Fire on the Wind

by Olivia Drake

  “I lied to you about one other fact.”

  “What fact?”

  He plowed his fingers through his hair. “If you’re so damned clever,” he muttered, “I’m sure you can figure it out for yourself.”

  Her mind flashed over everything he’d ever told her, but she came up blank. Then she saw his gaze flit to her bosom. To her locket.

  A ghastly possibility struck her heart. With cold fingers, she groped for the locket at her throat. “Reginald,” she whispered in dawning horror. “You lied about Reginald’s death. Didn’t you?”

  “No,” he said, too quickly.

  “Yes. For once in your life, tell the truth.”

  Damien hunched his shoulders and moodily met her accusing gaze. “All right, then. I’m sorry, but you gave me no choice. I needed a nanny for Kit. You wouldn’t have come with me otherwise.”

  Dear God in heaven. Reginald was alive!

  Even as the miraculous thought leaped within her, icy rage throttled her. “You manipulated me. All these weeks you let me grieve for a man who’s still alive.”

  “His leg was cut open by a badmash. He might not have lasted the night.”

  The news appalled her. “I could have gone back and tended to him. Damien, he needed me.”

  “Kit needed you more.”

  “That doesn’t give you the right to play God with my life.”

  He shrugged without apology. “It’s only temporary.”

  The callous lack of shame on his face blinded her judgment. She whipped out her hand. The flat of her palm met his cheek in a stinging crack.

  “You devil!”

  Spinning around, Sarah stalked away. Tears blurred her vision. Her stomach churned, her throat hurt. She felt betrayed, abused, cut so deep she couldn’t form a logical thought.

  Clinging tightly to Kit, she half ran down the narrow trail. Stones scored her bare feet. The wind fluttered a wisp of hair across her cheek. As she rounded a boulder, a thorny bush caught her sari. She glanced down to yank the silk free.

  When she looked up, a man sprang from the undergrowth.

  She cried out and recoiled. Her arms clenched protectively around the baby. Dawn light gleamed on the man’s shaven pate and glinted off the knife in his hand. His eyes of odd-matched brown and filmy white snared her with horror.

  Then Lalji charged.

  Chapter 14

  Her scream tore into Damien.

  He sped out of camp and pounded down the track. On, God, he should have gone after her the instant she’d fled. But he’d simply stood there, his cheek smarting from the slap, his chest heavy with guilt, his mind devastated by her words. You devil.

  He yanked the revolver from his sash. Ghastly images leaped through his mind. A panther had attacked Sarah and Kit. Or they’d tumbled down the rocky slope. Or—

  He half skidded around a clump of rhododendrons. His worst nightmare stopped him cold.

  Lalji held Sarah from behind. His knife blade caressed her throat. His grimy hand gripped her long black braid as if it were a thick rope. Her head was bent back to avoid the razor edge. She stood helpless, Kit wailing and squirming in her arms, her blue eyes achingly beautiful and terribly scared.

  The sepoy curled his lips in a grin. “I have your wife, Dharam. Or do you have a feringhi name?”

  “Never mind my name.” Tasting bitter fear, Damien advanced slowly, the gun heavy in his hand. “Let the woman go,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse and unnatural to his ears. “Your quarrel is with me.”

  “Bah. She threw me in the Ganga.” He yanked her braid, and her head jerked farther back. “I will have my revenge.”

  “Harm her and I’ll bury your worthless carcass in dog dung.”

  Lalji scowled, his red-stained teeth bared. “Do not mock me. I will kill both of them, and then you.”

  Desperate to buy time, Damien said, “How did you find us?”

  “You dropped the baby’s red cap. That told me which trail you took.”

  Damn! He should have paid more attention when Sarah mentioned the hat. “Put the baby down. He’s innocent of any wrongdoing.”

  “I always thought the boy had the look of a half-caste. Is he yours or hers, I wonder?” Lalji spat on the ground. “It is no matter. The jackals will make short work of him once you and the woman are dead.”

  A killing rage gripped Damien. The pitiful sound of Kit’s wail wrapped around his heart. He steeled his emotions and racked his brains for a plan. In despair, he could think of no way to guarantee the safety of Sarah and his son. He had no choice but to play this game with a losing hand of cards.

  “You can’t murder all three of us,” he said, forcing a reasonable tone. “If you harm either of them. I’ll put a bullet in your heart.” He aimed the revolver at Lalji.

  “Bah! Keppu was approaching your camp from the north side. He must have heard your woman scream. He will come at any moment.”

  It was a ploy, Damien thought. A ploy to make him turn and look. A ploy he might use to stack his own deck. He kept his eyes fixed on the sepoy. “Keppu is dead. I might have known you’d be fool enough to come after us alone.” He cocked the hammer with a loud click.

  Sweat popped out on Lalji’s brow. “You won’t risk killing the woman and child.”

  “Better I should take that chance than let you cut her throat.”

  A crafty gleam in his good eye, Lalji said, “Enough, enough. Do not act in haste. Give me your gun and I will let her go.”

  “Don’t do it, Damien,” Sarah gasped. “He’s lying—”

  “Silence, feringhi whore.”

  The mutineer tightened his arm. The blade depressed the tender skin of her throat. Her sharp intake of breath sliced into Damien. Kit continued to squall.

  “Throw down the gun,” Lalji warned again. “Far away from you, ere I spill her blood and the child’s this instant.”

  Damien eased the hammer down. What did his life matter if Kit died here? He let the revolver slip from his fingers and clatter to the ground. He kicked it off the path, a few feet from him.

  Bloody hell, he thought bleakly. So much for bluffing. He too might very well die on this desolate slope. For himself he couldn’t mourn; he was never any good to begin with. But Sarah and Kit...

  Maybe he could gamble on one last desperate move.

  Lalji sidled toward the gun, dragging Sarah and the baby with him. “I always thought you a most prudent man, Dharam. How satisfying to see I was not wrong.”

  Damien kept his expression arranged in helpless defeat, an arduous task when he chafed to hurl the swine into the gorge.

  The sepoy stopped beside the gun. Keeping his eyes trained on Damien, Lalji leaned cautiously down. As his arm strained toward the ground, the knife shifted a scant inch away from Sarah’s throat.

  Damien pointed down the hill. “Oh, my God, it’s Keppu!”

  Lalji jerked his head around. Damien dived for the knife. He clamped onto Lalji’s arm and pulled it away from Sarah. He twisted the limb with punishing force. The dull snap of a bone resounded. Lalji screamed, a high-pitched animal noise.

  The knife clanged to the rocky ground. The sepoy staggered back a step, his arm hanging at an unnatural angle. Moaning, he collapsed.

  Sarah half stumbled, Kit whimpering against her breasts. Damien hauled her up and shoved her toward the camp.

  “Get out of here,” he gasped.

  “But what about you?

  “For Christ’s sake, this is no time to argue. Save Kit.”

  Glancing over her shoulder, she scurried up the path.

  His face snarled with pain, Lalji closed his uninjured hand around the revolver. He started to raise the gun. Damien stomped on the sepoy’s wrist. Lalji howled and fell backward. The weapon went flying.

  Damien snatched up the dagger. He dropped to one knee beside the sepoy. In a single agile stroke, he carved the blade across the sepoy’s dark throat. Lalji’s cry ended in a muted gurgle. Warm blood spurted over his soiled red coat.
He twitched once and went still, his mismatched eyes staring at the sky.

  The savage buzz faded from Damien’s ears. Revulsion rolled in his stomach. He flung away the gory knife and let his forehead fall to his knee. His hand felt befouled with blood. His soul felt dark with the deed he’d done. Sucking in deep breaths, he fought off a wave of dizzy relief.

  Sarah. He had to reassure himself that she and his son were unharmed.

  Surging to his feet, he left the corpse lying on the ground. Let the vultures and jackals feast today, he thought in contempt.

  He found the revolver beneath a bush. After wiping his fingers on a patch of grass, he tucked the weapon into his sash and then sprinted up the path.

  At the edge of the clearing, Sarah paced with the baby. Kit had ceased crying and was sucking his thumb. Damien clenched his sticky hand into a fist to keep from touching her. Fierce glory pulsed through his loins. Any other Englishwoman would have had hysterics, but not Sarah Faulkner. He’d done her wrong. She might look as delicate as a jasmine blossom, yet the will beneath her feminine fragility was like fine-tempered steel. He permitted his gaze to caress the petal-soft skin of her throat.

  “Are you all right?” he said gruffly.

  “I’m fine.” She looked past him, down the path. “Damien, is he—?”

  “Dead. There can be no doubt about that anymore.”

  Relief coursed through Sarah, as powerful as her joy at seeing Damien hale and alive. The brilliance in his brown eyes held her riveted. He looked so savage and intense that her thoughts scattered like leaves on the wind. Her belly ached with the same unnamed yearning she’d felt long weeks ago in the garden of her uncle’s bungalow. The yearning to absorb Damien’s sweat-dampened scent, to know the clasp of his arms, to feel his thick black hair sifting through her fingers.

  “You saved my life,” she murmured shakily.

  His gaze fell to her parted lips. He inhaled a gulp of air and stepped back. “That makes us even, then. Gather your things, Sarah. We have to get over that bridge and deeper into the mountains.”

  He walked away. She felt frustrated, unexplored, chaste. Her churning emotions shocked her. How absurd. As if virtue were a sin to lament. He was the sinner—Damien Coleridge, who could fabricate a falsehood as glibly as a sadhu could recite a mantra.

  She looked down. Kit had fallen asleep. Gently she fastened him in the sling at her side. While Damien knelt to wash his hands in a thin stream of water from the canteen, she untied the goat, then tugged the animal toward the bridge spanning the gorge. The nanny blinked its thickly lashed eyes and bleated a protest. The liquid rush of water echoed from far below.

  She looked back and saw Damien shouldering the knapsack. Their earlier clash played through her memory. How peculiar to think of Reginald alive when she’d resigned herself to his death. Of course, if he’d been injured as badly as Damien said... She brushed off her fear and let herself imagine her fiancé waiting impatiently in Meerut. But would he want her now that Damien had ruined her reputation by hauling her off to the foothills?

  Anger stirred in her again; she tightly controlled the emotion. She should have known better than to expect honesty from Damien Coleridge. Her palm still stung from the slap. She flushed. His uncouth nature must be rubbing off on her.

  A sharp report split the air. She ducked instinctively. Something thunked into the dirt beside her.

  “What the hell—” Damien bit out. “Run, Sarah! For God’s sake, run!”

  The urgency in his voice made her heart trip with alarm. She spun around to obey, then blinked in disbelief. At the rim of the clearing, a giant clambered over a mass of boulders. A giant in a soiled turban, red coat, and dirty white trousers. Sunlight glared off the rifle in his oversized hand.

  “Merciful God, Damien! It’s Keppu—”

  The mutineer thundered toward them. Revolver drawn, Damien took aim. A shot cracked. Keppu dodged and faltered, blood pouring from his shoulder. With a mighty growl, he plunged onward.

  Dropping the knapsack, Damien thrust her toward the bridge. “This time do as you’re damned well told!”

  Horrified, Sarah dropped the goat’s tether and dashed toward the jhula. Dear heaven, she had to protect Kit. Clasping the side ropes, she stepped onto the bridge. Bamboo strips formed a precarious walkway less than a foot wide. Far below, at the bottom of the steep canyon, a great torrent of water raged over a rock-littered channel.

  The bamboo was smooth and slick beneath her bare feet. The bridge swayed in a gust of wind. Giddiness turned in her stomach. Her fingers clamped in a death grip around the rough vine ropes. Resolutely she kept her gaze pinned to the opposite cliff as she inched her way out into the middle of the gorge. She prayed she’d tied the sling securely enough. She couldn’t let herself think of Kit falling to the ribbon of angry water below.

  Over the rumble of the river another shot sounded. Holding tight to the bridge, she looked back. The two men struggled. Damien knocked the gun out of Keppu’s hand and tried to turn his own revolver. But Keppu kept his big fist wrapped around Damien’s forearm. With the vigor of a bullock, the wounded sepoy slowly backed Damien toward the abyss.

  A scream clogged her throat as the men neared the bridge. Keppu drove Damien toward the gorge. At the last possible instant, Damien jerked to the side. Instead of tumbling over the precipice, he slammed onto the jhula, Keppu falling atop him.

  The ropes rocked violently. Sarah teetered and held tight. Her blood ran raw as ice. Yanking out a dagger, the sepoy struck at Damien. He rolled in the narrow space. His hand burst up to hit the knife away. The weapon fell like a glittering gem to the surging waters below.

  The breath left Sarah in a whoosh. The bridge shook and quaked with the force of their fight. Dear God, she had never felt so helpless. She couldn’t stand by and watch Damien die. She turned cautiously, desperate to give aid yet afraid to plunge to a rocky death.

  A shot exploded. Both men went still.

  Sarah froze in the grip of a hideous suspense. If the sepoy had wrested the gun away—

  Abruptly Damien surged upward, heaving Keppu off him. The sepoy collapsed onto the side rope and hung there like a huge toy bear. A spreading crimson patch stained his chest. Then he slipped off the bridge, plummeting the long distance to the rocks.

  As fast as she dared move over the slippery bamboo, Sarah rushed to Damien. He staggered off the jhula and stood swaying, his head bowed, his breath emerging in pants. Blood spattered the front of his white tunic.

  Alarm battered her heart. In search of a wound, she hurried her shaking hands over the sweat-slick muscles of his arms, the steel-hewn contour of his chest. “Merciful heaven,” she gasped. “Damien, are you hurt?”

  He threw back his head. His eyes glittered with savage victory. “Sarah,” he muttered hoarsely.

  He hauled her against him, angling her sideways to avoid the sleeping baby at her hip. His mouth crushed down over hers in a kiss that was the antithesis of her romantic dreams and yet the perfect answer to every nameless question swirling inside her. Their bodies melded, and the solidity of him swept away all memory of terror and ignited in its wake the fire of desire. His mouth stroked hers with ravenous hunger, his tongue dipping inside to taste the nectar within. She fell headlong into a new world, a world of golden light and heightened senses, a world where her head swam and her soul soared and her body came to vivid life. Liquid warmth descended from her heart, shimmering through her limbs and settling like a deep pulsebeat in her loins.

  His hands moved in caressing circles over the soft flesh of her bottom. Tasting desperation in him, she swayed and he steadied her, lifting her to him with insistent pressure. Trembling, she let her own hands roam on an upward journey over the unfamiliar terrain of his body. Her fingers found the masculine breadth of his torso, the strong column of his neck, the unexpected silken feel of his hair. His aroma of sweat and blood should have repelled her; instead, the scent tingled through her with the exultation of life.

&nb
sp; His lips tracked across her cheek and nuzzled her ear. The smoothness of his palm slipped inside her sari to gently cup her breast, his thumb plying the tip. A tide of sensation washed her, powered by the beguiling feel of his hands and mouth, fueled by the fierce emotions burning in her chest.

  “Damien,” she whispered. “Oh, Damien.”

  Her breathless voice drifted to him through a mist of erotic urgency. The sound tugged at Damien, drew him from the mindless pleasure of lust unleashed. The woman in his arms was a stranger, all soft, yielding womanhood, a sweet seductive siren who lured him from the iron bonds of self-discipline. Yet on a deep level he recognized her throaty voice and unique essence.

  The fog cleared under a gust of cold sanity.

  God! What in hell was he doing? The woman in his arms was Sarah Faulkner.

  He yanked his hand from the curve of her bare breast and jerked up his head. The double murder must have shaken him beyond reason. Her lashes lifted. Her eyes were a dreamy blue, her lips reddened and moist. Against his will, he felt the powerful pull of passion in his loins, a passion he rejected. Sarah Faulkner was a sour-mouthed spinster, a crusading do-gooder, a meddlesome English lady who would dig and dig at a man until his secrets lay naked for all the world to ridicule.

  He’d be damned if he’d let her wriggle her shapely way into his private self. He knew exactly how to keep her distant.

  “Well, well, Miss Priss,” he drawled. “For an old maid, you certainly know all the right moves. I wonder if Reggie is man enough to handle you.”

  His words hit Sarah like a needling blow. The gold flecks in his eyes flashed with mockery. Heat snapped to her cheeks, and the ardor inside her chilled. “Reginald is an honorable man,” she said, reaching for the locket. “He knows how to treat a lady. An aspect of refinement clearly neglected in your upbringing.’’

  “How very suited you both are—two perfect angels. What a pity you’re stuck with a devil like me.” Damien turned on his heel and walked away.

  Watching him, she could still taste him on her tongue and feel his warm hand cradling her breast. The sensations both thrilled and appalled her. She had behaved as no lady should; she had melted into the embrace of an unprincipled rogue. With the news of Reginald fresh in her heart, she shouldn’t have found pleasure in kissing another man.