Ryman, Rebecca (7 page)

He
made no move to call off his dogs. Instead, he settled back even more
comfortably and laced his fingers behind his head. "I assure you that you
will not be missed, except by one or two. And since it is to avoid the one or
two that you are here in the first place, a precipitous return would defeat the
object of the exercise. Besides," he smiled caustically, "the dancing
will have already started and dinner will not be served before eleven. And
there will be plenty of simpering girls only too willing to grab those dances
you have promised and missed."

His
assessments were so accurate that despite their bluntness Olivia had to smile.
Her aunt
would
perhaps
be looking for her, but then, so also might Freddie! Apart from other
considerations, however, it was soothing to stay out here by the river, and she
could not deny that there was something about this anonymous stranger that
intrigued her, much as his perceptions made her uncomfortable. Against her
better judgement, Olivia hesitated.

He
misinterpreted her hesitation. "I have already pleaded guilty to having
surprised you, Miss O'Rourke, but I assure you I am not in the habit of
actually attacking the unwary—especially those who are armed."

She
sat down heavily. "You know my name?"

"Obviously."

"How
do you know who I am?"

"I
don't, except in social parlance. Strictly speaking, it can never be said that
anyone truly
knows
anyone
else."

"That
is either very lofty metaphysics," she scoffed, "or very low
prevarication. Which are you—a philosopher or a double-dealer?"

He
threw back his head and laughed with such genuine amusement that Olivia could
not restrain her own laugh. "You know, sometimes I wonder myself! But is
it possible to be one without the other? Let's just say that I have a touch of
both, depending on the circumstances."

She
frowned. "I find that deplorably cynical!"

"Perhaps.
It's difficult to live in this world and not be a cynic."

"And
that," she said firmly, "I find cheap. My father says cynicism is a
convenient disguise for moral cowards."

"Your
father is a man of words, not action. Maybe that's why."

Olivia
had not considered that this outspoken stranger could have surprised her
further, but this time he startled her. "You...
know
of my
father?" she gasped. "How?"

He
hesitated briefly. "I have read some of his writings."

"Where?"
she cried, excited. "Here in India?"

"No.
In San Francisco. He wrote an expose of the conditions under which miners
worked along the Coal River. His sincerity and depth of feeling impressed
me."

"Then
you have first-hand knowledge of my country?" For no reason other than she
was so desperately homesick, Olivia involuntarily warmed to him, instantly
forgiving him his many excesses. "You have lived in America?"

Again
he hesitated. "Yes." Abruptly he rose to his feet, picked up a stone
and sent it skimming across the surface of the river. In some subtle way the
gesture indicated an end to the subject of himself. "Is that why you are
unhappy? Because you are separated from your father?"

"I
miss my father but I am not at all unhappy!"

The
sharpness of her tone didn't seem to trouble him. If the correction was meant
as a reprimand, which it was, he appeared not to notice it. Instead he asked,
"Is he still active in his journalistic endeavours?"

Since
it was a question less impertinent than his others and since she rarely had the
opportunity in Calcutta to talk about her father—never with anyone who knew his
literary work first hand—Olivia answered willingly, indeed, enthusiastically.
"Very much so. He has recently sailed for Hawaii to investigate the
reported massacre of whales in the Pacific, about which he feels strongly. He
is urging strict legislation to halt the rampant killings."

"So!"
Even in the half light the inquiring lift of an eyebrow was visible as he
turned to face her. "He still believes in tilting at windmills even when
he knows the fight is hopeless?"

"He
believes in principles," Olivia amended, stung. "And that it is
better to have fought and lost than never to have fought at all. Isn't that
what every decent man believes?"

"Possibly.
Not claiming decency, I don't. I believe in winning, or not fighting at all.
The world is intolerant of losers."

"And
do you always win?" she demanded heatedly, wondering at the same time if
she was mad, trading arguments in the middle of the night on the river with a
man whose name she did
not know and whose face she could not see! The situation was bizarre.

"Yes,
always."

She
was appalled by his conceit. "In that case you must be singularly lucky or
given to self-delusion. Or both."

"I
don't believe in luck and only fools delude themselves. I may be many unblessed
things but I promise you I am not a fool." His lofty self-assessment was
touched with sarcasm as he added, "For a white mem you do have an
admirable wit, Miss O'Rourke. I see that my information about you has not been
inaccurate."

Information
about her? Nervously, she searched her memory again;
could
it be that she
had met him before somewhere? She dismissed the probability. It was impossible
that she could have met so outspoken a person and forgotten him! "What. .
. information do you have about me?"

She
heard him fumble in the gloom, retrieve something from his clothing and then
strike a light. It was a pipe and he took his time igniting it. The flame
cupped between his palms gave her a brief glimpse of a pale face and a mass of
very dark hair, nothing else. He puffed a few times before he answered her
question with eloquent readiness.

"I
know that your mother, Lady Bridget's only sister, died when you were seven, in
giving birth to a still-born boy. Her elopement with your father from her family
home in Norfolk was violently opposed by her parents and sister, Lady Bridget.
Since they refused to accept the marriage, your father took her to America,
where you were born a year later in New Orleans. In those days Sean O'Rourke
had no gainful employment and the times faced by all of you were hard. After
his wife's death, which shattered him, he took you to California on a wagon
train. He arrived in Sacramento penniless but was eventually staked by a man
called MacKendrick with whose help he built a ranch, which is presently your
home and where he writes while you help breed cattle and horses."

While
Olivia stared in dumbfounded silence, he turned his face upwards to squint
thoughtfully at the sky. "What else? Oh yes, the freedom that your father
gave you has made you alarmingly independent with ideas that find little favour
with your dyed-in-the-wool English aunt in these socially conservative
colonies. The reason your aunt has summoned you here is to find you a rich
English husband. The front runner at the moment, I learn, is the Honourable
Freddie Birkhurst, Calcutta's most eligible bachelor but also the station's
prize buffoon. Now let me see,
is there anything I have omitted?" He
cogitated, then shook his head and smiled. "No, I think not. At least,
that is the extent of my present information. Undoubtedly there is more but
then not every village grapevine can be exhaustive."

Through
the lengthy recital Olivia had gone very still indeed. For a moment or two
silence reigned between them; then, as her paralysis receded, she filled with
outrage and sprang to her feet. Instantly the two hounds leapt to theirs and
snarled with their fangs bared. Had the man not issued a swift command to them,
they would have certainly attacked her.

"Considering
you've been brought up in a country where men understand beasts," he
reprimanded with ill-concealed exasperation as both his hands firmly clasped
the animals' collars, "you should know better than to make sudden moves.
Petulance is a stupid reason for bravado."

Shaking
partly with fright and partly with rage, Olivia managed to issue a request
through clenched teeth. "Would you kindly command those damned animals to
let me leave?"

"Why?
Because I spoke the truth?"

"No.
Because I find you offensive, presumptuous and unbearably self-opinionated and
wish to terminate this futile encounter." She was so angry that she could
barely enunciate the words.

"Oh?
I'm sorry to hear that. I was quite beginning to enjoy our contretemps—an oasis
in the arid mediocrity of Calcutta's conversational opportunities." He
gave no further instructions to his dogs, both of which remained very much on
their guard and ready to charge.

Incensed
beyond measure, Olivia began to feel a fool in her enforced immobility.
"Why do you continually insult your own community? Do you think that by
doing so you add to your own prestige?"

He
did not answer for a moment. "What makes you so certain it
is
my own community
that I insult?" he then asked softly.

His
counter-question confused her. "Why, are you too not English?" she
blurted out, furious for having done so. How did it concern her what or who he
might be?

"Why
should you think that I am?"

"I
don't give a
damn
what
you are but you don't look a nat—" Flustered and embarrassed, she choked
back the rest of her comment to chew angrily on her lip and fumble warily with
her feet for her sandals.

"How
should a native look then?" he demanded tightly, and
suddenly Olivia
saw that he too was angry. "Servile? Obsequious? A humble groveller at the
feet of the white memsahib?"

"No,
of
course
not!"
She was appalled that he should have deliberately chosen to misinterpret her.
Forgetting the presence of the vigilant dogs she stamped her foot and
immediately earned another snarl. "You know
damn
well I didn't
mean that!"

From
within the shadows she felt his eyes boring into hers, but when he spoke again
it was with control. "What you meant was that if I were black as the ace
of spades, you would accept me as a native. Well, in this country, my
under-educated Miss O'Rourke, we belong to all colours of the spectrum from the
lily white to the blue black and all the rest in between. Somewhere within that
spectrum is my own colour,
and it is not English white."
He snapped a
comment under his breath and released the dogs. Without even a glance in her
direction, they turned and bounded up the steps to disappear into the night.
For a moment longer he stood where he was, unmoving, with averted eyes staring
steadily into the middle distance across the river. He seemed to arrive at some
decision, for he suddenly turned to move closer to her. "Perhaps you would
be kind enough to convey my regards to Sir Joshua and Lady Bridget? My name is
Jai Raventhorne." It was said coldly and with clipped formality. Then,
with an almost imperceptible bow, he spun on his heel and vaulted up the steps
after his dogs.

He
did not turn to look back at her.

Transfixed,
Olivia stared after him until he melted into the dark. In his fleeting
proximity he had offered her a glimpse of his face, and what she had seen had
startled her. In his pale face, in vivid contrast to his dense black hair, were
set eyes that appeared almost opaque in the light of the moon. Olivia had never
seen eyes like that on anyone; they were unearthly in their opalescence and
also frighteningly lifeless. She shuddered. Then, in an effort to cast off her
sense of unease, she pulled herself up and threw back her shoulders. Giving a
hearty dusting to the skirt of her dress, she ran back up the stone steps and
hurried towards the Pennworthys' garden.

"Where
in heaven's name have you
been?"
The moment Olivia slipped through the
wire mesh door, Estelle grabbed her.
"Everyone's
been asking
after you, and Mama is
beside
herself with worry."

"Don't
exaggerate, Estelle! I only went to . . . powder my nose." A glance at the
clock surprised Olivia by announcing that she had been away more than an hour!

"Where,
in the garden? I saw you sneak off earlier." Estelle
giggled.
"Where have you left poor Freddie—underneath some secluded hibiscus with
his manly stamina exhausted?" She sniggered again.

"Don't
be absurd! If you must know, I went for a walk to get some air. I thought I
would faint with the heat."

"Well,
wherever you were," Estelle said clearly unconvinced, "if I were you,
I'd hurry and make my peace with Mama before she's driven to announce happy
nuptials." With a pointed smirk she turned and waltzed away in the arms of
a patiently waiting John Sturges.

The
peace making with Lady Bridget went off better than Olivia had expected. In
fact, as she accepted her niece's explanation and apology, Lady Bridget's
reprimand was remarkably mild. The flush on Olivia's face, the nervous twitch
of her clasped fingers, the evasively lowered eyes—all these were portents that
Lady Bridget chose to interpret to her own satisfaction. "And where,"
she asked with a touch of archness, "have you left the charming Mr.
Birkhurst?"