Her Master's Touch (26 page)

Damon took her arm, and said, "Let's go in
with this group." Rising from their crouched positions in the
shadows of surrounding woods, they fell in step with the entourage
that had exited several vehicles and were funneling into the
compound. Elizabeth held tight to Damon's hand, partly because she
didn't want to be separated from him in the rush of performers
making their way into the palace enclosure, but mostly because, for
the first time since she'd parroted vows that bound her legally to
Damon, it felt right to be holding his hand. She had no explanation
for it though—nothing had occurred to change things since their
heated exchange at dinner two weeks before, and she'd made her
feelings clear about where they stood, after she'd come out of
Istvan Czinka's wagon. Perhaps it had something to do with their
common goal, and the danger they would be facing together to attain
that goal.

As they waited in the corridor with the other
entertainers, Elizabeth moved in front of Damon so she could see
what was happening. For a few minutes he just stood behind her,
saying nothing. But she knew he was close because she could feel
his breath wafting against the top of her head. Then his arms came
around her from behind, closing together over her stomach, and he
bent over her shoulder and said against her ear, "Whatever happens
here tonight, Elizabeth, know that I care about you."

Uncertain how to respond to Damon's
unexpected remark, Elizabeth said, with humor, "To make sure
nothing does happen we'd better find the palanquin bearers so I can
get out of this costume, or else I might start behaving like a
gypsy queen again."

Damon pressed his hands against her belly,
pushing her into him so she could feel a distinct hardness.
"Something already has happened," he said, "but at least I don't
feel like I'm packed into a damn fishnet like I was in those bloody
pirate breeches."

Elizabeth had no idea why, but somehow the
verbal sparring no longer had the caustic edge to it as before.
Placing her hands over his, she tipped her head back, and said,
"Does that mean you're giving me permission to behave like a gypsy
queen?"

"No." Damon drew her closer to him and kissed
the side of her face. "It means I'm giving you permission to behave
like a wife."

Elizabeth said nothing. The change in the
dynamics of their liaison was alien to her, and she wasn't sure she
was ready to assume the role of wife, if that were truly what Damon
was implying. It could just be a ploy to help get her through a
stressful night. And in the end, it was the opal Damon was after,
not a wife. It had not been so long ago that she'd been reminded
that mistresses didn't make demands on a man because they could be
replaced if they did. She also knew that if Damon ever did take a
wife to have and to hold, she would be one whose lineage would make
her suitable for bearing the heir of Lord Edmund Damon Carlisle,
Earl of Westwendham. She was most definitely not that woman.

They funneled, along with the entertainers,
out of the long corridor and into a large room, where it appeared
they were to wait. Some lowered themselves to the floor, while
others practiced their acts. Taking Elizabeth's arm, Damon ushered
her to a dusky corner and said, "You do have your knife, don't
you?"

Elizabeth patted her leg with its leather
sheath. "It's right here." She gave him a seditious smile. "Is this
your way of telling me I've been exonerated, that you no longer
worry about my slipping a knife between your ribs?"

Damon's hand still on her arm, he replied,
"It's not knives slipping between ribs I'm worried about, but
something else slipping between… something else."

Elizabeth knew only too well of what he
spoke. They'd come dangerously close to consummation the night of
the masquerade ball, and the thought of flesh enclosed by flesh in
the most intimate way a man and woman could pleasure each other
haunted her day and night. Especially night, when she was alone in
her bed, wondering what it would have been like to have experienced
that final thrust, and know that Damon would have, by piercing her
maidenhead, bound them together physically, spiritually and
legally...

"Some of the entertainers are going into the
enclosure now," Damon said, "so it won't be long before the prince
will be ready for the palanquin bearers. They should be waiting
close to where the animals will be released, so we'd better make
our way there."

"You're right," Elizabeth said. "And we need
to get there before Istvan Czinka's contact does, although I have
no idea who, in this crowd, that is." She scanned the faces for
someone with swarthy skin and gold glittering from an ear. But what
caught her notice was a small, hideous man with a gaunt body draped
in a
dhoti
, a head wrapped in a red turban, and owlish eyes
that kept returning to her. A Bengal monkey, wearing a red hat, sat
on the man's shoulder while studying an object held between his
tiny palms. But when his master raised a hand and snapped his
fingers, the monkey dutifully passed the object to the man.
Elizabeth also noted a snake charmer, with a caged mongoose and a
covered basket that would contain his cobra. The man had a certain
look. A determined set to his mouth, intense eyes that appeared to
be taking in everything around him. Istvan might have sent both
men. But she recognized neither.

Damon looked at her, curious. "Is something
wrong?" he asked.

Elizabeth told him about the two men. But
when she turned to point them out, the man with the monkey was
gone. But the snake charmer was in plain view, sitting cross-legged
on the floor, prepared to lift the lid on his basket. "If he turns
his cobra on us," she said, "I'm carrying a vial of
serpentina
, something I got in the habit of doing when
travelling with the gypsies."

Damon eyed her curiously. "You just happen to
have it with you tonight?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "Just a precaution. I
knew we'd be going through heavy undergrowth to get down to the
river afterwards, and since snakes are always on the roam looking
for water during the dry season, they're likely to be in the brush
near the river."

"I hope it doesn't come to that," Damon said.
"The effects of
serpentina
are almost as bad as the
snakebite. Where are you carrying the vial?"

"It's tied to the lacings on my camisole."
Elizabeth patted her chest.

Damon glanced at her hand, then said, "We'd
better find the bearers and get on with things. But we need to
figure out where we are first." He pulled a folded paper from the
pocket of his breeches. Elizabeth peered down at the diagram, as
Damon said, while pointing, "We're here, so if we go down this
corridor we should come to some rooms that open onto the area
outside the animal enclosure that runs in front of the bleacher.
The bearers should be in one of these rooms, waiting to enter just
before the start of the animal fight."

Elizabeth studied the diagram, noting the
long corridor from which numerous rooms branched off. "The problem
will be trying to explain to anyone we meet on the way why we're
there, since we're obviously not handlers, footmen or coolies."

Damon shrugged. "We're lost."

"A quick response," Elizabeth said. "You'd
make a good gypsy."

Damon gave her a rueful smile. "One gypsy in
the family is enough."

His comment caught Elizabeth up short. She'd
never considered them a family. The notion had the odd effect of
bringing tears welling.

Damon looked at her, baffled. "What's
wrong?"

She blinked away the tears. "Last minute
nerves," she replied.

Watching until the time was right, they made
their way toward the corridor on the diagram. As was their luck, it
was unlit, and they were able to negotiate the passageway silently,
and unnoticed. When they came to the end, they found one room cast
in dim light. Just inside, the palanquin bearers were sitting at a
small table, passing an opium pipe back and forth between them. A
palanquin padded in velvet, and holding an ornate glass box
encrusted in jewels, which undoubtedly contained the
Burning of
Troy
, sat on the floor off to the side. The men were unaware of
being watched. "Are you ready?" Damon asked.

Elizabeth's throat was too dry to respond .
While planning for this moment the day before, they discussed the
tactic they would use in subduing the bearers, and from her actions
at the horse fair, Elizabeth convinced Damon that she was up to it.
But now, as she stared at the scene before her, she was not so
confident she could carry out her part.

"Elizabeth?"

She jumped with a start as she felt Damon's
hand on her arm.

"You take the smaller one," Damon said. "He's
obviously feeling the effects of the opium. I'll take care of the
rest." He kissed her then and rushed into the room...

C
HAPTER ELEVEN

Rushing, binding, gagging and blindfolding
the men happened so quickly, the poor blokes didn't have a chance
to respond. But when Elizabeth went to snatch the opal from its
jeweled box resting on the palanquin, she found the box empty.
Hooking an elbow around the neck of the smaller of the men, she
held her knife to his throat and said, "Where is the opal?"

The man shrugged.

Damon took the knife from Elizabeth, held the
man in his own vise grip, pressed the blade to the man's throat
until it drew a thin line of blood, and said in a commanding voice,
"You've got three seconds to tell us where the opal is or I'll slit
your throat."

Eyes wide with fright, the man nodded in the
direction of a small leather trunk. Elizabeth rushed over and
raised the lid and found inside, a small pasteboard box. When she
opened it, the
Burning of Troy
peered out at her like a
living breathing thing. If she could take it and leave, she would,
but before they would have time to flee with it, the prince would
be expecting the bearers to parade it in front of the bleachers and
place it on display. He was waiting for the bearers now, and guards
were posted everywhere in preparation for the presentation of the
opal, so they had no choice but to continue with their plan.

"Hurry and switch stones," Damon said in an
urgent voice. "We need to get out there."

Elizabeth raised her skirt and untied a pouch
lashed to her leg. After exchanging the bogus opal for the
Burning of Troy
, she placed the false stone in the jeweled
box on the palanquin and closed the glass lid over it. While
keeping the men gagged and blindfolded, Elizabeth untied their
hands and feet long enough for Damon to strip them of their tunics
and trousers, then rebound the men. While Damon dragged the men,
bound and gagged, into a storeroom, Elizabeth turned her back and
hastily slipped off her skirt and blouse, then stepped into the
trousers of the smaller of the bearers. But when she put on the
man's tunic, Damon looked at her in alarm, and said, "You need to
bind your breasts or we won't get away with this."

Elizabeth looked down, and said, "But I have
nothing to bind them with."

Damon caught sight of her skirt. "You won't
need this now." He ripped a wide panel from it. "Raise your
elbows," he demanded.

"I can bind my own breasts." Elizabeth
snatched the fabric and holding it over her camisole, attempted to
wrap the cloth around herself. But each time she tried, it fell
away.

After a third try, Damon barked, "Give me the
damn cloth and raise your arms."

"
Fine!"
Elizabeth snapped. "But I need
to retrieve the vial of
serpentina
so you don't bind it
against me where we can't get to it." She started fumbling with the
lacing on her chemise that held the vial, but the tiny silk cord
had knotted and she could not untie it.

"
Bloody hell!"
Damon barked. He
snapped the lacing, leaving the camisole gaping open, and shoved
the vial of
serpentina
into the pocket of his trousers. When
Elizabeth went to pull the garment together, he said, "Raise your
arms and let's get this done!"

"
Fine!"
she clipped, irritated to be
trapped in such a compromising situation, knowing the reaction if
would cause Damon, and her response. Something neither of them
needed right now. She lifted her elbows and stood rigid while Damon
wrapped the cloth around her. "Not so tight," she groused. "I can
hardly breathe."

"Sorry, but I'm trying to get the job done.
It's not easy for me to bind your breasts without holding them and
kissing them, and the quicker it's done the better." He shoved the
end of the fabric between her breasts to hold it secure, then
looked at her, and said, "You're my wife, Elizabeth, and I still
want you as much as I ever have." He reached for her face.

Elizabeth tipped it from his touch. "No, I am
not your wife, Damon. Our marriage is simply the means to an end.
Don't try to make anything more of it." And that was the plain,
simple truth. He'd made that clear on the steamer, and nothing had
changed. Whether half-British, or half-Hindu, she was still nothing
more than a
posh-rat
, a woman unworthy of living among
gypsies, and unworthy of bearing the heirs of a British earl, which
Damon would prove himself to be, once they recovered the opal. She
was only worthy of being a man's mistress.

But that would change when
Shanti
Bhavan
would become hers. The jute would bring in enough money
for her to live well, as an independent woman, and she'd be no
man's mistress or wife. She did not need a man in her life.

Damon snatched up their clothes, tossed them
into the trunk, and shut the lid with a thud. "Then let's get on
with this so I'll have my opal, you'll have your plantation, and we
can have this marriage annulled and go our separate ways." He
started removing his shirt.