by Olivia Drake
“You’ll have to agree to one condition,” she said. “If and when we return to English society, our affair will end.”
Damien hesitated for an instant. “I understand completely.” He gathered her to him and nuzzled her hair. She reveled in the strength of his arms, inhaled his exciting masculine scent. He added softly, “I have a condition, too.”
“What?”
He drew back to touch the locket between her breasts. “That you put this aside for now.”
Her heart in her throat, her eyes linked to his, she reached around and unfastened the clasp. Without speaking, she dropped the locket on the windowsill. The tiny dick of metal faded into charged silence.
His face gentled. “Will you tell me how you feel now, Sarah? Please?”
His voice was deep and thick with yearning. That he would ask, rather than demand, convinced her of his sincerity. Past and future melted away, leaving only the golden present, a suspended interlude in the mountains of India.
She cradled his firm jaw in her hands. “Yes. Yes. I love you, Damien.”
He smiled. Reckless and giddy, she smiled back.
A look of stark desire descended over him, a look that made her tremble, a look that submerged her in sultry adoration. They moved toward each other, and her mouth tingled from the warm and wonderful caress of his lips, his arms so taut around her that he lifted her from the ground. He deepened the kiss, his mouth undulating over hers and filling her with his heat. Scarred hands skimmed over her skin, exploring her most sensitive places until her head spun and she melted into boneless surrender.
No longer could she bank the flames ignited on their day in the temple. A firestorm of passion consumed her, and her hands glided over him, seeking the rigidity of muscle and the hardness of need. She relished his warm skin, tangy with sweat, and the feel of his thick hair, sliding through her fingers.
He unwrapped her sari and let it drift to the floor in a lavender-blue puddle. His clothing dropped away, too, and he walked her backward to the hearth, guiding her down onto the tiger- skin rug.
“Guess what I want now?” he said against her mouth.
“A cup of tea? A chupatty? A—”
His mouth trapped her teasing words and transformed them into incoherent gasps. “Imp. I want this.”
And then he drove inside her and there was no more need for talk, only the groans and murmurs of mindless pleasure. She clung tightly to him and fancied their bodies soaring in unison, their hearts and souls joining on a glorious ride to the stars.
Long, shuddering moments later, the fire within burned to white ash, and she opened her eyes to the satisfaction of his smile. “Now would you like your cup of tea?” she asked demurely.
He brushed his lips against hers. “I’d rather drink the champagne of your kisses.”
“This from a man who professes to lack any talent for eloquence, who describes his writing as ‘dry and detestably dull’?”
He shifted against her, his chest grazing her breasts, his hips rekindling her fire. “Eloquence of the body is an entirely different matter, Miss Faulkner. Would you care for another demonstration?”
His silky words enticed her. “The evening is still young. And we’ve plenty of time. Will you sleep with me tonight?”
He went still, tension in the arms bracketing her, his brown eyes probing. “What if we disturb Kit?”
“Your son will never know.” Wondering at the uneasiness she sensed in Damien, she kissed the bronze column of his throat and the strong pulse beating there. “I, however, plan to disturb you for hours.”
“Sarah.”
She moved her lips to his chin and tasted skin bristly with beard. “Mm?”
“I’ve never slept all night beside a woman before.”
Not even Shivina? Sarah swallowed the startled question. They had no past and no future, only le golden present. As she gazed into his uncertain eyes, tenderness welled within her. How many other joys had he missed? “You were my first,” she murmured. “Now I have the honor of being yours.”
That night began an idyll that seemed more like a vivid dream to Sarah than simple reality. She steadfastly refused to consider the consequences of their affair. It was easier to drift through days lazy with friendship and nights ripe with passion. Between bouts of monsoon showers, they explored the countryside and talked about the problems of the Raj. They scrutinized Damien’s notes and organized his photographs into a cohesive book. He showed her a picture he’d taken of her asleep, with Kit cuddled in her arms.
Yet Sarah wanted more than political debates and professional discussions. She wanted to reach within him and probe the vulnerable feelings he hid from the world. As the days passed, Damien delighted her more and more with tidbits from his past.
She learned he’d attended Eton, only to be tossed out his second year after having been caught smoking in the chapel. He learned she’d been educated at home by her mother, who had worked as a governess before falling madly in love with the younger son of a baron.
One day, sitting on the veranda while the rain poured down in sheets, Sarah spoke of her own happy childhood in the hopes of nudging Damien toward a reconciliation with his past. We had very few possessions,” she said, “because Papa was cut off without a penny. He labored as a clerk in a counting house. Yet I remember our little home in Chelsea ringing with laughter. I remember that every Saturday evening he indulged my love of sweets by bringing apple tarts or gingerbread men or the biggest trifle he could afford.”
Catching a raindrop and rubbing it between his fingers, Damien said, “Did he ever go back?”
“Back where?”
“To see his parents.”
“Actually, yes.” She grimaced. “Papa took me to call on them when I was nine, at their estate in Surrey. They were stuffy folk who spent the afternoon reading biblical passages and complaining about disobedient children. They never forgave him for marrying beneath him, but Papa accepted that. He loved Mama and me too much to let their prejudice spoil our happiness. He learned to set his feelings free and to be happy with the man he was.”
“How did you end up living in India with your aunt and uncle?”
Sadness caught Sarah’s throat. “Papa died of a lung infection when I was ten. A year later, Mama succumbed to consumption. But she carried on contentedly even through a painful illness, for the memory of Papa’s love sustained her.”
Rain drummed on the veranda roof. Damien watched her with dark intensity. “You want a family like that again.”
“Yes,” she said fiercely, wishing she could replace his wretched memories with her own happy ones. “It was wonderful.”
He took her hand and turned his gaze to the green, rain-washed hillside. “I haven’t any memories like that. Mine tend to be like that Christmas Eve when I was seven.” He pressed his lips together.
The pain in his voice roused her sympathy. “Damien, if you want to talk about it, I’m always ready to listen.”
Sighing, he turned back to her. “I would like to tell you. I sketched a picture of my mother sitting on a garden bench, with Christopher and me at her feet. It was my Christmas gift to her.” A faraway bitterness tinged his expression. “I was supposed to be in bed, but I was so anxious to see her reaction that I brought the picture downstairs. I thought she’d finally love me. But she was so angry at me for interrupting her music party that she hauled me into the drawing room.” He paused.
“What did she do?” Sarah prompted.
Tightening his fingers around hers, he looked down at their clasped hands. “Mother called my work idealized drivel. She reminded me of what I’d done to Christopher and said she rued the day she gave birth to me. Then she hurled the drawing into the fire.”
Fury burned inside Sarah. “How horrible! Surely you can’t excuse her for that.”
He frowned moodily. “I hardly know what to think anymore. When I remember something like that, the little boy in me wants to take all the blame. Yet if I step back and view
her as a stranger, sometimes I wonder...”
Sarah held back the condemnation she wanted to shower on the dowager. It was enough that Damien was beginning to see his mother through the eyes of an adult. The decision to return to England had to be his. Only he could acknowledge her cruelty. And only then could he open himself to love.
Until that time, Sarah knew, she must satisfy herself with his growing trust in her and with the hot exhilaration of his lovemaking.
And exhilarate her he did. As soon as Batan left each evening, it was all they could do to eat dinner. He had only to give Sarah that special look or slide his plundering hand toward her bodice, and she fell into his arms. One by one, they tried all the positions described in The Kama Sutra. Often they ended up laughing together and eating cold curry at midnight.
When Kit awakened in the predawn darkness, Damien always rose to milk the goat, and then he lay beside her while she fed the baby. Sometimes the three of them fell asleep together. And sometimes after Sarah had settled the slumbering baby back into his cradle, Damien would still be awake, waiting for her in bed.
One memorable night, he crooked a finger and whispered, “Come here.”
Assuming the posture of a slave, she knelt beside the charpoy. “What is your wish, O Great Master?”
“Pleasure me.”
She did. Languidly and enticingly. And afterward, he set himself to the task of worshipping at the shrine of her body. Their coupling carried them both to soul-trembling heights.
But far sweeter to Sarah than the ecstasies of the flesh was the quiet joy of awakening in his arms each morning, of seeing the first rays of light wash over his tender smile, of watching him bring his son into bed so they could cuddle together as a family.
With all her heart, Sarah hungered for her own baby. She wanted to feel it kick inside her and know the delight of nestling a newborn to her breast. A baby born of her love for Damien.
But he never spoke of love. He never spoke of a future beyond their idyllic hillside retreat. Until one day in late September, when the air grew crisp and cool, and the leaves began to turn gold and bronze on the wooded slopes.
Returning from an errand in the village, Damien drew Sarah into his darkroom, closed the door, and lit a lantern. Yellow light bloomed over the stacks of glass-plated photographs and the row of chemical bottles. When he turned to her, the gravity on his features struck at her heart.
“It’s safe to return to Meerut,” he said.
The news staggered her with joy. Home! She was going home! Then despair closed in. They must abandon their mountain hideaway. Home was the circle of Damien’s arms. “What’s happened?” she asked. “Have the English put down the rebellion?”
“Not yet, but the tide has turned. A few weeks ago, British forces recaptured Delhi. They took Bahadur Shah prisoner. With one of their ringleaders gone, I’m afraid it’s the beginning of the end for the mutineers.”
“Yet there’s still fighting going on?” Sarah ventured, hating herself for the sick hope within her. She wanted no more deaths...yet she desperately sought an excuse to put off their departure.
“The fighting is confined to the stations far to the east of Meerut,” he said.
“Perhaps it’s safer to remain here until we’re sure.”
Damien stood moodily watching her, his fists clenching and unclenching, as if he fought an inner battle. “We can’t stay,” he said at last. “It’s time to go back. Once the snows start, we’ll be stranded here for the winter.”
She pressed herself to his muscled body. “Would that be so very dreadful?”
He grasped her shoulders. Torment dragged at the corners of his mouth. “Sarah, this is no life for you. You’re too proud a woman to stay with a scoundrel like me—”
“You’re not a scoundrel.”
“Let’s not debate that again. You should go back to English society, where you belong. It was your idea to end the affair when we left here.”
“Of course,” she said, her heart hollow. “Because of the gossip.”
“People might whisper, but they’ll have no proof or any wrongdoing. These are unusual circumstances. Many an Englishwoman must have been forced to take refuge in strange households, unchaperoned for days, even months. Hell, you’ll probably be welcomed home a heroine.”
Rather than encouraging her, the possibility dismayed her. A heroine...without Damien at her side. “What about our book?”
“You’ve done wonders with the text. I need only to replace some of the photographs that burned in the caravan. When I come back here next summer, I’ll put everything together and then submit the book to a publisher.”
His self-reliance embittered her. “You have the future so neatly mapped out, don’t you? You must have been planning this for weeks.”
He pulled her into a fierce embrace, and hope went winging through her heart. If only he could admit he felt more than mere desire for her; if only they could abide here forever.
“It’s going to be hell to say goodbye,” Damien murmured, “but it has to be done.” He extracted himself and stepped back. “There’s another reason I can’t stay here. I’ve decided to return to England. I’m going to make my mother accept Kit as my heir.”
Flabbergasted, Sarah blinked. She’d finally convinced him. So why did she feel so saddened? “I’ll go with you.”
“As my mistress? Sarah, be honest with yourself. You’re a conventional woman at heart. Don’t think I haven’t been aware of you longing for a family and a man who could love you. I can’t give you what you want. You knew that from the start.”
His words hurt, and she struck back instantly. “You don’t care for me. You can’t care for anyone but yourself.”
“That’s a damned lie.” He abruptly slammed his fist on the table. Glass bottles clanged against metal trays. Then silence reigned. When he lifted his head, his eyes were stark with pain. “I do care, by God. Enough to take you back to Meerut, to Reginald and your dreams.”
“You yourself said he might be dead. Perhaps everyone there is dead. Perhaps there’s no life for me to go back to.”
“No more than fifty people died there. You owe it to yourself to find out if you have any friends and family left. And you have too much honor to live in defiance of social mores.”
I can never love you. I will never, ever marry you.
Confusion tangled her heart into a painful knot. She thought of sharing a comfortable life with Reginald, of enjoying the status of a doctor’s wife. Then she thought of being Damien’s mistress, of walking into church and suffering the scorn of women and men alike, of seeing people turn their backs on her. And if ever she had a child of her own, he would be branded a bastard and taunted by the other children.
Bleak reality crept over her like a winter wind. Yet the prospect of giving up Damien and Kit shuddered through her with equal force. She had known their time together would one day come to this cruel end. Or perhaps her true anguish lay in the fact that she had hoped he would fall in love with her.
And he hadn’t.
She pressed her hands to her temples. “Damien, I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what I want anymore.”
“There’s nothing more to think about.” He ran his fingers through his hair, mussing the black strands into the style of a rogue. “We’ve a long journey ahead of us. I’d like to leave at first light.”
“If that makes you happy.” She couldn’t stop bitterness from seeping into her tone.
“Sarah, I’m sorry. You can’t imagine how I wish I could be the man of your dreams.”
The gentle regret in his voice only deepened her anger and agony. “You might have been,” she said. “If only you’d tried.”
With the remnants of her spirit, she lifted her chin and marched to the door. She paused to fling one last, clever gibe, but the desolation on his hard, aristocratic face stopped her cold. He was hurting, too. Because he’d been brutally honest with himself and with her. From the ashes of her heart rose a h
ot spiral of yearning, a yearning to comfort him, a yearning she dared not indulge.
Her throat aching with unspoken words of love, she turned and walked out.
Chapter 20
On a cool October afternoon, three emotionally devastating weeks later, she and Damien rode in a bullock cart past the Meerut bazaar. With the goat tethered in the back of the cart and Kit perched in the crook of her arm, Sarah felt a rush of bittersweet nostalgia. Except for a few burned-out buildings here and there, the mutiny might never have raged only months earlier. Vendors hawked their wares on the roadside or beneath the shade of canvas awnings.
Beggar children in filthy rags beseeched alms from the passersby. Men haggled over the price of gourds, women over the cost of gold bangles. She even spied a British soldier examining a saddle at the leather worker’s stall.
The heavy scents of spices and excrement, the bright colors and the gabble of voices, flooded her senses and resurrected the memory of walking through a mob to rescue Shivina from the fakir. Sarah clutched the side of the swaying cart. Weary and heartsore, she yearned for the peace of the hills, for the log hut warmed by the fires of all-consuming love.
But the man who rode beside her might have been a stranger, a dark-eyed native who would blend with the crowd in the market.
Damien guided the bullock past the tin-roofed temple where, nearly six months ago, she had informed him of his baby’s imminent arrival. Sarah’s throat caught. So much had happened since then. Shivina had died. Sarah had survived a bloody rebellion. She had learned the way of life of the Indians and the joys of motherhood. She had fallen in love with a man who kept an unbreachable wall around his heart.
Her troubled gaze drifted to the tiny shrine. In the gloom of the arched doorway stood a priest. Black eyes in a ghostly pale face peered at her. Tangled locks framed bony features. Despite the sun beating on her back, she felt his gaze crawl over her skin like the legs of a centipede.