The crackling was louder, louder, building into a roar. The heat was so intense that Anna felt her skin blister. Smoke made breathing almost impossible, and if it had not been for the brim of her sunbonnet forming a tent against the side of Baliclava’s neck, Anna was sure she would have suffocated.
It occurred to her, unbelievably, that she was going to die. Paul’s face swam before her eyes: had he been this frightened when he’d realized his time was upon him?
Chelsea; she couldn’t leave Chelsea.
And Julian.…
Baliclava’s shuddering scream snapped her head up. The smoke was blinding, but not so blinding that Anna couldn’t see the wall of fire roaring toward them. Gasping in terror, she choked on the smoke. Coughing, glancing frantically behind her, she tried to turn the donkey, who seemed determined to throw himself on his own funeral pyre. Then her steaming eyes widened with horror, and she gave up the attempt. Behind her roared another wall of fire, far taller and faster than the first.
They were trapped!
Anna screamed, despairing, and buried her face in Baliclava’s neck again as the donkey obstinately raced toward the smaller of the two walls of fire. She was going to die, here, today, in just a few minutes. Please God, she didn’t want to die! Not yet, oh, not yet!
Beneath her, she felt Baliclava’s muscles bunch, and her arms tightened instinctively around his neck. Then, with a powerful thrust of his hindquarters, the animal leaped like a jackrabbit right into the middle of the raging inferno.
XXXV
“A
nna! Anna! My God, Anna!”
Miraculously, Baliclava was through the fire, racing as if maddened across the already blackened portion of the field. Workers, elephants, and oxen scattered as the donkey, braying as if he were possessed by banshees, flew past them. Anna clung to his neck, her arms locked into position. She was only dimly aware that somehow, by some miracle, they had survived.
“Anna!”
The smell of burning was strong again, acrid as it singed her nostrils. Baliclava galloped frantically toward the forest, bucking as he went. Anna felt her grip being dislodged and screamed as she slipped sideways and crashed to the ground.
She lay where she had fallen amongst the prickly, blackened stubble of the burned-off plants as the donkey raced off without her. She was dazed, not quite sure what was real and what was not.
Voices shouted, someone yelled her name, and the ground vibrated beneath her ear as dozens of feet ran toward her.
Julian reached her first. Funny, she was almost glad to see him—until he dropped to his knees beside her, uttering a hoarse cry, and began to pound her legs and hips with his hands.
“Stop!” she tried to cry, rolling over to escape him, but the protest emerged as a croak. There was the sound of ripping cloth, and she realized to her horror that he was tearing the clothes from her body.
“No! Stop!” she cried again, trying to fight him off with arms that were unexpectedly weak. He was stripping her, rending her dress, right in the midst of an open field with Hillmore and a crowd of turbaned islanders gathered around staring!
“Your clothes are on fire, you bloody little idiot!” Julian yelled at her as she struggled. Even as the sense of that sunk in, and she ceased to fight, he had her dress off her, then her bonnet as well. She was left with only her thin white chemise and a single petticoat to cover her nakedness. Weak as she was, she managed to cross her arms over her bosom in an effort to preserve what she could of her modesty from the staring throng of men.
Julian scowled fiercely at her. Anna’s eyes flickered beneath the sheer savagery of his gaze. His face was a carved teak mask of anger, its harsh lines forbidding. His eyes blazed at her as hotly as the fire she had just escaped. His cheeks and forehead were streaked with soot—Anna guessed from her charred dress, or perhaps the ground. His black eyebrows met in a single straight line over his nose, and his lips were clamped tight. As his gaze ran over her, then flicked back up to her face, it was pure onyx, alive with some unidentifiable emotion. Raw fury, Anna thought, and something more.
“Get back.” He turned his head to snarl at the gaping workers. “Get away from her. Hillmore, bring me something to wrap her in. A blanket, anything.”
The islanders, lowering their heads, retreated a few paces. Hillmore left at a run. There had been something in Julian’s voice that cracked like a whip, and none dared to risk his wrath by not doing his bidding posthaste.
“Do you hurt anywhere?” Julian turned back to her and waited until she shook her head. Then his eyes moved over her again, more carefully this time, examining her from head to toe. His hands, surprisingly gentle, smoothed the hair from her face. Between her wild ride and his ungentle method of removing her bonnet, the sunlit mass had fallen from its neat knot and tangled wildly all around her face and shoulders and down her back. His hand ran over the tumbled strands, and some emotion that Anna was afraid to define made his eyes flare. When he pulled his fingers away she saw that several silvery strands clung to them; apparently the hair around her face had been singed. Carefully, as if the detached strands might still have the power to hurt her, he untangled the gossamer tendrils from his fingers and laid them aside. Next he touched her cheek with an exploratory finger, winced, then pulled the tail of his shirt free of his breeches to dab at her face. When he pulled the once-white linen away, Anna saw that it was smeared with soot and blood—her blood. Remembering the branches stinging against her cheeks, she realized that her face must have been badly scratched. Strangely, the scratches didn’t hurt. Nothing seemed to hurt. She felt as if she were floating.…
“What the hell were you doing in that field anyway?” he demanded, sounding as if the words were forced from somewhere deep inside him. His hands caught hers, lifting them from their protective posture over her breasts with a gentleness that belied his tone. Holding them loosely in his, he examined first the backs and then the palms. Looking into that harsh, begrimed face, Anna felt an amazing sense of peace. Whatever his faults, and they were many and varied, there was no one on earth to whom she would rather entrust her well-being than her impossible brother-in-law. He would take care of her whether she wanted him to or not, and at the moment she wanted him to. Even thinking clearly was difficult. It seemed to require all her energy just to catch her breath.
“Don’t you have enough sense at least to let someone know you’re there? It’s a bloody miracle you weren’t killed! You knew we were burning that field! Why the hell did you go in there? Don’t you have a brain in your head?”
His fierceness barely penetrated. Her dreamy answering smile must have alarmed him, because his face tautened and his mouth turned down sharply at one corner. Anxiety mingled with anger in his face as he stopped speaking, then looked up suddenly as Hillmore approached. Anna knew instinctively that the white heat of his fury stemmed from fear, pure and simple. Despite everything, he had been frightened for her. The knowledge warmed her.
“Here,” he said roughly. But his hands were gentle as he wrapped her in the blanket Hillmore handed him. The wool was scratchy and smelled of the outdoors, but Anna was thankful for its warmth. She was suddenly freezing cold despite the steamy afternoon heat.
Clamping her teeth together, she fought not to give in to the shivers that threatened to consume her. But long tremors raked her body despite her best efforts, Julian, seeing them, said a word that under ordinary circumstances would have reddened her ears. Anna scarcely registered it. She was caught somewhere between awareness and lack of it as he gathered her into his arms and stood up, lifting her as if she weighed no more than Chelsea. Anna didn’t even have the strength to help him by putting her arms around his neck. She lay against him, snuggled into the cocooning blanket and his hard arms, and felt, curiously, as if she had come home at last. Her head drooped against his chest, where she could hear the strong, reassuring beat of his heart beneath her ear.
She felt protected, even cherished. Ephemeral as she knew his tenderness was, she soaked up the sensation greedily. In that moment, all she cared about was that it was Julian who was holding her, protecting her, taking care of her.
He was carrying her toward some destination that Anna had no inclination to worry about. Without the slightest hesitation she trusted him to know and do what was best for her. On that realization she sighed and let her eyes flutter shut. Drowsily, she was aware that Julian and Hillmore were carrying on a low-voiced conversation. But their words barely registered until finally Julian, clearly angry, spoke with such an edge to his voice that it cut through the mist.
“Damn it, I want to know who the hell set that backfire. It wasn’t supposed to be set unless the original fire got out of control and couldn’t be stopped any other way. Find out who did it and get rid of them, do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Chase,” Hillmore said, his tone respectful. Anna opened her eyes in time to see the sun-dried overseer lifting his hand in an obvious salute. Julian, accepting the gesture as no more than his due, dismissed Hillmore with a curt nod.
Anna realized something then, even as Julian, with a brief word to her, set her in the saddle of his horse and climbed up behind her.
There was no longer any doubt in the mind of Hillmore, or probably any other of the servants except Kirti and Raja Singha, as to who was in charge of the plantation: the de facto master at Srinagar was now Julian Chase.
And Anna, to her befuddlement, found that she was curiously content to have it so.
XXXVI
J
ulian held her carefully in front of him all the way back to the house. One of his hands held the reins, and his other arm kept Anna from sliding from the saddle. She was finding it increasingly difficult to catch her breath, and kept lapsing in and out of awareness. If he hadn’t held her upright, she would have slithered from the saddle like a cooked noodle.
Long before the house came into view, Julian was cursing viciously under his breath.
Anna was barely conscious when they reached the house. She was vaguely aware that the horse had stopped, and that Julian, kicking his feet free from the stirrups, somehow managed to maneuver both of them to the ground. Then she was lifted into his arms again.
“What has happened to the memsahib?”
“Anna!”
Raja Singha and Ruby met them in the front hall. Ruby exclaimed in horror over Anna’s condition, while Raja Singha was characteristically silent. Julian tersely filled them in on what had occurred even as he was taking the stairs two at a time, Anna cradled against his chest. At the end of the upstairs hall Kirti popped out of the nursery, wide-eyed and curious at all the commotion. Julian shook his head to tell her to keep Chelsea away, and Kirti disappeared into the nursery again.
Anna was glad. She didn’t want her daughter to be frightened when there was no need.
“Send for a doctor,” Julian ordered grimly as he lowered Anna to her bed. The sheets felt icily cold against her skin as she was slipped between them. She shuddered. As if that one shudder had broken through the dam of her control, her entire body began to tremble. Long spasms racked her, and her teeth chattered.
“Get some clean blankets. Wrap her up.”
Ruby ran to fetch the blankets, but it was Julian who pulled back the bedclothes to bundle her in them, then sat on the edge of the mattress holding her on his lap, his arms wrapped around her, as Ruby gently sponged her face. The blood and soot on the cloth made Anna wince. Julian’s arms tightened.
“They’re just small scratches. Don’t worry, they won’t leave a scar.” That harsh voice, speaking with absolute certainty close to her ear, reassured Anna. She allowed herself to relax against him, enjoying the luxury of being cradled as if she were entirely precious to him.
It felt good to imagine that he cared for her.
Her eyes opened, then closed, then opened again, fixing on Julian’s grim face before moving on to Ruby and Raja Singha and the maids beyond them. Ruby looked frightened, but Raja Singha was as impassive as ever. What, she wondered groggily, would it take to make the servant show emotion? Was he even capable of feeling it? The maids bustled about bringing fresh water and cloths with which Ruby gently sponged Anna’s face, neck, and hands.
“What were you about, to let ’er get ’urt like this?” Ruby burst out fiercely to Julian as she discarded yet another bloody, blackened cloth for a fresh one. “You should’ve ’ad a care.…”
Anna opened her eyes and saw Julian’s jaw tighten. Before he could say anything in his own defense, Anna summoned the last of her reserves of strength to break in.
“It wasn’t his fault. I shouldn’t have been in the field without letting someone know I was there. Anyway, I’m all right,” she said firmly.
Then she fainted.
Made continually drowsy by the doctor’s potion, Anna was aware of little for the next twenty-four hours. She came briefly awake at the sound of Chelsea’s frightened voice piping “Mama!” by the bed. Rousing herself enough to smile at her daughter, she managed to mumble that she wasn’t sick, only very, very sleepy, and would be all right on the morrow. Then Julian entered, and Chelsea greeted him with a convulsive hug that showed Anna how high a place in her daughter’s affections her newfound uncle claimed. If she had been in full possession of her senses, the knowledge would have dismayed Anna, but under the circumstances she found the odd pair’s obvious fondness for each other comforting. Knowing that Chelsea had someone other than a servant, someone whom she considered both friend and relative, to turn to in her fright made all the difference in the world to Anna’s peace of mind.
Which certainly, when she mistily thought about it, was another surprising example of how thoroughly she had come to rely on a man who was no more than tenuously related to them; who was a thief and a rogue and a conscienceless libertine; who had, moreover, blackmailed his way into her life. Anna was still pondering the ramifications when she fell asleep.