Ryman, Rebecca (24 page)

Taking
her with him, Raventhorne fell back into the howdah, and the Colt in Olivia's
numb fingers went flying over the side onto the ground racing past below. For a
moment they lay unmoving, side by side, their arms and legs entangled. The
silence outside was suddenly deathly. Tiring, the elephant finally began to
slow down.

"You
dropped my gun." Propped up on an elbow, he stared down at her with an
annoyed frown.

"But
at least," she managed to murmur weakly, staring back into his eyes so
close, so terribly close, "I didn't faint."

And
with that, she fainted.

When
she came to, Olivia lay on a carpet underneath a tree. In the clearing,
pandemonium reigned. Hundreds of people sang and danced and jubilated all
around, and the drums had started up again. One of the Maharani's veiled
maidservants was sitting and fanning her; another offered her a drink of water.
Olivia blinked to clear her head, sat up slowly and drained the cup in a single
draught. Her vision started to return; gulping in huge lungfuls of air, she
looked up into the worried eyes of Jai Raventhorne.

"Are
you all right?"

Olivia
nodded and asked for more water. "What . . . happened?"

"You
fainted."

"Oh."
She averted her head. "Is the tiger . . . dead?"

"Very."
He pointed to the crowd dancing in a circle. "They're measuring him out
and singing your praises." His eyes were disturbingly soft, almost as soft
as his smile.

"Magnificent
shot, Miss O'Rourke,
magnificent!"
The Maharaja joined them,
rubbing his hands together in obvious delight. "Although Jai had no right
to place you in a position of such danger." He threw an accusing glance at
his friend, trying to look stern but not succeeding.

"I
could have hardly missed at point-blank range," Olivia protested. "In
any case, he is Mr. Raventhorne's prize. The mortal wound had already been
inflicted."

The
tiger, a full ten feet two inches long between the pegs, lay stretched on the
grass, as resplendent in death as in life. Two blood-encrusted holes showed on
its beautiful yellow and black fur, one in the shoulder and one in the dead
centre of its forehead. Olivia stared at it in fascination and then with
involuntary compassion. What a sad end to such a superb creature!

"Don't
waste your tears on him," Raventhorne said
carelessly at her elbow.
"He's eaten more people than even the villagers can count."

"Is
the elephant badly hurt?" she asked, anxious. "Those claws seemed to
go in very deep."

"No.
They have tough hides. The mahouts are expert medicine-men; they know which
healing leaves and plants to use."

Olivia
turned to face him severely. "You really had no business doing that, you
know. Supposing I had missed?"

"At
point-blank range?" He tilted his head sideways. "If you had, I
promise I would have used my second bullet on
you
as a disgrace to your
nation."

Back
at the lodge, luncheon was served to hundreds of people from nearby villages
sitting in long lines on the ground before the ubiquitous banana leaves that
did for plates. On the return journey the hunters had bagged several deer and
black buck and the meat was roasted on giant spits out in the open. As a treat
the Maharaja had ordered tots of local liquor for all and the resultant
revelries were already well under way. On the return, Raventhorne had ridden
with the Maharaja and Olivia had shared her howdah with the maidservant.
Whether or not she preferred this arrangement she never decided because,
drained by the morning's excitement, she slept all the way back.

In
the compound of the lodge there were a few embarrassing moments when some
overjoyed villagers garlanded both her and Jai Raventhorne and danced around
them singing paeans of praise for their marksmanship. Her red-faced protests
that the kill had been
his,
not hers, were drowned out by the clamour.
Raventhorne enjoyed her embarrassment, making no attempt to convey her protests
to the crowd. "Since you concede there is an affinity between us," he
murmured with a faint curl of his mouth, "is it not appropriate that we
should share the honours? I have never done so before with a woman; it makes an
intriguing change."

"I
conceded no such thing, Mr. Raventhorne!" she retorted, vexed by his
presumption. "You are allowing your imagination to run away with
you."

He
made no reply except for that maddening smile. Perhaps he knew there was no
need to.

Luncheon
for the Maharaja, the Maharani and their two
guests was served in the cool privacy
of the lodge dining-room, and the variety of spiced meats cushioned on snowy
white rice was delicious. Olivia was well used to game meats, having subsisted
on them frequently, and the pungent spices gave them added flavour. Through the
meal, eaten with their fingers, the conversation was almost entirely about the
hunt, mostly for Kinjal's benefit. The Maharaja, in excellent form now that the
menace threatening the lives of his people had been conquered, regaled them
with accounts of previous hunts, and the mood was generally casual.

It
was after they had eaten and were enjoying some sweets presented to the
Maharaja by the villagers that he suddenly said, "What is so urgent that
you have to hurry back, Jai? Surely you could delay your departure until the
morning?" He sounded piqued.
"I was looking forward to our
customary game of chess tonight."

Raventhorne
shook his head. "Not tonight, Arvind. There are important matters that
await me in Calcutta."

"What
important matters?" the Maharaja queried with a frown.

"Well,
that fur consignment for one. Khan is a wily Kashmiri and I know he has been
negotiating with Smithers."

"So
let Smithers win one round, what does it matter? You have beaten him to it
often enough."

Raventhorne
smiled. "One round is one too many."

The
Maharaja threw up his hands in irritation. "Must you be like a dog with a
bone all the time, Jai? Can you not let go once, just
once?"

Raventhorne
stood up. "When I let go, Arvind, I fear my teeth will go with the
bone," he said lightly. "Now, would you like to show me your American
reloader? I shall have to leave within the hour."

As
Kinjal retired into her room following the luncheon, Olivia stood at the
verandah balustrades and watched the activity below, but distractedly. Her
increasing contrariness was beginning to bewilder her; on the one hand she felt
desperately uncomfortable in the presence of Raventhorne, but on the other she
was sorely disappointed to see him go! What was it that she wanted? For the
first time in her life Olivia found herself facing a dilemma that had no simple
answers, a mass of complexities she did not know how to untangle. Her
fascination for this volatile man whose directions changed with the wind, like
a weathervane, was incomprehensible. He was everything she disapproved of,
nothing
her reason urged her to admire. Yet the prospect of not seeing him again was
intolerable. And impossible! As surely as she knew that the sun would rise in
the morning, Olivia knew that she would see Jai Raventhorne again.

Below
in the court-yard, his midnight Shaitan was being led out of the clearing by
Bahadur, the attendant who had escorted her home the morning she had met
Raventhorne in the bazaar. Absurdly dismayed at the prospect of missing
Raventhorne's departure, Olivia hurried down the wooden stairway without giving
herself time to think. The ache to see him once more, to exchange some
meaningless words and delay him a few minutes, was so acute that it was almost
like a catch in her side. Then, feeling foolish, she stood behind the trunk of
the
gulmohar,
regretting her rashness but unable to retreat. Raventhorne
descended the stairs and walked to his horse, then, with one foot in the
stirrup, halted as he sighted her. He released the reins and sauntered up to
where she stood.

"I
hear the Templewoods are planning a visit to Barrack-pore."

There
was no point in even pretending surprise at his information. "There has
been some talk about it, yes. My aunt feels strongly that my uncle needs a rest
from—"

"All
his misfortunes? Yes, I daresay he does." His manner changed. "But
you do not wish to accompany them?"

He
had again verbalized something that was still only a vague seed in her own
mind. Now that he had, however, Olivia recognised that he was right; no, she
did not wish to accompany them! "Of course I wish to accompany them,"
she contradicted with undue force. "Why ever should I not? I hear
Barrackpore is a most agreeable place."

"Agreeable,
yes, but it takes you away for a while from your ever-ready Romeo,
Freddie!" He scowled.

This
time she did stamp her foot. "I wish you would refrain from throwing that
damned name in my face quite as often as you do!" she cried, clenching her
fists in frustration. "It infuriates me, which is, of course, the sole
reason you do it!"

He
laughed. "Well, can you think of a better one?" The wave of some
invisible magic wand then whipped the humour off his lips. The pale, pale eyes
went metallic, as did the voice. "If you do not wish to go to Barrackpore,
you will not. Take my word for it."

Olivia
remained staring at his vanishing back, mouth open with astonishment.

It
was not until late in the evening that the excitement of the shoot subsided
enough for the royal party to return to the town of Kirtinagar and the palace.
It had been a long, physically wearisome day. For Olivia it had also proved
emotionally harrowing. But, despite her mental and physical fatigue, her mind
raced. Whatever the paradoxes and the confusions, there was one truth that
could not now be dismissed: Her interest in Jai Raventhorne was by no means
academic as she had once insisted. This, at least, had been resolved during the
day. Nor was she curious about him merely because he was a person cast in a
mould of extraordinary dimensions. Between them, inexplicably, there
was
an
affinity, an invisible filament, a
bond.
However unwanted and
unsolicited, it was at the same time wildly stimulating. Olivia could no longer
deny that it was as a man—attractive and exciting and sensual, yes,
sensual
—that
Jai Raventhorne affected her most.

"Tell
me about him, Kinjal."

Once
again they were by themselves, strolling among the bushes of the aromatic
herbal garden fanned by the bracing nightly breezes from the south. Above them
rotated the arc of the night sky with its burden of stars spelling out by their
movement the irredeemable and irreversible passage of time. In Olivia's request
sounded a note of urgency to which the Maharani reacted without surprise. It
was, after all, too late for pretences. Nor did the Maharani need to ask to
whom Olivia referred. The thought between them was shared, tacitly understood.

"Yes,"
she answered simply, "you of all people have the right to know more."

Olivia
halted. "Why do you say that?"

"Because
. . . ," Kinjal paused, as if to select the right words, "because you
have provoked Jai's attention. It is not an attention that is aroused with ease
but it is an occurrence that sometimes," she paused again to breathe a small
sigh, "extorts heavy compensations." In the large sloe eyes there was
something that momentarily startled Olivia. It was pity.