Mr. Impossible (Carsington Brothers, #2)

by Loretta Chase

thrice her age because he was (a) poetically handsome, (b) a language scholar, and (c) the owner of a collection of books and documents for which she lusted.

Ordinarily she took no notice of men, except as obstacles in her path, which in her experience appeared to be their primary function.

“If I stab you to death,” she said, “it will not be accidental.”

“We of supposedly enlightened nations plunder and destroy, too. It cannot be right to violate the dead, to tear mummies to pieces to find jewelry and papyri. But without the papyri, how are we scholars to understand the past? Is it right to leave the monuments here, at risk of destruction? Or is it right to take them away to our palaces and museums and mansions abroad?