by Gaelen Foley
“Guess.”
“Watching the dancing girls.”
He laughed quietly. “Right-o.”
“The nautch girls couldn’t hold your interest?”
“I have more…complicated tastes.”
She slanted him a fascinated glance. “I see.”
As they rounded the corner and proceeded alongside the temple’s carved wall, it was impossible to avoid the frank presence of the erotic sculptures that seemed to taunt them with their exuberant liberty. Paired stone lovers appeared to writhe together in the flickering torchlight. Every imaginable position was depicted in plain view across the temple walls, in all their voluptuous glory.
Georgie looked askance at Lord Griffith, wondering what his reaction might be to this “native debauchery,” as one lady visiting from London had described a similar temple outside Calcutta.
He made no pretense of hiding his interest in the sculptures. His gaze trailed slowly over their lush couplings; then he looked at Georgie, as though curious about her reaction. “Shall I fetch the smelling salts?”
She snorted, blushing a little. “Hardly.”
He returned her nervous smile with a calmer, more knowing one. She found it strangely thrilling. They exchanged a searing gaze that lasted a little too long.
Lord, it could not be healthy for a heart to pound so hard! Georgie hoped she did not suddenly drop dead of the palpitations.
“If these carvings were in London, you know, you wouldn’t be allowed to look at them,” he remarked, offering her his arm as he walked beside her through the darkness.
“Nonsense, it’s art,” she said, accepting his escort, and savoring his nearness more than he knew. She curled her fingers admiringly against his big biceps.
“I have heard,” he continued, “that certain people in London have even begun putting artificial fig leaves on the Greek and Roman statues their fathers brought back on Grand Tour.”
“How very respectable!” she exclaimed with a mild laugh. “Well, it is a telling contrast, is it not? In our faith, the Almighty dwells alone in mystery above the clouds, but in Hinduism, nearly every god has a wife who is his equal—a goddess who’s his opposite and whose powers serve as a complement to his own. And,” she added in a wry tone, “as I’m afraid you can see quite plainly in these carvings, the deities express their devotion to each other in a triumphant celebration of…”
“Sacred sex,” he volunteered in a whisper when she lost her nerve.
“Yes.” Her voice sounded a bit strangled. She nodded, blushing.
“You should not know these things,” he chided softly as he watched her with a riveted smile.
“But I do,” she answered, looking into his eyes. “Well, I know of them.” She turned away again and they continued walking. “Not by personal experience, of course, but…”
“You’d like to learn,” he observed in a husky whisper, studying her askance.
“Why? Are you offering to teach me?”
“Hmm.” He considered it with fire in his eyes that pierced the night like jade-green lightning.
Georgie shivered with desire for him but had to turn away once more. Maybe she shouldn’t be flirting with him so brazenly, for when he looked at her like that, as hungry as the tiger in his cage, she realized she might just get more than she bargained for.
With awareness throbbing between them in the darkness, they came to the temple’s grandiose entrance, and Georgie noticed the light glowing from inside. She lowered her hand from his arm and peered into the temple, spotting the Brahmin priests tending their deities. At regular hours, the holy statues required various oblations and sacrifices, like the elaborate plates of food being laid before them with many prayers by the priests.
Georgie turned to Lord Griffith and shook her head, warning him that they could not find privacy within; then she spotted the elaborate opening to Janpur’s famous prayer cave and beckoned to him to come with her.
He followed, studying the rock-carved veranda that guarded the cave’s mouth. A stone portico hewn from the mountain’s native sandstone was supported by a pair of heavy columns and flanked by twin carvings of celestial maidens, who welcomed all devotees to the shrine from safe inside their hollowed alcoves.
“There are cave temples like this all over the Deccan Plateau,” she explained in a hushed tone as they approached. “The fort is medieval, the shrine is older, but this cave temple is oldest of all. Some say it’s been here for a thousand years. It was one of the reasons this mountain was chosen as the location for the fort. Something to do with fertility.”
“Why am I not surprised?” he murmured.
She gave him a wry smile and kicked off her shoes, leaving them by the wall, then she led the way past the shadowy veranda. Ian followed suit, but as they walked through the antechamber and peered ahead, down the rock-hewn stairs that descended into the belly of the mountain, the ever-gallant Lord Griffith moved ahead of her for safety’s sake and took her hand. Still dressed in her dinner gown, Georgie used her free hand to lift the hem of her skirts.
Together they followed the trail of little candles that the priests had left along the sandstone stairs. Their flames burned in the cave’s deepening gloom like tiny stars.
The air turned cool and damp, and with every step they took descending into that tomblike space, the sense of the weight piled above them mounted. But Georgie was still agitated by their risqué exchange of a few moments ago and nervously cast about for a safer topic. “I’ve been wondering something, Lord Griffith.”
“Ian, please. What have you been wondering?”
She paused on the stairs and smiled at him, warmed by his invitation to call him by his Christian name. “I’ve been wondering why you came halfway ’round the world to take your holiday,” she said in an amiable tone as they continued down the long stone staircase. “You said you visited Ceylon.”
“Yes.”
“But from England, it’s a journey of some months, is it not?”
“It is,” he agreed. “I needed someplace to relax.”
She sent him a skeptical glance. “I take it you were called away before you succeeded in doing so?”
He laughed. “Does it show?”
“Just a bit. Why come so far for a holiday?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered as they reached the bottom of the cave. “I suppose I just needed to get away. Far, far away.”
“From what?”
“Everything.” He avoided her gaze, waving off a fluttering moth. “Work. Responsibility. The past.”
Georgie gazed at him in compassion. “Memories of your wife?”
He scratched his cheek and glanced at her uneasily over his shoulder. “Maybe a bit.” When he shrugged, his eyes were mirrors once more, shutting her out.
Georgie smiled at him very gently as they reached the temple floor. “Life is for the living, Ian.”
“So they tell me.” He looked away, glancing around at the eerie, mystical cavern. “Look at this place, it’s fantastic! Come. Let’s have a look.” He took her hand again and led her deeper into the temple.
Advancing into the giant nave carved out of the living rock, they beheld a soaring stone vault with massive octagonal pillars and a monolithic votive stupa in the apse.
Ancient as it was, the cave bore the contributions of many succeeding centuries, but everywhere the Tantric theme prevailed, the crowded stillness peopled with lovers both in sculpture and thousand-year-old murals, cracked and faded but still vibrant with life. Even the ceiling was painted.
Smoking incense and offerings of flowers graced the feet of the Bodhisattvas’ likenesses on their arduous path toward enlightenment. Flickering votive candles cast strange shadows behind the friezelike layers of high-relief carvings, as if the little stone figures actually moved and danced.
Though the cave’s dark, clammy, clandestine atmosphere summoned up the sense of being buried deep underground in a stone sarcophagus, the lusty images everywhere urged one to
embrace life with fearless abandon so long as it lasted.
Carpe diem. At least that was Georgie’s interpretation of what she saw.
Ian must have been following a similar line of musing, for he paused and turned to her all of a sudden. “How did your mother die?”
“On holiday, actually,” she answered in surprise. “It was a terrible accident.” Georgie paused. “She drowned.”
A strange look—possibly shock—filled his green eyes; although it swiftly vanished, his chiseled face had tautened. “I am very sorry.”
She shrugged, still ambivalent about the catastrophic loss. Grief had long done battle in her heart with anger at the arrogance of the mistake her mother had made that day. The sheer waste. “She went out on an excursion with some of her lady friends, and they came to a river flooded by monsoon. The ladies were impatient and bade their driver cross it. He tried to tell them it wasn’t safe, but they insisted, and they all were washed away.”
“That’s terrible,” he said in a hollow tone.
“What about your wife?”
“Fever.” He looked away. “What is it you wanted to tell me?” His stoic tone as he changed the subject tugged at her sympathy, but she didn’t have the heart to push him. Besides, there wasn’t much time.
“Has Prince Shahu been privy to your negotiations with King Johar?” Georgie asked in a hushed tone, drawing him with her into the darker shadows beside one of the great columns.
“Yes. As the future ruler of Janpur, his father wanted him to get a lesson in diplomacy.”
“You mustn’t trust him,” she whispered.
“I don’t, especially after his behavior toward you tonight. But why do you say that?”
“When I was in the harem, I found out he comes every day to speak to his mother, and having met Queen Sujana for myself, I have a strong suspicion she’s up to something.”
Searching her face, he folded his arms across his chest. “What do you mean?”
“I think the prince is telling her everything that goes on in your meetings. Were you aware she is the sister of Baji Rao?”
He paused. “Yes, I had heard that.”
“Well, what if she’s using her son as a spy in your meetings? She could be passing on the information to her brother.”
He stared at her. “I would think a man like Johar would have better control over his wife than that. She can’t be that much of a factor, especially being in purdah. Besides, for the queen to pass information to Baji Rao would mean betraying her husband. Why would she do such a thing?”
“Revenge, of course.”
He furrowed his brow.
“Haven’t you heard that King Johar is madly in love with Meena?” she asked softly.
He let out a sigh of great annoyance and rubbed his brow for a moment. “The intricacies of the maharajah’s love life were hardly included in my brief. Bloody hell, a woman scorned…”
“A queen scorned,” Georgie corrected him. “Perhaps you could get the prince barred from the proceedings.”
He snorted. “I don’t see what possible explanation I could make for the request that would not give the maharajah a colossal insult. Telling Johar his son is a snake and his wife may be plotting against him? That’s not going to get my treaty signed.”
“What if we had proof?” she ventured eagerly, but he eyed her in suspicion. “There’s a room in the zenana—a private audience chamber—where the maharani receives her visitors. No one else is ever allowed in there. If she’s hiding something, that’s the place to look. I’ll bet you I could get inside there and have a peek about—”
“No,” he cut her off firmly, raising a finger before her face. “I want you to stay out of it, Georgiana. It’s much too dangerous. This is not a game.”
“Ian, with two brothers who cannot bear to miss out on a battle, I understand the stakes better than most. I would do anything in my power to help you stop this war from happening.”
“Well, that’s very sweet, but I have no intention of meddling in the king’s domestic squabbles. That would be the nadir of decorum and would only give offense. I’ll simply have to work from the other end of the equation—post a lookout for any possible spies the queen may be sending out from the fort.”
“Impossible. There are too many gates and too many people to watch, with an endless parade of comings and goings, what with all the merchants and such. Plus, you see how easy it is to carve away this sandstone?” She gestured to the sculptures all around them. “Most of these old forts have secret tunnels burrowed under them for the royals’ security. The queen would surely know about them. With my access to the harem, at least you’ve got a chance to find out what’s really going on. She could be undermining everything you’re working for!”
“Even so, she is too late. Our negotiations are almost concluded. I’m confident the king is going to sign the treaty. Georgiana, do you hear me? I don’t want you involved. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“That is precisely the problem,” he retorted. “You’ve put yourself enough at risk just by coming here, and God knows, you’ve already attracted too much attention. Aside from your brothers, every man in that banqueting hall was bewitched by your beauty. Even the prince.”
“Even you?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
He stared at her for a long moment. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“Ever the diplomat,” she taunted him in a sensuous whisper. “Don’t you ever answer questions directly?”
He glanced at her lips, as though fighting temptation and debating with himself. He was so quiet and still for a moment that she wondered if she had been too bold. Then he lifted his gaze with a searing stare and moved closer, his massive shadow casting the Tantric carvings in gloom. He came to her like some elegant Lucifer in the fire-lit subterranean darkness, formidable and smooth, intent on his purpose.
Though she tingled with the thrill of his approach, her courage faltered slightly, for he radiated mesmerizing power. Then he touched her with intoxicating lightness, like a man biding his time. Skimming his fingertips upward over her cheekbone, his feather-light caress looped behind her ear and traveled forward slowly along the line of her jaw, until it came to her chin. This he lifted with two fingertips.
As he bent his head to taste her, Georgie trembled wildly.
She closed her eyes, waiting, her heart pounding.
His lips brushed hers in a silken caress, exploratory but still carefully restrained, teasing her like some tantalizing desert mirage conjuring an oasis. He stopped too soon. Her thirst for him was driving her mad. She knew he was working hard to hold himself back, keeping his passion under his total control, but it was strong. She could feel the fierce, hot need in him surging beneath the surface, just as she could feel the leashed strength in the large, elegant hands with which he touched her.
She lifted her lashes and found him staring at her.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.
She returned his gaze in wary invitation. Take me, then. I am not afraid of you.
He closed the space between their bodies, taking her firmly into his arms. He pressed his mouth to hers in heated yearning and brought one hand up to clasp her nape. The smooth, urgent stroke of tongue coaxed her lips apart, and his deeper kiss worked a lulling spell on her senses, luscious magic. The warm, glorious slide of their mouths enthralled her with its stroking motion, so erotic; the hypnotic rhythm made her knees go weak.
She clung to him for strength, lifting her arms around his neck, twining her fingers at his nape. At her embrace, his grip on her tightened. You need this, don’t you, Ian? Whatever he needed she wanted to give. The way he held her, kissed her now, almost desperately, told her how hungry he was for this closeness. Heaven knew she hungered, too. His touch whispered secrets to her heart, tales of endless wanderings far from home, restless seeking for he-knew-not-what; it bespoke his loneliness, the coiled tension in him begging for
release. She longed to soothe him, to hold and surround him, give him a home inside herself. To let him touch her as no one ever had.
Her hands tingled as she clutched and caressed him, silently assuring him that he could have whatever he desired. She had tried to pretend for so long that she existed for justice, but deep down she knew that she really existed for love.
This truth at the core of her nature had frightened her for so long, men being what they were, but never before had she known a man worthy of all that she had to give. She wasn’t frightened now. No, because she trusted him. And God knew their fit together was blissful.
As his hands glided down the contour of her back, pressing her harder against him, she felt the rigid thickness of his manhood pressed against her belly.
He pulled back, panting, and gave her a wicked, nearly insolent smile. “Is that direct enough for you?” His eyes glittered hot, silver-green in the darkness.
She laughed breathlessly. “You are bad.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” he breathed in her ear. “I’ve got the whole world fooled. Come here.” In the midst of many kisses, he lifted her and set her on a waist-high ledge carved into the stone, as if she were an offering for the gods. Hot and panting, still kissing her all the while, he ripped off his tailcoat impatiently, leaving it where it fell behind him on the ground.
Sitting on the ledge, Georgie wasted no time in exploring his magnificent body. She ran her hands along his sleek sides, down his broad chest, and across his taut stomach; she could feel his pulse pounding like the fast, steady beat of tabla drums. She caressed his arms as well, and then skimmed her fingers up to pluck at the gentlemanly knot of his cravat.
It had to go.
He helped her strip it off him, tugging it free, letting it fall to the ground as well. With his neckcloth gone, the top bit of his white shirt parted easily for her further explorations.
She followed the proud lines of his neck with her fingertips, down to the little notch at the base of his throat and the top of his chest. He smiled at her, his eyes afire. She returned his smile with a gaze full of feverish joy and pulled him to her, curling her hand around his nape. Nothing could break the spell of kisses they had cast upon each other. In the candles’ ruddy glow, Ian kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her neck, her ears, her shoulders. She fairly squirmed with sheer delight at his attentions.