The Most Eligible Bachelor Romance Collection: Nine Historical Romances Celebrate Marrying for All the Right Reasons (58 page)

“Would you like to see more of the artifacts? Perhaps draw more of them?” He hoped he sounded more professional than he felt. All he knew was that he didn’t want to lose touch with her.

“Really?” Her smile made his chest tighten. “I’d love that.”

Back in the museum, they met the workmen; and while she watched, he helped unpack several gilded chairs and two beds. She sketched and asked questions, and he answered them all, noting her fine-boned hands and slender fingers, the way her bottom lip disappeared when she concentrated on capturing an image, the tendrils of dark hair that escaped from the twist at the back of her head and lay against her cheeks and neck.

At last, the foreman of the work crew nudged Max’s elbow. “’Bout quittin’ time, boss.”

“Is it?” The afternoon had flown by. He slipped his watch from his vest pocket and flipped it open. Six o’clock. Max struggled to pull his attention from the present work. Something niggled the back of his mind. What was he forgetting?

“Bright and early tomorrow?” The foreman asked.

“Yes,” Max absently rubbed his watch cover. “And thank you for the fine work today.” He drew his ever-present list from his pocket and consulted it. Ah, that was it. He snapped his fingers. The lecture tonight.

Ally bent over a pectoral of beaten gold and lapis, her brows drawn together as she copied the likeness. He looked over her shoulder, admiring her talent and inhaling the scent of flowers once more. “Ally, I’m afraid we have to call it a day.”

Her head came up. “What?”

He smiled at her powers of concentration. They rivaled his own. “The museum is closing. It’s just past six o’clock.”

Her mouth dropped open, and her chalk clattered to the floor, exploding in a puff of dusty particles. “It can’t be.” She slammed her sketchbook closed and gathered chalks and pencils, stuffing them into her pockets, dropping half of them in her haste. “It can’t be.” This time it came out as a moan.

“What’s wrong?”

“My mother is going to kill me.” She scooped up the last of her equipment, and before he could ask to see her again, she was gone.

Chapter 3

Y
anking off her gloves, Mother tossed them with her fan on the marble table, barely waiting for the footman to assist her with her evening cloak before pointing across the foyer. “Young lady, I have had enough. Get yourself into the parlor.”

Ally sent a pleading glance at her father, who shrugged and started edging toward his study. That Mother showed any emotion at all spoke to the strength of her feelings. Emotion on this scale from her was unprecedented.

“You, too, David.” Mother’s voice crackled with ire, halting his escape. They filed past her, and she shut the pocket doors on the rest of the house. Two bright spots of color rode her high cheekbones, startling in her normally matte complexion.

Perching on the edge of a chair, Ally knotted her fingers in her lap. Father stood by the mantel looking as if he wanted to bolt. She’d never seen her mother so expressive, so angry as to abandon the calm facade on which she prided herself.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. How could you shame me so?”

Ally forced down the lump in her throat and blinked hard, smoothing the heavy silk of her evening gown and slipping her fan loop off her wrist. “Mother, I—”

Mother’s hand came up. “Don’t. I’m in no mood for more of your excuses or insincere apologies. As if failing to return home today—like you promised you would—for afternoon calls wasn’t enough, you have to comport yourself like an ill-disciplined hoyden at the dinner party tonight. Ignoring your hostess and your escort for the evening—an escort I went to great pains to procure for you, by the way—then disappearing into the art gallery to hide for the rest of the evening. Don’t think for a minute I didn’t know exactly what you were doing.”

Stung, Ally shot back. “I didn’t disappear on purpose. The colonel asked if I’d like to see his paintings. He was our host, after all.”

“You should’ve politely declined and stayed in the parlor with your escort. You seem to think that the expectations we have for you are somehow onerous or out of the ordinary. We’ve indulged your passion for artistic expression to the point you feel you are not bound by the same rules of society as everyone else. Well, I can tell you, that behavior stops now.”

Father tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked on his toes. “That’s a bit much. I’m sure Ally didn’t mean to be rude.”

Mother’s dark eyes flashed. “And I’m certain she did. I gave her several social cues to modify her behavior, and she ignored them all. And the way she treated Bram Baumgartner was shameful. She acted as if he wasn’t even there, staring into space and not listening to a word he said. I don’t know how I’m going to face his mother again. He’s perfect marrying material, and she ruined any chance she had with him.”

Guilt prickled Ally’s skin. She hadn’t ignored Bram on purpose. It was just that her mind kept wandering to Max and her wonderful day at the museum. Bram wasn’t a bad fellow, just so uninteresting compared to Max. Certainly no one she wanted to marry. “Mother, why can’t you let me find my own husband? Why must you continue to shove eligible men at me?”

“You want to find your own husband?” Mother wheeled and faced Ally. “Fine. In three weeks we will leave for Newport for the summer. If, in that time, you do not find a suitor, then you will meekly submit to the process every other young woman of your station goes through. You will accept the attentions of the young men that your father and I choose, and you will like it, is that understood?”

“Three weeks?” Ally’s voice squeaked.

“And not a day more.” As if coming to herself, Mother shuddered and sank gracefully into a wing chair.

Ally bit her lip and stared at the Aubusson rug. “So for three weeks, no hounding me about men and no arranging meetings or introducing me around?”

“Provided that at the end of those three weeks, you will pull yourself together and act like the well-bred woman you are. Now, get to bed. All this emotion has given me a headache.” She pressed her hand to her temple and turned her face away.

Father frowned, his eyes troubled, as Ally rose slowly. When she passed him, he reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

Climbing the stairs to her room, her skirts trailing in whispers, Ally didn’t know whether to burst into tears or tear her hair out. Examined in the light of her mother’s standards, her behavior tonight had been very rude, but to be given an ultimatum like that? Find a suitor or accept one thrust on her by her mother? And in only three weeks?

Her mind went to Max. If only her mother would consider him a suitable match, but there was no way. Not a part-time lecturer and assistant curator at a museum.

Yet, he was the only man who had ever awakened her heart and mind, to the point where she thought of him all the time. Where she compared every young man to him and found everyone else wanting. He was kind, intelligent, fascinating, not to mention heart-stoppingly handsome.

He was so far out of her mother’s sphere, he might as well be a distant star.

Max pushed his glasses up on his nose and scanned the group. Young women sat in rows of desks in the lecture hall, but few seemed to have listened to his lecture. He tapped his papers together. “So, as you can see, archaeology reveals, on the one hand, how different our cultures are from those of the past, and, on the other hand, how similar. The writer of Ecclesiastes got it right when he wrote that there is ‘no new thing under the sun.’”

In the back corner, Augustus and Jillian Bellows beamed. At least he was pleasing his patrons, something every archaeologist had to do unless he was independently wealthy. Which brought him up short. Since winning the Bellows Prize, he
was
independently wealthy. Certainly not in the same class as the Astors or Vanderbilts, but enough money to now fund his own expeditions in Egypt.

“Are there any questions?” He closed his folder and removed his glasses, tucking them into his inner coat pocket.

Several hands went up.

“Yes, miss?” He indicated a girl on the front row.

“How much are the contents of the tomb worth? And do you get to keep any of it?”

Always the same questions first.

“Since an intact tomb has never been discovered before, it is impossible to calculate the value. As to getting to keep some of it, it is the custom of the Egyptian Antiquities Department, under the direction of Monsieur Loret, to allow the holder of the firman or digging permit and the archaeologist in charge to keep a portion of all artifacts discovered, provided there is something already like it in the Palace Museum at Giza. However, this find is so unique that most of the artifacts have nothing similar on display anywhere. The majority of the contents of the tomb are on loan for the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art but will be returned to Egypt at the conclusion of the exhibition.”

“So you do get to keep some things?”

“Yes, a few items will remain in my possession, and others will be the property of Mr. Bellows, who held the firman for the Valley of the Queens last year.” He nodded toward the back of the room. “But we’ve agreed the artifacts should remain on exhibit at the museum here in New York.”

Another hand went up. “Are you married?”

His collar tightened. “No. I am not.”

A rustle went through the room, several of the girls smiling and nodding and sending messages to one another with significant looks.

“Why not?”

He blinked and searched for an answer, trying to ignore the grin on Bellows’s face. “It’s difficult in my occupation. I’m out of the country for six to eight months of the year. It would take an intrepid woman to be willing to live alone that much of the time, and even more if she should choose to live in the desert with me. An excavation site has little in the way of comforts. It’s dusty, hot, lonely, and quite often involves danger. It would take a special woman to be willing to confront those issues.”

A woman like Ally.
The thought drifted through his head and stuck like a sandbur.

“I’m sorry? Could you repeat the question?”

“Now that you’re rich, you can stay home, right?” A blond woman in the second row flicked her lashes at him. “You’re one of the most eligible bachelors in New York right now, aren’t you? A famous millionaire. You wouldn’t have to grub about in the sand ever again. You could find a nice girl and get married and just give lectures and be famous, couldn’t you?”

This time Bellows coughed, and Max suspected he was covering laughter.

“I am an archaeologist, not an eligible bachelor. I ‘grub about in the sand,’ as you put it, because I want to understand an ancient and complex culture, not because I’m seeking fame and fortune.”

The questions continued for a time, but to his disgust, none had to do with his lecture, Egypt, or archaeology. They continued to focus on money and marriage. Had they heard nothing he’d said about idolatry?

“I believe we’ll conclude the question time,” he said at last, gripping the edges of the podium. “I’d like to thank you all for attending, and Mrs. Jillian Bellows for her kind invitation to speak here at her alma mater. I hope you’ll all visit the Princess Meryat-Kai exhibit at the Met when it opens in three weeks’ time.”

To his surprise, several of the young ladies approached the dais and asked for his autograph. Bemused, he signed his name, ignoring the doe-like eyes and giggles. One girl slipped a note into his hand with a wink and a smile. He waited until the room cleared of all but the Bellows before daring to open it.

“Good grief.” He tossed the note on the podium. “I feel like I’ve been sized up by potential buyers, not giving a lecture to students.”

Bellows clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, it’s not exactly an academic institution. These girls are studying deportment and music and French. It’s a finishing school, the last stop before the marriage mart. Yours is probably the only scholarly address they’ve heard this entire year.”

Jillian swatted his arm. “It’s not that bad. They also study diction and dance and the skills necessary to run a large home.”

“But not history or archaeology.” Max gathered his folder.

“Not everyone is interested in your crusty old mummies and potsherds.” Jillian sniffed. “These are all accomplished, bright, wealthy young ladies. Just because they aren’t your particular cup of chamomile doesn’t mean they aren’t perfectly delightful and suited to other young men’s tastes.”

Chastened, Max bowed. “You’re right. They are very nice. I’m sure they’ll all make brilliant matches. Just not with me.”

“You never know. In fact, I’ve been wanting to introduce you to my goddaughter. I think you’d like her. She’s not your typical debutante.” Jillian took Max’s arm, leaving her husband to turn out the lights in the lecture hall.