Calliope shook her head.
“But then how…?” Clio could not say more, though. Thalia called to her from across the room, where she was closely examining the musicians’ instruments—much to their chagrin. Clio wandered away, leaving Calliope alone.
There were several friends she could join—indeed, a few people she really ought to speak to. She feared she would not be good company at the moment, not with such wild thoughts of de Vere and the Lily Thief whirling through her mind. She placed her half-empty glass on the nearest table and drifted away from the crowd towards the doors of Lady Russell’s conservatory.
The glassed-in space was invitingly warm, scented with the rich, green fragrance of geraniums, lavender, mint, the earthiness of the damp soil. The room was empty now, though softly lit and furnished with scattered wrought-iron settees for visitors. Calliope welcomed the silence, the moment to collect her thoughts and become her usual calm self again.
At the far end of the conservatory was a cluster of antique statues, a stone Aphrodite and her scantily clad acolytes. They watched all the horticulture with expressions of impassive, scornful beauty. They were quite stunning, and their cold perfection drew Calliope closer.
“If only I could be like you,” she whispered to the disdainful Aphrodite. “So very—certain. So unchanging. No doubts or fears.”
“How very dull that would be,” Westwood said.
“Did you follow me in here?’ she asked, not surprised, glancing over at him.
“On the contrary, Miss Chase,” he said, giving her one of his too-charming smiles. “I was in here enjoying a quiet moment to finish my wine…” He displayed a half-empty glass. “And here you came, talking to yourself. One couldn’t help but overhear.”
Calliope reached behind her to plant her palms on the cold stone base, trying to hold herself upright, to maintain some dignity. His cognac-coloured eyes, so deep and opaque, seemed to see far too much. She didn’t know where to look, where to turn.
“I, too, was looking for a quiet moment,” she said finally. “Before the music begins.”
He nodded understandingly. “Sometimes people ask for too much. The only recourse is solitude.” He took a step closer, then another. Calliope shivered in her thin gown, yet he no longer watched her. He gazed up at the statue.
“You chose a fine confidante,” he said. “She looks so very—knowing. As if she has seen everything in the long years of her life.”
Calliope, too, glanced up at Aphrodite, her pointed, cracked white chin, the clusters of her rippling hair. She did seem knowing, mocking even. Just as Westwood himself was. “I wonder what she makes of Lady Russell’s routs? How they compare to the revels of Greece.”
He laughed, that rich, rough sound that touched her to her very core. “I am sure she thinks them very tame affairs indeed! For did she not come from the inner sanctum of a temple to Aphrodite, where there were, er…”
“Orgies?”
He glanced towards her, his brow arched in sudden amusement. “Miss Chase. How very shocking.”
Calliope could feel her cheeks heat under his regard, but she forced the horrid blush away. A scholar did not always have time for niceties. “My father possesses an extensive library on the ancient world. I have read much of it, including John Galt’s Letters from the Levant. And Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s narratives of her travels.”
“Of course. Well, after the orgies, she must find musical evenings a bit tedious. I’m sure she was most happy you chose to converse with her.”
Calliope reached out to touch Aphrodite’s sandaled foot, the stone cold through the thin kid of her glove. This was the best sort of confidante—the mute sort. “If it was up to you, she would surely be sent back to moulder in the ruins of her erstwhile temple, with no one to talk to at all.”
“Ah, Miss Chase.” He leaned even closer to murmur in her ear, his warm breath lightly stirring the curls at her temple. “Who says all the orgies have ended?”
Calliope stared up at him, captured by his voice, his breath, his gaze—everything. It was as if she was suddenly paralysed and could not move, could not turn away. All time was suspended, and there was only him.
He, too, seemed startled by whatever this moment was. He watched her, his lips parted, the glass in his hand perfectly still.
“Miss Chase,” he murmured. “I…”
Outside their green sanctuary, the sound of music tuning up began, and it was as if the prosaic noise burst some enchantment, some spell. He shifted back, and she turned her head away, sucking in a deep breath. She felt as though she had just run a long distance, all achy and airless.
“Shall we go in?” he said, his voice taut, even deeper.
“Of course,” Calliope whispered. She spun around and marched back along the flagstone walkway, smoothing her palms over her warm cheeks. He was behind her. She could hear his steps, the soft rustle of his superfine coat, but mercifully he did not offer his arm or touch her.
She wasn’t sure what she would do if he did.
Calliope slipped into the empty chair next to Clio just as the musicians finished tuning their instruments. Her throat ached as she tried to draw in a calm, normal breath, tried to still the clamorous beating of her heart.
Clio gave her a sidelong glance as she slid a handwritten programme into Calliope’s hand. “Where were you, Cal?” she whispered.
“Just in the conservatory,” Calliope whispered back, resisting the urge to fan herself with the thin parchment. Why did Lady Russell insist on keeping her room so warm? “Looking at the Aphrodite statue.”
Clio’s expression was unreadable as she glanced at her own programme, her lips pursed. “Oh? Did you suspect she would be the next victim of the dreaded Lily Thief? Spirited away into the night for nefarious purposes?”
Calliope bit her tongue to keep from laughing aloud. “Certainly not. Aphrodite is solid marble and at least six feet tall. Unless the Lily Thief is the reincarnation of Hercules.”
“One never knows. He could then lift the statue up through the skylights and…” Her words trailed away as Lord Westwood appeared in the room, leaning carelessly against a pillar at the very periphery of the audience. His gaze met Calliope’s as she watched him warily, and then, slowly, audaciously, he winked at her.
Blast him! Calliope’s stare shot back to the front of the room, her face burning. Where was the cold marble of Aphrodite when it was truly needed?
“Were you quite alone in the conservatory, Cal?” Clio murmured.
“Lord Westwood might have wandered in just as I was leaving,” Calliope answered reluctantly.
“And did you two quarrel again?”
“I never quarrel with people!”
“Never? With anyone?”
“You and Thalia are different. You are my sisters; I’m allowed to quarrel with you in the privacy of our home. But not with people at parties. Lord Westwood and I merely discuss our artistic differences.”
“Hmm,” Clio said, very non-committally. “I do believe our hostess is about to say a few words.”
Calliope had seldom been more grateful to anyone than she was to Lady Russell for her timely interruption. Usually she felt she could tell Clio anything, and her sister’s quiet understanding could soothe any hurt or trouble. There was no use in trying to articulate what a meeting with Cameron de Vere made her feel,