The Tiger's Lady (62 page)

The swift rustle of cloth and the creaking of metal against wood woke Barrett long hours later. She rose through dim, inchoate images, some dreamed and some remembered.

Hard hands and straining thighs. Heat upon heat, as they made the night catch fire.

With a soft cry she jerked upright in her bed, her body rigid, feverish.

“So sorry to wake the
memsab.”
It was only Mita, not the hard-eyed, bitter stranger of her dreams.

Slowly the whirling haze melted away. Her racing heart slowed to a jerky patter.

“You are sleeping for twenty-four hours—”

Barrett’s amazed cry cut the servant off. “Impossible! Why I only just closed my eyes…” Her voice trailed away as a slim Sinhalese woman threw open the shutter behind Mita to reveal a sky streaked blood red.

“Aiyo, you are sleeping the sleep of the dead, miss! But now you must rise and eat.” Behind Mita a pair of Sinhalese girls maneuvered a heavy trunk over the sill and carried it to the far wall. “Yes, the Tiger is preparing much beautiful things for the lucky
memsab.”
With a sharp gesture, she sent the girls away, then threw open the case to reveal a frothy tangle of fabrics. “These cases are just arriving from Colombo. The
sahib
must have sent bearers the very day after he found you.”

Barrett’s breath caught as Mita lifted gossamer-thin silks and gleaming gold-threaded damasks from the trunk. Each garment was more beautiful than the one before, all long, full-skirted, and ruched about a tiny waist.

Mita reverently lifted one, a crimson brocade trimmed with velvet rosettes. “Aiyo, each one a perfect fit! The Tiger is having a piercing eye, no?”

Even without lifting the garment to her chest, Barrett knew that it would indeed fit her like a glove. Just as all the others would.

With a sharp gasp Mita lifted another gown and tossed it onto the bed. Glistening teal folds spilled like water in the lamplight.

It was the exact shade of Barrett’s eyes.

Slowly Barrett ran her fingers over the rippling folds of watered silk, savoring their crispness against her fingers. Just as before, she felt a building pressure in her head, the weight of dim memories.

She frowned, realizing that she had felt such silks before.

Yes, once there had been many such gowns, in every fabric and color. Suddenly, she saw a slim young girl staring abstracted at her own image in a cheval glass while she held just such silks up to her slender body.

But the image melted away, and Barrett realized that it had been a long time before. In recent years there had been only serviceable broadcloths and twills, let out when growth required, or entirely recut when hemming would not suffice.

And mingled with the dim images, there came the glint of danger.

Barrett’s fingers fell away from the sensual cloth.

“Memsab
shivers. Are you cold? If so, I will order the shutters closed.”

“It is nothing, Mita. I was just—thinking of something.” With a decisive lift to her chin, Barrett threw back the covers and came to her feet.

“Very good. The colonel
-sahib
is awaiting you in the drawing room. You must to hurry, if you please.”

Somehow Barrett managed not to ask the first question that sprang to her lips. She would find out soon enough whether Pagan waited there too. In mid-room she paused, sniffing the air. “What is that smell, Mita? Pungent and faintly woody.”

Mita’s eyelids fell and she toyed with the hem of a gown. “That is the
Tiger-sahib’s
scent, miss. He is smoking those Malaysian cheroots again. And from the smell, he … was in your room,
memsab.”

A look passed between the two women then, a look of faint rivalry, but even more of shared knowledge and an uncertainty about what that knowledge meant.

“You will be needing this also, I am thinking.” Mita lifted a white bundle from the bed.

Stiff and bulky, it was the corset that Pagan had forbade her to wear on the trail. Barrett studied the garment curiously, wondering at how alien it looked, almost as if it belonged in another place or time.

Mita smoothed the corset reverently, then pushed it toward Barrett. “It is yours,
memsab.
You will be wishing to put it on.”

Still Barrett hesitated, feeling a curious reluctance to take or even touch the garment. It had been cleaned and pressed, she saw, Mita’s doing of course. But Barrett somehow knew that if she took the garment back she would be accepting everything that went with it—England and all its stuffy rules and rigid propriety. All the ease and freedom she had discovered here would be denied her.

“Memsab?”
Mita asked curiously.

Barrett did not answer, eyes fixed on the corset. Why did she have such a feeling of distaste about it? Could it be part of the chill memories sealed somewhere in her mind?

“You will be late, miss.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Barrett took a deep breath and reached for the corset.

At the first contact an odd chill shot through her fingers and she shivered. Whatever was the matter with her?

Muttering, she grasped the heavy, boned garment and carried it to her chest. Something scratched her; one of the stays appeared to be bent.

“It was broken and I had to mend its—its
stays,
do you call them? I hope the work is acceptable to the
memsab.”

“It will be fine, Mita.”

Suddenly Barrett had to fight down an urge to cry. After all she had been through, why did this one piece of clothing upset her so? Could it be because it represented everything that Pagan hated, all the things that stood between the two of them?

Squaring her shoulders, Barrett slipped from her nightdress and molded the corset around her, suppressing a shudder as the stays dug into her soft skin.

How strange,
she thought, fingering the rigid metal bones.
Yes, how utterly strange that we should consider
this
to be civilized.

Colonel Hadley was waiting in a chintz-filled drawing room in Windhaven’s grand stone west wing. Barrett was glad to have Mita to guide her, for she would never have found the room alone.

“Ah, Miss, er—Brown. You’re looking much more the thing, I’m glad to say.” Large fingers crushed her hands in a warm grip. “Quite lovely, in fact, if you’ll excuse an old man for his enthusiasm.”

“You—you are too kind,” Barrett said quietly, much moved by his bluff sympathy.

“Nonsense, m’dear. Now sit—sit, please. Standing is all well and good when you’re young, but at my age the joints are not so compliant as they once were. Of course mine have been knocked around more than most.”

Only then did Barrett notice the stiffness in his left leg. With a faint frown, he eased his long, lean body into an armchair across from the window then carefully extended his leg before him.

Barrett wanted to ask more, but she did not, realizing he would tell her if he choose to. Instead she looked curiously around her at the colorful room.

Blue and white porcelain bowls lined a solid wall of teak, each bowl filled with cut blossoms, jasmine and scarlet orchids next to lush centifolia roses, filling the room with heady perfume.

“How lovely!”

“The Tiger’s porcelains, but the flowers are my handiwork,” the colonel said with a touch of pride. “One of the few vices left to an old man, I’m afraid.”

“But they are wonderful! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such color or variety before. You must be a magician.”

Hadley smiled diffidently at her rush of praise. “Work, not magic, is all that’s required, m’dear. Soil’s rich as Devon loam here. The problem’s keeping the legions of bloody insects at bay. Oh, I say, I do beg your pardon,” he said quickly. “Not used to, er, female company here, you know.”

Barrett felt unaccountably pleased at his comment, though she refused to examine why.

“You’ll have a drink, won’t you? Sherry, perhaps?”

She nodded, accepting the tumbler he pressed into her hand.

From there the evening raced past in a rich, inexorable blur. Colonel Hadley led her into a candlelit dining room bright with faceted crystal and eggshell-thin porcelain. Heavy engraved silver flanked each setting, and Barrett noticed a third place was set at the head of the table.

Hadley caught her wary look. “The Tiger’s gone out to visit the upcountry fields. I don’t expect he’ll make it back before morning, but Mita always lays a place, just in case. So it will just be the two of us.” His eyes were keen. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“No. No—of course not,” Barrett said swiftly.

The food began to stream in, carried on silver platters by shyly smiling Sinhalese women in floor-length sarongs with orchids tucked behind their eyes.

“You must try these, m’dear. We call them
sambol
or rice pullers. But go slowly at first, as they’re laced with red pepper along with lime and grated coconut. Then try some of the
papadams
—er, fried wafers, you know. And of course you must have some coconut milk curry.” He passed Barrett dishes as fast as he spoke. “Here’s some fine chutney. Ah, mangoes and
jak
fruit. And you mustn’t skip the
thalaguli.”
At Barrett’s raised eyebrow, he passed her a plate of sesame balls. “Another of Mita’s specialties, you know.”

Barrett dutifully took some of each until her plate was piled high. At the sight of the gay, spicy foods, her stomach gave a growl of enthusiasm.

Hadley smiled. “Wretched of me to keep you waiting with an old man’s chatter. Go on, tuck in now. I envy you your first experience of such divine food. Mita is truly a wonderful cook.”

And the colonel was right, Barrett soon discovered. Subtle and exotic, the dishes were seasoned with coconut, coriander, cumin, and cinnamon, along with other spices she could not name.

She tried each one, trying to concentrate on enjoying the luxurious surroundings. But every time she looked up, her eyes wandered to the empty place setting at the head of the table and her appetite fled.

Thirty minutes later, after a flow of conversation carried on largely by the bemused colonel, she sat back with a rueful smile. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had such food in my life.” A shadow swept Barrett’s face, as she realized she could not be certain, since she still had no solid knowledge of the life she had led before coming to the island.

Her brow furrowed. Very carefully she laid down her fork, watching—but not quite seeing—the way it caught the reflection of a pair of overhanging palm-oil lanterns. “I—I expect you must be wondering why I’m here, even though you’re far too kind to ask.”

At the colonel’s growl of protest, she shook her head, clenching her hands in her lap. “I—I only wish I could tell you. But I can’t, you see. There was an accident, or perhaps it was
not
an accident, and—” She looked up, giving her companion a crooked little smile. “Now I don’t recall anything. Just fragments, always fragments. Although I don’t think the Tiger, as you call him, is inclined to believe me.”

The colonel leaned across the table and patted her shoulder with bluff sympathy. “Aye, the Tiger told me. Bloody foul business, if you’ll excuse the language. And as for Dev, I’m sure he
does
believe you.” He frowned. “It’s this ruby, you know. Seems to drive men mad. Women, too, come to think of it. And until it’s found…” His voice trailed away as he stared, abstracted, into the dancing light.

At that moment a large creamy moth fluttered overhead, its wings casting a monstrous shadow against the far wall. In fluttering sweeps it circled, ever closer to the flame, until finally it plunged inside and was incinerated with a faint hiss and a flash of light.

Barrett shivered, tugging at her corset, which suddenly seemed painfully tight. But somehow she could not escape the image of those frail wings exploding into flame and vanishing in a mere instant.

Would her own fate be just as swift and brutal? she wondered.

Outside in the corridor came the muffled drum of booted feet, and then Mita’s voice raised in soft enquiry. A low answer came in Tamil.

Barrett’s stomach twisted, goose bumps breaking out over the low décolletage of the teal blue gown Mita had insisted she wear.