“Look at that, Rosie,” he said, his gaze drawn to the cabinet behind her. “I think we’ve discovered the first secret compartment opened by ardor.”
***
As Rose turned to look, Steven struggled to catch his breath. He never thought he’d damn a piece of furniture, but he was damning this one. His need shouted at him to forget about the bloody cabinet and drag Rose to the carpet and finish this.
With any other woman, he’d have done it. Steven would have coaxed her to the floor by now and had her clothes off, her cabinet and her settlements be damned.
Rose was delectable with her bodice unbuttoned as she gazed in curiosity at the piece of inlay that had slid aside beneath her hips. A small drawer had popped up, right against her backside, lucky drawer.
“There’s something in it.” Rose reached an eager hand for it, but Steven caught her wrist.
He’d lived in Africa too long, he decided—a man never thrust his hand into a shadowy opening or lifted a rock without being very careful. All manner of things could be living there. Even in England, ticks, spiders, and other nasties could exist in a drawer closed for so long inside a wooden cabinet.
Steven moved her hand and then gingerly tugged out the papers she’d spied. Rose leaned to look, forgetting to be modest in her curiosity, and Steven clenched the pages to keep from dropping them. Her open bodice bared her to the waist, her plump br**sts filling her corset. A dark red love bite marked the pale skin of her breast. She was beautiful, decadent, and innocent, all at the same time.
“They’re drawings,” Rose said in surprise.
Of furniture. Of course, more bloody furniture. Five sketches in all, done in colored pencils, depicting pieces from the same period as the cabinet.
One was of another cabinet with small drawers, this one shaped like an obelisk whose point had been sawn off. The artist had noted that it was mahogany with silver inlay, in the latest “Egyptian” style. Two pictures showed chairs with gilded arms, the arms of each capped with carved, gilded Egyptian-looking heads like those found on canopic jars. One picture showed a pair of large candelabras, each base in the form of a stele covered with hieroglyphic-like writing. A figure of a woman, carved in ebony, knelt on the top of each stele, holding the gold curlicues of the candelabra on her head.
The last drawing was of a settee. Its green and gold striped cushion rested atop a boxlike structure made of ebony and studded with gold. Scenes from ancient Egypt were carved into the settee’s arms and burnished with gold, and a sphinx—half lion, half woman—capped each corner.
The settee was a masterpiece. And hideously ugly.
Rose started to laugh. “I always hated this settee. It brought over from Paris by one of Charles’s ancestors after the war with Napoleon. Ancient Egypt was all the rage then, even though they didn’t yet know much about it.”
Steven studied the sketch, every gilded, overly ornate inch of it. “I’ve seen the wonders of the pyramids at Giza and the tombs at Thebes,” he said. “And I assure you, Rosie, that no Egyptian pharaoh ever sat on something like this.”
“Of course they didn’t. It was for French ladies in their salons. It’s horrible.”
Steven flipped through the sketches again. “This settee is in your husband’s house?”
“All those pieces are. His Egyptian collection, he called them. Been in the house for generations. They’re somewhere about.”
“Then why didn’t we see them? I’d have remembered these.”
“I don’t know.” Rose managed to look thoughtful and alluring at the same time. “We didn’t have time to do much more than the main floors. Albert might have had them removed to the attics to put them out of my reach. With all the gold on them, they must be worth something.”
Steven looked through the drawings again, then flipped the pages over. A few notes had been made on the back of each, in the original hand, describing upholstery or inlay. One had a tiny drawing, made by a pencil invented long after the Napoleonic period, of a single, full-blown rose.
Steven held it up to her, his thumb on the flower. “A message for you, I think.”
He saw the swallow move down Rose’s throat as she realized that her late husband must have sketched the flower. She turned the drawing over again and forced a smile. “On the ugly settee, no less.”
Steven ran his fingertips along the satinwood of the cabinet. “He knew you’d want this cabinet, because you raved about it. Maybe he left these pictures in it for you to find, guiding you to the settee as the second piece you were to take.”
“Possibly,” Rose said, sounding dubious. “Perhaps he wanted to give me one thing I’d love and one thing I could sell.” Her eyes were moist when she looked up at Steven. “If you can find someone to sell the settee for me, you could have a commission on the sale . . . a small one only, I’m afraid.” Rose smiled with the lush lips Steven wanted to kiss again.
“Keep your money.” He heard the tightness in his voice. “I don’t need it.”
Rose’s smile died. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean any insult—”
Steven stopped her words by threading his fingers through her loosened hair and giving her a too-brief kiss. “Not to worry, Rosie, I’ll scare up a buyer for you. Right now, in fact.”
“Right now?”
The disappointment in her eyes made Steven’s heart pound, but he stiffened his resolve. If he didn’t leave this room, the hardness of his c**k would win over good intentions. “Sooner it’s done, the better.” And the sooner he went, the better for his sanity.
“I see.” Rose relinquished the sketches when he reached for them. “We’ll have to return to Sittford and look for the settee before Albert thinks to get rid of it. Tomorrow, if the weather holds.”
Steven shook his head. “Not tomorrow. I have another appointment.” One he’d give anything to miss, but at the same time, he knew he had to face it.
Rose looked curious and again disappointed, but she was too well-bred to ask for details. “I won’t bother you then. I can go to Sittford myself.”
“No.” The word was sharp. “Not alone. I don’t want you at that house without me. I don’t trust Albert at all.”
Rose grimaced. “Truth to tell, I’d feel better with you there.” Her worried look vanished, and she gave Steven an encouraging smile. “You go on then, and we’ll plan the trip later. If you’re going out, wrap up warm. It’s nippy out there.”