The Tiger's Lady (31 page)

The hawk-faced man at the trio’s center smiled thinly. “Quite an eyeful, isn’t she? Yes, the bitch did all she was supposed to do, Pagan. Gave the captain a fair tussle on the outbound crossing, too, from what I hear. But now the rest is up to us. And believe me,
we
know how to finish a man’s job.”

He gestured to the men at his sides, signaling them down the beach. “Before I’m done with you, you’ll be begging to tell Ruxley every little detail. Aye, what I lack in subtlety I make up for in speed, my friend.” His crooked smile showed three teeth missing. From his rear pocket he removed a long, curving Gurkha dagger. “Took it up at Allahabad in ‘57 from a damned heathen who tried to give me a shave. Blade’s still proper keen, though. Reckon I’ll demonstrate on you.”

Pagan’s brows rose in cold mockery. “Allahabad? And where were
you
when the rebels stormed in, hiding behind the fortifications with the other women?”

The man’s flat eyes darkened. “You’re going to regret that, you bastard. Oh yes, you’ll talk all right. Soon you’ll be talking so loud that they’ll hear you all the way in Colombo.” His grimy teeth flashed as he wiped the curved blade on his tattered sleeve.

Surreptitiously Pagan gauged the progress of the woman. She was almost at the boulder now, inching back slowly, maintaining her angry facade all the while.

Very nice work, Cinnamon. Now if I can keep those thugs distracted a few moments longer…

Pagan planted his arms across his chest in a gesture of studied arrogance. “Did Ruxley really think a whore would make me talk? That’s prime indeed. I assure you, you’ll have no more luck than that inept trollop did. Still, I suppose she had her uses,” he said meditatively. “Which is more than I can say for you three vermin. Where did Ruxley find you, by the way? In a Delhi opium house? Or was it a Macao brothel?”

“Take him, Sammy.” The leader turned to see his underling staring at the woman clad only in a man’s shirt and lacy drawers. “Forget about her—she’s Ruxley’s,” he snarled.

Oh, she was, was she? the woman in question thought. She clenched her lips and made a great business of twitching out her fallen skirts, careful to spread them far enough to conceal Pagan’s rifle, lying just at the base of the boulder.

Fortunately, the hawk-face leader was paying no attention to her. Nor was the third man standing guard by the path back to Pagan’s camp. Now all she had to do was get the weapon into her hands without attracting their attention.

But before she could inch downward, a voice rang out, only a few feet to her rear. She froze instantly, afraid to call attention to herself, and to the rifle hidden just between her feet.

“Why not, Griggs?” the voice behind her whined. “She’s prettier than yer told me. And when I’m done with her, she won’t feel like talking none, so Ruxley ain’t gonna find out nothing!”

“When
you’re
done with her, she won’t feel much like anything, you bloody fool! And Ruxley’s got plans to—” With a savage curse, the man called Griggs lunged forward and shoved his frowning accomplice toward Pagan. “Forget about that slut, will you? We’ve got more important things to think about than whoring, you fat fool!”

“Aw, no call to go roughin’ me up, Griggs. I were just thinking—”

“Well, don’t! You’re not being paid to think, damn it, just to do what I tell you!”

As he listened to this exchange, Pagan’s eyes narrowed. So they weren’t quite the professionals he had first thought them. He felt relief course through him before another fact slowly registered.

The three were using their names freely, making no attempt to conceal their identities.

Which meant only one thing.

That neither he nor the woman was going to be around to name names afterward.

A muscle flashed at Pagan’s granite jaw.

The bloody scum! But they wouldn’t find their task as easy as they thought.

Carefully he slanted a look at the woman beside the boulder, who seemed totally engaged in smoothing the creased damask dress she had just slipped on. Where was the bloody rifle, anyway? It had been right there near the rock a minute ago.

And then comprehension dawned. She was
standing
on it, hiding it beneath her skirt!
Damned fine work, Cinnamon.

Now he had to come up with a way to distract the others.

At that moment Griggs began to advance slowly, sunlight glinting off the long blade in his fingers. “There’s only one thing you need to tell us, Pagan, and we both know what it is. So why don’t you just start talking now and save us both a lot of noise and untidiness?”

Pagan didn’t move, though he could easily have avoided what he knew was to come.

Frowning, Griggs gestured to his accomplice. A moment later beefy fingers locked over Pagan’s wrists and knocked him to his knees in the sand.

“Go to sodding hell,” he growled at the man behind him. “Sammy, wasn’t it?”

A knee crashed into his face, sending blood-red agony exploding through his head. He pitched forward, coughing blood onto the sand.

“I’m only going t’ ask you one more time,” Griggs growled. “Where’s the bleeding ruby mine? And where’s the
ruby?”

When Pagan made no reply, dirt-stained fingers buried themselves in his hair and jerked his face savagely upward.

Cursing, Pagan ejected another mouthful of blood. “Couldn’t Ruxley come himself for once? Or did he have more pressing business to attend to? More tainted cartridges to sell perhaps? More opium for his China-bound ships?”

“You’re stalling, Pagan, and it won’t help you a frigging bit.” The man called Griggs tossed the Gurkha knife to his accomplice. “Persuade him, Sammy.”

“Shore, boss.” The next moment Pagan was wrenched flat on the beach, his face ground into the sand. “It’s like this, Mr. Pagan,” a soft, flat voice murmured at his ear. “First I take off your right ear. Then I take off your left ear. You still don’t talk, and I take off your right thumb. Ever tried to do without your thumb? It’s damned hard goin’. And then if you’re still bein’ stubborn like, why off goes the other thumb.” Pagan saw the man’s thin lips part in a cold leer. “Fer your sake, I hope you’re talkin’ by then, ‘cause if you’re not, then I take off your—”

“Drop the knife.”

Through the pounding agony in his head, Pagan heard a woman’s icy command.
Impressive, Cinnamon,
he thought dimly.
Now all you’ll have to do is convince them you’re not joking.

The hands on his hair clenched tighter, pain ripping through him.

“What’s all this?” the man called Griggs snarled. “Ruxley didn’t say nothing about—”

The woman’s voice was chill. “I’m sure he did not, Mr. Griggs. Not to the likes of
you,
at least. But the plans have changed. Mr. Pagan is to be taken to Colombo immediately, and Mr. Ruxley will meet us there by boat at dawn tomorrow. You
do
remember the prearranged location, don’t you?”

At her cold, determined tone, Griggs blinked, his resolution wavering. “Uh, location? Aye—of course. But why didn’t Ruxley—”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. Mr. Ruxley makes explanations to no one, as you must know full well. But I do know one thing, Mr. Griggs—he is going to be one very angry man if he finds out you haven’t obeyed my orders. And you don’t really want to see Mr. Ruxley angered, do you?”

The man’s hesitation confirmed her hunch precisely.

“I thought so. Now get this scum up and tie his hands. I wouldn’t care for him to escape.”

Griggs shifted uneasily, scowling.

The man at Pagan’s side began to chuckle. “Damn, boss, are you takin’ orders from a
woman
now?”

“Stow it, Sammy. ’Less you’d like me t’ stow it for you.”

“Naw, boss,” his beefy subordinate said reluctantly. His fingers tightened, like shards of glass driven deep into Pagan’s skull. “So what you want I should do with
him?”

The hawk-faced Griggs stared at the woman clutching the rifle. Nasty lot, firearms, he thought irritably. He preferred a knife anytime. And damned if that half-naked female didn’t look like she could use the frigging thing! “All right, woman, no need to go pointing that rifle at me. We’ll do like you say.” He gestured to the big man at Pagan’s back. “You heard her, Sammy. Tie him up.”

“But Mr. Ruxley said—”

“Tie him up, damn it!”

Cursing low, the man behind Pagan fished in his pocket and produced a length of heavy rope. His face mottled with anger, he lashed Pagan’s hands tightly at his back. “Just so as
you
do the explaining to him, hear?”

“I hear all right. Just you do what I tell you and there won’t be no problems.
Exactly
like I say, understand?”

A cold look passed between the two men. A moment later the big man shrugged. “Shore, Griggs. Just like always. You’re the boss.”

“And don’t you bleedin’ forget it!” Scowling, the leader turned to the woman brandishing the rifle. He noticed that the safety was pulled, which only confirmed his initial impression that she was not to be underestimated.

Whether she was telling the truth was another thing entirely, however.

“Looks like it’s your game now. What next?”

What indeed? the Englishwoman wondered wildly, knowing it had better be good. And fast.

She gestured coolly toward the path she and Pagan had taken to the beach. “Have you horses tethered up there?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Griggs said, eyes narrowed. “What did Ruxley tell you we’d use?”

Fear shot through her. She hadn’t the slightest idea
what
Ruxley had planned, but she couldn’t let this scoundrel realize that. She managed a careless shrug. “I was supposed to have reinforcements by sea. Several men came in by rowboat two nights ago.” She shot Pagan a lethal look. “But
he
found them first. I didn’t even have time to collect my payment,” she said disgustedly.

Griggs’ eyes narrowed. “So where are they now? Just up and disappeared?”

She managed to face him calmly.
Think of something and make it good!

What was it Pagan had said about animals?

She had seen the python. No, not good enough. Monkeys? No good either…

She caught a raw breath and plunged ahead, a silent prayer on her lips. “You don’t know? It wasn’t a pretty sight, I can tell you.” She made her voice very cold. “The tiger finished off all that was left when Pagan was done with them.”

She fought to keep from looking at Pagan, afraid to see that her wild story would never work.

Griggs studied her narrowly.

“Tiger?” the big man behind Pagan repeated, shuffling uneasily. “You didn’t tell me nothing about no tiger, Griggs,” he whined.

“Because there
ain’t
no bleedin’ tigers in Ceylon, you fool,” the leader snapped, his eyes probing the woman’s face.

“Well,
of course
there aren’t supposed to be,” she continued briskly. “And until about six months ago, there weren’t. But then, no one knows quite how, one was sighted in this area.”
Help me, Pagan,
she prayed. “You can see his prints back up the path about a quarter of a mile from camp. There wasn’t much else left after his kill.” She schooled her face to sullen dislike and strolled closer to Pagan, jerking his face up to hers. At the sight of his bloody skin, nausea ripped through her. She fought to steel her features to chill disdain. “Something tells me you knew he was there all the time, didn’t you?”

Now the rest is up to you,
she thought wildly.

“Tigers. Devil above!” Scowling, Sammy dug the Gurkha knife into his captive’s shoulders. “Is she telling the truth, you bastard?”

Pagan had to spit out a mouthful of blood before he could answer. He was fighting waves of pain from his battered temple, and his good eye was nearly swelled shut. But he concentrated on the slim fingers at his jaw, feeling their faint tremor. “Very clever of you to notice the pugmarks, bitch. Too bad you didn’t notice a little sooner. Then you and your friends would be celebrating right now. As it turns out, however, all that’s left of them is a few bones scattered about the jungle.”

The man behind Pagan whitened visibly. “D-damn, Griggs. Don’t tell me we’ve gotta go tanglin’ with no bleedin’
tiger!”

“Even if there is a tiger—which I
ain’t
saying there is—that was two days ago. No tiger’s gonna be around here now,” the hawk-faced man snapped.

“Desolate to disappoint you, my friend,” Pagan muttered through clenched teeth. “But after a good kill a tiger doesn’t eat for several days. Then the hunger builds and he starts hunting again—generally about the third day. Which brings us to right about now.” He studied the hawk-faced man before him. “And I bet your friend Griggs knows that once a tiger develops a taste for human flesh, he stops eating anything else. Isn’t that right, Griggs?”

The leader frowned. “Now listen to me, Sammy—”

“I ain’t listening no more,” the man behind Pagan said harshly. “Didn’t tell me nothin’ about no bleedin’ tigers! I seen one gut a man once in Patna. Jerked out the poor bastard’s entrails and swallowed ‘em warm while the fellow was still screamin’! I ain’t takin’ no chances with a
tiger. They
was the reason I piked outta India!”

“You left India because there was a price on your head, you fool.”

“That and tigers,” Sammy mumbled. “Damn, boss, you wanna stay, that’s your business. But not me. I’m leavin’.” With that, the big man spun about and started up the beach toward his compatriot, who was watching curiously, just out of earshot.

“Stop right there, Sammy.” Frowning, Griggs watched the big man plow up the beach, paying no heed. Scowling, he pulled a pistol from his pocket and leveled it.
“Stop,
you bloody fool!”

Sammy merely shook his head. “Never said
nothin’
about no tigers.”

The next instant a shot rang out. The big man grunted and then swung around drunkenly, his face a ludicrous mask of surprise. “Yer—yer
shot
me … Why did—” Abruptly he crumpled to the sand, then moved no more.

The woman stood staring at the man in the sand, watching blood ooze out in a thick, crimson pool. Her face turned the color of Pagan’s shirt.