Dedicated - as always - to the fans of The Sheik and the Slave. Thank you for your continued support. This chapter has taken me quite a bit of time to write and I appreciate your patience.
Nic
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Anne sipped her champagne as she stood next to her husband. She watched the couples whirl across the floor and spied Kat's friend Frances in the arms of the squire's son, Henry.
Henry had always been a good lad. Studious and quiet he was expected to take over his father's farms in years to come.
"My dear, where is Katharine? I haven't seen her in a goodly 10 minutes."
Edward smiled down at his wife. "First you decide she is too morose, now you worry she is gone astray?"
"Ridiculous!" Anne admonished him lightly. But secretly she did worry for her daughter.
Katharine was so different, so altered since her return that Anne feared for her mind.
She had been such a spirited young girl that Anne had worried after her virtue. As she had grown, her beauty became legendary. Anne had worried about fortune hunters that would come after her.
But Anne needn't have worried. Kat had a vicious tongue that was well known and she was no insipid girl. She was educated, innocent and not given to false flattery by insincere dandies.
Anne enjoyed the music and the time spent among her neighbors where she was liked and admired.
"My dear, I have come upon a wonderful idea!" Anne said excitedly as she gripped her husband's arm.
Edward rolled his eyes at the tone. Anne was a good mother and wife with a gracious heart but sometimes her ideas were outlandish.
"After the engagement is announced this evening, we will send Kat – with a chaperone of course – to my sister Louisa in France!" Anne smiled broadly.
Edward arched an eyebrow at his wife.
Anne saw the look and pounced on it.
"But my dear, it will be just the thing to right her spirits, just the thing!" Edward left his wife briefly to converse quickly with Jamie and returned to Anne's side.
"Anne, if you feel it would do Kat some good to spend time in France, than I will agree. But I also think we should ask Kat. She might be against the idea. After all, she will be married soon."
"Yes, yes. But a holiday away from all this, will be just the thing."
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Kat rested a shaking hand against her breasts. She should not have let him touch her.
I remember how you like it – he had whispered in her ear. She shivered in the cool air.
She was so easily swayed. He had touched her, kissed her and she was ready to do anything. She had wanted to lift up her fashionable Paris dress and wrap her legs around his waist. To feel his thick cock deep inside her – was all she wanted at the moment. She was so weak, she cursed herself.
She could feel the beads of moisture on her forehead and she almost cried aloud.
"Kat?"
She turned around where Jamie stood before her.
"Jamie." She breathed a sigh of relief.
"What happened to your hair?" Her perfectly coiffed hair had been pulled down when Mohammed had touched her.
"It was so heavy," Kat supplied weakly.
"I see." Was all he said. "Your father asked that I find you and bring you back to the ballroom."
"Thank you." She took his arm as they walked back to the house.
"I would still like to announce our betrothal," Jamie said quietly.
Kat's heart sank. It was all so unfair. Why did he make her feel this way? Why did she burn for the Arab's touch? Why didn't Jamie ever touch her or at least try?
Kat suddenly stopped Jamie on their way to the large house.
"Kiss me."
Jamie looked down into her luminous blue eyes. "What did you say?"
"Please, kiss me, before we announce our betrothal."
Jamie smiled. "Of course, dearest." He bent his head toward hers and lightly touched his lips to hers. They were as cool as her own and it ended after a brief meeting of their lips.
Mohammed's dark eyes watched the two lovers kiss in the darkened garden. So the little falcon was at it again. And whether they were dark Arab men or the English gentlemen of this cold world – they all flocked to her honey – like dogs after a bitch's scent. He seethed.
He remembered so well the night of the Banquet when she had spread her slim legs and moaned as he took her virginity. Did her English lover know that she wasn't a virgin? Did he know that she had lost her virginity on that Arabian evening when her hair had been scented with Patchouli and Jasmine?
What would he think when he told him she lost it to an Arab Muslim?
Mohammed chuckled. Maybe he should find himself alone with the man and tell him.
He watched the lovers enter the large ballroom.
"My love," Anne came to her daughter's side. She noticed her daughter's hair fallen down upon her back.
"Your hair – "
"Yes Mother. It was too heavy. I took it down. I'm tired of fashion's dictates," Kat grumbled in an unattractive, unladylike way. She thought suddenly of the free-flowing Arabian clothes and life without corsets.