The spines of her fan nearly cracked under the pressure of her fingers. When he at last moved off with Bernard, leaving the ballroom, she released a trembling breath. They would indulge in a game of whist with political cronies. Father would lose, but consort with high-powered officials. Now, with Bernard's money, he could afford to lose.
How weak Jillian was! All but that one night in Graham's arms, when she'd felt all the passion and life inside her come boiling to a turbulent bliss. Never again.
* * *
He arrived late, as would be expected with his rank. Inside, Graham searched for a redheaded enemy.
Like a panther he prowled the perimeter of the ballroom. Not listening to the feminine whispers fluttering in his wake, ignoring the admiring stares and hastily dropped curtseys as he approached. As always, he lightly clasped his white dancing gloves. Rarely did he dance, and when he did, it was with a select few. Graham did not want to encourage speculation as to the possibility of a future bride.
Last year, his brother had consorted with these same people. Kenneth had come before them with his Egyptian accent and his Egyptian past. Money and rank had won him acceptance. Still, he had stood out like a pyramid. A savage, they had thought him.
Graham did not stand out He blended, his accent nearly gone, his habits very English. He was already respected as one of them, thought to have been raised by his proper English parents. The truth would rock them back on their delicate heels. That he had been captured by a warrior Egyptian tribe and learned to kill to survive, that he was far more savage than his brother...
Faces swam before him in a blurred haze. Detached, he dropped a smile here, made polite small talk there, and moved on. Tonight, his restlessness was too great to be assuaged by chitchat.
His eyes scanned the ballroom for a flash of red hair. He saw none. Until... He turned and his gaze alighted upon a tall mass of red-gold curls. His heart raced. It was her.
He spotted her across the crush of people. She stood out like a living flame on a smoky horizon. Graham could not breathe. He could not think, nor act, but simply stood, lips parted. The red hair mesmerized him. He had not seen the full glory of those tresses, nor anticipated how the strands would wind around his heart like a spider's sticky silk.
He remembered her, naked before him. Skin to skin.
Sweat slicking their bodies as they strained against each other, strangers forging a brief fleshly bond.
Shared passions. Hidden secrets.
Self-discipline and control shattered like glass. Graham began striding forward, mindless of the fawning stares cast his way.
Barely six feet away, he stopped, daring her to see him. She turned. Their gazes caught and held. They could have been the only two people present.
Intense hunger filled him. Like an opium addict's deep craving, it took hold with steely claws. Graham stared, remembering the sweetness and passion in her arms. He wanted to hold her in his arms again, even for one mere dance. She was his worst nightmare. And yet he could not help wanting her.
Though all instincts screamed a protest, though his senses urged him to stop, to turn and leave behind the sweetness of last night, he paid no heed. Graham, the aloof duke who rarely danced, tugged on his white dancing gloves, making his intentions perfectly clear.
"Look at the Duke of Caldwell. How striking Graham is," Mary murmured.
The breath caught in Jillian's throat. The Duke of Caldwell? She put a trembling hand to her coiled hair. Graham. Her lover.
Clad in elegant black evening dress, he cut a regal, imposing figure. Women pivoted to stare. Ivory and lace fans waved madly as erratic butterflies. Whispers were everywhere. Several pairs of admiring eyes affixed to him as he wended his way toward her. Young girls preened. Older women simpered. Jillian simply stood motionless. Her heart thudded erratically against her chest.
She remembered the male glory of his nudity. The powerful muscles of his shoulders, the clean lines of his back.
His body was now draped in severe black silk, a white waistcoat and tie. His thick ebony hair was swept across his forehead. Those piercing, dark eyes remained guarded.
Regarding her, he advanced. His loose-limbed, graceful stride reminded her of a powerful jungle cat. The fleeting image of a leopard came to mind. A black leopard, sleek, stalking. She was his prey.
Jillian braced herself, forced a smile to her face.
An amazing change came over the matrons as he approached. They tittered and curtseyed, and a sparkle lit their eyes. When he stood silently before Jillian, she glanced at her aunt. Aunt Mary's stern look softened. She swept down in an elegant curtsy.
"Your Grace. How good to see you again. It was indeed a pleasure meeting you at the Knightsbridge assembly."
Graham nodded, his eyes searching Jillian's face. "Mrs. Huntington, might I have the acquaintance of your charge?"
His voice was smooth and deep, the burn of whiskey sliding down a parched throat. The burn of whiskers rasping across the tender flesh of a throat, as heated as his kisses...
Jillian automatically put a gloved hand to her flushed neck in remembrance. Her aunt's gaze was riveted to her. "Your Grace, Lady Jillian Stranton, daughter of the Earl of Stranton. My niece. Lady Jillian, His Grace, the Duke of Caldwell."
By rote she sank into a deep curtsy, knees wobbling so precariously that it was a marvel she didn't collapse upon her skirts. Graham nodded to her dance card, to the short pencil dangling from it.
"Might I have the pleasure of the next waltz?" he asked.
Her dry lips moved. Bernard had requested that dance. "I'm... afraid the next dance is taken, Your Grace."
"Then I must take one that is available."
Graham seized her dance card and penciled in his name. His dark, knowing gaze transfixed hers. He dropped the card, gently grazing her gloved wrist with his hand. Heat blazed between them, a living, writhing thing. The pencil swung from her trembling wrist.
"Until then," he murmured.
With a shaking hand, Jillian scanned the card. Until then.
She waltzed with Bernard in a blur of delicious anticipation and awful dread. The Duke of Caldwell was her lover. The duke. The mysterious, dark-eyed duke who'd been causing whispers through the ballroom all night. The eligible, wealthy and enigmatic duke.
Her glance flicked to her partner's wide brow, broad cheekbones and again to the thick, waxed mustache above his thin, pursed lips. He danced with a slight stoop. A liberal dose of cologne barely cut his body's stench of sour sweat. Moisture beaded his forehead, though the waltz had barely begun, and as always Bernard cut a clumsy turn, nearly causing Jillian to trip. She recovered, tried to focus and stepped on his foot.
"Jillian, my dear, watch your feet," he cautioned.
She mumbled an apology and concentrated on her steps. Out of the corner of her eye she espied the duke talking with some matrons. He glanced up, caught her flustered gaze with a smoldering one. She hastily looked away.
"Bernard, what do you know of the Duke of Caldwell? I've never seen him at an assembly or ball before."
"Jillian, it's not polite to gossip."
"He requested the next dance. If I'm to converse with him, I do not wish to make any social errors."
Bernard gave an approving nod. "Well, the duke was orphaned at age six when his family journeyed to Egypt and a band of wild Arabs attacked their caravan. Heathens slaughtered everyone. He hid behind some rocks and saw it all."
"Goodness, the poor boy!" she said, horrified at the thought of a young Graham being forced to watch his parents being brutally killed.
"All thought he and his younger brother, Kenneth, the Viscount Arndale, were dead. A passing English couple rescued the duke and took him in. They were an older couple, eccentric, and liked to travel in Arabia. Kenneth was raised by some heathen Egyptian tribe. The old grandfather found him in Egypt and brought him back to England to train him as his heir. Last year, Kenneth became duke when the grandfather died—and when he went to Egypt t
o supervise an excavation, he found his older brother living in Cairo!"
"Found him, after all the years he'd been lost?"
"Apparently the duke suffered a memory loss when he saw his parents murdered. His memory returned when he met his brother. Kenneth relinquished the title. Good thing as well—the viscount married a heathen Arab girl, a filthy native woman with little social standing, and adopted her daughter. However, the Tristan family is wealthy and the old duke was well regarded."
"You seem to know quite a bit about them."
"I make it my business to know of every family who has power and wealth. It helps me politically."
Jillian remembered the haunted look in Graham's dark eyes. "He seems tragic."
"Of course. Though he was raised by that English couple, they tainted him by forcing him to live in Arabia—among those repulsive, dirty heathens."
Jillian suspected the turmoil in the duke's eyes had nothing to do with living among the natives. She sensed deep secrets. And oh, how she knew about keeping secrets.
The waltz ended and Bernard escorted her from the floor. He scanned the ballroom for the duke.
"His Grace could prove useful to me in Parliament. Be witty and charming, and do not attempt to converse about anything intellectual." He chucked her under the chin. "None of your silly chatter about the woeful state of the English economy."
Resentment filled her. "Why? Isn't it rather woeful?"
He laughed. "Jillian, leave intellectual discussions to men. Such talk will tax your brain."
How would you know? Your brain has never been taxed, she thought. Bernard, if they opened your head they would find nothing but that dreadful Macassar oil you smear on your hair.
"Yes, of course, Bernard," she said.
He moved off, presumably to join her father in a game of whist. Jillian's heart pounded with excitement and disquiet as the duke approached.
Silently, he held out a gloved hand. Silently, she took it. Graham's grip settled upon her waist, his heat like a burning coal through the fabric of her gown. Jillian swallowed and they began the waltz.
In his arms again, this time in full view of society. Fully clothed. Her hand tightened on the broad shoulder encased in black silk, remembering her fingers gripping the hard muscles of his back as he thrust inside her...
Though extremely nervous, she found dancing with him much easier than with Bernard. Jillian glided along to his expert lead, and arched her neck to glance up at him.
"You expressly stated we must never see each other again. Why the dance?" she asked bluntly.
"Perhaps so we could talk without prying gossips eagerly eavesdropping."
"Very well. Talk then."
He chuckled. "You're very direct."
Only with you, she thought. With everyone else, she was a quiet, redheaded mouse. A shadow of her real self.
He cut a very smooth turn and she followed effortlessly. They matched each other well, as they had last night. A dull flush burned her skin as she remembered. She hoped he would not notice.
"You're very becoming when you blush," he remarked.
Jillian raised her gaze to his and cut off his pleasantries. "You need to talk to me, Your Grace? Tell me what you wanted to say."
He gave her an intent look. "Perhaps I merely wanted to compliment you on the real color of your hair. It is like golden fire, or the flare of an Egyptian sunset."
"Is that all? Praises of my hair? No poetic homage to the beauty of my eyebrows and how they resemble winged doves in flight? Or how softly rounded my elbow is, like a ripe rich peach?"
His lips twitched with amusement. "I fear I have no such eloquence within me. I must confess, I am not an authority on women's elbows—unless they be the kind that are rather pointed and jabbing me in the ribs."
Jillian laughed. Heads turned, stared. Her mirth died as soon as it began; she could not risk drawing attention to herself. She looked away from the duke, away from the man who had taken her virginity.
"I told you last night, it's best we remain strangers in the dark," she said, staring over his shoulder.
"It was best," he agreed. "But that was before we saw each other across the room. Then it became wiser for me to ask you to dance, to acquaint myself with you should anyone sense... we know each other somehow. Pretense is not my strongest suit."
She gave a wry smile. "It is mine."
"Only when necessary, I think. You disguise yourself, but I sense you long to show the world who you truly are," he murmured.
Startled, she did now look at him. "But aren't we all in disguise, in some form or another? Don't we all hide our real selves from the world? Even you, Graham Tristan."
He nearly stumbled, but recovered quickly. "Who are you?" he asked.
"A stranger who shared last night with you. A nobleman's daughter who wishes discretion." Boldly, she looked at him. "And you, Your Grace? Who are you?"
A mysterious smile took his lips. "A duke, dancing with a nobleman's daughter. A stranger sharing a second night."
"Had I known who you really are..." she began.
"You'd have turned and walked away?"
Jillian compressed her trembling lips. She looked directly into his eyes. "No," she admitted. "I would not have."
Satisfaction filled his gaze. She did not stiffen as he pulled her closer than polite society allowed. The air between their bodies grew warm from their combined heat.
"Your Grace, would you have walked away had you known my identity? Had I stated my name and revealed all?"
The strains of violin and cello filled the silence as a second dance began. His scent teased her nostrils, a faint spice she could not identify, mixed with the smell of clean skin and shaving soap. Jillian awaited his answer. Some unknown emotion flickered in his eyes. Then his gaze darkened.
"No," he admitted quietly. "I could not have."
His gaze softened as they regarded each other. For a magical moment, she felt they were the only two people in the immense ballroom, and they had not met previously, but were starting anew. Filled with the wonder of discovering each other.
She smiled, fresh courage filling her. "Why would you not have walked away?"
But he made no reply. A distant look came over his face, as if he had shuttered himself off from her and desired no further contact. Jillian was surprised and hurt, but she resigned herself to finishing the dance in silence. She stiffened much as she had in Bernard's arms. Their steps became more halted and less relaxed.
Thankfully, the waltz ended. She curtseyed and Graham executed an elegant bow. She sensed impossible layers to this man, hidden to the chattering ton by his perfect manners and cool indifference. He wanted to blend, and so he withheld part of himself.
She had been physically intimate with this man, he had known every part of her body, and yet she did not know him at all. They were strangers.
Graham put a hand on the small of her back, guiding her through the crush. His touch was light and yet seared through the dress. He relinquished her to her aunt, whose soft smile held a hint of approval. Oh, goodness, did her aunt think a man such as this charming, wealthy duke could rescue her?
She was beyond rescuing.
The duke's mouth quirked upwards as he took her hand, kissing her gloved fingers. "My thanks for the enormous privilege you accorded me, Lady Jillian. Our dances gave me great pleasure. It was like... waltzing in heaven," he said softly.
She stiffened, caught off-guard by the words. An echo of the ones she'd spoken last night. Smoky desire darkened his gaze. She knew his true meaning, knew he spoke of the dance where they tangled and twirled and strained together in naked, blissful abandon. He wanted her yet.
Jillian tilted her chin up. "I experienced equal pleasure, Your Grace. It was indeed... paradise."
He studied her intently. She grew uneasy at the spark in his eyes.
"I trust you are well, Lady Jillian, and our dancing did not leave you feeling flushed or... sore in any way? I tried to be as gentle
as I could, for I know strenuous physical activity can sometimes prove painful for gently reared ladies."
Damn him! Did he not know such talk could prove dangerous to them both? Why was he doing this?
Her aunt interjected, seemingly eager. "I assure you, Your Grace, my niece can well handle the duty of dancing. Even gently reared girls are quite capable. And a dance may leave her sore, but such discomfort is easily overcome and should not cause undue distress."
"However," he murmured, his gaze never leaving Jillian, "your discomfort would cause me distress and an eager desire to amend it. I'd wish to experience the delights of another dance as soon as you felt comfortable enough to engage me."
Oh, damn the man! What was he thinking? Jillian tried to control her wildly beating pulse, her desire. She gazed at him coolly, but gave in to his fire.
"I am quite well, Your Grace. I am quite capable of dancing as often as any partner."
"It sounds as if you quite enjoy the dance," he suggested, his knowing gaze transfixing her. Jillian flushed.
"Every season I prove myself most competent," she retorted, this time refusing to follow his lead.
His dark eyes twinkled. "Do you?" he asked in a deep, lazy drawl. Then he added; "I can imagine the man who was your first partner shared a very special moment, indeed."
She raised her gaze boldly to him. "Special indeed, good sir. I shall never forget."
His eyes widened and darkened, and a look of pensiveness came over him. Unsmiling, he regarded her. She could see a pulse beat in his throat. Her own heartbeat echoed its cadence. Thick tension hung in the air. What was happening? Jillian had never met a man before who made her feel this way—as if all her careful plans might crumble to dust and she'd care not a fig. Not even about Radcliffe.
The sweet tension broke as Bernard appeared. Murmuring excuses, Aunt Mary slipped away. Jillian felt herself shrink back into the old position. She stammered polite introductions, but misspoke, saying, "Graham, the Duke of Caldwell."
The Panther & the Pyramid (Khamsin Warriors of the Wind) Page 5