The Tiger's Lady

by Skye, Christina

  Behind her the feeble remnants of light bled away and night fell upon the jungle in earnest.

  As silence returned to the glade once more, a frond of ferns above the waterfall rustled slightly, then bent flat. From behind the veiling greenery there appeared a polished black boot.

  A cold, hard eye raked the glade. Its mate was gone, leaving only a hideous empty socket bisected by a jagged red scar running from temple to jawbone.

  So, my dear Pagan, I have you in my sights at last. Repaying all those old scores will be sweet, especially now I have seen this new element to our game.

  And taking the woman slowly and with infinite cruelty while you watch will be the very best of it.

  Ruxley’s instructions had been more than clear about the ruby. Find it and he could name his price—any price at all. About the woman, Ruxley had been less explicit, leaving her management to his employee’s discretion.

  As long as she was returned to Ruxley alive.

  Or at least in some semblance of life.

  The man in the greenery smiled, but there was no warmth in his eye or face, only cold calculation.

  And now the woman made an unexpected bonus. Her body was quite exquisite, really, especially now that the native women had begun to grow stale. Yes, she was quite the passionate little bitch, in fact. And soon she would moan for him as she had moaned for Pagan.

  Only he would teach her more ingenious ways of impalement.

  Hidden and forgotten, the ancient stone sparked and flashed, its great crimson heart aflame. Swords of light played across its dark facets where it lay, crushed and forgotten in arid darkness.

  And still, like a perfectly tuned instrument, it captured the harmonies and vibrations around it, transforming their energy into sparks within its blood-red depths.

  Its facets were duller than usual, its hues dimmed slightly in this netherworld where it lay hidden. But even in the darkness its great energy persisted, registering the sounds and movements around it and imprisoning them within its crystal faces along with all the other centuries of information stored there.

  In those facets two figures swayed and strained, caught in the ancient dance of love.

  From an adjacent face another image flashed, where long, slender fingers stroked an empty satin-lined box. Light glinted against the darkness for a moment, and then a shrill cry seemed to explode from the gem’s dark heart.

  Soon that image, too, disappeared, leaving only one figure to dance across the ruby’s surface. A thin man, he wore only a hempen loincloth while he stared into the flames of his campfire, his eyes the eyes of the jungle and his face that of night itself.

  Staring still, he intoned a single word. Instantly the flames crackled and flashed up. The ruby, too, answered his call, resonating with a deep, subsensory hum.

  Even when the sparks burned themselves out and the firelight began to die down, he still sat in a silent vigil, patient as a spider playing out its deadly, invisible web.

  A wise man, he knew that time was forever. Perhaps that is why his face wore a mask of infinite patience as he contemplated the last, crucial steps he must take to make his beloved island safe.

  Part Three

  Windhaven

  There are people who will tell you that they have no fear of the jungle, that they know it as well as the streets of Maha Nuwara or their own compounds. Such people are either liars or boasters, or they are fools…

  ~ Leonard Woolf, The Village in the Jungle

  Anger has no eyes.

  ~ Hindi proverb

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Windhaven.

  As proud as its name, the great house rode on the crest of fog-swept hills, a glittering jewel on an emerald sea. Hundreds of windows caught the light of the rising sun and threw lavender and coral brilliance back over the valley which the house commanded.

  Its splendor was blinding, unexpected amid the lush wooded hills and the rich green acres of tea that surrounded it.

  Cramped legs, itching arms, throbbing head—all were forgotten as Barrett stared in speechless wonder at this remarkable house. Fashioned of rare hardwood and pinkish granite, it showed the clear influence of the Mughal East in its exquisite pointed arches, in the intricate stone trelliswork along the sweeping verandas which ran along its south face.

  Massive, it was given a sense of lightness and grace thanks to the myriad windows studding its two floors. Not quite Western and not quite Eastern, Barrett found herself thinking.

  And for that very reason, she realized it was the perfect reflection of Deveril Pagan.

  Last night had been hell and worse as she lay rigid on her cot, determined to ignore the hard-faced man sleeping—or perhaps not sleeping—on the other side of the tent. And she was determined not to sleep for fear she would walk in dreams again.

  But all her efforts had been for naught. Somewhere in the dark hours between moonfall and sunrise, she had pushed from her bed and glided out into the insect-shrill night.

  She knew only because Pagan had gripped her harshly, swept her up into his arms, and carried her back to her cot. There she had come awake, shaken from a tangle of images real and imagined, breathless from a dark, erotic mix of memory and fantasy and longing.

  And Pagan had been at the center of each shifting tableau.

  Even when he’d awakened her, flushed and breathless, she had said nothing, nor had he. Indeed they had not exchanged a single word since their last, brutal encounter at the waterfall.

  Just as well, Barrett told herself numbly. If he spoke, she would surely begin to cry. But neither he nor any other man would ever have her tears, she swore.

  So instead she straightened her shoulders and lifted her fragile, chiseled chin, concealing both pain and longing beneath a mask of indifference.

  She had had an incomparable teacher, after all.

  “Ah, Hadley, I never before appreciated how bloody good it feels to be home.” Pagan swung up the steps and grasped the hand of the white-haired, craggy-faced man who waited before Windhaven’s polished teakwood door.

  The lean, beak-nosed man, steward, aide de camp, and friend, offered Pagan one of his rare smiles as he shook his hand tightly. “It’s bloody good to see you too, Tiger, if I may be so bold.”

  Pagan’s brow quirked. “It’s never stopped you before, as I recall, you hard-faced Scot.”

  “Aye, but then ye’ve naught before bain fleeing armed natives, leopards, and assassin’s bullets anytime in my near recollection, either.” The broad accent was matched with a cocky smile.

  “Damned nearly got me this time, too.” Pagan’s voice turned hard. He started to say more but stopped as he saw Hadley’s craggy face furrow in a frown.

  “What in the name of—” The older man blinked and rubbed his eyes. “A woman, as I live and breathe! Good Lord, a woman?”

  Pagan stiffened, feeling Barrett’s presence behind him as surely as if she’d touched him. The air shimmered, warm and lush with her presence, sweet with the faint scent of jasmine.

  Pagan’s face hardened to a dark, brooding mask. “Hadley, meet, er, Miss Brown. Barrett, you may call her, since we are informal here. She will be staying here for several days until I can arrange an escort for her to Colombo.”

  “Tiger, where did you—that is, you never said a word about—” The Scotsman recollected himself with a low oath, shaking his head to clear his muddled thoughts. “But—of course, Tiger.” He extended rough, gnarled fingers, which Barrett shook numbly.

  “Miss Brown, I have the pleasure to introduce Colonel Adrian Hadley. He will see you to your rooms and provide assistance in anything you might require.”

  Once more Hadley blinked. “Come along, m’dear. I’ll see you snug to your quarters. And I’ll see you have the only civilized room in this great heathen palace that the Tiger insisted on constructing. Moorish arches, indeed! A monument to his colossal vanity, that’s what I tell him. Aye, since he stood knee-high to a terrier, the lad’s had a vanity matched only by his
stubbornness.”

  The colonel patted Barrett’s chill fingers, tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, and led her into the house. “Cold, are you, m’dear? Not that I wonder at it. Leave it to that young hotblood to have you jaunting through the hills before dawn. A fine way to contract malaria!”

  Barrett frowned, feeling as if she’d fallen into a kaleidoscope where images spun and danced wildly. Here was friendliness and normalcy mixed with stunning strangeness. Like a drug she felt the house’s beauty seep into her blood while she and the colonel walked down a polished corridor of teak and rosewood. Even the air was soft and rich, redolent with lemon oil, camphor, and sandalwood.

  So lovely, she thought. And so utterly alien…

  She frowned, realizing her companion was speaking to her.

  “…nothing to do now but rest, m’dear. No doubt you’ll want to put yourself to rights,”—here Hadley gave a gruff cough—“freshen up and all that. I’ll have Mita see to it. Then you need do nothing but rest.”

  Barrett’s lips trembled as she fought for control, finding the colonel’s flood of inconsequential chatter comforting but terribly disorienting after the harshness of the last days.

  “It—it sounds like heaven. You are … very kind.” Her answer was stiff, and she could not quite muster a smile. It was too much, too great a change too fast. Yesterday she had slept in an airless tent in a harsh jungle. She had even found a modicum of comfort there, surrounded by exotic natives and a garish, alien terrain.

  Today she walked in splendor through an exquisite palace of a house fitted out with every sort of luxury. And yet all she saw was Pagan’s locked lips, his cold shuttered face.

  And though she tried desperately, she could not forget the flat determination in his voice when he had announced his plans to see her away from Windhaven as soon as possible.

  It was no more than she had expected, but it hurt brutally nevertheless.

  “Now, now, don’t you fret over Dev. He’s a brute at times, but he’s got a soft corner or two underneath.” The rough old fingers patted her hand. “Aye, tough on the outside but mushy within. Only problem is getting past all those barriers, don’t y’ know?”

  Barrett didn’t know. Nor did she care, she told herself.

  All she cared about was a soft bed and a hot bath, and then sleep—sleep for a year.

  Pagan’s study was dark, rich with leather and mahogany. Very much a man’s room, it was full but not cluttered, its chairs arranged in seeming disarray but in fact with every detail chosen for comfort and practicality.

  Two large dented leather wing chairs faced each other across the center of the room. Right now Pagan was sunk, legs outstretched, in one of them.

  “All right, Deveril, what in the name of bloody hell have you gone and done now?”

  Hadley stood before a massive rosewood desk littered with a month of correspondence, bills, reports, and the bundled newspapers sent weekly from London. His affability was strained, his craggy face harsh with disapproval. “You barely said a word to that young woman, and she said less than that, but even a blind man could see the antagonism between you.”

  Pagan strode to a mahogany cabinet stocked with cut-glass decanters and tumblers. His face grim, he poured out two fingers of whiskey and tossed the drink down.

  “A bit early for that, isn’t it?”

  “Merely a small toast to myself in celebration of our arrival. In one piece,” Pagan added grimly.

  Only he wasn’t in one piece, the planter knew. There was a welt on his cheek and teeth marks on his shoulders where she had bit him in her passion. There were the scars at his eye and the newer wounds at his shoulder. But the only wound that mattered was the one that did not show.

  And that was the gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been.

  But none could have told the gravity of Pagan’s thoughts as he slid his glass down on the polished cabinet and threw open a shutter to stare out at the fast brightening day. Dew glistened like scattered diamonds along the grass between the house and the tea fields several hundred feet below. The cloud-swept air was heavy with perfume—jasmine, frangi-pani, citron, and rose.

  Pagan frowned, looking down at the empty glass, forgotten in his fingers.

  Dear Lord, why did every look, every bloody smell remind him of her?

  “Did you bring her here against her will?” Hadley stood stiffly beside a Chinese lacquer screen, his expression unreadable.

  “My dear Adrian, you have some notion of my character to ask me such a question.” Pagan’s voice was dangerously soft.

  There were few men who would have dared speak to Deveril Pagan in such a way, but Colonel Adrian Hadley was one of them. Long years of friendship amid both the best and worst years of their lives gave each man the right to candor. In view of that, Pagan bit back his anger, eased his long frame into the well-used wing chair, and stared fixedly at his gray-eyed friend.

  The craggy-faced Scot did not hesitate to take advantage of that familiarity now. “It’s precisely because I do know you that I ask, man! The woman’s a beauty and well bred to boot, unless I miss my guess. But her face was every bit as hostile as your own when she came up the path with Nihal. And you, I notice, have yet to answer my question.”

  Pagan considered lying, but only for a moment. He raised one dusty boot and studied it fixedly for a moment before settling back with a sigh. “Very well, Adrian, you shall have the whole sordid story. Only fix us both a cup of the newest flush to fortify me for the tale. And try, if you can, to get your hackles down.”

  The white-haired colonel sent for a servant, who soon returned with a full tray. Silence ensued as he rinsed out a creamy white blanc de chine teapot with boiling water, then carefully added tea and water—almost but not quite to the boil.

  It was an honored ritual here at Windhaven, one that tested the results of the arduous work Pagan had undertaken. The brewing of Windhaven’s tea was never taken lightly, for both men knew how long and difficult was the process that brought the green gold from seedling to bush to table.

  For long moments Pagan sat with a steaming porcelain mug in hand, sniffing the pungent aroma. His eyes narrowed. He studied the cup intently, swirling the amber liquid gently, then inhaled again. Only then did he take a taste, rolling it back and forth across his tongue.

  And then, unlike the tasters who disposed of their brew once the assessment was complete, Pagan swallowed the rich amber infusion with a reverent sigh.

  “That’s a damned good cup of tea, old friend. Brisk but not too pungent. Young leaf with good body. Fine highlights, too. Yes, it should fetch a decent price in London. By the way, I’m glad to see that it’s been cool here over the last week. This lot will be from the lower third acres.” His eyes narrowed with concentration. “The southern slope, I believe.”

  Hadley couldn’t suppress an unwilling smile at this fresh example of Pagan’s skill at evaluating teas. Only the most experienced tasters could discern such details. But tea was Pagan’s life and livelihood now, and he had approached the work with his customary vigor, learning all that the experts—English, Indian, and Chinese—could teach him.

  The rest Pagan had set out to teach himself. And so he had, after only five years of careful experimenting.

  But impressed or not, Hadley was not about to be diverted from his subject. “Bravo. You are right again, of course. Your skill sometimes frightens me, in fact. Only a few centuries ago you might have been burned for such skills, you know. But now I mean to hear about your companion. Miss Brown, you called her?”

  Pagan stared out at the green tea rows rising and falling over hill and valley as far as the eye could see. Long moments later his hands locked on his half-filled cup and he began to relate all he knew of the tawny-haired trespasser who had washed up on his beach. Only one part of the story did he omit, and that was what had happened between them in the glade after he had discovered she was safe.

  With every word Hadley’s brows rose, unt
il Pagan thought they would lock in a permanent frown.

  “But this is the nineteenth century! Who could have done such a thing? And the poor, defenseless creature has no idea of her identity or how she came to be lying on your beach?”

  Pagan slanted Hadley a faint, mocking smile. “That ‘poor, defenseless creature,’ as you term her, gave a performance that struck terror in three fully grown men and can handle a rifle as well—and possibly better—than I can. She also saved my life on two occasions. Even without any memory, she is the least defenseless female I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”

  “Is that admiration I hear in your voice?”

  “Most assuredly. Miss, er, Brown, is a most singular female.”

  “But…” Hadley prompted.

  With a low curse Pagan surged to his feet and began to pace the room with barely leashed energy. “But she is also quite possibly the most dangerous agent James Ruxley could send in search of the ruby.” He ran rough fingers through his hair, reducing it to an unruly mane. “Not that I have the faintest idea where the bloody stone is. But at least we know Ruxley doesn’t have it, or he would not put himself to all this trouble.”

  “These are serious charges, Deveril.” Hadley’s face was grave. “You can back them up with proof, I suppose?”

  “Of course I can’t, damn it! When was Ruxley ever so careless as to leave any trace of his involvement? No, it’s instinct that tells me she is Ruxley’s pawn, along with the certainty that her appearance on that particular stretch of deserted beach was far too unlikely to be mere coincidence.”

  Hadley scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “You might just be right.”

  “Of course I’m right. Don’t let that angelic exterior fool you for a second. Barrett, er—Brown is a cool-headed schemer who is more than capable of taking care of herself. Even when she can’t remember exactly what she was sent here to do. And I am certain that her memory will soon return to tell her.”