The Perfect Temptation

by Leslie LaFoy

  Mohan grinned and nodded. "Yes, sir. Sawyer insisted."

  "He's a good man."

  "Aiden, please," she said softly, catching his arm and

  staying him.

  Tears welled along her lower lashes and tore at his heart.

  "Good-bye, Alex," he whispered, lifting her hand and pressing

  a light kiss to the back of it He released her with a wink

  and managed to clear the lump from his throat to say,

  "You'll be the best princess India ever had."

  "Aiden ... "

  ''Take care of her," he instructed Vadeen as he walked

  past, determined to be gone before Alex's tears shredded

  what little was left of his dignity.

  "With my life."

  He couldn't speak; not and keep hidden his ravaged emotions.

  He nodded instead and kept walking, willing himself

  to keep his gaze on the carriage and his mind focused on the

  task of getting the horses tied to the rear of it, on getting

  back into the driver's box and setting it all in motion, on getting

  the hell gone before he made a complete, blubbering

  fool of himself.

  Alex fought back the tears and turned to her uncle. "I will

  join you in the house in a moment. For now I wish to say my

  farewells privately."

  "Narain will wait for you here," he declared, turning

  away. "Do not tarry, niece."

  She didn't have the time or the energy to protest. And

  she'd tarry if she damn well pleased. Gathering her skirts,

  she hurried out toward the rear of the carriage, her heart

  lodged high in her throat and her thoughts a confusing jumble

  of words and swirling emotions. .

  "You're not leaving with regrets, are you?" she blurted as

  she reached his side. "You have nothing to be sorry for,

  Aiden."

  He looked down at her and blindly finished tying the

  reins of her horse to the ring. ''Well,'' he drawled, "I never

  did teach you to dance."

  His voice was tight, too tight, too controlled. He was

  hurting just as deeply as she was. Desperate to prolong her

  time with him, wanting with all her heart and soul to ease his

  conscience in his leaving, she raised her hands in the pose

  her mother had taught her long ago. "Teach me now," she

  pleaded. "Show me how to dance, Aiden."

  He swayed on his feet and then stiffened, expelling a hard

  breath. Offering her a brittle smile and a cocked brow, he

  asked, "Does an Indian princess really need to know how

  Englishmen dance?"

  ''There's a difference between needing and wanting;' she

  countered, her heart tearing. "I want to know what it's like to

  dance with you. I want that memory to tuck away with all the

  other treasures that have been ours."

  He looked over at the door, to where Narain waited

  silently for her in the shadows. Then slowly, almost hesitantly,

  he stepped close and took her hand in his and slipped

  the other to the small of her back. "Keep the distance between

  us as we move," he whispered, his voice catching.

  Alex nodded, afraid her sorrow would overflow if she tried

  to speak. He guided her smoothly backward and she looked

  up at him, memorizing his face as it looked in the moonlight,

  remembering the way he smiled, the sound of his laughter.

  Ask me to stay, Aiden, she silently begged. Ask me to love

  you. Tell me that you'll try to find room in your heart for me,

  too.

  He stumbled and stopped, then deliberately released her

  and stepped back. "I can't do this, Alex. I have to go." He

  moistened his lower lip with the tip of his tongue and took a

  ragged breath. Cupping her cheek in the palm of his hand,

  he gazed down at her and murmured, "Stay safe, my beautiful

  princess. Think of me from time to time and know that

  I'll never forget you."

  "I will always remember you, Aiden. Always."

  And then he was gone, striding past her without another

  word, without another touch. She couldn't turn and watch

  him disappear from her life. It was all she could do to stand

  where she was and keep silent with the tears coursing over

  her cheeks. The springs of the carriage creaked. The leather

  of the reins popped. The horses snorted and then their

  hooves pounded over the hard-packed earth of the yard and

  onto the brick pavers of the street beyond.

  She stood in the darkness, listening to them fade away.

  "Princess ?"

  The sob broke from her soul and tore up her throat. Gathering

  her skirts, she fled toward the house, past the startled

  guard, and up to the sanctuary of her lonely room.

  Chapter 20

  The knock at the door was soft, but it arrowed past her grief

  and flared into a wild, surging hope. Alex scrambled to her

  feet and darted forward, afraid that if she delayed he'd change

  his mind and leave her again. She flung the door open, her

  heart bursting with happiness.

  "Preeya," she whispered, staggering back, her hope

  crushed and new tears flooding down over her cheeks. Collapsing

  on the edge of her mattress, she tried to apologize for

  the rudeness of the greeting, but only a choking sob rolled

  past her lips.

  "You do not have to explain," Preeya offered, advancing

  into the room and softly closing the door behind her. "Almost

  twenty-five years ago I found your father as I find you

  now. His heart was as broken, his pain as deep."

  ''Aiden's gone, Preeya," she sobbed, wrapping her arms

  around her midsection and rocking forward and back. "I'll

  never see him again. I'll never hold him. And I love him so

  much. I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life hurting like

  this."

  “Your father said the same words to me,” Preeya went

  on, settling on the bed beside her, "I will say the same to you

  as I did then." With a gentle hand she tucked an errant strand

  of hair behind Alex's ear. "Great loves are destined. But such

  a love always comes with a trial equal to the glory and promise

  of happiness. If you fail the trial, you deny what destiny

  has deemed your course. But if you have faith and trust that

  what was meant to be will be, you will endure the trial and

  be rewarded."

  Alex dragged a wracking breath into her body, desperately

  willing Aiden back, willing him to come striding in the door,

  his green eyes alive and bright with love and devotion, hard

  with a determination to find a way for them to be together.

  "You have a choice, Alex," Preeya admonished, taking

  Alex's chin in hand and tenderly turning her head so she was

  forced to look into her eyes. "You can wish yourself dead

  and that is how Aiden will find you when he returns for you.

  You can surrender to despair and break his heart. Or you can

  dry your tears and believe that love is eternal and that the

  hope of it is never lost." .

  "We leave in the morning, Preeya," she countered, unable

  to stop the tears, unable to summon resolve. ''Am I supposed

  to hope for a miracle by then?"

  Preeya arched a dark brow. "Kedar searched ten ye
ars for

  your mother. Your mother endured ten years before she could

  be again in the arms of the man she loved. Did their daughter

  not inherit their strength, their faith, their courage?”

  Ten years of misery, of being apart. Then ten years of

  hiding their hearts and their love. That was a reward for enduring?

  "No, she didn't," she declared, turning away. "I

  want more in my life. And I want it now. I want Aiden and a

  home with him. I want to be the one to bear his children."

  "Aiden will find you no matter where you are," Preeya assured

  her. "No matter how long it takes."

  Dreadful certainty closed inexorably around her heart.

  There would never be a life with Aiden. No home. No children.

  She could want as desperately as any woman ever had,

  but wanting wouldn't change the course ahead, wouldn't

  change Aiden. She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks and

  took a ragged, but steadying breath. "He walked away,

  Preeya," she said, lifting her chin. "Sarad dismissed him and

  he walked away. He's not going to turn around and come after me."

  Beside her, Preeya sighed and shook her head. "It is the

  rare man who sees his course at first glance, Alex," she said

  with obviously strained patience. "Give your Aiden time to

  stumble around in his darkness. Eventually he will understand

  what it is that he seeks. You must not only have faith in

  love itself, but also in the one you love. If he were not worthy

  of it, you would not have given him the precious gift of

  your heart."

  "He doesn't know that I did. I never told him that I loved

  him."

  Preeya snorted in a most unladylike fashion and slid off

  the bed. She was halfway to the door when she stopped and

  turned back. "And do you think that love exists only when

  put into words?” she asked, her arms akimbo, her tone kind

  but firm. ''That he does not know by your actions? That he

  did not feel love in your touch? See it in your eyes? In your

  smile? That he did not hear love in your voice when you

  whispered his name and reached for him in the dark?"

  For his sake, she hoped he hadn't. What regrets he carried

  from his time with her would be ever so much deeper if he

  knew that he'd broken her heart.

  "Faith, Alex," Preeya declared as she left. "You must live

  in faith."

  Alex closed her eyes, hearing the slow painful beating of

  her tattered heart and the pounding of hammers as Sarad's

  men coolly, methodically crated up her world. By morning's

  light It would all be stowed away in the hull of an India bound

  vessel. The Blue Elephant would cease to be .. And all

  the life, all the hope, promise, and happiness within its walls

  would slip forever into the past.

  Aiden leaned back in the dining room chair, his legs stretched

  out under the table, his arms folded across his chest. In front

  of him on the table sat three things: the ornate white velvet-lined

  gold box containing a heaping mound of finely cut gemstones,

  a bottle of Carden's best brandy, and an empty glass.

  The box was beautiful. The stones were worth a king's ransom.

  Or a princess's, depending on how he looked at it. But it

  was the brandy that largely occupied his attention and his

  thoughts. And had been for the better part of the last two

  hours-since he'd walked into the house and decided that

  there was nothing to be done but get himself blindly, roaringly

  drunk.

  He'd gotten the bottle and the glass off the caddy in the

  study, carried it here where Sawyer had left a lamp burning,

  set them on the table within easy reach, and then resolutely

  planted his sorry carcass on the chair. And he hadn't moved

  since. He'd looked at the box of jewels, thought about why

  he'd been given them, remembered the look in Alex's eyes

  as he'd put her from his arms in the yard, and that had been

  the end of his purposeful thinking. He'd spent God only

  knew how long wandering through his memories of the past

  weeks, alternately smiling, laughing, and thinking about

  drowning his pain and sorrow in the brandy.

  But he hadn't been able to reach out for it. He just sat

  there, staring at it. Which, he admitted with a sigh, was

  truly pathetic. He was genuinely miserable. There wasn't a

  part of him that wasn't weary and didn't ache. He didn't

  want to think and he shouldn't have wanted to feel anything-

  especially the searing, pounding ache deep in the

  center of his chest. But he didn't want to sleep, didn't want

  to eat. And, apparently, he didn't want to drink, either. It

  was the strangest, most confounding, inexplicable thing.

  Not the least bit rational. It wasn't as though he didn't know

  the kind _of blissful forgetfulness to be found in swimming

  in alcohol.

  Why he didn't want to escape, to forget, was the root of

  it, he knew. The answer to that central, all-important question

  had been eluding him for the last hour. Although "eluding"

  wasn't the least bit accurate, he knew. It implied that he

  could sense an answer and simply couldn't grasp it. The

  truth was that he didn't have so much as an inkling that one

  actually existed. And it was a given that he wouldn't find it

  waiting to fallout of the bottom of a well-drained glass.

  "You reach for that bottle and I'll break your hands."

  Aiden looked up at the familiar voice and watched his

  friend advance to the table. Proof, Aiden silently growled,

  that if you didn't lock the door behind you, trouble was free

  to wander in off the streets. "What are you doing here?” he

  asked not at all politely.

  Barrett stripped off his greatcoat and dropped it over the

  back of a chair, saying, "I went by the Blue Elephant to see

  you, was told-rather summarily-of your departure, and

  was afraid you'd do something shortsighted. I came by here

  on my way home hoping to keep you from it. Have I arrived

  in anything approximating a timely fashion?"

  "Actually," Aiden drawled, his gaze going back to the

  bottle, "I've been sitting here for quite some time, trying to

  figure out why I spent a year drinking myself into oblivion.

  That's good brandy. All I have to do is reach out and I can

  have it. And God knows I feel so damn empty I hurt clear

  down to the soul. But I don't want to drown the pain. I'm not

  even tempted to pour myself a drink." He looked up to meet

  his friend's gaze. "Why is that, Barrett?"

  ''Maybe you're a year older and a year wiser," he offered.

  Aiden snorted.

  Barrett considered him for a long moment, his lips pursed

  and his brows knitted. Finally, he quietly asked, "How honest

  do you want me to be?"

  If Barrett had an answer, he was entirely willing to hear

  it. "Hell, I can't hurt any deeper than I already do."

  ''All right." he said crisply, leaning back against the buffet

  and crossing his anus over his chest. "I never met your Mary

  Alice Randolph. Tell me about her."

  Mary Alice? He knew wh
at she had to do with wanting to

  drink himself blind. But what did she have to do with Alex?

  Leaving Alex behind was why he was sitting here asking himself

  pointless questions instead of being at the Blue Elephant.

  rolling around on black satin sheets in the throes of mind-staggering

  passion. Even as he considered asking for an explanation,

  he decided that he didn't care. He was too tired to

  try to make sense of anything. ''What do you want to know?"

  Barrett cast him a quick look and then shrugged. "I don't

  know. What did she look like?"

  He could see her so clearly. They'd met at a party and

  she'd been hiding in a corner behind the potted palms. "She

  was blond and blue-eyed and petite. A tiny little slip of a

  thing. She always wore pink."

  After pondering that information for a moment, Barrett

  nodded and asked, ''What made her special?"

  Aiden frowned. He'd found himself in the same corner

  in trying to evade an encounter with his former-as of that

  afternoon-lover, Rose. He couldn't pretend that he wasn't

  sharing it with someone else. They'd struck up a conversation.

  and ... Damn if he could remember about what,

  though.

  It was odd and more than a little troubling to be able

  to look back and see Mary Alice but to have no recollection

  of anything she'd ever said, of her thoughts on anything, or

  of her hopes. and dreams beyond those of getting back to

  Charleston.

  "Don't you remember, Aiden?"