TWILIGHT OF MEMORY
Patricia Watters
WELCOME TO SHANTI BHAVAN PLANTATION
The finest black opal known to exist stirred great interest in the French court when Napoleon Bonaparte, at the height of his power, presented it to Joséphine de Beauharnais, who wore the opal with great frequency. So intense were the brilliant red flames emanating from its fiery core that the magnificent opal was named the Burning of Troy. After Josephine's death, however, the opal disappeared without a trace. 100 years later, it turned up in Vienna, Austria. Where it spent those intervening years remains a matter of conjecture. Some claim it fell into the hands of gypsies in India. Who's to say?
THE STORY: She's the mystery debutante of the season who arrived on the London scene as if from out of nowhere. But Lord Damon Ravencroft knows her dark secret. Three years before she stole from him a rare and valuable opal once belonging to Empress Josephine and he intends to be compensated for its loss, which set him back years in his quest to prove his innocence in a crime he didn't commit. The sizable dowry that comes with Lady Elizabeth Sheffield's hand in marriage is a start. It's also his price to keep her secret from all of London.
TWILIGHT OF MEMORY
Copyright© 2019 by: Patricia Watters
Title of Work: Twilight of Memory / by Patricia Watters
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Date of 1st Publication: May 7, 2011 as Her Master's Touch
Domiciled in: United States of America
Nation of 1st Publication: United States of America
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or were used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part, or transmitted in any form or by any means by any electronic or mechanical or other means, not known of hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law.
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
EPILOGUE
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PROLOGUE
Shanti Bhavan Plantation; Calcutta, India – 1870
A hideous little man with owlish eyes, a head crowned by a red turban, and a gaunt body draped in a dhoti scurried into the room and salaamed. Unfolding a yellow tissue, he lifted a black opal the size of a pigeon's egg and held it before the window. Catching the rays of the waning sun, the gem burst into fiery-red sparks. The man's lips curved in a serpentine smile. "Sahib, I deliver to you the Kalki-Avatar," he said, offering the gem.
Damon Ravencroft, who sat reclined on a palangris like a great languid lion, back propped against pillows covered in fine white muslin, snapped his fingers, and the coolie who had been pulling on the long cord that operated the punkah creaking overhead left the room. Damon took the opal from the man's fingers and peered into the stone's fiery core, and when he saw the vague image of a horse, his heartbeat quickened, and blood pumped hard through his veins.
For years it had been rumored that the opal once belonging to Napoleon's empress found its way to India and had fallen into the hands of gypsies, but it wasn't until recently, when Damon heard talk of a black opal the size of a pigeon's egg with the likeness of a horse in its fiery core, that he knew the Burning of Troy opal still existed.
He turned the opal and it came alive with flashes of fiery reds, and glittering golds, and iridescent blues. Only now could he comprehend the magnificence of the stone, a gem vibrant and luminous beyond his wildest imaginings. A stone that burned with an imperial flame.
There was no doubt. This was the Burning of Troy. No opal could match the brilliance of Empress Josephine's gemstone. None could claim the dazzling lights alleged to have emanated from its flaming heart. There was no estimating its worth. The Hindu would seek it for the image it held—the Kalki-Avatar, the final incarnation of Vishnu who was to appear on his horse. The Muslim, who spurn the Hindus' craven images, would seek it... simply because it was something the Hindu would covet. But it was Queen Victoria who fancied the lost gemstone with a passion to whom it would go. She'd pay dearly. More important, it was a tool with which he could bid from her a pardon and return to England and claim what was rightly his. Westwendham.
The jewel broker peered down at him. "You see, sahib, is fine jewel."
Damon returned the opal to the man. "It appears a stone of reasonable quality," he said, with an air of detachment, though he had no intention of letting the gem fall into another's hands, but in order to buy the stone he'd have to forfeit the option he'd made to Lord Sheffield to purchase the jute fields along the river. But with the opal he'd no longer need the fields. He'd no longer need the plantation. Shanti Bhavan would go to the highest bidder. And once he secured his pardon he'd be off to England, and Westwendham.
The preliminaries over, he said to the man, "Sit. We'll talk."
CHAPTER 1
Horse Fair: Calcutta, India – Three weeks later
Great black vultures circled on silent wings above the Hugli River, gliding on wind currents that carried with them the pungent odor of burning flesh from the funeral pyres on the ghat, but Damon was unaware of the sinister shadows sweeping across the land or the acrid stench infusing his nostrils as he watched, with rapt interest, the dark-haired woman leading a coal black horse past the horse buyers. Doubling back, the woman stopped and looked directly at him. Although he stood on a platform crowded with horse buyers, he knew the woman was displaying her horse—or more precisely herself—for him. He saw it in her provocative stance, and in the alluring way her eyes sought his.
A smile tugged at his lips as he scanned her comely face, the gold chains draped over her décolleté blouse, her trim ankles and naked feet. Nudging Cedric Hadleigh, a fellow expatriate from England, he said, "There's a tart ripe for the taking."
Cedric let out a snort. "Forget her. You're already in a sticky wicket with Mara. If you expect to keep her warming your bed you'd better stop ogling the gypsy chit and give Mara a bauble or two. Maybe that opal you bought."
Damon looked at Cedric with a start. "How did you learn about that?"
"The Club." One corner of Cedric's mouth lifted. "We maintain a staff of loyal gossip mongers inside the Club and on the streets."
Damon clenched his jaws. Of course. The ugly little jewel merchant who'd assured him he'd say nothing. "There must be a dreadful lack of gossip in Calcutta if you gents have resorted to me as your topic again," he mused, his gaze following the woman's movements as she circled with the horse.
"You, my friend, will always be a topic," Cedric said.
Damon got a brief glimpse of a creamy white bosom as the woman bent to stroke the horse's leg. She looked up at him, as if to make certain he was watching. He winked to assure her he was. "What are they saying this time?" he asked, while holding the woman's gaze. "Last I heard they were claiming I'm dealing in contraband gems."
Cedric looked askance at him. "True, but now they say ther
e are no Ravencrofts in Burke's Peerage, that you're living under an assumed name."
Damon laughed lightly. If Cedric and his compatriots knew, how shocked they'd be to learn exactly who the Ravencrofts of London were. The Ravencrofts of St. Giles. Of Shelton Street. Then there was the Ravencroft manor house—a flea and rat-infested palace of crumbling walls and broken windows surrounded by heaps of garbage. Memory of the stench was permanently ensconced in his nostrils. "Is that all they're saying?"
"No. They claim you fled England because you killed a man which is why you're living under an assumed name."
The image of a black omnibus drawn by two horses emerged. Trussed in manacles and thrust into a prison van, the door banged shut and he'd been cast into a moving pest-house among felons, drunkards and murderers. "How did they arrive at that?"
Cedric shrugged. "Simple logic. You're a gem merchant of questionable character and a marksman of considerable skill they consider quite mad. Who but a madman would live in that house of yours?"
Damon gave an ironic huff. Perhaps he was mad, as mad as the house that harbored its own dark secret. Something happened there before he'd bought the place from Lord Sheffield, something so grave the servants who'd remained on the place refused to speak of it, choosing to be dismissed instead. "Let them talk. All I care is that they buy my gemstones, and so far my questionable reputation hasn't stopped them." He noted how sunlight twinkled off the baubles woven into the woman's dark hair as she trotted the horse in a tight circle for his perusal.
"And speaking of gemstones," Cedric said, "Have you purchased any of note recently, besides the opal?"
"I chanced upon a sapphire with a six-rayed star." Damon winked at the woman, who returned his gesture with a sultry smile.
"Forget the woman," Cedric snapped. "It's Mara you should be wooing, not some friggin' tart who'll pick your pockets while you're bedding her."
Damon suppressed a smile. Cedric was jealous. He wanted the chit for himself. "About the sapphire. Come take a look."
"I would, but I'm down on my duff right now, having a bit of bad luck."
"A bit of bad whist more likely. Why not give it up."
"Give up whist?" Cedric said, incredulous. "What else is there to do here in the dashed colonies among the great unwashed? But I am in rather desperate straits."
Damon noted the woman's trim ankles as she raised her skirt, and with her toe, began drawing patterns in the dirt while revealing a generous portion of slender leg. She looked up, and holding his gaze, ran her index finger along the neckline of her blouse.
Cedric released an audible sigh. "I say, it makes me feel like the lowest wretch to ask, but could you extend a loan until the crop comes in?"
"How much?" Damon asked distractedly, while imagining all those womanly curves in his bed and her long slender legs entwining with his...
"Two, maybe three thousand rupees."
The woman stopped in front of Damon, and as she patted the horse, she dipped her shoulder, allowing the cap of her sleeve to fall away. Slowly she pulled it up and her finger again made its way to her cleavage. "Fine," he said absently. For the cost of the horse he'd have the woman as well. A small price to pay for a romp in bed with that tantalizing bit of baggage.
"That's devilish good of you, devilish good indeed. I'm deuced lucky to have you for a friend."
"Umm," Damon hummed, a bit fuzzy why Cedric was thanking him so profusely. He stepped forward on the platform, and catching the woman's eye as she came around, raised his hand for a buy. "I'll go collect the black."
Cedric's brows gathered. "Collect the black?"
"For Mara. Like you said, I'm in a sticky wicket. She wants a black horse to pull her new phaeton. This one should bail me out." Stepping from the platform, he trailed after the woman, prepared to negotiate the sale. He'd pay a price that would buy her favors as well. Ah yes. He could almost feel all that delectable flesh gliding beneath his palms.
***
Shanti Bhavan Plantation; two days later
Mara Kanjari stormed into the dining room, face flushed with outrage and glared at Damon, who was eating a meal of curry puffs, mutton chops, and kidneys on toast. "You, you, son of Kaikeyi!" she cried. "Because of you I laughing stock of Calcutta." She curled her fingers around the narrow throat of a Ming vase, prepared to hurl it at Damon.
Although lethargic from the oppressive heat, Damon launched himself from his chair and seized Mara's wrist. "Let's get a few things straight. First, it's too bloody hot to dodge missiles." He unwrapped her fingers from around the vase and placed it out of reach. "And second, I won't have you running in and out of here at will. I set you up in the bungalow and that's where we'll conduct our affair, unless I send for you."
Mara propped her hands on her hips. "Fine. You set me up in bungalow but you not there now and I have bone to pick with you."
"What the devil are you talking about?" It certainly wasn't the gypsy chit. He made no progress with her after purchasing the black.
Mara's bottom lip trembled with outrage. "I talk about horse you give me. I better off with palanquin and bearers than that... that... You come now."
Annoyed with this intrusion, but knowing Mara wouldn't dismiss the problem lightly, Damon slapped his napkin on the table and followed her out the house and across a courtyard to where his head syce stood holding the horse hitched to Mara's phaeton, but instead of the black he'd purchased, he saw a dingy piebald. "What happened to the black?" he asked, wondering why all the folderol.
"That is black!"
Damon stared at the horse, bewildered. "How can it be? It's not black."
"You Angrez gooseberry! See here. Belly black. Horse dyed! And I—" Mara thumped her chest with a stiff finger "—big joke in Calcutta!"
Ignoring Mara's theatrics, Damon took a closer look and saw that although the back of the horse was murky where the dye had washed off by a recent shower, his belly was indeed black. He passed his hand over the animal and his blackened palm confirmed it. And he realized he'd been duped by a crafty wench with the body of a goddess, the face of an angel, and eyes like a cat. Granted, it had been a half-baked idea to purchase the horse without inspecting it closely.
Mara let out a huff of displeasure. "Have you nothing to say?"
Damon searched for an explanation. The fact was, his motive for purchasing the black had been singular: to bed the comely tart who'd offered the horse for sale. The irony was, after purchasing the horse in a quick sale for an outrageous sum, but a price well worth it if he'd been able to spend a few hours of lustful pleasure with the woman, she'd excused herself to get her things, leaving him holding the horse while waiting well over an hour before realizing the woman had no intention of returning.
Mara glared at him. "I tell friends you buy me fine black horse! What I tell them now?"
Damon clenched his jaws. If Mara wasn't so good in bed he'd send her packing, but the fact was, she had superb skills along those lines, and he was badly in need of her services, thanks to the provocative gypsy wench he'd been unable to shake from his mind. "I'll get you another black and you can tell your friends the wrong horse was delivered."
Mara's stormy gaze fixed on him. "When do I get horse?"
"Tomorrow." Damon contemplated an exquisite face, a mane of dark tresses tumbling in disarray, and a shapely body responding eagerly to his touch. Actually, he didn't think he had a hope in hell of finding the woman. She wouldn't be so bold as to return to the horse fair, knowing he'd have learned of her deception, but, if he did find her, he intended to get his money back one way or another. She'd made him out to be a first-rate fool, and that didn't sit well with him.
***
Damon threaded his way among horses and turbaned horse coopers, heading toward what looked to be a fine black horse being presented for sale. Although he continued to search the faces in the crowd, he didn't expect to find the gypsy woman's among them. He would, however, purchase the black for Mara, but this time he'd examine the horse clos
ely, not be side-tracked by a raven-haired tart with curves to make a man gasp... "Bloody hell!"
In his line of vision stood the woman. She looked directly at him, held his gaze for an instant then ducked behind a wagon. He swatted the rump of a horse to move it out of his way, crossed in front of a bullock hitched to a cart and rushed after the woman, but when he got to the wagon she was gone. Searching the crowd, he caught sight of her running toward the fringes of the grounds where several horses stood tethered. He raced after her, dodging, zigzagging, weaving through huddles of startled traders, but before he could reach her she grabbed a fistful of mane and launched herself onto the bare back of a mare. Kicking the animal, she sent it bolting forward and galloping across the field.
Damon untied a gelding and hurled himself into the saddle. Booting the animal, the horse shot forward, hooves pounding as he raced after the woman, who stuck to her mount like a fly on flypaper. On a stretch of roadway he booted the animal again, sending it racing alongside the woman's horse in a full ground-eating gallop. Leaning off the side of his horse, he curled his fingers around the mare's bridle, bringing both animals to a dust-billowing halt, but before he could dismount, the woman slipped off the mare and raced across a glade towards the woods.
He jumped down and took after her at a dead run in an effort to keep up. Swift as a gazelle, she zigzagged between trees, dashed beneath underbrush and scrambled over anything in her path. He gritted his teeth that this agile slip of a woman was able to leave him winded and in danger of falling back while she'd make her escape. That thought gave him the rush of adrenaline he needed to catch up and lunge at her, grabbing her legs and sending her tumbling to the ground. To his shock, she flipped over and kneed him in the groin and scrambled to her feet.
Pure, unadulterated fury dulled the pain long enough for him to grab her skirt and hold fast until she lost her balance and tumbled backwards, landing face up on top of him. He clamped one hand around her chest but only momentarily before teeth sank into his flesh. Letting out a roar, he rolled her over and straddled her while pinning her hands to the ground above her head. "Damn you, you little spitfire!"
Twilight 0f Memory (Historical Regency Romance) Page 1
