For he was not in control, and he was anything but calm.
With jerky motions he freed the ribbons at the top of her chemise, pulled the float of cambric over her head, and tossed the garment onto the floor.
What he saw next drove the breath from his lungs.
She was tightly laced into a low-cut corset of a sort Pagan had never seen before. Its rigid gussets cinched a waist so slim that he could span it with his hands.
But it was the corset’s lacy edge that caught his gaze and sent flames exploding to his groin.
There, smooth as China silk, her lush breasts thrust up, cool and perfect. And there, just as in his dreams, her coral-tinged nipples peeped out from the lace trim.
Sweat broke out on Pagan’s brow. Even as he watched, one perfect crest trembled, then spilled free.
With a curse he released the breath he hadn’t even known he was holding. Struggling for calm, he bent to the damp mass of her skirts. Anything to forget the agony of his arousal, agony fired by the thought of the perfect curves only inches from his hungry fingers.
He frowned at her horsehair bustle. Why did Englishwomen insist on wearing so many clothes in the middle of the tropics? What were they trying to hide?
The anger steadied Pagan somehow, helping him forget her softness.
He pushed her onto her side, freeing the bustle and hurling it across the room. Farewell and good riddance! That was one article of dress she’d not wear again. And her bloody corset would soon make a second.
But first he had her wet petticoats to contend with.
Grim-faced, he bent to the task, his fingers rough and urgent against the fine, damp organdy. A person could smother buried beneath so much cloth, he knew. Many an Englishwoman had keeled over in a dead faint, laced and muffled head to toe in such clothes.
But not this woman, Pagan vowed. Soon she’d be naked as the day she was born. And he meant to see she stayed that way until he had answers from her.
One tape gave way. Pagan shifted her to tug the garment free.
Her head turned, pressing into his thigh.
He froze. Erotic images spilled through his mind.
Just like the ones in his fevered dreams.
He felt a shudder snake through her. Dark eyes smoldering, he raised her head and studied her face. But his trespasser’s features were pale and perfect, absolutely expressionless. She gave no sign that she noticed him or anything else around her.
But something else had moved. With Pagan’s efforts, her corset had shifted.
Now in frozen silence Pagan watched her other nipple tremble, then spill over the corset’s lacy edge.
Fire ripped through him. Desire beat a savage staccato straight down to his tumid manhood.
Take her, an angry voice urged. Take her here and now. That’s all the harlot deserves. After all, that’s what Ruxley sent her for.
But somehow he could not. Dreamlike, he watched his callused fingers fall until they grazed the small, peaked buds surrounded by pure lace and purer skin.
Pure? he thought bitterly. Pure was the last thing this harlot of Ruxley’s could be. As if to prove just that, he cupped one ivory mound and stroked its velvet bud with his thumb.
The woman did not move.
Pagan scowled. It proved nothing. She was well trained, after all, by a man who was a master at deception.
But a pinprick of guilt stirred.
The Englishman found himself remembering another woman—a woman who had met him with sweet fire. Lips that had clung to his with soft abandon while snow danced around them in the London night.
A woman he had tried for weeks to forget.
“Meri jaan.” The words were on his lips before he knew it, part plea and part raw accusation.
A shiver swept through the woman in his arms, so faint that Pagan wondered if he’d imagined it.
Stunned, he stared down at the pale sweep of her cheek, at the arch of her lips. The hair color was different and her features had been veiled, but…
Dear heaven, could it possibly be her?
“Falcon?” he whispered, tracing her bottom lip with his thumb, struck with the wild certainty that he had touched her this way before.
His thumb probed the shadowed center of her mouth. In his arms the woman trembled, her lips parting slightly.
A muscle flashed at Pagan’s jaw. It was impossible! She couldn’t be the woman he’d met in London. Her hair wasn’t even the right color.
But how else was he to explain this haunting sense that he had touched her this way before?
The answer was not a pleasant one.
It must be because he desperately wanted to believe it. Because he was half mad with malaria and had succumbed to Ruxley’s cleverest tactic yet.
Pagan jerked his hands away, struggling to fight the attraction he still felt. No, she couldn’t be the one. It would have been too great a coincidence.
And where James Ruxley was concerned, there was no such thing as coincidence.
Abruptly the woman twisted, murmuring restlessly. St. Cyr hated the way his pulse leaped at the sound.
Again it came, the raw, choked whisper. And then Pagan heard what he hadn’t allowed himself to hear before—that the sound was prompted by pain and not desire. Her fingers, he saw now, were clenched white, her lips compressed in a flat line.
Something was wrong!
He caught her wrist and felt her pulse. The beat was faint and sharply erratic.
Damn Ruxley and all his devious plans!
Grimly Pagan pushed the tangled mane from the woman’s face, cursing himself for not checking for wounds sooner.
But he knew why he hadn’t. There had been no shipwreck, no storm, and no real signs of any emergency which would have driven her onto his beach.
And because she was beautiful.
Because she was softer than any woman had a right to be.
Because he was halfway under her spell already.
The realization left Pagan stunned and furious. His jaw clenched as he continued to explore her neck and forehead, searching for anything that might explain her continuing lassitude.
Then his fingers froze. A raw laceration crossed her left temple just inside the hairline. Deep and jagged, it oozed bright new blood even now.
God forgive me for my stupidity, Pagan thought. Then he was on his feet and running for the door.
Praying he was not too late.
She woke to pain and numbing cold.
Barrett moaned, fighting her way up through layers of darkness and an eternity of dreams.
Only now she did not think of herself as Barrett or as Brett. Now she thought only in blurred wisps of sensation that knew neither sound nor words.
Hard fingers probed her skull, tugged at her clothing.
She shifted restlessly, struggling against the hot, choking air. “S-stop! No more, you f-foul leech! I—I won’t do it, do you hear? Not now. N-not ever!”
But the words were only in her mind.
A dream?
No, not a dream. Still in the water—had to get ashore. Had to reach the shore. Had to find…
Pain seized her between its gleaming metal jaws. Live a vise, it ripped through every layer of reason and defense.
Something wet splashed across her brow. She flinched, fighting it with mindless ferocity.
She mustn’t give in!
The voice came as if from a great distance.
Never give in. No matter what they say or do to you. You knew it might come to this, if you were caught.
She tried to think, to plan an escape, but the pain blocked every thought. When she tried to remember, she met only suffocating darkness.
And more pain.
Which left nothing to do but fight. And fight she did, with teeth bared and nails poised, like the desperate, hunted animal that they had finally made her become.
Vainly Pagan tried to quiet his captive’s wild struggles. But his touch seemed only to drive her to greater fury, until he could sca
rce dodge her flying fists.
He looked away, reaching for a clean cloth, and she twisted suddenly, her nails raking his face and drawing blood. Pagan cursed, knowing that he had to stop her before her wound opened wider. Grimly he wrapped an arm about her waist, forcing her against his chest.
With every movement, more blood spilled down her cheek.
Again, she broke free, slamming her fist into his cheek.
Pagan could taste his own blood as he rolled to his side and trapped her beneath him. In one swift movement he captured her wrists and pinned them at her sides. “Stay still, little fool!”
If the woman heard, she gave no sign of it. White-faced, she struggled harder, her chest heaving, her lips compressed in pain.
And in fear, Pagan saw, though she hid it well.
She was either a very brave woman or a very clever one, he decided. Before the hour was out, he would know which.
“It w-won’t work. N-not—again!” She twisted furiously. Panic sharpened her voice. “I won’t do it, do you hear? I don’t care what they t-told you!”
“Stop fighting me, woman.” The Englishman tried to ignore the exquisite sensation of her breasts against his naked chest. The way her softness yielded to his aching male hardness.
There would be time for that, he vowed, but now he must calm her and tend to her wound. The nearest decent surgeon was three hundred miles away in Madras, and Pagan had neither men nor time to fetch him, not with the monsoon only a matter of days away.
Grimly, he ripped a length of muslin from her discarded petticoat and knotted it around her forehead. That should stop the bleeding until he could clean the wound.
Just then his captive twisted, sinking her teeth into his wrist.
Pagan jerked away, studying the small red marks left by her teeth. Any wound was dangerous here in the jungle, where infection could rage out of control in a matter of hours, but a human bite to the hand was the most dangerous of all.
“Nihal!” he bellowed. Immediately bare feet pattered down on the hall.
The door was thrown open by a small sober Sinhalese servant with a blinding white smile and fine, regular features. Right now those features were creased with curiosity. “Yes, Tiger?”
Pagan didn’t even turn around, too busy trying to subdue his unruly patient. “Boiling water, bandages, and that bottle I brought back from London. Quick, Nihal!”
“Yes, lord. Most quickly I am being.” Bare feet scurried over the wooden floor and then the door slammed shut.
“I won’t talk, d-damn you.” The woman’s teeth began to chatter and her head tossed restlessly from side to side. “The secret is m-mine. Won’t have it from me n-now. D-die first…”
St. Cyr’s brow knit in a frown as he anchored her beneath the weight of his body. What in the devil was the woman talking about? “I don’t want you to talk,” he growled. “Just to stop bloody fighting me!”
“Let go! M-must get to s-shore.” Her voice was growing weaker. “Gran—”
“You are ashore. Now you must rest. You’re—” He started to say “safe,” but stopped himself.
Safe is the last thing you are, he thought. But she’d find that out soon enough.
“Here,” he finished instead. “Here with me.”
She blinked. Her eyes opened slowly and Pagan found himself staring down into teal eyes, gold-flecked and dark with unshed tears.
Beautiful, he thought bleakly.
Just as he had known they would be.
As if to torment him, her bared nipple brushed his shoulder. Her soft thighs shoved against him, each movement bringing new tides of agony.
Her eyes widened, glazed and unfocused. “W-where? Where am I?”
Pagan scowled. This struggling of hers would be the death of him! “You’re home,” he lied.
She froze beneath him. Her head cocked as she fought to make sense of his words. “H-home?” she rasped. “At—at Cinnamon Hill?”
Pagan stored that bit of information away for future use. “No, not there. At my home. At Windhaven.” He waited for her glimmer of response.
All he saw was disappointment. Her shoulders seemed to droop and weariness darkened her eyes. Suddenly she looked tired—and infinitely vulnerable.
But before Pagan could react to that vulnerability, her hands tensed, then balled into fists.
“You’ll pay for this villainy! If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll see that you pay!”
How he would pay, Pagan was not to learn, for the next minute her body went slack. With a choked sob, she slipped back into the darkness.
For long minutes Pagan stared down at the woman in his bed. He cursed in the first tongue he had ever learned, using good, stout Hindi phrases. Then he switched to Tamil and finally to gutter English.
None of them made him feel any better.
He barely looked up as Nihal returned, laden with cloth and bottles.
“Where is the memsab coming from? No boats are being seen in the cove for over a month, nor is there any wreckage of wood or canvas.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.” Grimly St. Cyr tore off a piece of linen and dipped it in the basin of hot water that Nihal had brought. Carefully he began to clean the woman’s forehead, thankful that she was still unconscious. Even diluted, the carbolic acid solution was going to hurt badly. He hoped to finish while she slept.
To his fury Pagan noticed that his fingers were not quite steady.
Nihal noticed too. “Tiger is best being careful about that one. No good she is coming from the cove. Yakkini—devil woman—she is for sure. Ruxley is having sent men that way twice already, as the mahattaya is knowing well.”
St. Cyr’s eyes narrowed to black slits. “Thank you for reminding me, Nihal, but I am hardly likely to forget that fact. Please fetch a decanter of brandy and a glass. I believe I left them in the drying shed. The woman will be coming around soon, and I might need to loosen her tongue for a few questions. And bring me that bloody cinchona, too, while you’re at it.”
“With first-chop haste, sahib. Yes, yes, swiftly I am going.” Pagan’s chief overseer bowed and backed from the room, his velvet eyes narrowed. Whatever thoughts he had, he kept strictly to himself.
St. Cyr worked the lower hooks of the garment free. Pale skin teased the deep V of the open corset, her silken beauty marred by angry welts from the stiff boning.
He fought down an urge to run his lips softly over those welts, to tongue away their pain.
His hands began to shake. Beads of sweat glistened on his naked chest.
He was growing dizzy, the malarial fevers returning. Images came and went before Pagan’s eyes, and suddenly the room began to spin.
Bloody mosquitoes, he thought dimly. Now he would be useless for any serious work until the fevers receded.
He’d better leave Nihal with a rifle, he thought grimly, watching the woman on the bed part and separate into two blurred images.
Awkwardly he worked at the last hooks. As if in a dream he felt the heat of her skin flow into his fingers.
Hot. So hot…
In the same instant the chills began. Suddenly Pagan was shivering, starved for heat—her heat. Starved for her tawny hair tangled against his chest, her long legs wrapped around his waist while her softness sheathed his straining manhood.
Somehow he staggered to his feet and pried open the precious bottle of carbolic acid.
His hands were shaking so badly that it took him ten minutes to finish cleaning the wound.
Finally it was done. His face dark with strain, Pagan found one of her fallen petticoats—and draped it over her chest. He did no more, afraid to touch her.
Afraid that if he began touching her he would never stop.
In tense silence he untied the mosquito net and let it fall down around the bed, capturing her within like Sleeping Beauty in her wall of thorns.
Too damned fanciful by half, old man. And she is no Sleeping Beauty.
His tremors grew.
Fair is
fair, he thought grimly.
For you’re no bloody prince.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The coconut-oil lamp danced wildly as Pagan flung open the door to his room twelve hours later. Scowling, he slapped down his lantern and bent to study the woman on his bed.
Still she showed no sign of waking. Between his own bouts of fever, he had cleaned her scalp wound and twice applied a diluted mix of the carbolic acid he had brought back from London. Cleanliness, he had learned, could make the difference between life and death here in the tropics.
Pagan’s eyes darkened. Frowning, he tugged the black patch from his eye and massaged the muscles left aching from a day in the sun.
Soon he would have to leave for Windhaven. If the woman was still too weak to travel, he’d have to leave her here with Nihal, little as he liked the idea, for she might well prove the clue to this whole imbroglio.
In the dancing light of the lamp his face was a study in copper and shadows. Even a delay of three days was probably too much, with a tiger twice sighted in the jungle and the hill country tribesmen cutting up ugly under their bloody shaman’s influence.
He’d give her only two days, Pagan decided. He could spare no more than that—not with the monsoon due at any moment.
Grimly he checked the linen bandages at her forehead, willing his restless eyes away from the silken skin below.
He had considered trying to remove the bloody corset, but in the end had decided not to. He did not trust himself to stop when he was done undressing her.
Scowling, he concentrated on her wound. The cut was clean, at least. The center was deep and still oozing, but not as much as he had feared. Fortunately, there was no sign of contagion.
The scar would not be a pleasant one, of course. Made with a rope, unless he missed his guess. So his Eve had nasty friends, did she?
A thousand questions sprang to Pagan’s lips as he slipped a fresh piece of linen in place and secured it with a knot. It was tricky work in the flickering lamplight, for his hands were still unsteady. Already he could feel the fevers returning.
His fingers slipped, grazing the lush swell of her breast, outlined beneath the petticoat.
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