Kate and Julia: Slave Girls of the Raj (21 page)

Pain stabbed through Julia’s heart and she flinched despite her resolve as Jahngir’s grip returned to her shoulders, and he pushed her out in front of him, offering her to his brother. Giving her away.

Penny watched the war of emotions on Julia’s face as the Prince’s brother held her out at arms’ length. She had never imagined the girl would find her enslavement so painful. She had always seemed so timid and anxious to do what was expected of her that Penny had assumed she would accept it quickly and with little fuss once the initial shock had worn off. Yet the conflict she saw told a different story.

For a moment Julia seemed to sag, then her head came up and the shoulders under Jahngir’s hands seemed to grow broader. That the posture thrust forward her full, firm breasts and their red-rouged, pointed nipples, the beautiful blonde appeared to care not at all as she fixed her bright-blue eyes on Bahram Khan. Despite Penny’s mounting excitement as the culmination of her plan came closer, the big, taut young breasts provoked a twinge of envy. Rather to her surprise, she felt admiration too for the way the girl had found the courage to overcome her obvious despair. She also experienced some very unwelcome pangs of guilt and regret. Penny forced them from her mind. Her success was too close now to be having second thoughts. She ought to voice her protest, she thought, but she was reluctant to interrupt the brothers. It was plain that Jahngir Khan knew nothing of the true situation. Doubtless his brother would explain, once he had found in her favour.

The Prince took a step towards Julia. Jahngir’s face was sombre, devoid of any of the pleasure Penny would have expected him to show when presenting a gift to his brother. Julia’s chin lifted higher. She opened her mouth as if about to speak. Penny saw Jahngir’s hands tighten on her shoulders. His mouth twisted as though he was in pain.

Abruptly, the hands gripping Julia drew back but without releasing their hold. He pulled her against him and wrapped a forearm around her waist.

“Forgive me, brother, I cannot do it. I care too much for this girl myself. I have wanted her since the moment I first saw her. Even for your sake I cannot let her go.”

The light of joy that shone in Julia’s face was like nothing Penny had ever seen before. With a short, startled cry the girl twisted in Jahngir’s grip, clasped her arms tightly around him and pressed herself hard against his broad chest. Gulping, Penny saw a mass of weals and bruising on Julia’s buttocks through the transparent seat of her silk harem trousers. They were even worse than those Courtney had inflicted on her own backside. Jahngir Khan had clearly flogged her mercilessly, yet still she very obviously wanted him with an intensity that could only mean she was in love. Astonished and bewildered, Penny watched the smile that had appeared on Bahram Khan’s face grow wider.

“Little brother, I have waited for a whole year to hear you tell me what
you
want. Never once since I came to the throne have you asked for anything for yourself. You have never disputed the decisions I made, even when I knew you thought them the wrong ones. You never disagreed with my opinions or offered me advice you thought I did not want to hear. Thank heaven that something has happened to make you act like your old self again.”

The pained expression on Jahngir’s face changed to puzzlement that clearly equalled Penny’s own.

“What? But… but my duty,” he spluttered. “And honour demands you have a gift. The girl was for you, a sign of respect and loyalty. What about the people? They need to see….”

“Oh, Jahngir!” the Prince cut him off. “The people know that you are loyal. They know you are not like our uncle and that you never will be. Why, we could stand in Dhokat’s market place and argue with each other from dawn ’til dusk and no one would ever believe we were anything but the devoted and loving brothers we have always been.” He shook his head at the baffled expression on the other’s face. “As for gifts, is the aqueduct not enough? And will it not be a reminder of your loyalty and respect every time people see it and benefit from its water, and of much more interest to them than who has ownership of a slave girl?” He held out his hand. “Come, Jahngir, if you wish to give me a gift this day, take my hand in love and friendship and promise me that next time you think I’m being a fool you’ll tell me so.”

Jahngir released his hold on Julia’s waist, grasped the outstretched hand and shook it vigorously, though he at once slid his other arm possessively about the girl, Penny noticed. “I will,” he said, giving him a somewhat stunned smile. “I will deal honestly with you in all things from now on. Though you may not always like it.”

Bahram laughed. “Oh, I will, brother! I’ve been waiting a long time for a good argument like the ones we used to have. But it’s not going to be over a slave girl.”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Jahngir asked.

“Would you have believed it was true if you hadn’t started to arrive at the same conclusion yourself first? I knew you’d come to it eventually, though it took rather longer than I thought.” He smiled at Julia whose face still bore an expression of pure joy. “She is a beautiful girl. You should return her to your
zenana
as soon as possible. Come back this evening. The party will be in full swing by then.”

“This evening? But my duty is to be here with you. The people….”

“Can get along very well without you for a few hours,” Bahram interrupted. “Go home and enjoy your girl, Jahngir. She was meant to be yours all along.”

“Mine? That can’t be. I arranged with Jefferson to buy her for you.”

“So I have just recently found out,” the Prince said. “But I had already arranged to buy her for
you
. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Winter?”

Penny felt a rush of heat to her cheeks and a lurch of her belly as Bahram Khan starkly revealed the true purpose behind her bringing Julia and Kate to Dhokat. She glanced nervously at the girls. The surprise she had expected appeared on their faces but it vanished almost at once, replaced by expressions of glowing happiness. There was no sign of the anger and hatred she had been anticipating ever since she and Julia had set out from London weeks earlier. She heard Bahram Khan laughing softly.

“Yes, it’s all been something of a muddle, brother. It appears we both had the same idea. I also wanted you to have a special gift to celebrate my anniversary. I’ll admit I was at a loss to know what until suddenly, out of the blue, I received a letter from Mrs. Winter far away in England making me a rather surprising but attractive offer. She said if I would cable her the cost of the journey she could produce a young, blonde and beautiful English girl to grace the apartments of my
zenana
, and deliver her for a satisfactory fee.” He paused to light a cigarette.

Penny watched Jefferson stroll towards her with a smile on his face and position himself at her left. He leaned down to whisper.

“All set, Penny? The Judgement of Solomon, eh?”

“Ordinarily I would not have accepted such an offer from a lady after a single, brief acquaintance,” Bahram continued, “but I was rather intrigued by her as well as by the letter, and it gave me the chance to obtain a unique present for you, Jahngir. So I sent my agreement to Mrs.

Winter’s proposal, and as soon as she notified me she had found a suitable candidate, cabled her the money. Two months later I received a telegram from her announcing her arrival in India and soon afterwards a letter informing me she had obtained a second girl who could be had for a price equalling the four thousand pounds we had agreed for the first.” He pointed at Kate. “That young lady there, I am told. Regrettably, for she is indeed very lovely, she is no longer available.”

“Then the same girls you were buying for me were the ones I asked Jefferson to find so I could buy them for you,” Jahngir Khan said. “That is rather ironic, and quite a coincidence.”

“Not really, when you consider the scarcity of suitable white girls in these parts,” Jefferson said. “I keep a regular watch on the railway stations, so of course I was notified about these ones arriving and that they were both very much out of the ordinary. Once I knew that, it was inevitable that I would have them.” He grinned at Penny. “I was told there were four actually, but only my two associates were available on the night so we could only abduct two girls, and the ones who had been drinking were the easiest.” He laughed softly. “But really, Penny, four thousand pounds? They’d make at least twice that at auction.”

“You seem to know this lady well,” Jahngir said.

“Oh yes! I used to fuck her some years ago.”

Penny’s cheeks burned at Jefferson’s frank admission and the terms he had used to make it. She looked to Bahram, but he did not rebuke him for his crudity in front of a lady.

“I didn’t know Penny was involved when I took the girls,” George went on, “or, of course, yourself, Your Highness. It was only after she called on Macdonald and he sent one of his men to tell me, that I learned she was back in India and on her way here. I knew she wouldn’t come all the way from England without a good reason, and that it would be one that served her self-interest, but I couldn’t work out what her game was to begin with. Once I found out how far she was prepared to go to get the girls back I guessed that money had to be involved. From there, it wasn’t such a big step to realize the only thing of any value she had with her were the girls, or to work out what she planned to do with them.” He gave her a short bow. “I must say, Penelope, I admire your enterprise. It was a damned clever plan. I’m sure no one suspected your real motives for a moment.”

Unimpressed by his compliment but thoroughly embarrassed at how sordid her scheme had sounded when it was revealed, Penny looked self-consciously at the other people in the room. Although the whole business was about them, Julia and Kate were so steeped in their lovesick euphoria that they appeared to care nothing for its outcome. Everyone else was watching her and plainly awaiting a response.

With an excited flip of her stomach, Penny realized her moment had arrived. Her life was about to be transformed, and at the same time she could pay George back for all the suffering he had caused her when he kidnapped the girls. She was going to win! Immediately confident, once more she sucked in a breath and felt a warm glow of triumph as the Prince’s eyes fixed upon the rise of her full breasts.

“Your Highness, Mr. Jefferson has given you a fairly clear account of what happened,” she declared. “He has also admitted that but for his interference I would have arrived much earlier than today.” She looked resentfully at Courtney. “And, I might add, have had a much less difficult journey than the one I went through to be here. But I
am
here, just as I promised to be in the agreement we made long before Mr.

Jefferson involved himself in our business, and in accordance with that agreement the girls have been delivered into your hands.” She gave a pert tilt of her head in George’s direction and Bahram Khan her sweetest smile.

The one he returned her showed the same amusement that twinkled in his eyes. “Cleverly put, Mrs. Winter. You managed to avoid the issue of who delivered the girls, for which I must thank Mr. Jefferson and my brother. But our agreement was that you would personally deliver them to me, and that did not happen. Alas, neither are they in my hands. As you can see, one is in those of Jahngir Khan and the other, for reasons I do not pretend to fully understand, now belongs to one of Mr. Jefferson’s associates.”

“But….” Penny’s belly gave a wild leap. He was trying to swindle her. Her heart raced as the prospect of more long years of poverty loomed over her. “But I kept the bargain,” she protested. “I escorted them safely all the way from England and right across India. You can’t quibble about who brought them the last few miles.”

“I’m afraid I must, Mrs. Winter, if you wish me to arbitrate the matter fairly, as I’m sure you do. And it seems to me that you, Jefferson, cannot say in honesty that you have kept your bargain with my brother.”

“I make no such claim, Your Highness,” he replied. “In the case of the redhead I can only say that I made a promise to my comrade and that as a man of my word I could not refuse when he asked me to keep it. If my reputation must suffer as a result, then so be it. As for the blonde girl, well, she seems to have made her own choice in the matter, so I won’t expect or ask any payment for her, especially since Jahngir Khan handled all of her training himself.”

“A sensible decision,” the Prince said. “In the circumstances, I think we can say you acted properly in this affair.”

“Properly?” Penny snarled. “But he stole them. If he hadn’t….”

“Quiet, Mrs. Winter,” the Prince barked, giving her a forbidding look. “Wait until I have finished if you wish to speak.”

She recognised a familiar uncompromising air of authority in his tone and expression. Swallowing hard, she reined in her anger.

“I’m not going to criticise Mr. Jefferson for simply going about the usual operations of the profession both of you have chosen to follow,” he continued. “The girls were your responsibility at the time they were abducted and you can only blame yourself for what happened. However, I won’t overlook your achievement in bringing them so far, and I won’t therefore demand you return the travelling money I sent you. But we still have an agreement, Mrs. Winter, and that means you owe me two white slave girls.”

“What? You’re not serious!” Penny stared at him in disbelief.

“Entirely serious,” he assured her. “I have your written offer and a copy of my written acceptance. Therefore, you are obligated to provide me with two slave girls.”

“B… but I can’t.” She looked guiltily at Kate and Julia. “I couldn’t do it again. I… I know now I shouldn’t have done it the first time. And I have no money, not nearly enough for a passage back to England, and even if I had, I’d have no home to go to when I got there.”

With growing alarm she looked pleadingly into Bahram’s stern face.

He gave an eloquent shrug of his shoulders. A tear brimmed from the corner of one of Penny’s eyes and rolled slowly down her cheek. She felt utterly wretched. She was beaten, even worse off than when she had set off on the journey that had ended in such an awful nightmare. A sob escaped her.