Her Master's Touch Read online

  He raced after her, dodging, zigzagging, weaving through and around huddles of startled traders. But before he could reach her, she grabbed a fistful of mane and launched herself onto the bare back of a mare. Kicking the animal in the flanks, she sent it bolting forward and galloping across the field.

  Damon untied a gelding and hurled himself into the saddle. He booted the animal and the horse shot forward, hooves pounding as he raced after the woman, who stuck to her mount like a fly on flypaper. On a stretch of roadway, he booted the animal again, until it was racing alongside the woman's horse in a full, ground-eating gallop. Leaning dangerously off the side of his horse, he curled his fingers around the mare's bridle, bringing both animals skidding to a dust-billowing halt. But before he could dismount, the woman slipped off the mare and raced across a glade into the woods.

  He jumped down and took after her at a dead run in an effort to keep up with her. Swift as a gazelle, she zigzagged between trees, dashed beneath underbrush and scrambled over anything in her path. He gritted his teeth and scowled that this agile slip of a woman was able to leave him winded and in danger of falling back while she’d make her escape. That thought gave him the rush of adrenaline he needed to catch up and lunge at her, grabbing her legs and sending her tumbling to the ground. To his shock, she flipped over and kneed him in the crotch, then slithered from his grasp and scrambled to her feet. Pure, unadulterated fury dulled the pain long enough for him to grab her skirt and hold fast until she lost her balance and tumbled backwards, landing face up on top of him. He clamped one hand around her waist. The other hand captured a breast momentarily before teeth sank into his flesh.

  Letting out a roar, he rolled her over and straddled her while pinning her hands to the ground above her head. "Damn you, you little spitfire!"

  She bumped and pitched beneath him, causing him to bite his tongue, but he held her fast. "Let me go you... you... gorgio swine!" she cried.

  As he bear his full weight on top of her to halt her struggles, she attempted to buck free, the sharp thrusts of her hipbone striking his square in the cock, making him fear for his masculinity. Then abruptly she stopped struggling and gazed up at him. Golden sparks flickered in her jade-green eyes. But he saw no fear in those eyes. Instead, they seemed to hold a gleam of mocking amusement. Or perhaps... triumph?

  He had no idea what her game was this time, but he wouldn't be duped again. "So you don't like gorgios," he said, straddling her while trapping her hands above her head. "Well, I don't like gypsies. Every year you people arrive in hordes for the horse fair, camp on my grounds, help yourselves to my water, graze your stock in my fields, and all the while you eye me with contempt. So don't get your dander up with me, gypsy girl, because I don't much give a damn how you feel. The way I see it, you can either replace that nag you sold me with an unadulterated black, or return my money. So, what's it going to be?"

  She batted her long-lashed eyes and looked at him with an air of feigned innocence, and said, "I have no black."

  He inspected her more closely. Her features were delicate, her skin fair, her face more like a china doll than a gypsy hoyden. Obviously Eurasian. Not only were her eyes a striking shade of green, but her erudite English revealed not a trace of a Hindustani. But that didn't change the fact that she'd swindled him out of a sizable sum, and he intended to recover every last rupee. "Then I'll have my money back,” he demanded.

  "I don't have it," she countered. "Someone took it from me."

  He eyed her with vexation. The chit was truly testing him. And he was quickly losing his patience. "Like hell. You're a bloody thief."

  "I am not a thief. You had the choice of examining the horse first," she said.

  "I bought a black, and that's what I expected to have after it rained!"

  She gave him a waggish smile. "As they say it all comes come out in the wash."

  He clenched his jaws. "Maybe you won't find things so amusing when you're cooling your backside on the cold floor of a jail, which is where you'll be if you don't come up with my money." Slowly he released her hands, then guardedly moved from atop her and sat back on his heels, clearly primed to take off after her if she bolted. Which she wouldn't.

  She raised herself to a sitting position and peered into a pair cobalt eyes as cold as stone. In those eyes Eliza Shirazi saw contempt. Typical gorgio. He'd like to see her locked up. He'd like to see all gypsies locked up. But that wasn't her plan. And so far, she mused, Lord Damon Ravencroft had followed her plan as if he'd been the one who'd formulated it.

  "I'll work off the money," she said, holding his gaze, feeling a nagging uneasiness that this plan could turn on her. She didn't like the odd feeling growing inside that came when she looked at this particular gorgio with the cobalt eyes, burnt brown hair, and shadow of a beard on his angular jaw, a diabolically fascinating face that had hovered in her mind ever since she'd left him waiting two days before.

  He let out a snort of derision. "What kind of work? Robbing me blind?"

  She raised a hand to slap the cocky devil across the face, then reconsidered. That would not get her into his employ. “I was doing what my elders ordered," she said, "but I have worked as a ladies maid." The statement, though untrue, was not unfeasible. At Madam Chatworthy's she'd learned what every aristocratic young woman should know about running a manor house—the duties of servants, what to expect of a ladies maid. It had not been so long that she'd forgotten.

  Her mind drifted back to a time when she'd worn soft linens and fine silks instead of rough wools and coarse muslins, to a time when she'd slept on feather bedding instead of a horsehair pallet in the tight confines of a wagon, to a time when she'd been Elizabeth Sheffield instead of Eliza Shirazi. To a time when a dark wall in her memory blocked all further recollection.

  She had no trouble remembering Madam Chatworthy's School for Young Ladies in London. But no matter how hard she tried, the first eight years of her life, when she'd lived with her parents at Shanti Bhavan where Lord Ravencroft now lived, remained a dark void.

  Lord Ravencroft looked at her in contemplation for a few moments, then said, "I have no need for a ladies maid as I have no lady. But Cook can use another kitchen maid."

  Eliza pursed her lips. Work in the steamy bowels of the kitchen? What chance would she have finding the Kalki-Avatar if confined there? No. To carry out her mission, it was vital she work as an upper servant. "As a ladies maid I did not learn to cook," she said.

  A glint of amusement came into his eyes. "And when you wander with your tribe, am I to assume that you take your own cook?"

  She bit back a snide retort. "I have never been required to prepare food," she said. "My job in the kumpania is tattooing."

  He looked at her, dubiously. "What kind of tattoos?"

  "Whatever a person wants. Birds, reptiles, monkeys."

  "Well, I'm not in need of a tattoo artist," he said, "so I'll turn you over to my housekeeper for placement. Mrs. Throckmorton rules a well-disciplined domain. She also keeps a hawk-like vigilance over her staff."

  Eliza pondered that. His housekeeper might be sharp-eyed and autocratic, but the woman couldn't be on guard every minute of the day. Or night. And one skill she’d learned while living with gypsies was the ability to creep on silent feet. She'd bide her time while carrying out her duties, but at night, while everyone was asleep, she'd methodically search the house until she found the opal. Then she’d quietly slip away with it.

  Looking at her new master, she said, in as convincing a tone as she could muster, "You may not believe it right now, my lord, but I feel duty-bound to make amends to you since it was not my idea to sell you the horse. I was acting on orders. But, I assure you, I’ll carry out my duties in a manner with which even Mrs. Throckmorton will find no fault."

  "I sincerely hope that will be the case," he said. "If not, I'll turn you over to the constable."

  From his unflinching gaze, Eliza knew he was no pushover. Recouping the opal would be more of a challenge than she'd a
nticipated. And it would take all the skills she'd learned from the Kuraver to do it. But she would do it.

  After returning the horses to their owners, they went to the encampment where Eliza's wagon stood parked. While she changed into a plain brown dress and fetched her bag with her few belongings, Lord Ravencroft stood outside. She looked out of the window at him. His excessive height and broad-shouldered frame gave him a commanding presence. Clad in a white shirt that lay open at his throat, and wearing breeches that defined powerful thighs, he was not the typical blue-blood. This one was strong-willed, self-assured... And dangerous.

  And while catching his attention at the horse fair, she’d all but promised her favors in bed, which he wasn’t apt to let pass.

  As she stepped outside, she glanced at the large, ornamented wagon on the fringes of the encampment and saw Januz Kazinczy watching. A week ago she'd waited outside that wagon while the tribal council decided her fate.

  When the Kris Romani had been ready to receive her, Januz opened the door and pinned her with baleful eyes. "You come, posh-rat," he'd spat the derogatory name for a British half-blood. To Januz and many others in the kumpania, she was, and always would be a pariah among pariahs, unless she could shed her gorgio ways and take on a true gypsy countenance. And if there was one sole mortal flaw in her being, it was that she desperately wanted to be accepted by these people, be the rawnie old Zelda would have had her be. Even after Zelda's death, Eliza wanted to make the woman who'd taken her in proud. Perhaps this was her chance. The Kris Romani had called her for a reason.

  Istvan Czinka, primas for the assemblage, got right to the point. "We know where is Kalki-Avatar," he'd said. "It your job to get it back,"

  She'd looked at Istvan with a start. Zelda had held the talisman for the Kuraver for over forty years, but when they prepared her body for the funeral pyre, the opal was missing. Many pointed fingers at Eliza, claiming it was because of a gorgio's presence among them that the luck of the tribe had changed.

  "Anglez gorgio named Lord Damon Ravencroft have opal now," Istavan continued. "He live in great manor house where you once live."

  "Shanti Bhavan?" Eliza's heart quickened. She hadn't lived there since she was a child, before her father sent her away to England.

  "You work for Anglez Gorgio, find Kalki-Avatar and return it to Kuraver. Lord Ravencroft looking to buy black horse at fair. You sell him black and find way into great manor house. This you do, Eliza Shirazi, and you be one of us."

  She'd made the mistake of letting her buoyant gaze fall on Januz Kazinczy, who'd looked at her with frigid and said, "But if you fail, posh-rat, you banished..."

  "Come with me," Lord Ravencroft said, taking her arm.

  Clutching her carpet bag, Eliza walked with him to his coach—a dark-blue brougham hitched to a pair of dapple grays. A turbaned footman, wearing an embroidered waistcoat and ankle-length trousers, waited beside the horses.

  Before stepping inside, Eliza glanced around and saw Januz staring at her with contempt. He hoped to see her fail so she'd be banished from the tribe. But she wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. In spite of Januz, she would recover the opal and return it to the clan, and prove to them that the luck of the tribe had not changed because of her presence among them. She also wanted to return to Shanti Bhavan. Perhaps there she would tap into buried memories and at last learn the reason behind her mother's disappearance and her father's deception.

  She stepped into the coach. Once inside, she settled against blue morocco cushions and breathed in the fragrance of fine, soft leather. The vehicle dipped under Lord Ravencroft's weight as he stepped up. He sat in the middle of the seat, so his arm brushed Eliza's, and his thigh pressed against her leg. He looked down at her, a feral gleam in his cobalt gaze. Trapped against the coach door, she could either open it and climb out, or endure his silent advances. And there was no question, he was making overtures.

  The coachman gave the command and the coach rolled forward, rocking gently on its leather straps. Their arms rubbing with the motion, Lord Ravencroft gazed down at her and said, "I believe I shall enjoy having you in my employ, Miss...?"

  "Shirazi," Eliza said, using her mother's family name, not wanting to reveal her identity, especially not to the man who now occupied her father's former home.

  "Miss Shirazi. Yes, I'm certain I will."

  Eliza averted her gaze. She'd not missed the innuendo in his tone. At the horse fair she'd been eager to cast him a come-hither glance and turn a bare ankle to his view and dip low, displaying her breasts to his gaze—a brazen move that appalled her now as she considered the ramification. She’d worn nothing beneath her blouse, so determined she'd been to catch Lord Ravencroft's notice and make her way into his employ. But if she didn’t present a different demeanor, he’d take with a clear conscience what she’d offered to him at the fair.

  Holding that thought, she edged away from him and said, "I am certain that your Mrs. Throckmorton will be pleased with my work."

  Lord Ravencroft inched his way over, until their arms again met. "If she isn't, we both know another way for you to repay your debt," he said, his warm breath tickling her temple, "something more suitable for a woman of your... spirited nature."

  Raising her chin a notch, she said, "I may have a spirited nature, my lord, but that does not diminish my ability to follow orders. I assure you, I will not disappoint your Mrs. Throckmorton. Nor, is what you suggest an alternative."

  "And what, exactly, do you think I suggested, Miss Shirazi?" A hint of wry amusement crossed his face.

  Which made Eliza's heart thump. Disregarding the unwanted feeling, she said, "It was obvious what you suggested. Just because I am a gypsy does not mean I am obtuse."

  "I'll try to keep that in mind," he said, pinpoints of light dancing in his eyes.

  Unsettled by the man's gaze, Eliza turned and looked out the window at the jute fields, her apprehension growing as the coach carried her ever closer to the house where she'd been born, a house that held its own dark secret. She could not visualize it now—all memory faded with the rest. Yet, she envisioned the house pink. A peaceful pink like its namesake, Shanti Bhavan. House of Peace. How ironic, she thought. There had been no peace there. After the disappearance of her mother, her father packed her off to boarding school in England and told her that her mother was dead. Yet, she remembered nothing about her mother dying. No illness. No tears. No preparing her body for the funeral pyre. One day her mother was simply gone.

  And Eliza was placed in the care of an English woman she'd never met and they were put on a steamer bound for England. Exiled to a colorless world of boarding schools devoid of love, she'd been a strange hybrid there, her body in one country, her heart in another, yet not belonging to either. But slowly, inexorably, she forgot India, and Shanti Bhavan, and her mother's face completely. Until she was fourteen…

  "We're on my land," Lord Ravencroft said, drawing her out of her musing.

  Eliza gazed at rows of sod-roofed huts lining pale-green fields of jute. Scores of turbaned, dhoti-clad workers hunched down, weeding and thinning the young plants. Then the coach turned into a lane that cut between an orderly layout of hedge-bordered paths, sunken flower beds, carefully-tended lawn, and a systematic arrangement of palms and banyans and magnolias. And strutting about with an air of avian arrogance were several blue-breasted peacocks, one spreading its tail like a great jeweled fan, another perched on a stone fountain with gargoyles spurting water...

  A fountain with gargoyles spurting water...

  A feeling of dismay settled over Eliza. She stared at the fountain, turning her head to hold it in view. What was it about the gargoyles that made her feel despondent...

  "I failed to ask, but who was your employer?"

  Having anticipated the question, Eliza replied, "A District Officer in the Indian Civil Service." She was reasonably certain that Lord Ravencroft, being a planter and at the bottom of India's British social hierarchy, would know few, if any, men in the Ind
ian Civil Service, the reason she'd invented such an employer.

  "What was his name?"

  "Lord Hall."

  "Which Lord Hall?"

  "Which Lord Hall?" Eliza repeated, unnerved that there was apparently more than one Lord Hall in the Indian Civil Service. She'd counted on there being none.

  Lord Ravencroft eyed her with mistrust. "Yes, Miss Shirazi. Which Lord Hall? Or is your Lord Hall part of a fabricated background?"

  "I have no reason to fabricate a background, my lord," she said. "My employer was Lord... Edward Hall."

  "Which district?"

  She looked at him with mounting concern. Picking a jurisdiction at random, she replied, "Ganjam. But that was several years ago. He has since returned to England." She hoped he’d be done probing into her background. She was running out of excuses.

  "I am not familiar with your Lord Edward Hall," he said.

  Anxious to focus on another subject, she looked at the score of Brahmin gardeners painstakingly tending the grounds, and said, "They all work for you?"

  He nodded. "But I'll soon be selling the plantation and returning to England."

  Eliza looked at him with a start. "How soon?"

  "As soon as possible." Lord Ravencroft gave her a slow, enigmatic smile. "India has served its purpose. Now I'm ready to return to England."

  Eliza looked at him, miffed. India had served its purpose, just as it served her father's purpose. "Ah yes," she clipped. "In typically British fashion you have raped the land and exploited coolies on promise of wages that are never intended to be paid in full. But, of course, you view it as doing your duty." Just as her father explained in his letters to her while she was away at school. But having lived with the Kuraver, she knew differently.

  "The British are not in India to make friends," Lord Ravencroft said. "We're here to rule."

  "Of course," Eliza countered, "part of the great civilizing mission to dispense with too many pagan gods, too many temples, too many people."