Her Master's Touch (20 page)

Elizabeth felt her temper rise. "But I'm not
your wife," she said. "I'm either your mistress or you whore." She
gave a short snort of derision. "I guess Mrs. Throckmorton was half
right."

The expression on Damon's face softened, and
he started towards her. "Words said in anger. I never meant
them."

Elizabeth backed away. "Yes, you did mean
then. Maybe I'm not your whore, but you were planning to set me up
in the bungalow as your mistress. I admit though, being your
mistress is a step up from being your whore." She let out a rueful
chuckle. "Actually you are the one who took money from my father in
the form of a dowry, so in essence, my father bought you for me,
much like a slave master purchases a slave for his wife or
daughter. So in principle, that makes me your slave mistress."

The anger she'd seem on Damon's face moments
before had vanished, replaced by amusement. "Perhaps," he admitted,
with a wry smile. "So, what would you like to do with your
new-found power over me?"

Emboldened by his words, Elizabeth walked
slowly around him, while saying in a reflective voice, "I could
have you strip to the waist, like you had be do on the steamer, or
I could have you drop you pants so I could inspect my property more
closely." She stopped in front of him and looked down. Now that's a
thought," she said, eyeing the bulge in his pants. "But I'll spare
you. That thing in your britches no longer interests me." She
looked up at him and folded her arms. "But you didn't answer my
question. What would you have done if you learned that Mrs.
Throckmorton called me a whore?"

Damon braced his hands on her shoulders, and
she didn't back away."I would have dismissed her straight away, and
without references. You are no whore, Elizabeth, and you are no
man's mistress," he said, looking steadily at her. "You are my
wife. And as long as we are married, I will demand respect for
you."

Feeling uneasy with his nearness, Elizabeth
backed away from him and said in an animated voice, "Meanwhile, we
have no housekeeper. But I am certain I can handle the staff until
you find another. In fact, many
memsahibs
run their own
households. As for watching the servants so they don't siphon off
too much… I am more capable than anyone you might employ, except
perhaps another gypsy, because I know all the tricks. I'll also do
my own shopping, which will give me an excuse to comb the
marketplace while ferreting information about the whereabouts of my
tribe and ultimately, the opal."

Damon dropped his arms from her shoulders and
rubbed his chin, brows drawn. After a few moments he said, "I
suppose. But if you have problems with any of the staff, I'll
expect you to come to me to resolve them."

Elizabeth dipped a curtsy. "Yes, my lord.
Your wish is my command."

Damon peered into eyes glittering with humor
and looked at a pair of lips that held a rueful smile. The image of
a barefoot gypsy girl taunting him with her quick wit and teasing
him with her innocent seduction filled his mind's eye. Back then,
he'd wanted her beyond all reason. He'd wanted her as his mistress
so he would have sovereignty over her warm, naked body and the
freedom to do with it what he wished. Now he wanted more…

Elizabeth licked her parted lips, leaving
them moist and inviting, and said, "Why are you looking at me like
that?"

"How am I looking at you?" Damon asked, his
gaze drawn to her mouth. Her warm breath was like a summer breeze
that carried with it the fragrance of blossoms. Her parted lips
invited him to taste the nectar he knew would be there. He moved
toward her.

"You're looking at me like you want to do
this…" She lifted her chin to accept his kiss, but before their
lips met, a young bearer appeared in the doorway.

"Sahib," he said, "Lord Hadleigh comes
now."

The young man had barely left the room when
Cedric Hadleigh's voice came from the direction of the hallway. "I
say, old boy," he called out, "I heard the news. So, you're a
married man." Cedric burst into the room… And stopped abruptly. His
eyes moved from Damon to Elizabeth, a perplexed frown on his brow.
Then the frown faded, and he smiled. "Well, it seems you've gotten
your opal back—I assume that's why the chit's here—as well as taken
a wife, so I hear. So when will I meet her?"

Damon draped his hand on the back of
Elizabeth's neck. "Right now," he said. "May I present Lady
Ravencroft."

Cedric stared at Damon, dumbfounded. When he
had at length found his voice, he said, "You're not serious. What's
in it for you, Ravencroft? Surely you didn't marry the strumpet to
beget your heirs? She's no more than a common—"

"Careful, my friend," Damon warned.
"Elizabeth is my wife."

"Elizabeth?" Cedric said, with irony. "Does
she think that changing her name changes what she is? You're
already consigned to the fringes of polite society as it is,"
Cedric reminded him. "When word gets out that Lady Ravencroft once
roamed with gypsies, was half Indian, and had been your servant
who'd robbed you blind, every door in Calcutta will shut in your
face." His eyes scanned the length of Elizabeth. He smiled a dark,
cynical smile. "I admit she's a tart for the taking, like you
pointed out at the horse fair. I'd buy an old nag to get between
her thighs. But to take her for your wife… Have you gone mad? Any
man could have her. Most around here probably have."

Damon looked at Elizabeth, whose face was
flushed with suppressed rage, and said to her, "Excuse us,
Elizabeth. I'd like to have a few words alone with Lord
Hadleigh."

The look in Damon's eyes was lethal. Whether
his anger was aimed at her, or at Lord Hadleigh, Elizabeth couldn't
tell, but she didn't question, but simply left the room and started
down the hallway. She hadn't taken more than a few steps when she
heard a crack and a loud grunt, followed by something crashing
against the wall. Moments later, Cedric sailed through the doorway
and landed in the hall. He lifted himself to a sitting position and
clamped his hand to his mouth. Finding his palm streaked with
blood, he took out his handkerchief and dabbed his mouth. Dragging
himself upright, he balanced on unsteady legs and tottered toward
Elizabeth, who was standing between him and his exit.

Damon stepped into the hallway and called
after him. "You will apologize to Lady Ravencroft as you
leave."

Cedric dipped his head toward Elizabeth and
said, while holding the blood-stained handkerchief to his face,
"Lady Ravencroft, please accept my apologies."

Elizabeth said nothing, nor did she move
aside for him to pass. Lowering his head, he eased around her and
left hurriedly.

Damon walked up to stand beside her as Cedric
hastily let himself out. "Like I said, as long as you are my wife,
I will demand respect for you."

Elizabeth looked at him. "I appreciate what
you did, Damon, but you have to understand that I will never come
to you as your wife, even if you continue to defend my honor. I
will find your opal, and our marriage will be annulled. Until that
time, I will take my rightful place as mistress of
Shanti
Bhavan
and assume the duties of a
memsahib
." Before
Damon could respond, she'd turned and was scurrying down the
hallway.

Damon had no doubt that Elizabeth could run
the household as efficiently, if not more so, than Mrs.
Throckmorton had. Before the week would be out she'd have the staff
at her beck and call, and him on the verge of declaring feelings he
was only just coming to know. And all she wanted was to recover his
opal and be done with him.

***

During the next two weeks, Elizabeth made
several trips to the marketplace, intent on gleaning information
from vendors and beggars and street urchins on the whereabouts of
her tribe, which was key to finding the opal. If they didn't have
it, they'd know where it was. But to her dismay, her inquiries were
met with shrugs, or headshakes, or negative waves of the hand.
However, the gypsies would be arriving for the horse fair soon, so
until then, she'd bide her time. It was pointless to do
otherwise.

Before the end of their third week at
Shanti Bhavan
, Damon managed to find a replacement for Mrs.
Throckmorton—a dignified man who dressed in dazzling white and wore
a many-layered turban. The man had taken charge immediately, doing
the marketing, running the household, checking with Elizabeth each
morning to report on the condition of her empire. But Elizabeth was
not without duties.

Each day she accompanied the man to the
storeroom for the ritual distribution of supplies. It was also her
job to see that there were adequate provisions in the kitchen, as
well as keeping tabs on essentials such as soap and candles and
matches. She felt like a proper memsahib but for the fact that
several servants, who'd been at
Shanti Bhavan
when she'd
been there before, could not hide their resentment. She had
anticipated a certain amount of animosity from those who'd once
accepted her as one of them, but she had not expected the young
woman, who'd once shared her bedchamber, to be among them.

Lekra's enmity was subtle. Whenever Elizabeth
approached, she dutifully dipped a curtsy, and when given a task,
she clipped her, 'Yes,
memsahib'
while refusing to look
Elizabeth in the eye. It troubled Elizabeth greatly that they could
not share the camaraderie they'd shared in the past. And when her
request that Lekra become her lady's maid was clearly unwelcome,
she refused to let it pass. "I know you're upset that I'm your
mistress now," she said to the young woman, "but that doesn't mean
we cannot be friends. And you can look me in the eye, Lekra. I am
not Mrs. Throckmorton."

Lekra raised her eyes slowly and looked
directly at Elizabeth.

"As my lady's maid," Elizabeth continued,
"you would occupy the maid's room just down the hallway from my
bedchamber, so you would be out of that stuffy, stifling box of a
room you're in now. Besides, I have things to tell you, but I dare
not do so unless I have your friendship, and your trust."

Lekra's eyes softened then, and a tentative
smile played about her lips as she said, "We were friends once. I
like it that we be friends again."

Elizabeth smiled in delight and took Lekra by
both hands. "Then it's settled. You will be my lady's maid."

Lekra squeezed Elizabeth's hands and smiled
back. "I will try," she said, "but you will have to give me
instruction because I have never been a lady's maid before."

"That will be easy," Elizabeth said. "It will
also insure a better position for you should you want to find
employment elsewhere at a later date, though I hope you will stay
here for a very long time." Elizabeth was tempted to tell Lekra
that in only a few months they would be rid of Lord Ravencroft for
good, but decided the time was not right. Instead, she said to
Lekra, "I'll send a bearer to fetch your things."

While the bearer moved Lekra's belongings
into her new quarters, Elizabeth and Lekra slipped back into their
old comfortable friendship, and before long, Lekra was filling
Elizabeth in on the vicious gossip that was being passed from
servant to servant to mistress to confidante to anyone who would
gasp with outrage or smile with prurient delight, gossip that was
spreading through Calcutta's British society like a gathering swarm
of locusts…

Lady Ravencroft lived with gypsies… Worked
for the notorious rake she married… Had been his mistress… Stole a
valuable jewel from him… His gateman stabbed in the heart with a
knife belonging to Lady Ravencroft… No, she didn't commit the
murder, but how did the murderer get her knife? During a tryst no
doubt… Her kind care little who they sleep with in order to gain
what they want… Lady Ravencroft is obviously remiss in her wifely
duties… Lord Ravencroft has taken up with his former mistress…

Elizabeth couldn't stop the tears from
welling. Being a social outcast did not concern her—she'd suffered
that most of her life and carried on. It was learning that Damon's
evenings were spent in the arms of another woman that made her
stomach twist and her chest feel like it was being squeezed in a
vise.

Lekra touched her hand. "Maybe he not with
mistress. Maybe it just gossip."

But Elizabeth knew better. When they'd passed
the bungalow on their way from the train station, three weeks
earlier, she'd seen Mara's phaeton parked alongside the house and
wondered if Damon still kept her, but didn't dare ask. Now she
knew. And for the past three nights, Damon had not occupied his
bedchamber. Each evening after dinner he left the house and didn't
return until morning. He offered no explanation of his whereabouts,
and she didn't ask. Until three nights ago, she'd heard him in his
bedchamber, which adjoined hers by a door that remained open during
the day when the servants were about, and which she shut during her
bath, or at night after the servants left them to their
privacy.

She surmised it had something to do with an
incident that happened the night before he began staying away.
She'd been immersed in the tin tub in her bedchamber while three
ayahs
were soaping her down, when one of the
ayahs
lifted her arm to soap it, stared at the area under her arm, and
gasped, then began talking in frenzied Hindustani to the others,
who bobbed their heads in concern. Before Elizabeth had the
wherewithal to stop her, the
ayah
rushed to the door between
the bedchambers and rapped sharply. When Damon opened the door, the
woman said to him in an excited voice, "
Sahib
, you come… see
mistress." She raised her own arm and pointed to show him where the
problem was.

To Elizabeth's horror, Damon walked over to
the tub and crouched beside it. Although she'd crossed her arms to
cover herself, he took her elbow and lifted her arm. Not wanting to
make a scene, she'd sat immobile, heart hammering, while he
inspected the area beneath her armpit. "It's swollen and very red,"
he said, his breath cool against her wet skin. He started palpating
the area. "Does it hurt when I do this?" he asked.