Chapter 9
DRASKO
The journalists crowded the house gates as Drasko left in a hansom cab. Tripp, his Irish guard who had been with him for years, pushed his giant palms out to stop the invasive men from trying to get inside the partially open carriage.
“Mr. Mawr! Was your marriage to Grace Sommerville planned?”
“Was it a publicity stunt?”
“Are you friends with the earl?”
Drasko cursed under his breath. “We will have to ride in closed carriages from now on,” he told Tripp with a heavy sigh as the carriage jerked into motion.
He didn’t want this, didn’t want Grace Sommerville— correction , Mawr—entangled into this game, but the dead man had a different plan.
The entrance to the Mawr Building on New Court Street was also crowded with the reporters that Tripp fought, trying to get Drasko inside.
“Unbelievable,” Drasko snapped as the doormen ushered him inside, blocking anyone else from coming in.
Called a “stupendous pile” by The Gazette and monumental by the rest of the city, the Mawr Building had been erected only ten years prior.
It was a ninety-foot tall, twelve-story commercial structure that housed exclusively the business of Mawr Diamond Industries.
Behind it was a watch tower, added several years later, that rose even higher, forcing the outraged and envious Parliament to pass a Building Act that prohibited buildings over 100 feet tall.
But the Mawr Building towered above most, Drasko’s office on the top floor.
The floor below his was the famous Mawr Wonders Room that showcased the entire range of diamond hues mined in India, rough diamonds of various sizes and purity, as well as other stones and, most importantly, the marvels of Golconda lapidary.
The building boasted the newest technologies, including the first hydraulic passenger elevator with automatic doors. It was completely electrified and incorporated an elaborate security system and underground vaults.
Drasko strode through the two-story marble entrance hall and took the elevator, still amazed by the latest innovation that had come from an American inventor.
He stepped out onto the brightly lit top floor where his assistant at the desk smiled broadly and motioned knowingly toward Drako’s office.
“There he is! The talk of the day!” a familiar voice greeted him as Drasko opened his office door.
A pair of heavy boots were crossed at the ankles on his very desk.
Drasko smiled in relief at the sight of Elias Bayne, his best friend since childhood.
Leaning back in Drasko’s giant leather chair, Elias raked his fingers through his shoulder-length dark hair as he held The Gazette before him and theatrically read out loud:
A Stolen Bride!
The Most Scandalous Wedding of the Year or How the Diamond King Acquired the Earl’s Wife-To-Be!
Elias grinned, flashing his blinding smile in contrast with his tanned skin.
“Better yet!” He picked up another newspaper from a stack on the desk.
A Debt? A Gamble? A Business Deal?
Elias put the newspaper down and feigned shock. “Oh, my! Do tell!”
“When did you arrive in London?” Drasko asked with a smile, tossing his jacket onto the sofa and studying his friend.
A dashing captain and an orchid hunter, Elias was dressed in his sea uniform, his jacket off, his shirt carelessly unbuttoned.
“Just this morning.” Elias scratched his several-day stubble. “And to what news!” He rose from the desk and went around it toward Drasko. “You could have waited for your best man, you know.”
A prolonged hug followed.
Drasko closed his eyes, inhaling the familiar scent of sea and adventures and the freedom he had never quite had. There were three people he called family, and Elias was at the top of the list. He was the only one who knew of the wretched game and the letters.
“Fuck,” Drasko exhaled in relief, still holding on to him.
“I hear you.” Slowly, Elias let go, studying him with momentary worry in his eyes. “So, tell me!”
“You won’t believe it,” Drasko gritted out, raking his fingers through his hair.
Cigarettes were lit up and tea ordered.
“With cardamon,” Elias requested the assistant. “You do keep my favorite in stock, I hope. Do you have Narayan’s desserts? Oh, good. Bring those too. God, your office is one of my favorite places, I swear. So, tell me more about your new endeavor!”
They settled at the desk, and Drasko briefly filled him in, all the while studying him.
Elias’s handmade jewelry around his neck and wrists, his salt-frizzed hair, his tan, the agility only acquired during adventures reminded Drasko of the times he had dreamed of seeing the entire world, every country there was.
Elias belonged to the seas and exotic countries, not between the walls of this opulent office in the stone jungle of the city.
“The third letter from him, huh?” Elias mused, leisurely sprawled in the chair. “This game you agreed upon shall be a calamity.”
She was a calamity, Drasko knew that much. “I am waiting to see what the next one is. Except it will have to do with the Crimson Tear. And it won’t be good. Not when she is involved.”
“Well, you should read what some of the less respectable newspapers wrote.”
Drasko could only imagine.
Elias lightened up at the sight of the tray with Indian sweets that the assistant brought and right away stuffed his mouth with dried fruit and nuts wrapped in jaggery and rice flour.
“Well, I will tell you anyway!” he mumbled with his mouth full.
“One printed that overused legend about the Crimson Tear diamond, saying how it has killed off every person who had it in their possession.” Another pastry disappeared in his mouth.
“It also alluded to the possibility that the said diamond was your wedding gift to your wife.” Elias snorted.
Drasko sucked in his cheeks.
Elias shrugged. “Not a good joke, I understand.”
He picked up a cigarette, lit it, and took a tasteful puff.
He hadn’t yet changed into an expensive suit, and that was how Drasko preferred his friend—being himself, in his captain’s uniform that smelled of the sea, unshaven, suntanned, smoking, talking, eating, laughing, telling crazy stories and asking Drasko questions that could get any other person stabbed.
“Why not ignore the letters?” Elias mused. “Are you afraid that because of the deal years ago, Uriah would actually take the Mawr empire back? Destroy you? Kill you?”
Drasko thought it over, remembering what had happened after the second letter.
“I wouldn’t be afraid to jeopardize Mawr Industries, despite what it cost me,” Drasko reasoned.
“I have enough of my own fortune, and that Uriah could never touch. But it is too late to stop now, you know that. He can end me, and he will. Despite being dead. There are people—a whole army, I am sure—who were paid well to execute his sick plans. The only thing…”
Drasko had to think it over.
“You were saying?” Elias prompted.
“Elias, I know you will call me a fool, but I am intrigued. So are you. This was a long time in the making. Nothing piques my curiosity more than science and his plan with this game that doesn’t yet make sense.”
Elias kept quiet, waiting for more.
“I didn’t have anything to lose but Mawr Industries when I agreed.
I was willing to lose it, because I knew I could always start fresh, elsewhere, doing about anything.
By God, Elias, I wanted to! I cheered when I agreed, thinking I’d finally get my freedom when this is all over.
Then entertained the thought of disobeying so I could go out on my own. Until…”
Elias nodded knowingly, then prompted, “Until?”
“Until her ,” Drasko admitted.
“Ah! There!” Elias stabbed the air with his forefinger. “At last you said it! Even more so now.”
“Even more so now.”
“Careful, my friend.”
“About?”
Elias was one of the few who knew the decades of tragedies and what it had cost Drasko to get where he was.
“Her. Obviously.” Elias took a drag off his cigarette. “I see where this is going.”
“Which is?” Drasko raised a brow.
“In the same direction it has been going since you first saw her. I am not blind. Nor am I naive. I don’t want to see you ruined, my friend.”
“Uriah won’t ruin me.”
“If not Uriah, she will.”
“She doesn’t care.”
“That’s the problem. You care too much.”
“Nonsense.”
“She will make you reckless. She will turn your life upside down. She already has, I believe.”
“We made a deal.”
Loud laughter boomed through the room as Elias threw his head back in joyous amusement.
“The man of deals, ladies and gentlemen, Drasko Mawr!” He pointed his finger at Drasko. “Do you know what the difference is? She is not a businessman. She is a wo-man ,” he accentuated the syllables. “The one you have been obsessing over for a while.”
“It is nothing.”
“Oh? But when you stood in the church only yesterday, making that deal you speak of,”—Elias leaned over the desk and pressed his palm to Drasko’s chest where his heart was.
“Tuh-duh. Tuh-duh.” He imitated his heartbeat, his brows furrowed in theatrical agony.
“The cold heart of the powerful Drasko Mawr was beating, ohhh-sooo hard, was it not?” He playfully wiggled his eyebrows.
Drasko batted his hand away in irritation. “You are a fool.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to hide a smile.
“And when she gazed at you with her beautiful gray eyes,” Elias carried on teasingly, “you were mesmerized, were you not?”
“They are hazel.”
“You don’t say?” Elias’s eyes widened in mock intrigue. “What shade? Warmer? Colder? With specks of gold that make the invisible butterflies in your stomach flutter and your cock go hard at the thought of?—”
Drasko picked up the newspaper and tossed it at Elias, who swatted it away with his hand and another burst of booming laughter.
Drasko sucked his teeth, lighting yet another cigarette. “You are so lucky I like you, Elias.”
That was the truth. Elias would walk out soon, and Drasko would assume his so well-practiced indifferent expression. These days, Elias was the only person who ever saw Drasko with his defenses lowered.
Several years his senior, Elias was born in Borneo, had sailed to more countries than he could count, and had fought pirates in the Java Sea.
Back in India, when they were adolescents, he’d joined Drasko for week-long hikes into the jungles and, one time, talked Drasko into making a fire and crouched around it for half the night, heating rough diamonds to see if they really combusted in the flames.
Those distant times had held fewer tragedies and more laughter. And this man was still by Drasko’s side. So were Rupesh and Asha, but they lived in India, and their letters weren’t enough to quench Drasko’s thirst for the night-long conversations they used to have.
“Mrs. Mawr is lucky, not me,” Elias said as his humorous eyes studied Drasko. “I simply curiously follow your adventures. You know what is happening with the letters. Your wife doesn’t. She is only trying to make sense of it all.”
“I know.”
“Have you… Have you considered that this game Uriah planned for you is not about the Crimson Tear at all? Perhaps, not even about the auction. It is about you and her and Uriah’s sickly habit of making others suffer. A sick test of sorts.”
A nasty feeling started in Drasko’s chest. “I have.”
“You avoid my eyes, mate. Do you suppose she is in danger?”
“She cannot be. The only person Uriah would want to hurt is me. Uriah always played by the rules.”
“I am not so sure.”
“No, no, Elias. Please. Don’t say that. She was a stranger until yesterday. She didn’t deserve this.”
Elias looked away, at the window. “I’ve missed you is all.
I wish you well. And I am simply worried.
I don’t like this game. Not a bit. Nor do I like the fact that for the first time in your life, you are lying to yourself and hiding your feelings.
” He returned his gaze to his friend. “By God, Drasko, try to make her happy! This is the least you can do for the woman who did not want any part of this game.”
“I know.”
“You were so good to Yamuna.”
“Don’t…” Drasko threw a glare at him. “This is different.”
“Absolutely! More so the reason for you to be patient.”
“I am.”
“You are. You are. You are. You keep telling yourself this. Fine! To hell with this grim business. A party at the Bayne house then!” With a broad smile, Elias rose from his chair. “Bring your wife, will you?”
“We don’t want her to get used to being around much, do we?”
“So unlike you, Drasko,” said Elias, approaching the door and swinging his jacket over his shoulder.
“What is?”
“Lying to yourself. There is only one way to win this deal with her.”
“And?”
Elias’s smile was growing slowly, unbearably slowly, testing Drasko’s patience until Drasko rolled his eyes and Elias spoke.
“Why, make her fall in love with you, of course!” He winked and ducked out the door, avoiding being hit by the newspaper Drasko threw at him.