“So what you’re saying is that you’re a bit like an animal, Mr. Cassidy.”
The quiet in the room was instant, total and shocked.
And not just because these were the first words she’d said all night. Something about her tone, even as elegant as it was, seemed so nearly accusatory that even the fire seemed to stop crackling in order to hear how Hugh would respond.
“No,” he said finally, gently, with great patience. “Exactly like an animal.”
He met her eyes. It was warning, an apology . . . and, after a fashion . . . a promise.
She turned away again abruptly.
He watched her profile avidly. Which is how he saw her throat move in a swallow.
He looked down at his hands while a bolt of lust sliced right through him.
He drew in a steadying breath. He ought to be ashamed to be beset by such carnality while her parents sat right next to them.
“Interesting point of view, indeed, Mr. Cassidy.” The earl was tapping his chin thoughtfully. “But wouldn’t you agree that the ability to create art, music, and magnificent architecture elevates the human above the animal? The sense of tradition and ritual? The ability to reason? Governments? The, er, ruling classes?”
Nervousness about insurrection doubtless ran through every aristocrat’s blood.
Hugh leaned back. “Well, isn’t it about perception? How do we know whether, for instance, the ruby-throated hummingbird doesn’t consider her nest a towering architectural achievement? Gyrfalcons return to the same nests again and again, year after year. One might consider that tradition. Generations of falcon may in fact use the same nest for thousands of years.”
“A thousand years!” Delacorte marveled. “Imagine how much bird shite is in those nests by then!”
The clicking of knitting needles ceased. Delacorte was fixed in the beam of reproachful feminine eyes.
He sighed, resignedly pushed back his chair, and fished a pence from his pocket. He made approximately the fiftieth trip to the epithet jar since he’d arrived at The Grand Palace on the Thames.
“You should have heard me before I lived here,” Delacorte volunteered weakly, when he returned to his chair.
Dot had yet to make her move.
Lillias gave him a small, taut smile.
“Of course, the aristocracy never makes messes of their own nests,” Hugh said, slyly.
“Papa shot holes in our nest,” Claire pointed out. “There is plastereverywhere.”
“Thank you, Claire, that’s very helpful,” her mother said acidly.
“Perhaps the snake has already had snake kittens in our furniture,” Claire added.
“I don’t think that’s what baby snakes are called, Claire,” St. John said.
“What are they called?”
“Horrifying,” her mother said firmly. “Horrifying is what they’re called.”
“Perhaps it’s in the variation, Mr. Cassidy,” Lillias said suddenly. “The evolution of architecture over the centuries is a reflection of the sophistication of the mind of man. Heatherfield, for instance, is an achievement on that scale. And cathedrals. Whereas birds build the same types of nests over and over.”
He turned to her, grateful to have a reason to meet her eyes. “Perhaps the nests are exquisitely unique from the point of view of the bird. Ruby-throated hummingbirds use spider silk to knit their nests together, which helps them cling to branches and to stretch and move as their childrengrow. And they use bits of moss, lichen, even silk or yarn. Every nest is different and subtly beautiful. My mother used to put out scraps for them to see which ones they’d choose.”
Lillias was clearly listening to all of this avidly. One would have sworn it was nectar. He could almostseethe pictures her mind was forming: his mother with the nests, the birds.
“Which scraps did they choose?”
Her question surprised him. It was somewhat quiet, and sounded as though nothing, nothing but unbearable curiosity could have compelled her to ask it of someone who had the temerity to possess a very fine torso.
