Page 15 of Lady Daring
Henrietta stopped as a short, bilious-looking gentleman sidled up to them.
“Lord Pinochle!” Aunt Althea fluttered her fan. “I hoped you would find us in this sad crush. Marsibel longs to see some of Lord Ellesmere’s objets d’art.I don’t suppose you would give her a tour?”
Henrietta froze. Pinochle was his lordship from that morning. The man whose unwanted advances had left Nancy swollen with child and who had arranged with Lady Bess to see, as he thought, to ridding her of it.
“I am sure he is on the to-avoid list,” Henrietta hissed to Marsibel.
“Mama says to encourage him.” Marsibel edged closer to Henrietta for support. “Milord, have you met my cousin, Miss Henrietta Wardley-Hines?”
Henrietta stood rooted to the spot as Pinochle regarded her with a smirk. She knew her garish robe of burnt umber made her resemble an ambulatory pumpkin, a far cry from the plain ridinghabit of that morning, but the game would be up if he recognized her face.
Pinochle, however, didn’t glance at her face. His eyes returned to the costly string of pearls wreathing Marsibel’s neck. “I would be delighted to escort your lovely daughter, Lady Pomeroy.” His stiff bow suggested he was wearing a corset beneath his evening coat.
“I am perishingly fond of classical things,” Henrietta announced, sliding an arm about Marsibel’s waist.
“You shall only be in the way, Henrietta,” Aunt Althea said.
“Nonsense! I am agog to see what treasures Lord Ellesmere has ransacked from the Italian peninsula. Lead the way, Lord Pinochle,” Henrietta cried, planting herself like a shield between him and Marsi. If he made the slightest feint at her cousin—if he so much as glanced at her bosom again—she would kick him in his padded calves, peer or not.
The long, narrow gallery of Ellesmere House occupied the first floor of an entire wing of the house. Doors on one side opened to a series of spacious, symmetrical rooms, while the set of windows that lined the opposite wall overlooked a set of gardens landscaped to geometrical perfection. Lord Ellesmere’s collection was fast-growing and undiscriminating, Henrietta observed. She stuck like a burr to Marsibel as Pinochle lectured his way down the hall.
“And this one is Psyche fleeing Cupid,” Pinochle intoned before one excellent piece. “The story goes that, she being the most beautiful woman alive, the god of love desired her for his wife.”
Marsibel’s cheeks grew pink as she gazed at the bared, sculpted chest of the pursuing male.
“But when Psyche broke her promise not to try to see him during the night, Cupid lefther,” Henrietta said. “I think thismust be Daphne fleeing Apollo. Look at her feet. She is already turning into the laurel.”
“Foliage,” Pinochle said. “I am sure it is a Psyche.” He cleared his throat and moved to the next statue. “This is the acquisition Lord Ellesmere invited us to see. A copy of the Diana of Gabii recently discovered in Rome.”
The women gathered around him with a collectiveaah.
Diana was a bold beauty, slender and strong, one shapely foot stepping forward in confidence. A soft smile curved her lips, but she held her head at a proud angle, cool-headed, self-possessed. She was a woman who took pleasure in her strength and freedom, who would acknowledge an equal but never a master, secure in her sound mind, her worth and abilities. A goddess, Henrietta thought, who met the world without flinching.
All the same time, it was easier to meet the world when one had such a perfectly symmetrical face.
“How old is the Diana of Gabii?” Henrietta asked. “The detail is exquisite, even if she is a copy.”
Pinochle shrugged. “First or second century, perhaps.”
“Fourth century BC,” said a new voice. “The Diana of Gabii is by Praxiteles, who is also responsible for the Aphrodite of Knidos.”
He was here. With his sculpted features and lean height, he looked of a piece with the statuary around them. Delight curled through Henrietta’s belly. They needed deliverance from Pinochle, and again, her rescuer had appeared.
“Is the Psyche by the same artist?” Henrietta asked him.
“That is Daphne,” he said with a hint of laughter in his eye, “and she is a copy of the Bernini owned by Prince Borghese. One of the masterpieces of Renaissance art.” He returned her admiring stare with a frank, open grin, and the curl of delight fanned out through her body.
Pinochle scowled and stepped nearer to Marsibel. “Surprised to see you here, Lord Darien,” he said curtly. “Care to identify this one, if you are the expert?” He pointed to a statue of an entirely naked man.
“Oh, my.” Marsibel stared at the figure’s perfect proportions, a blush rising to her cheek.
“Hercules,” her rescuer said. He had such a lovely, rich voice, deep and confident. “Gathering apples from the golden tree in the Hesperides.”
Lord Darien. She didn’t recognize the name. Why had he not been pointed out to her before? Aunt Althea made certain to identify anyone of importance. She could not have overlooked someone so noticeable.
“He could be the prince from the legend of Atalanta,” Henrietta said. “He dropped the golden apples to distract her so that he would win the footrace and thereby her hand. The suitors who lost to her, if I recall, were executed.”
His eyes were a startling hue, even bluer outside the dim light of the Chapel Royal. “You know your classical myths, Miss?—”
