The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [238]
The whisper ended in a gasp as Ash's hands slid down from her shoulders to catch her again into a close embrace and pull her down with him onto the floor of the cave.
The dry, silver sand was cool and smooth and very soft, and Juli's black hair spread a silky coverlet over it as she lay in the darkness and felt Ash's hands strip away the only garment she still wore, and move up again slowly and caressingly: warm and firm and very sure. For a moment only she knew a pang of fear, but it passed as quickly as it had come, and when he said: ‘I' m going to hurt you,’ she tightened her arms about him, and did not cry out at the lovely cruelty that ended her girlhood.
‘I never meant this to happen,’ Ash had murmured. But that had been hours later – they did not know how many – and after it had happened again. And again…
‘I did,’ whispered Juli, lying quiet and relaxed in the curve of his arm, with her head pillowed on his shoulder.
‘When, Larla?’
Juli did not answer immediately, but Ash was already thinking of something else, and the question had been an idle one for his mind had turned to plans. He was trying to visualize the large-scale Ordnance Maps that he had studied almost daily as the camp moved down across India, and decide which route would be the safest to take. Because the sooner they quit Rajputana and the south, the better. They had their horses, but no money… They would need money, yet they could not go back to the camp. He felt Juli move her head, and the cool touch of the jewel in her ear reminded him that the stones she wore that day were pigeon's-blood rubies, set in gold, and not only in her ears, but as buttons on her achkan. If they were careful they should be able to get a good price for them, and they could dispose of them one by one as the need arose.
‘A long time ago,’ said Juli softly, answering his question at last. ‘A month or more; though I did not plan it this way. How could I know that the gods would be so good to me as to send a storm in which we two would be caught, and find refuge here, together? You will think me shameless, but I planned to come if I could to your tent, and if you would not take me willingly, to beg of you… because I was desperate, and I thought that if only –’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Ash, recalled abruptly from his own plans.
‘The Rana,’ whispered Juli, and shivered. ‘I –I could not endure to think that I must lose my maidenhead to another man, one whom I neither knew nor loved and who did not love me, yet who would use me, by right – for lust or to beget heirs from my body. An old man and a stranger…’
She shuddered convulsively and Ash tightened his arm about her, holding her hard against him, and said: ‘Don't, Larla. You don't have to think of it any more. Ever.’
‘But I must,’ insisted Juli, her voice shaking. ‘No – let me speak. I want you to understand. You see, I knew from the beginning that I must submit to him, and also that – that even if he did not find me desirable he would use me, because I was a woman and his wife, and he desires sons. That much I could not escape. But that he should be the first – and the last… That