Her relief at being alive and on land dwindled rapidly. She didn’t have to ask why few ships traveled at this time of year. It was varsha—season of the monsoons. And the two of them were alone on a small island. When the storms hit…
She blinked back tears that suddenly pooled in her eyes. She had been so focused on Saxon that she hadn’t realized, until now, how much she had lost when the Valor went down.
Nicobar. He must have been trapped in the ship and drowned at the bottom of the sea. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. Desolation swept over her as the truth struck home.
Nico was gone—and the sapphires with him.
Everything she had done had been for nothing. The Nine Sapphires of Kashmir were lost forever. All the lives spent, all the suffering her people had endured, all her efforts wasted…
Ashiana covered her face with her hands and wept.
Only one thought consoled her: the sacred stones were beyond the reach of thieves. And all nine were together. She had accomplished that. She raised her head, listening to the distant sound of the surf. The bottom of the sea was not the planned hiding place, but there was nothing anyone could do to retrieve them now.
Her mission was finished.
That fact gave her some comfort. The sapphires were gone, her duty over…and that meant she no longer had to consider Saxon her enemy.
The idea settled through her warmly. Squaring her shoulders, she started down the path he had taken.
Together, they would find some way to survive. He had been so caring and sweet with her during their time on his ship. She felt certain that those feelings were still there, hidden beneath his tough, taciturn exterior.
She caught up with him near the beach. “Saxon?” she called after him.
She could see him ahead, but he did not slow down.
“My lord?” she tried again. “I think you should rest. And you should let me look at your cuts and those burns.”
He halted suddenly and turned around. “I do not require a healer. You,” he said in a low, warning tone, “should leave me alone. Leave me alone, damn it!”
Startled and hurt, Ashiana blinked at him. Cautiously, she closed the distance between them, softening her voice. “I-I know it is a terrible loss, your ship and your men.” She reached out to touch him.
He snatched his arm away as if she would burn him. His silver eyes glittered. “Do as I say, woman. Stay away from me.”
He stalked off again.
Ashiana stopped trying to follow him. Folding her arms, she frowned at his bare, tanned back as he disappeared down the path.
Why did he have to insist on being left alone in his suffering and grief? He had almost died saving her life, but he would not allow her to help him in even the smallest way.
Impossible, unyielding man.
With a sigh, she turned and started back into the forest. He would need her to survive, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Their refuge was very much like her home in the Andamans, and there were things she knew about these islands that he might not. Where to find food. Which plants were edible and which were poisonous. How very dangerous the small caracal wildcats could be.
Years ago, she and her friend Padmini used to spend whole days roaming the forests, before Ashiana realized that acceptance among the Ajmir meant giving up the boyish ways she had learned aboard her father’s ship. She was certain she could remember many of the skills her maidservant had taught her.
Saxon was being stubbornly male about refusing to accept her comfort or her help…but she hoped a few days’ time would start to heal his pain. At least enough for him to allow her near without snarling at her.
He seemed a bit like Nico in that way. A sad smile curved her lips. It was all a matter of knowing when and how to approach him.
He needed her. They needed each other. But for now, she would do as he asked and leave him alone.
At least, she thought with a sigh, things could not get any worse between them.
For the next three days, Ashiana focused on practical matters and made good use of her time. Following a band of furry gray langur monkeys, she let them lead her to a freshwater spring. She drank deeply, washed herself, and cleaned her cuts as best she could, picking the splinters of glass from her skin.
Gathering fallen padauk fronds, she cut them into strips, using the sharp edge of a shell found on the beach, then wove the strips into mats. On high ground in the center of the island, she constructed a little shelter for herself, beside a dense stand of trees that would provide some protection against the wind. Green bamboo made solid, flexible poles, lashed together with vines. She laced the padauk mats to the poles in overlapping layers, forming a peaked roof. It should keep her dry even in a monsoon, she thought with pride.
She discovered that the island offered a variety of familiar foods, and soon collected a respectable cache of coconuts, papayas, sapota fruit, and crabs picked from the beach when the tide went out in the evening.
She even put together a sort of signaling device. She gathered every bit of shiny metal that washed up from the Valor—eating utensils, mostly—and tied them to one of her mats. It wasn’t quite as bright as a mirror might have been, but it flashed in the sun. They could use it to draw the attention of a ship, if they saw one.
In three days, she did not see a sign of Saxon.
Except for the graves down on the shore, six of them. She had knelt and tearfully offered a prayer that their souls would find peace.
Saxon must be busy with some other task now. Either that, or he was purposely avoiding her. She had been all over the island and had never come across him.
Last night, she had awakened to a sound very near her shelter. Lifting her head, she saw a shadow, just beyond the light of the fire she kept burning to scare predators away. But when she called out, there was no reply. The next instant, the shadow had vanished.
In the light of day, it seemed clear that it had only been an overly bold animal. Ashiana put it out of her mind as she stirred the salve she was making in a broad, flat shell over heated rocks.
She had used the ointment on her feet, wrapping them in soft leaves, and her cuts were healing well already. She intended to use this new supply on Saxon’s burns. Even if she had to ambush him to do so.
The salve appeared to be the right thickness now. She put the stick aside and wrapped her hand in a length of cloth, torn from her singed pet-ee-koot, before picking up the hot shell.
Standing, she wiped her perspiration-beaded brow, then on impulse, ducked into her shelter. She picked up a hollowed-out pineapple filled with a sweet drink she had made earlier from fruit juice, water, and coconut milk. She took it with her as a peace offering.
Now then, where best to start looking for him?
She started down the path she had cleared to the beach. She would follow his footprints from there and hope they led somewhere. Saxon might try to keep his pain hidden, but she knew the burns must hurt terribly. She was at least going to tend his injuries before he went prowling off alone again.
But it was not footprints she saw when she arrived on the shore. It was an animal, stalking along the water’s edge.
She froze, not even breathing, only a few feet beyond the trees. But it was much too large and too dark to be a caracal.
A chill ran through her. It almost looked like—
“Nicobar!”
The shell and the drink dropped unnoticed from her hands. She ran toward him. He stumbled and fell and she called his name again. Nico raised his head, panting. She dropped to her knees and caught him up in her arms, tears blurring her vision.
He made a watery, weak growl of protest. His fur was soaked and matted. “Oh, Nico!” Ashiana ran her hands over him but could not feel any broken bones. He was exhausted but unhurt. “Nico, you are all right!” she cried gratefully, burying her face in his ruff.
It was only then that she noticed his torn collar. Ashiana went still. She wiped the tears from her eyes. The sapphires! How could she have f
orgotten?
Her stomach twisted painfully. She darted a look over her shoulder, searching all along the shoreline, peering into the trees. Saxon, as usual, was nowhere near her.
She turned her back anyway, blocking any view of what she was doing. She unfastened Nico’s collar, removed it, and lay it on the sand, her hands trembling.
“Nico, what happened to your collar?” she whispered in astonishment, carefully opening the slashed leather. Her heart was in her throat as she counted the stones. It would be a miracle if all nine were there after Nico’s time in the sea.
Six…seven…eight.
Eight.
One was missing. Ashiana sat back on her heels, staring in dismay at the brilliant blue gems. She raised her head, looking at the crashing surf. One must have fallen out. It was lost at sea. Lost, and she could never get it back.
Her shoulders sank. The Nine Sapphires of Kashmir were separated again.
She sat for a long time looking down at the eight that were left, thinking of all that had been done to possess these jewels. She thought of the Ajmir lives lost at the hands of the English.
And of the Ajmir warriors who had tortured Saxon.
Of all that had happened to her since she first agreed to become protector of the sacred stones. So little made sense anymore. The clear certainty she had once had, that her people, her clan, were entirely virtuous and the English utterly evil, no longer burned within her.
Gone, like her innocence.
Nicobar lay his head in her lap with a weary sound. She stroked his striped fur. “It is all right, my Nico,” she whispered, resting her forehead against his. “Or it will be.”
If she admitted the truth, she had felt relief that her mission was done, that the sapphires had been taken out of her hands. Now the gods had given them back to her.
And her sworn duty—no matter what troubling questions swirled in her head—was to keep the Nine Sapphires of Kashmir out of the hands of the English.
The enemy.
She glanced over her shoulder again, still seeing only trees. She no longer thought of Saxon as her enemy, but neither could she let him get his hands on the sacred gems. She must hide them.
But where? The island was too small, and he was too unpredictable. No matter where she hid them, he might find them. If not him, then some future travelers who happened upon this place.
She turned back to the waves that crashed upon the shore.
The sea. It was the best solution. With one sapphire lost out there somewhere, they would be reunited, in a way. Working quickly once she had decided, she stuffed the sapphires back into Nicobar’s collar. She could not simply fling them into the waves and chance that they might wash ashore, like the rocks and shells that lined the beach.
“Stay here, Nico.” Standing, she took off her clothes and left them on the sand, not so much because she didn’t want to get them wet, but because they made it so difficult to breathe properly. She tore a long strip of cloth from her pet-ee-koot. With that and the collar grasped in one fist, she strode into the surf.
She had always been a strong swimmer. She and Padmini often liked to evade the harem eunuchs and escape the heat of the palace for a midnight swim. Walking into the water until she could not stand upright anymore, she took a breath and dove into the waves, straight and strong.
The water sparkled clear as glass, dancing with beams of sunlight that struck flashes of turquoise and azure from the depths. Schools of black-and-white-striped fish with speckled tails darted around her. Below, great reefs of flame-colored coral teemed with yellow ferns and small sea creatures.
Ashiana swam straight out from shore, returning to the surface for a breath whenever she needed one. Years of yoga practice made her breathing slow and easy, and holding it in the warm water felt quite comfortable.
She selected a hiding place she could find again if need be: a long, sinuous reef of bright orange, shaped like an elephant’s trunk. When she was able to leave the island and return to the maharaja, she would tell him what had happened, and exactly where the stones were. He would decide what must be done.
And if she never left this place, the secret would die with her.
Rising to the surface, she turned toward shore to find a landmark. She decided on a clump of three trees that towered above the others, about an arrow’s flight away. She positioned herself so that they were straight ahead, then took a huge breath and dove deep, toward the reef.
She found a hole about the size and depth of her arm and stuffed the collar inside. After another breath, she dove again, picking up rocks from the sea floor. Using all her strength, she shoved them into place, squeezing them in tight to block the hole. She tied the strip of white cloth from her pet-ee-koot to an undulating frond of seaweed in the middle of the reef.
Ashiana rose to the surface. Taking a gasp of air, she slicked her hair back, treading water. She could see nothing on shore but Nico, now washing himself.
Swimming back to the island, she felt a sense of peace. She had sworn to reunite the sapphires and move them to a new hiding place. She had done that, at least as best she could. Her duty was finished. She was the only one who knew where the sapphires were, and she would never tell anyone but the maharaja.
Reaching shore, she dressed quickly and coaxed Nicobar to his feet. Together, they walked back to where she had dropped the salve and the drink. Both had soaked into the sand. Frowning, she picked up the shell and the empty pineapple.
She started back toward her little encampment. “Come, Nico. I will make more and then we will go find Saxon.” Her heart lightened and she smiled down at her tiger. “Perhaps it will cheer him to see that you have survived.”
Saxon banked the last of his signal fires for the day. He kept several burning around the perimeter of the island each night, hoping to attract any ship that might come within range. He had yet to see so much as a speck on the horizon.
Turning away from the fire pit, he headed down the beach, his temples throbbing and his raw hands and arms stinging. He had barely slept last night, but it was not only the pain from his burns and cuts that kept him awake. The nightmares had returned, more forceful than before, haunting images of Mandara dying.
He had sworn to get justice for his late wife’s death. Instead, Greyslake had committed murder again. And gotten away with it. Again.
Jaw clenched, Saxon headed for the makeshift lean-to of leaves and branches he had made to escape the sun. The past three days and nights had been a blur of oppressive heat, pain from his wounds, nightmares—and slow-burning fury.
At least Ashiana had done as he demanded and stayed away from him after that first encounter in the forest. Because of her treachery, he was right back where he had started ten years ago: he possessed one sapphire, but the other eight were beyond his reach—along with any chance of saving his brother Max’s life and protecting his family from the curse.
She had hidden all nine right on his own ship, for God’s sake, and he had never suspected. Ashiana had played him like a fish on a line, reeled him in with her beauty, her laughter, her sensuality, her sweet feminine tenderness. All just part of the role she had been playing.
He had allowed himself to care about her, had started to have feelings for her.
For a female spy who was only doing her job.
He burned to know whether she was one of Greyslake’s hired operatives or working for the Ajmir. But what was he supposed to do—sit down and have a polite chat with her about it? Furiously demand answers? She was the most skillful liar he’d ever met. What were the odds of her telling him the truth?
Slim to none.
It didn’t matter anymore, with the jewels lost at sea. So he was doing his best to banish her from his mind. She could stay on her part of the island and he would stay on his. He would grant the little mercenary her life, nothing more.
He kept trudging down the beach as the morning sun sizzled higher. The glare struck the white sand and rose in ribbons of heat.
> “Saxon?”
He stopped in his tracks.
When he heard his name called again, from far behind him, he almost thought the heat had addled his head. Did the blasted woman have no sense at all? How dare she keep up her act, trotting after him with soft inquiries about his health and offers of comfort?
Turning, he saw her walking toward him, quickly, a smile on her face.
And her tiger beside her!
Astonishment sliced through him, followed by a jolt of suspicion that made him keep still and clamp down an outraged exclamation.
How long had the tiger been here?
And where was its collar?
Was that the reason she had kept up her feigned concern that day in the forest? Had she once again hidden the sapphires? Were they somewhere nearby?
He kept his expression neutral and his questions to himself as she approached, the great cat slinking along by her side.
She looked well—he cursed himself for noticing—with her glossy black hair tumbling around her corset-cinched curves. The sun had brought out a sprinkling of very English-looking freckles on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.
She held a pineapple in one hand and a shell filled with a brownish, sticky-looking substance in the other.
“I am glad to finally find you.” She stopped a few paces away, her smile widening tentatively. “Are you all right?”
Lying, deceitful little spy. “Well enough.” He tore his gaze from her long enough to look down at the tiger.
“I found Nico walking on the beach this morning. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Wonderful,” he echoed.
“It seems his collar came off in the sea, but he is unhurt. Tigers are very strong swimmers, you know. They often swim from one island to another in search of prey.”
“How interesting.” Saxon felt his gut clench as his suspicion strengthened. He glared into the animal’s golden eyes. The collar had been damaged. It seemed unlikely that it had stayed on.
One Night with a Scoundrel Page 21