Her Master's Touch (2 page)

"I won't be going," Cedric said. "I had to
shut down the house. I say, it makes me feel like the lowest wretch
to ask, but could you extend a loan until the crop comes in?"

The woman ran her finger slowly along the
deep neckline of her blouse, while looking steadily at him. The
woman was skilled in seducing a man. "How much do you need?" he
asked absently, while imagining those slender fingers caressing the
part of him that was growing hard while he watched her.

"Two, maybe three thousand rupees," Cedric
replied.

The woman stopped in front of him, and as she
patted the horse, she tucked her shoulder forward, sending the
blouse gaping open and giving him a view of a full round breast and
a rosy tip. No corset. No camisole. Damn. She was one enticing bit
of baggage. And she was offering all that soft warm flesh to him.
"Fine," he said, feeling restricted by his pants, which had become
painfully tight. For the cost of a horse he'd have the woman as
well. A small price to pay for a romp in the hay with that
tantalizing bit of baggage. Ah, to feel her naked body beneath him,
those slender legs wrapped around him as he rode her to
fulfillment. It would be one hell of a ride! The chit was as hot
for him as he was for her.

"That's devilish good of you," Cedric said,
enthusiastically. "I'm deuced lucky to have you for a friend.
Deuced lucky indeed."

"Umm," Damon hummed, a bit fuzzy why Cedric
was thanking him so profusely. He stepped forward on the platform,
his gaze following the woman's movements as she circled again,
catching his eye as she came around. "I'll go collect the black,"
he said.

Cedric's brows gathered. "Collect the
black?"

"For Mara. Like you said, I'm in a sticky
wicket. She wants a black for her new phaeton. This one should bail
me out." Stepping from the platform, he trailed after the woman,
prepared to negotiate the sale himself. He'd pay a price that would
buy her favors as well. Ah yes. He could almost feel all that
delectable flesh gliding beneath his palms...

***

Shanti Bhavan Plantation; Calcutta,
India

Mara Kanjari stormed into the dining room,
face flushed with outrage, and glared at Damon, who was eating a
meal of curry puffs, mutton chops, and kidneys on toast. "
You,
you, son of Kaikeyi!
" she cried. "Because of you I laughing
stock of Calcutta. And you make me that right after you found
cavorting with strumpet with loose tail." She curled her fingers
around the narrow throat of a Ming vase, prepared to hurl it at
Damon.

Although lethargic from the oppressive heat,
Damon launched himself from his chair and seized Mara's wrist.
"Let's get a few things straight," he said. "First, it's too damn
hot to dodge missiles—" he unwrapped her fingers from around the
vase and placed it out of reach "—and second, I won't have you
running in and out of here at will. I set you up in the bungalow,
and that's where we'll conduct our affair, unless I send for
you."

Mara propped her hands on her hips. "Fine.
You set me up in bungalow, but you not in bungalow now, and I have
bone to pick with you."

"What the devil are you talking about?" It
certainly wasn't the gypsy chit. He'd made absolutely no progress
with her after purchasing the black.

Mara's bottom lip trembled with outrage. "I
talk about black horse you give me. I better off with
palanquin
and bearers than that... that... You come, see for
self."

Slapping his napkin on the table, Damon
followed Mara out the house and across a courtyard glistening from
rain to where his head
syce
stood holding the horse hitched
to Mara's phaeton. But instead of the black he'd purchased from the
gypsy wench, he saw a dingy piebald. "What happened to the black?"
he asked, wondering why all the folderol.

"That
is
black!"

Damon stared at the horse, bewildered. "How
can it be? It's not black."

"
You Angrez gooseberry!"
Mara snapped.
"See here. Belly of horse black.
He dyed!
And I—" she
thumped her chest with a stiff finger "—big joke in Calcutta!"

Ignoring Mara's theatrics, Damon repeated in
a dismal voice, "Dyed?" Taking a closer look, he saw that although
the back of the horse was murky, his belly was indeed black. He
passed his hand over the animal and his blackened palm confirmed
it. He set his jaw. His gut twisted with ire. He'd been duped by a
crafty wench with the body of a goddess, the face of an angel, and
eyes like a cat. Granted, it had been a half-baked idea to purchase
the horse on a whim, and without inspecting him closely...

"Have you nothing to say?" Mara snapped.

Damon searched for an explanation. The fact
was, his motive for purchasing the black had been singular: to bed
the comely tart who'd offered the horse for sale. The ironic part
was, after purchasing the horse for an outrageous sum, but a price
well worth it if he'd been able to spend a few hours of lustful
pleasure in the chit's eager embrace, she'd given him two minutes
of her company before excusing herself. Then he'd stood waiting
like a beef-witted dolt for well over an hour before realizing she
had no intention of returning.

Mara glared at him. "I tell friends you buy
me fine black horse, and you bring me this! What I tell them
now?"

Damon clenched his jaws. If Mara wasn't so
good in bed he'd send her packing. But the fact was, she had superb
skills along those lines. And he was badly in need of her services,
thanks to the provocative gypsy wench he'd been unable to shake
from his mind. "I'll get you another black and you can tell your
friends the wrong horse was delivered."

Mara's stormy gaze fixed on him. "When I get
horse?"

"Tomorrow." Damon contemplated an exquisite
face, a mane of raven tresses tumbling in wild disarray, and a pair
of exotic green eyes that held an air of romantic mystery about
them. Actually, he didn't imagine he had a hope in hell of finding
the woman. She wouldn't be so bold as to return to the horse fair,
knowing he'd have learned of her chicanery. But if he did find her
he intended to get his money back, one way of another. She'd made
him out to be a first-rate buffoon, and that didn't sit well with
him.

***

Damon threaded his way among horses and
turbaned horse coopers, heading toward what looked to be a fine
black being presented for sale. Although he continued to search the
faces in the crowd, he was certain he wouldn't find the gypsy
woman's among them. He would, however, purchase the black for Mara.
But this time he'd examine the horse closely, not be side-tracked
by a green-eyed, raven-haired tart with curves to make a man gasp.
No indeed. Mara would have her black and he'd purchase the finest
at the fair...

"Bloody Hell!"

In his line of vision stood the gypsy woman.
She looked directly at him, held his gaze for an instant, then
ducked behind a wagon. He swatted the rump of a horse to move it
out of his way, crossed in front of a bullock hitched to a cart,
and rushed after the woman. But when he got to the wagon, she was
gone. Searching the crowd, he caught sight of her running toward
the fringes of the fairgrounds where several horses stood
tethered.

He raced after her, dodging, zigzagging,
weaving through and around huddles of startled traders. But before
he could reach her, she grabbed a fistful of mane and launched
herself onto the bare back of a mare. Kicking the animal in the
flanks, she sent it bolting forward and galloping across the
field.

Damon untied a gelding and hurled himself
into the saddle. He booted the animal and the horse shot forward,
hooves pounding as he raced after the woman, who stuck to her mount
like a fly on flypaper. On a stretch of roadway, he booted the
animal again, until it was racing alongside the woman's horse in a
full, ground-eating gallop. Leaning dangerously off the side of his
horse, he curled his fingers around the mare's bridle, bringing
both animals skidding to a dust-billowing halt. But before he could
dismount, the woman slipped off the mare and raced across a glade
into the woods.

He jumped down and took after her at a dead
run in an effort to keep up with her. Swift as a gazelle, she
zigzagged between trees, dashed beneath underbrush and scrambled
over anything in her path. He gritted his teeth and scowled that
this agile slip of a woman was able to leave him winded and in
danger of falling back while she’d make her escape. That thought
gave him the rush of adrenaline he needed to catch up and lunge at
her, grabbing her legs and sending her tumbling to the ground. To
his shock, she flipped over and kneed him in the crotch, then
slithered from his grasp and scrambled to her feet. Pure,
unadulterated fury dulled the pain long enough for him to grab her
skirt and hold fast until she lost her balance and tumbled
backwards, landing face up on top of him. He clamped one hand
around her waist. The other hand captured a breast momentarily
before teeth sank into his flesh.

Letting out a roar, he rolled her over and
straddled her while pinning her hands to the ground above her head.
"
Damn you, you little spitfire!"

She bumped and pitched beneath him, causing
him to bite his tongue, but he held her fast. "
Let me go you...
you... gorgio swine
!" she cried.

As he bear his full weight on top of her to
halt her struggles, she attempted to buck free, the sharp thrusts
of her hipbone striking his square in the cock, making him fear for
his masculinity. Then abruptly she stopped struggling and gazed up
at him. Golden sparks flickered in her jade-green eyes. But he saw
no fear in those eyes. Instead, they seemed to hold a gleam of
mocking amusement. Or perhaps... triumph?

He had no idea what her game was this time,
but he wouldn't be duped again. "So you don't like
gorgios
,"
he said, straddling her while trapping her hands above her head.
"Well, I don't like gypsies. Every year you people arrive in hordes
for the horse fair, camp on my grounds, help yourselves to my
water, graze your stock in my fields, and all the while you eye me
with contempt. So don't get your dander up with me, gypsy girl,
because I don't much give a damn how you feel. The way I see it,
you can either replace that nag you sold me with an unadulterated
black, or return my money. So, what's it going to be?"

She batted her long-lashed eyes and looked at
him with an air of feigned innocence, and said, "I have no
black."

He inspected her more closely. Her features
were delicate, her skin fair, her face more like a china doll than
a gypsy hoyden. Obviously Eurasian. Not only were her eyes a
striking shade of green, but her erudite English revealed not a
trace of a Hindustani. But that didn't change the fact that she'd
swindled him out of a sizable sum, and he intended to recover every
last rupee. "Then I'll have my money back,” he demanded.

"I don't have it," she countered. "Someone
took it from me."

He eyed her with vexation. The chit was truly
testing him. And he was quickly losing his patience. "Like hell.
You're a bloody thief."

"I am not a thief. You had the choice of
examining the horse first," she said.

"I bought a black, and that's what I expected
to have
after
it rained!"

She gave him a waggish smile. "As they say it
all comes come out in the wash."

He clenched his jaws. "Maybe you won't find
things so amusing when you're cooling your backside on the cold
floor of a jail, which is where you'll be if you don't come up with
my money." Slowly he released her hands, then guardedly moved from
atop her and sat back on his heels, clearly primed to take off
after her if she bolted. Which she wouldn't.

She raised herself to a sitting position and
peered into a pair cobalt eyes as cold as stone. In those eyes
Eliza Shirazi saw contempt. Typical
gorgio
. He'd like to see
her locked up. He'd like to see all gypsies locked up. But that
wasn't her plan. And so far, she mused, Lord Damon Ravencroft had
followed her plan as if
he'd
been the one who'd formulated
it.

"I'll work off the money," she said, holding
his gaze, feeling a nagging uneasiness that this plan could turn on
her. She didn't like the odd feeling growing inside that came when
she looked at this particular
gorgio
with the cobalt eyes,
burnt brown hair, and shadow of a beard on his angular jaw, a
diabolically fascinating face that had hovered in her mind ever
since she'd left him waiting two days before.

He let out a snort of derision. "What kind of
work? Robbing me blind?"

She raised a hand to slap the cocky devil
across the face, then reconsidered. That would
not
get her
into his employ. “I was doing what my elders ordered," she said,
"but I have worked as a ladies maid." The statement, though untrue,
was not unfeasible. At Madam Chatworthy's she'd learned what every
aristocratic young woman should know about running a manor
house—the duties of servants, what to expect of a ladies maid. It
had not been so long that she'd forgotten.

Her mind drifted back to a time when she'd
worn soft linens and fine silks instead of rough wools and coarse
muslins, to a time when she'd slept on feather bedding instead of a
horsehair pallet in the tight confines of a wagon, to a time when
she'd been Elizabeth Sheffield instead of Eliza Shirazi. To a time
when a dark wall in her memory blocked all further
recollection.

She had no trouble remembering Madam
Chatworthy's School for Young Ladies in London. But no matter how
hard she tried, the first eight years of her life, when she'd lived
with her parents at
Shanti Bhavan
where Lord Ravencroft now
lived, remained a dark void.