The Panther & the Pyramid (Khamsin Warriors of the Wind)

by Vanak, Bonnie

  Jillian didn't know what to do, feeling absurdly useless. Badra's trembling arm gripped her, and the woman's pain became her own. Her worried glance fixed on the viscount, who was bending his head to his wife, crooning softly to her as she whimpered and moaned. Supporting the laboring mother took all her strength. Leg muscles unaccustomed to the odd position began to ache, but Jillian ignored the pain. She focused instead on the viscountess, making encouraging sounds that made no sense but sounded right.

  Her words had no visible effect. Badra's face contorted as the woman grunted and strained and screamed to deliver her child. Her husband gripped her tightly, murmuring soothing words while the duke squatted before his sister-in-law, his face fierce with concentration. Jillian fell silent, awed at how Graham's commands made Badra focus even as she cried out, how cool and steady he seemed. And suddenly, his big hands gently held a furry, dark head that emerged from between Badra's legs.

  Fascinated, Jillian fell speechless, watching the duke slide a tiny bluish form from inside its mother. A bloody wash of water spilled out, bathing his hands and the child. He gently massaged the newborn's back, crooning softly to the squalling babe. A collective gasp rippled through the room.

  The viscountess sagged against Jillian, who felt an absurd urge to weep. She squeezed Badra's arm instead and smiled. "You have a baby," she whispered.

  "A strong, healthy boy," Mrs. White declared with surprised satisfaction.

  Graham glanced up—not at the mother, but directly at Jillian. In his eyes she saw pleased wonder. Jillian smiled through her tears. This was the most thoroughly unconventional, unpredictable and wonderful man she'd ever met.

  She could perhaps fall in love with him. Heaven help her.

  * * *

  His mind had worked like a steadily ticking clock, without emotion, allowing him to deal with the crisis at hand. He'd remembered all the details of seeing the birth, and had applied them with detachment. Even while calling out words of encouragement for Badra to push, Graham felt severed from the experience—detached and aloof, as always.

  But when the baby slipped into his outstretched hands and he held the fragile new life in his palms, something deep inside him stirred. A connection he didn't want.

  It came, nonetheless.

  Graham held the squalling baby, staring in awe. The tiny, innocent and helpless life roused every intense feeling he had desperately sought to quash. He struggled to contain his emotions and maintain his composure, but he cradled his nephew to his chest, unmindful of the bloody fluid coating the baby's now reddened skin. He began massaging the baby's back and glanced up at Jillian. She looked at him as if he had performed a miracle.

  He felt himself transformed, as if in the baby's new beginning, he too, could begin anew. And he would do anything, absolutely anything, to protect that new life.

  Graham gently bent his head and pressed his lips to his new nephew's dark, furry head, feeling dampness suddenly burn his eyes.

  Life, in all its incredible, brutal and awesome force, had taken place before her. Jillian stared in marvel as the duke kissed his nephew with all the tenderness of a new mother. Then his usual aplomb returned as he and the housekeeper briskly tied string about the bluish white cord winding from the baby to its mother. The duke sliced through the cord with an odd-looking, curved dagger with an elaborate silver hilt.

  The viscount's eyes were wet as he kissed his wife. He said, "My dagger—remember, my love? The one you used to cut us loose last year when we were trapped in the shop."

  "A fitting blade to welcome your new son into the world," Graham murmured, taking a fresh towel from the housekeeper and carefully wiping the baby.

  Standing upright, her body trembling, Badra sagged heavily against Jillian and held out her arms. "Please, let me see him. Let me hold him."

  "Not now, my lady. He needs to be cleaned up first and swaddled," advised Mrs. White.

  Jillian felt the violent tremor that shook Badra. "No, I need to see him. Let me hold him. Don't take him away, no!" Badra screamed as the housekeeper plucked the baby from the duke's hands and began walking away.

  Instantly, the viscount bounded after the startled housekeeper, retrieving his son. He brought the squalling infant back to his sobbing mother. Tenderly he folded the naked infant into her arms. "Here's your baby, my love. Our son."

  Badra clutched her son to her breast and wept. Jillian stared uneasily. The duke's brilliant, dark gaze lifted to her, burning fiercely. Then he stood and fetched a blanket from the bed, gently draping it over Badra's shivering shoulders.

  A flurry of activity sounded down the hall. The door banged open and Jasmine burst inside. "The doctor's here," she cried.

  A chagrined Mrs. White quickly hustled the wide-eyed Jasmine from the room, then returned. The gray-haired physician calmly assessed the situation, instructing Badra to push out the afterbirth. Kenneth and Jillian resumed their positions, supporting her. The doctor took the baby. He started to hand him to Mrs. White.

  "No," Badra cried. Her beseeching gaze sought Graham's. "Give my son to the duke to hold."

  The doctor did so. Graham gently cradled the newborn to his chest, keeping him warm in his arms as the physician delivered the afterbirth. Then he carefully returned the baby to Badra.

  The duke glanced at Jillian. "Let's give them privacy. Why don't you meet me in the drawing room?"

  But Jillian instead trailed him into the water closet. The mood inside the bedchamber had dramatically shifted when the housekeeper had attempted to remove the newborn for cleaning and swaddling. She wanted to know why.

  Graham stripped off his bloody shirt. The taut flesh of his broad, naked shoulders captured her gaze. He bent over the basin, used water to scrub his hands and arms fiercely.

  "I don't understand. Why was she so upset?" Jillian asked.

  Graham stopped. Soap lather coated the dark hair on his arms as he braced himself over the basin. Beneath the smooth skin of his back, muscles rippled.

  His voice was low. "When she was born, Jasmine was taken away from her while Badra slept. When she awoke, they told her Jasmine had been too small and died. She only discovered her daughter was alive last year, in Egypt. She had been sold into slavery, trained as a future prostitute."

  Jillian stared at him in horror. "Who would do such a cruel thing? Does it happen all the time in Arabia?"

  The duke finished rinsing his arms and hands, and briskly dried off with a towel. He lifted his head, his midnight gaze piercing hers in the mirror. Cold anger tightened his face. "There are many people in this world who are cruel, Jillian. Including in this country." He threw down the towel. "Sometimes people in this country are even crueler."

  Chapter Eight

  The grating harshness of his rapid breaths thundered in his ears as Graham stood outside the Strantons' Mayfair home.

  Jillian had proven herself composed and confident in assisting in the birth. Her huge green eyes signaled sympathy as he told her the story of Jasmine's ill-fated birth. And then she had told him something he would never forget.

  "It's horrible what happened to Jasmine," she had said, "but she's happy now, and has a new life. We can't change the past, we can only build anew and reach for the future. If one dwells on unhappy memories, you destroy your chances for future joy."

  At a loss for words, he had stiffly thanked her for her assistance. Jillian had then murmured excuses about needing to return home.

  Her wise words now gave him pause. For a wild moment Graham wondered if he hadn't made a dreadful mistake in seeking to bring down her father. Wasn't he doing just what she warned against, destroying any chance for happiness? And he began to wonder if she truly wasn't his destiny, sent to rebuild his shattered life from fragments of his troubled past.

  Graham hesitated as he went to lift the brass door knocker. For twenty years he had hidden inside himself. The silver-topped walking stick in his left hand felt like a lead weight. His hand shook as he fingered the knocker to summon the b
utler and be ushered inside. Into the den of the beast.

  But would it be better, as Jillian asserted, to release the past?

  He closed his eyes. An image of the sneering Stranton danced in his memory, saying words Graham could not forget. They consumed him, made him doubt everything.

  "You liked it. You know you did. You can't hide from what you really are, pretty boy."

  The words weren't true, he thought in agony. Or were they?

  He pushed the hateful words from his mind. The course was set; he must follow it. But his hand shook violently as he tried to rap on the door. Inside, the little boy in him screamed to turn and run far, far away. He could still return home, live safely within his comfortable four walls and never have to face Stranton. Never make him his father-in-law.

  For a wild moment he nearly did turn and walk away. But Jillian's face rose in his mind. He had ruined her, and on his honor he owed her marriage. Without honor, he was nothing. All those years growing up with the al-Hajid, he'd thirsted for honor as a warrior. Turning his back on Jillian would mean turning his back on everything he valued. Graham gave the knocker a solid, confident rap.

  Shabby silver-and-green livery covered the butler who answered. He took Graham's hat, outerwear and walking stick, then escorted him to a drawing room. Graham sat on a threadbare wing chair. His practiced eye took in bright spaces on the wall that indicated missing portraits on the faded silk wallpaper. Like other English aristocrats, had Stranton been forced to sell his artwork to keep up his household?

  One framed piece stood in stark relief on the wall. Graham stood and wandered over to it, a sudden feeling of dread pooling in his stomach. Even before he saw the telltale script, he knew. The papyrus was ancient as Egypt's sands, fragile-looking behind its glass case. The lines drawn in vegetable ink were faded and worn but discernable.

  The missing half of the map! The one Stranton had taken from him in childhood.

  Graham fisted his hands, nearly plucking it off the wall. It's mine. Mine! Fresh anguish filled him at the memories.

  Hearing footsteps in the hallway, he resumed his seat. He forced himself to relax as the earl boldly strode into the drawing room, Jillian trailing behind him, accompanied by a dark-haired, fragile-looking woman. His fiancée wore a hideously ugly gray gown buttoned to her neck. Her brilliant red-gold tresses were tightly coiled. She kept her gaze cast downward.

  Mystified, Graham studied her. Where was the assured woman who had helped birth a baby? Jillian had vanished back into her quiet grayness, mist slipping into mist.

  The earl brusquely introduced his wife. Graham bent over Lady Stranton's limp hand. Her smile seemed strained.

  As they all sat, Graham's discomfort trebled. Forcing himself to make small talk about weather, he then asked questions about Stranton's proposed legislation. The earl launched into an enthusiastic diatribe while his wife and daughter remained silent.

  When Stranton obliquely asked about the marriage settlement, Graham interrupted, suggesting they retire to his lordship's library for a private business talk. He did not want Jillian listening to her father discussing her as if she were bartered goods. The earl did not look at his daughter.

  "There's no need, Your Grace. This is private enough."

  Jillian served tea silently as her father crudely laid out the terms for her hand in marriage. Graham listened in disgust to the earl talk of his daughter as if he were selling a horse. The settlement was quite healthy. For a minute he balked at paying, thinking of his family's precarious finances. Then he looked at Jillian, pale and trembling. She was worth every shilling. He would marry her, then crush her father like soft limestone.

  The earl's green eyes were cold and hard, where his daughter's were sparkling with life. Though not now. Jillian kept her gaze downward, her emotions hidden behind dull gray silk.

  "How did you meet Jillian, Your Grace? My daughter rarely ventures out without my permission. She said she'd spent that night at her aunt's house."

  Startled out of his ruminations, Graham glanced at Jillian. Her hands shook a little in her lap.

  "Mrs. Huntington asked me to her home for dinner. Afterward, Jillian and I went for a walk in her garden."

  Anger flared in Stranton's gaze. "My sister clearly failed in her duty."

  At the ball, the earl's sister had pulled Graham aside as he waited for his carriage, and told him the truth—how she was the one who'd sent Jillian to the whorehouse. She'd begged him to collaborate in a lie to protect Jillian from her father.

  More lies. More deceit. While Stranton sat, back straight, disapproval filling his face.

  You lied to me. You promised you would rescue me. I should kill you now. It'd be so easy to press his thumb against the hollow of that throat and squeeze....

  "Mrs. Huntington was distracted by a domestic problem while I was in the garden with your daughter," Graham lied.

  Gratitude flashed in Jillian's eyes.

  The earl sniffed. "She is a poor chaperone, and I have told my wife as much."

  Lady Stranton flinched and Jillian went pale. Graham's unease grew. This household held dark secrets, like an Egyptian tomb.

  Abruptly he murmured excuses about needing to return home. He kept a watchful eye on Jillian as he stood, pressing his lips to her trembling hand. Hatred boiled inside him as he shook the earl's hand, wishing he could crush him. It would be so easy.

  As he left the house, Graham frowned. Something was amiss. Lady Stranton with her red-rimmed eyes and lethargic air had the drugged attitude of an opium addict. Jillian was silent, the spark of her laughter missing, the confidence displayed during the birth vanished. What had that bastard done to her?

  Graham climbed into his carriage and rapped on the roof with his walking stick. When he got home, he went to his study and sat, thinking hard about the papyrus he'd seen. The map. He must have it back. Even if it meant breaking into Stranton's house.

  Much later that night, dressed in black trousers, black shirt and a black coat, Graham walked to the Stranton townhouse. He stood in the street, staring up. A light blazed in one upstairs room, from which he could see the slender figure of a woman sitting in a chair by the window. Red-gold tresses shone in the light.

  Graham sucked in his breath. The woman was clad only in her chemise. Darting a glance about the deserted street, he hastily crossed the lawn. He studied the balcony and tossed up the rope he'd brought. He double-knotted it the way he'd been taught by the Bedu, and shimmied up.

  Lithe as a cat, he climbed over the railing and dropped silently onto the balcony. Jillian, sitting by the open French doors, gasped as she saw him.

  Shrugging out of his coat, he was beside her in two quick strides. Graham forgot his purpose to steal the papyrus. Nothing else mattered at the moment but her.

  "Why are you sitting at the window undressed?" he hissed.

  She shrank back from him. Gooseflesh erupted on her naked, alabaster arms. He very gently placed his coat over her shivering shoulders. Graham repeated the question in the soothing voice he reserved for skittish mares about to be bred. Finally she lifted her luminous gaze to him.

  "Father's punishment. I'm to be denied any clothing except when I venture out with him or for my supervised ride with the groom. Because he says I'm"—she gulped—"a whore."

  His guts twisted in anger. "It's well past one in the morning, habiba," he said softly. "You must sleep."

  Curiosity flickered in her lifeless gaze. "What is habiba?"

  An endearment. But he didn't answer, instead taking her chilled hand into his warm palm. He began rubbing her hand to warm her flesh. "Why are you sitting at the open windows?" he asked.

  "Father says a whore should display her wares to the world," she said dully.

  Graham bit back a curse and focused his attention on his future wife. She sat still and stiff, like Jasmine's china doll.

  He went to the bedchamber door and jammed a gilded chair beneath the knob to prevent anyone from intruding. Then he retu
rned to Jillian and crouched beside her, wishing she could speak and release her anguish. Wishing he could help. But all he could do was marry her and remove her from this hideous household as quickly as possible.

  Jillian felt as if she would shatter. A bone-chilling numbness struck her as he witnessed her shame. The duke stood and closed the French doors with a firm click. His large frame remained blurred by tears she refused to shed. Why had he come here? She hung her head, wanting to die from mortification.

  "Come over to the bed where it's warmer," he said in a soft voice, hypnotic in its soothing tones.

  Like a mindless puppet she obeyed, placing her trembling, chilled hand in his. The duke sat her upon the bed, which was neatly turned down for the night by her maid. She wanted to burrow beneath the covers. But he suddenly toed off his shoes and began unbuttoning his waistcoat, rousing her from stupor. Removing it, he did the same to his shirt. His bare, powerful chest with its thick covering of dark hair caused a little tingle between her thighs. Goodness, he couldn't mean to...

  "W-what are you doing?"

  "Since you're denied clothing, I've removed mine as well. It's not fair for only one of us to be fully dressed. I want you to feel comfortable." His midnight eyes twinkled.

  But she could only stare in alarm and arousal. An intense yearning filled her as she drank in the sight of the smooth bulge of his hard biceps, of the swirls of dark hair on his hard chest. He sat beside her and held both her hands lightly in his.

  "It's all right," he crooned. "I'm not going to make love to you. Not yet. Not until we marry."

  Disappointment and shame replaced arousal. She looked away. She was a whore, just as her father indicated. Lusting after taut male flesh without the sanctity of marriage to procreate. Her father's long, labored lecture rang in her ears:

  "Sexual lust is reserved for the marriage bed, Jillian, and only then to create heirs. You will do your duty to the duke to give him a son, but before then I'll be damned if I'll let your lusty, tawdry nature shame me again. Do you hear me?"