A Duke's Wicked Kiss (Entangled Select) (26 page)

Suri sighed. “So that’s why you laughed when I said one reason we couldn’t marry was because I was a half-caste bastard.” Her breath caught. “And no wonder your reaction when I called you an arrogant bastard.”

He managed a tight grin. “Ah, what an inane world we live in.” He squeezed her hand. “You see, darling, you aren’t the only one who considers begetting illegitimates profoundly unacceptable.”

“Your confession is an attempt to calm me.”

“Is it working?”

“Not in the least. I’m terrified.”

His hand came up to stroke her hair. “Ah, I fail you then.”

She took his hand and kissed his palm. “No, John. God knows, I feel as though I am failing you. If only there were something I could do.”

He grimaced. “Can you unbutton my waistcoat a bit? I’m finding breathing a bit difficult.”

Despite his words being soft-spoken, they carried the force of a slap. Dear Lord, was he bleeding inside? Was a lung punctured? Carefully, she unbuttoned his waistcoat and, as gently as she could manage, removed his shirt from his trousers. Sliding her hand under his shirt, she splayed her fingers over his belly.

“Your hand feels so good,” he whispered. “I might have neglected to tell you what a soothing touch you have.”

She slid her hand to his left side.

He groaned.

She snatched it back. “That’s your broken rib.”

“As I said…or two.” He exhaled, closed his eyes and lay so quiet, Suri froze.

Oh no!
She bent her head to his mouth to check for air.
Stay with me. Don’t leave me. Together, we can get through this.
“John, speak to me.”

He whispered in her ear, his voice weaker now. “Take my ring.”

She lifted her head and glanced at the signet ring on his little finger. “Why?”

His eyelids cracked open a hair. “Should you be with child and should your stepmother or half-brothers disavow you, then go to Edward. He and my mother will look after you.” He managed a grin that was little more than a grimace. “Mum knows quite well how to take care of a few bastards.”

A strangled cry tore from her lips. She pulled away and sat up. “You really don’t think you’re going to make it, do you?” Panic and more pain than she’d ever experienced gripped her until she shook. She could barely utter words. “Don’t tell me you don’t think you’re going to make it.”

The door swung open and in strutted Ravi Maurya ahead of several turbaned men. A profound arrogance filled his countenance.

John squeezed Suri’s hand. “Say nothing and take the ring.”

She passed a corner of her sari over John’s hand to cover her actions while she slipped the ring from his little finger and onto her index finger. She looked up to the group of men surrounding Ravi-ji.

Tanush!

His eyes glittered with the same evil as Maurya’s. He walked over and kicked John. He grunted, his face distorted with pain.

“Tanush!” she cried.

A sneer curled his lip. He threw a hard glance her way and returned to Ravi-ji’s side.

This cannot be!
Horrified, Suri’s mind swirled at the idea that she’d entrusted herself to one of Maurya’s men.

John regarded Tanush with no expression. “So you are the cur who let Maurya’s men into my house. I wondered.”

He looked to the other men. Vámbéry stepped forward from the rear of the group.

Suri gasped.

John regarded him for a moment, as well. “Neither one of you was much good at keeping secrets, I see.”

Vámbéry, arms folded over his chest, stroked his beard. “Depends on whose side one is on.” A faint grin touched his mouth.

“You son of a bitch,” John said in an emotionless monotone. “You were being paid from both sides.”

“Now then,” Ravi Maurya announced. “Let’s see what can be done with these two.” He strolled over to where Shahira’s collar hung on the wall. “A pity your cat didn’t have more meat on her bones, Ravenswood. Her fur was prime, though. Domesticated the way she was, there were no battle scars on her coat to lower the price.”

Ravi-ji’s words sliced through Suri’s heart. She squeezed John’s hand.

John squeezed back and managed a snort. “Who do you think you’re fooling, Maurya? She is a well-trained cheetah, just the pet a royal would pay dearly to get his hands on. She’s on her way to some raj prince as we speak. A prized gift from you.”

Suri exhaled through her nose, fighting an audible sigh of relief.

Maurya chuckled. “Such a brave front you put on, Ravenswood. If you could slit my throat for stealing away your little house cat, you would.”

“That and for a few hundred other reasons.” John looked past Maurya to Tanush, who stared back, his eyes narrowed in defiance.

Maurya removed the golden chain from its hook with the élan of a jeweler lifting the finest necklace from a queen’s neck. “Now then, Suri. Time for your final destination.”

His glittering eyes flickered from John to Suri and back again. Handing the leash to Tanush, he turned once again to John. Ravi-ji spread his hands, palms up, in a questioning gesture. “What, not curious as to where your lover is headed?”

Both Suri and John only stared at Maurya.

He grinned and turned from them. “Well then. Tanush, will you place the collar on our Miss Thurston again, please?”

Tanush stepped forward and took Shahira’s leash.

Suri scooted backward. “Anyone but him. I don’t want him touching me.”

Maurya moved to stand in front of her. “About five more feet and you’ll be up against the wall, cousin. Can’t you see there is no place to go?” He snapped his fingers. “Tanush.”

Tanush reached for her.

She sank her teeth into his hand holding the leash, clamped her jaw, and bit hard.

He grunted and slapped her across the face with his other hand.

Maurya laughed. “Feeling a bit helpless, Ravenswood?
Tsk
,
tsk
. What a disappointment you’ve turned out to be. Am I right, Miss Thurston?”

The sting from Tanush’s slap heated her cheek. She rubbed at it.
God, this can’t be happening!

Tanush hooked the collar around her neck and yanked her to a standing position.

Ravi-ji stood tall and straight like a general giving commands. “Take her away. You know where. And tie her hands so she can’t manage the collar over her head.”

Tanush only nodded, slipped a rope around Suri’s wrists, and yanked her toward the door.

Suri tried to turn around to search out John, but Tanush gave the chain a sharp tug and she stumbled forward.

“Wait,” Maurya called out. “Amar, you see to her fate.”

The guard who’d hauled Suri into the room grew wide-eyed. “But, Ravi-ji, why me? Tanush is far better…”

“Because you were foolish enough to untie her hands once you brought her in here, so you can feed her to the lions.”

Suri’s head spun. “The…the lions?”

Maurya whipped around and stalked over to her, his cheeks inflamed. “
Must
you repeat everything I say, even when you are near to dying? I’ll be glad to be rid of you.”

He stood there glaring down at her. And then his features softened as quickly as they’d become enraged. “Ah, yes, the lions.” His voice went velvet soft again—lyrical. “Our grandmother failed where I shall not. Do you now understand why I bothered to help you in the first place?”

He spun around to Amar, his face alive once again with passion—the quicksilver mood changes of a man gone mad. “Tie her to a tree and bring the collar back to me. If you do not return, I’ll send someone to search. Not for you. For the collar. It goes with the cat. If you were fool enough to leave her wrists unbound, let’s see if you are clever enough to avoid being eaten by the beasts yourself. You know where they are, now leave us.”

“No!” Suri managed to turn enough to catch sight of John, who lay on the mattress holding his side. Her heart pounding to bursting, she finally fell over the cliff’s edge into that sea of terror. Great sobs tore through her throat.

“Now then.” Maurya’s velvet-lined voice landed on Suri’s ears while the guard dragged her from the room. “Who would like the privilege of putting Ravenswood out of his misery?”

At Ravi-ji’s words, Suri’s knees gave way. She stumbled and fell to the carpet.

“I believe I can take care of that little bit.” It was Vámbéry’s voice she heard as the guard heaved her to her feet.

“Good,” Maurya remarked as he strode into the hallway and stepped around Suri. “I detest the sight of blood.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

Snap. The lions moving through the underbrush didn’t bother with stealth—it was as if they sensed their prey was helpless.
Snap
. Suri’s knees gave way, and her wrists chafed against the silk cord binding her against the sissoo tree.

This is going to hurt.

Time slowed.

Coherent thought escaped and her mind whirled about in one mad pattern after another.

There was no more hope that someone would save her. Not out here—in the middle of where? Ravi-ji’s palace was outside the walls of Delhi and the sepoy dragging her out here—what was his name—Amar? God, how could she recall his name at a time when she could barely remember her own?

Another snap of a twig. And another.

She swallowed hard to keep from vomiting.

No, there would be no one to save her. Only a demented person—or one ordered out here on the threat of death—would wander about where wild beasts roamed. Amar had been as frightened as she. His hands had shaken like a leaf in a storm while tying her to the tree. Then he’d taken off at a run, gripping Shahira’s collar—the golden chain dragging a trail behind him.

A rustle of leaves, another snap of a twig, and her head fell back against the tree, her limbs shaking so hard against the ropes she could smell her own blood where the bark cut through her flesh.

She’d been wrong when she thought there were no more tears to spill—they cascaded down her cheeks in a torrent.

As the beasts drew nearer, the crunch of vegetation behind her grew louder. She turned her head sideways to listen harder. A low rumbling, and she knew at least one of them was nearly upon her.

And then a hiss and a wild roar, so loud it shook the ground. An animal scream filled the air followed by a flurry of grunts and fierce, beastly noises.

New terror struck. She was being stalked by more than one, and they were fighting over which would sink its sharp fangs into her belly first?

My God!

Head against the bark of the tree and eyes closed, she heard a violent screech and a thud to her right. She opened her eyes and saw a blurred golden streak as a lion sped off with a leopard in fast pursuit.

A long moment of silence dragged past before the beast reappeared. Head lowered and eyes fixed on Suri, the animal approached with the stealth of the wild cat it was.

And began to churr.

Suri squinted through the sweat in her eyes and saw the beautiful painted face.
That’s no leopard! Could it be?

“Shahira?”

The cheetah drew closer and its churr turned into a purr.

“Oh, dear Lord, Shahira, it is you!” Terror filled with the certainty of imminent death drained out of Suri’s veins and left her limp. Already slick with sweat, a new flood of perspiration bathed her skin.

The great spotted cat settled herself on the ground not far in front of the tree, her head held high, her great amber eyes searching the landscape in slow motion.

And grew silent.

Watchful.

Excruciating pain shot through Suri’s shoulders and back as her mind came into focus. If she didn’t do something soon, her arms would pull out of their sockets. Inch by inch, she wiggled the ropes toward the base of the tree and managed her way to a sitting position. Perspiration dripped into her eyes. How in the world could her body produce even more of the wet stuff when she was thirsty beyond belief? At least she was tied beneath the shade of a sissoo tree, where the blistering sun scorched the leafy canopy overhead instead of her.

The cat’s tail twitched slowly back and forth, her alert eyes following deepening shadows in the underbrush. How was this cheetah to help in the long run? A cat couldn’t untie her—couldn’t guard her forever.

“What happens now? Do I die a slow death tied to a tree? What about after the sun goes down? Oh, Shahira, what am I to do?” A sense of hopelessness overlaid her despair and wound through the aches and twinges racking her body. She thrust her face to the sky to bring the hot air deeper into her lungs and then went back to regarding the cat, her head now pounding like the devil had a hammer at her temples. She drew in a long, ragged breath, only to have it leave her lungs as a dry, choking sob. Why couldn’t she just go to sleep and never wake up?

With a graceful turn of the cheetah’s neck, it looked at Suri as if to say it wasn’t the cat’s place to know what destiny lay ahead—her position was to stand guard, and stand guard she would. A couple of blinks and Shahira went back to scanning the area.

Suddenly the cat rose and, lowering her head, peered into the underbrush. With the speed of lightning, the cheetah leaped and disappeared, snarling and hissing. She doubled back, running behind Suri while hissing and spitting. Something other than the cheetah roared and was gone. Shahira trotted back and settled in front of Suri once again.

I’d be dead without this cat.

John.

Was he facing the same fate? Or had Vámbéry already done him in? How had she not figured out something was wrong with that odd little man? Why had John, head of British Intelligence in Delhi, not smoked him out? Tanush betraying them, she could understand. He was Indian and could easily conceal whichever side he was on. And she’d never heard him speak more than a couple words, so what was she to know of him? But Vámbéry? He was an articulate and educated Hungarian posing as an Indian. He’d worked for the British during the Crimean War. Or had he? What if he’d been a turncoat all the while?

Shahira rose again, ready to pounce. Suri began to tremble once more. The cheetah lowered her head and growled.