A Love for All Time (53 page)

Aidan felt her nipples harden beneath the palms of his hands, and her cheeks grew pink and warm. She swallowed, and then was finally able to draw a breath which to her embarrassment only had the effect of rubbing the tips of her breasts against his hands. She bit her lip in confusion. God! She wasn’t a maid, and yet he was making her feel like one. Her heart hammered in her ears, and for the briefest moment she thought she might faint. She could not escape his eyes which were now warm with amusement.

“I think,” he said quietly, “that I am going to have to kiss you, my jewel,” and then his mouth took complete and total possession of hers.

His lips were firm and warm, and to her great surprise she found her own lips responding to his masterful skill. Gently, but firmly he made his first penetration of her, running his tongue softly across her mouth, coaxing it open to plunge within. The touch of his tongue as it met hers caused a churning of tumultuous sensations to burst within her that reminded her of the strange and wonderful fireworks that she had seen at a court gala. She clung to him to keep from fainting for she felt even closer to it now.

His hands ran through the tangle of her hair, and releasing her head he looked down upon her. The bright blue eyes silently searched her face, asking, to her surprise, not demanding. There was a tenderness about this man, Aidan thought, which startled her. She had not expected it in him for Jinji had done nothing else but babble on about the fierceness of the Tartar men, and the prince himself had just teased her about his race being passionate and vigorous lovers. She wanted to please him for unless she did her future was very much in doubt. But then suddenly the image of Conn O’Malley rose up between them, and to her immense horror Aidan burst into tears.

Javid Khan responded instinctively, reaching out to draw her into his arms. Holding her close he allowed her to release the grief that had been pent up within her. Aidan clung to him, sobbing wildly while at the same time the thought drifted through her head that this was not the way to his heart, yet she could not help herself. When at last her misery had run its natural course, and her weeping quieted, she was too embarrassed to raise her head, and huddled against his chest despondently.

Sensing that her sorrow had finally abated Javid Khan said quietly, “I want the truth, Marjallah. For whom do you grieve?”

What difference did it make now? Aidan thought sadly. With a sigh she raised her head to meet his serious glance, and said, “I cry for my husband, my lord.”

To her surprise he nodded. “Yes,” he said softly to her. “I understand that, my jewel. You loved him, and so now that he is lost to you, you weep for what was. So do I, my jewel, so do I.”

“My lord,” she began, “I realize that I should be grateful for your kindness, and I am. I would truly please you, but at this moment it is so hard not to remember.”

“I know that,” he answered, “for my dreams both waking and sleeping are filled with things that no longer are, can no longer be.” He stroked her long, soft hair. “Ahh, my jewel, I am probably the only man to whom the sultan could have given you who understands what you feel, for I feel the same thing. This is the first time since my great loss that I have reached out to a woman for comfort. I need comfort, Marjallah! Do you not need comfort, too?”

Shocked by his admission as much as by his vulnerability she could only answer with the truth. “Yes,” she said, nodding as she met his glance. “Yes, my lord Javid, I, too, need that comfort.”

Pulling her close he hugged her gently, and then said, “Let us eat the fine supper that Hammed has prepared for us. He has gone to great trouble to create delicacies that he hopes will encourage us to love. He has been with me for many years; and he, too, misses my family.”

“What happened to your family, my lord?” she asked him looking up at him. “Was it an epidemic?”

“Would that it had been,” he said, and a spasm of pain passed over his face. “No, Marjallah, it was not an epidemic that took my wives, my concubines, and my children from me, rather it was my twin brother, Temur. As I have told you, our mother was a Frenchwoman. She was captured by my father many years ago in his youth, when he went with a party of his friends, raiding deep into the heart of Europe. They wanted to reinforce their manhood with our people and so they traveled as far as the kingdom of Hungary one spring and summer. My mother, of noble lineage, was traveling with her family to her marriage with a prince of the country when my father and his men swept down upon their party, and captured them. He claimed her for himself. Her two sisters were taken by his second and third in command. Her father and mother were killed in the raid, only her brother escaped.

“At first, my father told me, she fought him like a tigress, but when she learned she was with child, she softened toward him, and when Temur and I were born they were quite reconciled. She went on to give him three additional sons, and four daughters. She was his favorite wife and so it pained them sorely that my brother Temur was so discontented even from the day of his birth.

“Temur is a throwback to the Tartars of old, although he has the height our people have gained through their centuries of intermarriage. Where I am blue-eyed and tawny like our mother, Temur has narrow black eyes, and black hair. He always prided himself on it, too, although I think it was just another reason for his discontent. Our parents never favored one of us over the other, and Temur is even my elder by several minutes, yet he has always been jealous of me, claiming that it is I our parents prefer.

“In our youth he constantly sought to outdo me, but he was always striving so hard that he invariably failed. His sullen disposition, his constant bullying and bragging ensured his isolation from the other boys our age, but for those malcontents like himself. I never deliberately sought to outdo him. To my sorrow he has always hated me. So it was we grew to manhood, and began to take women for our own.

“Over the years I took two women to wive. My beloved Zoe, a lovely creature with a nature so gentle that she could lure the wild birds from the trees to eat from her hand. There was no one who knew Zoe who did not love her. My second wife, Ayesha, was as mercurial of disposition as Zoe was sweet. I also possessed several concubines. We had six sons and two daughters.

“Regrettably my brother Temur, with his four wives, and his large harem could not produce anything but one son and a clutch of daughters. Here was another reason for his discontent, and his burning jealousy against me. Several months ago in a burst of madness he invaded the sanctity of my home with his men while I was away to slaughter my entire household. No one escaped. Not my women. Not my children. Not a single slave but for my cook, Hammed, who hid himself in an oven.”

Aidan was horrified, and filled not only with pity for the victims of Temur’s bestiality, but with compassion for the prince. “Oh, my lord prince,” she said, and without realizing it she reached out to caress his cheek in a comforting manner, “how terrible it must have been for you. What happened to your brother?”

“No one knows,” said Javid Khan. “Perhaps regaining his reason he realized the extent of his crime for he disappeared without a trace taking his men with him. My father ordered his wives and children bowstringed, but my mother and I begged for their lives. The women were innocent of Temur’s crime as were his offspring. Actually his son is a sickly child who I do not believe will even live to reach manhood, and for the girls they are valuable to my father for the purposes of alliances. It would have been a shame to waste them. Besides my father has other sons who have sons, and so his line is safe.

“For weeks after the crime I grieved for my household. Finally my father decided that rather than send the yearly delegation of his sons to Istanbul with the sultan’s tribute, he would send me as his ambassador for the sultan has long wanted us to send him an ambassador. It greatly adds to the prestige of the Sublime Porte.”

“Does no one look for your brother Temur?” Aidan asked curiously.

“Several of our younger brothers seek him. He will not escape our vengeance. Eventually my family will wipe out the blot upon our honor, and Temur will be removed from the face of the earth. His name has already been stricken from our people’s history. It is as if he never existed at all, and I, Marjallah, will speak no more on it.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said, and thought to herself how Conn would have laughed at her obedient tone. Conn whom she would never see again. For a moment she wanted to cry once more, but then she thought how much greater his loss was than hers. Javid Khan’s wives and children were dead. Their lives were over and done with, but her husband lived. He would find happiness elsewhere, and father the dynasty that they had so proudly planned upon the body of another woman. For a moment she wondered if he would forget her. She would certainly never forget him, but now her life was with this man. This man who had suffered so greatly, and who so patiently sought her love. She wondered if she could ever really love him, but she would try. Oh yes, she would try!

He sensed the inner struggle that she had, and gave her time to reconcile herself. Clapping his hands he signaled the slaves who had waited discreetly and unseen. They came forth bringing with them a variety of dishes to please the most picky appetite, and set their offerings upon the low round table at which the prince and his slavewoman sat.

From the platters and bowls there arose an array of most appetizing smells. The tiny leg of baby lamb studded with rosemary and garlic cloves was placed before them along with a platter containing pigeons roasted golden brown, and a whole fish dressed with thin slices of lemon and capers. There were bowls of saffroned rice; pieces of pickled cucumbers; dark, ripened olives in a heavy, briny oil; and something he told her was called yogurt.

“May I serve you, my lord?” she asked him, and when he nodded she filled his plate high with everything, and set it before him. One of the slaves placed before the prince a goblet of rosewater.

The prince set about eating with a good appetite, and then noticing that Aidan had nothing upon her plate said, “When I ask you to dine with me that is just what you are to do. Eat, Marjallah! Hammed is a fine cook!”

“I was not certain it was allowed,” she said, and gratefully heaped her own plate with everything upon the table.

Javid Khan smiled to see her appetite. It reminded him of his mother who had always had an excellent appetite, but who was also as slender as a girl. How his wives had envied his mother both her form, and her ability to eat whatever she chose.

When they had each helped themselves twice to the bounty before them so that little remained, the slaves brought silver ewers of warm, perfumed water and tiny towels so they might bathe the grease and oil from their hands and faces. Then the prince’s coffeemaker appeared to grind his beans and brew the coffee while the other servants put upon the table plates of little gazelle-horn pastries and a bowl of fresh fruit. There were plump purple grapes, juicy pink-and-gold peaches, and fat, sweet brown figs. When the coffee was made, and placed before them with bowls of both chips of ice to cool the boiling liquid, and sugar to sweeten its bitterness, the prince warned, “Be careful not to drink the grounds for they linger at the bottom of the cup waiting for the unsuspecting enthusiast.”

“I am not certain I can learn to like this coffee.” She smiled at him.

“What do you like?” he asked, curious about her more than ever now.

“In England I loved to ride, and I loved my home, and I loved children and flowers, and I have a terrible sweet tooth,” she answered him with another smile.

“You will have all these things here with me,” he said.

“Even horses?”

“We will think about the horse,” he replied.

“May I have the gardens for my own to restore?”

“Yes,” he said wanting to see her smile again. He barely knew her, and yet he wanted her to be happy, to be content with him for there was something about this woman that bespoke a peace he needed to find once again. A tranquillity that he had never thought would be his again, and yet with her he believed he might regain some measure of his former happiness, even children. She was a big strong female who would undoubtedly bear him healthy sons to take the places of those that he had lost to his brother’s madness.

The slaves came again with ewers of fresh water so they might perform their final ablutions before continuing on with the rest of the evening. Now she grew silent once more, and the prince knew that she was thinking again of what was to come. She had responded warmly to his tentative lovemaking before, and he thought that once he overcame her shyness that all would be well. He liked her reticence for it bespoke modesty on her part. He did not regret her lost virginity, but it pleased him that she lacked great experience. It would make their coming together far more interesting.

Finally the slaves had cleared away the last of their meal, the lamps had been trimmed so they would not smoke, and lowered so that they glowed softly. Then the slaves silently withdrew from the prince’s apartments, and Aidan knew that they would remain alone. Standing, the prince reached out a hand to her, and drew her up.

“Come,” he said. “Let us walk in the gardens for a bit.”

They moved from the salon through a small door and outside into the evening. Considering her scanty garb it was fortunate that the night was warm, Aidan thought somewhat wryly. The garden was surrounded on three sides by the palace, but the fourth side opened into the larger gardens, and it was here that he chose to lead her. The night was very still, and overhead a huge moon rode full across a cloudless sky. Its light dappled the waters that surrounded them.

Silently they walked deep into the large garden, and there in the brightness of the moonlight Aidan got her first good look at the Black Sea. “It looks as vast as our ocean,” she said.