The Tiger's Lady (8 page)

As he moved, his tunic shifted, revealing a stain of crimson at his thigh.

“Sweet heaven—he’s been wounded!” a woman cried.

“By Gawd! And the fellow didn’t even flinch!” a male voice answered with reluctant admiration.

But the rajah seemed to have no further interest in the evening’s proceedings. With a last low command to his remaining bodyguard, he turned and strode from the room.

He left more than one observer wondering exactly
which
side the hard-faced bastard had taken in the recent Indian upheavals.

At that same moment, in a very different part of London, a slim figure in black came to a halt before the planked door of a run-down public house. With an explosive crash, the door burst open, and two brawling figures fell into the snow-covered yard.

Growling and cursing, the men lunged back and forth drunkenly. A moment later the door crashed open again, and a pair of boots and the splintered remains of a wooden chair flew out.

All in all, it was a normal night at the Boar’s Head Inn.

Silently the woman inched back into the shadows of the yard, drawing a shawl about her head.

It would be dangerous to enter, but Barrett had little choice. Only one street away lay her final destination, a mediocre hostelry known by the misleading title of the Royal Arms. But its owner was an old friend of her grandfather’s and Barrett knew he was a man she could trust.

While the two men circled, she thought of the other times she had come to this part of London. It had been over her grandfather’s protests, of course. But in the end he had been glad for her help on his various scientific projects. On their few trips to London, she had worn boy’s breeches and riding boots, her tawny hair scraped back beneath a floppy boy’s sailor hat.

Now the tawny curls lay hidden beneath a layer of boot blacking and she was swathed head to toe in widow’s bombazine. Barrett’s lips thinned in irritation as she looked down at her dusty, unwieldy petticoats.

But the disguise was necessary. She prayed that old Fenton was still at the Royal Arms, for she knew he would help her with no questions asked.

But first Barrett had to be certain no one was following her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the telltale flicker of movement at the far end of the lane, the same shadow that had clung to her so faithfully since she’d left Great Russell Street.

The rajah’s man, of course. Barrett had expected him to come after her. Only a few streets back, she had come close to losing him, but somehow he had turned up again.

Now she would have to elude him. She wanted no chance of him or anyone else discovering her final destination.

She waited until the fighters fell to the ground. Then, her lips set in a thin line, she stepped over their drunken bodies and slipped inside the pub’s smoky interior, sparing barely a glance for the crowded tap room. Instead her whole attention was focused on the narrow passage back to the kitchen.

Silently she sped down the soot-stained corridor to the rear. Two children, thin and glassy-eyed, looked up at her as she passed, then resumed their work peeling potatoes.

Barrett pulled her shawl tighter, overcome by the stench of fetid oil and rank meat. By the time she reached the back door, her stomach was churning, hunger long forgotten.

Through the single grimy pane she could make out the cheerful colors of the Royal Arms opposite. She would not hazard the well-lit front entrance. The darkened alley that adjoined the Boar’s Head would do nicely, taking her safely around to the stables.

Barrett smiled. The rajah’s man would not find her now. Soon she would be safe in Fenton’s best private parlor, warming herself with a hot cup of tea.

She made for the back door.

“‘Ere then! What’s all this?” An angry voice exploded from her left, where a wall of barrels screened a corner of the kitchen.

White-faced, Barrett wrenched open the door, only to feel beefy fingers lock onto her shoulder.

“Nippin’ out on yer bill, is it now? Old Cobbett’ll ’ave me ’ide if ’e finds out.” The fingers tightened. “Now it’s back inside with yer, missy.”

Barrett’s heart slammed against her ribs as she felt the iron fingers jerk her about.

“Drink Cobbett’s ale and run out, will yer! We’ll soon see about that!”

Think!
she told herself. “Let me go, brute! It’s—there’s—”

The beefy fingers tensed. “Eh? What nonsense yer talking, wench?”

“Fi—” Her first effort was no more than a tentative croak. “F-fire.
Fire!”

Her captor’s face froze in ludicrous dismay. “Fire? Bleedin’ ‘ell, woman—why didn’t yer say so sooner?” With a curse the man pushed her aside and made for the front of the pub. “If Cobbett’s gone an’ tossed a bleedin’ cheroot into that storeroom again, I’ll—”

Wrenching open the back door, Barrett flung herself outside and plunged down the steps, gulping in the cold, sweet night air.

Nothing moved as she slipped into the alley. No sounds came to her but the muffled clamor of the taproom at the front of the public house.

Silently she crept over grimy cobblestones heaped high with vegetable peelings. A rat exploded past her foot.

Barrett concentrated on the alley’s end and the bright stable yard beyond. She moved lightly and noiselessly, keeping to the shadows. Her grandfather had always called her his little heathen, saying he despaired of ever turning her into a lady. Barrett thought the notion had pleased him, though he would never have admitted it.

At the alley’s edge she stopped and peered into the Royal Arm’s yard, where two hostlers were currying horses and a carriage was setting out for the front drive.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she inched forward, rehearsing her story for Fenton. He would be wary at first. She would have to be very convincing, lest he take it into his head to send a message to her grandfather. The last thing she wanted was for her grandfather to leave the safety of the north and come looking for
her.
And she had to believe that Goodfellow, their steward, had followed her directions to carry her grandfather to safety. After she had steered her pursuers off on another fruitless search, she would slip away and make her own way north to the isolated cottage on the Isle of Mull where her grandfather was safely hidden, under Goodfellow’s care.

At least, she
prayed
he was.

Finished with their work, the hostlers led their horses back into the stables.

Barrett inched forward. Only a few more feet and—

Without warning bony fingers locked across her mouth. Too late Barrett heard the creak of stiff leather boots. Too late she caught the acrid tang of ether.

Dimly she saw the carriage slow, its door opened by unseen hands. Behind her Thomas Creighton slipped from the shadows.

“Caught ye now, my fine miss. Nor will ye be slipping past me again! Not with all yer tricks, fer I’m Rookery born and bred. Aye, I know all the tricks—invented more ‘n a few of ‘em myself! And no bleedin’ female’s goin’ to dupe Thomas Creighton!”

His grimy hands cut into Barrett’s throat. Dizzy and gasping, she fought him, her fingers slashing wildly.

But it was no use. She was too tired and too hungry to fight for long.

And Creighton knew it.

He tightened his grip, cutting off her air when she began to scream. Darkness crashed over her in wave after suffocating wave; as if from a great distance she felt her knees give way.

“Too bad yer fine heathen friend ain’t here to help ye. Would have enjoyed pinchin’ some of those bobbles, so I would! But never mind—I’ll find other ways to make up for that.”

His fingers tightened. Barrett used her last vestige of strength to kick at his legs.

But her captor merely laughed, dodging her easily. Still smiling, he caught her waist and shoved her toward the open carriage door.

She wanted to fight, she
tried
to fight, but suddenly the ground seemed to melt away beneath her feet. So many things she had to finish, and now there would be no time…

“Good money I paid that coward what yer friend run off. And that heathen was clever enough with his sword, I’ll grant ye that. But he’s not here to guard ye now, is he?” Creighton’s harsh laughter echoed through the quiet yard.

The snow was coming down in thick white waves, blanketing the city in eerie silence.

But Barrett did not notice, not even when the cold flakes stung her cheek, mingling with the salty tears that hung there.

Forgive me, Grandfather. I tried…

It was her last conscious thought.

A great rushing filled her ears. Then there was no sound at all—nothing but darkness and choking silence.

The carriage raced through the night, its wheels muffled by the blanketing snow.

The man inside barely noticed. All he saw was the pale outline of a woman’s cheek and chin. Already he knew he would see that face in his dreams.

Her lips had been sweet and proud, yet unbelievably yielding. He remembered how she’d trembled when he touched her, how she’d moaned softly when he drank deep from the honeyed recesses of her mouth.

Fire shot through him at the memory. Instantly his manhood began to swell.

What was ill with him? Who was she to haunt him so? She was only a stranger in the night, after all. Only a soft voice and a warm body in the darkness.

Slowly the man in silks and flashing gemstones gripped the throbbing wound at his thigh. His fingers slipped, touching new blood. He cursed then, long and low and in three languages.

But the Rajah of Ranapore knew it was not the injury he cursed nor even the thought of the deaths he had just witnessed.

Instead he cursed James Ruxley for smiling faintly when the assassin had raised his gun to fire. And he also cursed himself—for his own rank stupidity in not being better prepared for such danger.

Abruptly he thought of the other danger, when the carriage had pursued him through the darkness. He had barely managed to pull the veiled mystery woman to safety before the coachman thundered past. Whoever had been following was singularly determined, it seemed.

The question was whether the danger was aimed at
her
or at him.

Either way this little falcon was dangerous, he decided; her softness and innocence were far too distracting. They would only expose him to more danger, and tonight the Rajah of Ranapore wanted nothing to do with danger.

Tonight was for pleasure, as hot and impersonal as he could make it.

Tonight was for forgetting. In any way that he could.

Scowling, he tried to remember that, angry when her image lingered, haunting and tormenting. He threw back the curtain and stared out at the silent streets thick with snow, no closer to an answer now than he’d been two hours before.

“Meri jaan.”
His voice was a mere whisper. “My soul.”

Something told him he’d lost her forever, in spite of his care in sending Singh out in search of her a second time, after the auction ended.

But in every snow-swept corner he saw her pale cheeks, heard the soft whisper of her breath. Maybe it was just as well that he hadn’t seen her face clearly, for something told him it was remarkable. It had
felt
remarkable, by Shiva!

Against his mouth. Against his searching fingers.

Grim-faced, he jerked the curtain closed and sprawled back against the velvet squabs, trying to tell himself it didn’t matter what she looked like or why she was running. He’d offered her his help and she’d refused it, after all. So there was an end to it.

But it
did
matter, and he knew it.

Abruptly his keen eyes darkened. Maybe the woman was something far different—part of the dangers that stalked the distant jungle. Dangers that could have followed him all the way here to London.

He should have learned by now to be suspicious of anything and anyone. Especially when James Ruxley was a player in the game.

But the rajah pushed that thought, too, from his mind. He was growing as testy as an old bazaar woman, by Shiva! Tonight of all nights, he should be thinking of nothing but fine wine and hot, sleek skin.