The Tiger's Lady (63 page)

Her fingers twisted nervously as the boots hammered closer. Heat flooded her face.

The steps slowed, then halted outside the closed door of the dining room.

Barrett felt her heart race, her pulse drumming like thunder through her veins. She prayed he would go on, prayed she would not have to face him—not yet, while she was so strangely vulnerable, so unable to sort out the chaos of her emotions.

And then from the far corridor came Nihal’s quiet call.

With a pang of something perilously close to regret, Brett heard Pagan resume his brisk progress past the door and disappear down the hallway.

Her breath hissed out in a rush. Only then did she realize that she had been holding the air deep in her throat.

“Like
that
is it, m’dear?” The colonel’s eyes were dark and keen, but not unkind. “Seen it too often before not to recognize the signs, you understand? Aye, females have been falling all over Pagan since he was fifteen years old. Even then he had a wildness about him, a sort of gypsy recklessness that seemed to send them crashing like moths to a flame.”

Barrett shivered. The image of the incinerated moth returned to haunt her. She tried to speak but no sound emerged. Her hands twisted restlessly in her lap.

“No need to deny it. No need to say anything, in fact. I understand perfectly.”

No need to deny it.

She stiffened, hearing a faint drumming in her head.

No need to deny it, need to deny it.
Like a cruel chant the words went on and on.

Her trembling hands cupped her temples. A shadow, smiling and faceless, loomed in the darkness at the edges of the room. She could hear him, feel him. But when she turned, he melted away, remaining always just beyond the edge of her vision.

She realized then that her memory was there and had always been there. All she had to do was reach out to seize it. All she had to do was
want
it, just as Pagan had told her in the glen.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to summon up all the past that had been denied her.

No need to deny it. No need…

Suddenly there was fear. Like a small, quick rodent with flashing white teeth it skittered close, snapping at any part of her it could reach.

I want to remember,
she told herself fiercely.
I must remember!

“Barrett—m’dear—” The colonel’s voice came faint, so faint, as if from a vast distance away.

She felt it. It was just beyond the fear now, waiting for her. Her chest rose and fell jerkily.

Take it, Brett. Want it and it’s yours.

“No need to deny it.” She repeated the words aloud, softly at first and then louder as the power in her grew. She felt the gathering, the first tingle of full awareness. But with the power the fear grew too, until she thought it would rip her into a thousand quivering pieces.

But she held, held until the snapping jaws melted back into the shadows, until she knew the past she searched for was right before her, and when her eyes opened she would see it.

“Are you quite all right, m’dear? Perhaps some brandy—” The words were closer now but strange, as if spoken in a foreign tongue.

Barrett paid no heed, intent only on the faceless things lurking in the darkness.

Yes, I want it. I must have it. For myself. For Pagan.

She opened her eyes then, staring at the colonel’s worried face. But her teal eyes looked far beyond him, fixed on a heaving, straining darkness that seemed to lurch closer with every jerky surge of her heart.

Like splintered glass, the bright shards flashed out, in every shape and size. And each one was a memory, some sweet, some bitter, some inexpressibly cruel.

Suddenly it was all there, every ragged moment, every splintered fragment of her past spilled in a glistening heap about her.

Their light was so bright they blinded her, made her throat constrict, made her want to weep.

“My dear girl—Miss Brown—” Strong, bony fingers circled her hand with surprising force. “You must tell me what bothers you.”

Barrett did not think to lie, not to the kindly face before her. “You may call me Brett, Colonel,” she said, her voice high and unsteady. “Just Brett. All my friends do. And as for the rest, I’ve … I’ve never liked brown.” Her eyes were huge, tremulous. “If you want something more formal, you may call me Winslow. For you see, I—I know. Dear heaven, I remember. All of it now.”

The colonel shot her a curious look, his unruly brows knitting. But before he could speak there came a new voice from the doorway, low and dark and commanding. In their turmoil neither Barrett nor Hadley had heard the door open.

“Yes, my dear, pray do enlighten us, why don’t you? Just what
is
going on here?”

He was dressed in formal attire, white broadcloth crisp beneath black worsted. His hair was gleaming, still damp from his bath. Dimly Barrett realized he was the most strikingly handsome man she had ever seen.

He was also the most furious.

His jaw locked as he stared at Hadley’s hands circling her slim wrists. His mouth twisted in a mocking smile as he strode across the room, stopping to fill a glass at the huge black lacquer sideboard. Only then, whiskey in hand, did he saunter to the table and slide his long frame into his chair. “Yes, do tell us, Miss—Winslow, did you say? I’m all agog to hear. And if this story is anything as good as her last one, you’re in for a rare treat, Adrian, I assure you.”

Two bright spots of color flared at Barrett’s cheeks, the only color in her ashen face. But pride was a habit with her. Only an instinct before, now it was much, much more.

Now it was a certainty, rooted in a stream of clear images that went back a decade, to the time she had knocked down the arrogant Jamie Warrenton for calling her grandfather a “lack-witted old bumbler with more hair than sense.”

Barrett took a long breath, glorying in the warm rush of memories, in her
past,
bittersweet though it was.

Yes, it was before her now, the long years of feeling alone, never able to fit in with the other giddy, idle females of her acquaintance in Brighton.

And then her grandfather, coming to take her from the rigid propriety of the school in Kent where she’d been sent following her parents’ death.

All that, she remembered. And though it hurt, she clutched the memories close, studying each jagged edge and plunging it deep into her heart, wincing as each became part of her again, merged to her in joy and in sorrow.

Yes, she was proud. All the Winslows were.

And it was partly that pride that had gotten her into this bloody mess that she and her grandfather found themselves in now.

Once again the danger, making her shiver.

But as long as she was here, he would be safe. That much Barrett knew with certainty. And until she sorted through the whole of it, sifted through all the tangled threads and understood the how and why of it, this past was best kept her secret.

She gripped her hands tightly in her lap. Yes, until then, she must say nothing. Had it just been the colonel before her, studying her with such kindly intensity, she might have spoken. But never to the mocking figure who stared at her over the rim of his half-empty crystal tumbler.

To him she owed no explanations.

“We are waiting, Miss Brown. Er, Winslow.” Pagan’s tone was frankly mocking.

Barrett’s chin rose. “Would you be so kind as to pour me a glass of sherry, Colonel?”

“Of course, m’dear.” He shoved to his feet rather awkwardly, but was quite deft with his hands. In seconds he returned, pressing a tumbler full of amber spirits into her chill fingers.

He frowned. “Good Lord, you’re fairly freezing! Aye, the sherry’ll be just the thing. Drink it up now.”

She did. The drink was sharp and mellow at the same time, sliding down like satin fire.

She cleared her throat, studying the amber spirits. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was low and tense. “There were days in that stench-filled room that I wished I were dead, do you know? For all that it’s a mortal sin, there were times it seemed to me a
greater
sin to live. Always the darkness. Always the pitch and roll of the sea. And always the eyes, pressed to the hole in the door.” Her voice hardened. “I tried to strike him once. I worked a stay from my corset and hid beside the door. I heard the footsteps stop, then the little door open where they pushed in the food, if rancid soup and maggoty biscuits can be called food. And this time when the eye peered in, I rammed the steel stay through the hole.”

Barrett looked away through the window into the darkness of the night. “He screamed most awfully. He said terrible things, and I suppose I deserved them. They beat me after that. It was—very unpleasant.” Her voice was flat, mechanical. “Of course they were very clever about it. They always struck covered skin and were careful to leave no scars. The bruises never lasted above a week. My appearance was a great concern with them, you see. Up until the end, that is. Then it suited them to
mark
me, so your suspicion would be lessened.”

Dimly she heard a raw curse from the far side of the table, but she did not look away from the night, locked deep in the memories now.

“There was no confronting them, of course, no hope of escape, at sea as we were. Each day, each second became an agony. Once I actually stopped eating, for by then I knew the soup they fed me carried some sort of sleeping draught.” Her eyes plumbed the night sky blindly. “They told me in precise detail after that what would happen if I tried that ever again or disobeyed in any way.” Her face settled into a pale mask, carved alabaster against the haunted teal pools of her eyes.

Her fingers traced the tumbler’s long gleaming grooves. “But I was still afire with righteous indignation then. I actually tried to escape the next day, feigning illness and then shoving past when the door opened.” Her fingers stopped their slow, hypnotic tracing for a moment. “And then … well, let’s just say that they were true to their word. After that … I made no more attempts at escape.”

Pagan’s face locked in rigid lines. His fingers clenched on the arm of his chair. He wanted to scream for her to stop, wanted to bolt from the room.

He wanted to crush her to him and soothe her until every foul memory was swept from her mind forever.

But he did not, for he was wise enough to know that she
had
to speak, for her own peace of mind.

And
he
had to listen.

“Heroism is a gravely overrated trait,” he said harshly. “Especially when it carries such a penalty.”

His voice came from the shadows. The harsh sound came as a shock, and Barrett started visibly, color flaring high in her cheeks. She gave a low, raw laugh then. “One thing is certain, at least. I am no heroine. For in the end I agreed, you see. I agreed to do everything they told me I must.”

Then her head turned. Her eyes, huge and glistening with unshed tears, claimed Pagan’s. “It was just as you thought, of course. I was sent to that beach for
you,
Pagan. To entrap you. To entice you. To find the lost ruby along with its source.” Her voice rose, wild and unsteady. “And if I hadn’t struck my head in the struggle to escape, if I hadn’t l-lost my memory, I would have done every s-single thing they wanted!”

Pagan heard the jagged note of hysteria in her voice and fought down an urge to cut her recitation short. But there was more, he knew, and the memories would fester unless she faced them now and released them.

“And?” he prompted. His voice was cool and faintly mocking. That would incite her best, he knew. Anger would take her fastest where she needed to go. “Don’t tell me you mean to stop your riveting tale now, Miss Winslow. Not when it has just begun to grow interesting.”

Barrett flinched as if he had struck her. Color swept her face, right down to the silken expanse of bared skin at her chest and shoulders.

She gripped the tumbler tightly, her fingers nearly as pale as the crystal. “I almost wish that I
had
remembered, my lord. A man such as you deserves to be taken down a peg, to be forced to swallow his own medicine at least once in his life.” Her eyes blazed like icy sapphires. “And I might even have enjoyed the task, I think. For why should I feel scruples that you feel naught of? Yes, you are quite right. It is a world for the strong, a world for the cunning, and it’s
them
I mean to be among from now on.”

With locked fingers Barrett raised her tumbler in a mocking salute, then lifted it to her lips and drained the last of the sherry.

Pagan’s face hardened. He flicked a bit of lint from his sleeve. “I’m delighted to hear it, my dear. Now perhaps we can dispense with this irritating talk of scruples and propriety. But come, your story is vastly amusing and you have yet to finish it.”

Barrett’s eyes snapped at his cool, goading words. “No? I believe I made myself perfectly clear. Did I not, Colonel Hadley?” Her eyes never wavered from Pagan’s face as she spoke.

“Er, why, very clear, I expect. But—”

Pagan cut him off, rising in a sharp movement and stalking to her side, sweeping her from her seat with his hands locked around her shoulders. “No, you did
not.
You still have not mentioned who sent you here. I want to hear the rest of it!”

Barrett’s hands closed and opened convulsively at her sides. “Are you so sure?”

“I’m sure, all right. Say it
!”

“Very well. It was Ruxley, of course, the same man you have suspected all along. But you missed one tiny detail in all your keen deductions, my lord. My name is not Brown, nor even
miss
at all. Now, it is not even Winslow. No, it is a different name, a hated name. It is Ruxley—
Mrs.
Ruxley, to be precise. For I—I am your worst enemy’s wife.”