Crewe had paused in the act of trimming a candle.
Papa was rising from his chair.
Mr. Carsington lifted his head from the hand it had been leaning on and, after a moment, smiled a small, secretive smile.
The back of her neck tingled.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought you were sleeping.”
His smile widened. Mirabel abruptly recalled what she’d done in the early hours of morning—and her sarcastic remark about leaping upon gentlemen in their sleep.
Her face grew very hot.
“Never mind,” she said. She started to turn away.
“Please don’t go, Miss Oldridge,” Mr. Carsington said. “Your father and I were talking about Egyptian date palms. I should like to hear your views.”
Perhaps his smile hadn’t meant what she thought it did. Perhaps it had been a smile of relief at her interrupting a deadly boring botanical lecture.
Her father gestured at the chair he’d vacated, and Mirabel took it. She could not run away, no matter how embarrassed she was.
While botany was less likely to prove fatal than an opiate overdose, it was not without its dangers. From date palms, Papa might proceed to Sumatran camphor trees, in which case Mr. Carsington was sure to throw himself out of the window.
“We were speaking of young men sowing wild oats,” her parent said, “and I remarked that this may well be a law of nature. In ancient Egypt, I was telling Mr. Carsington, only female date palms were cultivated. Wild males were brought from the desert to fertilize them.”
“I could not understand why the Egyptians should go to so much bother,” Mr. Carsington said. “Why not use cultivated males as well as females? But you are better versed than I in agriculture. What is your opinion?”
“I can think of three reasons,” she said. “Tradition, superstition, or—and this, I fear, is not always the rule in agricultural practices—the wild males had been proven to produce fruit either in greater quantity or of superior quality.”
“The Babylonians suspended male clusters from wild dates over the females,” Papa said. “Many nations of Asia and Africa used this combination.”
“Then it would appear to be a widespread practice,” Mirabel said. “Yet I don’t see what it has to do with the human species sowing wild oats. To my knowledge, date palms do not possess intellectual powers, let alone principles. They cannot decide how to act. They are governed entirely by natural laws.”
“But the young are governed more by nature—by natural feelings, in other words—than by intellect and moral principle,” her father said. “For example, would either of you claim to be the same person you were, say, a decade or so ago? At that time, as I recollect, Mirabel, you were in London, breaking hearts left and right—”
“I was what?” Mirabel stared at her father. He could not have said what she thought he did.
“Were you really?” said Mr. Carsington. “Well, that is interesting. You grow more complicated by the minute, Miss Oldridge.”
ALISTAIR wished he had a way of capturing the moment, for the look Miss Oldridge gave her father was priceless. If the botanist had suddenly sprouted palm fronds and date clusters, she could not have appeared more dumbfounded.
She quickly composed herself, however, and directed a level gaze at Alistair. “This is absurd,” she said.
“You never told me you’d been to London,” he said.
“It was ages ago,” she said. “You weren’t even born yet.”
He laughed. “No doubt my father wished I hadn’t been. Some ten or so years ago I incited a riot near Kensington Gate.”
“A riot?” she said. “You started a riot?”
“Did you not read of it? The tale was in all the papers.”
“I don’t remember,” she said.
“You had too much on your mind, I daresay. All those hearts you had to break.”
Alistair thought she was well on her way to breaking his.
This day had dragged on so slowly, grey and dismal. He hadn’t realized how low his spirits had sunk until now. He’d hardly noticed his state of mind, it was so familiar, this melancholy.
Then she’d burst into the room and he’d thought his heart, in pure joy, would burst from his chest.
Numskull heart. She would break it, and forget about it as quickly and easily as she’d forgotten all the others. It would serve him right. He should guard it better, lock it away and keep his mind on business. Should, should, should. But he couldn’t summon the will to resist her, to stifle the happiness he felt when she came into the room.
He watched her summon her wits, saw her baffled blue gaze clear, and waited for her answer.
She leaned toward him and whispered, “I beg you will not place too much credence in what Papa says about my time in London. I cannot think where he comes by the notion that I am a femme fatale. Perhaps he has confused me with my Aunt Clothilde. She was a famous beauty. She is still, actually. Men are always falling in love with her.”
Alistair leaned toward her. “Perhaps it runs in the family,” he whispered back.
She gave him a quick, uncomprehending look, then coloring, drew back. “Oh,” she said. “You are flirting with me.”
If only it were so simple and innocent. But it was not. The game he played at present was more dangerous than mere flirtation. He knew this, but he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help himself.
“Do you mind?” he said.
“No.” Her brow wrinkled. “Doubtless you find it more amusing than date palms. But I am out of practice, and—” She broke off and looked about the room. “Where is Papa? Where is Crewe?”
Alistair gave the room a quick survey. Their chaperons were nowhere in sight. “They seem to have abandoned us,” he said softly. “I wish you would take advantage.”
“Of what?”
“Me,” he said. “I am helpless, confined to this chair. I am not to put any weight on my left foot. I am completely at your mercy. Break my heart. Please. Get it over with.”
“You are delirious,” she said. “Papa was talking about camphor trees, wasn’t he? I must tell Mrs. Entwhistle not to let—”
“Very well. If you will make me leave my chair…” Alistair started to get up.
She sprang up from her chair, thrust her hand against his chest, and pushed him back down.
He looked up at her. Her hand stayed on his chest. She didn’t move, didn’t speak, only watched him, her gaze scanning his face.
Finally, she lifted her hand. He waited for the slap he so richly deserved.
She laid the palm of her hand against his cheek.
It was nothing, really, the merest touch, but it was everything, too, to him, and he might as well have been struck by lightning, for it blasted to pieces what remained of his judgment and all those noble principles regarding the lines a gentleman may and may not cross.
He turned his head and pressed his lips against the soft flesh of her hand, and heard her quick intake of breath.
His own breathing grew hurried. He’d done nothing but miss her and indulge in hopeless fantasies since she’d left this room in the dark hours of morning.
He couldn’t banish the memory of her scent and the supple curves of her body.
Now he drank in that scent while tracing the soft curves of her palm with his lips. Her hand trembled, but she didn’t draw it away, and when he kissed her wrist, he found her pulse beating as frantically as his heart did.
Her fingers curled into a fist against his cheek. He kissed her knuckles.
She pulled her hand away.
He looked up.
Her countenance was wiped clean of expression.
From behind him came a small, disapproving cough.
Alistair suppressed the oath rising to his lips, turned toward his valet, and said, “Oh there you are, Crewe. I wondered where you’d got to.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” the valet said. “Thinking Mr. Oldridge had remained, I assumed my presence was not required, and stepped
into the next room to attend to a few tasks.”
“I collect it was the date palms,” said Miss Oldridge coolly. “They have driven me to distant parts of the house often enough. When that subject comes up, the wisest course is flight. I applaud your good sense, Crewe.”
She turned an unreadable gaze upon Alistair. “Perhaps I had better warn you about the camphor tree of Sumatra. Papa has recently read an Asiatic Journal article devoted to the topic.”
“I am not sure I know what a camphor tree is,” Alistair said.
“I strongly recommend that you do not ask him to enlighten you,” she said.
“I certainly shan’t ask Mr. Oldridge to read the article to me,” Alistair said. “Your father has a soothing voice, and botanical prose is terrifically boring. I’ll only fall asleep without learning a thing. Look at what he brought this time. Can you wonder at my preferring to discuss date palms with him?”
Miss Oldridge glanced at the table, where a copy of De Candolle’s Elementary Principles of Botany lay.