Margo Maguire (22 page)

The Sahyadri Mountain Range, central India, February 1887

A
spectacular waterfall crashed down from a distant mountain peak, cascading into a chasm of rocks and water, while birds with broad wingspans and strange names floated on the breeze overhead.

Lilly’s body still hummed with awareness after spending hours in the nearby caves with Samuel, viewing the ancient, erotic depictions that were carved into the walls. Lilly knew Sam felt it, too, and would have made love to her right there had they not been accompanied by six other members of their expedition.

A light mist shrouded the ground, but the elephants they rode were surefooted. Lilly could hardly wait to get home.

Sam slid his hands around Lilly’s waist and pulled her back to his chest, and she let her body sway with the rhythm of the rocking elephant. The mahouts on the ground chattered among themselves and Sam
shouted something to them in a language that Lilly did not understand. The men laughed and called their answers up to him.

“What are they saying?”

“You don’t want to know,” he whispered in her ear.

Sam’s warm breath sent a shiver of promise down Lilly’s spine, and she slid her hands down his muscular thighs that bracketed her hips. He made a low sound, deep in his throat.

She tipped her head back, and Sam touched his lips to her neck and ear, unmindful of his colleagues who rode ahead of them in their small caravan. Over the past few weeks she’d heard their quiet remarks about them—the newlyweds—and knew that most of them would keep a discreet distance ahead.

The sun was a bright ball of orange hovering over the horizon as they neared their camp. Before long, Lilly smelled the cook fires that had already been started, and heard the sounds of foreign instruments playing native music. When they entered the camp, their half-naked mahouts slid to the ground and commanded the elephants to kneel.

“I’m not hungry for supper, Mrs. Temple,” Sam murmured in Lilly’s ear just before helping her dismount, his hands lingering at her waist longer than was strictly necessary. His eyes darkened. “What do you say we leave the others to their meal and—”

“A word, Temple?” asked George Freemont, who skirted around the massive elephant to speak to Sam.

Lilly extricated her hand from Sam’s and turned to smile at the professor. Then she backed away from her husband and his colleague, keeping her eyes on Sam’s. A few minutes alone to prepare for their eve
ning was just what she wanted. She had important news to tell him tonight, and she wanted everything perfect.

Slipping away to their billowing white tent, Lilly pulled open the flap. It was richly appointed, suitable for a Turkish pasha, with thick, plush carpets covering the ground, silken pillows to sit on and a feather bed near the center of it all, draped with mosquito netting. Sam’s desk, covered with books and papers, was at the far end, along with two Western-style chairs and several trunks covered by colorful silk cloths.

It was nearly dark, so Lilly lit a few of the oil lamps that hung from the wooden supports. Then she arranged the pillows into a sensual bower on the brightly patterned carpets.

Finally she knelt in front of the trunk where her clothes were stored. Hidden inside were a small vial of oil, a pot of kohl and a carefully wrapped bundle of silk. Lilly lifted everything out, untied the bundle and removed the delicate sari she’d purchased in Bombay.

The voices continued outside, along with the sounds of the tabla drums, but Lilly knew she had little time to prepare. In a few minutes Samuel would come in, and she wanted to be ready.

She unhooked her shoes and removed them, then took off her stockings, followed by her gown and petticoat and the rest of her underthings. When she was completely naked, she poured a bit of the scented oil into her hands and rubbed it over her skin, sliding her hands around her breasts, over her belly and down her pelvis and legs.

She pulled out the combs that held her hair in
place and let it fall in loose curls down her back. Next she put on the long, dangling earrings that Samuel had given her when they were in Rome, and the jangling bracelets he’d bought her in Bombay. She added a band of tiny, tinkling bells to each ankle, then shadowed her eyes with kohl.

When Lilly looked in the mirror she hardly recognized herself. Her breasts were fuller, but the child that now grew deep inside was not yet evident. Her belly remained as flat as ever, but she looked like some exotic temptress, intent upon seduction.

She certainly did not appear a proper English lady.

Not quite sure whether to be emboldened or embarrassed, Lilly picked up the sari. The diaphanous silk was the color of ancient pearls, trimmed in gold thread. Pulling on the bodice, a tiny, short-sleeve blouse that covered her breasts but left her midsection bare, Lilly laced it loosely in front. She wrapped the skirt around her waist and draped the remaining length of fabric over one shoulder in the Indian style.

She was ready by the time the musicians started a new song. When she heard the resonant strains of the stringed esraj and bansuri pipe, accompanied by the rapid beating of tabla drums, Lilly began to sway to the music. She raised her arms and moved her feet, patterning her movements after the Indian dancers she’d seen in the towns and villages they’d passed on their journey to this remote valley in Maharashtra.

The door of the tent opened. “I thought I’d never—”

Lilly turned toward the sound of Sam’s voice and suppressed a smile at his astonished expression. The bells on her ankles jingled as she continued her
dance, moving closer to Sam as he tossed off his hat and removed his linen waistcoast.

The exotic scent of the oil mixed with the heat of Lilly’s body and she was drawn by the subtle flaring of Sam’s nostrils and the intensity of his gaze. He opened a few buttons of his shirt, then bent to remove his boots, never taking his eyes off her.

Lilly did not stop moving to the sound of the music, even as Sam came to her with eyes glittering with desire. He feathered his hand down the side of her face, capturing a curling lock of her hair and twisting it lightly around one finger. He followed her movements, touching her waist, but keeping an arm’s length between them.

The better to watch her.

Lilly felt her nipples grow tight with his light touch, but continued to move with the music, turning away from him, tipping her head back to let her hair fall to her knees behind her.

“Lilly…” He uttered her name on the whisper of a breath, and when she turned back to face him, he took hold of the swath of silk over her shoulder and slipped it off, letting it fall to the floor at her feet.

He touched her belly then, sliding the tips of his fingers into the waist of the sari, teasing her sensitive skin with his touch. Lilly danced closer, raising her hands to Sam’s shoulders and lowering his suspenders. She unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the tails from his trousers, then pushed the shirt down his arms and off his body. When he was half-naked, she drew a shuddering breath and ran her hands over the dense muscles in his shoulders and arms.

The tabla drums sounded louder in Lilly’s ears and she spun away from Sam, jingling her bracelets and
bells. But Sam did not let her escape. He closed the distance between them and came up behind her, encircling her waist with his arms.

He pressed his body against her back, moving with her, cradling her, just as he’d done when they’d ridden together on the elephant’s back. “Do you feel what you do to me?” he whispered in her ear.

He slipped his hands down her belly, deep into the waist of the sari. When he pressed his fingers against her, Lilly arched her back, welcoming his touch.

“Mmm.” He nuzzled her neck. “You taste like the lotus blossoms growing down by the river.”

Lilly barely heard his words as his fingers played and teased and inflamed her. They were magic.

She pulled away and turned to face him. As she began to move to the music again, she allowed the sari to unwind from her body, and soon she was naked but for the thin bodice that loosely covered her breasts.

Sam’s throat moved visibly as he swallowed. A thin sheen of perspiration covered his brow as his eyes followed her dance. She lifted the short bodice slightly, aware of the effect it would have on him, then let it drop again. He reached for her, but she moved away, deliberately enticing him, drawing out their pleasure.

He followed her, and Lilly took mercy, drawing him into her dance. She skimmed her hands up his chest, stopping to linger over his nipples, then to his shoulders and around his neck, to toy with the hair at his nape.

He made a tortured sound and let her have her way, though she knew it cost him.

“I love you, Sam,” she whispered when her
mouth was merely a breath away from his. She reached down and unfastened his trousers, slowly, provocatively, then pushed them off his hips, kneeling to pull them from his legs.

When she leaned her cheek into his groin, he groaned aloud. The music faded from her consciousness and she pressed her mouth against him, licking, savoring, tasting him. His hands cupped her head and she shuddered with her own arousal.

Sam felt close to exploding. He shifted positions and laid Lilly back against the pillows, then slipped the last scrap of filmy silk from her body. Her breath came in quick pants when he took one of her dusky nipples into his mouth and teased the other with one fingertip.

“You are pure magic, Lilly Temple.”

The tiny bells on Lilly’s ankles jangled in response. Sam took hold of her foot and kissed the arch. He pressed his mouth against the sensitive skin of her ankle, then trailed kisses to her knee.

He felt an exquisite tenderness for her, his beautiful, magical wife. “I’m entirely under your spell.”

“Sam! Please!” She tried to put her legs around him, but he continued his torturous seduction, laving attention on her thigh, and then the very heart of her.

“Now, Sam!”

He changed position and let her have her way. Plunging slowly, he entered her with the intent of loving her gently. But Lilly pulled him against her, crying out as she moved her hips in an abandoned frenzy. Any restraint he might have had disappeared when he saw the raw desire in her eyes.

He bracketed her head with his hands, and as the
pleasure sharpened, quickened his pace. Quiet, fierce sounds escaped Lilly’s throat and Sam felt her legs and arms tighten around him. He felt her fingers in his hair.

Sam kissed her then, and with every potent thrust of his hips, annulled the boundaries that separated them. They were joined as one.

Lilly cried out, pulling him tighter, deeper, as her body tensed around him in the spasms of climax. Sam shuddered and drove into her, his body feverish, his mind intense. His heart pounded, his breathing stopped and Sam buried his face against Lilly’s shoulder as his own climax tore through him.

Small aftershocks of pleasure continued to pulse through them, even after Sam rolled to his back, pulling Lilly onto him, cradling her against his chest. He kissed her forehead, then her cheek, while his fingers explored her back.

“You are my life, Lilly. My heart and my soul.”

“Sam—”

“I love you, sweet Lilly.”

The little bells jingled as she bent her knees and crossed her ankles in the air. “I have something to tell you….”