Obsession Wears Opals (15 page)

Isabel knew her next impulse was out of the question. But it didn’t stop her.

“Kiss me good-bye, Darius.”

He hesitated.

She did her best to smile. “Please?”

He dropped his bags and she was swept up into his arms and kissed so thoroughly she lost track of her toes. She cradled his face in her hands and entwined her fingers into his hair, savoring the glorious fire of his touch. A very unladylike groan of hunger escaped her lips and it heralded the end of their embrace.

He released her in an awkward move, stepping back to pick up his bags, and turned to go without a single glance backward. He ducked his head as he jogged down the stairs like a man running out of a burning building, and Isabel smiled. She instinctively knew that he’d meant no insult by it.

If he’d kissed me for one more moment, I’d have asked him to carry me upstairs.

It was only when the sound of the carriage and horses’ hooves had faded down the lane that she opened her hand to see what he’d given her.

The white queen lay across her palm, her painted gaze as calm and unyielding as the stone she was carved from. Isabel pressed the chess piece to her heart, sat on the bottom stair, and gave in to her emotions to weep.

Chapter

11

Darius was forced to take a combination of a post chaise carriage and then a train to London. It was faster than struggling with carriages alone, and the issue with fresh change of horses at inns and posts along the way was solved with the train. He’d deliberately left Hamish and his own carriage for the women should they need them. He’d charged Hamish with keeping them safe in his absence and stressed again how important it was to hide Helen from prying eyes.

There was almost no sleep to be had on the long four-day journey in the jostled confines of the chaise and the requirement to change trains several times. Scotland’s system wasn’t as developed as England’s, but neither had yet achieved the modern industrial miracle that allowed for the speed that Darius’s fears requested. He rode first-class when seating was available, but during the last leg, only the second-class compartments had room and Darius was forced to sit atop a cushionless wooden seat crushed between other passengers. The weather turned foul on the trip, and the biting cold and snow stripped him of the last of his optimism.

By the time he’d reached London, he was exhausted, half frozen, and frustrated at the late hour. He’d had the good sense early in the journey to write notes to the Jaded redirecting them to stay away from the Thistle, so as soon as his boots landed on the street, he hired runners to get the word out to all of his friends. But Michael’s note he kept in his hands. Darius decided he would deliver it in person.

If anyone would know what to do next, it was Rutherford. He’d been a trained soldier in the army in India, and there was no one better at tactics in their circle. Darius secured a hackney to take him to the Grove, only to fight a numbing exhaustion that began to creep up his limbs.

Come on, Thorne. You cannot let them down. Not now!

He’d been to the Grove Inn only once or twice before, as Michael was not one for entertaining friends in his rented rooms. So when he limped up the stairs, his memory faltered as he looked at the two unmarked doors off the parlor.

That one.

He pounded on the door, unceremoniously, and was rewarded when the door finally opened after a crash inside. But it was a young woman who answered and Darius had to struggle to apologize. “I’m looking for Rutherford. It is most urgent.”

“His door is the next there.” She firmly directed him toward Michael’s apartment, and because of her youth, it took Darius a moment to reconcile the steely tone of a governess with the pert beauty tapping her toes impatiently in front of him.

God, I’m too tired for this.
It was all he could do to mumble awkward explanations and deflect her questions.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked, and Darius had to force himself to try to see the scene from her vantage point. He was a half-frozen madman pounding on Rutherford’s door in frustration, and if he wasn’t careful, she’d not only call for the landlady, she’d start screaming for the watch.

“I’m a friend of Rutherford’s. My name is Darius Thorne and . . . again, I apologize for the disturbance. It’s nothing to concern you, miss.”

But when she introduced herself and then spoke of the Jaded and their meeting at the Thistle, Darius took note.

Eleanor Beckett. I can’t see Michael sharing with his neighbor or . . .

“Is there any danger?” she pressed, openly fearful.

“No.” She was a total stranger but it was clear that she had knowledge of the Jaded’s business, and while he wanted to find out how this was possible, the urgency of the moment overrode his curiosity. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation, Miss Beckett.” He checked his watch and saw that the time for the meeting with the Jackal was over an hour off. Rutherford would be there alone, waiting, since Darius had sent notes to everyone else heading them off. . . .

Stupid idea to catch Michael myself. I should have sent a runner but I wanted to be sure he knew about the new threat. Damn it!

He realized in shock that Miss Beckett was saying something else and he’d missed part of the exchange. “Everyone is safe and diverted. I’m confident I know where to find Mr. Rutherford since he’s not here.” He bowed and tipped his hat. “It was a unique experience meeting you, Miss Beckett.”

He was too exhausted to argue and he couldn’t think of what polite niceties were required in life-and-death situations when confronted by prim and feisty redheads and turned to leave without another word to race from the Grove.

I swear we are becoming the least-secret secret club in London’s history at this rate.

Damn.

His legs were rubber as he stumbled out into the street, fear pushing him to ignore the protests of his body at the punishing pace. “To the Thistle!” he called up to the driver and fell into the carriage. “All speed!”

Any relief he might have felt in seeing the gambling hall was extinguished when the bar man directed him to the staircase and the second-floor meeting room.

More stairs? Am I the brunt of some great cosmic jest?

By the time he’d located Michael and, by surprise, Josiah in a room at the top of the building, Darius was nearly done in. But there wasn’t time to complain. “It’s off!”

“Off?” Michael was on his feet in a flash, his height and size no hindrance to speed.

Josiah Hastings was slower to stand. “Why would the Jackal call it off after all this effort to—”

“Not the Jackal,” Darius began to explain, all the while waving his arms wildly toward the door. This wasn’t the time for a sit-down lecture on ancient prophecies and why the Jaded’s use of the public papers wasn’t the wisest course of action, in Darius’s humble opinion. He needed to get his friends out of the Thistle for safety’s sake; the debates could happen later in the safety of Rowan’s study. “I’ll explain it in the carriage to West’s, but we have a new problem to—”

He’d nearly gotten them to the door. Nearly. Screams and a commotion below stairs froze them all in place. “Fire!”

Darius’s mouth fell open in shock and he very nearly said aloud,
If this is the curse that goes along with handing sacred treasures over, we are doomed, gentlemen.

But his better judgment kicked in and he kept his surreal thoughts to himself. It was a staccato blur of events that followed and he was hard-pressed to absorb any of it. Darius found cloths on the sideboard and doused them with water to protect their lungs before they ducked out into the smoke-filled hallway. Josiah took the lead and they held on to one another’s coats to make their way back toward the staircase.

He knew he should be counting doorways and trying to stay calm, but every thought was hundreds of miles away with her.

Helen. God, all I want is one more chance to sit across from her . . . one more chance to see her smile. . . . If I die here, what’s to become of Helen?

The appearance of another person blocking their path in the narrow staircase and the presence of a pistol interrupted his melancholy. It was clear that the Jackal was just as confused by the fire as his friends but was in no mood for enlightenment about the nature of arsonists.

“To hell with you!” the man shouted over the roar of the blaze. “I should have known you’d trap me and play some trick!”

“No tricks!” Darius tried to explain. “We never—”

“Shut up! We’ll meet on
my
terms next time!”

Rutherford wasn’t having it. The Jackal’s terms in the past generally involved trying to kill one of the Jaded, and none of them were willing to allow a murderer to hold the reins. But Darius had to close his eyes in frustration, since shouting matches in burning stairwells weren’t exactly prudent either. . . .

Michael was furiously making threats to end the Jackal’s life, and before Darius could catch at the ex-soldier’s sleeve and remind him that guns were present, shots were fired point-blank toward them and all hell broke loose.

Josiah fell forward as he hit the Jackal’s arm, and all three of the Jaded tumbled in a tangle on the steps. It was an ignoble effort to protect each other, and by the time their ears stopped ringing from the pistol shot and they realized no one was wounded, the Jackal was long gone.

The smoke and the fire, on the other hand, had not taken pause for the exchange.

“Gentlemen.” Darius straightened up as best he could, helping Josiah to his feet. “May I suggest we keep moving? For men of action, I swear we’re going to suffocate to death while we discuss how lucky we are not to be dead. See the irony?”

“The professor’s right! Lead on, Hastings!” Michael agreed and their hurried exodus continued. It was all Darius could do to hold on to Hastings’s coat and keep his wits about him as his lungs began to refuse to function.

When they reached the relative safety of the street, Darius could hardly believe it, but then watched in stunned shock as an apparently suicidal Josiah Hastings ran back into the burning building they’d just narrowly escaped.

Darius rose instinctively to stop him, or to go with him, determined to help his friend, but the ground lifted up after three steps and Darius’s chest seized up like stones. There was no air to be had and he landed on his hands and knees, spitting up black wet ropes of slime until he was certain he’d forfeited a lung.

It was humiliating, but Michael stayed with him, clapping one of his huge hands against Darius’s back to try to help him through it.

By the time he could almost breathe again, he had the strange experience of feeling no shock at all when Josiah reappeared with the red-haired beauty from the Grove in his arms. Even the revelation of Josiah’s blindness was muted by the haze of misery that shadowed his every breath.

Josiah’s eyesight is failing. Miss Beckett is . . . My God, I’ve missed a bit of news, haven’t I?

It was adrenaline and bravado, euphoria at surviving a gunman and an inferno in one go that sustained him on the carriage ride to Rowan’s. But it was a ride he later couldn’t recall a single detail about other than Michael’s presence in the shadowy confines of the compartment, quietly venting to himself and whispering soft, deadly vows to see to the Jackal personally after the night’s fiery end. It pained Darius too much to speak, so he just closed his eyes and let the man rail on. He knew Rutherford meant well. Michael’s protective nature toward his friends was like a force of nature. And only a fool argued philosophy with a hurricane.

By the time they arrived at Dr. West’s brownstone, Darius was sure he’d aged a hundred years.

“You two look a fright!” Carter exclaimed as he took their soot-covered coats. Rowan’s elderly butler was usually unflappable, but their startling appearance made his voice shake. “My goodness! Dr. West! They’ve come!”

“Did you go?” Rowan asked as he came down the stairs two at a time with his lovely wife, Gayle, on his heels. “The note said we weren’t to go and to stay away, but I haven’t heard from anyone else yet and you’re the first to arrive.”

“Are you all right?” Gayle West asked, her violet eyes ablaze with concern. “You look like giant chimney sweeps!”

Michael held up a hand in greeting. “We’re fine. We didn’t exactly get Darius’s note in time, but he arrived to warn us off and probably saved our lives.”

Darius glanced at his friend in disbelief at the claim. He’d hardly managed anything except a mad dash from one end of London to the next, and as far as he could tell, it was Hastings who had led them out of the fire. Darius opened his mouth to say as much but no words came out.

Instead the marble floor of the foyer disintegrated in a shower of black sparks that crowded into his vision, and the last thing Darius remembered was a unique view of the chandelier in the central hall hanging over their heads.

From the floor, it looks like a perfect spiral. . . . I should sketch that. . . . Organic shapes in industrial . . . applications. . . . Where is Helen?

And then there was nothing.

***

He awoke in a bedroom he didn’t recognize, fully clothed, lying atop the bedding. Darius reached up for his shirt buttons as if to touch the wet mortar that had filled his chest. He immediately tried to sit up, mortified that he’d fainted in front of his friends.

“Easy, there!” Gayle’s hand restrained him, the pressure of her palm to his shoulder gentle but firmly keeping him in place. “Darius, please.”

“What happened? Where are the others? Are—” He was defeated by another coughing jag and Gayle helped him sit up to relieve the strain.

“It’s the smoke. I fear you took in more than your share, Mr. Thorne. Michael said you saved the others and—”

“He overstates it.” He shook his head vehemently, unwilling to let the myth take hold. “I rode . . . in a carriage. I ran up steps. . . . It was hardly . . . heroic. And I was fine . . . before.” His throat burned and it was all he could do to whisper, but he couldn’t allow the misunderstanding to root. “Damn! I feel . . . like I’m breathing . . . through a dirty, wet cloth.”

Gayle moved to retrieve a soft white cloth from a tray next to the bed. “Here. Cough into this when you have to, and I apologize for the indelicacy, but I’ll wish to see it afterward.”

He grimaced at the notion but sighed in obedience. “So much for . . . impressing . . . anyone.”

Gayle smiled. “You raced from Edinburgh to London in record time, and warned your friends away from danger.” She took a breath and amended her words when she saw him stir to argue. “
Tried
to warn your friends away from danger, and escaped a burning building. I, for one, am impressed.”

“How long . . . have I been here?”

Rowan answered him from the doorway. “Not long enough! Just a few minutes from when we carried you upstairs. Rest, Darius. Mrs. Evans is boiling up a breathing treatment, and as soon as it is ready, we’ll see about setting you up for a bit of relief.”

Darius sat up on the side of the bed. “I’m fine.”

Rowan nodded. “Of course you are. Care to run upstairs, then, to the study for a quick brandy?”

“You’re . . . a bully.” Darius gave in to the need to cough, wincing at the sensation of his lungs coming apart. When it had passed, Gayle gave him a fresh cloth and took the soiled one from him.