Her Only Desire (4 page)

No, she embraced the duchess's ideals, but not her methods.

When they approached her house, she signaled to Lord Griffith to rein in. “Here we are.”

         

Ian pulled the horse to a halt before the most whimsical home on the stretch. Glancing up at it, he beheld a snow-white Oriental fantasy, an exotic confection topped by a turquoise onion dome with four quaint little towers like minarets rising from the corners. It almost seemed to float before him like that mad poet's dream of Kubla Khan, a shimmering illusion, gleaming white against the azure sky.

He blinked, half expecting it to vanish.

It remained.

But as he gazed at it, once again, as in the spice market, he had the oddest sensation of being slowly bewitched, overcome, perhaps
seduced
by this strange land, as though he had caught the subtle whiff of opium fumes.

Jumping down off the horse's back, he turned automatically to assist Georgiana. As she set her hands on his shoulders and he clasped her waist, setting her down gently on her sandaled feet, they stared at each other for a fleeting instant. Above the translucent veil that draped the lower half of her face, her deep sapphire eyes lured him with hypnotic power. In contrast to those dark violet-blue eyes, she had skin like pure ivory, and midnight hair gathered back tightly in a smooth chignon.

Ian stared. Desire hit him like a fireball shot from a catapult, slamming through the outer wall of all his white-towered chivalry.

“Thank you,” she whispered a tad hoarsely.

Suddenly remembering his annoyance at her, Ian gestured to the front path without a word. She stiffened and dropped her gaze, alerted to his displeasure.

When a liveried Indian groom dashed out, she ordered the man to walk the mare for a while to ensure that she was cool before putting her back into her stall.

The groom bowed. “Yes, memsahib.”

She cast Ian another wary glance full of guarded allure. “Come,” she murmured, then strode ahead of him to the front door, her gait willowy-limbed, gliding. She lifted the hem of her fluid silk sari as she walked with a magical tinkling of bells.

Ian watched her through narrowed eyes, feeling a bit like Odysseus, far from home, being lured into Circe's den.

Most ancient bards agreed that lusting after a sorceress was imprudent in the extreme. It would probably serve him right if she turned him into a newt.

He followed anyway.

Tracking her to the entrance, he stole one last, vigilant glance over his shoulder. With any luck, his hasty exit from the marketplace may have shaken off anyone following him. Narrowing his eyes against the sun, Ian scanned the broad, green park across the street, then the parade ground that wrapped around Fort William.

A haze of humidity softened the hard angles of the looming, octangular stronghold. Imprinting his surroundings on his memory, he saw no one who looked suspicious. So far, thankfully, it appeared they had not been pursued by the dead man's relatives, either.

Then he followed Georgiana over the threshold.

Inside, her household was in an uproar with the arrival moments ago of the Indian lady, delivered by the young gentleman whom Ian had also seen riding away from the fire. He gathered that the lad had carried the woman upstairs to recuperate from her ordeal.

Meanwhile, a score of Indian servants of all shapes and sizes were running to and fro in panicked disorder, alarmed and scandalized, it seemed, by this turn of events. They clustered around their mistress the moment she walked in the door, and all began talking at once. The lightning-fast dialogue in Bengali was too rapid for Ian to understand.

He waited for a moment or two, but neither her father nor brothers appeared; so, while Georgiana attempted to answer all their questions and soothe their fears, answering them in their own language and calmly giving them their instructions, Ian took matters into his own hands, making sure that the house was secure in case that angry mob came after them.

He locked the front door behind him and then prowled from room to room throughout the first floor, closing windows and doors. Along the way, he was bemused to find that the decor inside the house was similar to that of any wealthy home in London, for all its exterior whimsy. The only real difference was a profusion of lush tropical palms that flourished in huge stone urns here and there.

When all the windows and doors were locked, and he had glanced out from various positions around the house to make sure no one was coming, Ian returned to the entrance hall, satisfied that at least these basic precautions had been taken. Georgiana finished dealing with her anxious staff.

She turned and looked at him in mild surprise, as though she had been wondering where he'd gone.

Scanning her face, Ian marched to her side and took her elbow, gently steering her toward the nearest chair. “How are your lungs?”

“Much better now—thank you.”

“You are pale. Please sit down. Let me send for a doctor—”

“No—truly, my lord, I will be fine,” she interrupted. “The worst has passed now. Besides, I have—other medicine.”

He frowned, folding his arms across his chest. “Very well, then. Go on and take it. I will wait.”

         

Goodness, he was an imperious fellow, giving orders mere moments after stepping through her door! Admittedly, he meant well, she thought. Still, she was uneager to share with him the full extent of her eccentricity. Best to keep it vague. “It's, ah, not exactly a potion or pill.”

His eyebrow lifted in skeptical fashion.

Reading his stern countenance, polite but all business, Georgie recognized the piercing stare of a male in full protective mode and sighed. If he was anything like her domineering brothers, that stare meant that he had no intention of leaving the subject alone. “Very well. If you must know, there are breathing exercises I was taught when I was small—to help address the problem. Stretches, too, which benefit the lungs.”

“I see.” His stare intensified. He did not look entirely convinced.

“It's called yoga,” she mumbled. “It's the only thing that helps.”

“Ah, I have heard of this.” He nodded slowly, studying her in wary interest. “An ancient art, is it not?”

“Indeed. More importantly, it works,” she replied, surprised that he showed no sign of condemnation. Outside of her family, she did not like to admit to any of her British acquaintances that she practiced yoga, for most of them would have considered it over the line.

Many in local Society already thought she had “gone native,” but all that the British doctors had ever been able to do for her was to bleed her with horrid leeches and to give her doses of laudanum, liquid opium, that had made the paintings in her bedroom come alive and the ceiling squirm. If she had stayed on that path, she'd have become an addict and an invalid by now.

Fortunately, years ago, her beloved ayah, or Indian nurse, Purnima, had reached her wit's end with her young charge's ailment, and had sent for her kinsman, a yogi mystic, who had instructed Georgie in all the asanas to relax her chest and back and open up her lungs again.

It had also been wise old Purnima who had pointed out that Georgie's attacks seemed to have something to do with her loved ones leaving her. The ailment had become serious only after her mother's death, striking hardest whenever Papa had to go away on business again, or when her brothers had to leave once more for boarding school.

As a little girl, crying inconsolably with the panic of being left alone, she would sob until her grief impaired her breathing, turning from a fit of wild, wailing temper into a gasping, choking struggle for air. Whenever her loved ones left her behind, she had always felt like she was dying.

Thus the importance of her friends. She had learned to cope with her loneliness by surrounding herself with so many companions that no matter who left her, there were always a dozen others on hand to take their place. British or brown-skinned, female or male, all friends had always been welcome in her life.

By now, she knew nearly everyone in both Calcutta and Bombay, where her family had a second home—but she had never met the likes of Lord Griffith before.

What a mysterious man he was, his impenetrable visage betraying no sign of his thoughts. His gray-green eyes were full of secrets, though she detected perhaps a fleeting shimmer of haunted pain in their depths.

As he stood there watching her, his powerful arms folded across his chest, she indulged in a fleeting study of his proud, patrician face. Its rectangular shape and chiseled features bespoke dignified strength and authority: He had rather a high forehead, angular cheekbones, a fine, assertive sort of nose, and a square jaw. A wavy lock of his dark brown hair had tumbled forward over his left eyebrow in the fray, but perhaps her stare made him a bit self-conscious, for he tossed it out of his face with a boyish motion at odds with his commanding presence. His firm, sensuous mouth, bracketed by the manly grooves in his cheeks, still showed little sign of a smile.

More intrigued than she liked to admit, Georgie looked away, slowly pulling the silken scarf off from around her neck, but she continued to survey him from the corner of her eye. She couldn't seem to help herself.

Nankeen breeches hugged his muscled thighs. A morning coat of muted green broadcloth, subtle-toned like forest shadows, molded the sweeping expanse of his shoulders; the shade accented the complex celadon hue of his eyes.

But there was something else about him, a restless, hungry magnetism. A smoldering slow burn beneath his polished surface. It summoned up wayward thoughts in her mind of the erotic pleasures so vividly depicted in the temple carvings she had seen, or the curious illustrations from that wicked little book she had found once beneath her brother's bed. She had been searching for her pet mongoose, fearing he had escaped the house. Instead, she had found the
Kama Sutra.

She wondered if Lord Griffith had ever read it.

Well! This was hardly the time to ponder her secret obsession with sex.

Shaking off her momentary daze, Georgie turned away, irked to realize she was blushing. “Would you care for a drink, my lord? I should check on Lakshmi soon—and Adley.”

Poor poppet, the servants said her lovable bumbler had walked through the doorway and fainted the instant he'd gotten Lakshmi to safety.

“No, thank you,” Lord Griffith said with only a slight easing of his terse, formal manner. He clasped his hands behind his back. “I should be happy to pay my respects to your father at his earliest convenience.”

“Oh, Papa's not here,” she said with a studied air of blithe unconcern, even as she braced herself for his reaction.
Here we go.

“Oh,” he said in surprise. “When do you expect him back?”

“Haven't the foggiest.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, he's sailed off halfway 'round the world again on some new venture with our cousin Jack,” she informed him with a dismissive wave. “He probably won't be back until next year.”

“I see,” he murmured, a distracted frown settling over his chiseled face. “I was not aware of this.”

“Yes, I am sorry about that,” she answered in a soothing tone. “I had no way of getting word to you since you were already en route. But I did forward your letter on to my father at sea,” she added. “Jack's merchant ships will often carry our letters for us, and Papa had asked me before he left to open his mail for him, and to send on anything of importance.”

“Well, I am very sorry to have missed him,” he said, absorbing the news. “Your father was a great favorite with all of us when we were boys, back in the days when he still lived in England. Will you give him my regards?”

“Happily, and I'm sure he sends you his own. Now then, come in, for heaven's sake!” she chided, crossing the entrance hall to take his arm. “Don't just stand there by the door, my dear guest! You must make yourself at home. Something to drink? Brandy? Lemonade?” She smiled up at him as she steered him toward the adjoining parlor.

“The latter sounds good,” he admitted, eyeing her with a cautious smile.

She flashed a grin. “I agree!”

         

Ian feared he enjoyed having the lively beauty on his arm a bit too much. When she had shown him into the parlor, Georgiana released her hold on him gracefully and went to the mahogany cabinet in the corner, where she poured out their drinks from a pitcher.

He watched her every move, still mesmerized in spite of himself. In short order, she carried two goblets back over and handed him one. He accepted the lemonade with a nod of thanks, then she lifted her glass in a toast to him.

“Welcome to India, Lord Griffith. And, ah, thanks for saving my life.”

He bowed to her in wry nonchalance.

She laughed at his modest reaction, then clinked her glass against his. They drank.

“Well, I may have missed your father, but at least I got a chance to meet you,” he murmured, studying his hostess with a narrow smile. The slight blush that rose in her cheeks surprised him. She did not seem the blushing type.

“La, sir, the honor is mine,” she shot back in an airy tone. “You're the famous one.”

“Nonsense. Shall I wait here while you check on your friends?” he asked, gesturing toward the nearby couch.

“They'll be all right for another moment or two without me. My servants are with them.”

“Good.” He nodded, and then dropped his gaze as a decidedly awkward silence descended, one, he feared, fraught with her full knowledge that she captivated him. He was certainly not the sort of man who gawked and lost his tongue in the presence of a beautiful woman, but…there was something about her.

He cast about for a change of subject and cleared his throat. “So, when do you expect your brothers home, then?” He assumed that Gabriel and Derek Knight were at the garrison, or perhaps waiting for him at Government House. He hoped, as an afterthought, they did not mind his brief, unchaperoned visit with their sister. But why should they mind? He was a trusted friend of the family, honorable to a fault, if he dared say so himself, and it was not as though anything naughty was going to happen.