Panther's Prey (16 page)

“Then let me at least tie it off, for heaven’s sake–the blood is running down your arm!”

He sighed and looked annoyed but sat obediently on a patch of grass and held out his arm. Amy knelt next to him, ripping his sleeve back to the elbow to expose the cut on his forearm.

“Let me have your knife, please,” she said.

He withdrew the blade from the sheath at his belt and handed it to her.

“Why didn’t you use this when that thief jumped you?” she asked, cutting away the blood drenched linen.

“The more weapons exposed in close combat, the more dangerous the situation,” he explained. “I knew I could overpower him, it was just a matter of choosing the right moment.”

“What about your pistol?”

“Noise. I couldn’t afford to attract attention.”

“Doesn’t this hurt?” she asked, wincing as she dabbed at it with the clean cloth of her discarded veil.

“Not any more. Now it’s....” he searched in vain for the English word.

“Numb?”

He nodded, watching as she cut strips from the veil and bound them tightly across the wound.

“So tell me, Amelia. What was it like to grow up in the United States with enough to eat and nice clothes and a big, warm house full of servants?” he asked challengingly, studying her face.

“It was absolutely lovely,” Amy replied, looking him directly in the eye. “I would heartily recommend it to anyone.”

He had the good grace to laugh.

Amy wrapped his arm with the makeshift bandage and then split the last piece of the veil, tying the ends securely to keep the binding in place. She handed him his knife when she was finished and said, “That should hold until we get back.”
 

He flexed his arm, staring down at her work admiringly. “It should hold for a lot longer than that. You’re a good woman to have around in a crisis.”

Amy turned away from him, flushing with pleasure. Malik so rarely made such a personal remark that she was thrilled at the slight praise.

“You don’t look like you would know much about combat dressings,” he added.

“How do I look?” Amy asked, facing him again.

“Ornamental,” he said, and smiled.

She didn’t smile back at him.

He rose and put his hand on her shoulder. “That’s not an insult,” he said softly. He tilted her face up to him with his forefinger under her chin. “The moonlight turns your hair and eyes to silver,” he murmured.

Amy stood still, gazing up at him–at the black hair disordered by their ride, the rough stubble on his cheeks, the strong nose and full, sensual mouth, the wide dark eyes that seemed to see into her very soul.
 

At that moment she was his to command.

His hand fell away and he turned his back on her.

“You should see if you can take a nap,” he said neutrally. “A little sleep will help you get through the rest of the trip.”

Amy didn’t move, her eyes filling with scalding tears of disappointment. She clenched her fists, trying to regain control, as he waited and then said, “Did you hear me?”

“I heard you,” she whispered, stifling a sob.

“Are you all right?” he said to her back.

“Fine,” she said in a louder tone, surreptitiously wiping her eyes with the palm of her hand.

“Then come over here and sit down, you can’t rest standing up,” he said.

Amy obeyed, keeping her face in shadow so he couldn’t see her expression.

“In just a few hours we’ll be there,” Malik said.

And in just a few days I’ll be gone, Amy thought.

She pillowed her head on her arms so he couldn’t see that she was crying.

Chapter 7

The Woolcott home outside of Constantinople had been planned to take advantage of every breeze, no matter how slight, since Beatrice suffered grievously from the heat. Both floors were surrounded by wide “sleeping porches” and the main rooms had floor to ceiling glass doors which could be opened to create a cross draft in high summer.
 

Beatrice was sitting on the verandah outside the dining room, fanning herself with a letter she was reading, when James arrived home from work.

“I’m out here, James,” Beatrice called when she heard his step in the front hall. James handed his hat to a servant and followed the sound of his wife’s voice, bending to kiss her flushed cheek and note the dew on her upper lip as well as the wisps of ginger hair escaping from her bun. Bea had pale, freckled skin that turned scarlet in the heat, and the kind of hair that wilted like lettuce when the temperature went above seventy. No matter how many times she changed clothes or wiped her brow with her crumpled handkerchief, the summer weather kept Bea, as her favorite author Jane Austen once wrote, “in a continual state of inelegance.”
 

“What are you reading?” James asked, nodding to the letter Beatrice held.

“A note from Mrs. Spaulding, sent from Paris on her return journey,” Bea replied.

James sat in a rush rocking chair next to his wife and asked, “What does she say?”

“She apologizes again for ‘losing’ Amelia and begs me to let her know the girl’s fate,” Bea said wearily. She tucked the note inside her sleeve and added, “As if we knew it ourselves.”

Listak came through the doorway and handed James a brandy.

The servant looked at Beatrice and said, “Would you care for anything, Madam?”
 

Beatrice shook her head, hunting in her reticule for her bottle of cologne. She shook a few drops of the liquid onto a handkerchief and dabbed at her temples with the square of lace.

“You look tired, Bea,”James said, sipping his drink.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“The heat?”

“I’ve been having nightmares.”

“About Amelia, I suppose.”

“In the dreams my brother comes to me and scolds me,” Bea said dully. “He asks me why I couldn’t do the only thing he ever asked of me, why I couldn’t take care of his child.”
 

“Amelia will soon be with us and you’ll sleep well again,” James said soothingly.

Listak appeared in the doorway once more and said, “Dinner will be ready shortly, madam.”

“Bring Mrs. Woolcott a sherry, Listak,” James said.

“I don’t want a drink,” Bea protested.

“Bring one anyway,” James said to the servant.

Listak bowed and left.

“My descent into alcoholism will hardly change the situation, James,” Bea said.

“A before dinner sherry is not a descent into alcoholism, Beatrice, and the liquor will relax you.”

“If only it weren’t so hot all the time,” Bea whispered, putting her head back against her chair.

“The rains will come soon.”

“And then everything is a sea of mud. Oh, how I do miss Boston,” Beatrice sighed.

Listak returned with the drink, and Bea downed it in two gulps. James signaled for Listak to bring another one.
 

It looked like it would be a long night.

* * *

When Malik and Amy arrived back at the rebel camp they went directly to Anwar’s tent. His sister Maya was tending the injured man, and when she saw Amy she ran forward and fell to her knees, lifting the hem of Amy’s gown and pressing it to her lips.

“Malik, what on earth is she doing?” Amy asked, pulling back, appalled.

Maya stood and took Amy’s hand, kissed it, and then held it to her forehead.
 

“She’s thanking you for helping Anwar,” Malik replied.

“Is he that much better?” Amy asked, kneeling next to Anwar.

She touched his forehead and found it cooler; his face, which had been contorted by pain, was smooth and relaxed.

“He is!” she exclaimed delightedly, and Malik smiled.

Maya said something in Turkish to Malik and he translated. “Maya says that the medicine you left made all the difference. His delirium has passed and he spent a comfortable night.”

“But the wound still looks nasty,” Amy said, peeling back the bandage. “I’d better make the poultice right away.”

“What do you need?” Malik asked.

“Boiling water, or water just as hot as possible, and a bottle of raki.”

Malik gave the order to Maya, who vanished. He squatted next to Amy on the dirt packed floor and said, “Anwar does look much better.”

“The wound is still infected, but the poultice should take care of that. The aspirin will keep his fever down in the meantime.”

Malik turned his head to look at her. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“You can thank me when he’s up and around, I still have work to do.”

“Are you sure you aren’t too tired?”

“Just leave me to it. Send Maya in with the water when it’s ready,” Amy replied.

Malik slipped out of the tent as Amy removed the rest of Anwar’s sodden linen, planning how to redress the wound. When Maya brought the water she washed the torn flesh carefully, then disinfected it with the liquor. Then she soaked the herbs in the water, crushed them to release their sap, and made the poultice, applying it liberally and finally wrapping the wound with gauze liberally soaked in oil of wintergreen.

By the time she was done Anwar was stirring and Amy was almost asleep on her feet. Maya returned to administer another dose of laudanum. Amy nodded and smiled, taking the medicine back from Anwar’s sister and then curling up on the pallet Maya had used.

Anwar would sleep for a while and so would she, and if he woke she was certain to hear him.

Amy was so tired that she thought she would drop off immediately, but the previous night replayed itself in her mind endlessly, robbing her of rest.

Why had she cried when Malik turned away from her? Just a little while ago it had been her dearest wish to escape him, but she could not lie to herself.
 

Last night she had been disappointed to the point of pain when he didn’t kiss her.
 

What on earth was wrong with her? When had Malik gone from criminal to potential lover in her mind? When he wouldn’t sell her to the slave dealer, when he came after her in the woods, when he had trusted her to tend Anwar? Had it happened so subtly that she hadn’t noticed it until she was in love with him?
 

Amy turned restlessly and pillowed her head on her arm.
Could
she be in love with him, this thief, this kidnapper, this fugitive with a price on his head? True, she understood his cause now and why he had chosen the life he led, but was her feeling for him just proximity, the reaction of an untried woman to her first sustained, close contact with a young and virile man?

It would almost be a relief to think so, but Amy couldn’t quite believe it. She wasn’t that naive, she was pretty and an heiress, she had been pursued by men in Boston since she was thirteen. None of them had made her feel the way Malik did.

But maybe that urge was just base desire, the attraction of opposites, the yearning of a young body for its counterpart. She had thought of little else lately but getting Malik to make love to her, and her sense memories of him were so vivid that they disturbed her even now. She felt again Malik’s arms about her as they rode, as he embraced her after his fight with the thug, as he lifted her down from her horse. She saw his face as he looked at her in the moonlight, saw the longing in his eyes.

And that recollection presented another puzzle. She knew that Malik wanted her, his every glance and touch indicated his need. Then why wouldn’t he act on it? Was he sparing her for the shadowy American husband of her future? And if so, when had he acquired such a delicate conscience? For a man who’d been willing to sell her to slave traders a short time earlier, his reluctance to pursue her was strange behavior indeed.

Amy sat up, too confused to think any more. She couldn’t sleep, and she needed something to do, a task to keep her mind from wandering back to the subject she wished to avoid.

She didn’t want to think about Malik, or the fact that she would be leaving him soon. She pushed her way through the tent opening just as a horse galloped into the camp and all eyes turned toward the new arrival.

Malik appeared from the cave at the other end of the camp and greeted the newcomer; as he jumped down from his horse Amy saw that it was Selim. He had a brief conference with Malik, who then turned to the camp and said something in a loud voice, which brought immediate cheers. Amy watched the rebels slapping each other on the back and embracing. She wondered what was happening.

Malik walked over to her and asked, “How is Anwar?”

“About the same. It will be eight hours or so before we can tell if the poultice is working. Why is everyone so happy?”

“The Sultan has withdrawn his troops from the Armenian Mahalle.”

“Is that a victory for you?”

“It’s more than a victory. It’s a sign that his grip is weakening, he’s losing his annexed territory. It’s proof that our campaign is working.”