The Pleasure of Your Kiss (9 page)

“At the moment I’d settle for a hot bath to wash away the desert grit,” Ash said.

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Clarinda said, then wished she hadn’t as an image of Ash sinking into a steaming tub while surrounded by a bevy of giggling slave girls popped into her head.

“Followed by a long afternoon nap before supper?” Luca suggested hopefully, his leer replaced by a yawn.

Clarinda was beginning to believe disaster just might be averted—or at least delayed—when Poppy came rushing into the courtyard, a colorful swirl of veils billowing behind her. Having never quite mastered the voluminous garments, she always had the air of someone caught in a sudden windstorm.

She was so intent on not tripping over her skirts that she was paying no mind whatsoever to what was directly in front of her. “Oh, Clarinda, one of the women just told me some dastardly villains had attacked the sultan! Who would dare to do such a thing? Don’t they know that he’s the strongest, the most powerful, the most noble, the most courageous—”

Her breathless recitation of the sultan’s apparently endless list of glowing attributes came to an abrupt end when she ran full tilt into the man. Farouk steadied her with one arm, then gave her a gentle push, placing a safe distance between them.

“Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed, blinking up at him. Her exotic dress was at direct odds with the wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the tip of her nose and the rosy blush tinting the ripe apples of her cheeks. “I’m so very happy to see you! I mean … I’m so very happy to see that you’re unharmed,” she amended, her blush deepening as she spread her skirts and bobbed him an awkward curtsy. “When I overheard two of the eunuchs discussing the attack, I feared the worst, m-m-my lord … and master,” she added hopefully, batting her eyelashes at him.

Clarinda winced. If Poppy was hoping to hide her infatuation with the handsome sultan, she was doing a miserable job of it.

Farouk rolled his eyes, making no attempt to disguise his long-suffering sigh. His effortless charm always seemed to desert him whenever Poppy was near. “As I have told you many times before, Miss Montmorency, I am Your Majesty, not your master. It seems we have another escapee from my harem, gentlemen,” he informed Ash and Luca. “Please allow me to introduce Miss Montmorency. She is Miss Cardew’s … companion.”

“And my dearest friend,” Clarinda added loyally as Poppy bobbed another curtsy, this time in the direction of the new arrivals.

Poppy froze in midbob as she spotted Ash, her eyes growing even more enormous behind the thick lenses of her spectacles. “Oh! Oh my! I know who you are! You’re Ashton Burke, the legendary adventurer! Why, you look exactly like the sketch that was in the
Snitch
a few months ago!” She shot Clarinda a confused glance. “I thought you said he had a long, hooked nose, a pair of spindly bowlegs, and teeth like a beaver’s?”

Clarinda stiffened as Ash arched a bemused eyebrow in her direction. “You must have misheard me, dear,” she said. “Or perhaps I mistook him for someone else of my acquaintance.”

“Oh, no, I’m absolutely positive I heard you correctly,” Poppy insisted earnestly. “I have a terrible head for sums but a frightfully good memory for conversation. I distinctly remember our exchange because it came just minutes before those nasty pirates attacked our ship. You also said men like Captain Burke cloak themselves in rumor and innuendo because there is nothing of real substance to hide. That they spread tall tales themselves simply to compensate for their own short—”

Clarinda clapped a hand over Poppy’s mouth, wishing she had done so the moment Poppy came barreling into the courtyard. Luca snorted and Farouk’s dark eyes sparkled with poorly concealed amusement.

Afraid to look at Ash, Clarinda gingerly removed her hand from Poppy’s mouth. “I don’t recall any such conversation. Perhaps your memory was simply addled by the distress of the attack.”

Poppy gave Clarinda good reason to regret removing her hand when she blurted out, “Why are you here, Captain Burke? Have you come to rescue us just as you rescued that beautiful Hindustani princess?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Poppy.” Clarinda laughed to hide her swelling alarm. “Rescue us from what? The lap of luxury? Being pampered like a pair of Princess Adelaide’s cherished lapdogs? You know as well as I do that it was the sultan who rescued us from the horrors of the slave market. We owe him our gratitude and our loyalty … as well as our lives.” She punctuated that declaration by returning to the protective circle of Farouk’s arms and giving his chest a fond pat.

He slipped an arm around her waist and smiled down at her, his white teeth gleaming against his swarthy skin. “My little English buttercup chooses her words wisely.” Although his smile lost none of its radiance, his eyes narrowed as he shifted his gaze to Ash’s face. “I doubt a man of Captain Burke’s reputation has survived this long by seeking to steal a woman who belongs to another man.”

Even if she had first belonged to him
.

The thought dawned in Clarinda’s heart with shuddering clarity. For a timeless moment she was back in that misty meadow, wrapped once more in the irresistible heat of Ash’s arms as they sank into the folds of her cloak.

Almost as if he could divine her wayward thoughts, Farouk tightened his possessive grip on her. “Seeking to steal a woman under such circumstances might very well cost a man not only his heart but his head.” Despite his jovial tone, there was no mistaking the sharp edge of warning in his words.

Just as there was no mistaking the mocking grace in Ash’s answering bow. “Then it is fortunate for the both of us that I have yet to lay eyes on the woman for whom I would be willing to sacrifice my heart—or my head.”

I
sn’t it a most extraordinary turn of events?” Poppy remarked as she followed Clarinda down the dimly lit corridor that led to the doors of the harem. “Captain Burke showing up here at the sultan’s palace purely by happenstance? Why, when we were discussing his exploits back on the ship before those barbarians abducted us, who would have believed such an amazing coincidence was possible?”

“No one, Poppy,” Clarinda replied, then muttered under her breath, “At least no one but you.”

Forced to trot to keep up with Clarinda’s brisk steps, Poppy continued chattering on and on about the vagaries of fortune and the whims of fate until the toe of her slipper came down firmly on the hem of Clarinda’s skirts.

Clarinda was yanked to an awkward halt. Her dwindling reserves of patience exhausted, she wheeled on Poppy, snatching her hem back into her possession as she did so. “Poppy, please! It’s bad enough to have to parade around in front of the whole world in this ridiculous getup. I’d rather not have to march the rest of the way back to the harem as naked as on the day I was born!”

Poppy’s good-natured smile drooped; her lower lip began to tremble in a manner Clarinda recognized all too well.

Clarinda sighed, instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said, touching two fingertips to one of her throbbing temples. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just that the arrival of these unexpected
visitors
has set my every nerve on edge.”

At that moment all she desired was a moment of privacy to sort through the maddening whirl of her thoughts. It had taken her nearly two hours to escape Farouk’s cheerful company after he had ordered a pair of servants to escort his guests to their private chambers. He had insisted upon reliving his adventure of the morning for her, poring over every detail of his rescue from his attackers while she struggled to remain dutifully doe-eyed and exclaim, “My goodness!” and, “Did he really?” at all of the pertinent moments when all she could see was Ash thundering down some sandy bluff with the reins of his horse between his teeth and a blazing pistol in each hand.

She had finally managed to excuse herself by pleading an all-too-real headache, only to find Poppy waiting to pounce on her the moment she left the courtyard.

She had no right to chide Poppy for her naïveté when her own heart was still veering wildly between shock and hope. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t dreamed of being rescued from this place. Her fiancé was a powerful man. It had been difficult to believe Maximillian would just shrug off her abduction and disappearance as if she were an unfortunate investment he had made at the Exchange.

But as the weeks had passed without the palace being stormed by a regiment of his men, her hopes had dimmed. When she closed her eyes on her sleeping couch at night and drifted into a fitful sleep, it was no longer Max’s dear face with its strong brow and resolute chin that she saw but the face of another man—a man she had struggled to erase from both her memory and her heart.

To have him melt out of the desert like a dream after all these years made her want to pinch herself to see if she was truly awake. She supposed in some stubborn corner of her heart she had never stopped believing he would come for her someday. Never stopped hoping that the promises he had made after they had tumbled into her cloak had been more than empty words carefully crafted to seduce a foolish and innocent girl who would have done anything to make him stay.

She was no longer a foolish girl, and that corner of her heart had been walled off long ago with the jagged shards of those broken promises. She had lost so much more than just her innocence that morning and in the dark days that had followed. If she had anything to say about it, Ash would never know just how much his leaving had cost her. At least then she might be able to salvage her pride.

As difficult as it was for the woman she had become to believe Ash had come for her on his own, it was even more impossible to believe Maximillian would have sent him. Unlike his brother, Max only gambled when the odds were in his favor, and he would know better than anyone else that throwing the two of them together again was an extremely risky toss of the dice—especially for Max.

Catching Poppy’s wrist to draw her closer, Clarinda cast an uneasy glance around them, half expecting to see Farouk’s uncle Tarik or one of the man’s many spies lurking behind some colorful tapestry or priceless urn. The ancient palace was honeycombed with trapdoors and secret passages. Tarik had made no secret of his distrust of his nephew’s English
guests
, and in this place the walls really
could
have ears.

She lowered her voice. “Just as you surmised, it is quite impossible for Captain Burke’s arrival to be simply a happy accident of fate.”

“Aha!” Poppy exclaimed in a stage whisper so loud it could have been heard by a deaf camel. “He
has
come to rescue us, hasn’t he? I just knew it!” She nervously smoothed her hair and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “If he succeeds, do you suppose he’ll be expecting one of us to kiss him as a reward? Or perhaps even the both of us?”

“I’d be more than happy to let you do the honors,” Clarinda assured her even as an image of a much younger Ash lowering his head to gently brush his lips over hers drifted through her mind. She shook her head to clear it. “But until I have a chance to find out exactly what the captain’s plan might be, it’s imperative that we continue on as if nothing has changed. If we arouse suspicion in the sultan or his guard, it could put all of our lives in grave danger.”

“But Farouk would never lift a hand to you,” Poppy pointed out with a wistful sigh. “He adores you.”

“He adores me at this specific moment in time. But I can assure you that the affections of men are far more fickle than you could ever imagine. Trust me … I should know. If he finds out I have a fiancé and that my fiancé’s brother is residing under his roof at this very moment, there’s no telling what he would do. He mustn’t suspect we’d even consider running away with Captain Burke until we’re far, far away from this place.”

Poppy nodded her understanding. “Have no fear. I have always been known for my discretion.”

As Poppy mimed locking her lips and tossing an imaginary key over her shoulder, Clarinda was reminded of a similar moment at Miss Throckmorton’s when she had trusted Poppy with the news that her monthly courses had arrived for the very first time. By the next afternoon, every girl at the Seminary was pretending to scrub her hands and reenacting the “Out, damn spot!” scene from
Macbeth
every time Clarinda entered a room.

It wasn’t that Poppy was deliberately malicious. She just had a tendency to blurt out the first thought that rolled onto her tongue, even if it wasn’t her thought to share.

“I might as well just lop off my own head and hand it to the sultan,” Clarinda muttered as she gathered her skirts and continued down the corridor.

“What will become of him after we’re gone?” Poppy asked plaintively, falling into step behind her. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll be lonely?”

“Lonely? Are you mad? The man has at least a dozen wives and twice that many concubines.”

“One doesn’t have to be alone to be lonely.” Poppy sounded as if she was speaking from experience. “What if you break his heart?”

“I can assure you there’s absolutely no danger of that happening. The man may be infatuated with me but it’s not as if he truly loves me. I’m just a shiny new bauble for his collection.”

Even as she said the words, Clarinda wondered if it was possible for her to trust her own judgment when it came to matters of the heart. There was a time when she would have sworn Ash loved her more than life itself. That he would never leave her and would storm the gates of hell itself to get her back if they should ever be parted.

A pair of towering eunuchs flanked the tall, ornately carved doors that shielded the harem from the outside world, their massive arms folded over their hairless chests. Clarinda had learned most of their names, but she was particularly fond of Solomon, with his wise, dark eyes and sad smile. Although the giant Ethiopian clearly possessed the strength to crush a grown man’s skull between his palms, he was as gentle as a nursemaid when it came to looking after the women entrusted to his care. He swung open the door for them and nodded to Clarinda as they passed, his well-oiled head gleaming like polished mahogany. Since she had never heard him utter a single word, she had always assumed he was mute.