The Tiger Prince (46 page)

Her hair was tumbling about her shoulders in wild disarray; his fingers were combing through it. He lifted his head. “You want me.” His words came fiercely. “Me.”

“Aye.” Nothing seemed more clear at the moment. “Aye, Kartauk.”

His arms crushed her back to him, robbed her
of breath. Desire. Lust. Safety. How could she feel so safe while tottering on this precipice? It was going to happen. She had thought she was prepared, but now she was trembling, frightened as a child taking its first step. “What do I do?” she gasped. “Help me Do you want me to do the things you told me to do with Ian?”

He stiffened against her, his hands halting in midmotion in the thickness of her hair. “I told you not to—” A shudder ran through him. “Christ, I wish you hadn’t said that.” He pushed her away from him.

She immediately tried to move closer.

“No.” He grated through set teeth as he kept her at bay. “No, Margaret.”

“Why not?” She could not believe he was rejecting her. “I thought—”

“So did I.” He drew a deep breath as his hands slowly unclasped her shoulders and dropped away from her. He took a step back. “I thought about it all night. I’ve been thinking about it since you started this lunacy weeks ago.” He turned and moved jerkily back to the worktable. “Sit down.”

She stood there, staring at him, feeling more uncertain then ever before in her life. “Why? You find me pleasing. I know I’m no Ellen MacTavish, but you’re not unmoved by me.”

“Unmoved? God in heaven, that’s true enough.” His voice was hoarse as he sat down at the worktable. “Yes, you could say that you move me.”

She started toward him. “Then it seems unreasonable not to—”

“Stop right there,” he said sharply. “Don’t come near me.”

She halted and smiled tremulously, “If you don’t find me distasteful, then why do you not strike me with your divine lightning?”

“Because you’re not like other women.”

“I believe I have the required limbs, eyes, and breasts.”

“You also have a tender heart, a priest’s conscience, and the softness of a feather mattress beneath that cool
exterior.” He shook his head. “I cannot hurt you. I
will
not hurt you.”

“But you want me.”

“I love you.”

Her eyes widened in shock.

“You’re surprised?” His smile was bittersweet. “Oh yes, I knew from that first moment you walked out of the castle into the courtyard and started ordering me about.”

“You could not.” Her voice was barely audible even to herself. “I’m no Helen of Troy to so bedazzle men.”

“You bedazzled me. You shone like purest gold in the sunlight, all strength, courage, and loving heart. You still shine with it. At times, when you’re weary or discouraged, it’s only a dull glow, but at other times you sparkle and shimmer as if—”

“Fine words,” she said shakily.

“Words you don’t want to hear. Do you think I don’t know that?” His big hand clenched slowly into a fist on the table. “I’m allowed lust, but not love. I regret you cannot have one without the other. That’s what I tried to tell you yesterday. We’ve come too close.” He met her gaze. “Have the honesty to admit it.”

His words were probing through the barriers she had raised, battering her. “I … do not deny I lust after you.”

“No, lust is safe. Not good, but safe. I knew when you walked in here this morning you’d come to terms with it. But love is a betrayal of Ian. You won’t face that, will you?”

“What are you saying? I love Ian.” The pain was growing too great. She closed her eyes to shut it out, shut him out. “I do love him.”

“Yes, I know you do.” He paused. “But you love me too.”

Her lids flew open. “No!”

A flicker of anger crossed his face. “Dammit, admit it. Give me that much at least.”

“A woman cannot love two men.”

“Because all the poets and troubadours babble that
there is only one great love in every life? Bah, there are many kinds of love, and we could have the very best kind.” His brown eyes glittered in his taut face. “We could have lust and humor and understanding. We’re the same kind of people, two halves of a whole.”

She shook her head. “We’re nothing alike.”

“The only difference between us is the conscience that chains you to—”

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“Because you don’t want to believe it. I told you there would be no mercy.” He smiled bitterly. “But I’ve extended you more mercy than I thought possible. I’ve given you three long years of keeping the flame turned low so it would not burn you. I could have taken you a moment ago, and I promise I would have made sure you knew what you felt was more than lust.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t want to see the look in your eyes when you realized you had just committed adultery with the man you love. You’re a strong woman, but I don’t think you could have survived that blow.”

“I don’t love you. I
won’t
love you,” she said desperately.

“You do, but we will talk no more about it at present.” He shifted his massive shoulders as if shrugging off a burden. “You say Ian wants a seal of his own? Then let’s set about it. We’ll have to do—”

“What are you talking about?” she asked blankly. “A seal?”

He nodded brusquely. “I’ve decided we’ll continue as we have been. You’ve proved surprisingly valuable as an apprentice, a little too talkative, but I can tolerate that fault.”

He was pretending what had gone before had not happened. “I can’t just ignore—”

“Of course you can. Ian wants you to be amused. I believe I can guarantee to distract you. As for the other” —he met her gaze—“I’ll wait until you make the first move.”

“I’ll never make it.”

“But how can you not when you need a child for Ian?” He smiled sadly. “Poor Margaret, what a quandary.”

“It’s different now. I could not …” She lifted a trembling hand to her temple. “I cannot think.”

“I do not ask you to think. I would far prefer you to only feel. Someday, if I’m fortunate, you’ll oblige me by shutting down that pesky conscience and letting yourself take what we both need.”

She shook her head.

He shrugged. “Then I’m no worse off than before, am I? Nothing has really changed.”

How could he say that? Everything had changed. Each nerve and muscle in her body seemed tuned to his every response, every gesture. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have come here,” she said shakily.

“Have I, at last, convinced you of that?” He smiled. “Too late, Margaret. My grand period of self-sacrifice is over. Now I’ll take what I can get. If you don’t come to me, I’ll go to Ian every evening and spend a charming few hours with the two of you.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not? I’m very fond of Ian, and he’s been complaining I haven’t visited him enough of late. You can come here in the mornings or you can sit there beside Ian and have me watch you and know every moment what I’m thinking, what I’m wanting to do with you.”

She wouldn’t be able to bear it, and Kartauk was aware of that as he was aware of everything else about her. “I was thinking just yesterday that you were kind, but that’s not true. You’re very cruel.”

“I’m neither kind nor cruel. I’m only a hungry man who
will
be fed. Even if it must be hard crusts instead of hearty fare.” He turned and walked toward the door leading to the veranda. “You look a bit distraught, and it takes a steady hand for the carving of a seal. I think we’ll wait until tomorrow to start to fashion it. And after we finish the seal, I think it’s time I did a statue of you…”

uel gazed blindly at the sun starting its descent behind the mountain.

Jane should be here within the hour.

He should be satisfied. He
was
satisfied, dammit. The forfeiting of the penalty money had hurt her, not only because of the loss itself but because the defeat had been to him. She had been made to feel helpless and defeated.

she needs to win.

Dilam’s words in the
belim
tent came back to him. Well, she hadn’t won this time. He would never forget her expression of numb horror as she had looked
at the damage wrought by the elephant. He had felt something twist inside him and he wanted to reach out and—

Comfort? The instinct meant nothing, he assured himself. It was entirely natural to admire a foe who had fought a valiant fight, but that did not mean he was softening toward her. He could not soften.

He turned heavily away from the window and moved across the room to the chair by the fireplace. Soon it would be over. The loss at Elephant Crossing had been only the beginning. By the time she left this summer-house, he would have the satisfaction of knowing she had been punished as she deserved. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it?

Christ, of course it was what he wanted. This rawness fraying his nerves was only impatience now that he was so close to his aim.

Impatience … and lust.

The dark blue curled tile roof of the summerhouse shimmered gray in the moonlight. Light streamed from the arched windows, casting fan-shaped shadows on the grass.

He was waiting for her.

Naturally, he was waiting for her, Jane thought impatiently. He had been waiting for her for over three years.

She braced herself and then walked quickly down the terrace steps and the path leading to the summerhouse.

She could get through this. He was only Ruel, not the mandarin she had let her fears exaggerate to giant proportions. He could not harm her if she did not allow it. She drew a deep breath as she reached the door and then flung it open. She said flatly, “I’m here.”

“I see you are.” Ruel was sitting in a superbly crafted Louis XV chair before a marble-tiled fireplace. He wore all white, as he had the day they had arrived at the palace, and his golden tan and sun-streaked hair shimmered in the firelight in sharp contrast to the elegant garb. He
appeared perfectly at ease in this tastefully furnished room with its air of restrained European luxury. But then, Ruel always appeared confident and at ease wherever he was, she thought bitterly, be it pounding spikes in a torrent of rain, presiding at the dinner table at the palace, or cooking bacon over a campfire in the middle of the jungle.

He rose to his feet and wrinkled his nose. “And, unfortunately, I not only see you, I also smell you.”

“I could hardly ride twenty-five miles in heat and dust and not smell of horse.” She closed the door. “If you don’t like it, I can leave.”

“Oh no, I was never one to forgo a meal because I had to prepare it myself. It makes the feast only more satisfying to know it’s been created to one’s exact specifications.” He stood up and moved across the room
to-
ward the lavender-and cream-colored brocade curtain that divided the room. “In fact, I anticipated this little problem. I had boiling hot water brought from the palace ten minutes ago.” He pulled aside the curtain to reveal a small area that appeared much larger due to the mirrors that graced all three walls. A royal-blue and white Chinese carpet gave only occasional glimpses of the polished oak floor and, across the room, a white satin spread covered a wide bed draped in diaphanous mosquito netting. He smiled faintly as he followed her gaze and then gestured to a hip bath filled with steaming water occupying the corner immediately to the left of the brocade curtain. “It’s fortunate you were on time, or the water would have turned cold.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she said quietly. “I assume you’re going to watch me?”

Some indefinable emotion flickered across his face. “Most certainly.”

She sat down on a wide white satin-tufted chaise longue a few feet from the tub and took off her boots and wool socks. “I thought you would.”

“Why?”

“You want me to feel … exposed, humiliated.”
She stood up and started unbuttoning her shirt. “It’s all a part of it.”

“How perceptive of you to realize that. Actually, I had in mind something else as well.” He paused. “A mistress is handled with a little too much delicacy. I thought I’d let you sample the joys of being treated as your mother was treated.”

She felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. Her fingers clenched on the second button. “You did?”