Her Only Desire (3 page)

“Put more wood on the fire!” one of the kinsmen ordered a nearby servant.

Georgie's heart pounded. “Of course I will. That's why I'm here. Come. Link arms with me. Let's get you out of here.”
Before your relatives make you go through with it whether you want to or not.
Pressuring her to the brink of this ritual suicide was one thing, but would they resort to murder, throwing her into the fire against her will?

She glanced around warily, knowing this danger was certainly possible. “Everything's going to be all right, I promise. Come, now. Let's go.” Holding onto her friend protectively, Georgie drew her away from the inferno.

At once, the dead man's relatives sent up a clamor of protest all around them, yelling at the girls; in an instant, they were surrounded by a sea of angry brown faces.

A few seized the girls' arms, trying to separate them.

“Leave her alone!” Georgie shouted, shoving them away, but in their eyes, this was completely unacceptable.

The brother of the dead man came over and gripped Lakshmi's other arm, rebuking her in Bengali, reminding her of her sacred duty and trying to drag her back toward the fire, as though he would throw them both forcibly into the blaze before he would see the late family patriarch dishonored.

“Let go of her!” Georgie pushed the man away with one arm and held fast to Lakshmi with the other. “Stay back! I'm not going to let you murder her!”

“Ungrateful daughter! Do not give in to this foreigner's meddling! How dare you shame our family?”

“Father, please!” Lakshmi wailed, struggling against her kin, jarred this way and that in the tug of war over her, but when the men began steadily pulling both girls back toward the fire, terror came into her large brown eyes. Now instinct took over, and the girl fought for her life.

Georgie was having trouble drawing a simple breath, but she held onto her friend with both arms, sparing only a glance over her shoulder.
“Adley!”

“I am here, Miss Knight! Hold on, hold on!”

It was only a minute or two, but it felt like an eternity before her faithful, flaxen-haired suitor came barging into their midst astride his fine chestnut gelding, leading Georgie's white mare by the reins.

The tall stamping horses helped stave off the mob. Georgie pushed Lakshmi up into the saddle behind Adley.

To her family's fury, the Indian girl wrapped her arms around the Englishman's slim waist.

“Take her to my house! Go!” Georgie urged them, but Adley hesitated, eyeing the hostile crowd in doubt. “I'll be right behind you!” She slapped the gelding on the rump to get them moving before the situation turned any uglier.

In the next moment, Georgie sprang up onto her horse's back. The white mare tossed her head, but one of Lakshmi's kinsmen grabbed the bridle and would not let go, excoriating Georgie as a meddler, a pagan, and a few even less savory epithets. Well, the world had called her famous aunt worse—the defiant duchess had been dubbed “the Hawkscliffe Harlot” for her many scandals. Georgie was not about to be intimidated. “Let go of my horse!”

They were closing in, rioting around her, and as her fear climbed, her difficulty breathing increased.

“Would you like to go into the fire in her place?” the infuriated brother-in-law yelled.

“Don't—touch me!” As she fought them, she could hear her heartbeat thundering in her ears, her breath rasping in her throat, and in a flash, it brought back the long-forgotten, inward sound of panic.

She had come to know it well as a child. Unable to gulp enough air into her lungs, a wave of lightheadedness washed over her, terrifying her with the fear of passing out and falling from her horse into the irate crowd.

Suddenly, a towering Englishman exploded into their midst, driving the dead man's relatives back.

“Stand down!” he roared, thrusting one arm out to hold the men at bay and blocking the others from getting at her with nothing more than a walking stick.

Georgie's eyes widened.

The mob fell back before his furious commands for order, backing away from him as though a tiger had gotten loose in the market.

As she regained her balance in the saddle, Georgie's stunned gaze flashed over the magnificent interloper—all six-feet-plus of him—lingering briefly on the sweeping breadth of his shoulders and the lean cut of his waist.

Moving into their midst with athletic elegance, a simmering cauldron of intensity, polished to a high sheen, he was crisp and formidable—lordly—from his sleek short haircut to his gleaming black boots. In terms of solid, unsmiling mass, the man was two of Adley, with none of his foppish flamboyance.

In her heart, Georgie knew him at once—not because of his fine London clothes, nor even because she had been expecting his arrival any day now at the nearby docks. She knew he was Lord Griffith because he did not draw a weapon on these unarmed people.

A man like him didn't have to. The famed marquess wielded more force with his aura and his eyes than other men commanded with a pistol.

She watched him in awe. It seemed her illustrious guest had finally arrived, and from the first second, Georgie was more impressed than she liked to admit.

Somehow, in short order, Lord Griffith began single-handedly bringing the riot under control. Deliberately creating a distraction, he drew the crowd's fury away from her to himself, so that, at last, she could take a few seconds to try to breathe. But she knew they had to get out of here—both of them. At any moment, the whole thing could erupt in violence.

When he threw her a piercing glance full of question—
Are you all right?
—she suddenly forgot to exhale, never mind the asthma.

Good heavens, he was easy on the eyes!

Having proudly doted on her two darling brothers all her life, a handsome face did not usually impress her. But in the midst of the fray, the diplomat's striking good looks made her blink.

Some of the local men now recovered their courage and moved toward the marquess again, yelling at him in various dialects with renewed pugnacity and wagging their fingers in his face. At any second now, it was sure to come to blows.

His glower tamed them briefly when he looked back at them in warning, but the angry Hindus were doing their best to shout down his ever-so-reasonable-toned commands for calm.

Steadying her horse, Georgie finally managed to take a decent breath, though it burned all the way down into her chest.

She edged her mare closer toward him. “Lord Griffith, I presume?” she greeted him in a tone that strove for at least a show of levity.

He looked over at her with a strange mix of surprise and exasperation, but then he watched the crowd again distrustfully. Rather in spite of himself, the stern line of his mouth crooked in a saturnine half smile. “Miss Georgiana Knight.”

She coughed. “In the flesh.”

“I got your note.”

“Care to make a timely egress?”

“Delighted.”

He turned his back on the mob just for a moment and swung up behind her like a born horseman. Large, lordly hands encased in tan kid gloves reached past her waist. “Better let me take the reins.”

She snorted. Men! “It's my horse, and you don't know the way. Hold on.” Shoving away one of Lakshmi's in-laws, Georgie finally managed to wheel her mare around.

At last, her powerful horse broke free of the crowd, and, with her newfound ally riding behind her like a hard wall of warm, male muscle at her back, they went racing homeward.

CHAPTER

         
TWO
         

H
ellfire, what had the mad chit gotten him into? He had come here to stop a bloody war, not to start one.

But the Marquess of Griffith was not a man who lost his temper. Ever.

Displays of emotion were for peasants.

Tapping into his formidable reserves of steadfast patience, Ian clenched his jaw and refused to say a word.

For now.

A true gentleman, not to mention a diplomat up to his eyeballs in protocol, habitually treated ladies with a degree of courtesy that placed them on shining pedestals; as a female member of the Knight family, this was doubly true of the consideration he felt compelled to show Georgiana.

But it was not easy.

Not when he had half a mind to wring her pretty neck for putting herself—and his mission—in danger.

He couldn't believe she had dragged him into disrupting the solemnities of a damn funeral and could only pray that those people back there did not include anyone he'd have to work with on his assignment. As for her, what on earth did she think she was doing, dashing around the streets of Calcutta in this wild fashion?

He definitely meant to speak to her father about this.

Yes, he thought sternly, not to the girl, but to her menfolk would he address his displeasure. Somehow he doubted Lord Arthur knew what mischief his beautiful daughter had gotten into this day, but that was no excuse. The chit had nearly gotten herself roasted alive.

It was shocking that her father and brothers were not keeping a better watch over her than this. Did they not know that as the niece of the Hawkscliffe Harlot, she would in all likelihood require even
more
supervision than the typical impulsive young female? This branch of the Knight family was flirting with disaster by giving
their
Georgiana such free rein.

Of course, in all fairness—both training and native inclination tended to make Ian look at everything from both sides of a situation—having witnessed her display of courage back at the fire, having seen for himself that her rescue truly had been a matter of life and death, he could hardly fault her.

The girl had just saved someone's life. He had never seen a woman risk herself for another that way. In truth, his previous cynicism about the new Georgiana had thinned considerably.

Too, he was only a guest. It was not his place to lecture her or her father on propriety, much as he might have enjoyed doing so; and in light of the fact that riding tandem with the delectable creature had driven his own thoughts into the most lascivious territory, he really had no room to talk.
Merciful heaven.
Her warm hips rocked snug against his groin, while his hands molded her slender waist. His awareness of her had turned to ferocious want within the first furlong.

Her long legs brushed against his thighs, teasing him; he could feel each subtle flex of her calves as she directed her horse. It was enough to drive a man insane.

He tried to ignore it: Lusting after his host's virginal daughter was surely the height of bad form.

Then she coughed—a short sound, harsh and dry—and his protective instincts surged instantly to the fore once again.

Furrowing his brow, Ian suddenly realized the girl was experiencing some difficulty with her respiration. Listening more closely, he could hear it in each painful breath she drew, could feel it in the clenched tightness of all the muscles down her back. His face turned grim.

Disapproval and lust both thrown aside, he steadied her with a firmer hold on her waist. “The smoke has distressed your lungs.”

“No—I am well—truly.” She tried to stifle another cough, and he cursed himself for his lechery.

“My dear, you are a very poor liar. Tell me what is wrong,” he ordered in a clipped tone.

“It's just a—touch of asthma. I've had it since childhood. Usually it gives me no trouble, but the smoke—”

“Do you require a doctor?”

“No. Thank you.” She sent him a grateful glance over her shoulder, then hesitated. “When I get home, there are things I've learned to do that help.”

“Good, then let's get you there quickly.” He murmured to her not to try to talk; took the reins gently, brooking no further argument; and let her point the way, his entire focus fixed on getting her to safety, where she could receive the appropriate care.

         

Relief and gratitude had been Georgie's main reactions since the moment Lord Griffith had appeared, and she had been savoring with covert pleasure the way his magnificent body enfolded her so safely as they rode together on her horse.

But when he forced her to surrender the reins, her triumph over rescuing Lakshmi turned to a sense of unease. Though she did not argue with him this time, his smooth usurpation of control jarred her memory back to her true and original stance about the man, the one she had formed before he had exploded onto the scene and performed so valiantly back there at the fire—in short, a healthy skepticism.

Oh, yes, she knew that all the world considered the Marquess of Griffith some sort of paragon, a man of justice and sterling integrity. Ever since she had received his letter to Papa informing them of his imminent arrival, she had been asking around about him in Society, trying to gather whatever information—or gossip—she could about their renowned London guest.

A top diplomat and expert negotiator with the Foreign Office, indeed, a personal friend of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, Lord Griffith had averted wars, brokered cease-fires, procured treaties, parlayed for the release of hostages, and stared down power-crazed potentates with, she'd heard, unflinching cool and steely self-control. Whenever there was an explosive conflict brewing somewhere in the world, Lord Griffith was the one the Foreign Office sent in to defuse the most potentially explosive situations.

As a woman who embraced India's centuries-old Jainist philosophy of nonviolence and social equality, Georgie could not help but respect a man whose driving mission in life was to stop human beings from killing each other.

Still, she had her doubts.

Nobody was that good. The Eastern mystics taught that for every light within a man there was an equal darkness. Besides, she had grown cynical after seeing every new diplomat, politician, and administrator sent from London to help rule India arrive with an ulterior motive—
gold.
They no sooner stepped off the boat than they began scrambling to line their own pockets with the wealth of the East, usually by exploiting the Indian people. Only the rarest of Englishmen ever cared about
them.
But Georgie cared intensely.

From the time of her childhood, she had come to think of the Indian people as her second family. After her mother's death, she had been virtually raised by her kindhearted Indian servants. They had welcomed her, a lonely little orphan girl, into their world—their joyful, dancing, parti-colored, mysterious, paradoxical world.

And it had shaped her.

She used her place in British society to try to protect them from the worst ravages of Western avarice, but women had little power beyond what charm and wits and beauty God gave them. Despite her family's ducal connections, her father's rank as a now retired member of the East India Company elite, her brothers' posts as wildly popular officers with the Regular Army, and her own status as a relatively highborn English debutante, her efforts to aid the Indian people often seemed a losing battle.

And now the power brokers in London had sent Lord Griffith, the heavy cannon in their arsenal.

It did not bode well.

Something big must be happening, and she intended to find out what it was. She had heard rumors of another war against the Maratha Empire, but she prayed to God it was not so, not with two brothers who couldn't bear to stay away from a battlefield. And then there was that disturbing letter from Meena…

Not long ago, another of her highborn Indian friends from childhood, dear, lovely Meena, had wed King Johar, the mighty Maharajah of Janpur. Handsome and brave, both a warrior and a poet, King Johar ruled one of the most formidable Hindu kingdoms of north-central India. His royal ancestors had been founding members of the Maratha Empire, an alliance of six powerful rajahs with territories around Bombay and the rugged forests of the Deccan Plateau.

Bound by an age-old treaty of mutual defense, which promised that if any one of their kingdoms was attacked, all the others must go to its aid, the Maratha kings of the warrior caste had first united hundreds of years ago to fend off the Mughal invaders who had come storming down from Afghanistan to conquer India.

To this day, they continued to protect their sovereignty by holding off the British. There had already been two wars between the English and the Marathas over the past fifty years, but for more than a decade now, thankfully, an uneasy peace had reigned. Many felt, however, that it was only a matter of time before war broke out again.

Georgie worried so. She detested violence and hated the thought of a just ruler like King Johar being brought low. So many proud Indian kingdoms had already fallen to British machinations, some quelled by wars, others by humiliating treaties: Hyderabad, Mysore, even the warlike Rajputs in the north. Only the Marathas remained completely free and independent.

But maybe not for long.

If war broke out and the warrior king were slain in battle, then all thirty of Johar's wives, including her dear Meena, not to mention his hundreds of concubines, all would burn on his funeral pyre in an act of suttee, just like Lakshmi had nearly done today.

Georgie shuddered at the hideous thought, at which Lord Griffith held her a little closer.

“Are you all right?” he murmured.

What a tender touch he had.
His gentleness arrested her attention. She managed a nod. “Yes, thanks,” she forced out, reminded anew that, whatever intrigues were afoot, this man was mixed up in the middle of it all.

She intended to find out through her guest what was going on—though, of course, she could not do so directly. After all, she was “only a woman.” Lord Griffith would never tell her government secrets, and she had no right to ask. Best, therefore, not to arouse his suspicions in the first place, she decided. If she used her woman's tools, kept her eyes and ears open, charmed him, soothed his guard down, then she'd soon have all the information she required.

She intended to watch him like a hawk.

As much as she longed to believe in Lord Griffith's brilliant reputation, she wasn't that naive. She saw little reason to hope that the supposedly wonderful marquess was in truth any different than all the other greedy Europeans who had come to plunder India for centuries.

If his motives were pure—if he really was here to stop a war from breaking out and could be trusted as a human being, then she would do all she could to help him.

But if it turned out that he was just like all the rest, corrupt and callous, and that his true purpose boiled down to greed—his own, the Company's, and the Crown's—then she would stand with her Maratha friends and find a way to work against him.

Having him stay at her house as her guest would help her keep an eye on him; thus, she had sent him that note opening her home to him in hospitality. His visit should give her plenty of time to observe him, get to know him, and judge his true nature for herself.

Presently, they turned onto the broad, elegant avenue known as the Chowringee, Calcutta's answer to Park Lane. As they rode past the row of stately mansions where the richest English families lived in splendor, Georgie ducked her head, having donned the veil and Eastern clothing to help conceal her identity from her nosy neighbors.

Most of them were probably still sleeping, for there had been a grand ball last night, but she wasn't taking any chances. She did not want to end up as mired in scandal as her late, great aunt, for she couldn't be of help to anyone if she was ruined.