Mischief in Regency Society. Amanda McCabe
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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