Item: One clay lamp

after the fashion of an erect phallus

-from the Manifest of Roman Oddities,

found near London, England

3^rd July, in the Year of Our Lord 1731

Chapter One

“Hmph! I wonder if that’s life-sized,” Miss Daisy Drake murmured as she leaned down to inspect the ancient lamp. Talking to herself was a bad habit, she knew, but since none of her friends shared her interest in antiquities, she often found herself without companions on this sort of outing.

“Of course, it would be on the most inaccessible shelf in the display case.” Solely to vex her, she suspected. Daisy scrunched down to get a better look at it. The clay lamp was only about four inches long, but in other respects, so far as Daisy knew, was perfectly life-like. The terracotta scrotum served admirably for an oil cruise, but the actual workings of the lamp raised several questions in her mind. She opened her small valise and drew out paper, quill and inkpot in order to take a few notes. “Where does the flame come out?”

“Right where one would expect,” a masculine voice sounded near her. Daisy’s spine snapped suddenly upright.

The crown of her head clipped his chin with a thwack and she bit her tongue.

“Oh!” One of her hands flew to her throbbing mouth, the other to the top of her head where her cunning little hat was smashed beyond recognition. Her sheaf of papers fluttered to the polished oak floor like maple leaves. The small inkwell flew into the air and landed squarely on the white lawn of the man’s shirtfront.   

“Oh, I’m so dreadfully sorry.” Daisy dabbed at the stain with her hanky and only succeeded in spreading it down his waistcoat. A black blob dribbled onto his fawn-colored breeches. She decided not to chase that stain with her handkerchief. At least, thank Heaven, plastering the man with ink covered her unmaidenly interest in that lewd little lamp. It was a mistake to come to the museum today, but the topic under discussion at the Society of Antiquaries drew her like a lemming to the sea. “How clumsy of me!”

Then she made the additional mistake of looking up at him. Her mouth gaped like a cod for a moment. She forced it closed by sheer strength of will.

He’d grown into himself since she’d seen him last. His fine straight nose was no longer out of proportion to the rest of his face. As he rubbed his square jaw, Daisy saw that the little scar on his chin was still visible, a neat triangle of pale, smooth skin. She’d recognize that anywhere.

After all, she’d given it to him.

His curly dark hair was hidden beneath a dandy’s wig. Oh, she hoped to heaven he hadn’t taken to shaving his head as some fops did. Uncle Gabriel was a dogged opponent of the fashion. Said it was nothing but French foppery. Since Uncle Gabriel’s opinions were only slightly less authoritative than a papal bull, the aversion to wigs had rubbed off. Besides, hiding a head of hair like Lucian’s should be sacrilege.

An ebony wisp escaped near his left ear.

Good. Daisy breathed a sigh of relief. His dark mane was one of Lucian’s finest points, after all. Not that there weren’t plenty of others.

His full lips twitched in a half smile.

“An interesting piece, isn’t it?” He was still the same old Lucian. Still direct, even at the expense of propriety. He wasn’t going to play the gentleman and pretend he hadn’t caught her ogling that Roman phallus.

“Indeed.” Surely he understood her interest was purely intellectual. “Obviously a cultic object of some sort. It is certainly a curiosity.”

“It is gratifying to meet a young lady who is . . . curious.”

Daisy lifted her chin in what she hoped was a confident manner. “Antiquities give us but a glimpse into the lives of the ancients. Such items make one wonder what the people who used it were like.”  

“I suspect the ancients were more like us than we may want to admit. People have been born into this world with the same wants and needs since Eden. Though I’ll grant you, our taste in home décor has changed,” he said with a laugh.

“Actually, I read a treatise only last week that implied the new fashion of tassels were merely phallic symbols in oblique form.”

“Oblique. Hmph. Never heard it called that before. I shall never look at a tassel in the same way again.” His eyes narrowed in speculation as he regarded her. “You must possess an unusual library.”

The library Daisy frequented most often belonged to Isabella Haversham, her great-aunt. Isabella had once been a famous courtesan. But even now that she was a married lady—the wife of an earl, no less—she still entertained philosophers and artists and “free thinkers” with regularity. Lady Wexford might be tainted with scandal’s brush, but an evening in her company was far more diverting than the tortured clavichord recitals that took place in other parlors around the city. Daisy made every effort to wangle an invitation to one of Isabella’s soirees as often as she could. For that reason, as well as her aunt’s library, Daisy suspected her education was considerably broader than most young women her age.

“Innocence and ignorance need not forever clasp hands,” Isabella was fond of saying.

Daisy looked pointedly back at the lamp. There was no use denying she’d been studying it before. She might as well put a bold face on it.

“Inquiry being the fount of learning, I was wondering if there is any kind of artisan’s mark on that lamp,” Daisy said. “One that might indicate who the maker was.”

“He left no mark,” Lucian said.

“He? So you think a man fashioned it?”

“Men were generally the artisans in antiquity,” he said with confidence.

“Hmm. That surprises me. I can’t imagine a man wanting to set one of those alight,” Daisy said innocently.

Lucian coughed out a laugh. “But you can see where a woman might have reason to.”

“Certainly. Male domination of nearly every field of endeavor springs to mind,” Daisy said. “The lamp poses a host of new questions.”

“Ah, yes, and you raised some intriguing ones,” he agreed, one of his dark brows arched as he reminded her he’d overheard her. “I’d be happy to help you discover the answers.”

Was he suggesting something improper? If he was, it would serve him right if she gave him another scar.  

“You owe me no further assistance. Not after I ruined your shirt. And your waistcoat. And your—” She shouldn’t have allowed her gaze to travel the ink’s path down the front of his breeches. For a moment, she imagined an appendage shaped like the lamp affixed to his groin and felt her cheeks heat. To cover her embarrassment, she sank to the floor to retrieve her scattered notes.

“Think nothing of it.” His voice was now a deep rumble instead of the adolescent squeak she remembered. “I should be more careful where I put my jaw. I do hope you have not suffered an injury to your head.”

His eyes were even darker and more beguiling than she remembered. The fact that she even had a head temporarily escaped her notice.

“Please, allow me.” Lucian set down the valise he’d been carrying and knelt beside her. He helped her reassemble her pages. Then he offered his hand to help her up and she took it.

Had someone loosed a jar of June bugs in her belly?

“Thank you, my lord,” she murmured, for lord he was.

Lucian Ignacio de Castenello Beaumont. Son and heir of Ellery Beaumont, Earl of Helmsby. Daisy assumed Lucian was now styling himself Viscount Rutland, one of his father’s lesser titles, since the earl was still very much alive.

But Daisy remembered Lucian as ‘Iggy.’

His ears had turned an alarming shade of red when she called him that. He complained ‘Iggy’ was not dignified, as though a skinny, dirty-kneed twelve-year-old was capable of anything remotely like dignity.

But he was no longer twelve. Lucian must be two and twenty by now. The last time Daisy had heard his name bandied about in Polite Society, the sober matron doing the talking lowered her voice, but the words “rake” and “wastrel” were unmistakably used.

Neither of which did anything to slow her racing heart, Daisy admitted with a sigh.

She accepted the stack of papers from him, casting about in her mind for the right thing to say. “There’s no salvaging your ensemble, I fear. Please permit me to have a new suit of clothing made for you.”

She could afford to be generous. After all, she’d discovered the family fortune beneath the stones of Dragon Caern just when other members of the nobility were losing theirs in the South Sea stock swindle.

“I wouldn’t hear of it,” he assured her smoothly, though she knew his father had invested heavily in the failed company. Perhaps his mother’s family was still solvent. She’d been a contessa in her own right in her homeland. All vestiges of Lucian’s Italian accent were gone, erased by a few years at Oxford, no doubt. Daisy thought that a terrible shame.

“I’ve been meaning to retire this suit in any case,” he informed her. “The style is tres passé, n’est ce pas?”

That would be a pity since the cut of that green frockcoat does wonderful things for his shoulders and as for those bree— Daisy caught herself before her thoughts completely ran away with her, but lost her fight with the urge to flick her gaze over the spot where his breeches molded to his thighs.

His smile broadened.

“I see my lord has become an avid rider,” she said because no other coherent thought would form in her mind.

Only the regular exercise of squeezing a horse between his legs could account for his musculature. She was glad he’d finally learned. He certainly had no aptitude for it on his first and only visit to Dragon Caern.

“Indeed, I ride daily,” he said, flashing a fine set of teeth. “But how could you ‘see’ that?”

Her mouth formed a silent ‘oh’ and she mentally cursed herself.

“Forgive me. Ruining your suit has upset me,” she said. “I’m acting like some pudding-headed debutant instead of a ‘firmly-on-the-shelf’ spinster of one and twenty.”

“Twenty-one is not such an advanced age,” he said.

It was so unfair that she should be considered stale in the marriage market while Lucian, who was older than she, was considered far too young to even think about marrying. The inequity of the situation was a bone of much contention to Daisy’s mind. 

“However, if you want my advice,” he continued, “your chances of remaining single will decrease if you try not to douse every man you meet with ink.”

"I'll have you know I'm perfectly happy remaining single." She stiffened slightly until she noticed his smile. Lucian was the sort of man a woman might forgive anything so long as he smiled at her. "A married woman is treated like either an imbecile or a child. I am neither."

“Assuredly. But you haven’t answered my question. And since I recognize a keen observer when I see one,” his gaze slid back to the lamp for a moment to remind her he’d caught her in deep observation already, “I’d still be interested to know how you can see that I ride regularly.”

“Riding improves a man’s . . . posture.” Daisy bit her lip to keep from babbling further. A guilty blush heated her cheeks. She sidled away from the case where the phallic lamp was on display.  

Lucian looked around the nearly deserted exhibit hall. “It seems there is no way for us to be properly introduced, but perhaps you will allow me the honor of giving you my name.”

He doesn’t recognize me!

How was it possible that she could carry about his image in her head for all these years and he should have completely forgotten that Daisy Elizabeth Drake even existed? Bristling with indignation, she took another step backward to put more distance between them.

Before she could remind him that he should already know her name (and quite well, thank you very much!) the door behind her swung open and whacked her soundly on the bottom. She stumbled forward and he caught her in his arms.

She was pressed tight against him, suddenly engulfed in his masculine scent. His chest beneath her splayed fingers was rock hard. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Are you injured?” he asked.

“Only my pride,” she said, pushing slightly against his chest as a signal that he should release her. She wasn’t about to admit that her derrière throbbed.

“No, I fear we have another casualty,” he said.

Daisy followed his gaze to her décolletage where some of the ink from his shirt and waistcoat had been transferred. Part of the stain marred her pale blue stomacher and part darkened the mound of her breast that rose above it.

“Pity. An alabaster bosom such as yours should never wear black,” he said, drawing a fingertip along the froth of lace at the neckline she’d always thought of as modest, but never would again. “Alas, I forgot my handkerchief this morning or I should return the favor and try to wipe it off.”

The thought of his hand on her skin, even with a thin layer of cloth between them, made her belly quiver.

“There you are, Rutland.” A monocled gentleman peeked around the door and waved Lucian over with urgency. ”We’ve been waiting for you.”

Daisy started and jumped away from Lucian. She recognized the gentleman as Sir Alistair Munroe, head of the Society of Antiquaries. She’d petitioned for admission several times only to have Sir Alistair black-ball her membership on account of her gender. The man cast a quick dismissive gaze over her and turned back to Lord Rutland.

A baron’s niece counts for very little when measured against a viscount, she supposed.

Munroe’s eye-piece dangled from its silver chain when he noticed the ink stain marring the viscount’s finery. “Good God, man, what’s happened to you?”

“It was—“ Daisy began.

“My fault entirely,” Lucian finished for her. “I will be in directly, Munroe.”

Lucian turned back to Daisy. “Perhaps once I’ve delivered my presentation—“

“You’re the speaker?” she interrupted, stunned. She’d expected an Oxford don would be leading the discussion.

He nodded with a wry grin. “When I’m allowed to be.”

She covered her mouth with her fingertips. When had Lucian become an expert in Roman antiquities? Or more importantly, lost Roman treasure.

“As I was saying, I hope we may continue our discussion at a later time. I’d enjoy learning what such a charming young lady finds so . . . curious in these dry halls.” He retrieved his valise, made an elegant leg and shot her a wicked grin. “And for your information, the answer is no.”

“No?” Her brows nearly met in a puzzled frown.

“It's not life-sized.”

Daisy Drake never quite got over her childhood fascination with Lucian Beaumont. Now that he's Viscount Rutland, she won't rest till she's helped  Lucian find the lost Roman treasure he seeks . . . whether he wants her help or not. 

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