Demon's Fire (18 page)

Beth woke the next morning from a beautifully sound night’s sleep. Her body was warm and relaxed, birds were singing outside her window, and best of all Farouk & Assam’s had delivered her package at the break of dawn. One of the servants had left it inside her sitting room. Delighted to have avoided a confrontation with Herrington, even if the reprieve was temporary, she ran a cursory eye over the bill before tearing through the brown paper wrappings.

Shaking out the clothes inside was better than opening a heap of presents on Winter Solstice morn. She was determined not to let thoughts of Charles spoil her buoyant mood. She’d tried to speak to him again last night, but he’d refused. Never mind what Pahndir said about him being afraid; it would have been embarrassing for them both if she’d pushed harder. What could she say, in any case? This wasn’t the sort of situation etiquette manuals gave advice about.

Leave it,
she told herself, the tightness in her chest warning her that she wasn’t succeeding yet. She had to wait until Charles was ready to come around. She wouldn’t let their friendship be destroyed by this. She just wouldn’t.

That decided, she turned back to her new wardrobe. As luck would have it, the assistants at F&A had judged her figure to a
T
. Everything fit, and everything flattered. They’d even thought to include a handful of sleeveless, snug-fitting underblouses, which would serve her as well as any Jeruvian brassiere. Beth did a little houri dance in front of her mirror, imagining how very much she’d enjoy showing them off to Pahndir. She was ablaze to go to him that minute, though he’d still be abed.

Whatever else was wrong in her life, it was lovely to have an almost assuredly admiring man to wear things for. Beth could admire the clothes herself, of course, but sharing the pleasure was twice as fun. It was, in truth, nearly enough to make her forget her benefactor’s likely response.

And then one of Herrington’s stiff-backed male servants tapped and called through the door.

“’Scuse me, miss,” he said when she cracked it open. She could tell from his face that the apology was strictly perfunctory. “Lord Herrington requests your presence in the breakfast room.”

The breakfast room at the
haveli
gave Beth the “creeps,” as Charles’s slang-loving little brother, Max, referred to them. The walls above the dark wainscoting were covered in the iridescent eyes of real peacock tails, a unique decorating choice made by the previous owners. Considering the thousands of feathers it had required, Beth doubted they’d waited for the birds to lose them naturally. The fussy little chairs that slid under the dining table had been done in matching shades of blue and green. The rug was likewise blue, and the high oval ceiling shiny green with gold trim.

Sadly, Beth couldn’t blame this atrocity on local taste. With the fashion for exotica that had lately infected her countrymen, the room could have been transferred in its entirety to Avvar and found itself perfectly at home.

Beth never ate breakfast here if she could help it, but aesthetic repugnance would be no excuse for ignoring Herrington’s “request.”

“I’ll be down directly,” she assured the servant, then winced at her reflection in a nearby mirror. She was wearing her favorite of her new outfits, a matched tunic and trousers in pale yellow cotton that was embroidered with small white flowers. The top was light as air, the loose pyjama pants wonderfully easy to walk in. Beth looked nice, but hardly proper. Too bad the servant’s stern delivery had warned her she’d better not delay long enough to change.

“Perdition take it,” she muttered to herself. This threw a wrench in her hopes for slipping away to Pahndir. But maybe it was just as well. Although her body hummed with well-being, the prince had said he’d contact her in a day or two. Surely it was poor strategy to look too eager, even if she loathed the concept of playing games.

She sighed with resignation and smoothed her top. Might as well get this over with. She doubted Charles had spilled the beans about her and Pahndir in the pool, but maybe Herrington had seen the clothes arrive. Whether he had or hadn’t, at least she’d be comfortable while he scolded her.

To her surprise, though not exactly to her relief, a scolding didn’t seem to be her immediate destiny.

A couple sat with Herrington at one end of the large oval table, next to the remains of a chased silver coffee tray. Beth assumed the pair were married, though the woman was much younger than her tall, silver-haired husband. They were Northerners for certain, and prosperous ones. Beth could tell their clothing was custom tailored. The woman’s extremely well-fitted bodice bared an expanse of bosom that would have made Beth jealous even a week ago. Now she simply observed the display and smiled.

It was small of her, she knew, but she didn’t mind at all that the woman was perspiring, despite plying a native paddle fan rather vigorously. With her smooth dark hair and her hourglass figure, she was as pretty as an ad for soap.

Her husband slid his delicate chair back and rose for Beth, a courtesy she didn’t expect from a male of his obvious status. She looked inquiringly at Herrington.

“Beth,” he said, his tone indicating no awareness that her dress was any different than usual. “This is Hiram Hemsley, Ohram’s minister of trade, and his wife, Eileen. They’ve come to tour Hhamoun and consider my proposal to establish an on-site museum. Minister Hemsley, Mrs. Hemsley, this is my assistant, Beth Philips.”

Beth supposed she was an assistant, though Herrington made it sound as if her role was an important one. Unsure how to respond, she offered a nodding bow to each member of the couple, hoping this was appropriate. She’d never encountered a minister before except as a printed signature on banknotes.

“Beth sees every artifact we uncover,” Herrington added misleadingly.

“How fascinating,” Mrs. Hemsley cooed, her smile as prettily contrived as the rest of her. “And how
clever
of you to wear local dress. The minister and I fear we shall turn to puddles before this trip is through.”

“Well, local dress is modest,” Beth said, spreading the tunic to show how it covered the baggy trousers to beneath her knees.

“Perfectly modest,” the minister agreed. “And very pretty.”

The warmth of his voice surprised her as much as the warning squeeze he gave his wife’s shoulder. This was an important man, but he was defending Beth from the whiff of disapproval his wife had given off. He resumed his seat and patted his spouse’s hand.

“You must have quite the grasp of local history,” he said.

Beth’s throat threatened to spasm on a cough. “I…do find it interesting.”

“Then you simply must share your theories,” his wife prompted. “Tell us who you think Queen Tou really was. Historians claim such terribly outrageous things.”

If Mrs. Hemsley was trying to lure her into an intellectual display that her husband would find unattractive, she had the wrong female. Then again…Images from Beth’s dreams of Tou rolled across her mind. Most weren’t suitable for public airing, but they did lend an unexpected authority to her answer.

“I think Tou was an extraordinary woman who ruled during a period when men weren’t used to obeying queens. I think she was a self-made woman, much as we have self-made men today. I think she overcame great hardships before she rose and, as a result, developed a sense of her own worth that no one could undermine. The accounts historians have passed down to us suggest she was ruthless, brilliant, and blessed with uncommon physical vigor. Such things may be exaggerated, but I suspect there’s a grain of truth in the tales. I also suspect she was a woman with a feeling heart, or her harem could not have adored her half as much as they were reputed to.”

Mrs. Hemsley’s fan had stilled at her throat, giving Beth a chance to admire the large red ruby gleaming on her ring finger.

“Oh, yes, her
harem
,” Mrs. Hemsley said with a tinkling, slightly scandalized laugh. “I suppose we’re lucky our spinster queen hasn’t taken it into her head to start one of those!”

“Queen Victoria has made decisions that are controversial,” Beth said. “Who knows what people will say of her in a thousand years?”

“All the more reason to preserve the evidence as fully as possible,” Herrington put in smoothly, seeing that Beth’s last rejoinder had disconcerted both his guests. While the minister seemed more liberal than his wife, he was sworn to honor Victoria. “People should base their opinions on all the facts.”

“Yes,” Minister Hemsley said vaguely, as if he weren’t paying attention to what he was agreeing to. “Facts are useful things.”

“As are assistants.” Herrington turned his leonine head to Beth. “I was hoping you’d take Mrs. Hemsley around the city while the minister and I discuss business. Perhaps escort her to the Hotel Bhamjran? There’s a festival today. The terrace should provide an excellent view of the elephants.”

Mrs. Hemsley had been looking as dismayed as Beth at the prospect of spending the day together, but at the mention of elephants, she brightened. “Oh, let’s do! Elephants are the most darling creatures!”

Beth turned her disbelieving stare to Herrington.

“You do know your way around,” he said, bland and soft. “Apparently at any hour of the day or night.”

So that’s what this was about: keeping her out of trouble. She should have known, Yama being such masters of indirect assaults. She wished she could be petulant and refuse him, but she knew how important this proposed in situ museum was to Herrington. She liked the idea herself, which meant she also had an interest in getting pinch-minded Mrs. Hemsley out of the way.

None of this, however, meant she couldn’t be a bit impish. She shifted her attention to Mrs. Hemsley with a devilish smile.

“We could stop at Jeweler’s Alley along the way,” she proposed, convinced the woman could do her husband’s finances considerable damage there. “It’s well worth seeing. You won’t believe what Bhamjrishi artisans can do with twenty-four-karat gold.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Hemsley, glancing unsurely at her husband. “I do love ethnic handicrafts.”

Beth had the pleasure of watching the minister turn pale.

The pair engaged in a rapid-fire whispered “conversation,” the sort husbands and wives excelled at, irrespective of their class. Herrington took the opportunity to pull Beth aside. For a moment, he regarded her with his unreadable silver eyes. It was hard to tell, even up close, but she thought he looked tired. She wondered if it had to do with wherever he’d been going when he stayed out all night. Even his kind had to rest sometimes.

“You answered her question about Tou well,” he said. “I appreciate the steadiness with which you’ve been applying yourself to your job lately.”

The last thing she’d expected was a compliment. Given who he was, the praise could have been a manipulation, though that didn’t stop her cheeks from heating with pleasure.

“I’ll take good care of Mrs. Hemsley,” she promised.

“I didn’t doubt that for a minute,” Herrington assured her, but Beth thought perhaps he had.

Charles watched Beth lead the woman into the street through one of his suite’s ornately screened windows. Herrington’s guest was unknown to him; some diplomat’s elite young wife, was his guess. Whoever she was, Beth wasn’t cowed by her. She looked different in her new clothes, more confident. It didn’t hurt that she topped the woman she was escorting by at least six inches—with or without her charge’s platter-size straw hat.

Charles’s amusement didn’t quite reach his eyes. Beth had knocked on his door the night before, wanting to know if he’d like to have dinner out with her. She’d left when he refused to answer, which was no more than he deserved for sulking like a child. Herrington had been out until dawn, no doubt indulging untold demon depravities with his desert paramour. Charles had been awake to hear him return, his sleep having been fitful, to say the least.

You’re pathetic,
he told himself as he rolled his forehead on the cool carved sandstone of the
jali
screen. Evidently, he’d expected his fellow residents to hang around here and watch him brood. There wasn’t even anything mysterious to brood upon. He knew exactly what was troubling him.

The people he cared about were supposed to hate him for his desires.

He’d built his adult life around the fear. He’d kept his secrets, crushed his cravings, all to fend off that seemingly inevitable rejection. And now his dearest friend had offered him his dearest wish as if it were nothing. Just,
Why don’t you have sex with me and this dangerous demon in the pool? We both like you. Why shouldn’t you?

Charles pressed his fist to his heart as if he could stop the inconvenient organ from beating. They both liked him. They both
liked
him. What did that even mean? Did they still like him now that he’d told them to go to hell?

One thing he knew for certain: What he’d witnessed in that plunge bath hadn’t been based on anything as tame as “liking.” Fucking didn’t describe it, or making love. They’d clung to each other like life preservers in a raging storm. Pahndir’s face had been as readable as a human’s. If he wasn’t half in love with Beth, Charles would eat that diplomat’s wife’s hat.

What Beth felt in return, he didn’t want to ponder on.

Except…if there was the slightest chance they might, someday, come to feel for him what they felt for each other, wasn’t that a chance worth pursuing? Wouldn’t it be blessing enough to turn his misbegotten life around? Charles had been loved—by his guardian, Roxanne, by his brother, Max, and maybe in her own way by Beth. He’d simply never had anyone look at him the way Pahndir looked at Beth—as if she were his very sun. There had been hope in the demon’s expression: hope and affection and a sureness Charles didn’t normally associate with love. Pahndir relished what he felt for Beth. He wasn’t afraid of his emotions at all.

Charles fist had shifted to rubbing the bone that joined his ribs. Letting it drop, he turned away from the window.

If a demon had the courage to face his feelings, why couldn’t Charles?