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  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Praise for Sharon Shipley

  Sary and the Maharajah’s Emeralds

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  A word from the author…

  Thank you for purchasing

  Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc. and other major retailers

  The rajah was devastatingly appealing, as always, in his loose white silk caftan with simple gold embroidery about a deep slit neck. It billowed in the humid breeze off the lake. Worse for my composure, the filmy silk floated against his body, revealing all his manly attributes, plus a smooth bronzed chest. His hair, unbound, hung sleek and black as that of any pirate or Cornish brigand. He even owned a dratted dimple playing hide-and-seek in his bluish jaw, which I had never before noted. Damnation but he was handsome!

  Flushing, I averted my eyes, placing the frosted cup on my neck. Oh, how I hated him!

  I sucked my palm where the game piece had bit in. He set the cut glass tumbler on the table and turned my hand over.

  I jerked it away.

  Ignoring me, his hand hovered over my breast instead. He plucked a jeweled pin. “Instead, I shall take this.” His fingers, warm, strong, deft, and the brush of skin between my breasts, slightly raspy, sent a subterranean quake rippling from my toes.

  I waited, breathless, for what came next.

  Instead, he plopped akimbo on the cushion opposite, replacing the shattered pawn with my jeweled pin and, with a wave, indicated I make opening gambit.

  “But perhaps you should care to destroy more?” he murmured. “A piece of your clothing, for, say, a queen or a king? A lock of hair for a checkmate? Or perhaps a kiss for—”

  “They call it strip poker back in…” I scowled.

  Back in where?

  The dratted door to memory swung shut just as I nearly had it.

  Praise for Sharon Shipley

  and the Sary Adventure Series

  available at The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  SARY’S GOLD, Book 1 of the series, won Grand Prize as a script, as well as being Shortlisted in Chanticleer Book Review Awards for 2018.

  ~*~

  “SARY’S DIAMONDS is a stand-alone follow-up to SARY’S GOLD.”

  ~Ed Sunshine (who gave SARY’S GOLD 5 Stars)

  ~*~

  “A page turner start to finish! Surely there’s got to be a sequel?!”

  ~Indiana Girls (WOW, 5 Stars)

  ~*~

  “What a ride! Sarabande Swinford is living a modest, Midwestern life when a tragic accident makes her a widow, [and she is] thrown into all manner of misery, hardship and not a small amount of adventure….”

  ~ScriptPIMP (Grand Prize, The 20/20,

  Top Ten Contest Winners)

  ~*~

  “Prepare to enjoy your trip through the tough days of the past with this brave woman. SARY’S GOLD is full of action, driven by the clever mind of this unusual and strong woman dealing with the hand dealt.…Sharon colorfully portrays the difficulties needed to exist in the gold rush days.”

  ~Kay Quintin, Fresh Fiction

  Sary and the Maharajah’s Emeralds

  by

  Sharon Shipley

  Love, Lust, and Peril:

  Sary’s Adventure Series, Book 3

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Sary and the Maharajah’s Emeralds

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 by Sharon Shipley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Diana Carlile

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Tea Rose Edition, 2018

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-2292-6

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-2293-3

  Love, Lust, and Peril: Sary’s Adventure Series, Book 3

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For Skip and for my fearless editor, Nan Swanson

  Prologue

  Fatal Arrival

  I would never distinguish if Tommy and I made love with such fevered recklessness that last time because we had a premonition…or if it was our usual unquenchable desire. The thirst to behold each other’s bodies, reveling in sweet musk, moist heat, the silken feel of limb entwined with limb, while searching each other’s eyes, and forgoing the explosive coupling, because it was all the sweeter…

  Tommy approached me that last time, in our cramped dressing room in the costume truck as it lumber-rattled about India’s ferociously hot province of Rajasthan. We had arrived in the city of Bharatpur overheated and slick with sweat-dew as usual in India’s torrid climate. At first, I laughed and tried to wriggle out of Tommy’s embrace.

  “I’m all perspiring!”

  “But I want to taste you, m’dear,” he growled in his best villain’s voice. “You remember how I relish salty sweets.”

  “Like salt water taffy?” I laughed, backing off.

  “Don’t interrupt my elucidating…” Tommy continued murmuring huskily. “Nibble your ear and bite your lips, and a few other choice bits, and…”

  “Tommy!” I cautioned. “The audience awaits.” But my protest was half-hearted, my fever building as he renewed grazing down my neck, arched in what I hoped was a swanlike pose.

  “Whet their appetites. It will get you in the good temper for Katerina’s bitchiness,” he goaded. He was speaking, of course, of our hugely popular version of The Taming of the Shrew, with abject apologies to Shakespeare. In Tommy’s estimation, Shakespeare never had it so good.

  “As if I need it with you around…” I breathed, brushing kisses over his Irish-fair chest, following the black silky line feathering down to his taut belly, until Tommy thrust me into the colorful rack of saris.

  By that time, I viewed the top of Tommy’s wayward black chrysanthemum curls, as he slid down, feeling his mouth against my bare tummy, snagging my silky underthings and drawing them down with his teeth.

  “Mmmmm.” He mumbled something indistinct, never guessing it would be the last time he took me, and I him,
without grace or restraint, before that last showing of The Taming of The Shrew. We pressed hard against the walls of the truck, amidst swirls of flamboyant silks replacing the heavy, stuffy velvets of past tours.

  Entangled like colorful maypoles, chuckling and gasping, we fell to the floor amongst the masses of filmy material, searching for mouths to kiss as gossamer silk stuck to our faces.

  “Stop! You will muss them!” I giggled, meaning the delicate silk, after we had enjoyed each other a second time; truth be told, they needed to be replaced soon. I was instantly sorry, for Tommy sat up, with a fillip of rose-colored silk over his head.

  “Methinks thou dost protest too much, thou lustful wench.” Grinning lasciviously, Tommy helped me up.

  “And as always, your prudence is correct, love. Let us now stun the audience with our wit, charm, and talent. Eh?”

  Damnation! He did not even have the grace to mind. I pouted.

  ****

  Tommy was correct. Our lovemaking brought color to our cheeks as I checked our looking glass before going on, and a hooded ardor to Tommy’s eyes as we went through the antic paces of The Taming of the Shrew for delighted Hindi audiences. They needed little English—Old English or otherwise—to revel in Katerina’s comeuppance, especially when Petruchio upended me and rendered an all-too-realistic spanking on my scantily clothed bottom.

  Women covered their mouths with their ghoon ghats, while menfolk, with heads thrown back, roared approval—a bit too heartily. I scowled, which brought more laughter.

  I remember fondly how Katerina wore violent red saris to match her temperament while Bianca wafted about in ethereal whites and Petruchio wore a tunic of riotous Saint Joseph’s colors and a sloppy oversized turban.

  How could I foretell, that torrid night at the end of the wildly popular Gangaur Festival, celebrating the goddess Gauri, that I would be torn from my beloved Tommy and my adored scalawag of a son, and sent to a torment of fear, and ultimately, the zone of forbidden, irresistible desire?

  All we hoped for was that the festive spirit would make the audience greedier and thus put more money in our pockets…though in reality, I was flush with diamond riches from my last foolhardy escapade, as Tommy so lovingly referred to it.

  Money measured only success, not livelihood…

  If I had had premonition that this would be the last time where sanity reigned, I would have burnt the saris and driven our Rolls Royce caravan of trucks off their axles in fleeing to the Tibetan border.

  The spectacle of twenty-three stately Rolls Royce vehicles—trucks riding high and proud, trailing flatbeds of props, long-snouted busses, high-topped Barker Tourers, and the Barker enclosed cabriolets—had fatally entered Bharatpur, in the province of Rajasthan, two days before.

  The glittering Rolls Royces were not gleaming black, Silver Ghost gray, or even hunter’s green, but bright jewel colors like wrapped sweets, bright as macaws—richly enameled school bus yellows, fire engine reds, the blues of turquoise and robin’s egg, and oranges that put sunsets to shame, all embellished with painted flowers, balled fringe swinging from every window, and trumpet horns polished to a blinding silver.

  Long used to a maharajah’s gaudy opulence—one maharajah owned an automobile resembling a long-necked swan, its sweptback wings enfolding the occupants—our parade entering Bharatpur that fateful day was startling even for Indians, the flamboyant banner heralding the caravan:

  Sir Thomas’s Traveling Thespians,

  Lovely Maidens, Acrobats, Magicians,

  and

  Feats of Astounding Strength!

  If that wasn’t enough, a gussied-up siren—me—rode a silver howdah, embossed with lions, atop a garishly painted elephant. My foreign corn-silk hair must have shimmered under the scorching India summer sun that day. My over-lush bosom was barely encased in its pearl bustier, and flowing pantaloons, scandalously slit to my hips, revealed legs I hoped were still slim and shapely. My skin gleamed pearly white with sweat under the canopy, for my fair skin tended to burn. Better I should have been covered in sackcloth and ashes, for the horrors that followed.

  At the time, all I could think of was, Another show! Another town! Adventure!

  Yet as I swayed high in the howdah, the first prickle of doubt began in my tummy.

  Merely the heat, I shrugged—heat was a living beast in India—or perhaps those spicy chapattis the troupe lunched upon. Pungent smells, too. Whirling dervishes of dust and storms of sacred cow dung did not help over much.

  I blinked from one such and missed the golden sandstone palace, so vast it filled the horizon. Nor could I have seen the two figures on a high parapet.

  Just excitement. Yet why this chill prickling my arms despite the heat?

  I felt dizzy. Damn those chapattis. A thousand eyes were on me. The odd feeling hit that one pair tracked me, eyes one could scarcely see between the immense rolls of fat—but I could not know that then.

  My unease must be from the chapattis. That was all.

  ****

  Little could I know that, in the palace, word spread thick as amber trapping insects. Whispers from fawning eunuchs reached the Maharajah of Bharatpur’s ears.

  “A pearl-skinned goddess? If you will!” He sniffed to the handsome man who lounged beside him, and dipping into a bowl of honeyed figs, loudly sucked his fingers. He licked his thumb where the stickiness dripped down. His brother winced at the explosive smacking.

  “With hair of spun platinum, no less?” the maharajah continued undeterred. “Eyes rivaling emeralds! Please. Emeralds? I have emeralds!”

  However, the maharajah’s eyes glittered, belying his scorn.

  The striking man flicked a grimace. Beside the immensely fat man he was shapely in proportion—broad shouldered, sculpted chest and abdomen, lean hipped, long strong thews, handsome in a lushly exotic way, he could have been a pirate, or a Parisian gigolo…

  His skin reminded one of ripe pomegranates, smooth and highly colored, the face long jawed and arresting beneath onyx black curls, carelessly resplendent even in his less formal gear.

  He could read his brother’s mind—unfortunately.

  “It is said she does acrobatic tricks in the nude.” The maharajah, grubbing in the bowl for more figs, gurgled his eagerness. It sounded like a clog going down a drain. “I will have her.” He cast a smug look at his brother and lifted the bowl, draining the dregs of honey.

  The rajah glanced at him derisively. “As you will. I take my leave now.” He said it more heavily than he intended.

  “Precisely. My will.” The maharajah mocked his handsome brother’s retreat.

  Chapter One

  The Burning

  I felt heat. I opened my eyes and wished I had not. I could see into the white heart of Hell—a wall of live flame dancing to the sky—the brilliance burning, burning, evaporating my garments.

  I looked down. But what am I wearing? Through it, I could see my rosy nipples plainly. Confused. What are these diaphanous wisps whipping about in the vortex?

  White silk, trimmed in red-gold of the setting sun. Or was that orange shimmer a reflection of the fire to which I was propelled—such a wispy barrier to the furnace before me.

  Held by many arms, I twisted and turned, felt the sheen on my face, my body, as they, the unseen, prodded me toward the enormous pyre.

  Yes, I whimpered. That was what it was. I recognized it now—a funeral pyre.

  The blaze. The wood piled high, crisscrossed, like the stacking of a log cabin and narrowing at the top.

  The conflagration had a mouth that roared and hissed my name. Flame-fingers snapped at the wisps trailing my feet. I touched my veil stuck with jewels. I could feel them cold, even in the intense heat, on top of carefully pomaded hair. I could smell the coconut oils. Oils to attract fire…

  A cloth-bound man lay atop the inferno. His chest was covered with yellow flowers. Hungrily licking tongues had not reached him yet.

  I pushed back, skidding my heels in the earth. Many
hands shoved me forward. The press of bodies, smells of perspiration, patchouli, sandalwood, and garlic smothered me.

  No! I shouted. Already my face blistered. The least spark could catch my veil on fire.

  “This is a mistake!” I screamed until acrid heat scorched my throat, choking my voice with cinders.

  Still they relentlessly pushed. I was heating up hellishly now. I saw the edge of my sari flicker, spark, and flare.

  “Stop it!” I screamed. “I will not follow! You have it wrong! I am not the one! A mistake! It isn’t me!”

  My clothes twisted around me then, binding me like a shroud as hands grabbed at me, mauling me this way and that. I could not breathe; the scalding air shimmered with sparks before my eyes…

  My veil, lifting in superheated air, loosened my hair and let it waft freely in the hellish updraft.

  “Sary!” the flames called as they crackled and spat encouragingly. “Sa-ryyyyy. Cooooomme….”

  Chapter Two

  Captive

  I bolted upright, still feeling intense heat.

  I squeezed my eyes tight, and then opened them quickly to see if the horrific view changed. No. Still veils upon veils—but cool veils, languidly drifting in a humid breeze from windows shaped curiously like keyholes, across a vast room. No flames, no scorching heat. I kicked at clinging sheets twining like damp coils of snakes.

  “Where the pluperfect hell am I?”

  Something filmy—a bed drape this time, lemony—the finest silk as blissful silk worms could possibly spin, floated across my eyes, obscuring my vision.

  I swatted it irritably away. Something was terribly wrong.

  But this is India, silly. Of course, I am overheated.

  India!

  Oh, yes, India.

  Why did that not seem strange?

  “And why would I be here? Wherever here is!” I looked dazedly about. One mystery at a time, please. I somehow sensed it was not a fancy hotel or a private home.

  My hand slapped a gleaming twisted trunk—a bedpost trying mightily to be a gilded tree, its branches forming a canopy of, yes, more silk, lofting lazily. Delicate gold formed twigs, each twig studded with gems, lest one’s eyes, roving the ceiling, became bored.