But more, certain parts wondered about her own intentions.
She gave herself a good shake of the mind and forced herself to return to his question.
Something about her favorite…
Right.
She cleared her throat and pressed a finger to the illustration of the statue of Venus that was discovered on the Greek island of Milos several years ago.
Lord Rhys lifted an eyebrow, a smile tickling about his mouth. “She isn’t wearing much.”
“But it isn’t about what she is wearing, don’t you see?”
He squinted. “Hmm.”
“It’s about how every element hangs together,” she continued, fervent, determined he would, indeed, see. “She is nude on her upper half, but look at the way her hair is pulled back into a bun, neat as a pin. If all that hair was hanging loose with her bosom to the breeze like that, she would look a right hoyden, wouldn’t she?”
He nodded, slowly, as if understanding were, at last, sinking in.
“But the way everything fits together, no one could take her for anything but a goddess. Just look at all that power coming off her.” Tilly tapped her finger. “And that’s style.”
“Ah.” He reached out and flipped through the pages of a different book. “What about this one?”
It took her a moment to register the image he was pointing out, for her gaze had fixed on his large hand…his long, masculine fingers.
She cleared her throat in an attempt to corral her attention. “That one has a direct line to the fashion of twenty years ago. See the band below her bosom there?”
“Aye.”
“That was the Empire silhouette of dresses around the turn of the century, and here is a Greek statue wearing that same style three thousand years ago.”
There was no other way of putting it, Lord Rhys looked impressed. “You are a scholar, Miss Birdwell.”
A scholar… Blow her down.
Miss Tilly Birdwell, a scholar.
“You see,” she continued, his praise spurring her on, “the dress is itself, but how it’s worn is style. Take this one.” She pointed to an illustration in a different book. “See how the fabric drapes diagonally across the statue’s chest here?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“It leads the eye up to her neck when the hair is pulled back, revealing that elegant line there.”
“Ah.”
“And this line here?” She traced her finger along the curve of the statue’s neck.
“Yeah?”
“The right hairstyle can make it the point of focus, if a lady wants it to be.”
“This line here?” came the velvet question.
So caught up in educating Lord Rhys, she only realized how close he’d drawn when she felt the touch—a long, masculine finger tracing the exposed column of her throat.
Every sense in her body snapped to life.
Heightened, that was how she felt…aware.
