Paige still looked upset. “You are too kind by half, my dear.”
“I know what it is like to feel afraid,” Ashiana said simply. “Do you think we might send them a reward for rescuing me?”
“I will send one of the servants with money and food.” Paige arched one brow. “And a stern warning never to try such foolishness again.”
Relieved, Ashiana smiled. “Thank you, Paige. Now, please, where is Saxon? I have so much to say to him.”
The duchess squeezed Ashiana’s hand. “I’m afraid you will have to wait until he returns, my dear.”
“Returns from where?” Ashiana asked with disappointment.
“He and Julian left for the Andaman Islands last week, aboard the Rising Star. Saxon means to return the sapphire to your clan for you.”
A wave of astonishment stole Ashiana’s breath and voice. Then all the emotions in her heart collided together in a burst of love and pride. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even think of words that would express what she felt.
Paige shook her head. “He was devastated to lose you, Ashiana. It’s a miracle that he didn’t die in the river trying to save you. I’ve never seen him so emotional. I feared the grief might be too much for him—and then he got this idea into his head. He said he had to carry out your sacred duty for you.”
Stunned, Ashiana closed her eyes, feeling tears wet her lashes as the full breadth of her love for Saxon swept through her. What other man would do this—face his mortal enemies to complete a mission that was not his own.
It was not the act of a man who considered her merely a mistress.
He loved her.
Perhaps he had never been able to say the words aloud, but his actions expressed it vividly. He loved her.
She remembered her last thought in the icy river, when she had felt life slipping—that she did not want to leave him. By all the gods, how she loved him. Being so close to death had reminded her of just how priceless and beautiful and fragile life could be, and every precious bit of it resounded with his name.
“Saxon,” she whispered, opening her eyes.
Then stark fear for his life overwhelmed every other emotion. “Paige, he must not do this! The Ajmir will never believe him. They will kill him!”
Paige looked doubtful. “But he seemed so confident.”
“Saxon is always confident. But I’m afraid this time he may have taken on a task that is truly beyond him. We have to stop him.”
“The Rising Star left under full sail. They’re far out to sea by now—”
“Then we must send another ship to catch him, to bring him back!”
“But they could search for weeks and not find him.”
“Then we must rely on another way to save him.” Ashiana stood, clenching her fists. “We must find some way to get me to the Andamans before he arrives. If I can speak with the maharaja, I might be able to make him understand.”
“But, my dear, you’re not well—”
“Paige, you said once that I was courageous for my age. Please believe me, everything I have done came not from courage, but from love. And I have never loved anyone as I love Saxon. This means his life. I have to do it.”
Paige stood, her expression filled with admiration, and she didn’t argue further. She summoned servants and began issuing orders. She called for a carriage, instructed Eugenie to pack Ashiana’s things, sent a kitchen maid to steep a cough remedy with lemon and honey, then helped Ashiana to her room so she could wash and dress.
“You know, my dear,” the duchess said a short time later, hurriedly seating Ashiana at the dressing table and helping dry her hair while the maids packed. “I suspected from the very first moment I saw the two of you together that you and Saxon loved one another.”
“You did?” Ashiana whispered, genuinely surprised.
“And I must admit, I had ulterior motives for being so kind to you.”
“Mo-tives?”
“Yes, dear. Motives are reasons.” Paige turned to pick up a hairbrush. When she turned back, Ashiana thought she saw sadness reflected in the gentle woman’s face in the mirror. “You see, I have four sons, and I love each of them with all my heart and soul. But I…I also had a daughter.”
Ashiana remained silent as Paige brushed her hair. Patience, it seemed, worked as well with D’Avenant women as it did with D’Avenant men. Before she could guess where this daughter was, Paige explained.
“It was a few years after Max was born. She would have been my youngest. But she lived only a few days.”
Ashiana met Paige’s silver gaze in the mirror, seeing the tears that Paige was trying to blink back.
“She would have been a woman grown now,” Paige whispered. “With a husband of her own. Perhaps children.”
The duchess set down the brush and perched on the velvet-padded bench, laying a gentle hand on Ashiana’s cheek. “I never knew my daughter, but these past weeks, it’s almost been like…like having…”
She couldn’t continue. Ashiana leaned over and hugged her. “Paige,” she whispered, her throat tight, “my mother died the day I was born. She was English and I have spent years hating her for that. Resenting her. But…” Suddenly she was speaking through tears. “If she had been anything like you, I think I would have loved her very much.”
Paige hugged her hard and then sat back. Both of them drew their hankies at precisely the same time. Glancing at one another, the two of them suddenly laughed in the midst of their tears.
“Oh, Paige, you are such a treasure. You all are.” Ashiana felt a wave of emotion as their laughter faded—something familiar, yet surprising. Almost like…homesickness.
It was not going to be easy to leave England. There was so much she would miss.
But the love she felt for Saxon was even stronger. She could not lose him now. To have come so far only for him to be killed at the hands of her—
No. She would save him. She was the only one who could.
But the enormity of the journey that lay ahead was almost overwhelming. “Paige, how can I possibly get to the Andaman Islands before Saxon? If only I had wings!”
“I cannot supply wings, my child, but I can supply the next best thing.” Paige smiled confidently. “As I explained once before, we D’Avenants are very well connected.”
Andaman Islands
He was still alive. Saxon took that as a good sign, but he had doubts about how long his present condition might continue. He walked through the thick forest of sal trees, escorted by a quartet of Ajmir guards, his hands tied securely behind his back. The blazing heat quickly baked him dry, but the clothes that had clung to him with seawater soon clung to him with sweat.
He could only hope that Ashiana’s adopted father, the maharaja, would prove to be an understanding sort.
Just the thought of Ashiana was enough to make him ache, even after five months. Carrying out her duty was the only thing that had gotten him through the long voyage from London. Someone had to give the sapphire back and tell the Ajmir where the other eight were located. It was, as she had said so many times, the honorable thing to do.
And with all his heart, it was his way of cherishing everything she had meant to him.
He had come alone, had insisted on it. Only after a heated argument with Julian had he left the Rising Star this morning. No one was to follow him. The cursed sapphires had already cost him too much. He was willing to risk his own life to do this, but no one else’s.
He had planned to lie low near the beach and make his way to the palace at nightfall, but the Ajmir guards had captured him before he even reached the shore. They had appeared out of nowhere in their swift cata maran water craft, netted him like a fish, and relieved him of the sapphire. If he were the paranoid type, he would have thought they had known he was coming.
Being logical, he had to chalk it up to his own bad luck and their extreme good sense in posting sentries at all times—even in broad daylight. What he couldn’t understand was why they hadn’t cut his throa
t on the spot.
The guards closed in more tightly around him as they entered the palace grounds. They didn’t bother to blindfold him—which did not bode well for his future, he thought grimly. If they were not concerned about an enemy seeing the way into their palace, they didn’t intend for him to live long.
They hurried him inside through a hidden entrance, down a corridor so dark he couldn’t see. They walked for what seemed a half hour along sinuous, unlit hallways, and he felt the air grow cool and damp. They were going deep underground.
With a sharp turn to the right, they passed through a door and into what felt like a large chamber. He couldn’t see because the sudden glare temporarily blinded him.
One of the sentries shoved him forward and pushed him down to his knees. He felt cold marble beneath him and heard the door close, then a deep male voice speaking in clipped Hindi.
“Namaste, Angrez. Greetings, Englishman.”
His eyes finally adjusted, but what caught his attention was not the richness of the room, or the dark-skinned man sitting on a throne at the far end of the chamber.
It was the woman kneeling on a red tasseled pillow beside that throne.
“Ashiana!” He surged to his feet, only to be forced back to his knees by one of the guards.
The man on the throne said something, but Saxon didn’t hear. His heart was pounding so hard it blocked out all sound, all thought. Time wrenched to a halt in a mind-numbing moment of shock. She was alive! She wore Hindu silks in vibrant shades of blue, with sheer veils over her hair and face, and she kept her gaze on the floor, but it was unmistakably her. She sat with her fingers interlaced on her lap, and he could see the rose tattoo on her left wrist. That beautiful, precious, indelible Ajmir tattoo.
Ashiana didn’t say a word, didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge him in any way.
After that first frozen second, the relief and joy and thanks to any and every god that might be above were swiftly buried beneath questions.
How the devil had she gotten here? How long had she been here?
Had she purposely let him believe she was dead?
He couldn’t believe it. “Ashiana—”
“Chuppi! Silence!” the man on the throne demanded.
Saxon tore his gaze from her and looked at the maharaja for the first time. The Ajmir leader’s appearance only complicated Saxon’s doubts: the brawny, severe-looking man wearing regal blue jama and shilwar, a jewel-studded turban, and a hate-filled expression was much too young to be Ashiana’s adopted father.
He fixed Saxon with a glare. “Angrez, you will not speak to her. You will address me.” With a single flick of his hand, he dismissed the guards, his jeweled rings flashing in the light.
“Maf kijiye. I ask pardon,” Saxon said, in the least hostile Hindi he could manage. “May I have the honor of knowing whom it is I am addressing?”
The man didn’t bother with the traditional formal flourishes. He stated his name flatly. “Maharaja Rao Chand Ajmir.”
Rao. The name struck him like a blow. Prince Rao! Now the maharaja. Saxon watched as the Ajmir ruler reached down and touched Ashiana, resting a hand lightly but possessively on her shoulder—and she did not flinch away from the contact.
Pain lanced through him. He had thought she was dead. He had grieved for her. He had spent months at sea mourning her, remembering every detail of her face and form and spirit and laughter…and she had returned to her prince?
She just sat there at Rao’s side, passive, head bent. She wouldn’t even spare him a glance.
“Ashiana,” he demanded hoarsely, “look at me—”
“Princess Ashiana does not converse with strangers,” Rao pronounced.
Saxon pierced him with a look that could have seared the gold off his throne. “Ashiana and I are hardly strangers. And we have done a great deal more than converse.”
The innuendo made Rao’s eyes widen. Ashiana obviously hadn’t chosen to share that information with her betrothed.
Or was Rao already her husband?
Blinded by jealous agony, Saxon couldn’t stop himself. “She is mine, Ajmir. You cannot break the bond between us. She will always be mine—”
“What happened in the past is of no interest to me. And her future is of no concern to you, Angrez.” Rao spoke in a cool, regal tone and confidently removed his hand from Ashiana’s shoulder—but Saxon could feel the heat of his fury even across the distance that separated them.
“What happens to Ashiana is always of concern to me,” Saxon retorted. “How did she come to be here? And what happened to her adopted father?”
“He is dead,” Rao said sharply. “His heart gave out when he was told that Princess Ashiana had failed in her mission and been taken away on an Englishman’s ship!”
For the first time, Ashiana reacted to what was being said. She winced visibly and seemed to fold in upon herself, as if the weight of the entire palace was pressing down upon her.
Saxon abruptly realized that he had completely mistaken her mood. She wasn’t being passive and uninterested; she was dispirited, devastated. Her beloved adopted father had died thinking she had failed him—while she had been aboard the Valor, making love to her people’s greatest enemy.
Only the knowledge that any move toward the throne would cost his life kept him from going to her.
He had to settle for another exchange of furious stares with Rao. “She did not fail in her mission,” Saxon said tightly. “You have the ninth sapphire. Your guards relieved me of the jewel as soon as they captured me.”
“The sacred stones were only part of her duty. The other part was to kill the enemy of her people and ensure that he could cause no further trouble. The fact that you are here and breathing, Englishman, is proof that she failed.”
Saxon shifted his gaze back to Ashiana. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said in English. When Rao tried to silence him, he only spoke louder. “The maharaja’s death was not your fault. Your duty is done. You did your best and if that isn’t good enough for this high-handed son of a bitch, that’s not your problem.”
Ashiana finally raised her head, and he could see that her sheer veil was damp with tears. He could see, too, the pain in her eyes. And the love.
It stole away all his questions and left only love in their place. “Ashiana, I—”
Rao angrily interrupted. “The Princess wished for me to see you and speak with you before I decided your fate. I have seen you and spoken with you and I see no reason to change my mind—”
“Rao!” Ashiana spoke for the first time, turning toward him. “You said—”
“Chuppi!” Rao snapped. Then, as he looked down at her, his expression softened in a way that made Saxon’s gut clench. Rao leaned over, whispering something Saxon could not hear.
Ashiana’s only response was a glare. A glare that made joy and pride jolt through Saxon. The spirit and fire that he loved so much were still there.
He hadn’t lost her. Not yet.
Rao straightened and turned back to Saxon. “I shall remove that smile from your face quickly, Englishman. You will be executed in the morning. The clan Ajmir demands your life for your crimes.”
“Rao, no!” Ashiana cried, grabbing his arm.
The maharaja ignored her. “Because she has told you where the other sapphires are, we cannot risk allowing you to live. Greed is too much a trait of your kind. You die at first light, Englishman.”
“You have changed, premika.”
The sadness, the disappointment in Rao’s voice penetrated the haze of grief that had wrapped itself around Ashiana. The two of them were alone in Rao’s lavish apartments. He had granted her a private audience.
These rooms had once belonged to her adopted father. Many times, she had come here to play chess or read poetry to him or harass him into putting aside matters of state to join her for a walk outside in the twilight.
She turned from where she stood at the edge of the terrace that led to the gardens. “I have changed? Rao,
you have changed! You were once a man of your word.”
“I promised only to meet the Englishman and speak with him, Ashiana. I did both.”
She took a deep breath, listening to the warm, familiar sounds of evening descending on the palace, trying to control her emotions. “You must realize by now that he came here in peace. His only intention was to return the sapphire. Exactly as I told you.”
“Ah, premika. You are a woman. You cannot understand the deceitful ways of men.”
Ashiana clenched her fists. She had been afraid of this. The late maharaja had possessed wisdom and gentleness. She could have explained everything to him and persuaded him to spare Saxon’s life.
Rao was a warrior above all else—and he would be far more difficult to convince.
“I will tell you what deceitful is,” she said in soft accusation. “Deceitful is persuading me to tell you the truth, then using my words against me. Yes, Saxon knows where the other eight sapphires are. I told you that. But I only told you to prove my point! If he intended to steal the jewels, why would he have risked his life coming here, to the Andamans? He had one of the sapphires and he could have gotten the other eight with little trouble.”
Rao paused beside a heaping platter of fruit in the corner and picked up a small dasheri mango, turning it over and over in his hand. “You did not tell me all the truth, Ashiana.”
She flinched at his low, angry tone. She had not told him of the intimacy between her and Saxon because she had come here to save Saxon, and intended to leave with him. She hadn’t seen any need to torment Rao with images of them together.
She had also feared it would so enrage Rao that he would lop off Saxon’s head at the first opportunity.
But then Saxon had ruined her carefully laid plan for a truce, unable to resist asserting his male claim over her. They were practically the first words out of his mouth! Gods above, men were utterly impossible to deal with. Especially these two. They were both equally possessive and stubborn. And they had gotten so caught up in that side issue that Rao had completely missed the point of the meeting.
One Night with a Scoundrel Page 35