Kate and Julia: Slave Girls of the Raj (16 page)

Afia’s big, damply perspiring breasts crushed against her own as she wrapped Julia in her arms. “I know it’s hard, but you have to keep going,” she said. “I’ve never seen Jahngir like this before. He could do anything. You mustn’t provoke him.”

Julia sobbed against the girl’s shoulder. “Oh, I want him so much, Afia. And I want him to want me.” The arms around her tightened.

“I know,” Afia said gently. “I tried to tell you. I wanted to do it sooner, but my lord forbade it. But you must think of yourself now. You have only a few days left here. You don’t want to spend them being punished. Come and exercise with us and then we will go to the bath.”

The English girl shook her head despondently. “It doesn’t matter any more. Oh, Afia, you and the other girls made me feel…. And Jahngir too. I was so shy when I came here but I felt that was changing.”

She eased from the girl’s grasp and met her eye. “I was too timid to do anything except what everyone else expected me to. Then I saw Mrs.

Winter’s advertisement and ended up in India, and then I thought it had all gone horribly wrong when I was abducted.” She gestured at the house and garden. “But this place…. I had never looked inside myself before, never asked who I was or what
I
wanted. The things I’ve seen and done and felt here and the people I’ve met changed that.” Julia gave a thin, ironic smile. “The answers weren’t what I expected but they’re what I got and I can’t alter that. I want to stay here and love Jahngir Khan the way you and the other girls do, and… and to have him love me.” Her tears began again and Afia took her in her arms once more.

“It would be useless to tell you that in time you’ll get over it, or try to make you believe that one day you will love your master as much as you now love his brother. But, trust me, until that day comes you will find the strength to carry on.”

Strength, Julia thought. It was not something she had ever possessed in abundance, certainly not the physical kind, but that was not Afia’s meaning. She was talking about strength of will, and much to Julia’s surprise she realized that was something else she had discovered in herself recently. Apart from her one moment of panic on her first day, she had not surrendered to hysteria as she was sure many English girls would have in her position. She had accepted her fear and done her best to control it, even at times to channel it to help her deal with the embarrassing and uncomfortable situations she had had to face. And those very situations had not only increased her determination but also her self-confidence. Julia sighed. Now both had shrivelled once more, along with her fractured heart.

Afia abruptly disentangled her hold on Julia and stepped away.

The English girl followed the direction of her gaze and saw Jahngir Khan dressed in his blue robe walking down the path towards them.

“Come, girl,” he said, frowning. “You too, Afia.” He turned back to the
zenana
. Julia followed dejectedly. She had ceased to be ‘little
murgah
’ the moment she had broken down in tears after he had told her who her master was to be.

The Pathan sat on one of the
zenana’s
couches and pointed to the cup and brass tray resting on a side-table. “Watch, girl. Afia.”

Clearly she knew what he wanted without being told. Afia took the tray in both hands, sank to the floor several feet in front of him and seemed to glide forward on her knees. Holding her body low, she raised her arms higher than her bowed head and offered the cup on the tray to Jahngir. He made her repeat her lithe, graceful movements a half-dozen times before turning to Julia. “Now you.”

Apathetically, she took the tray, knelt and shuffled awkwardly towards him. It tilted as she raised it and the cup slid towards its rim.

“Again,” Jahngir snapped, and made a sound of annoyance when her second attempt was no better than the first. “Did you even trouble to watch?” he demanded, and had Afia demonstrate again. As the native girl passed Julia the tray, she raised her eyebrows and gave a small, warning shake of her head.

“Go and bathe, Afia,” the Pathan ordered, and for several seconds after she had gone sat silently and sternly staring at the kneeling English girl. She sat back on her heels. The tray in her hands pressed on the undersides of her big breasts, lifting them higher. Julia saw Jahngir’s eyes flicker to her up-tilted nipples.

“What am I to do with you, girl?”

Love me, she wanted to say and felt the ache of longing and regret grow worse. She gave a sigh of her own, and saw his eyes again drop to the movement of her breasts. He had asked her once if she had any ambitions. To love and be loved had been her answer and now more than ever it was true. Was she going to let her only chance of seeing that ambition fulfilled slip through her fingers without a fight? Would she retreat into her shell and let her shyness defeat her as it had always done?

The strength Julia thought had deserted her surged up inside again, and she looked determinedly at the evidence of Jahngir’s interest in her that was tenting the silk of his robe where it covered his groin. Very obviously he still found her beautiful. Plainly he still desired her. Julia moved her knees further apart and arched her back, revealing the full length of a pussy she knew was suddenly gleaming with her dew, and a love-bud she could feel growing larger. Jahngir’s black eyes widened and she saw his nostrils flare.

With all the grace and poise she could muster, Julia glided her naked body to his feet as Afia had, and offered up the tray. Heart thumping, she raised her blonde head and looked into his face. Dark, intense eyes lifted from the roundness of her downward-pointing breasts to the gloss of her rouged lips and the brightness of her blue eyes.

Slowly, she lowered their painted lids then raised her long lashes to boldly meet Jahngir’s glittering gaze. He took the tray from her and laid it aside.

At once, Julia reached for the cord holding his robe, loosened it and, holding one end between her palms, looped its length around both of her wrists and held them out to him.

“Master,” she breathed, making the word a sensuous whisper that sent a tingling excitement down her spine and all the way to the core of her femininity. Desperately, she hoped it would have the same effect on him. He looked at the symbol of her willing bondage entwined around her wrists, then at the tapering jut of her out-thrust breasts and the fleshy swells between her thighs. A sudden twitch of his manhood freed it from the robe and revealed it in all its rearing splendour. Very deliberately, Julia ran the tip of her tongue over her upper lip. “Master,” she sighed again, hope and longing swelling in her breast.

Strong arms seized her and she found herself on the Pathan’s lap with his rigid flesh pressing against her. Her belly flipped and her sex wriggled as his lips crushed hers and his tongue thrust greedily into her mouth. A hand closing on one breast and the pressure of its palm on Julia’s hard nipple made her moan against his lips. They pulled free and she felt his breath hot on her cheek.

“You’re beautiful.” His mouth closed on hers again. Julia curled one hand around his straining manhood. It too was hot and seemed to pulse beneath her fingers as she stroked its length. His hand left her breast and delved into the slickness at the apex of her thighs. As it sparkled under his probing fingers, she squirmed in his lap and moved her hand faster on his upright flesh.

“Temptress,” he whispered against her mouth, and kissed her long and hard.

Lips bruised and tingling almost as much as her intimate place by the time he released them, Julia laid her blonde head against his chest.

His fingers stroked her deliciously. She shivered in delight, took a deep breath and summoned all of her determination.

“Master, I love you. Let me be yours.”

Julia’s bottom thudded painfully onto the floor at Jahngir’s feet.

Dizzily, she looked up and saw he had risen and was glaring down at her.

“You little schemer,” he accused. “You clearly paid attention to some of your training. You’ve learned the art of seduction quickly enough. But you had better not try it on me again or you’ll find yourself punished. Now pick up the tray.”

“Please don’t send me away,” Julia begged, her hope turning to despair. “Please. You can tie me up as much as you like. Punish me every day if it pleases you, but let me stay and serve you the way the others do.” She clutched wretchedly at his bare feet. “Please. Do anything you like but let me stay. I love you.”

“After a few days? Nonsense! You’re being fanciful, in your foolish, English way. I’ve spent the last four years doing everything I could to show my loyalty to my brother. I’m not going to throw that away by letting a slave girl come between us. You and the other white girl will be my gift to him. That’s how it is and that’s how it will remain.”

“But you could give him another gift,” Julia argued, growing ever more exasperated by his stubborn refusal to see sense. “I’m sure he’s not even aware of my existence. What harm could it do? He need never know.”

“
I
would know,” Jahngir Khan said. “It would not be honourable and it would be disloyal. Now do as you’re told before I lose my temper.”

“Your temper?” The rarest of events happened. Julia lost her own temper. Grabbing the tray she jumped up and clashed it down at Jahngir’s feet. The cup flew off and shattered into fragments. To hell with it, she thought. She had done her best to please him and it had not worked. Now she was going to displease him, and damn the consequences. The fire of anger filled her belly. “Damn your temper,”

she yelled, “and damn your training. And damn you too.”

Her gut twisted in sudden alarm, but her fury kept her head up and her eyes glaring into his as the thunderstruck expression on his face turned to rage. He seized her wrist, and with Julia fighting every step of the way dragged her to the far end of the
zenana
until they stood before the throne-like chair. He pointed to the three canes and the whip that rested on their pegs on the wall above it, and his eyes flashed threateningly as he bared his teeth.

“I remember the first time we met, girl, and I’m sure you do too.

You were running away from a beating in such a blind panic that you were wetting yourself. Those canes haven’t left their places on that wall since I became Master here, but that can change.” He lowered his head to look into her eyes. “And it will. No girl has ever dared speak to me as you just did. I have never heard such insolence from a slave, nor do I intend to ever again. Unless you want a beating, you will get on your knees and humbly apologise for your outrageous behaviour. And you will promise to obey my will in all things, including stopping this nonsense about my brother.” Jahngir let go of her and pointed to the floor in front of him.

Julia took a step back. Fear was a hollow chill in her gut and her heart was racing. She knew he was angry enough to mean every word, but she was angry too, and enough to care nothing about what became of her now that her efforts to win him had failed. Yet, behind her anger she felt a calmness that bordered on serenity and a clarity of thought that was as new to her as her growing courage. He thought her weak and had called her foolish. He thought the threat of beating her was enough to bring her to heel. Julia took a firm grip on her fear and used it to reinforce the sudden resolve that rose up inside her. She stared back defiantly.

“I’m not sorry and I won’t say I am,” she said levelly, and then her temper really got the better of her. “Do your worst and see if I care. Why don’t you go the whole way and use the whip?”

Jahngir’s lips twisted into a snarl. “Very well. I will.”

*

As Penny reached for the handle on the parlour door her hand began to shake. It was another symptom of the nervous tension that was overflowing her and not just setting her whole body quivering but making her heart pound and her belly flutter wildly. Of all the encounters she had experienced recently this, she knew, was the most important. This one would decide her whole future. How she spent the rest of her life depended on her ensuring it had a successful outcome.

It would have happened sooner if she had had her way, but the moment she had limped painfully back to the Residency her body had betrayed her. Exhausted, pain-racked and shocked by her ordeal at Raham Dil’s hands, Penny had taken her ravaged, burning and throbbing bottom and breasts off to bed.

Only after a night of fitful sleep and half a morning spent trying to soothe her pain with some of the patent medications she always carried, had she found time to reflect on her amazement at discovering who was behind the abduction of her girls. Her attempt to find him had proved fruitless. It was the day the
khillat
was being handed over. The town was filled with celebrating crowds and he had disappeared amongst them to make his final arrangements for the upcoming slave auction. Cursing him, her own weakness and her frustration at having to wait, Penny had retreated to the fragile sanctuary of her room and become increasingly ill-tempered and anxious.

Her anxiety worsened as she opened the door, paused for a second to brace herself and stepped into the parlour.

“Hello, Penny.”

“Hello, George,” she said, dry-mouthed. Jefferson was standing in front of the empty hearth smoking a cigarette. The smile he gave her looked distinctly predatory as he gestured towards the hide sofa.

“Have a seat. That’s the one you prefer, I believe.”

Penny felt a rush of heat to her cheeks. He had obviously been speaking to Courtney. Her belly shrank. He probably knew everything all the way back to her meeting with Macdonald. The thought rattled her, especially the knowledge that he had witnessed her enduring the awful assaults of the Prince. It was very clear he felt no sympathy whatever for her and that any attempt to employ her feminine wiles would not only be pointless but potentially dangerous Summoning the little pride and dignity left to her, Penny moved closer but did not sit down and was careful to keep the sofa between herself and Jefferson. She was determined her meeting with George would not end up as a repeat of her recent experiences.