The Tiger's Lady

by Skye, Christina

  Helene realized that Deveril Pagan was three thousand miles away, unaware of both her question and her very existence.

  In an angry rustle of silk she swept from the room, muttering beneath her breath about arrogant Englishmen driven mad by too much tropical sun.

  The door snapped shut, but the naked man before the fire gave no sign of noticing. For at that moment, deep in the English winter, Deveril Pagan was indeed far beyond the horizon, ensconced in a green land where parakeets screamed companionably and the summer wind blew hot and sweet up from the orange trees and tea fields.

  On eight hundred fertile, mist-swept acres. At Windhaven.

  The only thing left in this world that he could feel the slightest affection for.

  Barrett’s first thought was that she was dying.

  She was sick, terribly sick, her stomach racked by wave after wave of nausea.

  Dry-throated, she choked out a moan, but already she knew that no one would answer her.

  Let it end, she prayed as another wave of pain took her broadside, shaking her until her whole body screamed out in agony and she thought she would split in two.

  But she wasn’t dying, of course.

  Nothing changed. The pain went on and on and on.

  Dimly she heard the clatter of carriage wheels and smelled the sharp salt tang of the sea.

  She hardly wondered at it, convulsed in her pain, lost in a world where time and place no longer held any meaning. They had caught her, and a brawny fist had sent her plunging down into unconsciousness.

  Dimly she remembered the tall, bearded stranger who had appeared in the night. What if she had agreed to his request? Would she be seated in splendor right now, dining on pheasant, dressed in silk, as he had promised?

  But the food would have been ashes in her throat, Barrett knew, and the silks no more than sackcloth. Everything about the idea was madness: Perhaps it had been no more than a dream, brought on by her hunger and fatigue.

  Another spasm shook her slim body, doubling her over with pain. Blood pooled up on her lips as she bit down to keep from screaming, fighting her way through waves of torment that racked her inside and out.

  It seemed to Barrett that she had been sick forever.

  Or perhaps she’d died and this was what they meant by hell.

  Her last clear thought was a prayer that her grandfather was safe.

  He was not a small man, though his stoop sometimes made him appear so. Right now, as he studied the wreckage around him, his stoop was very pronounced.

  He ran unsteady fingers through his white mane, making it even wilder than usual. Tears filled his eyes as he stared down at the shattered bottles and ragged pages torn from priceless old books.

  His eyes glazed with pain. A year’s work ruined.

  And Barrett—

  What of his granddaughter?

  He pushed unsteadily to his feet, grimacing in pain. His temple began to throb. Blood ran into his eyes, and he wiped it away awkwardly.

  “Barrett.” It hurt even to say her name. He had told Goodfellow to take her out and hide her in the ice house, but the stubborn girl had refused to budge. Then they had taken her, saying she would be more useful to them anyway.

  That young constable had said he would find her. Stay right and tight, he’d said, and she’ll be home before you know it.

  But the constable hadn’t known the kind of men they were dealing with.

  He searched for his glasses, blinded by tears. He hadn’t thought, couldn’t have expected—

  But then he never did. He had always left the practical decisions to Barrett.

  His only consolation was that the men hadn’t gotten what they’d been looking for. He had thrown them off by pretending to be confused, just a helpless old man.

  But he wasn’t, by heaven! And he’d find them and take Barrett back, even if he had to—

  He staggered toward the door. “Goodfellow!” he bellowed as he crunched over the carpet of broken glass. “Where is that man when I need him?”

  Without his spectacles to help him, the floor appeared little more than a blur. Then he saw the thin blue ribbon caught beneath the jagged, crumpled pages of a ruined folio.

  Redouté’s Roses. It was Barrett’s favorite book.

  Only now the delicate pages were ripped, ruined.

  He felt a sharp pain stab through his chest. “B-Brett!”

  His hands were straining toward her ribbon when he fell.

  How long had it been since he’d seen snow?

  Deveril St. Cyr took a final puff on his cheroot, then tossed it casually over the porch railing, watching the faint orange embers spiral down toward the Thames thirty feet below.

  A hail of dancing flakes struck his chest, naked beneath the paisley silk dressing gown. He smiled, enjoying the feeling of power it gave him to challenge the cold. To will the discomfort away, as he had learned to do years ago in India.

  There he had learned that power came from oneself, in the hard discipline of body and mind. His old tutor Shivaji had taught him that—or had tried to teach him. But Pagan had only absorbed the lesson much later.

  During the nightmare carnage of Cawnpore, when the ground had run red with blood. With English blood. And with his own blood.

  His eyes hard, Pagan studied the drifting flakes. Snow, by Shiva … Yes, it had to be almost ten years. The last time had been at Broadmoor, when his father had—

  With a curse, the viscount jerked his dressing gown closed, pushing down old memories. Pushing down everything to do with his past, and with his father most of all.

  His face set in bitter lines as he watched the dancing flakes float over the water. After a moment he drew a slow, deep breath, his control slowly returning.

  Once again he had done it. But Pagan realized that each time the struggle for control grew harder. One day it might be more than he could manage.

  He threw back his head, letting the wind ruffle his long hair. The cool air felt good on his face after the pungent cloud of pomade and perfume below. It was good, too, to get rid of that damnable beard, he thought, rubbing his clean-shaven cheeks.

  Only the walnut stain remained, darkening his features. That would take a much longer time to disappear—three months at least.

  Exactly the time it took for the great clippers to sail from Gravesend to Calcutta.

  A tedious business, this masquerade, but entirely necessary, considering the problems that had befallen the work at Windhaven in the last year. Tamil workers disappearing, unexplained accidents. Continual loss of livestock and food stores.

  Worst of all was the destruction of his new tea plantings.

  The sorts of things, in short, that happened all the time in the hill country—except that in the last year alone ten workers had died, and something told Pagan there was nothing accidental about any of those “accidents.”

  He inhaled deeply, studying the distant lights of the ships rocking at anchor. For the hundredth time he found himself wishing he were back at Windhaven, breathing the lush tang of drying tea leaves instead of the foul, smoke-tainted fumes of this noisy monster called London.

  A tap at the door jerked him from his reveries. He strode to the door and waited.

  The guttural voice outside whispered one word.

  Pagan slanted a questioning look at the towering Sikh who waited in the corridor.

  Singh lowered his head. “You told me to come to you within the hour, my lord.”

  “Tell me what happened. In detail this time.”

  “She is a very clever memsab, Tiger. I picked up her trail in the snow, not two streets from where we left her. But she was careful to conceal herself. I lost her at a drinking house not far from the great river. I think she was nearing her destination and grew desperate.” The Sikh bowed his head. “May this worthless one suffer a thousand tortures for failing you.”

  Pagan’s features hardened with disappointment.

  Damn! How was it that the woman had eluded Singh?
/>   “You gave her my message?” he asked in clipped Hindustani.

  “I had no chance. You ordered me to wait until I saw her destination and only then to approach her. But the man came, and they argued. After that she yielded to him, allowing him to embrace her and lift her up into his carriage.”

  Pagan’s face grew hard. “You could not follow?”

  “I followed him beyond the river, but lost him in the small canals there. And the snow. I ask to be punished for my failure.”

  Pagan caught back a sigh. “I think you have had punishment enough, my friend. Trotting around in the cold cannot have been pleasant for you.”

  The bodyguard grimaced. “Most unpleasant, my lord.” Abruptly he reached to the folds of his turban and removed a scrap of dark fabric, which he held out to the viscount.

  For long moments Pagan didn’t move. It was a ragged scrap of lace, the sort that might be used on a woman’s dress. Or as a veil on a bonnet.

  A muscle flashed at his jaw.

  The cloth still held her scent.

  Hyacinths. Soft and sweet and unforgettable.

  Pagan’s fingers tightened. He fought an irrational urge to carry the scrap to his cheek and drown in that soft scent.

  The Sikh bodyguard slipped soundlessly back to his position across the hall. Pagan closed the door and moved to the fireplace, bracing his tall body with one arm against the mantel. For long moments he stood before the flames, studying the frayed square of fabric.

  His fingers tightened as the light, sweet smell filled his lungs. So English, it was. So utterly different from the overpowering odors of the East.

  Her scent. “Meri jaan…”

  And then his groin, too, tightened as desire swept through him like a kachchan wind, searing in the last days before the southwest monsoon.

  Forget her, he told himself, twisting the dark square, cursing the woman for making him believe she was different from any of the others.

  Yes, she was very clever. The veil had been just the right touch, teasing him with the mystery of her beauty and her true identity.

  The scent, too, had fooled him, so innocent and pure, while she could be nothing but. After all, she had gone into the carriage willingly, Singh had said.

  Who was the scum? A lover? A client even?

  Yet her fear had been real.

  Pagan’s jaw clenched, molten bronze in the firelight. With a growl, he crushed the filmy fabric within his fist. Damn her! He had believed her story that someone was pursuing her. He had delighted in seeing himself as her chivalrous champion.

  It appalled Pagan to think just how much he had wanted that role.

  He had not known he had any chivalry left. But she had touched it and brought it to life. Now he was weaker for the wanting, and for the lack of an object.

  Perhaps this, too, was by Ruxley’s design.

  But at least Pagan knew the truth, for Singh never lied. The bodyguard had found her arguing with a man. A man who obviously knew her very well.

  Well enough to shake her and crush her in his arms.

  Was he the jealous husband or the passionate lover?

  Did it even matter? When their brief argument was resolved to her satisfaction, Singh had told how she yielded completely, throwing her head back and allowing herself to be swept up into the carriage without the slightest resistance.

  Pagan stood immobile before the fire, scowling down at the scrap of fabric still clutched within his callused fingers.

  All she had required was the right price, of course, and her swain had apparently met it. It was always so, Pagan thought bitterly. Man or woman, there was always a price.

  He wondered what his was going to be.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Creighton was fifteen minutes early, but he wished he’d been more.

  Frowning, he studied the smoky room. He didn’t like the look of the place.

  But it was always that way. The bastard who’d hired him eight weeks ago was too cunning by half, always choosing the location and time to suit his own purpose.

  Except this time things were going to be different, Creighton vowed.

  He heard the sound of a curtain being drawn in the alcove behind him.

  “You are punctual, Mr. Creighton. I am glad to see it.”

  Creighton couldn’t suppress a shiver at that odd, high-pitched voice. It was deliberately masked, of course. No one spoke in such shrill tones.

  One more element that put Creighton at a disadvantage in these meetings with his unseen employer.

  “Aye, I’m here and on time.”

  A gust of air set the curtain moving, as if stirred by a ghostly hand. “Well, damn it? Have you got her?”

  Creighton took his time answering, fingering the ruffled cuff of his new linen shirt.

  The next moment a small and very lethal dagger hissed through the air, pinning his sleeve to the wooden table.

  “Have you got her, man?” It was a high, almost feral hiss.

  Creighton swallowed, his eyes fixed on the odd serpent that circled the hammered silver hilt. “Aye, I got her. Just—just like we agreed.” He managed to hold his voice steady, despite the fear flooding through him. “What I want to know is—”

  “Do not presume to question me, Mr. Creighton. There are many who have tried. But not one of them draws a breath today.” Again the curtain rippled.

  Creighton bit back a curse. Now his brand-new shirt was ruined, damn the bastard! He’d make him pay for that, so he would!

  But it would do no good to put the fellow’s hackles up. Not yet. “Out at the docks, she is. Tucked away nice and safe until ye’re ready for her.”

  From behind the curtain came the creak of a chair. “Superlative, my dear Creighton. Once again, you show yourself to be an inventive man. Your—inventiveness, shall we say—will not go unrewarded, I assure you. But first I’d like to hear more about this Indian. The man who tried to save her.”

  Creighton stiffened. How did the bloody man know that? And how much else did he know?

  He felt sweat bead over his brow.

  “Well, Mr. Creighton?”

  He’d meant to conceal the part about the Indian. It represented too clearly his own ineptness, not once but twice. But with his employer so interested, Creighton had no choice but to tell the rest of the story.

  When he was done, he sat fingering his frayed cuff, anxious to be off. For long minutes the man behind the curtain did not speak; the silence dragged on, ominous somehow.

  Finally Creighton could control his impatience no longer.

  “Just what do ye want I should do with her now? Ye’ve some new plan, I’m thinkin’.”

  The other man laughed coldly; the sound made Creighton’s flesh crawl. “How right you are, my friend. It never pays to grow careless. A man like yourself must know that.”

  Something about that casual comment made Creighton wonder just how much this man knew about what had happened on the Isle of Dogs. Damn, this job had been nothing but a mound of trouble since the very beginning!

  He didn’t like the secrecy. He didn’t like his employer’s odd behavior. And of course there was the girl herself, who’d turned out to be far harder to capture than he’d imagined.

  If not for the money, he’d quit right now!

  But the man behind the curtain began to speak. “Yes, there will be a slight change of plan. You will listen very closely now. First we shall deal with the girl. Then you will have your chance at this so interesting rescuer of hers, who wears the purple turban.” There was a dark edge to the voice. “And I suggest that you hire several men to assist you, my dear Creighton. For this man will be more formidable than you think.”

  From behind the screening curtain came the bright clink of metal. “I have one hundred pieces of gold here, Mr. Creighton. In six hours they will all be yours, and the balance of your reward will come to you six hours after that. Provided, of course, that you do exactly as I tell you.”

  The odd voice grated on, while Cr
eighton committed the hissed orders to memory. So the Thames it was to be. The ship was waiting. That would pose no problems.

  Finally the orders stopped.

  Creighton smiled. So that was what was waiting for the little bitch! He wished he might be there to see her face when she awoke. But he had important business to attend to. He was to go after that bloody Indian. Aye, he’d enjoy that, Creighton thought.

  “And now, Mr. Creighton, you will remove the dagger from your cuff and leave it before you on the table. Then you will leave through the rear door. Your money will be waiting at the usual location.”

  Summoning up his old cocky gait, Creighton strode from the room. He felt the cold eyes behind the curtain follow him all the way to the door, prickling at his neck.

  It almost was enough to make him discard the little scheme he’d been considering.

  But not quite, for something told him there was a great deal of money yet to be made.

  The first thing he’d do after he was paid would be to send a note up to Cinnamon Hill. Maybe that old man they’d roughed up would pay to hear news of what had become of his sweet, innocent granddaughter.

  Only she wouldn’t be so sweet by then, Creighton thought.

  Certainly not innocent.

  Not when the man on the other side of the curtain was done with her.

  Naked before the damask curtains, Deveril Pagan looked out at the dark ribbon of water, watching a line of hay barges lumber west. Yes, he liked being naked. He was sublimely comfortable in that state.

  Perhaps you really are more than half-heathen already, old friend, he thought grimly.

  If so, then it was his better half.

  He remembered his one brief and entirely unpleasant meeting with his father two weeks before.

  The old man had actually ordered him to return home. Even after years of separation, the irascible old martinet still had the ability to make him feel like a blasted schoolboy.

  Pagan stepped back inside, scowling.

  He’d accomplished all he’d come for. So why couldn’t he relax? Why did he still feel the prickle of danger, the same way he felt when a big cat was on the prowl?

  Beside his foot a log exploded with a hiss, showering orange embers across the grate. And in that explosive burst of color Pagan saw the mocking gleam of a blood-red jewel.