Page 8 of His Wicked Embrace
“My lord, is she… Does she needanything?”
“Yes. Food. Have everything Cook can make sent up atonce.”
His butler nodded, and by MacTavish’s hesitation it was clear that he sensed Zehra was not a typicalguest.
“I shall explain everything to you once it’s safe. It is for her sake, not mine, that we must havesecrecy.”
MacTavish nodded. He’d served Lawrence since Lawrence had turned twenty and was no stranger to taking orders of a peculiar nature. “The maids will see to her room, and I will let everyone know that this guest is special and her presence asecret.”
“Thank you. Apologize to everyone for the late hour.” Lawrence walked downstairs to his study, where he pulled out a bit of parchment and prepared a quill and fresh ink pot. He hesitated, however, when he put his quill tipdown.
What would he say to his brother? Apologize for buying a woman when he’d vowed he would not interfere? Yet what should he have done? Sit idly by as a woman had her freedom stripped from her? If anything, it was his brother’s fault for not properly warninghim.
He had taken one look at Zehra and knew he couldn’t let her be taken by another man. There was something about her eyes and how she moved. It brought back memories so far in the recesses of his mind, and they seemed to whisper to him, but he couldn’t pull them into the light, couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing—or halfremembering.
Yes, there was something about Zehra that he could not get out of his mind. She reminded him too much of the young woman from the brothel years before, though not directly in looks, of course. It was the situation as a whole. It felt as though he’d been given a second chance to right a pastwrong.
He stared hard at the parchment. With a curse, he crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the fire. As he watched the embers eat away at it, he sighed and looked up at the ceiling to where Zehra sat now, one floorabove.
She was a lovely woman who’d been through a horrifying ordeal, and he was moved by her in ways that were far too dangerous. He’d never considered himself a true gentleman—he took after his older brother, Lucien, far too much. As his mother had said more than once, “Rogues run in the family.” If he kept Zehra under his roof for very long, he would have trouble remaining agentleman.
Yet he was not a man who ever forced seduction on any woman, either. He did have some scruples he still clung to, by God. But if she gave him any indication she wished to share his bed, he most certainly would not turn her down. The problem would be in determining if such a request was genuine or out of some sense of obligation. He wouldn’t abide thelatter.
Lawrence leaned back in his chair, frowning. This week his entire family was to be present for various summer parties in London, and he would no doubt be forced to attend these events as well, but what ofZehra?
He would have to keep his Persian princess safely tucked away for now. He could still see the look of fear in her eyes as she begged him to keep her, even though he’d promised her freedom. Something had frightened her about being returned home. It was a mystery—one he had every intention of getting to the bottom of once she had a chance torest.
Lord, he was thankful no other man had bid against him. Seven thousand was an unbelievable sum, one he would have trouble explaining should anyone question his accounts—that was assuming the White House was able to use it, which was unlikely given that the Bow Street Runners were tearing the brothel apart. But he had won, and he was relieved she’d come home with him. She was safe now and would remain so under hiswatch.
Chapter Three
Zehra sipped her wine, even though her belly quivered with an ache born of days with little to no food. She fought to ignore the beating headache rising in her head by examining the bedchamber of her rescuer. His tall four-poster bed with a dark-green coverlet looked inviting, perhaps too much so. He had a shaving stand, complete with a washbasin, and a chest of drawers. A tall bookcase stood against one wall, and it was filled with books, some old, others quite new. She carried her wine glass with her as she approached theshelf.
“Who are you, Lawrence Russell?” she whispered, reading the gilded spines on the shelves. Gothic novels, poetry, sciences, art, philosophy. He was well-read, it seemed. Surely a man who was well-read was less likely to be a cruel man. At least, she hopedso.
He claimed he had bought her to protect her from other men. But she had learned the hard truth of late that she could trust no one—not strangers, not even friends. Her parents lay dead because they’d trusted a man they thought was theirfriend.
Zehra closed her eyes. Tears trickled down her face, and the cool spring air drifting through the open window dried the wet streaks. She mastered herself, bearing the pain of her loss. There would be a time to mourn, but not yet, not until she found her mother’s family and learned if they would offer her a home or cast herout.
She could almost hear her father’s voice.“You must be strong a little while longer, my desert rose, just a little longer.”Desert rose. How often he’d called her that. Her mother had laughed with delight at the name whenever Zehra would dance in a puddle of colorful rose petals, breathing in the heady perfume of nature’s finestflower.
For a moment, she was borne back into the past, and sunny memories swept her far from this dark, cold island. Her father sat before a fire in a pit, the night sky glittering with stars, as he played the setar, an instrument similar to an Indian sitar. He sang in a haunting voice. Zehra would sit wrapped in her mother’s arms, as her mother whispered to her the words of her father’smusic.
I ama candle burning foryou,
My heart is aflame with ardor foryou,
Yet you shall never comehome,
My gleaming pearl, my dearestheart,
I wait…I wait in the darkness, burning bright into thenight,
Hoping against hope you will find your wayhome.
She had been tooyoung to understand the look between her parents then, the softening gazes, the intimate secrets that lingered in the air unspoken betweenthem.
But that life was over. She would never find her way home because it was her home no longer. All that was left was a burned palace, blood coating the smooth floor tiles. The stain of evil in that place would never fade, not for her. Even if she could go back, she would never return to thepalace.
