Recognizing the voice, she looked up, hastily shoving the photos back inside her drawer as Daniel edged into her office. Daniel. Her boyfriend. Sort of her fiancé. Really just her boyfriend, though. And she needed to get a grip and stop thinking about Nick and the tree and his thighs and her thighs and his lips and his…

Yeah, time to get a grip.

How to Be a Scandalous Woman, Rule 2:

Gossip is great. It’s when they’re not talking about you that you have to worry.

1893

N ICHOLAS B ONAVENTURE T EMPEST was bored. Bored down to the soles of his fine leather boots.

Alone in the third-floor music room of his family mansion, leaning back with his feet propped on a wooden table, Nick aimed and then tossed a souvenir Columbian Exposition half-dollar into an empty china cup he’d set on a piano stool about five feet away. Clink. In again. Just like the past eleven times he’d played this game. After an even dozen, he supposed he ought to move on.

Not for the first time, he reached for the brandy decanter at his elbow. He’d already had quite enough to be thoroughly sloshed, but in the mood he was currently in, there just wasn’t enough liquor in the world. Tedious dinner parties, tedious women, tedious conversation…Even his father’s best Napoleon brandy wasn’t enough to make that nonsense palatable.

“Ah, well. I’m done with it for one more night, at any rate.” He saluted himself with his glass. “Until tomorrow.”

“Nick, darling, it’s already tomorrow,” his sister, Isabella, noted sweetly as she swept into the room.

Nick sat up straighter. One look told him something was up. Trouble was pretty much the norm with Isabella, but the sparkle of mischief in her pretty blue eyes was even more ominous than usual. He hoped she hadn’t fallen in love again. He didn’t need to get into any more fights defending Isabella’s honor. Not that there was any honor left as far as he could tell, or that she cared. Still, a good fistfight might provide a diversion.

“Are you just getting home?” he asked. “A bit late, isn’t it?”

“Not for me. I don’t believe in living my life by the clock. Besides, you’re hardly one to talk,” she pointed out. “You’re the one who has to make an appearance at the store bright and early.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Isabella was clearly too wrapped up in her own good mood to pay attention to his gloom. She discarded her cloak and gloves, dumping them on a nearby music stand. “It’s not my fault you’ve become such a respectable citizen. I warned you time and again that Father would turn you into a drudge if you let him.”

“I’m hardly a drudge. I run the place.”

“You’re a drudge. And you’re much too good for that.”

She began humming some cheery tune, dancing around in her loose artist’s smock, the kind she always wore over her gowns when she was working on a sculpture. That explained why she was coming in so late. When she was in the middle of a project, she didn’t notice anything else. It did not, however, explain her good spirits. Ever since she’d come home from Europe, Bella had been moody and unhappy about her future as a sculptress.

Spinning around to look at him, she set her pretty face in a pout. “Play something on the piano for me, will you, Nick? You’re so much better at it than I.”

“And wake up the entire household? I don’t think so.”

“Not just a drudge but a shriveled-up old prune,” she mocked him. “I want the old Nick back. My dashing brother, always running off after some fast woman or fast horse. He would’ve played me a tune in the wee hours if I asked him.”

“One of us had to grow up,” he commented dryly. “It certainly wasn’t going to be you.”

She shrugged. “I hope I never grow up. It’s quite disgusting.”

Nick managed a smile. Lightly he said, “If everyone in this family were an artiste like you, you’d have no pretty dresses, there would be holes in our shoes, our stomachs would be empty, and we’d all be living in a shack in the middle of the woods.”

“You stole that from Father. I’ve heard him say that a hundred times.”

“Yes, well, he’s right. Don’t waste your time worrying about me. I’ve decided that if it’s my destiny to mind the store, at least I’ll do a good job of it.” Nick purposely changed the subject, both because he was bored with that one and because he was still trying to figure out what mischief Isabella was up to. “What are you working on, Bella? Haven’t seen much of you lately. Must be something big.”

“Not that big,” she murmured.

She unbuttoned her smock and tossed it on top of her cloak, revealing a frilly green dress with a nipped waist and the huge, pouffy sleeves that were all the rage. Isabella might consider herself a rebel and an artist, but she still liked to wear the latest fashions.

“Did you hear that, Nick? The grandfather clock in the hall just rang five. That means it’s not late. Why, it’s positively early. Almost time for you to do your duty and report to the store to play Lord High Pooh-bah.” She raised an eyebrow as she picked up his still-burning cigar resting in a cut-glass ashtray. “Mother will have your hide for smoking up here.”

“Mother never comes up here,” he said coldly, rescuing the fine Cuban before she snuffed it. “Besides, cigars are a mere misdemeanor in the record book of my crimes.”

“Ah. Ducked out of the Trents’ dinner party early, did you?” She made a sympathetic face. “Father won’t like that. He’s determined to deliver you to Lydia Trent all wrapped up like a Christmas package.”

The idea sent Nick straight to the brandy decanter again. “Yes, well, he has visions of a department-store dynasty. Tempest & Trent, purveyors of fine luxury goods, a step ahead of anything Marshall Field can come up with.” Nick scowled, knocking back his drink. “All he needs is for me to marry Lydia.”

“So that’s what’s got you up here at all hours, swimming in brandy and cigars? The specter of a future hog-tied to Lydia Trent?”

“I suppose. It was a dreadful party. Dreadful people. I stayed approximately five minutes past dinner before I pleaded a headache and got out of there.”

“And then what?”

Putting aside his drink for the moment, Nick swung his legs off the music table and took a long puff on his cigar. “And then what, what?”

“Well, you can’t have escaped from the Trents and come right here. You’d have been drinking for, oh, the past seven hours. Even you don’t hold your liquor that well.”

“I checked in at the club, played a few hands of poker, won an outrageous amount of money, tried again to convince Freddy Montgomery to sell me his new horse, tried again to convince Freddy Montgomery to buy my old carriage…It’s so dull, I’m boring even myself.” Nick tried not to sigh. “Someone’s got to find something more interesting to do in this town or I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Face it, Nicky,” his sister said, fingering the strings of a violin no one ever played. “You’re just not cut out for the workaday world. You need to take me to Paris again. We’re overdue for an adventure.”

He eyed her warily. “When are you going to tell me what your new project is?”

Her lips curved into a very smug little smile. Now he knew he was in for trouble. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean whatever it is you’re working on that has you so excited. So excited you lost track of time and came wandering in at 5:00 a.m. with your hair all disheveled and smudged like a chimney sweep.”

“Nonsense. And it’s not new. If you must know, I’ve been working on it forever,” she said saucily, her smile widening. “That’s why I’m excited. I’m finally finished, Nick. I’ve finished my masterpiece.”

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. “I take it you’re not talking about another statue of my hand.”

“It’s an excellent hand, but I’ve moved on to bigger projects.”

“Such as?”

Isabella giggled, covering her mouth with one hand. He didn’t like the sound of that. Finally, she whispered, “I don’t think I should say.”

“Why not?”

Her glance skittered away from him. “Maybe I want it to be a surprise.”

Nick narrowed his eyes. “How big a surprise?”

“About six feet.”

The same height as a man. Oh, no. Not again. When she was studying in Italy, Isabella had done several nude torsos of one of her beaus. When she brought the pieces back to Chicago, they’d set every tongue in the city wagging. Now he suspected she’d moved on to the entire body of a naked man, complete with genitalia. Maybe Nick could convince her to add a fig leaf…

“Who’s your subject?” he asked. He wasn’t sure which would be worse—an anonymous naked stranger or someone recognizable by Chicago society. If she’d sculpted the son of a prominent family without his trousers, the entire Tempest family might have to pick up and move far, far away.

“Apollo, Zeus, Eros…” Her words trailed off dreamily. “They’re all there. And they’re spectacular.”

He allowed himself a sigh of relief. Greek gods didn’t sound so bad. Representing them in stone was quite popular, as a matter of fact. Except…Except he knew his sister. “What have you done with these Greek gods? Are they clothed?”

She shrugged, looking pleased with herself. “I told you, they’re spectacular. Stunning. I’ve added something new this time. I’ve added passion . Far and away my best work ever.”

Given the fact that she had sidestepped his question about clothes, he could only conclude that all these Greek deities were, in fact, naked. That wasn’t unusual, either, as far as classical or modern sculpture went. He’d seen enough of it on his travels with his sister to know that much, and also to know that she was fascinated by the human form.

“Is this a commissioned piece?” he inquired, trying to pin her down. “Is someone going to pay for this and hopefully whisk it away to Outer Mongolia?”

“Of course not. My art is intended to be seen. I want people to experience it, to feel and change because of it. This sculpture is definitely going to change people.” Isabella swished her skirts as she began to pace back and forth. “I’m counting on this piece to make my name.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

She shot back, “Don’t mock me, Nick. You wait and see! By morning, when it’s on display, people from around the world—artists and collectors and scholars—will be smitten. I wouldn’t be surprised if potential patrons waving huge sums of money were breaking down my door tomorrow, begging me to create pieces just for them.”

“Where?” he asked suspiciously. Isabella had no gallery, no studio, where buyers could see this supposed masterpiece. “Where is it on display?”

After stewing for a moment, she confessed, “It’s at the Women’s Building. At the fair.”

“But I thought…” Nick stubbed out his cigar. “I thought they didn’t want you there.”

“Well, they didn’t.” She shrugged again. “But Mother got me in.”

Isabella and their mother had argued about this very subject for months. The last Nick had heard, Mother wasn’t budging and was not going to use her influence as a member of the prestigious Board of Lady Managers to find a spot for Bella’s work, specifically because she didn’t approve of her daughter’s preoccupation with nude male torsos or female faces with a lascivious look in her their eyes. So far, thank goodness, Isabella had not combined the strapping males with the provocative females, because that would…

“Good God, Bella, you didn’t.”

All innocence, she inquired, “Didn’t what?”

“What exactly is the theme of this work, this masterpiece with all the Greek gods and goddesses? Have you named it?” he asked impatiently, standing up and advancing on her.

“It doesn’t have a name yet, actually. Maybe you can help me with that, Nick.” Eagerly, she perched on a stool near him. “At first I thought I would call it Erotikos , but then I thought perhaps Sexdecim would be the right name. It has an intriguing ring to it, don’t you think? It’s Latin, though, and I’d prefer Greek, since my figures are Greek.”

“ Sexdecim just means sixteen,” he told her. “How can the same statue fit either Erotikos or Sixteen? Good Lord.” He’d just had a horrifying thought. “You’re not sculpting erotic sixteen-year-olds into a statue, are you?”

“Heavens, no.” Isabella twirled the other way on her stool, avoiding his eyes. “It’s not exactly a statue, anyway. It’s an arch. I’ve intended it as a stand-alone work, something like a mantel for one’s fireplace, but much more beautiful than that. It’s marble. I love working in marble. It’s so unforgiving, and yet so stunning if you get it right. Father had a fit, of course, since it was also wretchedly expensive. But I think it was worth every penny.”

“Sixteen?” he prompted.

“Oh, about the sixteen. Yes, well, there are sixteen couples on my arch. Sixteen pairs of gods and goddesses. So…”

“Couples, you say?”

That whole Erotikos thing was becoming clearer. And more unpleasant, all at the same time. Sixteen couples on an arch, all carved to look lusty and sensual. Bella wouldn’t have done that. Not after their mother had put her own reputation on the line with the ever-so-lofty Lady Managers to push her daughter’s work into the Women’s Building. Isabella might be foolish, but she would never abuse their mother’s trust and good name, would she?

Of course she would. With a sense of dread, hoping against hope that the sixteen couples were merely looking erotic and not acting erotic, Nick asked, “What are your gods and goddesses doing, precisely?”

“It’s a depiction of the mythology for each of the couples,” she explained. “So, for example, Apollo and Daphne are depicted wound ’round a tree, while Perseus and Andromeda are chained together. I was rather proud of that. Using the chains, I mean, since she’s chained to a rock in the myth.” She sighed deeply. “The chains give so much more urgency and tension to that particular coupling.”

“Coupling?” he echoed. That sounded so much worse than mere couple . “You have all of these Greek gods in the midst of couplings? You’ve actually thrown them together and portrayed them while they’re…” How did one say this to one’s sister? “While they’re in the act? ”

“Well, yes, actually.” His sister—his infuriating, irresponsible, reckless sister—ducked around him to pick up his brandy snifter. She held it out to him like a peace offering. “Do you remember, Nick, when we were in Italy, and you went off to Germany to look at somebody’s engine or something?”

He grabbed the brandy and knocked back the rest of it, all in one gulp. That demonstrated a reckless disregard for good brandy, but he didn’t care. “The motor-wagons, yes. I spent a few days in Stuttgart.”

“Right. That was when Franco asked if I’d like to see his private collection.”

Nick tightened his jaw. He’d never much cared for Franco, the count his sister had carried on a brief flirtation with while they visited Rome. He’d tried to keep a careful eye on her, but it appeared he had failed miserably, if she was off looking at the private collections of oily Italian counts the moment his back was turned. “That sounds ominous.”

“Not at all,” she assured him. “Franco had acquired a most intriguing volume, with sketches and poetry to illustrate something called the Sixteen Positions. Apparently it was quite scandalous in the sixteenth century, and the author and artist were excommunicated and burned at the stake or drawn and quartered or something equally dreadful.”

It sounded pornographic. Sixteen positions? He didn’t even know sixteen positions, and he was a man of the world! Nick’s hands clenched into fists. If Franco had been in front of him at that moment, he swore he would’ve knocked the count’s teeth in.

“Sixteen sexual positions, you see?” Isabella said helpfully, as if he hadn’t already figured that out on his own. “My inspiration was to combine those positions with characters from Greek mythology to say something about how earthly passion and supernatural power combine.”

As she gazed into space, enraptured by her idea, Nick didn’t know how to respond.

“It’s very strong, Nick,” she said dreamily. “Very beautiful. Simply bursting with lust and ecstasy and all of the things I wanted to—”

“Lust and ecstasy…You’ve gone too far this time,” he muttered. Clearly, they never should’ve let Isabella study in Italy. Or get anywhere near the depraved Franco Pirelli, Conte di Bassano. “Much too far.”

“But, Nick, you haven’t seen—”

“I will soon enough,” he growled. As he glanced around to find his jacket, he hastily redid his collar and began to tie his cravat. “Where is it? Where are you working these days?”

“It’s not at my studio.” She folded her arms, laying the immense puffs of her sleeves over the dainty bows on her bodice, looking defiant and stubborn, as well as about twelve years old. But twelve-year-olds didn’t create artwork bursting with lust and ecstasy and the lewd sexual encounters of Greek gods.

“Where then?”

Isabella lifted her pointy little chin, so much like their mother’s. “By now, it should already be in place at the Women’s Building. The delivery men had already arrived and carted it up before I left. So you see it’s too late for you to stop it.”

This time, he didn’t bother to keep his voice down. “How exactly do you think Bertha Palmer and the Lady Managers are going to respond to something like that? If your statue is one-tenth as lurid as I’m imagining it, there will be a scandal that even you can’t live down.”

“Nick, really,” she said indignantly. “There are nude statues all over the fair. Have you seen the naked mermaids frolicking in the fountain in the Grand Basin? Perhaps you noticed one or two of the gigantic, half-draped women called Lady Victory or Spirit of Discovery or Westward Ho or whatever it is they’ve named them. As long as they’re not real people, but some sort of symbol, nobody minds if their breasts are spilling out all over the Fine Arts Building.”

“It’s not the same, Bella,” he insisted. “And I don’t have time to discuss it with you. I have to find this monster you’ve created and get it out of there before anyone sees it. The Women’s Building, right?”

“The fair isn’t open yet,” she called after him as he dashed out the door. “Not for several hours. When you see how beautiful it is, you won’t be able to destroy it. It’s a fool’s errand, Nick!”

He ignored her. Bored no more, energized by his mission to find and do away with whatever it was his sister had created, Nick Tempest set off for the grounds of the world-famous Columbian Exposition.

How to Be a Scandalous Woman, Rule 3:

There are times you have to draw a line in the sand. Any crab that crosses? Dead.

“H I THERE ,” Jordan managed, doing her best not to sound flustered or guilty in front of Daniel. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d already left for San Francisco.”

“San Diego.”

“Right. San Diego. I meant San Diego.” How lame was it not to know where your boyfriend was taking off to for a week? Okay, so she was too busy cheating on him in her dreams to notice where he was going. Not exactly a good excuse. “Sorry. But I thought you’d already left.”

He stood there on the other side of her desk, holding a briefcase in one hand, shifting from one foot to the other. “I canceled my trip.”

“The whole thing?”

That was surprising. Daniel never canceled anything, especially not a trip like this, where he was combining a conference with a job interview. Unlike her, with her never-ending dissertation, Daniel had already finished up his PhD in economics, and now he was scoping out the best job prospects at the best universities in his usual precise and methodical way.

Looking him over, Jordan asked, “Are you okay? You’re not sick or anything, are you?”

“No, no. I’m fine. I just had a change of plans.”

“That’s…not like you.”

“I don’t need to go.” He gave her a small smile. “I just heard from Princeton. I’m in.”

“In? You mean they offered you a position? At Princeton?”

He nodded, his smile still firmly in place.

“Daniel, that’s amazing. Wow. When did this happen?”

“I got the call this morning.”

She blinked. “And this is the first you’re telling me?”

He lifted his narrow shoulders in a half-shrug. “I needed to get my thoughts in order, come up with a plan.” Propping the briefcase on the edge of her desk, he flipped it open and rustled around inside. “This will mean a lot of changes for both of us.”

“So…that means you said yes?” she asked slowly.

“Of course I said yes. They were my first choice.”

“Well, of course, but…” But it involved her, too. In ways she didn’t even want to think about. She put that aside for the time being. “Maybe we should, you know, celebrate.” She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Leap over her desk and hug him? Pick up the phone and get some champagne delivered? Daniel didn’t seem all that excited, though. More…determined. Which was odd.

“I’d rather get things squared away first.” He pulled a sheaf of papers out of his briefcase, reaching over the laptop to hand her the top sheet. “This is the schedule I came up with. I thought we could go over it together.”

Princeton, changes, schedules, all pondered, decided upon, and neatly typed up and printed out, without even consulting her. Jordan felt her hackles begin to rise as she glanced down at the paper.

“You’ll see,” he went on, “that item one is me moving out there, item two is finding a place for us to live, and item three is the wedding. Something small, just the two of us and maybe my parents, is probably best. We could do it after we get to New Jersey, since that’s so close to where my parents are. You wouldn’t need yours there, would you?”

She glanced up from his list. “What? I’m sorry. What are we talking about?”

“Your parents. Our wedding. I didn’t think you’d want them there. I mean, no offense, but they’re sort of problematic.” Daniel grimaced. “They haven’t laid eyes on each other in twenty years, have they? And your father’s new family with Stacey…What’s the total? Four kids under five?”

He was waiting for an answer, but she was still way behind in this conversation, back where he’d said, Item three is the wedding …. “I’m sorry, but I’m lost.”

“Your dad,” he prompted. “Stacey. Four kids under five.”

Jordan lifted a hand to her head, mumbling a response on automatic pilot. “Not Stacey. Michelle. Stacey was his second wife. Then Tracy. Michelle is the new one.”

“Right. The thing is, both your parents are, well, kind of nutty,” he told her. “Your mother would probably want to write us some erotic Ode to Fertility or something, and your dad would bring his new wife who’s younger than you are, not to mention their passel of toddlers, and my parents would go through the roof. They have very specific ideas about what my wedding should entail.”

She was well aware that Daniel didn’t like her parents. They didn’t like him, either. Or each other, for that matter. They hadn’t been married very long—actually, no one was sure if they’d bothered to get married at all—and they were crazy, unconventional and high maintenance in all the ways she wasn’t and Daniel certainly wasn’t. But still…Moving to New Jersey and dealing with his parents and—

A wedding? Was he insane?

“I don’t mind postponing a honeymoon till later, do you?” Daniel rolled on. “I put that down as item twelve, if you want to look ahead on the schedule.”

She frowned. “Daniel, I need you to stop. This is…impossible! I can’t do it.”

He didn’t look pleased, but he did pause at least. Finally, he asked, “Which parts?”

“All of it!”

“Why?”

“Because…” She leaned forward to push her stomach into her drawer, just to make sure it clicked shut with Nick’s pictures inside. “Because I’m not ready. I’m teaching a class this semester. And I’m not finished with my thesis. You know all of that. I’m not at a place where I can leave Chicago, let alone think about weddings.”

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