My Beautiful Enemy

by Thomas, Sherry

  But when she had stood behind him in his bedroom . . . When he had walked back into her parlor twenty-four hours ago, before his questions had rankled her . . .

  Sometimes things that did not possess shape or substance nevertheless had weight and impact—thoughts of a thousand sleepless nights, prayers uttered in the darkest hours, regrets that never lessened, despite the passage of time.

  Her task had brought her ten thousand miles to England. But who was to say that what had led her to him had not been the exact same flickering hope that he knew all too well?

  He pushed away that useless thought, put everything back, and locked the safe.

  Would that everything could be stowed away so neatly and safely, never coming to light except with his permission.

  Leighton returned to London late, left Victoria station on foot, and walked until he was exactly where he should not be.

  Beneath Miss Blade’s window.

  He stood in the dark, beyond the light of the street lamps, bitter tendrils of cigarette smoke curling about him.

  Her reappearance had been a seismic event, the aftershocks of which he felt daily. But it was not because she symbolized everything about a certain moment of his past. No, her presence jarred because he had thought the question of his future settled, only to realize that he had been lying to himself.

  That, in his heart, he had never left the foothills of the Heavenly Mountains.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Promise

  Chinese Turkestan

  1883

  His heart pounding madly, Leighton reined to a full stop and aimed.

  He didn’t know if he could keep his fear under control—the slightest tremor in the wrist, the least excess of tension in his shoulders, and the shot would go wide. He exhaled and let his mind go blank.

  The two bandits closest to her fell. He reloaded and took out two more. One bandit aimed a rifle at him. Leighton fired his revolver and the bandit went down. The last two bandits still on their feet looked at each other and sprinted for their horses.

  He galloped down the slope, leaped off his horse, and ran to her. She was bloody, limp, and completely unconscious. She was also unreasonably lucky. The two gunshot wounds were grazes; there were no bullets in her. With shaking hands, he tore strips of cloth from her trousers and stemmed the bleeding of her arm and her head.

  Something cold and metallic seared into his left thigh. He looked down; the knife was an inch and a half into his flesh. He pulled it out and hurled it back at the bandit who had thrown it. The bandit fell sideways, the knife sticking into his chest.

  Somehow he shoved her up on her horse. She lay on her stomach, her head and feet hanging down the horse’s flanks.

  He forced himself up on the saddle and took up the reins.

  She was alive. It was all that mattered.

  Ying-ying was crawling through the desert at high noon, sand scalding every inch of her body. Then the sun disappeared and she could not stop shivering; so cold, she would never be warm again. Abruptly the heat returned, scorching her from the inside out, drying her until she shriveled.

  She cried for Amah. Help me. Water.

  Someone did help her. Water trickled down her throat until she turned aside, too exhausted to swallow. When she burned, a cool, damp cloth wiped her down, bringing her relief. And when she shuddered, blankets came around her; warm hands rubbed her icy feet.

  Sometimes the person hurt her, too, pouring a cool liquid on her that made her groan from the fiery pain. A low, reassuring voice came then, telling her that it was all right, her wounds must be kept clean.

  At last the temperature stopped swinging between extremes. Warm and cozy, with the scent of wood smoke in her nostrils, she slept, long, solid, dreamless hours.

  She awoke to the chirping of birds and the falling of water in the distance. A ceiling of rock greeted her sight. She was in a cave, but not the nasty kind, cramped and full of animal smells. Rather, the cave was quite decent as caves went, dry, large, and almost airy.

  A soft blanket covered her. Beneath her, another blanket. And beneath that was neither cold rock nor packed earth. Someone had made something close to a mattress for her out of grass, some blades with faded flowers still attached.

  Her head throbbed a little. Her person was limp. But other than that, she felt almost fine, almost in form. And hungry enough to eat the grass mattress. She pushed herself up to a sitting position—and gasped.

  Underneath the blanket she was naked. She choked. Had she been—

  Footsteps. She looked around frantically. Her vambraces lay against the far wall. She held the blanket about her and ran for the vambraces. One lone knife remained. She pulled it out and pressed herself against the surprisingly smooth cave wall.

  A man ducked inside. The Persian, a rifle slung over his shoulder. Her jaw dropped.

  He glanced at the knife in her hand. “Well,” he said, smiling, “I guess this is how you’ll always greet me, isn’t it?”

  The girl smiled back, her eyes crinkling a little at the corners.

  A huge relief rolled over Leighton. Even though her fever had broken a while ago and he knew she was going to be all right, it still wasn’t the same as seeing her awake, alert, on her own feet, and ready to cut down any intruder.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “I—” Abruptly her smile disappeared. “Where are my clothes?”

  The soles of his feet prickled with the sensation of danger. “I needed material to bandage you. And since your clothes were ruined anyway, they were what I used.”

  Her eyes narrowed, her suspicions as hard-edged as her knife.

  “There are strips of them drying nearby in the sun if you don’t believe me.” He had made sure to wash the bandages under the nearby waterfall and then scald them with boiling water.

  She remained ominously silent.

  He was beginning to feel distraught. “I didn’t take any liberties.”

  He had even tried his best to not look at her.

  She switched her hold on the knife several times, the blade alternating point at and away from him, as she considered his answer. “Why didn’t you take any liberties?”

  The concept was alien to him—and repugnant. “With a girl who is hurt and unconscious? I am not an animal.”

  She regarded him for another long moment, then dropped the knife back into its slot on her vambrace. “Let me dress and you can feed me.”

  He exhaled, ducked out, and leaned limply against the rock face. The idea of her in a violent fury did not bother him, but the possibility of losing her trust did—he would rather she broke every bone in his body.

  When she called him back, she had put on a change of his clothes, a black tunic that came almost to her ankles and a pair of loose black trousers that she wore with the cuffs folded. Dressed like this, there was something raffish about her—he could see her as a pirate captain, commanding a ship the sight of which struck fear into the hearts of salty old sea dogs.

  An outcrop rose from the floor of the cave and had been made flat on the top. He set out the food he’d bartered for her on this tablelike surface: fried bread, cheese, and shelled pieces of walnuts. For a chair he laid their two saddles, one on top of the other.

  She watched him silently, her gaze still wary. It occurred to him that she could be girding herself for what he might demand in return for having taken care of her. The thought did not please him—she should know by now that he wasn’t that kind of man—but it was her right to err on the side of caution. “You eat. I’ll go hunt something. You’ll need more substantial food to recover.”

  “No,” she said immediately.

  His heart thumped. It might have been the best “no” he had ever heard.

  Looking away, she sat down and picked up a piece of fried bread. “Tell me what happened. I thought those bandits would be the end of me.”

  He walked to the fire that had nearly died down and added more firewood. “I shot some of them and t
he rest fled.”

  It had to be an unsatisfactory answer for her, but he was unwilling to relive the terror of those moments. The fear that had pulsed in his veins had been as cold and heavy as mercury.

  She raised her brow. “You saved the day. If ever there is a time to elaborate—and maybe embroider the story a little—it is now. I promise I will listen raptly, no matter how long-winded you are about it.”

  At the hint of teasing in her voice, he relaxed a little. “It was all of two minutes. How much can I elaborate?”

  She shook her head—and did not seem to be bothered by the wound there. It was healing well, but she must also be hardier than most people. “You have never tried to impress a girl, have you?”

  He put water to boil over the fire. “Are you the kind of girl impressed by a long, boastful tale?”

  She lifted a strand of her long, loose hair and tucked it behind her ear, just under the bandaging still wrapped around her head. “No.”

  He had not looked at or touched her unclothed person except when necessary. But he had allowed himself to run his fingers through her hair during the long hours he had watched over her, hair that was smoother and softer than the finest silk in the world. “Then I’ll stick to the facts. I shot some of them and the rest fled.”

  Her gaze swept over him as he folded the blankets on the grass mattress. “That doesn’t explain why you are walking with a limp.”

  He’d thought he wasn’t. “A knife wound—nothing to worry about.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me right away?” she chided him—and the concern in her words made his heart somersault. “I have a good balm for knife wounds.”

  “I’d rather you save it for yourself. You lead a far more dangerous life than I do.”

  Had he been delayed, she would have been killed, pure and simple—the thought had haunted him ever since.

  She, on the other hand, seemed to have already shrugged off the mortal peril, her demeanor breezy, with a hint of cheekiness. “Anyone could run into bandits. You, on the other hand, were in a warlord’s compound, breaking out prisoners.”

  She looked at him askance, an expression more of mischief than of misgiving, but doubt was there, beneath the surface. He tried to lie as little as possible. “Remember I told you I was going to Yarkand? I was there to meet some friends with whom I had made the trip north from India. But when I reached Yarkand, I learned that two of those friends had fallen into trouble. We couldn’t just leave them behind.”

  “So you rode across the width of the Takla Makan to break into the warlord’s compound?” She shook her head again. “You should have bargained for their release instead. A warlord needs money more than he needs another corpse.”

  He would have, had Madison not been fair-haired. “See? If only you had been there to advise me, I wouldn’t have needed to risk my neck.”

  She tilted her chin up slightly, as if in a challenge. “You would allow yourself to be advised by a woman?”

  “I take advice from those who know better. And in this instance, you obviously do.”

  Her eyes brightened with pleasure. And it was with a smile that she began to attack her meal in earnest. He would have liked to just watch her, but that would probably make her uncomfortable. So he turned his head away and set himself to chores around the cave.

  Wishing, of course, that he could sit down next to her and place his arm around her shoulders.

  All the while Ying-ying ate, her mouth too full to speak, the Persian kept busy. He brought in armfuls of already dried grass to plump up the mattress, remade the bed afterward, and, when the water he’d placed over the fire had boiled, steeped her a cup of chrysanthemum tea.

  “Were you a woman, you would have make your mother-in-law very happy,” she told him, as she blew on the surface of the infusion.

  “And you would have made your mother-in-law very docile, whether you are a man or a woman,” he answered from where he knelt before his saddlebags.

  She smiled and inhaled the steam rising from her cup, warm and fragrant. Alas, his very interesting turban sat very securely on his head and she could not see his even more interesting hair. “How long have you known that I’m a girl?”

  He cast her an arch look that implied it was a question she needed not ask. “From the beginning. And how long have you known that I carry gems on my person?”

  “Not until I held them in my hand.” She had seen him checking its contents, however, and had deduced it must contain something valuable. “No wonder you don’t need a caravan.”

  He rose to his feet. “And no wonder you haven’t prospered, if you are in the habit of returning a fool his diamonds.”

  She shrugged. “It was too easy, stealing from you. There was no glory to it.”

  For the first time since she called him back into the cave, he was standing still—tall, loose-limbed, and so handsome her eyes risked becoming permanently glued to him if she didn’t move her gaze elsewhere.

  “Well, I was thoroughly impressed. I had no idea I’d been pickpocketed—and usually thieves don’t get the best of me.”

  She had heard so few words of praise in her entire life. Her efforts at music and calligraphy never met Mother’s exacting standards. Amah at best nodded and said, Practice some more. And Da-ren, well, a piercing look from him made her feel inadequate for days. Only Master Gordon had complimented her—but some of his compliments had concerned her command of the Chinese language, which was a bit like congratulating a fish on knowing how to live in water.

  But the Persian seemed like a man who could tell a good thief from an incompetent one and she quite puffed up at his assessment of her skills. “We had a curtain made of beads. My amah took it apart and sewed a string of beads on some old clothes. And I had to reach into the clothes and take out the coins without making any noises.”

  “And your parents permitted this kind of training?”

  There was no judgment in his voice, only interest—fascination, even. She felt like preening. “My father died before I was born. My mother never knew—she died soon after my training started. Her health was never good, you see. I didn’t know what would happen to me after she passed away—that was part of the reason I undertook the training, so I could at least defend myself.”

  “So your mother didn’t have the same kind of training?”

  She chortled at the very thought. “No. My mother was a different kind of woman altogether.”

  “What was she like?” The Persian came a few steps toward her, as if pulled forward by the force of his curiosity.

  “Beautiful. And talented—she played instruments, painted, and wrote poems. Not to mention she was incredibly elegant, both in motion and in stillness—you could look upon her all day long and there would not be a moment when she was less than perfect.”

  “But she could not have defended herself?”

  Her words had been full of admiration, but he must have heard the note of pity in her voice.

  “No.” Ying-ying sighed. “She could not have defended herself.”

  “Then it’s much better to be you. You are also talented.” He spoke from beside her, the hem of his robe almost brushing her upper arm.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “The talents of a miscreant.”

  He sat down crossed-legged on the other side of the stone table. “The talents of a fighter. I admire that.”

  She kept looking at the way the fabric of the robe draped across his wide shoulders, but she was not so distracted that she didn’t puff up some more at this newest compliment. “Why? Most men don’t. Not in a woman, anyway.”

  “I suppose—” He hesitated. “I suppose it’s because I wish my own mother had been more of a fighter.”

  This caught her attention. She looked up into his eyes, eyes as green as an Ili valley at the height of summer. “Your slightly negligent mother who has failed to find you a wife?”

  He smiled a little. “Yes, that one.”

  “What did she do? Or not do?”
<
br />   He hesitated again. “When my father died, my uncle, whom we all despised, told her that if she did not give me to him, he would take both me and my younger brother from her. I convinced her to go away with my brother where my uncle could not reach them—and she did.”

  It was an unexpected glimpse into his life—somehow she’d had the impression that he had sprung into life with a turban on his head and a horse under his seat. But even more unexpected was the glimpse into his soul: He was not angry at his mother. “You have forgiven her.”

  “There was nothing to forgive—it was an impossible situation. Even if I sometimes wish she had fought for me, the important thing was that we protected my brother.”

  “But you had to live with this uncle?”

  “For a while, but then I ran away to find a friend.”

  Always happy to skip over unpleasant details, her Persian. “Did you find this friend?”

  “Briefly. I managed to see him once before he passed away.”

  She heard regret, but also gladness. His composure had been the first thing she’d noticed about him. But only now did she realize that it was not a carapace to hide a core of turmoil—as was her case—but a reflection of his equanimity within.

  The winged brows, the deep-set eyes, the beautifully angled ridge of his nose—she studied him as if he were a text that she needed to translate. “You are an optimist.”

  He seemed surprised by her statement. He tilted his head to one side and answered only after a long moment. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

  Now it was her turn to hesitate over what she was about to reveal, this secret sense of foreboding that had long festered at the edge of her awareness. “Ever since I was a little girl, everyone around me has always feared for my future—everyone except my friend who loved tea from Darjeeling.”

  Mother, Amah, and Da-ren, they all sensed something in her—a wildness, an intractability—that would prove to be her undoing. It had been there in Mother’s anxiety, in Amah’s watchfulness, and in Da-ren’s case, something akin to resignation beneath his sternness. Her hopes and dreams, such as they were, must always pass through this inner prism of dread and emerge on the other side muted. Lesser.