"He's gone to bed."
"Already? It's barely eight-thirty. Didn't he object to you rushing him through dinner and whisking him off to
bed?"
"I didn't—" She stopped as she met his knowing gaze. "What if I did? I didn't want you here and you've made sure Patrick thinks you're his friend. You have no need to talk to him."
"Oh, but I do. I intend to ask for his daughter's hand." He snapped his fingers. "But then, that would confuse him, wouldn't it? He won't admit he has a daughter."
"You're not serious?"
"Of course I'm serious. Since I'm walking the path of virtue, I want to observe all the proper forms. He can't be asleep yet. I'll just go in and—"
"No!" She drew a deep breath. "This is foolishness and I won't have you bothering Patrick."
He suddenly gave in. "Very well."
She started to swing the door shut.
"If you'll come and walk out with me."
"Walk out?"
"At home in Glenclaren it's the custom for an affianced couple to walk out together in the evening. Properly chaperoned, of course."
"I have no desire to 'walk out' with you."
"Then I'll be forced to come in and have my talk with Patrick. I believe he'll give his consent to the match. As you say, he has a liking for me."
He was clearly not to be swayed. "It's raining," she said weakly.
"All right, I'll be satisfied with sitting with you on the veranda." His brows lifted. "Providing Li Sung has vacated the couch."
"He went back to the temple early this morning." She gazed at him in frustration. He was smiling, but she could sense both recklessness and implacable resolution beneath that glittering exterior. She threw open the door and turned on her heel. "Very well, ten minutes."
"Yes, memsahib." He followed her across the room toward the open french doors. "You see how obedient I am? Obeying your every wish, trailing at your heels like your faithful dog, Sam."
"Sam doesn't trail at my heels." She sat down on the cushioned rattan couch. "Even he has too much sense for that."
"A remark aimed at me?" He sat down beside her. "But I'm not so favored as Sam. I've trespassed and must exhibit the proper show of humility."
"You?"
He chuckled. "I agree the idea is foreign to me, but I'm trying to make an adjustment. Give me your hand."
"Why?"
"I want to hold it. I'm sure even Ian and his Margaret hold hands. It's a proper courting procedure."
"We're not courting."
"Of course we are." He took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. "I thought I'd made that clear. No, don't jerk away from me. I'm only holding your hand." His tone was soothing. "We'll just sit here and make conversation and listen to the rain."
Her muscles were tensed and she had to force herself to sit still. She was acutely conscious of his shoulder touching hers, their locked hands.
"Relax. I'm no threat to you. Actually, I'm trying to show you how tame I can be."
If she hadn't been so tense, she would have laughed aloud. He was no more tame than the winds preceding a typhoon.
She tried to ignore the heat beginning to spread from the hand he was holding to her wrist and upper arm. "You seem to know a great deal about courting customs in Glenclaren."
"Only from hearsay. I was a wild lad and never had the patience for any of the more proper traditions."
And the mandarin would have no need of patience. He would charm and issue a siren call and everything and everyone would come to him. She moistened her lips. "Is Glenclaren far from—"
"I don't want to talk about Glenclaren. It's a dank, depressing place." He turned and smiled at her. "And didn't suit me at all. It wouldn't suit you either. Once we're wed, we'll live on Cinnidar."
Exasperated, she sought a less personal subject to distract him. "How did you find your Cinnidar?"
"I was on a ship bound from Australia to Africa that put in at Cinnidar to take on food and water. When the ship left, I stayed on."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "I ... liked it. I felt—" He stopped, searching for words. "It called to me."
"Is it beautiful?"
"I suppose it is." He thought about it. "Yes, Cinnidar is beautiful."
"But that's not why you liked it."
"The moment I saw it I knew it was going to belong to me. I felt it." He turned her hand over and idly traced patterns in her palm with his index finger. "And since it was obviously meant to be mine, I couldn't see why fate wouldn't furbish the island with what I loved most."
She chuckled. "Gold."
He nodded. "I had to go and see. There's a trail down the canyon wall, but it was blocked with stones I had to crawl over, and after I reached the canyon floor it took me three weeks to make my way through the jungle and get to the mountain. A few times I didn't think I'd make it. But when I got there . . ." His face lit with eagerness. "Veins, not pockets of gold. Rich wide veins . . . Even the streams were full of nuggets. I could reach down and pick up a nugget as big as a goose egg."
"Did you gather them to take with you?"
He shook his head. "Word of a strike would have gotten out, and Cinnidar had to be legally mine before that happened. So I went back to the port ragged and half starved with nothing but my hands in my pockets and told everyone I'd never made it past the canyon. I shipped out on the next boat that put into port and went to the gold fields in Jaylenburg. It took me three years and two gold fields, but I finally made a big enough strike to provide me with enough money to buy Cinnidar from the maharajah."
Three years of staggering work and deprivation and all for Cinnidar, she thought. "And now you're going back."
"Yes, I'll send for you as soon as—" He stopped as he saw her expression. "It will happen, Jane." He reached out and touched a tendril of hair at her temple. "I've never seen you with your hair loose. I want to see it flowing about your shoulders. I wanted to unbraid it when we were in the railway coach but I was hurting so bad I couldn't wait."
She felt the heat rise to her cheeks, suffusing her throat and breasts.
"I could do it now," Ruel said softly. His index finger rubbed slowly back and forth on her palm, and a tingle ran up her arm. "I could do anything you want me to do. Patrick's asleep and wouldn't bother us. I could close the doors and—"
"No," she whispered. Sweet Mary, her breasts were swelling, pushing against the material of her shirt. Let him not notice. But he probably did know, she realized in despair. He seemed to know how to trigger her every response.
"Do you remember the maharajah's painting? There are so many ways of pleasure, and I want to show you all of them."
She couldn't get her breath and was beginning to tremble as she had that day in the railroad car. She suddenly knew she wanted to kneel down like the woman in the painting, to obey him blindly, to do anything he wanted of her.
She was acutely aware of the faint scent of soap surrounding him, the tiny jolts of sensation as his finger rubbed her palm, the sound of the rain on the thatched roof of the bungalow.
Like the sound of the rain on the maharajah's railway car . . .
"But this is different," he said as if he had read her mind. "I'm not trying to seduce you."