The Panther & the Pyramid (Khamsin Warriors of the Wind) (16 page)

Courage. She sucked in a breath and joined them.

The dark-haired, beautifully exotic Lady Tristan lay on an enormous bed, its majestic headboard carved with the ducal crest. Her husband sat beside her, gripping her hand. She wore only a man's large shirt, knotted below her breasts. From the waist down she was naked, her legs spread. A dark thatch of curly hair showed below her immense belly.

A fierce blush heated Jillian's cheeks. She had never seen another naked woman, nor participated in anything so private. And so scandalous; two men with her who were not physicians!

Then she noticed the worried look of the viscount, and the grim set of Graham's jaw and the lady's own fear. What did propriety matter in such a crisis?

Badra suddenly moaned like an animal in pain. Her face contorted.

"Deep breaths, Badra," Graham advised. "Talk her through the pain, Kenneth."

As the viscount slipped an arm about his wife, crooning, the stern-faced housekeeper bent between Badra's legs. She put her hand into—goodness!

"He's coming, Your Grace. Better hurry," Mrs. White said.

The duke removed his pin-striped coat and swiftly unbuttoned and stripped off his gray waistcoat, tossing both onto a nearby chair. He rolled up the sleeves of his immaculate white shirt. A handful of worried footmen scurried into the room, carrying armfuls of straw. They dumped it between the bricks as the duke instructed, stole a quick glance at the woman on the bed and hurriedly left.

Jasmine went to the bed. Her lower lip wobbled precariously. "Mama? Are you all right?"

The duke gently pushed her away. "She'll be fine, little one. Now, can you do something for me to help your mama?"

Her large, solemn gaze held his. "What, Uncle Graham?"

"I want you to go downstairs and wait for the doctor. As soon as the butler lets him in, I need you to send him upstairs. I need someone I can rely on. Can you do it?"

Jasmine glanced doubtfully at her mother. Graham squeezed her shoulder. "It's all right. Your father and I will make sure nothing happens to her. I promise."

The little girl frowned. "When my cat had kittens, we put her in a nice box with a blanket. Shouldn't you get mama a box?"

Jillian almost laughed. But the duke smiled gently at his young niece and said, "It's different than your cat."

"You mean, she isn't going to lick my new brother or sister like Cleo did?"

"She'll be fine, Jasmine. Now, say good-bye to your mother and go downstairs. We really need your help."

The child kissed her mother, then cast a dubious look over her shoulder and trotted off. Graham vanished into the water closet to scrub his hands.

Feeling out of place in her riding habit, Jillian removed her faded gray outer jacket and hat, carefully placing them on the dresser. But Lady Tristan looked relieved to see her.

When another low moan rippled out, the housekeeper announced the baby was coming. The duke returned from washing up, and they moved Badra to the bricks.

As Graham instructed, Jillian stood beside the laboring mother, who squatted on the bricks. Bending, she slipped an arm around Badra's waist, holding her upright.

The duke crouched before his sister-in-law, his hands positioned beneath the lady's bottom as he made encouraging noises. "You're doing splendidly, Badra. Keep pushing, gently."

Jillian didn't know what to do, feeling absurdly useless. Badra's trembling arm gripped her, and the woman's pain became her own. Her worried glance fixed on the viscount, who was bending his head to his wife, crooning softly to her as she whimpered and moaned. Supporting the laboring mother took all her strength. Leg muscles unaccustomed to the odd position began to ache, but Jillian ignored the pain. She focused instead on the viscountess, making encouraging sounds that made no sense but sounded right.

Her words had no visible effect. Badra's face contorted as the woman grunted and strained and screamed to deliver her child. Her husband gripped her tightly, murmuring soothing words while the duke squatted before his sister-in-law, his face fierce with concentration. Jillian fell silent, awed at how Graham's commands made Badra focus even as she cried out, how cool and steady he seemed. And suddenly, his big hands gently held a furry, dark head that emerged from between Badra's legs.

Fascinated, Jillian fell speechless, watching the duke slide a tiny bluish form from inside its mother. A bloody wash of water spilled out, bathing his hands and the child. He gently massaged the newborn's back, crooning softly to the squalling babe. A collective gasp rippled through the room.

The viscountess sagged against Jillian, who felt an absurd urge to weep. She squeezed Badra's arm instead and smiled. "You have a baby," she whispered.

"A strong, healthy boy," Mrs. White declared with surprised satisfaction.

Graham glanced up—not at the mother, but directly at Jillian. In his eyes she saw pleased wonder. Jillian smiled through her tears. This was the most thoroughly unconventional, unpredictable and wonderful man she'd ever met.

She could perhaps fall in love with him. Heaven help her.

* * *

His mind had worked like a steadily ticking clock, without emotion, allowing him to deal with the crisis at hand. He'd remembered all the details of seeing the birth, and had applied them with detachment. Even while calling out words of encouragement for Badra to push, Graham felt severed from the experience—detached and aloof, as always.

But when the baby slipped into his outstretched hands and he held the fragile new life in his palms, something deep inside him stirred. A connection he didn't want.

It came, nonetheless.

Graham held the squalling baby, staring in awe. The tiny, innocent and helpless life roused every intense feeling he had desperately sought to quash. He struggled to contain his emotions and maintain his composure, but he cradled his nephew to his chest, unmindful of the bloody fluid coating the baby's now reddened skin. He began massaging the baby's back and glanced up at Jillian. She looked at him as if he had performed a miracle.

He felt himself transformed, as if in the baby's new beginning, he too, could begin anew. And he would do anything, absolutely anything, to protect that new life.

Graham gently bent his head and pressed his lips to his new nephew's dark, furry head, feeling dampness suddenly burn his eyes.

Life, in all its incredible, brutal and awesome force, had taken place before her. Jillian stared in marvel as the duke kissed his nephew with all the tenderness of a new mother. Then his usual aplomb returned as he and the housekeeper briskly tied string about the bluish white cord winding from the baby to its mother. The duke sliced through the cord with an odd-looking, curved dagger with an elaborate silver hilt.

The viscount's eyes were wet as he kissed his wife. He said, "My dagger—remember, my love? The one you used to cut us loose last year when we were trapped in the shop."

"A fitting blade to welcome your new son into the world," Graham murmured, taking a fresh towel from the housekeeper and carefully wiping the baby.

Standing upright, her body trembling, Badra sagged heavily against Jillian and held out her arms. "Please, let me see him. Let me hold him."

"Not now, my lady. He needs to be cleaned up first and swaddled," advised Mrs. White.

Jillian felt the violent tremor that shook Badra. "No, I need to see him. Let me hold him. Don't take him away, no!" Badra screamed as the housekeeper plucked the baby from the duke's hands and began walking away.

Instantly, the viscount bounded after the startled housekeeper, retrieving his son. He brought the squalling infant back to his sobbing mother. Tenderly he folded the naked infant into her arms. "Here's your baby, my love. Our son."

Badra clutched her son to her breast and wept. Jillian stared uneasily. The duke's brilliant, dark gaze lifted to her, burning fiercely. Then he stood and fetched a blanket from the bed, gently draping it over Badra's shivering shoulders.

A flurry of activity sounded down the hall. The door banged open and Jasmine burst inside. "The doctor's here," she cried.

A chagrined Mrs. White quickly hustled the wide-eyed Jasmine from the room, then returned. The gray-haired physician calmly assessed the situation, instructing Badra to push out the afterbirth. Kenneth and Jillian resumed their positions, supporting her. The doctor took the baby. He started to hand him to Mrs. White.

"No," Badra cried. Her beseeching gaze sought Graham's. "Give my son to the duke to hold."

The doctor did so. Graham gently cradled the newborn to his chest, keeping him warm in his arms as the physician delivered the afterbirth. Then he carefully returned the baby to Badra.

The duke glanced at Jillian. "Let's give them privacy. Why don't you meet me in the drawing room?"

But Jillian instead trailed him into the water closet. The mood inside the bedchamber had dramatically shifted when the housekeeper had attempted to remove the newborn for cleaning and swaddling. She wanted to know why.

Graham stripped off his bloody shirt. The taut flesh of his broad, naked shoulders captured her gaze. He bent over the basin, used water to scrub his hands and arms fiercely.

"I don't understand. Why was she so upset?" Jillian asked.

Graham stopped. Soap lather coated the dark hair on his arms as he braced himself over the basin. Beneath the smooth skin of his back, muscles rippled.

His voice was low. "When she was born, Jasmine was taken away from her while Badra slept. When she awoke, they told her Jasmine had been too small and died. She only discovered her daughter was alive last year, in Egypt. She had been sold into slavery, trained as a future prostitute."

Jillian stared at him in horror. "Who would do such a cruel thing? Does it happen all the time in Arabia?"

The duke finished rinsing his arms and hands, and briskly dried off with a towel. He lifted his head, his midnight gaze piercing hers in the mirror. Cold anger tightened his face. "There are many people in this world who are cruel, Jillian. Including in this country." He threw down the towel. "Sometimes people in this country are even crueler."

Chapter Eight

The grating harshness of his rapid breaths thundered in his ears as Graham stood outside the Strantons' Mayfair home.

Jillian had proven herself composed and confident in assisting in the birth. Her huge green eyes signaled sympathy as he told her the story of Jasmine's ill-fated birth. And then she had told him something he would never forget.

"It's horrible what happened to Jasmine," she had said, "but she's happy now, and has a new life. We can't change the past, we can only build anew and reach for the future. If one dwells on unhappy memories, you destroy your chances for future joy."

At a loss for words, he had stiffly thanked her for her assistance. Jillian had then murmured excuses about needing to return home.

Her wise words now gave him pause. For a wild moment Graham wondered if he hadn't made a dreadful mistake in seeking to bring down her father. Wasn't he doing just what she warned against, destroying any chance for happiness? And he began to wonder if she truly wasn't his destiny, sent to rebuild his shattered life from fragments of his troubled past.

Graham hesitated as he went to lift the brass door knocker. For twenty years he had hidden inside himself. The silver-topped walking stick in his left hand felt like a lead weight. His hand shook as he fingered the knocker to summon the butler and be ushered inside. Into the den of the beast.

But would it be better, as Jillian asserted, to release the past?

He closed his eyes. An image of the sneering Stranton danced in his memory, saying words Graham could not forget. They consumed him, made him doubt everything.

"You liked it. You know you did. You can't hide from what you really are, pretty boy."

The words weren't true, he thought in agony. Or were they?

He pushed the hateful words from his mind. The course was set; he must follow it. But his hand shook violently as he tried to rap on the door. Inside, the little boy in him screamed to turn and run far, far away. He could still return home, live safely within his comfortable four walls and never have to face Stranton. Never make him his father-in-law.

For a wild moment he nearly did turn and walk away. But Jillian's face rose in his mind. He had ruined her, and on his honor he owed her marriage. Without honor, he was nothing. All those years growing up with the al-Hajid, he'd thirsted for honor as a warrior. Turning his back on Jillian would mean turning his back on everything he valued. Graham gave the knocker a solid, confident rap.