Chapter 1: Eyes of Smoke

The air in the Calcutta bazaar hung thick with cardamom and damp silk, the late afternoon sun slanting through canvas roofs to gild the chaos below. Haggling voices rose and fell like waves while bolts of cloth rustled in the breeze. Lord James “Jim” Ashbourne, Duke of Ravenswood, paused mid-stride, his polished boots scuffing the packed earth as something—someone—snagged his attention like a hook through silk.

Amid the swirl of vendors and porters stood a young woman no taller than five-foot-one, her petite frame commanding a corner stall as though it were a throne. Anaya Desai’s large, smoky black eyes lifted from her ledger and locked onto his with an intensity that felt like a physical touch. Dark, fathomless pools fringed in kohl stripped away his titled armor in an instant, leaving him exposed in ways no battlefield ever had.

Lord Edmund “Ned” Harrington, Earl of Strathmore, nudged Jim’s elbow, his voice low and amused. “Steady on, old man. That’s no trinket for a duke’s pocket—eyes like that could drown a man before he surfaces.”

Jim barely registered the warning. He stood rooted as Anaya turned fully toward him, her pretty features sharpening with cool assessment. High cheekbones caught the filtered light. Full lips curved in neither smile nor frown, expressing only polite interest. A simple gold bindi glinted like a secret between her brows. She wore a fitted choli and lehenga of deep crimson silk that hugged her slender curves, but it was those eyes that burned—holding his a beat too long, promising mysteries he suddenly craved to unravel.

He told himself it was mere conquest, the thrill of an exotic beauty ripe for the taking. Yet his pulse thrummed traitorously as she excused herself from a trader and glided closer, her gaze never wavering, challenging him to look away first.

Ned muttered another warning. “Exotic pets are for collectors, Jim, not peers.”

But Jim stepped forward, drawn by the sway of her hips and the way those smoky depths flickered with calculation, as if she already knew his type and planned to turn it against him.

“My lord,” she said, her voice a silken lilt laced with precise English. She extended a small hand over a shimmering bolt of paisley fabric.

Their fingers brushed—electric, deliberate—and Jim felt heat coil low in his gut as he imagined those eyes half-lidded in surrender. Anaya’s breath caught imperceptibly. Her plan to charm a lucrative contract fractured under the raw hunger in his stare. She, who wielded beauty like a blade, felt herself falter first, her pulse racing at the forbidden promise in his broad shoulders and aristocratic jaw.

“The Duke of Ravenswood, I presume? Your family’s interest in our silks precedes you.”

Jim straightened, masking his surprise with a lazy smile. “Miss Desai, your reputation does the same. These patterns—intended for London salons?”

He trailed a finger along the fabric, close enough that his knuckles grazed hers again. The contact sent a shiver up his arm. She didn’t flinch, but her smoky eyes narrowed fractionally, pupils dilating in the dim light—a tell he filed away like a predator scenting weakness.