Without another word, he turned to strip the rest of her mourning gowns from her wardrobe. Then, with a last smoldering glare, he stalked from her bedchamber.
Anna, speechless, stared helplessly after him. It took her several minutes to register that he had really, truly, made off with every decent dress she possessed. What was left was a hodgepodge of gowns that dated from before Paul’s death—and the shimmering green dress she still wore. Angry as she was, Anna knew a sudden urge to rip the fragile silk into shreds just to spite Julian. She actually had her fingers in the garment’s neckline before the sheer beauty of the gown stopped her. Seething, she got out of the dress as quickly as she could and into the lavender one she had donned once before because of Julian. The memory made her angrier than ever, and there was a decided spark in her eyes as she went in pursuit of her clothes and the man who had dared to make off with them.
“Why, Anna, it’s good to see you in colors!”
Ruby emerged from the house’s nether regions in time to make this comment—and be rewarded by a glare and a fierce mutter as Anna stormed past. The other woman was left gaping, but not for long. She hurried to catch Anna.
“My goodness, lovey, where’re you off to in such a snit?”
“He took my clothes!”
“What?”
“You heard me: the swine took my clothes!”
“You mean Julian?” Ruby, having fallen in beside Anna as she stalked out the door onto the rear veranda and then down into the garden, sounded intrigued.
“Of course I mean Julian!”
“But why … ?” As she absorbed this information, Ruby suddenly sounded hugely entertained. Anna cast her a fierce look.
“Why? Why? Because he says—never mind what he says!”
“Tired o’ your blacks, is ’e?” Ruby nodded sagely. “I can’t say I’m surprised. ’E’s been in a rare taking over you since you got ’urt. If you was to ask me, I’d say ’e’s smitten.”
“What do you mean?” Anna turned on Ruby so fiercely that the other woman blinked.
“Why, just that it’s as plain as the nose on your face that ’e’s daft about you. Why else would ’e make off with your blacks? I’d say ’e’s bloody jealous.”
“Jealous!”
“Of Paul.”
“Paul’s dead.”
“That don’t make no matter if ’e’s still alive to you.”
“That’s the most ridiculous notion I ever heard in my life!”
Ruby shrugged.
“Julian and I—he dislikes me most of the time. How could he possibly be jealous of Paul? It’s absurd!”
Ruby shrugged again.
“I—” Anna broke off abruptly, recollecting the events that had led to Ruby’s amazing suggestion, and looked furiously around her as her momentary distraction gave way again to pure temper. The garden, the stable yard, and the surrounding areas were apparently deserted. “Whyever he did it, the fact remains that the swine stole my clothes. If I don’t find him before he does something to them, I won’t have a stitch to my name!”
“Look there,” Ruby said suddenly, pointing beyond the stables.
Anna saw a rising plume of smoke and felt her anger shoot to red hot.
“If he dared … !” She gritted her teeth, hurrying toward the smoke.
Following, Ruby said nothing, but her face was alive with amusement, which she was careful not to let Anna see.
“I do like a forceful gent,” she murmured, almost to herself.
“What?” Anna glanced back over her shoulder as she rounded the corner of the stable.
“Never mind, lovey, it weren’t important. Will you look at that!”
The sight that provoked Ruby’s comment caused Anna to stop dead. Then she picked up her skirts and ran, straight for the pile of flaming brush and wood on the top of which smoldered—her clothes!
“You low-life, arrogant bastard!” she hissed at Julian, who had turned from raking up the flames to watch her headlong rush. Anna repeated the epithet, relishing the sheer badness of the forbidden word. She snatched up the rake he had dropped and tried desperately to fish at least a few of her dresses from atop the pile.
“Now, is that any way for a vicar’s daughter to talk?” Julian grabbed her around the waist, swinging her away from the task that she already saw, to her despair, was useless. Her clothes were ablaze. Flames ate hungrily at the fine silk and muslin and taffeta.
“Just look what you’ve done!” Anna wailed in despair as the garments smoked and curled, already crumbling into ashes. His arms around her waist held her back from the fire, and she struggled furiously against them. When it was clear there was no hope of salvaging anything, he let her go.
Anna promptly turned on him with the rake, swinging with such fury that if the blow had connected it would have taken off his head. Julian ducked.
“ ’Old, there!” Jim, whose smirking presence had just registered on her consciousness, grabbed her from behind before she could let fly with a second swing. Julian, grinning, wrested the rake from her grasp.
“Let her go, Jim,” he directed once the rake was safe in his hands.
“If you say so.” Jim sounded dubious. He set Anna free, then took a hasty step out of the way.
But he was in no danger. Anna was barely aware of his presence, much less that of Jama, who stood watching from the safety of the stable door, or of Jama’s wide-eyed assistant, who had emerged from the stable holding two saddled horses.
Her attention was all for Julian.
“I’ll just order more,” she hissed, her fists clenched at her sides. The knowledge of her own inability to injure him enraged her.
He smiled with great charm. Taking a step closer, he caught her chin and turned her face up to his.
“You do that, sweetheart, and I’ll burn them, too. In fact, if I see you in one more black dress, I’ll strip it off you where you stand. In company or not. I give you my word.” The threat was soft, too soft for anyone but Anna to hear.
Furiously she knocked away his hand.
“Touch me again and I’ll—I’ll …”
“You’ll what, sweetheart?”
When she merely glared at him, at a loss for a threat that would bother him in the least, he chuckled. Exploding rage rendered her momentarily speechless.
“That’s a good, sensible girl,” Julian said carelessly, his voice a little louder so that their audience could hear. Anna, fury making her cheeks flame, was still struggling with words bad enough to call him when he turned away, strode to where the boy held the two horses, and swung into the larger one’s saddle. Jim followed like a faithful shadow.
“See you at supper,” Julian called to her, gathering the reins. Then, with a last mocking grin in her direction, he put his heels to the horse’s sides and rode away, Jim trotting behind him.
“That—that …” Anna spluttered furiously to Ruby, who had come up to stand beside her.
Ruby took a deep breath. “Lovey, if you ever get tired of him, give him to me,” she said. Then, as Anna turned blazing eyes on her, Ruby hastily began to recant.
XXXVIII
D
eprived of almost her entire wardrobe, Anna spent the next few days sulking in her chamber. Ruby, sympathetic but oddly amused, visited her, as did Chelsea and Kirti. Of Julian she saw not so much as a whisker.
Which was just as well. Every time she thought of the mocking devil, her ire rose. She wanted to slap his swarthy face, kick his powerful shins, bite his well-muscled shoulders—and that was just for starters. What she really wanted was to kill him.
How dare he put her in such a position? She had the hideous feeling that she was the laughingstock of the household, if not of the community at large.
If she could not appear in her customary mourning, then she would not appear at all. And so she told Ruby when, on the morning of the second day, the other woman came to inform her that a seamstress was belowstairs to start work on her new wardrobe. Courtesy, of course, of Julian.
“I have no intention of ordering new clothes,” Anna snapped. “And so you can tell that—” She broke off, thinking, then smiled. “On second thought, you may send her up. I will order something, after all.”
Ruby regarded her thoughtfully, but if she had some inkling as to what was in Anna’s mind she didn’t argue. “I’d have a care what I was about were I you, lovey,” was all she said.
Anna, defiant, ordered half a dozen new dresses made to her measurements—every single one in widow’s black.
She would soon teach Julian Chase not to threaten her!
Until the dresses were delivered—the woman promised them for five days hence—she would keep to her room. Then she would appear as before, and if Julian dared to lay so much as a finger on her, she would claw out his eyes.
In the meantime, visitors descended upon Srinagar in such numbers that Anna was glad to be keeping to her room. The only fly in her ointment of satisfaction lay in imagining how pleased some of the female callers—she couldn’t call them ladies—must be to have a chance to have Julian to themselves. Of course, he was probably away from the house a great deal of the time, but she had no doubt that his particular favorites—such as Antoinette Noack—would manage to track him down. Doubtless they would pretend a great interest in the cultivation of tea for just that purpose!
Along with the callers came invitations to dinner parties, musicals, literary evenings, and various other entertainments, addressed not only to Anna but to Julian as well. Although the plantations were spread out, they were not so far-flung as to make socializing impossible, and Anna’s neighbors were a sociable group. Before Paul had taken ill, they had attended parties several times a month. She had been to a few small gatherings since her return to Ceylon.
But Anna declined all of the invitations. Her excuse was that she did not feel recovered enough to attend. The reality was far more complex: she was too confused about how she really felt toward Julian to want to be forced into interacting with him in a public setting, especially if everyone was whispering about his disposal of her mourning! And for the time being, of course, she had nothing suitable to wear.
Then Julian, the high-handed swine, took it upon himself to accept an invitation for both of them.
“What do you mean, he sent a note around to Antoinette Noack telling her that
we
would love to attend her supper party? He can speak for himself, of course, but I have no intention of going, and so you may tell him!”
“Not me, lovey,” Ruby said. “You tell him.”
“Well, I will.”
Anna fetched writing paper and ink from the table by her bed and proceeded to scribble a note to Julian. Summoning Raja Singha, she asked him to please see that Julian received it as soon as he entered the house. Then, with a satisfied smile, she got into her nightdress and climbed into bed.
She was feeling far too poorly to attend a party.
Two hours later, Anna was propped comfortably on a mound of pillows in her bed, although it was still only mid-afternoon. She had a pile of scrap material beside her and was engaged in sewing a doll wardrobe as a surprise birthday gift for Chelsea, who would soon be six. Anna was working on a cunning little lace dress, and Ruby, who had drawn up a slipper chair to her bedside, was putting the hem in the matching cloak, when an all too familiar step echoed along the hall.
“Uh-oh. Here comes trouble,” Ruby murmured to Anna.
“Not at all,” Anna replied haughtily, and bent her head to her sewing again. A not unpleasant thrill of anticipation coursed through her as she waited for Julian’s advent. She had not expected him to take that note at face value. Of course he would come to see for himself if her lungs were troubling her too much to permit her to leave her bed.
“What’s this?” Julian, her note crumpled in one hand, entered her room without ceremony. He was coatless, of course, which was only sensible in the heat, although many of the Englishmen thereabouts wore coats whether it was sensible or not. His shirt and breeches were grimy and damp with sweat, and his hair had been tied in a little tail at the nape of his neck. Perspiration gleamed on his face, making him look swarthier than ever. Clearly he had just come in from the fields—and clearly he was not happy.
“Did no one ever teach you to knock?” Anna lifted her eyebrows haughtily, her needle freezing above the miniscule frock as she gave him a look that she hoped would make clear her feelings about his uninvited intrusion.
“No,” he answered, his eyes narrowing as they met hers. Anna frowned at having the wind taken so neatly out of her sails and jabbed the needle into the cloth with enough force so that it went clear through into the thumb of her opposite hand. Stifling a yelp, she put the injured member to her mouth and surveyed him crossly.
He stood at the foot of her bed, tall and handsome despite his dirt, and overpoweringly masculine, looking her up and down as if he had every right to do so. Anna had pulled the bed coverings up to her armpits, and wore a demure bedjacket over her nightdress, so she was far from inadequately covered. But something about that look made her feel naked. Drat the man, for being able to make her uncomfortable with no more than a twitch of his eyebrows! She lifted her chin at him.
“Did you want to see me about something?”
“You know damned well what I want to see you about. You’re going to this party tonight.”
“If you had read my note, you would know that I can’t: I don’t feel well.”
Julian said a word that more than adequately expressed his opinion of that excuse. The tips of Anna’s ears reddened at the profanity, but she didn’t flinch.
“There’s no need to swear.”
“I’ll swear any time I bloody want to. I’ve had enough of your sulking in here. You’re coming with me to that party if I have to drag you by your hair.”
Anna’s lips compressed. “I tell you I’m ill.”
“The hell you are.”
“Since you took it upon yourself to destroy my wardrobe, I have nothing to wear.”
“That green dress looks beautiful on you.”
“I have no intention of appearing in public tricked out in that. At the very least I must wear half-mourning. Lavender or gray.”
Julian’s eyes went suddenly black. His voice grated. “My dear, if, when it is time to leave for Mrs. Noack’s, you appear in anything but that green dress, I will personally march you back up here and dress you myself. You have my word on it.”