Green Eyes

by Karen Robards

  “Do you know where he went or don’t you?” Anna asked impatiently.

  Jim shrugged. “Mebbe.”

  Anna’s temper began to sizzle with fresh heat, but she did not want to vent her anger on Jim when its real target was Julian. Accordingly, she bit her tongue and turned her eyes to Jama.

  “Did you see which way the sahib went?”

  “Toward the waterfall, I think, memsahib.”

  “Thank you.” Anna allowed a small degree of triumph to color her voice as she turned back to walk past Jim without another word.

  To her annoyance he fell into step beside her.

  “Did you want something?” she asked haughtily.

  Jim grimaced. “What I wants and what I gets ain’t too often the same thing. What I wants is to be sittin’ down to a meal. What I gets is to make sure you don’t get your damn-fool self ’urt walkin’ through this ’ere jungle by your lonesome. There’s been some talk about some strange goings-on around here lately.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Anna walked faster. “I don’t need your escort, thank you. I have been along this path many times.”

  “Don’t matter. Julie’d be wroth with me, did I let you come to ’arm.” Jim swung along at her side, a wiry little man not many inches taller than Anna herself. Like Julian when he had entered the house, he bore the marks of recent travel. His white shirt was wrinkled and grimy, and his breeches and boots were splotched with mud. He seemed to list slightly to one side, as if either his legs or shoulders were not quite even.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d prefer that you didn’t come with me. What I have to say to Julian is private.” Anna stepped into the cool green darkness of the jungle as she spoke. She moved swiftly along the path, more swiftly than she would ordinarily have done had she not been so bent on losing her escort. She knew to watch for snakes and such that took refuge from the heat of the day under the cool leaves on the jungle floor.

  “I s’pose it is,” Jim said nonchalantly, and kept pace behind her with seeming ease.

  Anna’s lips tightened, and she cast him a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder. Surely he could not know what had occurred between herself and Julian. How could he? With all his many and varied faults, Julian did not strike her as the kind of man to brag of his conquests. On the other hand …

  “Don’t get your wind up,” Jim advised her, apparently reading her growing annoyance in the stiffening set of her back. “When I see you safely to Julie, I’ll leave the two of you be. I reckon ’e’s just a might wroth with you, too.”

  Anna took a deep breath as alarm mingled with her anger. If Julian had told this little gnome anything of what had passed between them …

  “I don’t know all the particulars, mind, but I do know Julie. Were I you, missus, I’d steer clear of ’im until ’e works whatever ails ’im out of ’is system, ’As a nasty temper, ’as Julie, when ’e’s pushed ’ard enough.”

  “Thank you for the advice,” Anna said through her teeth. She yanked her skirts a little higher to keep them out of the damp mulch that lay inches thick on the forest floor, set her jaw, and stalked forward.

  “I’ve known ’im since ’e was a lad of twelve or thereabouts, and I can tell you, boy or man, ’e’s a good un. Don’t come any better than Julie. ’E don’t deserve a fancy petticoat playin’ fast and loose with ’im.”

  As the meaning of this cant speech sank in, Anna stiffened in outrage. Turning, she stopped dead in front of Jim, her eyes sparkling with outrage.

  “If you are referring to me as a fancy petticoat, and implying that I have in some way wronged your—Julie, then I take leave to tell you that you have gone beyond the bounds of what is pleasing by a considerable degree!”

  “Good God, she can’t even speak the King’s good English so’s a body can understand it. Like I tole Julie, the ’eat must’ve turned ’is brain.”

  Livid, Anna whirled back around and marched on down the path.

  “But there’s no accounting for tastes, after all,” Jim said philosophically to her back. Anna would have turned and annihilated him there and then had she not heard the muted roar of the waterfall just ahead.

  Rather than expend her fury on the minor irritant, she would save it for the primary object of her wrath!

  Pushing through the veil of flowering vines that blocked the end of the path, she stepped into a verdant clearing. At its center was a small, clear pool that ran downhill by way of a narrow creek. The pool was fed by a cascade of water that fell noisily over a twenty-foot-high wall of rocks that nature had over the course of thousands of years carved from the mountainside. Overhead, exotic birds fluttered in the thick canopy of interlaced branches that kept the sun from reaching the clearing. The few rays that filtered down provided a soft, diffused light that gave the setting an otherworldly aspect. Large, flat-topped rocks fringed part of the pool. Leafy kudzu vines covered the other banks with lush greenery. The scent of mangoes and frangipani made the air fragrant as fine perfume. A small orange-faced monkey, which had been sitting on a rock regarding its reflection in the pool with fascination, scampered off at Anna’s advent. To her disappointment, it seemed to be the only living creature on the ground. Julian was nowhere in sight. Annoyed, she realized that he must not have taken the path to the waterfall after all. If he had, and had already turned back toward the house, they would have passed him en route.

  Drat the man! Disappearing was getting to be a habit with him. Where could he be?

  Just then a seallike black head broke the surface of the water. For a moment Anna was startled. Then she realized that the head, and the broad bare shoulders that rose after it, belonged to Julian. He must know how to swim!

  Impressed despite herself with that accomplishment, which was rare in an Englishman, she nevertheless fixed her quarry with angry eyes. It was clear that he had not yet discovered her presence. Over the rushing of the waterfall it would be impossible to hear her footsteps as she made her way purposefully along the water’s edge. Behind her, Jim melted into the jungle without so much as a word. So focused was Anna on Julian that she was scarcely aware of his going.

  Still plainly unaware of her presence, Julian swam across the pool with long, clean strokes. He was bare from the waist up, and it occurred to her that he might be equally bare below it. But if he was, the water protected his modesty well enough. And if he should choose to come out of the pool—well, that was fine, too. She was too angry to care.

  He reached the far end of the pool, dived under the surface of the cascading waterfall, and after a few moments surfaced again, heading back in the direction he had come.

  Then he saw her.

  Anna knew the exact moment from the instant contraction of his brows and the brief hesitation in his steady stroke. Then, to her annoyance, he continued to swim, ignoring her as if she was no more than another of the poolside trees. Since she could not swim so much as a stroke, entering the pool to confront him there was not an option. She had no choice but to stand at the side of the pool, arms crossed over her breasts and toe tapping, until he chose to stop and acknowledge her presence.

  He swam for at least another quarter of an hour, ignoring her all the while.

  Finally he quit and stood up in the center of the pool. The water came to just below his chin. As he walked toward the bank—the one directly opposite from where Anna was sitting—she was afforded an excellent view of emerging broad shoulders, a wide back that tapered to a narrow waist, muscular buttocks, powerful thighs that rippled when he moved, strong calves, and, finally, long, lean bare feet. When he splashed out of the shallows, still ignoring her, Anna’s temper snapped. She would have screamed at him if she’d thought he could hear her over the gurgling water. But as he probably could not—or would at least pretend not to—she stalked, fists clenched, around the perimeter of the pool until she reached the hollow between two rock formations where he stood. He was toweling himself dry, and he barely glanced up as she stopped just a foot short of him.
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  “Where have you been?” she demanded, her voice gritty. Despite her fury, one part of her mind admired the sheer muscled magnificence of his naked body while the other sternly cautioned her not to notice.

  “I don’t see that my whereabouts is any of your concern.” Still he barely glanced at her. He was bent over, rubbing the towel along his legs. Anna scowled at the top of that wet black head. Now that his lust for her had been satisfied, he was acting as if she were barely alive!

  “Not my concern?” she repeated, voice rising. “Listen, you blackguard, Srinagar is not a hotel where you can come and go at will without a word to anybody!”

  “Since when have I been required to report my comings and goings to you?” he asked insolently. He straightened, looking directly at her at last.

  Anna spluttered. “I want you out of my house. Permanently. Today!” It was the culmination of all the furious things she wanted to say.

  For a moment he said nothing as he finished drying himself. Then, instead of wrapping the towel strategically around his waist as any decent man would, he draped it over his shoulder. So casual was his attitude that it was an insult in itself. Anna kept her eyes on his face and resolutely refused to notice anything else. His nakedness was neither embarrassing nor enticing. It had no effect on her whatsoever, and so she meant it to be if it killed her!

  “Just in time for the wedding, I take it.”

  “What wedding?” Anna was momentarily all at sea.

  “Forgotten already? Poor Charles!”

  “Oh, that. I—I’ve refused him. For now. Not that it’s any of your concern.” Anna’s voice rose. “Anyway, that’s beside the point. I want you out of my house!”

  “Then it seems you’re destined to want what you can’t have. Must be your lot in life.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means I’m not going anywhere until I’m good and ready. And if you don’t like it, then so be it.”

  Anna blinked. He was as angry as she. It was clear in the darkening of his eyes to near black and the hardening of his voice. But for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what he had to be angry about. She was the one who had been callously used and discarded, not him!

  “Tell me,” Julian continued with false cordiality, “does Dumesne realize you’re not interested in him at all, but in finding a man to replace Paul?”

  Anna stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “You and Dumesne certainly looked cozy. Have you bedded him yet?”

  “That’s a foul thing to say!”

  “I’m feeling foul. So foul that I suggest you leave me the hell alone.”

  He turned his back and reached for his breeches. Anna, incensed, tapped him sharply on his arm.

  “Don’t you turn your back on me! I have a few things to say to you!”

  “Do you now?” He faced her, slowly, a peculiarly satisfied expression on his face. “Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned.”

  With that he reached out, caught her shoulders, and yanked her against him. There was no longer any ignoring the fact that he was naked—and fully aroused. She could feel the unmentionable part of him stabbing at her belly through her dress and petticoat. His body was still slightly damp, she discovered as she pushed furiously against his chest with both hands, and warm and hairy—and as unyielding as the stone wall behind them.

  “Let me go! Take your hands off me! Do you hear me?”

  “Oh, I hear you all right,” he said, his tone ugly. His mouth sneered. His hands on her shoulders tightened, then shifted. All at once, Anna felt herself being scooped off her feet.

  “Don’t you dare! Put me down! Put me down!”

  He was carrying her, both her wrists imprisoned in one of his hands, ignoring her furious kicking and squirming as if she were no more than a spitting kitten he could control with ease.

  “I said put me down!” Anna practically shrieked the command, her eyes blazing as they raked his dark face. Those obsidian eyes glittered with what she could have sworn was satisfaction, and his mouth curled into a mocking parody of a smile.

  “Your wish, of course, is my command,” he murmured.

  Then, without so much as a word of warning, Anna found herself tossed from his arms to go sailing through the air. She barely had time to close her eyes before she hit the pool with a tremendous splash.

  XXXIII

  She sank like a stone. The water closed, cool and wet and all-enveloping, over her head as she hurtled straight to the bottom. Still in a semisitting position, she felt her posterior touch first, then she was clawing for the surface, fighting, flailing in an effort to rejoin the world of light and air. But the pool was too deep; she couldn’t touch the bottom and reach the surface at the same time. Bouncing, trying not to panic, she bobbed up and managed to get her face out of the water and gulp some air before she sank again.

  It occurred to her, as she found the bottom with her toes and again thrust upwards toward the light, that she could drown. Surely Julian would not leave her.…

  But he could swim. Had the swine stalked off before realizing that she could not?

  Fear exploded like a bomb in Anna’s brain just as she felt something grab one of her flailing hands and haul her toward the surface. Her head broke the water, her shoulders too. Julian was lifting her into his arms, his face both pale and grim. Nothing and nobody had ever looked more wonderful to Anna in her life. Choking and spluttering, gasping for air, she locked her arms around his neck as if she meant never to let him go. He waded from the pool with her in his arms as she wheezed and trembled and clung to him. Once they had attained the safety of the bank, he still held her, his body warm and hard against the shivering chill of hers.

  Anna was sopping wet, her hair straggling in dripping rat’s tails around her face and down her back, her gown pouring water. Even her shoes were soaked. She was trembling in the aftermath of fear, and for a few minutes it felt wonderful to be held in his arms. Then she remembered how she had come to be in the pool in the first place.

  “You—swine,” she hissed on her first steady breath. She pulled back to glare at him, sweeping the soaking strands of hair from her face with one hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said tightly.

  “Sorry! I could have drowned!” It should have been difficult to quarrel with a man who was both naked and holding her cradled in his arms, but Anna was too angry to care.

  “I didn’t realize you wouldn’t be able to touch bottom.”

  “You don’t realize all kinds of things! You’re an unprincipled blackguard, a womanizing cad, an untrustworthy, shameless—”

  “Whoa!” he said, and to Anna’s fury she saw that her insults had brought a faint smile to his mouth. “That’s—”

  Red rage burst inside her. Before she even realized that she meant to do it she had doubled up her first and punched him right in the eye.

  He yelped, jumped back, and dropped her. Anna landed painfully on her hip on the slippery carpet of vines and scrambled to her feet with scarcely a wince. Her sole desire was to kill him with her bare hands. The hurt and humiliation she had suffered over the past week combined with her recent fright to make her so angry that she seemed to view the world—and him—through a red fog. He had clapped a hand to his eye and was regarding her with such astonishment that it would have been comical had she been in a mood to laugh. But she was not. She wanted to scratch and bite and claw and punch.… With a wordless cry she flew at him, fingers curved into claws.

  “Anna! Stop!” He retreated before her onslaught, his hands outthrust to hold her off. To her absolute fury she saw that he was beginning to smile again. Soaked or not, her feet were clad in sturdy leather shoes, and he was as bare as the day he was born. Drawing back her foot, she kicked him as hard as she could in the shin. He yelped, hopping on one leg, and made the ultimate mistake of bending down to massage the aching shin.

  Her next blow caught him squarely on the temple.

  “Enou
gh!” he roared, straightening, and grabbed her upper arms to give her a rough shake. “Stop, you little hellcat, or I’ll turn you over my knee and beat the temper out of you!”

  “Just you try it!” Anna dared, panting, and aimed another kick at his shin.

  He dodged it. His hands tightened on her arms as he held her carefully at arm’s length, and for a moment the same fury that blazed in Anna was reflected back at her from his eyes. But even as she glared at him, chin outthrust and head thrown back so that her hopelessly loosened hair streamed down her back, his eyes softened. Anna saw that sudden glint of blue where only black had been before, and felt an unexpected clenching in the pit of her stomach.

  “Oh, Anna,” he said in an odd voice. Then those eyes went black again, and his hands moved up to close over the neck of her gown. Before she had the least inkling what he meant to do he gave a tremendous yank, and her gown split to the waist with a loud rip.

  Anna gasped, screeched a protest, and tried to jerk away. He would not let her go, but continued to rip at her gown despite her struggles.

  “Have you gone mad? Stop it! What are you doing? Julian!”

  “I’m sick of your bloody black dresses,” he growled, giving the gown a final mighty yank that rent it clear to the hem.

  “Stop it!” she screeched again even as he jerked the dress clean off her. Futilely she tried to catch the soaked panels of shredded black silk as he snatched them away from her. He eluded her clutching fingers with a grim smile. Wadding the ruined cloth in both hands, he strode for the pool. He stopped only to scoop up a rock, which he placed in the center of the parcel. Then he heaved the bundle into the middle of the pool. Speechless, Anna could only watch what had once been her dress disappear beneath the surface.

  Only then did he turn back to her. His eyes moved over her with fierce satisfaction.

  “That’s better,” he said.

  Anna gasped. “Better?” Her voice rose shrilly as she looked down at herself. Clad in a muslin chemise that left most of her décolletage and the entirety of her arms bare and clung to her bosom with immodest tenacity, a single petticoat, garters, stockings and shoes, every single item of which was dripping wet and clinging, she was positively indecent. Certainly she could not return to the house in such a state!