The Lady Takes a Lover

Excerpt

Caroline leaned on the rail of the ship and narrowed her eyes against the sun-dazzle on the waves. Over there was Asia.

Asia. She could hardly believe that she was here, at last. The long sea voyage, the excitements of calling at Naples and Malta, the discomforts, all faded into unreality as the shore that was her destination drew closer.

She turned a little, away from the Asian side, straining to make some sense of the jumble of minarets, spires and domes that crowded the skyline of the city ahead.

Which was the Blue Mosque? Where was the Sultan’s harem located? Where was the Golden Horn?

The other passengers, apparently familiar with this amazing scene, were all below packing, or gathered around piles of belongings further back near the hatches. Her courier was somewhere below and there was no-one to ask which building was which.

Before her, inching closer through the haze, was Constantinople, an exotic city of Muslims and Christians and Jews all worshipping and trading and existing in a city large enough to swallow the population of Essex. It could not be real, it must be a dream, a mirage.

The warm wind picked up a little, shifted, and brought with it the scents of spices and wood smoke, fish and more than a hint of drains, and the dream vanished, replaced by exotic reality.

Caroline found herself sighing as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, one she had hardly been aware of carrying. She truly was here at last.

A strange shiver passed through her, part fear, part excitement, wholly – and strangely – sensual. This was not a place to be alone, this was not a place for buttoned-up English restraint and respectability. This was a city for all the senses.

Faintly, the sound of music from some unfamiliar high pitched flute drifted across the water.

The breeze ruffled her thin skirts around her legs, caressed her unveiled face like the touch of soft hands, warm fingers stroking languidly down her limbs, teasing and soothing. Involuntarily her own fingers tightened on the rail with the memory of skilled kisses and, stirring from the long months of celibacy, the achingly familiar, intimate pulse of desire began to throb.

In a sensual daydream Caroline was scarcely aware of the tip of her tongue running over her lower lip, of the warmth rising in her cheeks.

I wish I had a lover. The thought whispered through her mind. A tall, handsome, charismatic man.

It is incredible how powerful the imagination is, she thought hazily. It was conjuring him up, even as she dreamed. Her heavy-lidded gaze, which fallen to the deck as she mused, travelled up a pair of long, well-muscled legs to narrow hips and a flat stomach. Her fantasy was even obliging by responding to her in a way that the cut of his snug-fitting trousers made quite outstandingly clear.

Caroline felt the pulse in her throat beat harder and let her eyes drift up, away from that disturbing piece of imagination, up a white shirt exposed by a carelessly open coat, up to broad shoulders, a firm chin and a mouth that was curved in a slow smile of lazily erotic recognition of her needs.

Oh yes.

With a little sigh Caroline met the grey eyes. The grey eyes fringed with black lashes. The very amused, very real, grey eyes belonging to the very real, completely non-imaginary man who was leaning against the rail six feet in front of her.

Oh my God…

Caroline could feel the blush flooding her face and stared round wildly for some sort of salvation. A tidal wave, a pirate attack, a raiding party of Circassian slavers. Nothing. And the man was straightening up and coming towards her.