The Tiger's Lady

by Skye, Christina

  So instead of protesting she turned her thoughts to the man tossing on the cot, refusing to consider that she would not succeed.

  But as the minutes ticked by and Pagan continued to toss and struggle, flushed with fever, gaunt and motionless, she began to grow very afraid. His image blurred before her, tears squeezing from her eyes.

  “Get well, damn you! Do you hear me, Deveril Pagan?”

  But there was no answer, no sign of a response of any sort.

  Grimly Barrett wrenched to her feet, unable to bear looking at his motionless features any longer. Rubbing her neck, which was tight with pain from her long vigil in the chair by his cot, she walked blindly to the tent flap.

  Outside a group of bearers was busy loading the last cases on two large and very intimidating elephants. Barrett watched a thin mahout coax one of the great beasts backward, then guide his trunk down to lift a huge, chair-like structure of wooden planks up onto his back. It was a seat of some sort, she realized, complete with a tattered canvas awning to block the sun.

  It was a noisy scene, bright and full of energy and life. But Barrett saw none of it, for a gaunt, lined face with a pair of jagged scars cut off every other thought.

  It was a face that she would have given anything to see awake and angry and ripping up at her right now.

  Miles away, beneath a spreading sal tree in the shimmering heat of mid-afternoon, a gaunt old man sank to his heels and studied the distant horizon. His face impassive, he observed the clouds skimming overhead and listened carefully to the wind.

  What he heard and saw pleased him, for his lips curved slightly.

  Yes, all was as the shaman had foreseen.

  Without warning a shadow loomed low and swept over the ground, then soared with a whoosh to a neighboring tree. Bright-eyed, a shahin falcon pranced on a twisted branch, then settled its wings carefully.

  Glittering gold eyes met startled brown.

  What omen was this? the old man wondered. Was it just possible that he had made an error after all?

  Frowning he looked down at the arrangement of polished stones he had cast before him on the ground. Sunlight burst off their gleaming faces in sparks of blood red, green, and sapphire. Yes, all was just as he had foretold in the ritual flames. And yet…

  A spark leaped.

  The old man’s brow furled.

  But this was a new and entirely unexpected element, he saw. A thing dark and twisted, ineffably evil.

  His breath slid slowly from his throat. Yes, this new element would bear close consideration.

  Eyes half closed, the old man breathed deeply, in a soothing rhythm, his gaze fixed inward.

  When the falcon shrieked once and exploded off its perch into the shimmering sky, the old man was far, far away, exploring a place where past, present, and future twisted together like the gnarled roots of the great banyan and then became one.

  It was time.

  She knew it by the sudden tension in the bearers’ faces, by the strain in Nihal’s mahogany features. Silently he caught Barrett’s eye and shook his head sadly.

  Her two hours had come and gone.

  Disappointment welled through her as she watched Nihal turn and start back to issue the command to depart. Barrett’s first instinct was to run and block his way, trying to protect Pagan from what she knew must happen next. But almost immediately she quelled the urge, realizing it would be useless.

  Nihal was right in insisting they leave, of course.

  If they stayed here they would certainly all die, for it would be only a matter of hours before their enemy returned.

  Regret burned through her like acid and she scrubbed away a hot sheen of tears. If only…

  From behind her came a faint creaking.

  “Hush, Magic,” she said bleakly, not bothering to turn. “We—we must go very soon, I fear. Let him rest while he can.”

  “But what if this he you speak of doesn’t—want to rest?”

  At the sound of that low, gravelly voice, Barrett’s heart flipped over. “P-Pagan!” Whirling about, she saw her patient fighting to sit up on the cot.

  “Damn it, Pagan, stay still, can’t you? Sweet Lord, you must have lost gallons of blood. You—you nearly died!” she added accusingly.

  “Can that possibly be sympathy I hear?”

  “Humph! Your ears must be sorely affected, too, I fear.” With a furtive swipe at her eyes, Barrett stalked to the cot and stood glaring down at Pagan, hands on her hips. “Lie back down!”

  “Is that a proposition, Angrezi?”

  “No, it’s a promise, lackwit. I promise I’ll hold you down and tie you there if you don’t obey me!”

  Pale still, Pagan somehow managed a lopsided smile.

  “Grown weary of your tasks already, have you?” He made a clucking sound. “Give the wench a few minutes of sickbed duty and she turns into a sergeant-major parading the regiment.”

  “A few minutes? You’ve been here all of the night and most of the day.”

  Pagan’s smiled faded. Slowly he ran a wobbly hand across his sweat-slick brow. “So long as that?” Abruptly his face hardened. “We must be on our way. We cannot stay here in the open another night.” He called hoarsely for Nihal, then swayed, gritting his teeth in a fight to stay upright.

  “Damn it, Pagan, you’re as weak as blancmange! You just can’t stand up and swagger about giving orders when—”

  He simply ignored her, while white lines of strain built around his lips. “We’ll—we’ll need elephants. Two—yes, two at the very least. That will be the safest way to cover the uphill terrain. Tell Nihal to—”

  “I’ll tell Nihal nothing!” Barrett interrupted furiously. Grimly she bent down and tried to force Pagan back onto the cot. But even half delirious as he was, it was still like trying to shove down a brick wall. “Good sweet Lord, when are you going to be quiet and listen to me?”

  At that moment Pagan’s headman poked his head through the flap, taking in the scene inside instantly. His face broke into a brilliant smile. “You are awake! Thanks be to all the gods! I am securing the two elephants now, lord. One is waiting for you and the memsab. But it is very much better if we are away now, while we still have several hours of daylight left to travel in.”

  Slowly Pagan released a sigh. His eyes met Barrett’s and one black brow crooked. He gave her a faint smile. “Damned good man, Nihal. Remind me to give him a raise. Now where was I? Oh, yes … two elephants…” His eyes grew dim. “With them we should … should … reach Windhaven by…”

  He never finished. Eyes closed, he simply toppled backward, unconscious before his back even met the straining canvas.

  “Horrid, impossible man,” Barrett muttered beneath her breath.

  But even as she said the words, a tiny smile began to play around her lips. And her eyes, when she brushed back an errant strand from Pagan’s forehead, were positively shot through with happiness.

  He woke to incandescent heat, to raging thirst and savage pain at his back and shoulder.

  He was rocking and swaying, a soft female body wedged against his thigh. With a faint sigh Pagan relaxed and sank back.

  He recognized that odd, slow gait. They were on elephant back.

  And she was beside him, the woman in his dreams. The woman whom he had kissed beneath a globe of London gaslight and never forgotten.

  “Meri jaan. Soul of my soul.”

  He felt her shift, her breast nudging his arm. Instantly Pagan winced as a fire that had nothing to do with his wound leaped through him.

  She was asleep, he realized, her head curled atop one arm, her hair spilling over both of them.

  Pagan’s lips twisted in a crooked, bittersweet smile.

  So fate had saved him from his enemy, ordaining he should live to fight another day. And love another night, he added.

  Perhaps, Pagan decided, he would have to do both, when the woman was such a one as his Barrett.

  His lips curved slightly, and he sank back down into dreams,
dreams rich and bright and blatantly erotic.

  And she was in every one.

  She rocked along in the shade of a pitching awning, anchored atop four tons of gray, shifting muscle.

  This could almost become pleasant, after one grew used to the odd rocking, Barrett decided.

  Looking down, she saw that Pagan’s face was in the sun and moved the canvas until he was covered. At her movement, he shifted, his arm sweeping across her waist while his head settled into the curve of her knee.

  Barrett’s breath wedged in her throat. She tried to ease away, but the swaying compartment was barely large enough to hold them both. As it was, Pagan lay slanted crosswise and she had to tuck her legs to fit in the remaining space.

  She gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the weight of his hand at her rib. When the elephant lurched to avoid a boulder, their bodies were crushed even closer.

  “Ummmm.” The fingers slid lazily from side to side over her ribs. “Magic?”

  Barrett scowled. So he thought she was a monkey, did he? Muttering beneath her breath, she shoved his hands away.

  A few seconds later he sighed and his hand swung even higher.

  This time when his long fingers splayed open, they captured the lush swell of her breast. “Mmmmmm.” He thumbed the hardened nub and mumbled something in Hindi. His nail stroked idly, sending heat crashing to the pit of Barrett’s stomach—and lower. Dear Lord, how did the man do such things to her?

  “Ahhhhh. Perfect, by all the gods. Mita?”

  This was absolutely the outside of enough! Teal eyes flashing, Barrett jerked away and forced Pagan’s hand firmly down beneath his thigh.

  A second later she found her hand caught to his thigh, and inching steadily toward the rapidly expanding bulge at his chocolate-colored riding breeches.

  Her breath caught in fury. Even in his dreams the man plotted his deviltry! Scowling, she tried to jerk free, but his fingers were like steel bands. And then she was cupping the hot heart of him, where desire throbbed in molten, pulsing waves.

  The breath squeezed from Barrett’s lungs in an audible whoosh.

  Dear lord, the man was huge! And he was growing steadily more huge every second.

  How was she possibly going to manage this without waking him? Especially when her own blood seemed to flame higher with every passing second. Pulsing heat filled her fingers, causing her to think of dark, forbidden images. How would it feel, what would it be like if he—

  Gasping, she struggled to free her hand and to inch back into the corner of the swaying howdah. But it was useless.

  Pagan murmured sleepily, his aroused member straining against her trembling fingers.

  A moment later one eyelid lifted and Barrett was pierced by a black, glittering gaze. “Well, well,” he said softly, his voice thick and potent as rum. “I pass out and the first thing you do is take advantage of me. What sort of adventuress are you, Angrezi?”

  With a furious snort, Barrett jerked away and pressed her body into the corner, as far away from Pagan as possible.

  Unfortunately, it was not far enough.

  “I—I did no such thing, you—you miscreant! It was you, you who—” She sputtered, her cheeks aflame, unable to finish.

  Pagan’s lips twisted in a smile and his brow rose, faintly mocking. “I suggest you stop careening about or we’ll both go flying from this howdah any second.”

  Already the power had returned to that voice and he spoke with the old, familiar note of command. And yet somehow the sound did not provoke Barrett as it had before, only made her smile faintly.

  “Quite back to your old insufferable self, I see.”

  “Not entirely,” Pagan grated, “but I’m but working on it.” He stirred slightly, then tensed, only then aware of how tightly his hand gripped hers. His fingers loosened, but even then did not draw away. “My head feels like a band of monkeys are camped inside it. And my—shoulder … What—what happened to me?”

  “You had a Vedda blade buried in your shoulder and lost a great deal of blood. But it’s clean and the bleeding has stopped.”

  “No poison?”

  “Apparently not.” Mita had said that Pagan would be dead by now if the blade had been smeared with one of the jungle’s lethal flora.

  Pagan passed a hand slowly over his eyes. “I remember—very little. You tended to me? Why not Mita?”

  Barrett felt heat rise to her cheeks and tossed her hair forward to cover the telltale stain. “Somehow that task fell to me. You were delirious for quite a while, and—”

  “And what, Angrezi?”

  “It—it seemed that you would listen to no one else.”

  Pagan frowned. “Sounds damned unpleasant. For both of us.”

  “You do not exactly make a biddable patient, that is certain,” she said stiffly. Did the wretched man take no pains to conceal the fact that he would have preferred Mita’s care?

  “Did I say—speak—” He stopped, then cleared his throat. A wariness seemed to grip him.

  Cawnpore, Barrett realized instantly. Just as quickly she decided to deny him that information. “Speak? Actually, I couldn’t seem to shut you up. You talked about Windhaven and your precious tea seedlings. And then you talked a great deal of nonsense about how much you hated elephants. Then, as I recall, you ranted on about the corruption of the Kandy court and made rather a great many unrepeatable comments about our own Most Gracious Majesty. Quite uncharitable of you, but entirely in character, of course.”

  A muscle flashed at Pagan’s jaw. “You are an astonishing woman.”

  Touched beyond reason by his words, Barrett managed a little shrug. “Because I forfeit my sleep to tend to you? Hardly so wonderful. After all, I nearly shot you.”

  “So that was your cartridge.”

  “Lucky for you, the wretched revolver pulls badly to the right.”

  “What else did I say?”

  Barrett shrugged lightly. “You treated me to all the details of your nefarious dealings with any number of lush and willing females. What a busy little boy you have been, Mr. Pagan.”

  His eyes dark, he pulled her closer. “I don’t believe you, Angrezi. Not for a minute. But I won’t task you with the lie now. And as for the rest, I’m no boy. One touch will confirm that. As it did when you ran your warm fingers over me.”

  Heat licked Barrett’s cheeks as she remembered the feel of Pagan’s rigid sex beneath her hands. “I? T-touch you? You must be delirious!”

  “Never try to lie to me, Cinnamon. You’re as clear as a north country salmon stream in the spring.” He slanted her a wolfish smile. “And as for who was seducing whom, let’s claim equal share of the guilt. I have seen the full force of your passion, remember?” Pagan’s eyes darkened. “Ah, it will be sweet between us, Angrezi. It will be hot and hungry and all night long when I take you. And I promise when I’m done, you’ll only want more.”

  Furious, Barrett wrenched her foot from beneath his thigh and wedged herself farther into the corner. In the process, she knocked against his bandaged shoulder.

  Immediately Pagan’s lips clenched and his face bled white.

  “Dear Lord, I’m sorry, Pagan. I didn’t mean to—”

  His breath hissed out slowly. “You never do, woman,” he rasped.

  “Here. Hold onto me.” Anxiously Barrett reached out to him, her hands trembling.

  For a moment he did not move, strange restless shadows playing through his eyes. A shudder ripped through him. A second later his hand covered hers in a painful grip.

  Even when he finally sank back into a restless sleep, Pagan’s fingers remained locked to hers.

  In sleep his face was strangely boy-like, the scar on his cheekbone making him look vulnerable rather than dangerous. Barrett found herself wondering what he had looked like, acted like, before Cawnpore.

  Suddenly she yearned to make him look that way again, carefree and young.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  They camped that night on the far side of a
churning river in a little valley fringed by sandalwood and eucalyptus. They would be safe here, Nihal told her, for he had scouted the area and seen no more signs of Vedda pursuit.

  During their climb, the air had grown steadily cooler and now, with the coming of night, cold winds wrapped them in blue, clinging mists. Barrett spent an hour in a folding chair beside Pagan’s cot, berating him when he thrashed about, scolding him into drinking Mita’s herbal brews, and swabbing him dry when the fevers returned.

  Overhead the stars blazed like scattered diamonds in the crisp, cool mountain air, while eucalyptus smoke curled up from a crackling campfire. After the oppressive heat of the jungle, it seemed a different world, a world fresh and newborn, all its pleasures inexpressibly precious.

  Dimly Barrett sensed that up here in the high country she, too, was changing. With every step she came closer into harmony with this beautiful, alien land. Closer too, to the iron-willed, brooding man who lay sleeping beside her.

  In a strange way she found herself wishing they could go on this way forever, caught between two worlds, eternal travelers in a landscape of dreams, free from the strictures of East and West.

  For here in the green foothills they were not enemies, but simply two desperate people trying to survive.

  Here they were simply man and woman.

  But Barrett knew her dream was not to be. Though stripped of her memory, some instinct warned that nothing could ever be simple between the two of them.

  And as it happened the lesson was brought home to her far sooner than she could have imagined.

  Two days later, as dawn broke over the camp in a fury of crimson, Nihal and Mita were arguing loudly.

  “Humph! I am expecting such nonsense from a woman. But of course the Tiger will be walking in a week!”

  Mita glared back at him. “Twice that at least. Possibly he will be needing three weeks. As you will soon be seeing for yourself, man with the heart of a jackal!”

  As it happened, both were wrong.