The Darkest Sin Read Online Free PDF Page B

himself in a physical maelstrom that could never hope to blot out the past. But he balanced this dangerous temptation by giving her one last chance to withdraw from him.
    He threw down the challenge like a gauntlet. “You do not wish to become my lover, do you?”
    â€œYour lover?” She mouthed the words, understanding frozen on her face, the pupils of her eyes dilating.
    He knew what it would be like. To run his hands from the silk of her cheeks to the slim column of her throat and downward over the planes and curves of her shoulders and waist, across her ribs and then up again to cup her breasts. To test himself, to torture the slight remnants, nay dregs, of his remaining conscience, he mentally traced her body through the layers of her clothing, deliberately leaving every button and fastening intact, watching the panic rise in her eyes like an oncoming storm.
    It was enough. He didn’t have to move or touch her because she had already started to pull away. His gaze still holding hers, he was aware of the tension building inside her, beneath her prim cloak and the plain lace at her slender throat.
    He knew the dangerous allure of the game he played. He wondered with a cool dispassion whether he really wanted Rowena Woolcott to flee, to disappear once more. Then again, the choice was not his to make. She already stood at the door limned in the dim light, a wraith picking up her narrow skirts, slipping away.
    Rushford simply watched her go.
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    The echo of marble and stone was the only sound in the cavernous British Museum. The murmurings of crowds and respectful whispers of groups had long disappeared after the great museum closed its doors for another day, leaving behind hallways and rooms groaning with the treasures of the ancient and modern world.
    And as with all treasures, most came with a grievous price. The Rosetta Stone, almost four feet in height and one foot thick, rested in its glass sarcophagus, one thousand and seven hundred pounds of granite, in silent, erudite splendor. The ancient Egyptian artifact carved in the Ptolemaic era had provided three translations of a single passage, two in Egyptian scripts and one in the classical Greek of the country’s elite rulers.
    Two men stood in the shadows, contemplating the heavy stone with its hieroglyphic inscriptions, their expressions guarded. The taller of the two, barrel chested with hands clasped behind his back, pursed his lips with dissatisfaction.
    â€œIt rankles, it surely does.” His statement hung in the cool air, as though everything depended on the next few moments.
    â€œWhat rankles precisely?”
    â€œThat this discovery has been here on public display at the British Museum since 1802. For over forty years,” the barrel chested man murmured before adding as an afterthought, “Of course, there’s another reason our friend insists on the Stone’s return to France.”
    The man by his side raised a dark brow. His was a spare build, compact and athletic, his dark hair brushed back from a high forehead, his linen and demeanor impeccable. “I, for one, am not fooled,” he said with a courteous nod toward his companion. “He wants the Stone in his personal possession.” His English was faultless, save for the faintest trace of French accent. “Patriotic pride does not come into it. The fact that Napoleon’s scientists and scholars first discovered the Stone in 1799 makes little difference to him, Lowther.”
    Giles Lowther smiled thinly. “You, Sebastian, are mistaken. It makes all the difference to him—although not for the patriotic reasons you may believe.” The assertion floated into the night, illuminated only by two candelabra left behind by a watchman who had been duly rewarded. The two men took the time to consider their master’s motivations while affecting to read the inscriptions painted in white below the Stone: “Captured in Egypt by the British Army