As they joined Ash and Clarinda, Ash noticed that Luca’s olive-skinned chest and back were scored with several scratches, as if he’d spent the night wrestling with an angry cat.
“So many men,” Yasmin purred, eyeing the approaching regiment as if it were one of Farouk’s exotic buffets.
“Thank God they’re coming from the east,” Luca said, his shoulders sagging with relief. “For a minute there, I thought the sultan had changed his mind.”
“I almost wish he had,” Ash muttered. He would have gladly returned to almost any moment in time when he and Clarinda had been shut away from the rest of the world in Farouk’s palace of sensual indulgences.
Even among a regiment that large, it wasn’t hard for Ash to recognize the tall, dark man riding at their head. Max might not be a military commander, but he still wore the mantle of authority with the grace and ease of one who had been born to it. He was bareheaded, no doubt believing the sun wouldn’t have the audacity to burn him.
Ash had never seen Max behave with anything remotely resembling spontaneity, but as the riders approached the copse of palms, his brother flung himself off his horse before it even came to a full halt. Max came striding around the pool, his burning gaze fixed on the woman who stood next to Ash, her long flaxen hair dancing in the wind.
Ash stepped dutifully aside as Max pulled Clarinda into a fierce embrace. Cradling the back of her head in his palm, Max rested his clean-shaven cheek against the softness of her hair, his eyes closed as if he were enduring a pain too sharp and sweet to be borne. Ash recognized the look on his brother’s face only too well. He suspected it had been mirrored on his own just a few hours ago.
Clarinda’s arms slowly crept around Max’s waist. She buried her face in his broad chest, her shoulders hitching in a silent little sob. Ash could hardly blame her for crying after everything she had been through.
Everything he had put her through.
When she tipped back her head to smile up at Max through her tears, Ash’s worst fears were realized. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to witness between the two of them, but the genuine affection shining in her eyes struck him low in the gut, like a punch he hadn’t anticipated.
Clearly, Max hadn’t exaggerated his feelings for Clarinda. Although his brother was searching her face with hungry eyes, Ash could tell he wasn’t looking for the telltale signs of another man’s possession but was simply struggling to convince himself that this wasn’t all a dream. That she was actually alive and well and safe in his arms.
Max tenderly smoothed back her hair with one hand, murmuring something intended for her ears only. Ash was afraid Max was going to kiss her right there in front of them all and Ash was going to end up back in front of a firing squad for murdering his brother in cold blood in front of dozens of witnesses. Fortunately for them all, Max contented himself with pressing a fervent kiss to her brow. Given Max’s respect for propriety, he was probably waiting until after they were wed to kiss her on the lips for the first time.
Ash’s brother might annoy the hell out of him but he was everything Ash would never be—honest, steady, reliable. Clarinda might want Ash, but it was Max she needed. Ash watched through narrowed eyes as his brother peeled off his impeccably tailored cutaway coat and wrapped it around Clarinda’s shoulders to shield her from the curious eyes of his soldiers as if she weren’t already wearing a robe that covered her from chin to shin.
Keeping a protective arm close about her, Max turned to face Ash, his grave countenance lit by something akin to happiness.
Before he could speak, Ash steered Yasmin in front of him. “Max, this is Yasmin. She’s looking for a husband. Yasmin, this is my brother Max. He’s not married, you know. He’s an earl and he’s going to be a duke someday, which where we come from is almost as good as a sultan.”
“A duke, you say?” Yasmin sashayed even closer to Max, raking her luminous dark eyes over his impressive form. “If it is a wife you seek to warm your sleeping couch, my lord, you need look no further. Why, there are things I can do with my tongue that—”
Clearing his throat with a violent bark, Max gave Ash the evil eye. “I’m sure you’ll make some man a very fine wife someday, miss, but what my brother neglected to tell you is that I am already betrothed to Miss Cardew.”
Yasmin’s mouth formed a perfect O of disbelieving outrage. “Another one!? Is there any man between Morocco and England who is not betrothed to that greedy little ice princess?”
Max slanted Clarinda a puzzled glance. “Would you care to explain that?”
“No,” she replied, staring straight ahead.
Throwing her hands up in the air, Yasmin went marching back around the pool, a stream of Arabic curses spewing from her beautiful lips. When she slipped in her haste and almost fell into the pool, she nearly incited a riot as the soldiers jostled and shoved to see which one of them could be the first to dismount and rush to her aid.
Luca watched the whole scene with a lopsided grin. “Isn’t she spectacular? She’s going to make a wonderful mother for my children.”
“So what are you doing out here?” Ash asked Max, folding his arms over his chest as he surveyed his brother. “Were you afraid I’d run off with your money? Or your bride?” he added, taking great care not to look at Clarinda.
“When so many days passed without any word from you, I was afraid something might have gone desperately wrong.”
Ash couldn’t very well tell his brother something had gone desperately right. So right he wasn’t sure his heart—or his body—would ever recover from it. “It took longer than I expected to convince the sultan it would be in his best interests to free Miss Cardew.”
Max tightened his grip on Clarinda, his face grim. “When I think of all she must have endured …”
“The sultan never touched me,” Clarinda said simply. “Captain Burke arrived in the nick of time.”
Max looked at him sharply then, the unspoken question hanging in the air between them. After a moment’s hesitation, Max reached into the pocket of his waistcoat, withdrawing a cheque that could have been a twin to the one Max had given Ash when Ash had been fool enough to accept this job.
Max held the cheque out to him. “This can’t even begin to repay the debt I owe you.”
Somehow his brother’s heartfelt gratitude was more galling to Ash than Max’s contempt or his suspicion. Ash wanted nothing more than to tear the cheque into a thousand tiny pieces and hurl them back into Max’s earnest face.
Instead, he took it from Max’s hand, eyeing the impressive row of zeros with a jaded eye. “I won’t bore you with my hollow protests because I can assure you I’ve earned every halfpenny of this.”
“Where will you go now?” Max asked, although Ash could tell it was more out of politeness than genuine interest.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Ash furrowed his brow thoughtfully. Now that he had finally been given the perfect opportunity to walk out of Clarinda’s life for good, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. “Luca and I have traveled from one end of the world to the other fighting battles that weren’t even our own. I was thinking it might be time to pay a visit to merry old England.”
“England?” Luca squeaked, dropping his boot.
“England?” Max echoed, starting to look slightly bilious. “Why on earth would you want to come back to England?”
Gratified that he had finally managed to rattle Max’s legendary composure, Ash gave him the same innocent look he used to give their mother after she had discovered someone had filched all the lumps of sugar from the sugar bowl. “Haven’t you heard the news? My only brother is getting married. Surely you wouldn’t expect me to miss such a momentous occasion.”
A familiar flicker of annoyance danced over Max’s face. “Who invited you?”
Allowing himself to meet Clarinda’s startled gaze for the first time since Max had arrived to whisk her from his arms, Ash said, “Why, who else? Your bride, of course.”
“He always
could turn on the charm when it suited his needs.”
Clarinda didn’t have to turn around to see Maximillian’s face. She recognized the note of mingled contempt and admiration in her fiancé’s voice only too well.
“It was a trait that served him well in the sultan’s court,” she admitted, keeping her face turned away from Max so he wouldn’t see just how well it had served her, too.
She had come up to the quarterdeck of the ship to be alone with her thoughts only to end up spying on the kneeling circle of men who had gathered for a dice game on the deck below. As Max joined her at the rail, Ash gave the fist curled around the handful of dice a kiss for luck before sending the dice clattering across the weathered boards. A collective groan went up from the deckhands clustered around him. Ash swept out an arm to collect his winnings, then softened their disappointment by offering them an affable grin and a sip from the flask of rum he tugged from the inside pocket of his coat.
She still couldn’t believe he had called her bluff and was traveling to England to attend their wedding. Did he also plan to come for Christmas and Candlemas and the christenings of their children? Was he going to pop in unexpectedly just so he could give his adoring nieces and nephews rides on his shoulders and hold them enraptured with the tale of how he had once rescued their mother from the clutches of a rapacious sultan? The thought made her feel slightly hysterical.
“If they’re not careful, he’ll scam them out of a week’s wages with a single toss,” Max said. “I do hope they were bright enough not to let him use his own dice.”
Clarinda slanted Max a look of mock censure. “Surely you’re not implying your little brother might stoop to cheating?”
Max snorted. “When we used to play mumblety-peg as lads, he always used to say that if you weren’t cheating, you weren’t trying.” Dismissing Ash with far more ease than Clarinda had ever been able to, he said, “I brought you your shawl. You haven’t had time to adjust to the change in climate yet. I was afraid you might catch an ague.”
As Max draped the cashmere wrap over her shoulders, Clarinda had to fight the urge to shrug off its smothering weight. While the brisk sea air was undeniably an abrupt shock to her system after months of living beneath the sweltering desert sun, she was tired of being treated like an invalid. Every time she turned around aboard the ship, Max was there—pressing a cup of warm tea into her hand, offering to fetch her a fur muff or a sturdier pair of gloves, encouraging her to retreat to her cabin for an afternoon nap. She was starting to feel as if she’d been rescued from a hospital, not a harem.
“You’re too kind,” she said, summoning up a wan smile. She couldn’t very well strangle him with her shawl just for being solicitous of her needs. “I can’t believe it’s already the first of November. Time seemed to stand still in El Jadida. Sometimes it was impossible to even remember which century I was in.”
Time might have stood still in Farouk’s harem, but now it was rushing past like the sleek bow of the schooner cutting through the choppy swells. England—and home—lay just beyond the misty gray ribbon of the horizon. As the damp chill wormed its way deeper into her bones, Clarinda hugged the shawl tighter around her, thankful for its sheltering folds after all.
Gazing out over the sea, Max said stiffly, “I hope you understand why I couldn’t come after you myself.”
Clarinda had to school her features to hide her surprise. Despite the long days and nights they’d spent at sea, it was the first time Max had broached the topic. It was almost as if they’d entered into a silent agreement not to bring up her time in the harem, no difficult feat since they each had their own reasons for not wanting to discuss it.
“Of course I do,” she assured him. “You had a responsibility to the shareholders in the Company. You had to protect their interests in the region.”
He tugged her around to face him, his cool gray eyes searching her face with unexpected heat. “You are my only responsibility, my only interest. I couldn’t come barging into the sultan’s palace with guns blazing without risking your life. If I had had any other choice—any choice at all—do you think I would have sent him?”
Clarinda gazed up into his face, reading its anguish all too well. It was a dear face, one she had learned to rely on many years ago. It was also a devastatingly handsome face, one any woman would be lucky to love.
She reached up to lightly touch his cheek with her gloved hand. “You’ve always done exactly what was necessary to get the job done. It’s not just what you do, it’s who you are.”
He briefly lowered his eyes, shielding their dark-lashed depths from her gaze. “Speaking of doing what’s necessary, I’ve been thinking that perhaps it would be best for us to wed when we reach your father’s estate.”
“So soon?” she said weakly. Somehow she had thought there would be more time.
“If you’re already my wife when we return to London, it will stave off a great deal of gossip about your months in captivity.”
It would also prove to all of England that he still considered her worthy to be his wife.
As if sensing her uncertainty, he gently tipped her chin up with one finger. “You forget how long I’ve already been waiting.” He offered her one of his rare smiles, his eyes crinkling in a most winning way. “Don’t stay out in the cold too long. They’ll be ringing the supper bell soon.”
Clarinda sighed as she listened to the click of his bootheels fade on the planks of the deck. Max had been her dearest friend and staunchest champion for a long time. If not for him, she wouldn’t have survived Ash’s leaving the first time. But when he touched her, she didn’t feel even a ghost of the yearning she felt every time his brother merely glanced at her with those tiger’s eyes of his.
Ever since Max had come riding up with his men to whisk her away, Ash had treated her with the cool courtesy of a future brother-in-law. But she was still haunted by his impassioned confession at the oasis.
He hadn’t abandoned her all those years ago after all. He had truly loved her. Enough to lay aside all of his pride, all of his ambition, and come back for her.
But he had spent the last nine years believing her as faithless as she had believed him. Believing all of her tender words and passionate promises had been nothing but the meaningless prattle of a fickle girl in the first throes of infatuation.
If she let him walk out of her life now without sacrificing her own pride and telling him the truth, he would never know just how wrong he had been.
She leaned forward, stealing another furtive glance over the rail. The dice game had broken up, but a lone man still stood on the deck below gazing up at her, the tip of his slender cigar glowing in the gathering shadows.
Chapter Thirty-one
Somehow Ash knew exactly where he would find Clarinda on the morning of her wedding day.
The last time he had seen the meadow it had been draped in the minty green gown of spring with a lacing of mist overlying it. The awakening birds had filled the air with song. When he and Clarinda had rolled into the folds of her cloak, the new leaves unfurling along the spreading boughs of the oak had formed a sheltering canopy above their heads, and they had crushed the fresh clover beneath them, releasing its heady scent.
Now the first snow of the year fell from a leaden sky. The ground was hard, the blades of grass poking out from the snow brown and brittle. The autumn winds had stripped the oak to its bare bones, and instead of birdsong, the only sound that accompanied Ash’s steps was the whisper of the falling snow.
Clarinda was kneeling beneath the tree, the burgundy hood of her ermine-trimmed cloak spangled with snowflakes. The cloak was similar to the one she had thrown over her nightdress with such haste on the morning she had raced out to the meadow to try to stop him from leaving. Even as Ash smiled, his throat tightened. That had been just like her, remembering her cloak but forgetting her shoes.
On this day, he was the one coming to say good-bye. He had thought he could stand by and watch her become another man’s wi
fe, but he had been wrong. He had no well-wishes to murmur, no brotherly embraces to offer, no blessings to give.
He was a much wiser man than he had been the last time he had stood in this meadow. Now he knew there was nowhere in this world he could go to escape her. She would haunt his every thought—and his every dream—until he whispered her name with his dying breath.
Even though she continued to gaze at the ground as he approached, he knew she was as aware of his presence as he had always been of hers. He didn’t have to see her or hear her to recognize when she came within a dozen leagues of him. She was simply … there.
He leaned one shoulder against the trunk of the tree, crossing his booted feet at the ankles. When Clarinda tipped back her head to look at him, her eyes were dry but her beautiful face was as pale as the snow. Only her eyes held the promise of spring.
Yasmin had called her an ice princess, but Ash knew what a warm, passionate heart beat beneath that cool exterior, knew how her quivering flesh could burn with fever in response to the loving stroke of his hands.
“If you’ve decided to leave, I won’t waste my breath this time begging you to stay,” she said softly. “But before you go, there’s something you should know. There have been too many secrets and too many lies, not all of them from your own lips.” She rose, bracing one hand against the other side of the tree. As she gazed out over the meadow, snowflakes caught in her lashes like frozen tears. “Less than two months after you left, I discovered I was with child.”
Ash felt his own face go as bloodless as hers.
She lowered her eyes as if reliving an old shame. “My father was devastated, not so much for himself, but for me. If word got out, he knew what everyone would say—that all the wealth in the world couldn’t change the fact that his daughter was nothing but a common bit of baggage who had allowed herself to be seduced by a nobleman’s son.”
Ash’s hands curled into fists. He wanted to travel back in time and beat to a bloody pulp anyone who would dare debase her in that way. Then he remembered that he was the cause of it. He had taken what he wanted and left her to suffer the consequences of his recklessness.