Obsession Wears Opals (11 page)

It’s foolish to question the lack of lace at this point.

And I doubt she’d care.

Mrs. McFadden came in with the dinner tray and set down the covered dishes on his desk with a grunt of disapproval. “I’ll let her know dinner’s ready.”

“You’re a treasure, Mrs. McFadden,” Darius said as solemnly as he could and was instantly rewarded with a fiery look.

“I’m not going to be turned by flattery, Mr. Thorne.”

Darius took a short step forward. “Is something wrong, Mrs. McFadden?”

The woman crossed her arms. “I’m—not acquainted with many highborn ladies, and the few I’ve seen made me think I was a lucky woman to be out of their path. But . . . I’m going soft on her, sir.”

“How is this a terrible thing?” he asked.

The housekeeper stiffened. “For a man who knows everything, you don’t know anything, do you? Never mind. When this goes the way of a penny novel, I’m not the one that’ll be sobbing in a mud puddle over it. You hear me? I’ll say I told you so, and then I’m punishing you for the rest of your days for breaking my heart over that dear little lamb!”

He ducked his head, aware that if he smiled at her now he risked his safety. “Yes, Mrs. McFadden.”

She growled in frustration and turned to leave. “I’m ringing the bell. I’ll be back for the tray when you’re done eating. I’ve a headache, so don’t you dare keep her up late!” She closed the door firmly behind her and Darius shook his head.

Helen must have truly charmed her in his absence. He felt a stab of guilt at putting the prickly woman in a position to care, but there was nothing he could say to change things.

Mrs. McFadden doesn’t like to risk the hurt because she’s tasted the worst before.

And I’m the bigger fool because I know she’s right. There is no happy ending for me. Even if I work a miracle and find a way to free her from her husband and restore her to her family or to some version of her former life—I’m that idiot left crying in a mud puddle.

Darius was intelligent enough to know all the signs of danger. He was already smitten. He’d taken pleasure in collecting all the items on Mrs. McFadden’s list and added a few things he imagined a lady needed. When he wasn’t with Helen, she dominated his thoughts. And when he was with her, for the first time in his life, Darius couldn’t think at all.

But all of this self-pity hinges on the stupid notion that any of my actions are for personal gain. I don’t need a vicar to point out that failed logic. It’s for Helen. Helen’s happiness is the only goal. Nothing else matters. I will protect her and see her to safety and then—then I can worry about mud puddles and Mrs. McFadden’s feelings and the consequences to her cooking.

“Worst case, I can escape to the Warrens’ for baked goods while awaiting forgiveness and—”

The door opened and Helen’s appearance interrupted his monologue. She was wearing one of the new dresses he’d picked up for her in town. It was a simple, ready-made thing, but Darius had liked the pale blue print embroidered with tiny flowers. The shopkeeper’s wife had convinced him that the ribbon edges were most desirable, and that even a country miss wished to have the “little touches” that made her feel pretty.

But Helen of Troy was no country miss.

In pale blue, she looked like an elegant dream. The cut of it was flattering and the simplicity of the design set off her figure and ensured that it was Helen herself that drew the eye and caught a man’s attention. Her hair was up in a wreath of braids and twists, and eyes the color of white opals shone with pleasure.

“You’re staring, Mr. Thorne.” Helen smiled as she smoothed out the skirts.

“You look lovely.” Darius cleared his throat and tried to recover his composure. “The color suits you. I only hope it’s not too plain for your taste.”

She shook her head and made a turn for him, a timeless and unconscious gesture to demonstrate her happiness and show off her skirts. “Your hidden skills betray you, sir.” She faced him shyly and lifted her hem just an inch or two to give him a glimpse of the soft-soled shoes he’d found her.

“Are they more comfortable than riding boots?” he asked.

“Without a doubt!” Helen laughed, dropping her skirts. “But how did you manage it? They fit perfectly!”

Darius shrugged his shoulders and picked up the tray to carry it over to the small table next to the fireplace. “I’m tempted to make some insane claim of superior observation.”

She moved to help him, shifting the chessboard over to make sure there was room for their picnic. “Resist temptation and tell me the truth.”

He pressed his lips together, weighing it out. “Only if you never tell Mrs. McFadden.”

Helen straightened her back, her expression startled. “I’ll swear but . . .”

“I was going to borrow your boots after you’d gone to bed and trace the soles onto a paper for the sizing, but I couldn’t find them and I certainly couldn’t wake Mrs. McFadden to ask for them. So”—Darius lowered his voice conspiratorially—“I retraced events and found a muddy footprint in the stables that I knew wasn’t mine or Hamish’s. So I measured that and—there you have it!”

“And why can’t I tell Mrs. McFadden?”

It was an obscure tangle but Darius did his best to keep Helen out of it. “Because I don’t want her to know I was poking about the stables at such an hour. Just—trust me and let’s not mention it to her, all right?”

“As you wish.” She conceded gracefully and took her seat, allowing him to do the same. “The dinner smells delicious.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” He settled in across from her. “I’m not sure why, but the farther away you are from the dining room, the better food tastes.”

“Does it?” she asked in astonishment.

“Absolutely! I first discovered it when I was in school after sneaking biscuits into bed. They were perfectly ordinary in the dining hall, but when ferreted up in that bedroom, they were ambrosia.” He shared the story intending to amuse her but too late realized he may have just confessed to petty theft.
So much for that!

“This is a theory you’ve tested often?” she said.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. But it has more to do with the eccentricities of a bachelor than anything else.” He pulled one of the rolls apart. “Or an aversion to eating alone at tables that can accommodate eight people.”

Isabel’s eyes dropped to her plate and she recalled with clarity the ridiculous length of her parents’ dining room table and the lack of intimacy and conversation. During her debut Season, she’d been giddy at the swirl of frivolous exchanges and cheerful banter at parties, convinced that there was nothing in the world so wonderful as the noise and distractions of a grand social occasion.

I was starving for all of it and measured my happiness in the number of ruffles on a skirt or the calling cards on a tray. God . . . what an easy slip of a thing for Richard to collect. . . .

“What are you thinking over there?” he asked.

“I’m thinking . . .” Isabel looked up, captured by the sincere concern in his forest green eyes. She was thinking of how she’d come to love the wonderful turns of his mind and how clever he was. But aloud, she was able to say only, “I was thinking I should see if Mrs. McFadden will let us wager a few biscuits on our game tonight. Then the winner can have the pleasure of ferreting them up to their rooms for a midnight snack.”

He laughed. “There’s a bet I’ll take! Although”—he picked up his fork—“now that you know of my criminal past, there’s nothing to say that the leader of the Black army might not just steal biscuits on account.”

“I’ll hold you to your professions of honesty!” she pretended to protest.

The meal unfolded in casual steps and before long they were both laughing at the turns in the easy conversation between them. Without any rush, the plates were set aside and the chess pieces were pulled out of their carved wooden box for another game.

“I warn you”—he sighed—“my soldiers are determined to recover their pride and take the field. I’ve tried to preach mercy, but . . .”

“I’m not afraid, Mr. Thorne.” Isabel meant it as a taunt, but it rang with a clarity that made her breath catch in her chest.

Here. With him. I’m safe.

“Then it’s your move, Helen.”

She forced herself to study the board and not the beautiful masculine lines of his face and embarrass herself any further. She pushed one of her soldiers out, mentally giving them both an internal lecture on bravery on the field and the advantages of going first.

“Don’t look so worried for him,” Darius said. “He has an army at his back after all.”

She smiled. “I was just thinking of telling him the same thing.”

“Good. Because
my
men were about to remind him about the army in
front
of him.” Darius made his first move in one confident gesture, matching her strategy as she squeaked in protest.

Once again, the game unfolded, still in a modified teaching rhythm that allowed her to catch her mistakes and learn from every effort that went into the battle. His patience never wavered, and Darius narrated his own choices to help her see how his strategies were formed and how he attempted to anticipate her moves to shape his own.

Isabel clapped her hands in triumph as her forces began to encroach against his, her eyes locked on the prize of his lonely king.

Only to gasp when suddenly his knights were deep inside her kingdom and her queen was threatened.

“You! How?” she protested, fighting not to pout at the reversal in her fortunes.

He smiled and held up his hands in submission. “Scouts.”

“Spies,” she amended, eyeing the pieces with suspicion.

“Ambassadors.”

“Assassins!” Isabel put her elbows on the table and perched her chin on her palms, surveying the damage. “Look at them! They are hardly innocent sitting there, eating off my best plate and upsetting my courtiers!”

“I assure you they are doing their best to mind the local customs and not frighten the natives.”

She lost the battle to stay aloof and found herself pouting. “Well, my queen is determined to remove herself from this mess until her bishops can show your ‘ambassadors’ back out.” She reached for her queen but Darius gently caught her wrist to stop her.

“Be careful, Helen. Don’t retreat without thinking it through. See? See what’s waiting for you?”

Isabel’s heart was pounding so loudly she was sure he could hear it.

But it wasn’t from fear.

The world narrowed to the touch of his fingers capturing her hand and the searingly sweet hold that was keeping her queen from harm. It was electric and unexpected, and suddenly all Isabel wanted was more.

She didn’t want him to let go. It made no sense. But ever since he’d taken her hand the night before, Isabel had been faced with the illogical truth that, with this man, none of the rules applied. She wanted to be held, to yield control to this man and surrender herself to the consequences of the restless coils of hungry heat that began to unfurl inside her slender frame.

But he misinterpreted the change in her expression and released her.

“Do you see them, Helen?” he asked again, even more gently.

She forced her eyes back to the pieces, struggling at first to identify what he saw. But then she saw it. A black rook was sitting benignly to the side. A black bishop was nonchalantly standing near a small group of weary pawns. Her queen would have stormed off into an ambush.

“I see them.”

“Are you all right?” He lowered his chin to look at her over the rim of his glasses, and Isabel smiled.

“I am. But my queen—is in a quandary. She cannot run and she cannot stay. Now what does she do?”

“She makes a new path.” He tilted his head to one side to eye the board anew. “Ah! There! She isn’t alone. Don’t forget those courtiers, Helen. My ambassadors could easily be distracted by one of those rude bishops. Maybe you could talk one of your soldiers into stomping on my toes?”

“The reputation of my court might suffer after all this discourtesy,” she offered with a sigh. “But it’s good advice.”

She leaned back in her chair, easing against the cushions, and found herself staring at the fire instead of her miniature army. “I wonder at all the ambushes I’ve walked into simply because I wished to be polite or adhere to social courtesies.”

“I try to remind myself that not everyone sees the world the way I do,” he said. “But I cannot look at everyone as an opponent or an enemy and abandon manners. I want to believe in man’s better qualities.”

Her attention turned to him, and Isabel made a study of her host and friend. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know if I can trust my own judgment. What if no one is what they seem?”

“Don’t mistake secrets for goblins, Helen. Everyone has something they’d rather keep private, but their character shouldn’t be too difficult to discern. Not in ordinary circumstances.” He reached up to take off his glasses, wiping them off with a handkerchief. “Only villains wear masks.”

Only villains wear masks.

Isabel watched him work the delicate spectacles, marveling at how the deduction of a single element from his face made him look so very different. Without his glasses, he was even more handsome—in a devil-may-care fashion. The firelight struck his features to golden flesh and shadows, a handsome mask that made her wish that there was nothing of secrets between them. He was a hero tipped in darkness and light, and she had to clench her fingers together in her lap to tamp down the desire to reach out and touch his face with the blades of her fingers to make sure that he was real.

“I am—like the queen on the board. I want to run but I . . . I’m afraid I’m going to just rush into a terrible trap. I’ve already moved without looking.”

“In running? In escaping your husband?”

She nodded. “In running. In marrying him. In everything. I’ve apparently made a habit of it throughout my life, blindly believing that whatever was around the corner would be better. I was a shallow, silly girl that thought of nothing more than invitations and balls and when . . .”

He said nothing, the living essence of patience as she gathered her courage.