The Perfect Temptation (46 page)

to
escape him, I never
would have met you. And since you're

shaping up to be one of the best things
that's ever happened

to
me, I'm damn glad that
he and I had that falling-out."

She'd been addressing the longer term, but
couldn't be displeased

that he'd seized the shorter. "Proof
that some good

comes of everything. And proof that you
can-and without

great effort-bend your thinking when you
want."

He made a quiet humming sound as his brows
knitted and

his gaze shifted out the window. Alex let
him wander off into

his thoughts, suspecting that he was looking
back into the

last two years and trying to shift the way
he perceived all

that had happened. It wasn't an easy task
for him; focusing

on the positive wasn't a natural
inclination.

She so hoped he succeeded in changing that.
If
he could,

his life would be a happier one. And then
maybe, just maybe,

he would someday look back at their time
together and declare

that her decidedly unconventional way of
going through

life had changed the way he viewed his own,
and that because

of that, she was
the
best thing that
had ever happened to him.

Which was such a shallow and self-important
hope,

she chided herself. And a not very realistic
one, either.
Of

the two of them, she was the only one in
love. For Aiden, she

was just another interlude, another woman in
a long, long

parade of them. She'd have to consider
herself fortunate if

he simply remembered her name in five years.

Alex turned that likelihood over and over in
her mind, examining

it, trying to understand why it didn't
distress her.

Intellectually, she should have recoiled at
the realization that

she was nothing more to him than a casual,
convenient conquest.

She should be sending him away or at the
very least

working on a steely speech that would put a
firm end to any

thought of an affair. But she wasn't doing
any of that. And

more importantly, she honestly didn't want
to.

No, the plain truth was that she was willing
to accept that

Aiden didn't love her. She loved him and
that was sufficient.

She wanted to make love to him, wanted to
pour all of her

heart and soul into him. Whatever he could
give back would

be enough. Loving
him
was a gift she was giving herself. A

very special, once-in-her-lifetime gift.

A gift that needed to remain a secret, she
decided, studying

him askance. Yes, it was best if he never
knew, never

even suspected that she loved him. She'd
remove herself

from his conscience before it could even
think to cringe. Her

gift to Aiden would be a clear assurance
that she fully understood

and accepted the transient nature of their
physical

relationship. How to go about doing that
without sounding

as if she were buying used silver, though
...

To
the accompaniment of
screaming peacocks, they made

their way across the rear yard toward the
kitchen. "I'm going

to kill them one of these days," he
shouted over the noise.

"You'd better warn Preeya about getting
too attached to

them."

Alex laughed and traded the key to the
kitchen door for

the note Aiden had pulled from the jamb.
Juggling his clean

clothing so that she could hold her skirts
close, she stepped

past
him
and into the moisture-heavy heat.

"Please tell me that it's not a ransom
note," he asked from

behind her, pulling the door closed and
shutting away the

sharpest edges of the peacocks' cries.

"It's from Preeya," she explained
as she read. "She says

that Mohan left with
Mr.
Stanbridge shortly after ten this

morning, that they're planning to return
around four-thirty,

and that while we're
all
gone, Sawyer has taken her to
market.

She doesn't say when they left or when they
plan to return."

"I'd imagine fairly soon," Aiden
suggested, putting the

extra bundles of silver on the kitchen
worktable. "It's getting

late. She still has to fix dinner. Unless,
of course, she already

did and left it on the stove or in the oven.
My mother's cook

does that on her days out."

Alex laid the note and his clothes beside
the silver,

stripped off her cloak, and went to look.
"No dinner that I can

see," she announced, closing the oven
door. "But bless her,

she did leave water on the stove. Enough for
bathing. And it's

hot.
If
you'll draw a bucket of cold, I'll meet you at the tub."

"Are you going to join me in it?”

Her pulse skittered and sang and for a split
second temptation

bloomed bright. Common sense seized control
in the

next. "With Barrett and Mohan, Preeya
and Sawyer likely to

come through the door at any minute?"
she laughingly, regretfully

countered, carrying the steaming pot toward
the

screened area of the room.

From the pump, he taunted, "Live
dangerously, Alex."

God, how she wished she could, how she
wished they had

even a little more time than they did.
Pouring the water into

the copper tub, she answered, "I'll go
so far as to prepare the

bathwater for you and then I'll go into the
house."

He came around the screen, the bucket of
cold water in

hand, and blocked her exit. "I'd prefer
if you didn't go off

alone, Alex," he said, all the teasing
gone from his voice.

"Not where I can't see you or hear you
if you call for help."

The stranger, she knew. The nonexistent
mystery he

couldn't solve. "All right, I'll stay.
The silver has to be cleaned

anyway. I'll see to that while you
bathe."

''Thank
you." He
stepped back and let her pass, adding as

she went, "With the screen between us,
it couldn't shock

your sensibilities too deeply. Not if you
don't peek."

"I'm not going to peek," she
assured him, bringing
him

the clothes he'd worn earlier in the day.
''That sort of behavior

is for schoolgirls."

Schoolgirls peeked, Alex silently amended
from her stool at

the worktable, but grown women watched.
Discreetly, of

course. From a distance. While pretending
they were polishing

silver. Not that there was too terribly much
one could

see through a carved fretwork screen. Still,
what details

were lacking were supplied by her
imagination and the

kitchen had become uncomfortably warm.
Rolling up the

sleeves of her blouse and opening the first
two buttons on

her bodice had provided some measure of
relief, but not

nearly enough.

"I've been thinking," he called,
rising from his bath, "about

your returning-to-India-staying-in-England
dilemma."

"Of course you have." Why hadn't
she ever noticed just

how wide his shoulders were? And how lean he
was?

A flutter of white as he pulled the bath
sheet off the wall

peg. "I think you're approaching it
from the wrong direction.

It
isn't which you want
to do more, it's which you'd like to

do less."

Alex put her elbow on the table and propped
her chin on

her hand, watching him
dry
off. "I don't see that the change

in perspective really makes all that much
difference, Aiden."

"Yes it does. Which frightens you more?
Going back to

India?
Or
staying here?"

The answer was surprisingly clear and
stunningly immediate.

"Going back to India." Knowing
what his next question

would be, she supplied the answer before he
could ask.

''There's a quality to life there. A rather
terrifying kind of

freedom. Expectation, actually."

''To ... ?"

"Feel."

"Feel what?" he pressed, casually
draping the bath sheet

over the top of the screen and reaching for
his trousers.

"Everything. All emotions are
considered part of the

divine. Happiness. Sadness. Love. Hate.
Desire. To deny feeling

is to deny God's intention."

"I like that desire part."

"You would," she called back,
laughing, watching his legs

disappear into his dark trousers and
thinking that it was silly

to
feel deprived by it.
"Actually, you'd do very well in India

You wouldn't even try to resist the
temptation of it."

"You were right, Alex. This is very
complicated. Let me

see
if
I'm understanding so far." He picked up a boot and

pulled it on. "Being born English and
raised in India,
you're

certainly not Indian, but neither are you
completely English.

And while you have a foot in both
worlds," he went on,

pulling on his second boot, ''you feel as
though you really

don't fully belong in either. How am I
doing?"

He plucked his shirt off the peg and she
sighed, resigned

to enduring propriety. "Quite well so
far."

"Yes, but that's the easy part. There
are tens of thousands

of English men and women who share that
particular

dilemma with you," he said, walking out
into plain view,

carrying the rest of his clothing,
absolutely breathtakingly

bare from the waist up. "What sets you
apart is how deeply

you feel the conflict and the courses you
see for resolving it."

She wasn't feeling the least conflicted
about anything at