The Tiger's Lady (33 page)

A muscle flashed at Pagan’s jaw.

“Barrett.” Slowly the Englishman repeated the word.

Not Lily or Lola, he thought. No Fanny or Gertie or Doris for
her.

No, by the highest heaven, it had to be
Barrett.
The woman he had rescued in London four months before.

And she obviously had no memory of any part of it.

His fingers left her wrists. “That’s—that’s wonderful. Barrett,” he added stiffly, a moment later. His eyes smoldered, willing her to remember even some small detail of that night, that incredible encounter by lamplight.

But she did not.

He was a complete stranger to her.

A bleak torrent of longing ripped through him. So his first instinct had been right after all. Her hair must have been dyed then, part of a desperate disguise to elude her relentless pursuers.

But who
were
they? And what was she doing here, on the opposite side of the world, four months later?

No matter how he considered the question, Pagan always wound up with the same answer: James Ruxley. His spies must have witnessed everything that night and eventually uncovered the secret of the “Rajah of Ranapore’s” true identity.

After that it would have been simple enough for a Machiavellian mind like Ruxley’s to corner the woman and force her into his deadly web.

The thought of how she had been used sent fury coursing through Pagan.

A thousand questions exploded to his lips, and yet one look at her ashen, bewildered face told him that she would have answers for none of them.

So for now he must bide his time and hide his own knowledge until more of her memory returned. “How … how did it happen?”

“I was watching the trees and then suddenly it was
there.”
Her sapphire eyes searched his face. “I’m—I’m not going mad, am I, Pagan?”

No, Cinnamon, you ‘re not, but I think I am.
Somehow Pagan bit back the words and merely shrugged. “I doubt it,
Angrezi.
I expect the mind can work in strange ways.” His eyes unreadable, he drew away and rose slowly from the sand. “Now we’d better get back. It will be dark in the jungle already.”

The woman before him did not move. Wide-eyed, she stared back at him, trying desperately to understand his abrupt withdrawal.

“Let’s go, damn it!” Without a backward look Pagan started up the beach, slinging the rifle over his shoulder.

“Wait!”

“If you hurry, maybe you’ll remember the rest of your name by the time we get back to camp,” he muttered.

Though the words were for himself alone, she heard him. It brought her to her feet in a rush. Sand flying, she darted after him, grabbing his arm and pulling him around to face her.

“W-why are you doing this?”

“Because I need to get back to camp,
Angrezi.
Because I’m tired and I’m hungry and I have a thousand things to finish before we leave at dawn. Mainly, because I want to get this whole bloody business over and behind me.”

It was a lie, of course.

Why? Because your name is Barrett, not Cinnamon, and I loved you the first moment I saw you,
he wanted to shout.
Because you belong somewhere else. With some other man, damn the pair of you. In an England I can never go home to again.

But Pagan said none of those things. His only response was the savage tightening of his long, bronzed fingers on the rifle slung over his shoulder.

“You’re lying,” she breathed slowly.

“Am I? You know nothing about me.” Suddenly he tensed, seizing her and dragging her against him. “Didn’t Ruxley tell you that I like my women hot and willing when I take them, not stubborn and argumentative?”

As he spoke, Pagan’s fingers splayed out over her soft curves, forcing her savagely against the rigid, throbbing line of his arousal. “That I like my bed partners to be experienced, to know how to give as well as receive pleasure?”

Scowling, he tore off the patch from his throbbing eye. What did it matter now if she turned away in revulsion?

Dark and churning as a monsoon sky, his eyes raked her face. “But maybe you really
are
all those things, my dear. Yes, maybe
this
innocence is the act. Let’s find out, shall we?”

His lips twisted into a mocking smile as he cupped her hips and drove his straining manhood against her soft belly.

The irony was that what he’d said was true. Pagan
did
like all those things—or at least he always used to.

Until he crossed paths with a stubborn English beauty with skin like Devonshire cream and eyes the color of spring bluebells.

A woman who infuriated him, tormented him, delighted him.

A woman such as he’d never met before and would surely never meet again.

A woman he could never allow a heartbeat closer than this, Pagan thought bitterly. Because
she
couldn’t remember, and
he
couldn’t forget.

Against his bare chest her breasts rose and fell in short, jerky bursts. “W-why? Why are you saying these things?”

“Why? Because I’m a bastard, my dear Barrett.” Even now the name stung his lips, kindling heated memories. “Because I’m a liar and a cheat and a hardened scoundrel. Don’t ever forget it.”

“That’s not true! You are none of those things. At least not
all
the time,” she amended carefully. “And you
are
capable of kindness—great kindness.”

“Is it proof you’re looking for? So be it.” With a smothered curse, he lifted her from the ground, driving her against his swelling arousal.
“That’s
the only thing I care for,
Angrezi,
there against your belly. It’s nothing personal, of course. Any woman will do. If you believe anything else, then you’re bound for disappointment.”

It was a lie of course, but some demon drove him to shock her, repulse her. Maybe if he read revulsion in those beautiful eyes he could forget her, forget this tormenting hunger…

Pagan gritted his teeth as he felt the melting softness of her thighs, heard the ragged rush of her breath. How much he wanted her. Right there on the sand, with her hair wild and glorious, wrapping them in a sweet, silken cloud. With her soft skin on fire and her thighs straining against his throbbing manhood. With her breathy sighs of pleasure like rain in his ears.

But such a thing was impossible. No one knew that better than he.

So instead of tossing her down and filling her as his body urged, he dropped her onto the ground and turned away, tormented by all the things that could never be.

“You’re
lying,”
she said furiously. “For the last time, I want to know why.”

“Because your name is Barrett, that’s why,” Pagan said curtly, striding up the beach without another word.

When they reached Pagan’s bungalow, the lanterns were lit. The moment Pagan strode out of the jungle, Mita darted down the steps, anxiety creasing her fragile features.

“Sahib!
We are all worrying so very much about you! Nihal has just gone for a rifle so that we could search the beach. You have not been hurt, have you? We are hearing the roars of the leopard.”

Grim-faced, Pagan strode across the small clearing and thundered up the steps to the porch.

When the lantern light fell upon him, the Indian woman gasped. “But,
sahib
—you have been hurt!”

“Nothing serious, Mita. Just three more of Ruxley’s men who cornered us down on the beach.”

“Where is this foul offal of the
Angrezi
dog-merchant?”

“Two fled on foot. The other one is still on the beach. He won’t be going anywhere.” Pagan’s eyes hardened. “Tell Nihal to see to the man’s burial. Unless the leopards have gotten to him first, that is.”

“Which is only what all the misbegotten jackal-sons are deserving! I go to fetch medicine and bandages, my lord.” She darted back into the bungalow, and Pagan followed.

At the top of the steps, he turned. In the swaying light of the oil lantern, the scar below his restored eyepatch gleamed in an angry slash of silver. “I advise you to seek your bed early,
Angrezi.
You’ll need all your strength. We leave at dawn tomorrow.”

Pagan did not take his own advice that night.

After cleaning and bandaging his forehead with gauze, he paced, far too restless for sleep. Barefoot, he stalked the polished planks of his room again and again, unable to relax. Irritated, he scowled down at a sheet of paper on his desk. It was in the same pristine state that it had been in three days ago, although it had to be finished and sent off with a runner before they left in the morning.

But somehow whenever he sat down in front of the ivory sheet, all Pagan saw was Barrett’s pale face when the leopards emerged from the jungle and her proud back when she darted toward the ocean.

Or her slim thighs, naked and sea-slick beneath his white shirt.

Vainly he tried to ignore the heat that surged through his unrepentant body and tightened his manhood. Scowling, he tossed three fingers of whiskey into a glass and drank it down straight.

He grimaced as the liquid fire leaped through him, burning a path down to his toes. It was too bloody long since he’d had a woman, that was all!

But the whiskey’s heat was not nearly as searing as the fire that mocked him at the thought of the woman sleeping just down the hall. Right now her sunset hair would be spilling over the pillow. Her body would be veiled in a sheer chemise, and her skin would be like warm satin, flushed with sleep.

Yes, if he went to her now, she would open to him in passion before she knew it.

In a minute he would have her hot and breathless, panting for his possession, begging for his throbbing invasion.

With a black curse Pagan smashed down his empty glass and spun about to pace once more.

How had the witch managed to burrow beneath his skin like this? Was he still befuddled from his last bout with malaria? Or was it because of his long weeks of enforced solitude, far from female companionship?

Pagan scowled. At that moment he didn’t really care why.

All that mattered now was that he get free of her, so he could clear his head. Already this damnable obsession had come close to costing him his life—and hers along with it. No one but an utter fool would have allowed himself to be caught without a rifle, after all.

And the situation was only going to get worse. There would be no relief for him—in mind or in body—until he burned her from his blood once and for all.

But perhaps there was another way. His eyes narrowed, dark as the shadows outside the bungalow.

Yes, perhaps Mita was the answer. The girl obviously adored him, even though her worship was based on a heroic image Pagan knew did not exist. More than once since their return from London she had told him he was welcome in her bed, so why did he continue to deny himself? He would be gentle with her, after all, seeing to her pleasure before he took his own.

The planter’s face hardened as he turned to pour himself another glass of whiskey.

The notion was utterly repellent to him.

By Shiva, hadn’t he shed the last of his constricting English morality long ago?

At that moment a soft rustle from the hall caught him up short. Slowly he lowered his glass, listening intently.

Again it came, the soft whisper of fine cloth on bare skin. This time there was something furtive about the sound. It was too light to be Nihal or one of the housemen, and Mita’s step was quicker. Which left only—

Grim-faced, Pagan waited. Outside the footsteps drew closer. He felt his fingers freeze on the cool rim of his glass. Only inches away he heard the faint swish of fabric.

His heart drumming, he forced himself to wait, motionless. After what seemed an eternity the low footsteps passed on down the corridor toward the front of the bungalow.

Going outside?

A muscle flashing at his jaw, Pagan inched open the door. A single oil lamp flickered on a carved teak cabinet down the corridor, spilling golden light across the bungalow’s burnished floor. And in the light appeared a vision of heart-stopping beauty, clad in sheer, flowing lawn, which clung to slim thighs and softly curving hips.