Read Online Her Master's Touch by Patricia Watters - Free Book Online Page A

after all, nothing but a small stone
pedestal.
    For now, the night was alive with music, and
she felt an urge to dance, if only in the shadows. On her return,
when Lekha and the others would be asleep, she'd search the
upstairs drawing room. If she didn't find the opal there, her next
course would be to steal into Mrs. Throckmorton's bedchamber while
she slept and take the keys to the library and master study. One of
those rooms would undoubtedly contain the opal.
    ***
    Damon stepped onto the veranda, lured by the
sounds of gypsy music. Corina, a maid who’d been with his staff for
some time, stood gazing toward the jute fields. Damon walked over
to stand beside her. "What the devil’s going on out there?" he
asked.
    "Gypsies, m'lord," Corine replied. "Runyon
saw wagons and chattel out there, and goats and donkeys in the
fields. I don't mind saying, I'm a bit anxious about them being so
close."
    "No worry," Damon said. "The gatekeeper won't
let any of them pass."
    "It's not just that, m'lord, it's about the
new dhobi in the washhouse. Who knows what she'll be takin'.
Me and t'others are thinking you'd best guard the silver."
    "I'll keep that in mind," Damon said,
wondering if Eliza was the reason the gypsies had camped so close.
"Meanwhile, I'd better see what's going on." He mounted his horse
and headed toward the jute fields. He hadn't gone for when, in a
small glade where the woods met the jute fields, he spotted a lone
figure dancing around a lantern. Reining in, he realized it was
Eliza.
    Bathed in the white witchery of moonlight,
she moved to the lilting music of the gypsy violins, her body
snaking with passionate intensity to the glissandos and plaintive
melancholy. She was dressed in the garb of a gypsy, skirt swishing
about her legs, décolleté blouse dipping low on her bosom. The
music changed to the wildest fury, full of fire and impetuosity.
She whirled and whirled, clapping her hands, smacking her ankles,
scuffing her feet against the earth. Arms above her head, she
snapped her fingers, her lithe body twisting like a palm in a gale
to the insistent frenzy of the music. Her body trapped by
silvern-blue light seemed more ethereal than mortal, and as Damon
watched her, he knew he must have this beautiful exotic bird as his
mistress, no matter what it would take to hold and keep her.
    At once, the music stopped. Hands high, head
back, she struck a dramatic pose.
    He dismounted and stepped from the shadows.
"Bravo," he said, clapping his hands. "Had I expected to find such
sublime entertainment I would have brought rupees to toss at your
feet," he said. "What else can you do, gypsy girl?"
    Eliza gave him a playful smile. "Flee on
silent feet," she said. With the agility of a deer, she moved out
of the circle of moonlight and fled into the grove.
    Damon rushed after her, lured by her moving
form and fleeting footsteps. But he soon realized the form he was
after was shadows cast by moonlight, the footsteps, the chatter of
brush wrestling with the wind. The woods became still and he
thought she'd evaded him. Then soft laughter drifted on the breeze.
Capricious laughter. She was taking pleasure teasing and eluding
him, the provocative little witch. Hands on his hips, he waited,
but heard only the distant voices of gypsies. Then behind him came
her voice. "Over here, my lord."
    He turned and walked in the direction of her
voice, only to stop short and turn back when she called from
another direction. "No, my lord. Over here."
    "I can think of better things to do than hide
from each other," he called out.
    She emerged from the shadows and started
toward him. “What do you have in mind my lord?” she asked, walking
up to him.
    "This." He grabbed her low on her buttocks
and lifted her, and she instinctively clasped her legs around his
hips. “Turn that wild spirit loose, gypsy girl" he said. Cupping
her buttocks, he pressed her tighter to him. “I'm on fire and I
need you to douse the flames.”
    “Oh!” she gasped