At Her Service

by Susan Johnson

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Darley said with a small bow, even while he wondered why he’d never seen Aurore at Osten-Sacken’s parties before. Had their schedules simply been at odds or were things not as they seemed?

  “Etienne, Mr. Maksoud trades over much of south Russia,” Aurore went on to explain. “I told him that you were familiar with every village of the Crimea. You may also thank him for some of your favorite marmalade.”

  “Thank you, indeed. Breakfast will be more satisfying now. I don’t suppose you know the banker Alexios Pallas from Bahcesaray?”

  “We do business from time to time,” Darley blandly acknowledged, when in fact Alexios was one of his informants.

  “Pallas has been kind enough to cover some of my racing bets.” Etienne glanced at Aurore and grinned. “Until such a time as I was able to convince my sister to release my quarterly allowance early.”

  Aurore smiled. “Etienne is much adored by the betting establishment.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Darley said, benignly. “Which tracks do you prefer?”

  The men discovered that they were both partial to the race meets at Karasu Bazaar and had been there at the same time last summer just prior to the Allied landing at Kalamita Bay. They also agreed that their favorite horse breeds came from the Caucasus as did the best riders. The conversation noticeably enlivened Etienne’s spirits, and when Darley assured him that he’d heard that the spring race in Simferopol would occur, war or no war, Etienne exuberantly declared, “I’ll meet you there.”

  “You have yourself a deal,” Darley answered with a grin.

  Conscious of her brother’s increasing pallor, Aurore stepped in. “It’s getting late. We’ll let you sleep now, darling,” she said, leaning down to kiss Etienne good-bye. “I’ll be back in the morning.” Disturbed to find his skin frighteningly hot, she gently touched his shoulder. “Do you need anything before—”

  Stifling a cry, he sucked in his breath.

  Jerking away, Aurore gazed at him with dismay. “Oh God, I’m sorry, darling! So very sorry! I’ll—”

  “Morphine,” Etienne whispered, rigid with pain.

  As the nurse and Aurore dashed away to prepare the potion, Darley wondered if Aurore’s aid had come too late. Had the infection spread beyond hope that the slightest touch was agonizing for the boy?

  Should he offer his help for the journey to Simferopol? But almost as quickly as he asked the question, he dismissed it. The tasks he had before him did not allow for charitable impulses; he could not afford to be absent so long.

  Quickly returning with a cup of tea infused with morphine, Aurore cautiously brought it to her brother’s mouth as he lay supported by pillows. “Here, darling, drink,” she murmured, her expression still clearly distrait. “And forgive me for being so careless.”

  “It’s not your fault, Rory.” His voice was barely audible.

  “Just a few hours more, darling,” she whispered, holding the cup as he greedily drank down the narcotic. “And you’ll be away from here.”

  When the cup was drained, Etienne breathed, “Thanks, Rory—for taking…care of me.” Then he shut his eyes, exhausted from his efforts.

  Using the hood of her cape, Aurore wiped the tears from her eyes. Why was this happening, she thought, heart-sick and despairing. He was so young; he had his whole life before him. It wasn’t fair.

  But then what was in this ruinous war.

  Drawing in a sustaining breath, she stood beside her brother’s bed and watched the morphine slowly take effect, focusing her thoughts on the future, not the past. Come morning, she would see her brother free of this pest hole and he could begin healing. It mattered not how lengthy his recuperation; it only mattered that he survive.

  Once Etienne was peacefully sleeping, Aurore turned to Darley. “Thank God the general signed that release,” she said, perhaps stating the obvious in the way of a hopeful mantra.

  “Thank God you asked him,” Darley replied. Anyone could see the boy’s wounds were alarmingly compromised. As a betting man Darley would be hard-pressed to give him decent odds. At the English hospital in Scutari the recovery rate was less than one percent for the same reasons existing here. Lack of sanitation or anything resembling hygiene. “The fresh air at Simferopol will do him a world of good,” Darley kindly said, offering what comfort he could.

  “I agree, although, anywhere but here will be an improvement.” Aurore glanced at the small clock beside the bed. “Fortunately, it won’t be long until morning.”

  Once again, the marquis was tempted to offer his help; the road to Simferopol was brutal and the lady held a rare fascination for him. Unfortunately, Raglan needed his report and realistically, should he have the good fortune to share the lady’s bed tonight, a few hours of sex might very well put period to his fascination. “Are you ready to leave?” he asked, time an issue for him as well.

  “Yes, I think all is in order—oh dear, the nurses,” Aurore suddenly exclaimed. Quickly turning to the elderly woman hovering nearby, she asked, “Would you or any of the other nurses be willing to come to Simferopol with us? You may name your price.” To find adequate nursing care in a town deluged with the wounded would have been nearly impossible.

  The plump peasant woman nodded without hesitation. “Me and me sister will go.” Miss Clement was a considerate employer who paid good wages, paid them on time and sent over meals from the hotel that were fit for royalty.

  “Wonderful,” Aurore murmured with deep satisfaction. “Absolutely wonderful!” She felt enormous relief, gratification, even a palmy hope. Which would never do with the gross uncertainties facing her. Steady now, she warned herself. Her brother’s health was in her hands. This was not the time to become unglued. “Thank you so very much,” she said, composing herself by sheer will. “The vehicles should be here at seven if that’s not too early.” She had sent a message to Ibrahim at the hotel.

  “No, Excellency. Don’t you worry none. We be ready at seven.”

  Aurore smiled. “Seven it is, then. Thank you again.” Turning to Darley, she opened her arms in an expansive gesture. “There now, all is well,” she pronounced, unable to completely restrain her good cheer. “A few hours rest at the hotel and then Etienne’s true convalescence will begin.”

  Darley didn’t think Miss Clement meant what he wished she meant. He rather thought her rest would be a solitary one. A shame. But under the circumstances, with her brother gravely ill, certainly more likely than not.

  As they walked through the hospital corridors toward the exit, Aurore spoke of her brother’s recovery in terms of unqualified certainty.

  Politely acceding to her positive agenda, Darley didn’t feel that it was his place to point out the obvious apropos ungrounded hope and wishful thinking. Or bring up the low survival rate for wounded soldiers in this war. Miracles happened. Perhaps Etienne would be one of the lucky few.

  The moment they reached the street, Aurore came to a stop on the pavement and, inhaling deeply, drew the crisp, cold night air into her lungs. Exhaling, she said with a grimace, “The stench inside is intolerable. No wonder disease is rampant.”

  “You did well to expedite your brother’s release.” Darley offered her his arm. “It will likely save his life.”

  “I must see that it does,” she declared, tucking her gloved hand into the crook of his arm. “Whatever is necessary to see him well again, I will do,” she firmly added as they walked away.

  “I gathered as much.”

  She glanced up at him. “I’m not ashamed.”

  “Nor should you be. We all do what we must in this senseless war.”

  She shot him a look. A distinct antipathy had entered his voice. “Is this war any different from any other?”

  “It was unnecessary,” he muttered. “Religious fanatics and overweening egos brought this disaster upon us.”

  “Whose side are you on?” An ambiguity had suddenly colored his tone.

  “No one’s,” he replied, careful to
rectify his fleeting candor. “I just dislike war in general and this war in particular.” Which was God’s own truth. He smiled, a teasing glimmer in his eyes. “Perhaps it’s no more than blatant selfishness on my part. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the misery and amuse myself in my usual profligate way.”

  “Which is?” Gazi’s provocative gaze had awakened some inexplicable, heady wildness in her.

  His dark brows flickered roguishly. “Nothing conventional, I assure you.”

  “Is that so?” A honeyed coquetry, a lush smile.

  Both irresistible. “Consider the danger in tantalizing me, Miss Clement,” Darley gently warned. “I am only chivalrous under duress.”

  “Perhaps I’m not in the market for chivalry.” Her words were quite unexpected, but once spoken, she felt no compunction to retract them.

  He turned to look at her, his gray-green gaze intense. “What are you in the market for?”

  For any number of reasons, some purely selfish, others paradoxically both whimsical and survival based, all deeply bereft of reason, Aurore said, simply, “Forgetfulness.”

  “With me?” He was too tired to play games.

  She held his gaze, direct and unblinking. “Yes.”

  “In spite of your brother?”

  “Because of my brother.”

  “He will soon be on the mend,” Darley offered, benevolent and obliging, possibly lying as well.

  “I am of the same mind,” Aurore replied, unlike him, resolute in her belief. “Thank you for saying so. Now tell me, Gazi,” she went on in an altogether different tone, one that threw caution to the winds without any further soul-searching, “what does Zania find so enticing about you?”

  “Is this a game?” he bluntly asked. “Are you and Zania competitors?”

  She shot him a sideways glance. “Does it matter?”

  He didn’t know why he hesitated when it was a game for everyone involved. “No, of course not,” he finally said. “It doesn’t matter in the least.”

  “I didn’t think so. But what other than survival does at the moment?”

  “Indeed,” he murmured. “There’s no escaping reality.”

  “Gazi, my sweet,” she drolly murmured, “pray do not blue-devil me with such reminders, when at the moment I require only amusement from you.”

  “And that you shall have, darling,” he said as lightly, the endearment rolling easily off his tongue. Without breaking stride, he scooped her up in his arms and moving down the street kissed her lightly, then not so lightly—and ultimately, not lightly at all. He kissed her wildly, urgently, as if there was no tomorrow—a distinct possibility for them both with the present social disorder swirling about them.

  Walking swiftly toward the beckoning hospitality of Miss Clement’s bed, Darley’s kisses took on a burning impatience. Unlike a man who hadn’t slept in days. Nor like a man who had only recently risen from Countess Tatischev’s bed.

  As the lights of the hotel came into view, shocked back to her senses by the imminent prospect of being seen, Aurore heatedly whispered, “Stop, stop!” She pushed against Darley’s chest. “I can’t do this! Put me down!”

  “No.” Nothing altered in his stride, not so much as a millisecond of hesitation marred his pace.

  Drawing back even more, she regarded him with a hot-tempered gaze. “Put me down or I’ll scream!”

  “Scream away.” His gait remained unchanged.

  How dare he speak so calmly. “Dammit, I will!”

  He actually looked at her then, his gaze in contrast to hers, unsullied by high emotion. “I don’t know you very well,” he said, gently, as though he were soothing a temperamental child, “but from what I’ve seen, your moods are—how do I put this—highly changeable,” he diplomatically finished. “Not that you don’t have reason of course.” His smile was indulgent. “Why don’t we talk about this upstairs?”

  “Because I don’t want to talk about this upstairs,” she muttered as they entered the lobby, lowering her voice in order not to draw attention to them.

  “I’m guessing you’ll change your mind,” he amiably replied as he moved through the lobby. Well aware that Miss Clement, only brief moments before, had been panting with desire, he rather doubted she could so easily tamp down her raging passions. “Look, darling, no one’s around,” he murmured, gently kissing her cheek. “We are quite alone.”

  Stealing a glance from under her lashes, she surveyed the deserted lobby. “That doesn’t excuse you,” she mulishly retorted. “You might very well have embarrassed me.”

  He refrained from pointing out that she had been beyond any thought of embarrassment when she’d clung to him on their trek here and feverishly returned his kisses. He only said, well mannered and polite, “I beg your pardon, of course, and hope you will forgive me.”

  “Hmph,” she said.

  But she no longer insisted on being set down, he noted, chalking up points for his side. Or rather to his years of experience with women. As they walked past a row of potted palms, he said, softly teasing, “Kiss me, darling, and I’ll carry you up the stairs without complaint.”

  “As if you wouldn’t.”

  He liked that the cadence of her voice was teasing too; he liked that she was appeased. “I’d go faster if you kissed me,” he said with a sportive flicker of his brows.

  “Hmmm…”

  “You wouldn’t have to wait, then.”

  “Really? Were you planning on waiting?”

  He grinned. “Such assurance.”

  “Let’s just say I can feel the evidence of your regard for me.”

  “But then you don’t know whether I can be monkish.”

  “So I shouldn’t take any chances.”

  “I wouldn’t suggest it if you are inclined to impatience.”

  Her brows rose in mock drama, her smile candy sweet. “Blackmail, Gazi?”

  “Perhaps I have a certain need for authority.”

  “What if I do as well?”

  He chuckled softly. “Then it should be an interesting night.”

  “I…am…definitely intrigued,” she murmured with delicate languor.

  “I rather thought you were—this morning, this evening…and now.”

  “Arrogant man.”

  “Just observant. And the feeling was mutual, I assure you. I was hard-pressed not to seduce you on the ride into town.”

  Her smile was lush with promise. “How sweet.”

  “Au contraire, Miss Clement, I am not in the least sweet.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.”

  “You must kiss me now,” he said, stopping at the base of the staircase.

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You have to.”

  His brusque, unequivocal utterance sent a piquant shimmer of lust through her body. “Perhaps just this once,” she said with a provocative smile, “I’ll obey you.”

  He rather thought she might do so more than once. Not that he was fool enough to say so. He merely inclined his head downward to make himself more available for her kiss.

  She hesitated.

  He must have forgotten to mention that he wasn’t a patient man. His mouth suddenly covered hers even more forcefully than before, and rather than take offense, she strained upward, digging her fingers into his shoulders, welcoming him, yielding to him, eagerly meeting his audacious assault.

  For a fleeting moment she chided herself for so slavishly falling under his spell. If she didn’t feel such blissful delight in his arms and if his kisses weren’t so wildly arousing that her body was opening in feverish rapture, she might have. But she also needed Gazi beyond physical pleasure, beyond carnal passion and orgasmic release. On this night of volatile hope and somber fear, she desperately needed him to bring her oblivion. “Say you’ll stay with me ’til morning,” she whispered. “Tell me you will…”

  He heard the faint tremor in her voice, understood her terror of the unknown, knew why she didn’t want to be alone in the comin
g bleak hours. “Yes, of course,” he whispered. “Whatever you want.”

  Chapter 9

  As it turned out, the lobby was not deserted. A lone man sat in the far corner, slouched low in his chair, half-asleep. But he’d come fully awake when Gazi carried Aurore into the hotel, and he’d watched their progress across the breadth of the quiet room with considerable interest.

  He knew them both and they, him.

  So Aurore had come out of her hermitage, he mused, contemplating the couple’s indiscrete display of affection. She’d not taken a lover since the Greek scholar had been lost at sea last year. But then, Gazi had a way with women. He wasn’t surprised.

  It was interesting though.

  Had they met at some gathering of Allied commanders?

  Or were they unaware of each other’s civic pursuits?

  Darley took the stairs two at a time with effortless strength. Hardened from an outdoor life, from living days at a time on horseback, his leg muscles were like steel.

  Gazi’s brute strength manifest in their swift ascent further provoked Aurore’s impatient desires. It had been too long, she decided, when pure virility was so tantalizing it incited an overwrought, weak-with-longing neediness deep inside her. And yet, how pleasant the thought of his glorious size in terms of personal satisfaction. The exact measure was still a tantalizing unknown, but if he met Zania’s criteria…

  She smiled faintly.

  Tonight for a few brief hours Gazi would serve as her antidote to fear, and sexual pleasure would be her narcotic of choice.

  Not that such logic actually factored in her covetous desires. She understood that Gazi had intrigued her from the first. On the other hand, she rationalized, she didn’t really want to be alone in the wee hours of the morning, and fortuitously, circumstance and opportunity had intervened. That any of her officer escort would have been more than willing to stay she conveniently ignored.