Chapter 27
DRASKO
Grace played. Drasko listened. She practiced. He listened. All the while being anywhere but in the same room with her. For as soon as he stepped into the music room, she stopped. If she caught the sound of him in the hallway, her music ceased.
It was a curse, day after day.
Drasko worked more from his home office, its doors always ajar so that he could hear her practice. He learned her repertoire. Samira became his spy as she inquired about the names of the musical pieces from Eden and reported back to Drasko.
Once in a while, Grace played something entirely different, some sensual tune he had never heard before.
“Missus composes her own songs and lyrics,” Eden said proudly.
One such night, he walked into the music room while Grace was playing.
One glance at him, and she stopped and set her hands on her lap.
He took a seat on the sofa. “Will you play for me? I’d like to hear it.”
It took her a minute to compose herself.
He watched her shoulders rise and fall, her fingers brushing against the piano keys as if she were deciding what to play.
She tried, then faltered. Tried again. Faltered. Blushed. Shook her head in frustration.
“I think I am a little tired,” she said softly without meeting his eyes. “Forgive me.”
His heart fell. She played for thousands, but not him.
“You should probably know,” she said, staring down at her hands, “Julien will start coming here now and then.”
“Julien?” He had never heard the name.
“Julien d’Auvergne, my instructor, yes.” She finally raised her eyes at him. “He has been with me for years. If that’s all right with you.”
Drasko had wondered why he had not seen her instructor yet. Was she afraid to bring him here?
“It is,” he answered and walked out of the music room.
He continued to listen from the shadows, a thief in his own house. And by day, he would walk into the empty music room and brush his fingers against the beautiful keys of the grand piano, the keys that she had touched every day, conjuring the beautiful sounds.
It was driving him to the brink of insanity. And so was the kiss they had shared in the tunnels.
The night at the caves was a genuine surprise. He had expected her to follow him—she was a curious young lady and determined to learn more about him, much to his delight.
What he hadn’t expected was her staying in the tunnels for so long.
He was still trying to figure her out.
Grace was the epitome of perfection, from her perfectly done hair to every perfect detail in her dress to the perfect softness of her summer gloves and the perfect little bowties on her shoes.
She moved with well-practiced perfection as if she would be punished if she wasn’t more perfect than other young ladies.
Perfect, perfect, perfect, as if this flawed world wasn’t meant for her.
Yet, her bedroom and dressing room were quite different. He had been there in her absence, the wonderful disarray so in contrast with what she looked like outside her room.
Scents. Dresses. Stockings. Flowers. Papers with lyrics and music sheets were on the bureau, on her bed, on her nightstand. Books were left open. Among many, one on Hindu mythology and another on Oriental art, a travel almanac and one on the history of gemstones.
Her room with open windows and fresh flowers was something he did not know Grace was—free-spirited.
He had learned that side of her in the tunnels.
She hadn’t grimaced at the dirt and dampness, hadn’t scrunched up her nose, not once shied away from the helping hand of his men, despite them being dirty and sweaty.
Drasko had observed her scrupulously the entire time, and not a second had been marred with even a momentary display of vanity or contempt.
Grace had sat in the rail cart and ridden down the tunnel!
It was as if the veil had been lifted and he had seen a different Grace.
And then came the kiss, the kiss that slowly, for days now, was destroying Drasko’s sanity.
She was a delicacy. Her kiss was exquisite. Perfect, too.
Being next to her was becoming torture. What he wanted was to taste her lips again, hear her little moans when they kissed.
He wanted her in his bed. And his patience was running out.
His right hand would soon fail from the never-ending solo rides into the night.
He was playing overtures, sonatas, fugues, like a bloody Paganini, with his cock in his hand instead of a violin. All the while thinking about his wife.
He wanted to find out more about her, what she liked.
Tea? Reading? Sewing? Crocheting? Any such silly thing?
He wanted to find out what she was like in bed.
Women were quite easy to please if done right.
What if she resented him? Resented sex? What a shame that would be.
But then… He just needed to get that silly hostility out of her—by kissing or fucking.
For Christ’s sake, he was desperate to have her.
And he was in desperate physical need to please his wife.
These ideas danced in his head with growing insistence every day.
He had never lacked women’s attention. Women came and went.
Drasko was careful about not forming attachments.
Yamuna was occasionally on his mind, like a wilting flower, summoning a sad smile on his lips at the memories of what he had once had.
Since her death, he had been careful with women.
He had a curse, he was sure of it, and no one deserved to be punished for getting close to him.
Until Grace.
She was a curse too, following him for years. Yet, she did not deserve to pay the price. Hence, he needed to keep her at a distance. Two nights a month could work, yet he already knew he was lying to himself.
One afternoon, Drasko sat in his home office. The cigarette burned his lungs nicely. Whisky burned his throat even better. What occupied his mind was the usual—his wife.
His body stirred to life—a frequent occurrence lately when he thought of her.
Two nights a month.
There it was. A deal. The one Drasko was patiently waiting for. He just needed the right time and place to catch his wife off guard.
The thought had tortured him through many nights. And now it was unbearable, creating a “situation” in his trousers that he needed to urgently take care of.
A knock at the door straightened him up.
“Bloody Christ,” he muttered, rubbing his face with both hands and exhaling heavily.
A woman—what do you know?—a woman was disrupting his peaceful existence.
“Come in!” he barked, irritated.
His butler walked in with a tray. “A letter for you, sir.”
Drasko motioned for him to approach and tensed in unease when the letter landed on his desk.
Cream paper.
Brown seal.
A diamond in the center.
Letter number four was finally here.
The Mawr Auction is to happen in London at the Benham Auction House in one month. The crown jewel of the auction—the Crimson Tear diamond.
Drasko’s blood cooled.
All right, nothing terribly surprising.
The auction had been discussed when Uriah was still alive. The display room in the Mawr Building had dozens of such pieces, and Drasko had vaults full of diamonds and a list of renowned jewelers who would create several extraordinary pieces at the snap of his fingers.
The project, the Marvels of Mawr diamonds, had been in the making for several years. With one little exception—now, the Crimson Tear, finally, came into play.
The game was in motion again. Even though Drasko still didn’t have the bloody diamond.
Drasko went straight to the Benham Auction House and was lucky to run into Mr. Kleinstein, the director himself.
Any auction house across the world would be delighted to display Mawr masterpieces. Nothing had more influence in the city of London than the surname Mawr.
Peasants didn’t bow to a king as much as Mr. Kleinstein bowed to Drasko as he cleared the auction house schedule and called a crew to get to work on the future event immediately.
Drasko’s assistants were right away sent to over a dozen newspapers with a brief about the auction and a copy of the photograph taken only weeks ago—he and Grace in the Mawr Wonder Room.
He still didn’t understand the purpose of the diamond game and didn’t have the Crimson Tear. There would be a lesson—he knew Uriah too well. There would be a sacrifice and pain and choices to make. But what?
“ You will pay with your own life ,” Uriah had said.
And Drasko could not come up with the reason why, if he had the Crimson Tear in his possession like Uriah had promised, displaying it at the auction would be out of the question.
That very evening, in his Mawr office, he opened the door that revealed a spiral staircase. He climbed the stairs until he was in a small round room at the top of the tower, with only a lantern and a mattress on the floor.
He’d spent so many nights here, alone, thinking and dreaming. He’d spent several nights here after his wedding, trying to come to terms with her in his life.
Drasko stepped outside, onto the railed observation deck, the wind right away wafting into his face and playing with his hair.
He loved being here, on top of the world.
The city lay unprotected below, with its snake-like paths of wide avenues and train tracks, the city lights like fireflies.
The factory smoke rose above them, the clouds hovering over the Thames.
Vast and beautiful under the setting sun, the city noise was reduced to a muffled humming and the rambling of locomotives in the distance.
The dizzying height was splendid, as success always was. But one was often lonely when reaching it. Once at the very top, one was empty with the realization that the one thing that had kept one’s heart racing on the way there was now gone.
It was called a dream.
Drasko had a different dream now. It had the sweet face of a piano virtuoso with hazel eyes and a pretty blush, soft coral lips and contagious laughter.
Gracie…
Drasko wished there would come a time when he could call her by the name reserved for her friends.
Her eyes often paused on him and flashed with a fleeting surprise as if she had just found out a secret about him.
In moments such as those, a fleeting hope swept over him that perhaps, one day, when he told her all his secrets and what this strange game was, she would still find the strength to smile and the will to forgive him.
No, not much time had passed since he had forced her into this marriage. Since she had called him a tyrant. Since the day, years ago, he had made a promise yet to be delivered.
No, she could not possibly have feelings for him.
Yet, the hope was there, however brief though powerful only in a way a hope can be in a man who could buy anything in the world except one thing—affection.
Drasko kept lying to himself that the years of watching her play in public were a mere curiosity. He kept pretending that she was nothing, and—by God!—he made those precise words his mantra.
Even later that night, when he arrived home, he tried to ignore the way his heartbeat spiked when he walked in. Stepping into the hallway, right away, he listened for the sound of the piano. Or her voice. Or any indication that she was home and not hiding in her room.
It was late. Music came from behind the closed doors to the music room. Grace was playing, practicing a concerto, intricate and wild, so preoccupied that she did not hear him come home.
Being as quiet as he could, Drasko dismissed the servants, picked up a glass of whisky, and walked toward the music room.
The music ceased altogether, and he stilled in the shadows, holding his breath as if Grace could hear him.
Shortly, she resumed, but not her classical piece. She was playing something different entirely.
Drasko sat down on the floor by the doors, his back against the wall. Whisky pleasantly burned his throat. Tiredness weighed down on his eyelids.
One month until the auction. And then what?
Grace was playing the grand piano, the beautiful instrument that was privileged to sing under her fingers. And she was magical.
He listened to the sensual tunes that trickled from the music room. He thought of her delicate hands. Thought of her laughter. Thought of her smile, a timid one and a different one, broad and happy, at ease, when she thought he wasn’t looking.
The notes in her song changed, suddenly happy, then gradually grew into mournful again.
Elias was right, always had been, all that nonsense about the affections that Drasko had so stubbornly tried to deny.
Would there be a time when Grace would feel the same?
And then Drasko heard her voice, soft and sensual, like the sweetest wine—his wife was singing.
And his heart woke up.
Drasko closed his eyes and let the music seep into him. He pictured her at the piano. Her fingertips, conjuring the gentle notes, laced with sorrow and tenderness. Her hands so expert with the piano keys yet shy and hesitant when she touched him back then, in the tunnels.
It was all in her, the woman he now called his wife, but who was not and might never be truly his.
Every sound of the keys tugged stronger at his heart that was being gently ripped into pieces, petal by petal, like the wedding flowers that had cushioned the floor on their wedding day, the day fate had brought them together.
His body started humming along. As whisky burned his chest, memories of the past suddenly rushed to his head—love, hate, grief, all of them at once. Drasko wanted to be in the room with her, breathing her in and simply watching her play.
And then suddenly, he made out the words of her song, the words that made his chest tighten.
The words tiptoed into his heart, for a brief moment making him so weak that he wanted to rush in, sweep her into his arms, and not let go until he told her all his secrets, all his deep thoughts, most of them about her.
Tell her that it didn’t have to be a game.
That what she sang about could be real. If only he told her the truth.
If only she gave him a chance. If only that didn’t jeopardize their future.
Her songs didn’t have to be a fantasy. And the one she was singing right now could one day come true.
Her voice seeped into his soul, making him dream again—Grace was singing about love.