Virginia Henley (16 page)

“Well, it seems we have an interest in common. My
father was a cabinetmaker. He studied under Chippendale.”

“Oh, how marvelous, but you speak of him in the past tense, so he cannot be alive.”

Adam Savage looked bleak. “Poverty killed him before his time,” he said shortly, then changed the subject. “I’m about to start furnishing Edenwood. How would you like to lend your expertise and assist me?”

Tony longed to jump at such an offer, but she hesitated over the many obvious pitfalls.

Savage saw Tony’s reluctance. “Lamb Hall is lovely, but I honestly believe you need a change. You should spend time in London with young men your own age, and young women too,” he added pointedly. “There is a whole world out there. Aren’t you eager to experience it? When I was your age I was ready to swallow it whole!”

Tony felt Savage’s contempt. She feared that he thought Anthony Lamb gutless and lacking in all manly qualities. Suddenly she was filled with an overwhelming desire. By Heaven and Hell she’d show him what sort of a man she could be!

Inside the Hall, Tony rang for Mr. Burke, gave him a most speaking look, and said, “Help me pack a bag, I’m off to London.”

Roz fluttered about Adam Savage as if she were a young girl. As Tony and Mr. Burke disappeared up the stairs, Adam took Roz into his confidence.

“Lady Randolph, I think I’ve succeeded in dispelling Anthony’s unhealthy melancholy. He’s agreed to come to London to help me pick out furnishings for my new house at Gravesend.”

Roz wondered if Savage was forcing Antonia, but dismissed the thought almost immediately, knowing her granddaughter’s passion for Edenwood. It was highly improper for her to go off alone with him, but that couldn’t be avoided without causing suspicion.

“Surely you’ll stay for dinner before you set out,” Roz said, playing for time.

“Thank you,” he said absently, his mind elsewhere. “Lady Randolph, Anthony seems very unwordly for a young man of seventeen.”

Roz bit her lip. “Well, the twins were going to London for the season, but when we got word about Russell, it seemed out of the question.”

“Lord Lamb is on the brink of manhood and in my experience it does young bucks a world of good to sow a few wild oats before they settle down to their responsibilities as men. Since Russell made me Anthony’s legal guardian, I feel a deep responsibility toward him.”

“That’s very admirable, Mr. Savage. I’m sure he’ll be quite safe in your hands.” Roz thought no such thing. Never had she encountered such a worldly man. She trembled for the things he might teach Antonia. Lord, what a coil! “Ah, here is Mr. Burke. Please pour Mr. Savage a drink before dinner. I’ll just slip upstairs and give Anthony a message for the servants at the town house.”

“Oh, Roz, I hope I can carry this off. He is the most dominant, infuriating man on earth, with an opinion on absolutely everything. He thinks my education has been sadly neglected, but, Roz, he seems quite willing to teach me things, or rather quite willing to teach Lord Lamb. I’m going to soak up everything like a sponge. He began with nothing. Everything he now has he acquired with his own two hands.”

“Well,” Roz teased, “he certainly has you eating out of them.”

“That’s not true! I’ve been absolutely brutal with him. I told him to his face he was cold and indifferent to my pain and that I detested him.”

“And what was his reaction?” Roz asked faintly.

“He said we’d have to try to endure each other. Perhaps
it would be a good idea if you slipped up to town in a couple of days.”

“Oh, darling, that’s a splendid idea. It’s highly improper for you to be alone with him, you know.”

“Oh, Roz, of course it isn’t. He thinks I’m a man—well, not a man, a boy, a very green boy to be truthful.”

“But you are not a male, you are a female, and Adam Savage the most spectacular man you and I are ever likely to see in this lifetime.”

“God, yes, the man with everything. So you are not immune to his magnetism either?”

“I’m an old woman. You, darling, are very vulnerable. Do guard against becoming infatuated and falling under his spell. I can’t believe your mother let him get away.”

Antonia was shocked at her grandmother’s thoughts. She tried to put herself in Roz’s shoes, then her mother’s, to view Savage through their eyes. The masculine features of his face looked as if they had been hewn with an ax from darkest mahogany. His long blue-black hair had a wild curl to it, making a woman long to release it from its leather thong to run her fingers through it. Tony wanted to dishevel it and learn if its texture was silky or coarsely springy. The planes of his face were broad, the nose and cheekbones prominent, the jaw square, stubborn, and bold.

His body was tall and powerful, the shoulders impossibly wide, his legs like young oaks. His hands were strong, brown, and exceedingly attractive. He had an air of supreme confidence about him that she knew did not come from being rich. It came from deep within the man. One look immediately revealed he was tenacious, resolute, determined, self-willed, unyielding, tough, and hard bitten. On top of everything else he was sinfully good looking. She suspected he was wicked and dangerous to boot. The single most riveting thing about him was his ice-blue eyes, so unexpected in that swarthy face. They could freeze a person to the spot with one glance.

She sighed heavily, realizing that through any woman’s eyes, of any age, he was devastatingly, dangerously desirable and she suspected the number of women who had made fools of themselves over the man were legion.

It was going dusk when the pair of riders arrived at Edenwood. Tony had not viewed the finished house, and it took her breath away. She wondered briefly what Adam Savage’s reaction would be when he was presented with the bills for the costly imported marble, hand-painted tiles, and all the other expensive additions she had suggested. Then she shrugged. After all, they had been Antonia’s ideas; he could hardly blame Lord Lamb.

The vast stable with the fountain for watering the horses at its center housed a magnificent pair of matched bay carriage horses, leaving dozens of empty stalls to choose from for the horses they were riding. Tony thanked the stars she had learned how to tend her own horse, actually an odd accomplishment for a lady. Savage expected a man to put his mount’s needs before his own.

At the front door they were met by an exotic-looking creature in a silk sari of pale orchid. Her arms were filled with tall blue irises from the garden. She smiled shyly and bent her knee. “Welcome home, master. Edenwood is like a palace. The flowers are strange, but just as beautiful.”

Savage raised her and drew her small hand to his lips. “This is Kirinda, Tony. Sometimes we call her Lotus Blossom.” He watched Tony’s reaction to the lovely young woman and saw that he stared with great curiosity. Adam
hid a smile. If Tony wasn’t aroused by the tempting female, the lad wasn’t normal.

The pale marble floor that began outside was carried through the cathedrallike reception hall. The mynah bird raised his small crest at the sight of Adam and screeched, “Savage! Sinner! Hellbait!”

“This is Rupee,” Adam told Tony.

“Let me guess,” Tony said, laughing, “that’s what you paid for him.”

Savage nodded. “I was robbed.”

Kirinda, holding a long taper, began to light the candles and lamps. She moved about so silently and gracefully, it was pleasurable to watch her. The light illuminated the creamy white marble and picked up its fine golden veins. James Wyatt had chosen well.

“No Bengal tigers,” Tony said lightly. “I thought all Englishmen who went to the Indies were great white hunters.”

Savage flashed him a cool look from his icy blue eyes. “I hunt from necessity. I do not take trophies.”

A native man came forward in immaculate white garments with a ruby-red turban. He carried a silver tray that held two small glasses.

“This man is like my right hand. John Bull, I want you to meet Lord Anthony Lamb.”

“Good evening, Excellency, good evening, my lord. I have waited many years to come to your beloved country. It is a great honor for me to meet an English Lord of the Realm.” His turban touched his knees.

“Oh, please, John Bull, do not bow to me. I bow to you. You are far more accomplished than I.”

“Accomplished?” he asked, astounded.

Savage watched Lord Lamb closely to see if he was being condescending.

Tony was most sincere. “Your first language cannot be English, yet you have mastered it to perfection.”

John Bull glowed.

“And your wife is one of the loveliest ladies I’ve ever seen.”

John Bull glowered.

Savage gave a bark of laughter. “Both of your observations are extremely wide of the mark.”

John Bull ignored Savage’s remark and launched into a reprimand. “We were not expecting you, Excellency. The food I prepared is adequate for you, but unfit for the Lord of the Realm. Moreover, we do not have enough beds.”

“Christ, John Bull, you’re stiff as a starched shirt. Tony and I don’t give a shit about food or beds. We’ll sleep on the floor. Tony is to be treated as one of the family. Where is Jeffrey Sloane?”

“Your secretary is very busy with his papers. He is working upstairs in the library. I do not wish to cast my shadow upon his character, Excellency, but I must tell you that he pays whatever price a merchant asks for his goods.”

“Thank you for sharing that with me, John Bull. Tony, make yourself at home. I’ll just go up and speak with Sloane, then we’ll have the grand tour.”

“You must forgive the master. He has a great disliking for formality, but I have met your mother and think the memsahib would be outrageous if she knew the Leopard expected you to sleep on the floor.”

“I haven’t seen my mother for over ten years. What is she like?” Tony asked rather wistfully.

“Ah, very very beautiful. Like an English queen.”

Tony smiled. Obviously John Bull hadn’t seen the Queen. She realized, however, that her mother’s legendary beauty was real.

“Why do you call him the Leopard?”

“It is what his people in Ceylon call him. His plantation is named Leopard’s Leap.”

“How fascinating! Will you tell me all about it, John?”

“I will try, Lordship, but it is your country which is fascinating.”

“We will exchange information. I have some books at Curzon Street you’ll enjoy.”

John Bull rolled his eyes. “I made a very bad impression at Curzon Street. I called your Mrs. Hogg, pig woman.”

Tony laughed delightedly. “Now that you mention it, she does have rather porcine features and manners to match. People do sometimes resemble their names, like Lotus Blossom. I’m sorry that I assumed she was your wife.”

“A lotus is a common water lily,” he disparaged. “She is the master’s body servant.”

Tony blushed at her own ignorance. What a cod’s head she was. The exotic creature was Adam Savage’s concubine! She felt an inexplicable stab of jealousy. Her eyes were drawn up the elegant staircase. Clearly here was another who resembled his name.

As Savage descended she knew why his people called him the Leopard. Suddenly she felt shy. She turned to John Bull instinctively. “For what it’s worth, I offer you my friendship.”

“Ah, Lordship, that would be worthless to me!”

“He means priceless,” Adam said quietly, most grateful that young Lamb was tolerant and unbiased.

Tony laughed outright. “I never realized how ridiculous the English language was. Priceless and worthless ought to be synonyms.”

“There’s just enough light left to take a look at the grounds. I’ll postpone the grand tour of the house until daylight. I don’t want to miss a detail.”

Savage led the way into the gardens, where paths and flower beds had been carefully laid out. They strolled across daisy-strewn grass that would soon be turned into manicured lawns. They came upon a natural stand of yews that had been thinned to create a yew walk.

“This is splendid,” Adam said. “How I have missed the trees.”

“But surely a plantation is nothing but trees,” Tony said.

“You mistake me. The Indies has magnificent trees. Mahogany, ebony, teak, satinwood, are the things that drew me there in the first place. Then at the plantation we use dadap and eucalypti to shade the delicate tea plants. I meant I missed English trees.”

As they emerged through the other side of the yews a small lake stretched before them with a pair of black swans gliding across the surface. Tony caught her breath at the beauty of it. “Is Ceylon as lovely as this?”

“Every bit as lovely in its own exotic, untamed way.”

Darkness had begun to fall. Everywhere was deeply shadowed. The navy-blue sky and black trees were reflected in the lake and in the hush that had fallen she could hear the frogs and, farther off beyond the densely wooded park, the flowing of the River Thames. Suddenly the call of a night heron came hauntingly across the water and they lifted their heads in unison to see if they could spot it.

Adam’s deep voice stole to her and Antonia thought it sounded like dark velvet. “At Leopard’s Leap at dusk I would stand at the edge of the lake to watch the day transform into night. As the sun sinks the buffalo come up out of the cooling water and swarms of monkeys scold and chatter at them from low-hanging tree branches. Clouds of gnats hover over the water and as the fish jump to feed, they in turn are snapped at by the crocodiles. The little monkeys are so damned cheeky, they get as close as they can to the reptiles, daring the crocs to eat them for dinner. Sometimes they do. The moths are more numerous than butterflies, some of them a foot across. The night scents are heady enough to steal away your senses … jasmine … camphor … pomegranate. The air is, filled with the music of the night—the flutter of a million bat wings, the banshee cry of the jackal, the low growls of jungle cats. If I was patient enough to wait until the moon rose I often caught a glimpse of a leopard come to drink. They have
this trick of appearing out of nowhere, then in the blink of an eye they disappear.”

The brilliant picture he painted with his words told Tony that he loved Ceylon.

“You miss it.”

“Yes, but not nearly as much as I missed England.”

It was a moment filled with magic. He had taken her with him to another time and place. It was as if they were alone in the universe. She wanted him to touch her so badly, it made her weak. He stood slightly behind her and she wanted to lean back against him to feel his strength. She imagined him kissing her, very gently, on the nape of her neck. She shuddered involuntarily.

Something swooped past them. “That was a bat!” Tony exclaimed, emerging from her fantasy. “Are the bats in Ceylon the same as ours?”

Savage laughed softly. “No, they are fruit bats. They gorge themselves on kong-tree fruit until they fall down dead drunk. They know no moderation. Perhaps that’s the difference between the two worlds. England is moderate. In Ceylon everything is gloriously immoderate.”

Back inside the house Savage’s words were borne home as Kirinda came forward and asked softly, “Are you ready to be bathed, master?”

“Yes.” He turned to Tony. “Will you join us in the bathing pool?”

Tony had never been quite so shocked in her life and the horror showed on her face.

“You are staring at me like I was the bloody whoremaster of Malabar. It is customary in the East to bathe, not simply to wash. It can be extremely pleasant. I’d like you to experience many things from different lands. Surely, Tony, you are not so narrow minded that you are not open to new experiences?”

“Of course not,” Tony said faintly. “It’s just that I
wouldn’t dream of spoiling what must be an intimate ritual between you and Lotus Blossom.”

Ridiculous as it seemed, Savage had begun to doubt the lad had ever been naked with a female. “Has all the stuff we brought from the ship been unpacked yet?” he asked Kirinda. “Give him one of my robes and show him to another bathing room. John Bull simply won’t feed us if we are unclean.”

I wouldn’t dream of spoiling what must be an intimate ritual between you
… how in the name of God had she conjured such a phrase? She tried desperately to push away pictures of the “intimate ritual,” but didn’t quite succeed. Tony honestly had not thought about what he would look like beneath his clothes. Now, however, her mind began to undress him. Frantically she tried to block the pictures from her mind, but they only became clearer and more insistent. What must those wide shoulders look like without his shirt? Undoubtedly he would be thick with muscle. Was his chest as deeply tanned as his face and hands? Her mind refused to form a picture of a pale Adam Savage. Somehow she knew he would be bronzed. He would be covered by a devastating pelt of black hair too. She simply knew it. She had already glimpsed the thick saddle muscles of his thighs clad in skintight breeches, so it took only a little imagination to envision his legs bared.

Antonia had never seen a naked man. Of course she knew the male of the species had a sex thing, vastly different from her own private parts, but her imagination did not try to conjure it. She was truly too innocent to picture him below the belt. Her mind’s eye saw him in the bathing pool with the naked Lotus Blossom and her cheeks burned so hotly, she closed her eyes praying for a measure of composure. In the span of one day since she had met Adam Savage she had had more disturbing thoughts regarding men than she had had in her entire life before. What on earth was the matter with her?

It was as if her outwardly male appearance had turned her thoughts and her body ultrafemale. Her breasts and her mons were suddenly sensitive in the extreme. She blushingly admitted to herself that whenever Savage drew close to her, those wicked parts of her body actually tingled. Damn the dark devil to hell and back!

Tony was given a choice of robes by the beautiful young Sinhalese woman. One was black silk embroidered with golden dragons, the other woven from fiber that resembled fine rope in texture and color. Tony chose the latter. It was far too large, but she turned back the wide sleeves until her hands were uncovered. The robe brushed the floor when she walked, but she was quite tall and it didn’t trail enough to make her trip over its hem. She bathed alone, taking as little time over it as possible. She deliberately kept her eyes from her own body and slipped the robe over her nakedness as soon as she was dry.

The meal was delicious. John Bull served them curried lamb on a bed of fragrant saffron rice. There were strange vegetables and fruits served upon the same platters and luscious sweetmeats that tasted like almonds, dates, and coconut rolled in honey. The tea was aromatic and tasted of oranges. Tony did not need to ask if it came from Leopard’s Leap.