“Of course, you must!” Ottilie covered her mouth with her hand and resolved to be quiet. She returned to her reading but found she could not fully concentrate on the Latin words. Her mind danced with unanswered questions, and her desire to learn more about Jack Bastin grew by the second.
*
Jack attempted toquiet his mind and settle into the comfortable silence that now filled the room but found he missed the sound of Miss Hamilton’s voice. She appeared to be wholly absorbed in Ovid, which intrigued him. Clearly, she knew more than a little Latin. He took in the nuances of her facial expressions as she read. A smile played on the corners of her lips, then her brow creased slightly, and she shook her head as though admonishing or warning someone in the story.
His mind carried him to Ancient Delphi, where his heroine shaded herself from the force of Helios’s glory under an olive tree. She sat, wholly absorbed in a book, with her slim, tanned legs and sandaled feet stretched out on the grass before her, and her golden tresses swept back in a loose coil. Her hand moved absentmindedly from a bowl of nuts on her lap to her mouth. It was thus that his hero, a young, mortal poet of humble origins, first encountered the love of his life.
Miss Hamilton glanced up from her reading and met Jack’s gaze. His heart jumped, and he half expected to look down and see an arrow lodged in his chest.
She lowered her book. “I see you watching me.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Only if I am distracting you from your work. I’ve done enough to derail you today.”
“You haven’t distracted me. On the contrary, I was envisioning my heroine sitting under an olive tree, absorbed in the pages of a book, while nibbling absentmindedly on a bowl of nuts.”
Her lips curved into a smile, and her cheeks dimpled—a sight Jack always welcomed.
“What type of nut is she eating?”
“Pine nuts.”
“I don’t believe I’ve had those before—maybe once in a fruitcake—but I can’t recollect the taste. What made you think of pine nuts?”
“They are native to that region. And the Ancient Greeks believed that certain foods, like pine nuts, were blessed by the goddess of love, Aphrodite. They called them ‘aphrodisiakos’ after the goddess herself”
“Aphrodisiacs.” Miss Hamilton nodded. “They have the power of a love potion.”
“Something like that.” He pushed back his chair and strolled to the settee.
“Is that what makes your heroine fall in love with the poet?” She placed her book and bowl of chestnuts onto the table as he came toward her.
“It intensifies her attraction to him, yes.” He settled onto the settee beside her. “Both lovers are playthings of the gods. The young poet rambles through the forest, thinking of his next great work of poetry, when one of Eros’s errant arrows strikes him. At that same moment, he sees Artemis’s maiden and is overcome with desire. She, being full of pine nuts, is equally drawn to him. Their attraction for one another, powered by Aphrodite and her son, is so strong that they defy Artemis’s wrath and risk their lives to satisfy their desires.”
“Then your poem isn’t about genuine love at all. It’s about the ongoing war between Aphrodite and Artemis—a topic already written about extensively.”
“You’re right, and I wish to add to the debate. Can chastity withstand the pull of lust?”
“Don’t you mean love?”
“No, I don’t. Love develops later. Attraction and desire come first. Love may develop, but true, deep love cannot happen without attraction—at least, not in my experience.”
She shifted in her seat. “Well, you have an advantage over me as far as that is concerned, but I still think love is more complicated than that. Love comes from mutual respect and like-mindedness.”
“And attraction,” Jack said. “Without attraction, all you have is friendship. Take your relationship with Hudsyn, for example. You admire and respect one another. You even love each other, I imagine. But if no physical attraction exists, you will never be more than friends.”
“Hudsyn’s my cousin. It’s different.”
“Victoria and Albert were cousins but were undoubtedly attracted to one another. That is why they shared a deep love. Everyone could see it wasn’t a marriage of convenience.” Jack leaned his arm against the settee and rested his head on his hand, gazing intently at Ottilie. “The English like to pretend lust is immoral, but the Greeks and Romans knew better. They understood the struggle. It’s perfectly natural, yet women today are made to feel ashamed when they succumb to Aphrodite’s whims.”
“Perhaps you are right.” Ottilie leaned forward as if she willed him to kiss her. She smelled faintly of honeysuckle, and he imagined she tasted like ambrosia. Jack envisioned pressing his lips against hers, and it took all his strength to restrain himself. It wasn’t only his friendship with Hudsyn that stopped him. She deserved to be courted by a man who intended to marry her, and he could not promise her fidelity or marriage. But his honorable intentions did him little good. Jack’s gaze fell on Ottilie’s soft, sweet mouth.
“The maiden is forbidden,” he said with a sigh, “which makes her all the more enticing.”
Jack’s gaze was thick with desire and mirrored Ottilie’s own inner struggle. She cleared her throat and forced herself to speak, though she risked revealing too much through her voice. “I imagine your poem will not end happily, considering what I’ve just read about Artemis’s pride and anger.”
Jack straightened, easing the tension between them, which left Ottilie both disappointed and relieved. “You are referring to her horrible cruelty after Actaeon stumbles upon her bathing naked in the forest, I assume? Imagine being ripped to shreds by one’s own hounds!”
