by Shirl Henke
When they had accompanied their distraught guests to the gate, Ruth tactfully retired to let her husband and nephew discuss Rani Janos in private.
“What are you going to do with her?” Isaac, for once in his life, felt frankly baffled. “I know you owe her your life but this—this cannot continue. She is mad! And your aunt lives in mortal terror of that damnable wolf.”
Benjamin sat nursing a goblet of fine brandy as he pondered the problem. “Rani will never part with Vero. He is her only link with her past life. He has always been her protector.”
“Then it would seem you must part with Rani. Perhaps we could settle her and her wolf somewhere in the country. I have a small estate up the coast—”
“No, no. She will not live alone, confined to one place. Tis hard for her after a life of wandering to be so constrained, even living with me.” His face flooded with unaccustomed color as Isaac's shrewd gaze settled on him.
“If you keep her as mistress soon she will swell with your child. You must know the anguish your father suffered over your brother and the shame of his bastardry that Rigo himself has felt. Would you visit such on your own children? Tis time you were wed, Benjamin. And you cannot think to take such as Rani Janos to wife.”
Benjamin's shoulders slumped and he took a deep swallow of the brandy. It burned a trail down his throat as he gathered his chaotic thoughts. “No, I know marriage to Rani is not possible...yet...”
“She is beautiful and you find she has soothed your hurt over Miriam,” Isaac supplied gently. “That is understandable, but we are not permitted to ignore our obligations and cast off our by-blows in the cavalier way our king does.”
“I will not ignore my duty, Uncle Isaac. I know what I owe the House of Torres. I also know my brother's bitterness and would not see it visited on my children. Yet in the New World, he has made a life in spite of his heritage. I have been thinking of home...”
“You think to take the girl to Espanola?”
Benjamin smiled sadly at Isaac. “Twould rid you and Aunt Ruth of a troublesome burden. I cannot give her up and I cannot keep her here. And, I would return to Santo Domingo. That way I could be near my family and practice medicine.”
“And yet not have to see Miriam and Rigo all that often? They have a son, named for your father, you know.”
“Aunt Ruth told me. I wish them happiness. I know Father must be very pleased. Twould seem he has at last won Rigo's love.”
“He loves you just as much, Benjamin. And what of your mother? They would both be appalled with this caraque. She is illiterate and crude, a thief, for the love of God!”
“In Santo Domingo I could let her have more freedom. The New World is not like the Old. There are fewer rules. She could live with me and I could protect her...and any children that might come.”
“They would be bastards. Tis your duty to the House of Torres to wed and produce legitimate heirs, Benjamin.” Isaac's voice was grave. Then he leaned across the polished walnut table and touched his nephew's hand. “I have lost your grandfather of blessed memory, and then his son to the New World. I would keep you here, safe in Marseilles.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tis your duty to the House of Torres to wed and produce legitimate heirs. Benjamin was alone in the courtyard. The household was asleep and everything was silent around him. He sat in the moon-drenched garden, surrounded by Aunt Ruth's flowers, pondering what to do about the only other person he knew was awake. Rani waited for him in his quarters, tucked into his big bed, her tawny little body gleaming like gold against the whiteness of the linens. The same sun that whitens linen blackens the caraque.
Rani was not a suitable wife. He did not have the kind of relationship with her that his parents shared. Isaac was right. She was illiterate and a thief, a woman of inferior blood who could never fit into his life. Yet he was obsessed with her. “Right now my body aches just thinking of her.” He muttered an oath that would do a Marseilles fishmonger proud, then rose and headed slowly for the stairs...and Rani.
Sooner or later he would have to decide what to do with her. If only she were not so alone, cut off from her own kind. He had considered finding a willing young man from a trade guild in the city and dowering her so she would be marriageable, but he knew that was folly. What sane man would accept a bride who brought a wolf into the wedding chamber? Yet if he continued laying with her, Isaac's prediction would inevitably come true. He would be in danger of leaving children in the world who might well face the same cruel vicissitudes that Rigo had. As angry with his brother as he was, Benjamin still felt Rigo's pain.
“I am at a crossroad in my life and I know not where to turn.” Yet he knew surely as the moon shone that he was turning now to the woman waiting in his bed.
Benjamin opened the door to his quarters and slipped quietly inside. He expected to see Rani curled up, waiting in bed, but she was kneeling at a low brass table by the balcony, busily mixing something. He could not tell what it was in the dimly flickering light from the single fat candle.
“What are you doing?” At his quiet question, she spilled a dark powder across the gleaming scrollwork of the Moorish table.
Rani gasped in horror and guilt, then frantically began to scoop up the philter and replace it in the vial. She might just as well have tried to sweep back the Mediterranean tides with a broom. Benjamin stood scowling over her, waiting. She swallowed and her throat felt dry, as if she had drunk the philter powders instead of the sweet red wine in her goblet. “I was preparing a refreshment for you...to—to make up for what Vero and I did this afternoon.”
“A refreshment? I see the wine and fruit, but what is that evil-looking powder? Do you plan to poison me?” He knelt beside her, noticing the leaping pulse in her throat, always an indication of excitement—or guilt—in Rani Janos. He took a pinch of the substance between his thumb and index finger and sniffed it. “Tis nothing from any apothecary that I have ever before seen. What is it, Rani? You were mixing it in the wine, were you not?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Yes,” she replied with a small hiccup of misery. His eyes burned into her very soul until she blurted out the whole truth in a garbled rush. “Tis a love philter from Agata. You have been so displeased with me since we arrived at your family's grand house...and since it did not work when first I gave it to you on the road, I thought a second dose—”
“You gave me this before—that vile-tasting wine you stole from the farmer's well!” Dear God, what was in it? Did that old crone's black magic actually account for his obsessive lust for this waif? “Exactly what is the philter supposed to do?”
“Make you fall in love with me.” She raised wide gold eyes to meet his fierce blue ones.
“And what in it can work such magic? Ground unicorn's horn? Mandrake root? What?”
“None of those,” she said dismissively. “Tis my woman's blood. Agata dried it and made a powder...” She looked at the expression of dawning horror on his face. He dropped the vial of powder as if it were scalding pitch.
“Blood? Menses? Your menses! By the twenty-four balls of the twelve apostles! I begin to identify with old Judah Toulon!” His hand involuntarily clasped his throat. God, do not let me be sick!
Rani knew nothing of Jewish law but somehow intuited that what she had done involved a grave infraction. She bowed her head and began to sob silently. Vero, always sensitive to his mistress’ moods, materialized from behind the big bed and began to whimper piteously and lick her face.
Watching her small, slender body wracked by such silent, bitter crying brought Benjamin out of his trance. He gathered her into his arms and held her, stroking her long curly hair, now so soft and fragrant. She smelled like night-blooming jasmine. “Rani, Rani, do not cry, little one. Your philter, ghastly as it was, did not kill me.”
“It did not make you love me either,” she said in a voice muffled against his shoulder. Or make you forget Miriam Toulon.
“I only know you have bewitched me and I do not
want to see you cry.” He tilted her chin up with one hand and kissed the tears from her thick black lashes.
“I did not yet put any of the philter in the wine...if you thirst—or there are grapes and melons if you hunger.”
“I hunger...for you, little nymph.” He stood up, pulling her with him, then scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed, where he lay her gently on the soft covers.
Rani watched as he shed his clothes. He was her golden lover, so lean and hard and beautiful. His skin, where the warm Provencal sun had touched it, was gilded. As he peeled down his hose, his muscular legs gleamed far paler in the dim, flickering light. When he sank one knee on the bed she sat up and reached out, letting her small hand close around the hard, smooth velvet of his staff. Rani could feel the quiver of ecstasy her touch evoked. She stroked him, holding him in her power for that brief moment in time.
Benjamin broke the spell, opening his eyes to meet hers and commanding hoarsely, “Now, you disrobe for me.”
She wore only a deep violet silk wrapper over a sleeping shift of sheer amethyst gauze. As she slid one creamy golden shoulder from the robe, she felt the scorching heat of his gaze. Like a lithe, sun-warmed little cat, she slid the heavy silken folds from her body, revealing a few inches at a time until his patience was at an end and he thrust the robe free of her and ran his hand across her breast, down over the flat plane of her belly, then lower to trace the curve of her hip through the almost transparent tunic. His fingers grabbed a fistful of the gauze and pulled it up, revealing her sleek little legs and the dark nest of curls between her thighs. Rani helped him pull it over her head and he tossed it onto the floor, where it settled like seafoam atop the silk robe.
“You are a woman in miniature,” he murmured as he trailed his fingertips across her collarbone and then reached below to circle and tease her small chocolate nipples. He felt her breath catch as frissons of pleasure shot through her body, causing her to arch the pert little mounds forward into his palms. “Ah, Rani, you were made for love.”
Benjamin buried his face in her hair, covering her body with his, then rolling them across the bed until he lay on his back with her atop him. Her feather-light silky body writhed sensuously against his as she let her ebony hair spill around his shoulders, veiling them as their lips met in a long, slow duel of twining tongues and nipping teeth.
Rani slowly, boldly worked her way from his lips to his jaw and throat, then let her clever little tongue flick against his hard male nipples. She nuzzled the crisp golden hair of his chest and traced its narrowing descent across his belly. The pattern of body hair led her as clearly as a map to where it blossomed in thick golden fur, surrounding his phallus. She teased it with her tongue and teeth, lightly nipping, then sitting back on her haunches to watch the straining arousal twitch and pulse with heat and need.
He muttered an unintelligible oath. She lowered her head, taking his staff into her mouth, delicately, slowly, using every soft, erotic skill he had taught her, all the while remembering the first time he had shown her that men and women could make love to each other this way. Soon her sensuous teasing led him to buck and arch his back, pulling on her hair as she applied herself more forcefully.
“No, no...slowly...wait, little one...” he gasped, pulling her from the delicious exercise that was driving him mindless with pleasure. He lifted her up until her slim legs straddled his hips, then lowered her onto him, impaling her.
She flung her head back like a pagan goddess, letting her hair dance across his thighs and fall between them, brushing his sensitive flesh until sweat beaded his face. Benjamin held her hips immobilized as he struggled to keep from spilling his seed before he had pleasured her.
“Wild, greedy wench,” he murmured low, releasing his tight hold on her soft little buttocks. He lifted them slowly, then let them fall, enveloping him in her wet, hot sheath, creating a languorous, gentle rhythm. “Kiss me, Rani.” She bent toward him, letting her breasts brush his chest as her lips sought his.
Her moan of ecstasy rewarded him as he stroked up, deeply inside her at the same time his mouth claimed hers in a fierce yet oddly delicate kiss. He could feel her excitement building as she panted, brushing the hardened points of her nipples against his chest, riding him with increasingly harder, deeper and swifter strokes. Even the most abandoned Taino women who had given him his adolescent education on the hato had not been this passionate, this fiery. What he shared with Rani went beyond mere passion. Tis a madness of the soul, searing me, obsessing me. He felt the wet, velvety heat of her flesh quiver and convulse in release, pushing him over the abyss into blissful oblivion.
Slowly their breathing returned to normal and they lay, still intimately entwined, Rani atop Benjamin. She snuggled against his chest and a black curl tickled his nose. A light sheen of perspiration slicked their bodies. He ran his hand down the delicate curve of her spine, feeling the dampness, smelling the musky fragrance of their lovemaking. She lay like a feather, so small and light that he felt no burden keeping her thus all night. “You see how well your philter works, little sorceress?” he whispered in her ear.
“Aye, Benjamin.” She mouthed the words silently against his throat, loving to form his name on her lips. You lust for me, but you do not love me. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed lest he feel the telltale wetness of her tears. She was Romni, to this family a caraque, unfit to be wife to a man such as Benjamin Torres.
Benjamin's thoughts were troubled as well. Again he had filled her with his seed. If she was not already carrying his child, she soon would be. She had given him her virginity and she loved him. I use her ill for I cannot wed her. He finally drifted into a troubled sleep, fìlled with dreams of Espanola, Miriam and Rigo.
* * * *
“Olivia, I know not what to do! She is so strange and wild. She goes about the house and gardens with that frightening wolf. The other day she stripped off all her clothes and cavorted in the fountain with the beast!” Ruth wrung her hands and looked at her niece with beseeching brown eyes.
Olivia Guzman Fontaine fought the urge to laugh aloud with pure glee at the Gypsy girl's antics. Her generous lips spread in a wide smile, twitching at the corners of her mouth. “I know you are upset, Aunt Ruth,” she replied. The orphan daughter of Ana Torres and Lorenzo Guzman was a beautiful woman who took from her father only his height and slimness. Her warm disposition and elegantly sculpted features were both the heritage of her mother's family, as were her piercing blue Torres eyes. Now those eyes danced with mirth as she thought of her proper cousin Benjamin, always the serious physician and dutiful son, bewitched by a slip of a girl who had apparently turned their uncle's household on its ear in less than a fortnight.
She had been in the country, recovering from the birth of her third child, while her family in Marseilles was under siege. “Perhaps if I were to meet this Rani I would be able to...er, do something with her.”
Ruth's eyes widened, then narrowed as she watched the play of emotions on Olivia's face. Since Ana's death at the hands of the Inquisition, she and Isaac had raised Olivia with their own granddaughter Rebecca. “I know you as well as anyone, Olivia. You think this whole wretched tangle amusing. Once you see the girl and her wolf you may not be smiling so. I would hate to have your husband widowed with three small children to raise if Vero gobbled you up like one of cook's chickens,” Ruth added, only half in jest.
Olivia let the burble of laughter escape as she slipped a plump grape in her mouth. “What thinks Rebecca of this new addition to the household?”
Ruth waved her hand in dismissal. “She has been in Genoa, visiting your cousin Alejandro and his wife for the past month. She knows nothing about this...this creature and her creature.”
“Yet Benjamin keeps Rani here in spite of all,” Olivia said thoughtfully, tapping one slim finger against the elegant hollow of her cheek.
Ruth sighed and said grudgingly, “She saved his life when her band of cutthroats abducted him. He feels obligated to her
.”
Olivia suppressed another peal of laughter and said drily, “From what I have heard ‘obligated’ seems an inappropriate word.”
“Really, Olivia, such talk is not seemly.”
Olivia patted Ruth's frail hand gently. “I am four and thirty years old, wed for many a long year. I know why Benjamin keeps the girl here. The question is what to do with her. Is she coarse and lusty? I have seen Rom wenches at the fairs telling fortunes and dancing. Somehow I cannot imagine my proper cousin bewitched by one such as that.”
A loud snarl followed by a yowling hiss rent the air outside the window. “That wolf has doubtless treed Cinnamon again. She will come after it and you may judge her looks and manner for yourself.”
The two women rose and walked briskly toward the door leading into the courtyard gardens.
Rani knelt in the freshly tilled dirt of a bed of oleander with her arms about Vero's neck, petting and soothing the wolf, who gazed keenly at a low overhanging limb of the willow tree on which sat the plump orange cat Cinnamon. “You cannot have him. Tis most inhospitable to eat our hostess’ pet, Vero.” A soft chuckle of laughter caused Rani to turn and gape at the grand lady standing next to Ruth Torres.
“I daresay you are right. My aunt is quite attached to that old rascal, as I am certain you are to your pet.”
Rani tightened her grip about the wolf's neck. “Vero is more than a pet. He is my protector and friend. He has saved my life many times...and he means no harm in chasing the cat.”
“Unless Cinnamon grows careless in his old age,” Ruth said crossly, standing back a ways behind Olivia, who studied the girl with shrewd eyes.
“So you are Rani Janos. I am Benjamin's cousin Olivia.” She stepped forward and extended her hand experimentally to the wolf, allowing him to sniff it and decide if he approved her or not. He did, giving her a careful slurp, then sitting down to watch her, the cat now forgotten.