With the toe of her slipper, she touched the unconscious man. “What if he tries to create a scandal?”
“He’ll have me to deal with. Should I throw him in the river? He could catch the falling tide, take up residence in the marshes.”
“No. That won’t be necessary. I don’t want to add murder to the evening.”
Behind a flowerpot, Zachary grabbed a quart of whiskey the gardener had hidden and dumped it over the sugar baron, placed the neck of the bottle in the sugar baron’s hand. “Just asgood as one of those paintings in the hall.” He dusted his hands. “No attachment to the scoundrel?”
Elizabeth’s lip curled. “To a degenerate? Are you kidding? He’s treated our servants like his slaves. The man is living proof that God has a sordid sense of humor.”
“That’s not fair. Havemeyer possesses a deep voice. Twice the size of the rest of him, reminding me of the mating practices of bullfrogs. He’d find the flair handy in the tidal flats. Skinny, deep-throated males attract more females than their huskier, higher-pitched companions. By the looks of things, Isaac Havemeyer reversed the laws of nature. Are you sure you don’t want me to throw him in the river?”
She laughed. “Skinny bullfrogs? How appropriate.”
“I’m glad to see money and a title would not interest you. You are worth so much more.”
Elizabeth huffed. “Is that what you think?”
“Are you fishing for compliments?”
“Of course not.”
“Of course, not,” he taunted, leaning against the door frame, his posture deceptively relaxed, despite a prevailing undercurrent. Frontiersman? Cowboy? Gentleman? She couldn’t decide if she liked him in his western attire or his formal attire. Was it possible for him to appear taller, broader in the shoulders, and thicker in the chest? He should have seemed cruder, or the tiniest unsophisticated. But he wore the clothes of a gentleman perfectly. The flawless tailoring of his coat suggested that the superb garment hugged his shoulders without pinching or pulling, and it tucked in smartly at his waist just enough to show his sinewy frame.
During dinner, she had felt his gaze on her while addressing her father. He had regarded her long enough that Elizabeth was certain the staff and other guests were taking notice of the way he had assessed her inside out. What stymied her washer inability to gauge what was in his face the instant she had caught him at it. He had turned to the guest on his other side, and she could not determine if his concentration was more than hopeful imagination. Not that she desired him to take an interest—not the sort of affection a man of inferior position would have for a woman of elite status. It was all sheer whimsy, just an astonishingly beautiful man—an impressive sight that she could not but regard. “You are a proud and arrogant man, Mr. Rourke.”
Zachary sighed. “I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I’ve always found it a wholesome diet.”
Her breath hitched. At dinner and as in the present moment, he smiled or laughed at the appropriate moments, the element of latent alertness in him, the sense of a steady and unfailing attention within his relaxed stance, seemed striking to her. Was it inherent or a trained condition? “Never have I met a more pretentious male.”
He bowed to her. “I can’t help it. I’m bound by an abundance of modesty.”
Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Mr. Rourke, you are refreshing and a far cry from dullards like Havemeyer I’m obligated to entertain.”
She swallowed from his scrutiny, and then looked away. How he moved in disabling Havemeyer was remarkable, with a controlled and concentrated grace. Everything about him scorched forever in her mind. Was he? Was he the shining hero who had helped her that terrible stormy day on the bank of the Meramec River? Her throat went dry. Thank God he'd not referred to the occasion. “We should go in case a servant enters,” she warned.
Zachary gave the sugar baron one last contemptuous look. “Maybe he’ll never wake up. Perhaps the servants won’t discoverhim until he’s mummified. Then your father can add him to one of his collections.”
Elizabeth laughed again and marveled how he released the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She shouldn’t be unchaperoned, yet she didn’t want the evening to end, and sensed he didn’t want it to end either. “I’m feeling benevolent, so why not take advantage of my generosity and have a tour before you leave?” Without waiting for an answer, she led him onward through the French doors of the conservatory and down a long hall where a lone lamp shimmered on one of the small tables with light reflecting off the walls.
She swung open a set of Ghiberti doors into an English oak-paneled library. Without touching him, she felt half of her had vanished. “As you can see, we have an almost indiscriminate assemblage of Roman balconies. The wainscoting and recessed inglenook were made of Santo Domingo mahogany, and there,” she pointed, “is an eight-foot plate glass window.”
She watched him walk past chairs and sofas in plush peacock green that matched the tiled raised fireplace in ocher and blue. He stopped several times at the shelves boasting editions of famous authors in fine bindings, religious texts, and standard histories.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“It looks like an undertaker’s parlor.”
With a rueful expression, Elizabeth laughed. “I suppose it does.”
Certain books caught his attention, the sixty-six volumes onNapoleon and His Generals, Burton’sAnatomy of Melancholy, and lighter fair that included a ribaldLife of Sir John Falstaff,Mrs. Jordan,the English actress, mistress to William IV, andA Burlesque Translation of Homer.
She looked at him from behind, at the hardened strength in his hands. There was so much to disclose about a personfrom his hands. For a moment, she visualized him hammering spikes in an endless path of railroad ties. She remembered his face as he delivered her daughter, concentrated and severe and beautiful in its intensity…and the gentleness of his hands.
He pivoted, caught her studying him and raised a dark brow. She felt heat raise to her cheeks, cleared her throat, and then to hide her embarrassment hurried ahead of him to a Japanese parlor with Chinese screens, and mother-of-pearl on every available surface. This opened into a drawing room that took up the entire west side of the house with a seventeen-foot bay framed by Roman-red columns and gold-flecked frieze inset with stained glass.
Elizabeth glanced to Mr. Rourke, unable to hide her enthusiasm, and found him watching her like he did when she told her Aristotle story. He grinned.
Down a long hall, she waved to the paintings. “We boast the largest private gallery in New York. There are four stories, five towers, an elevator, and acres of Flemish and Spanish tapestries and Oriental carpets.” She swung open another door. “And an entire palace ballroom shipped over from Ghent.” She let down her guard and skipped across the vastness, twirling around to face him.
