Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  "All right. Come over here." Still perfectly calm, he looked back at her and beckoned with his head. "Let me see just how straight you can shoot." Olivia stared at him in horror; had he gone mad? "Come on," he repeated impatiently. "He's not going to wait for you all day!"

  Propelled undoubtedly by divine power, since she had none of her own, Olivia moved. Raventhorne clenched the barrel of his rifle briefly between his teeth and extended his free arm to curl around her waist. With her back tight against his chest, he made a lightning move and, suddenly, his Colt was in her hand. "Aim for the forehead," he instructed, dropping his own weapon to support her firmly. "He doesn't have much strength left so try to be quick."

  Olivia hesitated but only for a frozen second more. Held securely by the waist, she lifted the Colt, aimed and fired. For a horrible fraction of an instant, she thought she had missed, for the tiger's head remained exactly where it had been. Then a rush of blood spewed forth from a neat hole between its eyes. With a final dying roar and one last virulent glare, the magnificent head dropped entirely from view. Unaware that the drama was over, the elephant continued on its flight down the river bank.

  Taking her with him, Raventhorne fell back into the howdah, and the Colt in Olivia's numb fingers went flying over the side onto the ground racing past below. For a moment they lay unmoving, side by side, their arms and legs entangled. The silence outside was suddenly deathly. Tiring, the elephant finally began to slow down.

  "You dropped my gun." Propped up on an elbow, he stared down at her with an annoyed frown.

  "But at least," she managed to murmur weakly, staring back into his eyes so close, so terribly close, "I didn't faint."

  And with that, she fainted.

  When she came to, Olivia lay on a carpet underneath a tree. In the clearing, pandemonium reigned. Hundreds of people sang and danced and jubilated all around, and the drums had started up again. One of the Maharani's veiled maidservants was sitting and fanning her; another offered her a drink of water. Olivia blinked to clear her head, sat up slowly and drained the cup in a single draught. Her vision started to return; gulping in huge lungfuls of air, she looked up into the worried eyes of Jai Raventhorne.

  "Are you all right?"

  Olivia nodded and asked for more water. "What . . . happened?"

  "You fainted."

  "Oh." She averted her head. "Is the tiger . . . dead?"

  "Very." He pointed to the crowd dancing in a circle. "They're measuring him out and singing your praises." His eyes were disturbingly soft, almost as soft as his smile.

  "Magnificent shot, Miss O'Rourke, magnificent!" The Maharaja joined them, rubbing his hands together in obvious delight. "Although Jai had no right to place you in a position of such danger." He threw an accusing glance at his friend, trying to look stern but not succeeding.

  "I could have hardly missed at point-blank range," Olivia protested. "In any case, he is Mr. Raventhorne's prize. The mortal wound had already been inflicted."

  The tiger, a full ten feet two inches long between the pegs, lay stretched on the grass, as resplendent in death as in life. Two blood-encrusted holes showed on its beautiful yellow and black fur, one in the shoulder and one in the dead centre of its forehead. Olivia stared at it in fascination and then with involuntary compassion. What a sad end to such a superb creature!

  "Don't waste your tears on him," Raventhorne said carelessly at her elbow. "He's eaten more people than even the villagers can count."

  "Is the elephant badly hurt?" she asked, anxious. "Those claws seemed to go in very deep."

  "No. They have tough hides. The mahouts are expert medicine-men; they know which healing leaves and plants to use."

  Olivia turned to face him severely. "You really had no business doing that, you know. Supposing I had missed?"

  "At point-blank range?" He tilted his head sideways. "If you had, I promise I would have used my second bullet on you as a disgrace to your nation."

  Back at the lodge, luncheon was served to hundreds of people from nearby villages sitting in long lines on the ground before the ubiquitous banana leaves that did for plates. On the return journey the hunters had bagged several deer and black buck and the meat was roasted on giant spits out in the open. As a treat the Maharaja had ordered tots of local liquor for all and the resultant revelries were already well under way. On the return, Raventhorne had ridden with the Maharaja and Olivia had shared her howdah with the maidservant. Whether or not she preferred this arrangement she never decided because, drained by the morning's excitement, she slept all the way back.

  In the compound of the lodge there were a few embarrassing moments when some overjoyed villagers garlanded both her and Jai Raventhorne and danced around them singing paeans of praise for their marksmanship. Her red-faced protests that the kill had been his, not hers, were drowned out by the clamour. Raventhorne enjoyed her embarrassment, making no attempt to convey her protests to the crowd. "Since you concede there is an affinity between us," he murmured with a faint curl of his mouth, "is it not appropriate that we should share the honours? I have never done so before with a woman; it makes an intriguing change."

  "I conceded no such thing, Mr. Raventhorne!" she retorted, vexed by his presumption. "You are allowing your imagination to run away with you."

  He made no reply except for that maddening smile. Perhaps he knew there was no need to.

  Luncheon for the Maharaja, the Maharani and their two guests was served in the cool privacy of the lodge dining-room, and the variety of spiced meats cushioned on snowy white rice was delicious. Olivia was well used to game meats, having subsisted on them frequently, and the pungent spices gave them added flavour. Through the meal, eaten with their fingers, the conversation was almost entirely about the hunt, mostly for Kinjal's benefit. The Maharaja, in excellent form now that the menace threatening the lives of his people had been conquered, regaled them with accounts of previous hunts, and the mood was generally casual.

  It was after they had eaten and were enjoying some sweets presented to the Maharaja by the villagers that he suddenly said, "What is so urgent that you have to hurry back, Jai? Surely you could delay your departure until the morning?" He sounded piqued. "I was looking forward to our customary game of chess tonight."

  Raventhorne shook his head. "Not tonight, Arvind. There are important matters that await me in Calcutta."

  "What important matters?" the Maharaja queried with a frown.

  "Well, that fur consignment for one. Khan is a wily Kashmiri and I know he has been negotiating with Smithers."

  "So let Smithers win one round, what does it matter? You have beaten him to it often enough."

  Raventhorne smiled. "One round is one too many."

  The Maharaja threw up his hands in irritation. "Must you be like a dog with a bone all the time, Jai? Can you not let go once, just once?"

  Raventhorne stood up. "When I let go, Arvind, I fear my teeth will go with the bone," he said lightly. "Now, would you like to show me your American reloader? I shall have to leave within the hour."

  As Kinjal retired into her room following the luncheon, Olivia stood at the verandah balustrades and watched the activity below, but distractedly. Her increasing contrariness was beginning to bewilder her; on the one hand she felt desperately uncomfortable in the presence of Raventhorne, but on the other she was sorely disappointed to see him go! What was it that she wanted? For the first time in her life Olivia found herself facing a dilemma that had no simple answers, a mass of complexities she did not know how to untangle. Her fascination for this volatile man whose directions changed with the wind, like a weathervane, was incomprehensible. He was everything she disapproved of, nothing her reason urged her to admire. Yet the prospect of not seeing him again was intolerable. And impossible! As surely as she knew that the sun would rise in the morning, Olivia knew that she would see Jai Raventhorne again.

  Below in the court-yard, his midnight Shaitan was being led out of the clearing by Bahadur, the attendant w
ho had escorted her home the morning she had met Raventhorne in the bazaar. Absurdly dismayed at the prospect of missing Raventhorne's departure, Olivia hurried down the wooden stairway without giving herself time to think. The ache to see him once more, to exchange some meaningless words and delay him a few minutes, was so acute that it was almost like a catch in her side. Then, feeling foolish, she stood behind the trunk of the gulmohar, regretting her rashness but unable to retreat. Raventhorne descended the stairs and walked to his horse, then, with one foot in the stirrup, halted as he sighted her. He released the reins and sauntered up to where she stood.

  "I hear the Templewoods are planning a visit to Barrack-pore."

  There was no point in even pretending surprise at his information. "There has been some talk about it, yes. My aunt feels strongly that my uncle needs a rest from—"

  "All his misfortunes? Yes, I daresay he does." His manner changed. "But you do not wish to accompany them?"

  He had again verbalized something that was still only a vague seed in her own mind. Now that he had, however, Olivia recognised that he was right; no, she did not wish to accompany them! "Of course I wish to accompany them," she contradicted with undue force. "Why ever should I not? I hear Barrackpore is a most agreeable place."

  "Agreeable, yes, but it takes you away for a while from your ever-ready Romeo, Freddie!" He scowled.

  This time she did stamp her foot. "I wish you would refrain from throwing that damned name in my face quite as often as you do!" she cried, clenching her fists in frustration. "It infuriates me, which is, of course, the sole reason you do it!"

  He laughed. "Well, can you think of a better one?" The wave of some invisible magic wand then whipped the humour off his lips. The pale, pale eyes went metallic, as did the voice. "If you do not wish to go to Barrackpore, you will not. Take my word for it."

  Olivia remained staring at his vanishing back, mouth open with astonishment.

  It was not until late in the evening that the excitement of the shoot subsided enough for the royal party to return to the town of Kirtinagar and the palace. It had been a long, physically wearisome day. For Olivia it had also proved emotionally harrowing. But, despite her mental and physical fatigue, her mind raced. Whatever the paradoxes and the confusions, there was one truth that could not now be dismissed: Her interest in Jai Raventhorne was by no means academic as she had once insisted. This, at least, had been resolved during the day. Nor was she curious about him merely because he was a person cast in a mould of extraordinary dimensions. Between them, inexplicably, there was an affinity, an invisible filament, a bond. However unwanted and unsolicited, it was at the same time wildly stimulating. Olivia could no longer deny that it was as a man—attractive and exciting and sensual, yes, sensual—that Jai Raventhorne affected her most.

  "Tell me about him, Kinjal."

  Once again they were by themselves, strolling among the bushes of the aromatic herbal garden fanned by the bracing nightly breezes from the south. Above them rotated the arc of the night sky with its burden of stars spelling out by their movement the irredeemable and irreversible passage of time. In Olivia's request sounded a note of urgency to which the Maharani reacted without surprise. It was, after all, too late for pretences. Nor did the Maharani need to ask to whom Olivia referred. The thought between them was shared, tacitly understood.

  "Yes," she answered simply, "you of all people have the right to know more."

  Olivia halted. "Why do you say that?"

  "Because . . . ," Kinjal paused, as if to select the right words, "because you have provoked Jai's attention. It is not an attention that is aroused with ease but it is an occurrence that sometimes," she paused again to breathe a small sigh, "extorts heavy compensations." In the large sloe eyes there was something that momentarily startled Olivia. It was pity.

  "Tell me about him anyway." Impatience and that all-pervading sense of urgency cancelled out every other consideration. The look of pity she decided to ignore. "I would like to know everything."

  "And so you shall, my friend, so you shall." Smiling a little at Olivia's impatience, Kinjal summoned a maidservant from a knot of women who sat not far away singing softly among themselves, and ordered carpets and cushions. "We might as well make ourselves comfortable. The story is long and the telling will take time."

  CHAPTER 5

  Surprisingly enough, Kinjal said, our chief source of information about Jai Raventhorne's background has been my husband's father, the late Maharaja. A man greatly interested in his fellow human beings, rich or poor, he was in the habit of travelling incognito to Calcutta and elsewhere. On one such journey he happened to stop at a wayside tavern for refreshments for himself, his single attendant and their horses. As he sat in the courtyard chatting with other travellers, his eyes fell upon a young lad of about fourteen busy washing heavy kitchen utensils at the well. The boy was clad in tatters and was far from clean. And his body looked horribly emaciated.

  What encouraged the Maharaja's attention, however, were two rather unusual characteristics; even though he was under no supervision by his employer, the boy performed his menial task with single-minded effort—and his curious silver eyes were empty of all discernible expression. The boy was obviously of mixed blood, for beneath the film of dirt his skin was unusually pale. In India there is no dearth of destitute half-breeds forgotten by transient fathers; this one looked unprepossessing, but there was something about him that struck the Maharaja as unusual.

  He called the boy over and asked his name. The boy answered but with visible reluctance, almost as if the simple question had somehow insulted him. He refused to respond to all other questions, his manner becoming more and more resentful. Finally, for no reason other than the boy's curious air of dignity and a feeling of pity for his abysmal condition, the Maharaja offered him a handful of coins. The boy's reaction amazed him. Throwing back his shoulders he straightened into a stance of lofty arrogance and his grey eyes became ashen with contempt. "I do not accept money when I have not worked for it," he said scornfully. "Keep your charity for others who do."

  Far from being offended, the Maharaja was deeply impressed. It was rare indeed to find such fierce pride in one who could so little afford it. From that day on the Maharaja made it a point to stop at the tavern each time he passed. He never made the mistake of offering charity again but instead worked hard to win the confidence of the lad. Gradually over the months the boy's attitude towards him loosened and an unlikely friendship of sorts developed between the king and the dish-washer. But the boy seldom smiled and never talked about himself. What he did do a great deal was ask questions, mostly about ships and the sea and the world outside his own meagre one. The Maharaja made handsome offers of employment in Kirtinagar or of education in some forward-looking institution. He liked the boy, was convinced that he had worthy potential and wanted to give him a chance to exploit it. Each time the boy refused.

  "Then what do you want to do with your life, Jai?" The Maharaja repeatedly asked, exasperated by this inexplicable stubbornness. "Do you want to spend the rest of your days washing other people's dirty dishes?"

  Finally one day, instead of prevaricating as he usually did, the boy volunteered an answer. "No. I want to be the richest man in the world. And I will be some day." He spoke with no passion at all, merely as if he were stating a foregone conclusion.

  "Well, that certainly is an understandable ambition," the Maharaja said with matching solemnity although suppressing a small smile. "But for that you have to at least make a start."

  The boy looked surprised. "I already have."

  "True, but to improve in life substantially you need . . . equipment."

  The boy held out his hands. "I have equipment. These, and," he touched his forehead, "this."

  "Your equipment is undoubtedly excellent," the Maharaja said gently, "but to spend a lifetime washing dishes will not make you rich."

  "No," the boy conceded, "but that is not how I will spend it."

  "T
hen how?"

  The boy took a long time to give an answer, the Maharaja later recalled. A strange, far-away look came into his eyes as if he were transported into quite another time. Then, slowly, he smiled. "I will spend it," he said in a purr that was almost catlike, "in fulfilling my destiny."

  For an instant the leaden, secretive eyes took on a look of naked spite. There was such malice in them that the Maharaja was disturbed. Not even the most persistent interrogation, however, could get the boy to say more. Once again he had relapsed into silence and the disturbing expression was again impassive. The Maharaja abandoned his inquisition for the next time, but two months later when he came to the tavern again he learned that the boy had left. Nobody knew where he had gone and the tavern owner neither knew or cared. Urchins like this one, anonymous and rootless, were a penny a dozen in India and a replacement had already been found. The rumour around the tavern was, however, that the boy had stowed away to sea.