A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove #2)(29)

“An ammonite? What’s an ammonite? Sounds like an Old Testament people overdue for smiting.”

“Ammonites are not a biblical people,” she replied in a tone of strained forbearance. “But they have been smited.”

“Smote.”

With a snap of linen, she shot him a look. “Smote?”

“Grammatically speaking, I think the word you want is ‘smote.’ ”

“Scientifically speaking, the word I want is ‘extinct.’ Ammonites are extinct. They’re only known to us in fossils.”

“And bedsheets, apparently.”

“You know . . .” She huffed aside a lock of hair dangling in her face. “You could be helping.”

“But I’m so enjoying watching,” he said, just to devil her. Nonetheless, he picked up the edge of the top sheet and fingered the stitching as he pulled it straight. “So you made this?”

“Yes.” Though judging by her tone, it hadn’t been a labor of love. “My mother always insisted, from the time I was twelve years old, that I spend an hour every evening on embroidery. She had all three of us forever stitching things for our trousseaux.”

Trousseaux. The word hit him queerly. “You brought your trousseau?”

“Of course I brought my trousseau. To create the illusion of an elopement, obviously. And it made the most logical place to store Francine. All these rolls of soft fabric made for good padding.”

Some emotion jabbed his side, then scampered off before he could name it. Guilt, most likely. These were sheets meant to grace her marriage bed, and she was spreading them over a stained straw-tick mattress in a seedy coaching inn.

“Anyhow,” she went on, “so long as my mother forced me to embroider, I insisted on choosing a pattern that interested me. I’ve never understood why girls are always made to stitch insipid flowers and ribbons.”

“Well, just to hazard a guess . . .” Colin straightened his edge. “Perhaps that’s because sleeping on a bed of flowers and ribbons sounds delightful and romantic. Whereas sharing one’s bed with a primeval sea snail sounds disgusting.”

Her jaw firmed. “You’re welcome to sleep on the floor.”

“Did I say disgusting? I meant enchanting. I’ve always wanted to go to bed with a primeval sea snail.”

She wasn’t impressed. “I worked hard on this. The calculations were intricate. I counted hundreds of stitches to get every last chamber right.” She ran a fingertip over the ridges of thread, spiraling out from the center. “It’s not just a haphazard pattern, you realize. Nature adheres to mathematical principles. Each chamber of the ammonite’s shell expands on the last, according to a precise, unchanging exponent.”

“Yes, yes. I understand. It’s a logarithm.”

Her head whipped up. She adjusted her spectacles and stared at him.

“You know,” he said, “this design begins to appeal to me after all. Sea slugs aren’t the least bit arousing, but logarithms . . . I’ve always thought that word sounded splendidly naughty.” He let it roll off his tongue with ribald inflection. “Logarithm.” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “Ooh. Yes and thank you and may I have some more.”

“Lots of mathematical terms sound that way. I think it’s because they were all coined by men. ‘Hypotenuse’ is downright lewd.”

“ ‘Quadrilateral’ brings rather carnal images to mind.”

She was silent for a long time. Then one of her dark eyebrows arched. “Not so many as ‘rhombus.’ ”

Good Lord. That word was wicked. Her pronunciation of it did rather wicked things to him. He had to admire the way she didn’t shrink from a challenge, but came back with a new and surprising retort. One day, she’d make some fortunate man a very creative lover.

He chuckled, shaking off the sudden grip of lust. “We have the oddest conversations.”

“I find this conversation more than odd. It’s positively shocking.”

“Why? Because I understand the principle of a logarithm? I know you’re used to speaking to me in small, simple words, but I did have the finest education England can offer a young aristocrat. Attended both Eton and Oxford.”

“Yes, but . . . somehow, I never pictured you earning high marks in maths.” She reached both hands behind her back, undoing the closures at the back of her gown. As if she’d forgotten he was even there, or felt no compunction about disrobing in front of him.

Colin felt like carving a hashmark in the bedpost. Surely this marked a new level of achievement in his amatory career. Never before had he charmed the frock off a woman with talk of mathematics. Never before would he have thought to try.

Loosening his own cravat, he said, “As a matter of fact, I did not earn high marks in maths. I could have done. But I made certain not to.”

“Why?”

“Are you joking? Because no one likes boys who excel in maths. Priggish little bores, always hunched over their slates. They all have four eyes and no friends.”

He winced, realizing instantly what he’d said. But it was already too late.

She froze, arms bent in the act of undoing her gown. All amusement fled her expression. She sniffed and stared at the corner.

Damn it, he was always hurting her.