by Louise Allen
The heavy silk absorbed the tears, but she still could not speak as the realisation of what these feelings meant swept through her. I love you. Wordless, shaking with the force of her discovery, she wound her arms around Nick’s waist and held on to as much of him as she could grasp. He moved, the sensation of being supported and surrounded intensified, and she realised he had sat down on the edge of the desk and was holding her against his chest as she stood between his spread legs.
He made no move to caress her, or to touch her other than to flatten his big hands on her back, but gradually, as she relaxed, she became aware that he was aroused, hard against the softness of her lower belly as she rested against him.
I do trust him, she thought, her mind finally calm. He did what he had to do because he loves my father and he owes him everything. And I want him and he will stand here all night comforting me because he thinks that is what I need… That is not what I need. I love you.
Anusha nuzzled into the overlap of the robe, the tickle of chest hair strange and arousing over smooth skin and hard muscle beneath.
‘Anusha—’ He stopped with a gasp as her questing mouth found a nipple that contracted into a hard knot at the first stroke of her tongue. Her fingers closed over the ends of the sash that held his robe closed and she tugged as he shifted to hold her away from his body. The robe fell open and she rocked forwards against him, close against the splendour of his nakedness.
‘Anusha,’ he said again and this time it was a groan. She lifted her face to him, her lips parted in invitation, and he bent his head and took them. She could sense the conflict in him even as his mouth made love to hers, his tongue slipping between her teeth to stroke and plunge and plunder. He tasted hot and male and urgent and through the thin cotton that she wore she felt his heartbeat kick.
‘No,’ Nick muttered, lifting his head so the kiss was broken. But it was as though he did not have the strength of lift right away and his breath stroked her lips and his eyes were wide and brilliant. ‘No,’ he said more strongly.
Anusha clung to his neck, lifted one knee on to the desk and then the other so she straddled him, her night robe crumpling up to leave her exposed. Then, before he could twist free, she lowered herself so that the heated length of his erection was trapped along the soft intimate folds that were hot and moist and ached for him.
‘God, Anusha, no.’ Nick bucked his hips, but that only pressed him closer and she moved with him, rocking in a rhythm that made her sob with need. ‘Sweetheart, stop. Stop, please while I still can—’
He was struggling with himself, with her, with his fear of hurting her and his need to take her. It was a fight, a battle and one she was desperate to win…because I love him. Anusha stopped moving, conscience-stricken. Nick would never forgive himself if he took her virginity here, like this, she knew. It would break him, break the bond with her father, break his honour.
She fell against his chest and tried to keep still. ‘I am sorry, Nick. I just…I just need you so much.’ If I tell him I love him he will leave. He does not want love.
Silence, broken only by the sound of their panting breaths, the hiss of the lamp wick, a dog barking in the night.
‘I need you, too,’ Nick said, his voice harsh as though the confession had been extracted under torture.
He was a sensual, virile man and she knew he had not had a woman for weeks and here she was offering herself. Of course he wanted her—it did not mean anything else. Anusha tried to climb down. ‘Wait.’ He stood, lifting her with him, walked to the couch in the corner, sat down again and set her by his side.
His face was sheened with sweat and she could see the big artery in his neck pulsing, but his hands were steady as he wrapped himself in the robe again and tied the sash. ‘You ache,’ Nick stated as though he asked her if she was thirsty.
‘Yes.’ She wanted to touch his hair, smooth the gilt silk under her fingers, but she dare not touch, make it more difficult for him. In a moment, when her legs had stopped shaking, she would get up and go to her room and stop tormenting him.
‘Come here then, sweetheart. Let me make it better.’ He lifted her on to his lap, settled her against his shoulder and kissed her, all before she could react.
She should get up… But her legs felt even weaker and his mouth was like a drug and his arms held her and she gave herself up to the kiss. Even when his hand slid up her leg, pushed back the thin cotton of her night shift, cupped her aching core, all she could do was moan into his mouth.
And then—aah! How could such gentleness create such violence in her body? She arched, pressing against his hand as his fingers explored, stroked, found the point…the point… Anusha stopped thinking, stopped breathing, surrendered to sensation and heat and Nick. Then his other hand cupped her breast and his fingers closed on one nipple and pinched, so lightly, and the exquisite pleasure broke over her like a wave so that she screamed and he captured the sound in his kiss.
She was vaguely aware of being lifted, of movement, of being lowered on to something soft. ‘Sleep, Anusha,’ Nick murmured in her ear. His hand brushed her cheek and she smiled, her body as limp as finest silk velvet, her mind utterly at peace. I love you. She tried to say it, but the words were lost as she drifted down into sleep.
*
‘So you are Anusha! Welcome to Calcutta, my dear.’
‘Ma’am.’ Anusha dropped a curtsy. It felt very odd, her legs were still shaky after last night—the only thing that convinced her it had not all been a dream—but apparently it was correct, for Lady Hoskins smiled and nodded in approval.
‘What a charming young lady, Sir George. I am sure we will get along famously, will we not, Anusha? How is your English? Do we need an interpreter and a tutor?’
‘No, ma’am.’ She dragged her thoughts away from memories of Nick’s naked body, of his hands, his mouth… This was nothing to do with Nick, this was all about her father’s plans for her and she must be constantly on the alert. But when she saw him again, would he say anything? Could he possibly have discovered that he loved her, too? No, do not hope.
‘I recall my English from before I was sent away, and I spoke it often with my mother.’ That was deliberately tactless. She noticed her father’s lips draw tight and Lady Hoskins shift as though uneasy. Anusha kept her face innocently blank. She was not going to mention talking to Nick in English, she had no wish to compromise herself, not yet at any rate. Later it might be useful. Later I might not be able to help myself.
‘Er…excellent. And your maid is satisfactory? She has turned you out very well this morning.’
‘Thank you, I am very happy with her.’ Anusha knew she had been difficult enough that morning to excuse outright mutiny on the part of Nadia as the maid had patiently dressed her in chemise and corset, petticoats, more petticoats to make her skirts bell out, stocking, garters and shoes that pinched her toes. And over the top of it a gown in cotton chintz with wide skirts and a tight bodice and sleeves. How anyone was expected to move in all this she had no idea—standing still and curtsying were simple by comparison.
‘A new hairstyle is the first priority.’ Lady Hoskins circled her. ‘That weight of hair is impossible to do anything with.’
‘I do not wish to have my hair cut, ma’am.’ But the older woman was already gesturing to the maid. Before she could protest further, the plait was undone and shaken loose.
‘It waves, it is an interesting colour, but we must have at least a foot off it. More, perhaps.’
My hair, my beautiful hair! It reached below her hips when it was loose. She’d had fantasies of letting it hang over Nick’s naked body, of sweeping it back and forth until he… But that was when he had not known how keenly she desired him—he would avoid her now, she feared.
‘Very well.’ Whatever it took to lull her father into believing she meant to stay, meant to be a dutiful daughter. Anusha watched him from the corner of her eye. He was taking more of an interest in Lady Hoskin’s attempts to turn her into an Engli
sh lady than he had in anything else about his long-lost daughter, she thought resentfully.
‘Excellent. Then, Sir George, with your permission, I will send for my coiffeuse and my maid and together we will deal with the question of hair and go through Anusha’s wardrobe. I thought dinner at our house tonight? Just a small gathering of twenty to get her into the way of things.’
Anusha found that she was gazing hopefully at her father’s retreating back, as though he might turn round and rescue her. But of course he did no such thing and, of course, she did not wish him to. What she wanted was to ask where Nick was, why he had not been at breakfast.
‘Now, the first thing is to lace that corset properly,’ Lady Hoskins said, advancing on her as the door closed. ‘Your figure is far too natural.’ Anusha clenched her fists and managed to smile.
*
‘I declare it is a positive age since you came to any parties, Major Herriard. I was saying only the other day to my sister that we must quite give you up, which is such a pity, for we are always in need of handsome men in red coats.’ The elder Miss Wilkinson finished this piece of inanity with a giggle and batted her eyelashes at him over the top of her fan. It was a pretty fan and a pair of charming blue eyes and she knew it.
Nick managed a smile through gritted teeth. To think that he had spent hours sailing down the Ganges instructing Anusha in how to produce just such pointless chit-chat! At the thought of her his groin tightened and he forced his concentration back to the women in front of him—they aroused no desires at all.
‘Alas, duty calls only too often, Miss Wilkinson, and drags us poor men away from the delightful company of Calcutta’s ladies.’
That was apparently an acceptable response. Miss Wilkinson moved a little closer and then, to his surprise, gestured to a group of young ladies nearby. Nick found himself surrounded.
‘We are all agog and you will know, Major Herriard,’ Miss Annis Wilkinson breathed. ‘Is it true that Sir George Laurens has his natural daughter staying with him and she is an Indian princess?’ She made Anusha
sound as exotic as a cage full of white tigers, but he supposed none of these girls would ever have met a member of the royal courts.
‘Miss Laurens has been residing with her uncle, the Raja of Kalatwah. The state has recently been attacked by a neighbouring prince, so I escorted Miss Laurens home to her father.’ There was no point in making a mystery of the basic facts.
‘Escorted her?’
Nick injected every bit of ennui he could into his reply and managed without an outright lie. ‘Court progresses are the slowest, most tedious thing imaginable. Bullock carts, palanquins, the zanana tents to shield the ladies…’
‘Oh!’ A frisson of delighted horror at the thought of the zanana ran through the group. ‘And does she go everywhere escorted by an enormous eunuch?’
There was a stir near the door and the butler announced, ‘Sir George Laurens, Miss Laurens.’
‘You may see for yourself,’ Nick said, turning to look. He had avoided the main part of the house all day, and sent a message to George that he had business at the fort. He was not at all sure that either he or Anusha could control their expressions or their reactions if they met just yet and he had no desire to explain to George why his daughter was slapping his face.
Last night had been exquisite, insane and appallingly dangerous. He had been unable to get the taste or the scent of Anusha out of his head all day. Somehow he had to talk to her, assure her that it would never happen again, that he would protect her innocence at whatever cost to himself, because today she must be angry, frightened and shocked.
He stared over the heads of the crowd. He could see George, talking to his host, but he could not see Anusha.
‘But she looks quite ordinary,’ one of the girls said, her voice flat with disappointment. ‘Just like us.’
‘I can’t—’ Good God. The slight figure next to Sir George was Anusha. Her hair was piled up into an elaborate arrangement with one glossy ringlet left to lie on her shoulder. Her waist looked minute rising from the bell of her skirts and she tossed the lace back from her sleeves as she lifted her fan in a movement that was pure coquette. Nick found his voice. ‘Ordinary?’
Chapter Sixteen
Nick swallowed and got his face back under control.
‘I expected she would have a sari and rings in her nose and she’d be dark skinned with black hair and big brown eyes. But she is just like us, only her skin looks as though she has been in the sun too much,’ Miss Wilkinson observed. There was a murmur of agreement. ‘I like that amber silk.’
Then Anusha moved, walking into the room beside her father, and Nick felt every man in the room under eighty draw a breath. She might look like a golden-skinned version of any young lady who was fashionably gowned and coiffed, but she moved like the trained dancer she was, with a feline grace that took him in the throat and then, inevitably, considerably lower. God, he wanted her. How the hell had he ever managed to stop himself last night?
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I must go and speak to Sir George and be introduced to Miss Laurens.’
‘But you’ve met her,’ Miss Wilkinson protested. ‘You escorted her. You must have seen her. And you live with Sir George, do you not?’
‘The zanana, remember? And I have my own wing of the house. And not this woman, he added under his breath. I have never seen this woman.
He had seen so many faces of Anusha. A haughty Indian princess in a temper; a brave, tired girl in youth’s clothing fighting fear and hardship; a wrong-headed young woman with a completely unrealistic dream of freedom. Then there was the passionate half-innocent who had known all the theory and none of the realities of what happened between men and women until he had let his control slip and had shown her a little, just a glimpse of what he wanted to do with her.
But he had not met this woman, Miss Anusha Laurens, back where she belonged on her father’s arm at an East India Company dinner party.
‘Miss Laurens.’ He bowed and wondered what she saw when she looked at him: the soldier in his dress uniform, controlled and disciplined—or the man from last night, half-naked, in thrall to her and to his desires?
‘Major Herriard.’ She curtsied, her face showing nothing but polite interest. But her eyes sparkled. Temper or desire?
‘You are in great beauty tonight, An…ma’am.’ He’d be stammering like a callow youth in a moment. Nick took in a breath down to his boots.
‘So are you, Major.’ The dark lashes swept up and down as she studied his scarlet dress uniform. ‘As splendid as you were at court.’ She fixed him with that candid-seeming stare that he knew could hide so much and added, ‘I did not expect to see you here. Have you not returned to your regiment?’
‘I am on leave, Miss Laurens.’
‘I thought you must have left Calcutta when you did not join us at breakfast this morning.’ She sent him a very direct look from beneath immaculately plucked brows. A reproof for avoiding her?
‘I had business at the fort all day.’
Anusha glanced around, her expression perfectly pleasant, a smile on her lips as her eyes flickered from side to side. He knew her well enough now to read her. She was nervous and embarrassed in this crowd of strangers, she did not know how to act with the man who had given her her first sexual experience only the night before and it was only pride and her court training that was keeping her standing there.
He began to step back, to leave her to her father and to Lady Hoskins, but she caught at his sleeve. ‘What am I supposed to do now, Nick?’
For a moment, stung by conscience, he thought she meant after his lovemaking, then she whispered, ‘There are so many people I do not know. And men.’
He gently pried open her fingers from their grip on the gold lace. ‘You take my arm.’ He proffered his right arm, bent at the elbow, and murmured, ‘Put your fingertips on my forearm.’ She did so, then looked up at him, a spark of mischief in her eyes. For a moment the trusting A
nusha was back with him. ‘Now we take a turn around the room and I introduce you to people.’
‘Men as well? They are all staring at me and there are so many.’
‘Only ten, including me and your father. So eight strange men. And they are staring because they admire you and wish to challenge me for daring to be before them with you.’
‘But you will not leave me?’ Her fingers tightened on his arm.
She still trusts me, still needs me. ‘No,’ Nick promised, dizzy with relief. ‘Not with the men, but I may have to give you up to the ladies.’
‘I do not mind that,’ she said. ‘I am used to women.’
And she was used to the women of a princely court who would be like hunting cats amongst the pretty pigeons that were the young ladies in this room.
Anusha was quiet and serious when introduced to the gentlemen. She curtsied, managed a small smile and a few words, but her hand kept lifting instinctively as if to pull a veil over her face.
‘You have no veil,’ he murmured. ‘Use your fan.’ The trouble with that was the effect of big grey eyes, wide above the painted silk, on men whose imaginations were already overheated by rumour of her origins and whose gaze had been riveted on the graceful sway of her figure.
‘I am proud of you,’ he said when they found themselves alone for a moment at one end of the drawing room.
‘Because I am curtsying just as you taught me? I do not think I can do the flirting, not yet. It is so difficult being with strange men like this.’
‘You managed with me.’ She looked up and met his eyes and the impulse to laugh died. Nick laid his hand over hers and thought of how her slender, soft body felt against his, of how her mouth tasted, of how she had ridden and danced and fought. And shuddered into
ecstasy in my embrace. Of how it was his duty to protect her until she was safe here and found a man to marry. And then he could return to his next assignment and forget her.