Forbidden (8 page)

He would have left soon, having little
appetite for food and little patience for the forced necessities of
a dinner party.

He had never been good at those sorts
of things.

Oh he was charming enough, and polite,
but he hated sitting there smiling if he didn’t want to smile and
he hated talking and joking with someone whom he didn’t
like.

When he’d first started out as a
soldier they’d become worse, maturing from the restless
dissatisfaction of a young man to the twisted jaundism of a
hardened fighter. The women and their giggling seemed trivial,
ridiculous, when he’d watched a friend’s head blow off the day
before. Sitting through three hours of some young chit struggling
through a piano recital and smiling and clapping became not only
pointless but physically painful to endure, when the week before,
he’d straddled a man’s chest, and with the madness of battle riding
him hard, had carved his heart out.

The men were all foppish young fools
compared to his comrades, thinking war to be a grand game you
played at when you weren’t busy whoring or gambling or buying up
useless artifacts to complete their useless lives.

It was amazing, that out of all that
raging cynicism he was able to calm himself long enough to love
someone, let alone have them love him back.

His fiancé, Ellenore, had been a sweet
creature.

Her head had been anything but empty
and her laughter, when she gave it, was anything but trivial or
ridiculous. When she smiled up into his eyes his heart would jump
and always when she placed her small hand in his so that he could
assist her here and there, the delicate scent of her perfume would
send his senses reeling.

She was tiny, petite, and delicate. Not
strong enough to handle the life he led certainly, but willing to
follow him all the same. Most days he felt as if her innocence is
what cleansed the dirt from his soul and it was that as much as
anything else that made him eager for the chance to spend the rest
of his life with her.

So he’d proposed and she’d said yes,
which didn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knew them. Her home
had been England but she visited India often enough with her father
on his trips when he came to trade for the exotic silks and spices
the land had made its fortune on. His father had been an Englishman
but had met her mother, a native to Bengal where his family had
made their estate, and fallen in love. Damon had never been to
England before and he listened attentively whenever Ellenore told
him stories of her home just as she sat rapt as he showed her the
wonders of his own.

These days when he closed his eyes
though, it was her bloodstained hands and accusing eyes he saw, her
dress ripped and stained and her throat cut.

Not exactly the image he wanted
replacing that shy grin and elusive scent.

He loved India.

…He’d loved India, at least he had up
until the Mahrattas had come and taken away everything away from
him.

Sighing, Damon lit the pipe in his
hand, taking a long meditative pull on it as he stared narrowed
eyed at the churning black waves. Putting the flint back in his
pants pockets he leaned against the side of the boat, resting his
forearms and angling his body so that the rolling motion of the
ship dipped and swayed through his body with ease. Froth kissed his
face and he closed his eyes, wondering if the weevils had done more
than threaten his crop by now and if things were going smoothly. He
wondered if his cotton was growing well, if the servants had
trouble, if the house was clean.

He thought about John and his
obligation to him.

And finally, because the sea soothed
his stubborn streak, he allowed his thoughts to travel where they
had been struggling to go all night.

Jocelyn was in no way like
Ellenore.

She was stubborn where Elly had been
accommodating.

Haughty where Elle had been
humble.

She was strong willed, persistent,
brave, and strong. She was built like an Amazon and blushed as
easily as a maiden. She was loyal, quick-witted and kind. She
called him on the things she thought he was doing wrong and wasted
no time in telling how and why he should improve
himself.

She was exasperating,
drugging.

She was nothing like
Ellenore.

The knowledge made him feel equal parts
alarmed and shamed. As if he were doing something wrong by
comparing his first love with his sec--

In a panic, he killed the thought
before it could form completely.

Damon had no wish to go down that
particular road. Especially with Jocelyn Holbrooke of all people.
If he hadn’t had John, Damon wasn’t sure what he would have done.
He only knew that after he’d ridden hard to make it back home and
seen the bodies … something in him had broken and even now he
wasn’t quite sure how to fix it. He wouldn’t repay his friend by
taking advantage of his daughter.

When he got back to his plantation
maybe he’d go out more. Answer some of those dinner invitations
he’d been receiving. He’d find himself a nice wife. Not a debutante
but maybe an older woman who’d been on the shelf a bit
longer.

Age wasn’t a bad thing and talking with
a woman with the mental maturity to keep up with him and help him
on the plantation would be nice.

Sharing some of the burden would be
nice.

He had no doubt that this thing that he
felt for Jocelyn, whether it was love or some madness, would
fade.

As if his thoughts had conjured her he
heard a small note of satisfaction off to his side.

“Ah. There you are. I’ve been looking
for you.”

Damon raised an inquisitive eyebrow in
her direction and watched as she sauntered past to stand at the
railing beside him. She copied his pose, long body graceful as she
bent over to rest her arms along the smooth lining of the Gentle
Marie. He watched her watching the ocean for a while before his
heart would settle and he could turn back to look into the night
with her.

It was strange. The tension was there
but it wasn’t strung as tightly. As if since they’d kissed they’d
become briefly comfortable in this strange new skin that insisted
on craving one another. They had in no means accepted the
attraction, but it had been admitted to and that seemed to settle
something, though Damon had no idea what.

“How was the rest of
dinner?”

She pulled a face, he saw her from the
corner of his eye before the smoke from his pipe obstructed his
vision.

“It was adequate.”

He raised brows at that.
“Adequate.”

“Yes.”

“Care to explain, Miss
Holbrooke.”

She stiffened, the movement almost
imperceptible, before she sighed, “Well it was exhausting watching
Ava and those Midshipmen, but the captain was entertaining enough
with his stories.”

He bit down on a chuckle. “Were you
lonely those Midshipmen weren’t paying you any mind?”

“Oh god no. I was happy for it in fact.
After we’d left Ava told me the taller one, Charlie chews with his
mouth full and sprays her every time she talks while the other one
smells quite awful.”

Damon couldn’t hold back the sharp bark
of laughter that exploded out of his mouth then. He liked the way
her dainty little nose twisted in distaste at the very thought, and
he imagined that she was indeed glad that they had ignored her for
her sister.

“How could she stand it?” Ava’s
seasickness would not have been helped by body odor or extreme
close-ups of someone else’s chewed food.

Jocelyn’s voice was grim when she
answered. “She didn’t. Oh Ava puts on a fine show, she’s able to
act with the best of them. She gave no indication that she was
close to losing her mind with those two gentlemen, but when it
comes to me, her sister, she had no reservations losing her dinner
all over me.”

He glanced at her again and tried to
hide the fact that he sidled away, but she caught on and grinned,
eyes twinkling with a mixture of exasperation and
amusement.

“She only got it on my shoes and I’ve
changed my stockings long since.” She threatened him with one
wiggling, stockinged foot as if to prove her point. “You don’t have
to worry about getting any of Ava’s food on you.”

He sighed, not bothering to hide his
relief and even exaggerating on it. He was rewarded with another
giggle and they settled back into their places.

“So what of the Captain?”

She shrugged, lazy and comfortable.
“What of him? He’s a sweet man. Very … loud. He reminds me of
daddy.”

Damon snorted and took one last pull of
his pipe before he set it aside. “Does he laugh at his own
jokes?”

She turned to him in shock. “How did
you know?”

“John used to do the same thing. Asking
why six was afraid of seven and then laughing himself sick when he
told us the answer. There were worse ones but I won’t burn your
ears with your father’s dirty mouth. Suffice it to say that when
you’re huddled in a trench with that man cackling beside you it
drives you to distraction. I was nearly tempted to throw myself in
the middle of the battlefield and take my chances with the
Orissa.”

She clapped her hands, delighted to
have found a fellow sufferer. “Yes. Yes. It was exactly like that.
Only he did it to Ava and I while we were in the middle of our
lessons. The teacher would be saying something and he would call us
over to where he sat writing his letters by the window and he would
sit us on his knee. Then leaning very close he’d whisper something
atrocious to us and laugh and laugh.” She grimaced and Damon found
an unconscious smile on his own face as he watched her. “If Daddy
hadn’t paid our tutor so well Ava and I would still be counting on
our hands and toes.”

She fell silent for a moment before
turning to him. Her face was shadowed but there was a softness to
it, a gentle wonder.

“That’s the first time since he died
that I’ve thought of him that way.”

“Remembering when things were good
rather than when he was no longer there you mean?” He understood.
Stretching, he looked back over the ocean and away from her. “Those
moments are slow to come soon after but soon … soon they’ll be all
you have, and everything else? Well if it doesn’t disappear then it
loses some of its bite.”

Beside him she was brooding, silent.
Finally in a low voice she whispered, “Thank you.”

He shrugged. Then looking up, he
pointed at the round disk of the moon floating above them in its
own dark ocean.

“What does the moon look like to
you?”

Thinking for moment she finally
replied, “A hole?”

“What?”

“It reminds me of a giant hole in the
sky. As if the entire world is in some sort of bag or case and
that’s the only opening out of it. One day I imagine that a giant
cork will come and plug it up like a drain. We’ll be shaken around
and poured upside down and out of the hole, falling into the mouth
of whatever creature whose flask we happen to be living
in.”

This speech was nothing short of
stunning and he stared at her with his mouth open.

She frowned, “What?” Then flushing she
looked around as if afraid that someone else had heard her musings.
“Is that not right?”

He laughed then. Longer and harder than
he had in long, long while. When he could finally catch his breath
he looked into her face, mulish and stubborn, and painfully shy and
reaching out, he brushed gentle fingers across the tight space at
the corner of her mouth. As if he could loosen the tension there by
will alone and bring a smile to her face.

“I have never thought of it quite that
way. You’re a fascinating woman, Miss Holbrooke.” She flushed
again, though there was more pleasure in it this time than
satisfaction.

Only then did those tight lips relax
into the smile he craved. She angled her chin at him and
challenged, “What of you then, Mr. Burleigh? What does it remind
you of?”

“Me?” he turned to it and considered.
“My first kiss.”

She blinked rapidly. “Excuse
me?”

He looked at her, not in the least
apologetic though a bit wondering. As if he’d realized some
momentous truth that had never occurred to him.

“The craters in the moon. When I was
thirteen my best friend Danny dared me to kiss this girl, Yasmine,
who tended my family’s gardens with her mother. Her face was so
pockmarked I almost couldn’t do it.”

As stunned with him as he had been with
her a moment before, she asked, “How did you manage it
then?”

His grin was blinding and a little
drunken, his eyes clouded as he recalled the event with obvious
relish.

“Her breasts.” He demonstrated by
cupping his hands out far beyond the muscled planes of his one
chest. “She was a year or two older than me and her breasts were as
big as my head, bigger. Her backside too. Those two things alone
were enough to strengthen my resolve, though God knows why I was so
fascinated with them when I had no idea how to handle it all.” He
fell silent, then said, “Hmm, so I suppose that’s two things the
moon reminds me of then. Yasmine’s face and Yasmine’s ample
backside.”