In the Arms of a Marquess(42)

With effort he left her lips to trail kisses along her jaw, seeking sanity, but she was beautiful here too, smooth and perfect everywhere, and he did not want to stop. Heat pounded in his chest and groin but doubt clamored in his head.

“You are being unfaithful to your betrothed,” he murmured.

She did not respond immediately.

“It’s you,” she finally whispered.

He went still, only his heartbeats battering a quick tempo. “Because of who I am.”

“Of course.”

Ben’s chest constricted. He released her and stepped back.

“It is unfortunate for you then, madam, that I have had enough women like you to last me a lifetime.”

Her eyes were pools of dazed astonishment, her lips swollen and hair loose where his fingers had twined through it. Blast it, she did not look like those other women. She looked hurt and shocked—this woman who kissed a man who was not her betrothed as though she were free to do so—and he could look no longer.

He moved toward the trellis’s exit.

“Damn you, Benjirou Doreé. Damn you!” she shouted after him like a Madras dockworker.

He paused, half turned from her. “Damning me for your own transgressions? Then as well as now, I suspect.”

“I waited for you.”

He knew he must move or speak, but he could not.

“I did. I actually waited for you, somehow imagining you would return. I was such a fool. I should have known better. I should have realized you knew it was wrong, meeting like that in secret.”

He struggled for steadiness.

“Lie to yourself,” he finally said, a lifetime of control assuring the indifference of his tone. “Lie to the both of us, as you wish. Then as now, it is all the same to me.” He strode from beneath the trellis.

It had to be all the same, lies and truth. For seven years he had nursed regret and anger, pretending he had forgotten, but it was there all along. It could not be undone now with a few words, especially not when her hand bore another man’s ring. But the warmth of the afternoon sun beat down upon him like a curse, like the golden tropical days he had spent in her company.

He remembered like it was yesterday.

Returning to his house that morning after it all—after the night and her body in his hands, after her aunt’s scorn and her own wide-eyed accusation—he told his mother and aunt his intentions. The objections of Octavia’s aunt meant nothing to him. Her uncle, George Stack, a trader for the East India Company, knew well enough the influence Ben’s uncle had wielded with natives and Englishmen alike, and now Ben himself. Her guardian would not deny Ben his wishes. He would have her if she would have him.

But even as he spoke the words, he knew. He’d known from the first, when intrigued became enchanted, then enchanted lost. She was not part of the plan for him, and he would suffer for the weakness he had allowed himself.

Tears streaming down her Brahmin face, his aunt begged him to reconsider. The potential for disaster was too great so soon after his uncle’s death. According to her husband’s last wish, she had not thrown herself upon the funeral pyre as customary, and many of his native business associates were unhappy with this breach of tradition. They claimed that the family had become too western and could not be trusted. As well, if Ben took an English wife, he would lose his allies amongst the Mughal princes.

“Remember the treaties your uncle negotiated, the peace he established between rivals,” his aunt entreated. “All that would be for naught if you do such a reckless thing at this fragile time, Benjirou. You will lose everything my husband spent his life building.”

Then his mother came to him, urging him to think of his family, his cousins, their husbands and children. He would put them all in danger. Would he not reconsider this decision? Ben stared at their pleading faces, and the weight of his destiny descended upon him like an avalanche. They did not demand. They asked. It was his choice to make. At twenty-two, he alone commanded the fates of hundreds. His life had never been entirely his own. Now it was not at all.

“Benji,” his mother had said softly. “What of this girl?”

“What of her?”

“Do you know her?”

He knew her laughter, her smile, her fearless directness. He knew that when he was with her, he felt at once vital and at peace, and when he was not he only wanted to be with her again. He knew that the flavor of her lips and her hands on him made him mad with need.

“Do you know what is truly in her heart?” she asked. “Would it be worth all that could be lost if you someday discover her lust for status and wealth to have been powerful enough for her to put aside other concerns?”

Other concerns . . . The Indian blood that ran through his veins and shadowed his skin, that for years had made his life hell amongst the blue-blooded, pink-hued sons of Britain.

But she had a penchant for the exotic, her aunt had said. He should have guessed that. Even at that young age he had already had more than his share of women who took an extra thrill in being with him, believing themselves especially wicked. Women who wanted to feel and appear wicked even more than they wanted pleasure. He had used that to his uncle’s advantage, and the pleasure he got from those encounters was great. The pain was greater still.

Something had told him Octavia was not one of those women—her clear gaze, her unselfconscious enjoyment of the simplest pleasures, the eager innocence of her touch. Still, she believed what her aunt said of him. He had seen it in her eyes, heard it in her voice. She believed the worst because she had no reason not to.