The Pleasure of Your Kiss

  She might have envied them their indolent lifestyle, but once the doors of the harem clanged shut, it quickly became evident that their freedom was only an illusion. They might be pampered and spoiled, but they were just as much captives to the sultan’s whims as the slaves who served him.

  Some of Farouk’s women were wives, others concubines. No matter their station in life, they each had only one purpose. They existed solely to serve the sultan. To see to his needs and provide for his pleasure. To give him ease—either carnal or simply by cradling his head in their lap and stroking his brow while he poured out his cares on their sympathetic ears.

  Although she had been desperately casting about for some way to escape before Ash’s implausible appearance in the courtyard, Clarinda had begun to fear it was only a matter of time before she took her place among their ranks. Then she would lose what little freedom she had as Farouk’s guest and be doomed to spend the rest of her life beating frantically against the bars of this gilded cage.

  She had even wondered how long it would take her to become like the others. To end up living for the hope she might be the one summoned to the sultan’s bed that night, if only to break up the soul-sucking monotony of the long, languid hours.

  Aside from the locked doors and the towering eunuchs guarding them, one other thing was amiss in the harem—there were no children. No little feet scampered over the tiled floor, no bright bubbles of laughter floated up to the domed ceiling. If she gave Farouk a son or a daughter, the child would be wrested from her arms at birth, given to a wet nurse, and taken away so it could be raised by strangers in another part of the palace.

  Clarinda felt her features harden into an expression she hardly recognized. She would never let such a thing happen. She would scale the palace walls herself and march barefoot across the scorching sands of the desert before she let anyone tear a child from her arms.

  As she and Poppy began to wend their way through the chamber, several of the women cast them furtive glances beneath their lashes. Others openly stared, not bothering to hide the resentment simmering in their kohl-lined eyes.

  Clarinda knew they despised everything about her, especially her pale skin, green eyes, and long blond hair, which was a constant source of both contempt and envy to them. With their luxuriant dark tresses, almond-shaped eyes, and ripe curves, most of them were more beautiful than she could ever hope to be. But they had been born knowing what she had learned only in the months since her abduction.

  Men didn’t crave beauty. They craved novelty.

  Even more than her fair English looks, they resented her freedom to come and go as she liked without being ordered or summoned, to roam the corridors of the palace without a guard or a veil to protect her from prying male eyes. That privilege, more than any other, proclaimed her special place in their master’s heart.

  And earned their undying enmity.

  Clarinda had survived their rancor for the past three months by telling herself that under other, less cutthroat circumstances, she might have found friends among them. That enabled her to hold her head high as she crossed the chamber, pretending just as she had during her first days at Miss Throckmorton’s that their taunts and slights did not trouble her.

  She might have succeeded in that ruse if a woman hadn’t uncurled herself from a purple fainting couch with the sleek grace of a jungle cat and sauntered over to plant herself directly in their path. As Clarinda was forced to a halt, Poppy huddled behind her, no doubt remembering the many times Clarinda had protected her from the bullies at the Seminary.

  Clarinda eyed the woman, her gaze coolly appraising. It was the sloe-eyed Yasmin, who had appointed herself Clarinda’s chief adversary and tormentor.

  According to what little gossip Poppy had been able to glean by eavesdropping on the other women, Yasmin had been about to take her place as one of the sultan’s most honored wives when it was discovered she was not the innocent she had claimed to be. Given how proud and possessive Moroccan men were, she was lucky to have escaped with her life. Some whispered it was her extensive talents on the sleeping couch that had convinced Farouk to spare her life and keep her on as one of his concubines after learning of her deception.

  With her pouting, plum-colored lips, her waist-length fall of glossy midnight-black hair and her dancing, dark eyes, she was truly one of the most stunning women in the harem. Her nose was a shade too large for her heart-shaped face, but that only gave her beauty a more exotic appeal. Her lush curves were covered by little more than scraps of translucent silk fashioned to draw a man’s eye to the dusky circles of her areolas and the hint of shadow at the juncture of her thighs.

  From the day Clarinda and Poppy had arrived at the harem, Yasmin had made no secret of her loathing for them. Clarinda suspected it was only respect for—and fear of—her beloved master that had prevented Yasmin from poisoning Clarinda’s wine or slipping a jeweled dagger between her ribs while she slept. At least at Miss Throckmorton’s she’d only had to worry about barbed words and venomous gossip.

  The woman planted her hands on her shapely hips and lifted her chin to an even more haughty angle as she surveyed Clarinda with open contempt. Her harem sisters sat up straighter and leaned closer, like sharks scenting fresh blood in the water.

  “We hear that one of your own kind has arrived at the palace,” Yasmin said.

  “Indeed?” Clarinda replied pleasantly, refusing to give the woman the satisfaction of confirming or denying what she already knew to be true.

  “We were discussing just what might bring a strapping Englishman to our doors. We have decided that perhaps he tires of bedding bony English ice princesses and desires a taste of a real woman in his bed.” Yasmin cast a glance over her shoulder, making sure her audience’s avid attention had not wavered. “Or several real women.”

  As the women behind her collapsed on their couches in fits of giggles, Yasmin’s lips curved in a triumphant smile.

  Clarinda kept her face carefully impassive. “Unlike Moroccan men, Englishmen don’t require a multitude of women to satisfy their desires. They only require one. As long as she is the right woman.”

  Although her sultry voice was still clearly audible throughout the chamber, Yasmin drew closer, as if to share a confidence. “Had Solomon sent me to attend this Englishman in his bath, he would not have sent me away. I would have proven myself to be the right woman to satisfy his every desire.”

  Clarinda had learned about far more than just the proper way to weave jewels into her hair in the past three months, and as an image of this woman on her knees at Ash’s feet flashed through her brain with shocking clarity, she had to curl her twitching hand into a fist to keep it from slapping the smug expression from Yasmin’s face.

  Leaning even closer to Yasmin, Clarinda lowered her voice to an actual whisper, one intended only for Yasmin’s ear. “If you were able to satisfy a man’s every desire, you would be Farouk’s wife instead of his concubine, would you not?”

  Clarinda was the only one standing close enough to see the flash of hurt in Yasmin’s dark eyes. She felt a reluctant twinge of remorse. It must be doubly galling to be forced to live as little more than a slave when you were plainly born to be a queen.

  Knowing instinctively that the slightest inkling of sympathy would be construed as a weakness to be exploited later, she forced her feet into motion, neatly sidestepping Yasmin and sweeping the rest of the way across the chamber.

  Although she couldn’t afford the luxury of glancing over her shoulder to savor her triumph, Poppy was not bound by such constraints. “What on earth did you say to the hateful creature? She looks more inclined than ever to murder you in your sleep.”

  Clarinda tossed her head, keeping her own voice deliberately light. “I told her that the mysterious Englishman—and his desires—were absolutely no concern of mine.”

  Clarinda restlessly paced the curtained alcove that served as her bedchamber as she waited for her summons to join the sultan for supper. Since she wa
s still being treated as Farouk’s honored guest, she wasn’t required to sleep in the main hall with the other women but had been given this tower retreat at the top of a narrow flight of stone stairs. Poppy slept in an even smaller alcove directly off the hall.

  Clarinda’s alcove contained little more than a luxurious sleeping couch heaped high with an array of pillows and bolsters in vibrant earth-toned patterns, but at least it was hers. And tonight, more than any other, she was grateful for the privacy it afforded her, even if that privilege had also given Farouk’s wives and concubines yet another reason to resent her.

  The older women who served the occupants of the harem, many of whom had once been the cherished concubines of Farouk’s father, had already come and gone, taking their lotions and potions with them. Although one could never accuse them of being lax in their duties, they seemed to have taken extra care with her appearance on this night. They must have been informed she was about to be put on display not only for the sultan but for his foreign guests as well.

  Clarinda had lost count of the strokes as they drew their brushes and combs through her hair until it gleamed like spun flax beneath the smoky kiss of the lamplight. Something about being the center of such focused attention was undeniably seductive, especially when that attention was devoted solely to pleasures of the flesh. It would have been only too easy for her to close her eyes and give herself over to the long, gliding strokes of brush and comb, to embrace the way they made her feel as if every inch of her body were tingling to life after a long slumber.

  After tending to her hair, they had unpacked their rattling collection of vials, pots, and bottles, using the contents to dust her cheekbones with genuine gold dust, rouge the pronounced cupid’s bow at the top of her upper lip, and draw a delicate line of kohl around her eyes.

  One of the women had tugged the glass stopper from a costly vial of myrrh and dabbed the musky scent behind her ears and in the hollow of her throat. They would have applied the perfume in even more intimate areas if Clarinda hadn’t grabbed their eager hands and shooed them from the alcove, ignoring their wounded scowls and muttered Arabic protests.

  She would do well to remember that they did not perform these tasks for her pleasure but to make her more desirable to the eyes of men.

  On any other night Clarinda might have found their pampering to be a pleasant distraction, but on this night her nerves were strung so tight she feared she would scream if she had to endure another pair of impersonal hands on her body. Without warning, her mind summoned up the provocative image of a pair of hands stroking her skin, their backs bronzed by the sun and lightly dusted with crisp brown hair, their touch anything but impersonal.

  Cursing her unruly imagination, she made another restless circuit of the alcove, the emerald green and peacock blue of what the Moroccans considered skirts rippling around her ankles. Back in England, she had been bound in the chains of her corset and discouraged from so much as thinking about the ripe flesh that lay beneath. Here she was not only encouraged to think about it, but deliberately kept in a nearly constant state of awareness of its needs and its wants. As a woman who had struggled to keep those powerful desires in check for nearly a decade, Clarinda was beginning to fear she was more of a danger to herself than Farouk could ever be.

  The gossamer silk of her skirts was so fine it might have been woven from spiderwebs and moonbeams. The only thing that kept it from being completely indecent was the care taken to drape the sheer material in multiple layers over all of her more delicate areas. That scant courtesy made it impossible to tell if one was actually stealing a peek at something one shouldn’t be peeking at or falling prey to a teasing trick of the lamplight.

  Clarinda’s acute mortification at wandering around in what the English would have considered the most decadent of undergarments had begun to fade after their first few weeks in this place. Compared to what Yasmin usually wore—or didn’t wear—when parading around the harem, Clarinda’s own attire was positively virginal.

  But tonight it would be Ash’s gaze that sought to penetrate the fluttering layers of silk, his amber eyes caressing the ivory swell of her breasts revealed by her low-cut bodice. She touched a hand to her throat, the thought making her feel flushed and shaky, as if she were coming down with some sort of exotic desert fever for which there was no cure.

  Despite her long-standing affection for Max, she hadn’t truly felt this way since she was seventeen years old. She had wanted Ash to turn and look at her, to really see her, for so long that when he finally had, it had gone straight to her head. She had been giddy with triumph and drunk with power.

  She could still remember delighting in the effect her slightest touch had on him. How it could make his eyes burn with hunger and his voice roughen with passion. How he would hold her so close she could feel the thick ridge of his desire pressing against the front of his trousers, pressing against her. She had savored her power over him the way a horseman might savor his control over a prize stallion. Until the morning she had discovered her power was only an illusion and that she had wanted him to lose control as badly as he had.

  She gave the top of her bodice a nervous tug, wondering what gown she might have chosen from her extensive wardrobe back in England for such a momentous occasion. Her rose-colored watered silk with its shirred sleeves, tiered skirt, and off-the-shoulder lace collar? Or perhaps the bronze silk taffeta that so perfectly offset the green of her eyes? Given how erratically her heart was beating in her throat, she would have been wiser to choose something that modestly covered her from throat to toe—gray flannel perhaps or something borrowed from the nearest nunnery.

  There was no denying the spark that had flared in Ash’s eyes when he’d first seen her, but she would almost have sworn it was a spark of enmity, not desire. Was he even now pacing his own bedchamber and believing the very worst of her? Had he convinced himself she had willingly embraced this life? That she had surrendered herself to Farouk and spent the long, torrid nights eagerly sharing the sultan’s sleeping couch?

  She scowled, disturbed by the direction of her thoughts. Why should she care what Ashton Burke or any other man thought of her? She had done what she had to do to survive, and Ash could make of that whatever he would.

  Sensing a presence behind her, she turned to find Solomon’s shadow darkening the arched doorway. The eunuch inclined his gleaming head toward the corridor, indicating that their master’s summons had come.

  Clarinda wished that Poppy could be by her side on this night to bolster her courage, but for some unfathomable reason her friend made Farouk as jumpy as a cat. Squaring her shoulders, Clarinda fought to tamp down her rioting nerves. This was no different from serving as hostess for one of her papa’s dinner parties, was it not? And hadn’t she played that role dozens of times through the years with dazzling success?

  Pasting a bright smile on her lips, she glided forward to link her arm through Solomon’s, thankful once again for his solid presence. “Come, good sir. We would not want to keep the sultan and his guests waiting.”

  As Ash waited for Clarinda to appear, he took a carefully measured sip of the spiced wine their host had provided. The rich blend of cloves and fermented red grapes was much stronger than the spirits served in most English dining rooms. Given that Farouk did not indulge at all, Ash had no intention of letting the liquor dull his senses. If he hoped to steal Clarinda right out from under the man’s nose, he would have to keep all of his wits about him.

  Luca, however, appeared to have surrendered his wits without so much as a single shot being fired. “Come here, bellezza!” he sang out, already looking flushed and glassy-eyed as he snared one of the dancing girls by the wrist and tugged her into his lap.

  She giggled as he sloshed wine into the valley between her ample breasts, then tried to steal a peek under the gauzy veil she wore over her nose and lips. As she ducked her head to nuzzle his neck, he gave Ash a delighted grin that said he wouldn’t mind staying in this place forever.

>   Luca’s antics earned him a disparaging scowl from Farouk’s uncle Tarik. Apparently the man still did not approve of his nephew opening his home to the Western infidels. Although Ash knew it might not be the most diplomatic move, he could not resist lifting his jeweled goblet to the man in a mocking toast. Tarik’s scowl deepened to an outraged glower and he deliberately turned his face away from Ash to confer with the hawk-nosed man seated next to him.

  Seemingly oblivious to the minor dramas going on around him, Farouk sat across from Ash, a broad smile splitting his handsome face as he clapped in time to the music of drum, flute, and lyre.

  Ash reclined on one elbow against the mound of cushions behind him. A casual observer would have sworn there wasn’t an ounce of tension in his lean, rangy frame. The ruse was honed through years of both practice and experience. Even as he gave one of the dancing girls a lazy smile, his eyes were warily scanning the room, noting every potential threat and possible escape route.

  After seeing Clarinda nestled so cozily in Farouk’s arms, Ash was no longer entirely sure she wanted to be rescued. During his years with the Company in Burma, he had seen the spirits of even the strongest, most resilient men broken while in captivity. They had endured torture and unspeakable hardship only to end up becoming little more than slavering toadies to the enemy they had once despised.

  Clarinda possessed one of the most stubborn and shining spirits he had ever encountered, but he still had no way of knowing what she might have endured at Farouk’s hands or at the hands of the Corsairs who had abducted her.

  When he had accepted Max’s money, he had promised himself this would be no different from any other mission. But the thought of Clarinda suffering beneath the brutish hands of any man made him want to sweep her into his arms and carry her away to a place where no harm could ever come to her again, after destroying whoever was responsible, of course.

  But that wasn’t what his brother had hired him to do, he reminded himself grimly. Max had hired him to retrieve her, and it was Max who would be waiting to sweep her into his arms and tenderly nurse her spirit back to health. Ash’s job was simply to get her out of this prison of a palace, and that was exactly what he intended to do—with or without her cooperation.