He had to have known that would be the most compelling argument of all.
Perhaps Max was still trying to protect her. If Ash believed her and Max’s union was one of passion rather than deep, abiding friendship and mutual respect, then Ash might not suspect just how much his leaving had devastated her.
“I’m not surprised you would mock him for that,” she said, lifting her head to give Ash a cool gaze. “The difference between you and your brother is that Maximillian doesn’t just use pretty words to coax a woman into his bed. He speaks from the heart.”
“Fascinating. I wasn’t aware he still had one.” Ash studied her face through narrowed eyes. “You really care for him, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Although the words didn’t sound as convincing as Clarinda would have liked, they were true. In his own steadfast, taciturn way, Maximillian had saved her life as surely as Farouk had. Ash might never know it, but when Ash had broken her heart, Max had been there to sweep up the pieces. “I agreed to marry him, didn’t I?”
“You agreed to marry Dewey Darby as well though, didn’t you?”
She drew in an uneven breath, shocked that Ash did know about her brief, ill-fated engagement. “How did you hear about that?”
He shrugged, his expression revealing nothing. “People talk. From what I understand, I barely made it up the gangplank of the ship before you accepted his suit.”
“Well, the blacksmith wouldn’t have me and I couldn’t find an American,” she retorted, stung by the unfairness of his words.
“So you had to settle for a viscount. Not that I blame you, of course. I’m sure you would have made a stunning viscountess.”
“We’ll never know, will we?”
“I’m sorry,” Ash said softly, looking as if he meant it. “Max told me about Darby’s accident. It must have been very difficult for you.”
Already regretting her outburst, Clarinda briefly closed her eyes. If she had anything to say about it, he would never know just how difficult. “I survived.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Not many women would have survived being abducted by Corsairs and sold in a slave market.” This time there was no mistaking the note of reluctant admiration in his voice. “Yet here you are, matching wits with a sultan like some modern-day Scheherazade straight out of
Arabian Nights
. Perhaps it’s no mystery why my brother is willing to pay so handsomely to get you back.”
Jolted by a fresh shock of disbelief, Clarinda straightened. “Maximillian is
paying
you? You accepted money from your own brother to rescue me?”
Ash’s shrug was even more negligent than usual. “If he’s fool enough to offer, I’m certainly not fool enough to turn him down. You really shouldn’t be too hard on him. Ever since he managed to make back the family fortune, his answer to every problem—including me—has been to throw money at it.”
For a minute Clarinda felt as if she were right back on the slaver’s block, her fate snatched from her own hands only to be balanced precariously in the hands of men. “How much? How much is he paying you?”
“Judging by the look in your eye right now, not nearly enough.” Ash pointed a finger at her. “I know that look. You’re about to tell me to go to the devil again, aren’t you?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Captain Burke. I doubt the devil would have you.” She took one step toward him and then another, not even caring that the towel had slipped down to expose the creamy white swell of her breasts. “But what you can do is march right back to your brother and tell him to go straight to the devil for me. I’ll find a way out of here without your help, thank you very much. Perhaps I’ll even decide to take my chances with Farouk. At least when he buys and pays for a woman, he does it openly, without couching the entire transaction in worthless sentiment!”
She whirled around with every intention of storming from the room, but Ash caught her forearm, bringing her up short. “I thought you wanted to be rescued.”
“I do. Just not by you!” Gritting her teeth in frustration, she twisted her wrist around in a vain attempt to escape his intractable grasp.
He stilled her struggles by pinning her arm against the broad plane of his chest, a move that brought their lips into dangerous proximity. “What are you going to do? Scream for a guard?”
“Don’t tempt me!”
It had been a long time since she had been this close to him. Close enough to watch the darkness of his pupils swallow the golden light in his eyes. Close enough to count each bristle of the beard stubble on his jaw. Close enough to recognize the precise moment when his gaze drifted downward to her parted lips.
Although it was taking negligible effort on his part to restrain her, his breathing was as patchy as her own. She could feel his chest hitch beneath her captive arm with each breath, could feel the irregular hammering of his heart in his chest.
With visible effort he dragged his gaze away from her lips and back to her eyes. “I could care less how you feel about me.” Every ounce of passion had been stripped from his voice, leaving it as cold and ruthless as a stranger’s. “Or, for that matter, about my brother. The only thing that matters is getting you out of here before Farouk finds out you’ve been lying to him all along about being an innocent and decides to strangle you in his bed.”
“I had no choice but to lie! If Farouk had realized I was no innocent, he would have made me his concubine the first night I arrived in this place. I’d be imprisoned in his harem right now, never to be seen outside its walls except on those nights when I was summoned to his bed. But you needn’t worry that Farouk would harm me. He worships the ground I walk on. He would never—”
“I know these men,” Ash said, cutting her off without a trace of mercy. “I’ve been living among them for years now. They live in a world where nothing is more important than their honor and their pride and no one is more dispensable than a woman. If Farouk finds out you lied, he’ll kill you. It might even pain him to do so, but he would feel he had no choice.” Ash lifted his other hand to cup her face. Despite the harshness of his tone, the callused pad of his thumb stroked the downy softness of her cheek with irresistible tenderness. “I’m the one who put you in this position. And, by God, I’m the one who’s going to get you out.”
As Clarinda gazed into the determined depths of his eyes, it was almost possible to believe his concern for her was motivated by something much more complicated—and more dangerous to her heart—than simple avarice. “Why, Captain Burke, you almost sound as if you care about what happens to me.”
“If I don’t bring you back alive,” he said, the silky note returning to his voice, “I won’t get the rest of what my brother owes me.”
This time when she tried to jerk her wrist out of his grasp, he made no attempt to stop her. Although it galled her to admit it, she knew he was right. She might be tired of being used as a pawn in the games of men, but she couldn’t afford to underestimate Farouk or refuse Ash’s help in a fit of childish temper.
She glared up at him, massaging her wrist with her other hand even though he had left no mark upon it. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to know Maximillian will be footing the bill for my rescue. At least I won’t be expected to pay you with a kiss.”
“That’s a fee I’d be only too happy to forgo in your case.” Clearly recognizing that he had won this hand, Ash said, “Now that I know about the secret passage into the harem, all I have to do is find a way out of the palace. It may take a few days for me to coax Farouk into relaxing his guard. In the meantime, you’ll have to continue to play the role of doting fiancée. We must take great care not to arouse his suspicions. When I come for you, you’ll have to be ready to travel and you’ll have to be ready to travel fast. Without looking back.” He paused as if weighing his next words with great care. “And you’ll have to trust me.”
She shook her head, a rueful smile touching her lips. “You always did have a habit of asking the impossible.”
He was halfway to the door when she said, “I won’t leave here without Poppy, you know.”
He acknowledged her words with a brisk nod. “I assumed as much.”
He turned at the door, eyeing her thoughtfully. “Do you have any more fiancés lurking in the wings that I should know about? You seem to have amassed quite a collection since I saw you last.”
“I’m sure it surprises you to learn that there are men who aren’t driven to flee to the ends of the earth by the mere prospect of marrying me.”
He shook his head in mock pity, the devilish dimple returning to his cheek. “God help the poor bastards.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “If I had a horseshoe right now, Captain Burke, I’d throw it at your head. And I wouldn’t miss this time.”
“You don’t have to throw a horseshoe at my head to get my attention, Miss Cardew. You never did.” With that, he slipped out of the door, easing it shut soundlessly behind him.
C
larinda reclined in a meadow of fragrant wildflowers beneath the sheltering boughs of an old oak tree. She closed her eyes, exulting in the warmth of the shade-dappled sunlight bathing her face, and didn’t open them again until she sensed a presence standing over her. Although the face of the boy gazing down at her was in shadow, she would know his long, lean silhouette anywhere. She lifted her arms to him, a drowsy smile of invitation curving her lips.
He came into them without hesitation, dropping to one knee between her legs and gathering her into his embrace. As his mouth melted into hers, their clothes seemed to melt away as well. She had thought the sun was warm, but its radiance dimmed in comparison to the fevered heat of his skin against hers. He devoured her with his mouth and pressed her to his heart as if he were trying to drink her in through his pores, to obliterate every bit of space between them so they could become one not just in body but in soul.
One minute he was over her and the next he was inside her, filling her with a single smooth thrust that made her gasp aloud. As she arched her hips off the ground, responding to the primal urge to take him even deeper inside her, Clarinda knew she would never truly belong to herself again. She would forever belong to this beautiful boy who groaned her name deep in his throat as if she were the answer to his every prayer.
Her womb began to pulse with pleasure, straining toward fulfillment. Her eyes flew open. It was no longer Ash the boy moving above her but Ash the man. His jaw was shadowed with beard stubble and his shoulders were broad enough to block out the sun. His eyes were pressed shut, his rugged face strained with passion. He reached beneath her and dragged her thighs even farther apart as his hips settled into a relentless rhythm, pounding into her with a force that drove every breath from her body and every thought from her mind.
As those pulses of pleasure began to swell into a torrent of rapture, she dug her fingernails into his back and opened her mouth to scream her delight …
Clarinda sat bolt upright on her sleeping couch, still tangled in her sweat-dampened sheets. She clapped a hand over her mouth, fearing she might have actually screamed aloud.
She held her breath, her gaze locked on the thin curtain that shielded her alcove from the women sleeping in the harem at the bottom of the steps. When she didn’t hear footsteps come pounding up the stairs, she let out a shaky sigh. If she
had
screamed, one of Farouk’s guards would have already come running, scimitar in hand.
She raked her tousled hair out of her face with an unsteady hand. Since she hadn’t been invited to join the men for supper for the second night in a row, she had hoped to banish all thoughts of Ash from her mind before resting her head on her pillow and closing her eyes. She might have succeeded if her dreams hadn’t betrayed her.
Such a scandalous dream should have left her feeling limp with satisfaction. Instead, she felt frustrated and out of sorts, her pleasure just as much a phantom as the man who had given it to her. Her breasts felt heavy, and there was a haunting ache between her thighs that made her want to press her hand there in what she knew would be a vain attempt to soothe it.
Even before she had been abducted, she had dreaded the thought of waking next to her husband after such a dream. How would she ever explain to Max why she had cried out in her sleep? Or worse yet, she probably wouldn’t have to explain. Given how well Max had always been able to read her thoughts, he would simply look into her eyes and know she had been dreaming of another man. A man who just happened to be his brother.
Kicking away the sheets, she slid off the couch and padded over to the window set deep in the sun-baked stone. Most of the women of the harem slept completely nude, but she insisted on wearing a short silk shift. The wisp of a garment was so insubstantial she might as well have been naked, but it made her feel slightly less vulnerable in this place where women were expected to be available to fulfill a man’s every need at any hour of the day or night.
A sultry breeze drifted across her heated skin as she curled her hands around the delicate iron latticework that separated her from the night. Farouk liked to call her his buttercup, while Luca had branded her a night-blooming lily. But she felt more like a hothouse orchid trapped in some sweltering greenhouse. All she longed to do was escape into the wild, where she would finally be free to bloom.
She had been trying to escape that night in the stables of Dryden Hall when Ash had caught her weeping over the petty cruelty of the girls she had believed to be her friends. After she had hurled the horseshoe at him, she had scrambled to her feet in a panic, fearing her fit of temper might have killed him.
Not until he had slowly straightened, letting out a low-pitched whistle of admiration, had she realized she had missed him. “Those girls were right about you, you know. No lady could throw like that. If I didn’t have quick reflexes, you’d have brained me.”
She sniffed. “I do believe that would require possessing a brain on your part.”
“I can’t argue with you there. If I had even half a brain, I’d be up at the house right now dancing with one of those simpering vipers you call friends instead of risking life and limb out here with you.”