My Beautiful Enemy (23 page)

She had noticed nothing irregular about that comment then. If he was already up here in Chinese Turkestan, he might as well make a tour of Dzungaria—the region bound by the Heavenly Mountains to the south and the Altai Mountains to the north—even if Dzungaria didn’t exactly hop with wealthy men eager for jewels.

What Dzungaria did hop with were men resentful of Ch’ing control, both Muslims of Chinese extraction and those of the various local ethnicities. A man fluent in Turkic could easily compile of list of warlords and chieftains who might be persuaded to rise up in arms.

The very thing that Da-ren, and she, by extension, was trying to prevent.

No, no, she was quite mad. Even if a man carried a better map than the governor of Ili possessed, that did not necessarily make him a spy.

But was he any more likely to be a gem merchant? What
kind of gem merchant went into a warlord’s compound to rescue prisoners? What kind of gem merchant could get rid of a band of bandits in two minutes? What kind of gem merchant would want to travel with someone who had boasted of being a master thief?

Not to mention he had refused to give her his address, though he had been desperate for them to keep in touch. And she, the fool, had only thought in directions of wives and concubines, never in her remotest flight of fancy wondering whether his address would show his connection to the British Raj.

Slowly she refolded the map and put it back, making sure that everything in the saddlebag was exactly as she had found it.

She could present a lowly merchant to Da-ren, but not a spy for the British.

Y
ing-ying sharpened her dagger.

What should she do?

The Persian was a spy. Why was she even asking the question? They had already agreed to head out for Kulja, two days of hard riding northwest. When they reached their destination, she would simply hand him over to Da-ren and let Da-ren deal with him.

But the Persian would not confess, if she knew anything of him. Da-ren would have him tortured. She’d hear his screams of agony in her mind even if she took herself a thousand
li
away.

It would be easier to kill him. A quick stab to the heart. A swift death.

How? How could she possibly harm the man she loved?

Or she could let him go. Just let him go. Leave in the morning as planned, except by herself. Or leave in the night, slipping away like a ghost, never to return.

But she would be derelict in her duty to Da-ren, the man who should have been her father.

“Looking to skin something?” came the Persian’s voice. He held an armful of firewood; a brace of hares dangled from his hands.

“To cut your heart out and feed it to the dogs if you aren’t good to me.”

She sounded deranged to herself. But he only chuckled, set down the firewood, and took out his own knife, getting ready to prepare the hares for roasting. “Don’t you know how to break a man’s heart? It’s much less messy that way.”

“No, poisoning is less messy. I don’t know anything about men’s hearts.”

He looked at her sidelong. “Not even mine?”

She wanted to weep and howl. She wanted to pound on the hard floor of the cave until her fists bled. It was colossally unjust, even by her jaundiced standards. She did know what was in his heart, but it meant nothing now. He was a spy for the British, someone seeking to undermine Greater Ch’ing’s authority in the region. He worked against Da-ren. He worked against the interests of her country.

He was an enemy.

“Tell me again what’s in your heart,” she heard herself say.

He gazed at her. Then he came, sat down next to her, and draped an arm about her shoulder. “You,” he murmured, kissing her hair. “Just you.”

In the silence she could hear her heart breaking piece by piece. Why? Why must she give him up? Why must she turn him over to Da-ren?

She turned her face to his. Their lips met. He kissed her. She whimpered, choked by indecision. He leaned into her, his hands cupping her face, and kissed her deeper.

This was the perfect opportunity. He was defenseless. She had to but raise the dagger high. One great downward plunge and he’d be dead.

She shuddered. The dagger fell from her hand and hit the rocky floor with a bright, harsh clang. She wrapped her arms about him.

The opportunity was still ripe. A half dozen hard taps and he would not be able to reach for his gun. A half dozen more and he’d be as paralyzed as a ninety-year-old man after three strokes.

He kissed the tip of her chin, the sensations warm and pure. Tears rose underneath her tightly shut eyelids. How could she turn him over to the torturers? How could she live with herself knowing that he’d either die at their hands or lose his mind completely, spending the remaining days of his life wandering in the wilderness, muttering to himself, terrified of the least noise and human contact?

She went wild, kissing him, dragging his clothes up, her hands ravenous for him, for the feel of his muscles and sinews beneath the smoothness of his skin. It would be the last time. She would allow herself this one last time. To imprint him on herself, to savor the taste and scent and texture of him for the lonely eternity ahead.

But though he let her pull him down atop her, he would not cooperate with the frenzy she desperately wanted. Instead he cupped her face between his hands and kissed her gently, soothingly. When she clutched at him, he took her wrists in one hand and pinioned them behind her head.

“I am not going anywhere,” he said as he kissed her jaw.

Maybe not, but she was. She was leaving as soon as he had his back turned. She caught his lower lip between hers and licked it. He sucked in a breath and kissed her more deeply.

“I think of you every minute of every day,” he told her, his words hot and unsteady.

She whimpered again, then cried out sharply as he took her nipple into his mouth. He played with that sensitive tip, rolling it around his tongue, making her writhe and tremble.

He kissed her again. “You are so very beautiful. Your eyes,
your hair, your throat, your breasts—everything about you is beautiful.”

Her nails dug hard into her palms. But a knife wound could not distract from the pain in her heart—or the dark, unbearable sweetness of his words.

He kissed her throat, her shoulders, her arms. He kissed her breasts, sending a fresh jolt of desire through her. Then at last he came into her, and she moaned with the pleasure of it, the sheer necessity of it.

She broke free of his restraint, wrapped her arms around him, and fastened her lips to his. She could not hold him close enough or kiss him deeply enough. Such pleasure, she could already feel the beginning of oblivion, that blessed state in which there were no harrowing choices, no forever sundering, no eternal regret.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “I will always, always love you.”

And her oblivion descended like an avalanche.

W
hen it was over, instead of letting go, she clung to him even more tightly. Despair swamped her, quicksand and sinking mud everywhere she turned. She knew then that she had embraced the unthinkable: She had thought she would leave him; instead she would
choose
him, above everyone and everything else.

“You will stay with me, always?” she asked in a small voice, shamed and disgusted by her frailty, loving him so much it hurt to breathe.

“Of course,” he answered easily, in full sincerity. “Always.”

She buried her face against his shoulder. “You promise?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Her heart went cold, so cold.

“I am beginning to wonder how many promises you will need,” he said. “But I am willing to promise as often as you’d like.”

She exhaled weakly. He would honor his promise—she knew he would. She trusted him. “We are not going to Kulja.”

“No?” He sat up halfway, surprised. “What about your family?”

“I changed my mind.”

He smoothed his hand over her hair. “What’s the matter? Please tell me.”

She set her jaw. “I was too optimistic. We will find no blessing in Kulja.”

“But don’t you want to tell your family where you are going?”

“No. And I don’t have any real family in Kulja, in any case, just someone I had hoped would be happy for me.”

He opened his mouth to speak; she placed her finger over his lips. “Say no more. We head for India in the morning. Directly.”

Sweet or bitter, she had sealed her fate.

R
elief washed over Leighton.

Until he had come back to the cave, he had thought his biggest problem would be how to explain her presence to his colleagues. But the moment he saw her, a cold fear had overcome him: She was about to leave him.

All her things had been packed away, and she had sat there staring at her dagger, looking one moment as if she were at a funeral, the next as if she had killed someone by mistake.

Until she suddenly threw herself at him, all molten and urgent.

He was not convinced that all was well, but it only mattered now that she had not changed her mind about spending her life with him.

“You won’t regret it,” he said. “You’ll like India.”

She touched her palm to his cheek. “My amah killed the man who betrayed her. So you be very good to me. Make sure I do not regret my choice.”

T
here were eight Ch’ing soldiers outside the yurts, in dark tunics and broad-rimmed hats, their long queues reaching halfway down their backs. Leighton reined in his horse a respectable distance away, wondering what could have brought them to the Kazakh camp. He hoped it had nothing to do with Madison and Singh’s rescue from the Tajik warlord’s compound.

Two more Chinese soldiers came out of the largest yurt, one looking to be of higher rank than the rest. All the soldiers mounted. The officer spied Leighton and wheeled about.

When he came close enough, the officer said, in quite decent Turkic, “We are looking for someone who rides a fine red horse. Have you seen anyone like that?”

Leighton’s hand tightened on the rein. Only two days before he had ridden this way on her blood-bay stallion, to give the steed some exercise. “No, I haven’t.”

“If you do, tell her to return to Kulja as fast as she can,” the officer said curtly.

“She? It’s a woman?”

The officer’s lips curled in annoyance. “No, my mistake. Stupid language. It’s a man, a young man.”

The soldiers left. Leighton approached the yurts and dismounted. An old Kazakh woman from whom he had purchased food before lifted the tent flap and greeted him.

He returned the greeting. “Have they been giving you trouble?”

The old woman smiled, deepening the lines on the leathery skin of her face. “No, they only asked me if I’d seen anyone riding a red horse. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell them a thing. We don’t help the Ch’ing.”

He shook his head. “I doubt they were looking for me.”

“They said a very pretty boy, no hair on the face.” The old
woman’s smile widened. “Not that I wouldn’t call you pretty, but you are not exactly beardless.”

“Do you know why they were looking for the boy? Is he a criminal?”

He didn’t believe that. The Ch’ing officer was seeking one of his own. How else was Leighton to interpret
Tell her to return to Kulja as fast as she can
?

The old woman shook her head. “You know what I think? I think it’s one of their girl spies. The Ch’ing governor in Kulja sends them out by the dozens, into the households of all the important men in the region.”

He could only hope he didn’t look too flabbergasted. “You think she is someone’s escaped concubine?”

“Who’s to say not?” The old woman nodded at her own sagacity. “Well, don’t stand there. Come in, and see what you want today.”

He did not remember purchasing the food, yet a sack of it swayed gently on his back. He could not recall getting on his horse, yet here he was, riding away.

Could she be someone’s escaped concubine? It was possible, he supposed. And it was the best scenario under the circumstances. He did not mind that. If she had been forced into some warlord’s household and then fled, so much the better for her.

But what if it wasn’t so simple?

If he were the Ch’ing governor in Kulja, he would not be so stupid as to criminally under-use her by assigning her to be someone’s bedchamber plaything. She spoke the language. She was deft with a sword. He would . . . he would . . .

God help him.

She had been spying on the Tajik warlord. She was not a Ch’ing girl spy. She was a Ch’ing spy, period.

How had he not seen it before?

He had never considered himself physically weak, but he had to slide off his horse and sink to his knees in the tall grass. He couldn’t breathe.

She knew who he was. He was absolutely certain she did. The map. Dear God. Was that why she had shifted her stance so suddenly after her recovery? Had she been using her delectable body and her beautiful face to whip him into an insensate whirl of love and lust? He would be a perfect source for her, the enthralled, unsuspecting Englishman who’d willingly escort her back to his lair, where she could patiently and cunningly ferret out all she needed to know.