Obsession Wears Opals

by Renee Bernard

  “So don’t run,” Michael said softly, his expression calm.

  “You . . .” Darius stared at his friend with renewed respect. “You’re good.”

  “I was just testing your resolve, Thorne. If you want to win this, then you’ll have to win it here. And until every last rotten stone he’s ever touched is overturned, you know what to do.”

  Darius sat back down, his knees a bit unsteady. “Why did that make me feel better? It makes no sense that I should suddenly feel better.”

  “Sometimes knowing that you have your back to the wall just gives you clarity and the will you need to keep fighting.” Rutherford shrugged and then stood to wipe his own face and put away the equipment. “It’s when you think you’ve overlooked a strategy or missed a clue that you’ll drive yourself in circles.”

  “There’s a truth.” Darius moved to help him, retrieving their protective gear.

  “Don’t forget to ask for help when you need it, Darius.” Michael took his mask from Darius’s hands. “We’re all holding back only because you asked us to stay clear.”

  “I know,” Darius said. “I promise. I’ll ask. Soon.”

  The men walked out of the exercise hall toward the changing rooms and Darius was unable to stop smiling.

  “What?” Rutherford asked.

  “You know, for a man who swears against the ills of being overeducated, I think you’d have made a hell of a teacher.”

  Michael ducked his head, his face flushing with embarrassment. “I’d have been a great many things in another lifetime. But that’s done. I am what I am.” Rutherford picked up his bag and left without another word.

  That touched a nerve!

  Darius contemplated the puzzle of the self-appointed guardian of the Jaded for just a few seconds until his own fears for Isabel resurfaced and proved far too distracting.

  My back is to the wall.

  No retreat.

  It’s clarifying to realize it, but why do I still have the feeling that I’m turning in circles?

  Chapter

  24

  That evening, at the next narrow little house on a dark, crooked street on his list, one of Darius’s worst fears came to pass.

  “Ah, here’s the bloke who was mentioning your lordship!” The wizened older woman running the house made a cheerful introduction just as Darius was crossing the doorstep.

  Lord Netherton turned in surprise, his arrogant face flushed with drink. “What’s this I hear? Are you shadowing me, Thorne? And spinning tales?”

  Darius shrugged, handing off his hat and coat as if Richard’s presence wasn’t in the least unexpected. “And you’re not flattered?” He turned to the woman. “A bottle of your best port.”

  She hurried off, happy to accommodate them, and Darius made his way into the salon where Netherton was holding court, ignoring the scantily clad women with their hardened expressions or the way they nervously eyed Richard.

  “Are you buying me a drink?” Richard asked.

  “I’m buying a bottle. If you care to share it with me, you are more than welcome. Our first meeting was awkward, and I’m assuming you’re curious about what you’ve heard, so I’ll leave it up to you.”

  “Why aren’t you afraid of me, Mr. Thorne?” Richard asked as Darius took a seat next to him and accepted the glass he was offered.

  “Should I be?”

  “My man Jarvis found a stallion of mine in your stables, sir. Just a few days ago.”

  “Did he?”

  “You heard me mention that I’d lost an animal when we met in the archives at the university that day! Yet you said nothing.”

  Darius shrugged. “I failed to make the connection.”

  “And my wife? Did it not occur to you that the two might be connected? That if I’d known the direction the horse had taken I might be able to conduct a better search for her?” Netherton picked up the cards in front of him. “If they find her dead in a ditch with her neck broken from a fall when the snows melt—how will you face it?”

  Darius sat up as if he’d been prodded. “Do you think she’s dead?”

  “How would I know?” Richard rolled his eyes. “Your groomsman could have thought to keep the beast for his own profit and strangled her himself!”

  Darius smiled. “My man? You’ll have to come up with a better tale than that. If he meant to play horse thief, he was certainly taking his time disposing of the animal, and as to the other nonsense . . . Is your wife that odious that every man who encounters her would think nothing of murdering her?”

  “It is a dangerous world we live in, Thorne.”

  “It is indeed.” Darius set his drink down for a moment. “Someone may have found your horse in my garden, your lordship, but that’s fairly circumstantial evidence to say I’ve also managed to find your wife. But by all means, call the authorities and explain to them exactly how it is that you’ve lost her and now weeks later can claim she’s hiding in my stables in Scotland. I should warn you that my driver, Hamish, lives in the rooms above and will be extremely put out if your wife has been trespassing there all this time!”

  “What game are you really playing, Thorne?”

  “No games. I’ve every right to be here, if I choose.”

  Netherton’s look was openly skeptical. “After you played the prig with me in Edinburgh, I’d not have guessed that this was your kind of entertainment. Or—that you had the purse for it!”

  “It was Pughes who told you I was poor, did he?” Darius sat back, doing his best to channel the look he’d seen Galen use to put any peer in the realm running. “He’d say anything to get you to look away while he picks your pockets.”

  Lord Netherton smiled. “Good thing I had Jarvis close at hand. Nothing gets past my man.”

  “Really? Not even wives?” Darius threw out the taunt and held his breath.

  Netherton’s expression became icy. “Do you take delight in angering me, Mr. Thorne?”

  Darius shrugged and retrieved his glass to take a small sip from his port. “Not really. But in the brief time I’ve known you, you’ve insulted me and insinuated that my station is one or two steps above a stable boy’s, thrown a temper tantrum because I wasn’t interested in looking at your Chinese pornography, and accused me of being a horse thief. I’d say I’m handling it all beautifully, wouldn’t you?”

  For a single moment, Darius had to wait to see if he’d read his opponent correctly.

  Finally, Richard burst into laughter. “Damn! You’re not such a stuffed shirt, are you, Thorne?”

  “Oh, but I am. I’m a dusty bore, Lord Netherton.” Darius picked up his cards. “I’ve seen too much and now I’m unshockable. It’s a sad state of affairs but there you have it.”

  “Unshockable?”

  Darius looked up at him with an unsubtle challenge. “I take no pleasure in the claim.”

  “Even here? How can you not be amused? Look around you!”

  Darius looked again. It was a shoddier version of the Velvet House but the concept was identical. Gambling tables were set out in a back room where men smoked and drank as they played cards, and women milled about, flirting and making overt invitations for a turn to the bedrooms upstairs. Except here, the women wore collars like dogs and some of them had bruised and mottled flesh visible where their immodest dresses didn’t hide their skin.

  And now faintly, I swear I can hear a woman screaming. . . .

  And no one was reacting at all.

  “It’s all very sweet but—”

  “Sweet?”

  “Would you like to hear a confession?”

  Richard leaned forward, his eyes alight at the prospect. “Let’s have it.”

  “After meeting you in Edinburgh and that disastrous conversation, I wanted to see what a true gentleman enjoyed. I have been attempting to follow in your footsteps.”

  Richard’s brow furrowed. “Like a spy?”

  “More like a disciple.” Darius sighed. “But it’s been useless. Your secrets are your ow
n, your lordship. I’m a man starving at a feast, but you—you had the appearance of a man who knew how to satisfy his appetites. I dismissed the erotic works you showed me out of pride and a misguided attempt to show up Pughes. But I’ve wondered about it ever since, and when he said you’d gone to London, I decided I’d see if a man like yourself might have the answers I’m seeking.”

  “What answers?” Richard asked, openly intrigued.

  “To discovering the secret to true gratification and to experiencing the ultimate pleasures. After hearing Pughes brag about how you were no ordinary gentleman and that you alone knew how to enjoy life, I had hoped to learn what he meant, but it’s a lost cause. I’d since given up the guise of trying to match you.”

  Richard’s mouth fell open and then he grinned. “And this tripe about writing a book?”

  Darius shrugged. “If you’d proven a worthy subject, I was considering it. It would be a work for the ages, and if nothing else, an anonymous book about the exploits of Lord X might have made the pages written about the Marquis de Sade look like nursery rhymes. And made an interesting profit.”

  “Which you’d have shared with me,” Netherton said, his eyes narrowing.

  “Naturally.” Darius sighed. “But it’s a moot point. I’ve learned almost nothing and was considering yielding the chase.”

  “A work for the ages.” Richard drained his glass and refilled it, his eyes conveying all the warmth of a cobra’s. “I’m not sure I believe you. Why not just come to me directly?”

  “You’d already left for London and we are not exactly friends for you to reveal your best secrets.” Darius took one small sip of his own drink. “I might have made a better case for it once I had a manuscript worth consideration, but as I’ve said, no one is talking and your private exploits remain your own. But there’s no need to fear. It was a foolish idea.”

  Richard held up one hand. “Not so fast. It’s not a completely terrible notion. Much like the horse, I’m thinking you’ve just come at it wrong.”

  Darius shook his head. “Undoubtedly. Well, I’ll leave it to you to write your memoirs one day and I’ll accept my own limited fate.”

  Damn. That felt ham-fisted at best. But his ego is a sight to behold. . . . Look at him torn between preening about his sexual prowess and the urge to punch me in the face for not kowtowing to his every whim.

  “It is an art form, Thorne. A balance of pain and pleasure, punishment and reward. Did you find the Velvet House?”

  Darius nodded, swallowing bile at the memory. “I did.”

  “Be honest. Did you try something young? The fresher, the less rehearsed, Thorne.” Richard signaled one of the girls to bring more port. “I like them unmarked. Then it’s for me to decorate them as I wish.”

  Decorate. Dear God, he’s talking about the welts and bruises he inflicts on those children.

  “Don’t you tire of it?” Darius asked. “It’s all so . . . empty.”

  “Nonsense! Pain merely serves to warm a whore, and they secretly love it. When I take charge of a woman like that, when she doesn’t even breathe unless I allow it, there is nothing like that power. And they don’t mind the lesson. Especially when I drop a few extra coins on the floor.”

  Charming. I don’t believe there’s a demon anywhere who would wish to be your companion.

  “I suppose.” Darius yawned. “It’s a tragedy to be this jaded. After tonight, I’ll blaze my own trails, your lordship.”

  Netherton snorted and withdrew something out of his inside coat pocket. “Here! Take this token to the address on this card.”

  “What is it?”

  “A very special place that is guaranteed to awaken even your dull and dreary senses, Thorne. It is extremely exclusive and a personal favorite of mine for many years now.” Richard drank his port in a single swallow and stood. “I’d take you myself but I’m too well-known there.”

  “I thought to go to Gray’s.” Darius boldly tossed out the last name on the short list.

  Richard’s expression changed, his eyes icing for a moment before he shifted his stance. “Don’t bother. It’s not worth your time. Its glory days are long behind it.”

  Darius stood and held out his hand. “Very generous of you, your lordship.”

  “It is,” he reaffirmed shamelessly as he prepared to go. “But here’s a bit of advice to augment that good opinion. Next time you find one of my horses, confess it sooner!”

  “Any chance you would sell the animal to me?” Darius asked.

  “Never! I have plans for that animal.”

  “Plans?”

  Netherton’s eyes glittered with malice. “I’ll use him to teach my wife a lesson when the time comes.”

  Shit.

  “Where is your wife, your lordship?” Darius kept his gaze steady as any man would when standing next to Satan incarnate.

  “In Town, I just learned,” Richard replied with a cold smile. “Mr. Jarvis is giving the matter his full attention, so I expect it won’t be long now.” He set his top hat on his head and touched the brim in a mocking salute to Darius. “Enjoy your evening, Mr. Thorne. And if you still feel nothing after a visit to that house”—Richard nodded at the card still in Darius’s hands—“then give the whore the whip and see if that doesn’t do the trick.”

  Darius waited as long as he could to make sure that Netherton had truly gone, paid the madam for the port, and then made it as far as the lamppost next to his waiting carriage before losing the contents of his stomach in the gutter.

  ***

  “He knows you’re in London.”

  Isabel looked up as he came into the room, jolted from her chair by the fireplace. It was just after dawn and the sounds of the house coming to life made things strange as she struggled to read Darius’s mood. “Richard knows.” She repeated the knowledge, still trying to take in what it meant for them both.

  Isabel shuddered but she was too quiet.

  “Why aren’t you more surprised?” Darius asked, moving toward her. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  A wash of shame so potent it made her breath catch in her throat swept through her, and Isabel slowly sat back down. “It’s my fault.”

  Darius went down on one knee in front of her and took her hands into his. “Tell me.”

  “I . . . found out yesterday after you’d left that he’d been alerted to my presence in the city. Not this exact address, but—” She let out an unsteady, hitching exhale as her anxiety mounted. “There was a letter. From my mother.”

  Isabel could see the quick turns of his mind as he began to put the puzzle together. “Your mother wrote to you here?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I used the Grove for the return address. I shouldn’t have. I see that now. Mrs. Clay gave the letter to Mr. Rutherford . . . and I think he sent a runner.” Tears threatened but she fought them back. “I wrote to my mother because I thought maybe there was some chance that if she really knew—if I told her the worst—they might support my cause and help us.”

  Isabel fished the offending letter from her skirt pocket and handed it over to him with trembling fingers. He scanned its contents quickly, his eyes sparking with anger and disgust. An icy spike of dread drove into her stomach at the change in his countenance, and she braced herself for the lecture and punishments she’d earned. But when he looked up at her, there was nothing but concern in his face. “It is an unchristian thing to say, Miss Isabel Penleigh, but I dislike your mother very much!”

  Isabel felt a strange laugh of relief bubble up and she pressed her fingers to her mouth to keep from giggling. “I forgive you.”

  Darius kissed her hands. “I’m so sorry, Isabel. It’s nothing a daughter should ever experience.”

  “I’ve put you in danger, haven’t I? I—I was afraid you’d be angry.” Isabel lost her battle with the tears and they spilled down her cheeks. “I wanted to help and not just sit idly by.”

  “It’s done. And I’m in no more danger today than I was yesterday.
Nor you, hopefully. I’ll have to talk to Michael and make sure he’s aware of the threat, but if the trail ends at the Grove, then Netherton’s man can stew there until he’s an old man.”

  Oh, God. Mr. Jarvis at the Grove!

  The idea of the very sweet and accommodating Mrs. Clay being subjected to that man’s presence made her heartsick and added to her misery. She hadn’t thought of such a possibility, hadn’t considered how quickly the demons would enclose everyone she had ever come in contact with.

  Darius spoke aloud as he thought it through. “Your mother must have told him she had word from you and summoned him to give him your letter. How did you send your note to her?”

  “I gave it to Mr. Godwin to send via runner.”

  “That would be the telltale clue you’re in the city. . . .”

  “I didn’t say that I’d run off with you. I just said that I had found a Good Samaritan who had offered me his protection and . . . was a great comfort. But apparently, my mother made her own interpretation of my words.”

  “Proof of your rebellion.” He shifted forward, encircling her waist with his hands. “I’m glad I’ve been a great comfort to you, my dearest love.”

  She shook her head. “And to what reward? I am so sorry, Darius.”

  “No more of that,” he said and kissed the tip of her nose to make her smile. “I need to sleep and recover. Perhaps a game of chess this afternoon? What do you think of that? Before I leave tonight and I’m gone for God knows how long this time?”