Fire on the Wind

by Olivia Drake

  Hardly the romantic scenario of her maidenly dreams.

  But she was a maiden no longer. Damien had guided her, body and soul, into the sublime realm of a woman. He had given her a glimpse of heaven...and then abandoned her in the hell of unrequited love. He wouldn’t marry her. He wouldn’t even offer her the dubious position of mistress. Not that she wanted either post, for she could not cleave herself from English society forever. Or from Reginald.

  The thought threw her into a muddle of confusion. Damien offered her nothing. Reginald offered her a golden chance to have her own home, a family, a husband who loved her. She prayed he could forgive her one lapse from grace.

  Would lovemaking be as wonderful with him?

  She tried to imagine him touching her intimately. But her thoughts veered back to Damien.

  It was a mistake. A mistake I have no intention of ever repeating.

  His beastly words still smarted inside her. He had pulled her from paradise and sent her crashing back to earth. Even now pain and anger tangled within her. He had used her. He wasn’t a lonely, tormented man searching for love; he was a lusty, self-serving scoundrel who had wanted a woman...any woman.

  Or perhaps he was both.

  All my meanness has been an act. I was fighting the need to love you like this...I wish we could be together forever.

  More of his lies? Or had the truth slipped past his defenses during a moment of great emotion?

  He was certainly capable of intense feelings. He’d agonized over the tragic accident to his brother. He’d anguished over failing his mother. Beneath the hard hostile shell, Damien hid an inner core of gentleness and sensitivity. She longed for the tender man who had introduced her to ecstasy, for the perceptive artist who produced poignant photographs, for the affectionate father who cared deeply for his son.

  She couldn’t deny the love that ached in her heart. Yet she wanted nothing to do with the man who could hurt and insult her.

  She burned to complete their India book, to view her name on the cover. That meant ending their estrangement and working together. Surely they could at least be partners.

  She gazed across the crowd and saw him showing off Kit to the bride and groom. The pride in his smile confirmed her decision. She was adult enough to set aside their differences. As he handed the baby back to Batan, Sarah brushed a speck of dirt from her best lavender-blue sari and straightened her veil. She gathered pen, inkwell, and paper, then wended her way through the wedding guests to his side.

  “Hello, Damien.”

  He shot her a churlish frown and glanced at the slant of the sun. “It isn’t time to leave yet.”

  “I know.” Her mind went blank of all but the marvelous sight of him, his dark, princely features and his strong, solid body. She wanted to feel his arms sheltering her, to kiss softness into his rigid mouth, to bask in the heat of his caresses. But that would be a terrible mistake. “I’d hoped you could answer some questions.”

  He quirked a wary brow. “Questions?”

  “About the wedding. I want to make our book as accurate as possible.”

  “I see.” He heaved a breath and rested his elbow on the camera. “So what do you need to know?”

  She turned her gaze to the newlyweds. Clad in a brilliant scarlet dress, the darkly pretty bride was looking at her new husband. The male guests joked and laughed as he tasted a bowl of strange gray food. “What is he eating?” Sarah asked.

  “The testicles of a panther.” Damien gave her an oddly probing look. “It’s supposed to make a man’s seed more potent when he takes his wife to bed.”

  A tremor started deep in her core. She denied the sensation and regarded him coolly. “I hope it works for them. The Pahari people value children and family.” Unlike you, she wanted to add.

  “Sarah, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” He snared her wrist and drew her out of the noisy throng and into the private, dappled shade of an apricot tree. He stared down at her. A snake charmer’s flute couldn’t have mesmerized Sarah more than Damien’s intense brown eyes. He radiated a tension that wrapped her in absurd longing.

  In a low-pitched voice, he said, “Have you started your monthly courses yet?”

  Heat stained her cheeks. She hugged the sheaf of paper like a shield against her breasts. She wanted to look away, but his gaze imprisoned her as tightly as his fingers. “Yes,” she murmured. “Last week.”

  “Thank God.”

  His heartfelt response roused her to unreasoning anger. “My sentiments exactly. Though I’m sorry you think our child would have been a burden.”

  He frowned. “For God’s sake, I’m thinking of you, Sarah. You’d be cast out of English society if you bore a baby out of wedlock.”

  “You should have thought of that before you seduced me. And before you lied in order to get me to spend the summer here in the hills with you.”

  His stern gaze lowered to his hand on hers. He loosed her wrist and stepped back. “You’re right,” he said tonelessly. “I shouldn’t have been so selfish.”

  His admission stole the steam from her fury. There was no point in continuing the painful argument.

  He looked at the wedding revelry and motioned to her. “Come,” he said curtly, “you’ll need to write a piece on the dancers. I took some photographs of them earlier.”

  Aware of a sharp disappointment, Sarah followed him. Her first attempt to restore their friendship had ended in a crashing failure. But at least he hadn’t walked away from her.

  They found an open place and sat down amidst the rapt villagers surrounding the small troupe of men and women. Clad in brilliant costumes of scarlet and blue, the dancers leaped and pirouetted, their bare feet slapping the hard-packed earth. Their savage rhythm and barbarous grace embodied the uninhibited behavior of children.

  Sarah set down her paper and pen. “Where are the dancers from?” she murmured.

  “Several belong to this village. A few are guests from the other end of the valley.”

  One female dancer seemed taken with Damien. With her almond eyes and sultry smile focused on him, she whirled to the melody of flutes and drums, her gold-embroidered red skirt swirling around slim legs. Thin, silver rings studded her ears and nose, and her unbound black hair eddied like a thick silken veil. Breasts thrust high and bangles clashing, she circled him like a moon revolving around a heavenly body.

  His clasped hands tucked beneath his chin, Damien eyed the dancer, his gaze sliding up and down her nubile form. Stiffness invaded Sarah’s limbs. The dancer reminded her of the whores she had seen in the bazaar. She was seized by the sudden burning need to divert Damien’s attention. “What will you do when you finish this book?”

  He shrugged, glancing at her. “I’ll start work on another. I’m considering one on China.”

  The news sank like a stone in her chest. She shouldn’t be surprised, Sarah told herself. Damien was a vagabond, a restless man who could never plant roots and thrive in one place. He’d spend his life on the road, forever searching for the affection he never received from his mother. It only went to prove how ill-suited they were. “So you and Kit will move there.”

  “Yes.”

  His gaze returned to the girl. Situating herself blatantly before Damien, she danced in wild abandon, gyrating her hips and rotating her hands with sinuous grace. Despite the other men present, she focused her carnal smile on him as she curved forward, her hips undulating in a rhythm Sarah knew, her bodice drooping to expose voluptuous, unbound breasts.

  Sarah jerked her gaze to the crimson necklaces circling the girl’s throat. In the midst of the beads lay a gleam of gold. As she danced nearer, the gleam took on an oval shape dangling from a familiar gold chain. The force of a blow rocketed through Sarah.

  It was her locket. The locket Reginald had given her.

  Dumbfounded, she watched the girl shake her hips and glide away, stepping lithely out of the crowd. With one last, serpentine twist of her dark arm, she beckoned to Damien and
then disappeared behind one of the huts.

  “Excuse me,” he said. Without so much as a glance at Sarah, he rose and followed the dancer.

  Sarah’s mouth dropped open. Damien had traded her precious locket for more than clothing and food.

  And now he was going back for more.

  Hot with fury, she sprang to her feet and stalked after the couple. She shouldn’t be angry. She shouldn’t be hurt. She shouldn’t feel this unladylike urge to throttle a man who wasn’t fit to kiss her toes. Let him go off with his whore. The two deserved each other.

  Yet she couldn’t sit still, not while the woman wore her locket.

  At the outskirts of the village, a dirt track wended downward past a thicket of towering rhododendrons and ended at a lush expanse of potato fields and rice paddies. Damien and the dancer stood just beyond the bushy trees.

  His back was turned, and Sarah could discern only the low rumble of his voice. The dancer smiled coyly as he dipped his hand inside her bodice. She pressed herself to him like a cat rubbing against its master’s leg.

  He took hold of her shoulders and pushed her to arm’s length. The dancer again thrust herself at him. He shook his head emphatically and released her, then strode off alone, toward the wild reaches of the valley beyond the fields. The woman stomped her foot and minced away to a hut at the edge of the village.

  Her anger ebbing into confusion, Sarah leaned against the stone wall. So he hadn’t left to make love to the woman. The purpose of their exchange mystified her.

  And where had he gone? Perhaps he wanted her to believe he was seeing another woman. Perhaps he wanted to foster the image of a tomcat who roamed from one feline to another, giving only his body and never his heart.

  Sarah compressed her lips. She was reading too much into his actions. The deception would serve him little purpose, for she already believed him faithless. But, by heaven, he would pay for trading her locket to a whore. As she slowly walked back to the troupe of dancers, she vowed to make him recover the piece. The moment he returned, she would take him to task.

  Nearly an hour passed before Damien came strutting back. Propping Kit against her shoulder, she stood and coldly regarded him. “I should like a word with you.’’

  He keenly studied her, as if gauging her mood. “I’d like a word with you, too,” he countered. “But not here. It’s time to head home.” He reached for the baby. “I’ll carry Kit.”

  “My, you’re offering to do the nanny’s job. Or do you mean to deduct a portion from my wage?”

  He looked inordinately pleased by her acid tone. “It means I like to hold my son.”

  “What about your camera?”

  “Two of the village men will deliver it and the glass plates tomorrow.”

  She and Damien took their leave of the newlyweds and hiked in silence up the steep track.

  Her sandals crunching twigs blown down in a recent storm, she wondered what Damien had to say to her. Likely more of his insults. A nightjar cried harshly in the valley below. As the violet mist of evening unfurled over the hillside, they entered the hut. The walk had lulled Kit to sleep, and Damien went into the bedroom to put the baby in his makeshift cradle.

  Sarah lit an oil lamp. When he came out, the light cast his serious face into golden illumination.

  “Sarah, I wanted to say—”

  “Damien, I should like to know—”

  They stopped. She frowned.

  He swept a mock bow. “Ladies first.”

  She tightly clasped her hands. “Now you do have me curious. It isn’t like you to act the gentleman. Especially when you lie as easily as you bow.”

  His chuckle held an odd edge of embarrassment. “The relic of an old governess who kept me on the straight and narrow. Or at least she tried to.”

  Questions about his boyhood sprang to Sarah’s tongue, but she forced her mind from questions he probably wouldn’t answer. “Why did you go off with that dancer?”

  “Umi?” He swaggered to the desk and perched on the edge. “I shouldn’t think you’d want to know about her.”

  “Don’t make assumptions about me. I don’t want the sordid details, but I should like my question answered.”

  “As you wish. Umi and I had some business to transact. I doubt a lady like you would care to hear the intimate details.” Self-satisfaction tilted his mouth, and he peered closely at her, as if relishing her reaction.

  “Indeed.” She removed her veil and let the wisp of silk drift to the table. “I saw you put your hand into her bodice.”

  He blinked. “You followed us?”

  “Of course.” Sarah folded her arms. “After all, she was wearing my locket.”

  “Oh...hell.”

  Caught off guard, Damien rubbed his hand over his hair. This wasn’t going the way he’d intended. He’d meant to test Sarah’s feelings by seeing if he could make her jealous. But she looked cold and calm. Too calm for a woman who professed to love him. “I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

  “How could I fail to notice when she was dangling her bosom in your face?”

  Maybe there was hope. “Ah. Beautifully rounded breasts, at that.’

  Sarah lifted her slim shoulders in an impatient shrug. “I want my locket back, Damien. Even if you have to do slave labor to earn the money to redeem it. Work out a trade with her. And you’d best be quick about it. In fact, tomorrow would do nicely.”

  God. She still pined for Reggie. Hot and heavy emotion dragging at his heart, Damien said, “You won’t have to wait.”

  “Pardon?”

  He dug in his tunic pocket and extended his hand. “Here.”

  Her lips parted as she gazed at the gold oval and chain draping his scarred palm. Sweeping closer, she snatched up the locket, and her fingers brushed his. Heat closed his groin in an iron claw.

  She drilled him with a frown of suspicion. “How did you manage to get it with no money? Wait.” She held up a hand. “I don’t think I want to know.”

  “I wasn’t exactly honest with you,” he admitted.

  “You never are.”

  Regret knotted his throat. With the jerky movements of a doomed man on his way to the gallows, he reached to the shelf behind him and picked up a carved wooden box. He opened it and displayed the stash of silver rupees within.

  She clutched the locket to her breast and sank onto the settee. Bitterness narrowed her eyes. “Aha. This was another of your lies.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  “But why? You knew how dear this locket was to me.”

  He clenched his hands. Lies leaped to his lips. Yet honesty might be his only redemption. “Sarah, I don’t know quite how to put this—”

  “Try being truthful for once in your life.”

  “Just give me a chance—”

  “I’ve given you plenty of chances.”

  “Will you give me one more?” He took a deep breath and humbled himself. “Please?”

  She eyed him with a hint of irony. “Perhaps. Since you ask so politely.”

  “Thank you.” He peered downward and mumbled to the lacing of his sandals, “I sold the locket because I was jealous.”

  A cricket creaked into the silence. “Jealous?” Incredulity lifted her voice. “You were jealous of Reginald?”

  Damien gave her a cautious look from beneath his lashes. Perched on the edge of her seat, she looked skeptical and all too desirable. He wanted to undress her, to feast his eyes on her creamy skin and womanly curves. He wanted to wrap himself in the warmth of her love.

  “Damien, answer me.”

  God, he hated confessions. “I don’t know why you find it difficult to believe,” he said. “Reggie is everything you admire in a man—noble, honorable, perfect. Every time you told me so, you rubbed that locket. As if you were caressing your lover.”

  She tilted her head, her eyebrows arched in surprise. “That hardly gave you the right to take it.”

  He had to make her understand. “For God’s sake, you must
have compared me to him ten times a day and found me sorely lacking. The gentleman and the rogue. I was hoping you’d forget him if you took off the damned trinket.”

  Her lips curled, she regarded him with the disgust she might afford a dung beetle. “Do you think I’m so shallow I’d confuse a piece of jewelry with love?”

  “Yes. I suppose I did.” He wet his dry lips. “I haven’t had much experience with love.”

  “And then did you expect me to think of you instead? Is that when you decided to seduce me?”

  The chill in her tone swept over him like winter frost. He shifted on the hard desk. “No, I didn’t have any definite plan.”

  “Oh, so the seduction was spontaneous? You were swept away by my allure?”

  The memory of their tryst in the temple ached inside him. “Yes.”

  She rose. “If you can’t speak the truth, there’s no point in prolonging this discussion.”

  “It is the truth.” He spread his palms wide. “Sarah, I didn’t intend to seduce you. God knows, it was the last thing in the world I meant to do.”

  “How relieved I am to hear that. I’m not at all surprised, given your opinion of me. If you’ll excuse me, I’m rather tired.” Pivoting sharply, she walked toward the bedroom.

  Oh, God. Now he’d hurt her pride again.

  He crossed the room in three strides and caught her arm. The smoothness of her skin burned through him, settling like a fever in his groin. He wanted to kiss away her stiff expression, to see her features soften with ecstasy. He wanted to hear her say, I love you.

  “Wait,” he said, his voice rough with panic. If she left now, he might never raise the courage to voice the yearning that had been chafing him for a fortnight. “Stay and listen a moment. What I said came out all wrong.”

  “Then say what you mean.”

  “I’m trying to. This isn’t easy for me.”

  “And it’s easy for me to stand here and listen to you belittle me? Save your insults for your next conquest.” She curled her fingers around the gold, as if it were her dearest possession. It probably was. “Knowing you took my locket under false pretenses was the last straw.”