“Golden glasses,” he said huskily.
She touched a fingertip to the delicate earpiece. “Indeed,” she said primly, but her chest turned pink. “Shall we join the others?” she asked, her gloved hands moving nervously over the front of her gown. The group near the fireplace was perusing them with not-so-covert glances.
“Certainly.” He offered his arm.
She hesitated before placing her hand on him. It settled on his arm light as a bird, but her touch resonated through his body, distracting him from the introductions.
“Have you written down your observations from the drill?” Lady Lucinda asked him, her clear gray eyes moving over him with friendly interest. She stood improperly close to her fiancé, Lord Ballentine, a tall, red-haired viscount who exuded deviance despite his perfectly polished appearance. An Irishwoman with cropped curls, Miss Byrne, kept her arm linked with an angelic-looking blonde—Miss Patterson—and she made good-natured complaints about the delay of the food. The Duchess of Montgomery, a remarkably beautiful woman who appeared to be unaccompanied, wanted to know more about his research, what he had read at Cambridge. He told her he had read archaeology and ancient history.
The duchess’s green eyes lit with interest. “You studied under Professor Babington, then.”
“I did,” he confirmed. “He’s a friend of Professor Pappas, an acquaintance of mine in Beirut.”
Catriona had taken her place in the circle and added nothing to the conversation now that she had introduced him. She could have been radiant, with her red gown and lustrous black curls. Women commanded a room with less. Yet her presence was barely felt. She had folded herself up as tightly as a jasmine blossom after sunrise.
“I once had a fascination with Greek pottery,” the duchess said, and a private smile tugged at her lips. “Is pottery your field of interest?”
It wasn’t. Cambridge had been a chance opportunity entirely. He had been sent to Britain with Nassim to establish the family office at Manchester Port instead of causing trouble on the mountain. Once in Manchester, he had soon realized that if his family wished to do business with the British, he had to associate with the upper classes. Oxbridge seemed like an effective inroad into otherwise inaccessible circles, because neither his family’s wealth nor his noble pedigree rolled out a red carpet for him on this island. An adolescence spent assisting the French archaeologists in Jbeil as a translator and his connection to Professor Pappas had allowed him to enroll under Babington’s tutelage. For a time, shared lodgings and lectures were a good enough equalizer for young gentlemen from different backgrounds. He had been invited to grand homes where he had learned more about English mannerisms and values during debauched costume parties than a cultural handbook could have ever taught him. Too soon, Uncle Jabbar had found out that he had abandoned post without permission, and halfway through the second year, Elias had found himself in the office in Lyon.
“We shall have hors d’oeuvres in a moment,” Mrs. Blackstone announced. She had arrived with two fair-haired young gentlemen, one on each arm. With rosy cheeks and high foreheads, the chaps were precisely the type of company Elias had kept at Cambridge. Their confident bearing implied that they were well-acquainted with everyone in the group.
“May I introduce Mr. Tomlinson and Lord Palmer,” Mrs. Blackstone said to him. “Mr. Khoury is our guest of honor from Mount Lebanon.”
Lord Palmer’s finely drawn face brightened. “From Mount Lebanon,” he exclaimed, making heads turn in their direction. “An ally from distant lands. To your health.”
He raised his goblet. Judging by his shiny eyes, he had already toasted to enough people’s health this evening to cure many ailments in England.
Elias tipped his glass toward his. “And to yours. As it is, London is allied to the other party.”
Palmer swallowed his drink and went red in the face. “Oh dear,” he said. “I appear to have stuck my foot in.”
British gentlemen, as a rule, avoided knowingly causing offense, so Elias took none. In his experience, though, it made for great awkwardness later should a conversation continue under such false assumptions. When the British had seen the Maronites ally with the French for more leverage under Ottoman rule, they had reflexively allied with the other mountain community, the Druze. Whenever Paris had a foothold in any one region, London had to have one there, too. Europe’s power balance was a precarious thing. They stopped at nothing to maintain it, especially not where the gateway to India was concerned.