The Tiger's Lady (74 page)

More than he wanted life itself.

And still his past tormented him, held him captive.

But this time Barrett did not wait for an answer. Her slender hand slid to his thigh; one by one his buttons inched free.

And then the hard heat of him sprang to her palm, all reckless, aroused male.

Just as she was all reckless, ardent female.

Without restraint or regret. With the dark shades of her past swept away by the fire in Pagan’s eyes, the affirmation in his touch.

With nothing but love between them now.

His
woman, now and forever, and she needed no ruby to prove it.

She told him so unforgettably, with something far richer than words. She swore it with each stroke of her questioning fingers, with each gentle kiss pressed to the ugly scars that ran in a jagged silver network beneath his eye.

And Pagan believed her, though nothing in his dark, tormented life had prepared him for belief or trust or love. In those raw moments he learned what it was to believe—in her and in himself, glimpsing for the first time a future that might someday be theirs.

A future that included small, sleepy faces and chubby, seeking fingers.

By all that was holy, he wanted that. Already he could imagine how Barrett’s face would glow when she nursed their first child at her beautiful breast.

Yes, he would give her all that and more. He would cover her with sapphires and rubies and weigh her down with love until their dark pasts were forgotten forever.

But as it happened, the task took Pagan less time than he had imagined. He discovered that when he cupped her hips tensely, his eyes hot with need. When he spread her and filled her, delighting in the soft moans that tumbled from her lips.

That first hot thrust made Brett arch and gasp beneath him, danger and pain swept far behind her.

The second made her shudder and cry out his name.

And the third made her wrap her long legs around him and strain to hold the hot shaft buried deep inside her. “P-Pagan, no, I—”

But her protest came too late. The next moment the sweet dissolution was upon her, her soul scattered like a thousand glinting jewels, brighter by far than the radiant crystals she had glimpsed in the lamplight of the tunnels.

And always there was Pagan, holding her close, drinking each soft moan from her lips, his eyes fierce with triumph and delight.

When clarity returned at last, she managed a ragged laugh. “Unless I am sadly misinformed, it will take rather more than
that
to make a baby, my dearest love.” She shifted beneath him, pressing closer to the throbbing male muscle that rode inside her still.

Pagan’s eyes closed as she caught him with wanton velvet friction. He groaned, now of the definite opinion that he would explode at any second. He had meant to wait, had meant to give her another taste of pleasure.

Grimacing, he fought to ease back from the paradise of her sleek, sheathing heat, his features taut with strain. “Stop,
Angrezi.
Stop moving or I’ll—”

She didn’t.

At the same time her slim fingers fell, teasing the hot, aroused inches which he had exposed between their joined bodies.

Pagan’s eyes turned to smoke.

A raw groan ripped from his throat.

Barrett smiled up at him lovingly, her eyes like twilight seas, hung with radiant tears.
“Now,
Tiger. Give me everything. All of you inside all of me. I mean to make a child tonight. Your child.”

“Ours
,” Pagan corrected fiercely, his eyes burning, wild as a leopard’s in the darkness of his face. He tensed, desire gnawing through every nerve and sinew as he considered the vast commitment they were making.

And in his new trust he gave Barrett what she asked, untainted by any trace of fear or regret. “It’s all yours, Cinnamon. It’s always been yours, ever since that snow-swept night outside the auction hall. I guess I was just too great a fool to know it. And now I’ll never let you go, for it’s six children at least that I mean to give you.”

“Greedy man.” Barrett’s breath caught as he anchored her hips and slid deep, piercingly deep. She shuddered as Pagan filled her completely, pouring all his love and fierce need within her.

“S-six? N-not all at once, I hope. If so, I—”

Whimpering, she arched upward against him. He caught her close, buried deep, as deep as a man can go.

When she tensed around him, he eased free, giving her inch after inch of hot, sliding friction and a pleasure fierce beyond imagining.

And when the fire exploded through Barrett once more long, throbbing seconds later, she gasped with pleasure and tensed against him anew.

Her soft, ragged moan and silken tremors stripped away Pagan’s last vestige of control. He met her with his own fire then, all restraint gone as he pinned her to the damp earth with his massive thighs and drove wildly, pouring his hot seed deep inside her.

Binding the gift with the muttered promise of his very soul.

They forged their own paradise then, far away from the smoky hole that still belched dust and ash, far away from the hate and greed that had stalked them both for so many months.

Windhaven found its dynasty that night and Pagan his heir, while Barrett found the love that she had only hoped to know in dreams.

High overhead the first streaks of dawn unfurled blood red out of Burma. Up the hill the bamboo leaves began to rustle, caught in the restless surge of a rising spring wind.

And then, though the joined lovers barely noticed, the dark clouds above the mountains opened and the first fat drops of the spring monsoon began to fall over the hill country at last.

Kent, England

June, 1870

Laughter spilled over the green English lawns. A chorus of little hands clapped wildly. With grave demeanor, Magic, dressed in a little silk gown ornamented with stars and moons, spun around, pulled a handful of paste jewels from the air, then tossed them among her giggling audience.

In the middle of the crowd of children sat a gaunt old man with feathery white hair who was working hard to suppress his own smiles as the monkey darted to and fro, then began to pull playing cards out of her voluminous silken sleeves.

Standing on the flagstone terrace overlooking the lawns, Deveril Pagan watched bemused as his father, the august Duke of Sefton, dandled his twin grandchildren and mingled happily with the daughters and sons of his groom, steward, and housekeeper.

It might as well have been a dream, the viscount thought. And in that strange way of dreams his old home looked exactly as it always had and yet entirely different. Now its shadows were banished and the long polished corridors rang with laughter. Even his father was changed, his stern hauteur a thing consigned to memory.

That was
her
doing, too.

Yes, his old home was a changed place, and he a changed man. He owed it all to his beautiful wife.

“Daydreaming again? If this is what marriage does to a man, then I must remember to forsake the honor.” A rich foreign voice came close at Pagan’s side. He turned to see an exotic figure in silk tunic and turban, jewels embroidered across his chest.

“Strutting about like a peacock again, eh? I suppose the women of England delight in that sort of finery.” Pagan ran a speculative eye over the man beside him, marveling anew at their resemblance.

Their faces were both dark, their shoulders equally broad. Both had hard jaws which warned that they would pursue a goal with deadly determination.

Pagan smiled faintly. “You realize that the clothes looked much better on me, don’t you?”

“You?
Your performance was passable at best, my dear Deveril. I’m afraid you haven’t the panache for it.”

“No?” Pagan’s dark eyes glittered as he studied the real Rajah of Ranapore. “And
you
do?”

His guest’s brow rose. “But of course! By the way, did I mention that I have been going through some ancient texts connected with the ruby? Persian, Sanskrit, that sort of thing. They were quite fascinating, actually.”

“Bloody show-off, that’s what
you
are, Indra.”

The rajah made Pagan a slight bow. “Because I am predisposed to be in a cheerful mood, I shall ignore your typically English insolence. Yes, the texts were remarkable, for I find that all accounts of the Eye of Shiva have one element in common: all mention a small man with dark eyes and leathery face who appears whenever the stone is in danger of falling into the hands of one of true evil. It was so in the days of Alexander and again in the time of the great Khan of China. Curious, is it not?”

Pagan’s eyes narrowed. He thought of the dark-eyed shaman who had stolen into the cave to set him free. The man had never been seen again, and Barrett still worried that he had been caught when the mountain exploded.

Dear heaven, was it just possible that…

Pagan shook his head. No, of course it wasn’t. What was he thinking of?

At that moment a quavering laugh interrupted the viscount’s thoughts. He looked up to see his father pick up the cook’s son and toss him onto his shoulder for a ride.

A wry smile played about the planter’s lips.

“He is very changed, the duke. Can you forgive him for his stubbornness? He believed he was doing what was best for you, after all.”

Pagan stared at the white-haired man for long moments, then gave a faint shrug. “I am trying, Indra.” His gaze wandered to the tawny-haired beauty at his father’s side and his onyx eyes softened. “With
her
help, I might actually succeed.”

“She is a most remarkable woman. Yes, she would have made a fine consort. I am sorry that our paths did not cross sooner, for I would have made her a very happy woman.”

Pagan simply smiled and shook his head. “Arrogant sod, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” The rajah dipped his head in acknowledgment of the barb. “It runs in the royal blood, I believe. Just as it runs in yours.” His lips curved faintly. “My brother.”

Pagan’s fingers tightened on the marble balustrade. “Brothers … I still find it incredible. If only I’d known sooner.”

Sighing, the rajah stared out over the sweeping lawns where lime trees tossed in a spring wind. “It must never be talked of among my people, of course. In some ways they possess great insight, but not in this, I fear. Your mother—
our
mother—loved you dearly, my brother. She talked often about you with our father. In fact, their arguments were quite famous in the
zenana.
He wanted you with him, but she knew that the duke needed you more, though he refused to show it. You were conceived during the last months she was with the duke, you understand, and I think she always felt a deep regret about that, as did the maharajah, our father. But so the wheel turns, Deveril. So the wheel turns.”

He reached out and caught a cluster of crimson cherry blossoms drifting on the wind. “They quarreled often; even as a boy I remember hearing them argue, and often it was over
you.
But she was convinced it was best for you to be with the duke, and that one day she would explain it all to you herself.” The rajah’s eyes softened for a moment. “How sad that she never took the chance while she had it. Yes, she was a remarkable woman, our mother. She knew precisely how to goad our father to the most terrible fury, but then she always managed to wrap him around her finger again. I think the only time I ever saw him lose control was when she told him she was going south to find you, to warn you that the fires of rebellion were coming.”

Pagan’s fingers clenched white on the chill, polished marble. “Her disguise was beyond penetrating; now I see why. And I still can’t understand it, Indra, no matter how hard I try. Now I’ll never know, for she’s gone. And how much we missed…”

“What is there to understand? She loved you, Deveril, and in her love she made a difficult choice. Who are you to question her decision, for truly, love is a law and a certainty unto itself. Would you do any less for one you loved?”

Pagan’s mouth flattened as he recalled how close he and Barrett had come to dying in the tunnels at Windhaven. “You are a wise man, I think,” he said simply.

“Of course I am. And now seek no more explanations, my brother. Simply accept our mother’s gift. And remember the rare gift that you still possess.” The rajah’s gaze rose to the slender figure winding her way through the crowd of laughing children, hugging one, tickling another, joining her bell-like laughter to theirs.

Suddenly a tall, black-haired lad of five squirmed free of the crowd and shot across the lawn into her arms.

His mother looked down at him lovingly, her fingers combing through his thick raven curls. A moment later her head rose and her eyes sought out Deveril’s.

The radiant look of love Pagan saw there made his throat constrict, made his knees weak, made him feel the proudest man on earth.

Beside his mother, the dark-haired boy conceived in the dust beneath the gaping, half exploded mountain smiled and waved gaily at his besotted father.

“She is very beautiful, my brother,” the rajah said softly.