The Pleasure of Your Kiss (16 page)

“Her ball gown was torn, her hair tousled, her beautiful face streaked with tears. At first I believed the worst.” Ash’s hands curled into fists at the memory. “I was shocked by the depths of my rage. All I wanted in that moment was to do violence to whoever had dared to harm her.

“Then she looked up at me, her big green eyes still filled with tears, and said, ‘What are you gawking at? Have you come to make sport of me, too?’ That’s how I found out she had overheard some of the other girls at the ball talking about her behind her back, girls she had believed to be her friends. They were all from noble families and they were laughing at her because she was nothing but an heiress with a vulgar father in trade. They even intimated that she was hanging around my family because she had designs on my brother, but that a Burke wouldn’t look twice at such a common bit of baggage. Before they could catch her eavesdropping, she slipped out through a French window and ran away from the house. That’s when she tripped and tore her dress.”

“And is that how your romance began?” Luca had gone all starry-eyed, as he always did when talk of love arose. “Did you take her into your arms, tenderly dry her tears with your handkerchief, and comfort her with your kisses?”

“I took another puff on the cheroot and asked her why she didn’t tell them all to go straight to the devil because that’s what she would have done if it were me.”

“What did she do then?”

“She threw a horseshoe at my head and told me to go straight to the devil.” Ash grinned. “And that, my friend, is how our romance began.”

“No one in your family, including your brother, ever knew about it?”

“Not a soul.” Ash felt his grin fade. “Her papa wouldn’t have approved because I was the second son and he was richer than Midas and still had every hope of snagging a title for his darling little princess. My parents, who, ironically enough, were always one enraged creditor away from debtors’ prison in those days, would have thought her beneath me simply because some king had never awarded her ancestors a worthless scrap of paper for licking his boots or sacking a pile of rubble on the Scottish border. So in public we continued the charade of loathing each other, eluding the suspicion of both of our families, while in private …”

Ash trailed off, remembering how he would stay hard for hours after Clarinda slanted him a sideways glance from beneath her silky lashes or teased his calf with the toe of her slipper under the supper table. Remembering the mischievous smile that would crinkle her nose whenever she managed to slip away and meet him in the woods. They would spend the entire afternoon lying on their backs on a bed of moss, holding hands and arguing over the best name for the firstborn of the dozen children they were going to have after they were wed. He had favored Clarence, while she had insisted Ashtina was a perfectly sound name since their first child would doubtlessly be a girl. After squabbling for a while and then making up with several deep, passionate kisses that left him even harder than before, they had finally settled on Charlotte for a girl and Charlie for a boy.

It all seemed so innocent now. They had been children playing at love, contenting themselves with longing glances and stolen caresses even as a more dangerous and combustible spark began to flare between them every time their hands brushed or their lips touched.

“I suppose we thought it was all some sort of silly, clever game,” Ash said, “never realizing it was one we could never hope to win.”

“What happened?”

“I left her.” Ash spread his empty hands and met his friend’s gaze, a wealth of regret expressed in those three simple words. “Despite what everyone believes, it wasn’t a thirst for adventure that drove me out of England and into the service of the East India Company but a hunger of another sort altogether.” He shook his head, unable to resist mocking his own stubborn romanticism. “I wanted to prove myself worthy of the girl I loved. I wanted to be able to return and lay not only my heart, but the world, at her feet.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

If Ash had any intention of answering that question, he would have done so long ago.

As he rose from the bench, making it clear the formal portion of the inquiry was over, Luca slapped his open palm against the water. “Damn it all, Cap! You can’t just leave me hanging like that! Your tale has everything I adore in a story. Perilous secrets, a grand passion, star-crossed young lovers separated by fate. All it lacks is a happy ending.”

“The only happy ending to this story will occur on the day I deliver Miss Cardew safely back into my brother’s arms.”

Luca looked crestfallen. “You still intend to hand her over to your brother?”

“Of course I do. That’s what we were hired for, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know the man, but I suspect he’s not going to be any happier than the sultan when he discovers his bride’s … um … bloom has already been … plucked. And by no less than his little brother.”

“That’s not my problem, is it?” Ash said grimly. “My problem is figuring out a way to scale these walls and get to Clarinda.”

“Clar-Inda?” Giving Ash a questioning glance over Luca’s shoulder, the slave girl touched her hair, then pointed at the glowing orb hanging low in the night sky.

Strangely enough, Ash knew immediately what she meant—the girl with hair as bright as the moon.

He nodded before echoing softly, “Clarinda.”

As a glimmer of possibility dawned in his heart, he smiled with every ounce of charm he possessed and crooked an inviting finger at the girl. She rose without hesitation and padded over to him.

Luca rolled his eyes in exasperation. “I offered to find you your own slave girl. There’s no need for you to steal mine. Besides, I told you—she doesn’t speak a word of English.”

“She may not speak my language but I do speak hers.” Slipping a brotherly arm around the girl’s shoulders, Ash gently guided her to the bench, the Arabic words tripping from his tongue like music.

C
larinda lay belly down on the high, padded couch with her cheek cradled on her folded arms. If someone had told her a few months ago that one day she would be lying all alone in a room, wearing nothing but a silk towel draped over her rump, and waiting for a eunuch to come in and rub oil all over her body, she would have called a constable and had them consigned to Bedlam.

She had to admit her daily massage was one of the less onerous duties expected of her as the sultan’s bride-to-be. Back in England, such a sensual indulgence would have been unheard of, except perhaps behind the locked doors of certain notorious gentlemen’s clubs. And while she might whisper and giggle about such places with her closest companions, no lady would ever publicly confess to knowing of their existence.

The room was as dim as a cavern, lit only by a single oil lamp set in a latticed alcove in the wall. Some exotic incense that reminded Clarinda of Christmas morning smoldered in a brass brazier set on a teakwood table. Curlicues of fragrant smoke drifted past her nose, making her feel more than a little light-headed. Seduced by the cozy atmosphere, she felt her eyes begin to drift shut. She had spent another night sleeping only in restless dribs and drabs, her dreams haunted by images from the past. Failing to receive a summons to supper the night before had only increased her tension.

She was just beginning to relax into a drowsy stupor when she heard the muted creak of a door opening and closing, followed by the soft pad of bare feet approaching across the tiled floor.

Already anticipating the ease the eunuch’s touch would give her, she breathed out a contented sigh. “Oh, Solomon, I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t think I’ve ever had greater need of you.”

Something about just being in the presence of the mute eunuch was soothing. He provided much needed relief from Farouk’s courteous yet exhausting attentions, Poppy’s prattling, and the constant chatter of the women in the harem.

The footsteps ceased and she felt him standing over her, his presence itself nearly as tangible as a touch.

“Feel free to tug down the towel a bit more if you need to,” she informed him.

She thought she heard a sharply indrawn breath but quickly dismissed it as a trick of the silence and her overwrought nerves.

She felt the towel drift an inch or two lower, as if guided by invisible hands. A stray draft teased the dimpled cleft just above the swell of her buttocks, sending a shiver of gooseflesh dancing over her exposed skin.

She was still amazed by how quickly modesty deserted one in this place, especially around the other women and the eunuchs who guarded them. Back home an accidental flash of a petticoat hem was enough to cause a scandal and condemn a woman to a loveless marriage. Here the women often paraded around the harem in little but their sandals and a smile.

A smile curved her lips as Solomon poured a stream of warm oil over her back, beginning just below her nape and following the delicate curve of her spine all the way down to the hollow at the base of it. She wriggled her hips a little as a wayward stream of oil trickled beneath the towel, ending up in places it had no business being. The intoxicating aroma of sandalwood flooded her nostrils.

Just when she thought she might be on the verge of perishing from anticipation, he put his hands on her.

Although she wouldn’t have believed it possible, his hands were even warmer than the oil. His fingertips glided over the smooth skin of her back in a motion more akin to a caress than a massage.

“Mmmm … ” she moaned, tantalized even more by that sly pressure. “There’s no need to treat me like a piece of fine porcelain, Solomon. You know I like it hard and I like it deep.”

Those hands froze for a long moment, then resumed their exquisite torture, kneading the muscles of her shoulders and upper back with such skill she felt in imminent danger of melting into a puddle of bliss. To have those probing fingers seek out every taut sinew, every tender muscle that had secretly been aching for attention, was an indescribable luxury.

She had pinned up her hair in a loose topknot to allow him free access to her shoulders. A fresh shiver rocked her as his hand slipped beneath the wispy tendrils that had escaped the topknot to take masterful possession of her neck. Trusting something so fragile to the brute power of those hands was oddly compelling. Especially when their one intent was to bring pleasure, not pain.

He slid his other hand around the graceful column of her throat until his fingertips rested against the pulse at its base while his thumbs gently probed the tendons on each side of it. His attentions made everything in her body relax, including her tongue.

With her face still buried in the crook of her folded arm, she said, “I don’t suppose you’ve had the privilege of meeting the sultan’s esteemed guests, have you?” After all those years of directing her every errant thought away from Ashton Burke, it was a relief to finally be able to talk about him. Especially to someone who could never repeat what she said. “Captain Burke may be considered something of a dashing hero these days, but he was a most odious and arrogant boy.”

For a nearly imperceptible moment, Solomon’s hands seemed to tighten around her throat.

She chuckled. “Or at least that’s what he wanted everyone to believe.”

Those hands relaxed and glided higher, raking through the silky strands of her hair until the hairpins she’d used to secure it went tumbling to the tiles with a musical tinkle. His fingertips massaged her scalp in concentric circles, sending a decadent rush of pleasure through her and stirring long-buried memories of her mother brushing her hair when she was a little girl. The impersonal hands of the nannies and maids her papa had hired to replace her mother after a wasting illness had taken her away from them had never been able to duplicate that loving touch.

A fresh moan escaped Clarinda. “My compliments, Solomon. You seem to be especially diligent in your duties today.”

As if to prove her point, his clever hands began to work their way down her back again. She stretched like a satisfied cat, surrendering to a shameless sensuality that was not only discouraged where she came from but openly denounced. Each languorous stroke of his hands warmed the oil another degree until she began to feel flushed all over, which oddly enough make her think of Ash again.

“Captain Burke and I grew up on neighboring estates, and after my mother died when I was eight, I spent more time at his home than my own. My father doted upon me, but the demands of his business required frequent trips to London so I was often left to my own devices. Sometimes I would even climb out my window after my governess believed me safely tucked in bed and scale the tree overlooking the Burkes’ drawing room.” She sighed. “I suppose I just wanted to be part of a family again.

“One night when I was up in the tree, I leaned out too far and the branch I was sitting on broke, dumping me in the rosebush right outside the French windows of the drawing room. The duke and duchess were deep in discussion about this or that, and Captain Burke’s brother, Max, had his nose buried in a book. Max was always so serious, even then.

“But Ash was lounging in a chair near the window, one of his long legs thrown over the arm. He turned and looked right into my eyes through the glass, and I knew I was done for. I was already dreading the lecture I was going to get from my papa when he returned from London. While he indulged me shamelessly, he was also consumed by the idea that I learn how to behave with the proper decorum so that someday I could take what he considered to be my rightful place in society. It would have horrified him to learn I’d not only been caught trespassing, but spying on our illustrious neighbors.

“I held my breath and I waited for Ash to laugh, to point, to set the dogs on me, to do anything at all that would draw his family’s attention to my predicament. But he simply rose, gave me a nod, and drew the drapes over the window, hiding my disgrace from his family’s view and giving me a chance to make a less-than-graceful retreat.

“The very next day a footman came knocking at our door with a note penned by the duchess inviting me to join the family for supper. I think that’s when I knew …”