The Bengal Rubies

by Lisa Bingham

  The thought was inexplicably, incomprehensibly disturbing.

  Chapter 8

  Less than sixty minutes later, Aloise heard a key turning in the lock of her door. She had bathed in near-glacial-temperature water—no doubt thanks to Miss Nibbs—combed her hair, and swathed herself in the pink satin duvet. Even so, she felt completely unprepared for another verbal skirmish with her host.

  It was not her host, however, who waited on the other side of the doorway. A lean gentleman with blue, blue eyes and an engaging grin bowed to her. “Good afternoon.”

  “Is it really afternoon?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He offered her his arm. “Are you ready for a slight repast? I’m to escort you downstairs.”

  “I would rather you escorted me from the property.”

  He sighed most affectedly. “Alas, I can’t do that. But I assure you that the meal you are about to partake of will be quite filling. The boys and I have already eaten.”

  He waited, his elbow still crooked in her direction. Since she had no other choice, Aloise hiked the bed linens more securely about her waist and allowed him to take her into the hall.

  “Who are ‘the boys’?” she asked as they made their way toward the stairs.

  “You’ll meet them soon enough. I don’t think I’d be telling tales to say that Slater has managed to attract a very diverse band of friends to share his exploits.”

  Slater. Was that the bearded stranger’s first name or his last?

  “Have you and ‘the boys’ been with him long?”

  Her escort eyed her keenly, but divulged no real information. “I suppose.”

  Once at the bottom of the staircase, he led her down the marble hall to the rear of the house. Even now, in the middle of the day, the black of the walls absorbed the bright sunlight streaming through the multipaned windows, enveloping the corridor in mystery.

  Her companion stopped and reached for the brass door handle, but Aloise touched his wrist.

  “Please …” she begged in earnest appeal. “Won’t you help me? Won’t you take me away from here?”

  The gentleman shook his head from side to side. He looked sympathetic, but she could see that she hadn’t swayed him from his innate loyalty to the stranger.

  Growing slightly desperate, she gripped his sleeve. “Don’t you see? I’ve been abducted—brought here through force and conspiracy.”

  “Yes.”

  His blatant admission startled her.

  “Then why would you want to condone what has been done to me?”

  “Because I won’t turn my back on a friend.”

  “Even when he breaks the law? Even when he damns me to a living hell?”

  He touched her cheek, softly, briefly. “Has he done those things, little one? Or has he liberated you from an even more demeaning situation.”

  His eyes glowed with a hidden knowledge. One that made her shiver slightly. But before she could question him, he swung open the door into a small dining room. “Voilà, mon ami! She is here at last.”

  “Thank you, Curry. That will be all.”

  At the far side, near a bank of guillotine windows, a figure turned. The bearded stranger. Slater.

  Aloise felt Curry’s hand on her back, pushing her forward, but he needn’t have bothered. There was something about him, something about the way the sunlight streamed over his back and around his head, forming an eerie sort of halo, that drew her to him.

  “I see that you followed my instructions and bathed the travel from your skin.”

  She looked behind her, thinking to draw strength from the presence of a witness, but the man called Curry had disappeared.

  The sound of Slater’s boots against the marble floor caused her to start. Clutching the duvet to her neck, she tried to discern what he might be thinking, but he remained inscrutable, closing the distance between them until he stood a mere hair’s breadth away. His body crowded her, inestimably large, inestimably fit.

  Reaching out, he adjusted the drape of the coverlet over one shoulder, brushing his knuckles ever so slightly against her bare skin. She trembled at the contact, not able to prevent the instinctive reaction.

  He must have noted the sensation because he finally took a step backward, his lips curving in the slightest of satisfied smiles.

  “You look very fetching.”

  Disturbed by the warmth that had settled like thick honey between them, Aloise shot him a scathing glance. “That old bat you call a housekeeper stole my chemise.”

  The stranger seemed far from perturbed by her accusations. “How very wise of her.”

  Aloise stiffened in indignation. “What exactly do you mean to convey with that comment?”

  “Merely that your taste in … attire leaves much to be desired. Especially since you are intent upon proving to me that you are a woman of quality.”

  Returning to the table, he pulled out one of the chairs in silent invitation. Realizing that she had no other real choice, Aloise sank onto the cushions and waited for him to take his own seat. After helping her to settle, he did not immediately move. Instead, he paused to finger a lock of her hair. When she regarded him curiously, he finally stepped away.

  “I hope you’re hungry. Hans cooked enough for an army.”

  “I suppose I could force myself to eat a bite or two.” Actually, the tempting aromas were causing her mouth to water and her stomach to rumble, but she would expire of starvation prior to admitting her need to this man.

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it. We have a busy day ahead of us.” He removed the lid to a silver chafing dish revealing fried kippers, eggs, and sliced potatoes.

  “Busy day?” she asked somewhat absently, overcome by her sudden hunger.

  “As I mentioned upstairs, we need to see about finding some proper clothes for you.”

  “I have clothing of my own—including a change of dresses in the haversack you confiscated.”

  “Most of which was soiled and hardly fashionable.”

  “Still, I demand that you return it to me at once!”

  “All in good time, cherie. All in good time.” After selecting a bun, two scones, and a spoonful of stewed apricots, he placed the plate in front of her. Then he chose a halved pomegranate for himself. Rather than taking his own chair, he draped one thigh over the corner of the table, making himself quite comfortable mere inches from her elbow.

  After chewing a few seeds, he reached out again to skim his knuckle over a wave of her hair. When she shifted away, he hooked a finger beneath her chin, forcing her to look at him, forcing her to admit that—for now—she was completely at his mercy.

  He did not chide her, but returned to the original thrust of his conversation. “I assure you that I’m more than happy to accommodate your wardrobe needs. Something in blue, I believe. Or perhaps yellow.”

  Aloise opened her mouth to speak.

  “You needn’t thank me.”

  When she tried to assure him that she’d intended nothing of the sort, he took the opportunity to drop several pomegranate seeds inside. At the unfamiliar taste, her brows creased and her mouth pursed in distress.

  “But first you must eat.”

  She barely heard him as she sprang from her seat and rushed to spit the seeds into the fireplace. Reluctantly, she returned—only because she had to do so in order to take a hefty draft of water from her glass— but she made quite sure she chose a goblet from the opposite side of the table.

  One black brow lifted. “I take it you’ve never tasted a pomegranate.”

  She rubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand. “It’s awful.”

  “Mayhap, much like many of the pleasures of life, it is an acquired taste.”

  She glared at him for his too-familiar tone, but he merely grinned and continued. “I’ve heard that the pomegranate is symbolic of life and the resurrection. I prefer to think of it as a symbol of a woman and her … fertility. After all, who but a
woman can give life?”

  A fire stoked in the pit of her belly. Perhaps because of his words. Perhaps because of his talk of children. Or perhaps, just perhaps, because his heated regard had settled low on her stomach.

  “What do you think?”

  Damn his bloody soul, this man was toying with her. Taunting, tempting, scheming. Her father had probably hired him to lead her willy-nilly to this place, batter her hopes, and force her to comply with his wishes. Damn him!

  Without even thinking, Aloise grasped the first dish she encountered and hurled it at him.

  “You loathsome hedgehog of a man!”

  The plate landed high of its mark, shattering against the wall. Before he could defend himself, Aloise had corrected her aim and thrown the saucer. He barely managed to duck in time for it to sail over the table and explode on the floor.

  “You bastard!” She grasped the water goblet and it flew through the air, spilling its contents over her target and glancing off his shoulder.

  “Aloise!”

  “Damn you! What a petty, evil, scurrilous thing to do!”

  She saw the fury darken his mien, but she did not anticipate how quickly he could move. He stormed across the room and pinned her against the wall. It was at that moment, she was struck by a thunderous thought.

  He’d called her by name.

  Aloise didn’t even bother to think, but rammed her knee into his groin for the second time in as many days. This time, her aim proved a little more true, because the stranger growled in anger and doubled over.

  But when she would have dodged away, there was a scrabbling noise in the hall, like toenails skidding over polished marble. Sonja bounded into the room, teeth bared, the hair at her nape bristled in anger. Roaring in displeasure, the tiger hesitated in the threshold, surveying the scene, then turned gleaming eyes in Aloise’s direction.

  Sweet angels in heaven, it meant to eat her alive! Grasping the covers wrapped around her feet, Aloise jumped onto a chair, and from there into the middle of the table, sending cutlery and dishes crashing to the floor.

  “Shoo … shoo!”

  She waved her arms, but the huge cat continued to pad forward. Its mouth had drawn back in an awful grimace. The fur of its body stood on end making the animal appear all the more menacing.

  “Do something!” She whirled in Slater’s direction, but the man had sunk to the floor, sitting with his legs bent, his elbows braced on his knees.

  “Why should I?” he asked after taking a few minutes to gather enough air to speak. His fury descended like a palpable shroud.

  She scuttled backward along the length of the table, but the tiger continued to trail her. “Can’t you see? It means to devour me.”

  “Maybe I should let it.”

  Abandoning her watch on the tiger, she glared at the man on the floor. She supposed she hadn’t ingratiated herself through her actions for any sorts of favors, but surely he didn’t mean to feed her to this beast!

  “Please.”

  The word was uttered most grudgingly, but there was no doubting its intended sincerity.

  The man struggled to his feet, stood hunched there for a moment, then lifted his head to say, “Sonja, calma.”

  The tiger stopped, glanced at her master, at Aloise, then relaxed, muscle by muscle, hair by hair. A sound emerged from its throat that sounded like something midway between a yowl and a purr, then she turned her attention to the kippers and porridge strewn about the floor and began to lap them up with great glee.

  Slater then turned his attention to Aloise.

  “Get down.”

  There was no denying the threat buried deep in the simple command.

  Aloise shot a look at the dining cat who stood just inches away on one side of the table, then noted the fury darkening her host’s brow as he stood on the other. Neither direction looked entirely safe. “I don’t think—”

  “Get down.”

  Aloise glared at the man, resenting his influence over her. But he had placed her in such a position that she couldn’t argue with him. At least not for the moment.

  Drawing her silken cocoon as tightly around her body as was possible, she stepped onto the seat of a chair and from there onto the floor.

  Slater walked toward her, slowly, purposefully, and she took an involuntary step backward, sandwiching herself between the table and the lean strength of his thighs.

  He reached out to clasp her jaw, forcing her to look up at him, to acknowledge the brittle fury of his gaze. “You will not attempt to injure me again.”

  She didn’t speak.

  “If you do, I will feed you to Sonja and be done with you.”

  Despite the farfetched idea, the words he spoke rang with a vibrant intensity. So much so, that she didn’t doubt he would do as he had promised.

  “Do we understand one another?”

  She would have given her soul to have been able to utter a flippant remark. But she couldn’t. Not with those black eyes boring into her.

  “Very well.” He backed away. “I will send a servant with a broom and you will clean this mess. Do not disobey me.”

  Turning on his heel, he marched into the hall. The tiger, after one regretful glance in Aloise’s direction bounded after him. The door slammed shut and a key turned in the lock.

  Filled with a nameless panic, Aloise hurried to the first guillotine window, then the next, and the next. Locked. All locked. In such a fashion she could not find the catch to release the sash.

  Whirling away, she stared at the breakfast room. The black walls closed in on her, suffocating her. What was she going to do? The stranger anticipated her every move, making escape seem more impossible with each passing hour.

  What was she going to do?

  He would return. She had no doubts of that. He knew things about her—much more than just her name. But what? What? Was he in league with her father? Was he the next matrimonial prospect? Or was he merely what he claimed to be: a man driven to see that justice was served. Heaven only knew her father had a temper that could inspire an enemy or two. In any event, she knew that when he stepped into the room, she would have to be on her guard. Otherwise, he would look at her with those licorice eyes, and incite in her a feeling that she had been trying to deny since she’d encountered this man on the beach.

  Want. A want for things she could never have.

  A sob clutched at her chest, but she fought it back. Allowing her knees to give way, she lowered herself to the floor and began to clean.

  A few minutes later, she looked up, drawn by some unknown force.

  Slater stood in the doorway, watching her intently. She had not heard him enter, and wondered if he had merely decided to usher the servant he’d summoned into the room. But he was alone. When he continued to gaze at her, an unexpected softening touching his lips, she paused in her endeavors.

  “Have you decided against summoning someone to help me?” she asked.

  He didn’t seem to hear. “Come with me, Aloise.”

  “But—” She gestured to the mess.

  “Leave it.”

  His tone was almost gentle. Almost.

  A curious tightness gathered in her throat as she stood in the midst of the littered crockery and the ruined meal. Unwanted tears gathered fast and strong as she joined him in the portal and she blinked the moisture away. She would not be weak. She would not!

  He held out his hand, palm up, in silent invitation. Unable to prevent the action, she acquiesced, allowing him to lace their fingers intimately together.

  For several seconds, he didn’t move, didn’t speak. As the silence gathered around them thick and strong, Aloise realized she had already displayed an awful vulnerability. She had surrendered herself to this man’s will, however momentarily. In the space of an instant, she had allowed his strength to overcome her anxieties, soothe her.

  And damn him to hell and back, she could not find the will to regret offering him th
at tiny portion of power.

  “Well, man. What have you got to say?”

  Crawford eyed his secretary in barely concealed anger. Soon after dawn, he had abandoned his own chase of the phaeton that he believed held his daughter and had returned to Briarwood, assigning a host of guards to bring the girl back by midday. He could only hope that Mr. Humphreys had arrived with such news.

  “Where is she?”

  Mr. Humphreys’s lips pressed together. “She isn’t here,” he finally admitted.

  “Where … is … she?”

  “We … don’t know, sir.”

  Crawford slammed his walking stick on the side of the leather chair where he’d been seated, enjoying his brandy, and contemplating how he could best punish his daughter for her disobedience.

  “B-but we do have a lead on her whereabouts, I believe,” Mr. Humphreys hastened to assure him. “After inquiring at the village, we were able to determine that the coach which took her has been seen in the area.” He glanced at the sheaf of papers in his hands. “It belongs to a newcomer in the area.”

  “Newcomer?”

  “I have not yet determined his name, but he is the owner of the house in the opposite valley. Ashenleigh.”

  Hearing the name of the neighboring estate, Crawford felt the fury bubble inside him. The instincts that had warned something was amiss with this entire charade fairly pummeled him now. Damnit! Who was this McKendrick? First, he had dared to build a mirror image of Briarwood and now he seemed to have had a hand in helping his daughter escape.

  “Bring my coach around.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mr. Humphreys scrambled to do what he had been told, but hesitated in the doorway. “What do you intend to do?”

  “Find my daughter,” Crawford growled. Then he would make her rue the day she had ever decided to enlist the help of a stranger to thwart her father.

  “Come with me, Aloise.”

  Slater saw the way Aloise relented, the way her body relaxed, ever so slightly.

  He didn’t know why he’d been drawn back to the breakfast room. After Aloise had managed to fell him, he’d meant to leave her there for an hour or so to rethink her hasty actions. But he hadn’t been able to stay away. Her dejection, her frustration, her panic pulled at his soul as sharply as if she’d actually cried out. When he’d opened the door to see her on the floor, her face a mask of untold misery, he hadn’t been able to leave her that way. After all, he was the man responsible for her plight. Now. As well as all she had suffered through the years. Looking into those huge brown eyes, he realized that she was no more capable of lying than Jeanne had been.