Obsession Wears Opals (20 page)

Isabel wrapped her legs around his waist, leveraging herself up to press her breasts against his chest, absorbed in the contact of her body to his, her nipples pebbling at the wicked friction of the patch of hair on his chest.

Check and mate.

“Do . . . you . . . yield?” he asked, gasping for air.

“That was . . . a wonderful . . . stalemate. . . .” She sighed. “I refuse to think in terms of . . . winning and losing . . . Darius.”

He smiled at the ceiling. “A better philosophy and probably a sign of wisdom. Although it certainly
felt
like winning. . . .”

She playfully punched him in the shoulder and they both dissolved into laughter and ended up entwined in each other’s arms in their nest. They lazed on the cushions for a time, covered by an impromptu blanket of shed clothes and a lap blanket from the window seat, and talked quietly, watching the fire.

“God, you’re so beautiful.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes. I’m . . . I’m no poet, Helen. Don’t ask me to describe you. I’ll make a mess of it and you’ll banish me—a punishment I have no intention of accepting, by the way.”

She laughed. “I’d not banish you for bad poetry.”

He levered himself up on his elbows, shifting to tuck her beneath him as if to shield her from the world with his body. “And the pain? Was there pain?”

She shook her head, blushing until her skin glowed. “No, quite the opposite, as I’m sure I . . . demonstrated.”

He gently nipped at her earlobe and teased it with his tongue until she writhed beneath him. “Hmm. It
was
my first attempt.” He kissed the sensitive indent behind the shell of her ear. “I’m sure I could improve on things with more practice.”

“Your first attempt? Ever?” She squeaked in mock protest but tipped her head back to give him more access to the ivory column of her throat. “If you improve, I might expire with happiness, sir.”

“You look pale. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I always look pale, Mr. Thorne,” she replied, the corner of her lip pulling up into a quick smile that gave him a glimpse of the light humor she possessed.

“Helen, can you tell me . . . who he is? We’ve come so far down this path. If I know who your husband is, it might help me to resolve things.”

She pulled away from him, her pale hair falling like a curtain that shielded her face from his scrutiny. “It might. But I’m . . . please, Darius. I need a little more time. I love being Helen. I love—
this.
I’m frightened that I’ll have spoiled what little happiness I have once I speak his name aloud. We’ve carved out this sanctuary and I don’t know if I’m ready to bring
him
into it.”

“I understand,” he said and shifted over to be closer to her. “But the rest of it, Helen. There is nothing you can’t tell me.”

“You’ve shared so much of yourself, I’m selfish to cling to my secrets.”

“It’s different. I asked because I must. But you are under no such compunction in revealing anything to me. When you’re ready . . .”

“You asked me before about the nightmares,” she began carefully.

“Yes.”

“I was dreaming about my husband. In my nightmares, I am . . . being punished again.”

“Punished?”

“If I displeased him, if I failed in some way to—I never knew what he wanted or what might set things in motion but the punishments were . . .” Her voice broke a little and she kept her eyes locked onto the bedding. “We were only married for a few months, but I didn’t think I would live to see an anniversary.”

“My God. Was there no one to step in?” he asked gently. “Not even a Mrs. McFadden of your own?”

She shook her head. “The servants lived in fear of him and I learned quickly where their loyalties lay. They were rewarded for keeping a close eye on me and disobedience was—out of the question. The worst was his bodyguard and valet, a horrible man. I hated the way he looked at me like some black raven eager to see me fall.”

“What made you finally run?”

“I don’t know. The last punishment was like so many others before it. He flogged me this time because I’d asked him to take me to London.” Isabel rested her chin on her knees, drawing herself into a protective ball. “It was a stupid thing to ask. He caned me and then I spent the night on my knees in a cold, empty room to demonstrate my obedience. I even managed a pretty speech at breakfast about . . . my gratitude for his discipline.”

Darius gasped but didn’t interrupt. It was absurd to think of thanking a man for a beating, but nothing in a world of punishment and submission made sense unless you’d lived in it.

A ghost of a smile crossed her pale pink lips. “My apology was accepted and he rewarded me with a rare ride on Samson. The groomsman’s cinch broke on his saddle. I was already mounted on Samson. He was pawing at the ground to go, and for one moment, I was holding him back. And then . . .”

“Then?”

“And then I wasn’t.” Helen tipped her head to one side, the curtain of her hair shielding the curve of her hips. “Because I knew he was going to kill me, sooner or later, and it didn’t matter what I said or did to try to appease him. My husband was going to kill me, Darius, and I didn’t want to die. So I gave Samson the lead he wanted on the reins and I spurred him into a gallop and I never looked back.”

“Thank God.”

“A smarter woman would have packed a bag, Darius.”

“Not smarter at all. I can’t see your husband letting you walk out with luggage for a morning ride, Helen.”

She lifted her face at the revelation. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Your departure was sudden,” he repeated slowly, piecing it all together. “Have you not told your family, Helen? Should we send them some word of your status—if only so that they won’t worry?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure what they would say. I tried, when I was first married, to write to my mother about . . . my husband’s temperament but her reply was . . .” Isabel’s eyes filled with tears. “Less than assuring.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a brief reply, as if my mother was convinced that I’d done something to offend him and that I apparently just needed to learn to rely on my husband’s guidance and accept my new responsibilities, however challenging they might seem.” Isabel picked at the ribbons on the quilt’s edge. “As if it were my fault.”

“Could she have misunderstood?”

“Perhaps.” Isabel was as still as a porcelain statue. “I wasn’t brave enough to write again and ask. And then I realized that my husband was monitoring my correspondence and I abandoned the effort.”

Darius gritted his teeth, trying to hide his fury.
God, I hate this man. I don’t think I hated that raja in India as much as I hate her husband.

“And you?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Besides your parents, do you have family, Mr. Thorne?”

Damn, another dark topic for me to botch!

“What little is left is estranged from me.”

“Estranged?”

“Not entirely by my choice. When I left home to that apprenticeship, my older brother was extremely angry. He argued that he was older and should have been the one to go, but I was the lucky one with the gift for letters.”

“He was jealous?”

“He was as desperate to escape as I was and I understood why he hated me for leaving him there.”

“You were six! You were hardly abandoning him willfully!”

“You’re looking at it with the fair-mindedness of an adult, Helen.” He caught her wrist and traced her pulse with gentle, phantom strokes of his fingers as he talked. “Over the years, I sent home money whenever I could but I never went back. I never wanted to brush up against the poverty and cruelty that had crafted me.”

“It’s only natural.”

“Perhaps.”

“Can things be mended between you?”

Darius shook his head. “One hate-filled letter from my older brother reached me before I left for India, advising me that despite our father’s passing, I was unwelcome at my mother’s table for my ‘cold nature.’ After I returned to England, a local vicar from the seaside town where my family had lived sent word that there’d been an epidemic that had taken my mother on to ‘her heavenly reward’ and my brother had immigrated to America without a word of farewell.”

“Oh no!”

“I’d have shared all that I have with them if I’d had the chance. But now, it’s all I can do to muster relief that he’s gone, that my mother is at peace and my father is likely enjoying a special corner of hell reserved for men like him.”

To his best friend, Ashe Blackwell, alone he’d previously confessed his lack of grief when it came to his relations. Now as he looked into Helen’s eyes, he saw no judgment. “It doesn’t matter. My friends are closer to me than any blood relations, and as dear.”

She arched up to kiss him with one tender sweep of her lips against his. “You’ve made your own way, Darius. I admire you for it.”

“I’m not worthy of that compliment—or of you.”

“Don’t say such things, Darius!” She put her cool fingertips gently against his lips. “When you touch me, I feel whole again. I don’t want to imagine myself beyond this moment.”

“I don’t either. Helen, we have each other. Let us say that it’s enough.”

For now.

Enough for now.

Chapter

15

At the University of Edinburgh a few days later, in the Old College’s library, Darius was using a magnifying glass to study a detailed map of Bengal. His notes from his own travels were long gone but his memory was inviolate. He opened a small leather-bound journal and set it down on the table, taking notes of potential areas that could be temple seats.

If the prophecy is tied to a specific temple, then there might be examples of sacred objects unique to it—and when we know what kind of stone the diamond is disguised as, we can secure it somehow and avoid the worst.

“Ah! I had a feeling when Professor Douglas said he’d seen you this morning that I’d find you with your nose pressed against some old parchment,” Mr. Harold Pughes called out as he strode toward him with another man in tow. A third figure stayed outside the large double doors and made no move to follow.

Darius straightened immediately, subtly closing his journal and folding the map. “It
is
my occupation and Professor Douglas has been kind to allow me access to the archives.”

“Here! Here, Mr. Thorne, is one of our university’s great friends I wish to acquaint you with!” Mr. Pughes said, his hand clapping his friend on the shoulder in a very public show of familiarity as they entered the library. “Lord Netherton.”

The room was primarily deserted, but it jarred Darius’s scholarly sensibilities to be greeted as loudly as if they were in a coffee shop. Darius rose and nodded respectfully, answering in a hushed tone, “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lord Netherton.”

Lord Netherton was Darius’s equal in height but much broader in build. His features were aristocratic and chiseled, his expression one of practiced boredom that men of his station seemed to favor. He was a contemporary in age, if not slightly older, but Darius knew that dissipation played a role in most gentlemen’s lives and could make it hard to guess at their true age. Overall, his first impression of Lord Netherton was that this was a man with the warmth of a stone.

“Darius Thorne is one of the most gifted translators I have ever come across.” Mr. Pughes continued with his introductions. “You asked me to keep an eye out for talent! Thorne is the fellow I told you about. Remember?”

Netherton’s eyes widened in recognition and he held out his gloved hand. “Yes, I remember. You may be just the man I’ve been looking for!”

“Am I?” Darius took his hand, slightly bemused at all the sudden attention and the change in Lord Netherton’s countenance.

“Thorne has no patron that he speaks of, Lord Netherton, for all that we speculate on the source of his carriage and horses,” Harold added.

Darius ended the handshake with Netherton and ignored Pughes. “How can I be of service?”

“I am questing for a man who speaks Hindi and can read Sanskrit or whatever this scrawl is, who might be interested in a private commission to work on some very specific translations,” Lord Netherton said.

“The work
could
lead to a permanent post at the university, Thorne,” Pughes added. “What do you think of that?”

Darius had to blink at the unexpected proposition. A fleeting daydream about his acceptance into the elite circles of British academia after all his years of hard work coalesced briefly in his mind. Darius pushed it away to focus on the matter at hand. “A private commission?”

“An entertaining commission as well, if I may be so bold.” Netherton’s smile was a sly thing, and the icy gleam in his eyes almost made Darius take a step back.

“Entertaining?” he asked.

The smile on Lord Netherton’s face lost some of its integrity. “Why do you repeat everything I say, Mr. Thorne? Or is this the way of translators? To say nothing original but act as parrots?”

Pughes cleared his throat at the awkward turn in the conversation. “I’m sure Mr. Thorne will be interested. After all, a generous patron of the university could have his pick of men for his projects.” He gave Darius a barbed look over the peer’s shoulder. “It’s an honor to be asked.”

Darius put his journal into his inside coat pocket, unaffected by Pughes’s glare. “Undoubtedly, but I would have to understand the nature of the work before I even considered it. No matter how entertaining it might prove to be.”

“A man of principles,” Netherton said softly. “An exotic find.”

“Thorne is notoriously principled,” Pughes said wryly.

“Not
too
principled, surely?” Lord Netherton said. “You’re not a puritan, are you, Thorne?”

Darius chose not to address the question, affronted at the vague notion that either puritans were
too principled
or that any man would deny having principles for the sake of banter.

It was Pughes who picked up the thread of conversation. “Thorne has traveled the world and seen too much to be a shrinking violet. But he’ll never get a wife or tenure if he doesn’t stop sacrificing opportunities.”

Netherton nodded. “Then I am happy to give him another chance to improve his fortunes, even if he will waste them on acquiring a wife.” He completed his speech with an odd sneer, and Darius watched the two men exchange knowing looks.

Pughes grinned. “Netherton’s recently married very well and he was extremely generous in his pledge to my next expedition. I would thank the new Lady Netherton, but I’ve not had the pleasure of making her acquaintance.”

“No need to thank Lady Netherton. You can thank
me
, since providentially, her money is mine to dispose of as I wish, and as you know,” he said with a conspiratorial wink, “I’ve always aspired to be associated closely with great discoveries.”

Darius’s brow furrowed, unsure of the direction of the wink. Pughes had always been one of his least favorite people. He was openly ambitious and socially aggressive but had achieved funding for his pet projects with his charming good looks, and he made no secret of his disdain for anyone who disapproved of his methods. As for Lord Netherton, Darius was experiencing an instant loathing that was making it difficult for him to concentrate on the conversation.

How to tell him to bugger off without offense . . . that’s the large question, isn’t it?

“I’m flattered, Lord Netherton,” Darius began. “But I’m currently committed to other work and couldn’t take the time away to travel to see your collection or—”

“My man, Mr. Jarvis, has a few examples here.” Lord Netherton interrupted him, raising a hand to signal the man in the doorway. “I brought a few tempting pages from my recent acquisition, so you can take a peek without infringing on your schedule to see if the work entices you.”

His man came forward, a scarred and surly gentleman with black eyes as indifferent as a shark’s. “Your lordship.” He handed over a portfolio case and withdrew without a single glance at Darius or Mr. Pughes.

Darius watched him retreat like a black raven to his perch beyond the library and fought the urge to shudder.
The sooner this conversation is concluded, the more content I’m going to be.

Netherton set out the leather portfolio, untying it to lay out the papers within. “Look your fill, Mr. Thorne, and tell me what you think of my beauties.”

Darius turned his attention to the texts and immediately surmised the source of Lord Netherton’s “entertainment.” The illuminated drawings were erotic and lewd, without much artistic merit. Darius struggled to find something diplomatic to say. Even for a man familiar with the contents of the
Kama Sutra
and
The Perfumed Garden
and who had seen countless exotic depictions in his travels, Darius was having trouble glancing at the meticulously detailed drawings. They were nauseating in their portrayals of obscene and unnatural acts involving every combination of sex imaginable, including apparently the use of children.

Across the table from him, the men made small talk as if Darius no longer existed, and Darius’s world came to a grinding halt as he became an unwilling witness to the conversation one overheard in nightmares.

“You jest, but I meant what I said. I wish to meet your lovely new bride, Richard.”

“You can’t, old friend. In confidence I must tell you that it seems my lovely wife has taken a bit of a holiday without me. She’s been gone for over two weeks.”

“Oh?” Pughes’s voice lowered to a curious whisper that naturally carried even better across the room. “A winter holiday? Where?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. She neglected to tell me.”

“The scandal!”

Netherton’s sigh was overtly theatrical. “I know. Women these days . . .”

“What will you do, your lordship?”

Netherton chuckled. “Besides enjoying the quiet?” Netherton said as he put his arm around Harold’s shoulders, then sobered. “Forgive me. My dark humor hides my heartache. Lady Netherton is skittish and hysterical, even for a woman, and I fear that I was duped into marrying a weak-minded and pale, sickly thing. What can I do? I must put on a brave face, Harold.”

“Is there—infidelity?”

Netherton waved his hand dismissively. “Impossible! But I’ve already shared too much of this. I’m sure I don’t need to even ask for your discretion, friend.”

“Of course not!”

“Or yours, Mr. Thorne?” Netherton asked evenly. “I’m sure you couldn’t help but overhear about my personal difficulties.”

Darius shook his head. “Your business is your own.”
It’s you, isn’t it? You black-hearted son of a bitch! You’re deliberately planting all these seeds of misinformation about a “weak-minded and sickly” runaway bride only to cover your own tracks and give yourself carte blanche.
Darius wondered just how many of these “inadvertent” confessions about his unfortunate marital issues Netherton had been making since Helen’s escape. His stomach clenched with nausea at the revelation that the villain of Helen’s existence was the selfsame man smirking at him. He had to fight not to be instantly sick, praying that none of his distress was visible on his face.

“And the project?” Netherton stepped forward to the table. “Surely you find the work appealing? What red-blooded man would not?”

“These are . . . unusual.”

“Aren’t they?”

Darius lifted his gaze from the table and kept it resolutely on the man in front of him. “But not my area of expertise.”

“Forget expertise!” Netherton laughed. “I would pay you to translate them, Thorne, not perfect the techniques they show! Hell, that will be for me to consider, won’t it, so long as my mistress doesn’t complain, eh?”

“Lord Netherton!” Pughes intervened. “He’ll mistake you and miss the joke!”

Netherton shrugged, some of his mirth fading. “Naturally, my interests are purely
academic
.”

“As a gentleman, I must decline.” Darius took a step back, folding his hands politely behind his back.

“As a gentleman? What kind of
gentleman
are you, sir?”

Pughes’s countenance shifted, openly uncomfortable at the turn. “Perhaps another—”

“Harold told me of your unfortunate family ties. Your father was a fisherman or something, wasn’t he? Don’t play the lofty soul with me!” Lord Netherton’s eyes glazed over with ice, his civility gone. “You’re as much a gentleman as my stable boy!”

“I may be. The word applies to any man who carries himself with honor, dignity, and with—”

“You’ll not lecture me on the meaning of the word, you prig!”

“It wasn’t intended as a lecture,” Darius said, “so much as praise of your stable boy.”

“Watch your tone! I could see you sacked from—” Netherton began.

But Harold touched his arm and stopped him. “He is not employed by the university, your lordship.”

Netherton’s face became red. “Nor will he be! If your conservative and narrow views keep you from seeing the value in these ancient manuscripts, so be it. But how dare you insinuate that I am any less of a gentleman than some lowborn book snipe without the common sense to mind his manners in the presence of his betters!” Netherton gathered his papers as he spoke, and Darius noted that Mr. Jarvis’s silhouette filled the doorway.

“Thorne!” Harold hissed his disapproval. “Apologize to his lordship!”

Darius folded his hands behind him, deliberately keeping his voice level. “I would, if it were warranted. But Lord Netherton knows better. These are no ordinary pages hinting at positions or conveying ancient formulas for aphrodisiacs. He’d have taken them to the linguistic department or geographical society without a blink of concern if that were the case. But instead, he’s ferreting them around and presenting them to someone who, by your report, Mr. Pughes, because of his humble background and lack of a formal position must need the work and would be desperate enough to take anything on the vague promise of a teaching chair.”

“Well!” Mr. Pughes huffed uselessly, unable to argue such an obvious truth.

Darius kept his eyes on Netherton. “I meant no insult. I merely said it wasn’t my area of expertise and that I must decline. I said nothing of your lineage, social standing, or character. My reasons are my own. If his lordship wishes to make a greater protest, then by all means, I can summon some of my peers and we can form an academic committee to review the pages and debate my choice.”

Darius strolled over to a table next to the windows. “Shall I ring the bell for a runner?”

Lord Netherton’s expression was one of frozen rage. “No need. It was meant to be a diversion, but Harold’s misinformed me of your character and there’s an end to it.” He held up the portfolio for Mr. Jarvis to step forward and take it from him, the maneuver almost choreographed in its smoothness. “Good day, Mr. Thorne.”

He turned on his heel, and while Harold Pughes followed instantly, already babbling away his apologies and applying his skills as a sycophant to try to salvage his funding, Mr. Jarvis lingered for a few telltale seconds.

Darius held his ground, submitting to the scrutiny of Netherton’s servant, ignoring the flashes of adrenaline that threatened to unnerve him. Darius made a subtle shift of his weight to the balls of his feet the way that Michael Rutherford had taught him and mentally tried to prepare for whatever assault Jarvis would make.

“No one tells him no,” Jarvis said softly, his voice like gravel on a steel plate.