Free Scandal in the Night by Elizabeth Essex Page A

in his body had migrated to his palm and left it vibrating.
    Oh, yes. He was smitten.
    As intoxicated by her regard as if he had smoked hashish. But to save them both a horsewhipping, he bowed respectfully, pressing his hands together in front of his chest in namaste. “Thou hast done me a great honor, Memsahib Rowan.”
    “As do you, huzoor .” She nodded solemnly and copied his gesture before she turned back to the mare, who pivoted and swished her tail daintily, preening for Catriona Rowan. “You know very well what a treasure you’ve brought to my Lord Summers.”
    The mare’s flirtatious caprices had them turning, shielding them from Lord Summers’s direct view, and Thomas could not keep himself from confiding in a low voice meant only for Catriona Rowan’s ears, “I did not bring her for my Lord Summers, memsahib. In fact, I did not bring her at all— she hast brought me to find thee for her mistress. She has chosen thee. ”
    For the briefest moment, her serious, composed face was surprised into astonishment. A deep flood of color stained her cheeks—clearly, she was not used to even so mild a flirtation. But she rallied, rising to the challenge. Thomas thought he could see the beginnings of pleasure warm the corners of her gray eyes, and she was almost smiling when she turned back to the mare, an almost imperceptible, secret curving of marmalade lips.
    “Oh, you are very good, huzoor. And does she do all your bargaining for you as well, clever girl that she is?”
    He wanted to throw back his head and laugh, until she laughed as well. He wanted to charm the smile full across her face, until her lips parted with mirth and—
    “My dear?” Lord Summers interjected himself back into the conversation before Thomas could do any of the unpardonable things he was thinking of doing with Catriona Rowan’s mouth. “What do you think, my dear? Will she do for you?”
    “She’s absolutely marvelous, and she knows her own worth. Don’t you, you gorgeous, proud creature?”
    The mare rubbed her nose agreeably against the girl’s hand, as if in confirmation of this obvious fact.
    “What do you say to giving her a trial? If you don’t find her gaits to your liking,” the lord commissioner mused aloud, “then perhaps I might see if Lady Summers would like the animal for a carriage—if she’s docile enough. Or perhaps we could sell her on to one of the Fielding chits. What are their names?”
    “Oh, no, no.” Catriona Rowan protested before her uncle could find his answer. “No. She shan’t be put to a carriage. She is very much to my liking. Now that I’ve been lucky enough to be offered such an animal as this, I shall never consent to be parted from her.”
    It was strangely dramatic—the heartfelt insistence of her oath—but it was exactly what Thomas wanted to hear. And her uncle as well.
    “Well, then, my dear.” Lord Summers was all beaming indulgence, pleased that his gift had met with such approval. “You shall have her.”
    Thomas was rewarded by the sight of her smile, as small as it was genuine, like a single shaft of light, illuminating her gravity with quiet joy—an arrow silently piercing the armor of his assumed identity.
    Yet, Catriona Rowan was serenely oblivious to the havoc she was creating within him. “Thank you, Uncle. You are most kind. I will treasure her.”
    But then she astonished them all again by turning back to Tanvir Singh, spitting in her palm, and holding it out to him. Just as if they were two men, not at Tattersall’s but in a Scottish village square, confirming their deal in time-honored, masculine fashion.
    Oh, but there was nothing, nothing masculine about her. They were more than a world away from Scotland, and she was everything fey and delicate and female, and everything forbidden to Tanvir Singh.
    But he could no more resist the chance to touch her again than he could carry her away across the wide desert, or ride with her into the cool mountains, or dance