A Duke's Wicked Kiss (Entangled Select) (9 page)

She glanced at him. The determination he saw in her sent a wave of trepidation wafting over his body like a cool breeze amidst the sticky heat.

Bloody hell.

“
Dilli Chalo
is a clandestine saying that started in Meerut,” he said. “Not thirty-five miles from here, where that sepoy shot two British officers. The words mean ‘Let’s march to Delhi,’ and the chant has spread like wildfire. Those taking it up would sooner run a knife through you than look at you. If you insist on attending the wedding, I’ll wager you’ll frequently hear the cursed words uttered. You’re a half-caste, Suri—a
British
half-caste. You would not be safe.”

Her lips thinned. “There you go again.”

He slid his arm over the back of the bench. “Explain.”

“You have a reputation for seeing to it that people do your bidding, but I shall not bend to whatever you decide you want of me. The only reason I did not fight you on the way out here was because of Shahira. You used her against me. Shame on you.”

He set aside any idea of trying to convince her of anything at the moment.
Stubborn woman.
He’d have to find other means to stop her from attending the wedding.

“Do what you will, then.” His voice grew toneless as he flipped the feather between his fingers from front to back. “But don’t expect me to come running to your defense once your house of cards tumbles down around you.”

The fire in those entrancing emerald eyes of hers jolted him. And then, in some odd way, his spirits lifted and anger washed away like a fresh rain. He put his hand on his chest in mock effrontery. “Forgive me, madam. Perhaps that is how grievous an error I feel your plans to be. You do not know the rules of the game you are about to play.”

“You are ill-mannered.”

“Ah, now you’ve guessed my secret.”

She shot him a scathing glare. “Do not think to get away with mocking me, sir. I believe you and I were in the same room when Mister Vámbéry indicated he would be close at hand should things run amok.”

“I have no idea what Vámbéry’s idea of protection and chivalry might entail. After all, he is Hungarian.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. “Attila the Hun—all that fierce and ignoble rot.”

Her gaze skittered over his face and settled on his mouth. “Why, you jest.”

He set his lips against a grin caused by her winsome ways—ways she most likely didn’t know she possessed. He gave her a teasing look. “And if I do?”

She swept her tongue over her bottom lip.

Did she even know she was staring at his lips and licking her own? A memory of her taste—sweet ripe cherries—swept across his tongue. He wondered how she’d react if he tried to kiss her. He shoved the dangerous thought aside.

Her brow wrinkled. “This is no time to tease.”

“Ah, but darling, perhaps it is. Perhaps this is not a time to be serious since even the suggestion of attending a royal wedding on Ravi Maurya’s arm is pure folly.”

“Are you jealous of the man?”

He stretched out his legs and settled more comfortably on the bench. “I don’t trust him. If this were a wager, the odds of him having pure intentions would run so low as to negate the ante.”

Her gaze was at it again, flickering over him, pausing at the neckline of his open shirt, down his front, and over to his rolled sleeves. The pleasurable consideration of what her fingers might feel like running all over him rolled through him like warm brandy.

When her eyes found his, her cheeks blossomed at being caught regarding him so blatantly. “You, sir, are not properly attired.”

Boldly, he perused her pink finery. “And you are?” The conversation was entirely inappropriate, but he’d forgotten how enjoyable a lady’s company could be.

Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and then it was as if a light behind those fascinating eyes of hers came on, for the green in them brightened. A blush remained in her cheeks and she straightened measurably.

“As a matter of fact, I
am
dressed properly. In case you’ve forgotten, I am a half-caste. I have a right to wear saris anytime I choose.” Her lips formed a small grin. “And my sister does not.”

“Oh, and you simply cannot wait to inform her of your sudden revelation, can you?”

Merriment danced in those glorious eyes of hers. “What of it?”

“You two must have been quite the pair growing up. He paused for a brief moment to study her. “You mentioned I may have forgotten you are a half-caste. Were you referring to that day in your father’s stable when Marguerite informed me?”

Without thinking, he reached out with the peacock feather and ran its fringes beneath her chin.

She jerked her head away and slid farther from him. “Did I give you permission to touch me?”

He laughed softly. “You said that very thing back then. At the time, though, I believe I had your chin tilted in order to inspect your pert nose. Besides, I didn’t touch you just now, the feather did.” God, would he love to run the thing all over her naked body. He fought leaning over and kissing her like he had that day ten years ago. He should leave. He really should.

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t recall.”

He could practically taste her. “Don’t lie to me, Suri. You and I both recollect that day very well.”

“Why should I remember something so…so insignificant?”

He said nothing for a long while as his mind floated about like dust motes in the sun, whirling around that day—around a kiss that had shaken his world. He’d wanted to take her to bed back then and, blast it, he still wanted to—only now, even more so. “You never married?” His words had grown thick in his throat.

She gave her head a small shake and set her sights on the peacocks again.

“Because you did not care to, or you weren’t asked? I can’t believe the latter, for you would seem a prize catch.”

“I thought you to be an intelligent man, Your Grace. I may be a duke’s daughter but certainly not of the first water. Whoever would want me is someone I would not have. Whether here or in England, I shall always be a half-caste. If nothing else, one must consider the children one might beget from such a joining. I will not wed.”

“But your father loved and cared for you, gave you a fine home and raised you up next to his legitimate children. His standing alone should have set the standard for your acceptance.”

“People never got over the scandal of a duke carting home an illegitimate child from a love affair with a native and presenting the child—me—to his proper English wife. The thought of losing me to the lions had been more than Father could bear, so he risked the disgrace he knew would ensue. Not that I expect you, also a duke, to understand—duty to your title and all.”

A shaft of pain shot through John. He tapped the feather against his leg. “Perhaps I do. More than you might imagine.”

There must have been something showing in his expression, because concern etched Suri’s face. “What is it?”

When he failed to respond, she said, “Oh, dear, your brother. Do forgive me.”

He didn’t care to speak of his late wife. Not here. Not with Suri—it wasn’t right. “My brother two years ago, my wife three,” he muttered, anyway.

“You…you were married?”

He didn’t comprehend why her voice clouded. Damn it, why had he said anything? His chest constricted. “Didn’t I just say something to that effect?”

She sat erect for a moment, staring at him as if lost in her own thoughts. “Was it an arranged marriage?” She spoke softly, as if she took great risk in asking.

He shook his head. “I wasn’t a duke then, never intended to be, so I chose a friend I’d known all my life.”

Why the hell was he telling her so much? He hadn’t discussed Laura with anyone but James, yet suddenly, he wanted to do just that—with Suri, of all people.

Well, he wasn’t about to tell her that he’d seen marriage to Laura as providential after his affair with Lady Elizabeth. Serving his country, building a fortune, and then retiring to a decent life as neighbor to his brothers had seemed just the thing. But then James had been assigned to India, and John had been summoned soon thereafter. Now his wife and daughter were dead. James, as well. Nothing had gone as planned. God help him, nothing at all.

“Did you love her?”

Suri spoke so quietly, he wasn’t certain he’d heard her right. He regarded her long enough for her to shift her eyes to her lap as if to study her clasped hands.

“Forgive me. I had no right to ask such a bold question,” she said.

Something shifted in him and, suddenly, he wanted to rid himself of the awful burden he’d carried all these years, once and for all. “You’ve nothing to apologize for.”

He sat back against the bench. “At first, I was merely fond of Laura, but love grew rather quickly after we married.” At least as much love as could penetrate his caged heart. “Perhaps that was what made it all the worse when she died.”

Puzzlement crossed Suri’s features. “Made it all the worse?”

“She detested India, begged to go back to her mother for…but I wouldn’t agree to send her.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to mention the part about the child or that Laura’s haunting, final words had been that she’d never forgive him for forcing her to remain.

“I was busy tending to business, tending to the blasted horses, and she spent too much time alone. Had I been there instead of in the stables, had I spent time just listening to her over a cup of tea that morning, she never would have ventured out to the stables to talk to me, never would have run straight into that cobra.”

“Oh, good Lord!” Suri’s hand went to her mouth. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she looked stricken.

“Children?” Her word was a bare whisper.

He shook his head, her question sliding like a shadow between them. God, when would that ghastly image of his infant daughter disappear? Whatever he’d done or said that made Suri see through him, she inched closer to him.

“My mother was Hindu,” she said, the tension about her lips easing. “My father told me her people believe in a destiny and karmic law. If it was your wife’s time to go, she would have met her fate that day no matter what you did or did not do. You cannot blame yourself. To do so will only hold you in a relentless pattern of guilt that ties you to unhappiness. I doubt Laura would have wanted you to live a life of sorrow on her behalf.”

James had told him that very thing. He’d said time would heal his wounds. Saints knew, he wanted to be done with suffering. He’d had enough. “Perhaps you’re right. But unfortunately, there is one other terrible thing that haunts me.”

“I think I might have guessed what it is.”

He lifted his head and caught her gaze that spoke volumes.

“Did Laura want to go back to her mother because she was with child?”

He only nodded, but with that small nod, while Suri gazed deep into his eyes, something gave inside him, and the ice around his heart cracked and fell away. He passed a hand over his eyes, stunned that an enormous weight had lifted from his chest.

She laid a hand on his thigh. “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.”

Her touch may as well have been a balm pressed against his leg. Where Mrs. Abernathy’s hand on his thigh had incensed him, Suri’s hand comforted—warmed his skin beneath his trousers. A rogue idea that he would like her fingers laid higher raced through his mind. He tried to dismiss the thought as carnal, but it wasn’t that at all—something inside him ached for her touch. Some unknown and long dormant seed took hold, rooted deep in his heart, and bloomed in his chest. His head buzzed with a new kind of urgency he could not decipher.

She glanced down at her hand and pulled it back as if bitten. “Oh! I hadn’t realized…sorry.”

With a stab of regret, he stared at the place where her hand had lain. “I didn’t mind.” A fierce urge to wrap his arms around her gripped him—to pull her close and just hold on.

God, he didn’t know, didn’t understand, what the hell he felt. “You might’ve left it there.” His words sounded coarse even to his own ears. “Pardon. Didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“Certainly not… No, of course not.” She laced her fingers together in her lap and stared off down a pathway that led through the trees.

His hand slid off the back of the bench and onto her shoulder, his fingers coming to rest beneath the sari covering her left arm. Lord, he hadn’t intended that to happen, but when she didn’t budge, his fingers moved of their own volition, lightly caressing the bare flesh of her arm…silken flesh…exquisite flesh. His heart thundered.

When her coloring heightened and her lips parted as if in quiet desperation for air, his own breath shuddered. Before he realized what he was about, he bent and set his mouth to the soft curve of her neck.

She sprang off the bench, one arm extended as if to push him away. “Don’t!” And then she ran in the opposite direction from the house, deeper amongst the trees.

A fist-sized knot lodged in John’s throat. What the devil had got into him, touching her like that? He swiped his hand across his brow and flopped an arm over the back of the bench. Where had that sharp desire to possess her come from?

Truth be told, his whole response toward her today had been nothing short of irrational. After she’d stumbled through the door of the marble room and into his arms, it was as if the blood had drained from his brain and left him mindless. No, it wasn’t just this day that she’d thrown his world off balance; ever since her first evening here, she’d been invading his thoughts.

Well, this wouldn’t do. He had critical matters to attend to. An entire country was at stake, not to mention the resolution of his brother’s murder. There was simply no room in his life for so much as a single deliberation of a woman…let alone dissolute thoughts of Miss Suri Thurston. A scintillating picture streaked through his mind of her lying naked with him. For God’s sake! At the very least, she was Lord George’s sister.

Neither Suri nor Lady Marguerite had any idea their brother was a spy, nor that the two men were acquainted. More precisely, George had been a close Cambridge mate, and after they’d been secretly recruited into Her Majesty’s Foreign Service, they’d trained together for two years.