The Surrender of a Lady (12 page)

Her hands flung out to grab the throws and brocaded silk beneath her. Sweat beaded under her veil, around the back of her neck. The scent of sex and her cream was heavy in the heated air around them. She needed to hold on to something. Her orgasm, her release, built rapidly as he rocked her along his hard groin, his tongue and teeth nipping, tasting the flesh of her breasts.

Her knees fell wider apart and she planted her feet on his hips, surely opening the folds of her sex and completely exposing the rosy flesh unseen in the dark, to his beautiful strokes. The pearl hidden in her folds swelled and throbbed with every stroke.

“By all that is holy . . .” The words slipped out, as her back arched impossibly higher off the divan and her release washed through her body as her heart filled with impossible longing for more than sex games. More than a mere contract with Rothburn.

She felt a release of fluid from her center drench his trousers more thoroughly than they already had, the slickness further aiding the slide of her naked body over his clothed form. His lordship stilled then jerked twice against her. He let her rock her hips—barely—in his unrelenting hold. His fingers gripped the flesh of her hips with bruising intensity. The pain of his grasp was dulled by the intense pleasure that clenched her womb. She was unable to stop herself from riding out the completion of her bliss.

After her peak she’d worry about the possibly destructive aftermath of the storm that had swept through her life this past hour.

When the tremors subsided and the thrilled clench of her womb eased, his hands came under her knees in silent demand that she stretch her legs out. She did, leaving enough room for him to fall into the vee of her body. Instead, he turned her on her side, pulled her back to his chest, and wrapped his larger frame around her slight one. She couldn’t feel his hardness anymore. The dampness of his trousers slid against her every now and again as well as the push of his linen shirt against her back. Had he too let loose his seed while she’d been helpless to stop the desperate thrusting of her pelvis?

She hadn’t noticed.

That was worrisome. She was trained to take notice of her master’s needs, and she had failed on her first night with Lord Rothburn. Though he’d demanded control over the crisis of her body. She’d forgotten what
that
bliss felt like with a man, for she hadn’t done that in more than five years. She banished any further thought of her long-dead husband.

The veil felt hot against her mouth. Clasping the edge with the tips of her fingers, she pulled forward so it parted at the back of her head and let the night breeze fill her lungs. The heavy musk of their union was strong in the little room. It would take a long while for that sweet muskiness to dissipate in this dry, unmoving heat. What did it say about her that she liked the smell of their sex?

Closing her eyes, she waited for Lord Rothburn to fall asleep—it was a man’s prerogative after these things took place. She wanted to go back to the harem quarters and collect her thoughts before she had to face him. What had just happened? What had she let happen?

What a fool she was.

Lord Rothburn’s breathing deepened and calmed. But he did not sleep; his hand plucked at her peaked nipple. She would not be sneaking away any time soon.

Over the years she had done strange things for her patrons but never this. Was this all he wanted? This seemed more intimate than the sexual act alone. More intimate than any depraved unnatural games she played with others.

By some perversity, or maybe even some self-flagellation, she did not want
this
to end. Just for a short moment, she wanted to pretend that she was not this man’s whore. All too soon the truth of the situation would hang its weight around her heart.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t live with the lie for as long as the night allowed.

When both their breathing steadied, Lord Rothburn whispered into her ear, “I will take the same liberty you took. Do not flinch away.”

A quick tug at the back of her head released the tie bound about her eyes. She didn’t move as he pulled the cloth from under her head; a soft whoosh sounded as he tossed it away. The tips of his fingers traced her brow, smoothed along the curves around her eye, then down her cheek. He didn’t attempt to slide his fingers beneath the veil as he felt every part of her face. She barely breathed as he touched her; afraid to stall—or even stop—the moment of bizarre intimacy they shared. So like the kiss they’d shared in the Glenmoores’ maze all those years ago.

She was trying to live in a past better left buried.

A past that had been so far removed from her mind in this setting that tears came to her eyes—but they did not fall. She wouldn’t allow them to. Was this what it could have been like? Was this what marrying Lord Rothburn might have brought to their marriage bed? This—dare she say it?—affectionate, almost loving touch?

Why did she hold on to what could never be?

What use was there in
that
? Except to shed tears, revealing the depth of her despair.

It wasn’t as though she could ever admit the truth of her identity. She was only Jinan here. Elena had died long ago when the last shred of decency she once esteemed in herself had been stolen. By the man she’d been forced to marry in the end.

Men never brought her love. They brought her misery upon misery. Loneliness.

His hand caressed her naked hip, higher to her ribs. “After you take your bath in the morning, we will spend the day here. I leave in two days but will be back by week’s end.”

“For how long have you purchased my contract—” A small gasp escaped her when his hand grasped the fleshy mound of her breast tightly in his hand.

“Hush. You will only speak when I’ve given you leave to do so.” His reproof came lightly, but she shut her mouth nonetheless.

He released her breast and rolled her onto her stomach. His knees came between her thighs and pushed them out.

“Put your hands above your head, Jinan.”

The way he said her name sounded different and foreign, rolling off his tongue with his crisp English lilt. He made it sound more exotic than any other man who had whispered it.

She wanted him to say her name again. Instead his leg came up firm to her mound, causing her to groan. She raised her hands above her head and grasped the edge of the divan, nails clawing into the material for purchase as his knee rode up farther, splitting her sex, exposing it to the abrasion of his trousers. Her desire flared anew.

There was indeed more than a mutual rubbing to be had between them.

Now, he would start his real games.

“I’m going to have you so many ways, you won’t remember where you are, my sweet
Jinan.
My name will be the only one you can speak for weeks, wishing for
my
company.” He bit her shoulder, not too hard, but enough to leave the flesh stinging when he released her.

“You’ll want no other.” He growled so low in her ear, she thought maybe it was her imagination. Those words held deeper meaning for her. Did they for him, as well?

She unclenched her fingers from the couch and reached back to hold his head against the flesh bite. He rewarded her with a deep groan of appreciation. Pressing her bottom up to his groin, she gave herself over to him in complete animalistic supplication. He ground their bodies together and pushed her down so her stomach was flat to the soft, cushiony velvet, his breath hot in her ear.

“You’ll never want another after me, Jinan.”

She made no response. She knew the truth of those words without having to say them.

Pulling his lower body off hers, he centered his fingers at her core. “Say it, damn it. You’ll want only me.” He drove his fingers into her, slamming the flat of his palm against the damp lips of her slit. The slapping, moist sound made her writhe against him for more.

This was so different, so primal and raw, compared to the innocence of their courtship ten years past.

There was something more decidedly pure, real about this.

“Say it.” He pulled out and thrust his fingers back in, causing her to arch her back as she tried to get closer to his warm body.

“Only you, my lord.”

Those words held a finality.

Without a doubt,
this
man she was to play mistress to still held her heart in his hands. The light, fragile beat could be easily crushed in his grasp. She buried her eyes into the divan so he couldn’t see her tears. She suffered under the heat of her veil in the dark room but didn’t care.

She didn’t deserve comfort. She didn’t deserve
him.
Even if he was nothing more than her master for however long her owner said. She had done the one thing all the girls here feared. She’d fallen in love. Not tonight. It wasn’t so simple as that. But years ago.

Her humiliation was complete.

She was to play the whore for a man she loved and yearned for.

And he would never know the truth of it.

“Much better,” he said.

Damn her foolish heart. She was still in love with him and that was the most dangerous thing to ever happen to her. Tomorrow she’d try to break the contract. Tonight . . .

Tonight she’d live the dream.

CHAPTER NINE

The Heart of the Matter

“Why do you hide yourself from me?” His fingers brushed along the edge of tiny, bronze coins hanging beneath her jaw.

Jinan turned to face Rothburn. “I do not.”

“Then why won’t you remove your veil? You are the only harem girl who holds to this tradition. It stands between us as a very ineffective shield.” He dropped his hand away. “You only wear it because I allow you to. There will come a time when it will be removed.” He just hoped she would remove it before it came to that point.

She made to stand from the bench, but he clasped his hand around her wrist. “Sit down, Jinan.”

He didn’t release her till she sat, reluctantly. “The contract you’ve agreed to stipulates my being veiled at all times. It is the only condition you must adhere to, or I will have Amir cancel the agreement.”

“That’s not what stops me from removing it,” he mumbled, and leaned against the vine-covered wall. They were in the gardens, in one of the many secluded nooks off the flowered paths. It hadn’t escaped his notice that they were very, very alone. Plucking a pink clematis from the vine hanging over his shoulder, he ran the flower over her bared arm.

“Is there no way for me to convince you that you’d be better without it? What secrets do you possibly mean to hide beneath a thin piece of silk?”

She looked at him for a long moment. “None.”

A lie, of course. He saw the tenseness in her shoulders, the affronted stiffness to her posture. You could incorporate the ways of a harem girl into an English woman; but some habits of an insulted English woman never completely disappeared. He almost smiled, but was still too angered by her refusal to unveil to do so. How was it that he had made no headway in this argument? They’d been playing this pretense for two weeks.

He’d tried to get any number of secrets out of her since their contract started. But she was closemouthed about her past. She’d only repeated the tale Amir had given him.

Sometimes Griffin wondered if she was truly Elena. It wasn’t as if he weren’t capable of imagining her to be someone she was not. In all seriousness, how could she deny their acquaintance so completely if she really were Elena? Why would she wish to deny it when he could find a way to take her from this place, if she but asked? He’d do anything for her, yet she seemed to want nothing from him. Nothing! All his years of needing her and she didn’t want him with the same ferocity.

“I have to leave again. I won’t see you for at least a month, Jinan. I have business to attend to in the East.”

Her finger stopped drawing an invisible pattern on the stone bench. Her breathing stilled. Would she miss him? It was going to be a torturous month for him, without her touch, her soothing voice, the simple comfort of her presence. She would become a dream again, and he hoped like hell he didn’t fill the void with something else.

She looked him in the eye, stopped the trail of the flower by covering it with her own hand. Her head tilted to the side in question. “Why did you purchase me if you cannot be here for the majority of that time?”

“Are you saying you’ll miss me?” He placed his hand to his chest. “Be still, my heart, I think there is feeling in you after all.”

Her brows drew together in disapproval. “What should I say? I find it perplexing. You spent a great deal at auction to have these three months.”

He sat up suddenly, worried about what she’d do with her time, and whose company she’d keep. “Will you warm another’s bed when I’m gone?”

She shook her head. “Not for the duration of your contract. And not for at least a year following that. We are not treated so poorly here as you like to think.”

Griffin gave a sigh of relief, for she was indeed his alone for the next while. Then he asked, “Will you be happy to have a reprieve from me?”

“I like the time we spend together. You are kind to me, my lord.”

He pulled her into his lap and pressed his forehead to hers. “I could be more than kind to you. You need but ask me and I’ll take you anywhere you wish to go.” She raised her head from his and pressed her silk-covered lips to the top of his head. He nuzzled closer to her breasts, pressing kisses to the exposed skin above her vest. At least she didn’t say no when he mentioned whisking her off this time.

“Where in the East do you travel to?”

A clever change of subject. He let her have it. “I’m traveling my trade routes. There have been some problems along China’s border between the locals and the Redcoats stationed there. It’ll probably have settled by the time I arrive. I still need to make sure business is running as usual.”

“Can I ask what you trade in?”

“Silk, these days.”

“And on other days?”

“You are inquisitive today, Jinan. To what do I owe this marvelous change of character?”

“My apologies, my lord. I just wondered what you’d be doing once you left.”

“Ha! So you will miss me. You are a darling girl.”

“Is it so wrong to be curious about you?”

“Not at all, but I don’t want to enlighten you if you won’t enlighten me. I think it only fair that we both share a piece of ourselves. Are you still up for a game in this?”

She nodded her head once, her long lashes caressing her cheek. “I am.”

“I made most of my fortune in trading opium. It was not an easy life, and very dangerous at times.”

“Is that why you stopped?”

“No. I stopped because I started sampling the shipments.”

“An opium swallower, then. I’ve heard of such things happening. It is not so uncommon in some harems. Amir refuses to stock it in the inner harem for obvious reasons.”

“Then count him among the more intelligent. I did not swallow it, though. I smoked it. Constantly. It was not a good time in my life. At the time, I couldn’t change my reliance upon it, even knowing that it was slowly eating away at me.”

“Then how did you stop?”

“A friend found me. On one of my bad days. I don’t recall much of it as I was in quite a state when he took me from the opium den.” He shook his head, not wanting to go into all the details of that day. It was not fit for her ears at any rate. “I’ve not touched the stuff since and one of the only guarantees that I would never touch it again was to stop trading it.”

“This is a part of yourself you do not share with others, isn’t it?”

“Outside of the friend that found me, you are the only person who knows I was reliant upon the drug.”

“This is a great gift you’ve given me, then.” She bowed her head, twirling the flower she’d taken from him. “What is it you wish to know of me?”

“Do you have no deep dark secrets? Something no one else knows?”

“It is not so easy for me to share my past. I will give you one secret. While life here in the palace has not been my greatest hardship, it was not the life I planned for myself. I cannot hate that fate’s hand turned me down this path when it has brought you to me. There is great danger for someone in my position to say such a thing.”

With a press of his lips to her fast-beating heart, he said, “It is enough to hear you whisper those words.” He stood from the bench, pulling her to her feet, as well. “Come inside before I ravish you out here under the sun and bright blue sky. I’m leaving early tomorrow and will need my fill of all your loveliness.”

“We have all night, do we not?”

“Yes.”

“Walk with me in the garden.” The look in her eyes said she wanted to remember today with more than coupling. He was willing to oblige her every desire. “You may have the first fill of pleasure there.”

“Whatever you wish.”

“Come, then,” she said, taking his hand and leading him deeper into the walled garden. “It’s like a maze, don’t you think?”

He stopped walking, remembering the night he’d proposed to her. He’d dragged her down the dark hedged path at the Duchess of Glenmoore’s maze to steal kisses and an embrace with her. How those days had been filled with innocence.

He took his steps slowly as they walked under the shade of flowering trees. Seizing the moment, he pulled her to him, released her hand and lifted the bottom of her veil to take a real kiss from her lips. When her hands came between them it was to give a slight shove but she was soon pulling him closer, her fingers curling into his shirt and guaranteeing he wouldn’t escape. Not that he planned such a thing when she gave him this much.

They both broke away from the kiss, the veil slipping between them as if he’d never done something forbidden. Jinan put her forefinger over his mouth, closed her eyes, and tipped up on her toes to place a veiled kiss against her finger and his lips. Before he could snake his arm around her waist and hold her close, she took off at a run down the cobbled path, her red scarves fanning out like little lures pulling him along in her wake.

He caught her and turned into a private alcove. Snagging her hand, he pulled her into his hard body and lowered his mouth to hers. She didn’t fight him, didn’t turn away, but met him with equal fervor. Fingers fumbling at his trousers, she slid her hand beneath his clothes and stroked his hardened length. Taking some steps backward, he hoped the back of his legs met a bench of some sort. When they did, he sat. Jinan set her legs on either side of his, then impaled herself on his length. He groaned with his upward thrust.

“I’m going to miss you, Jinan.”

“I think I’m glad for it, for I will miss you, as well.”

He laughed and grasped her hips to control the slide of her body. It had taken him two weeks to get her to reveal even this much to him. Hopefully their time apart would not put the walls back up between them.

He’d been gone some six weeks. Hadn’t planned on being gone that long, but it couldn’t be helped. Less than a month left on his contract. He was soaking in the Roman baths that were built for the visiting gentlemen; he seemed to be the only one in here so damned early in the morning. As he leaned his head back on the tiled ledge, a slave woman pulled the blade of the razor over his whiskers. On concluding his tour through Foochow up the river to Nanking, he had but one goal in the end: to get back to Jinan.

He was slipping. His mind never went far from her. What a sad existence he lived; his contentment was based upon her whims, and she didn’t even know the power she held in her hands. He needed to be careful to never reveal this weakness. It would cause her to think less than she already did of him. It would shut her off more.

The slave patted his freshly shaved face dry with a soft linen cloth. He rubbed his hands through his hair and stood from the bath. Slaves came forward to wrap him in bath linens. Two Nubian women ushered him out of the bathing room and to his private sleeping quarters, fussing on him the whole of the way. He turned them around when he came to his room and shut the door before they could follow him in. Pulling on smalls, he sat on the edge of the bed.

Griffin looked over to the sideboard. The decanter was gone, in its place a pitcher of water. He’d had the brandy and the hookah removed while he’d gone down to freshen up. If it wasn’t one addiction, it was another. One obsession traded for another.

It made him a weak man. Or was he stronger for refusing it?

He pulled his shirt on and stepped into his trousers.

Might have been better had Asbury left him to rot in his own spoiled mind all those years ago. But he was no longer flawed in that sense. He’d stayed true to Jinan while surveying his routes, despite his need for something more. Hellfire, he’d been on a straight path for a good four years and some now. Though that old recklessness was peeping through his careful control. It was
her;
she could so easily destroy him. Still might if she refused to acknowledge the truth of their past. If only she’d admit the truth of who she was. Give him something to go forward with—to do what with, he didn’t know. He could be patient, he’d woo her, court her; he’d do whatever it took to win her over these next three weeks.

He left the room. A eunuch waited for him outside the door to lead him to the Pleasure Gardens. Griffin would forget himself in Jinan’s arms. Elena’s arms. He really didn’t know who she was anymore. Perhaps he’d dreamed her up; turned her into something she was not, twisted some incarnation of his youthful love into this woman.

Her back was to him when he entered the large, domed sitting room. She was talking animatedly with two other harem girls. His approach was slow. He wanted to take in her form; imprint it on his mind. Lord, had he ever missed her.

The gauze she wore was a creamy champagne color; gold braiding tied around her middle accentuated the curve of her hips and the dip in her waist. There were a few thin plaits in her hair, woven with strips of yellow silk. The veil was in place, of course. He saw where it clasped into a pair of jade hairpins.

He pushed her hair aside and placed his hand on the back of her neck. Whispering next to her ear, “How’ve you been, darling?” And because he hated to hold back certain things with her, certain actions when he’d been craving her for too long, he kissed her temple, let his hand drop away to grasp hers, and whisked her off to a secluded alcove without so much as a greeting to the other women.

He pulled her close, framed her face and kissed her brow. His body was strung tight. With desire, need, emotion. Threading his fingers through her hair, he inhaled her familiar scent of rose water.

“You were gone for so long, I began to wonder if I’d ever see you again.”

Was she breathless, or did his ears play tricks on him?

“I will always come back for you, Jinan.” His voice was muffled, his lips pressed to her forehead.

She pressed her hand against his erection—there was no hiding the evidence of his desire.

“So you have missed me, then?”

“A great deal.” She ducked her head as though embarrassed to admit even that much.

“I thought of you every day I was away from you, so do not be uncomfortable to admit the truth to me.”

She nodded. Perhaps his extended time away had made her want more between them. Maybe he wouldn’t wait to ask if she wanted to leave this place. He’d steal her away this very night if she so much as hinted her longing to escape.