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She bit her lip. He'd toss her out again, once she com­plied, and she'd never be able to get her hands on him again. And then what? Back to her mother's house, and questions and judgments, as if she had failed her mission. A mission? A mission of what? Sin and sacrifice? But she was trained to do that. Educated to want, to need what a man could most fulfill. What only a man could fill. What this man could fill to the depth and hilt of her.

  What was expected of them both.

  She let out her breath in a hiss. She had to make him let her stay to save them both.

  "Put—it—on—"

  That tone brooked no resistance. She picked up the shirt. "I let them think you were pleased with me, that you wanted me here tonight. They expect me to stay."

  "I have no sympathy for a whore. Put on the shirt and then get out."

  "I want to stay."

  He turned his back on her.

  She slipped her arms into the sleeves. It hung on her as long as a robe. Protection from sin. What could she say to make him pay attention to her? "They wondered why I came back from your bed so early last night."

  He slammed his hand down so hard on the little console table that the kerosene lamp wobbled and wavered. "By the hounds of hell, what kind of place is this?"

  He wheeled on her. "They, they, they. Who are they? Why the hell do they care whether I fuck you or fifty oth­ers?"

  "That is the way it is."

  Her matter-of-fact tone stopped him for a moment, and he looked at her, really looked at her. The queen. The-proud one. The one who wasn't like them. And yet here she was, abasing herself to a man she didn't even know. Offering her body without restraint, without recrimina­tions, without value.

  That is the way it is.

  No. That was the way Moreton Estabrook conceived it: an isolated valley so far away from morality that he could give in to every randy impulse, and excuse his excesses by the fact everyone else had license to do it, too.

  Including the heirs to the kingdom he educated to fol­low in his dissipated path.

  And this one—with her knowing eyes and her facile hands that knew just where to touch, just what to say. He'd spent a restless, sleepless night trying to get the feel of her hands caressing his penis out of his mind.

  What was it but the practiced touch of a harlot, and the spurious words of a trull, a litany of enticements spouted solely to excite and provoke. Nothing about it was real except the hard points of her nipples against his bare back. That was real, fomented by a simulated desire that would play itself out because that was what was expected of her. The debauched soul. He could have no sympathy for her. She was not stupid. She knew what she was.

  "Exactly," he muttered. "How else could Moreton get away with this? How has he gotten away with it?"

  "Everyone stays," she said, pulling the edges of the shirt tightly around her, almost as if the covering would ward off his anger. "Why wouldn't they?"

  "Lesser men would. And women are weak, and every­one succumbs to the lure of the flesh."

  "Except you," Georgie muttered daringly. "I just wanted to save you."

  God, of all the things he ever expected to hear anyone in this Valley say... The queen was delusional. Save him! "I'm overwhelmed by your generosity. Save me. By fuck­ing me? Save me from what?"

  But she didn't know. Was there ever anyone who had re­jected the Bliss River way of life? Why would they? What would Moreton do if the Valley were endangered by some self-righteous interloper? "I don't know, since everyone does it."

  "And you do it. Without a thought, without a qualm. Just give your body over to some dissolute stranger to pen­etrate and pummel."

  A faint smile played over her mouth, a smile that said she was certain of her course, sure of his response. "No. No—I'm offering myself to you."

  Her presumption floored him. "Bloody hell... whore! Strumpet! Bitch! Get out. Get out. ., GET OUT—"

  She cringed, she turned, she ran. There was a fury in him that was all out of proportion to the deed. All she wanted was his erect penis; it would have been perfectly easy for him to insert himself, pump her, and take them both home. She couldn't understand his anger, and his an­tipathy, or why he would want Moreton to question his motives for coming to the Valley.

  So she couldn't save him, and he wouldn't save her now. The thought made her shudder. She felt humiliated all over again, and she wondered why she even thought she had to try.

  This was the truth of it: She would never leave here, ever. She was destined to be a slave to the Valley's needs forever.

  Chapter Four

  Lydia had always lived around the edges. Even in the halcyon days of her youth and subsequent debut, in those heady times when she and Olivia did all those wild and daring things that got them into so much trouble and were known as the bad girls in their set, even then, she had always thought that she was somehow removed from the events in which she participated, and not really living them.

  It was Olivia of course. She was so vibrant, so voluble, so beautiful, so bold and adventurous. So full of flagrant disregard for all constraints.

  Everyone adored Olivia; everyone wanted to be in her orbit. Lydia had always felt like a limp dishrag next to her, felt like the scolding companion, the colorless sidekick who provided doses of unwelcome common sense and comic re­lief.

  Olivia did whatever Olivia wanted to do, while Lydia held back and fussed. There was nothing forbidden, as far as Olivia was concerned, but there were bridges Lydia eventually discovered that she would not cross.

  For Olivia, morality didn't exist. Society's mores were brushed away. In an era of rank and sustaining propriety, she slept with every man she wanted to, drank like a sailor, smoked cigars, and experimented in other ways that Lydia did not care to be privy to.

  Lydia hesitated, on the edges, while Olivia lived.

  Until Moreton. There came Moreton, tall, handsome, blond, as soulless as Olivia. Two of a kind they were. And Olivia wanted him.

  So was it any wonder that the one he wanted was Lydia? Lydia would be the crown of all his conquests, the wild, virtuous virgin. If he could topple Lydia, he could tumble anyone. It was all a matter of charm and persever­ance, and a trunk full of lies that the Queen would believe.

  Lydia believed.

  Moreton was the love of her life, she was sure of it. He saw her true self. He would mend his ways. He yearned for nothing more than a pure heart to tend his happy home. Their pasts didn't matter. Not when they were mates in their souls. He put her on a pedestal, worshiped at her feet, and fucked Olivia while he was doing it.

  And so, in revenge, Lydia succumbed to the lure of the East, and the exotic attentions of Tellal Ali Bakhtoum, a Bedouin prince from Syria who was completing his studies at Oxford. Later, she did not know whether she was really attracted to him and the anomaly of his civilized persona versus his sensually barbaric lifestyle, or whether it was she just wanted to cut out Olivia, who was fucking him while she was bedding Moreton.

  But Lydia won. Lydia was the virgin still, something Bakhtoum prized; and she had had no qualms at all about snapping him up right under Olivia's nose and eloping with him in the dead of night.

  It was a decision, in the first year, she did not regret. The nomadic life had its compensations, not least the fact that she was always on her back at the service of her virile and vigorous husband's demands.

  It was when the child was imminent that she began to feel the limitations of her life, and the traps beyond the sand dunes.

  No nannies in the deserts of Saffoud. And she was expected to breed every year thereafter so her husband might prove his manhood by siring many sons, by which he would acquire much prestige.

  And she would be relegated to the next tent to spend her life behind the veil. It was like going into a nunnery.

  The second year, there was still no child. Bakhtoum was still kind to her, but there was no doubt what was in his mind and heart and what her place was in his life. She was the vessel that would carry his sons. The Englis
h lily whose honey was nectar to his seed.

  To that end, he visited her once and twice a day, and sometimes more, until her body was wrung out from his constant penetration, his endurance.

  The pleasure was sublime. She was truly living life now, and not on the edges. He was energetic, impassioned, in­tense. Demanding. Lusty. Forcible. Her exotic desert lover whom she had stolen away... Who knew nothing about the ways of Englishwomen and all the little tricks of prevention they kept up their sleeves and under their pillows. Never gave a thought to pills and potions, and herbs and internal barriers to a man's potent seed.

  Judas kisses to keep him on point. A hot wanton body to keep him enthralled. Even she had never understood the depths of her carnality, and he rewarded it richly, in that first year.

  When had he become suspicious? During that barren year, after she had already conceived and borne a son? After every coupling failed, every thrust and stroke brought further disappointment and the inconceivable conclusion she might now be barren?

  In Ali Bakhtoum's world, this was not possible, and Lydia knew her evasions and lies would not persuade her husband much longer. Nor could she stand it much longer. The isolation, the shunning, the anger, the violence with which he now took her to prove that there was the seed of sons in his passion, in his blood.

  Then, and only then, when she was in danger of being caught, in danger of being condemned to death for her treachery, only then did she resort to the most desperate plan. She smuggled out a note to Moreton, begging, hop­ing, praying, he would come to her rescue.

  And Moreton came. Moreton and his mercenaries. Moreton, her knight, her beloved, took action and one sandstorm-blinding day, their camp was set upon by an enemy, ravaged, savaged, and plundered, and utterly de­stroyed, everyone murdered, even her son.

  Only she was saved, she who lived around the edges and cowered on the sidelines as the wholesale slaughter began. She walked away from the carnage into the libertine world of a man whose sole purpose in life was fornicating. And willingly agreed to marry him, his mistress forever, along with every other woman he wanted.

  On the edges, as always. He still wanted her. She was enduringly grateful for that, especially after all that time. Nothing else mattered, anything Moreton wanted he could have, as long as she could just obliterate all thought of the desert—and her son—from her mind.

  It was easy when you drowned yourself in an excess of sex. Moreton's needs were no different really from the heavy demands of Ali Bakhtoum. It was a matter of being on her back all the time. And when he got tired, he fo­cused his attention elsewhere for a while, and eventually he came back to her.

  He liked her fawning gratitude. It was easy to do, and she liked the security of fucking one man, and not having to worry about anything else.

  But she was worried now. The stranger in their midst upset her for some reason. She felt the intensity of him; she felt uncertain around him. His dark good looks aroused something familiar in her. There was something about him that unsettled her.

  But because she liked living around the edges, she said nothing to Moreton. She had nothing to say anyway, noth­ing concrete, no reason she could give Moreton to expel the stranger from their fleshly paradise.

  And yet.. . and yet, she was uneasy.

  She would watch him, she thought. Carefully. Covertly. He would be here such a short time as it was, and he was providing a much needed respite to the jaded colony.

  Anything else she felt was the product of her overcau­tious imagination.

  Anyway, she didn't know what she was thinking.

  Yes, she did. She was thinking he moved like the men of her husband's tribe ... Except they were all dead. More-ton had made sure of it. None of them could follow and exact retribution.

  And anyway, the money had run out a long time ago, if that was what anyone was after. All those jewels that her husband's people set such store by. All meant to be worn only by her. All gone now. All of them that Moreton had found he sold to pave the way to paradise, which had been the impetus altogether for the daring rescue.

  She shook herself. All he had found. She was over that now anyway, that Moreton had had another agenda when he'd invaded the camp. And she ought to have known that anyway, that Moreton did nothing for the love of anyone but himself.

  But she had caught on quickly, in the rapid evacuation after the slaughter, enough to save something for herself, and Moreton never knew.

  The rest was nerves, and that was all. Moreton was with some other lover, a relief to her, and she ought to be relaxing instead of looking for ghosts in the shadows.

  But still, shadows lurked. And there was a stranger in their midst who walked with a familiarity that was disqui­eting.

  And so, she would watch. And stay on the edges, until the stranger was gone.

  Olivia was intrigued. Aling, a brothel. How delicious. How perfect. And Henry somehow gone.

  They could go home.

  Did she want to go home?

  She thought she liked it perfectly well in Bliss River Valley. It was aptly named. Bliss. Pure unadulterated, un­complicated fuck-your-brains-out bliss. She would never get tired of it. Never. All those stallions willing to paw her and pound her, and Moreton still hers.

  If this wasn't paradise, she didn't know what was.

  But Aling—she hadn't hated Aling, she'd just hated Henry. Henry had no juice, no life. He would have been a better match for Lydia after she found her conscience, but it was too late by then.

  Henry was willing to take her on, to be the calm waters in which the violent storm of Olivia Wyndham tossed and turned. She hadn't had much choice: her parents damned well clipped her sails. And handed him the keys to the money box besides.

  Anything to get her off their hands.

  She didn't like thinking about it. She was well on the way to being on the shelf by the time Henry offered. Or they bought him. They bought him, she was certain of it. Poky old Henry wanted an heir, and after that she was free to go her own way.

  So while Moreton continued to poke her, she pretended there was even a chance at a child because she wanted to convince Henry to come to Bliss River Valley, to the en­chanted hedonistic life that Moreton so explicitly described.

  A flood of sex, he'd called it. Hot and cold, spilling, streaming, flowing sex, all day long, all night long. Whatever she wanted. Whenever she wanted. A place they could be what they were without censure or rules or hoity-toity deacons of decency preaching at them.

  What are we? she'd asked him.

  Adam and Eve, he'd said, and we are going back to the garden.

  He'd gone first, she and Henry followed later. She couldn't stand to be without Moreton, who was always at full staff and ready for duty when she wanted servicing.

  But she didn't dive headfirst into the salacious life. Henry was appalled for one thing, and she was pregnant for another. Henry wanted to go home to Aling, when she began to show.

  She wouldn't go; she couldn't go, not before she'd ex­plored every nuance of this lubricious life that Moreton had created in his Eden.

  And so Georgiana was born in Bliss River, Henry went home to England, and Moreton suddenly had another complication on his hands. What would they do with the children?

  What could they do with the children?

  Olivia thought they had made an excellent compromise. Witness Georgie. As intractable as she could be some­times, she was still the most beautiful, and the most desired of all those who came to age in the ceremony of the peacock fan.

  Ah, the youth. They were taught to embrace sex, taught nothing was forbidden, everything was accepted. They watched their parents change partners night after night; they yearned for the moment they would be initiated into sex under the peacock fan.

  Sixteen was the age they determined the girls would be most ripe .. .

  And Georgie was twenty now. And Olivia was starting to feel her age.

  Oh no, oh no—oh, she didn't want to ever think about it. Ever. No on
e grew old in Bliss River Valley.

  No one ...

  Moreton was king. Moreton was still a stallion, with his long tactile shaft.

  Some things never changed.

  Some things did. Her body. No sag there, but the sta­mina ... the strain of accommodating all those stallions ... she was dry sometimes, she was tired sometimes, but that was not for Moreton—or anyone—to know.

  So maybe she, too, sometimes thought about Aling and the English countryside and respite from her life of un­remitting sexual pleasure.

  Sometimes it wasn't a pleasure. Sometimes it was a damned chore.

  Don't tell Moreton ...

  ... a brothel ...

  In the posh English countryside, surrounded by all those wealthy nobs running like lemmings from London.

  It was a thought to be considered. A stable of beautiful young things. A horde of hot young bulls with pounds sterling in their pockets and stiff hot rods, not a bad way to spend their ensuing middle years .. .

  Delicious thought. She'd still have Moreton and all the pricks she could handle.

  So it wouldn't be caving in to her middle years. She would be spending them more creatively and lining her pockets besides. So. So ... Aling.

  No divorce, then. She wasn't prone to giving Henry anything he wanted after all these years. After he'd aban­doned her and their daughter. Damn his soul. Why should she make things easy for him?

  But of course, he wasn't making things too easy for her either. The old male bag was still alive and she didn't know what she was going to do about that.

  They were rechalking the lines, a half-dozen men pain­stakingly measuring the 300-yard length and 200-yard width, and making sure the center line was precisely on, and the 30-, 40-, and 60-yard lines were exact.

  Charles was among them, dressed in a light shirt, jodh­purs, and helmet, pointing his mallet this way and that as the horse-drawn apparatus moved slowly across the field and filled in the scuffed lines with a crisp blow of white chalk.

  "Too damned by the rules, if you ask me," Moreton muttered, as he waited by the pen. The horses were getting fretful. They were all getting restive waiting for the day's instruction and the ensuing match to begin.