“Perhaps that’s right. Because it doesn’t feel sinful to love you, Darius. It doesn’t feel wrong.”
“Then let it be. Let’s simply take what happiness we’re allowed for as long as the fates allow it, Lady Netherton. To hell with the world!”
She gasped at his language, coloring beautifully at his boldness. “Call me Helen, again. I love it when you call me Helen, Darius. I can pretend to be someone else. Someone more brave . . .”
He smiled and lifted her into his arms and began to carry her up the stairs. “My Helen.”
Now it was truly a game of chess.
And Darius was just the man to figure out how to win the day and save his White Queen.
Chapter
17
Thorne left her abed and walked the house into the wee hours of the morning, wrestling with an impossible problem. How can we end a marriage without creating a scandal? How do I destroy the ties that Netherton legally holds without also hurting Isabel in the process?
The moon was full enough to light the rooms and guide him through the halls. Darius tried to consider everything, even pondering what Netherton’s view would be. The man was making it known that his wife had deserted him but then underscored it with complaints about her disposition and health. He’d put himself in a position of power so that no matter where she surfaced, she would either be hounded back to him for her immoral flight or branded as unstable and give him grounds to put her in an asylum or lock her quietly away somewhere.
The clock over the mantel in the library struck four and a possible solution came to him before the echoes from the chimes had ended.
Netherton is no angel, and while the law protects him, there are limits.
As wicked as he is, no one knows the depths of his depravity, or that protective shield that Carrick and his kind uphold would fall instantly. Odd isn’t a crime. But if he’s gone too far, then no one will defend him.
If the scandal he’s threatened with has nothing to do with his wife and everything to do with his own personal proclivities . . .
He might let go of her to protect himself from exposure.
If I can research the man and uncover any tangible proof of wrongdoing, I might have the leverage I need to free Isabel. I just have to keep her clear of it and out of Netherton’s hands until I’ve succeeded.
Darius went back up the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could, eager to rejoin her for a few hours of sleep before telling her in the morning of his idea. But he found her standing by the bedroom window, a sensual ghost in her white nightgown with the curves of her body revealed by the bright light of the moon.
“Did I keep you up?” he asked. “Stomping about the house?”
She turned to him with a smile, keeping her place. “No, and you weren’t exactly stomping. I had another dream but when I awoke I thought I saw something outside.”
“Did you?” He walked over to share her view of the courtyard in between the house and the stables, already suspecting what she’d spotted.
A light from a lantern moved across the stable yard toward the house. “Is that . . . ?”
Darius winced. “Shhh! Mrs. McFadden would be mortified if she knew we’d seen her returning to the house.”
Isabel blinked at him innocently. “The arrangement seems to suit them both.”
“You’re not shocked?” he asked.
“You said they were a match, but I—somehow it never occurred to me that you meant it truly until I saw her cross the yard one night while you were gone. . . .” Isabel reached up to press her fingers to her cheeks. “I’m such a ninny! That’s why you didn’t want me to mention you getting that footprint from the stables! Isn’t it?”
He nodded and folded his arms around her. “I was trying to protect their privacy. Mrs. McFadden would be mortified if she knew her secrets were . . . not her own.”
“And Hamish?” she asked. “You—might have overheard them. But if you know, wouldn’t they be relieved not to have to hide and sneak about?”
He laughed softly, reaching out to push a strand of her hair back from her face. “Hamish knows of my awareness but I’d do anything not to spoil the illusion of my ignorance. It probably adds to their relationship to guard their affairs.”
“What other clues did I miss?” she asked, playfully pushing against his hand.
“Not many. I thought it was more telling that Mrs. McFadden never came when you had nightmares. I was hoping that you wouldn’t notice that my dear housekeeper isn’t on hand in the night.”
She was irresistible in the moonlight and Darius stepped closer to inhale again the fragrance of her skin and the faint musk of her arousal at his nearness. “Come back to bed, Isabel.”
It was the first time he’d really used her true Christian name, and the power of it affected them both.
She turned in his arms, her eyes filling with tears that shone like diamonds.
“Darius.”
He led her back to the bed, sitting on the edge, and then guided her to stand in front of him. Without a word between them, she read the stark need in his eyes and began to fulfill his unspoken wish.
She took one small step back and started to untie the ribbons at her throat and then slip the nightgown off her shoulders to drop it around her feet. For long moments, it was all he could do to stare at the woman that had so completely overtaken his existence. She was naked before him like a living statue, and Darius barely stifled the urge to kneel at her feet.
For there was his Galatea.
Although he made no claim to her creation. His contribution to Isabel’s beauty was hardly a wisp, perhaps only the energy of a true follower at the feet of a goddess.
“God, I want to map you!”
“Darius!” she protested with a laugh. “I am not the Congo.”
Darius smiled. “Perhaps not, but I fully intend to explore this territory and claim it for my own.”
He caught her hand and pulled her onto the bed, spreading out her limbs and even arranging her hair to survey this “territory” he intended to take.
“Darius,” she whispered, “please.”
He indulged in another moment or two to take in the sight of her, laid out before him, ripe and fertile, the beautiful, glistening petals of her sex open to him, her small breasts high and firm, and everything about her was the beckoning call of a siren. Here was his shy goddess, suffering the worship of his eyes and begging him with her gaze for the worship of his body.
He made quick work of shedding his robe and knelt at her feet, a sly smile coming over his features as his strategy unfolded. He lowered his mouth to taste her ankles and then deliberately worked his way upward to the prize he sought—the honey coating the swollen soft flesh between her legs.
He didn’t hesitate to lower his mouth, deliberately exhaling over her to elicit her cry of want. At last, he touched his mouth to her, the sweet play of his mouth against her making him long to extend the game. He used the tip of his tongue to trace her folds and then circle the distended nub of her clit, flicking it gently and driving her beyond her fears.
She was salty and sweet and it was addictive, this contact. To kiss her so intimately and deeply shook the foundations of his soul and made him wish that he truly had the power to send the world away. He imagined himself connected to her very soul as she began to buck and writhe beneath him.
He increased the speed of his tongue, and her fingers wound into his hair, gripping his head and holding on, her breath coming in jagged gasps at each movement of his mouth against her tender skin.
She’d accused him of promising too much, but her release was all he desired now.
Isabel threw her head back, and he knew she was losing control.
He boldly slipped a finger inside of her, pressing upward while his tongue laved the taut jut of her clit to push her over the edge.
Her taste was so intoxicating he wanted to savor every drop of her climax, forfeiting his own reason as the sound of her cries drove him be
yond logic. He sat up and tried to catch his breath and was frozen at the sight of what his touch had wrought.
In the moonlight, she was transformed into a creature of pure magic, and with her eyes heavy with the spell of her own unfolding orgasm, Darius knew he would have given his soul to join her.
Without thinking, he climbed between her thighs and drove his rampant erection into the warm well of her body, gently impaling her with one stroke. Wishing to share her climax, to feel her come on him and around him, Darius pumped his body into hers, mercilessly chasing the ecstasy that encircled them both in its spell.
Deeper. Deeper. A spiral of touch, taste, smell, and sight ensnared him until she was perched in his lap with her legs wrapped around him, until there was nothing between them and neither could move without setting off a ripple of ecstasy through the other.
Isabel reveled in it. Her breasts felt heavy and ripe as they pressed against the firm, hot wall of his chest. The swirl of dark hair on his chest only added to the sweet friction of flesh on flesh, and her nipples pebbled against him, and she could feel him swelling and growing even harder inside of her, spurred on by her touch.
At last, he came inside of her in searing hot splashes of release and she almost laughed with the strange joy of it.
Darius called out her name and lost a part of himself irrevocably in her, imparting his heart and soul into the body of this woman that he had no right to claim.
And accepted that no man had ever loved a woman more.
Married or not.
***
“Where is your wedding ring?” he asked.
“I buried it.” She pushed the hair back from his eyes. “I couldn’t wear it anymore once I realized my feelings for you.” She studied him for a moment. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Darius.”
“Two things.” He sighed. “Firstly, that I may never get used to calling you Isabel and may just insist on using Helen as a term of endearment.”
“Rightly so,” she agreed and kissed him on the cheek. “And the second?”
“I’m thinking about what I told you about the queen on the board.”
“And?”
“I’m wishing life were that simple. That it were squares of black and white and that the path ahead could be measured in a few careful moves.”
“Please.” Her voice broke and he instantly turned back to take her into his arms.
“Isabel, I would do anything for you.”
“Don’t give up, Darius. Please don’t—abandon me.”
“It was never an option.”
She shook her head. “He’ll destroy you. I don’t want to lose you, but I don’t know if I can face—”
“Chess.” He interrupted her, the one word a calm invocation.
“Wh-what?”
“The game isn’t over until the king is defeated. I wasn’t lamenting that I couldn’t win, Isabel. I was just expressing my regret that it won’t be easy. But hear me,” he said, reaching up to push back one pale lock of hair off her cheek. “Netherton’s no match for us. We’ll find a way to outmaneuver him and free you.”
“You’ve thought of something already, haven’t you?”
“I have. The obscene texts were a clue to his—treatment of you. I suspect he has more than one twist to his nature, and if I can find proof of it, without any reference to his marriage, it isn’t the most ethical idea but I think I can talk him into a divorce in exchange for avoiding a very personal and pointed scandal.”
“A divorce? Is that . . . possible?”
Darius thought of the strange glimpse he’d already seen of her husband’s tastes, and suddenly the image of Harold Pughes standing behind the man anxiously lodged in his mind.
“I’ll see . . . but not until I start looking in earnest.” He sat up, gripped by the idea that the last person he wanted to talk to would in fact be the first.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’ll have to go back into the city in the morning but not for long.”
“So soon?”
He pulled her gently into his arms, enfolding her in a protective embrace that allowed him to absorb her sweet warmth and inhale the scent of her skin. “One more quest for information and then I’ll have what I need to corner Netherton when he least expects it.”
“Darius! No!” she protested, but Darius kissed her until there was nothing of talking, of schemes, and most importantly, of a single thought of Richard Netherton between them.
Chapter
18
“How exactly are you acquainted with Netherton?” Darius asked as he pushed his way into Harold Pughes’s private apartments near the university. He wasted no time with civilities and decided that if ever a man needed to use the lessons that Rutherford had drilled into him, it might be now.
The element of surprise and a decisive first blow. Come on, Harold, give me what I want.
“What business is that of yours?” Harold sneered. “And good afternoon, by the way! If you’re thinking of crawling back to him with an apology to chase that commission, you can forget it. He left for London this morning and I’m told he has no intentions of returning to Scotland anytime soon.”
“He leaves for London? What of his wife? Won’t it cause a scandal if he arrives in London missing his bride?”
“And now you are an expert on etiquette and scandal?” Harold looked at him in disbelief. “I’m sure it’s nothing to you! Frankly, I’d say he’s going to London to get away from the matter and will avoid a breath of scandal by telling people his wife prefers the countryside to the city in winter.”
“Has he no intentions of finding her?” Darius asked.
“Are you balmy? It’s none of our concern and I imagine he has every intention of recovering his wife! He may jest to say otherwise but I’m—damn it! Why am I even conversing with you?”
“Because,” Darius countered with a smile, “a part of you is still trying to figure out why Douglas gives me free rein in the archives and how it is I have my own carriage and fortunes enough to tell your friend, the earl, to bugger off.”
Harold’s brow furrowed. “How is that possible?”
“Tell me everything you know of Netherton and his interests in London and I’ll let you ask me anything you wish of my circumstances and the secrets of my wealth.”
“Your wealth?”
“Netherton is not the only rich man in your acquaintance, Pughes. You may think about casting a wider net and improving your circles as a result.”
“Should I?” Harold shot back, all bravado and swagger, but Darius sensed he’d hit a nerve. “Are you offering me a bribe, Thorne? It’s a bit unexpected, considering your blasted personal integrity.”
Darius just stared back. “Netherton. What do you know of the man?”
“I am not the man’s bosom companion.”
“No. But he confided in you about that sordid little bit of translation he was after and you seemed close enough. As you say though”—Darius shrugged and moved as if to leave—“I’ve probably overestimated your connections.”
“I know him better than most!” Harold offered, openly offended. “My father was his tutor growing up although I only just met him when he was at university. He spends as little time as he can at his estates in Scotland and prefers Town. I admit I was—surprised to hear he’d brought his bride north and then acted as if they intended to settle in.” Pughes shrugged. “But who knows the mind of the nobility? Certainly not you or I, Thorne.”
“And what did your father say of his pupil?”
Pughes walked over to a small cupboard and pulled out a bottle of liquor. “Very little. Richard’s a bit—cold. But he can be very charming. My father encouraged me to stay on his good side if I could.”
“And so you have.”
Harold filled his glass without offering any to his guest. “It’s not a sin to stay in good stead with one’s betters, Thorne.”
“Lord Netherton isn’t my better. But that’s a debate for another day
.” Darius sighed. “So forget the boy. What about the man?”
“In what regard?” Pughes asked evasively.
“What draws him to London so suddenly? What interests him? Where could I find him in Town?” Darius held his ground. “Come, Pughes. You said you knew him better than most, so let’s have it. I need to know whatever you can convey. All of it—every filthy secret or strange obsession, because I am bound to uncover it, with or without you. Tell me and I’ll keep my promise. Refuse and I’ll find another way and you can continue to play lapdog to the worst kind of men, all in the name of your science.”
“You’re a prig, Thorne. You know this, right?”
“Good day, Pughes.”
“Wait! All right!” Harold downed the contents of his glass, the strong smell of scotch tainting the air. “You must swear you’ll never reveal that we’ve spoken.”
“You have my word.”
“You saw the papers he bought. The last couple of years, I’ve kept an eye out for unusual texts to offer him. He used to be a generous buyer and then, for a time, simply took things from me ‘on account.’ Of course, since his marriage he’s been . . . more free spending and I was happy to give him what he wanted.”
Darius tried to hide his disappointment. “It’s not an uncommon vice.”
“I don’t think he’s limited to the page.”
“In what way?”
“H-he asked about certain entertainments in the city and I . . . had to disappoint him at our lack of variety in sport.”
“What kind of sport?”
“Private clubs for . . .” Harold hesitated and Darius waited as the man weighed out his curiosity to learn a rival’s secrets and the risks of angering Netherton. “Sport with ladies.”
Darius crossed his arms. “There are prostitutes aplenty in the city and a few gambling houses with . . . lovely women on hand. How exactly was he disappointed?”
“I took him to a house. Hell, it was far out of the comfortable confines of my purse and they only admitted me because I had a member of the peerage in tow. But apparently it didn’t meet his expectations.” Pughes poured himself another drink. “We were shown the door because one of the girls complained after Netherton took her upstairs. He was furious and said she lacked training. He said a scullery maid at the Velvet House could have warmed him better.”
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