Untouchable. Stephanie Doyle

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СКАЧАТЬ he knew the monks studied in the morning. He would have expected the courtyard to be empty until noon, but here was the mystery woman from his delirium in the midst of her bath. The partition she used to block the view of onlookers closed her off to the west side of the courtyard, but she obviously hadn’t expected anyone to be walking along the east corridor.

      There was no question it was her. He knew without seeing the color of her eyes. They were closed. Maybe to better feel the touch of the sponge and water as she ran the rough material over her body. Or maybe simply because she’d gotten soap in her eyes. Whatever the reason, he was grateful because it kept her from being aware of his presence for a time. With the three-sided screen at her back it was as if she was on display just for him.

      His personal Venus.

      He’d been wrong about the fever stealing his sanity. Her skin did glow. A luminescent sheen that made her almost ethereal. He yearned to touch her. It wasn’t just the natural hunger of man for a woman. Although based on his body’s quick and urgent response there was that as well. It was like being in the presence of art. Like a marble statue that cried out to be caressed. Only this woman wasn’t cold stone, she was living flesh.

      She dropped low to dip her sponge in the water, swishing it about. Her eyes opened. He could see her lashes flicker as she concentrated on her calves. Then she reached her hand over her back, the sponge barely making it a quarter of the way down her spine. Suddenly the temptation to help her finish the job was too much.

      He stepped forward, forgetting to accommodate his injury by letting his right leg take the bulk of his weight, and a rush of pain shot from his thigh to his brain, forcing a small sound past his lips.

      Instantly the waif became aware of his presence. Her arms wrapped around her breasts and the sponge dropped into the pool of water at her feet. Her eyes were round with fear and Tarak felt instantly ashamed. In reality he’d behaved no better than a Peeping Tom. But while he chastised himself for it, he certainly didn’t regret it. He wouldn’t have missed this show for the world.

      Her eyes, however, were still wide with terror.

      “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said gruffly in English although he repeated the phrase in Hindi.

      He assumed her fear stemmed from the thought that he would rape her, but after his words she stood slowly. One arm shielded her femininity from him. The other she wrapped securely around small but pert breasts.

      “Do not come any closer,” she said in English.

      “I won’t. I promise,” he replied. “You didn’t expect anyone to be on this side of the courtyard?”

      “They are all in study. I did not expect you to be up and walking so far.”

      Tarak nodded, then glanced around the washing area. “You bathe here instead of with your sisters down by the river?”

      An irrational bolt of anger accompanied his statement. Yes, the monks were celibate but they were still men. There were times a man’s sexuality couldn’t be so easily controlled with meditation. A woman so beautiful it hurt to look at her could incite the weak-willed to dangerous acts.

      “Yes. I cannot bathe in the river.”

      He heard her words, but they made no sense. “Well, you shouldn’t bathe here. Anyone might come along and…”

      “Like you.”

      “Worse than me.”

      “If you mean the monks, they know better than to touch me. The villagers, too. I am safe from everyone who knows me, but you do not. You must stay back.”

      “Have I taken a step forward?”

      Slowly she shook her head.

      There, he thought, satisfied. The beginning of trust. “I’m not a boy to be controlled by my desire. But if I were…” He smiled softly. “You would certainly be a danger to my self-control. Do you have something to dry yourself off?”

      He watched her glance toward the robe she’d left hanging on the edge of the partition, but he realized she would have to either drop her arms or turn around and give him an altogether different view of her body to reach it.

      A gentlemen would have turned his back. Tarak could almost hear his father’s stiff English voice in his head ordering him to turn around and allow the woman her privacy. That nostalgia for his father won out against a hard urge to see if her ass was as shapely as the rest of her.

      Tarak turned his back to her. “Hurry,” he warned.

      He heard the ruffle of movement as she stepped out of the basin and reached for her covering. He counted to what he was sure was a fair five seconds in his head before turning again. The silk material she wore fluttered to her feet and he sighed with disappointment.

      “Who are you?” he wanted to know.

      An expression crossed over her face that he couldn’t name. Sadness or maybe confusion, as if she didn’t know how to answer such a basic question.

      “Your name,” he said, making it easier for her.

      “I am Lilith.”

      It didn’t fit her, not at all. But he didn’t press. “Your surname?”

      She shook her head. “I have no surname. My…father would not give me his.”

      He didn’t know what to say to that so he offered his own name as a way of building further trust. “I’m Tarak Hammer-Smith. My father was English, but my mother was Indian. She was a niece to Punab. It is how I came to be here.”

      “I thought you came to be here because of a bullet hole in your leg.”

      Tarak ignored the implied censure and asked his own question. “Why are you here?”

      He didn’t think she would answer, but he had to ask it anyway. She was a jewel, he thought. Half woman, half creature. So completely beautiful. But she was tucked away in the jungle among lepers, nuns and celibate monks. It made no sense.

      “Are you a Catholic missionary?”

      She shook her head. “I am here because I have nowhere else to go. Because I choose to stay.”

      “You came to my room a few nights ago.”

      “You were in pain. Sometimes I can help make pain go away.”

      “You’re a healer?”

      Again, she shook her head. “No.”

      “But you brought medicine. I remember drinking from a cup and then…”

      And then the pain had stopped. Almost as if he’d gone numb from the roots of his hair to his toes. He hadn’t been asleep and whatever he’d sipped had done nothing to reduce his fever. But the next thing he knew the nun was leaning over his leg with a small knife in her hand.

      She’d found part of a bullet fragment the medic he’d gone to in Monteria had left behind. The extraction should have been excruciating, but he hadn’t felt a thing. Funny that it all came back to him now. But why shouldn’t СКАЧАТЬ