And blast it, he’d intended to visit the antiquarian bookstore next to Lenning’s Tannery again today. He meant to ask the blonde woman, who dressed as if she were a thirteenth century chatelaine instead of a shopkeeper, about references—scrolls, papyruses, whatever—from Egypt in particular. He cursed under his breath. Now he wouldn’t have the chance.
Napoleon Bonaparte had brought chests and crates of antiquities back from his travels through and conquest of Egypt, and the objects were being sold and distributed throughout Europe. Surely there was something in the ancient world of pharaohs and sun gods that would help Dimitri banish the demon of darkness who’d lured him into an unholy contract decades ago. Even though Vlad Tepes, the Count Dracula, had made his agreement with Lucifer in the fifteenth century, Dimitri suspected that his ancestor hadn’t been the first mortal to sell his soul—and that of his progeny—to the devil. The legend of Johann Faust had become popular after Vlad’s agreement, but there had to have been others since the beginning of time. He’d studied manuscripts and writings of the Greeks and Romans, even some from Aramea and other parts of the Holy Land.
Perhaps there would be something he could glean from the Egyptian antiquities and hieroglyphs that would give him direction. Not that anyone had been able to break the code of the Egyptian alphabet yet, but Dimitri was determined to try his hand at it.
After all, he had forever to do it.
And now the stele that had been found in Rosetta several years ago by the French, and was currently in the possession of the Antiquarian Society here in London, looked promising for translating the hieroglyphs. Thus, Dimitri was hopeful. He would love to get his hands on the stone himself, but that would mean having to be around people and playing politics and listening to gossip and jests and having to avoid the sun in public company…and all sorts of things he’d much rather avoid.
He’d considered stealing—rather, borrowing the so-called Rosetta Stone for a time in order to work on it himself, but in the end decided against it. Perhaps he might break into the British Museum, where it was kept, and make a rubbing of it one night—if he didn’t have to spend his bloody time accompanying debutantes to masques and balls. His jaw hurt where his teeth ground together.
There was no way around it.
The two elder Woodmore sisters would soon be overrunning his solitude, upsetting his household and interrupting his studies. And, blast it all, so would Dimitri’s own so-called sibling, Mirabella—for naturally, he’d have to bring her into Town, as well. He’d adopted the foundling as his sister some years ago—and he supposed he’d put off her debut as long as he could. The very thought of three debutantes in his house made him grind his teeth sourly.
All of them would be disrupting his schedule and nattering on about parties and fetes and balls and whatever else they did. Squealing, laughing, atomizing perfume and spilling powder—and Luce’s dark soul, Dimitri would have to ensure no one had any rubies with them.
Bloody black hell.
But Dimitri knew that the worst of it was going to be the very proper, very demanding presence of Miss Maia Woodmore.
Here. In this house. Under his very nose.
If Chas Woodmore was still alive when they found him, Dimitri was going to kill the bastard.
Maia Woodmore was fuming—which was something she rarely lowered herself to do.
In fact, unlike her younger sister Angelica, Maia had forced herself to become a paragon of poise and containment and propriety. Except, it seemed, in the case of contrary, arrogant, annoying earls named Corvindale.
It was as if all of the men in her life—whether she wanted them there or not—had decided to go off all shilly-shally and leave her to pick up the pieces and manage their leftovers. A task she was, thankfully, more than capable of doing, regardless of whether she wanted to or not. After all, it seemed as if she’d always been in charge, forever trying to make things right, trying to keep her younger sisters safe, well loved and well cared for.
At least, since their parents died.
Included in Maia’s mental tirade, along with Corvindale, was her elder brother Chas, who was always haring off somewhere and leaving her to manage things—not an easy task when one was an untitled, unmarried, somewhat-rich young woman of the ton. It was his great fortune that she was not only up to the task, but efficient and capable of doing so.
And also included in her annoyance was her fiancé, Alexander Bradington, who’d proposed on her eighteenth birthday, and then went off on a trip to the Continent three months later. He’d been gone for eighteen months.
But the Earl of Corvindale was the absolute worst of the bunch.
Alexander had been engaged in Rome and Vienna for the past several months, delayed because of the war with France—which was hardly his fault, she allowed. But she missed him, and if he were here, they could just get married and chaperone Angelica and Sonia themselves.
Chas had once again gone off on some mysterious business trip, but this time, things were different. He’d left behind a note that made it sound as if the world was to end like it had in Pompeii, or France was to invade if he didn’t return within a fortnight. To Maia’s increasing concern, he hadn’t. She’d be blazingly furious with Chas for foisting her and Angelica on the dratted Earl of Corvindale if she weren’t so worried that something horrible had happened to their brother.
But Corvindale was here in London, and he had not only ignored her very polite missive—which had only been sent out of courtesy—but now, as she looked up at his dark, hawkish, arrogant face, he raised an eyebrow and eyed her as if she were some sort of crawly insect.
“Of course I received your letter,” Corvindale said. His voice was flat with boredom. “I am the only Corvindale, am I not?”
“But you didn’t deign to respond,” Maia replied, attempting, rather admirably she thought, to keep her voice level. Although, due to the fact that they were in the midst of a rather large crush at the Lundhames’ annual summer ball, she did have to raise its volume to be heard over the conversation and music buffeting against them.
She and Angelica hadn’t chosen to attend this event merely because they expected Corvindale to be here; in fact, she rather assumed he wouldn’t bother to show at the Lundhames’ any more than he had lowered himself to respond to her letter. Everyone knew the earl was a recluse who cared only for ancient manuscripts and scraps of parchment.
But here he was. Lifting that dark brow and looking down at her from his excessive height as if he couldn’t spare the time to converse with her. Well, she fumed, the feeling was quite mutual.
“I consider the fact that we are conversing a fair response,” Corvindale replied. “Particularly since, as I recall, we’ve never been properly introduced.” His dark eyes gleamed.
Maia’s face, blast her fair skin, went warm, and likely pinker than the roses on the shoulders of her cornflower-blue gown. No, indeed, they hadn’t ever been formally introduced. But she certainly knew who he was—the tall, imposing man whose very presence at any social event was cause for the gossips to strain in their corsets to get a glimpse of him…let alone happen to speak with the rude, prideful earl.
And he certainly knew who she was…and not just because he and Chas had been business associates for years, and occasionally they’d attended the same events. She’d hoped that Corvindale hadn’t realized it was she during that horrid night at Haymarket she’d come to think of as the Incident.
Maia held her breath so that the flush would dissipate and tried not to meet his eyes. Surely he wouldn’t be rude enough to mention the Incident if he did realize it had been she. But he couldn’t have recognized her. After all, she’d been dressed like a boy.
“Allow me to set your mind at ease, Miss Woodmore,” he said, the boredom having returned as he glanced at the cluster of people behind her. “I will send instructions on the morrow with arrangements for you and your sister to move to Blackmont Hall until your brother returns.”
He would send instructions? With arrangements? She folded her lips together in an effort to keep from telling him exactly how she felt about being told what she would do and how and when—without any consultation on her part—and by a man she had fairly detested on sight. Even three years ago.
How kind of you, Lord Corvindale to at least apprise me of your intentions. Just like every other man in the world, including her brother, he had no regard for her opinion or feelings. It was as if she had the mind of a china doll. If they only realized how much she handled on a daily basis, how much she knew and comprehended about their world and its history.
She certainly had no intention of leaving her home at the drop of a pin to live at his, but Maia didn’t have the time or the desire to discuss the “arrangements” with him further, for the prickling lifting the hair on her arms indicated that her headstrong sister Angelica was about to get herself into some sort of improper situation.
Unlike her two younger sisters, Maia hadn’t been blessed with the Sight from their half-Gypsy grandmother. Yet, she possessed a keen intuition for brewing trouble that often manifested itself in a simple sort of knowing.
The Sight works in strange ways. Her Granny Grapes had said that, more than once when Maia expressed juvenile envy that her sisters seemed to have acquired the Sight, but she had not. That was when she was young and childish and didn’t realize what a terrible burden it was for Angelica and Sonia.
So childish. But she’d long grown past that, realizing that her role was to protect and care for her more vulnerable sisters, particularly after the death of their parents. And she excelled at that, just as she did everything else. Except translating Greek, which she found a necessary evil, but the effort worthwhile.
And, she supposed, that sort of intuitive, prickling knowing when something was wrong, or odd, was perhaps her own version of the Sight.
“Very well, my lord,” Maia said, making her voice sound rather like a queen agreeing to an audience with her subject. “I shall review your correspondence on the morrow.”
