The Tiger's Lady by Christina Skye Page A

toward the jungle. It was her choice, Dev, her life given freely for you and the other women and children you were shepherding to safety. There’s nothing for you to feel guilty about, surely.”
    A vein hammered at Pagan’s temple. “But she was my mother, Helene. Not my ayah, but my mother ! And I stood there and watched her run to her death without saying or doing anything to stop her! I might as well have held the gun to her head myself!”
    “Rubbish. There was nothing else to do, under the circumstances. She knew that.”
    Pagan knifed a hand through his hair. “I should have thought of something. I should have found a way to—”
    “There was no way, don’t you see! Why can’t you just put it behind you?”
    Pagan’s face filled with bitterness. “Why? Because I never did accept her as my mother. Because I never gave her the slightest word of tenderness after she confessed I was really her son, not the duchess’s. Dear Lord, I remember the day she told me as if it were yesterday. I could only stare at her like some tongue-tied, witless schoolboy.”
    “It must have been a grave shock.”
    Pagan laughed harshly. “Yes, you might call it that. I found out that day that I had a great deal more pride than I’d thought, Helene. And may God help me, I never gave a thought to how she must be feeling. All I could think of was what people would say if they knew, how it would affect my friends—what few I had. A self-righteous little prig, that’s what I was.” His eyes hardened. “And then in the jungle everything changed overnight. With her gone I was free to pretend I was as English as the next fellow. My exalted father would certainly never deny the fact—not publicly at least. He wanted a son and heir too badly for that. Though in private…”
    Helene touched Pagan’s arm awkwardly. “You did what you had to do, Dev. So did she. But it’s done now, and best forgotten.”
    “It will never be done. Not as long as I know that my life was bought with her blood. And I never had time to tell her, to ask why—” Pagan broke off with a curse and refilled his glass. “Sorry. I am boring you with these maudlin tales. Forget it.”
    Helene started to speak, but the hardness in Pagan’s eyes made her hold her tongue.
    “I must be thinking about leaving. I don’t care to let Ruxley know that Windhaven is left unguarded. As soon as the auction formalities are completed tomorrow, I must return to Ceylon.” For a moment his face softened. “Back to Windhaven.”
    Helene studied him in silence. There were many things about St. Cyr that she didn’t understand, but this loyalty to a heap of dirt was the most baffling of all. “You really do love that place, don’t you?”
    Pagan’s eyes flashed in the firelight. “More than I thought possible,” he said finally. “It’s my home, Helene. And you can only run so long. Otherwise they win.”
    “Who wins?”
    But he merely turned away for another drink, his eyes brooding.
    Helene could not help sighing. Really, it was such a waste.
    She found herself recalling some of the more outrageous rumors circulating about this black sheep from one of England’s finest families.
    Spy and cold-blooded adventurer, some called him. A bloody infidel, others called him—a man who had betrayed his heritage for the heathen ways of the East.
    Even Helene wondered how he could turn his back on a life of English privilege to sweat and toil in the blinding sun in that mosquito-infested backwater of Asia.
    And now he calmly passed over ownership of the world’s largest and most famous ruby, in the wake of an auction that left him only slightly less wealthy than Queen Victoria herself.
    Helene realized that she was no closer to understanding this man than she had been fifteen years ago.
    She sniffed with disapproval. “I’m glad to see that you’ve removed that outlandish Oriental finery. It looks entirely too—too fitting on you. It’s not right, you know. You’re as