“Chelsea!” Anna gasped and flew around the end of the bed to gather Chelsea into her arms. “Shh, chicken, it’s all right, Mama’s here.”
The child’s small arms fastened frantically around Anna’s neck while she buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. As she lifted Chelsea, Anna could feel the child trembling, and she turned furious eyes on Julian Chase.
“What in the name of God did you do to her?” Anna demanded fiercely, her arms tight around her daughter. His eyes narrowed at the accusation, and he too got to his feet. The very height and breadth of him in such close quarters should have been disconcerting, but Anna was too ardent in defense of her daughter to be intimidated. She faced him like a bristling bantam hen, ready to fight.
“Jim, leave off. It’s either dead or gone by now.” This aside was addressed by Julian to his cohort before he shifted his eyes back to Anna. They glinted unpleasantly.
“And just what do you imagine I did to her, pray?”
Jim obediently ceased both cursing and pounding the mattress. Instead he looked accusingly from Anna to Ruby, who had hurried to Anna’s side and was attempting, by means of pats and whispers, to console the little girl.
“Mama, it almost got me!” Chelsea’s voice, muffled by Anna’s shoulder, was scarcely audible.
“What did, chicken?”
“There was a snake—a cobra, I believe. It didn’t touch her.” Julian’s voice was even enough, although that glint still lurked in his eyes. He gestured toward one of the room’s twin windows.
“And a damned great rat!” Jim interjected, shuddering.
“A rat?” Ruby gasped, while Anna’s gaze moved in the direction Julian had indicated. On the floor just inside the nearer of the windows lay the curving black body of a cobra. It was headless. Remembering the shot she had heard, and the smoking pistol that Julian had been holding when she had burst into the room—he had since thrust it into his waistband—it was clear how the snake had met its demise. The curious thing was how the creature had gotten in in the first place. The windows were closed, and it was mind-boggling to imagine the snake slithering into the room from somewhere else in the house. Besides, cobras eschewed people most of the time and generally stayed well away from the house.
“I was scared, Mama,” Chelsea whimpered.
“It’s all right, chicken,” Anna soothed, smoothing her daughter’s silky hair. She turned back to Julian. “I suppose I have to thank you,” she said reluctantly.
His eyes took on a sardonic gleam as they met hers. He opened his mouth to say something in reply, but before he could speak Jim let out a hoarse shriek. Anna jumped, and Chelsea clutched her mother, her legs wrapping around Anna’s waist as she tightened her stranglehold on Anna’s neck.
“There ’tis!” Jim yelled as a slender brown creature darted from under the bed toward the door. Snatching up his stick, Jim bounded over the bed in pursuit, while Julian reached for his pistol.
“No, sahib!” came a sharp voice from just beyond the door. Raja Singha appeared, and to everyone but Anna’s amazement the creature swarmed up his sarong to disappear beneath the tails of his shirt. Moments later a twitching black nose followed by two black eyes peeped out of Raja Singha’s shirt collar. Then the creature, which looked rather like a cross between a rat and a snake, slithered out to crouch on the servant’s shoulder.
“What the hell… ?” Julian, hand still resting on his pistol, stared.
“It’s Moti,” Anna explained, feeling the beginnings of a reluctant smile twitch at the corners of her mouth. Really, to see two grown men so nervous of a small, furry creature … ! It was a little thing, of course, but it made Julian Chase seem vulnerable, and thus more human.
“And just what,” inquired Julian with an edge to his voice, “is Moti?”
“Moti is a mongoose, sahib,” Raja Singha explained with unassailable dignity. “He is in the house to kill snakes. Doubtless he would have dispatched the one that threatened the little missy if the sahib had not intervened.”
“Good God,” said Ruby faintly. “I had no idea.”
Jim and Julian looked as taken aback as Ruby sounded. With a sheepish look Jim lowered his stick, while Julian allowed the hand that had been fingering his pistol to drop.
“I will take him away and feed him, if you have no need of me, memsahib. Undoubtedly he has been badly frightened.”
At Anna’s nod of dismissal Raja Singha disappeared with Moti still riding on his shoulder.
“You never told me there was a rat in the ’ouse, much less snakes!” Ruby said accusingly before anyone else could speak.
“Moti is a mongoose, not a rat, and as for snakes, there usually aren’t any because he keeps them away. They know he is in the house and don’t come in.”
“Then why,” asked Julian with pointed logic, “was that snake in the room that bloody servant said you had prepared for me?”
Anna returned him cold look for cold look. It was clear that he was almost, but not quite, ready to accuse her of orchestrating the cobra’s presence.
“I have no idea,” she said.
“Do you mean that rat—” Ruby began.
“Mongoose,” Anna corrected.
“Mongoose, then. Do you mean that the creature’s been ’ere in this ’ouse ever since we arrived?”
Anna shook her head. “Moti belongs to Raja Singha, just as does Vishnu the elephant. They come when he comes and go when he goes.”
Ruby gave a shiver. “ ’Eathenish bloody island.”
“You said a mouthful there, sister,” Jim muttered, and he shuddered. Julian’s mouth twisted, and he turned to walk over to where the dead snake lay. A moment later he had opened the window, which pushed outward onto the garden.
“Give me your stick, Jim,” Julian directed.
“What for?” Jim still clutched the stout walking stick as though to ward off all comers.
“Just give it to me.”
Jim, clearly reluctant, moved to hand the stick to Julian. Julian used it to pick up the body of the cobra and toss it gingerly out the window.
“I ain’t sleepin’ in this room,” Jim said firmly when the remains of the head had gone the way of the body.
“Now there,” Julian said, shutting the window and turning back to the room, “we are in total agreement. We’ll find our own accommodations, if you don’t mind.”
Whether Anna minded or not was clearly immaterial. Almost before he had finished speaking, Julian had brushed by her on his way out the door. Jim, with a yelp, was right behind him.
“You ain’t leavin’ me, guv!”
Anna, both surprised and affronted, was left with nothing to do but hurry in their wake with Chelsea in her arms and Ruby at her heels.
XVII
“Where do you sleep, my dear sister?” Julian asked over his shoulder, a pronounced sneer on the last word. He had found the main staircase and was taking the steps two at a time. “Somewhere a little more clean, I fancy.”
“Where I sleep is no concern of yours—and just where do you think you’re going, anyway? This part of the house is private—for the family!”
“I am family, remember?”
He gained the upper landing and hesitated briefly. The staircase was located in the center of the house. A long hallway stretched away to both his left and right. Just as Anna reached the landing, he chose the left side and was off again, throwing open doors as he went.
“No, you mustn’t…” Anna’s protest was in vain as he reached the large room she had once shared with Paul. She winced to see him push open the door just as he had the doors to the small sitting room and the sewing room he had just passed. For a moment he stood in the threshold, surveying the room. Behind him, Anna was prevented from seeing anything by the width of his shoulders. But she could have recited the details of that particular chamber with her eyes shut: four floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sumptuous garden at the front of the house, an Aubusson carpet in soft rose that she and Paul had br
ought from England, the tall mahogany wardrobe, the huge four-poster bed. The softly whitewashed walls glowed in the sunlight, pristine except for a single spot of mildew that had begun to form in one corner of the ceiling. Someone, Raja Singha probably, had seen that the room was set in proper order and kept that way.
“Who sleeps here?” Julian demanded sharply, looking around at Anna, who with the rest of the entourage had come to a helpless stop in the hallway.
“I—no one, n-now,” she stammered. He nodded once in satisfaction.
“Then this should do very nicely. Jim, go get our things, and see if there isn’t another room along here that you’d like for your own use.”
“No, you can’t,” Anna said faintly, feeling her stomach clench. The idea of him occupying this room that she had shared with Paul, where she had lived with him and loved him and where he had died, made her physically ill. Already he had stamped the room with his despicable presence on those long nights when she had lain sleepless, mourning her husband while Julian Chase’s bold image had so shamefully invaded her dreams. He could not take over this place where Paul’s memory was strongest in reality, too.
Disregarding Anna’s protest, Julian strolled from window to window as he admired the view.
“This is a damned sight more pleasant than the lodgings you intended us to have.” He glanced over his shoulder at Anna, who had followed him inside the room, his eyes glinting a warning. “Your nose is out of joint, I know, so I’m willing to overlook the snake and the moldy rooms, but I warn you: no more tricks. If you try anything else, you’ll force me to respond in a way that I guarantee you won’t like.”
“Tricks!” Anna gasped, indignation partially masking the pain she felt on having him intrude into this room. With a murmur of reassurance, she detached Chelsea’s arms from around her neck and set the little girl on the bed. Coming up behind where he was daring to open the doors to the wardrobe without so much as a by-your-leave, she hissed: “You, sir, apparently have a mistaken notion about how things work here: I am the mistress of Srinagar, and you are a far-from-welcome guest! Don’t touch that! Put it down!”
“That” was a hairbrush, part of a silver dressing set that Paul had given her for their first anniversary, which Julian idly lifted from the small dressing table set between two windows. The sight of the dainty item in his large hand pained Anna almost unbearably. He had no right in this room, no right to touch her things, no right to superimpose himself on her memories of Paul! But the hateful beast desecrating her dressing table paid no attention to her words, continuing to finger her brush and comb and mirror and crystal scent bottle, turning them over to read the initials engraved on the back.
Her initials, entwined with Paul’s, inside a flower-strewn heart.
“I said put that down!” Anna cried, and when he still paid no attention, looking at himself in the elegant mirror with a smirking smile meant to taunt her, she lost control completely and flew at him, snatching the mirror from his hands.
In her haste she misjudged her grip. The mirror felt to the floor, shattering. Anna stared down at the broken glass in numb horror as her hands slowly rose to her cheeks. Tears rose unbidden to burn behind her eyes, and she drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
“Here, now,” he said, sounding surprised, as two great tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I hate and despise you,” she whispered. Turning her back on him and the shattered mirror, she went to stand before the window, looking blindly out over the garden below. Not for anything in the world would she have Chelsea see her cry.
Julian, coming up behind her, saw her shoulders shake and suddenly felt like the greatest beast in nature. The silken mass of her hair, which she wore twisted into a thick knot at the nape of her neck, glinted with silver and gold threads that gleamed in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in around her. Her back looked very narrow and fragile in its prim black dress, her waist impossibly tiny. It came to him then how small she was, and how very young. His image of her as a bold adventuress cracked and shattered like that mirror. Watching her as she valiantly fought back tears, he felt once again that nagging sense of familiarity. Like a buzzing insect, the feeling teased him until he swatted it away in annoyance. The maddening chit was crying. There was no time for an exhaustive search of his past.
“Here, now,” he said again, feeling helpless in the face of her tears. Clumsily, his hands moved to rest on her shoulders. He would have turned her into his chest for comfort, but she stiffened, shaking him off. Julian, lips tightening, allowed his hands to drop. Her averted face gave him an excellent view of her delicate profile: mouth clamped shut; lashes like fans across her pale cheeks doing nothing to stop the seeping tears; straight little nose reddened from weeping—she was lovely. Then she drew in a deep breath and opened those huge green eyes. The sheer beauty of them, wide and slightly unfocused and awash with tears, struck him like a blow. For a long moment he stared, and as he stared he grew wary: eyes like those could haunt a man for the rest of his life.
“Mama!” The little girl had approached on silent feet to tug anxiously at her mother’s skirt. “Mama, are you crying?”
“No, chicken,” Anna answered, her hands moving quickly to dash the tears from her eyes before they could give the lie to her words. “Of course not.”
“Yes, you are too. Why did you hurt my mama?”
The child turned a mutinous little face up to glare accusingly at him. With her silvery fair hair and tiny frame, she looked ridiculously like her mother. The only difference was in the eyes: the child’s were a soft sky blue. Despite her fierce defense of her mother, her lower lip trembled. Julian had never been one to go into raptures over children, but he was absurdly touched.
“I didn’t hurt your mother,” he explained gently, hunkering down so that he and the child were on eye level. “Something made her sad, and she started to cry.”
“Oh.” The little girl pondered, the wrath fading from her face. Then she nodded. “I beg your pardon, then. It must have been because she doesn’t like to be in this room. My papa died in here, you know.”
“Chelsea!” Anna swooped down to kneel at the child’s side. Her arms came protectively around the little girl, and she glared at Julian over her daughter’s head. Julian ignored her, directing his attention instead to the sweet little face regarding him so solemnly.
“I didn’t know that,” he said. “I’m very sorry about your papa.”
“Thank you. My mama and I are sorry, too.” She looked him over, her eyes very clear and direct as she examined each feature, then finally she nodded once, as if pronouncing herself satisfied. “Are you my uncle?”
For a moment Julian was startled. He had never thought of himself as anyone’s uncle before. Then he said, “I suppose I must be.”
“Uncle-what?”
“Julian,” he answered, and smiled. “And you’re Chelsea?”
She nodded. Julian held out his hand to her. “How do you do then, Chelsea,” he said as she gravely shook his hand.
“Do you know my Uncle Graham? He’s mean,” Chelsea said with a confidential air.
“Chelsea!” Anna tried to pick up her daughter, but the child squirmed and protested. Scowling at Julian, Anna let her be, although she hovered just behind her chick. For a moment only Julian lifted his eyes to meet that hostile green gaze, then he switched his attention back to the child.
“I’ve met him, and you’re right: he is mean.”
“Mama was afraid of him. When we stayed with him at Gordon Hall, sometimes at night she would come and hide in my room. I was afraid of him, too. But I won’t be afraid of you, I think.”
“Thank you.” His answer was grave, while he tucked away her revelations to consider at his leisure. The picture he was gleaning of Anna was very different from the one he’d painted in his mind during those weeks in Newgate and on the ship. Then Chelsea smiled at him, and he was distracted. The smile lit up her whole face. He saw very clearly that one day she would be
a heartbreaker like her mother. A heartbreaker—he didn’t like the thought of that. He frowned, and abruptly stood. Chelsea peered up at him, her smile fading into an uncertain expression. Julian, with a supreme effort, managed to grin down at her. Reassured, she looked less worried.
“Let’s go find Kirti, shall we?” Anna asked as at last she succeeded in picking up her daughter. “She must be wondering where you’ve got to. Did you run off from her again?”
Chelsea hung her head, answer enough.
“You mustn’t do that,” Anna told her sternly, her hand stroking along her daughter’s spine, deflecting the severity of the words. “And you know it. If you’d stayed with Kirti, you wouldn’t have run into the snake, would you?”
“I’m sorry, Mama. But I got hungry, and she went to fix me a pudding. She was gone a long time.”
“I see. And I suppose you were supposed to wait in the nursery?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Well, the next time Kirti tells you to wait for her, you wait, understand? Come on, let’s go see if we can find her. She’s probably back in the nursery with your pudding, looking under your bed and in your wardrobe and all around, wondering where you could have got to.”
This made Chelsea’s lips turn up into a tentative smile. Anna smiled back and, with a single cold look at Julian, headed for the door.
Jim hovered there, having apparently just reentered from the hall. As Anna approached him he bobbed his head and stood aside. Ruby was glaring at him, and it was apparent the two had exchanged their own hostilities while Anna had been otherwise engaged.
“I’ve found some other rooms further along that’ll suit instead of this one. If ’tis no problem for you, missus, they’ll do us just fine.” The new respect in Jim’s attitude surprised Anna. She regarded him warily.
Green Eyes Page 12