of hot, fragrant nights filled with laughter and adolescent vows.
Sarani.
The beautiful, headstrong daughter of the Maharaja of Joor. His first love. His only love. He’d learned quickly from that disaster.
He hadn’t thought of her in years. Rhystan would have assumed the passage of time would have lessened the ache, but he was wrong. His chest contracted painfully. She’d been sixteen and stunning. He’d fallen head over heels for her and thought she’d felt the same, until he realized she didn’t.
Rhystan came to a halt at the entrance to his quarters as the phantom scent of jasmine assailed his nostrils. He must be tired. Jasmine had no place on a ship like this. She had smelled like it, the soft skin at her throat and wrists delicately fragrant. He’d kissed them enough to know. Buried his face in her glossy waist-length hair. Stolen her kisses and shared more. He’d been intoxicated. So much so that the scent of jasmine haunted him to this day.
Slamming the door to his cabin, he tipped the bitter whisky up and gulped it down. He would exorcise thoughts of her from his mind even if he had to drain the entire bottle.
* * *
Sarani came awake with a start, clutching her pistol with a shaking fist. That noise had sounded too much like a gunshot. Had the assassin found her? Had she been followed? Discovered?
No, no.
She was on a ship. Secure in a shoebox of a cabin with the door shut. Shaking the webs of sleep from her head, she forced herself to release her death grip on the pistol. They’d been careful. They were safe. And from the soft sway beneath her, the ship was moving, which meant they were already at sea. Thank goodness for that, then. Her eyes flicked to Asha’s motionless form. The loud bang Sarani had heard hadn’t disturbed her maid’s rest.
A tight fullness shot through her bladder when she uncurled herself from her cramped position, hunched over the chair. She glanced around the room for a chamber pot and found nothing even remotely resembling a receptacle for personal needs. Not even a bucket. Clearly, the cabin hadn’t been prepared for guests, though she had no right to complain. Tej had said as much.
The ache became more insistent when she stood, and Sarani resigned herself to trying to find a pail. Or the head, as the sailors called it in her books. Urinating at the front of a ship would be an adventure, though the mechanics of it for a woman might be a smidge more complicated than for a man. Sarani was convinced petticoats were the devil’s armor.
If only I’d been born a boy…
That old wish had been a constant during her childhood, and though she’d learned to do things as well as any boy—climb trees, shoot guns, fence, and wield a sword—she was still a woman. Living in a man’s world. On a man’s ship. Without a chamber pot.
Cracking open the door, Sarani peered down the gloomy corridor. No one was in sight. She crept out and slunk down the hallway, freezing when the murmur of voices filtered down to her but faded after a minute. Well aware she could be seen at any moment, she continued her search and almost wept with relief when she spotted a bucket and mop leaning against one wall. Snatching the former, she retraced her footsteps and came to a dismayed halt at the sight of several identical doors.
Her cabin was on the right, but she couldn’t recall which one it was. Tiptoeing to the first, she pressed her ear to it and was greeted by the sound of loud snoring. That wasn’t it, not unless her maid was impersonating a steam locomotive. The second was quiet; so was the third. There was no help for it—she would have to try both.
Sarani was deliberating cracking open the second door when more voices came from the stairs. Growing louder and heading her way! Discarding the hard-won bucket, she opened the door and closed it just as three men breached the corner.
Goodness, that was close. Her relief was short-lived, however, as her gaze adjusted to take in the shadowy details of a large cabin that was clearly not hers: the velvet drapes, the large desk covered with cartographer maps, a bookcase crammed with books, and the bed that was at least twice the size of hers…which was presently occupied by a man lying sprawled facedown upon the mattress.