'Boy child,' Sarwana said in clear English. She suddenly giggled. 'Like hymn… Mary's boy child…'
Marie laughed back, realising that this was a joke. 'You learnt hymns at the madrissah ?'
Sarwana made a faint grimace. 'Teacher Christian woman, sing hymns.'
Her tone was disgusted, and Marie was forced to smile. 'You did not like hymns?'
Sarwana hesitated politely then said, 'No good. Bad noise.'
Then the young man with the gun came into the room with a small notepad and a pen. He laid them on the table. 'Please write a message to Mr Grey as I dictate,' he ordered Marie.
Marie sat down and picked up the pen, staring at the paper with eyes that saw little. She was wondering what Stonor was doing now, what he was thinking, how her disappearance was affecting him.
'Write that you are a prisoner,' the young man said. 'That we will release you unharmed only when the King has released the political prisoners from jail and when he has promised to stop the negotiations with Mr Grey and end the National Park scheme for ever.'
Marie looked at him incredulously. 'You are against the National Park?'
'Write what I tell you. Do not ask me foolish questions,' he snapped, waving his gun at her.
'But the scheme will bring thousand of tourists to Jedhpur and bring employment to many of your people. Think how much money will flow into the country, money you badly need.'
'The King is turning our country into a Disneyland for rich foreigners,' he said bitterly. 'We are a land of peasants. If all these foreigners come here, the peasants will leave the land to earn big money working as servants for them, and we will lose our dignity and freedom.'
'You want Jedhpur to remain backward for ever?' she asked him quietly.
His eyes flashed. 'Write! You know nothing.'
Marie looked down at the paper and obediently wrote the message he wished to send. He snatched the paper from her and read what she had written, then he looked at her. 'It is not signed. Sign it with your name.'
The young woman spoke softly, quickly. He turned and looked at her and nodded, then he said to Marie, 'She is right. You must put some words of your own, words of love which will make this man want badly to get you back.'
Marie flushed. 'I've written what you asked me to. I will not write anything else.'
The young woman spoke again, smiling, and the man laughed. He looked at Marie rather more kindly.
'Do not be embarrassed. This must be done. Sarwana says you do not wish to have strange eyes looking at your words. See, I shall not read. You may seal envelope yourself.'
Marie looked down at the paper. Words seemed to burn on it, words she knew she would never write. If she never saw Stonor again these would be the last things she said to him. There was so much to say, so little that could be said.
She wrote slowly. 'Stonor, do what you have to do. Don't worry about me. They've been kind.' Then she quickly sealed the envelope and handed it to the young man. He looked at her searchingly, seeing the flush on her cheeks, the wildness in her eyes.
Gently, he said, 'Soon you will be free… When your man reads this he will move heaven and earth.'
When he had gone Sarwana made tea and they sat and drank it quietly. It was served, of course, in Indian fashion, without milk or sugar, but the liquid was refreshing, and it helped to pass the time.
Marie was allowed now to leave the little room and walk outside. It was dark, as it had been last night when she was given the same opportunity; so dark that she could see nothing but the sky and the branches of the trees which surrounded the house. The air was cool and fragrant. It was hard to go back into the stuffiness of the little room.
She lay down and slept later, while Sarwana departed again, presumably to feed her baby or see to her own house.
At dawn next morning the young man with the gun came back. He burst into Marie's room, awaking her from a deep and troubled sleep, and she sat up in alarm, staring at him.
He laughed aloud, waving his arms. Sarwana stood behind him, wreathed in smiles.
'All is agreed,' he cried delightedly. 'The prisoners are already released. The King has announced that for the present he will proceed no further with the National Park, and Mr Grey will leave Jedhpur without the agreement he had been negotiating.'
'You… knew about that?' she asked, wondering how soon they would release her.
'Why else did we do all this? Oh, the King and Mr Grey tried to keep it secret, but there are patriots in the palace who objected to the plans. Now things will return to normal. The land will belong to the peasants as it has always done.'
'Or to the landlords who live in the palace?' she suggested.
He looked at her sharply and his brows jerked together. 'You do not understand how things work here.'
'When will I be released?' she asked, afraid of angering him any further.
'When it is dark,' he promised, smiling again. 'I will drive you somewhere and release you.'
The hours seemed to pass with appalling slowness while Marie waited for the moment of her release. She could not eat the food Sarwana brought her. She could only sit staring at the thin slits of light filtering through the shutters.
At last it was dark and she was led out, once more blindfolded and gagged. The drive was bumpy and unpleasant, over rough terrain; they were not, she realised, driving back the same way they had come. At last the car stopped. She was pushed out roughly, the car reversed and sped away with a grinding of gears.
Marie hurriedly untied her blindfold and removed the gag with hands that shook.
Then she stared around. She stood in the dark road on the outskirts of a small village. The lights shone with friendly invitation just a few hundred yards away. She stumbled and ran towards them, and knocked on the first door she came to, her body trembling with the long tension of the last few days.
The door creaked slowly open and a dark face peered cautiously out at her.
'Help me,' said Marie, clinging to the door frame. Her knees were buckling under her, as if she could no longer maintain the pretence of being calmly under control.
The face withdrew. Voices chattered inside the house, then someone else came to the door. Marie held out an appealing hand, realising that they could not speak English and were more frightened of her than curious. They were amazed by the appearance of an English girl in their village at such an hour, and suspicious of her reasons for wandering about without masculine protection in the dark.
She had no money on her, no way of explaining her predicament. She held out her hands again, pleadingly. 'Lhalli,' she said. 'Me… go to Lhalli… Lord Hathni…' She began to recite the names of the royal family, watching them intently.
They looked at each other, shrugging. One of them made a gesture to her, speaking loudly to the others, then he ran off into the darkness. A moment later he was back, leading a reluctant and irritable-looking mule by a rope halter. He gestured to Marie to get on the animal.
She managed to climb on to its back, looking at him nervously as he took up the halter. He turned and nodded to her, giving a shy smile.
'Lhalli,' he said, nodding. 'Lhalli…'
Then they set off into the night along the rough, rutted hill roads in the dark, moonless and haunted by the howls of jackals and the floating wail of hunting owls. Bumping and clinging to the mule for grim life, Marie felt herself wearily wishing she could just lie down and die. It was all too much for her.
The throb of an engine reached her ears suddenly, making her sit up and stare ahead. Like yellow eyes in the darkness, the headlights of a lorry shone straight at them. The peasant drew the mule to the side of the road to let the lorry pass, but instead it ground to a halt with a crash of gears, and from the back of it sprang a dozen soldiers in the palace uniform. Shouting, brandishing guns, they surrounded Marie and the peasant. The peasant cringed in terror, wailing, then Marie recognised Aziz descending from the lorry cab. He was grinning delightedly.
'My dear Miss Brinton! How glad I am to see you alive and well.' He glared at the peasant. 'You will suffer for this, animal!'
'He had nothing to do with it,' Marie assured him quickly, laying a hand on the unfortunate old man's shoulder. 'He just helped me when the others had dumped me in his village…' She told Aziz how she had been released and he spoke more kindly to the old man, drew out a handful of coins from his purse and pushed them into the old man's trembling hand. Hurriedly, with many bows, the peasant vanished into the night. Marie was not sorry to see the back of his mule, which moved much faster now that it was heading homewards, she noticed.
Aziz helped her gently into the lorry. The soldiers climbed aboard and the lorry slowly reversed. Aziz told her as they drove back to Lhalli that his cousin had been quite horrified by her kidnapping, especially since Stonor had been almost beside himself with rage and anxiety. They had searched everywhere they could think of, all the known haunts of Jedhpuri rebels, but they had found no clue as to her whereabouts.
'So the King had to give way. He could not risk your life. Mr Grey would never have been prepared to invest in our country if you had been killed.' Aziz looked at her, and smiled, relapsing into silence.
Marie was fast asleep, her head slumped against his shoulder.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE woke up when the lorry stopped outside the palace gates. Aziz smiled at her, his glance mischievous. 'Mr Grey will be jealous when he learns you have slept on my shoulder for so long! Are you stiff? Come, let me help you down.' He lifted her down and put an arm around her as her knees gave way. 'Shall I carry you? Can you walk?'
Marie shook her head. 'It's only cramp.' She flexed her calf muscles, grimacing at the pain. 'I can walk now…'
Lights still burned everywhere in the palace, but curious sentries stared as they passed along the marble corridors. Whispers preceded them. A soldier ran ahead to warn the King, and as they approached the royal apartments the King himself appeared in the doorway, his face tired, fully dressed.
'Miss Brinton! Heaven be praised! You are safe! Those dogs kept their word, then. We had begun to think…' he broke off as Stonor arrived, his bandaged shoulder impeding him.
Marie looked at him, her whole being concentrated on his face. He was white, his dark eyes like bottomless wells in his face. He stood over her, staring down as if he had never seen her before, searching her face with stark intensity.
'You will wish to speak alone,' the King said quietly, clearing his throat, 'Please, use my room.'
Stonor took Marie's arm in his free hand and propelled her firmly past the King into the room. He paused before closing the door to thank the King, then shut the door and leaned against it, staring at her.
Marie was so nervous she could barely breathe. The room seemed to be full of electricity, like the sky before a storm.
'God!' Stonor groaned. 'Oh, God, Marie…'
Then he had moved towards her fast and she was in his arms, held so close she had to cling to him to stand upright. He kissed her with savage hunger, murmuring her name again and again.
'I was beginning to think they'd killed you,' he said, his voice husky. He moved his lips along her throat with feverish intensity, then returned to her mouth, parting her lips, consuming her in the flame of his own passion. 'I've been out of my mind. I wanted to tear this godforsaken little country to shreds looking for you. I'd have paid anything, done anything, to get you back safely.
Her blue eyes shone at him adoringly. 'Stonor,' she breathed softly. 'Darling…'
He drew back, looking down at her. 'Say that again.'
'Darling,' she repeated obediently, her hands touching the black hair at the nape of his neck, delving into the thick strands with fingers that seemed to have nerves in every pore, sensitive to his body in a way that made her shiver.
'Tell me you love me,' he demanded arrogantly.
Her happiness was so all-consuming that she was past preserving her pride or her self-respect. 'I love you, I love you,' she whispered.
'Again,' he ordered.
She lifted her blue eyes to his face again, a slightly rebellious expression in them now. 'Stonor?'
'I want to hear you say it,' he said, the lean face filled with the old arrogance.
'I think we still mean different things by the word love,' she said, suddenly saddened.
'Do we?' He brushed her upturned mouth with his lips. 'We'll have plenty of time to find out after we're married.'
Marie stood very still, her eyes fixed on his face. 'Married, Stonor?'
'Yes,' he said lightly. 'You've broken my spirit, damn you. How can I let you roam the world without protection when you keep getting yourself into trouble like this? I'd never have another moment's peace in case someone was kidnapping you. I'm afraid I'm going to have to carry on where your father left off, wrapping you in cotton wool, showering you with expensive presents, spoiling and adoring you…'
She took his face in both her hands, her pleading palms against his hard cheeks.
'Be serious, Stonor. Don't play one of your games.'
'I was never more serious in my life,' he retorted.
'I've said it,' she whispered. 'Why can't you?'
He was suddenly very grave, his dark eyes full of sombre thought. 'I'm afraid, Marie. Afraid of losing myself, afraid of drowning helplessly in an ocean of love. It's always been there in my nature, a weakness, the need to love with utter abandon, but I meant to fight against it for the whole of my life. I've seen what it does to men. That sort of love saps your strength. Then I met you, and when I kissed you that night in the desert I felt a terrible warning. I knew that if I let myself fall for you I would fall so far I could never get back. But by the time I'd realised it, it was already too late. I've been trying to escape from the trap ever since. I tried to convince myself you weren't worth loving, but I never quite succeeded.'
'Didn't you, Stonor?' Her blue eyes were gentle now, recognising his sincerity.
He put a hand to her golden hair, running his fingers down the silky strands. 'That hair of yours first drew my eyes—such a glorious colour! I wanted to touch it, to run my fingers through it. That was my first hint of danger. Then your blue eyes flashed at me and I felt the warning signals again—oh, I had plenty of warnings, but I ignored them all. Like a blind man walking into his fate, I let myself be caught. Perhaps I even wanted to be, secretly.'
She let her arms fall away from him and stepped back, watching him through her lowered lashes. 'You're free, Stonor. Quite free.'
He smiled grimly. 'The secret of your power, you witch, is that I no longer want to be free. For weeks I've yearned to be totally enslaved, even while I struggled against the desire to see you again. Of course I didn't come to Jedhpur to make a deal with the King—I could have done that through one of my agents. I came to see you. I had to come. I couldn't sleep at night any more. Your face was haunting my dreams, driving me mad with desire.' He reached out for her, but she evaded him.
'You still haven't said it,' she reminded him.
He stared at her, his chin raised angrily. 'I've admitted it over and over again. What else do you want?'
She did not answer, her eyes levelly fixed on his face.
He half closed his eyes and groaned. 'All right; I love you. I love you, God help me!'
Marie laughed. 'You sound as if it had been wrung from you by torture, Stonor!'
'Hasn't it?' He pulled her close with his one good hand. 'I've been denied a kiss for five full minutes. What's that but cruel torture?'
Her mouth was parted on a smile as she looked up at him. But the smile died on a gasp as his mouth descended in hard possession, melting her bones, making her shake with mounting passion. When they parted he was dark red, she was trembling.
'We've got to get back to England and get married before I lose all my last shreds of self-control,' he said grimly.
'I can't leave Jess without anyone to look after Jeremy,' she protested; 'He needs const
ant care.'
'We'll fly someone out to take your place,' he said easily, brushing the problem aside. 'That woman who works there can take over until the new girl arrives. After all, she's been looking after the child while you were away.' He looked at her gently. 'Jess was very worried about you, you know. She was intent on blaming herself for what happened. She thought that if she'd never brought you out here it wouldn't have happened, which, in a way, I suppose, is true.'
'Poor Jess,' she said. 'We must go to the bungalow right away and tell her the good news.'
'I think the King wants to ask you some questions first,' he told her. 'They want to try to catch these damned rebels, and any information you can give them will help.'
'But I don't know anything,' she protested. She knew that she did not want to help to catch the young men who had held her prisoner. They had treated her with comparative kindness. Even their threat to kill her had been a muted one.
'You saw them, didn't you? You saw their faces?'
She shrugged. 'Only in a very dim light. I wouldn't know any of them again. They were just ordinary young Indians.'
Stonor stared down at her, his brows drawn together in a frown. 'Marie, are you trying to protect them? Because if you are, let me remind you that the next person they kidnap may not be so lucky. They can't be allowed to get away with this, you know.'
'I'm not hiding anything!' she protested. 'I don't know anything which could help.'
Then Stonor walked to the door and opened it. There was a slight pause as he spoke to the sentry outside, then he came back to join her.
'Better sit down,' he said. 'This will take some time.'
'I'm so tired, Stonor,' she said unhappily. 'And I'm hungry. Can't it wait?'
The King came hurriedly into the room. He smiled at them both in a friendly fashion.
'All is well between you? Good. Now, Miss Brinton, I must ask you a few questions, then I will send you back to Mrs Cunningham by car so that you may relax in the peace of the bungalow. Or if you prefer, you may stay here in the palace near Mr Grey.' His eyes twinkled. 'Which would you prefer?'
'I think I'd better join Mrs Cunningham, sir,' she said.
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