Obsession Wears Opals

by Renee Bernard

  “Very well.” Ashe relaxed his stance.

  “But only because you agreed to stay at Blackwell’s. At least your safety and hers will be secured while you start your search,” Galen conceded.

  “Did I agree to the arrangement?” Darius asked in mock surprise.

  “Don’t quibble. Of course you did,” Michael growled.

  “We’ll come tomorrow. That should give you time to either prepare for guests or change your mind,” Darius said to Ashe with a wry smile.

  “Tomorrow!” Ashe seconded. “Well, is that everything on our silly club’s agenda?”

  “Not everything.” Galen raised a hand. “Haley’s coming to London. Her last letter made it clear that she’s had enough of the country, misses Caroline and Gayle, and has no intention of being parted from me for anything as nebulous as her ‘safety.’” Galen’s emerald eyes darkened defensively. “And I’m not stopping her.”

  Michael shook his head. “This is getting out of hand. We have no idea what to expect, and every time I turn around, someone decides it’s time to go to a ball and play the dandy or lose their heads and get married!”

  Galen gave him a dangerous look. “I’m not living apart from my wife for the foreseeable future simply because you’d rather have us holed up in a fort somewhere! No offense, Rutherford, but I’ve already spent my time in prison. We’re free men, and by God, I’ll live freely and have what joys I can carve out—and this Jackal can choke on his sacred treasure! Prophecies be damned!”

  “Here, here!” Rowan agreed softly. “Did anyone else notice that Lord Winters nearly sounded like an optimist ever so briefly?”

  ***

  They put on their coats and Darius climbed up into Blackwell’s waiting carriage for the ride back to the inn. The cold night had a stale scent that clung to their clothes and made Darius nostalgic for his country house and the green, fresh “wee bit of wet” of Scotland.

  “What aren’t you telling them?” Ashe asked quietly in the shadowy confines of the carriage.

  “You are all so eager to lend a hand and aid me toward my ‘happy ending.’ . . .”

  “But you’re not heading that direction?”

  Darius sighed. Only with Ashe did he feel safe enough to speak the worst aloud. “You heard Galen. There were dukes at her wedding. Even if I free her and end this, it’s—impossible. If it doesn’t create a scandal, then her choice of a lowborn unemployed scholar would do the trick. As my housekeeper kept pointing out, I’ve not taken in a stray kitten, and as much as I love her, I know that I cannot condemn her to a life with a lesser man.”

  “Snotty bit of blue blood, is she?”

  “She is not! She doesn’t care about my pedigree! She doesn’t even mind—any of it.”

  “So your problem is imaginary.”

  “It is not imaginary! My father was a dockworker, Ashe. I may have elevated my mind with education and shed the accent of a Bristol street urchin, but that doesn’t make me the Earl of Utopia!”

  Ashe grunted. “Well, you look like a wealthy Earl of Utopia from where I’m sitting, D. Money makes up for a lot when it comes to bloodlines, and if it’s that rot about becoming your father—I’ve never seen the smallest hint of it. Hell! When you’re furious, D, and I mean furious, do you know that you get quiet and start quoting the classics?”

  “I don’t quote them randomly, Ashe. Some of the best insults are found in the—”

  “See? You’re missing the point, friend. You were in an inferno in the Thistle that night and you were politely asking them to move a little faster, by Josiah’s account. We were in hell in Bengal and you were as civil as a judge after they dragged you out and beat you for trying to speak to the guards in their native tongue to get more water for us.”

  “If I was civil, it was only because that seemed like the best option.”

  “D, we were in a dungeon chained together, you and I, and there were moments when you were the slice of humanity I clung to when I couldn’t remember what it was to be human anymore. Darius, forget your father. He’s as relevant to who you are as”—Ashe leaned forward to point out a lamplighter on the street as they passed by—“that bloke.”

  “Thank you, Ashe.” Darius pushed back against the cushions. “We’ll see.”

  She loves me now. But it’s an affection spawned by circumstances, and once she’s free, it could all change. I already look like a man with a great rusty chain, and at the other end of it sits a butterfly. It’s ridiculous.

  Chapter

  21

  Isabel stared at the blank page and then back out the long window looking down into the garden courtyard below. In the week since their arrival in London, she’d felt even more useless, as Darius had taken on most of the burdens of seeing them settled and shielding her from the challenges ahead. But the transition to move their quarters to the Blackwells’ home had been a highlight.

  She’d balked at the idea of intruding into a private residence and risking the involvement of his friends in her predicament. Mrs. Clay had been so kind, Isabel didn’t want to forfeit her room. Darius had finally convinced her that safety and security carried more weight than Mrs. Clay’s hospitality. Even so, he’d kept the rooms to give them a place to go to if they ever needed a quick escape or spot for an emergency rendezvous.

  They’d smuggled her in through the servants’ entrance, and Isabel had gotten a little tearful with embarrassment at her state of disgrace. But she’d had only seconds to wallow in self-pity before the surprising warmth and welcome of the house took hold. Mrs. Clark had bustled forward and offered dinner and a hot bath in one breath, to Ashe’s amusement.

  The butler, Mr. Godwin, a more serious man as befitted his position, made an effort to calmly review all the extra security features of the house and restated the commitment of the entire staff to ensuring that the utmost discretion was applied during Mrs. Stewart’s visit. He’d revealed a hidden tender nature by adding to her directly that if she had any anxieties, “on any matter great or small, you must ring your bell without hesitation!”

  “Godwin ordered extra candles because Mrs. Clark told him that it would please your spirits to be in a brighter house,” Ashe teased.

  Godwin’s harrumph of protest was a thing to behold. “I ordered extra candles because we needed them.”

  “Of course, Godwin! Of course we did,” Ashe said with a smile. “Now come meet my wife, Mrs. Stewart. You will be doing me a great favor, staying here. My Caroline is confined, thanks to the tyranny of Dr. West, and she’ll be thrilled with company.”

  With a wink from Darius confirming all, she’d been shyly whisked up the stairs to meet her hostess and to make a new dear friend. Within minutes, Isabel had discovered that Mrs. Blackwell was wonderfully sweet and candid about her current condition and her approval of Isabel’s attachment to Darius.

  “Ashe! Tell me you didn’t just kidnap this poor girl to provide me female company!” Caroline protested half-heartedly.

  “I did,” he admitted solemnly. “I will undoubtedly hang for it, but it was worth it.”

  Isabel gasped. “He is jesting, Mrs. Blackwell!”

  “I know,” she assured her, holding out her hands in invitation to a chair by the bed. “Please don’t mind him. Ashe shared your situation, so you’ve no fear of us. He just—says these things to make me blush. What shall I call you?”

  “Helen. Helen Stewart,” Isabel said hesitantly as Ashe came forward to adjust his wife’s pillows. “But if you are unwell, I should—”

  “I am completely hale and hearty!” Caroline interrupted her, swiping playfully at her husband for his attentions. “Mr. Blackwell is deliberately taking advantage to linger and will make you swear to keep an eye on me but it’s ridiculous to think I’m to stay in bed for weeks and months yet.” Caroline pouted. “I feel perfectly fine!”

  Ashe lifted her hand to kiss his wife’s fingertips. “My defiant colonial wife. You feel fine, dearest, because you are resting as you should. We must
yield to Rowan’s better judgment and do all that he asks.”

  Caroline rolled her eyes but blushed at her husband’s touch. “Go away! I want to meet Helen and talk without you hovering and spoiling the conversation.”

  “Does this mean I’ll be one of the subjects of the discussion?” he asked.

  “It is guaranteed at this point! Now go!” she commanded, and her husband bowed and dutifully retreated from the room. “There, now we can converse freely.”

  “You’re American.” Isabel sighed in open admiration, then blushed as she took the chair Caroline had offered. “I mean . . . how wonderful that you’re American. What an odd thing to say!”

  Caroline laughed. “Please! Always say what you’re thinking! For I’m eternally guilty of blurting things out and being the oddest woman I know.”

  “May I ask why you’re to bed? Is it common to be so restricted so soon for . . . your condition?” Isabel asked. “Because you’re expecting?”

  Caroline placed her hands on her growing belly, blushing a little. “Not common but I suffered a mishap early in November, and Dr. West felt it wise to take precautions. Have you met him?” she asked.

  “No, not yet.”

  “You’ll love him, and his wife. Gayle is studying to be a physician and works with her husband now.” Caroline shook her head. “They are a formidable pair if you dare to so much as get a head cold within their sphere.”

  Isabel’s mouth fell open. “A woman to be a doctor? How extraordinary!”

  “And why not?” Caroline said with a confidence that awed her new friend. “There is very little a man can accomplish that a woman cannot match. She simply needs the right tools and opportunities for education that—I’m sorry. I am a bit of a reformer. I dream of creating a college solely for women, and my husband and his grandfather have supported my ideas.”

  “Are all the wives of the Jaded so . . . forward thinking?”

  Caroline bit her lower lip as she considered the question. “I never thought of it. I suppose we are, each in our own way, a little unique. Even Lady Winters has insisted on a profession of her own as a designer, and the new Mrs. Hastings, whom I had just met, said something about helping Josiah with his paintings. So we are apparently an unconventional ladies’ club.” Caroline shrugged. “But it makes the meetings more interesting!”

  “Undoubtedly,” Isabel agreed, her pale blue eyes growing sad. “Although I would hardly add to the circle. I’ve an education that included nothing more than playing the pianoforte, wearing dancing slippers, and making bonnets.”

  “I am glad to make your acquaintance, Helen Stewart,” Caroline said firmly. “You are part of our circle now and you add to it simply by being yourself and for the happiness that you bring to Mr. Thorne. You have nothing to prove.”

  Caroline’s generosity was a bit overwhelming and Isabel’s eyes dropped to her hands. “Thank you for that.” To alleviate her embarrassment at compliments, she attempted one of her own. “Your . . . home is beautiful, Mrs. Blackwell.”

  “Caroline. You must call me Caroline, and thank you. Ashe has good taste and I—” She laughed again, merriment making her large brown eyes brighten. “I knew better than to add a single lamp pull and spoil the effect!”

  Isabel nodded in sympathy. “Because he forbid it.”

  Caroline’s laughter ended quickly, her look of shock priceless. “Forbid it? My Ashe? No. I meant because I have the innate taste of a mud wren when it comes to fashions and furnishings. My impossible husband—I cannot think of a thing that man has ever forbidden me to do!”

  “Die,” Ashe corrected her from the doorway. “I forbid you to die, remember?”

  Isabel stood awkwardly, unsure of the macabre turn in the conversation and Mr. Blackwell’s return.

  “Ashe!” Caroline protested with a squeak. “What a thing to say! You’re going to make Helen think you’re an arrogant creature out of a gothic novel, Blackwell!” Even as she chided him, she lost the battle and smiled. “I’m the picture of rosy health. Leave me alone!”

  “I apologize for interrupting so soon, for I can tell you were in the midst of forging a lifelong alliance. . . .”

  “We were!” Caroline assured him quickly, and Isabel’s cheeks colored with pleasure. Even a premature declaration of friendship was so desirable to her she wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Yes, we were,” Isabel echoed softly.

  “Mrs. Clark insisted that I come up and make sure that no one was hungry. Cook’s made a fresh tray because”—he paused for effect—“someone did not touch her lunch despite the inclusion of her favorite gingerbread cakes . . . so there’s a bit of an uproar in the kitchens below stairs, and I overheard plotting to rival any military coup to figure out how to trick someone into eating.”

  “Do you see, Helen?” Caroline turned to her friend. “Why I’m so glad you’ve come? I’m already plump as a dinner hen and they’re conspiring against me!”

  Isabel read Ashe’s expression out of the corner of her eye and knew where her loyalties lay without being prompted. “Not against you, surely! But for you, don’t you think? Besides,” she said, “I’m sure I would love to sample some gingerbread cake. Will you not join me?”

  Caroline crossed her arms but nodded with a sigh of defeat. “Very well.”

  Ashe’s relief was obvious as he took his leave again and Isabel watched him go. “He is—so . . .”

  “Bossy?” Caroline supplied.

  “Attentive,” Isabel amended. “It is clear he adores you.”

  “We are ridiculously in love.” Caroline beamed, hugging her elbows. “I still can’t believe it’s possible to be this happy. Especially when I think of our contentious beginning. . . .”

  It was all Isabel could do to nod. She had never expected to speak of such things so directly, but her new friend’s manners made the impossible matter-of-fact.

  Caroline leaned back against the pillows. “Ashe hasn’t told me too much, only because Darius has said very little to him. But one thing is clear. Darius will do everything he can to resolve things and end . . . your current predicament.”

  “He’s already done so much. I hate to think that all I’ve done in return is disrupted all his plans and brought him to ruin. If anyone finds out that he has taken up with a married woman . . .” Isabel shuddered. “The gossips will twist it into something so vile I cannot hope to keep him from—”

  “You worry too much.” Caroline interrupted her gently. “No one is ruined, and if ever a man was set in his decisions and plans, it is Darius. He won’t plant one foot without thinking through the entire journey, and despite the circumstances, we both know he is the most upstanding and moral of men. He just wants to protect you and there is nothing nobler.”

  “No, nothing nobler.” Than my wonderful knight.

  “But to serious matters at hand!” Caroline’s tone changed. “I have a desperate problem and I am hoping you can provide some relief.”

  Isabel had instantly shifted her attention, alert and wary. “Anything you need, you have but to ask.”

  “Daisy is my maid, but she’s a bit lost since I’m not exactly dressing for social calls or doing more than changing nightgowns and bathing for excitement these days. Do you mind if I have her attend you? I can tell just by looking that you’re far more elegant than I could ever aspire to be, and Daisy is so eager to learn to be a proper ladies’ maid.”

  Isabel nodded. “It’s so kind of you to offer. Although, confined to the house myself, I’m not sure if I’ll prove to be much of a distraction.”

  “If you’ve a better understanding of hats and ribbons, then you are bound to be an improvement for her.” Caroline’s cheeks reddened. “I’m a terrible disappointment for her.”

  “I could not take your maid.”

  “Then just share her, won’t you? Please?” Caroline asked sweetly, and Isabel accepted that she’d been deftly outmaneuvered.

  “We’ll share her.”

  “It’s perfect
! Between the two of us, we can make her happy, and she’s a sweet girl, Helen. Very discreet.” Caroline took her hand. “They all are. Godwin and Mrs. Clark run a tight ship and you’re safe here.”

  “I feel safe already.”

  It was true.

  From that first conversation onward, she felt inherently secure under Blackwell’s roof, and Darius had encouraged her to make the most of it. She had a true friend in Caroline and a vicariously watchful older brother in Ashe. But best of all, she had Darius. In a strange limbo between her past and her future, they guarded each moment together, sharing meals, playing chess, reading, or locking their doors and refusing to leave the bed.

  It was all bittersweet because Isabel knew that no matter what anyone said, it could never last.

  One way or another, Richard would have to be faced, and despite Darius’s assurances that her husband would see reason if he were threatened with exposure of his worst secrets—she wasn’t nearly so confident.

  And here I sit, idly by, like a helpless child, waiting for Darius to solve my problems and save the day.

  Frustration raged inside of her and she remembered how Caroline had described the wives of their circle and all of them had sounded so independent and strong. Instead of pouting about her situation, Caroline was vivacious with plans for her college and her pursuit of its accreditation.

  There is very little a man can accomplish that a woman cannot match.

  “I wonder what I can do?” she asked herself aloud.

  He’d lamented that there was no simple path to take, but Isabel wondered if she’d missed something obvious. It was true that her first attempt to tell her mother of her troubles had gone awry.

  But I was so shy of it and it was such an incoherent ramble to send her. Perhaps Darius is right and my mother’s advice was misdirected.

  It was a small, frail thread of hope but a tantalizing idea.

  Her parents could be powerful allies for her and potentially apply great pressure to Netherton to release her quietly. The daydream of a mother’s comforting arms fueled her resolve. Isabel finally began her letter with the determination of a woman with little to lose.