The Tiger's Lady (23 page)

Except that it brought him no pleasure, Pagan discovered. Instead the sight left him sick inside.

She jerked away and sank back against the wall. “’Twas a man, that much I know. A man like you. Someone big and loud and cruel.”

“I’m going to have to clean those wounds, Cinnamon. It’s going to be—unpleasant.”

She swayed slightly. Her lips clamped down suddenly and her fingers whitened on the wall. “Don’t worry about
me,
Mr. Pagan. You’d better worry about yourself!”

You’re brave, Cinnamon,
Pagan thought.
But the ragged beat of the vein at your temple tells me any minute you’re going to find yourself flat on the floor.

Meanwhile the carbolic acid was going to hurt like hell.

With a low curse, Pagan forced himself to watch and wait. He gave her about thirty seconds.

Her eyes closed and her lashes fell, a curtain of gold across her cheeks. She might almost have been insensible, except for the vein pounding at the base of her neck.

Seconds passed. Soundlessly he raised the net and stalked closer.

Twenty seconds…

Her fingers relaxed slightly. Her lashes fluttered. He was close enough now to hear her jerky breathing.

Ten…

He waited like a silent predator hidden in the bush, powerful flanks tensed. Knowing her weakness better than she did.

And when her breath fled sharply and her knees gave way, he was already bending forward to catch her, one broad palm cupping her shoulder, the other wrapped about her waist. Grimly, he pulled her into his arms and anchored her against his chest, fighting the fire that scorched him where her nipple thrust against his rib.

A shudder shook her, raging the whole length of her slim body. “I’m
not
crying. I n-never cry,” she mumbled, her eyes dark with tears and defiance.

A moment later her head fell onto his shoulder, golden hair spilling across his chest like a burnished curtain.

Pagan groaned, twisting against the knives stabbing at his stomach. The heat was there, just as before, only now it was mixed with piercing pain.

“Tiger
-sahib?”

The words were soft, uncertain.

“Drink, my lord.”

“What the bloody—” Cold china met his dry lips and bitter liquid slipped down his throat. Coughing, he twisted, forced to swallow. Cinchona, he thought dimly. Foul, but effective.

“More please, Tiger
-sahib.”
Soft fingers anchored his head.

Mita, Pagan realized. Not the
Angrezi
woman with fire in her hair and fury in her eyes. Mita: an Indian beauty who wore her love for him openly in her shining eyes.

A woman he would never touch, because to do so would hurt her far more than she had been hurt in the brothel Pagan had freed her from in London.

But what was Mita doing here? He’d left her back at Windhaven.

Scowling, Pagan emptied the last of the foul potion, then fell back against the pillow. Dimly he realized he was in a cot in the little shed he used for an office. He remembered staggering here the night before as the fevers swept over him.

“Wh-what day, Mita?” he muttered in Hindi.

“Thursday,
sahib,
just after dawn. You are sleeping a day and a night. Fever is going down now, I am thinking.”

Her patient grunted noncommittally. “Dawn?” he repeated. Then, more sharply, “Thursday? Where is the
Angrezi-memsab?”

There was the faintest hesitation. “The yellow-hair?”

Pagan heard the tightness in Mita’s voice. “Yes, the yellow-haired one.”

“In the
sahib’s
room. She is waking once, and I am giving her coconut milk. But she is only saying something angry to me, then pushing it away.”

Pagan’s lips curved into a smile. He could imagine
exactly
what his fiery trespasser had said upon being presented with a bowl of tepid coconut milk. “The
memsahib
sleeps still?”

“Yes, Tiger. You are wishing me to—”

Pagan threw back the covers and pushed unsteadily to his feet. “Never mind, Mita. I’ll see to the
memsab
myself.” Wobbling, he reached for the bedpost, then felt Mita’s slim, strong hand slip beneath his armpit. His lips twisted in irritation at his weakness. “Once again I must thank you.”

The woman shook her head sharply. “No thanks are owing to me, lord. Serving you is my duty.” Her dark lashes swept down for a moment, and then she looked up at him with luminous brown eyes. “It is also my greatest pleasure, Tiger-sahib.”

For the fifth time in as many weeks, Pagan reminded himself that he must find some way to cure Mita’s hero worship. Ever since he had rescued her from the two louts outside a low-class London brothel just two streets away from Helene’s, Mita had looked upon him with total adoration.

Pagan knew that if he chose to take her to his bed, she would offer no objection. In fact, she would be delighted.

Unlike the woman sleeping in his bed right now, he thought irritably.

Bloody everlasting hell!

But Pagan had not bedded Mita, because he knew too well what it would do to them both. There could only be pain where one of them loved too much, and the other loved far from enough.

Yet sometimes when the delirium was high on him, as it was now, his abstinence proved damnably painful. What matter if he thought of the honey-haired woman, as long as Mita was willing?

Gripping the bedpost, Pagan looked down. Belatedly he realized he was stark naked. Worse yet, all this thought of bed partners was making his body stiffen and swell.

“Bring me my clothes, Mita, and also my boots. Then see that Nihal makes a light repast—eggs, tea, some sort of cakes. He can bring it up to my room.” The struggle to control his desire made his voice unnaturally harsh.

The woman’s lips quivered in disappointment. Most painful of all, Pagan knew, was his clear insistence that Nihal bring the food up to the bungalow, rather than herself.

But he decided to begin the process of disillusioning her right now. He was a cold-hearted bastard who would do nothing but break her heart if she let him, and the sooner she got used to that idea the better.

Next time she would be more careful where she gave her heart.

But the certainty that he was doing the
right
thing did nothing to make the sight of Mita’s quivering lips less pathetic. Pagan watched her turn and move stiffly to the door. “Mita,” he muttered, catching her as she was about to step outside.

“Yes,
sahib
?” she answered woodenly.

“You’ve done something different with your hair, haven’t you? Put some sort of combs in it.”

Her smile came instantly. “Yes, Tiger-
sahib.
You—you are liking it?”

“It is most alluring,” Pagan said gruffly. “When we return to Windhaven I’m afraid I’ll have to fight off the young men with a stick. They’ll be coming up to the big house with all sorts of imaginary problems, just in the hope of seeing you.”

The woman’s smile faded as quickly as it had come. “I go to see to the
sahib’s
clothes now,” she murmured, turning quickly and slipping from the room.

Damn it, Pagan thought. He’d botched the bloody business again.

And what about the other woman? She was getting under his skin. The sooner he got rid of her the better. But he could spare neither men nor time to escort her back to civilization at Colombo.

Not with the monsoon due any day.

That left him only one choice: taking her with him on the trek upcountry to Windhaven. He would see to her transportation from there.

The thought did not cheer him. Instead it heightened the raw sense of foreboding he’d felt for weeks.

She stood at the bungalow’s sole window, studying the lush greenery that stretched away in an unbroken flow around her. Nearby coconut palms, spiky shrubs, and flame-red hibiscus pressed close. Thick clusters of heavy white flowers hung beside the shutters, casting their rich scent into the still dawn air.

Jungle,
she thought hopelessly, listening to the deafening whine of insects that she had never seen, much less knew the names of.

Ceylon.

She struggled to summon what facts she could about this English outpost on the far side of the globe. Ten thousand miles from England, it floated in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Directly atop the equator, if her memory of schoolroom geography was correct.

Ironic, she thought. About
this
she seemed to have no lapse of recall.

No, it was only the personal facts she could not reclaim. Only the
important
things.

She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting to penetrate the dark barrier in her mind, only to give up a moment later with a tired sigh.

Nothing.

Always nothing.

Outside the window a small animal barked shrilly and crashed through the nearby shrubbery. A hook-billed bird with dangling crimson plumage flashed out of a palm tree and disappeared into the jungle.

The feeling of foreignness hit her like a fist. Wherever her home was, she knew it was not here. And until she knew where, she had few options open to her.

Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she gnawed it thoughtfully. If only she could find this man St. Cyr, who owned the estate. A peer and an English gentleman, certainly
he
could be counted on to help a female in distress.

Yes, she must think of a way to track down the viscount and tell him exactly what sort of villainy his estate manager was about in his absence. She hadn’t believed Pagan’s story about his employer’s venality for a minute.

Her teal eyes glittered with triumph as she thought of the look on Deveril Pagan’s face when he found out he was summarily dismissed. How she would enjoy showing the arrogant swine that he could not treat a decent Englishwoman as if she were one of his native trollops!

Caught up in her indignation, she did not stop to wonder why she also felt the first stirrings of jealousy.

Pagan massaged the welt above his eye as he stalked up the bungalow steps. He was almost tempted to leave the bloody eye patch off. Perhaps that would put a little fear into her!

But he didn’t care to see the look of revulsion that would follow. He’d seen that look too many times before, even from the fair Georgiana, although she’d been quick to conceal it.

Irritably Pagan slipped the dark patch up in place and strode down the corridor to his room.

The door opened noiselessly.

She was sitting fully dressed in a wicker chair by the window, staring out at the jungle. Her hair was neatly plaited in a thick coil falling over her shoulder. Her face, though pale, showed every sign of recovery.

Which was probably more than he could say for
his
face, Pagan thought grimly.

Her buttons, he noted, had all been sewn back on and her dress seemed pressed and perfectly proper. Along with twelve bloody layers of undergarments! he thought irritably.

The little fool must be burning up.

So why did she look as cool and unconcerned as if she were enjoying tea and apricot cake in a London drawing room? She was in the middle of the bloody jungle, after all, fifty miles from the nearest English plantation.