Maharaja's Mistress

And as for Ram’s new traditions? She had a few of her own in mind, Mia concluded, smiling a secret smile.

She stole his breath away. All his good intentions went up in smoke the instant Mia entered the ballroom. ‘You look amazing,’ he said, claiming her instantly.

Leading Mia down the wide sweep of marble stairs into the heart of the crowded ballroom, he could feel his hackles rising as every man present fixed his gaze on Mia. ‘I can’t believe you’re wearing the dress I bought you…’

‘At least you can’t accuse me of being extravagant.’

‘But I can accuse you of being so beautiful I have to take you straight to bed.’

‘Then why don’t you?’ Mia murmured as Ram greeted her girlfriends, who were waiting in line with all the other dignitaries at the foot of the stairs.

‘Because I have to dance with you first,’ he growled discreetly.

‘Oh, no…Surely we shouldn’t risk touching each other on the night before our wedding?’

‘We may have to—if only to stop you being trampled in the stampede.’

‘Do you think other men might want to dance with me?’

‘I know they do,’ Ram murmured, sweeping Mia into his arms.

He guided her effortlessly through the other couples who were now joining them on the dance floor, heading straight towards an open door.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Mia queried.

‘I had intended to suggest you relax on the sidelines tonight—conserve your energy for our honeymoon. But now I feel the overriding need for certain activities that cannot be accomplished without your active participation.’

‘Oh, dear,’ she said, pretending alarm. ‘Do I take it you have an escape plan?’

‘I do…’

The howdah that was to take Mia to the wedding ceremony the following morning was already down in the courtyard where it seemed so much bigger than it had done when it was positioned on the back of a mighty elephant. Draped in crimson velvet and surrounded by golden screens, it promised delicious privacy.

‘I think we should test it, just to be sure it suits your every need,’ Ram murmured, drawing one curtain aside.

Mia didn’t need asking twice.

Sinking into feather cushions covered in the softest of fabrics was a sensual high only Ram could have devised, she decided contentedly. Having Ram join her—feeling him hard and strong, and indecently virile as he pressed against her, was—

‘Is this the place?’

Mia jumped with alarm as a voice she would have known anywhere invaded her love nest.

‘Ah, yes, I see it is.’

And now a cane she would have known anywhere insinuated itself between the velvet folds and neatly flipped back the curtains concealing her from the world. ‘Monsieur Michel!’ she shrieked, glancing in shock from her old employer to Ram.

Mia’s eyes narrowed. ‘You planned this,’ she accused Ram in a discreet whisper as he swung out of the howdah to greet their newly arrived guest. ‘It’s just another of my new traditions,’ Ram informed her, ducking his head back in briefly to share this information. ‘Abstinence is good for you, Mia. You’ll learn to thank me in time.’

She doubted it. A full twenty-four hours until she felt Ram’s hands on her body again?

But now she had to remember her manners. ‘Monsieur Michel,’ she said, climbing out of the howdah. Once she had got over the shock Mia was genuinely thrilled to see her elderly employer, and recovered her composure in time to exchange the customary kisses on each cheek. ‘How wonderful to see you, Monsieur. Welcome to Ramprakesh.’

‘The home of passion and restraint,’ Ram added dryly, shooting a veiled look at Mia.

A temple shimmering in the moonlight was to host both Mia’s preparations to become Ram’s bride and her wedding night. She had been carried there in the howdah on the back of an elephant in the middle of a torchlit procession, which Ram explained signified light cutting through the darkness and removing all bad thoughts from the world. This was just one of many rituals that had been passed down intact through the generations over thousands of years, and it made Mia feel as if an unbroken link from the past were reaching out to welcome her.

‘There is no better guidance for life than the wisdom of Ramprakesh,’ the ladies detailed to wait on Mia told her as they bustled about. Having bathed her and sugared her skin to remove every trace of hair they had massaged her with scented oils until her skin took on a luminous glow, and now they were decorating her hands and feet with intricate swirls of henna.

Having thanked them, Mia invited them to eat and drink the delicacies that had been prepared for her. She couldn’t eat a single thing—she was too busy counting the hours, minutes and the seconds until she could be alone with Ram. No one understood the benefit of delay better than he did, but a week-long ceremony leading up to their actual marriage and then finally the wedding night, when she was only supposed to catch a glimpse of him in passing, was overdoing things a bit, in Mia’s opinion, and should have been the first of the traditions that Ram changed.

She almost cried with relief when the ladies declared it was time to dress her in the ruby-red chiffon sari and veil she had chosen for the wedding ceremony. Minutes later, or so it seemed, she was standing beneath a tented canopy with Ram resplendent at her side in heavily decorated black silk, accepting and making vows to stand at his side for ever.

‘Husband and wife at last,’ he murmured as he led her at a stately pace through their guests.

‘Can’t you send everyone away so we can be alone?’ she murmured, wondering if it was possible to die from frustration.

‘Are you naked beneath your sari?’

‘Is your name Knucklehead?’

‘According to you, it is.’

Mia fixed her gaze on the golden doors that led to the wedding and bedding suite, as Ram had jokingly referred to their accommodation for this very special jewel-coloured night. ‘I’m completely naked,’ she assured him.

They barely made it through the doors before Ram’s mouth swooped down on hers, igniting flash-points on every part of her body. Slamming the door closed, he dropped the bolt. Meanwhile, Mia was learning that certain Ramprakeshi traditions weren’t so bad—especially the way a man’s traditional robe fell to the ground when you undid a fastening or two.

‘Do you realise you’re growling as you undress me?’ Ram chided her with a laugh.

‘Are you surprised when you’ve kept me away from all this?’ Kicking his robe aside, she basked in the jaw-dropping good looks of the man standing brazenly naked in front of her.

‘Your turn next,’ he insisted as he deftly freed the ties holding Mia’s sari in place.

Turning like a dancer as he unwound it, she felt like a dervish desperate to be free. ‘At last!’ she exclaimed as he tossed the yards of fabric aside.

‘Indeed,’ Ram agreed, admiring her. ‘But what did I tell you about the benefits of delay?’

‘Don’t tell me about it,’ Mia insisted. ‘Prove it.’ ‘That will be my pleasure.’

‘And mine,’ Mia assured him, taking Ram boldly in her hand.

They didn’t make it to the bed.

‘And now it’s time to exchange wedding presents,’ Ram insisted when they had taken a shower and were both wrapped in towels and sitting side by side on the bed.

‘What on earth’s this?’ Mia demanded when he handed her a long, bulky package that must have taken a whole reel of sticky tape to hold together.

‘Why don’t you open it and find out?’

‘I hope you haven’t been too extravagant,’ Mia warned as Ram slanted her one of his sexy, teasing looks.

‘I haven’t been extravagant at all,’ he assured her. ‘Stop yapping and open it.’

‘Okay…’ She ripped at the paper and thigh-high boots fell out. ‘What…?’