A Most Naked Solution (12 page)

He cleared his throat and forced his attention back to the woman in front of him. They could discuss the rest of his plans during the next few days. Now that they could claim an acquaintance, he could call on her without attracting undue attention. “That will be all for now, Miss Sinclair, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.”

She sprang to her feet in an eruption of silk and fled toward the door. Bennett scrambled to open it for her. The woman’s work involved two of the most vindictive nations in Europe. He’d expected her to have more pluck.

With a brief mumbled farewell, she rushed to the carriage awaiting her beyond the gate.

Bennett turned at the click of heels on the marble floor. The ambassador stood in the hall behind him.

His cousin, Lord Henry Daller, studied the carriage. “Miss Sinclair has always been something of an odd duck, but I never imagined her showing up dressed like a native. You poor chap. You’ll have your work cut out for you protecting her.” He chuckled and pounded Bennett on the back. “I suppose it’s to be expected, though, what with her background.”

Bennett ground his teeth. Gossip. Yet another reason he preferred the battlefield to the drawing room. But even on the battlefield, it was essential to understand the terrain. So he smiled. “You sound as if you know a great deal about her.”

Daller shrugged, a smooth, careless motion that Bennett didn’t doubt had been carefully crafted to neither confirm nor deny. “It’s my duty to know of His Majesty’s citizens living in this land.” He smoothed the thin chestnut mustache adorning his upper lip and paused.

Bennett forced out the question the ambassador obviously awaited. “So what can you tell me?”

The ambassador ushered Bennett toward his study, a slight, magnanimous smile sliding over his lips.

The heat in the study hung as oppressively as it had in the parlor. Bennett perched on the edge of the leather seat. He didn’t make any more contact with the chair for fear of sticking to it when he tried to stand. He held out a slim hope that Daller would suggest they remove their jackets . . . but no, the man settled into his chair with apparent relish. Perhaps one grew accustomed to the heat?

Daller removed a silver snuffbox from his desk and gathered some onto his nail. He inhaled with a quick snort, then offered the box to Bennett.

Bennett refused with a shake of his head.
Get to the point
. Polite conversation had never been an art at which Bennett particularly excelled. He didn’t see the point in wasting time with idle chatter. “What information do you have on Miss Sinclair?”

Daller steepled his fingers together. “Ah, our Miss Sinclair. Many of the local men are quite enchanted with her, although I believe that relates more to her friendship with Esad Pasha rather than any of her own . . . charms.”

“Who is the pasha?”

“A former field marshal in the sultan’s army. Now he serves as one of the sultan’s advisers. They say he’s trusted above all others.”

Bennett filed that fact away. “Is the pasha friendly to the Crown?”

The ambassador frowned. “No more than the other locals. He swears complete allegiance to the sultan. But he does seem to have a genuine fondness for Miss Sinclair. He has acted as her father these past ten years.”

Where was her real father? He hadn’t escorted her today as Bennett had expected.

“Young men think to impress the pasha by composing inane poetry in her honor.”

Bennett surreptitiously smoothed the front of his coat to ensure no bulge showed from the slim volume tucked within. He grimaced and lowered his hand. There was no need for that; no one knew about the poems he tried to write.

“There was actually quite a popular poem that made the rounds last year, comparing her hazel eyes to a mossy rock, of all things.”

Every hair on Bennett’s neck rose. “Hazel eyes?”

Daller nodded. “They are her most distinct feature. Such an odd collection of brown, green, and yellow. From her Greek mother, no doubt, all that mixed blood. Blood always shows.”

The Miss Sinclair he’d met had brown eyes. Not even a half-blind swain would’ve called them hazel. Plain, chocolate brown. With so little else visible, he couldn’t be mistaken.

“That woman wasn’t Mari Sinclair.”

So where was she? Had she been captured? Bennett tensed.

The ambassador stared. “Of course she was.”

“That woman had brown eyes.”

Daller stuttered in disbelief. “That was the Sinclair coach. I’m certain.”

Bennett rose to his feet. If she’d been captured by the Turks, he might already be too late. “I must locate Miss Sinclair.”

Perhaps as a result of his diplomatic experience, the ambassador simply nodded at the sudden crisis. “We shall continue later.”

Bennett strode from the room. He’d scouted the Sinclair residence after his arrival yesterday. The modest home was situated only a mile from the embassy. He’d ascertained on his short excursion that his horse provided little benefit on the narrow, crowded roads that connected them. He’d go on foot. He could be there by the time they saddled his horse.

The straight cobbled road in front of the embassy gave way to dirt roads that wove among the wood and stone buildings. Carriages and hand carts jostled for position in the narrow lanes, creeping and bumping in fits and starts as space became available. He hugged the left side of the street, claiming the meager shade offered by the top-heavy second stories of the houses, which extended a good four feet past the ground floor.

His heart hammered in his ears. He should’ve verified her safety last night rather than wasting time jotting down his impressions of Constantinople.

But he’d been unable to resist. Something about the city made his fingers itch to capture it with words.

He cut through a crowded marketplace. Greek, Turkish, and Persian voices shouted in good-natured banter intermixed with a collection of languages he couldn’t even begin to decipher. A fortune’s worth of curry and saffron spilled in pungent abundance from barrels and burlap sacks.

Men dressed in rich fabrics and those barely dressed at all intermingled freely in the space. Women cloaked in flowing rivers of cloth bought and sold beside the men, some with faces covered as the false Miss Sinclair’s had been, but an equal number with faces bare.

He should have questioned the woman claiming to be Miss Sinclair about her use of the veil. He’d seen unveiled women yesterday. But he’d attributed her odd appearance to a woman too long in a strange land. Unforgivable. The mistake might have cost him his mission. And Miss Sinclair her life.

His boots crunched on the gritty road. Who was the unknown woman? If someone had harmed Miss Sinclair, why send a woman to take her place? It would, perhaps, buy them time until he realized his mistake. Time enough to torture Miss Sinclair until she confessed to espionage.

Or confess to anything they wanted just to stop the pain. Bennett’s back burned in remembered agony. And the French were infants in torture compared to the Ottomans.

As he turned onto the block containing the Sinclair home, a carriage arrived. Bennett’s eyes narrowed. That was the conveyance that had left the embassy a short time earlier. He gave brief thanks for the congested roads as he ducked behind a large date palm directly across the street.

The woman in bright gold emerged from the coach laughing. As she approached the house, the door opened and another female greeted her from the shadows of an arched entryway. The new woman wore a flowing blue robe similar to the false Miss Sinclair, but no veil hid the curls on her head. Her hair wasn’t remarkable for its color, a rather nondescript brown, but for the sheer volume that tumbled down her back.

The woman in blue scanned the street.

Bennett tucked himself against the rough bark of the tree. Hers weren’t the quick, darted glances his sisters used when they wished to avoid being caught in some prank, but rather the precise study of an experienced campaigner. Survey the land. Ensure no one tracked their movements.

After waiting a ten count, Bennett peered back around the tree as the woman finished her inspection and stepped into the sun. She issued an order in Turkish to the coachman. As she turned back to the house, sunlight illuminated her face, and for a moment, her eyes.

Hazel eyes.

Bennett’s shoulders tensed. Ah, Miss Sinclair, it would seem. Free and unrestrained. Now that he’d seen her, there was no way he’d ever mistake her for the other woman. While they were about the same height, the other woman was built of generous curves, while Miss Sinclair displayed the lithe, subtle lines of a dancer.

The grace of one, too, apparently, as she darted into the house.

His fingers strayed to the book in his pocket, desperate to write. To transpose her essence onto paper.

Bennett started across the street, dashing the temptation from his thoughts. She was his assignment, not a bloody muse.

From now on, things would proceed according to his plans or not at all. She’d learn and learn quickly not to play such games with him. If she insisted on drawing, then she would damned well respect the dangers she’d brought on herself.

A thin, dark man slanted toward the house, his gait smooth and posture straight.

Bennett pulled back to his place behind the tree. One of the beaus the ambassador had mentioned? The door flew open at the stranger’s approach, and Miss Sinclair raced toward him. Bennett braced for some tawdry lover’s greeting. Instead, she stopped a few feet from the man. The Turkish man bowed, but she didn’t return the gesture. A servant then.

Miss Sinclair draped a length of fabric over her hair and lower face as she talked. She nodded to the man once more, passed by him, and leaped into the carriage.

The coach jolted into motion.

What did she consider more important than a meeting to ensure her safety? Bennett swore under his breath and abandoned the scanty shade offered by the palm. She had agreed to work for the British army. It was time she learned to obey her commanding officer.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

M
ari choked on the cloyingly sweet smoke in the dark opium den. How could her father stand this place? She understood that once he’d smoked the opium, the room no doubt resembled a luxurious palace, but he chose to enter while still sober.

The lamps used to vaporize the noxious substance flickered dimly. She pushed aside the faded, filthy curtain enshrouding the bed the proprietor had pointed her toward. The man inside flinched at the sudden intrusion of light falling across his sallow complexion.

He offered her a beatific smile. “Mari-girl, how lovely to see you.”

The tightness in her jaw made it near impossible to speak. “Time to come home, Father.”

“Ah, but I’m having such a lovely time with all my friends here.”

She glared at the odd assortment of men who littered the small establishment, all either in the process of losing themselves to opium or helping unfortunates to stay there.

“These men aren’t your friends.” She could have bitten her tongue as she spoke. She knew her arguments had no effect; why couldn’t she stay her words?

“Ah, my dear, why are you upset? Am I late for tea, perhaps?”

She blinked back a stray tear. Confound the smoke. “Come.”

He sat up in his small enclosure. She offered him a hand, but he waved it off. “Don’t fret yourself.” He swung his feet off the bench and rose, swaying dangerously. “It’s a surprise that clarity of mind is not accompanied by clarity of motion.” He chuckled at his wit.

Mari tucked herself under his arm before he fell. No, it wasn’t a surprise. It had happened earlier this week and the week before and every week since she’d started fetching him home herself. She refused to meet the smirking gaze of the proprietor as she half dragged her father from the den. Luckily, her father had entered one of his languid moods and did nothing to resist her. He hummed tunelessly as they walked, lost in his own thoughts. She kept her head down to avoid the interested stares of the men drinking coffee outside at the nearby
kahve
. She hated to see the curiosity, or worse, pity in their eyes.

Only a few more seconds and they’d reach the coach. They would return home, and if the week was a good one, she’d be free from this for another four or five days. If it was a bad week  . . . Well, she refused to think further on it.

A solid wall of green wool stepped into her path. Mari careened into it. Her father teetered in her hold until a large, scarred hand gripped her father’s shoulder to steady him.

She grimaced and glared at the pale, puckered lines slashed across the back of the hand. She had to crane her neck to see more than the black braiding and silver buttons of his uniform. Feeling disadvantaged, she stepped back, dragging her father with her.

That hand did not match the rest of the man.

A tall, blond Adonis escaped from a Greek pedestal.

When Achilla, her maid, had described Mari’s new protector in those terms earlier, Mari had attributed the effusive praise to her maid’s approval of the male sex in general. After all, it hadn’t taken much to convince Achilla to take her place at the meeting and get the first glimpse of Mari’s protector.

Achilla hadn’t exaggerated.

Mari shook off her initial awe. Ridiculous. His hand obviously belonged to him. She scanned him again. Indeed, his nose appeared as if it had been broken a time or two. His black eyelashes were definitely too long for a man and too dark for a man with golden hair. A small curved scar indented his left cheek, its color a shade lighter than the ruddy color staining his perfectly chiseled cheekbones.

Leave it to the British army to dress in a uniform designed for the damp dales of England while in an Ottoman summer. How exactly did he propose to ensure she did the Crown’s bidding when he might expire from the heat at any moment? Her estimation of the man dipped further.

Confound it. She’d hoped by sending Achilla to the meeting this morning, she would be able to fetch her father without interference and buy herself a short respite.

She’d failed on both accounts.

His steel blue eyes raked her with an insultingly frank perusal. She stiffened. None of her servants would’ve betrayed her whereabouts. How had he found her?

Her arm tightened on her father. The major had followed her. Skulked after her like a common footpad. Her business here didn’t involve him. It didn’t concern the British government or affect the agreement to gather more information they’d coerced out of her. He had no right to intrude.

His eyes rested on her father, and pity entered into his gaze.

Her free hand clenched at her side. How dare he? How dare he judge her or her father? She stepped to the right to move around the major.

He mirrored her motion. “Miss Sinclair?”

Mari turned back the other way. He had followed her to the opium den, and he could trail her home because she had no intention of speaking to him here. Thanks to her father’s weakness, her life provided enough fodder for public discourse. She refused to add to the subject matter.

The major blocked her again.

She exhaled through clenched teeth. “Would you be so good as to move, sir? My burden is not precisely light.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re Miss Sinclair.” The words were not a question.

Major Prestwood moved toward her father, but she led him a step out of the major’s reach. “And you, sir, are arrogant and overbearing. Step aside.”

He did not comply. “You could use my aid.”

“I can manage. Besides, I don’t know you.”

His eyebrow rose. “If you had kept our appointment this morning, you would.”

Mari glared at him, grateful her veil hid her blush. “As you can see, I had other pressing concerns.”

“Concerns that should have been brought to me.”

Mari had to count to ten before speaking. Insufferable, insufferable man. “I know nothing of you, sir, and from this brief acquaintance, I am convinced that I would be most pleased to keep it so. I did not ask for your assistance and I do not desire it.”

Her words didn’t have a noticeable effect on the man standing before her. In fact, he appeared bored by her outburst. “I’m to watch over you. My orders are clear whether you sanction them or not.”

The man could teach a few things to a stone wall. Was he afraid she’d renege on her agreement? That she’d regain her senses and run away from all this? Her shoulder ached from supporting her father, and she shifted under the weight. Oh, she’d do their bidding. The British had ensured that.

And she’d been too weak to deny them.

She directed her disgust at him, grateful to have a target other than herself. “Fine. We will discuss it later over tea. Or do I have to clear that with you as well?”

Major Prestwood stiffened, and she gloried in provoking the small reaction.

“So much rage directed at the world,” her father sighed next to her, startling her.

Mari gritted her teeth. Her father was right. There was no point in letting this man aggravate her. If she had her way, she wouldn’t have to deal with him much longer.

As she calmed, however, she noted a low rumble. The men at the
kahve
across the street gestured in her direction and argued with one another.

Oh heavens. It must appear a veiled woman was being accosted by a British soldier. Ottoman men took the safety of their women quite seriously.

Major Prestwood continued to glare at her. “Why do you wear this? You are British.” He tugged on the corner of her veil, and it fell away from her face.

Two men at the
kahve
leaped to their feet with cries of outrage.

Her breath lodged in her throat and she darted them a quick glance.

Major Prestwood followed her gaze. The situation finally penetrated her protector’s thick skull. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword.

The aggressive action only further enraged their audience, and the two young, turbaned men pushed their chairs back with a clatter. Their yellow boots and clean-shaven faces marked them as Janissaries stationed in Constantinople, members of the sultan’s overstaffed and underused military force. Men bored and longing for a fight. They drew their swords.

Mari bit back an oath. She had to save Major Prestwood. Although life would be much easier if she did not . . . She sighed and lowered her voice. “If you value your life and various parts of your anatomy, start walking with me to my coach.”

She pulled her father, but he ignored her urgent tugs and kept strolling as if he hadn’t a care. And considering his poppy-eaten state, he most likely didn’t.

Staccato footsteps pounded on the road.

They wouldn’t make it to the coach before the soldiers intercepted them.

Prestwood stepped closer to her side. “I’ll hold them back while you get to safety.”

Mari briefly closed her eyes. Perhaps she’d be doing the world a favor if she allowed the camel-headed man to be cut to pieces and left at the city gate. “I’m in no danger. They’re advancing because they think you’re accosting me.”

Prestwood stepped back from her. “The devil you say.”

“Just get in the coach. I’ll deal with the men.”

Prestwood glowered at her. “I will not leave you to face armed men.”

The men were almost on top of them.

Confound it. Before she could rethink the monumental foolishness of her actions, she let go of her father and grabbed Major Prestwood by the front of his emerald jacket. “You are right, my love. We should never fight again!” She rose on tiptoe, and planted her lips on his hard, unyielding mouth.

The two Janissaries skidded to a halt mere feet from them, the steel of their swords glinting at the edge of her vision. They argued with each other in Turkish about the nature of the kiss.

She had to convince them. She pried Prestwood’s hand from the hilt of his sword and then slowly slid her hands up the major’s chest. Heavens, the man’s lips weren’t the only thing about him that was hard. She wrapped her arms around his neck, threading her fingers through the deceptively silken blond hair that escaped his hat to brush his collar. Sweet heavens, what good did it do for a man to have hair so soft? The strands slid through her fingers, making her long to clench her hands tightly so they didn’t escape her. Panting, she lifted her lips a scant inch from his. “Pull the veil from my hair so they can see who I am. I’ve been here to collect my father before.”

Prestwood’s arms wrapped around her waist and his lips softened, sweeping over hers. “If you are going to sell this as a lovers’ quarrel, you need to act like you’ve been kissed before.” He caught her gasp of outrage by deepening the kiss.

With a gentle tug, he drew the veil from her hair. He slowly sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the trapped flesh.

But she wasn’t about to let him control the kiss. This was her plan. And she had been kissed before, curse him. True, it had been absolutely nothing like this one, but if he was concerned about convincing their audience, he need not fear. She had read quite a bit on the subject.

She pressed herself more fully against him and copied what he’d just done to her lips. But her studies hadn’t prepared her for the jolt of pleasure that came from the small hitch in his breathing. She wanted to crow in triumph, but then his hand dropped down to cup her backside—her backside!—and she was sure she’d be shocked later, but all she could think about now was trumping his move. And the fact that his body was pressing against all the spots begging to be touched, sending heat between her legs.

She groaned and shifted, her nipples rubbing the rough wool of his jacket though the silk of her caftan. She gasped at her audacity and the foreign sensation. Heavens, that was—she rubbed against him again—incredible.

What would his hands feel like there? Would his touch ease the burning or only increase it?

His hand caressed up her side, promising to reveal the answer. One more inch and his finger would brush the side of her breast. His hand stalled so close, the warmth of it heated the very flesh that ached for his touch.

Did he seek to drive her mad?

Wantonly, she leaned forward. But Prestwood stepped back, causing her to stumble.

The Janissaries had sheathed their swords. Around them, the crowd of men cheered and hooted.

How long ago had the danger passed? And how had she allowed herself to become so lost that she had no idea of the answer? She spun away and collected her father, who studied a rock in the road.

“Do you suppose this rock might have been trod upon by an ancient Roman?”

She helped him to his feet and resisted the urge to snap at him. “Perhaps, Father. Take it with you if you want.” She turned back to check on Prestwood. He stood directly behind her. His face wore the same arrogant, bored expression from earlier.

The cad. As if she had not just saved his skin. As if he had not just kissed her so senseless she’d forgotten herself in the middle of a public square.

The British might have been able to blackmail her into continuing her work, but that didn’t mean she had to accept the watchdog they sent to ensure she bowed to their wishes.

They might have been able to gain her compliance with threats, but they didn’t control her as completely as they thought.

B
ennett sat in the backward-facing seat of the coach and glared at the other two occupants. What in the blazes had just happened? Not only had he been so distracted by the aggravating Miss Sinclair that he’d failed to notice the discontented audience, but then he’d mauled her in the street like a randy recruit.

If he’d thought the urge to write about her strange, it was nothing compared to the yearning he now felt to touch her again. To experience the vibrancy that had shaken him to his core.

Experience the vibrancy
?

Colonel Smollet-Green had been correct. Poetry led to weak, milksop officers.

Bennett had been too long on the battlefield and too long from the soft touch of a woman. Nothing more. He needed to bed one, not write about one.

He studied Miss Sinclair. Her hazel eyes were indeed incredible—soft brown pools stirred with ribbons of jade and flecks of gold surrounded by thick, dark lashes his sisters would have killed for. Her eyes slanted upward slightly at the corners, granting her an exotic, mysterious air that promised silken sheets, spiced oils, and nights of untold delight.