She must have read anger instead of frustration in his stance because she backed up until her back was firm against the wall. “Send me a slave, and I will do as you wish.”

“There are no slaves here, Jinan.” He closed his eyes for a brief second and took a calming breath. “I know you know this. You are no longer a slave. Do you understand me? I won’t have you playing these games now that you aren’t in the palace.”

“There is nothing to understand. You will take me back to Amir once I can travel by boat again. I will bathe, and you will go pen a note. If you will please send me someone to help with the bathing.”

Griffin pursed his lips. There was a time to argue, and a time to cede what wasn’t important. He would do as she asked. Straightening his clothes, he gave her a slight bow, then left the bathroom, making sure to close the door firmly behind him. The hinge on the door creaked, so the second she opened it, he would know.

He went and changed his trousers. That gave them both some time to calm their tempers.

Then he went about finding help for Jinan. A maid was bound to walk by his room sooner or later, so he stuck his head out to see who happened in this direction.

There wasn’t a chance of him leaving Jinan alone, not yet anyway.

“Donata, come here, I have a task for you.” He motioned the maid into his suite.

She came quickly forward and had fresh linens in hand. Perfect.

“My lord.” She curtsied before walking through the door he opened wide for her entry.

He wondered if she already knew that a lady of questionable values occupied his chamber. The butler had been present when Griffin had carried in Jinan.

“I require your attention in the bath. Jinan speaks no Italian that I know of. She needs someone to help her with her hair and bath, and well”—he shook his head, not sure if he could explain what Jinan’s needs were—“you will see.”

When he opened the door to the bathroom, Jinan sat on a bench opposite the bathtub, staring at the water as though it would jump out and pull her under at any moment. The maid’s inward hiss told him she hadn’t yet heard about his guest. Or, at least, the strange overall appearance of said guest.

“Jinan,” he said, switching back to English, “this is Donata. She will help you with whatever you need.”

Griffin turned back to the maid and spoke in Italian. “Jinan cannot bathe in standing water. She’ll not accept help from a man. Some strange custom of hers, I’m sure. So, she requires your help.” He looked over to Jinan again, her fists clenched in her lap, her eyes narrowed in resentment. “Drain the tub for her, so she doesn’t fear it any more than I’ve given her reason to.”

Jinan looked up before he could retreat. “This woman is to help me? She does not look like a personal attendant. She will not understand my words or the ways of my people.”

“Tell me what you need, and I will relay your message before I leave. She’ll be most obliging. Besides, I think it is better she does not speak a common language with you. I’m sorry, Jinan, I didn’t mean to frighten you by tossing you in. I have grown weary after such a long trip and after hearing the news you waited so long to enlighten me with. Though I don’t deserve it, I beg your forgiveness.”

Jinan stood there staring at him a moment, gave one succinct nod, and then pointed to the bathtub. “It must be drained.”

“I have told her as much. Do you need help removing your scarves?” He looked pointedly down to her bared belly and what he could see of her curvaceous hips.

“No,” she said, defiance making her voice harsh as she pulled a thread that held the delicate silk together.

No wonder he couldn’t find the knot that bound it around her hips. It pooled in a silken mass of blue waves at her feet. She stood there naked as a babe, her henna markings clearly visible around her lower legs, the rust-colored paint that stained her mound and nipples further attesting to her status as a lady of pleasure. Had he been in a better mood, he would have smiled at Jinan’s brazenness. She only demonstrated the willfulness she had kept under rein all these months.

He had a feeling she’d rebel against him at every given opportunity. God, he needed to sleep. Then he’d be able to better deal with her and process everything that had happened in the last few days.

She made no move to take down her veil. He turned to Donata. “She will require help with her hair.” Skimming his gaze down the front of Jinan, he let the delectable image she presented sink into his mind. He’d sleep with that image in mind tonight. “I’m sure you two can figure things out,” he said with a careless shrug.

He left them, clicking the door softly shut in his wake.

So, she was a fighter.

He had the best of intentions where she was concerned. He’d convince her of those good intentions when they both had rested and were of clearer mind.

While he figured out a way to get her son out of the harem, how was he to convince her she was, indeed, free? Convince her she was no longer just a mistress?

Perhaps he should make it clear he wished them to spend the rest of their days together.

Maybe then, she’d change her tune. Hard to say, since she never gave him reason to believe this was, in fact, something she might want.

Now more than ever she seemed to hate him. Would an offer of marriage endear him to her? Doubtful, he thought, especially with her unwillingness to listen to reason thus far. Unwillingness to believe he would do everything in his power to get her son back for her. Despite all the mess he had created, one thing was certain—there was no way Griffin intended to release her. She’d come to understand that in short order.

12

Secrets and Lies

She had requested a maid in hopes of befriending someone who might sympathize with her plight. But she hadn’t expected someone who only spoke Italian. At least she knew they were, in fact, in Italy. One couldn’t be sure of these things when she didn’t even know where the palace she called home was located.

How was it that in all her language learning she’d never learned a word of Italian?

Well, aside from a few words screamed at the altar of Venus.

She loosened her veil and smiled at the nervous maid. It was only a matter of time before Rothburn forced her to remove her cloth shield. She wanted to keep it on in defiance, and she would. Until he demanded otherwise, it would stay firmly in place.

The maid removed a stopper in the bottom of the cast-iron bath. Jinan had seen such a thing in the penny press once. Her husband couldn’t afford a place with the plumbing needs for such a device, so she was, in a sense, a stranger to such a luxury.

As nice as it would have been to indulge in a bath, she couldn’t. Years of silly superstitions and the cultural beliefs she was submerged in had been firmly instilled in her mind. In her everyday actions. She couldn’t change those things so easily in her daily life; they were all part of the person she’d become. It affected everything she did. She could not just turn that all off and revert back to English ways.

She was Jinan.

But even as Jinan, she knew she’d given the maid a fright. It didn’t matter. She’d find other ways to make his lordship’s staff eager to help her. Pitcher in hand, she motioned to the young lady to help her rinse her hair. The maid took up the water, and Jinan leaned her head over the edge of the bathtub as the warm trickle washed through.

Reaching out to the water that spouted from the swan-neck tap, she rinsed out her veil.

When she was finished in the bath, she wasn’t surprised to see Rothburn waiting for her in his sitting room. He was pacing back and forth until he realized she stood in the room, a long bath linen knotted at her bosom and dropping straight down to cover her to the knees.

Damn the smile that slanted her lips at his immediate regard. She hated herself for it and walked toward the window to pull back a panel. The sun was settling on the horizon; it was probably well past the dinner hour. She wondered what day it was. Two days, he’d said, on the boat. So had she been away from the harem and her son for three days now?

“That’ll be all, Donata.”

His voice was calm, as he no doubt waited for the click of the door behind the maid. When she was composed and ready to face her nemesis, she turned and walked toward him with a seductive, confident sway in her step.

“Did you write that letter to Amir?”

He looked her over, his gaze lingering on the veil she refused to remove. “I have clothes for you. Come to the bedchamber.”

So he would continue to be difficult. “You cannot keep me here. Amir will find me sooner or later. He has eyes in every part of the world. Once you go to him for my child he’ll come down on your home, and none too gently.”

He turned to face her; a smile that was not kind lingered on his lips. “Does he? I’m not overly worried about him finding us here. You will not be permitted to leave the villa grounds. There is a walled garden you can spend time in, if you so wish it, but you will be accompanied at all times by either myself or my man of affairs. I will pen a note to Amir tomorrow regarding your son. There is nothing that can be done about it now.”

She would not be dismissed so easily.

“This is what you bring me to? You tell me you are saving me from some fate you think is not to my liking only to lock me in another prison? Have you not done enough damage to my life that you must dictate my every move?”

His jaw clenched. “I have done you no disservice. In time you will became accustomed to living here with me.”

“I will not,” she said coldly, her chin jutting out in determination.