The Tiger's Lady (43 page)

Her hands tightened to fists. “It was vain to hope for your civility, I can see that now.”

With an angry snort, she tossed back her shimmering hair, which glowed in a fiery halo beneath the pink and lavender rays of dawn.

Her boots drumming, she stalked back up the dirt trail to camp.

You’ve got courage, Cinnamon, I’ll grant you that,
Pagan thought, his eyes following her retreat.

Then his face hardened.

It would take more than courage to get them through the headlands, where the great waterfalls plunged two hundred feet unimpeded to the granite boulders of the plains below.

Where the temperature dropped thirty degrees only minutes after sunset.

Where leopards ranged freely by night, and hunting parties would be nearly impossible to spot in the cliffs above.

Yes, Cinnamon, up there you’d better pray I’m
just
the sort who fires first and asks my questions later
; Pagan thought grimly.

They walked all through the morning. Frowning, Barrett studied the scattered green thickets and boulder-strewn washes rising upward at a gradual slant. Higher up lay trees and more trees, and beyond that the jungle faded into a white, shimmering haze.

In growing weariness she listened to the bearers’ quiet songs, to the slap of bare feet on the arid earth, to their grunts when they shouldered their burdens up an incline.

And after a while even those sounds seemed to slip away, the world growing bright and very silent. Her body felt strangely light, as if she were floating rather than walking.

Rather a pleasant sort of feeling, she decided.

The funny thing was that she couldn’t quite find her feet.

Several yards back, Pagan squatted by a giant banyan tree, pointing out a pattern of marks in the white dust.

Beside him Nihal frowned. “It is surely a party, as the Tiger says. Five or six men, I am numbering them. From the uplands, perhaps?” His chocolate eyes studied Pagan. “But who? And for what purpose?”

Pagan frowned, studying the trampled prints. He was lucky to have found them at all, for the trail had been swept clean everywhere else but here.

Now he knew two things. There were five of them. And their mission was not an innocent one, or they would not have gone to so much trouble to conceal it.

Rising to his feet, he slung his rifle over his shoulder and studied the rocky hills rising in the distance. Somewhere three days hence rose the first real mountains, and beyond them lay the rich green slopes of Windhaven.

“The two guards by the pool fell asleep last night, Nihal. I had to wake them twice. Tell the men that if there are any more such lapses they will all be fined two months’ wages. If it happens a third time, the penalty will be six.”

The slim servant bowed silently, hiding his surprise.

It was a very great amount, Pagan knew. The bearers would be very angry.

But it was necessary, if they were to make it out of the jungle alive.

He scowled as he watched Nihal’s retreating back, considering the one other piece of information he had kept from his headman.

This morning by the pool he had found another print.

It was the mark of a boot. An English boot, judging by its size and cut.

One of Ruxley’s hired mercenaries? Or just an independent, out to find the Shiva’s Eye for himself?

Impossible to say. But tonight he would be watching the trail himself, Pagan decided. He would camp high overhead in the shielding branches of a tree.

And when the bastard came past, he would be waiting. Frowning, he turned, watching the bearers pick their way over the rocky ground. As always his gaze was pulled to a burnished mane that flashed with all the heat of the sun. She ought to have braided it, he thought irritatedly. If it caught in the underbrush it would only slow them down.

With a graceful gesture he watched her sweep her hair from her shoulder, swaying slightly as she moved.

Pagan’s fingers tightened and he heard a sharp snap. Looking down, he saw the casuarina branch in his fingers break beneath the force of his grip.

Smothering a curse, he tossed the pulped wood down, watching dust rise like fine ash where it fell.

Inexorably his gaze returned to the woman on the trail. She stumbled, then began to walk into the jungle.

Scowling, Pagan saw the bearers move ahead, leaving more and more distance between her and them.

Where was Nihal? he wondered angrily. And where were the two armed bearers who were supposed to be always at her back?

But the path behind her was empty except for a wary hare and a pair of screeching, orange-tipped mynahs.

From the vantage of the higher ground Pagan could make out signs of recent digging at the next turn in the trail. Just beyond, he noticed a mound of carefully heaped leaves.

A curse ripped from his throat.

The next moment he was plunging down the hill, shouting a string of orders to the laggard bearers.

He reached her side mere inches from the mound. His eyes hard with tension, he jerked her back onto the trail and forced her face up to his.

Her teal eyes met him, glazed and unfocused. She blinked, muttering a dry croak that sounded remotely like his name.

Relief coursed through Pagan, and in its wake came anger. “What were you trying to do, get yourself killed?” His voice was low, harsh with the knowledge of how close she had come to dying.

Slowly Barrett’s eyes focused on Pagan’s granite face. “I … I was simply following orders.” One white hand rose in a slow, mocking salute. “Aye, aye, Admiral. No delays here, sir.” As she spoke she swayed slightly, stumbling back against him.

Pagan muttered a dark and very graphic curse. “You were also three feet off the trail when I got you, woman! Or hadn’t you bloody noticed?”

“Im-impossible,” she murmured.

Scowling, Pagan tugged her back across the trail to the spot where he had found her. With one arm clenched about her waist, he dragged a log from the ground and tossed it toward the scrubby patch of leaves.

There was a hiss, followed by the rush of falling leaves. A moment later the greenery caved in completely, and a black pit gaped before them.

The sight cleared Barrett’s haze. “W-what is
that?”

“A boar pit. An old native hunting practice. Only this one was a little better concealed than most.” Grimly Pagan stared down at the nine-foot recess where spiked lengths of bamboo rose up at two-foot intervals. The points were sharp and newly honed, he saw. Somehow that did not surprise him as much as it should have.

What Pagan didn’t tell Barrett was that he was nearly certain this pit was dug not with boars in mind, but humans.

More of Ruxley’s work? Or was it simply native hatred finding a covert vent?

Barrett studied the lethal rows of bladed bamboo, realizing how narrowly she had escaped death. She shivered, imagining the razored points plunging into her body. “You—you saved my life.” Sheet-white, her face rose to his. “And from such a death—” She halted as a shudder ripped through her.

Pagan fought down a wild urge to crush her to him and stroke the warmth back into her cheeks, to tongue the haze of unshed tears from her haunted eyes.

But right now there was no time for anything but moving on. He calculated that they had only three hours of daylight left and he wanted them in a safe spot when they camped tonight. He knew just the place, in fact, but it would require a sharp pace if they were to get there before darkness.

His eyes pored over Barrett’s face. “We’ve got a way to go before we can camp, Cinnamon. It would be very dangerous to stop here.”

For a moment he considered telling her his suspicions, but decided against it. No female of his acquaintance could be counted on to take news like that well, and he couldn’t risk a scene that might frighten off his already anxious bearers.

The headless jackals spiked beside the trail this morning had nearly accomplished that.

“Can you manage it? If we rest here for fifteen minutes first?” His voice was low. “I’m bloody sorry,
Angrezi,
but…”

Barrett blinked at the urgency in his voice, hearing for the first time the worry he tried to conceal. Her lips curved in a rather unsteady smile as she realized this was the first time he had ever asked—rather than ordered—her to do anything.

She offered him a wobbly salute. “Aye, aye, Admiral. Lead and I shall follow.”

Pagan came very close to smiling. Even with her hair full of twigs and stray leaves, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, a perfect vision of fire and loveliness. “I mean to hold you to that promise, sailor,” he said huskily, smoothing a twig from her hair.

A vein beat at Barrett’s temple. A strange, wild drumming filled her ears.

She gave him her best, blinding smile.

Then she slowly collapsed in his arms.

Fifteen minutes later, against all better judgment, Pagan ordered camp made for the night.

Barrett shifted restlessly and opened her eyes to purple shadows. She blinked, confused at first, trying to make out where she was. She turned her head slowly and her breath caught.

Across the narrow tent, working in the golden glow of a flickering palm-oil lantern, sat Pagan, his broad, strong hands moving over a set of papers, busy with some sort of calculations.

Barrett frowned, feeling her heart trip wildly in her chest. There was something about him, something she ought to know but never could quite pin down.

Was it something to do with her past? Or was it simply a premonition about the future?

If they
had
a future, she thought grimly.

She had not missed the bearers’ growing tension nor Nihal’s tight-lipped urgency as they made camp. And unless she had miscalculated, there were two less bearers on the trail today.

All of which added up to trouble—with more trouble yet to come.

Her eyes sought out the man who worked in silence, his face a shifting play of bronze and black in the lamplight. A dark comma of hair fell forward over his brow, feathering across his black patch, and he brushed it back impatiently.

It was a hard face, Barrett thought, and a remarkably handsome face. It was also a face that revealed nothing, its secrets buried deep. Even the silver scar twisting over his cheekbone seemed to mock her with its mysteries.

Her eyes narrowed as she realized he was once again wearing English dress. What did it mean?

But her thoughts soon turned to other considerations as she realized he did not know she was awake. Bold in the knowledge that she was unobserved, Barrett gave free rein to her curiosity, studying the broad shoulders encased in a crisp white shirt and the hair-dusted chest beneath. His cuffs were rolled back to reveal muscled forearms, the one on his right marked by long jagged welts.

As she studied the long, powerful fingers which eased open a scrolled map, she felt her heart skip a beat.

It was madness. It was folly, pure and incalculable.

But it was true, and she was far too honest to deny it.

She loved this man, this hard-faced adventurer who tormented her cruelly and who had thrice saved her life.