She pushed the door open and saw rolls of blueprints, dozens of them, on chairs and tables. On the writing table, held open by a paperweight, a slide rule, and a tin of bonbons, was a sheet of white draft paper.
She saw Camden only after she had opened the door fully. He was seated in a low-slung Louis XV chair, clad in the black dressing gown that brought out the dark flecks in his green eyes, turning them the color of summer foliage at dusk. A book lay open in his lap.
“You are up early,” he said, taking his sense of irony out for some exercise and fresh air, no doubt.
“Must be that Protestant work ethic I keep hearing so much about,” she said.
“Did you do well at cards tonight?” His gaze dipped to the décolletage of her gown. “I'd guess you did.”
She had worn one of her less modest pieces. It was, to be sure, a cheap trick to divert attention at the gaming tables, but she disliked idling her assets when she could make use of them. “Who told you about it?”
“You. You told me that once you were married, you planned to never dance again and to spend all your time at balls separating English fops from their cravat money.”
“I don't remember ever saying anything like that.”
“It was a long time ago,” he said. “Let me show you something.”
He rose and walked over to her, opening the book in his hands to an oversize page. The page was folded into quarters. He unfolded it. “Take a look.”
She immediately recognized the large illustration as a rendering of Achilles' shield. Mrs. Rowland adored Book 18 of the Iliad, and many a night, as a child, Gigi had gone to sleep listening to the description of the great shield Hephaestus had wrought for Achilles, the five-layered marvel that depicted a city at peace and a city at war, and just about every other human activity under the sun, all surrounded by the mighty river Oceanus.
She had seen other imaginings of the shield, most of which, too faithful to Homer's depictions, were crammed with details of dancing youths and garlanded maidens, resulting in a filigree so fine that it could not possibly outlast the vigor of even one battle. But this particular interpretation was lean, shorn of minutiae, yet muscular and menacing in its austerity. The sun, the moon, and the stars shone down on the wedding procession and the bloody slaughter in equal serenity.
“It is the oeuvre of the man whom your mother would like you to marry,” Camden said as he restored the page to its folded state. “If you can't hang on to me.”
Gigi was surprised enough that she took the book from Camden and inspected its spine. Eleven Years Before Ilium: A Study of the Geography, Logistics, and Daily Life of the Trojan War by L. H. Perrin. The family surname of the dukes of Perrin was Fitzwilliam, but by custom a peer signed his title.
“Fancy that.” She gave the book back.
Camden set it aside. “Since you are here, have a look at some of my designs.”
He'd done nothing to indicate the slightest sexual interest in her. Yet the hairs on her neck abruptly stood on end. “Why should I be curious?”
“So you'll know whom to blame when Britain loses the next America's Cup Challenge.”
She was dismayed despite her preoccupation. “You are helping the American side?”
Some forty years before, an American yacht had raced fourteen yachts from the Royal Yacht Squadron around the Isle of Wight and won by a whopping twenty minutes. According to legend, the queen, watching the race, asked who was second, and the answer she received was “There is no second, Your Majesty.” Ever since then, English syndicates had been trying to best the Americans and win back the cup. To no avail.
“I'm helping the New York Yacht Club, of which I'm a member,” he said.
He walked ahead of her to the writing desk and glanced back, waiting. The light of the standing lamp beside him caressed his hair, illuminating its sun-bleached locks. His expression was kind and patient—too kind, too patient.
She felt the tug of gravity on her feet. Only her refusal to reveal any weaknesses in herself forced her to move, one heavy heel at a time, to stand before the desk.
As she bent her neck to inspect the design, he moved behind her. “It's more of a preliminary drawing at this stage,” he said.
He spoke next to her ear. A filament of pleasure zigzagged through her, acute and debilitating. She felt his hand brush aside the tendrils of hair that had escaped from her low chignon. Then his fingers settled on her nape.
“I see,” she said, her voice tight.
“I can do the detailed scale drawing myself,” he murmured, undoing the top button of her gown. “But mostly these days I have a draftsman do it for me.”
She stared down at the designs. At the center was a yacht, appearing as it would at sea, sails fully deployed. To the side he had drawn a cross section of the hull and a view of the vessel in dry dock.