by Olivia Drake
The blaze of memory licked at his courage.
He spurred his horse to a gallop. At last, through a grove of trees, he spied the caravan. Relief poured like opium through his veins. No flames consumed the vehicle.
But the sight he saw next sliced into his heart.
Chapter 7
Sarah rushed at the fakir. Like an avenging demon, he held his sword high. Beside the caravan steps, Shivina lay in a foam of green skirts.
She feebly crossed her arms over the bloodied front of her gown.
The fakir meant to finish her off.
Outrage beat a savage song against Sarah’s ribs. She clenched the dagger, poised to strike. A low cry escaped her.
The fakir pivoted. His eyes glowed like coals in his ash-smeared face. His teeth were yellow, the teeth of a scavenging jackal.
He swung the tulwar at Sarah. “Kali, Kali!”
She swerved. The toe of her sandal caught on the sari. She stumbled. The blade whooshed through the air half an inch from her ear. His fingers caught her wrist and yanked her upright.
He squeezed hard. Numbness weakened her hand. Horrified, she watched her fingers release the dagger. It hit the ground with a dull plop.
She lunged for the weapon. With a zealot’s strength, the fakir slammed her against the caravan. Pain exploded over her shoulders and shimmered down her back. Her knees crumpled. As she started to slide downward, he thrust himself against her.
He stank of sweat and filth. Gagging, she tried to wriggle away, but her arms were trapped against his chest. The veil slipped off her head. Blond hair spilled over her shoulders. Recognition rounded his eyes and flared his nostrils.
“So, again thou flyest to the aid of the whore.” Sneering, he kicked the dagger beneath the caravan. “Thou shalt die, too, feringhi she-devil.”
He pressed his arm like a taut wire against her throat. Stars wheeled before her eyes. Panic reared inside her as she struggled to draw a breath.
“Thou shalt not rob me of my gift to Kali again.”
The holy man raised the tulwar. Blood dripped down the blade, flowed over the back of his hand, and stained his dirty yellow sleeve. Shivina’s blood.
Fury and desperation drove strength into Sarah. She freed one arm and attacked his face. Her nails drew thin scarlet stripes through the gray ashes.
The fakir yowled and jumped back a step, allowing her space to duck beneath his arm. She ran toward the bazaar. Safety lay in the shadowed alleyways. But he caught the edge of her sari and she fell. The side of her head struck the hard earth. Dust clogged her mouth, and her ears rang. Coughing, she rolled to the side, fearing the cold steel bite of the sword.
I tried, Shivina. I tried...
A grunt and the shuffle of feet sounded behind her. Dazed, she scraped the hair from her eyes and cautiously sat up. Silhouetted against the fire- lit sky, the fakir grappled with a tall man.
Damien Coleridge.
Mighty as an avenging angel, he wrested the tulwar from the holy man. She melted back onto the ground. She’d never been more glad to see him.
Her relief lasted a mere instant. “Shivina.”
Sarah pushed herself upright and raced toward the caravan.
Alarm leaped inside her anew. Shivina lay on her side, one slender arm stretched toward the caravan steps. A sword cut scored her abdomen. Blood pumped from the wound and stained the emerald silk of her gown. Shallow breaths lifted her chest.
Sarah’s mouth dried. Despite the slaughter she’d witnessed tonight, this wound brought home the savagery of every act of madness.
She scrambled inside the caravan. By the light of a low-burning lantern, she looked frantically around. The baby slumbered in his cradle. She snatched up some clean rags and dropped down beside Shivina.
The black lashes flickered. “Kit,” she moaned. “Baba.”
“He’s fine. Let me help you.” Her hands shaking, Sarah pressed a wad of cloth against the hideous wound and kept up a soothing refrain. “Just rest, Shivina. You mustn’t try to talk.”
Shivina opened her dark almond eyes. She lifted a frail hand and rested it against Sarah’s knee. Through the silk sari, her fingers felt cold. Deathly cold.
“My friend,” she whispered. “Watch over Kit. Promise...when I am gone...”
“Don’t be absurd,” Sarah said, tamping down her rising dread. Blood soaked the rags at a frightening speed. “Damien will take you to the hospital. Reginald will fix you up.”
“Please, my friend.” Shivina coughed, a thin bubbly sound. “Love my son. Care for him.”
“I will. Of course I will. But you’ll raise your own son and have many more.”
Shivina smiled sadly. “You will raise him, Miss Sarah. You and Damien.”
She’s ranting, Sarah thought. How could Shivina believe Damien and I have a future?
Shivina’s hand slipped to the floor and her head slumped back. The strength flowed from her as swiftly as the blood that formed a crimson pool beneath her. The rise and fall of her bosom slowed and ceased.
Sarah added a fresh towel to the sodden mass. Tears flooded her eyes. “You aren’t going to die! You can’t! You can’t.”
A movement near the steps caught her attention. She looked up to see Damien Coleridge towering over her, his gaze focused on Shivina. How long had he been standing there? Had he heard?
Blood streaked his white tunic and dhoti. The unnatural light cast his features into sharp relief. No emotion softened the stark angles of his face. His expression was the cold, stony visage of a statue.
His lack of sorrow sparked a wild wrath in her. “Don’t just stand there!” she shouted. “Do something!”
He never even glanced at her. He bent and pressed his thumb over Shivina’s throat for a few moments. Then he straightened.
“There’s nothing I can do,” he said in a low flat tone. “Nothing at all.”
Her eyes blurry, she turned away, her anger dwindling as swiftly as it had arisen. In the shadows at the edge of the clearing, a man sprawled lifelessly in the dust. His saffron robe was stained scarlet from a sword cut across the abdomen. Fleetingly she noted the similarity of his wound to Shivina’s.
Seeing the fakir lying dead brought Sarah no satisfaction, only a dull emptiness.
A thin wail carried from inside the caravan. She rose and slowly walked to the cradle. Pinch-eyed and crying, Kit flailed his tiny arms. As if he sensed his mother’s death.
Tears burned down Sarah’s cheeks. She picked him up and hugged him close, pressing her face to him and drawing in his clean, milky scent. He whimpered once, then quieted, his breathing an irregular rasp in her ear. His warm life poured strength back into her soul. Sympathy for his plight ached in her. Sarah knew the loneliness of losing a mother.
“I’ll take care of you, darling,” she whispered. “I don’t know how, but I will.”
Cuddling him against her, she dashed the moisture from her eyes and looked out the doorway of the caravan. Beyond the cantonment wall, firelight painted the night sky in garish shades of orange and red. Gunshots and screams rent the air.
Damien still stood, his fists balled, gazing at his wife’s body lying on the ground. Sarah wondered if she was wrong to think he felt no pain. Swallowing the tightness in her throat, she said, “We must take Kit away. He isn’t safe here.”
Damien lifted his eyes to the sky. “I can’t leave her like this,” he muttered.
She followed his gaze. Ominous black shapes wheeled against the fire glow. Her stomach churned. Vultures and kites. Birds of prey drawn by the scents of blood and death.
Damien crouched to gather Shivina against him. Her head lolled over his arm, her black hair spilling nearly to the steps, her body frail in the voluminous green silk.
Holding the slumbering baby, Sarah stepped down to let Damien pass. “What are you going to do?”
“The only thing I can do.”
He ducked inside the caravan. Sarah paced, listening to the turbulence, anxiety climbing insi
de her. She heard the slam of windows closing and the clang of metal. What was taking Damien so long? A last he emerged alone, carrying the low-lit lantern.
Understanding knifed into her. There was no time to bury Shivina. The caravan must be her funeral pyre.
He sprang down the steps and turned. The lamp at his side, he gazed at the darkened vehicle.
“Go ahead,” Sarah urged. “We can’t take the caravan anyway—it’s too slow. We’d be caught for certain.”
Still he hesitated, his face gray and pained. The clamor of fighting came from both the bazaar and the cantonments. The prospect of being trapped between two blood-crazed hordes made Sarah tighten her arm around the precious bundle of baby.
“Hurry, Damien. We haven’t time to waste.”
“I can’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “I can’t do this.”
Compassion gripped her chest. Then a sickening wave of suspicion rolled through her. Did he balk at burning Shivina—or at incinerating a year’s worth of photographs?
Sarah snatched the lamp from him. Swinging it in a wide underhanded arc, she flung it through the doorway.
A crash accompanied the tinkle of shattered glass. Flames lapped at the walls and curtains, lighting the interior with an eerie glow. In the midst of the blaze, Shivina lay perfectly arranged on the floor, her arms folded over her bosom as if she were sleeping.
Pain trampled Sarah’s heart. She had never had the chance to apologize for turning away at church. She’d make up for the snub by mothering Kit. Bowing her head, Sarah whispered a prayer of farewell. Then the baby mewed, snapping her back to the present.
The howling from the bazaar sounded closer.
She pivoted toward Damien. “We mustn’t linger.”
Like a cobra mesmerized by the snake charmer’s flute, he stared at the inferno. His eyes were large and dark, his black brows quirked, his fists clenched. She had the impression he hadn’t even heard her, that his mind was focused on thoughts far from this hub of madness and danger.
The crackle of the fire blended with the caterwauling of the mob. Her stomach knotted. She should abandon him to his own devices. Instead she tugged hard at his sleeve.
“Come, Damien! Or will you let your son die, too?”
His gaze fell to the infant. A frown ridged his brow. He touched the boy’s smooth cheek. “Christopher...?”
The bafflement fled Damien’s face. At the same instant a pack of badmashes streamed from the bazaar.
“Good God,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
To her bewilderment, he dashed up the caravan steps and shut the door. Jumping down, he seized her arm and yanked her toward a clump of trees.
A roar rose from the throng. The men had spied them!
Holding Kit close, she scurried to keep pace with Damien’s jogging strides. Something moved in the shadows of the trees. A big black horse pawed at the ground.
Hope flashed inside her. They had a chance after all.
Damien snatched up the reins and vaulted into the saddle. The horse danced sideways. He spared a moment to stroke the ebony mane until the horse stood quiet. Then he reached down, and his hands closed hard under Sarah’s arms.
With a grunt of effort, he hauled her up and deposited her astride in front of him, tightly wedging her between the pommel and his chest. As he grasped the reins, his arms encircled her in a warm vise.
The gang loosed a collective bellow of fury. Only one escape route lay open...back toward the cantonments. She felt tension harden Damien’s muscles as he turned the horse toward the burning caravan. One end of the vehicle now leaped with flames.
Snorting, the animal trotted out of the shadows and shied from the fire. Damien held the horse still.
Alarm thumped through Sarah’s veins. In the clearing, they sat like targets for the rabble.
‘‘What are you doing?’’ she gasped. ‘‘We have to get out of here!”
“Just shut up and hang onto my son.”
The marauders surged closer. Their jackal-like shrieks joined the snapping of the blaze. Waves of heat poured through the night air. Sarah curled herself protectively around Kit’s tiny form. Scant yards away, she spied the violence in maddened eyes, the glint of firelight on butcher knives and curved swords.
The killing mob was almost upon them.
She coughed from the smoke. “For mercy’s sake, Damien—”
He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks. The mount took off like a shot, leaving the horde in its dust. Sarah swayed and lurched. Only Damien’s enfolding arms kept her from falling out of the saddle. The badmashes howled and chased after them.
Boom!
An explosion rocked the night. Glancing back, she saw one end of the caravan disintegrate into flaming tinder. Men lay strewn like leaves after a windstorm. The survivors dived for cover.
The fog of shock in her mind cleared. The chemicals must have detonated. His photographic chemicals. He’d known and waited for the explosion.
The baby squawked and squirmed. She clung tightly to him, murmuring soothing nonsense, unaware of what she was saying. Damien slowed the horse to a trot as they traversed the crooked lanes of the bazaar. A band of excited natives mistook them in the dark for fellow rebels and let them pass.
The rhythm of riding soon lulled Kit back to sleep. Before long, a wide earthen avenue unrolled like a ribbon across the bright moonlit plain. They were outside the city, on the Grand Trunk Road, Sarah realized in hazy surprise.
She could scarcely believe that danger no longer crouched around every corner. The horrors of the night flitted through her mind. Aunt Violet. Mrs. Craven. The auburn-haired soldier. Shivina. God alone knew the fate of her uncle and Reginald.
Like a hare running from a merlin hawk, Sarah fled the hideous memories. She concentrated on the warm wind rushing across her face, the tiny parcel of life slumbering in her arms. Moonlight bleached the thorny bushes and scraggly trees, and coated the landscape with an unearthly silver beauty. The steady thudding of hooves tranquilized her. She leaned back, slumping into a heated cradle that felt irresistibly comfortable despite its hardness—
Starch firmed her spine. The cobwebs of exhaustion dropped away. Unhappy circumstance might have thrown her against Damien Coleridge, but she must maintain a suitable inch of distance.
“Don’t play Miss Priss.” His breath tickled her ear. “Go ahead and rest against me.”
“No, thank you. I’d sooner cozy up with a cobra.”
His shoulders brushed her in a shrug. “Please yourself, then.”
Instead of relaxing her, his words jolted her with mortification. She’d never before sat so intimately close to any man. She could feel the rigidity of his arm muscles as he held the reins. His alien scent of sweat and cigars surrounded her. For the first time, she realized her unladylike dishabille.
Riding astride exposed her legs from the knees down. Her thighs were pressed to his. Her uncorseted breasts bobbled with each hoofbeat. Her bottom was braced firmly against his... his...
Embarrassment blistered her skin. She held herself stiffly upright and angled a glance back at him, catching a glimpse of his square-cut jaw and the austere outline of his face. He gazed over her head, his expression dispassionate, as if he’d already forgotten the inhumanity and destruction, even the horrible death of his wife.
“Why did you come to the caravan tonight?” he said suddenly. “To assuage your conscience after snubbing Shivina?”
“I wanted to make sure she and Kit were safe.” Sarah’s voice caught. “If only I’d gotten there a few moments earlier.”
Damien said nothing. She wondered if he, too, felt the empty despair, the painful guilt. She pursed her lips and went on. “What were you doing, setting off that explosion? You nearly killed us.”
“But I saved your hide instead.”
His sarcasm irked her. “You knew the caravan would detonate.”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t have kept volatile substanc
es in your home. Your wife and son might have been killed by a dropped lantern.”
“Hardly. Ether and alcohol are safe with proper ventilation. Vapor has to collect in an enclosed space before it’ll blow. I opened the jugs and shut the windows and door.”
“And what if you’d misjudged?”
“Would you rather I’d ridden straight through the mob? That would have meant certain death.”
“We could have gone toward the cantonments.”
Damien snorted in disgust. “That’s where I’d come from. The damned place was crawling with mutineers. They would have spotted our English faces by the light of the fires. We wouldn’t have survived twenty yards.”
His logic robbed her of a reply. She seethed in silence for a moment. “May I ask where we’re going?”
“To stay with the headman of a village—a friend of mine.”
“A friend?”
“Yes, Miss Faulkner. Believe it or not, I do have a few friends.”
His deep tone of irony grated on her nerves. It was no use trying to converse with such an uncivil man. As soon as possible, she would part company with him.
She gazed down at Kit. His baby features were as smooth and serene as an oasis in the Punjab desert. The knot inside her chest loosened, releasing a flow of tenderness and love.
She could never leave this little boy to the uncertain care of his father.
No doubt Damien would be thrilled at the discharge of paternal responsibility. Granted, he seemed protective of Kit, but hauling an unweaned baby on a vagabond’s jaunt across India was a different matter. She would give Kit a secure home and raise him as her own son. She’d promised Shivina.
Of course, first she must persuade Reginald...
Her heart lurched. Closing her fingers around the locket at her throat, she breathed a deep-felt prayer for his safety. Surely with the dawn of a new day, the madness of mutiny would end. Soon she could return to Meerut and find her fiancé and Uncle John. They would bury their dead, mourn their losses, rebuild their lives. She would attain happiness as Kit’s mother and Reginald’s wife.