Her Master's Touch (14 page)

Elizabeth settled against the plush
velvet-covered seat and folded her hands in her lap, and Damon took
his place beside her. The lights dimmed, the stage curtain lifted,
and the opera commenced. Although Elizabeth tried to focus on the
music and the singing and the drama, it was impossible to stay
focused, her attention diverted by Damon’s breath against her ear
as he commented on the performance, or on her chest as he commented
on her gown. He picked up that subject again, when the lights came
on during intermission. “I appreciate your wearing the gown for my
benefit tonight," he said. "Your breasts and your eyes are your
finest assets, gypsy girl. I'm captivated by both.”

Elizabeth felt heat rush up her face, a
combination of anger at his constant reference to her years as a
gypsy—a time in her life she desperately wanted to put behind
her—and her vexation that he assumed she’d worn the low-cut gown
for him. “
I did not wear this for your benefit!"
she said
forcefully, wishing there was some way she could pull the bodice up
to her chin. "Décolleté gowns are the fashion." Why she'd been so
brazen as to wear it tonight was beyond her.

Damon's gaze moved over her bosom, sending
tingles coursing through her to settle low in her belly, triggering
a longing of a time when she'd been unhampered by the restraints of
modesty and propriety and respectability. “A fashion I support.
Every time you take in a breath,” he said, trailing a finger over
the swell of her breasts, "your bodice comes within a hair’s width
of offering my lips this to latch onto."

Elizabeth whacked his hand hard with her fan.
“You have no right to touch me there,” she said, aware that he had
not so much as flinched when she struck him.

He smiled a slow, self-satisfied smile. “But
you clearly enjoyed what I was doing as much as I or you wouldn’t
have waited so long to swat my hand.”

“You caught me by surprise," Elizabeth
insisted. "I’m not used to having men paw me. The gentlemen who
call on me show respect for me and treat me like a lady. They would
never be so presumptuous as to do the things you do, which I find
rude and offensive.”

Damon threw his head back and laughed. “Have
you stolen their jewels too, gypsy girl, emasculated them so they
have no desire to paw any woman at all? Or is it that they just
don’t know the real Lady Elizabeth Sheffield, who can straddle a
horse bareback at a dead run, brawl on the ground with a man like a
ruffian, and use her womanly wiles to swindle him out of his second
most prized possession.”

“Second most prized possession?" Elizabeth
said, curious. "What is more precious than that opal you so
passionately covet?”

“Ask any man, except perhaps your gentlemen
friends who’d rather fondle a deck of cards than a woman," Damon
replied. "When you display your breasts for them, do those sexless
popinjays even look? I doubt any of them could stir your blood or
arouse your passionate nature, much less get under your skirts. No,
gypsy girl. Those impotent dandies are not for a woman with your
passionate nature.”

“
I do not have a passionate
nature!”

“Oh yes, you do. I look forward to the day
when you’ll wrap your legs around my hips and straddle me like you
did when you kissed me in my bedchamber. Only next time, we will be
flesh to flesh when you do.”

Refusing to feed fuel to the fire, Elizabeth
said, “I am the one to decide what kind of man is to my liking, and
I assure you, I prefer the men you call sexless popinjays to your
unwanted advances and unsavory presence.” She flipped open her fan
and fluttered it across her chest. He would not touch her breasts
again, she vowed, even as the memory of his kisses and caresses
sent tiny shivers skittering across her bosom and a disconcerting
urgency settling in an area she didn't want to acknowledge.

The lights dimmed and the opera continued.
Elizabeth hoped it would be the last of Damon's advances. Instead,
he took her fan from her hand and kissed the curve of her shoulder.
“No, you don’t prefer those men to me—" his lips moved up the
column of her neck and across her chin “—and you do have a
passionate nature." He turned her face and covered her mouth with
his, nudging his tongue between her lips. His slow, sensual strokes
blocked the protest she was primed to spit at him. And when his
hand came up to gently caress her breast, that private pleasure
began to stir. He was the one to break the kiss. Removing his lips
from hers, he looked at her and said, with irony, “Since you have
an aversion to my touch, I’ll make my offer more acceptable to
you.”

The taste of him still lingering, Elizabeth
said in a husky voice intended to display her wrath, but which came
out like an impassioned plea, “That would be impossible. I find
your company intolerable. There is nothing you could possibly add
that would so much as tempt me to change my mind.”

Damon looked at her steadily. "Even if the
marriage is not consummated?”

Elizabeth let out a short, sardonic laugh. “I
do not for a moment believe you’d marry me and not consummate the
marriage," she said. "As it is, you take liberties you have no
right to take. I can only imagine what you'd take if I were your
legal wife, living under your roof. Short of providing me with a
body guard, there's no way I'd be safe from your unwanted
advances."

“That’s because you have not heard what I
propose.”

“Go ahead, tell me. But it won’t change my
mind. And would you please return my fan.” He opened her fan and
handed it to her, and she promptly fluttered it across her
chest.

“The marriage would remain unconsummated for
three months," Damon said. "If, during that time you recovered my
opal, I’d deed
Shanti Bhavan
to you, and the marriage would
be annulled. If you did not recover my opal, the marriage would
still be annulled, but you'd forfeit the right to
Shanti
Bhavan
and return to your father’s house. Either way, your
father would know nothing about your past, only that I was
unsatisfactory as a husband. I’d take responsibility for not
performing my marital duty.”

"What if my father paid you for the opal,"
Elizabeth offered. "Surely you did not pay a fortune for it. It was
only an opal. A gypsy talisman."

"It was far more than a gypsy talisman,"
Damon said. "It was the
Burning of Troy
, an opal given to
Josephine by Napoleon. It disappeared after Josephine's death and
fell into the hands of gypsies. I was going to use it to bid a
pardon from the queen, and to secure funds needed to restore
Westwendham. The price of the
Burning of Troy
is even beyond
the reach of your father, I'm afraid."

Elizabeth stared at him. The idea that she'd
held in her hands an opal of such value was almost inconceivable.
But it didn't change her predicament. “If I still refuse to marry
you," she said. "What then?”

Damon looked at her soberly. “All of London
will learn that Elizabeth Sheffield once roamed with gypsies,
worked as a servant, stole a priceless opal from the man she worked
for, and murdered his gateman.”

Before Elizabeth could reply, the crowd of
opera goers burst into applause, the curtain dropped, and a bank of
lights beamed on the lineup of costumed players taking their final
bows, the jubilant scene before Elizabeth shattering images of
gypsies, and fiery opals, and a pearl-handled knife in a man's
chest. And a troubling past she desperately wanted to relegate to
her other lost memories.

Damon raised a cynical brow. “Do you really
want all of London to learn about your questionable past,
Elizabeth, when what I offer is a chance for you to gain a jute
plantation, along with independence from your father and all men,
including me?”

Elizabeth gazed at a breathtakingly-handsome
face she'd come to detest, and into deep blue eyes as cold and
unfeeling as the sapphire in Damon's turban, and said, “And you
would never insist on your rights as a husband?”

“Not for three months. I want you to have a
reason to find my opal," Damon said. "After three months, however,
I make no promises.”

“Except that the marriage could be annulled
at that time, if unconsummated.”

“Of course," Damon said. "I don’t want the
burden of a wife. I never did. Mistresses don’t make demands on a
man and they can be replaced if they do. It’s as simple as that.
You’d have no trouble terminating our marriage after three months,
or before, if you recover my opal.”

“And you’d deed
Shanti Bhavan
to me,”
Elizabeth said, to make things absolutely clear.

“Only if you recover my opal," Damon said.
"Think on it, Elizabeth. It’s the best offer you’ll get. It’s a
chance to be a free woman in a man's world. Your only chance
because if you don't accept my offer, your father will expect you
to marry a man of his choosing, and that man might not be so
generous, or so tolerant about staying out of your bed." He trailed
a finger up her arm to her shoulder and back down to brush the top
of her hand.

For a few moments Elizabeth sat immobilized
by his touch, as distant memories brought to mind a time when a
foolish girl was caught dancing around a lantern, and he awakened
her body to a level of sensuality she’d yearned for since. But that
girl was in her past. She moved her hand away. “Everything you say
is all well and good, but how am I to keep you out of my bed when I
cannot even keep you out of my gown!”

Damon folded his arms. “I’ll give your father
my word, and have our solicitors include it in a written prenuptial
agreement. I’ll tell him that I want to take you back to India with
me now, but since you have not been properly courted, our marriage
would remain unconsummated for three months. If you felt no
affection for me after that time, you’d return to him, and the
marriage would be annulled.”

“And what about the deed to
Shanti
Bhavan
?”

“That would be in a separate agreement
through my solicitor, a legally binding contract between you and
me, but without your father’s knowledge.”

During the ride back to her father’s house,
Elizabeth found herself considering Damon’s marriage offer.
Recovering the opal could present a challenge—by now Januz and the
tribe would have melded into the milieu of India's wandering bands.
But she knew their migratory habits, one being their yearly return
to Calcutta for the horse fair. But there was still one problem. “I
cannot return to India. I’m wanted for murder."

Damon gave her a rueful smile. “Not anymore.
A witness saw the stabbing. It was the man you mentioned, the one
who took the opal from you.”

Elizabeth glared at him. “Why are you just
now telling me this?”

“Because it wasn’t relevant," Damon said.
"When you arrive in India as my wife you’ll be Lady Ravencroft,
mistress of
Shanti Bhavan
. You’ll stoop to no one
there.”

“Except, of course, to Lord Ravencroft.”

Damon gave a short, cynical snort. “You never
stooped to me when you were a servant in my house, Elizabeth. Why
should I expect you to do so after we’re married?”

He was right. She hadn’t stooped to him then.
She’d mocked him and taunted him and even tattooed a rat on his
chest, and he’d not so much as mildly chastised her for her
impertinence. Now he was offering her a chance to gain a jute
plantation and become an independent woman, with the possibility of
tapping into memories that continued to elude her. Only by
returning to
Shanti Bhavan
could she learn the truth and
come to terms with the past. And for that, she was willing to
endure a brief, unconsummated marriage.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll accept your
offer. But you will have your solicitor draw up a contract between
you and me about
Shanti Bhavan
, and give your word to my
father in writing, as a pre-nuptial agreement, that the marriage
will not be consummated for three months. At which time it will be
dissolved.”

“Believe me, Elizabeth. I don’t want this
marriage any more than you," Damon assured her. "It’s purely the
means to an end.”

CHAPTER SIX

Lord Sheffield smiled at his daughter. “I’m
glad you’ve accepted Damon’s offer, Elizabeth. In time you’ll
realize what a wise decision you’ve made. And Damon, I don’t know
what you did to convince this young woman to be your wife, but I’m
pleased you did. I cannot think of a finer man, or one I’d welcome
more as my son-in-law.”

Elizabeth eyed her father. "You do understand
about our three-month trial period?"

"About not consummating the marriage?"

"Well... yes. I want it in writing."

“I don’t know why you’d put such a severe
restriction on a physically sound man, Elizabeth—” Lord Sheffield
turned his gaze on Damon “—or why you’d allow Elizabeth to do it,
Damon. But it seems the two of you have come to this agreement, so
I’ll see that it’s included in the pre-nuptial agreement.”

“It’s what I want, Father. I barely know this
man. It’s only because you’re so certain about him that I’m willing
to marry him at all," Elizabeth said. "This way, if we don’t get on
after three months, an annulment will be simple.”

“I guarantee, if you keep your husband out of
your bed, Elizabeth, you will not get on at all. You cannot expect
a man to remain faithful to you if you refuse to submit to your
marital duty. A healthy man has certain physical needs that must be
alleviated. But you wouldn’t know about these things having been
sheltered from the intimacies of marriage.”

“Don’t underestimate your daughter, William.
She probably knows more than you think," Damon said. "She seems a
very astute young woman—" he turned and smiled at Elizabeth "—wise
in the ways of... life.”

“What are implying, Lord Ravencroft?”