The Tiger's Lady

by Skye, Christina

  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.

  Of a place where for a few extra guineas a woman would overlook the alien color of his hair and skin.

  And even, perhaps, the long scar that ran from his rib to his groin, where a Bengali mutineer’s double-bladed tulwar had nearly disemboweled him seven years before during the great Indian uprising.

  Suddenly the ruby danced before him, its fire a dagger plunged deep into his heart.

  With a curse, he flung open the carriage’s glass pane and peered out at the darkness, knowing that all the gold in the world would never buy his forgetting.

  The old dockyard on the far side of the Isle of Dogs was silent, swept with eddying swirls of snow where the wind blew in sharp and icy from the leaden Thames.

  And then the sound of careful oars.

  Waves lapping against a small boat.

  “Creighton? Is that ye there?”

  A lantern pierced the veil of gusting snow.

  “Who in bloody hell else would it be, Saunders? Now cover yer lantern and help me with the girl.”

  A grumbling figure moved to the front of the crumbling pier. “Coo, Tommy Creighton! What yer gone and done this time? We was supposed to meet at—”

  “It’s ‘Mr. Creighton’ to you—and none of yer bleeding questions! Else ye find yerself floatin’ down there in the mud, along with a few others I know of.”

  With a shrug, the man called Saunders bent down to help Creighton lift the dark-clad figure from the skiff onto the rotting structure of timbers.

  Creighton laid the woman carefully on the wooden spans and tugged her veil from her face. He lifted his lantern, throwing silver light across her still, pale features.

  It was an unforgettable face, willfulness and determination written into every line of the proud cheekbones and decisive chin.

  Saunders released his breath in shock. “Gorblimey! She’s a right ‘n’ proper beauty! Where’d yer find ’er, Tommy?”

  The next moment a dagger probed his neck. “Like I said, Saunders, no bleedin’ questions!” Creighton growled savagely. “Did ye do what I told ye to?”

  “Sure, Tomm—Creighton,” the smaller man whined. “Everything’s arranged wiff the captain, juss like yer said.” He stared uneasily at the motionless figure. “What’d yer do to ’er? Why don’t she wake up?”

  Creighton gave a dark laugh. “Gave her something to make her
more manageable, that’s what.” He straightened, eyeing the inert figure on the pier. The little bitch had been nothing but trouble for him from the very beginning. A damn sight too clever, she was, always seeming to know what he was planning before he did himself.

  But he’d done it! A glow of triumph snaked through Creighton. Yes, he’d caught her right and proper this time, and the wench would be going nowhere until he was good and ready. He frowned, wondering if he should have asked twice as much for the job.

  Damn, he didn’t like having to change plans at the last minute. It left too much room for carelessness, and Tom Creighton hated carelessness.

  “I thought we was goin’ to take ’er to ’elene’s,” the small man beside him whined. “Yer said I could ’ave ’er once. Yer promised—”

  “Aw, shut up, ye snivelin’ fool!” Scowling, Creighton delivered a savage kick to his companion’s back, sending him flying face down onto the rotting pier.

  Saunders pushed to his elbows and began to inch backward, his eyes trained on his partner. “Yer shouldn’t oughter done that, Tommy. No, yer shouldn’t—not ter me. Like yer own bruwer, I am.” He came slowly to his feet and then stiffened. “An’ where’s the money yer promised me? Ain’t seen a single shillin’ yet.” As he spoke, his fingers slipped stealthily to his pocket.

  Suddenly a revolver gleamed in Creighton’s hand. “Forget it, Jamie boy.” Creighton’s eyes were cold as the leaden swells flowing beneath his feet. “Reckon I forgot to bring yer part of the money. Too bloody busy, I guess.”

  He drew the lower trigger back with a deadly click.

  The revolver was brand new, its steel cylinders gleaming.

  “Don’t reckon ye’ll be needin’ money anyway—not where ye’re goin’.”

  “No, Tommy. Not me! Yer promised—”

  A moment later three shots rang out over the snow-blanketed docks, but no one heard save the man who had fired them. His expensive new leather boots squeaking, Creighton picked up the blood-spattered body of his former partner and heaved him over the edge of the pier.

  No clues, his employer had said. For the sum he was being paid, Creighton was only too glad to comply.

  For long moments he stood unmoving, watching the dark shape disappear into the mud and scum of the Thames.

  Then, as Saunders’s lifeless body drifted past, bobbing in the cold currents, Creighton began to laugh, watching the water carry the lifeless form east toward Gravesend and the sea.

  CHAPTER SIX

  His face grim, the Rajah of Ranapore bent toward the carriage window. His eyes hardened as he saw the long line of carriages clogging the drive before him.

  So Helene’s elegant establishment was busy tonight. That meant scores of blustering young swells down from Oxford or up from Sussex and Kent, all of them primed for a first-class night of drinking, gaming, and whoring.

  For Helene’s establishment catered only to the cream of English manhood. Her clientele included several dukes, a score of earls, and any number of barons—even a prince or two, though the brothel’s proprietress was shrewd enough to see to it that real names were never used within her glittering, gaslit halls.

  Helene ran the very finest brothel in London. Her women were exquisite and well-schooled, drawn from all over the world. No matter what services a man sought, be it the dark pleasure techniques of Cairo, Calcutta, or Peking, he need look no farther than Helene’s.

  Which was why the Rajah of Ranapore was here tonight.

  With a creak of wood and leather, the carriage lurched to a halt before the gaslit entrance to the three-story townhouse. Several arriving patrons watched in amazement as the rajah descended in all his finery, jewels ablaze, silk rustling, scimitar flashing.

  A score of curious and hostile eyes followed his broad-shouldered figure up the marble steps and into the opulent foyer, where a slim Chinese woman hurried forward to ask his pleasure. But the turbaned man merely dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

  As he had expected, the salon was full. Couples lay entwined in various stages of intimacy upon velvet divans scattered throughout the room.

  The rajah recognized a number of those men from the auction rooms on Great Russell Street. In one corner, behind a pair of potted palms, the Earl of Bellingham sat consoling himself for the evening’s losses by fondling a voluptuous red-haired beauty whose breasts threatened to spill from her gauzy gown at any moment.

  Only a few feet away sat the rather befuddled mill owner from Yorkshire. Giggling like a schoolboy, he accepted a glass of champagne from a glittering-eyed blonde clad only in a corset and lace-trimmed pantalets.

  The noise of brittle laughter and shrill voices swept over the room. It reminded the newest visitor of the dry rustle of dead elephant grass in the last deadly days before the onset of the monsoon rains. Suddenly he felt restless and angry, hating everyone and everything around him—the high, arch laughter, the stench of cloying perfumes, and the chill efficiency with which partners were dispatched and money exchanged for an hour or two of mechanical and entirely unemotional coupling.

  He closed his eyes. Suddenly the sharp pungency of drying tea leaves filled his lungs. Before him he saw not dwarf potted palms but green hills lush with young tea bushes, their green arms rising to a cloudless azure sky.

  How he missed all that. And how he hated this chill, damp country with its chill, damp men and cold, greedy women.

  He would leave tonight!

  But that would be quite impossible. There were still too many formalities with the ruby to be completed. And he had purchases of his own yet to make.

  He had not come so far to turn careless now.

  Are you waiting for her? a hard voice asked. Are you delaying in the hope that she might change her mind?

  If so then you’re a damned fool!

  He forced down his distaste and studied the salon, registering the score of faces which now stared back at him with open dislike.

  He found himself wishing one of them would push matters a step further. A good fight would suit him perfectly right now.

  Not that it would wash away the ache of bitter memories. Certainly not the sight of the blood staining the auction floor.

  But none of these thoughts showed on that impassive mahogany face.

  Instead he stood aloof and arrogant, immobile before the host of staring eyes. Strangely enough, the dislike of the men in the salon was not mirrored in the faces of their female partners. They studied the powerful, broad-shouldered Oriental with open speculation.

  How easily this foreign garb captured female attention, the rajah thought cynically. Indeed, the unbridled sensuality of London had come as quite a surprise to him.

  But he was a man with a decided talent for both the giving and taking of physical pleasure. In the rajah’s view sex was merely a natural function of the human musculature and nervous system, and in this as in all else the dark-eyed visitor was conscientious about maintaining a peak physical form.

  In the jungle lightning reflexes and a honed body were the only things that kept a man alive. Fortunately, inventive bed play was an agreeable means of keeping his hard body well-toned.

  Even now he recalled his boyhood tutor explaining that spiritual merit could be attained from the proper congress of male and female. The rajah smiled, watching a sultry blonde in lace stockings and very little else glide toward him.

  If that were true, he planned to accumulate a vast amount of merit this night.

  His smile grew as he remembered some of the more inventive techniques he had learned from old Shivaji. Yes, he had indeed shown an aptitude for the lessons of kama, or sensual pleasure.

  But the smile faded as he looked around the room, thinking how cold and premeditated all this was in comparison to that pink stucco pavilion on the banks of the Ganges.

  And then the rajah saw that Sir John Humphrey was scowling at him with unconcealed hatred. His complexion mottled, the ex-governor bent to whisper something to his companion, awash in feathers
and red satin.

  The woman tittered. Sir Humphrey’s lips twisted in a cold, cruel smile.

  Sir Humphrey hated all Indians, of course. In India it was a known fact. The man had kept order, even though he’d bled his districts dry at the same time. Ever the perfect English official, he had enacted tax after tax while the wells ran dry and the villagers starved alongside their cattle.

  Soon the elephant grass was gone and even the leopards had fled.

  Luckily for Sir Humphrey, the Great Mutiny had swept through India and given him something concrete to hate the Indians for. Sickness, murder, and hatred, those were Sir Humphrey’s gifts to India. And for those he’d been rewarded with a baronetcy.

  The rajah scowled. Just looking at the man made his bowels twist in fury.

  As if he’d read the rajah’s thoughts, the Englishman stiffened. He bent to whisper another comment to his voluptuous partner, who immediately broke into uproarious laughter. A woman seated nearby leaned closer, then conveyed Humphrey’s witticism to the man beside her, who snickered loudly.

  Until he stared into the rajah’s face, that is. When he did that, all trace of humor fled.

  Idly the Indian considered taking out his razor-edged khanjar and teaching these dung-eating English barbarians the importance of keeping a civil tongue between their teeth.

  Yes, it might prove vastly amusing…

  Sir Humphrey’s friend began to sweat.

  The rajah smiled. The sight pleased him. He was just trying to decide what would add still more to his pleasure when he heard the soft tread of his bodyguard close behind him.

  The Sikh spoke, fast and urgent, and the rajah felt his humor fade. He’d lost the woman, just as he had feared. Worse than lost her, if what Singh said were true…

  But he refused to think about it. Now was for pleasure—or for a healthy dose of anger that might double for pleasure.

  His fingers inched into fists as he contemplated shoving a potted palm down Sir Humphrey’s throat.

  And then a new voice drifted down the spiral staircase. Elegant as ever, with her russet curls glistening in the gaslight, Helene swept into the salon. “How gracious of you to honor us with your presence, Your Excellency.”