SILK AND SECRETS (7 page)

The Season had just ended, and Juliet, her aunt, and her mother, newly returned to England, had gone to a house party at the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windermere. Although marriage had not yet been mentioned, it was the sort of visit during which potential relatives appraised each other. Aunt Louise was jubilant that her unpromising protégée had attached a duke’s son, while Lady Cameron adored Ross and thought he would make a perfect son-in-law. The Windermeres were less encouraging, for even though they were kind to Juliet, they made it clear that they thought she and Ross were too young to marry.

For Ross and Juliet the visit to Norfolk had meant the opportunity to spend more time together, since the country was traditionally less formal than London. Even so, for the first three or four days there was no chance to be alone. Finally, however, the opportunity came to go riding, just the two of them.

The day had been flawless English summer, with warm sun, soft breezes, and fluffy clouds drifting across an intensely blue sky. After an hour’s ride they had dismounted in a beech wood surrounded by vast fields of Norfolk lavender. Spring had come early that year and the crop was well-advanced, the fields hazy with violet and blue, the air heavy with rich herbal fragrances.

Ross had brought a blanket to sit on and a picnic of fresh bread, local cheese, ale, and fruit tarts. Though the atmosphere between them vibrated with tension, they had behaved with perfect propriety while they talked and ate, not touching, only exchanging yearning gazes. When she finished eating, Juliet had started to brush the crumbs away, but Ross caught her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her palm reverently.

She had gone into his arms eagerly. What followed was a fevered delirium of kisses, magical and innocent as only first love can be. When Ross’s hand came to rest on her breast, Juliet had trembled with delight, wanting more, though she had only the vaguest idea of what that meant.

As their kisses intensified, they sprawled full-length on the blanket, frantic bodies intertwined. All vestiges of sense and control dissolved and Juliet had arched convulsively against Ross. In response, he had given a suffocated groan and thrust back, his hips grinding into hers. She had cried out as liquid fire, splendid and terrifying, blazed through her.

With an effort so intense that she could sense it crackling around them like heat lightning, Ross had become utterly still, his cheek pressed against hers, his arms gripping her with rib-bruising force. Eyes closed, Juliet had been vividly aware of their pounding hearts, his raw, anguished breathing, and the lingering warmth of his skin against her lips.

She had been shaken and a little frightened. Finally she understood why young girls were chaperoned, for passion was a raging beast, the most compelling power she had ever known, and to be alone with a man was to court ruination. Yet even in this strange new country, she had trusted Ross utterly.

For a long, long interval there was silence, except for the drone of bees, the fluting songs of birds, and the soft rasp of leaves rustling in the lavender-scented wind. Slowly Ross’s breathing had eased and his embrace had loosened, becoming tender rather than crushing. At length he had murmured, “Juliet?”

After she had opened her eyes, he touched her cheek with an unsteady hand. His hair clung to his forehead in damp gilt strands. “I think we should get married,” he said, his voice husky and intimate. “The sooner the better.”

“Yes, Ross,” she answered meekly.

And that had been that. There was no formal marriage proposal or acceptance, just an absolute conviction on both their parts that they belonged together.

A storm had broken over their heads when they announced their intention to marry, but Ross was about to turn twenty-one and did not need his parents’ permission. He would also come into a legacy on his twenty-first birthday and could support a wife in modest comfort even if his father cut off his allowance.

Since Juliet’s father was dead, only Lady Cameron’s permission was needed, and she had given it without hesitation, though the duke had tried to persuade her to withhold it. At length resigning themselves to the inevitable, Ross’s parents had surrendered and accepted the marriage with good grace.

And ever since, no matter what her circumstances, the fragrance of lavender would instantly transport Juliet back to her first discovery of passion and a time when she had known perfect certainty.

Disoriented, she raised her face from the silk gown and returned to the present. She was not basking in an English summer but shivering in the sunset chill of a Persian spring. And in a few minutes she must face the only man she had ever loved, a man who had every reason to despise her.

Wearily she rose to her feet and shook out the blue silk gown, which was surprisingly unwrinkled. Though the fabric was luxurious and the color rich, the style itself was simple and unprovocative. The chest also contained a chemise and petticoat, so she pulled them out and dressed hastily, for she had wasted too much time on her memories. Then she pulled her hair softly back over her ears and pinned it at the crown, letting the rest fall in waves down her back.

Juliet removed the simple gold chain and pendant which she could not wear tonight, then studied her image doubtfully. After years of wearing only loose, high-necked robes, the form-fitting gown made her feel badly overexposed, particularly since it was rather tight across the bust. That was one area in which she had grown, though the rest of her seemed much the same as when she was seventeen. Because of the close cut, a neckline that was modest by English standards seemed quite daring, which was not the effect that she wanted.

After a moment’s thought she remembered a richly patterned Kashmir shawl that a visitor had once given her as a return for hospitality. After draping it around her shoulders, she inspected herself again. The dusky blues and grays of the shawl went well with her gown, as well as rendering it more modest. Unfortunately, she now looked respectable to the point of dowdiness, which wasn’t quite right either. She was not an English governess, but the eccentric warlord of a Persian manor; she did not want to face her husband looking like a timid wren, as if she craved his approval.

What the outfit needed was gorgeous, barbaric Turkoman jewelry, and Juliet just happened to have some. Like the shawl, various ornaments had been given to her over the years by grateful travelers, though she had never had a reason to wear them. After careful consideration, she decided on flamboyant multistrand earrings that dangled almost to her shoulders and a matching necklace which filled in some of the bare expanse of skin above her décolletage. Both necklace and earrings were made of gold-chased silver, brightened with swinging, irregularly shaped beads of carnelian and turquoise.

Braving the lavender again, she found a small pot of pink salve, which enhanced her lips. Rouge she did not need, for her cheeks had enough natural color.

The final touch was purely local. In all the desert lands of Africa and Asia, men and women, especially women, blackened their eyelids with a cosmetic made of antimony and oil. Called variously kohl or surma, the preparation had been in use since at least the days of ancient Egypt, both to soothe the eyes and to provide some protection against the sun’s glare. It also looked very dramatic and would be the perfect accent for her costume. Juliet took out a small embroidered pouch of surma and deftly applied it, blinking down on the spreading stick as she drew the cosmetic along her lids.

Finally she regarded her image with satisfaction. She looked like a blend of East and West, certainly not provocative, but also neither masculine nor hopelessly plain.

Then, as ready as she would ever be, Juliet sallied forth to meet her husband.

An hour after sunset, a polite soft-footed young man escorted Ross to the chamber where he was to dine with Juliet. The lamp-lit room appeared to be a study that had been converted to temporary use as a Western dining room. The Eastern custom was to eat sitting on the floor or on cushions around a low table, but this room contained a wooden table that had been covered with a linen cloth and set with plates and silverware in European style.

The servant bowed and left Ross alone. He didn’t mind, for he found it interesting to examine his surroundings, which bore a distinct resemblance to his own untidy office back in England.

Besides unusual bits of pottery and statuary, there were books and scrolls in half a dozen languages, both European and Eastern. Several of the Asiatic texts were so unusual that they filled his heart with scholarly lust. Briefly he wondered if there was any chance that Juliet would let him borrow them, or stay long enough to make his own translations. Then he recalled his mission and reined back his enthusiasm. He would have to return alive from Bokhara before he could borrow any books.

Even more interesting were Juliet’s own maps and notebooks, where she had recorded her observations of the land and its peoples. There were more than a dozen notebooks, and he thumbed quickly through several. Perceptive and ironic, the journals would be a great success if published in London under some title such as
Persian Travels of an English Gentlewoman.
They were also an interesting insight into the woman his wife had become.

Lifting the last notebook, he opened it at random and glanced down to see, written in Juliet’s distinctive angular handwriting, the words “I wish to God that I had never met Ross Carlisle.”

His heart jerked as if a sliver of ice had stabbed into it, and he slammed the book shut and returned it to the shelf. Then he stood very still, breathing deeply to counteract his incipient nausea. So she kept a private diary as well as a record of external observations, and within its pages she was characteristically frank.

Bleakly Ross regarded the tooled leather binding of the journal. The answers to all his questions about what had gone wrong in his marriage were probably in that book—and he did not have the courage to look inside.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, he turned and tried to look as casual as if he were taking his ease in his own library. Then Juliet pushed aside the door hanging, and he stiffened. She had always had a genius for the unexpected, and now the damned female was doing it again. This afternoon in her Tuareg robes she had looked like a warrior queen. Now, dressed as a cross between a governess and a Turkish dancer, she was every inch a woman.

She paused in the doorway, her expression wary. “Good evening, Ross. I’m sorry that I’m late.”

“No matter,” he said easily. “I assumed that either you were delayed by the unexpected or you’ve developed an Eastern sense of time.”

“A little of both, perhaps.”

As she entered the room, he studied her face, comparing it with the past. The rounded features of youth had slimmed and hardened as the strong underlying bone structure became more prominent. Juliet would never be pretty in the soft, helpless, feminine way that many men liked. Instead, she was quite shatteringly beautiful.

Gesturing at the table, she said, “I thought you might like to eat Western-style, and the table here in my study was best suited for that.”

“It will be a pleasant change, assuming that I haven’t forgotten how to use a fork in the last three months.”

As she gave a slight smile, a man and two boys entered with trays of food, which they set on a worktable along one side of the study. The man said, “Do you wish anything else, Guli Sarahi?”

“No, Ruhollah. We shall serve ourselves. You may retire for the evening.”

The three bowed, then departed.

Juliet explained, “I thought it would be best if we had no interruptions.”

“I agree. I also just realized what your name means. I had thought it was a Tuareg word that I didn’t recognize, but it must be the Persian phrase
guli sarai:
flower of the desert.”

“It’s because of my coloring.” She lifted a self-conscious hand to her bright head. “The first time we met, Saleh called me Desert Flower and the name stuck.”

“Why did you prefer to speak French rather than Tamahak this afternoon?” he asked curiously. “I thought you had learned the Tuareg language when you lived in Tripoli.”

“I did, but you spoke Tamahak so well that I was afraid you would notice if I made a mistake. I haven’t spoken Tamahak in years, so French seemed safer.” She lifted a bottle. “Would you like some wine?”

Ross raised his brows. “That must be hard to come by in this part of the world.”

“It is, but I like to keep a little wine and brandy on hand for those guests who want it.” She opened the bottle and poured two glasses of red wine, keeping her fingers away from his as she handed him one of the glasses. “Since alcohol is forbidden to Muslims, there is no problem with the servants drinking up the wine cellar, as there often is in England.”

For the next several minutes she was busy ladling soup into bowls and setting platters of bread and other food on the table.

Ross watched in silence, taking an occasional sip of the wine. He remembered her blue silk gown very clearly, and she looked better than ever in it, for her lithe body had added a few more curves. In fact, she looked so provocative that he wondered if she had deliberately set out to tease or seduce him, and if so, which of those two things would be harder to endure.

She glanced up at him, her fiery hair swirling and dancing around her shoulders as she turned her head. The sight was enough to make a man forget every wise resolution he had ever made, yet as her gaze met his, uncertainty was briefly visible in the clear gray depths of her eyes. At seventeen Juliet had not understood how intensely alluring she was, and, to Ross’s surprise, she still had that same quality of innocence.

Which had to be false, considering the swath she had cut through Mediterranean manhood before disappearing into Asia Minor. The rumors about her behavior had been so lurid that he would not have believed them, had he not had irrefutable proof. Nonetheless, he acquitted her of any desire to tempt him tonight; if that had been her aim, she would be doing a better job of it. Instead, her wariness seemed as great as his own.