The Panther & the Pyramid (Khamsin Warriors of the Wind) (7 page)

Crystal chandeliers sparkled overhead, casting soft light upon the dozens of couples swirling around the dance floor. Women's skirts billowed in graceful arcs of silk, satin, lace and taffeta. Like colorful flowers unfurling, Jillian thought dimly.

Guided by her aunt, she settled near a cluster of tight-lipped matrons. The chaperones sharply eyed their young charges for hands straying too far, or for gentlemen desiring to kiss more than simple gloved fingers.

Her lace fan, its ivory sticks clenched tightly in Jillian's hand, remained folded. Her dance card dangled from her white-gloved wrist. Surrounded by a herd of matrons in severe black bombazine, she was a corralled horse, already bought and purchased. Bernard stood near, chatting with a few others.

One last ball. One last dance, then freedom. The steamer for America left in five days. Five days more and she'd be on its sloping decks.

But as Bernard approached, and Father shook his hand heartily, Jillian had the sinking feeling that wouldn't be soon enough. The businessmen were clearly making a profitable transaction.

Jillian stared in dread at Bernard's florid face and waxed mustache. She imagined him looming over her on their wedding night, his body straining, his breath harsh, his flabby belly rasping hers. She forced her smile back to her lips as he approached.

"Mrs. Huntington." He acknowledged Jillian's aunt with a formal bow.

"Bernard." Mary gave him a cool look, but he ignored it and turned to her.

"Jillian, my dear." He bent over her hand, kissing the glove. She squelched her revulsion. "I've formally asked your father for your hand, and he gave his blessing and told me you will accept. We'll marry in July. Then a honeymoon in Bath. Delightful, eh?" he boomed.

Ah, Father. My opinion counts for naught.

"How delightful indeed," Mary said tonelessly.

Jillian swallowed her distress. "So soon?"

"The sooner the better, eh, my dear? I've no desire to wait." He lowered his voice. "I know how shy and maidenly you are, but you have nothing to fear from me on our wedding night."

He simpered. Bernard, with his lewd gaze, thin lips and waxed mustache... Jillian thought of the passion she'd found in Graham's arms. How reckless she'd been, how daring. And remembering Graham's lips upon hers, the desire she'd felt...

"Of course she has nothing to fear," Mary commented. The barest smile touched her lips. She shot Jillian a sideways look, filling Jillian with courage. Jillian tossed back her shoulders, prepared to tell Bernard she could not marry him. But the words froze on her lips as she saw her father approach.

The spines of her fan nearly cracked under the pressure of her fingers. When he at last moved off with Bernard, leaving the ballroom, she released a trembling breath. They would indulge in a game of whist with political cronies. Father would lose, but consort with high-powered officials. Now, with Bernard's money, he could afford to lose.

How weak Jillian was! All but that one night in Graham's arms, when she'd felt all the passion and life inside her come boiling to a turbulent bliss. Never again.

* * *

He arrived late, as would be expected with his rank. Inside, Graham searched for a redheaded enemy.

Like a panther he prowled the perimeter of the ballroom. Not listening to the feminine whispers fluttering in his wake, ignoring the admiring stares and hastily dropped curtseys as he approached. As always, he lightly clasped his white dancing gloves. Rarely did he dance, and when he did, it was with a select few. Graham did not want to encourage speculation as to the possibility of a future bride.

Last year, his brother had consorted with these same people. Kenneth had come before them with his Egyptian accent and his Egyptian past. Money and rank had won him acceptance. Still, he had stood out like a pyramid. A savage, they had thought him.

Graham did not stand out He blended, his accent nearly gone, his habits very English. He was already respected as one of them, thought to have been raised by his proper English parents. The truth would rock them back on their delicate heels. That he had been captured by a warrior Egyptian tribe and learned to kill to survive, that he was far more savage than his brother...

Faces swam before him in a blurred haze. Detached, he dropped a smile here, made polite small talk there, and moved on. Tonight, his restlessness was too great to be assuaged by chitchat.

His eyes scanned the ballroom for a flash of red hair. He saw none. Until... He turned and his gaze alighted upon a tall mass of red-gold curls. His heart raced. It was her.

He spotted her across the crush of people. She stood out like a living flame on a smoky horizon. Graham could not breathe. He could not think, nor act, but simply stood, lips parted. The red hair mesmerized him. He had not seen the full glory of those tresses, nor anticipated how the strands would wind around his heart like a spider's sticky silk.

He remembered her, naked before him. Skin to skin.

Sweat slicking their bodies as they strained against each other, strangers forging a brief fleshly bond.

Shared passions. Hidden secrets.

Self-discipline and control shattered like glass. Graham began striding forward, mindless of the fawning stares cast his way.

Barely six feet away, he stopped, daring her to see him. She turned. Their gazes caught and held. They could have been the only two people present.

Intense hunger filled him. Like an opium addict's deep craving, it took hold with steely claws. Graham stared, remembering the sweetness and passion in her arms. He wanted to hold her in his arms again, even for one mere dance. She was his worst nightmare. And yet he could not help wanting her.

Though all instincts screamed a protest, though his senses urged him to stop, to turn and leave behind the sweetness of last night, he paid no heed. Graham, the aloof duke who rarely danced, tugged on his white dancing gloves, making his intentions perfectly clear.

"Look at the Duke of Caldwell. How striking Graham is," Mary murmured.

The breath caught in Jillian's throat. The Duke of Caldwell? She put a trembling hand to her coiled hair. Graham. Her lover.

Clad in elegant black evening dress, he cut a regal, imposing figure. Women pivoted to stare. Ivory and lace fans waved madly as erratic butterflies. Whispers were everywhere. Several pairs of admiring eyes affixed to him as he wended his way toward her. Young girls preened. Older women simpered. Jillian simply stood motionless. Her heart thudded erratically against her chest.

She remembered the male glory of his nudity. The powerful muscles of his shoulders, the clean lines of his back.

His body was now draped in severe black silk, a white waistcoat and tie. His thick ebony hair was swept across his forehead. Those piercing, dark eyes remained guarded.

Regarding her, he advanced. His loose-limbed, graceful stride reminded her of a powerful jungle cat. The fleeting image of a leopard came to mind. A black leopard, sleek, stalking. She was his prey.

Jillian braced herself, forced a smile to her face.

An amazing change came over the matrons as he approached. They tittered and curtseyed, and a sparkle lit their eyes. When he stood silently before Jillian, she glanced at her aunt. Aunt Mary's stern look softened. She swept down in an elegant curtsy.

"Your Grace. How good to see you again. It was indeed a pleasure meeting you at the Knightsbridge assembly."

Graham nodded, his eyes searching Jillian's face. "Mrs. Huntington, might I have the acquaintance of your charge?"

His voice was smooth and deep, the burn of whiskey sliding down a parched throat. The burn of whiskers rasping across the tender flesh of a throat, as heated as his kisses...

Jillian automatically put a gloved hand to her flushed neck in remembrance. Her aunt's gaze was riveted to her. "Your Grace, Lady Jillian Stranton, daughter of the Earl of Stranton. My niece. Lady Jillian, His Grace, the Duke of Caldwell."

By rote she sank into a deep curtsy, knees wobbling so precariously that it was a marvel she didn't collapse upon her skirts. Graham nodded to her dance card, to the short pencil dangling from it.

"Might I have the pleasure of the next waltz?" he asked.

Her dry lips moved. Bernard had requested that dance. "I'm... afraid the next dance is taken, Your Grace."

"Then I must take one that is available."

Graham seized her dance card and penciled in his name. His dark, knowing gaze transfixed hers. He dropped the card, gently grazing her gloved wrist with his hand. Heat blazed between them, a living, writhing thing. The pencil swung from her trembling wrist.

"Until then," he murmured.

With a shaking hand, Jillian scanned the card. Until then.

She waltzed with Bernard in a blur of delicious anticipation and awful dread. The Duke of Caldwell was her lover. The duke. The mysterious, dark-eyed duke who'd been causing whispers through the ballroom all night. The eligible, wealthy and enigmatic duke.

Her glance flicked to her partner's wide brow, broad cheekbones and again to the thick, waxed mustache above his thin, pursed lips. He danced with a slight stoop. A liberal dose of cologne barely cut his body's stench of sour sweat. Moisture beaded his forehead, though the waltz had barely begun, and as always Bernard cut a clumsy turn, nearly causing Jillian to trip. She recovered, tried to focus and stepped on his foot.

"Jillian, my dear, watch your feet," he cautioned.

She mumbled an apology and concentrated on her steps. Out of the corner of her eye she espied the duke talking with some matrons. He glanced up, caught her flustered gaze with a smoldering one. She hastily looked away.

"Bernard, what do you know of the Duke of Caldwell? I've never seen him at an assembly or ball before."

"Jillian, it's not polite to gossip."

"He requested the next dance. If I'm to converse with him, I do not wish to make any social errors."

Bernard gave an approving nod. "Well, the duke was orphaned at age six when his family journeyed to Egypt and a band of wild Arabs attacked their caravan. Heathens slaughtered everyone. He hid behind some rocks and saw it all."

"Goodness, the poor boy!" she said, horrified at the thought of a young Graham being forced to watch his parents being brutally killed.

"All thought he and his younger brother, Kenneth, the Viscount Arndale, were dead. A passing English couple rescued the duke and took him in. They were an older couple, eccentric, and liked to travel in Arabia. Kenneth was raised by some heathen Egyptian tribe. The old grandfather found him in Egypt and brought him back to England to train him as his heir. Last year, Kenneth became duke when the grandfather died—and when he went to Egypt to supervise an excavation, he found his older brother living in Cairo!"

"Found him, after all the years he'd been lost?"

"Apparently the duke suffered a memory loss when he saw his parents murdered. His memory returned when he met his brother. Kenneth relinquished the title. Good thing as well—the viscount married a heathen Arab girl, a filthy native woman with little social standing, and adopted her daughter. However, the Tristan family is wealthy and the old duke was well regarded."

"You seem to know quite a bit about them."

"I make it my business to know of every family who has power and wealth. It helps me politically."

Jillian remembered the haunted look in Graham's dark eyes. "He seems tragic."

"Of course. Though he was raised by that English couple, they tainted him by forcing him to live in Arabia—among those repulsive, dirty heathens."

Jillian suspected the turmoil in the duke's eyes had nothing to do with living among the natives. She sensed deep secrets. And oh, how she knew about keeping secrets.

The waltz ended and Bernard escorted her from the floor. He scanned the ballroom for the duke.

"His Grace could prove useful to me in Parliament. Be witty and charming, and do not attempt to converse about anything intellectual." He chucked her under the chin. "None of your silly chatter about the woeful state of the English economy."

Resentment filled her. "Why? Isn't it rather woeful?"

He laughed. "Jillian, leave intellectual discussions to men. Such talk will tax your brain."

How would you know? Your brain has never been taxed,
she thought.
Bernard, if they opened your head they would find nothing but that dreadful Macassar oil you smear on your hair.