Tiger Prince

"That is an unkind thought."

"Abdar is an unkind man. Like to like." He dipped his fingers into another pot and fashioned a little wall of clean clay all around the seal. "Pray God you never find out how unkind."

"You said Ruel expects him to come here."

"Yes."

"Then why did you agree to come to Ci

"Many reasons."

"Such as?"

He stood up and strolled to the stove across the room, where a small pot of liquid was boiling. "I have no time for questions. Fetch me that long-haired brush from the cabinet, apprentice."

She moved toward the cabinet. "You pose enough questions of your own when it suits you."

"But you have no dark secrets to hide. Everything about you is as clear as a mountain stream."

"You make me sound very shallow."

He carefully poured the boiling plaster of Paris over the wax, painstakingly guiding it into the interstices of the wax with the brush she handed him. "Not shallow. Just clear and unpolluted. I doubt if your depths have ever been plumbed."

She made a face. "You've done your share of plumbing."

He raised his head and looked at her. "I've tested the waters," he said softly. "I've not even begun to go beyond the surface. I assure you that you would know it if I had. I'm very good at ... plumbing."

She felt a strange heat, a breathlessness like the one she had first experienced in the stable at Glenclaren. She hurriedly looked down at the relief. "What do you . . ." Her voice was trembling and she paused to steady it. "What's the next step?"

He didn't answer, and she forced herself to raise her gaze to his face and saw power, strength, intensity, and something else she couldn't identify. "To which step are you referring?" he asked.

She frowned. "Don't play your word games with me. You know I'm talking about the seal."

"Ah yes, the seal." He sat down on his stool. "After the plaster is set I will remove it from the wax, clean out the matrix with a knife, and polish it up."

"Then you're ready to cast it?"

"Yes, I'll give it twelve hours to set and start the furnace heating tonight." He raised his brow. "Your interest warms my heart. Tell me, apprentice, do you fancy making your own seal?"

"Of course not," she said curtly. "I have no such pretensions of grandeur."

"We all have our pretensions and self-deceptions. It just makes the 'plumbing' more interesting."

She quickly changed the subject. "To whom did you apprentice as a boy?"

"My father. He was a fine artist, the best goldsmith in all Istanbul. He did much work for the members of the court and the sultan himself. He taught me well. But when I was thirteen he told me to leave his home and his shop."

"Why?"

"Jealousy. Even as a lad I was showing great promise and a piece of my work had caught the eye of the sultan."

"And he cast you off for so little reason?" she asked, shocked.

"It was not little to him." He shrugged. "I knew it would happen sometime. He was a fine craftsman, but I had the spark."

"Spark?"

"Genius," he said simply. "Michelangelo had it and so did Cellini in lesser measure. I knew almost at once that it was mine also. I did not blame my father. It is not easy to live with such a gift if you do not have it yourself. It would have been torture for me under the same circumstances."

"But you would not have cast him off."

He smiled. "How do you know?"

"I know." She found, to her astonishment, that it was true. She had learned more of Kartauk than she had realized in these past weeks. Though, heaven knows, he was arrogant, he was not vain. He possessed an enormous confidence in his artistic abilities, but his mocking glorification of his other gifts was mere flamboyance. He had been amazingly patient with her clumsy presence in his domain and far kinder than she had thought he would be. She felt a sudden anger at his father, who had administered that first hurt that had caused him to hide his kindness beneath that veil of mockery. "He was wrong to treat you so badly."

"I told you I did not blame him."

But he had been hurt by the rejection. "What of your mother?"

He shrugged. "She was beautiful and vain and loved the trinkets my father created for her. She would not endanger her position by arguing with him about such a small matter as a discarded son." He studied her expression. "Why are you upset? It did not matter. I got on very well. I went to the sultan and persuaded him to give me a studio in the palace."

"You were only a young boy. Didn't you miss them?"

He did not answer directly. "You can forget anything if you work hard enough."

"Can you?"

"Why do you ask? You know it's true. No one works harder than you, madam. Are you not weary enough to forget everything when you finally go to your rest?"

"I have no need of forgetting. I'm well satisfied with my lot."

He gazed at her without speaking.

"Why should I not be?" she asked defiantly. "I have a good life, better than most. I have no material wants and a husband I love." She took off the leather apron and tossed it on the worktable. "It's time I went back to Ian. I have no time for such nonsensical—" She broke off as she met his gaze and was suddenly breathless again. "Stop looking at me."

"I enjoy looking at you." He obediently lowered his gaze to the work in front of him. "You're right, it is wise of you to leave. It would be wiser of you to not come back."

She strode toward the door. "Are you starting that folderol again? I thought you'd come to accept my presence here. Of course I'll return. Thank God, you're not always in such a strange mood. I'm sure you'll be quite yourself tomorrow."

"I'm myself right now. That's why I'm warning you."

"We're getting along very well. Of late, I've even noticed a certain affinity."

"For God's sake, don't you know that that's where the danger lies?" The sudden violence in his voice sent a flicker of apprehension through her.

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

"Think about it." He looked down at the mold. "And don't come back, Margaret."

Margaret. It was the first time he had used her given name. Such a little thing, and yet she experienced an odd shock of intimacy.

"Kartauk." She moistened her lips. He, too, had a given name and she wanted to use it, feel its cadence on her lips. "John . . ."

He stiffened at the table, but his head did not lift. She felt another surge of panic as she realized she wanted him to raise his head, to look at her as he had a moment before. She instantly rejected the thought, her emotions swinging wildly in the opposite direction. She wanted him to close her out, to free her as he had a hundred times before. He did neither. He sat at the worktable, staring down at the seal she knew he did not see, holding her, chaining her.

Then he started to lift his head and she felt her heart lurch. "No!"

The next instant she was jerking open the door, ru

Lust.

Dear God, she wanted him, desired him in that animal way she only pretended with Ian. She had given Kartauk the response she owed only to her husband.