Forbidden Jewel of India (Harlequin Historical) Page 20

  ‘Poor love,’ he murmured, holding her close.

  ‘What…what did you call me?’ She could have bitten her tongue the moment she asked.

  ‘Mmm? Oh. Poor love.’ She could feel him listening to his own words properly for the first time. ‘Just an expression,’ he said lightly and so carefully that she winced. ‘Do not worry, Anusha. I am not becoming starry-eyed and sentimental. I know you don’t want that.’

  ‘No, of course not. But I do want those kisses you promised me,’ she said, fixing a smile on her lips so he would hear it in her voice as she turned and laid her cheek against his chest.

  ‘Kisses? Ah, yes, I promised to kiss you all over. I’ll just lock the doors.’ She watched him as he padded across the room to secure the inner door, then slip the catch on the pair of doors on to the veranda. Nick was wearing loose pajama trousers and a hip-length kurta in subdued patterns of brown and green that made the colour of his eyes seem more intense. His feet, brown and strong, were bare like hers.

  The sight of him, his sheer physicality and grace, affected her as it always did, with simple, trembling desire. He must have seen it in her face for he coloured, just a little. That was another thing that she loved about Nick, the fact that he seemed surprised that she found him so desirable, that she wanted to look at him. He was so handsome and so masculine and yet he never seemed aware of it.

  ‘What?’ He lifted an eyebrow.

  ‘It is so unfair that European men can lounge about in Indian clothes and yet I am trussed up like a fowl in these things.’ She waved a hand at her chintz skirts and tight bodice.

  ‘There is no reason why you cannot relax in your Indian clothes in private,’ Nick said. ‘You will just have to scramble into your corsets if someone comes to call.’ His fingers were working on the long row of buttons down her back, his mouth kissing each inch of skin as it was exposed.

  ‘No one scrambles into a corset!’ Anusha protested, trying to stand still as he slipped her bodice free and undid the ties of her skirts. They pooled around her feet, followed by her petticoats, leaving her in her corset, chemise and very little else.

  Her breath came out with a whoosh as he freed the laces: partly the loosening of the constriction, partly tension that was building too fast. ‘Poor darling,’ he said, rubbing her ribs lightly with the palms of his hands. Darling, not love. ‘I’ll kiss it better.’

  He held her between his hands while he caressed each red crease on her skin with his lips, trailing down each side of her rib cage in turn until he reached her navel, then twirling inside it with the point of his tongue. ‘Nick!’ She wriggled, but his hands were firm on her hips as he knelt and kissed across her belly to the right, then down to her groin, his lips brushing the tangled curls. ‘Nick.’

  She knew about this, of course. But the reality, the intimacy, was shocking. He trailed back up, across, down the other side, and her hands twitched with the effort not to take his head, press him close to where she ached and pulsed.

  Nick came forwards on his knees, pushing her before him until her legs hit the pile of rugs and she toppled backwards, sprawled open to him on the soft silken platform.

  His hands pushed at her thighs until she parted them, stiff with nerves for a moment. Then, when his tongue flicked out and found her, she collapsed back and abandoned herself to whatever he chose to do to her.

  He chose to drive her to the edge of madness with slow, slow licks and kisses, each probing deeper and deeper into her quivering intimate heat until she was sobbing, pleading, for release. Then, as her hands grasped at the pile of the carpets and her back arched up, he parted her gently with his fingers, bent and stroked just one tiny spot with his tongue, again and again and she shuddered and cried out, reaching for him.

  *

  Nick lay with Anusha in his arms, and watched while she drifted back into reality as his frustrated body began to calm down. She was beautiful in the throes of passion: uninhibited, trusting, utterly sensual. Eighteen more days seemed an eternity to wait to make her his. But he would wait because she trusted him and because he wanted to do this properly for her. In this, at least, his second marriage would not be like his first.

  Anusha desired him. Now she must abandon her dreams, and, he hoped, most of her fears, and marry him with only that unpredictable thread of mutual passion to bind her to him.

  He had been right not to protest that he loved her, try to romance her. Anusha would have seen right through lies and he knew she did not want emotional involvement. He had heard the alarm in her voice when he had casually called her love just now. She needed to be herself, not emotionally tied to a man she did not love, he understood that.

  It was a relief, of course. He could not cope with the clinging, needy, love of a woman. He had hurt Miranda by not being what she wanted in that way and he did not want to hurt this woman. At least he would try never to be cruel. His mother’s sobs echoed down the years to the man who was once a small boy standing outside her bedchamber in the dark night listening, helpless. Why can’t you love me, Francis? All I want is for you to love me…

  ‘Nick?’ The real woman in his arms stirred and smiled up at him, her eyes a little unfocused. Then Anusha’s gaze sharpened and she lifted her hand to touch his cheek. ‘What is it? What is wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Just an old memory from long ago.’

  There was a knock at the inner door. ‘Nicholas sahib?’ The door handle rattled. ‘Laurens sahib asks if you can come to his study to speak to him.’

  ‘Tell him ten minutes, Ajit,’ Nick called back. He stooped and kissed Anusha on the mouth, taking his time, gently exploring, and she curled her arms around his neck and responded with an ardour that had him as hard as iron again in seconds. ‘I must go. Let me help you dress first.’

  He watched as she walked to her clothes, not at all shy of his eyes on her nakedness. Why could she bring the heat to his cheeks whenever she looked at him with those gorgeous eyes heavy with desire or calculating feminine assessment? She was the one who should be bashful.

  Then, as he stood over her helping with that confounded corset, he saw the colour in her cheeks and the way her eyes shifted a little, shy under his scrutiny, and something inside him twisted, almost painfully. ‘There,’ he said briskly. ‘That’s the last button.’

  ‘Will you be here for dinner?’

  ‘No, it is mess night at the fort. I’ll be rolling back in the early hours, drunk as a lord.’

  ‘Do lords get more drunk than anyone else? Why is that?’ She was on her knees finding hair pins.

  ‘Just an expression.’

  ‘Even so, I am glad you are not a lord!’

  He was still chuckling when he tapped on George’s door and let himself into the study. The amusement vanished at the look on the other man’s face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘A ship from England has just docked. There is post for you.’ He reached across the desk and dropped half-a-dozen letters in front of Nick. ‘It brought the newssheets, too. I glanced through the Deaths column first—a morbid habit. Nick, your uncle has died.’

  ‘Which uncle?’ His mother had three brothers, he seemed to recall, not that he could put a face to any of them.

  ‘Grenville. Viscount Clere.’

  It took a moment. His first thought was that his father would not care: there had never been any love lost between the two brothers. Then he realised. ‘My father is heir to the marquisate. My God, losing Grenville and having to see my father in his shoes—it’ll kill the old man.’

  ‘By all accounts your grandfather is holding up remarkably well. The newssheets cover a month after the funeral and he was certainly alive and apparently in good health. What his state of mind is, one can only guess.’ George nodded towards the letters. ‘Those might be some guide, I would hazard.’

  ‘These?’ Nick lifted the topmost, its stained and dirty canvas cover bulging over the shape of a seal beneath. ‘Why?’

  ‘Are your wits wandering, Nicholas? You are no
w second in line to the marquisate of Eldonstone. Those will be from the lawyers and your grandfather. Possibly your father.’

  To go back to England? To the grandfather who had washed his hands of him, the father who hated him, the stifling life of the English aristocracy, a mountain of responsibilities he did not want in a world that was alien to him now. He had made a new life for himself here, one he loved.

  ‘No.’ He found he was on his feet. Nick gave the stack of letters a push that scattered them across the desk top. ‘No. Be damned to that. I can’t…I cannot deal with this now. I have an engagement—mess dinner.’

  He strode out, leaving the door swinging open. Behind him he heard George’s chair scrape back. In the hall, as he headed for his bedchamber, he saw Anusha, her eyes wide and questioning as he strode past her without a word. How the hell could Fate do this to him?

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Papa?’ Anusha slipped into the study through the open door. ‘What is the matter with Nick?’

  ‘Eavesdropping?’ He smiled, but his eyes were sombre.

  ‘I heard his voice in here, then I saw him in the hall. I have never seen him look like that, as though Kali were on his heels.’ Danger only made Nick more focused, more alive, but whatever this was had deadened something in him. She felt more fear than she had since he had taken her from the palace. ‘Tell me what is wrong.’

  ‘Most people would say there is nothing wrong at all,’ he father said with a grimace. ‘He’ll tell you himself when he is over the shock, but his father’s elder brother has died, which mean that Nicholas, God willing, will be the Marquis of Eldonstone one day.’

  ‘That is good for him, is it not?’ Even as she asked it Anusha felt the ground beneath her feet shift as realisation struck. A marquis was an aristocrat, a high-up one. Nick should be marrying a lady born and bred and trained for being a marquis’s wife. Her stomach swooped as she clutched the edge of the desk. Not me. Not the illegitimate, half-Indian daughter of a trader, however rich and powerful her father was here.

  ‘It is—if what he wants is wealth and vast estates, about six houses, and all the political power and influence he chooses to exert from a place at the top of English society.’

  ‘And if he does not want it?’ Perhaps Nick could give it up. He did not love his father, he did not seem to be pining for England. Hope fluttered fragile wings.

  ‘There is no remedy for that. He cannot renounce the title, only death can free him,’ her father said drily. ‘If he does not take up his inheritance then all that he will become responsible for will be neglected, dealt with at arm’s length by agents. I do not think that Nicholas could do that. There will be hundreds of people involved.’

  The floor seemed to shift again. ‘Then he needs a wife who is born of the aristocracy, does he not? One who knows what to do to help him, one who will be accepted.’

  ‘He is marrying you.’ Her father said it with a gentleness that only made the pain worse. Pity. He understands what this means, he understands that once Nick has given his word he keeps it. He will insist on marrying me.

  ‘Ha,’ Anusha agreed. It was as though suddenly she could only think in Hindi. And with the change of tongue came the realisation of what she must do.

  The women of her family had walked down singing to the pyres, rather than lose their honour to conquering armies. She had inherited that sense of honour, too. In the agony of a broken heart she would sacrifice everything that she now treasured and hoped for—the reconciliation with her father, her love for Nick—rather than stand in the way of his duty and his honour.

  ‘Anusha?’

  She struggled to find the English words. ‘I am sorry, I keep…I am keeping you from your work, Papa. I will see you at dinner time.’ Four hours before dinner to plan and prepare, perhaps an hour or so afterwards. Nick would be coming home late, as drunk as a lord. She bit her lip to stop the sob of desperate laughter that threatened to escape. How right he had been in his prediction. Hysteria would not help, now she must be cold as ice. When he sobered up and started to think straight she must be long gone or she would have no hope of escape.

  *

  ‘Nicholas sahib. Lean on me.’ Ajit stood by the step down from the carriage.

  ‘I’m not that drunk, Ajit.’

  ‘Yes, you are, sahib.’

  Nick clutched the doorframe, missed the step and was neatly fielded by Ajit’s wiry strength. ‘So I am. Drunk as a lord.’ He’d said that to Anusha, hadn’t he? It had seemed funny then. It probably still was, but he seemed to have forgotten how to laugh. Still, this felt good—nothing was real, everything floated, he was feeling no pain whatsoever, except whatever was digging its talons into his heart.

  ‘You are going to bed now, sahib.’ It wasn’t a question. Ajit pushed and pulled him up the steps and into the hall past the startled watchman. ‘Quietly, sahib. Laurens sahib and the memsahib will be asleep. They do not want to hear your singing.’

  ‘Al’right.’ The corridor was bending oddly and the floor was swaying like a rope bridge over an up-country ravine, but Nick struggled on until a final shove from Ajit landed him neatly on his bed, head to the end, buckled shoes on the pillow. ‘Go’way. Tha’ you.’

  ‘Shoes, sahib.’ Ajit pulled them off, then started on his neckcloth.

  ‘Go‘way,’ Nick repeated. ‘Go‘bed.’ The darkness swirled dangerously when he closed his eyes, but he fell into it gratefully.

  *

  ‘Nicholas sahib! Wake up!’

  Earthquake? Nick dragged his eyes open and squinted at Ajit’s face. No, the room was still, the man was shaking him. ‘What’s the matter? And what the hell is the time?’ It was still dark and his head felt like a bag of hot, wet sand.

  ‘Half past three by the clock, sahib. Someone has stolen Rajat.’

  ‘When?’ Nick pushed himself upright and struggled against dizziness and nausea. He’d been back an hour and the blood in his veins was fighting a losing battle against the brandy.

  ‘The groom saw when he stabled the carriage horses. The stall is empty, the saddle and bridle gone.’

  ‘But—’ Something was wrong with that. Nick tried to work it out. ‘Rajat would kill anyone who tried to take him, so would Pavan.’

  ‘I know.’ Ajit clutched his turban. ‘I think and think—perhaps he was drugged?’

  ‘Or taken by someone who he was used to.’ What little blood was circulating seemed to drain to his feet. ‘Oh, no, she wouldn’t.’

  ‘The memsahib? But why?’

  ‘I don’t know, can’t think. Find out if she is safe in bed.’

  Nick got his feet on the floor and somehow made it to the washstand. The water was lukewarm, but he plunged his head into it and towelled himself dry. He was still in dress uniform and he struggled out of the tight jacket, the high stock and the fitted breeches and started to drag on civilian riding clothes and his boots.

  ‘The memsahib is asleep,’ Ajit reported from the doorway.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I opened the door a little and looked in. I could see the shape in the bed under the covers.’

  The brandy was acting like a blow to the head, but his instincts for trouble had not deserted him and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He walked doggedly to Anusha’s bedchamber, went straight in and pulled back the mosquito netting. Without its shrouding effect the bolster down the middle was obvious. ‘Get her woman here now.’

  *

  Half an hour later, amidst a flurry of servants, Nick stood forcing down scalding black coffee while George paced up and down, the skirts of his silk robe flaring out with each agitated turn. ‘What the devil is she doing? Her woman says she has taken several changes of linen, and the clothes she wore when she arrived have gone—this isn’t a moonlit ride on the maidan! I know Anusha is upset, but—’

  ‘What is she upset about?’ Nick poured more coffee.

  ‘She knows about the inheritance.’

  So that explained it. �
�She’s run away,’ Nick said flatly through the splitting headache that was making his eyes cross. ‘She thinks she isn’t good enough for an aristocrat.’

  ‘It would not be easy for her,’ George said. ‘Or for you, perhaps.’

  ‘I know that. But anyone who tries to tell me she isn’t acceptable and refuses to receive her is going to be exceedingly sorry—and that includes the whole damned court of St James. She’s been brought up to be a princess, her bloodline goes back into the mists of time, she’s got more courage than most of the men I know. Hell, George, what am I going to do if I can’t find her?’

  ‘You will find her.’ The older man gripped him by the upper arms and gave him a shake. ‘You will. Now think—where would she go?’

  Through the pain in his head and the fear in his gut and the ache in his heart the answer came to him. ‘She’s gone back to Kalatwah, the only place where she thinks she’ll be accepted.’

  ‘But how? If she’s taken the horse she can’t be going to try to find a boat.’

  ‘Have you been in your study? Come on.’ Nick strode out, George on his heels. ‘Look at those map rolls—they’ve been disturbed. And the ledgers in front of your safe have been moved—she can pick locks. Check the money, I’ll find which maps she’s got. I have a horrible feeling that Anusha is intending to ride all the way back. If she’s planning that, then she’ll most likely find a group of travellers heading that way. My guess is that she’ll start by going to Barrackpore.’

  There was a groan from the other side of the room. George turned from the open safe and dumped a pile of gems on the desk. ‘She’s taken money and she has left her jewels in return.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I will get her back.’ Nick realised he was the one offering reassurance now. His headache was ebbing as he sobered, but it was replaced with a knot of fear for Anusha and something else, an emotion he could not quite define, but which gave him hope and at the same time terrified him. ‘Ajit and I will try the gates around the city—if nothing else, she’s riding Rajat and he’s distinctive.’