Andrew coughed, the shock of the calm statement jolting him out of what complacency he had left. Darius rose and came around to his side of the table, placing a hand on Andrew’s back, which did not help one bit. “Are you all right?”
He swallowed and regained his breath. “Fine,” he said, but his eyes were streaming, and he was forced to use his napkin to dry the tears of laughter. “I must have heard you wrong.”
“Which part?”
“The part about my moving in society. Do you really think they would welcome the son of a draper?”
Instead of returning to his side of the table, Darius leaned against it. He folded his arms, wrecking the line of his expensive dark red ribbed silk coat. This close, Andrew smelled the fresh soap used to clean it, together with the aroma he’d tried not to notice before—the spicy, musky scent that was unique to Darius.
If he backed away now, Darius would sense his vulnerability, like an animal scenting its prey. “Why not? As long as you don’t rub your origins in their faces. Don’t deny it, either. People have fallen on that hurdle more often than you would think. But enter as yourself, and you will be welcomed. Society is avid for a new member, a novelty, if you will. It would bring more cases your way. Better cases, too.”
Andrew tipped his head back, Darius’s words adding a shot of anger to stiffen his spine. “I doubt I would enjoy being a novelty. I have never regarded my life as an amusement for others.” He paused, working out what he could say to this madman. “My family was not rich. They are still not rich. I live comfortably, but I earn everything I live on. I have no inherited wealth. There are no dukes in my ancestry.”
“That isn’t important, even to my peers. They put an emphasis on family, but even that is false. Most of us are the result of nefarious activity and sheer luck. Being in the right place at the right time, and conversely, avoiding the wrong places. Half the dukes of England are the result of Charles the Second’s many liaisons. He sprinkled titles around like a Catholic priest dispenses holy water. My ancestors on my father’s side include City merchants. We are not so different, Andrew.”
That was the last thing Andrew wanted to hear. He needed to put distance between them, not bring them closer. In this position he could not push back his chair and leave. That would be to admit weakness. “We are very different, sir.”
Darius shook his head slowly. “Not so much.”
Andrew’s heart beat a little faster. He couldn’t speak.
“We are the same in many ways that matter. The only way that matters.” His expression hardened, deepened. “Do you think I didn’t notice your response to my kiss? You welcomed it.” Warmth entered the cold blue of Darius’s eyes, adding animation to the handsome features that could seem so expressionless. “You opened to me in a way I rarely know.”
“Not from your reputation.” It was a weak response, but Andrew was lost in a wash of emotions. To hear that forbidden embrace articulated added a new dimension to it, an open admission of what they had done and how he had felt.
“My reputation?” Darius’s face twisted with emotion, as unlike the proud, arrogant lord as Andrew could imagine. Shoving back his chair, Andrew sprang from the table and strode about the room, staring out of the window at the rain-drenched garden. When had it rained? He hadn’t noticed. The change in the weather reflected his mood.
The rain echoed Darius’s mood too, it seemed, when Andrew caught sight of his expression when he turned around.
Darius spoke bitterly. “For years my brother Valentinian behaved outrageously, merely to mask what I was doing. Do you think I was proud of that? He nearly missed his chance at happiness because of me.”
Andrew knew something about that. He’d seen Lord Valentinian Shaw and his bride together. They were devoted to one another, but they’d had an unconscionably long engagement before they finally got to the altar. The match had been arranged in an attempt to make his rackety lordship respectable. Events had turned out very differently.
He had not known Valentinian’s outrageous behavior had begun in an effort to mask his brother’s habits. Now that he thought about it, the theory made sense. He had not known Darius’s anguish, for anguish it must be from the expression on his face.
Striding up and down, his feet striking the polished boards, his coat swinging, Darius appeared as nothing so much as a warrior facing battle. Andrew watched him in silence, dumbfounded. “Do you think I chose this, to be the way I am?” He gestured to himself and outside. “People believe I did. One of my aunts told my mother I was only doing it for attention. Do you know how that feels?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I count myself lucky in my family. So many would reject me outright. Men in my position have been locked away in asylums ‘for their own good.’”
He said the last with a disdainful curl of his lip, but Andrew, used to observing people closely, saw something else. He saw fear. “Did anyone threaten to do that to you?”
Darius bit his lip, returning to his place next to Andrew, leaning against the table. It was fortunate the piece of furniture was a solid oak example rather than the spindly mahogany or walnut favored by the fashionable world. “Yes.” He folded his arms, meeting Andrew’s gaze.
What Andrew saw astonished him.
Darius was hiding nothing. His eyes gleamed brightly, as if tears lurked there, but he allowed none to fall. His mouth was a straight, hard line and his strong jaw tense. He heaved a sigh. “My grandfather, the Duke of Kirkburton, suggested it. He is long gone, but before he died he planted that idea in my mother’s head. I showed no interest in women, even when my brother was charging around London rutting with every woman who said yes. He started early, and there were many. In every fashionable ballroom, Val has had at least a third of the females there. But I was the person the old duke reprimanded. I needed only to look at a man, and he started to drop his poison into my parents’ ears. I know my mother talked to my father about it. He would have none of it. He said he did not think I had a mental disease or that I wanted to be as I am. He was right. I tried, Andrew. But every effort ended in failure. Every single one.” He shook his head. “I come from one of the wealthiest, most influential families in the country. Women would hurl themselves at me. I’ve had them faint at me, cry at me, offer themselves openly to me. Ladies of fortune and family. Not one stirred more than disgust or amusement or pity.”
He swallowed. “I took a mistress once. After the first night I gave her the house I’d bought and sent her on her way.” He gave a grim smile. “She wanted more, threatened to spread stories about me. I told her to do it. She did. My family responded to the hate and the accusations until I told them not to. Until I told them plainly what I was.”