Page 37 of The Princess Stakes
Oh, good gracious.
Though a spark of desire ignited in the pit of her abdomen, Sarani shook her head wildly, backing away several steps as though reason would miraculously appear with more space between them. It didn’t. “I refuse to be your ‘shipboard doxy,’ as you called it, or whatever insanity you’ve conjured in that head of yours,” she burst out, waving a wild hand. “Regardless of what happened between us earlier”—she sputtered at the sudden gleam in his eye—“that’s not going to happen, Your Grace.”
A darkening gaze met hers. “Would that be so bad, Sarani? Being in my bed?”
Would it?
Parts of her body went instantly molten as her eyes slid to the very bed he was propped upon, visions of those fine sheets crumpled around a pair of naked, intertwined, writhing bodies. His. Hers. No end to where each of them began. Much like the carvings and sculptures she’d discovered during a trip with her father to a princely state where the temples of Khajuraho depictedmaithuna—the coupling between a husband and wife.
Her maid, Asha, as wide-eyed as she, had been a veritable fountain of information. Hot-cheeked, Sarani had been riveted, gobbling up the wickedly erotic depictions of the Hindu god Shiva, the masculine aspect of divine creativity, and the Goddess Shakti, the feminine aspect of the power of creation. Her people saw the concept of physical desire as something sacred, and that sexuality was a symbol of unity and oneness. She bit her lip. What would suchonenessbe like with Rhystan?
No, no, no!
Hastily, Sarani blinked the provocative and categorically unwelcome imaginings away. Heavens, what was wrong with her? She was surely out of her mind. There was no future, sexual or otherwise, with this man. She must have inhaled rope fibers and they were clogging her brain, because she couldn’t possibly be thinking that climbing into the Duke of Embry’s bed wasn’t remotely the worst conceivable idea in the history of existence.
Her body hummed its denial.
Not exactly the worst.
“Yes. No.” She gave her head a rough shake. “Of course it would be. And my name is Sara. I’m not that girl anymore.”
“No, you’re not,” he said quietly. He paused with a shadow of a smirk. “As diverting as it is to see you at such a stunning loss for words, that’s not the offer I had in mind.”
A breath rushed out. In relief? Disappointment? Sarani hissed to herself—definitely the former. “Oh. It’s not?”
“No.”
“Then what?” she asked.
“An offer of marriage.” Before the word or its implication could properly sink in, he arched a bronzed brow. “To me.”
Sarani blinked. “Why on earth would you—” She gaped, her jaw falling open in indecorous horror. “Marry you? You have to be joking.”
“Au contraire, I’m deadly serious. I’d like us to become engaged.”
“One of your quartermaster’s blows must have addled your mind, Your Grace,” she said with a frown. “Might I remind you that you are aduke. An engagement to…me will never be countenanced by yourmother, remember?”
“Talbot was a peer and you were engaged to him.”
Disgust rolled through her. “Talbot was a swine, the bottom of the barrel, ousted from London. Marriage to me was a windfall for a man like him.”
Sarani couldn’t disguise the ripple of pain that threaded through her words.
Even Lord Talbot had reminded her on more than one occasion thathewas doinghera grand service by offering her marriage. Oh, he’d desired her badly. Sarani had known it from the way he’d slavered over her body, his eyes wild with lust, but he had lorded his privileged male superiority over her like a cudgel. His close friend Markham had made no attempt to mask his contempt, and others had followed suit.
Especially the ladies; they’d been worse than the men.
It made her think of Thackeray’s words that it was a great compliment to any woman to be despised by her sex. She still wasn’t able to find it in her heart to agree. Women should lift each other up, given the barriers they faced on account of their sex alone and not having the same power as men. It had been what her mother had taught her and what her father had bolstered by allowing her to be raised as a son would be. Perhaps even to be esteemed as one would.
Until he’d traded her off like a goat, that was.
Marriage—the sole thing any highborn woman was good for. At least she and other Englishwomen had that in common. And here she was…crumbling like a house of straw at the duke’s offer, because it had to be a joke. The memory of her broken heart was her undoing, the prospect of wedlock to him twisting her into painful knots. Marriage to Talbot would have been intolerable. Marriage to Rhystan would be the end of her.
“This is the answer for both of us,” Rhystan said.
With the barest flinch, Sarani closed her eyes. “No. Not for me. I’d sooner go back to Joor.”
Rhystan narrowed his eyes, tracking her like a hound scenting a fox. “You’re telling me that you’d rather face your father’s murderer than become engaged to me?”
