A Love That Never Tires (22 page)

Linley sank down onto the wet grass, burying her head in her hands. “I feel like such an ass.”

He almost smiled. Almost. “It was either that or marry Gaynor Robeson. And I’d much rather part with my house than my dignity.”

“Oh, Patrick. I had no idea it had come to that.”

“I made you a promise, didn’t I?” he said. “The night before you left I swore I wouldn’t marry Gaynor. And I am a man of my word.”

“But to sell your house? All because you made a promise to me?”

He shrugged. “It’s only money. Aren’t you the one always accusing me of being a slave to my fine things? Now that I am finally taking your advice, you seem a little shocked.”

“It’s just that I think you might have taken me too literally.”

“Beg pardon?”

“It goes back to what we were just arguing about, what we alway
s
argue about—I know you are unhappy. I know you have been unhappy for some time. But changing your circumstances isn’t going to help you. It doesn’t matter if you have money, or where you live, or who you marry, or who you don’t marry. None of that will make you happy. And I’ve hammered it into your head so much that now you think
I
can make you happy.”

“You’re one to talk, always telling me what I need or don’t need in my life. Pretending all the while that you have yours all figured out,” he said. “You cannot even make up your mind whether you want me or not.”

It was true, Linley had to admit. Half the time she wanted to kiss him, and the other half of the time she wanted to strangle him. Even in the span of one conversation, she’d jumped the fence so many times she lost count. And if she were truly honest with herself, she wasn’t exactly sure where she stood now.

***

They walked down the path in silence with only the sound of birds and the rustling of the leaves to keep them company. It was true that Patrick sold the London house because he needed the money, but it wasn’t the whole truth. He wanted to tell her. He intended to tell her everything, but he needed to find the right time. He only hoped he would know it when he saw it.

Behind them, the village faded out of view. In front of them, the mist still shrouded their destination. As they plodded on, mosquitoes zipped past their heads, causing Linley to flail her arms and swat them. The Talbot-Martin team always carried Quinine, but with the ever-present risk of malaria, mosquito bites were nothing to take lightly.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Patrick asked.

“It isn’t much farther,” she said. “I’ve already been there once today.”

Patrick pulled out his watch. “Once already? But it’s only seven o’clock.”

“I’m an early riser.”

“Clearly,” he said, snapping the lid closed and slipping it back in his pocket.

A group of young Indian women emerged from the fog, carrying jugs of water back to the village. They kept to the far side of the road but seemed curious about the new white visitors. As he and Linley passed by them, Patrick smiled and nodded, sending the women into a frenzy of giggles.

“Don’t think for a moment they like our being here,” Linley told him. “They tolerate the English only because they have to.”

Patrick frowned. “But they seem so friendly.”

“Yes, well, perhaps my perspective is a little different because I’ve spent the majority of my life in the colonies,” she said. “Hell, I live in a British colony, and even there I am treated with disdain.”

“Then why live there?”

She shrugged. “Malta is a nice, centralized location—close to Egypt, close to Greece, and close enough to the Far East through the Suez Canal.” For the first time in a long time, she stopped and turned to him. “But it is really very beautiful. I’d love for you to visit someday.”

“Would you?” Patrick asked.

Linley smiled. “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the view of the Harbor from my veranda.”

“If I went to Malta, I promise you I would not be there for the view.”

Linley felt her cheeks grow warm, a habit she couldn’t seem to break since they first met. “We…uh…should really keep walking,” she said, fumbling for something to say. “Papa won’t like it if we get off to another late start.”

They walked in silence for a little while longer. Linley wished she could think of something clever to say because she enjoyed flirting with Patrick, but never knew how to react whenever he took it one step further. How could she master the fine art of flirtation when the only men she knew were more like brothers? Patrick clearly had the advantage in the situation, and that would not do at all.

“You know, when in India, there is really only one way to travel,” she said, stopping at the sound of palms rustling in the jungle.

Patrick heard it, too. He stood at her side and glanced around. “By train?”

The rustling grew louder with every second. Although they could not see anything out of the ordinary, men’s voices echoed around them, talking and shouting in a language Patrick was certain he never heard before. He turned his head, trying to decipher the words, or from which direction they came.

Linley grinned, growing more excited as he appeared all the more confused. With a loud trumpet blast, a great gray behemoth erupted from between the trees.

“By Elephant!” she cried.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Patrick stared wide-eyed as three elephants emerged from the jungle. On each of their necks, an Indian
mahout
sat with a large wooden staff in hand. Two were elderly men and one looked no older than twelve. They whispered something to their mounts, and the elephants raised their pink-speckled trunks and trumpeted.

Linley couldn’t stop grinning. “I told you there was only one way to travel!” she said, smacking him on the shoulder. “Do you think you’re up to it?”

He looked down at her. “I am if you are.”

The
mahout
called another command, and the elephant closest to them went down on one knee. Then, it sank down onto the ground. From the backs of the others, Sir Bedford and the rest of the team frowned. They sat perched in
howdah
baskets, loaded down with supplies.

Linley waved up at them and approached the elephant.

“Do you need a leg up?” Patrick asked her.

Seated beside Linley’s father, Archie scoffed and called down, “She doesn’t need your help! She can do it on her own.”

“Actually,” Linley said, batting her eyes at Patrick. “I could use a hand, if you would be so kind.”

He smiled down at her and placed his hands around her waist. “It would be my pleasure,” he said, lifting her onto the elephant’s back. With his help, Linley mounted with ease, but on his own, Patrick didn’t fare so well. He took a few steps backward, then got a running start, and leapt upon the great beast’s side, scrambling up onto its back.

Linley grabbed his hand and helped him into the
howdah
. “Not bad for a first try.”

Patrick settled himself in the basket, catching his breath. With another command from the
mahout
, the elephant shifted back onto its feet. The
howdah
lurched and swayed, and Patrick reached across the basket to steady himself. As he did so, his body brushed against Linley’s, making them both aware of the tight confines they would be traveling in together.

“You’re not wearing a corset,” he whispered.

“What’s the point? It is too hot, and no one here really cares.” She smiled and bumped him with her elbow. “Besides, I rather like the sensation of not wearing one.”

Patrick puffed out a breath and groaned. It was going to be a long journey.

***

The heat was intolerable. Not a dry, Moroccan sort of heat, but a wet-hot one that clung to him. Within hours, his clothes were damp, and Patrick stood a real chance of growing chafed. Every jerk and sway of the
howdah
on the elephant’s back rubbed him in a way that could only be described as…wrong.

“Am I the only one who’s miserable?” he asked.

“No,” Linley replied, “You’re just the only one who doesn’t know how to hide it.”

Patrick winced as the elephant stepped over a fallen tree branch.

She laughed and stretched. “We’ll ride until the sun gets low over the tree-line, then we’ll set up camp for the night.”

Patrick struggled to find a position that didn’t cause something to go numb. “And what is it we are looking for, again?”

“Scrolls,” she explained. “Ancient Buddhist texts.”

“Forgive me, but what does the British Museum want with Buddhist scrolls?”

“Nothing, actually,” Linley said, wiggling her arm free and shifting against the side of the basket. “You see,” she whispered, “It’s more a pet project of my father’s than anything dealing with the museum.”

“Then what does your father want with Buddhist scrolls?”

“He has spent the last fifteen years looking for these scrolls,” she explained. “They’re extremely old, and—if they even still exist—would be worth a great deal of money.”

Patrick’s eyes grew wide. “You’re a treasure hunter.”

“No!” Linley slapped her palm over his mouth. “It isn’t like that. These texts are sacred, and until now, no one has ever come this close to finding them. If our team makes the discovery, we would never have to worry about anything again. We’d be famous.”

“So, let me make sure I understand,” he said. “You and your team plan to ransack a Buddhist temple in search of sacred texts for your own fame and fortune…and yet you are
not
treasure hunters?”

Linley gave his shoulder a shove. “Oh! If you’ve come to mock my work, you should have stayed in London!”

“I’m not mocking,” Patrick said. “Now could you please turn back around? Your knees are digging into my thigh.”

She did as he asked. “I believe in my father, and if these texts are important to him, nothing you can say or do will stop me from helping him find them.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’m sorry for teasing you.”

Linley’s eyes darted over to his. “Apology accepted. But if we are really to spend the next three days sharing this same basket, we’re going to have to come up with something better to talk about.”

“Fine.” Patrick let his arm dangle over the side of the
howdah
and rubbed the tips of his fingers across the leafy palms that slapped the elephant’s tough hide. “What do you suggest we discuss?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “How about that aside from our names and our immediate family members, we know absolutely nothing about each other?”

“All right,” he said, tucking his arm back into the basket. “What do you want to know about me?”

She drew a complete blank. Thousands of questions had crossed her mind since she met him, and she’d always meant to ask them, but now that he put her on the spot, she could not call any to mind. “I can’t think of anything at the moment.”

“Well, let me know when you do.”

She sat in silence, listening to her father and Archie chat about the possibility of finally discovering the scrolls. Somehow, over the chatter of the birds in the trees and the crunch of the elephants’ feet, she heard Schoville snoring. Reginald, with whom he shared a
howdah
, sat hunched in the farthest corner of the basket, fingers jammed into his ears.

Over the years, they had all grown very close. Some even closer than they were with their own families. She understood their resistance to Patrick. She really did, and she was certain if one of them brought along a woman, she would be just as upset. After all, they were family, and they were all a bit overprotective of each other.

“Tell me about your family,” Linley blurted out. “About your brother.”

Patrick shifted in his seat. Why did she have to ask him about Johnnie? “What do you want to know?”

“How did he die?”

He cleared his throat. “He drowned.”

“Oh.”

“He was only a year older than I. We were very close,” Patrick explained. “Whenever we were home from school on summer holiday, we would swim in the river near our house. But always together.” He cleared his throat again. “One day, he went by himself. No one even knew he was missing until he didn’t turn up for dinner. By then, it was too late.”

“Did they find him?”

“Not until the next morning.”

Linley lowered her head. “I’m very sorry.”

“My father never recovered. He was never the same man again.” Now that he started talking, Patrick couldn’t seem to stop. “He didn’t just lose a child, he lost an heir. And I went from being the carefree second son to having to shoulder a world of responsibility that I was not born for. By the age of nineteen, I’d lost my mother, my brother, my father, and even Georgiana—she was sent to live with relatives until I reached my majority and became her guardian.”

Linley could not resist reaching over and taking his hand. “Most young men would rather their sister live with a relative than take on the responsibility of raising her.”

“It was clear our stepmother had no desire to care for her, so who else could do it but me? The way I saw it, I really had no choice.”

“Whatever you reasoning,” Linley said. “I respect you for it.”

He tried to smile for her. “Don’t think that it was all bad. Georgiana, and Johnnie, and I had some really wonderful times growing up. I think we were the three happiest children in all of England.” Patrick leaned forward in their basket. “Now, it is my turn,” he said. “I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask you all along.”

Linley leaned forward, too. “What is it?”

“Why does your father call you Button?”

She squeaked, covering her face with her hands. “It’s just a silly nickname.”

“Every nickname has to come from somewhere,” Patrick said. He reached up and pulled her hands down. “So…out with it.”

Linley groaned, hesitated, and then finally blurted it out. “I used to eat buttons.”

“You ate buttons?”

“I always had this obsession with putting things into my mouth,” she explained. “Nothing shiny was safe—cufflinks, collar buttons, glove buttons, dress buttons…I could snap them off and pop them in my mouth faster than you could blink.”

Patrick rubbed his palm hard against the side of his face. “I do believe this is the most fascinating conversation I’ve ever had.”