Ryman, Rebecca (49 page)

Hope,
fear and mad longing washed over Olivia in successive waves as the little boat
picked its way again across the river. Intermittently she felt anger. He had
returned her letter without even wanting to know what she had to say! Did he
think she was so foolhardy and with such little self-respect as to take this
nocturnal risk without the greatest of urgency? But then, as the white hulk
loomed ahead beneath the stars, Olivia's anger evaporated and her courage
started to wane. Jai would be furious with her; he would refuse to see her. She
closed her eyes in a moment of agony and, intimidated by the lunatic daring of
her escapade, almost ordered the boat back.

But
then she stabilised herself. And it was too late anyway; with a boom that
sounded like the hollow beat of a giant drum in the silence of the still night,
the
dhoolie
had slid alongside the
Ganga.
In the still silence it
sounded like the hollow beat of a gigantic drum.

"Who
goes there?" From above, the alert voice of the watch called.

The
boatman looked over his shoulder questioningly at Olivia, then, upon her
whispered instruction, shouted back, "A lady."

There
was a startled pause. "What does the lady want?"

"To
come aboard."

Another
silence. "On what business?"

Olivia
nodded at him and the boatman funnelled his hands around his mouth to be better
heard. "On business with the Sarkar."

From
above came sounds of whispered consultations, and her heart leapt—he
was
on
board! Had he not been, the negative response would have been immediate.
"The Sarkar does not wish to receive visitors."

Olivia's
mouth set in a grim line. Even as the blood pounded at her temples, she again
prompted the boatman. "The lady would like the Sarkar to be informed that
if the ladder is not
lowered within five minutes she intends to climb up the anchor chain." The
boatman turned to look at Olivia with undisguised awe.

This
time the confabulations were more prolonged and followed by the sounds of scurrying
feet on deck. In the ensuing and seemingly endless silence, her heart sank with
dismay on the chance he would decide to call her reckless bluff. But then the
apprehension turned into triumph; the rope ladder snaked down the side, its
wooden slats clattering noisily against the hull. A minute later she was being
helped onto the deck.

Bahadur's
inscrutable eyes widened briefly in surprise. Then, remembering his manners, he
bowed and folded his hands in respectful greeting.

Nodding
briskly, Olivia dusted her skirts. "Please inform the Sarkar that I would
like to see him for a few moments." She spoke with the imperiousness
expected of memsahibs in India.

Bahadur
hesitated, bowed again, then walked away into the shadows through a doorway
that led below. With shaking fingers Olivia wiped the dampness off her
forehead, her breath exhaling in small puffs of mist. Oh God, how would he
receive her? Would he receive her at
all?
She was alone on deck save for
the watch, who stared at her open mouthed. Catching her eye, he hastily shut
his mouth and turned away. Warm yellow light fell from swinging lanterns,
making the polished brass rails gleam. The tops of the towering masts were
buried within swirling night vapours that obliterated whatever stars might have
been visible. Pale faced, Olivia waited. Her business tonight was formal. She
was determined to make it also brief. But however briefly, however formally,
she was to see Jai Raventhorne again.

Bahadur
returned. As stone faced as she, he bowed again. "The Sarkar presents his
compliments but regrets that he is not, at this moment, available." His
eyes fell to the deck in embarrassment.

"In
that case, would you please find out from the Sarkar at which precise moment he
will be available? I am in no hurry." She smiled pleasantly enough as she
added, "I will wait all night if necessary."

Bahadur
bowed for the fourth time and returned to the doorway for an answer to this
further inquiry. For a split second Olivia faltered; should she merely send in
the letter and so eschew a doubtlessly unpleasant confrontation? But then she
steeled herself again; to have come all this way and not see him? It was more
than the weakness of her will would allow. Waiting
only until
Bahadur's form had melted once more into the shadows, she ran down the deck and
slipped in after him. Keeping him within her sight, she followed him
noiselessly down a familiar corridor, recognising it vaguely as the one leading
to the main cabin. Bahadur halted at a door ahead but before he could raise a
hand to knock, she had caught up to him, grabbed the knob and opened the door
to plunge in. She heard him gasp behind her just as she shut the door in his
face.

Raventhorne
sat at his desk, writing. Disturbed by the noise, he glanced over his shoulder
with a frown. Just for an instant their eyes met, then he turned back and
continued writing. There had been no apparent change in his expression. Leaning
back weakly against the door, Olivia watched him in a silence so complete that
the scratch of his pen on paper was resounding. He sat with his sleeves rolled
up to his elbows, one palm propped against the side of his head, his fingers
splayed out in the untidy denseness of his hair. Under the desk his legs were
stretched, the ankles crossed. His face in profile glowed in a pool of
lamplight— the only light in the cabin—and was immobile in its concentration.
Only his eyes moved as they followed the rapid progress of his pen across the
paper.

For
all her determination, all her anger, all her gnawing reservations at having
undertaken this undoubtedly futile quest, Olivia became limp with love and
longing. Everything within her melted and twisted like candle wax in a flame.
But resolutely she discarded the clutching fingers of weakness and firmed her
features into an impersonal expression. Boldly, she walked up to the desk. He
still did not look up. And when he did finally deign to speak, it was without
interrupting his labours.

"You
should not have come, Olivia. You are making it very difficult for me."

Difficult
for
him?
Her inadvertent softness vanished. "I don't think you
could be fool enough to consider this a social call," she said coldly.
"I have come only because—"

"I
know why you have come. The noble gesture you feel constrained to make in my
interest is not necessary."

"Feel
constrained
to make? Did you think I would sit silent under the
circumstances?"

"If
it is chivalry that has motivated this visit," a bare smile played on his
mouth, "I am duly touched, especially in view of the illness from which I
hear you have not fully recovered. You may now leave."

A
curl of anger started to spiral upward. "Touched! You mean there is
something that can touch you after all?" She laughed scornfully, but he
neither looked at her nor responded to the taunt. Olivia's anger expanded.
"You could at least do me the courtesy of looking at me when you speak, or
are you afraid to?"

He
completed what he was writing and, without hurry, laid down his pen. Then,
leaning back, he stared at her expressionlessly. "No, I am not afraid. I
am merely trying to indicate that although I appreciate your concern, I have
nothing to say to you." He picked up the pen again and started to write.
"Nor you to me."

It
was not easy to sustain control but, with an effort, she did. Pulling up a
chair she sat down and crossed one leg over the other. "Are you aware of
what you are being accused?" It was a rhetorical question asked with more
than a touch of sarcasm.

"I
am constantly being accused of something. I'm not sure to which charge you
refer."

"Don't
be so damned flippant! They want to charge you with manslaughter, if not
murder."

"Yes.
I believe they do."

"You
mean to do nothing to refute the patently false charge? Present no defence at
all even though you have one that is cast iron?" In her lap her hands strained
at each other in an effort to keep still.

Carefully,
he blotted what he had just written and took a fresh sheet. "My defence is
already taken care of. It does not include the shelter provided by your
generous petticoats, which once before you accused me of misusing. Your
reputation will remain unsullied."

"You
think I care a
hang
about my reputation?" she cried in despair at
his maddening obduracy. He gave no answer. "What ... is your defence going
to be? Please tell me, Jai!"

"Whatever
it is, it shouldn't concern you." For the first time he showed a reaction
but it was a flash of annoyance. "I meant it when I said I would not see
you again, Olivia. I would be obliged if you would now leave me alone and
go."

The
flow of ink, the rapid scribble and the infuriating scratch of the nib
proceeded. Before Olivia's eyes descended a cloud of scarlet rage; already
tightened to its limit, her temper snapped. Suddenly, she wanted to scream, to
destroy and demolish this granite wall against which she was so needlessly
banging her head. With a furious oath she sprang to her feet and snatched the
pen from his
hand. She flung it across the room with all the force she could summon. As it
struck some unseen obstruction, it shattered with a metallic tinkle.

"I
haven't come all this way at night to be dismissed like one of your goddamned
doxies, Jai Raventhorne! Who the hell do you think I am to be sent off
packing—some two-bit whore straight off the streets like your Sujata?" She
swung an arm and swept all the papers off his desk; like a flurry of
broken-winged birds they fluttered away to scatter on the floor. "How dare
you treat me as if I were some dumb, common slut—how
dare
you!"
Choking on her wrath she turned her back on him to hug her trembling body into
stillness. "My God," she spat out viciously, "you
deserve
to
be lynched!"

If
he was intimidated by her outburst, he concealed the fact with admirable
success. He got up, collected his papers from the floor and took his time
rearranging them on the desk. "This is not your war, Olivia," he said
quietly. "Don't get caught in the crossfire."

She
shut her eyes in gathering anguish. "If it is your war, it is my war. I am
already involved."

"I
am giving you a chance to become
disinvolved.
Take it." Sitting
down again he draped a casual arm over the back of the chair and faced her.
"A few secret meetings, a few kisses exchanged . . ." He shrugged.
"I can hardly believe those mean a lifetime commitment!"

Olivia
had come prepared to be wounded afresh, prepared for salt on those wounds she
already had, but the brutality of what he said now made her flinch. "Is
that all our ... relationship has meant to you, Jai?" There was an agony
of disbelief in her whisper.

He
stood up abruptly. "Olivia, don't make me say things that will hurt you
more . . ." He did not look at her.

"Nothing
you can say will hurt me more,
nothing!"
Stumbling forward, she
confronted him with blazing eyes. "Do you have the courage to stare me
straight in the face and answer my question—
do
you?"

Blank
faced, he accepted her challenge. "Very well. If you insist. Yes, that is
all our relationship has meant to me. You are nothing to me, Olivia, nothing at
all."

Her
bravado cracked. "I don't believe you, I will never believe you!" The
pain suppurating beneath the façade exploded. "You're a lying, pernicious
bastard!"

He
laughed.

Olivia
wasn't aware that she had struck him until the full force of her open palm
connected with his cheek. It sounded like a crack of lightning. A glass bangle
she wore—one he had bought!—shattered against his face; a turquoise-colored
sliver embedded itself in his skin and drew a minuscule bubble of blood.

Raventhorne
didn't move. Only the milky eyes flickered for an instant and then, slowly, his
mouth curved into a mocking sickle. "So," he murmured under his
breath, "the reckless American finds it difficult to honour her vow, does
she?" He whipped the smile off his lips and his tone cemented. "If
that is what I am, Olivia, then that is what I have chosen to be. Tolerate it
if you can; if not,
get out!"

Again
her hand lashed out but this time he was prepared. She struggled briefly as he
gripped her wrists but then, overcome by the hopelessness of her anger, she
went flaccid and her body slumped. "I don't believe you," she said
brokenly, "I don't believe you ..."

He
released her wrists with a jerk that wrenched her shoulders, and she almost
cried out but didn't. Thunder faced and cursing under his breath, Raventhorne
impatiently brushed the glass sliver from his cheek and started to pace with
long, leonine strides as if stalking some unwary prey through a jungle.

"Who
the hell do you think
I
am, Olivia? What gives you the right, the
infernal daring, to poke and pry and intrude, yes,
intrude
into my
affairs? I am tired of your invasions, Olivia, tired of your monstrous
curiosities, your appalling presumptions, tired of
you!"
His eyes
smouldered with malevolence. "You question me as if I owe you answers. I
owe you nothing,
nothing,
do you hear me?" Briefly he stopped to
glare, then, spinning on his heel, he started to pace again, hands clasping and
unclasping behind his back as if unable to stay still. "I am beginning to
hate you, Olivia. In your mind you have made me into a creature of your
romantic imagination—a creature that doesn't exist, has never existed. What you
think you love is an illusion, and the burden of living up to your illusion is
not one I am willing to bear any longer." He halted again before her,
expression venomous, voice dangerously low. "Get off my ship, Olivia, or I
will have you forcibly removed."