chilly and clammy as he strode along the quiet street, leaving the lights and music of Lady Russell’s house behind him. He could not quite leave Calliope Chase behind, though. Her quiet, accusing ghost seemed to follow him as he turned the corner.
“Infernal woman,” he muttered. There was only one place he could exorcise her—the most raucous, most disreputable gaming hell he knew, far from these genteel squares and solemn prosperity. The Devil’s Dice. There not even Calliope Chase’s ghost could survive.
As Lady Russell’s front door slammed behind Lord Westwood, Calliope sagged against the base of the krater’s pillar. Every ounce of willpower that held her upright, that kept her from fleeing, flooded away in a cold rush, leaving her weak and trembling. Why did she feel this way every time she saw him? Why did they always quarrel so?
Behind her, she heard the click of the drawing room door opening and closing, the rise and fall of music, the patter of slippers against the parquet floor.
“Cal?” Clio whispered. Her steady arm went around Calliope’s waist, and Calliope turned into her gratefully. “What is wrong? Are you ill?”
“No, no. I just—needed some air,” Calliope answered.
“So you came out here alone?”
“I was not quite alone. But then I said something wrong, as I always do with him, and he left. Just ran out the front door into the street rather than be here with me!” Calliope realised she was not making any sense. She hardly understood herself! Why did she care at all if Cameron de Vere, a reckless probable-thief, ran away from her? She didn’t want to be with him, either.
Did she?
Clio glanced towards the door, frowning. “Who ran out into the street?”
“Lord Westwood, of course.”
“You mean you were speaking with Lord Westwood out here, and he became so angry he just ran off…” Clio’s stare shifted to the krater above their heads, and her green eyes hardened, turning oddly intent. “Oh, no, Cal. You surely did not accuse Lord Westwood of being the Lily Thief!”
Calliope covered her hot cheeks with her gloved hands, trying to blot out the memory of his anger. Of her own impulsive ridiculousness. “I—may have.”
“Cal…” Clio groaned “…whatever has come over you? I could see Thalia doing such a thing. She would challenge the devil himself to a duel! Not you. Are you ill? Do you have a fever?”
“I wish I did, then I would have some excuse.”
Clio shook her head. “Poor Cal. I am sure he will not speak of it to anyone, since his father and ours were such friends.”
“No, he won’t speak of it. Except maybe to the governors of Bedlam.”
Clio laughed. “There, you see! You made a joke. All is not lost. Perhaps next time you see him you can say you were simply overcome by the power of the music.”
“Or drunk on the wine,” Calliope muttered. She smoothed her hair and shook out her skirts, feeling herself slowly coming back to her usual calm presence. “I wish we never had to see him again at all.”
“That’s not likely, is it? Our world is so very small.” Clio looked again to the krater. “But tell me, Cal, what made you suspect Lord Westwood of being the Lily Thief?”
Calliope shrugged. “It seems the sort of hot-headed thing he would do, does it not? He sent his own antiquities back to Greece; perhaps he thinks others should do the same, willy-nilly. I don’t know. It was just a—a feeling.”
“Now I know you have a fever! Calliope Chase, going by a mere feeling? Never.”
Calliope laughed. “Tease all you like, Clio. I know that I usually have to carefully study a thing before I make my point…”
“Study it to death,” Clio muttered.
Calliope ignored her. “I like to be certain of things. But don’t the exploits of the Lily Thief just seem like something he would do? A person must be clever to get in and out of such fine houses undetected. They must be knowledgeable about art and antiquities, for only the finest and most historically important pieces are taken. They have to be sure of their cause, as Lord Westwood is. And they must be very misguided. As Lord Westwood also is.”
“Why, Cal,” Clio said softly. “It sounds as if you admire the Lily Thief.”
Calliope considered this. Admire the Lily Thief? The most dangerous of criminals, for he stole not only objects but history itself? Absurd! “I admire his taste, perhaps, but certainly not his goals. I abhor the disappearance of such treasures. You know that.”
Clio nodded. “I do know how passionate you are in your own cause, sister. But pray do not let it overcome you again when it comes to Lord Westwood! We have no proof he is the thief.”
“No proof yet.” Behind the closed drawing room door, the strains of music faded, replaced by the ring of applause. “It seems the concert is ending. Shall we fetch Thalia and go home? It grows late.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_6b1ca7d6-e74d-5e30-80b2-874442bd0292)
“Good morning, Miss Calliope!” Mary sang as she drew back the bedchamber curtains, letting the greyish-yellow light of late morning flood across the room.
Calliope squeezed her eyes tighter shut, resisting the urge to draw the bedclothes over her head. How could it be time to wake up? She had only just fallen asleep. The long hours of the night she had spent tossing and turning, going over and over her hasty words to Lord Westwood. The anger she saw in his eyes.
Clio was surely right. She was fevered. It was the only explanation for showing her hand so early. She would never catch him now.
She needed to regroup. Strategise. It would surely all come back together at the Duke of Averton’s Artemis ball. The Ladies Society would see to that.
“Did you enjoy the musicale last night, Miss Calliope?” Mary asked, arranging a tray of chocolate and buttered rolls on the bedside table.
“Yes, thank you, Mary,” Calliope answered. She propped the pillows up against the carved headboard, pushing herself upright to face the day. No one ever won a battle lolling around! “Tell me, are my sisters up yet?”
“Miss Thalia has already departed for her music lesson,” Mary said, rifling through the wardrobe. “And Miss Clio is at breakfast with your father and Miss Terpsichore. She left you a note on the tray.”
As Mary organised the day’s attire, Calliope munched on a roll and reached for Clio’s message.
Cal, it read in Clio’s bold, slashing hand. I think we need an outing to clear our heads. Shall we take Cory to see the Elgin Marbles? She loves them so much, and we can talk there without Father overhearing.
Calliope sighed. Perhaps Father would not overhear them at the British Museum, but the rest of London would. Still, Clio was right. They needed to clear their heads after last night, and where better than among the glorious beauties of the Parthenon sculptures? Terpsichore—Cory—was a delightful girl, just turned thirteen now and wanting so much to be a young lady, and she deserved a treat after being separated from their younger sisters, who stayed in the country with their various nurses and governesses.
And surely they wouldn’t run into Lord Westwood there. The man probably didn’t rise until two at the earliest, and the Elgin Marbles must represent all he abhorred: treasures taken from Greece and displayed for Londoners.
“Mary, I shall need a walking dress and warm pelisse,” she said, swallowing the last of her chocolate. “And my lap desk. I need to send notes to the Ladies Society.”
They had battle plans to draw up.
The Chases’ de facto second home when in town was always the British Museum. They had been brought there since earliest childhood, escorted from artefact to artefact by their parents, instilled with a love for the past by the beauty of the pieces and by their father’s vivid tales. Many of their favourites—Greek vases, Egyptian sculptures, Viking helmets—were immortalised for them in their mother’s sketchbooks, kept by Clio since Lady Chase’s death in birthing the youngest Muse, Polyhymnia, three years ago.
But their mother had never seen the sisters’ favourite room of all, the Temporary Elgin Room—which was showing signs of becoming rather more permanent. This was where they went now, after climbing up the wide stone steps and passing through the massive pillars into the sacred hush of the museum.
“May we visit the mummies after we see the Marbles?” Cory asked eagerly.
Clio laughed. “Morbid child! You only want to scare your little sisters with gruesome tales of them in your next letter. But we can visit them, if there is time.”
Cory wrinkled her nose. “There won’t be. You two always spend hours with the Marbles.”
“You enjoy them, too, silly monkey, and you know it,” Calliope said. “Perhaps after the Marbles and the mummies we can have an ice at the shop across the way.”
Smiling happily with the promise of dead Egyptians and a sweet, Cory went off to sketch her favourite sculpture yet again, the head of a horse from the chariot of the Moon, his mane and jaw drooping after an exhausting journey across the heavens. Calliope and Clio strolled over to the back wall, where the frieze depicting the procession of a Panathenaic festival was mounted. It was quiet there for the moment, despite the milling crowds, tucked behind the massive carved figures of Theseus and a draped, headless goddess.
Calliope stared up at the line of young women, all of them gracefully poised and beautifully dressed in chitons and cloaks, bearing vessels and libation bowls as offerings to the gods. They were not as well displayed as they deserved; the room was cramped and ill lit, the walls dark. But Calliope always loved to see them, to revel in their classical beauty, in the procession that never ended. And today she was glad of the dim light, for it hid the purplish circles of her sleepless night.
“I have called for a meeting of the Ladies Society tomorrow afternoon,” she told Clio.
Clio’s gaze did not turn from the figure of the head girl in the procession, the one that held aloft an incense stand, but her lips curved down. “So soon? We usually only convene once a week.”
“This is an emergency. The Duke of Averton’s ball is coming up soon. We must be prepared for whatever might happen there.”
“Do you still think you-know-who plans to snatch the Alabaster Goddess away that night?”
“I’m not sure. That is why I said we need to be prepared for anything. Even nothing. The ball might pass off quite peacefully—or as peacefully as anything could at Averton’s house. The sculpture will stay in place…”
“But it will not stay in place!” Clio hissed. Her hand tightened on the head of her furled parasol, and for a moment Calliope feared she might stab it into the air, or at an unwary passerby. “Averton is sending it off to his infernal fortress in Yorkshire, where no one will ever see it again! He is a vile, selfish man with no care for his collections. Do you think that is a better fate for poor Artemis than to fall into the hands of the Lily Thief?”
Calliope bit her lip. “It’s true that he is well named the Duke of ‘Avarice’. I like him no better than you, Clio. He is a very—strange man. But at least we would know where the statue is, and one day a museum or legitimate antiquarian could acquire her. If the Lily Thief took her, she would vanish utterly! We would learn nothing from her then.”
“Honestly, Cal! I do love you, but sometimes you don’t seem to understand.” Clio stalked away, her parasol swinging, and left Calliope standing alone.
Calliope stared up again at the carved procession, swallowing hard against her pricked feelings. She and Clio were as close as two sisters could be, drawn together by their love of history, by the need to be “mothers” to their younger sisters in the wake of their own mother’s death. And she knew Clio had a temper that subsided as quickly as it flared. That did not make their little quarrels any easier, though.
What was it lately, Calliope wondered, that caused such arguments? First Lord Westwood, now her sister. Her eyes itched with unshed tears, and she rubbed at them hard. When she looked up again, she feared she was hallucinating. Lord Westwood stood right beside her, staring down at her solemnly, his glossy curls brushed carelessly from the sharp, shadowed planes of his face so that he seemed one of the sculptures himself.
She blinked—and found he was still there. She drew in a steadying breath, and offered him a tentative smile. “Lord Westwood.”
“Miss Chase,” he answered. “I trust you are enjoying your outing?”
“Yes, very much. My sisters and I visit the museum whenever we can.” She gestured towards Cory, who was still sketching the horse’s head with Clio leaning over her.
“I come here often, as well,” he said.
“Do you? I—I imagine it reminds you of your mother’s homeland,” she said carefully, wary of yet another quarrel. How could one speak of these controversial carvings without starting a fuss, though?
But he simply answered, “Yes. Her tales when I was a child were always of gods and goddesses, and even muses.”
Calliope smiled. “Perhaps then you have an understanding of how changeable a muse can be?”
He smiled in return, a quick grin that seemed to light up their dim corner of the room. “I have heard tell of such things. One day the muse will smile on you, the next she has vanished. Perhaps that is simply part of her allure.”
Allure? Did he then find her—alluring? She would have thought “prickly” or “annoying” more likely adjectives he would use. But then, did she not think the same of him? Annoying, and yet strangely alluring. She shrugged away these distracting thoughts and said, “Sometimes, too, a muse forgets her manners. Says things she should not. Then she must apologise.”
“Is that what this is, Miss Chase? An apology?”
Calliope sighed. “I fear so.”
He clutched at his heart, staggering back as if in profound shock. “Never!”
She laughed. “I would not have you think I was not properly brought up, Lord Westwood. I should not have said those things to you last night. My sister says I should blame it on the spell of the music or on the wine, but in truth I do not know why I said them. I was just rather out of sorts.”
“I suppose I have been out of sorts with you in the past as well, Miss Chase. Perhaps we can start anew. Cry pax.”
“Pax, then. For now.”
“For now. Come, let me show you my favourite of these friezes.” He offered her his arm, and though she only laid her fingertips very lightly on his fine wool sleeve, she could feel the warmth of his skin, the strength of his coiled muscle beneath the layers of cloth. His arm tensed under her touch, as if he felt it, too. That strange, gossamer tie. “There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?”
“Not at all,” Calliope answered.
He smiled, and led her to the end of the marble procession, where it curved around to the next wall. There was etched the very reason for the procession—Athena, seated in profile as she observed her offerings. She did not wear her usual helmet on her curled hair, but held her aegis on her lap and bore a spear in her right hand.
“She is your favourite?” Calliope asked.
“You sound surprised.”
“Perhaps I imagined you preferred one of the Lapiths and centaurs from the metope, drunkenly breaking up the party. Or Dionysus over there with his leopard skin.”
He laughed. “Oh, come now, Miss Chase! I do enjoy the pleasures of life, but I am hardly a centaur. Or a Dionysus. Were we not just speaking of orgies last night? His soirées tend to end so badly, with the participants tearing each other limb from limb and devouring the raw flesh. No, indeed, cannibalism is not for me.”
Calliope felt herself blushing again, an embarrassing red heat flooding up her throat to her cheeks. “I never quite imagined cannibalism as one of your vices, Lord Westwood. But tell me why you like Athena here so very much? She seems too rational and measured for you.”
“It is exactly those qualities—her rational calm, her dignity. My life has never held much of those qualities, pulled from pillar to post with my parents, and I crave them. I can find them right here, carved in this marble.”
Calliope blinked in surprise. True, the two of them had declared peace only moments before, but she could never have expected such an instance of confidence from Cameron de Vere, of all people. A wistful longing was etched on his handsome face, driving out the careless mockery.
“She is my favourite, too,” she admitted.
“And so she should be, for you are very like her.”
“I, like Athena?” she said, startled. “She would never have been rude to you at a musicale.”
“No, she would have struck me down with her spear. I must feel fortunate you wield no such weapon. Your tongue is quite sharp enough.”
Before Calliope could answer, there was a sudden commotion in the doorway, disturbing the church-like hush of the room. A ripple of comment, of tension. Calliope peered around the bulk of a headless goddess to see that the Duke of Averton had just made an entrance.
He was a handsome enough man, Calliope thought, she would give him that much. Tall, slim, with flowing red-gold hair that fairly shimmered in the dim light, and bright green eyes that took in everything around him in one penetrating glance. The only flaw on his handsome face was a slightly crooked nose, as if it had once been broken and not healed straight. His dramatic, almost Celtic looks were emphasised by his flamboyant way of dressing—a long cape where all the other men wore wool greatcoats, a yellow satin waistcoat, tasselled boots, and jewelled rings on his fingers. Rubies and emeralds.
The duke stood there for a moment until he was certain everyone watched him, then he swung his cloak from his shoulders in a great arc and deposited it with one of the many lackeys trailing behind him. The sweep of his arm seemed to encompass and embrace all the sculptures as if they belonged to him alone.
“Ah, the glories of Greece, the ancient spirits—we meet again,” he said, softly but carryingly. Then he turned and made his way towards the metope section, his entourage hurrying behind him.
Calliope almost laughed aloud. The Duke of Averton so seldom went about in town; it was part of what made his upcoming ball the talk of the ton. But when he did it was more amusing than Drury Lane.
“Ridiculous toad,” Lord Westwood muttered darkly. “What is the purpose of such a preening display?”
Calliope glanced up at him to find him glowering towards the duke, his long fingers curled into fists. Where was the lighthearted Apollo now? Westwood resembled no one so much as the ill-tempered Hades, lurking in his black underworld, wishing he could feed the duke limb by limb to his snarling Cerberus.
Calliope had to admit she rather liked that image herself. Of all the selfish collectors in London, all the people who hoarded their treasures while denying scholars all access, Averton was the worst. He never scrupled about where or from whom he bought his treasures, and the precious objects always disappeared into his Yorkshire fortress. But she had not known that Westwood had a quarrel with him. Indeed, Westwood seldom seemed to dislike anyone—except her, of course.
Yet it was more than mere dislike she saw on his face now. It was dark, unadulterated hatred, raw and primitive. And very frightening.
Calliope shivered despite the warmth of the close-packed room, and edged away from him until she felt the hard edge of a stone base against her hips. He seemed to notice her wide-eyed regard, and that glimpse of jagged emotion was quickly concealed behind his usual smile.
“I did not realise you knew the duke well,” she murmured.
“Not well,” Lord Westwood answered. “Certainly better than I would like. We were at Cambridge together, and the Duke of Avarice has certainly not changed much since those days. Except to grow even more vicious and brainless.”
Vicious and brainless? The duke was a menace, certainly, and had a reputation for eccentricity and rapaciousness. But vicious? Calliope waited, full of anticipation, for Westwood to elaborate, but of course he did not. Their brief moment of confidence was gone, and Calliope was soon distracted by the sight of the duke drawing close to Clio.
Clio did not even seem to notice the man’s theatrical entrance, or his stately parade around the room as everyone cleared a path for him. She was leaning close to a goddess sculpture, frowning as she examined it through her spectacles. The duke, much to the consternation of his followers, suddenly veered from his trail to stop at her side.
As Calliope watched, puzzled and concerned, he edged closer to Clio until his bejewelled hand brushed her arm. Clio spun around, startled, bumping into the goddess.
“Your sister should have a care around that man,” Westwood muttered.
“I have no idea what he could be saying to her. We hardly know him.”
“That won’t stop him when it comes to ladies. Even respectable ones like your sister.”
Calliope saw Clio’s hand edging back and up, towards the sharp pin that skewered her silk bonnet. Clio’s frozen expression and demeanour never altered, yet Calliope knew she would have no compunction about driving that pin into the duke’s arm. Or more sensitive areas.
Calliope took a step forward, intending to intervene, but Lord Westwood was there before her. He strode across the room, reaching out to practically shove the duke away from Clio. As the duke smirked at him, Westwood leaned in to mutter low, harsh-sounding words that carried to Calliope’s ears as only the rushing noise of a stormy sea. Clio eased away from the men, her hand dropping to her side, as everyone else in the room edged closer. A quarrel between a duke and an earl in the middle of the British Museum was not something to be seen every day! This was certain to be much talked of for days to come.
If only she and her sister were not in the midst of it, Calliope thought, perturbed. Yet even she could not help but stare at the two men, Westwood so full of barely leashed anger, Averton still smirking but growing in agitation, if the spasmodic opening and closing of his fists was any indication. It was a scene that hardly belonged in civilised London. More like those Lapiths and centaurs, wrestling in ancient stone.
Calliope shook off the strange spell that urged her just to stare at the growing fight, and hurried to Clio’s side. She took her sister’s arm and whispered, “We should take Cory out of here, don’t you think?”
Clio shuddered, as if she too were bound by some strange, wicked enchantment and only Calliope’s voice shook her out of it. “Of course,” she said, and rushed over to where Cory still sat sketching. Clio overcame her protests with renewed promises of mummies, and ushered her out of the Elgin Room.
As soon as they departed, Westwood and Averton broke apart, Westwood striding from the room without a glance backward. The duke straightened his waistcoat and returned to his friends, laughing as if nothing had happened.
Puzzled, Calliope stared after Westwood. How very angry he seemed! And to think, for a moment there, when they smiled and talked together so easily, she had thought herself silly for imagining him the Lily Thief.
Now, after witnessing that strange scene with Averton, she was more convinced than ever that he had to be the thief. And she was determined to prove it. One way or another.
Chapter Five (#ulink_a70ce78b-256e-57ca-a46f-99323e4223ea)
What does it matter, de Vere? The girl is a tavern wench, free for the taking!
Cameron heard the echo of Averton’s voice in his mind, the laughing, mocking words from many years ago. He saw the man’s smile, that knowing smirk of smug entitlement, that only vanished when Cameron had planted his fist in Averton’s face, bloodying that aristocratic nose. It had been small comfort indeed to the girl, no more than sixteen years old, who had run away sobbing, her dress torn. And it was hardly a balm to Cameron’s white-hot fury, for he knew he would not be there to rescue the next girl. Or the next purloined vase or sculpture.
As Cameron’s friends had dragged him away, he had been able to hear Averton mutter, “Let him go. What do you expect from the son of a Greek street mouse?”
It had taken ten men to pull Cameron out of there that day, and he had soon left the suffocating confines of Cambridge to begin his travels anew. To find himself among the “street mice” of Italy and his mother’s beloved Greece. Those years of wandering had erased the memories of Averton’s words, of the feeling of his fist meeting bone and flesh. Until today.
The sight of Averton hovering so close to Clio Chase, of Calliope’s helpless concern, had brought back that day in the dingy tavern, that girl in the torn dress. Brought it back with a vicious immediacy that frightened him.
Averton was known as an eccentric now, a semi-recluse who only came out to show off his ancient treasures. His Alabaster Goddess. Cameron had not even seen the man since he returned to town. Yet surely the duke’s vices were only hidden now, tucked away behind his stolen antiquities. Who would dare challenge him? Who would even seek out the crimes of a rich and powerful duke?
Cameron stopped at the museum gates, roughly raking his fingers through his hair until he felt his anger ebb. Cold thought was needed now, not the impulsive fisticuffs of his youth. No Dionysus. Athena was the god he required.
He stood there for a long time, the wind catching at his hair and his coat, ignoring the flow of London life around him. He thought of his mother, of her tales of great warriors like Achilles, Ajax, Hector. Their downfalls always seemed to be their tempers, their rush to battle without planning, without forethought, driven by their passions.
“You are too much like them, my son, and it will get you into trouble one day,” she would say. “There are better ways to win your fights.”
As he stood there, leaning against the cold metal gates, the doors of the museum opened and Calliope and Clio Chase emerged, their younger sister between them, holding their hands. She chattered brightly, but the two older Muses seemed silent and serious, as if their thoughts were far away from the windswept courtyard. Calliope kept shooting Clio concerned little glances.
Cameron ducked behind a large stone planter as they passed by. He could not speak to Calliope now; she had been taken aback by his violent behaviour, and he could not explain it to her. He could not even explain it to himself. But he fell into step several feet behind them, watching carefully until they climbed safely into their carriage and set off for home, without being accosted by the duke or any of his minions.
If Averton thought he could get away with meddling with any of the Chases, he was very much mistaken.
“Lord Mallow. Mr Wright-Helmsley. Mr Lakesly.”
Calliope stared down at her list, biting the end of her pencil as she examined each name by the light of her candle. They were certainly all men of means and some intelligence, as well as collectors of antiquities. Could they really be candidates for the Lily Thief?
She tapped her chin, running through all the men of her acquaintance who were not children or infirm. Or who showed not a speck of ingenuity, like poor Freddie Mountbank. “Lord Deering. Sir Miles Gibson. Mr Smithson.”
Yet, in the end, she always came back to one name. Lord Westwood.
She had begun by being so very certain it was him! He had all the necessary qualities—intelligence, interest, plus a certain recklessness, probably born of his years in Italy and Greece. He had the courage of his convictions, as misguided as those convictions were. But now something bothered her, some irritating little voice at the back of her mind that whispered doubts. Could it be—was it—that she was growing to like him?
“Piffle!” Calliope cried, tossing down her pencil. Of course she did not like him. How could she? That very recklessness went against all she believed was important. That voice was surely just her inborn female weakness, lured by a smile and a pair of handsome eyes.
He was still the most likely candidate for the Lily Thief. His dark, sizzling anger towards the Duke of Averton only emphasised that fact. Westwood had an edge to him, like the fire-honed blade of a dagger that was usually hidden in its velvet sheath, but could flash out and wreak destruction in only an instant. Lady Tenbray’s diadem had already fallen victim to its slice. Was the Alabaster Goddess next?
Calliope stared down at her list, and slowly reached for her pencil. Lord Westwood, she wrote.
Her bedchamber door creaked, warning that she was no longer alone. Calliope hastily shoved the list under a pile of books and drew her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
“Are you working, Cal?” Clio said quietly, slipping into a chair next to the desk.
“Just reading a bit before I retire. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me, neither.” Clio fiddled with the edge of one of Calliope’s notebooks. She seemed rather pale tonight, her green eyes shadowed and large without the shield of her spectacles. Calliope had noticed she didn’t eat much of her dinner, either.
Blast Averton, anyway! Why did the man have to go parading through the museum today, upsetting their outing, pestering her sister? Why did he choose Clio? And why couldn’t he just stay hidden away at home with his ill-gotten Alabaster Goddess?
Yet if he did that, she wouldn’t have the chance to catch the Lily Thief once and for all. The Alabaster Goddess was an alluring bait like no other. If only Clio didn’t have to be caught in the middle of it all.
“What did he say to you this afternoon, Clio?” Calliope asked.
Clio stared down at the notebook. “Who?”
“Averton, of course. You have been so quiet tonight. You didn’t even seem to be listening when Father read from the Aeneid after dinner.”
Clio shrugged. “I am just tired, I think. As for Averton, he is of no importance.”
“But his behaviour this afternoon—”
“Is of no consequence! He is like so many men of his exalted ilk, he thinks all women are his for the asking. No, not even asking, just taking. Like an ivory box, or an alabaster statue from a Delian temple. When he meets one who wants nothing to do with him, it only makes him more determined. But I have twice the determination he does.”
That Calliope knew to be true. No one was more determined, more single-minded than Clio. Expect perhaps Lord Westwood. “I did not realise you even knew the duke.”
“I don’t. Or about as much as I want to know him. I have encountered him once or twice at galleries and shops. He seems to have taken a ridiculous fancy to me of some sort.”
Calliope stared at her sister in astonishment. She always thought they were as close as two sisters could be, yet she had no idea of this “fancy”. “Clio, why didn’t you say something?”
“I told you, Cal, it is of no importance!” Clio cried, slapping her hand down on a pile of books. The volumes toppled, revealing the list beneath. Clio reached for it. “What is this?”
“Nothing, of course,” Calliope said, trying to snatch it away.
Clio held it out of her reach. “Lord Deering, Mr Smithson, Mr Lakesly. Is this a list of your suitors?”
“Certainly not!” Calliope finally succeeded in retrieving the list. She folded it in half and stuck it inside one of the books. “I would never consider a suitor like Mr Lakesly. He gambles too much.”
“I noticed Lord Westwood’s name on there, too. Certainly you would not call him a suitor, though I did notice you two were having quite a coze at the museum.”
“We were discussing Greek mythology, that is all. And this list is merely something for our Ladies Society meeting tomorrow.”
“Ah, yes, the meeting. What is it really all about, Cal?”
“I told you. To make plans for Averton’s ball. We must all be extra-vigilant that night, so there is no repeat of Lady Tenbray’s rout. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
Calliope bit her lip. “Unless you don’t want to go to the ball. It would be completely understandable, given the duke’s deplorable behaviour! We don’t even have to talk about this any more, if you don’t care to.”
Clio slumped back in her chair, arms crossed and face set in stony lines. Calliope had seen that mutinous pose since childhood. “Cal, really. It’s not like the man tried to slit my throat in the middle of the Elgin Room. He merely said some—words to me. Nothing I cannot manage. Surely you know better than to treat me like a piece of fragile porcelain.”
Calliope smiled reluctantly. Oh, yes, she did know that. When they were children, Thalia could always outrun them all in foot races, a veritable Atalanta. But Clio was the first to climb up trees—and leap down from them as if she had wings. The first to swim streams and scramble up peaks.
The duke didn’t know what he was up against.
“Of course,” Calliope agreed. “No more porcelain.”
“So, tell me about this list. I would guess they are your candidates for the Lily Thief.”
Calliope drew the list back out, smoothing it atop the desk. “Yes. Some of them are a bit far-fetched, I know.”
“A bit? Mr Emerson couldn’t tell an amphora from a horseshoe. And Lord Mallow is shockingly myopic.”
“Hmph.” Calliope pushed the list towards her sister. “Very well, Clio, since you’re so clever, who would you put on the list?”
Clio pursed her lips as she examined the names. “Not Mr Hanson. He would be utterly paralysed at the thought of his mama’s disapproval. And not Mr Smithson—he is far too honest. What about Lord Wilmont?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of him! That’s very good. Remember that krater he had that no one had ever seen before?” Calliope added the name to the others. Now Westwood was no longer at the bottom of the list.
“And Lord Early. Remember when he nearly fought a duel with Sir Nelson Bassington when that unfortunate man declared Early’s Old Kingdom stela was clearly Amarna Period?”
“What bacon-brains the two of them are. I think they should both be on this list.”
They sat there long into the night, debating the merits of each suspect. Names were added; others erased. The only one that stayed in place, black and solid, was Lord Westwood.
Chapter Six (#ulink_05aacf97-33ba-5dca-805d-e4b42e6d364c)
“I call this meeting of the Ladies Artistic Society to order,” Calliope announced. “Miss Clio Chase will take the minutes.”
The chatter and rustling among the members slowly ceased, as they put their teacups back on tabletops and faced Calliope once again. Their pretty faces were alight with curiosity.
“What is our subject today, Calliope?” Lady Emmeline Saunders asked. “It must be something very important, since this is not our regularly scheduled day to meet.”
“Oh, something truly dreadful must have happened!” moaned Lotty Price. “A murder. An illness. A poisoning!”
“Someone needs to take away that girl’s novels,” Clio muttered under her breath.
“Do let Calliope talk, Lotty,” said Emmeline.
“Indeed there hasn’t been a murder, by poisoning or any other method,” Calliope said. “And I hope that we may prevent one from ever happening.”
Emmeline gave her a sharp glance. “You suspect a murder is about to occur?”
“I knew it!” Lotty cried. “There is a dreadful plot afoot.”
Calliope sighed. “I fear Lotty is not far wrong this time.”
“Whatever do you mean?” asked Thalia. “Who is to be killed? Should we not arm ourselves?”
“No, no, I don’t mean it in that way,” Calliope said quickly, trying to stem the rising tide of panic she sensed among her friends. “I have no knowledge of any human murder being planned.” Yet. “The plot I refer to concerns the Alabaster Goddess.”
The ladies subsided back into their seats, yet there was still a distinctly unsettled feeling in the air. “So, you still think the Lily Thief intends to steal her?” Emmeline said.
“Yes, probably from the duke’s masquerade ball, as we discussed at our last meeting,” Calliope answered. “We must formulate a plan to prevent it.”
“I am ready to defend her at any moment!” Thalia cried. She leaped up from her chair, eyes aglow as she no doubt imagined herself wielding a sword against any would-be thief. “Only give me the signal and I shall do battle.”
“Thalia, dear, do sit down,” Clio said, shaking her head. “We don’t need Boadicea and the Iceni hordes to keep an eye on one little statue.”
“You never know,” Thalia said, plopping back into her seat. “What if the Lily Thief has a partner? An army?”
“Even if he had a battalion—which he does not, for how could a battalion sneak into Lady Tenbray’s library?—he could not get by us,” Calliope said.
“What is the plan?” asked Emmeline. “What are we to do?”
“I made up a list of anyone who might even remotely be suspected of being the Lily Thief,” Calliope said, holding up her list from last night’s sleepless hours. “Everyone in the ton received an invitation to the ball, so they are sure to be there. You will each be assigned one or two names. Your task will be to ascertain what each man’s costume is, and then keep an eye on them, make certain they do not try to slip away.”
“I hope you do not want me to trail Freddie Mountbank,” Emmeline said. “He’s already made himself a nuisance in my life!”
“Mr Mountbank is not even on the list,” Calliope answered, remembering the quarrel Mountbank got into with Lord Westwood right in view of these very windows. “And we must not be at all obvious about our observations. We wouldn’t want to give the wrong idea.”
“Perhaps we should work in pairs,” Lotty suggested. “That would make it easier for us to trail anyone who might try to slip away.”
“Oh, very good idea, Lotty,” Calliope said. She reached for Clio’s pen and quickly made the amendments to the list. “All right, then, ladies, here are your assignments.”
Thalia handed out the papers to the Society members. They bent over them eagerly, laughing and exclaiming.
“Mr Emerson!” Lotty said. “It would certainly be no hardship to watch him. He is so handsome.”
“Nor Lord Mallow,” said Emmeline. “But what of Mr Hanson? I wouldn’t have thought he could plot a stroll to the end of the street, let alone a theft.”
Calliope rapped her gavel against the table, bringing order back to the gathering. “Now that you have your assignments, this is how we shall proceed on the night of the ball…”
“Do you think it will work?” Emmeline asked quietly, coming up next to Calliope, who stood staring out the window.
Calliope glanced back at the others, gathered around the pianoforte as Thalia played them a Beethoven nocturne. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “The ball is sure to be a dreadful crush. How can we watch just a few people? People in disguise, no less. Yet I can’t just stand here and let that statue be stolen without at least trying to do something.”
“I know. We all care so very much, we want to save them all. Make sure they are all properly looked after and studied,” Emmeline said. “There are only five of us, though. But we will do our very best to save the Alabaster Goddess, Calliope, never fear. She never had more devoted acolytes, even in her temple in Greece.”
They were quiet for a moment, listening to Thalia’s beautiful music, watching the traffic on the street below. Emmeline leaned closer to murmur, “Did you assign yourself Lord Westwood to watch, Calliope?”
Calliope looked to her, startled. “I thought Clio could do that.”
“Oh, no, I really think it should be you. The two of you are always circling each other like wary hawks anyway.”
“We do not!” Calliope cried. The others glanced towards them, and she hastily lowered her voice. “I do not circle Lord Westwood, Emmeline. Whatever do you mean?”
“Oh, Calliope dear. Everyone sees it. Whenever you are in a room together smoke practically billows. My brother even tells me you are in the books at his club.”
“The books! People are wagering on me?” Calliope felt a sick, sour pang deep in her stomach, an ache of sinking embarrassment. “How dare they! What—what are they saying?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” Emmeline said, her eyes full of concern. “I should never have brought it up.”
“Of course you should. If people are talking about me, I want to know.”
“Well, half of them wager you will be married by the end of the Season. The other half wagers one of you will be in Newgate for murdering the other.”
Calliope pressed her hand against her stomach. “What does your brother wager?”
“Calliope! He would never do that to a friend.”
“Come now, Emmeline. He is a man. Wagering seems to be in their very veins. They cannot help themselves.”
“Well, if he does he doesn’t tell me about it. I was much too angry with him for not putting a stop to it.”
“People are always full of such tittle-tattle. They must be desperate for gossip indeed to make up Banbury tales about such a dullard as me! Where do they find that kind of nonsense?”
Emmeline eyed her closely. “It is not entirely made of whole cloth, you know. You and Lord Westwood snap and quarrel every time you meet, or if you don’t speak you glower at each other from across the room. What are people to think?”
Calliope now felt ill in earnest. She sat down heavily in the nearest chair, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.
“Calliope, dear, you really didn’t know?” Emmeline asked.
“I have been so engrossed in my own studies,” Calliope murmured. “Worrying about the Lily Thief. I suppose I was just oblivious. My mother always did say that living in my own little world would get me into trouble one day.”
“It is hardly trouble,” Emmeline said. “It’s not as if you were caught kissing him! You’re right, it’s just silly gossip from people who have nothing better to do. It will soon be gone, replaced by something else and forgotten. My brother says they also wager on whether or not Prinny is the Lily Thief, so you see how serious their betting books are!”
Calliope laughed reluctantly. The vision of the prince, fat, red-faced and encased in a creaking corset climbing in windows and picking locks was so absurd it nearly drove out those sick feelings.
“Just ignore them, Calliope,” Emmeline said. “Their ignorance deserves no response. In the meantime, why don’t we go for a stroll in the park? It is too fine a day to stay indoors, and we all need time to think over our plan for the ball.”
“I would like some fresh air,” Calliope admitted.
“Excellent! I will tell the others.”
Calliope caught Emmeline’s arm as she turned away, staying her for a moment. “Emmeline, what do you think of Lord Westwood and me?”
Emmeline gave her a gentle smile. “How can I say? I’m just an unmarried lady like you, with Freddie Mountbank my most serious suitor. I know little of romance. You say you dislike him. Very well. But are you sure that’s all there is to the matter? Maybe you should ask Lotty what would happen in one of her novels.”
Calliope watched Emmeline walk away, more confused than ever. Antiquities she knew about; they could be studied, classified. Men never could. Especially Westwood.
Maybe she really should take up reading horrid novels, and not so much Aristotle and Thucydides. It was obvious that her powers of observation, her knowledge of modern life, of what passed for romance, was sadly lacking. Would The Prince’s Tragic Secret fill that gap? Surely everything could be learned, with the right tools. Herodotus was no help here. Perhaps By An Anonymous Lady could be.
Calliope pushed herself up from her chair and made her way resolutely towards her friends, who were gathering up their shawls and bonnets in preparation for their walk.
“Lotty,” she called. “Could I speak to you for a moment?”
As it was a fair day, cool and dry after the morning’s rains ceased, Hyde Park was quite crowded. Riders cantered along Rotten Row, stopping by the barriers to chat with each other, or with friends who rolled past in their open carriages, showing off their newest fashions. Nannies in starched caps and cloaks watched their charges as they sailed tiny boats on the calm, murky waters of the Serpentine or rolled hoops along the gravel pathways.
Calliope smiled as she watched them, their laughing faces turned like smooth-petaled flowers to the sun. She remembered days when her own nannies, or sometimes even her mother, would bring her and her sisters here. They would pretend the Serpentine was the Mediterranean, the trees and rocks the grove of Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi, and they were Muses in truth. The fount of all art and wisdom.
Suddenly, she felt a sharp pang, a yearning for that innocence that seemed so far away now. The days when she thought any dream was possible, that she could attain any goal she longed for. Even the wisdom of the Muses. Now—well, now she wondered if somehow their father had cursed them by giving them their names!
Yes, she did wish now for childhood’s blissful oblivion. For as she walked the pathways now, she imagined every person, every polite greeting, concealed smirking laughter. There is Calliope Chase! You know, the one who is pursuing Lord Westwood.
Emmeline linked arms with her, smiling in her cheerfully determined way. “There now! Is the fresh air not bracing?”
“Yes, indeed,” Calliope answered. She could be cheerful, too. After all, Emmeline was quite right. Any rumours about herself and Westwood were merely the product of idle minds and sure to pass soon. Especially if she gave them no more heat for their scandal broth.
“Oh, look! There is Mr Smithson. Was he not on your list of suspects?” Emmeline said.
“Hmm,” Calliope said, watching the gentleman in question as he strolled past, politely doffing his hat. “I will admit he is a bit of a long shot. He’s so slender, one can hardly envision him pulling himself through a window.”
“And not Lord Deering over there! They do say the dowager Lady Deering is such a dragon. She would incinerate her poor son if he disgraced the family name.”
Calliope laughed. “Quite so. But I think we must examine every possibility, no matter how farfetched.”
“Yes. Appearances can be so deceiving.”
Calliope nodded. Surely no one knew that better than herself, after all her studies of the ancient world. The ancient Greeks had such an appearance now of rationality, of cool, pale beauty. Yet in truth their statues and temples, which were so slavishly recreated now in Adam foyers and white muslin gowns, had been brightly painted. Their ideas of order, their great philosophy and tragedy, concealed a love for madness, ecstasy, the paranormal that was distinctly irrational.
People were like that, too, in modern London or ancient Athens and Sparta. Layer upon layer, concealing whatever truly lurked at their core. A mystery.
And the greatest mystery of all was strolling into her view. Lord Westwood himself, of course. No wonder people gossiped about the two of them, Calliope mused, for he so often appeared just where she happened to be!
Unlike when he stormed out of the British Museum, all Hadean fire and anger, he was back to sunny Apollonian charm. A small parcel was tucked under his arm, half-hidden by the folds of his greatcoat. He smiled at the people he passed, pausing to kiss giggling ladies’ hands or chat with friends.
Layer upon layer. Where was the real man?
Calliope’s steps froze as he moved nearer, bringing Emmeline up short.
“What is amiss?” Her eyes widened as she followed Calliope’s gaze. “Oh. The man himself, I see. And so handsome today!”
“Perhaps we should turn back,” Calliope said. “We’ve left the others so far behind….”
“Nonsense!” Emmeline said, continuing on their path so resolutely that Calliope had no choice but to follow. “It would only fuel the gossip if you were seen avoiding Lord Westwood, Calliope. We must be polite and say hello.”
When Lord Westwood saw them, Calliope thought she saw a frown between his eyes, a whisper of solemnity. But whatever it was quickly vanished, replaced by a sunny smile, a flourishing bow.
“Miss Chase, Lady Emmeline,” he greeted. “A lovely day for a walk, is it not?”
“Indeed it is. We were just discussing our costumes for the Duke of Averton’s ball, weren’t we, Calliope?” Emmeline arched her brow at Calliope so she had no choice but to nod, even though they had been discussing no such thing. “A Grecian theme, of course, so we were hoping some of the park’s statuary would inspire us.”
Westwood’s lips tightened. “I am sure that whatever you two ladies wear you will be the loveliest in the room.”
Emmeline laughed. “Miss Chase might. She looks like a Greek statue all the time!”
He glanced at Calliope, but she could read nothing in his eyes. They were as opaque as the waters of the Serpentine. “That she does.”
“Oh!” Emmeline suddenly exclaimed, detaching her arm from Calliope’s. “I see someone over there I absolutely must speak to. Excuse me for a moment, Calliope. Lord Westwood.”
What on earth was her friend up to? Calliope tried to catch Emmeline’s hand, but she was off, dashing away like the traitor she was. Leaving Calliope alone with Lord Westwood.
Well, not entirely alone, of course. Not with half of London around them, and Clio and the rest of the Ladies Society not far away. Yet it felt as if they were alone. Calliope felt dizzy, her vision blurring until she saw only him, not the crowds.
She clasped her hands together, reminding herself of her purpose. Cause no scenes; act perfectly calm and normal. No scandal broth.
“So, you plan to attend Averton’s ball?” he said. His voice was as unreadable as his face.
“Of course. Isn’t everybody? I do long to see the Artemis again. Unless…”
“Unless?”
Calliope remembered how murderous he looked at the museum, when the duke edged so close to Clio. “Unless there is a reason it might be unsafe.”
“And you think I might know that reason?”
“Perhaps. Better than some. And I would hope, Lord Westwood, that you would tell me if you know of any reason why my sister or I should not go. I know that you and I are not exactly friends…”
At last there was a glimmer of emotion, a tiny smile like the sun peeking through grey clouds. “Are we not, Miss Chase? Friends, that is.”
“I—well,” Calliope said, flustered. “Perhaps we could be.”
“If we were not both such stubborn spirits?”
Calliope took a deep breath. Infernal man! Just when she thought she had him figured out, he fooled her. Revealed another layer. He lured her from her resolve to be cool and polite. “Lord Westwood, tell me! Is there a reason Clio and I should not go to the ball?” A reason such as that he was planning to snatch the Alabaster Goddess while everyone else danced in oblivion?
He shrugged. “As you say, everyone will be there. Averton won’t try anything in front of the entire ton. You should be safe enough. As long as you don’t do anything rash.”
“Rash?” Calliope cried. “What do you think I would do? Rashness is much more your style than mine, Lord Westwood. I merely plan to examine the statue, have a glass of the duke’s fine champagne, and depart. In peace.”
“Of course. As befits a Muse,” he said. His smile was now that maddening full-fledged grin.
Cool and polite! Calliope berated herself. “Will you be there?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it. I always enjoy fine—champagne.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Calliope asked doubtfully.
“I never overly imbibe, Miss Chase. Not in polite company.”
She had to resist the urge to childishly stamp her half-boot on the walkway. “You know what I mean.”
“Oh, yes. You are remembering our scene in the Elgin Room. I do so often seem to show myself at my worst to you, Miss Chase, and then I have to apologise. It’s true that I have no liking for the duke, or he for me. But I do know better than to cause a scene at a ball, though I’ve given you little cause to trust my word on that.”
“I don’t believe you would cause a scene at a ball,” Calliope admitted, bemused. “It doesn’t seem your way to turn a grand ballroom into Gentleman Jackson’s parlour.”
“Just a museum, eh? Well, you and your sister may attend the ball in peace. We’ll all be masked, won’t we? Averton himself won’t even know I’m there. Neither will you.” He bowed to her again, the paper of the parcel under his arm rustling. “Good day, Miss Chase. Enjoy the rest of your walk.”
Calliope turned to watch him leave, to watch him greet Clio and the others, then hurry on his way, obviously a man with an errand on this fine afternoon.
Oh, but you are wrong, Lord Westwood, she thought. For I will certainly know if you’re there.
Cameron leaned back in his chair, surveying his library. At least nominally it was “his” library, but ever since he returned from his travels to take his place as Earl of Westwood it felt like his father’s library. His father’s house. Everywhere Cameron looked he saw his father’s furniture and carpets, the niches where his collections once resided. Their country seat was one thing; the furnishings there were old family pieces and not personal. This townhouse had been his father’s, the place where he indulged his love of Greece, his passion for collecting.
But that was about to change. For too long now Cameron had lived with someone else’s life. It was time to begin his own. One piece at a time.
He stood up and reached for the parcel on the desk. It was small, flat, carefully wrapped in brown paper. Cameron carried it over to the carved fireplace mantel, gazing up at the painting that hung there. It was one his father had acquired on his own Grand Tour many decades ago, an indifferently executed murky scene of Egyptian pyramids. Cameron had never much liked it, even though it hung there through his childhood. The perspective was all wrong, the colours dim, conveying no sense of the desert brightness, the mystery of the Egyptians.
He reached up and unhooked it from the picture rail, lifting it down at last. It left a pale square on the topaz-coloured silk wallpaper. Then he tore the wrapping from his new package and lifted the pyramid’s replacement into its place.
Cameron stepped back to survey the image. He had seen it in that gallery window and knew it was meant to be his. Meant to hang just here, where he could see it every day as he worked at the desk.
It was an image of Athena, standing framed between the shining white pillars of her temple. The sacred fire burned behind her, outlining her slim figure in pleated white silk. One arm was outstretched, holding her grey owl, while the other hand rested on the shield propped beside her. Her golden helmet rested at her feet, and her hair, a river of glossy raven-black, flowed over her shoulders.
Her beautiful face, a pale oval set with wide-spaced grey eyes, was solemn and knowing. She was beautiful, oh so serious, set on her own course come what may.
She was, in short, Calliope Chase. Or very, very like her.
Cameron smiled up at her, not sure she would appreciate such levity. The real Calliope Chase certainly wouldn’t appreciate knowing he had her double hanging in his library. Yet he could never have passed up this painting. It was so lovely, just as her modern counterpart was.
Why was he always so drawn to her, when their meetings so often ended in strife or farce? He should stay far away from her, from all her family. The Chases were trouble he did not need, now most of all. He had important work to do, and couldn’t afford to be distracted by a beautiful Athena with fire in her eyes. Fire just waiting to scorch him if he got too close.
Yet he never could stay away. Every time he saw her he was pulled to her side, he couldn’t help himself. Lately it seemed quarrelling with her was more fun than making love to another woman would be. The thought of quarrelling and making love with Calliope was enough to make his head explode! Her fiery nature would surely take hold even in bed, and her pale skin and black hair against his sheets…
“Blast,” Cameron cursed, spinning away from Athena’s knowing gaze. The chances of Calliope Chase ending up naked in his bed were slim to none. She wouldn’t even come near his house once she found out what he had done with his father’s antiquities. Not even Aphrodite could help him with that Muse, no matter how much he desired her.
But he could keep her safe from Averton. Safe from her own folly concerning the Lily Thief, perhaps. She said she would be at Averton’s ball. Well, so would he. And he would not let his Athena out of his sight.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_ed122083-2d3e-5107-a253-a8156f07e118)
“Oh, Miss Calliope! You look lovely,” Mary said, putting the last touches on the hem of Calliope’s costume.
From her perch atop a stool, Calliope surveyed herself in the mirror. “You don’t think it’s too much?”
“Not at all. It’ll be the finest costume there.”
Calliope did rather like it. She had worked closely with the modiste to replicate an etching her father owned of the Athena statue that had once stood in the Parthenon. The soft, thin white muslin was pleated and fastened at the shoulders with gold brooches, bound at the waist with gold cord. The sandals were also gold, and she wore antique bracelets and earrings that had once belonged to her mother. Waiting for her by the bedchamber door was a helmet, shield and spear.
Calliope fiddled with the cord, unaccountably nervous. Ordinarily she would be excited about a Grecian masquerade. Yet this was no ordinary ball.
What if the Lily Thief did appear? It was one thing to talk about catching criminals in her own drawing room, quite another to face a real, living thief bent on taking the Alabaster Goddess. What if she could not stop him? What if Artemis did indeed vanish, never to be seen again?
Don’t be faint-hearted! she told herself sternly. You can’t fail. This is much too important.
She glanced towards the spear and shield. The weapons, pasteboard and glitter, would never hold against steel. But they reminded her of her purpose. She had to be Athena, and protect those in her charge from harm.
No matter who the Lily Thief was. No matter what might happen.
“Shall we finish your hair now, Miss Calliope?” Mary asked, putting away her needle and thread.
“Yes, thank you,” Calliope said. She stepped down from the stool and went to her dressing table, where gold ribbons and combs waited. “We don’t have much time left, the carriage is ordered for nine.”
Mary had just started brushing out Calliope’s hair, twisting the strands into long ringlets, when there was a quick knock at the door and Clio appeared.
“Oh!” Calliope gasped. She hadn’t yet seen her sister’s costume, or even known its theme, and the effect was dazzling. Dazzling and strange.
Clio was not an Olympian goddess, all pale perfection, or even the Muse of their namesakes. She was instead Medusa. Her gown was of vivid green silk, the sleeves like long wings, split and folded back from her shoulders. The green robe revealed glimpses of a gold-tissue underdress, embroidered with tiny green glass beads that winked and sparkled. An emerald kirtle, a rare medieval piece that had also been their mother’s, caught the rich fabric around her waist.
But it was her headdress that was truly extraordinary—a twisting, tangled nest of gold-tissue snakes, their scales overlaid with greenish, brassy embroidery. More of the beads formed their eyes, and they seemed to gleam malevolently, as if the snakes were alive. Only a few long tendrils of Clio’s own auburn hair escaped, revealing that here was a real woman and not a vengeful Gorgon.
“What do you think?” Clio asked, twirling around in all her frightening splendour.
“I think there will be no one else like you at the party,” Calliope answered, bedazzled by those snake eyes. “Wherever did you find such a creation?”
“Madame Sophie made the gown,” Clio answered, adjusting her sleeves. “And I did the headdress myself. Cory helped me, you know she’s quite the budding artist. They look quite fearsome, don’t they?”
“Terribly,” Calliope said with a shiver. A frown from Mary made her sit still again, facing the mirror so her hair could be finished. “I doubt the duke will attempt to harass you with those staring at him.”
Clio laughed. “I’m not afraid of the duke!” She brandished her staff, a tall gold-and-green, ribbon-wrapped pole topped with yet another snake, a puffed-out cobra. “I shall just turn him to stone.”
“If only it was always that easy to deal with men,” Calliope muttered. “What are Thalia and Father dressed up as?”
“Thalia is Euridice, and Father is Socrates, of course.”
“With his cup of hemlock?”
“Hmm, yes,” Clio said. She stepped up to Calliope’s mirror to make sure her snakes were straight. “Or rather a cup of lemonade with sprigs of mint floating in it. We shall have to make sure he doesn’t bore everyone in sight at the ball, for he is already wandering around the drawing room, declaiming to the furniture.”
“If there is no youth to corrupt, a hassock will do. Is that a direct quote from Socrates as he drank the hemlock? If not, it should be.” Calliope watched as Mary finished the curls and ribbons and carefully lowered the helmet over her creation. “How do I look, Clio?”
“Perfect, as always. Surely there can be no finer Athena,” Clio answered. “Too bad Cory’s pet owl died last year, it would have made an excellent prop.”
“A prop that would fly off and get lost in the chandeliers. I told Cory a barn owl didn’t want to be a domestic pet. This one here will do very well.” Calliope hoisted up her shield to display the enameled owl on its face. “Shall we go?”
Athena, after all, was never late to battle.
The Duke of Averton’s grand townhouse, Acropolis House, was lit up like the Colossus of Rhodes set down in the middle of London. Even from their place far back in the long line of carriages, Calliope was dazzled by the amber glow.
Acropolis House was not the usual among aristocratic townhouses. No plain white stone, no mellow red brick set in tidy rows for the duke. No. Acropolis House was like a vestige of medieval London, a fortress of solid, dark rock, turreted and many-chimneyed, the shutters of all its mullion windows thrown open to let out all that candlelight. It was set back in its own small garden, surrounded by high walls. The iron-tipped gates were usually closed and chained tight, but tonight they were open to admit the flood of carriages, the gawking curiosity seekers. As their own conveyance entered the gates, Calliope peered out to find leering gargoyles staring back at her. They topped the gates and lined the walls, discouraging the curious.
Calliope shivered and drew back into her shawl.
“You’d think the duke was Charlemagne,” Thalia sniffed. “And look at that obelisk over in the corner of the garden! Twenty feet high at least.”
“Terribly pretentious,” their father agreed. But Calliope thought she saw a tiny glint of envy in his eyes as he peered at the towering obelisk. “I wonder where he obtained it? The hieroglyphs are quite fine.”
“Somewhere he had no business being, I’m sure,” Clio said tartly.
Calliope did not answer, for their carriage at last rolled to a halt before the massive, iron-bound front doors and it was their turn to alight at last. The duke’s footmen, clad in chitons and sandals for the evening, hurried forward to assist them. Calliope held tight to her spear and shield as she followed Clio’s glittering green train into the very lair of the Duke of “Avarice”.
The foyer, where they surrendered their cloaks to more classically garbed servants, was a soaring, octagonal space with black-and-white marble floors and walls inlaid with dark wood panels. Tall, wrought-iron candelabras provided the only light, flickering on tightly closed doors, on Minoan frescoes of slim bull jumpers, on suits of armour, and bristling maces and swords, and on two massive Assyrian lions guarding one of the doors, as if ancient Persia rested just beyond that portal.
“My, what eclectic tastes our host has,” Clio muttered, as they joined the line of revellers making their way up the twisting staircase towards the ballroom.
“To say the least,” Calliope answered, eyeing the treasures tucked in niches. Sculptures, vases and amphorae, even Byzantine icons. They were all impressive pieces, beautifully restored, elegantly displayed. Yet Calliope noticed something odd about them all. Unlike her father’s own antiquities, which depicted the gods and Muses, wise scholars, merry parties, the finest of human endeavours, these pieces all had some element of violence about them. Battles, fights, sacrifices. Even the icons depicted martyred saints: Catherine and her wheel, Sebastian and his arrows, and St George driving his sword into the dragon.
Calliope turned away from them, disquieted.
“Or perhaps not so eclectic as all that,” Clio said quietly. “Murder and bloodletting are sadly a part of every civilisation. The duke seems bent on reminding us of that fact.”
“Indeed he does,” Calliope said.
The higher up they went, the more the noise of the party grew, a hum that expanded into a vast river of sound as they spilled into the ballroom. Calliope usually had little use for balls and routs that earned the coveted society accolade of “dreadful crush”. There was little real conversation possible amid such clamour, just overheated air and far too much noise. Tonight, though, she welcomed the crowd. It seemed a bright haven of normalcy in this very bizarre house.
The ballroom was not as eerie as the foyer and staircase, but was merely a large, bright space with white walls and gleaming parquet floor. The domed ceiling was painted with an elaborate fresco of an Olympian banquet where, thankfully, no one was killing anyone else. Around the walls were more ancient frescoes, no doubt snatched from some Italian villa, scenes of cosy domestic life. Marble statues were interspersed with the paintings of scantily clad nymphs, satyrs, gods and goddesses that echoed the costumes of the revellers.
As Calliope expected, there was no one quite like Clio among the crowds who were forming a dance set or milling among the statues, sipping champagne and nibbling on lobster patties and mushroom tarts—rather unGrecian hors-d’oeuvres, Calliope thought. There was a Minotaur, hulking and hairy, flirting with Ariadne and her ball of twine; several Achilles and Hectors; some giggling Aphrodites with various versions of Ares and Cupid. Their father soon joined a cluster of other philosophers in the corner to argue about how man could examine his reasons to be in harmony with the cosmos, and Thalia was swept into the dance by an Orpheus, their respective lyres deposited with a footman.
Calliope tucked her spear under her arm and reached for a glass of champagne from a passing servant’s tray. It was the finest quality, of course, a rich, tart golden liquid that blended well with the exotic setting, the swirl of music and laughter. For a moment, she felt transported from London, from everyday life, and lifted into some phantasmagoric fantasy world where reality was gone, vanished amid the sea of masks.
She held the glass up to the light, wondering if the enchanting little bubbles concealed some hallucinogenic elixir, some Shakespearean “love in idleness”.
“Is something amiss with the champagne, Miss Chase?” an amused voice asked.
Calliope whirled around to find their host standing behind her, a smile on his lips. He was as unusual as his house, dressed as Dionysus with a leopard skin over his chiton, his long, red-gold hair loose over his shoulders. Dionysus, the god of wine and revels. Of maddened followers who tore their victims limb from limb in their bloodlust.
Or stole treasures that did not belong to them.
Calliope stiffened under his intense regard. “Not at all, your Grace. The champagne is excellent, as are your arrangements. Your house is most—extraordinary.”
“That is high praise, indeed, coming from a Chase. For you are all experts in art and antiquities, are you not?”
“I would not say expert. We are all students, in our own ways.”
“And is your interest strategic warfare?” he said, gesturing towards her Athena shield.
“Or perhaps olives,” she said flippantly.
“Ah, yes. For it was Athena who ordered olive trees planted on the hills of her Acropolis. The very foundations of her followers’ prosperity.”
“Until rapacious thieves ordered them dug up, in search of buried treasure. Now glorious Athens is just a dusty little town. Or so I hear.”
The duke laughed. “My dear Miss Chase, how kind of you to defend a people you do not even know! Yet if your so-called rapacious thieves did not dig on the Acropolis, think what would be lost to us. So much beauty and learning. Is it better that these things should moulder in the ground, disintegrating in the care of people who have no regard for them?”
Calliope grudgingly had to admit that he said nothing she herself had not argued. But his smug tone of voice, his patronising smile, made her want to quarrel with him. To slap that expression off his face. She shrugged, and drained her glass of champagne.
“Come, Miss Chase, let me show you one of the treasures that would have been lost for ever,” he said, taking the empty glass from her hand.
“The Alabaster Goddess?” Calliope asked.
“Are you trying to gain an early glimpse of the masterpiece of my collection? No, she will be revealed later. At the right moment.”
“One last chance for her to be admired before she is shut away?”
“She is hardly a cloistered nun. She is being taken to a place where she can be properly protected, unlike other antiquities in our fair city of late,” he said. He took her arm in a light clasp, steering her around the edges of the crowd, calling jovial greetings to the noisy guests.
Calliope had to grit her teeth to resist the urge to pull away, to run from him. When Lord Westwood took her arm just so at the British Museum, it was warm and easy. The duke’s touch felt like a cold shackle. She pinched her lips together and walked faster as they moved past candelabra and frescoes.
He led her to the end of the room, where tall glass doors led on to a dark terrace. The crowd was lighter here, the air cooler. Calliope almost feared he meant to lead her out on to that terrace, away from the noise and light, and then—then what? Push her off to the stone walkway far below?
Calliope almost laughed aloud at her own foolishness. He did not know of her plans to keep his Alabaster Goddess safe, to prevent her from being stolen like all those other lost pieces. To keep her from disappearing into Yorkshire, too, if she could help it at all. He did not know of her great aversion to him, of how frightened she was by his behaviour towards Clio at the museum. He couldn’t know any of that.
Nevertheless, when his clasp on her arm loosened, she wasted no time in moving away.
“What do you think of this, Miss Chase?” he asked, gesturing towards another statue displayed between the glass doors.
Calliope forced herself to turn her wary attention from him, to take in a deep breath as she examined the piece. Art, as it always did, slowly worked its magic on her senses. The duke and the crowd subsided to a whisper.
It was beautiful, of course, as everything in the duke’s collection was. Beautiful in a strange, violent way. This depicted not a battle or brawl, but Daphne at the very moment she was transformed into a tree by her father Peneus, after Daphne called on him to stave off Apollo’s unwanted advances. She was running, her body twisted as she looked frantically back over her shoulder. Her legs and upflung arms were turning to branches. Her long hair flowed back like a river.
“What do you think, Miss Chase?” the duke asked.
“It is lovely. The sense of movement, the way the flesh of her arms transforms just here into wood—extraordinary.”
“Exactly so. It is a Roman copy, of course, but still its great beauty is evident. And her face looks rather like your sister, does it not?”
Startled, Calliope stared up at the duke, shaken from the reverie the Daphne invoked. He did not watch her; all his attention was on Daphne’s cold, carved face. He reached out one fingertip to touch her cheek, sliding a slow caress along the angle of her cheekbone.
It did look like Clio, Calliope had to admit. With that hair, and the sharp, thin angles of the face and bare shoulders. And that made his rapt attention all the more chilling.
“She has the same independent spirit, you see,” the duke murmured. “But in the end, one way or another, she will belong to the gods. Run though she will.”
Calliope’s throat was dry, and she knew she had leave, to find Clio. She slowly backed away from the duke, who still seemed lost in his own world. His own fantasies of poor Daphne.
“Excuse me,” Calliope murmured. “I see someone I must speak to.”
She hurried back into the midst of the crowd. There seemed to be even more people packed into the ballroom than before, knots and skeins of humanity laughing and drinking, oblivious to any nightmarish quality this house might hold. Yet there was no Clio anywhere, not even a glimpse of her shimmering green silk. Thalia was still dancing, as she probably would do all night. Their father was nowhere to be seen. Probably he had gone off to the card room with his philosopher friends, continuing their discussion over a hand of vingt-et-un. She did see Emmeline, dressed as the Delphic Oracle, talking with one of her assigned possible thieves. She gave Calliope a small nod and smile. All was going as planned in that corner.
If only Calliope could say the same! She so hated when her plans went awry. But then, what could she expect from someone like the Duke of Averton? He was a strange one, to say the least, and there could be no predicting what might happen in his house. She had to stay calm. Remember her goal—to protect the Alabaster Goddess.
And surely in such a vast crowd Clio was safe enough. The duke couldn’t hurt her here, couldn’t turn her into a tree. He probably couldn’t even find her. Still, Calliope would feel better if she could talk to her sister, warn her to be on her guard.
Hoisting her shield higher, Calliope threaded her way through the ballroom. Several friends greeted her, but there was no Clio.
“Where are you?” she muttered, straining on tiptoe to see over the crowd.
“I am here, grey-eyed Athena,” a voice said, slightly muffled, close to her shoulder.
Half-fearing the duke had crept up on her again, Calliope turned. There was no Dionysus, though. It was Hermes, in his winged sandals and helmet, muscled arms bare in a white chiton. The visor of the helmet was down, but Calliope recognised the unruly dark curls that escaped its golden confines. She also recognized Hermes’ scent, the clean smell of citrus soap with something darker, more complex and alluring, underneath, like cinnamon or sunshine, salty sea air.
A strange sense of relief flowed over her. She was not alone in this crowd any longer! “My eyes are brown, Lord Westwood,” she said, resisting the urge to hug him, to cling to those strong arms. It was surely just another measure of how bizarre this evening had become that she was so very happy to see him.
“Always so logical,” he said, pushing back the visor to reveal his smile. “How did you know it was me?”
“Your soap.”
“My soap?”
Calliope shook her head. “It’s not important. Have you by any chance seen my sister?”
“Miss Clio? I don’t think so, but then anything is possible in this crowd. What is her costume?”
“Oh, you couldn’t miss her. She is Medusa, in a green-and-gold gown, with snakes on her headdress.”
“Snakes? Never say she brought reptiles in here! But then, I would not really be surprised. You Chases always do things in your own fashion.”
Calliope had to smile in spite of herself. “I dare say Clio might have brought real snakes in, if she didn’t know how I dislike them. But she only has cloth snakes. With green glass eyes.”
“I fear I’ve seen no Medusas at all. Is something amiss?”
“No, I just need to tell her something. I’m sure I will see her later. Unfortunately, I can glimpse little in this crowd.”
“Did I not predict it would be a ‘dreadful crush’?”
“You did. Surely what every hostess most desires.”
“Or host.” His expression hardened. “I saw you were speaking to Mr Dionysus.”
“For a moment,” Calliope answered cautiously. “He was showing me a statue of Daphne.” The memory of the duke’s hand on that marble cheek made her feel cold all over again, and she trembled.
“Are you cold?” Lord Westwood asked solicitously.
“Just a bit. Though I’m not sure how I could be, it’s so overheated in here!”
“Such a mausoleum as this place can never be truly warm. Come, Miss Chase, dance with me. I think the exercise will do us both good.”
Calliope glanced towards the dance floor to find a new set forming. Emmeline was there with Mr Smithson, as was Thalia with the strange Minotaur. Still no Clio. Yet surely a dance would do her good. Take her whirling thoughts from the duke and his bizarre actions, the Alabaster Goddess and the Lily Thief, and warm her chilled bones. Westwood was right—this place was a mausoleum. Only music and dancing could bring it to life again.
Especially a dance with Lord Westwood, for surely no one could be more alive than he was. His cognac eyes, the golden glow of his smooth skin, fairly breathed youth and vitality and strength. After the duke’s brief, cold touch, the breath of his corruption, she craved that heat. Yearned for it. Even if it was with Westwood.
But he was not Westwood tonight. He was Hermes. She was Athena. And this was not an ordinary London ball, but an Olympian revel. For the length of one dance, anyway.
“Thank you, Lord Westwood,” she said. “I would be happy to dance with you.”
Chapter Eight (#ulink_6abbd87c-760c-55aa-bbc6-f4e947a26c9a)
Clio glanced back over her shoulder as she tiptoed along the narrow corridor. Empty. No one followed her. Probably they did not even notice her absence from the ballroom, not in such a crush.
Perfect.
It was silent here, unlike the roar of music and shallow conversation. So quiet it was almost like a cave, lit only by a few lamps built to resemble flickering torches. The shifting light touched the dark, linenfold panelled walls, the low, carved ceiling and the gilt-framed paintings, making them glitter and waver as if alive.
Clio paused to slip off her heeled shoes, peering closer at one of those paintings. It was a modern creation, an oil of the Minotaur in his labyrinth. A great, hulking, hairy beast with red, fiery eyes, lurking in a dark space much like this corridor. All around him were smoking torches, stone walls painted with strange, glowing symbols.
The duke must feel some affinity for this particular myth, Clio thought as she studied the scene. She had seen several depictions of it tonight, in stone as well as paint, and in that one odd costume in the ballroom. Well, she knew that everyone had within them a dark heart—a Minotaur. And that sometimes a person had to venture into the labyrinth to confront that side of themselves. To confront the truth.
Was that not what she was doing now?
Clio turned her back on the Minotaur and hurried on stocking feet to the end of the corridor where there was a small, winding staircase, a miniature of the grand one soaring up from the foyer. The duke was being very cagey about the Alabaster Goddess’s whereabouts tonight. But his servants were not all so secretive. Clio was able to persuade a footman to tell her where Artemis waited.
At the top of the stairs ran a long gallery, almost the entire length of the front of the house. Its bank of windows, uncovered, looked out at the front garden and the street beyond, the open gates that still admitted latecomers to the ball.
The gallery was dotted with tall, heavy iron branches of candles, half of them unlit. No doubt waiting for the “grand reveal” after supper, when they would spring to life as if by magic. Right now the light was dim, falling only in shimmering bars on some of the treasures displayed there, leaving others in darkness.
Clio found herself holding her breath as she crept along the gallery, peering right and left at all the wonders jumbled together. Her father’s friends were all great collectors and loved to show off their prizes, so she had grown up surrounded by beautiful antiquities. But this—this was something else entirely. A cabinet of curiosities such as she had never seen before.
The gallery almost resembled a warehouse, it was so thick with objects. Ancient stone kouros, stiff and precise, their empty eyes staring back at her. An Egyptian sarcophagus, with traces of bright paint still clinging to its surface. Bronze warriors; marble gods finer than any she had ever seen; cases full of gold Etruscan jewellery, lapis scarabs, tiny cat mummies in gold coffins, jewelled perfume bottles. Steles propped against the walls. Shelves of vases, kraters, and amphorae. All jumbled together, just to serve one man’s vanity.
Clio frowned as she remembered the duke at the British Museum, pressing so close to her she was overcome by his spicy cologne. That strange light in his green eyes…
She shook her head, her satin snakes trembling. She couldn’t think about him now. She didn’t want to think about him ever.
At the end of the gallery, alone in a pool of candlelight, was an object covered in a drape of black satin. Only a bit of the separate coral-coloured marble stand was visible. Clio approached it carefully, half-expecting some sort of trap, some alarm. All was silent, except for the whining hum of the wind past the windows. She reached out and carefully lifted an edge of the drape, peering beneath.
“Oh,” she sighed. It was really her. The Alabaster Goddess. Artemis in her solitary glory.
The statue was not large. It was easily dwarfed by many of the more elaborate creations in the gallery. But she was so perfectly beautiful, so graceful and elegant, that Clio could understand why she had become such a sensation.
Carved of an alabaster so white it seemed to glisten, almost silver, like a first snowfall, she stood poised with her bow raised, an arrow set to fly. Her pleated tunic flowed over the curves of her slender body as if caught in a breeze, ending at mid-thigh to reveal strong legs, tensed to run. Her sandals, the little, ribbon-laced shoes every lady had copied this Season, still bore bits of gold leaf, as did the bandeau that held back her curled hair. A crescent moon was attached to the band, proclaiming her to truly be the Goddess of the Moon. Her gaze was focused intently on her prey, not heeding mortal adulation.
Clio stared up at her, enthralled, as she imagined the Delian temple where this goddess once resided, where she once received her worship from true acolytes of the moon. Not just ton ladies with their “Artemis” coiffures.
“How beautiful you are,” she whispered. “And how sad.”
Clio reached out to gently touch Artemis’ foot in a gesture of silent sympathy. As she did, she noticed that the goddess stood on a modern wooden base, a thick block of mahogany. A thin crack ran along its centre. She leaned closer, trying to see if that crack was a fault or deliberate. It seemed such a strange perch for a beautiful goddess.
“Ah, Miss Chase. Clio. I see you have discovered the whereabouts of my treasure,” a voice said, quiet, gloating.
Clio ducked away from Artemis, spinning around to find the duke standing halfway along the gallery, watching her intently.
Even in the dim light, his eyes gleamed like the snakes in her headdress. He smiled at her gently, shrugging his leopard pelt back from his shoulders. Clio thought of that scene from the Bacchae, where Agave, under the evil influence of Dionysus, tore her son Pentheus to death, thinking him a lion. Then she carried his severed head back home, still delusional.
He moved closer, light and silent, as if he was a leopard himself. “She is beautiful, is she not?” he said, still so quiet. So soft. “I knew you would be drawn to her, as I was. She is quite—irresistible, in her mystery.”
Clio edged back against the goddess. She had indeed found Artemis irresistible. So much so that she let her guard down, and that was not like her. As the duke came closer, she reached behind her, her fingers just touching Artemis’ cold sandal. She slid her touch down, finding that strange crack in the wooden base…
Calliope took her place in the set with Lord Westwood just as the music began, a quick, lively tune that made her toes tap in her sandals. She was not Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance, but she did love the movement, the rhythm of the music, the swirl of other dancers around her as they formed the patterns and picture of the dance. Usually, it could lift her out of herself for a few moments, send her into a world where there was only the music.
Tonight, though, the beat was not soothing, not transporting. There was so much in her mind—Clio’s disappearance, the plan to protect the Alabaster Goddess. And, not least, the fact that her partner for this dance was Cameron de Vere.
Never would she have imagined they would be dancing together at a ball, quite as if they were—well, as if they were friends! No one was shouting or scowling or throwing things. He stood across from her in the line, smiling at her. Calliope smiled back, and all at once she felt the old magic of the dance come upon her once more. A new energy surged through her veins, lifting her up on to her toes as she stepped forward to meet him. Their hands touched, and they turned to move down the line, swirling among the other dancers in a quick, intricate rhythm.
He was a good dancer, light and graceful, but then she did not expect anything less after seeing him drive his phaeton. No jerky, ham-handed movements for him. He moved his horses—and his dance partners—with gentle persuasion, and made it all look easy. Calliope barely felt she had to move, so easily did he twirl her from step to step, spinning her until she vowed her feet left the floor and she was flying!
As they were separated by the design of the dance, Emmeline leaned close and quickly whispered, “Is he the thief, then, Calliope?”
As Calliope turned in a circle, she glanced towards Lord Westwood. Surely he had the fleetness to climb in a window, the strength to carry off the Alabaster Goddess. But…“I don’t know. What of Mr Smithson?”
Emmeline shrugged, and was spun away into another circle. Westwood caught Calliope’s hand again, drawing her near as they turned in allemande. “You are a fine dancer, Miss Chase,” he said, not even out of breath.
Calliope, though, felt suddenly winded as she stared up into his eyes. “I could say the same about you,” she answered. “Where did you learn such grace on your travels?”
“Oh, I am a man of many talents, Miss Chase,” he said, catching her against him for a moment, so very close she could feel the damp heat of his body, the tense strength of him. Their bare arms brushed together, and his skin was so smooth and warm. “You have no idea.”
No. But Calliope thought maybe she was beginning to have an inkling.
They slid back into their own places in line as the music ended, and Calliope ducked into a curtsy. Her heart fairly pounded, as if she had run a mile rather than just danced an easy reel. It was as if the earth shifted under her feet, an earth she had always been so certain of, and it had not yet re-formed. Perhaps it never would.
Westwood held out his hand to help her rise. She slid her fingers into his clasp, still warm from the exercise, and let him lead her from the dance floor. The ballroom was even more crowded than before, newcomers swelling the throng until it reached the very walls, spilled out on to the terrace and the grand staircase. Yet Calliope could hardly hear them for the humming in her head, could not feel their press, their clamour. She only felt his hand on hers.
“Did I tell you that you look quite lovely tonight, Miss Chase?” he said, so close to her ear that his breath stirred the loose curls at her temple.
Calliope shivered. “I—thank you, Lord Westwood. You did say I made a plausible Athena.”
“I would not be surprised if you started a battle right here, leading us to victory over the Spartans.”
Calliope laughed nervously. “I don’t think I could, Lord Westwood. Even Athena could not find her way through this crush. And I can’t find my sister. A poor goddess I would make.”
“Perhaps she went to peek at Artemis,” he suggested.
“But the Alabaster Goddess is hidden! The duke said she would only be revealed later.”
“Ah, yes, you did speak to our notorious host. Or should I say inadequate host, for I have not seen the man since I arrived.”
“Yes, I did see him, but not in quite a while. It was over there, by that Daphne…” Calliope paused, remembering the duke’s caress on Daphne’s cold cheek. “I would feel better if I could find Clio.”
“I’ll help you search,” he said. “This is a big house, to be sure, but she has to be in it somewhere.”
“Oh, would you? I don’t want to take you away from the dancing. Or the cards.”
“A mystery is always more fun than a game of loo, Miss Chase. And ‘find the missing muse’ should be more interesting than a dance—unless it’s with Athena, of course.” His tone was light, but Calliope thought she sensed disquiet in his eyes, in the tight line of his jaw. It made her own uncertainties stronger. She was very glad of his help, not at all sure she wouldn’t get lost in this vast mausoleum on her own.
Plus, if he was with her he couldn’t steal the Alabaster Goddess!
“Thank you, Lord Westwood,” she said. “I appreciate your assistance.”
“What!” he cried in mock astonishment. “Calliope Chase appreciates something about me? Never say so.”
“I won’t let it become a habit,” she said. “And I will appreciate it even more if you actually find Clio.”
“Then let us waste no time. I’m sure two instances of gratitude in one evening would be quite more than I could bear.”
He steered her adroitly through the crowd, deftly sidestepping human barriers and looming statues until they found their way out the ballroom doors. There were also people in the small foyer at the head of the grand staircase, and in the card room and antechambers, but none of them were Medusa. Clio was also not in the ladies’ withdrawing room, which Calliope checked without Westwood’s assistance. Nor had anyone seen her.
Even more unsettling was the fact that no one had seen the duke for quite a while, despite the persistent buzz of gossip about him.
Calliope rejoined Westwood in the foyer, removing her helmet from her aching head. The headache forming behind her eyes was pounding and persistent, insisting that something was amiss.
“Did you say you know where the Alabaster Goddess is?” she asked Westwood.
“I’ve heard a rumour.”
“I think we should look there, then. Unless you think Averton has a secret dungeon somewhere?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “I wouldn’t put it past him. But we’ll ask Artemis first.”
He turned on his heel and set off from the foyer, finding a deserted narrow corridor. Calliope followed closely as they left the light and noise of the party behind. The duke’s house was even more of a crypt than she had first thought, or perhaps more of a catacomb. An odd, twisting series of corridors and chambers. Unlike the Roman version, though, these catacombs held not human bones and ashes, but the bones of civilisations. A jumble of marble and basalt and mosaic, all piled together with no concern for the various cultures and time periods.
Calliope thought of her father’s own collections, so carefully labelled and placed neatly in glass cases. How much each piece meant to him, and his daughters, so much more than a mere beautiful object. More than something to possess and show off, they meant knowledge, a link to lives long turned to dust. A way to understand the past, or at least begin to understand it.
It was obvious from this opulent clutter, this clash of Minoan, Archaic, Classical, Egyptian, Assyrian, Roman, Celtic, that the duke did not see them in this way. Their true value was lost to him.
As was surely the true value of her sister. Wherever Clio was.
At that unsettling thought, Calliope stumbled, reaching out to catch herself on a stone Egyptian lioness.
“Ouch!” she gasped.
Westwood spun around, and her hand landed not on the cold statue but on warm, shifting flesh. His arm went about her waist, holding her steady.
Only she felt even dizzier now, pressed so close to him, than she had falling towards the ground.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice rough.
“Yes,” Calliope answered slowly. “I must have stumbled on something.”
“Easy enough to do in this warehouse.”
Calliope eased herself away from him, leaning back against the kore until she could catch her breath. “I was just thinking it was a catacomb.”
“A most apt description, Miss Chase. A pile of dead things, hidden away from the daylight.”
Calliope studied the reclining Egyptian lioness, her muscles coiled and massive paws flexed, as if she would rise at any moment. How fierce she looked! How unhappy at being caged. Would she try to run away like Daphne? “Do you think they are dead?”
“Let us say sleeping, rather,” he said. He ran his hand over the lioness’s head, and Calliope felt as if she, too, could experience that touch. Rough and chipped, battered by the centuries, but still holding the imprint of her creator. “They can’t breathe in such a gloomy place.”
“Exactly. With no one to see their true worth.” She paused, turning her gaze from the lion’s obsidian stare to meet Westwood’s. In this shadowed light his eyes were just as dark, just as mysterious. “But we don’t agree on what their worth is.”
“Do we not?” His hand tightened on the rippled stone. “I think we agree on far more than is first apparent, Miss Chase.”
If only that were true! Calliope remembered her long-ago daydreams, that he could be the one man who understood her, who shared her dreams. Those hopes were shattered when she had found the Hermes statue gone. “How so, Lord Westwood?”
Instead of answering her, of telling her what she found she yearned to hear—how they could find common ground and be friends at long last—he just smiled. “Do you not think that sometimes you could call me Cameron? I still look around for my father when I hear ‘Lord Westwood’. Everyone I met in Italy and Greece called me Cameron. Or Cam.”
“I’m not sure.” Cameron. How informal it sounded. How—inviting.
“Come, now! No one can hear us but our friend the lioness. And she won’t tell. She loves to keep secrets.”
Indeed, there did seem to be a satisfied gleam in those obsidian eyes, as if she relished having one more secret to add to the vast store she had collected in her long lifetime. Like the Aphrodite statue in the conservatory, and her remembered orgies. “Do you not think she holds enough secrets as it is? I’m sure this house has more than its share.”
“No doubt you are right. Nasty secrets. But, while she is the duke’s captive, she is our friend. She wants us to be in accord.”
“Very well. I suppose I could call you Cameron, when only inanimate objects can hear us.”
“Shh!” He put his hands over the carved ears. “She’s not inanimate, remember? Only sleeping.”
“When will she awaken? When she’s taken from this place at last?”
“When she sees the sunlight again?”
Calliope remembered Lady Tenbray’s Etruscan diadem, far from the sun of its homeland. “And will you be the one to liberate her—Cameron?”
He gave the lioness a considering glance. “Do you think I’m strong enough, Miss Chase? Calliope?” he said teasingly, flexing his—admittedly impressive—arm muscles.
“Are you a hidden Herakles, then?”
“Ah, fair doubter! But as I am not Herakles, merely Hermes, I fear your doubts are justified. She would be much too heavy for me, winged sandals or not. One day, though, someone will free her from this place. Free all these things.”
“Send them back where they came from?”
He shrugged. “Some place where they can be safe. I don’t think anything can be safe here.”
“Oh!” Calliope cried, sharply reminded of their errand. “Clio.”
“Yes, we should move on. If you’re quite recovered?”
“Of course.”
He held out his arm and she accepted his support, letting him lead her down yet another corridor towards a narrow, winding staircase. She couldn’t help but glance back at the lioness, so silent and stolid. Except for that gleam in her eye. That secret glint.
Had she seen Clio tonight?
“The Alabaster Goddess is up here,” Cameron said, clambering up the steps.
Calliope looked up. She saw only a stout wooden door, somewhat ajar, and yet more shadows. More darkness. “How do you know?”
“Still so suspicious! And after I asked you to call me by my given name and everything.”
“The duke said her location was a secret.”
“I have my ways. Come, do you want to see or not, Athena?”
She glanced again towards that doorway. It could conceal anything at all. She half-expected a many-headed Hydra to leap out at them, snarling and slavering. “I want to see.”
“Follow me, then. I may not be Herakles, but I promise I’ll keep you safe.”
He held out his hand, beckoning, and Calliope reached out and clasped it. Held fast to it, like a lifeline in a stormy sea. They climbed up the last of the stairs together, and slowly pushed open the silent door.
That entrance led not to Hades or a vast black river, but to a long, narrow gallery. Tall windows let in moonlight, which mingled with the glow of sputtering candles and cast a soft illumination on more antiquities, more statues and stele and sarcophaguses. Calliope blinked at the light, at first unable to see anything beyond the rich clutter.
Next to her, Cameron stiffened, and a curse escaped his lips in a soft, ominous explosion.
“What…?” Calliope began. Then she saw it.
The Alabaster Goddess, the pride of the Duke of Averton’s collection, lay on her back on the floor, her bow aimed upward at the inlaid ceiling. Her gleaming alabaster body seemed intact, tangled with a length of black satin, but her wooden base was split and splintered.
And, at her feet, lay the duke himself.
Cameron dashed forward, Calliope close on his winged heels. The duke’s bright hair was darkened with a spreading stain, his eyes closed, his skin as pale as Artemis’s. His leopard skin was torn beneath him, and the coppery tang of blood was thick in the cool, dusty air.
“Is he dead?” Calliope whispered.
Cameron knelt down beside the prone duke, reaching out to touch the base of his bare neck. “Not yet. I can feel a pulse, but it’s thin. See here,” he said, gesturing to a gash along the duke’s forehead. “It matches Artemis’s elbow.”
Calliope glanced at the goddess and saw that her arm was indeed stained, a dried smear of rust-coloured blood. “He must have been here for quite a while, for it to dry like that. Do you think the statue fell on him?”
“Maybe her base broke as he was gloating over her. It would seem to be poetic justice of a sort.”
“Or maybe…” Calliope leaned closer, pushing down her nausea. “No. It can’t be.”
“What?”
Shivering, Calliope gestured towards the duke’s hand.
Clutched in his fist was a ripped swathe of green-and-gold silk. Half-hidden underneath his arm was a scattering of sparkling green beads.
“What is this?” Cameron asked tightly.
“Clio,” Calliope groaned. “These are from her costume.”
Cameron straightened, peering intently into the shadows. But Calliope could not be so cautious. She shot to her feet, dashing behind the marble plinth Artemis fell from. “Clio!” she cried. “Where are you? Clio!”
“Shh!” Cameron caught her hand, pulling her up short. “What if whoever did this is still lurking about? What if your sister…?”
“No! Clio couldn’t do this, or if she did I’m certain she had a good reason. You were at the British Museum, you saw. We have to find her.”
“And we will. But there are no other bloodstains on the floor, are there? She isn’t hurt. We need to get help for the duke first. He’s still alive.”
Calliope looked at the man sprawled on the floor. He was still pale, yet she could see that he stirred. “You would help him? Even though you loathe him?”
He laughed wryly. “I may be tempted to leave him to die, done in by his famous Alabaster Goddess. But I would loathe myself even more than him if I did that. I will run back to the ballroom and fetch help, if you think you can stand guard for a few moments. I promise I won’t be gone long.”
Calliope sucked in a deep breath. “Yes. I can stay.”
He studied her closely, as if to gauge her words. Finally, he nodded. “Of course you can, you’re Athena. When you hear people approaching, hide behind that sarcophagus. It would never do for anyone to know that we were alone here!”
Calliope thought of the rumours Emmeline told her about, the gossip about Westwood and her, the bets. How upset she had been by that! Now it hardly seemed to matter. “Not at all,” she said tartly. “Then you would be forced to offer for me.”
“A dreadful fate.” He caught her close in a swift, hard embrace, pressing a kiss to her brow. “I won’t be gone long.”
Calliope watched as he dashed back down the gallery and out the door, as fleet as any true Hermes. When he was gone, the silence gathered around her, thick and muffling, like a true London fog. The shadows also seemed to gather closer, creeping around as if they sensed doom, fed off it.
Calliope wrapped her arms tightly around herself to ward off the cold, to hold Cameron’s embrace close. Some of her stout, Athena-ish courage was ebbing away without him to hold it up, but she knew she had to hold strong. Hold on to her composure. So much depended on it.
Steeling her nerves, she knelt by the duke and reached for his hand. Swallowing a sudden bitter rush of bile, she loosened his fingers to pull free the strip of telltale silk. His grip tightened, as if reluctant to relinquish his prize, but she tugged it loose. Then she set to gathering the green beads, the scattered snake eyes.
As she picked up the last one, she noticed the broken wooden base of the statue. Even though it was splintered, it appeared to not be broken so much as split along an opening. Calliope peered closer, and saw that a tiny, torn bit of paper protruded.
“How odd,” she whispered. A secret compartment? To conceal—what?
Before she could investigate further, she heard the echo of voices and footsteps coming up the staircase. Gripping the silk and beads, she ducked back behind the sarcophagus, lying on her side. It was even darker, colder back there, the floor hard on her hip. She pressed herself tight against the carved, painted hieroglyphs, holding her breath as she listened to the shouts and exclamations.
She had never felt more alone in her life.
Chapter Nine (#ulink_3c7f3890-4e86-5f90-9f85-bb631a133b68)
Calliope crept up the stairs of her own home, her steps weary and slow. The house was quiet; no one expected them back for hours yet, and the servants were tucked away in their own quarters. Her father and Thalia were still at the duke’s, her father to observe all the excitement, and Thalia to look for Clio. Calliope had come home to see if Clio had returned, but she had also come for herself. For the comfort only her own surroundings, her own well-ordered space, could provide.
After such a long, bizarre night, there was something in her that craved the sight of home.
“Perhaps I will write my own horrid novel,” she muttered, catching up a warm shawl draped over a chair and wrapping it tightly around her bare shoulders. Wouldn’t Lotty enjoy that?
She would call it The Duke’s Revenge. Or perhaps Vengeance against the Duke. Yes, that would be more fitting.
Calliope shuddered. It would be a very long time before she forgot the way Averton looked, so pale except for that crimson gash. The confused clamour when the crowd burst into the gallery and carried him away, while she huddled behind that sarcophagus.
“Oh, Clio,” she whispered. “What has happened to you?”
And what had happened between Calliope and Westwood—or Cameron? For those brief moments it seemed they were allies, united in one cause. That was something she never thought to see happen. Never thought to be so affected by. But his humour, his kindness, the quick, cool way he dealt with the duke…
No. She couldn’t think about that right now. It was too baffling, too dizzying. And she had to find her sister. Find out what had happened in that gallery.
There was a thin line of light beneath Clio’s bedchamber door, flickering and shifting like flames. Calliope didn’t even knock, just gently eased that door open, holding her breath as she paused on the threshold.
And Clio was there. After all the searching through the labyrinth of the duke’s house, she was in her own chamber. The room was in darkness except for the blazing fire in the grate. Clio knelt beside the flames, wrapped in a white dressing gown, her auburn hair loose down her back. The red-orange glow reflected on her spectacles as she fed scraps of green silk into the fire. Her face was utterly expressionless.
“Clio,” Calliope called softly.
Clio jumped, spinning around on her heels, crouched for battle. “Calliope!” she cried. “Don’t creep up on me like that. I nearly had apoplexy.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t even sure you were here or just a mirage.” Calliope slowly moved to Clio’s side, hands held out as if in surrender. She knelt beside her sister, studying the torn remains of the Medusa costume.
“What happened tonight, Clio?” she said. She reached out to touch the ragged edge of a gold sleeve. It was stiff with smeared blood.
Clio stared straight ahead into the flames. “What do you mean?”
“Lord Westwood and I found him. The duke. He held a scrap of this very silk in his hand.”
“Was he—dead?”
“No, not yet.”
“And what did he say?”
“He was unconscious. Lord Westwood went for help, and when they carried the duke away I came home. To find you.” Calliope couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She seized Clio, drawing her into a fierce hug. “Oh, Clio, I was so frightened!”
Clio held herself stiff for a second, then she gave a great shudder and fell against Calliope’s shoulder, clutching at her. “Cal! It was—was horrible.”
“My dear, you’re safe now. We’re all safe, I promise,” Calliope said, struggling to convince herself as much as Clio. “Why were you alone with him?”
“I was a fool.” Clio drew away, wiping her cheeks with her dressing gown sleeve. “I wanted to see the Alabaster Goddess without all the gawking crowds. I got one of the footmen to tell me where she was, and I slipped away for a peek. But he must have been watching me. He followed me to that gallery, and just as I saw the goddess, he…”
“He what?”
Clio shook her head fiercely. “I don’t want to say. I swear he did not get very far, though, Cal. He just kissed me. Artemis saved me.”
Calliope gave her a gentle smile. “You mean she leaped off her pedestal and coshed him on the head?”
Clio laughed. It was a strained, choked sound, but very welcome none the less. “Well, she did need a bit of mortal help. I grabbed her by that wooden base and swung it towards him. I just wanted to scare him, make him back away. I thought for a moment he was dead, and I didn’t mean to kill him! I wouldn’t mind if he was dead, but I don’t want his blood on my hands.” She held out one trembling hand, palm up. “Of course, it’s there anyway.”
“No!” Calliope took that hand, holding it tightly. “He is alive, and will probably recover, more is the pity. Hopefully his wits will be scrambled enough, though, that he won’t hurt anyone else.”
“And so he won’t talk of this to anyone?”
“Why would he? Being known as an attacker of women—and being so weak a woman could attack him and bring him low—could hardly be what he wants.”
“For a normal man, perhaps. I don’t have any idea what a man like the duke could want.”
They sat there for a long moment, clinging together, the only sound the snap of the fire. Outside the window the sky was beginning to lighten, a lark twittering in the trees. London coming to life again for one more day.
“There is something I want to show you, Cal,” Clio said. She rose unsteadily to her feet and crossed the room to her bed. From under the mattress she drew a folded, rumpled sheet of paper, covered with a spidery black hand. One corner was ripped away.
“What is it?” Calliope asked, as Clio came back to the fireside.
“I’m not sure. When I—well, when Artemis made contact with the duke’s head, the wooden base split and this paper came out.”
“Oh, yes!” Calliope exclaimed, remembering that broken base, the tiny scrap of parchment. “I saw that it was broken. But what is the paper?”
“A list of some sort.” Clio smoothed it out on the hearth rug. “I can’t quite figure it out, though.”
Calliope leaned closer, peering at the tiny words. “Cicero. The Grey Dove. The Sicilian. The Purple Hyacinth. Nicknames?”
“Perhaps. There are ten of them in all, and they’re each so strange. I wouldn’t have thought the duke was one for secret societies, he seems so solitary, but after seeing his Gothic horror of a house I know anything is possible. What could they be nicknames for?”
Calliope ran her finger down the baffling list. “Charlemagne. The Golden Falcon. I have no idea. It must be very important, though, to hide it in the Alabaster Goddess like that.”
“Important—and illegal, no doubt. Immoral goes without saying.”
Illegal contacts? “Oh, Clio,” Calliope breathed. “Do you suppose the duke is the Lily Thief?”
Cameron splashed cold water over his face, hoping the icy drops would finally wake him from the bizarre dream this whole evening had been. It didn’t work, though. When he opened his eyes, slicking back the wet strands of his hair, his rumpled Hermes costume was still tossed over a chair. And he faced himself—eyes bloodshot, face strained—in the mirror.
In his travels to Greece, he and his companions were chased by bandits and rebels on occasion, running through the rocky hills with bullets zinging at their heels. That was surely dangerous, but also exhilarating. Life-affirming. After a narrow escape, they would drink and sing around campfires until dawn, when they would run again.
Why, then, did he feel so weary now? So—old, almost. Was it because bandits and bullets had a strange honesty to them? Unlike whatever it was that had happened at Averton’s house tonight. That had a murky, corrupt air, a mystery he didn’t care for.
Would he have left Averton to die, if Calliope Chase’s solemn dark eyes weren’t watching every move he made? He was surely tempted to, and the world would be better off. In the end he couldn’t. He couldn’t even let a man he detested die. Because of some weakness in himself? Because he didn’t want to seem less than good, seem the flawed man he was, in front of Calliope?
Cameron shook his head, droplets flying, and reached for his dressing gown. He drew the warm brocade over his chilled nakedness, watching as the first light of day, grey-pink and fuzzy, peeked through the window. Now wasn’t the time for agonised self-examination. He had never been good at that, anyway; he was no poet. Now was the time for action, for solving whatever it was that had happened last night. Someone had tried to kill the duke. Perhaps they had tried to steal the Alabaster Goddess.
The duke himself was always up to something. What did he want with Clio Chase? What did she have to do with last night’s events? What was going on with the Chase sisters?
Cameron went to the window, staring down at the street coming to life for the day. Milkmaids and greengrocers hurried along on their errands; a maid scrubbed at the white steps next door. She yawned as she worked, but Cameron, despite his long night, was suddenly wide awake, his earlier weariness quite forgotten.
Something had happened between him and Calliope Chase, as they made their way through those dark, mouldering rooms. He had always thought her beautiful, of course. And sharply intelligent, sure of herself as only a truly clever person could be. But also stubborn and maddening!
Last night there was a new connection, a new spark that intrigued him, drew him in, even as his suspicions grew. He would find out what was going on with her, with his deep Athena who hid so much. It wouldn’t be easy to gain her trust, her confidence. In fact, he had the feeling it would be the most difficult thing he would ever do. But something was afoot in the small world of antiquities collecting, in the world of the Chases, and he was determined to find out what that was.
Even if he had to spend time—lots of time—with Calliope Chase. Not that that would be a terrible hardship, he thought, remembering the way her Athena costume clung to her bare, white shoulders. But someone had to solve this riddle, before more artefacts like the Alabaster Goddess fell victim to its spell.
And he was just the person to do it.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_a37fd635-8323-5122-a86b-c07a7b543a92)
Calliope tied the ribbons of her bonnet into a jaunty bow just under her left ear and examined herself in the mirror. Did it really look well on her? It was her favourite hat, chip straw trimmed with blue satin ribbons. But was it too—plain?
And why was she so very worried about hats, when there were so many other more important things to be concerned about? Clio and the duke, the Lily Thief, the Ladies Society.
She knew why the sudden preoccupation with fashion, though, and she didn’t like it. She was worried because she was to wear the bonnet to go driving in the park with Lord Westwood.
Cameron.
With a frustrated sigh, Calliope pulled off the bonnet, completely disarranging Mary’s careful construction of curls, and reached for the note that had arrived over breakfast.
“Miss Chase, would you do me the honour of driving with me in the park this afternoon? I think that there, surrounded by hundreds of people, would be the only place where we could really talk. If you are agreeable, I will call for you at half past three.”
If she was agreeable. The gossips would certainly have a splendid time to see them together in Cameron’s yellow phaeton. Calliope idly wondered what the betting books would say. She didn’t want to be talked about, especially now, when she needed to move as unobtrusively as possible in society to discover the Lily Thief. Was it the duke? Westwood? The mysterious Minotaur from the ball? Or someone she had not yet even thought of? She could never find out if everyone was watching her, laughing behind their fans.
But she did need to talk to Westwood. He was the only one, besides Clio and the duke, who knew what really had happened in that dark gallery. Perhaps he could help her now, but she had to be careful. It was possible he was also her biggest obstacle.
Calliope pushed the bonnet aside and reached for the newspapers from that morning. The more disreputable ones were full of news from the masquerade ball, nearly all erroneous. One had the duke’s head split completely open, blood and brains spilling forth on to the floor. It didn’t mention how the man still lived after such carnage. One had jewels stolen from the house, ladies fainting, masked thieves brandishing pistols. Or swords. Or daggers.
None of the accounts were as bad as her own memories, though. Of the smell of coppery blood mingling with dust. Of that scrap of silk in the duke’s hand.
Calliope shuddered and shoved the papers away. Under all those black headlines, under her own confused memories, there lurked the truth. And she intended to find it. Surely it was the only way to stop the Lily Thief, and keep Clio safe.
Yet she couldn’t do it alone. She was no Athena. She needed as many allies as she could find. Her sisters, the Ladies Society. Cameron de Vere?
Could she trust him? Last night he had been like a rock amid chaos and confusion. But that did not erase his old attitudes towards antiquities, their old quarrels.
There was only one way to find out. Talk to the man. Try to see beneath his light, charming façade to the truth beneath.
Calliope reached again for her bonnet and popped it on her head. She wished it had some flirtatious feathers or bright fruit and flowers, or that she herself possessed Thalia’s blue eyes or Emmeline’s fine figure. Brown eyes and skinny limbs, clad in classical white plainness, weren’t likely to coax secrets out of any man, let alone one as admired by the ladies as Westwood.
It was no use worrying about it, though. She was who she was, and there was nothing to be done about it. And she was going to be late if she didn’t hurry.
Calliope retied the bow under her ear and reached for her blue spencer. Maybe she didn’t have flirtatious azure eyes, but she did have one thing she shared with Cameron—a knowledge of history and antiquities. They could speak the same language, if they just tried.
As she pinned a tiny brooch, a golden owl of Athena, to her collar, a knock sounded at her chamber door.
“The Earl of Westwood is waiting for you in the morning room, Miss Chase,” the footman announced.
“Thank you,” Calliope called. “I will be down directly.” She touched the owl and whispered, “Courage.”
The fashionable hour was just beginning as Calliope and Cameron turned into the gates of Hyde Park, his dashing yellow-and-black phaeton rolling smoothly along the lane, joining in the bright parade. Calliope opened her parasol, turning it over her shoulder to block the afternoon sunlight—and some of the stares of the curious.
“Are you quite well today, Miss Chase?” Cameron asked, steering his horses down a slightly quieter pathway. She had been right about his driving skills. His gloved hands were featherlight on the reins, his horses perfectly responsive to his slightest touch. Just as she had been responsive when they danced.
“A good night’s sleep and a strong pot of tea can do wonders,” Calliope answered, nodding at Emmeline as they passed her and her mother in their carriage.
“Did you sleep well, then?”
Calliope laughed ruefully, and shook her head. “Hardly at all. I had such dreams!”
“Dreams of falling statues?”
“Of being chased by hairy Minotaurs down endless corridors.”
He gave her a sympathetic smile. “That house would be quite enough to disturb anyone’s dreams, even without other—events.”
“Quite. I hope never to see Acropolis House again.”
“Or its owner?”
“Him, too. Will he live, do you think?”
“The doctor who was summoned last night says his prognosis is quite good. Once his brain is set right. Whatever right might be for such a man.”
Calliope swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. “And have you heard what the events of the night are supposed to be?”
“That the duke was examining his treasure, and she fell from her unsteady base. A tragic accident.”
“At least until the duke awakens and tells the truth.”
“Until then. How is your sister today?”
“Quiet, but well enough. Clio does not stay discomposed for long. But her account of events is much what you would think, I fear. The duke surprised her as she examined the Alabaster Goddess, and when he tried to do—something, she hit him with the statue.”
“Well done for her.”
Calliope laughed. “I think she is mostly disappointed she didn’t finish the job.”
“Well, I’m sure one day someone will—finish the job. The duke has many enemies.”
“Like you, Lord Westwood?”
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Perhaps. One can never predict what might happen in the future. And I thought I asked you to call me Cameron.”
“When we are alone.”
“Aren’t we alone now?”
Calliope looked around at the crowd of carriages and equestrians. “Hardly.”
“No one can hear us.”
“All right, then—Cameron. I hope that, if something does one day happen to the duke, it won’t be by your hand.”
“You wouldn’t like to see me in Newgate, then?”
Calliope had a vision of him locked behind stout bars, dishevelled, waiting for the noose or the ship to Botany Bay. Once it might have made her laugh; now it made her shiver. “Not for the likes of the Duke of Averton. I don’t want to see you or my sister hurt because of him.”
“I don’t want to see such a thing, either, believe me.”
“Then how can we prevent it?”
“We?”
Calliope examined the passing scenery, the neat rows of trees, feigning a carelessness she was far from feeling. “I think we worked together well last night, did we not?”
“Yes,” he agreed slowly. “Certainly we prevented anyone knowing what really happened in that gallery, though I’m sure there is no power on earth that could stop speculation.”
Calliope thought again of those rumours Emmeline told her about. The wagers on how soon she and Westwood would be betrothed—or would kill each other. “No, indeed. People do like their gossip.”
“But not us,” he said teasingly. “We are above all that. We care only for the benefit of art.”
Calliope laughed. “I am not so high in the instep as all that, I hope! I confess I do indulge in a spot of, shall we say, speculative conversation now and then.”
“Never! Not Miss Calliope Chase.”
“Sad, I know, but I must be honest.” Calliope sighed.
“And what do you speculate about?”
You, she almost said. She bit her lip, turning away again to peer at the passing pedestrians on the walkways. They were in a more sparsely populated part of the park now, most of the stylish gawkers behind them. Here were mostly serious strollers, nurses with their charges, footmen with dogs on leads. The phaeton rolled past them slowly, at a snail’s pace. “Oh, this and that. Bonnets, of course. Parisian fashion papers. Fans and plumes. Don’t ladies always interest themselves in the latest styles?”
Cameron shook his head. “Some ladies perhaps, Miss Chase. Not you, nor, I dare say, your sisters, or your friends in that Ladies Society of yours all the females of the ton are so anxious to join. You can’t fool me.”
She hoped she could fool him, at least some of the time. He couldn’t know how much they really did talk about him at Ladies Society meetings, how most of her acquaintances were half in love with him, called him their “Greek god”. He couldn’t know why she needed his help so much now. Why she had to keep an eye on him.
And he really couldn’t know that she was beginning to like him.
There. She said it, at least to herself. She was beginning to like him, to look forward to his conversation, his smiles. It surely wouldn’t last, though. Such silliness rarely did. She knew this from watching ladies like Lotty, who were infatuated with a different gentleman every week.
It was like one of Lotty’s beloved novels, turned farce rather than Gothic tragedy. The Folly of Calliope. At least it was folly with a purpose.
“Very well,” she admitted. “Sometimes we do talk about hats, and sometimes suitors. Mostly we talk about art and history. And books.” No need to mention that once in a while the books were things like Lady Rosamund’s Tragedy.
“I knew it. Did I not say you cared only for the benefit of art?”
“You did. And that, Lord Westwood—Cameron—is why I need your help.”
He glanced at her, his brow arched. “My help? Dear me, Miss Chase, I fear I shall swoon!”
Calliope lightly slapped his arm. “Don’t tease! I’m serious.”
“As am I. Who would have thought this day would come? I’m quite dizzy with surprise.”
“Hmph.” She snapped her parasol closed, just in case she was required to rap him over the head with it. “Do you want to hear what I have to say or not?”
“Always.”
“Very well, then. I think we both agree the duke is an odious man, yes?”
His smile melted, the corners of his beautiful, Greek god-ish lips turning down. “Of course.”
“You know that better than I, I’m sure. You went to university with him. I only have his behaviour towards my sister to judge by. And his rapacious collecting habits. Those are quite vile enough.”
“Believe me, my dear Miss Chase, you don’t want to see what the man is like outside of polite society,” he said darkly.
My dear? Calliope peered closer at him, trying to read his face under the shadowed brim of his hat. It was as smooth as a statue, as Hermes. Only an obsidian glint in his eyes betrayed the depths of emotion roiling inside.
“No, I don’t,” she said softly. “But I will, if that’s what it takes.”
“If that is what what takes?”
“To protect my sister. And the Alabaster Goddess.”
“The Alabaster Goddess?”
“Of course. It is too much to think I could protect all those objects in that dreadful house. The lioness, the sarcophagus, Daphne. But I think Artemis is in the most immediate danger. Both from the duke and from whoever might think to take her from him.”
“The Lily Thief again?”
“Perhaps. He is not the only petty criminal about, you know. She could be in danger from any number of people.”
“You think some pickpocket from Whitechapel is likely to break into Acropolis House and steal a Greek statue? Maybe some of those cat mummies while he’s at it?”
Calliope sighed. “Put like that, it does sound silly. No, I don’t think some cutpurse is going to haul the goddess away. There are plenty of criminals with more sophistication who could carry off such a crime, though. She is a prime target. Not too large, in beautiful condition…”
“Too famous to sell on the open market.”
“That wouldn’t stop a collector who wants only to gloat over her in private.”
“As the duke has done?”
“Yes, just so.”
He turned the phaeton on to yet another lane, this one more crowded. Their progress slowed even further, caught in a knot of vehicles. “Say the Lily Thief—or someone else—does steal the Alabaster Goddess. How is she worse off than she was in Averton’s possession?”
“At least with him we know where she is. There is a chance she could pass to a museum or a respectable scholar one day. If she is stolen, she would likely never see the light again. Never be studied properly.”
Cameron shook his head. “Calliope, she has been studied, as much as can be. Taken from her original context, most of her lessons are lost for ever anyway. The duke does not deserve her.”
“I won’t argue with you about that. He doesn’t deserve any of those antiquities in his house! But he does own them, for good or ill, at least for now.”
“And so you think that gives him the right…”
Calliope reached out and pressed her fingers to his tense arm, stilling his angry growl. This was that old quarrel of theirs, and there was just no time for it now. She needed him. “Please, Cameron. I need your help. Let’s not argue.”
He stared down at her intently, perfectly still under her touch. “My help with what exactly?”
“I told you—to keep Artemis safe. No matter what our disagreements are, we both want that, yes?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then can we declare a truce? A new alliance, to save the Alabaster Goddess?”
He was silent for a long moment, until Calliope half-feared he meant to reject her truce, to set her down here in the park and drive away, laughing at her folly. Finally, though, he pressed his hand atop hers. “Very well. A truce. Now, how do your propose we protect our divine charge? Put surveillance on the duke’s house? Follow him around town—once he is conscious, of course.”
Calliope laughed in sheer relief. “I’m afraid I haven’t thought that far ahead. That is one reason why I need your help.”
“I thought strategy was Athena’s strong point.”
“I fear I had to put my helmet and shield away and don this bonnet instead. But I am sure we will soon think of something. Come to my house tomorrow evening. My father is having a small card party, and we can talk more there.”
“Strategise over a game of astralasi, eh?”
“Perhaps if the Trojans had done so rather than make war, things might have ended better for them.” Calliope sat back in her seat, opening her parasol again. She felt a new, warm glow of satisfaction. The truce was begun; a new game was afoot. “Thank you, Cameron. You won’t be sorry, I promise.”
You won’t be sorry.
Cameron laughed aloud as he bounded up the steps of his house. That was where Calliope Chase was wrong, for he was already beginning to be sorry. If he joined forces with her, allied with her to protect the Alabaster Goddess, he would have to spend time with her. And then how would he ever stop himself from kissing her?
When he looked at her today, the sun dusting her fair skin with glistening gold, her cheeks flushed with the excitement of her mission, her lips parted on a breath, it took everything in his power, every ounce of self-control, not to grab her. Not to pull her close and kiss those pink lips, feel their softness, their warm yielding. He was so hot to kiss her, embrace her—her, Calliope Chase of all women! A woman who always seemed to regard him with suspicion and disapproval. A woman who was beautiful, but oh so stubborn.
Until that blasted masquerade ball, anyway. The drama and danger, the strange nightmare quality of that evening, had changed something between them. The old distrust cracked and broke, but hadn’t yet reformed into something he could identify.
Except lust. And he’d always had that for her.
Now they were to be allies in some scheme she had to “save” the Alabaster Goddess from the Lily Thief, the duke, and who knew what else.
Cameron opened the door to the library and found Athena’s painted image, her solemn grey-eyed stare. Aside from the fact that Calliope’s eyes were brown—a deep, melting chocolate brown that a person could drown in, happily unable to extricate himself—they were the mirror image of each other. He wondered if Athena had been a member of a Ladies Society, too.
They were certainly up to something, Calliope and her Ladies Society friends. He knew that even before they found the duke in his gallery, when they were dancing and she and Emmeline Saunders kept exchanging glances and whispers. Everyone thought they were some sort of harmless study group, a way for ladies to occupy themselves before they married, yet Cameron had always suspected otherwise. Any society with the Chase sisters as members could hardly be called “harmless”. And now he was somehow a part of it all, God help him.
If he was truly wise, he would stay far away from Calliope and her plans, would pack his bags and retreat to the countryside. Retreat, though, was never his way. Nor was running away from an intriguing puzzle. His curiosity had always got the better of him, especially since life was so dull since he had returned from his travels.
Cameron remembered the way his father would look at him, puzzled, taken aback, as if this son wasn’t what he bargained for. He would shake his head, and say, “You are Greek, aren’t you?” And he was. That insatiable curiosity, that temper that so often got the better of him—that weakness for a pair of dark eyes.
He laughed ruefully, as the painted Athena gave him a scolding stare. He was her acolyte now, a soldier in her adventure. Perhaps it was foolish of him. The last thing he wanted was to be involved in the Duke of Averton’s sphere again, in any way. Perhaps he would be sorry. It was obvious Calliope and her sisters trailed trouble in their beautiful wake.
But he very much looked forward to it. He had been rather bored lately, floundering in his new English life. Unsure of his place, even though he was brought up to it. He was far from bored now.
Yes. He would not be sorry.
Chapter Eleven (#ulink_58166950-789f-5e1a-9c5b-bf37767a294b)
Calliope surveyed the tables set up in the drawing room for the card games. All seemed to be in tidy readiness: the neat white cloths, the new decks of cards, the tea table for refreshments. Through the half-closed doors of the dining room she could hear the servants setting the table for a late supper. The clink of silver and china, the soft murmur of voices.
Drawing her shawl over her shoulders, she stopped to straighten some of the teacups, twitch a crooked cloth into place. There was nothing left to do in here. She should go up and dress, get ready for the guests’ arrival. She was too restless, though. She wanted to keep moving, keep adjusting cloths and fidgeting with cards, not sit down to have her hair dressed!
Calliope stopped at the window, peering down at the darkened street. It was quiet now, a calm lull between the bustle of the day and the flow of evening partygoers. She should feel calm, too. There was surely no need for nervousness. She had played hostess for her father since her mother died, and while they certainly did not entertain as much as they once did, she could manage a small card party.
Perhaps it was not the party itself, but the guest list. Or one guest in particular.
Cameron de Vere was coming to the party tonight. And, what was more, he was going to help her in her schemes to save the Alabaster Goddess. Of course, she didn’t yet know what the scheme would be, but surely with his help things would soon be figured out. He disliked the duke as much as she did. He wanted to see Artemis safe.
A lone carriage rattled down the street, a phaeton hurrying homeward. It was not bright yellow, yet for a moment she remembered staring down from here to see Cameron’s equipage in that very spot, his laughing face turned towards the sun, hair tossed in the breeze. Free. He was always so very free, so careless of what others thought of him. So secure in who he was.
How she envied that.
Calliope sighed, and drew the curtains closed. Free or not, she had a job to do and not much time to do it. She was wasting precious minutes, reflecting on Cameron’s handsome face, his self-confident ways. She just couldn’t seem to help it, though! Thoughts of him crept up on her at the oddest moments. Perhaps she was infected by Lotty’s novel-reading habits, after all.
But then, maybe in a situation like this—stolen antiquities, wicked dukes, mysterious thieves—horrid novels could be more help than Plato or Aristotle. Too bad those novel heroines always seemed to be such fainting cabbage-heads.
“Calliope? Are you not dressed yet?” she heard her father say. She turned to find him in the doorway, leaning on the walking stick he seemed to employ more and more these days. He glanced around with a puzzled air, as if surprised to find himself in his own quiet drawing room, and not the bustling Athenian agora of his studies.
Calliope gazed at him with concern. How frail he looked since her mother died! How distracted and distant. As if he was not of this world, but living more and more in the ancient past. Who could blame him, really, with so many daughters to worry over? So many wild Muses. At least his distraction gave them lots of free time. Time to track down thieves.
“I just wanted to be sure everything is in readiness,” she said. She hurried to his side, taking his arm to lead him to his favourite armchair. “We want our guests to be comfortable, do we not?”
“Ah, Calliope. So much like your mother,” he said with a sigh, patting her cheek.
“Am I, Father?”
“Certainly. Oh, Clio looks the most like her, with that red hair, but you have her spirit. Always thinking of other people, always wanting things to be right for them.” He chuckled. “Whatever you think right is. You and your mother—always so certain of everything. How I always relied on her sureness…”
Calliope gently took his hand in hers. “You miss her very much. Just as I do.”
“Indeed. She was an excellent companion, your mother, so intelligent and steady. Practical, as you are. And beautiful, of course. I can’t seem to find my way without her.” He covered her hand with his, holding her close. “But she left me you and your sisters. I’ll always have a part of her. I tell you, Calliope, my dearest wish for you, for all my Muses, is that you find such a partner in life.”
“Oh, Father,” Calliope said carefully, fearful she might start to cry, “you and Mother were so fortunate to find each other. I fear I’ve never met anyone I could be so compatible with. Could love that way.”
“No one? What of young Westwood?”
Calliope stared at her father, startled. Had he, too, heard those rumours? She thought he noticed nothing that hadn’t happened thousands of years ago! “Lord Westwood? Of course not him, Father. We argue too much.”
“So did your mother and I, when we first met. It’s a sign of passion, y’know.”
“Father!” Calliope cried, feeling hot embarrassment flood her cheeks. She turned away to fuss with an arrangement of chairs.
Her father chuckled. “You don’t want some milquetoast who would just agree with everything you say, would you? Not my Calliope. You would be bored within an hour. And Westwood appreciates the same things you do. Art, history.”
“His father appreciated those things, too, and you two were great rivals.”
“So we were. And enjoyed every moment of our rivalry. One wants to be opposed at times. Life is so dull otherwise.”
“I don’t think I would want a rival as a spouse, though,” Calliope protested. “And Lord Westwood’s views are so different from mine.”
“I’m sure he would come round to a more correct way of thinking, with my Calliope’s help. One more for our cause, eh? You always did enjoy a challenge, my dear.”
Calliope had to laugh. “I do indeed. He might prove too great a challenge, though.”
“For a Chase Muse? Never!” He gave her a sly wink. “Lady Rushworth tells me Lord Westwood is considered quite handsome among the ladies. An Apollo to adorn your side?”
“Father!” Calliope said, kissing his cheek amid helpless laughter. “You should not try to matchmake, you do it ill. I will find the right gentleman, never fear.”
He patted her hand. “I just want to see you happy.”
“I am happy. But I will be even happier once I dress, so I don’t have to greet our guests in my round gown and shawl.”
“You run along, then, Calliope. I will sit here and savour the anticipation of trouncing Mr Berryman at cards. He won ten shillings off me last time.”
“Such shocking extravagance, Father,” Calliope teased. “While you sit here, make sure the servants properly arrange the cakes for the tea table.”
“I shall, my dear. You can always trust me with cakes.”
Calliope left the drawing room and went up the stairs, past servants bustling with final preparations. She should be thinking about refreshments and the guest list, too, but instead she thought only about her father’s words.
For a man with such a crowd of daughters, he seldom showed any concern for their matrimonial prospects. He lived in his own classical world, where dowries and betrothals had little place. Had he really been looking to Lord Westwood with an eye for an engagement? Scheming a match, along with his friend Lady Rushworth? Was everyone around her expecting her to marry Cameron, simply because they were prone to quarrels?
Calliope stepped into her bedchamber, watching as Mary prepared yet another white evening gown. Had she grown so predictable, then? She feared she had—white gowns, arguments with Lord Westwood, the evening was set. Too bad life couldn’t follow such easy patterns. It always insisted on throwing obstacles in one’s path. Things like thieves, and dukes obsessed with one’s sister.
And handsome young earls.
Calliope pushed all that away, and discarded her shawl to begin her evening toilette. A card party was not the place to suddenly become unpredictable. But if society thought they really knew Calliope Chase—well, soon, they would just have to think again.
The scene in the Chase drawing room was a distinct contrast to the one that happened in the duke’s grand ballroom. There were no fantastical costumes, no gods and monsters and nymphs, just ordinary mortals in stylish, if subdued, evening dress. No wild dancing, no crowds packed to the walls, and much less artwork. But at least their statues, Calliope thought with satisfaction, were legally obtained and properly looked after.
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Amanda McCabe
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Стоимость: 774.26 ₽
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: To Catch a Rogue When antiquities begin to go missing from London drawing rooms Miss Calliope Chase doesn’t have to look much further than Cameron de Vere, Earl of Westwood, for a suspect.What she doesn′t realise is that her determined pursuit of a criminal looks like a budding romance. Until Cameron kisses her, and her ordered life is thrown into appalling confusion! To Deceive a Duke Clio Chase is hoping for a quiet season in Sicily with her family to forget about enigmatic Duke of Averton and the strange effect he has on her. That is until he unexpectedly arrives, shattering her peace and warning her of trouble… and Clio knows there is only so long she can resist her mysterious duke!