This.
This is a new and wonderful kind of torment.
Darius the kind.
Darius the strong.
Darius, her protector and friend.
Here was a physical shield against the demons of her past.
Here in his arms.
Here was Troy.
She framed his face with her hands to guide his mouth to hers, kissing him so passionately that he stopped everything he was doing to respond, to give her what she craved. She suckled his tongue and savored the wet velvet textures of his lips as he mirrored her movements.
Every kiss fueled the next, each satisfying sweep of his lips to hers only adding to her need for more.
End game.
His body was ranging beyond his control and her kisses whipped his senses into a wild storm that demanded release. His cock was so hot and heavy it was almost painful, but the grip of her wet channel against him was his sole relief—an erotic torment as her inner muscles held and released him in a primal rhythm that made him want to drive into her faster and faster.
More.
Suddenly it wasn’t a desire but a need. As if his life depended on his obedience to the fiery sweet ropes of hunger that snaked through his frame.
More.
More of everything that was Helen.
Check.
She held him tightly, her ankles at his back, urging him to ride the slick friction of her core, to drive deeply into her until he couldn’t tell where his flesh ended and hers began.
He shut his eyes and an ecstasy as sharp as wire broke free and his essence jetted inside of her body, wrenching from him a cry of sheer pleasure. Darius wasn’t a child not to know the workings of his body, but this was a climax like none he’d experienced alone. She arched against him, her cry echoing with his and bringing him back to the present.
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 rep
ly, 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.
&n
bsp; 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.
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