The Tiger's Lady (18 page)

Forget the five dead workers you found on your return from London,
he told himself.
Forget the attack at the docks in Colombo. Forget the three men who followed you into the night, seizing you from behind,
he repeated as the waves rocked him.

Like a benediction, the current rippled and surged beneath him. And he yielded to the shadows, savoring their healing forgetfulness as his strong arms cut a path through the dark waters.

Then his fingers brushed the raw welt running from his cheekbone to his right eyebrow. Immediately his massive body stiffened. When his head broke the surface a moment later, his eyes were hard, the night’s magic shattered.

Forget?

That was the one thing Deveril Pagan could never do.

She felt the sandy bottom before she saw it. A second later the waves tossed her onto the beach; sand, seaweed, and tiny shells ground into her mouth and tongue.

Sputtering, she crawled from the water, then sank onto the heavenly warmth of the sand.

A crab scuttled past her hand, but in her exhaustion she did not move. She had no energy left for anything but breathing.

A wave surged past her knees and then retreated. She realized she must climb higher, lest she be dragged back out to sea with the rising of the tide.

She tried to struggle upright but failed, collapsing back in a sprawl against the beach. Ashen-faced, she managed to crawl a few more feet before sinking down once more, her energy spent.

At least she felt no pain beyond a prickling at her back; or perhaps she was
beyond
feeling pain.

Gritting her teeth, she raised her head and searched for the orange beacon. For hours it had beckoned, finally bringing her here to safety.

Strange—the light was gone.

But it scarcely mattered. Nothing mattered now.

Sighing, she let her eyes close. Her fingers stretched out and dug into the warm sand.

A moment later she was asleep.

The first rays of dawn burned a blood-red trail out of Burma as Pagan lifted himself wearily from the sea. Water streamed in silver rivulets from his face and chest, coursing down his powerful, bronzed body. With a primitive, animal grace he shook his head and stretched, careless of his nakedness.

At last he was tired, a pleasant, comfortable sort of fatigue. With a little luck he might even be able to sleep now.

The hunger in his groin was still there of course, only now it was reduced to a dull ache.

Just like the memories of Cawnpore.

Frowning, he toweled himself off and tugged on his breeches, his broad shoulders bunching and rippling with each movement. He dragged a weary hand through his black hair, combing it back off his face, then turned toward the path that led inland.

It was then that he saw the smudge of color.

It lay against the dawn-gray beach to the south.

A smudge where no smudge should appear.

His broad brow furrowed. He stared across the sand, frozen with shock. It was impossible, of course, nothing but another illusion.

He closed his eyes, shaking a rivulet of saltwater from his face. When he looked again, he fully expected the bright blur to be gone.

But it wasn’t. The shape had not changed in the slightest.

And the
it,
Pagan now saw clearly, was a woman.

A prickle of something that might have been foreboding skittered up his spine.

The man with raven hair and onyx eyes stared at that dim blur on his secluded beach, unable to believe the evidence of his eyes.
Another tormenting image
, he told himself;
another illusion come to haunt him through the long tropical nights.

Wind played over his face, already warm with the heat that would grow to a ferocious blast by midday. Feeling a queer, burning sensation in his throat, the man the estate workers called the Tiger
-sahib
stalked over the hard-packed sand.

His shadow fell over the motionless figure, a slash of darkness against ivory skin and pale, sodden damask. Slowly Pagan knelt, feeling a strange sense of fatedness about the moment. He realized he could not have turned away even had he wanted to.

And turning away was the
last
thing he wanted to do right now.

His eyes narrowed.

His blood took on a strange, staccato drumming.
Kismet
, he told himself, oddly lightheaded.
Jo hoga, so hoga.

To his disgust, his hands began to tremble.

Even before he looked down, he knew she would be beautiful. It was inescapable, part of the dreams that had tormented him for weeks since his return from London.

A woman,
Pagan thought dizzily, staring down at the honey-gold strands cast upon the sand. A white woman…

But how did she come to be lying here? Outside of a few of his estate workers, no one even knew this secluded cove existed. The few who did were native Sinhalese whose loyalty he trusted absolutely.

So what was this fragile mermaid with hair the color of a tropical sunrise doing here, asleep on his private beach?

With unsteady fingers, the tall planter swept a tangled strand from the woman’s face, revealing a silken curve of cheek and honey-colored lashes.

Beautiful.

Just as he had known she would be. But—faintly familiar?

Pagan frowned, seeing the face he had glimpsed so often in his tortured, malarial dreams. There was the slim, chiseled nose that turned up slightly at the end and the chin rising to a defiant point. There were the lips the color of wild orchids, soft and achingly generous.

Lips that could cling sweetly while they drove a man wild with desire.

He tried to forget the raw image of what he would like those lips to do to him, how much he would give to feel them inch slowly over his naked, fevered skin.

Desire shot through him. He jerked back, dropping the golden strands as if burned. Rocking back on his heels, he stared down at her, dazed.

Beautiful, damn her, just as he had known she would be. And if his judgment of women was any good—which St. Cyr knew damned well it was—then this particular woman would have a perfect body to match that exquisite face.

And the Tiger hadn’t had a woman in almost two months.

Ruxley would surely know that too.

Frowning, the Englishman rose and stared down the beach. His eyes narrowed on the sea, calm and silver beneath the rising sun.

Just as he’d thought. No splintered planks, no floating cable or torn sheet. Nothing at all.

His frown deepened. No debris meant there had been no shipwreck, and a shipwreck was the
only
reason for her to be cast up on this lonely stretch of beach that appeared nowhere in any English sea chart.

The only
innocent
reason, that is.

But it seemed someone had talked: the evidence lay right before him.

His eyes hardened as he looked down at the female sprawled in the sand. At his sides his fingers clenched and unclenched, yearning to shake out all her deadly secrets.

Beginning with the details of Ruxley’s latest plan to extract the location of Windhaven’s fabled ruby mine.

Go ahead,
a dark voice urged.
Strip her bare and savor her naked beauty. Enjoy her as a woman was meant to be enjoyed. Make her hot and hungry, begging for you to take her. And then bend her to your will until she answers every question you can even think of asking.

Desire lay upon him, heavy and smothering like the black clouds that ran before the southwest monsoon.

But Pagan did not move, though his pulse was crashing through his veins like cannon shot.

Why not?
he thought angrily, his temples slick with sweat. This was
his
land,
his
beach. On this square of sand and soil he alone was lord and master.

Abruptly his face twisted with self-mockery. Maybe it
had
been too long. Maybe he was afraid.

Sometimes he almost forgot what a woman looked like.

Almost.

The warm wind brushed his face, tossing the woman’s pale damask skirts, offering him a glimpse of lacy drawers beneath frothy petticoats trimmed with peach-colored ribbons.

A bead of sweat slid down his neck. His skin prickled, dry and taut.

A
woman.
By the gods, every inch a woman, from her lacy petticoats and ruffled drawers to her expensive damask gown.

A torment.

Why here? And why now?
Pagan asked himself, unwilling to face the answer. Knowing it was the only possible answer.

Two simple words.

James Ruxley
. A man who would stop at nothing to hold Windhaven’s secrets, especially now, since the great ruby had vanished during the melee back in London.

Sir Humphrey’s murderer had never been discovered, nor had the ruby, in spite of a lengthy investigation. Apparently Ruxley didn’t have it, which surprised Pagan vastly.

Such tactics were exactly what he’d expect of the Merchant Prince.

But six of Ruxley’s men had come to Ceylon so far, asking questions in the native villages and flashing their gold guineas. When that hadn’t worked, they’d tried a more direct assault through the jungle.

All six had died in the attempt. One by one Pagan had found their dead bodies, snake-bitten or leopard-clawed, their corpses darkened by a cloud of circling vultures.

But it appeared Ruxley was playing a different game. The formula was ancient and very effective.

One beautiful woman, washed up on a deserted beach. One malaria-weakened man, starved for the touch of a woman’s silken skin.

Yes, it had all the earmarks of a successful campaign.

Except he wasn’t that far gone yet, Pagan thought grimly. And this intruder would be a pleasure to interrogate. As his eyes burned over the soft curves outlined beneath her wet garments, he felt the telltale heaviness at his thighs and surge of heat to his manhood.

When she awoke, it would be in his bed, hot and hungry for him. And he would take his time about it, for he wanted her fully aroused when she woke.

And wearing nothing but
him
.

Grim-faced, the Englishman reached down and flung his trespasser over his shoulder. A muscle flashed at his jaw as he felt her hair spill over his naked back. His skin burned where she lay against him, all softness and sun-warmed silk.

He looked neither right nor left as he strode up the beach to his bungalow.

The Tamil workers watched in silent wonder as the tall
Angrezi
crossed the path from the beach, an inert female flung over his shoulder. Several shrank back, murmuring protective mantras as the planter passed.

Although he gave no sign of noticing, Pagan missed none of their reactions. It was getting harder and harder to keep them here.

This string of recent “accidents” had been the final straw. Now it was whispered that the
Tiger-sahib
was cursed, and that whoever worked for him would suffer terrible consequences.
The local shaman’s doing, no doubt,
Pagan thought grimly.

Last week five workers had defaulted on their contracts, vanishing overnight into the jungle. The only reason the rest stayed was because the Tiger treated them with fairness and paid their wages as agreed upon rather than months late, as some of the other planters did.