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‘My mother nursed him when he was ill,’ Anusha
flared. ‘He was better before the letter could have reached her. That woman had no need to come and because she did, he sent us away.’
‘She was his legal wife,’ Nick said with what sounded like strained patience. ‘Things are different in English society, the laws are different. If you want to know any more, you must ask him—I have no right to discuss it.’
Anusha mounted Rajat and sent him after Pavan with an impatience that made the black break into a canter. She reined him back, fuming. ‘So you are not his son, you are his obedient servant?’
‘Indeed,’ Nick said, so placidly she could have slapped him. He was humouring her. She wanted to fight, to argue, to shout at him and she did not understand why. Her fight was with her father—if she did not manage to escape before he had her in his clutches again. She fell in behind the grey and glared at Nick’s back. His very upright back.
He was good to look at, she admitted. His broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist cinched by a dark blue sash; the skirts of his coat fell over the saddle, but she had seen his naked body and knew his buttocks were firm and shapely, his thighs long-muscled. He rode as though he and his horse were one, easy in the saddle and yet as focused as an archer before he loosed the bowstring.
‘Stop sulking,’ he said without looking back.
‘I am not sulking,’ Anusha retorted, startled to realise that she was not. I am looking at your body and thinking that I desire you, that I would like to put into practice all those things that the texts show a woman and a man can do together... Aghast, she blinked, as though that would turn him into a short fat clerk or a skinny youth or... No, Nick Herriard was still just as he had been when she closed her eyes and so was the hot, tight feeling low in her belly. She had to do something.
‘Ma ub gayi hu,’ she said and dug her heels into
Rajat’s flanks.
‘Bored? You are bored?’ she heard Nick say as she passed him. ‘Hell, woman, what do you get up to in
Kalatwah every day if you find this boring?’
‘I find you boring,’ she tossed back and slapped the reins on her mount’s neck. For a moment she thought he would let her go, then the hoofbeats behind her speeded up, began to gain. Anusha glanced back over her shoulder—Nick had taken up the challenge and was racing.
* * *
‘Little witch,’ Nick muttered under his breath. He was tempted to let her go, gallop off her sulks and bad temper. If she had been a youth, he would have done just that, but, he thought with resignation, she was George’s daughter and they were in tiger country and so—
‘Chalo chale, Pavan!’ The big grey needed no urging. He gathered his hocks under him and surged after his stable-mate. Damn it, but the girl could ride, she had not exaggerated. I am Rajput, indeed, he thought as he let her keep the lead for the moment. She’s going to be a handful to turn into a little English lady.
He eased the reins and Pavan responded, up to the black’s flank now, then his nose was level with the girth. Anusha looked across and grinned and kicked for more speed.
Nick looked at the strong, slim legs gripping the horse, remembered the feel of her hands, cool and hesitant on his bare skin, and shuddered as the wave of desire went through him. No.
His hands must have jerked. Pavan pecked, recovered and, with a triumphant little crow of laughter, Anusha urged Rajat ahead again. Then there was a sinuous movement in the dust before them, the black horse swerved violently and jumped clear over the lethal creature beneath its hooves.
Anusha was thrown sideways, landed out of the saddle, high on Rajat’s neck, then fell, tumbling in the sand towards the king cobra that had reared up, hood spread, furious and lethal.
Chapter Six
Nick swung out of the saddle as Pavan reared to avoid the other horse. He rolled as he landed, his hand drawing the dagger from his boot even as he came to his feet. The reptile swayed, hissing, its hood spread wide, its head darting from side to side, undecided whether to strike at the nearer danger—Anusha sprawled motionless—or himself, moving, but further away.
‘Lie still!’ He waved his hand and the glittering eyes followed the movement, the coils shifting to balance the swaying, deadly head. Anusha was either unconscious or frozen in obedience, he could not tell. Nick edged further to the side, still gesturing with his hand, drawing the creature’s attention from her body.
