She brightened further. “Splendid. We shall explore them together.”
Explore them, they did. Upon entering the hushed, green-walled room where the statuary was displayed, Reaver felt his stomach tighten into a knot. Augusta gasped, her eyes rounding in amazement.
Aye. They were amazing—amazingly naked. Bloody hell, the gigantic statues were riding, reclining, fighting. And they were all naked. Some lacked heads or arms or legs. But their manly parts were obvious enough, if one could call them that. Proportionate they were not.
Augusta wandered from statue to statue. One, a horse’s head, did not interest her in the slightest. Nooo. Augusta wished to examine the nude males in exacting detail, close enough to put her hands on them.
After an excruciating quarter-hour, he’d had more than he could stomach.
“We’re leavin’,” he growled.
“Oh, but we’ve only just arrived.”
“Now.”
She glanced up at him, her eyes lingering a moment on a headless man’s dainty man parts. “You don’t like them?”
“They’re naked.”
“Well, yes.”
“It’s time to go.”
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a prude, Mr. Reaver.”
He leaned down near her ear, surreptitiously gathering her scent into his lungs. Of late, it was sweeter, with a hint of lavender. “If ye’re to look upon a naked man, love, I’d prefer it were me.”
She blushed. Blinked. Breathed his name, “Bastian,” so prettily, he wanted to kiss her. Right there in front of the marbles with the disproportionately small—
“Now, then,” she said, clearing her throat delicately. “What is our next destination?”
For this, he had to think quickly. He’d had no “next” on his list, apart from the play, which did not start until later that evening. But he had cut their viewing of the marbles short, so he must think of something.
He recalled her mentioning Rome and Florence, something about wanting to visit someday. She had a liking for items of Italian art. Then, he remembered a minor baron who’d lost a fortune at Reaver’s the previous summer while waiting for a shipment of paintings to arrive from Rome and Paris.
“Portman Square,” Reaver answered, hoping the man was still in town.
As they discovered a short while later, the slim, neatly dressed baron was at home, though he paled considerably when he saw Reaver at his door. “M-Mr. Reaver! Mr. Shaw indicated I had another month—”
“You may consider your debt settled by forty percent if you allow my companion to view your collection.”
“Forty … that is … yes! I mean to say, yes, of course! Welcome!” The baron and his butler showed them inside the brick town house, which was unimpressive from the outside, but positively opulent inside.
Then, the man showed them to his library, where works by Caravaggio and Rembrandt fairly breathed from the walls. Even Reaver found them compelling, and he’d never been one for paintings. As they explored the gallery that spanned the length of the house, Augusta devoured each one with her eyes.
Reaver did likewise with her. She was giddy as a child, her delight causing her to clap lightly in excitement several times.
“Oh, Bastian,” she said, pausing before a particularly exquisite portrait of a young woman. “How he must have loved her.”
He edged closer, squinting. He’d forgotten his spectacles. “How do you know?”
With a gloved finger, she traced the woman’s cheek. “Here. You see? You can just make out the shadow of where her tears fell. And here.” She brushed the woman’s bodice. “The detail of her … well. Let us say it reflects a certain dedicated study on the painter’s part.”
From behind them, the baron cleared his throat. “Mr. Reaver? I do have a humble proposal, if it would please you and your companion.”
Reaver turned with a frown and saw the man holding a small, oval painting. “What is it?”
“This work is by the same artist that painted the portrait you were admiring. I can offer it to you, should you find its value worth another, say, ten percent.”
He was about to refuse when Augusta drifted forward, taking the painting in her hands and stroking the frame lovingly. “It is splendid, my lord.”
“It’s fruit,” Reaver replied.
“Pears. And an apple. A still-life. My, how lovely.”
As they took the carriage back to his house, Augusta could not take her eyes from the fruit painting, stroking the frame again and again. He frowned, remembering the high cost—fifty percent of a fortune was still a bloody fortune—but in the end, perhaps it was not such a bad bargain. She seemed rather pleased.
His plans once again deteriorated after they arrived home, however. Augusta had gone upstairs to change into her evening gown. He’d explained they were to attend the theater. Then, after donning a cravat and a black coat, he’d plucked the tickets from the small paper sleeve in which they’d been delivered.
“Seven December?” he said aloud, as though the small cards could speak and inform him that he had not purchased tickets for the wrong bloody evening. “Damn it all to hell.”
He tossed the useless scraps on his writing desk as he exited his chamber and raced down the stairs to find Big Annie. “Mrs. Higgins!”
She poked her head out of the morning room. “Yes, Mr. Reaver?”
“Fetch me The Times.”
She disappeared for several seconds before emerging with the paper in hand.
He donned his spectacles and scoured the pages for an advertisement. He knew he’d seen it earlier that morning, before Augusta had calmly refused to go riding then calmly challenged his plan to take her for tea.
There! There it was. The Haymarket Theatre Royal. An Italian opera. He looked at his watch. It opened in less than an hour. But it was the right day, by God.
“Mrs. Higgins, tell Miss Widmore we must leave in a half-hour.”
“Er—a half-hour, sir? She is only now exiting her bath.”
Ah, God. Why had the housekeeper put that image in his mind? The entire day had been a hellish test of his patience and restraint.
She took just under an hour. When she emerged, she was … breathtaking. Wearing the silver gown with the little, sparkly things on the skirt. Spangles, if he recalled. And her breasts were so round and creamy above the neckline.
He frowned. “You should have a shawl. Or a pelisse.”
“I cannot wear a pelisse with this gown, silly.”
Mrs. Higgins handed her a fur-trimmed cape.
“Better,” he growled.
They arrived at the theater twenty minutes past the opening scene. He’d called in yet another debt to obtain a box for the night. But as Augusta sat down beside him and leaned forward to view the crowd of singers bellowing foreign words on the stage below, he realized he would do it all again. Every day, if he could. He would take her anywhere, give her anything, to see her this happy.