“Anna …”
Caught by surprise, she could only look up at him. Charles hesitated, his eyes searching hers as if for some sign. His hands held hers tightly, his thumbs running lightly over the soft skin on the backs of her hands. His eyes were some inches above hers, although he had not Julian’s overpowering height. His brown hair had just begun to recede at the temples, which gave him a distinguished look. All in all, he was a man whom most women would be proud to call their own. Maybe, in time, she …
Without another word he bent and swiftly kissed her mouth. It was a soft kiss, and quick, not a bit demanding. Not like … But Anna flatly refused to allow herself to make the comparison. Charles’s kiss was perfectly pleasant, like the man himself. A gentleman’s kiss, to a lady he respected.
It was the kind of kiss every decent woman should want.
And if she found herself secretly preferring a far different sort, well then, the fault was in her, not him, and she must work to eradicate it.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Charles said, smiling down at her, “but …”
Whatever else he said Anna missed. She had just become aware that they were no longer alone. Lounging in the doorway, eyes slightly narrowed as he watched the affecting scene being played out before him, stood Julian.
He was back!
Her traitorous heart leaped at the sight of him, dusty and disheveled and looking out of sorts as he was, all the while her ears refused to hear Charles’s softly cajoling words.
“We’re not alone,” she managed to say clearly. Charles looked surprised, then, as he glanced around and spied Julian, annoyed and self-conscious in rapid succession.
“Major.” Julian straightened from the door, nodding curtly. There was an expression on his face that told Anna, at least, that he was not best pleased at what he had seen.
“I suppose this looks most peculiar,” Charles began, with an air of making explanations to one who had a right to demand them. Anna, now that the initial euphoria of seeing Julian again had been replaced by a towering blast of rage at him, scowled at Charles and pulled her hands from his. Julian, of all people, had no right to play propriety!
“Indeed.” Julian’s response was cool, but there was an expression in his eyes that made Charles color up.
“See here, there’s no question of anything wrong. I’ve asked your sister-in-law to marry me.”
“He has no right to any explanation. He’s not my keeper,” Anna snapped, her words for Charles while her glare was focused on Julian.
“As your nearest male relation—” Charles started.
“Pshaw!” Anna refuted rudely, her fists clenching at her sides.
“Anna’s right, of course. She need make no explanations to me.” Julian’s brusque reply was directed over Anna’s head to Charles. “Excuse me.”
Without another word he turned and quitted the room. Anna was left seething to listen to his booted feet retreating along the hallway toward the rear of the house. Where was he going? Not that she cared, except that she was itching to tell him to his head all the highly unflattering thoughts she’d been harboring about him over the past seven days.
How dare he bed her, then disappear without a word, as casually as if she’d been the merest light-skirt? How dare he!
“I fear your brother-in-law has legitimate cause for complaint. I should not have kissed you.” Charles sounded so humorously contrite that Anna forced herself to drag her attention back to him.
“Whether you kiss me or not has nothing to do with him.” For all her care to keep her tone even, an acidic note crept through.
“Nevertheless …” Charles sighed and regarded Anna with a touch of humor. “As a would-be Romeo I come off somewhat badly, don’t I? Well, maybe on another occasion I’ll contrive to do better. In my own defense I must say that I haven’t had a lot of practice recently.”
“I think you make a wonderful Romeo, Charles,” Anna defended, her heart touched by his rueful words. “ ’Tis I who am a most unsatisfactory Juliet.”
“We must both contrive to do better then.”
Jollying her in this way, he managed, as Anna saw him out to his carriage, to lighten the uneasy atmosphere left in Julian’s wake. At least until the buggy bowled along the drive and out of sight.
Then Anna turned and, in high dudgeon, went in search of Julian.
XXXII
H
e was not in the garden. Anna waved to Chelsea and Kirti, and forced herself to smile, but she did not stop. The next most likely place was the stable. If he was not there, then she would find herself temporarily at a loss. The notion did not please her.
It was late afternoon, and the stable was mostly empty. All the horses and donkeys were being worked except Sister, a hardy island pony who had sprained a hock a few days previously. Sister nickered softly at Anna’s entry, and Hugo, the resident goat bleated. Anna patted Sister’s velvety nose, rewarded Hugo’s attempt to eat the hem of her skirt with a shove, and looked around for Julian.
“Memsahib?” It was Jama, the stable boy, who glided out of the shadows where, as was evident from the pitchfork in his hand, he had clearly been mucking out a stall.
“Have you seen Mr. Chase?”
“ ’E’s done took ’imself for a walk. Said ’e mis-liked the air up in the ’ouse.” Jim’s voice was unmistakable. Whirling, Anna discovered him behind her. He looked her over with disapproval, then turned his head to spit in the straw.
It was all Anna could do not to shudder with distaste.
“Which path did he take?”
Jim eyed her sourly, “I figure ’e wants to be let alone. When ’e gets a certain look in ’is eye, most people are smart enough to leave ’im be.”
“Do you know where he went or don’t you?” Anna asked impatiently.
Jim shrugged. “Mebbe.”
Anna’s temper began to sizzle with fresh heat, but she did not want to vent her anger on Jim when its real target was Julian. Accordingly, she bit her tongue and turned her eyes to Jama.
“Did you see which way the sahib went?”
“Toward the waterfall, I think, memsahib.”
“Thank you.” Anna allowed a small degree of triumph to color her voice as she turned back to walk past Jim without another word.
To her annoyance he fell into step beside her.
“Did you want something?” she asked haughtily.
Jim grimaced. “What I wants and what I gets ain’t too often the same thing. What I wants is to be sittin’ down to a meal. What I gets is to make sure you don’t get your damn-fool self ’urt walkin’ through this ’ere jungle by your lonesome. There’s been some talk about some strange goings-on around here lately.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Anna walked faster. “I don’t need your escort, thank you. I have been along this path many times.”
“Don’t matter. Julie’d be wroth with me, did I let you come to ’arm.” Jim swung along at her side, a wiry little man not many inches taller than Anna herself. Like Julian when he had entered the house, he bore the marks of recent travel. His white shirt was wrinkled and grimy, and his breeches and boots were splotched with mud. He seemed to list slightly to one side, as if either his legs or shoulders were not quite even.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d prefer that you didn’t come with me. What I have to say to Julian is private.” Anna stepped into the cool green darkness of the jungle as she spoke. She moved swiftly along the path, more swiftly than she would ordinarily have done had she not been so bent on losing her escort. She knew to watch for snakes and such that took refuge from the heat of the day under the cool leaves on the jungle floor.
“I s’pose it is,” Jim said nonchalantly, and kept pace behind her with seeming ease.
Anna’s lips tightened, and she cast him a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder. Surely he could not know what had occurred between herself and Julian. How could he? With all his many and varied faults, Julian did not strike her as the kind of man to brag of his conquests. On the other hand …
“Don’t get your wind up,” Jim advised her, apparently reading her growing annoyance in the stiffening set of her back. “When I see you safely to Julie, I’ll leave the two of you be. I reckon ’e’s just a might wroth with you, too.”
Anna took a deep breath as alarm mingled with her anger. If Julian had told this little gnome anything of what had passed between them …
“I don’t know all the particulars, mind, but I do know Julie. Were I you, missus, I’d steer clear of ’im until ’e works whatever ails ’im out of ’is system, ’As a nasty temper, ’as Julie, when ’e’s pushed ’ard enough.”
“Thank you for the advice,” Anna said through her teeth. She yanked her skirts a little higher to keep them out of the damp mulch that lay inches thick on the forest floor, set her jaw, and stalked forward.
“I’ve known ’im since ’e was a lad of twelve or thereabouts, and I can tell you, boy or man, ’e’s a good un. Don’t come any better than Julie. ’E don’t deserve a fancy petticoat playin’ fast and loose with ’im.”
As the meaning of this cant speech sank in, Anna stiffened in outrage. Turning, she stopped dead in front of Jim, her eyes sparkling with outrage.
“If you are referring to me as a fancy petticoat, and implying that I have in some way wronged your—Julie, then I take leave to tell you that you have gone beyond the bounds of what is pleasing by a considerable degree!”
“Good God, she can’t even speak the King’s good English so’s a body can understand it. Like I tole Julie, the ’eat must’ve turned ’is brain.”
Livid, Anna whirled back around and marched on down the path.
“But there’s no accounting for tastes, after all,” Jim said philosophically to her back. Anna would have turned and annihilated him there and then had she not heard the muted roar of the waterfall just ahead.
Rather than expend her fury on the minor irritant, she would save it for the primary object of her wrath!
Pushing through the veil of flowering vines that blocked the end of the path, she stepped into a verdant clearing. At its center was a small, clear pool that ran downhill by way of a narrow creek. The pool was fed by a cascade of water that fell noisily over a twenty-foot-high wall of rocks that nature had over the course of thousands of years carved from the mountainside. Overhead, exotic birds fluttered in the thick canopy of interlaced branches that kept the sun from reaching the clearing. The few rays that filtered down provided a soft, diffused light that gave the setting an otherworldly aspect. Large, flat-topped rocks fringed part of the pool. Leafy kudzu vines covered the other banks with lush greenery. The scent of mangoes and frangipani made the air fragrant as fine perfume. A small orange-faced monkey, which had been sitting on a rock regarding its reflection in the pool with fascination, scampered off at Anna’s advent. To her disappointment, it seemed to be the only living creature on the ground. Julian was nowhere in sight. Annoyed, she realized that he must not have taken the path to the waterfall after all. If he had, and had already turned back toward the house, they would have passed him en route.
Drat the man! Disappearing was getting to be a habit with him. Where could he be?
Just then a seallike black head broke the surface of the water. For a moment Anna was startled. Then she realized that the head, and the broad bare shoulders that rose after it, belonged to Julian. He must know how to swim!
Impressed despite herself with that accomplishment, which was rare in an Englishman, she nevertheless fixed her quarry with angry eyes. It was clear that he had not yet discovered her presence. Over the rushing of the waterfall it would be impossible to hear her footsteps as she made her way purposefully along the water’s edge. Behind her, Jim melted into the jungle without so much as a word. So focused was Anna on Julian that she was scarcely aware of his going.
Still plainly unaware of her presence, Julian swam across the pool with long, clean strokes. He was bare from the waist up, and it occurred to her that he might be equally bare below it. But if he was, the water protected his modesty well enough. And if he should choose to come out of the pool—well, that was fine, too. She was too angry to care.
He reached the far end of the pool, dived under the surface of the cascading waterfall, and after a few moments surfaced again, heading back in the direction he had come.
Then he saw her.
Anna knew the exact moment from the instant contraction of his brows and the brief hesitation in his steady stroke. Then, to her annoyance, he continued to swim, ignoring her as if she was no more than another of the poolside trees. Since she could not swim so much as a stroke, entering the pool to confront him there was not an option. She had no choice but to stand at the side of the pool, arms crossed over her breasts and toe tapping, until he chose to stop and acknowledge her presence.
He swam for at least another quarter of an hour, ignoring her all the while.
Finally he quit and stood up in the center of the pool. The water came to just below his chin. As he walked toward the bank—the one directly opposite from where Anna was sitting—she was afforded an excellent view of emerging broad shoulders, a wide back that tapered to a narrow waist, muscular buttocks, powerful thighs that rippled when he moved, strong calves, and, finally, long, lean bare feet. When he splashed out of the shallows, still ignoring her, Anna’s temper snapped. She would have screamed at him if she’d thought he could hear her over the gurgling water. But as he probably could not—or would at least pretend not to—she stalked, fists clenched, around the perimeter of the pool until she reached the hollow between two rock formations where he stood. He was toweling himself dry, and he barely glanced up as she stopped just a foot short of him.
“Where have you been?” she demanded, her voice gritty. Despite her fury, one part of her mind admired the sheer muscled magnificence of his naked body while the other sternly cautioned her not to notice.
“I don’t see that my whereabouts is any of your concern.” Still he barely glanced at her. He was bent over, rubbing the towel along his legs. Anna scowled at the top of that wet black head. Now that his lust for her had been satisfied, he was acting as if she were barely alive!