It appeared he wasn’t going to get one any better than this.
But as the first mouthful slid down his throat minutes later, hot and biting and pure velvet, Pagan faced the fact that it would require something a great deal more potent than whiskey to make him sleep that night.
It would take Barrett’s warm, silken body wrapped around him in ecstasy.
It would take words of love spilling wanton and breathless from her lips.
Probably both.
Hours later he finally dozed off in the battered old wing chair in his study. Fully dressed, his long frame filled the chair, booted legs outstretched upon a mismatched bamboo footstool.
The whiskey bottle at his side was half-empty.
His breath came low and regular when the first plumes of gray inched beneath the door and curled up malevolently toward his face.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Clouds, dense and billowy. Thin and feathery.
In all shapes and sizes they sailed across an azure sky.
And then they were not clouds, were not white at all, nor was the sky blue.
Now they coiled, like writhing snakes. Now they were dank, acrid, piercing.
Now they were smoke.
With a gasp Barrett jerked upright on the bed. She blinked, feeling a hot, nagging pain in her throat.
Faint swirling fingers of smoke coiled about the floor, then thickened. In a matter of moments they had solidified into a swirling bank of gray.
Even then she had watched, paralyzed by sleep and shock, sure it must be a dream.
Only when the first hot blast drove through the room did she rouse from her daze, jerking off the covers and exploding toward the door. She began to cough almost immediately, as acrid air burned deep into her lungs.
Windhaven was on fire!
Excellent, the man in the darkness thought.
Too bad Nihal’s people had caught the fellow he’d sent in with the kerosene. But he had turned it to his own purpose, for it had drawn attention away from his task very nicely.
Now all he had to do was sit back and wait. In a matter of minutes he would have all the information he needed.
His eyes glowed for a moment.
Unless Windhaven collapsed, killing all of its residents, that is.
Wildly, Barrett lurched toward the door, struggling to sweep away the last traces of sleep from her mind.
She flinched at the enveloping smoke, plunging to a halt before the heavy teak barrier. Her hands brushed the door.
Instantly she fell back, gasping.
The wooden frame was flame-hot, which meant the whole surrounding area must be on fire.
She spun about, jerked the thick quilt from the bed, shoved on her boots, and ran toward the corner, where a pair of porcelain pitchers rested on ornate basins.
Snatching both up, she plunged toward the far wall and then triggered the small latch that Mita had revealed to her only hours earlier.
The outside door to the veranda swept open and cool, clean air swept over her face. Instantly she shoved the door closed behind her, mindful that the rush of outside air would only add to the inferno’s ferocity.
From her door to the front entrance was only a matter of fifty or so steps along the broad veranda. She flung open the front door with trembling fingers, and was met by a hellish scene of orange-red flame and acrid black smoke, the heat and fumes nearly overwhelming her.
But her heart was firm. She tossed down her quilt, drenched it with one of the pitchers, then flung it tunic-style around her slim body.
With the remaining pitcher clenched close, she plunged forward into a scene that could have come straight from Dante.
And with every gasping breath, every searing wave of heat, she prayed she would remember the way to Pagan’s room.
She threw open three doors, only to find each room unused, shrouded in dust covers. Her heart pounding, she ran back into the hall and made for a smaller door she had overlooked before.
The ornate brass knob burned her fingers and she fought back a sob as she struggled to wrench the door open.
On the third try she succeeded.
But beyond the threshold she saw only a massive desk littered with papers, a copious quantity of framed prints and antique maps on the wall, along with a particularly gruesome boar’s head.
She was poised to run to the next room when she saw, between drifting arms of smoke, a pair of polished black boots.
With a wild cry she flung herself forward, scattering the foul smoke to make out Pagan’s inert form sprawled against a leather wing chair.
She fell beside him and shook him with desperate force. “Wake up, Pagan. Dear heaven, wake up now!”
He mumbled something beneath his breath and turned his face away.
Only then did Barrett catch the tinge of whiskey. Lord, the man was drunk! How would she ever manage to drag him from the room?
Wildly she shook the long, supine figure, receiving nothing but muttered oaths for her trouble. Then she drew back her hand and slapped him ruthlessly. Once, then twice, on each cheek.
He caught her hand in a painful grip, his eyes opening to frigid slits. “You’d better have a bloody good reason, Nihal, for—” He stiffened, his brow furrowing. “What are you—”
But those few moments were enough for him to take in the situation.
With a beautiful economy of motion he shot to his feet and scanned the room.
Barrett gestured with the pitcher, her eyes smarting from the smoke. “I’ll douse you. It’s the only way.”
She didn’t wait for his answer before emptying the basin on his chest and lower legs. Then she emptied the last of the other container on herself.
She was at the door when she realized he was not behind her. He had run to the far bookcase and was flinging open drawer after drawer.
“There’s no time, Pagan. In a minute or two we’ll be trapped!”
He turned then, his face a mask of fierce determination as he shoved a small leather box down inside his shirt.
It must be something of infinite importance for him to risk his life in fetching it, Barrett thought dimly.
At that moment she saw a blur of movement in the corridor.
“The whole bloody wing’s about to go up. Get out of here, you two! I sent Nihal down to the native lines to rouse the men. But if we don’t go now…”
Pagan spun about, rebuttoning the neck of his shirt. “Quite right, Adrian. It is distinctly unpleasant in here.”
Then Pagan was beside her, tugging her back into the crackling fury in the corridor, his granite grip her only lifeline as they fought their way down the hall toward the entrance.
They were both coughing and smoke-blind by the time they stumbled down the front steps. They fell to their knees, dragging in huge drafts of cool, clean mountain air.
Almost immediately Pagan lurched back to his feet and ran toward the rear of the house, where the first shrill shouts of alarm were being raised. The colonel staggered after him a few moments later.
Barrett subsided onto the dew-chill grass, racked with a painful spasm of coughing. Her cheeks were singed and her hand was throbbing painfully from the blisters where she had seized the red-hot doorknob.
But these things subsided to a faint dull ache, for right now she was simply happy to be alive.
When a hushed, trembling figure slipped out of the darkness and pressed close with furry hands, Barrett pulled the little langur to her. Together they huddled in the chill night, watching in horrified fascination as red-orange flames spilled from the southern wing, lighting up the whole roof.
Her heart caught when she saw a tall form silhouetted against the licking flames. There was no mistaking those broad shoulders or lean, powerful thighs. As Barrett watched, breathless, Pagan caught the first bucket of water towed up by rope from a native below him. He emptied it onto the flames and then tossed the bucket down onto the ground, where it was snatched up and taken to be refilled.
In a jerk
y tableau against the orange glow, the buckets rose and fell, Pagan emptying them with a savage sort of grace, then tossing them down again.
But to Barrett’s throbbing, smoke-stung eyes, there seemed to be no effect at all on the raging flames.
An hour later it was done, the roof a blackened scar against the darker vault of the night. Steam still hissed from the charred wood. It had been Nihal’s idea to bring up the elephants and have them empty the tin watering troughs onto the fire.
Even then it had been a near thing, Pagan thought, running a tired, grimy hand across his face. But the roof had been saved and only two rooms in the south wing were gutted.
Unfortunately, his study had been one of them.
“Nihal, see that the elephants go down country to have an extra-long soak in the river. And we celebrate tomorrow. No plucking or work in the drying rooms. I believe you have some of that potent arrack liquor hidden about. See that the men each get a portion. They’ve earned it well enough!”
The colonel appeared out of nowhere, clapping a hand on Pagan’s back.
“Bloody near thing, Dev. Yes, too damned near to think about.”
Pagan only nodded, staring tiredly at the black scar darkening Windhaven’s south wing.
“And now that we’re safe and sound, perhaps you’ll tell me what in bloody hell you were so concerned with retrieving from your study.” The colonel’s voice was hard with accusation. “You nearly killed yourself in there—along with that young woman who was brave enough to go fetch you. Damned rare sort of female, if you ask me. But there—you’ll not distract me. I mean to hear what was in that box.”
A faint smile on his face, Pagan reached down and pulled a small gold-embossed rectangle from inside his shirt. He studied the leather box for a moment, his eyes narrowed. Then he flipped open the clasp and held it out for Hadley’s inspection.
The colonel’s brow knit. He stared down at the little case in patent disbelief. He had considered seeing quite a number of things in the box, but certainly not this.
Gingerly he lifted the gilt-edged oval. “A portrait miniature?” He looked up at Pagan in surprise. “You risked your life for this?”
Pagan simply shrugged, studying the figures in the painting.
A tall man with thin lips and an uncompromising jaw.
A frail female in ivory watered silk, her slim white fingers clenched tightly in her lap.
And in front of them, stiff and resolute, a boy of seven. A boy who already felt as if he were a man.
The last figure in the group, ranged before an airy veranda somewhere near Simla where the mountains rose in emerald terraces, was a dark-eyed Indian woman, the ayah, Hadley thought. Her eyes were anxious but unreadable as she stared out from the miniature.
“Oh, but it is very important, Adrian. It’s my past that mocks me in that picture, what little past I have left. It wouldn’t do to lose that ever.”
The colonel frowned and looked as if he meant to say something. But he changed his mind and sighed, turning toward the house with a shrug. “Well, it’s the present I’m thinking of and you’re dead on your feet, old boy. Best see to some rest while you can. We’ll have little time to see the damage repaired before the monsoon is upon us.”
After giving Pagan a quick, gruff pat on the shoulder, he trudged wearily up the steps toward his room.
He was filthy, Pagan thought grimly, studying his charcoal-streaked sleeve. He smelled of smoke and cinder and he was exhausted.
He should make at least a desultory attempt at cleaning up and then go to bed.
But somehow he found his feet moving along the shadowed veranda in the opposite direction.
Like a figure in a dream, he slid open the concealed latch so that the teak door opened in well-greased silence.
She sat in a chintz chair by the window, bathed in the golden glow of a lone palm-oil lamp. Her hair was unbound, cascading around her shoulders in a bright golden nimbus.
She was more beautiful than he remembered, more beautiful than he could even imagine. Perhaps everything was, in the wake of his brush with death.
His hand tightened on the cold polished doorframe as he stood staring at her, this woman whom he had tried so hard to hate.
Her face was an alabaster oval, her eyes lapis pools. She did not move as he stepped over the threshold.
“Stop me, falcon.” His voice was raw, as dark as the soot streaking his face.
Her lips trembled, but she gave no other sign of response.
“You’re going to Colombo tomorrow,” he muttered, almost as if to himself. “I’ll send Nihal and twenty men, if I have to, but I’ll not see you here even a day longer.”
The woman in the chair flinched imperceptibly.
Why did they pain her so, those words? It was what she’d waited for, what she’d wanted all along.
Wasn’t it?
“You’ll be safe there,” Pagan said, mid-room now. “I’ll arrange passage for you within a week. To Macao, perhaps. Or do you prefer America?”
Neither, the woman paralyzed in the armchair thought, her eyes glazed with tears. It’s here I’d choose to be. Or wherever else you were.
Her hands twisted in the white folds of her gauze nightdress. Though she had tossed a crimson and gold cashmere shawl about her shoulders, she felt a shiver work through her and knew it had nothing to do with being cold.
“You don’t protest? I’m glad to hear it, Angrezi, because there’s no way in hell you could convince me to let you stay. Not when the danger is so close now, even here at Windhaven, where I hoped you’d be safe. Not when you drag me deeper under your spell every second.”
He was directly before her chair now, his face a harsh mask of light and shadow.
Barrett’s eyes rose, fixed on the vein that throbbed at his temple, just above the silver network of scars that zigzagged across his eyebrow and down toward his cheekbone.
“Nothing, do you hear? Tomorrow you go. At first light.”
Slowly, with exquisite grace, Barrett rose from her armchair, shrugging off the cashmere shawl as she did so. The lantern light spilled soft and golden through the gauzy folds of her nightgown, revealing each impudent curve and peak in loving detail.
Pagan’s breath checked sharply. “Don’t try to dissuade me, falcon. I warn you, it won’t work.”
Her slim fingers gently traced the silver scar coiling past his eye. The next moment, rising on tiptoe, she planted her lips where her fingers had been, pushing aside his eye patch to kiss the scarred skin beneath.
Pagan’s breath hissed out in a rush. “Holy sweet Lord…”
Her slim hands fell, braced upon his broad shoulders. She could feel the granite muscles tense and bunch beneath the dirt-streaked shirt. His eyes were half closed, his face a mask of control so harsh it bordered on pain.
So it was tomorrow. That left them only tonight…
The words were silent, throbbing, palpable in the heated inches of air around them. Perhaps they came from him, perhaps from her.
Most likely they came from both.
Her fingers shifted, tracing the full, hard line of his lower lip.
Pagan flinched. “Stop, Angrezi.”
She didn’t. Instead she took a step closer. Her thighs brushed whisper-soft against his and the rapidly peaking tips of her breasts feathered against his chest.
Pagan’s jaw locked and his head fell back as if he were swept with ineffable pain.
Or immeasurable pleasure.
“No,” he growled.
Barrett did not answer, too wise to trust to words when touch could speak so strongly, so much more persuasively. She inched closer, delighting in the leashed tension of his body, in the faint salt tang of his heated skin.
With a soft sigh she brushed her breasts against him, shivering in the little heated jolts of pleasure each touch ignited.
Yes, this was hers. This was real and true. Not even Ruxley’s vile demands could taint this. It was as if nothing else existed beyond t
he space of the room, beyond the thunder of her heart, the wild hammering in her blood.
And Barrett refused to think of leaving before she tasted this dark pleasure one last time.
Her hands tightened, her nails digging into the steely line of his shoulders. She felt the heat and bulk of him at her belly, and gloried in the unmistakable sign that he was losing, and losing fast.
Casting off restraint or shyness, casting off everything but the wild urge to know him as completely as it was possible to know another human being, Brett molded her soft form to his hard length, shivering when she felt his manhood leap to full, pulsing arousal.
She swayed slightly, levering her body closer, wreaking a velvet torment upon this man who fought her still. She felt him flinch, felt his heart slam against his ribs, felt the raw power of him pour like fire through her thin nightgown.
And then her head fell. She drove the hot, wet point of her tongue into the shadowed recess at the center of his collarbone, nibbling, then nipping sharply.
A harsh groan ripped from Pagan’s throat. In an explosive burst of movement, he seized her hands, his fingers digging deep, so deep that he felt each bone and tendon at her wrist.
His eyes were hooded, raw with dark fires and a hunger that went on forever. “Damn you, witch,” he said harshly, catching her wrists together in one hand and sweeping her up against him with the other. “It’s been like this since the first moment I saw you. I never fooled you for a second, did I?”
Barrett was too awash with her own hunger to smile, to feel triumph in his revelation. She only pressed closer, desperate to feel his heat and his velvet hardness deep inside her.
“Please, Pagan.” It was a soft, ragged plea.
“It’s beyond pleasure now. It’s beyond stopping.” Pagan’s tongue lapped slick and hot against her ear, driving Barrett to arch against him like a cat. “Your body whispers to me, Angrezi. Of hot dreams and wild places. By Shiva, it will take us to the very edge of heaven, I think.”
He eased her backward, his fingers fierce on her buttocks.
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