by Olivia Drake
The doctor glowered, then slowly spread his pale hands. “I’d rather know precisely what your plans are for her.”
The demand struck Damien hard. He felt like a boy quaking in the face of parental fury. “I haven’t decided.”
The servant delivered their drinks. Gripping his glass, Reginald leaned forward and said in a grating undertone, “You’d bloody well better decide, your lordship, and it had better be good.” He imbued the title with sarcasm. “This is the nineteenth century, and not a medieval serfdom. You’ve no right to demand droit du seigneur from a lady like Sarah.”
Damien burned to retort that their lovemaking had lasted a hell of a lot longer than one night, that Sarah had wanted it with the same ravenous appetite as he had. But he had no right to cause the doctor any further pain or Sarah any further dishonor.
He quaffed the whiskey in one searing gulp. Before he could speak, Reginald went on furiously. “I’d also like to know how the bloody hell you could marry that Hindu woman and not Sarah.”
“Shivina?” Damien was abashed to realize her image had grown hazy. What made Sarah seem so much more vibrant? “I suppose I didn’t mind marrying Shivina so much because she was content to stay in the background. She acted...more like a servant than a wife.”
Reginald’s mouth dropped with bitter astonishment. “By God, man, do you regard Sarah as less than a servant, then?”
“Of course not. Sarah is more, much more.” Damien toyed with the cheroot and formulated his thoughts. “She’s my equal. She can challenge my every sharp remark and throw it right back at me. She’s a gentle woman, but concerning something she cares deeply about, she can be as fierce as a tigress.” He lifted his gaze to Reginald. “We’re writing a book together, did she tell you?”
The doctor shook his fair head. “No.”
“She’s composed the text, with her usual verve and fire.” Damien couldn’t stop a proud smile. “It’s bound to inflame readers, but I like the idea of forcing people to think. So does she.”
Reginald looked pensively toward the veranda. “I’ve always known Sarah had her own opinions, but I never saw her as a fiery woman. I had no idea until today that she wrote editorials under the nom de plume of I. M. Vexed.”
“Don’t feel left out. She had me fooled for a long time, too. She has more facets than the Koh-i-Noor diamond.”
A frown wrinkled the doctor’s brow. With more puzzlement than anger, he gazed at Damien. “If you think so highly of her, why won’t you marry her?”
Because I’m terrified. I’m terrified that her love will die. I’m terrified of the moment she’ll realize I’m not the man she thinks I am.
As thick and cloying as smoke, fear fogged his mind. Damien stubbed out the cheroot in an ashtray. “Maybe I would marry her,” he said, “if I had a fraction of your honor.”
Reginald gave an ungentlemanly snort. “Good God, man, you risked your life to rescue me from a bloodthirsty mob. I spent weeks in the hospital healing myself when I ought to have been healing others. I never properly thanked you for putting yourself in peril to help me.”
Damien shifted, uneasy with the praise. “No thanks needed. I only did what anyone would have done.”
“Perhaps valor is in the eye of the beholder,” Reginald mused. Pain etched his fine mouth. “I can’t understand your uncertainty, but don’t let Sarah go. She’s a good woman who needs you...I could see it in her eyes today.”
Damien admired the effort it took for the doctor to relinquish his claim on her. He admired it, because he wouldn’t have been half so gracious.
Because he loved her, too.
Like a photograph in a developing tray, the realization came into sharp focus. Now he knew why he craved her esteem, and why he suffered the paralyzing dread of losing her. The notion of binding himself to her forever no longer appalled him, for now he knew his heart was already intrinsically tied to hers. Closing his life to Sarah would bring loneliness and despair. Marrying her would open a new world of possibilities.
You can give me so much if only you’d let yourself. Her soft words filtered through his mind. He could stay here like a coward and drink himself into oblivion. Or he could take the risk of going back and pledging his future to her.
“You’ll excuse me now, old chap,” said Reginald, levering himself to his feet.
“I’ll walk out with you.”
Damien slowed his eager steps to accommodate Reginald’s pace. As they went out into the street, an acrid reek drifted through the cool evening air. The scent of fire stirred the old gut-churning apprehension in Damien.
“Something’s burning,” said the doctor, wrinkling his nose. “Brings back foul memories of last May.”
Damien peered down the street. A pall of smoke, darker than the dusk air, hung over the buildings beyond the corner. A faint orange glow lit the underside of the cloud.
His chest tightened with the force of an awful premonition. “The hotel is burning.”
“How do you know—?”
Damien didn’t hear the rest. He dashed through the stream of humanity clogging the road. Turning the corner, he leaped nimbly to avoid the hooves of a carriage horse and looked ahead. Terror burned a path to his heart.
Fire engulfed one end of the hotel. The end containing the room where he’d left the two people he loved.
He pushed his way through the swarm. The eerie radiance of flames lit the night. Men and women milled in panic. A mother shrieked for her children. In a futile gesture, the hotel clerk splashed a bucket of water on the fire.
Damien couldn’t see Sarah and Kit anywhere. With a sudden, sickening certainty, he knew they were inside the conflagration.
He started toward the door. Someone latched onto his arm. Over the din, Reginald shouted, “Are you mad? You can’t go in there.”
“I have to find Sarah and Kit.”
Damien jerked away and ran to the open door. The foyer was not yet ablaze, but thick black smoke clotted the air. Yanking off his tunic, he used the cloth to cover his nose and mouth. He stumbled toward the hall and felt his way along the hot wall. At the end of the corridor, fire leaped and crackled. Memory suffocated him. The horrified cries of his brother echoed in Damien’s mind.
His stomach lurched. He wanted to turn and flee. He steeled his nerves. This time he wouldn’t let himself fail. He couldn’t. Even if he died trying.
The furnace-like heat battered him, yet his palms felt as cold as death. He forced himself to keep going. One hand over the other, then over again, until he neared the fire. Sarah. Kit. Their beloved faces flashed in his mind, brighter than the blaze. Oh, God. They couldn’t perish. He had to get them out. Life would not be worth living without them.
The roar of the fire deafened him. His scalp felt singed, his skin seared. His lungs hurt from the smoke. Flames rimmed the doorframe. It was a scene from hell, a scene from his darkest nightmare. Panic threatened to paralyze him. Without giving himself a second to think, he hurled himself inside the inferno.
He descended into Hades.
Orange-yellow light tinted the room. On the floor, Sarah lay curled in a fetal posture around the squirming baby. At her feet squatted the fakir, his bony hands upraised, his black eyes aglow. His singsong prayers pierced the clamor of the fire.
In one swift lunge, Damien thrust the fakir aside. The holy man howled as he fell back against the flaming bed. Damien snatched up his son, then hauled Sarah to her feet. Swaying, she groped for the baby.
Her lips formed Kit’s name, though Damien couldn’t hear it. He allowed himself a blessed instant of joy that they were alive. His arm around her waist, he surged toward the doorway, pressing her face to his shoulder to shield her. In the hall, the heat lessened somewhat. He nearly collided with someone in the smoke-darkened corridor.
Coughing, Reginald gripped Sarah’s arm. “Is there anyone else?” he shouted.
Damien started to shake his head. Claws dug into his neck. Pain sped down his spine. A sudden weight stagg
ered him. The fakir had leaped onto his back.
Sarah screamed. Damien thrust the baby at her. “Get the hell out!”
“I can’t leave you,” she cried.
She started toward him. Reginald dragged her away. They vanished into the black bowels of smoke.
The talons gripped with fiendish force. Needles of torment invaded Damien’s neck. He reached back and found the bony wrists. He started to squeeze, but an agonizing pressure burst behind his ears.
The flames spun. He plunged into darkness.
“He can’t be dead. He just can’t be.”
Sarah’s voice choked. Her throat stung from tears and smoke. The back of her head throbbed like a diabolical drum. She pressed her cheek to Reginald’s chest and tried to will away the dread rising like a black vulture inside her. Each breath caused a pain as much as the soul as of the body.
As she had a hundred times over the past three hours, she turned her gaze to the glowing ruins of the hotel. The stench of charred timbers and ash hung in the night air. People wandered about, men poking at the hot wreckage and women bewailing the loss of their loved ones.
Sarah couldn’t let herself grieve so. Not while there was a chance...
‘‘I wish I could reassure you,” Reginald murmured, his voice as raw and hoarse as hers. “But I’m afraid Damien couldn’t have survived the blaze.”
He gently stroked her hair, but the comforting gesture failed to halt the frenzied swell of horror and grief. She pulled back and gripped his soot-smudged lapels. “He might have escaped another way.” Desperate hope spiraled in her. “Perhaps there was an exit at the end of the hall.”
“We would have seen him by now. You know he would have come straightaway to find you.”
“Unless he was injured. Oh, dear God, he could be lying hurt somewhere—”
“I checked the hospital. Only a woman and a few children with minor burns were admitted. Come now, you’re distraught—”
“Maybe the fakir took him somewhere.” A horrid memory played through her fevered mind. “He said, ‘The son of a feringhi duke will serve the cause of the holy rebellion.’”
“The fakir?” Leaning heavily on his cane, Reginald stared at her. “Do you mean the madman who set the fire and attacked his lordship?”
“Yes.” Wringing her hands, she paced with jerky steps. “That must be what happened. Reginald, we’ve got to find them. You must help me—”
“I can’t bear to see you like this.” He took hold of her arm and held her still. Through the night shadows, his cinder-streaked face wore a troubled frown. “You must accept the fact that Damien is dead.”
A tremor seized her, but she fought it off. “I don’t believe it! I won’t believe it until I see his charred bones for myself.” Yanking herself away, she ran to the gutted hotel.
“Sarah, wait!”
She stepped over the remains of a wall and into the ashes. Heat seared the soles of her feet. She cried out and jumped back, thudding into Reginald.
He caught her close. “For heaven’s sake! Did you burn yourself?”
She shook her head, but he stooped to look at the bottoms of her feet in the uncertain light, then straightened. “You appear to be all right. Darling, try to get a grip on yourself. The wreckage is still smoldering. It’ll cool by morning, and I’ll send Ali Khan to search for the remains.”
The remains. She felt herself sliding down, down, down toward blackness. Damien was dead. He was dead.
The flare of hope vanished, leaving her adrift in a vast uncharted darkness. Grief burst in her heart and inundated her in a hot gush of agony. Weak and shaking, she pressed her hands to her face and dimly felt the wet smear of tears. On some distant level she felt Reginald draw her close. The pain plunged her in an abyss so deep that no comfort could reach her. Only the spasmodic sobs convulsing her chest proved she was still alive.
Gradually she grew aware of Reginald murmuring in her ear. “Poor Sarah. Please don’t weep. I wish I could help you. If I could, I’d bring him back for you.”
She struggled to extricate herself from the well of sorrow. “He...was so terribly afraid of fire,” she said, her voice muffled against Reginald’s jacket. “But he came inside anyway. He came for me and for Kit. And then he died in the most horrible way possible. Oh, dear God, I can’t bear it.”
“You must, my pet. He would want you to go on.”
“He was so embittered by the past. I wanted to marry him, but...he couldn’t love me.”
“He did. Yes, he did love you. He told me so himself.”
Lifting her head, she viewed Reginald through tear-blurred eyes. His words dangled like a lifeline above her. “When?”
“We...ran into each other at the club this evening. I’m sure he was intending to ask you to marry him.”
He gazed toward the ruined hotel. She wondered if he was lying to console her. She desperately wanted to believe him. “W-was he truly?”
“Yes, indeed.” Reginald patted her back. “I’m sure of it.”
The revelation both cheered and crushed her. To think they’d been so close to happiness, only to have it burn away like fire on the wind. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. “I wanted to go to England with him. He meant to...to face his family and present Kit as his heir. Merciful God, the poor baby is an orphan now. What shall I do about him?”
“Kit will be fine—Ali Khan’s wife is taking good care of him at my bungalow.” Reginald handed her a folded handkerchief. “Come now, my pet, dry your eyes. Come back with me and I’ll fix you a draught. The morning is soon enough to decide what to do with the boy.”
She wiped sooty tears with the white cloth. Bright as a flame, a thought flashed inside her. “I’ve decided,” she said. “I’m going to take Kit back to England myself.”
“There’s no need to rush into a decision tonight. You’ve suffered a terrible shock. You need to rest.”
Resolve glimmered like a beacon in the darkness of her soul. “I’ve made up my mind,” she said. “I’m going. It’s what Damien would want me to do.”
His face a pale blur in the gloom, Reginald gazed at her. “I’ve been given a medical discharge,” he said slowly. “I was only staying in Meerut until I found out what happened to you. So we might as well travel to England together.”
“I’d like that. I’m glad we can still be friends.”
“Now, you’re to get in bed and stay there, doctor’s orders. You’ve endured more than any lady ought to endure in a lifetime. You’ll need to keep strong for Kit’s sake.”
Reginald put his arm around her and guided her away. Anguish and exhaustion drenched her. She swallowed against the thickness in her throat. Tears wouldn’t bring Damien back. Reginald was right, she must think of Kit.
He was all she had left of Damien.
He had nothing left but the pain.
His head clanged with monotonous regularity. His hands and feet refused to move. His mouth tasted the foul denseness of a rag.
A dreamlike dread burned in his soul. He’d fulfilled Mother’s prophecy. He’d died and gone to hell. He was a demon, damned to darkness for all eternity.
But hell surely didn’t smell like incense.
You’re not a devil, Damien. Soft and certain, the voice echoed through the torment and bathed him in light. Sarah.
He opened his eyes to stygian blackness. The cloying aroma of sandalwood and the reek of ashes tainted the air. He concentrated on clearing the cloud from his brain. This couldn’t be hell. Hell was a fiery inferno. A hotel room aflame.
With the impact of a gunshot, memory slammed into him.
Sarah and Kit! Had they gotten out alive?
Hell was not knowing.
Blinking hard, Damien peered into the gloom. The fakir. Somehow he had survived Damien’s deathly blow the night of the mutiny. The fakir had brought him here. He couldn’t fathom how or why. He recalled the madman clinging with inhuman strength, then agonizing pain and nothing more.
A terrible t
hought tumbled through his mind. Sarah must believe him dead. At this moment she might be weeping with grief. If she and Kit had survived.
He should have known better than to reach for happiness. Perhaps they were better off without a miserable wretch like him. Reginald would take care of them.
Damien threw off the shroud of bleak thoughts. He wasn’t a devil. Sarah was right; his mother was wrong. Oh, God! He’d never see his son grow up. He’d never have the chance to tell Sarah he loved her.
The need transcended physical pain. He yanked hard, but the bonds held his wrists imprisoned. He was sitting, his back to a hard wall. Twisting his head to the left, he spied a horizontal glimmer several yards away. A door?
He tried to wriggle closer. His leg struck something in the darkness. Metal crashed and clanged. He must have knocked over a stack of pots.
As the clamor died, another sound drifted to him. A faint tinkling, like a wind chime stirred by a breeze. Or someone rattling the string of brass bells at the entrance to a Hindu shrine.
A shrine. Incense. The fakir.
His mind leaped from fact to fact like stepping-stones leading him across a turbulent river. He must be in the back room of a temple. Perhaps the bazaar temple, where Sarah had seen a priest watching their arrival into Meerut. This place was a temple dedicated to Shiva and his wife, Parvati. Parvati, whose evil incarnation was Kali.
Confusion roiled in Damien’s brain. Kali was worshipped by the outlawed thugees, men who strangled innocent people to appease the goddess’s bloodlust. Did the fakir mean to sacrifice him?
A tiny click sounded. Brightness blinded Damien. Squinting, he ducked his head. Brass incense pots were scattered on the stone floor. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the fakir looming in the doorway, a lighted torch in his ash-grayed hand.
With ferocious strength, Damien strained against the ropes. Bastard! I’ll kill you for hurting Sarah. I’ll throw you to the vultures for keeping me from her and Kit!
The words reverberated through his brain. The gag permitted only a low rumble of fury in his throat.
“So thou has awakened at last,” said the fakir. “Calm thyself. Thou shalt live, feringhi devil, at least for a time. Thy miserable life shall serve a greater purpose.”