"Like what? Shall I ride into the ball on a charger, dressed in armor?"
"Really, now, James, be serious."
He was serious. He was serious about wanting to kiss Juliana. And touch her. And do all sorts of other things with her that would make Lady Frances faint dead away if she ever managed to come out of her fog enough to notice.
"James?" Juliana asked. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Another question he couldn't answer. He could hardly tell her the truth…that he was looking at her while imagining scenarios that would ruin her reputation beyond repair.
Lucky for him, the carriage rolled to a halt in front of the Egyptian Hall.
EIGHTEEN
THE EXTERIOR of the museum at Number Twenty-two Piccadilly bore a vague resemblance to an Egyptian temple. A very vague resemblance. In fact, it would look rather Palladian, Juliana thought, were it not for the ankhs along the cornice and the two full-length statues that flanked a window above the entrance.
"Are those sculptures supposed to be Egyptian?" Frances asked.
"An Egyptian god and goddess." James gestured toward the figures. "That's Isis on the left, and her brother and husband, Osiris, on the right."
Juliana wondered how he'd come to know such things. "They look like American Indians with headcloths," she said.
He laughed. "I suppose they do. Shall we have a look inside?"
He gave the doorman three shillings for their admission, took a guidebook and handed it to Juliana, and ushered her and Aunt Frances into the museum.
"So many people," Frances said, looking dazed as they jostled their way down a corridor.
"They've all come to see Napoleon's carriage," Juliana told her. "And Captain Cook's artifacts. And," she added, reading off the cover of the guidebook, "'the Collection of Fifteen Thousand Natural and Foreign Curiosities, Antiques, and Productions of the Fine Arts.'"
"I'm feeling faint," Frances said.
"You don't have to look at all of them, Auntie. Listen to this." Pausing in the first of the exhibition rooms, Juliana quoted from the introduction. "'The museum's owner, William Bullock, formed his collection during seventeen years of arduous research at a cost of thirty thousand pounds.'"
"Thirty thousand pounds," James said in wonder. "Just think how many vaccinations all that money could have provided."
Or how many foundlings it could have fed, Juliana thought. But there were other good uses for money. "Widening the horizons of the man in the street is also a worthy cause. Don't you agree, Aunt Frances?" She glanced around. "Aunt Frances?"
"There she is." James pointed toward an exhibit of stuffed African animals. "On that bench, by the rail."
Juliana wove through the crowd to sit beside her, beneath the raised trunk of a massive gray elephant. "Are you unwell, Auntie?"
"I'm fine, child. I thought I'd sit here a while and rest." Frances patted her chest with a happy sigh, and Juliana knew she was thinking about Lord Malmsey and his red roses. "You young people go ahead and start looking. I'll join you in a few minutes."
"We cannot just leave you here," Juliana said.
"Of course we can," James disagreed. "You wouldn't want to risk your aunt's health by taxing her, would you?"
"She doesn't look unhealthy to me. Her cheeks are rosier than I've ever seen them."
"Fever," James said succinctly.
Concerned, Juliana turned to feel her aunt's forehead. "She's not hot."
"Impending fever, then. She needs to rest as a preventative measure." When Juliana failed to rise, he reached for her hand and pulled her from the bench. "Will you argue with a physician?"
"Go on," Aunt Frances put in, waving her gloved hand in encouragement.
Juliana suddenly realized her own hand was bare, and James's felt very strong and warm.
"Come along." He tugged on her hand. "Your aunt will be fine. I believe Captain Cook's artifacts are in the next room."
She pulled her fingers free. Holding her hand in the carriage was one thing—and no doubt the result of those macaroons—but she shouldn't allow him to do so in public. "We haven't seen the things in this room yet."
"A bevy of stuffed animals," he said dismissively. Besides the African display in the center, the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with creatures in glass cases, stacked one on top of another. "What's so interesting about that?"
"There are hundreds of different species."
"You're too short to see most of them," he said. Then, apparently deciding the discussion was over, he draped an arm about her shoulders and began drawing her from the room.
Shocked, she darted a glance to her aunt, but Frances was staring into space, a vague smile curving her lips. Daydreaming, no doubt. She certainly wouldn't be smiling if she'd seen James's arm around her.
Unless, on second thought, seeing James's arm around her had made Frances begin fantasizing about Lord Malmsey holding her in the same fashion. Because Juliana had to admit that being tucked up against a man like this was a pleasurable sensation.
She wondered if Amanda would like it. Probably not, she decided. James was acting a bit more amorous than she'd had in mind. She'd had no idea the macaroons would prove to be so potent.
The next chamber's walls were covered with historical arms and armor. Still attached to her, James walked slowly, admiring the collection as though nothing were out of the ordinary.
"James," she said quietly.
"Hmm?"
"You have your arm about my shoulders."
"I know. I'm practicing for wooing Lady Amanda."
Oh, dear, just as she'd feared. She'd known she shouldn't have let him eat those macaroons. "I don't think Lady Amanda would want you to do this."
"Why not? It feels good, doesn't it?"
She couldn't argue with that, so she didn't.
"We fit perfectly," he added, studying a curved sword.
They did fit perfectly. She'd thought him too tall, but he was just the right height for her to fit perfectly under his arm. Not, of course, that that made it at all proper. And in any case, he wouldn't fit perfectly with Amanda, since Amanda
