22 The silky veil

  The soberness must have been messing with his mind. Joseph refused to believe that. Why would she be serving a bunch of loose men with no manners? One of Lord Parlings’ companions touched her legs, dragging his fingers upward to her thigh. Rage started building up inside him; a kind of rage he hadn’t felt in a long time due to being constantly drunk. What if the server was really the Pedlar? How could she come and endanger her life after Joseph’s warnings? Did she like danger? He looked down, ignoring the scene before his eyes. If she chose to be so indiscreet, there was nothing that he could do especially since she told him not to interfere in her life.

  “I want to take her to the room,” one man said with a silly smile, clutching her waist tightly. “Persian cunts are something else.” He tried kissing her on her neck. Another one of the men pinched the woman’s leg firmly through the fabric of her gown, and she let out a whimpering sound. The man liked it. Suddenly the woman raised her hand and slapped the man so hard he almost fell. Everyone got quiet and watched her in shock.

  The man ran his tongue on his front teeth. “She’s feisty, eh?” he said, grinning from ear to ear. Her assault had only enticed him more. “I like her. I bet she can fit two men inside her.”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” said the other man, pulling her again into his arms.

  Joseph shook his head as a mental nudge to himself. Her life wasn’t Joseph’s responsibility. Of course, his conscience was eating him inside; he would save any woman in need. But the thought of caring about a stranger to that extent bothered him. He was no one to her. Without realizing, he was hitting his intact alcohol container on the table and clenching his jaw.

  “Are you all right?” Parlings asked.

  Joseph stopped his hand and kept the alcohol between his fingers. “No. I’m overwhelmed, to say the least.”

  The man dragged the veiled woman toward a room. Joseph took another deep breath and looked down. It couldn’t possibly be her. Another set of feet started following them, and Joseph’s heart sank.

  “I want to have her,” he said at a rushed pace, jumping to his feet, and the men stopped. Parlings looked at Joseph with widened eyes, not believing him. “I haven’t had an intercourse in so long,” Joseph elaborated. He avoided eye contact. “I didn’t have a drink because I didn’t want to disrespect Behzad. So I’m upset and sexually frustrated. Can’t I have fun for once?”

  Parlings nodded without hesitation. “You can have her.” He gestured for his men to sit down, and they did reluctantly. “You can have as many women as you please, Lord Mainwood.” He smiled, lifting his glass before his eyes. “Enjoy yourself.”

  Joseph walked toward the woman without wasting another second and grabbed her hand. He dragged her to a room, closed the door, and locked it instantly. His anger had not faded a bit. The servant was standing still in the middle of the room. Joseph cursed under his breath for everything he was doing in a foreign land for a mysterious woman he knew nothing about. He looked at the servant, praying to be wrong. With slow steps he approached her and touched the veil on her face. A vague face could be seen underneath the transparent fabric.

  “I am shaking on your behalf,” Joseph said, trying so hard to contain himself. The woman’s silence infuriated him. “Do you enjoy being treated like this? To spend the night with not one but two men?”

  Another moment of silence.

  Joseph got even closet to make her uncomfortable so that she would talk. The woman finally moved her hands to his chest and pushed him, but Joseph held her by her waist. “Didn’t you want this?” he said. “Didn’t you want to have men touch you all night in ways you wouldn’t recover?”

  The woman took her veil off to buy his sympathy. It was indeed the Pedlar underneath that fabric with eyes covered in black makeup. Joseph’s mouth opened even though he was almost confident about her identity. He released her and walked backward to give her space. She was unrecognizable. Joseph was mad and disappointed.

  “Don’t touch me!” she bit off.

  “What would you do?” Joseph asked in a loud tone. “What would you do if the other men took you here?”

  “You knew it was me?”

  “Of course I knew it was you. I would recognize you anywhere.”

  The Pedlar wiped the sweat off her face. “You told me you would let Lord Parlings and his men do as they wish to me.”

  “That was a lie! I would never let them touch you.”

  “Why not? You’re not my father!”

  Father? That somehow aggravated him even more. “You said it yourself. You saved me three times. I want to return the favor.”

  “I don’t need your help. I can save myself.”

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  “Can you?” he said, not parting his gaze from her. “Can you save yourself from me, Pedlar?”

  “You wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “Are you sure?” He followed her as she stepped backward. Her back bumped into the wall behind her, and Joseph caged her. The Pedlar was shaking but didn’t want to let her pride break. She smelled different this time. The fragrance was something thick and confusing. She must have worn that to confuse the men of Parlings.

  Joseph waited for her to admit what she was doing was wrong and dangerous, but she was too stubborn to do so. With a quick motion, she pulled a knife out of her undergarment and placed it on Joseph’s neck. Joseph was shocked by her swift reaction.

  “You would use this knife?” he asked, not showing any sign of fear. The knife’s blade grazed Joseph’s neck, but the Pedlar didn’t move it away. She wanted to show him she could protect herself.

  “You’re a healer, woman,” Joseph said, holding her gaze. “Do you think you can kill people this easily?”

  “I can kill anyone who wants to hurt me,” she said, still holding the knife at his neck.

  Joseph nodded. “Then hurt me.”

  The knife felt too heavy in her hands. She had carried a blade for years and hunted animals with it without flinching. But it was a man’s life Joseph was talking about. It wasn’t that easy to take it. Why was he doing that to her? She was paralyzed and realized she couldn’t hurt him even if she wanted to.

  He could feel her hand shake through the blade on his throat. He noticed how fragile the woman before him was even though she kept trying to look scary and strong. By doing this to her, he only wounded her and himself. He shouldn’t have felt responsible for her or tried to make her come to her senses. She had her beautiful eyes covered in black shadow. Her delicate figure was hidden underneath the sparkly layers of silk. Joseph couldn’t help but wonder how she looked without any of those clothing.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked, looking down at his shoes to distract himself from an illicit imagination. “Why are you working at a brothel? Why did you do this exactly when I told you about Lord Parlings and his intentions?”

  “I need to know what his intentions are. If what you said is true about the confidential letter, he can be working for the court of England. He could be the attacker in the palace. And a war could be upon us!”

  “You are risking your life and virtue for this?”

  “What do you mean? This is very important!”

  “You could let someone else handle this. You’re not a spy, are you?”

  “My identity is none of your concern.”

  “It’s all my concern! I can’t think of anything else but you and your identity!”

  She wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but he seemed to care about her safety. Perhaps she could trust him and befriend him.

  Joseph had to stop saying more embarrassing things. “You are a spy. That’s why you care so much about the royal family. You’re not a simple maid.”

  “Listen to yourself. You sound absurd.”

  “Then why?”

  “The princess and I are close. We care for each other as sisters. Now are you done with your questions?”

  Joseph still had many left, but he decided it wasn’t the right time with Lord Parlings outside. “We must wait for a few more minutes before leaving,” he said in despair, “if we leave now, they shall suspect us. We are supposed to have intimate time with each other.”

  She nodded. “Then I shall make it happen.”

  Joseph gulped hard. What did she mean by that? She moved too close and ran her hand through his hair to make it look messy. The electricity of her touch streamed along his scalp, igniting the tamed desire within him and setting it free. His lips parted in longing, and just like that, with the easiest touch, he was once again trapped by her spell. She had breached through the thick wall of self-isolation around him, and he yearned for such a gentle touch; her gentle touch.

  He wanted her.

  Her perfectly plump lips rested carefree against one another. Joseph wanted them on his face. If he got lucky, perhaps on his lips tenderly and long. And if he got luckier, he could have them somewhere else. Somewhere no woman had ever kissed him before. That was strangely rare for him to lust after a woman like that. But damn it, he wanted to lust over the strictly unavailable woman. No matter how embarrassing and illicit the desires were, for the first time ever, he welcomed them in his mind.

  The Pedlar was oblivious to Joseph’s thoughts. She couldn’t possibly know what he wanted. Otherwise she’d push at his chest or hurt him with the knife in her hold. But maybe she would let him touch her. Perhaps she would be hard to convince but then she would take Joseph in her arms and soothe his wounded soul with her soft touch.

  His concentration returned to her as she loosened Joseph’s shirt and unbuttoned his breeches without a warning. “What are you doing?” he asked, barely putting the words together.

  “Making you look like you just had intercourse.” She removed her hands from his body. “It’s been more than five minute. They won’t suspect us now. You can leave.”

  Joseph gulped hard and decided to pull back from her before doing something silly. She stopped him from getting farther as if she just noticed something about him.

  “I have wounded you,” she said, inspecting Joseph’s neck where the blade had grazed his skin. She grabbed an alcohol container and slowly poured it on the wound. Joseph kept looking her in the eye, wondering how a fierce woman like her could be that gentle and caring.

  She noticed Joseph’s staring. “I must apologize,” she said, while pulling a handkerchief from her gown and tapping it on his neck. “My perfume must be very confusing.”

  Her perfume was the least of his concerns. Joseph was lost in her presence. “I thought you wanted to apologize for grazing me.”

  She held the cloth on his wound and instructed his hand to keep it there. Her touch on his hand made him weaker than he was.

  “Considering you cornered me,” she said, letting go of the fabric, “You deserved that.” She stepped backward, and Joseph exited the room. He joined Lord Parlings and his men and pretended he had a horrible time with the servant so the other men wouldn’t want to sleep with her.

  As they stepped out of the brothel to walk into the darkness, the English men kept teasing and laughing while telling stories about their adventures. But Joseph couldn’t hear any of them because his mind was in another place.

  “You all right, Mainwood?” Lord Parlings asked.

  Joseph nodded, but he wasn’t.

  “You still seem sexually frustrated,” Lord Parlings said.

  That was true. He didn’t expect to be enticed by her, but there he was trapped in the short moment he had seen her, the wings on her veil, her hand against his neck, and her dark eyes covered in heavy eyeshadow. Everything about her made Joseph weak, and for the first time in his life, he loved being that desperate for another woman. It made him feel vigorous and young. Perhaps Behzad was right; he had to give life another chance. He held the fabric she had given him tighter and noticed a symbol on it. What could it possibly be?