This room was no different than hers, except for the writing table that occupied one corner. There was a ledger open and resting on it, a quill sitting in the inkwell next to it. She turned to the windows. A warm breeze brushed over her in gentle reassurance before it was gone. She shook her head at her silliness and walked over to the ledge to look out at the grounds. She stood above the garden, the very one she frequented with her son.
How often had he watched her from this very spot? Goose bumps rose on her arms at the thought of him spying on her.
She smoothed her hand over the wall, caressing the rough stone to ground her to reality, the now. He had an unfair advantage by knowing more about her. It made her uneasy.
She looked away from the dark foliage. It was a clear night beyond the palace walls, stars twinkled bright and beautiful in the sky, and no walls impeded her view of the ocean perhaps a mile or two off.
Not wanting Amir to sneak up on her, she backed away from the call of freedom the night sang, and retreated to the divan. Sitting down, she hid her bottom. A small taffeta pillow in green edged with pretty glass beads went immediately into her lap.
It was more uncomfortable by the minute.
How she wished for the fortification of wine or even the swill of a fine brandy. She’d asked for some earlier to ease her nerves, but Laila told her that was impossible; alcohol was forbidden to the women. No sense in arguing the matter; her nerves would be on edge, mind on tenterhooks, hands trembling no matter how hard she clutched the pillow with or without wine.
Low voices came from the second, smaller door in the room moments before it swung silently open. Her heart thudded so hard in her chest; she was nearly deaf from the pounding of it in her ears.
Amir wore his usual white linen trousers, white shirt with loose sleeves, the collar cut down the center to reveal the fine lines and hairs of his chest. She tried to swallow back the lump in her throat, then pinched her eyes shut.
She didn’t hear him approach, his steps were so silent. Courage hadn’t surfaced in her when he stood within a handspan of her, knees bumping hers. He removed the pillow from her lap with a quick tug. The beads jangled as it was tossed behind him and hit the floor like the final blow of an axe.
Taking one of her fisted hands in his, he unfurled her shaking sweaty palm and placed it flat to his chest.
“Fear not.” Leaning forward, he whispered into her ear, “I will treat you well this night.”
She nodded, afraid to speak. She could do this. Whatever this was. Though she still fought to keep her eyes tightly shut. If they were shut, she could pretend this was an ordinary visit from her husband.
Amir smelled of musk and sandalwood, a masculine, rich scent that made her heart trip. He was so close, and her body tensed. She felt the low rumble of his chuckle where her hand rested over his sternum.
“If it makes you feel better, keep your eyes closed. But I cannot show you how this is best done if you play shy.” His voice was soft, not accusing.
He pulled off the tie around her waist in one smooth swish of fabric. The warm silk slid open. The knot in her throat was bigger than ever, her body tight as a bowstring.
His touch was light, reverent. He didn’t grope. His fingers were warm and surprisingly soft. She cracked her eyes open and was startled to see him staring back. She was locked in those dark eyes of his, unwilling to break away. The fear of moments ago now clouded her mind in a mantle of panic.
She couldn’t do this. She really couldn’t. Yanking her hand away from his chest, she scooted over on the divan, and turned her body to the side so her breasts were not in the direct line of his gaze.
It said a lot that he let her escape. Even if it was only for the moment.
“I know you are frightened.” His finger trailed a circular path over her arm. “I will be gentle as this is your first night.”
He held his hand out toward her, in invitation.
Seeing his face, his expression, she could read what he wanted. See the desire burning in the black depths. There was no mockery, definitely no pity. His relaxed stance told her he would wait, patiently if need be.
She crossed her ankles, squeezing her thighs together as she turned her head away from him. He sat beside her, their arms and legs touching. Taking her hand, he placed it on his thigh.
“Lie back,” he said. The swish of his shirt being removed came next.
Her head shot around till her eyes were level with his. She shook her head, hands trembling with edginess where it gripped his thigh.
Tipping her chin up with his knuckle, he rubbed his thumb across her lower lip before releasing her. Gently, he picked up her shaky fist, his strong hand massaging the tips of her fingers as he pulled them loose. Warmth eased her frozen nerves.
“My touch is not so bad, is it?”
She hated that it wasn’t horrible. Why didn’t he force himself on her? If he did, she could hate him, hate herself for choosing this escape instead of suffering in the slave market like any well-bred English woman would’ve done. Instead, she’d embraced the opportunity to become a woman of loose morals. God, she’d agreed so easily to this. Too easily.
“Turn around. I want to see you.”
She hesitated, not sure what to do. He grasped her calves, twisting her until her feet were in his lap. She was tipped back on the pillows piled on the divan.
“I assume you do not know all the ways to pleasure a man. Aside from a little shove and pull. I doubt you’ll ask any necessary questions because it is beneath your breeding.”
“This is improper. You aren’t my husband.”
“Improper.” He smiled and grasped her foot to press it to the hardness of his groin. “This is improper by your standards?”
He raised his eyebrow, daring her to pull away. She didn’t and for the life of her she didn’t know why. He massaged her calf and around her knee. Her foot was still pressed tight to his rod—one of the words Laila had taught her. The only one that didn’t make her cringe internally to say.
His hand molded and caressed the curve of her hip, the slight roundness of her stomach.
He pushed out one of her knees, forcing the folds of her sex open. Cool air met her flesh. She let out a small squeal, helpless to hold all her reservations inside. Biting down on her lip, she fought the urge to close her legs, to hide the shameful nakedness he exposed.
He rubbed the length of her thigh as one would a skittish mare. Smooth, firm strokes, up and down her flank.
“I won’t take more than you are willing to give.”
“I am forced to do this. How can you think I’d want to disgrace myself so completely? I’m a lady of noble birth and here you have me acting like any lewd doxy.”
“Ah, but you belong to me now.”
She pulled out of his grasp and hugged her arms around her knees, trying to cover as much of her nudity as possible. It was all she could do to preserve the last of her modesty.
Amir looked at her, head cocked to the side. “I did not think you hated my touch.”
“You are mistaken to think I welcome your attentions.”
“Yet you agreed to come here of your free will.”
“I was not free. I was a slave, I’d been beaten and half starved and I was desperate to see my son,” she said as calmly as she could.
“You try my patience. I do not want to force you. I want to teach you how to pleasure a man and how to take your own pleasure.”
“I cannot be so free with my body.”
“Yes, you can.”
He grasped her ankles and yanked her legs down hard until she lay flat on the divan, Amir resting atop of her. “Perhaps I should show you the joys to be had in the full brunt of passion before teaching you the finer details.”
She pushed at his chest. He didn’t budge but gave a low sultry chuckle at her pathetic attempt to push him off.
He studied her face carefully, surely waiting for the veneer of her prim nature to crack. Laila’s term for her swam through
her mind: prude. She tried to remain passive even though her lip trembled between the clench of her teeth. She barely managed to hold her sobs back.
He forced her legs open farther. His rod sat firm against her inner thigh. His hand molded to the curve of her breast. Deft fingers plucked at the tip, bringing the nipple to a firm peak. “You like this. Otherwise you would not respond so beautifully.”
“I do not.” She couldn’t even look at him. She did like what he did and hated herself so much for it.
Before she could protest, he placed her fingers at the juncture of her thighs. She gasped as he forced her hand to slide through the slickness of her folds.
“This is why your body cannot lie to me. Other men who take their pleasure in you will see this willingness. Listen and learn, Elena. No matter the humiliation you feel. By touching yourself, you inflame a man’s desire.
“I do not think you will resist my attempts now.” Before she could give a denial, his finger slipped, with ease, into her passage. “This pleases me, little bird.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Auction Block
“Stop moving and wriggling around. I’ll be done before you know it.”
“It tickles. You can’t expect me to hold still when I have this constant desire to scratch.”
Laila sat up and put her brush on the wooden tray laden with pots of pressed henna, some still in its powdered form. The designs of ivy and flowers covered her feet and palms, the back of her hands, and halfway up her forearms. Laila had taken the time to henna her areolas, and, to her great embarrassment, her nether region with a dulled rust-color paint. Elena stood and gave a shake of her arms to get the tickle to go away.
“Stop pacing. You make me agitated, too.”
Elena stopped and turned. “When was the first time you had this done?”
Laila smiled. “The harem women did this to me a few days before my virginity was taken. Amir had me the first time when I was sixteen.”
She looked at her sister with a raised brow. “The painting isn’t the reason I’m fussing.”
“You’ll be fine. Amir will keep you close to his side,” Laila said with a nod of understanding. “You do not have to talk if you are not confident in your Persian. Only a few words here and there and the men will think you an enchanting creature. Your shyness will win them over, and I’m sure they will pay no heed to what you say. They will be busy looking over your other attributes.” Laila pulled a sun-yellow scarf from the foot of the divan. “Yellow will complement your skin tone, don’t you think?”
Elena rolled her eyes and carried on with her pacing. “I had a feeling that would be your response. I don’t like the idea of being on auction and sold to another—it’s rather sickening. And I was thinking the green silk. The one with the gold embroidered around the edges.”
Walking over to her, Laila placed the scarf against her thigh. “Hmm. Maybe yellow doesn’t go with the paint. Yes, I think the emerald is nicer.”
“Do you think all men are so shallow and unintelligent that they won’t figure out who I am sooner or later?”
“Elena, you forget this isn’t a typical English soiree. You won’t need to talk about the weather. You might not even talk.” Laila grinned as she folded the yellow scarf and set it on the divan. “You know very well Amir will expect nothing more than your attendance for your first year here. Your only duty is to look sweet and ripe enough to bite into.”
Elena flopped down on the divan and held her unfinished hand out to Laila. “Finish it then. I wish I only had to amuse Amir. That would be easier. Besides, I feel like I’m going to my first ball and I’m going to step on suitors’ feet or dribble punch down the front of my gown.”
“This will be nothing like a ball. Fear not, the men will not care what the veil hides, only what they can see beneath your scarves.” Laila leaned back on the bench she used and looked at Elena’s chest, a puzzled expression in her eyes. “Maybe we should paint them darker?”
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?” Elena shook her head and threw her free arm over her eyes to block out the light. “It’s not. You are making me more nervous by the minute. I might make a fool of myself and embarrass Amir. I couldn’t live with that. It doesn’t matter what he thinks, it’ll be me that’s the fool. If you think painting my privates will keep the lords more concerned with my breast size and pertness, by all means paint them darker.”
“Hmm . . .”
“Would you stop with that incessant ‘hmm’?”
“I’m thinking how we should present you.” She clucked her tongue in annoyance, another habit of hers. “You forget we’ve all been where you are. Someone had to rear us into this life as I am doing for you.”
“I do not know what to expect here. I have nothing remotely similar to compare this to. I’m surprised how free I’ve become with my body where Amir is concerned. Though it’s taken me some months to even allow that.”
Laila bent her head to the task of finishing her hand without answering. Elena knew Laila contemplated her answer carefully. The soft tickling strokes of the brush resumed. Another twenty minutes and it would be done. The markings would stay for at least a month, maybe two.
“When you came here, you never thought you could endure pleasuring Amir, either. Now you are happy, no longer a frightened lady. This is a good life. You spend time with your son every day. You see your sisters and bond with us every day. What is it that really bothers you? That you will not adjust to the auctioning and the Pleasure Gardens?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m being difficult. I don’t mean to be. Things are comfortable right now. I don’t want my life to keep changing. What if I stop adjusting? What will happen to my boy then?”
“You worry for nothing, then. You want this to work and not just for the sake of your son. Otherwise you wouldn’t have accepted this life.”
“What happens if Amir tires of me and finds me to be a disappointment?”
“Ah, so is this at the root of your fretting? Amir does not tire of us. I’ve never seen such a thing as that in all my years with him. You over-worry. Trust me, you will have other capable lovers.” She frowned, her nose scrunching up in distaste. “And some not so capable. You will not mind pleasing others when your time comes. And Amir has never been disappointed in any of us.”
“But none of you have ever given him reason to be disappointed—”
“You won’t, either. Stop with this fussing. The more you worry the more likely you will upset Amir. He wants you and Jonathan to be happy. You must see how he treats your son. You’d think the boy was his.”
“He does adore Jonathan. If he cares for us so much, why doesn’t he marry us? I know I’ve said I won’t marry again, but if he asked me—I would not refuse. Why is a wife so distasteful? It’s not as though he is stuck with one, he gets his pick of four wives. How would a man get bored with four wives and a harem full of women ready to please him?”
Laila clucked her tongue again and set her brush down so she could blow over the design, to help it dry faster.
“You were told before you came here that this was the way of our life. Amir does not want children. He is sixteenth in line for Sultan. He does not want his children to grow up as he did, locked behind the palace walls.”
“Yet we are trapped here, as much prisoners as he himself was.”
“This is different. You cannot understand how many princes go mad before they reach adulthood. Amir counts his blessings that his mother protected him as best she could.”
“I still don’t understand what that has to do with marrying any of us.”
“He cannot marry us unless we are pregnant. It is the rule of the Ottoman culture. This is why we take every necessary precaution against a man’s seed from taking root. He does not want us to fight for status within the harem. Amir’s mother was not a happy woman. She loathed this life because she had had a privileged upbringing in England. Like you, she did not choose this life. And because of his mother’s hatred
and distress at being confined to a harem, the things she was forced to do to keep her son alive, he will never shun you. Do you not see this?”
Elena bowed her head, a little shamed by her words. She hated to say she didn’t see it that way, not in the least. She was a prisoner here just as she was in the slave market. Better looked after, but still a prisoner.
She was complaining too much for someone who was new here.
She also knew Laila was closest to Amir as a friend because she had been raised to be a part of his harem. If she wanted to voice excessive feelings in these matters, she should take them to Maram. Laila was too close with Amir; she often chose the side of the prince over that of any of her sisters.
“I understand perfectly. I just wish things were different.”
“Do you? Do you wish your old life back? With its uncertainties and a husband so callous as to have sold you? This is a great insult in my eyes since you English abhor the slave trade. Your men take one wife; this is a very dishonorable act committed by your husband. Do you wish to go back to that life? Where your son might not stand out from the shadow your husband cast over your family? To a life where your son might have turned out to be exactly like his father?”
Elena shook her head. “No. I do not wish to go back, nor do I wish my husband to have found his end as he did.” She let out a frustrated sigh. What use going over this topic again with Laila? She needed a change of subject.
She lifted her chin and gave a small smile in silent apology. “What is the word for paradise, Laila? I seem to have forgotten.”
She needed to stop this prattling and bemoaning of her duty as a harem girl. Every one of her sisters had done this. Every one of her sisters had already been on the auction block and their favors sold to someone or other. She could do this, and hold her head high while she did it.
The Surrender of a Lady Page 9