“Oh yes, of course.”
Anna outlined her problem as succinctly as she could. Major Dumesne frowned.
“I’ll tell you frankly, men such as you need do not grow thick on the ground,” the Major said thoughtfully. “However, I’ll ask around. I’ve heard a rumor that the Carnegans may be going home soon—they’ve been here close to seven years, you know, and Mrs. Carnegan’s health has never been very robust. If it’s true, their overseer, Hillmore, is a sound man. He should do for you.”
“That would be lovely. Thank you.”
“Until you find someone, I’ll be happy to come around to keep an eye on things for you. Give your men some idea of how to go on.”
“Would you? That’s very kind of you. I would appreciate that very much.”
The Major shook his head, set the cup back on the tray, and stood up. “It’s the least I can do for a friend. And perhaps you and Chelsea will call on Laura.”
“Of course we will, just as soon as we may. Thank you, Major.”
“You’re very welcome, Mrs. Traverne. And now I must get on. It was a pleasure making your acquaintance, Mrs. Fisher.”
“Not at all.” Ruby twinkled, standing. Along with Anna she walked the Major to the door. Though it probably wasn’t obvious to one who didn’t know her well, the expression on her face was purely predatory.
After the Major’s visit Anna began to get out more. It began with the call to Laura Dumesne that she had promised the Major. Laura, a sturdy, brown-haired child who looked absurdly like her father, was upset because her ayah was urging her to accept an invitation to Rosellen Childers’s tenth birthday party. Laura, sniffling, insisted she did not want to go. Anna, with her painfully acquired knowledge of the intricacies of grief, suspected that the prospect of enjoying herself so soon after her mother’s death was filling Laura with guilt, and guilt was the reason for the child’s refusal. But by representing how kind it would be of Laura to accompany Chelsea on her first such outing since her father’s death, Anna talked Laura into going, thus earning Major Dumesne’s undying gratitude. One of the conditions of the excursion was that Anna ride with the girls and their ayahs in the carriage as they were taken to the Childerses’ from Srinagar, where Laura would have spent the night, and then fetched back home. Of course Mary Childers, hearing that Anna was in the carriage, had invited her in, making much of a friend whom she had not seen in nearly a year. Other ladies, old friends of Anna’s, were present as well, and Anna passed a pleasant afternoon renewing acquaintances. By the time the children’s party was concluded, Anna had a dozen invitations pressed upon her.
“Paul’s been dead nearly a year. You can’t bury yourself with him,” Mary Childers advised her bluntly when Anna pointed out that she was still in mourning for her husband. Although Anna refused to leave off her blacks, she did agree to attend a few of the smaller supper parties. And she found that company did tend to help her forget her grief.
As her social life picked up, Anna found herself growing happier. It was not that she was forgetting Paul—she would never forget him. It was just that she was slowly becoming accustomed to his absence. Chelsea was adjusting, too, although she was still far from the happy little girl she had been before her father’s death.
One steamy afternoon some two months after their arrival, Anna decided to tackle the accumulation of junk in the attic. It was a mistake, she acknowledged as she sank back on her heels, wiping perspiration from her brow with a grimy hand. Although summer, with its cooling winds, was almost upon them, up under the eaves the air was so hot and thick as to be almost visible. She’d sorted through only two trunks of old papers, and already she was feeling as though she needed to lie down.
“Memsahib, a gentleman has called.”
Raja Singha, who always moved as silently as a ghost, stood at the top of the attic stairs, watching her impassively. Anna started a little at the sound of his voice, looked around, and then smiled.
“Major Dumesne?” The Major—whom she now called Charles—had become a frequent caller. Under the pretext of overseeing the cultivation of her fields, he took dinner with them two or three nights a week. Anna welcomed his visits. He had become a good friend, and, although he had never said anything, his actions gave her the impression that one day he might like to be a great deal more. But there was no urgency to his courting, if courting it was, and Anna was content to let things develop as they might.
“No, memsahib. Another gentleman. He did not give his name.”
“Oh?” Anna considered, then realized that her caller was likely the overseer—Hillmore, she thought his name was—that Charles had told her about. The Carnegans were leaving within the next two weeks, and Charles had mentioned that their overseer would be coming over to talk to her before they left.
“I’ll be right down.” she promised, and with a bow Raja Singha left.
Anna stopped by her room for the few minutes needed to wash her face and hands and pull the kerchief from her hair. She tidied the blond mass, repinning it so that it formed a cool roll at her neck, but didn’t take the time to change her dress. If the man was the Carnegans’ overseer, she didn’t wish to keep him waiting any longer than she must. Srinagar needed him.
When she walked into the front parlor, she was smiling. A tall man with very broad shoulders and straight, coarse hair the color of a raven’s wing stood with his back to her, looking out the window. He was poorly dressed in rusty black breeches and a bottle-green frock coat, both of which had clearly seen better days. His black boots were dusty, scuffed, and run down at the heels.
Anna blinked, coming to a halt just inside the door as she surveyed her guest from the top of his black head to his feet. Apparently the Carnegans had not paid the man very well, certainly not the simply enormous amount that Charles had informed her was necessary to secure the services of a first-class overseer. Or perhaps the man simply did not believe in spending his blunt on clothes.
In any case, she was not hiring him for his sartorial elegance. She wanted the best man for Srinagar, and Charles had assured her that Hillmore was that.
“Mr. Hillmore?” she inquired, having regained her poise enough to advance with a smile. “I’m Mrs. Traverne. It’s good of you to call.”
The man turned to face her. Anna’s breath caught on a shocked gasp. She stopped dead, and her hands flew to press against her mouth. Her eyes went huge.
“Mrs. Traverne, is it?” he asked almost affably, but she could have sworn the glint in his midnight-blue eyes was menacing. “And here I’ve been thinking of you all this time as my lady Green Eyes. Dare I hope that you remember me?”
XI
“Dear God!” She stared at him as if at an apparition. It could not be—but it was: the housebreaker. There was no mistake.
“I see that you do.” There was grim satisfaction in his voice at her apparent horror. Anna could do nothing but stare as he folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head at her.
“Tell me something,” he continued conversationally. “Exactly how are we related? If you really are Mrs. Traverne, that is.”
“Of course I am Mrs. Traverne.” Anna still felt as if she were suffocating, but she had recovered enough presence of mind to drop her hands from her mouth and straighten her spine. He was not a ghost, not an image out of her fevered dreams, but the man himself, which was even more dreadful than the possibility that she had lost her mind. “What do you want? What are you doing here?”
He smiled, a mocking smile that bared dazzling white teeth, but didn’t answer her question directly. Instead, he said, “If you are indeed Mrs. Traverne, then you must be the widow of my youngest half-brother. I should have guessed it during our first meeting, I suppose, but my thoughts were otherwise occupied at the time. Pray accept my condolences on your loss. Julian Chase, at your service.”
He made a sketchy bow, his hand pressed soulfully to his heart. Anna got the feeling that she was being toyed with, rather as a cat might a mouse before pouncing, but she was to
o unnerved by his appearance to feel even the first spark of anger.
“What do you want?” she asked again. Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears.
His purposefully charming smile did nothing to soften the hard glint in his eyes. “I think we both know the answer to that. I’ve come for my emeralds.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His mouth twisted. “Come now, Green Eyes, that card won’t play. Surely you don’t suppose I’d have traveled all the way from England on the off chance that you might have the gems? No. I know bloody well you have them, and I want them. You might say I insist on having them.”
He moved toward her then, with the quick, fluid grace Anna remembered so well. She barely had time to register his intent before he was upon her, his hands curling around her upper arms. Anna squeaked with fright as he pulled her onto her toes and loomed over her threateningly.
“Don’t play games with me,” he warned her, his face so close she could see the tiny lines fanning around his eyes. “I don’t like being thrown into Newgate and nearly hanged for a crime I did not, in fact, commit. I don’t like traveling to a hellhole halfway around the world to retrieve what properly belongs to me. And I hate women who lie. Any one of those things is enough to make me angry. All of them together—well, let’s just say I’m not in the best of tempers at this moment. I want those emeralds, and if you have the sense that I perhaps mistakenly credit you with, you’ll give them to me, now. Otherwise …”
He let the threat trail off, but the tightening of his hands on her arms and the baring of his teeth in that travesty of a grin were quite enough. Anna, practically dangling from his hands, looked into those penetrating eyes and knew that lying was useless. The truth was going to make him furious enough.
“Please let me go.”
Her voice was low. An appearance of calm was what she strove for, but she doubted she was achieving her aim. His hands burned her flesh even through the wrist-length taffeta sleeves of her mourning dress. In deference to the heat, her dress was thin, and she wore only a single petticoat beneath it. Through it she could feel the powerful muscles of his thighs brushing hers, and the sensation made her shiver. He was holding her close, too close, so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. It didn’t help that the hard mouth presently scowling at her was the same mouth that had kissed her so many times in her dreams, or that her imagination had relived almost nightly the way his hand had cupped her breast that never-to-be-forgotten night at Gordon Hall. The memory of the fantasies she had had of him made her cheeks pinken and caused her to hastily drop her eyes.
“When you agree to return my emeralds.”
“I don’t have the emeralds.”
He gave her a little shake. “Don’t lie to me.”
“It’s true. I don’t. I—sold them.” She dared another look up at him. He met her eyes with a hard, ugly expression in his own.
“You sold the bracelet, true. But not the rest. That bird won’t fly.”
“I did. I did! I had to have the money. For Srinagar.”
His eyes narrowed. “You little liar. If you’d sold the rest I’d have heard. I made inquiries all over London.”
His fingers were digging into the soft flesh of her upper arms. On tiptoe as she was, the top of her head barely reached his chin. Although he was clean shaven, she could see the shadow of stubble there. With her head thrown back, her neck was starting to ache, but that was the least of her problems. Anna suddenly realized that, if he chose to harm her, she would be powerless to stop him. Julian Chase was easily twice her size, his shoulders wide enough to block her view of the rest of the room behind him. His jaw was rigid with barely controlled temper, his mouth thin with it. Those blue-black eyes glittered as they impaled hers. He looked capable of any degree of violence. The romanticized image of the dream lover who’d so shamefully haunted her nights shattered there and then. This man was hard, and cold, and dangerous.
“I sold them in Colombo.” It was a desperate admission, and it had the effect for which she had both hoped and feared. It looked as though he was starting to consider the possibility that she just might be telling the truth.
“What?” He stiffened, his eyes boring into hers.
“It’s the truth, I swear. At the market. I—needed the money.”
“You sold the emeralds?” His voice was awful.
“Y-yes.”
“You little bitch,” he said, and practically threw her away from him. Anna stumbled backwards, and regained her balance by catching hold of a chair back. Casting a surreptitious look toward the partially open door beyond him, she rubbed her arms where his fingers had gripped her. Surely someone would appear at any moment to come to her aid. Or she could run.…
He seemed to be thinking furiously. Suddenly he glared at her. “You sold them, you say. How much did you get for them?”
“Uh …”
“How much?”
Anna named a sum that made his eyebrows twitch together.
“Who bought them?”
“It was at a stall in the market. A man—he dealt in jewels. I could probably find him again—if he’s still there.”
“You’d better pray he is.” With that growling pronouncement he clearly accepted the possibility that she was telling the truth. He took a step toward her, stopped, and thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat.
“Pack a bag. We’re going to Colombo.”
“What?” Anna’s eyes widened.
“You heard me. Get moving.”
“But—I can’t leave. There’s Chelsea.…”
“Who the devil is Chelsea?”
“My daughter. She’s five. And—”
“If you can’t leave her, bring her.”
“No!”
His eyes sharpened on her. “Don’t tell me no again. It may have escaped your notice, but you are not exactly in a position to dictate terms. You are a thief, my dear, and in England they hang thieves. When last I set eyes on my very vindictive brother Graham, he was foaming at the mouth over the loss of those emeralds. You can be very sure that he would love to find out what really happened to them.”
That silenced Anna. Looking satisfied with the effect of his threat, he jerked his head toward the door.
“So go get your things together, your daughter, whatever. I want to be on the road within an hour. Oh, and bring the money. If we can find the vendor who bought the emeralds from you—and you’d better pray we do—I don’t suppose he’ll give them back just on the strength of your sweet smile.”
There was a moment’s silence. Anna stood as if frozen to the spot, her hands clutching the chair back, his eyes narrowed at her.
“I said get moving.”
“I don’t have it.”
“What did you say?”
“I don’t have the money. I spent it.” Her confession had a desperate edge. As she had expected, the effect as it sank in was dramatic. His jaw clenched, his mouth tightened, his eyes blazed. His pockets bulged as he clenched his fists. Then his hands were out of his pockets, and he was coming toward her, reaching for her. Anna squeaked as he dragged her from behind the chair.
“Say that one more time.” His voice was ominous. His hands were gripping her upper arms again, and again Anna found herself on tiptoe. Her eyes were huge with fright as they stared into his furious face.
“I spent the money.”
“You sold the emeralds and spent the money. Spent a small fortune in a matter of some two months. Do you take me for a flat?” He was practically hissing the words into her face. “There’s no bloody way in hell you could have spent that much money in so short a time. Lady, you’re insulting my intelligence.”
“I bought Srinagar—this place. And—I had to spend most of what was left to get it back on its feet. It had been deserted for nearly a year. Vines had all but strangled the plants we had—I had to buy new seedlings and clear whole fields. Then there was the irrigation system.…”
His mouth curved into a snarl. He yanked her up against him, holding her imprisoned by his hands on her arms, lifting her so that her body was pressed intimately against the hard length of his.
“You stole my bloody emeralds, sold them, and spent the money on this damned white elephant of a place. Lady, if that’s true, then the place is mine. And-”
“They weren’t your emeralds.”
Where Anna got the courage to protest she never knew. He looked like a man bent on murder, her murder. His hands were tight on her arms, his body overpoweringly strong as he loomed over her. His eyes blazed into hers. His breath was hot on her face.
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “And you’re mine. You owe me, and I’m going to take what you owe me out of your soft white hide.”
“You …”
Before Anna could protest further, he had yanked her even tighter against him and his head had descended to trap her mouth. At the feel of those hard, hot lips against hers, Anna made a mewling sound of outrage and tried to jerk free. He released her arms to wrap his hands around her back, clamping her to him. She could feel every hard millimeter of his body as it burned into her skin. When she wouldn’t open her mouth for him, one hand moved up her back to grasp the neat coil at the back of her head. He imbedded his fingers in her hair, pulling the tender roots so that she cried out. Triumphant, he thrust his tongue inside her mouth, pillaging the soft interior, his fingers holding her skull so that she couldn’t break away.
His kiss was meant as punishment, and punish her it did. Because despite the violence of it, despite her shameful despair that her body could betray her so, her breasts swelled against his chest, and that terrifying quickening that she remembered from before quaked to life deep inside her belly. Her woman’s body responded to the sheer male force of his. Her lips trembled beneath his, and her hand, which had been shoving futilely at his shoulders, went still.
“You want this, don’t you? So do I.”
Before Anna could quite register the sense of what he whispered against her mouth, he was pushing her back against the wall, kissing her again, while his hands reached down to gather her skirt in bunches and pull it up around her waist.
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