Lady Can Never Be Too Curious
Page 24
He reached out and grasped her arms. She wasn’t sure if he stepped toward her or pulled her into his embrace, but his lips claimed hers. His kiss released all the tension that had been balled up inside her for the last day. The sweetest relief flooded her as his mouth claimed hers in a hard kiss.
He kept her still with one solid arm across her back, while capturing the back of her head in his other hand. His lips took hers, slipping along the delicate surfaces and pressing her to open her mouth for a deeper taste. The moment she surrendered, his tongue thrust deep, sending a spike of need through her that was white-hot. She curled her hands into the lapels of his vest, pulling him closer even though there wasn’t any space left between them. Need was building inside her again, and she welcomed it because it burned away the uncertainty that tormented her.
“Damn it, Janette.” He put her away from him while muttering a few more phrases no gentleman would utter. “Swear you will never face something like this alone again.”
He cared. She heard it in his voice, and there was no disguising the need in his eyes. Heat touched her cheeks, and she realized it was guilt, but at the same time she was happy because he truly cared. She cupped his cheek, smoothing her hand along his jaw, and felt him shiver. He drew in a deep breath before placing a kiss into her palm and turning to scan the surrounding jungle.
“Let’s get moving before I forget what it is I’m supposed to be doing in favor of what I’d like to finish with you. We have a limited amount of daylight left to find shelter. The jungle is rather unsavory after dark.”
He reached for her bicep, but she stepped forward before he closed his grasp.
“I believe I can do without any more unsavory experiences for a bit.” She yanked her water-soaked skirt out of the way of her feet.
The jungle grew thick the moment she made it beyond the edge of the riverbed. Darius moved past her, cutting a trail.
“We won’t make it out of this jungle before nightfall.” He braced his arm against a thick branch to hold it out of the way for her.
She stopped, staring at the wall of vegetation in front of her. “Where are we going?”
“To the village. Follow the trail.”
She stared at the huge green leaves. There were at least twenty different shades of green, and all of the foliage was larger than any plants she’d ever seen. A warm hand captured hers and tugged her gently behind him.
“This way.”
What Darius perceived as a trail was nothing more than scattered bare patches of earth. Left to herself, she would have been completely lost. Yet he seemed at ease, threading his way through the labyrinth while tugging her behind him. She stared at his wide shoulders, slightly stunned by his skill. The man was still wearing a pair of trousers and a vest any Londoner would have considered civilized, yet he was making his way through a primitive landscape with ease.
She smothered a dry chuckle, but he heard it and turned to investigate what she found so amusing.
“You surprise me, Darius, and yet maybe I’m being thickheaded not to admit it’s your ungentlemanly side that draws me to you.”
For a moment, he allowed her to see his boyish nature again. A slightly mocking grin, which gave her a brief glimpse at his teeth, and playfulness lit his dark eyes.
“We seem to be counterparts to each other, Janette, for it’s your spirit I can’t seem to ignore.”
“You needn’t sound like that is such a burden.” Her tone was wounded, allowing him to hear how much her emotions were entangled in their relationship. “Being lovers shouldn’t be so much for you to worry over.”
She tried to walk past him, but he twisted her hand slightly, locking her elbow so that she was held close to his body. His black eyes were hard, glittering with emotion as thick and choking as those she felt. For one moment, it felt like they were soul mates, like they were counterparts and not whole without each other.
“It was a burden to think of you in the hands of a Helikeian, and it had nothing to do with the fact that they are my enemy, only that I know what they are capable of doing to anyone they want to control. Death is not what your friend had to fear, and it put me through hell to think of you in that situation.”
“I…” She shut her mouth, her emotions surging up and making it impossible to think or decipher how she felt.
“You what, Janette?”
“I don’t know…” She pulled on her hand, but he maintained his grip and cupped her chin to keep their gazes locked. “I don’t know how to feel about you, Darius. It’s like you’re two different men—one who threatens to kill me, while the other rescues me. You warn me to stay away and then show up in my room to soothe my bruises before grumbling about how much of a burden I am. I don’t know who you are.”
“In that case, Janette, I’ll make sure you understand me before we leave this jungle.”
His face became a mask of determination, and she saw something in his eyes that sent her belly fluttering—something that looked like a promise.
And Darius always kept his promises.
***
“I didn’t expect to have the privilege of your company again so soon, Dr. Nerval.”
Captain Kyros stood in the lobby of his airship while passengers boarded. He didn’t miss the new pin on the doctor’s lapel. The javelin in the grip of a snake drew only a few curious glances from the surrounding population, but his Compatriots knew what it symbolized. The fact that he could not wear his blue sash in the open did not stop him from gaining recognition of his new award.
“You will not enter my name into the passenger log.”
The captain nodded as the doctor passed by with his personal servants behind him. A plump woman trailed the butler and undergrooms. She was busy twisting the tassels of her shawl and snapping her fingers at a younger girl.
The captain turned his back. For those wearing the pin of the Sapphire Phalanx, there were no questions. Dr. Nerval was set above others now, and if he wanted his name absented from the passenger log, it would be so. Kyros saw to it personally—savoring the moment, because such times were rare when he could enjoy being Helikeian. Someday his service as an agent among the Illuminist enemy might well be rewarded with the Sapphire Phalanx. Such an honor was a lifetime’s work, and it would glorify his name into the generations of the future.
***
“Madam…the Master did not tell us to expect you.”
Mary Aston swept into the house she’d called home for twenty-five years. She could hear the cook pulling the cords in the kitchen to alert the upstairs staff to her presence.
“Howard doesn’t know I’ve returned.” Neither had he given her permission, but her husband was about to come face-to-face with the woman she’d been forced to bury so many years ago. By God, she was an Illuminist, and her husband would answer for sending their daughter to an insane asylum.
“I intend to speak with my husband directly.” She pulled off her gloves and dumped them on the tray the downstairs maid had managed to fetch in spite of the late hour.
Giles appeared, a single loose button on his vest the only indication that she’d arrived after her husband had retired for the evening and his butler had taken his leave. There were hurried steps on the wooden floorboards as her maid came down the main staircase instead of taking the back stairs, which would have taken longer.
“Welcome home, madam. I’ve set the girls to preparing your chambers.”
“Thank you, Alice, but I will see my husband first.”
“The master has retired for the evening,” Giles informed her.
Mary looked the man in the eye and smiled knowingly. “I owe you an apology, Giles.”
“You do, madam?”
“Yes. For you see, I am not the simpering fool I have always portrayed in your presence. Go up those stairs and tell your master to turn his lover out of his bed, or stand aside as I do. Either way, I am going to speak with my husband.”
The tray with her gloves on it clattered to the floor. Al
ice covered her mouth as Giles tried to think of something proper to say to her.
“Never mind,” Mary muttered. She yanked a handful of her skirt out of the way and mounted the stairs.
“Madam…you mustn’t!” the butler called after her, but his shock had paralyzed him too long to stop her. Mary was already on the upper floor when the man gave chase.
“I disagree,” she muttered before reaching the large double doors of her husband’s rooms. She threw them open and marched through the dressing room to the second set of doors that led to the bedroom.
She hadn’t seen it in years.
“My goodness, Howard, whatever are you doing?”
Her husband had a pretty little maid in his bed all right. The look of pleasure on his face made Mary’s temper sizzle.
“Out,” she ordered the girl.
“What…? What are you doing?” Howard sputtered.
The maid let out a shriek and scampered off the huge bed. The girl gathered up her clothing, and her bare feet slapped against the polished wood floor as she fled. Leaving Mary’s husband to deal with her.
“What are you doing, madam?”
Mary moved forward, her steps slow and confident. “Interrupting your liaison, dear husband.”
Howard grabbed the neatly turned-down bedding to shield his pride.
“I will not stand for this…this disruption, Mary.”
She’d reached the ornately carved footrail of the bed and wrapped her bare hands around it and leaned toward her husband.
“Mary! You will cease this…forwardness immediately.”
“Yes, of course, Howard, that was always our agreement, wasn’t it? But I must tell you…” She tapped her lower lip with the tip of her finger suggestively and had the satisfaction of watching her husband swallow. “It was dreadfully disappointing. I never climaxed in this room. Maybe you should have let me ride you.”
“Madam!”
Mary frowned at his outrage, aiming the full strength of her temper at her husband for the very first time in their marriage.
“You’re a selfish man, Howard, and your high-society friends are selfish to pump their wives until they feel the bite of climax, while lecturing their female companions on the merits of abstaining from pleasures of the flesh. You get to spend, but I must act as though I have never felt passion or desire.”
“Mary! You are my wife.”
“Yes, I have been your wife, but you made a promise to me, Howard, one you broke when you sent our daughter to that clinic.” Mary turned the full force of her fury onto her husband. “I agreed to every one of your stipulations, and I have upheld my promise, but you broke your word to me. You swore an oath to me that you would never treat me or any female children I gave you like chattel.”
“Janette needed treatment…”
“For what? For not behaving like a mindless fool?” Mary took a few steps back toward her husband, unable to resist the urge to shout at him. “You arrogant toadstool! How dare you have my daughter locked up for being intelligent? We had a bargain, and you have broken it. So I will no longer obey you.”
“Really, Mary.” Her husband was on his feet now. “And this display of gutter behavior is your way of getting even with me?”
“No. Leaving you is.” Mary regained her composure. “I am returning to face the charges against me.”
“You cannot. I forbid it.”
Mary reached for the door handle. “You have lost my allegiance.”
“Janette is fine and safe!”
Mary turned on her husband. “She is halfway around the world! Being fought over by ruthless men. I am a fool to have gone to the country while you sent her to that Helikeian devil! How could you send your own child to a stranger?”
Mary didn’t receive an answer. Howard sucked in his breath, as though in pain. Her hand was on the doorknob, but his lips moved, and no sound emerged. He kept trying to say something while reaching for his chest. A solid foot of a rapier protruded from his chest; in the darkened room, a man had moved up behind him without their noticing.
“You won’t be facing those charges, my dear Zenais.”
Photios pushed Howard off his rapier. Mary’s husband fell to the floor with a dull sound, rolling over and lifting one hand to reach toward her. But a trickle of blood ran across his bare skin, telling her his lung was filling with blood from a puncture wound.
“It was charming to witness your little fight with your husband, and quite fortunate you allowed the maid to witness your arrival.” He dropped the rapier on the floor and lifted his hands. “It will be quite believable when the constables find your husband run through with his father’s dueling rapier, and you strangled nearby.
“Where is my daughter?”
Photios smirked at her, clearly confident that she was at his mercy. “In the Crystal Fields, harvesting for the Helikeian Order. She could have been born into our ranks if you had only seen the wisdom of wedding me. She would be so much happier right now.”
“I knew there was something dishonest about you. It was in the way you always made sure I couldn’t even talk to another male Illuminist.”
“You were to be mine,” Photios declared. “Your blood and mine would have produced Pure Spirits. Fate still favors me—your daughter will bear my grandchildren, and they will be proud Helikeians.”
He raised his hands, his fingers forming claws. “I didn’t want to kill you, but it is the only way to cover taking your daughter.”
There was no way to open the door, no time, so Mary sent an Asian back kick toward Photios. Her skills were rusty, but they proved solid, and her foot landed on his belly. The force of her kick sent him stumbling backward. It gave her enough time to open the door and dash through it.
But the house was dark, the servants having fled to avoid dealing with the master’s displeasure over her arrival. Photios was behind her, his footfalls gaining on her, so she crunched herself down at the top of the stairs, hugging her knees and tucking her chin against them. Her attacker let out a hoarse cry as he hit her body and flew over her. She heard him crashing into the stairs on his way to the bottom floor. Raising her face, she watched the way his body flailed, frantically trying to stop until one loud crack signaled the end of his struggle.
Photios rolled down the last few steps in a lifeless heap. His body sprawled at the base of the stairs, his lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling. The silence was nearly deafening, but satisfaction began to grow in her belly.
At last…her life was her own again.
***
“Where are we?”
Janette couldn’t stop herself from sounding intrigued. Darius pulled her a few more steps into a clearing before stopping.
“One of the tribal villages,” he muttered. “My pronunciation of the name would be insulting to the inhabitants.”
The people in question were watching them. The warriors of the tribe picked up their spears and sent their children scurrying back to their mothers.
“Stand still. Don’t move until they welcome us.”
“I don’t believe I needed that warning, Darius.”
The warriors came closer, keeping the sharp points of their spears pointed at them. Darius waited until one of them spoke, and then stunned her by answering the man in his native tongue. A few moments later, the spears were lowered. Darius turned a smug look toward her.
“You might have told me you could speak their language.”
His lips remained raised in a smirk. “Ah…but where would the fun have been in that, sweet siren?”
Janette straightened her back and gave him a hard glare. “And when, pray tell, did we begin having fun?”
He stepped close and cupped the back of her head with one hand. So simply, she was in his power once more. His eyes were full of mischief, and he pressed a hard kiss onto her mouth. The warriors cheered him on as she pushed against his chest. He released her with a chuckle.
“I brought you here to begin having some, siren.”
He reached out and stroked the side of her face. Sensation rippled down her body in spite of the warriors watching them with keen interest. They might not have any reservations about witnessing such intimacy, but Janette stepped back.
Darius followed her, grasping a handful of her filthy skirt to hold her still.
“I decided I agreed with you.”
His eyes had narrowed, and his voice turned hard. She could feel the tension in him but couldn’t decide what the reason behind it was. “On what topic?”
“That you don’t know who I am, so I’ve brought you to a place where no one will interrupt us while we get to know each other. You’ve met the Guardian, Janette, but there is part of me that clings to the Order because it allows me to witness life in different forms. If you want to return to something more familiar, you have only to ask—but I will never fit into the mold of a gentleman. It isn’t in my nature.”
Cryptic and confusing, his words left her stunned. He used the moment to kiss her once more before he was pulled away by a group of women. He laughed at her, more at ease than she saw him most of the time. Only in those few moments before he’d left her rooms had she seen this side of him, and yet there was something new too. A look of freedom in his eyes she’d never seen before. Yet there was also a challenge. Darius watched her, his dark eyes intent on her reaction to the women surrounding her.
Part of her was looking forward to getting to know this side of his nature, and that was a solid fact.
***
The women took her to another river. Janette stared at it with trepidation. A shudder shook her, but her escort didn’t pay it any mind. They cheerfully stripped her and pulled her toward a deep pool. The women wore only short pieces of fabric wrapped around their loins. Many had necklaces of shells around their necks, but every one of them was nude from the waist up. Their nipples were dark, and they giggled when her rose-colored ones were exposed.