Someone Irresistible (5 page)

”

“Nathan Price is back in town, Mary,” Mimi broke in, deciding in a rush that it would be best for all concerned if she just came right out and plainly divulged the news.

Mary’s mouth went slack; then she blinked hard and sat straight up in her chair as her spoon fell from her fingers and onto the saucer with a loud
clink
.

“What?” she blurted, dumbfounded.

For Mary to lose her poise in any situation meant she had been taken fully by surprise, and Mimi couldn’t begin to describe the shock she witnessed on her sister’s pale face. She supposed that’s how she must have looked to Nathan two days ago when he came to her house. How utterly embarrassing.

“It’s true,” she maintained as nonchalantly as possible. “He’s returned to London.”

Mary sat back hard, staring at her, ignorant of the servant placing sliced ham and buttered toast on her plate.

“How do you know?” she mumbled. “Did you see him?”

For the last day and a half, Mimi had considered how much to reveal to her sister, finally deciding she would simply have to tell all. There would be no way to hide the fact that she’d be working with Nathan during the coming weeks, and Mary would certainly wonder why she bothered.

“Actually, he came to my home Friday,” she admitted through a long sigh, sitting back in her chair as well. It was now her turn to be served, and she waited until ham, plain toast, and scrambled eggs, her preferred choice, were placed on her plate.

Mary continued to stare at her, stunned. “And you received him?”

She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “He arrived very properly, impeccably dressed, with a request. He wants me to sculpt a dinosaur for him.”

For a moment Mary appeared confused, then her forehead creased gently with concern. “He wants to
hire
you? However does he know you

sculpt the beasts?”

“I’ve no idea,” she answered honestly, “and he didn’t say. I believe he knew I sculpted as a hobby and is now assuming I can create a fossil replica.”

Mary paused, rubbing her fingertips back and forth slowly along the edge of the table, then said, “I’m sure you declined his offer.”

Mimi shifted her attention to the jar of strawberry preserves, reaching for them. “Not exactly.”

“Mimi!”

“Not yet anyway,” she stressed. “But I am considering his request.”

“Good heavens, why?” her sister asked, lifting her fork as she remembered her food at last.

Mimi spooned preserves onto her toast, purposefully avoiding Mary’s agitated gaze. “He… implied that if I don’t, he’ll make certain all of England knows I’m the sculptor of the works that grace the halls of the Zoological Garden.”

She expected to hear a burst of outrage, but it didn’t come, which surprised her. Instead, her sister took particular notice of her breakfast and began to eat in earnest.

“He can’t know anything,” Mary insisted after swallowing a bite of egg. “And since he hasn’t told a soul that we know of, he’s likely got no proof whatsoever that you’re the sculptor. Nobody would believe him anyway should he reveal this to others.”

Mary had a point, but she didn’t know the full of it. Mimi swallowed ham that tasted particularly salty and unpalatable this morning, then calmly remarked, “He also believes Papa was the one to steal his notes and jawbone from the Crystal Palace two and a half years ago.”

If she expected shock again, she didn’t get that reaction. Mary continued to eat without looking at her, but her head was shaking now, her full lips thinned with growing disgust.

“That’s outrageous.”

“Exactly what I said.”

“The man should be charged with slander.”

Mimi sighed. “For heaven’s sake, Mary, he’s smarter than that.”

Her sister looked up sharply. “Smarter than what?”

“Nathan Price didn’t actually
accuse
Papa of a crime. He has no proof or he would have done so years ago.” She reached for her tea and leaned forward, over the edge of the table, to stress her point. “No, he just wants to clear his name, to rebuild some sort of reputation that he

lost that night, and he’s asked me to help.”

“Threatened you, is what it sounds like,” Mary corrected through a tone of disgust. “And I can’t believe you’re thinking of doing it.”

“Papa didn’t steal the jawbone, therefore it can’t hurt to help him.”

Mimi’s mouth curled up in smile. “I think I might enjoy the challenge of proving Professor Price wrong in his assumptions.”

Mary tapped at the corners of her lips with her napkin, then motioned for a waiting servant to pour her more tea. “What does he want sculpted and why?”

Mimi knew this question was coming but she took it in stride, avoiding her sister’s eyes as she concentrated on her plate of food. “He has some function to attend in late December where he’ll present a replica of the Megalosaurus jawbone that was stolen from the Palace—”

Mary’s sudden laughter cut her off, and her head jerked up.

“What do you find particularly humorous in that?”

Mary stared at her, an odd combination of incredulity and amusement expressed in her delicate features.

“He can’t be serious.”

She realized Mary’s stupefaction was merely due to Nathan’s audacity rather than a question of her talent. “Oh, I think he is most definitely serious,” she countered after a deep inhalation.

Mary gazed at her for another few seconds, then scoffed with dismissal and lifted her cup to her lips, finishing the contents.

“The whole thing sounds ridiculous. I cannot imagine why on earth he should need a replica now.”

Mimi considered that for a moment, biting into her toast and chewing without tasting. “He’s been humiliated publicly, Mary, and wants to repair the damage done him the night of the Palace opening, I believe. What’s wrong with that?”

“Repair the damage?” she repeated. “The man is a fraud.”

She shook her head. “That is not proven. Just because he’s not of your taste—”

“Not of my taste? What does my taste have to do with it?”

Mimi scooped eggs onto her fork with her toast, wondering at her sister’s heightened aggravation. “He is not a completely refined gentleman, true, and I expect he’s from a lower class—”

“He
is
from a lower class,” Mary cut in again, “and has always had expectations above his station, but that is beside the point.” She placed her fork and knife on her plate, then folded her hands together, wrists

on the edge of the table, and leaned forward. “He was arrogant and foolish, from what I remember of him, and far too sure of himself. He probably created his own downfall.”

Mimi smiled, refusing to be baited. “He’s still arrogant, but I…

admire him. Like him, oddly enough. He’s a contradiction of a man.

Unique.”

“Is he married?”

That question came out of nowhere, and Mimi tried not to squirm in her chair. “I don’t believe so, no,” she said after a moment, attempting to sound blasé about the matter.

Mary grew silent after that, though Mimi could tell she was thinking shrewdly with her brows gently furrowed and her dark gray eyes narrowed in disapproval. Weak sunlight bounced off the blond braids hooped around her ears as they moved with a very small shake of her head.

“You like what you see, not what you know,” Mary warned very carefully. “I’ve never understood your attraction to that man, Mimi. He is wrong for you in every way.”

She felt a creeping warmth in her cheeks and lifted her lace napkin to her lips as a measure of coverage should her sister notice. “My
former
attraction to Professor Price, as you know, was the stuff of adolescent fantasies, and there is absolutely no reason for him to be
right
for me now. I simply admire his work. I want to help him.”

“Of course you do,” Mary agreed too sweetly, purposely batting her lashes.

“He is a fascinating gentleman,” Mimi reasoned, which brought no response at all. “And since he is innocent of the ruin thrust upon him, he deserves to have his name cleared.”

Mary stood suddenly, tossing her napkin on her plate, her breakfast unfinished. “I think it’s a foolish thing to do, but then you’re headstrong and have hardly ever listened to me. You’ve obviously made up your mind.” She dropped her voice and leaned forward, palms flat on the tabletop. “Just be careful and remember to keep your distance. He is an unmarried man and you are a widow still in mourning. Not only is that dangerous socially should others learn of your working… connection, it could be personally ruinous. As reckless as you sometimes are, I don’t want to see you hurt.”

With that, Mary stepped away from her chair and swept past her, highly angered, Mimi knew, because she never left the table until they were both finished.

It hardly mattered. She had given Mary only half-truths regarding

her objective in helping the man anyway. Of course Nathan also remained ignorant of what she knew, and of her motives, those she’d now taken two days to evaluate. She had no problem assisting him in his desire to clear his name and proving her father’s innocence, if only to Nathan. No, the greatest part of this little endeavor would be finding out if he still desired her as he did two years ago, the night he kissed her so beautifully, with such utter bewilderment at his own feelings. It truly was a shame that men were so unaware of their romantic needs.

Mimi finished the remainder of her tea; then, smiling with satisfaction, she rose, brushed down her satin skirts with her palms, and walked from the dining room to the parlor to get her things. She had her own demands if they were going to work together, and it was time to reveal her terms to Professor Price.

« ^ »

N
athan Price, former Professor of Paleontology and one of England’s finest, now a mere worker in the field for whatever pay he could receive for his efforts, sat at the small, round oak table in his private room at King’s Boarding House, mulling over the paper in front of him. The afternoon had become gloomier with the thickening cloud cover, and he’d lit a small fire in the grate, absorbing the warmth emanating from it.

He’d spent a good part of the weekend within these four, freshly papered walls, detailing his notes, defining sketches of the Megalosaurus precisely as he remembered the jawbone, working on page after page to create his vision of the enormous reptile’s likeness from head to tail, trying at every turn to keep his mind off Mimi Marsh.

No, Mimi
Sinclair
, he kept reminding himself, which was proof enough that his attempt at concentrating on work-related material wasn’t enormously effective.

It wasn’t as if he’d been unaware of the few women in whose presence he’d mingled during the last two or three years, or hadn’t been involved in two or three romantic interludes. But it was a fact, indeed,

that Mimi was the only woman to make him think of nothing but her for days—weeks—after seeing her, just as she had that fateful night at the Crystal Palace. She was the one woman who possessed the uncanny ability to immobilize his thoughts, both day and night. And during the last two nights his sleeping thoughts of her consisted of erotic overtones that were surely defeating his purpose of remaining objective and clear-headed about his return to London after all this time.

Not only did this inability to control his lascivious musings and dreams concern him, it made him rather angry at himself. He didn’t have time for it. He had so much to consider now in clearing his name, in reinstating himself within the upper echelon of the scientific world.

For the first time in nearly three years he had hopes of a professional future worth something more than what he gained by digging in the ground. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate working with the soil on his hands and knees, his sweat-drenched body taking pride in the finds, the discoveries, but what he ultimately wanted for himself was intellectual achievement, prestige. Nobody in his family had ever achieved greatness, and he wanted to be the first. This had always been his ultimate goal. Simply laying eyes on Mimi Sinclair again two days ago made him momentarily forget the important strategy ahead, and what he could not understand was how one average English lady managed to do that to him.

The problem, he decided, was that she was just so very
removed
from average. Perhaps her life as she’d lived it thus far had been appropriate for a lady of her station, but as an individual she was unique. He’d noticed that about her when they’d initially met eight or ten years ago, though at that time she was a child and he’d given her little more than brief acknowledgment. But she’d always had a look about her that suggested an unlimited number of intricate thoughts roaming around mischievously in her very female mind. Nathan didn’t know much about females, coming from a family of dominant males and a mother who lived as a proper, unassertive mother should, but he knew just by looking at Mimi Marsh that she was colorful and shrewd beyond what was customary for a lady of quality.

Nathan groaned and leaned his head against the wall behind him, draping his forearm across his closed eyes.

Widow Sinclair. The title made his stomach turn, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. He’d expected her to look different upon seeing her again, older, rounder with her married status. Matronly. Instead, when she’d walked into her morning room to greet him, he’d had to force himself to keep from staring. She was certainly a vision, even in drab work clothing, though the ridiculous shade of gray she was forced to

wear didn’t do her justice. It wasn’t a good color for her at all. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, either, since color was something he rarely noticed when it came to women and their attire.

She was also sexually… there. Always. Regardless of what she wore.

Her sexuality remained centered, the focal point of everything she said or did, whether she knew it or not, and after their meeting of two days ago, Nathan doubted that she did. Her sexual appeal wasn’t forced or intentional, it was simply a part of her, like her hair color or the length of her legs. She possessed an aura of allure that ruffled a man’s feathers when she happened to be near him, especially when she spoke in that soft, velvety voice of hers. When she grew passionate with purpose, eyes flashing, color bright, she was beautiful. Simply beautiful. Carter had probably noticed this about her, too, had probably enjoyed the spicy scent she always wore, enjoyed watching her, touching her, savored tasting her for the first time—