Mistress - Amanda Quick [52]
“Over here.” Marcus stepped back from the desk. “My fault entirely, I fear. I think I got most of it, however.”
Iphiginia appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a white pelisse over her white muslin gown. She carried a white straw bonnet in one hand and a large apron in the other.
She frowned in concern at the commotion in the library. “What happened?”
Marcus stared at her for a few brief seconds. She looked as pure and chaste as new-fallen snow. What a pity that there was nothing so deceiving as innocence.
He quickly recovered himself. “A small disaster. I spilled some tea. There is no damage to your desk.”
“I’m relieved to hear that.” Iphiginia put on her bonnet and tied the strings. She smiled cheerfully. “Well, then, shall we be off, my lord? I am eager to see the museum’s collection of Greek vases.”
“By all means,” Marcus said. He glanced at the apron she carried. “What is that for?”
Iphiginia grimaced. “White is a very effective color for some purposes, but it has its disadvantages.”
Half an hour later Marcus stood with Iphiginia in the gloom of a vast tomblike museum hall.
The high-ceilinged chamber was crammed with broken statuary, chunks of stone, and assorted bits and pieces taken from old ruins. Dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight filtering through the upper windows. The hush of antiquity blanketed the scene.
Iphiginia, clad in her apron, moved through the sepulchral atmosphere with cheerful disregard for her oppressive surroundings. Her enthusiasm was contagious, Marcus realized.
Although he had once made a superficial study of the more intriguing construction details of the classical style, antiquities had never been a subject of particular interest for him. He was a man of the modern age. Generally speaking, he preferred to devote his attention to such things as astronomy and steam engines.
Today, however, he found himself consumed by a rare fascination with archaeological matters.
He watched as Iphiginia studied the designs on a row of ancient vases. She was beautiful when she was absorbed in intellectual contemplation, he realized. Almost as beautiful as she had been the other night when she had found her release in his arms in Lartmore’s statuary hall.
If he had not known better, he would have thought it was the first time she had ever been brought to such a sensual peak by a man.
Without any warning, desire, hot, sweet, and urgent, whipped through him. It left him shaken and half-aroused. And ruefully annoyed.
These abrupt, fiery rushes of passion were coming upon him with increasing frequency of late. Each time they crashed through him, they seemed stronger. This morning he had awakened at dawn to discover himself as hard as any marble statue.
This afternoon he was growing heavy with arousal just watching Iphiginia in a museum. It would have been ludicrous if it were not so bloody uncomfortable.
The anticipation growing within him was almost unbearable in its intensity. Soon, he thought. Very soon he would have to make love to her.
It had to be soon or he would become a candidate for Bedlam.
He forced himself to contemplate the large vase that had caught her attention. “Etruscan, do you think?”
“No. Definitely Grecian.” Iphiginia glanced up at another row of dust-laden vases. “Quite spectacular, are they not? The forms are so perfect, so exquisitely right. There is such an impressive combination of intellect and art in the designs.”
“Most impressive,” Marcus agreed, his gaze riveted to the gentle curves of her breasts.
She turned her head and saw him studying her bosom. Her face grew very pink. “Have you learned anything useful yet, my lord?”
“About Greek vases?”
“Of course. That is what we are discussing, is it not?”
Marcus lounged against a rubble of old stones, folded his arms across his chest, and contemplated a vase. “I have learned a great deal, my dear Mrs. Bright, but not nearly enough.”
She smiled with glowing approval, as though he were a precocious student. “It is your nature to constantly thirst for more, my lord. The