“Not nearly so dangerous as painting your face with white lead. Lady Coventry died from it.”
Tony stood up, quickly tucked her books under her arm, and started for the door.
“What are you reading?”
“Oh … er … Eastern philosophy.”
“Good for you, darling. It’s time you broadened your mind.”
In her chamber Tony threw off her coat, neckcloth, and boots and, stretching out on the bed, opened the story of Princess Jemdanee. She quickly became absorbed in the fascinating, exotic word-pictures it painted.
A harem is like an aviary, for we are all caged birds. Still I am happier here with my lord than I was in my father’s Court of Kings, which was known as the Orchid House because of its stifling decadence.
The rooms are beautiful, with reflecting lotus ponds and fountains that spray colored water. The ornamental fish have gold rings through their noses. On hot days the fan boys pull cords so that the silken fans hang like sails from the high ceiling to emulate a sea breeze. To sweeten the air, camphor or a different fragrance of incense is burned day and night.
I am become an expert atshatrant,a form of Indian chess with jeweled pieces, played on an ivory and ebony board, for sometimes if amuses my lord and keeps him longer at my side. Best of all he likeschaupar,a game of chance played on the floor with a cross-shaped board.
The preparation for a visit from my lord is most pleasant. I sweeten my mouth withpaan,which is a slice of betel nut mixed with lime, wrapped in a leaf and kept close by in a cunning little casket. Then begins my self-adornment. I paint my nipples and spread rouge in the hollow between my breasts to make my body more desirable. With my own hands I prepare my lord an aphrodisiac of crushed rubies, peacock bones, and the testicles of a ram, so that his great phallus will remain like marble throughout the night and into the dawn.
I pull on diaphanous pantaloons knotted at the waist by intricate silken cords and tassels. At first these seem impossible to undo. By the time my lord solves the secret pattern we are both in such a fever of anticipation, he is ready to fall upon me and bury his great weapon deep inside my silken sheath. My lord is sometimes so hot with desire that my maid must fan us with peacock feathers as we perform the dance of life and death over and over again.
Tonight my lord is hunting by moonlight. I can hear the tinkle of the lamb’s bell which he uses to bait and draw the wild animals. If my lord kills the leopard before it reaches the bait he will be a great hero to all the ladies of the harem for saving the innocent lamb’s life. All will seek to attract him from me. If my lord does not come to me tonight, my maid will have to spread a cooling paste of henna between my thighs to soothe my longing.
Tony closed the book with a snap. Would to God she had some paste of henna to cool her own hot center! She felt flushed and decidedly breathless. She knew exactly how Jemdanee felt, for she had become the princess and naturally her lord was none other than the Leopard.
Tony could take no more of their erotic tale for the present, but she could not resist taking a peek at theKama Sutra.It was a fatal mistake! The pictures and commands blurred before her eyes. They were mesmerizing, wickedly erotic, yet intimately beautiful. The command inscribed upon the first page read: “You must fetter his soul before you bind your body to his in lovemaking.”
Tony turned on her back and gazed up at the ceiling. Fetter his soul … fetter his soul … bind your body to his …
Antonia was lost, lost. The room tilted and everything seemed to slide away out of her control. She could no longer handle her emotions; she could no longer cope with this lie she was living. She longed to stop time, then make it all go backward so that everything she had done could be undone, and everything could be exactly the way it was before … before.
Tony forced herself to breathe slowly, to calm down. She had momentarily let go of the strands and they had slipped through her fingers. Mentally she picked up the threads, one by one, and took a firm grasp upon them. She would cope. She would face it all squarely.
The first thing she would examine were her feelings toward Adam Savage. She was attracted, intrigued, but daunted. Nay, she lied. She was not daunted enough to keep her sinful thoughts from him, and attraction was far too pale and pallid an emotion for what she felt. Yet she knew it was not love. She had no sweet thoughts about him. No soft sighs, no illusions.
He was dangerous, immoral, and most likely wicked and corrupt. She doubted if his kind of wealth could be accumulated without cheating and stealing. Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, she wanted to be with him constantly. He drew her like a lunar tide. She swore she would keep her distance, then against her will she would seek him out, to look at him, to listen to him, to be with him. Morning, noon, or night, it mattered not the hour when the longing struck.
She distilled her thoughts and her feelings down to one word.Hunger.She hungered for him. She hungered to touch him, have him touch her. She hungered to kiss him, have him kiss her. She hungered for him to teach her all his knowledge, all his skills, all his worldly experience. She hungered to bind her body to his in lovemaking.
God, what a coil she was in. Her situation was impossible, yet she must accept responsibility for what she had done. She sighed for what might have been, then turned over and curled up in an effort to ease her ache.
Chapter 20
Adam Savage looked over the merchant vessels that were for sale and by a process of elimination was left with a clipper that promised speed as well as spacious cargo holds. It had been neglected, run nonstop for profit obviously, and now that the wear and tear was visible, its owner intended squeezing the last halfpenny out of it.
The telltale smell of opium still clung belowdecks. For that reason Savage determined to pay only half what was being asked. The thoroughbreds he had bought from the Prince of Wales were to be delivered to Edenwood today, so he decided to kill two birds with one stone. He’d sail the ship to Gravesend to see how it handled before he made an offer.
When Tony received the note from Savage telling her he was going to Edenwood, she heaved a sigh of relief. Wasn’t it amazing the way things had of working themselves out? Today was the day she’d agreed to take part in the great race to Richmond.
It had seemed a lark at the time to agree to the phaeton race. After all, the winner stood to gain a small fortune, but she had been three sheets to the wind and the fact that she owned neither a perch phaeton, nor horses to drive it, hadn’t deterred her. Her guardian always seemed to possess whatever she lacked and he had encouraged her to drive his carriage.
Tony knew it was unconscionable to race his cattle without his permission, but she reasoned, Savage would admire such initiative and daring. There was no denying it would take guts for her to carry it off, but just the thought of a glint of admiration, rather than contempt, from those ice-pale eyes made her want to risk all. She closed her eyes for a moment and clenched her fists. The need to prove herself knotted her guts.
The race was for couples. Sherry was taking Amoret, Charles Fox’s mistress was Lizzie Armistead, and of course Georgiana was partnering the Prince of Wales. She wasn’t the prince’s mistress. No one filled that position at the moment because it was reserved for Maria Fitzherbert, who had a lovely house on Marble Hill in Richmond. She was playing coy at the moment and had retired from London so George would go running after her. He did, of course. It was rumored he drove out to Richmond every day, which gave the prince a distinct advantage in familiarity with the course, but Tony knew every single man racing was heavier than herself.
She scribbled a note inviting Dolly to spend the afternoon in a fun-filled drive to Richmond, signed it Lord Anthony Lamb, and dispatched it to the Olympian Theater. She felt confident the little actress would jump at the chance to rub elbows with the Carlton House set. This done, she lost no time making her way across Green Park to Stable Yard Road, where Savage kept his horses and carriages.
Tony felt a qualm when she saw the spanking, brand new high-perch phaeton. Its finish was glossy and without a scratch. The hostler took off his cap in reverent admiration as he told Lord Lamb it had been rubbed with eighteen coats of varnish.