Lords of Passion

by Virginia Henley

  Pru knew she was bossy—she’d had to be. But what happened last night was entirely different. Her control over him was nearly her own submission. Pru had liked the odd sensation deep in her belly. She’d felt wicked.

  And liked it.

  After arranging a tea tray with a cup for her as well, she carried it upstairs, going to the sitting room door first.

  “Darius?”

  There was no answer. Possibly he was still abed. She moved down the hall and pushed the bedroom door open with a hip. The room was swathed in blackness. The French window to the tiny balcony overlooking the garden was draped with a dark blanket, and Pru could barely see a foot in front of her despite the daylight. “Darius, are you awake?”

  The lump on the bed groaned. “Go ‘way.”

  “Nonsense. If you are ill, you need caring for. I’ve brought you tea.”

  Darius snorted. “Cast it up.”

  “If you do, I’ll fetch you more. What’s wrong?”

  “Fever. Don’t worry. Not contagious. Have it every now and again. Picked up something on my travels and can’t put it down.”

  The poor man. He was right to want to come home then and escape from the dangers of the world. “How could Malcolm leave you like this?”

  “Told him to. Need something from the apothecary to tide me over. Auction.”

  “You cannot possibly go through with the auction!” Pru looked around in the gloom for somewhere to set the tray but saw nothing but the dreadful objects that Darius planned to sell on every single flat surface. There was no place open but the bed, so she placed it on the poodle counterpane.

  “Don’t move. Must you be in darkness, or can I air out the room?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Pru pulled the wool blanket down, and the spring sunlight flooded the space. She threw open the doors to the fresh air and took a deep breath herself. She’d had plenty of experience in sick rooms and knew Darius wasn’t faking it from the stale smell of the room alone. And when she saw his beautiful face gray with fever and sweat, her heart tripped.

  “You’re going to have a cup of tea. And then I’ll bathe you.”

  “Go home, Pru.”

  He said it without much energy, so either he was too sick to care or didn’t really want her to go. Pru decided it was the latter.

  “Nonsense. I’ll stay until you are well. Give me the list of people you invited to the auction and I’ll notify them that the plans have changed.”

  Darius struggled to sit up. “No! Has to go on. Parliament is breaking up. Everyone will be in the country for the summer.”

  Pru knew this was true. London was about to fall quiet for the next few months. “All right then. We’ll figure something out. How long do your episodes last?”

  “A few days. Sometimes more.”

  He was shivering now, but Pru did not believe it was due to the open window. She poured him a cup of tea and held it to his mouth. “Here, drink a little. Have you eaten?”

  “Can’t. Please leave me be, Pru. I’m of no use to you.”

  “But I can be of use to you, you silly man!” Men! So full of ridiculous pride, as if they weren’t entitled to stumble a bit along the way. “When this has happened before, what is the most efficacious way to treat it?”

  “Bark. C-cinchona tree. From Peru.” His teeth chattered against the cup. “So cold.”

  Pru covered him with the blanket from the window, tucking it up under his chin. No doubt he’d be better lying down, but she had to get the tea into him somehow. He managed to swallow most of it, then with a hunted look in his eye, tumbled off the bed to grab the chamber pot beneath it.

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Told you.”

  He was naked. And still magnificent even if he was sick as a dog. Pru averted her eyes and carried the basin to the window, where she doused the poor plants below.

  “Do you have a nightshirt?”

  “Dresser. Top drawer.” He crawled back into the bed. “I’ll just sweat through it. Really, Pru. Leave this to Malcolm. He should be back soon.”

  “Not if he has to go to Peru.”

  Darius managed a grin at her joke. “My disease is common enough. Alexander the Great. Dante. Cromwell.”

  “But they’re dead!” Pru said in alarm.

  “Malaria’s an occupational hazard in Egypt. I survived the worst of it. No reason to think I won’t keep on going, barring a little minor inconvenience every once in a while. We Shaws are tough. You’d better go back to Bath, Pru.”

  “I don’t care how tough you say you are,” Pru said stubbornly. “I’m staying until the end.”

  “Not mine, I hope.”

  “Oh! Don’t jest about such a thing. You must not die. Who else will enlighten me in the sensual arts? After last night, you’ve quite ruined me for anyone else.”

  “Why, Prudence Thorne. I believe you’re flirting with me, and me on my sickbed.”

  “I believe I am,” said Pru, blushing.

  “Then I’ll have to get well with all due speed. You’ve given me a reason to live.” He placed a brown hand over his heart, and Pru subdued her urge to climb into bed with him. Instead, she sat at the edge next to him at a decent distance and drank her own cup of tea to steady her nerves.

  “If you are not well by tomorrow night, can Malcolm manage the sale?”

  Darius grimaced. “Malcolm does the best he can—more than the best—I could not find a more loyal servant in all of Christendom and the Islamic world besides. But he’s basically unlettered. Can you see him describing the provenance of my treasures? I cannot. But I suppose he’ll have to if I can’t pull myself together.”

  Darius had labeled every object meticulously in his neat handwriting. Pru had been amazed that he remembered their origins and ages, unless he was just making it all up. He’d spoken of forgeries when he first met her, but in her inexpert judgment, the treasures looked real enough. Legitimate. And costly. Precious stones studded a great many things. She rubbed the ruby ring, trying in vain to loosen it. She would simply have to buy it from Darius—it was far too valuable for her to accept it as a gift. She’d just have to wear gloves for the rest of her life.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Pardon?”

  “In disguise, of course. That trunk you showed me yesterday with the women’s clothing. The veils and whatnot.” There had been beautiful dresses from Paris fit for the most flamboyant courtesan, but the exotic Eastern silks had caught her eye, embroidered in gold thread and so splendid Pru had wanted to strip off her ugly black to try them on. A bit of kohl for her eyes and no one would ever recognize her, not that she was apt to know the type of gentleman who collected erotic art.

  Darius sat up so straight he looked pained. “I forbid it.”

  “Don’t be foolish. If you’re well enough, you can sit right there and guard me. But I can do the persuading. I might even improve the sales.”

  “Absolutely not. A woman like you—”

  She was awfully tired hearing about “a woman like her.” No one knew her, nobody. She was beginning to think she didn’t know herself. Pru smacked him on his broad chest.

  “I will do it and you will like it.”

  “I will never ‘like it,’ Pru! You haven’t the first idea what my clients are like. They’d take one look at you and paw you to pieces.”

  “Let them try. I’ll stab them with my ring.” The raised oval diamond was very sharp—a nuisance when it kept catching on things.

  “They’ll think you are a Jane!” Darius spluttered.

  “All the better. Who would they prefer to buy from? A mysterious courtesan or a grizzled servant like Malcolm? But perhaps you don’t think I am attractive enough.”

  “Of course you are attractive enough! Don’t fish for compliments, my girl. I’ve been dying to bed you almost from the first, and everyone else will want to, too.”

  Pru grinned like a happy idiot, but inwardly so she didn’t spoil their argument. Instead, she glare
d at the man, who was turning from gray to green in alarming fashion. “You are too ill to make a sensible decision. I am going downstairs to unpack the rest of the boxes. When Malcolm returns, we can ask his opinion.”

  “I don’t give a damn what he says! No woman of mine is going to parade about half-naked in front of the worst of the ton!”

  Oh, excellent. Pru had never been so happy in her life. Darius thought she was his woman, at least for a little while. And that would have to be good enough unless she could figure out a way to make the situation permanent.

  For it was clear to her that Darius needed her. And after last night, she would not be satisfied with simple—or complicated—kisses. She wanted much more, and the splendid specimen languishing on the bed needed to make a spectacular recovery soon.

  Chapter Nine

  Insupportable! To think that Prudence Thorne planned to help him in a way that could only bring disaster upon her. Upon them both. Perhaps he should cancel the auction. The Jane Street house would sell fairly fast, and he might live off the proceeds of that for quite some time, even if he had to split the proceeds with his idiot brother.

  But if he didn’t have an idiot brother, he never would have met Pru.

  Darius had gagged on the chicken broth that Pru seemed to think would cure him quicker. He’d drunk the evil stew of ground-up Peruvian bark and managed to keep it down, and had stripped the blankets back off because he was burning up again.

  At least she hadn’t made good on her threat to bathe him, although devil knew he needed it. Pru and Malcolm were closeted downstairs removing items from the last of the boxes. Pru had taken his inventory and his notes and wasn’t even bothering to consult him. She’d probably mistake the Etruscan bronze for Sumerian, but what did it matter?

  Darius lay back down on his damp pillow, feeling acutely sorry for himself. Somehow Prudence Thorne had turned the tables on him. Here was his one chance at happiness, a life of respectability, and it was all in the hands of a bossy little widow who made his cock crazed with need even as he wanted to die. He was not master of his own fate, his own fortune. Instead he was sweating like a pig and keeping close to the chamber pot. At least he wasn’t sneezing.

  Malcolm had assured him all the straw had been baled up and taken to some rubbish tip. It was Darius’s own fault for entrusting his motley Egyptian crew to pack everything for shipping. He should have supervised, but he’d been on the hunt for tomorrow night’s pièce de résistance. But he was very much afraid he knew who the true star of the evening was going to be—his most unlikely mistress.

  There was not a doubt in his mind that he had awakened the sleeping beauty inside Prudence Thorne. An awake Pru was a woman to be reckoned with. He almost dreaded her return, for one whiff of her rose-scented body brought him to his knees. He closed his eyes and remembered her taste, her touch, the sound of her cries when he brought her to completion. But they had no future together—she was an heiress and he an adventurer who’d seen and done far too many things to ever win anything more than her lust if she knew the truth.

  He was not worthy of her, even beyond the fact that his body betrayed him with this foul disease too often for comfort. And what woman would want to be saddled with an invalid, especially when she’d spent her whole life caring for her sick mother? No, Darius and Pru needed to part ways as soon as the auction was over. He hoped he could rally to spend one last night in her bed, or she in his—or on the carpet. The sofa. The dining room table. It didn’t really matter where as long as he could fit himself inside her just once.

  Who was he kidding? He smelled like one of Astley’s elephants. She’d have to be unconscious to permit it.

  With a vigor he didn’t know he possessed, he rang the bell Pru had found and placed at his bedside. After an eon, Malcolm shuffled up the stairs, his left leg trailing after him in an exaggerated limp.

  “Where’s Mrs. Thorne?”

  “Out. We finished up and she said there was something she had to do.”

  Darius felt some misgiving. “You don’t suppose she’s left, do you?”

  “I just said she did, guv. You losin’ yer hearin’, too? You still look like shit, if I may be so bold.”

  “As if I could ever shut you up. Where did she go?”

  “Damned if I know. Woman’s stuff, I imagine. She’s got my kitchen dripping in drawers and shifts. Don’t know if I’ll be able to cook dinner through all the linen and lace.” Malcolm gave him a lazy wink, and Darius was unaccountably jealous. He’d not seen any of Pru’s underthings as yet.

  “I’m not hungry anyway.”

  “Sure and there’s more than one mouth to feed in this house, guv. Mrs. Thorne has got to keep her strength up for the big night. We’ve been plannin’ between us all afternoon. I say, she’s a little firecracker, ain’t she?”

  She had gone off like a rocket last night. “Mrs. Thorne’s underwear is not the only thing that needs washing. I want a bath, Malcolm. ”

  The older man scowled. “How am I to bring up hot water the way I walk? Nope. You’ll have to wait for the lady to help you. It will be more fun to have her scrub your back anyhow.”

  “You old charlatan. You can walk as well as anyone when you want to. Very well. Help me to the kitchen and I’ll wash down there. Get me my robe.”

  “Don’t be a fool. You’re not up to walking all that way yet, and I’ll be damned if you take me with you when you fall down the stairs.” Malcolm went to the wardrobe anyway and pulled out Darius’s Turkish silk robe.

  “I’m perfectly fit.” To prove it, Darius put one bare foot on the floor. The room tilted and he clutched the coverlet.

  Malcolm’s lips disappeared in disapproval as he handed the robe over. “Look at yourself. Weak as a kitten.”

  “I still have claws, Malcolm, and if you do not help me, I’ll dismiss you from my service.”

  Malcolm snorted. “You haven’t paid me my full wages for eight months. I’ll quit.”

  “Whatever.” Darius sighed, struggling to get his arms in the holes. “Please.”

  Malcolm untangled a sleeve. “Oh, all right. Lean on my good shoulder.”

  “Which one is that today? I can’t keep up with your lies.”

  “Coxcomb.” Darius heaved himself off the bed, and Malcolm ducked under his outstretched arm. “Hold on, laddie. I’ve got you.”

  Just barely. The two of them lurched down the endless stairs. Before moving on to the basement level, Darius poked his head into the parlor. The furniture had been rearranged to make way for the gilt chairs he had rented for the auction. The adjacent dining room was crammed with objects on display—Pru had been bringing things downstairs all day while Darius drifted in and out of sleep. She must be even more exhausted than he.

  And now she was out who knows where—anything could happen in London. She had told him she wasn’t familiar with the city. She had no maid, no escort.

  “You should have gone with her.”

  Malcolm did not pretend to misunderstand. “I asked. She wouldn’t hear of me leavin’ you alone.”

  “Damn it. I’m not a baby.”

  “No, you’re a sick man, but you’re right about the bath.

  You stink to high heaven. I’ll have to wash meself just from touching you.”

  Darius grinned. They made it to the kitchen with just enough difficulty that he was winded but not totally knackered. He collapsed in a chair while Malcolm heated water and dragged an enamel tub from the back pantry.

  Pru’s washing hung like wispy ghosts from a string along the whitewashed beams. Darius had seen far naughtier undergarments in his time, but he pictured Pru in them—and then out of them—and his mouth dried.

  When the tub was mostly full, Darius shooed Malcolm away and shrugged out of his robe. He wasn’t going to be mother-henned by his manservant when there was still so much to do before tomorrow. Malcolm left with a list and almost the last of Darius’s funds. But one had to spend money to make money, as his father used to say.
Too bad the old boy had not always been able to follow his own advice.

  Darius leaned back in the tub and rested his head against an old towel, feeling every year of his age. The Shaws had lived by their wits as long as Darius could remember. In the case of his brother Cyrus, half-wits might be more apropos. But Cyrus had managed to snag a rich bride, so maybe he wasn’t so lacking after all.

  Their childhood had been feast or famine. Darius’s father would go off, for months and sometimes years at a time, searching the globe for artifacts. He had traded in ordinary antiquities as well, but the real money was in the erotic. When Darius turned fifteen, he began to accompany his father on his jaunts. Why spend money for university when the world held so many educational opportunities for the cost of a ship’s berth? He’d been at it now for two decades, and by and large it had been an eye-opening experience.

  It was remarkable what some men—and women, too—paid to collect a bit of perversion. Darius had long been desensitized, although he’d tried out nearly every position and proclivity depicted on the objects he dealt in. For the past few years, a distinct pall had fallen over his sex life. Oh, make no mistake—he was capable, but the joy had been lacking. It had taken a certain widow to remind him of his innocence.

  He was innocent no more. And should be ashamed of himself for leading a virtuous woman astray.

  But he was not.

  Darius grabbed the bar of soap Malcolm left on the chair and scrubbed the worst of his odor away. He was beginning to feel nearly human again, though the waves of hot and cold had followed him right into the bath. At present he looked a bit like a plucked chicken, goosebumps marching up and down his arms. He knew that in ten minutes or so he’d be hot and sweating—best to just stay where he was and wait it out in the water. Malcolm would not be too long at the wine shop. When he got back, he could help Darius back upstairs and change his bed linen besides. There was no point in cleaning up if one were to lie back down in the filth.