My Beautiful Enemy (8 page)

But what could he say without giving himself away? And if he had met her for the first time today, would he have believed there to be any danger to this slightly dowdy–looking woman, whose every smile seemed to finish on a note of melancholy?

Oddly enough, it was not her melancholy that unfurled the old pain in his heart, but her dowdiness. There had always been a trace of sadness to her, even during their days along the ancient caravan route; but there had been fire, too, a fierce resolve to not let herself be defined by everything she had lost. And because of that, though she had dressed little better than a beggar, she had been utterly dashing. Riveting.

Now the light had gone out of her, a flame reduced to a coil of smoke, a shadow of its former self.

“One can always count on you to be the center of calm,
Captain, when there is a frenzy of merrymaking going on,” said Mrs. Reynolds, coming up to stand next to him.

She was a good hostess—the reason he stood apart was so that she would approach and make sure that he was enjoying himself.

“One could say the same of you, ma’am,” answered Leighton.

“But I’m twenty years your senior, Captain. When I was your age I took an active part in the merrymaking.”

He smiled, allowed a few seconds to pass, then said, “Mrs. Chase seems to have recovered well from her ordeal.”

Mrs. Reynolds glanced at her sister, who was having herself a riotous good time. “Well, thank goodness.”

“And you, ma’am?”

“I am also in fine form.”

She slid her fingers along the closed fan in her other hand. Leighton willed her to speak of the one he truly wanted to hear about. Mrs. Reynolds exhaled, a rather heavy sigh, and gazed up at the overcast sky outside the window.

“Something the matter, ma’am?”

“A little worried for Miss Blade, that’s all.”

For all that he had been expecting it, her name fell upon his hearing with the force of boulders. “Oh?” he made himself say lightly.

“I wish she had agreed to stay with us. Somehow I feel that dealing with that awful man has weakened her and that I am remiss in not having her under my roof and taking care of her.”

Was she injured? Was that why she had looked so fragile?

He remembered the near reverence with which he had looked after her, when she had been crumpled and helpless. It was the first and only time he had ever had the care of someone stronger than himself, and he had been driven with the need to see her restored to her former glory.

But then it had taken nearly a dozen bandits—with rifles—to
drive her to the edge of defeat. Who could have single-handedly taken her on?

Unless it was the man she had been running from for half of her life . . .

“A Chinese man, Mrs. Chase had said, was it not?”

Mrs. Reynolds hesitated. “I am not entirely certain—I saw him only briefly. And he spoke French.”

Leighton knew of a man, reputed to be half French, half Vietnamese—a man who could scale any wall, penetrate into any fortress, and crack the skull of any who stood in his way. In fact, only a week ago Leighton had returned from the Côte d’Azur, in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the lair of the Centipede, so called because the man always left behind a brush-and-ink drawing of a centipede.

“You and Mrs. Chase met him on Gibraltar?”

“Only my sister did. Miss Blade and I went ashore together; my sister did so with two other ladies from our steamer. When we returned, she said she had met a French gentleman named Monsieur Dubois who had spent some time in Gibraltar, and was now headed to England. Only after the chaotic events of the night did she claim that he was instead Chinese.”

Leighton would have liked to ask more questions, but he judged he could proceed no further without betraying too great an interest, especially given the probability that Mrs. Reynolds, like he, suspected some sort of physical intimacy between Mrs. Chase and her assailant before their eventual falling-out. “Well, now you need to think no more about him.”

“A very comforting notion, that.” Mrs. Reynolds sighed again, opened the window, and leaned out slightly. “Ah, a bit of fresh air.”

Her house backed onto a large, shared private garden. The moon had just broken through the clouds, its nimbus copper-colored, its light dancing faintly upon shadowy branches. A fountain trickled. And somewhere in the darkness, someone’s mouser—or perhaps a stray cat—meowed softly.

The sound pricked his attention: Certain times of the year aside, felines that roamed the night were not usually noisy creatures.

A hand landed on his elbow. “Won’t you take me for a round in the garden, my dearest Captain?” teased his fiancée. “I told Edwin I needed a minute to breathe before I can dance more.”

He turned to her winsome, flushed face. “Of course, my dear. It would be a pleasure.”

“Don’t forget your wrap,” warned Mrs. Reynolds. “The wind can be quite chill.”

“Yes, Auntie darling,” answered Annabel, already pulling Leighton along.

He made sure she had the wrap Mrs. Reynolds prescribed before they stepped outside. Mrs. Reynolds remained at the window, not exactly standing guard, but, well, standing guard.

The aunt approved of him as a man, but he had the impression that she was not entirely convinced that he was the right match for Annabel. He did not disagree with her: The right match for Annabel would be someone like Marland, someone simpler, more high-spirited, and more inherently happy.

But that someone would not be as grateful as he was to have Annabel’s hand—a man who had not survived a storm at sea could not truly appreciate the solace of a well-sheltered harbor.

The night air was as cool as Mrs. Reynolds had warned. Near his left femur, pain leaped and spiked. Not too much longer now—the flare-ups were unpredictable in their onset, but they lasted exactly seven days, no less, no more.

“A delightful night, don’t you think?” said Annabel with a sweep of her hand.

He liked seeing the world through her eyes. The night, to him, was rather ordinary, overlaid with London’s crowded odors and a damp that promised a deeply unlovely fog in the near future. But she preferred to consider the commonest
patch of grass and the most unremarkable clump of trees worthy of a Constable canvas—in which case this night could very well have graced the ceiling of a great cathedral.

“Yes, most delightful,” he answered. “I enjoyed how much fun you were having.”

She sighed, a contented sound. “And that’s why I adore you. You actually mean it when you say something like that.”

A sensation of being watched came over him—or rather, it had been there for a while, but now it had become too strong to ignore.

He had spent several of his formative years fleeing from the men his uncle had hired to track him down. A large part of the reason he had evaded them for as long as he had was that he had never hesitated to run, whenever he felt the pressure of an unfriendly gaze.

This attention was not unfriendly, per se, merely close and minute, making him feel as if he had been put under a microscope.

“Is something the matter?” Annabel asked.

He realized that he had stopped moving. He resumed his progress. “Just thought I’d heard something.”

She chortled. “Do you think we have company?”

“Stray cats and other such trivial creatures,” he said. “Nothing I plan to pay the least mind to.”

“Good. Because in five years you will snore when I talk, so now you must be extra solicitous,” Annabel teased. “So that in the future, when I realize you have fallen asleep again while listening to me, I can at least think back to moments like this and sigh over how romantic you once were.”

How could any man not treasure her? “If all I have to do is remain awake to be considered romantic, then I can promise you a great deal of romance in our marriage.”

She giggled and pulled him onto a bench. “So let’s set a date. We’ve been engaged since Christmas. If we want to be married before the end of the Season, it’s time to put events
into motion. I helped with my cousins’ weddings and let me tell you, Napoleon had fewer decisions to make when he marched into Egypt. And I want plenty of time for preparations, so I won’t turn into one of those brides who bursts into tears in the middle of a discussion about whether to serve soup for the wedding breakfast.”

Sensible as well as sparkling—how much more perfect could a woman be?

I, for one, am much too fond of the brothels of Kashgar.

The feeling of being watched intensified further. He touched a hand to Annabel’s cheek. “In that case, set any date you’d like.”

She wrapped her arms around him. “You are so good to me, Leighton.”

He lifted her chin and kissed her, a long, deep kiss. She panted a little when he let go.

“Well, Captain, I’d say you have just signaled that you’d like for us to be married sooner rather than later.”

“You have read my mind,” he said, to both Annabel and the unseen presence in the shadows. “Let us be married at your earliest convenience.”

S
he ought not to be out at this hour of the night, Catherine thought. Amah, if she were still alive, would have disapproved of this kind of recklessness. But then again, Amah, while she yet lived, had been the most reckless woman Catherine ever knew.

Her fingertips glided over the books on the shelves. Western books, with their pasteboard covers and leather binding, had such a different feel to them, bulky and unyielding. And such a pronounced scent, nothing of the almost tealike fragrance of their Chinese counterparts.

She moved to the fireplace. On the mantel were photographs, in rectangular and oval frames. She struck a match. A picture of
Marland Atwood. Next to it, the portrait of a couple, neither of whom she recognized—his parents, perhaps?

And then, a profile of the luminous Miss Chase. She gazed somewhere just off camera, a look of both hope and serenity.

Let us be married at your earliest convenience
, Leighton Atwood had said, after that impeccably staged kiss, angled just so for Catherine to take in every detail, despite the murkiness of the night.

She endured a sharp stab of pain in her heart. Life had been less complicated when she’d thought him dead and herself bound for hell. But no, he was alive and set to marry someone else, someone younger, gentler, sweeter. Someone perfect for this English stranger he had turned out to be.

Was there any trace of her lover left, beneath the tailored coat and the cool detachment?

T
he meadow was almost purple with wildflowers, the sky a piercingly brilliant blue. In the distance, the jagged peaks of the Heavenly Mountains soared, ramparts of God’s own castle.

Near the edge of the meadow, her silky black hair long and loose, the girl collected wildflowers with her dagger, slicing through the stems of those stalks she found worthy. The sight made him smile: Those who lived by the sword played by the sword.

She sheathed her dagger, tied the flowers she had collected with another stalk, set the bouquet into his slingshot, and pulled on the strip of vulcanized rubber—all the while still standing with her back to him.

The bouquet sailed through the air with such perfect aim that from where he stood he had but to stretch out his hand for it to fall into his palm.

Only then did she turn around, a small smile around her lips.

“You are showing off.”

Her smile deepened. “You like it.”

He lifted the bouquet to his face. It smelled of sunshine and nectar. “I like an arrogant, intractable woman.”

Leighton opened his eyes. He could just make out, from the moonlight streaming into the room, the face of the mantel clock. Ten minutes after three.

He had not been sleeping long—he had still been awake at two. His leg hurt, but for the moment, the pain was tolerable, almost subdued. Something else, then, had pulled him out of his dream.

He closed his eyes and listened. Nothing. But he grew increasingly certain that she was in the room with him.

How long had he tottered at the edge of death? How had he made his way out of Chinese Turkestan to a British outpost? He had only the flimsiest recollection of scorching days, raw cold nights, and constant, marrow-rotting pain.

She had been like those mythical females of woods and dells, nymphs who took their deadly vengeance on men who elected not to remain with them. Except she had been a product of desert and mountains, as beautiful as the sudden spring in the foothills, as harsh and dangerous as the black sandstorms.

He flung aside the bedcover, got up, and lit a cigarette for himself, breathing in a lungful of acrid smoke. Suddenly he was back at the edge of the meadow, sharing his dwindling supply of tobacco with her.

Why don’t you frown upon my smoking?
she had asked.

The day I quit smoking myself
, he had replied,
is the day I start lecturing you on
your
filthy habit
.

And she had laughed as if it were the funniest thing she had ever heard.