Chapter 5 #2
His pantaloons still fit ever so nicely. Cerys veered her gaze away. “I am not casting the evil eye on you.”
“You would if you could, I imagine.” He turned to the desk and moved aside a roll of paper she’d been studying but moments before. “Were you eavesdropping?”
“I beg your pardon, I was here before you. You and your friend intruded on my peace.”
“You decided to lounge in my study.”
“It is the Earl of Suffolk’s study.” She glared at him. Never let it be said Cerys Van Der Welle Evans was cowed by derision from a man; she’d spent too much of her life casting off public opinion to care what one near-gentleman thought of her manners.
Pointedly, to demonstrate that she had taken possession and intended to stay, she began to browse the objets d’art scattered among the shelves.
Suffolk had a decent showing of books, all arranged in symmetrical groups with matching bindings, and the other items fulfilled their purpose of providing learned decoration.
A large terrestrial globe sat in its cradle, as high as her waist, while its mate, the celestial globe, flanked the other side of the bay of windows.
An easel holding a pencil sketch of a set of crumbling classical ruins stood beside a tall vase of decidedly Far Eastern origin.
Cerys moved to the bookshelf and found, at eye level, a small but full-length replica of a classical statue of a discus thrower, poised in the act of drawing back his arm.
A flush of heat pulled her cheeks taut again. She did not wish to be reminded of what Mr. Manelli might look like beneath his clothing.
“The Discobulus,” Manelli remarked. Of course he was watching her. Of course he caught her staring, wide-eyed, at a statue of a naked man. “The Massimo family has a full-size replica on display at one of their palazzos. It’s ages old. They consider it quite a prize.”
“There’s another on display in the British Museum.” Cerys pretended nonchalance, as if she came to face with a well-sculpted nude male form every day of her life. “Acquired as part of the Townley marbles. I’ve seen it.”
“I’ve seen that one too.” Manelli’s voice held a curious note, and he regarded her more closely.
“In fact I saw it back when it was in Townley’s private collection.
He invited my father for a viewing. The English are very eager to ransack the peninsula for ancient artifacts, and the other British dealers in antiquities are happy to provide. ”
Cerys shrugged. She was a woman, and the Grand Tour was reserved for men, or had been until Napoleon started his rampage across the Continent to build himself an empire. “Was your father an artist?”
Why was she making pleasant conversation? She had no wish to be pleasant to him. She wanted him gone from the room directly.
“A sculptor,” Manelli said warily, as if he suspected her motives also. They’d not exchanged one civil word before, so why should they start now?
“And you travel to London frequently?”
“I grew up there. Or rather, we resided in London more often than anywhere else.” He watched her as if he were the kite with folded wings and she the mouse crouched in the meadow. He would strike at any moment. “Do you visit often?”
“Occasionally during the Season. Not since I joined up with Dorsey’s group.” Her perambulations brought her to the table, and she came to her point. “These are your designs.”
He hovered a hand over the sketchbook as if he meant to protect it from her inspection. “Yes.”
With a small huff she tugged the folio from beneath his hand. Too late for him to be bashful now; he’d left it open on the desk for all to see. She flipped back to the sheet with the beautiful house, the one where he meant to hide his lovers. “This does not seem the design for Suffolk House.”
“No.” His gaze was hooded and dark, still the bird of prey, but he watched her as if aware the mouse might have sharp teeth. “That is the design for my home. The house I am building.”
“If you are building your own home, why are you here?”
His brows lowered. She imagined many a woman, and man, quailed at that fearsome scowl, not unlike a bull’s just before it charged. But she wondered if the expression were more a defensive move rather than aggression. It seemed his reflex whenever something poked him, a slight real or imagined.
“You might take up with the Earl of Suffolk why I am here in residence. Or perhaps the Countess. Terribly sorry to be in the way of your sojourn.”
“Yes, a great inconvenience.” Cerys flipped back to a different page and tapped her finger upon it.
Part of her mind marveled at her boldness with this man, her refusal to be cowed by his glower.
“This design here, with the porch and the—the triangle thing above, with the statues. This would be perfect for the front of our theater.”
“Pediment.” He scowled, pointing where she did, and Cerys whisked her hand aside before, God forbid, he touched her.
She couldn’t account for the strange sensations rioting through her at his simply being this close.
She was accustomed to being around unfamiliar men, older men, powerful and accomplished men, but this—him—there was something different about it.
Something that made her belly feel she’d swallowed crickets and they were all jumping about at once.
Perhaps she was developing a violent dislike for the scent of Hungary water.
“That is a pediment,” he said. “And all this below, the entablature.” He ran his finger over the various layers. “This ledge across the top, the cornice. The space below, where you might have carvings or engravings, the frieze. These bands lying atop the pillars, the architrave.”
“Fine,” she said. “I want all of it. But not this bit here.” She tapped at the sketch again.
“The capital. That is what you call the top of a column.”
“This, but without the flowers—”
“Acanthus.”
“None of those,” Cerys said. “Just the two curves. Like this.”
“The volute. You want the Doric order for the columns, then?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“At least you will admit to it,” he said, but it was a statement, not an insult, void of rancor or contempt. He was instructing, not condemning.
He flipped to an early page in the sketchbook and tilted the page toward her. “There are classifications for the types of columns. In the simplest terms, you have three. Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian. This, the scroll at the top, that is called the volute.”
“Yes, that.” Cerys stabbed her finger and accidentally brushed his hand. He was not wearing gloves. Neither was she. She snatched her hand back to her side, focusing on the page and battling the new flush of heat rising in her cheeks.
“You seem to have already given thought to the designs you want for your theater. Is it your project, then?”
“It is all of our project, and Dorsey will listen to our input. He will very much want the classical effect. Something like the new Covent Garden theater, but not a duplicate.” She turned to admire the columns along the room and the entablature, as he had called it.
“I adore this construction. We should have this for the interior. In this instance the flower tops would do—”
“Acanthus,” he said, but patiently. “On the capital. Corinthian columns, then.”
“But no carvings along the frieze or whatever you called it. I do like that ledge—”
“The cornice.”
“Yes. You could put statues above it. Gods and goddesses, the patrons of the theater. Busts of famous playwrights, and so on. Instead of the usual arch you might have this design running over the proscenium—”
“The what?”
“Think of it as the space of the actors. The stage, if you must. It—”
“I’m familiar with the term. I’m only surprised you do.”
It was her turn to scowl. “I work in theater. I ought to be acquainted with the architecture.”
“It is my experience,” he returned, “that is not often the case.”
She sniffed. “Have you built a theater before?”
“This will be my first.”
She turned, a hand outflung toward the bay of windows. “Then perhaps we should find someone el—”
The word disappeared on her lips, because Manelli reached out his hand and grasped hers. The movement was as swift and graceful as if she were turning away from him in a dance and he meant to draw her back into the figure.