Silk and Shadows (18 page)

Once more he stopped at the top of the drive and regarded Sulgrave Manor with brooding eyes. Buying a country estate had merely been part of his plan to establish himself in English society, with the added benefit of providing an excuse to be alone with Lady Sara. It had been a surprise, and not a pleasant one,when he had reacted so strongly to his first sight of the manor. It was dangerous to want something so much, because desire and affection made a man vulnerable.

After a minute he flicked the reins impatiently and continued on. He was making too much of this. Sulgrave was just a house, albeit a handsome one, and available at a bargain price. Perhaps someday, in that dim future beyond the accomplishment of his mission, he would be free to glory in pride of possession. In the meantime, buying the property was just another step toward his goal.

To his surprise, he found Lady Sara walking with reasonable ease, though her limp was much worse than usual. As he dismounted and led Siva into the stables, he said, "You recovered quickly."

"Practice improves all skills," she said dryly. "Were you able to persuade the gatekeeper to order a carriage?"

"Eventually. He was reluctant at first, until it occurred to him that I might be his next employer. Then he became most obliging." After tending the horses, Peregrine suggested, "Would you like to wait in the gardens while I go view the house?"

"I didn't come all this way to watch butterflies. I'm looking forward to seeing the inside of the manor." Taking his arm, Sara added, "Though my guess is that you will buy Sulgrave even if it is less than perfect for entertaining."

He glanced at her, not best pleased. "Am I that obvious?"

"Not usually. This time you were."

She leaned on his arm more than usual, but showed no other sign of distress. Perhaps he might achieve today's goal after all; he would let events be his guide.

The lawyer had given Peregrine a key that let them in a back door. Lady Sara pronounced the kitchens hopeless, saying that they must be completely redone with modern stoves and ovens, and even an inexperienced male eye could see that she was right. But apart from the kitchens, the house had no drawbacks. Most of the chambers were large and well proportioned, with richly carved ceilings and moldings. The dining and drawing rooms were gracious, the library magnificent, and there were other chambers that could be used for activities such as music and billiards.

Their exploration of the ground floor ended in the hall, where exquisite antique mosaics were embedded in the floor. Peregrine knelt and brushed his fingers over the abstract floral pattern. "The lawyer told me about these mosaics. They were discovered in the ruins of the old Roman town of Silchester."

"The house is superb," Lady Sara said, her gaze lingering on the mosaic. "A great deal of cleaning and redecorating will be required, but when you are done, Sulgrave should suit your purposes exactly. Does the furniture come with it?"

He stood, brushing dust from his hands. "Yes, the heir does not want the bother of selling it separately. Am I right that many of the pieces are very good quality?"

She nodded. "Yes. Some things will need refinishing, and others are not worth keeping, but if you like the styles of the last century, you'll have a good start on furnishing the house."

"I hope that you will also lend me your advice about decorating," he said. "Are you ready to see the upstairs?"

As she gave the stairs a calculating look, Peregrine found himself very aware of her profile, the pure line of face, throat, and breast, like the ancient sibyl she had first reminded him of. Suddenly he wanted her with a fierceness that shocked him. Shaken, he took a deep breath, knowing that too much desire could play havoc with his plans. When he was sure that touching her would not make him act like a lust-crazed youth, he leaned over, scooped her up, and began climbing the carved oak stairs.

"You are a little too quick to sweep me off my feet, Your Highness," Lady Sara said rather breathlessly as she clung to his arm. "I could have climbed the stairs on my own."

"No doubt, but the price of proving it would have been too high. Show some consideration for your ill-used leg."

She tilted her head back to look at him. "Ladies don't have legs, they have limbs. 'Legs' are considered indecent."

"Indecent?" he said as he set her on her feet at the head of the stairs. Solemnly he lifted the hem of her riding habit a few inches and examined her booted ankles. "I see nothing indecent."

"Behave yourself, Your Highness." Laughing, she batted the skirt from his hand. "I didn't say that female legs
were
indecent, but that the word is
considered
indecent. It is another English absurdity."

"One of many," he said, offering his arm again. "But do not think I am ungrateful for your efforts to educate me. One must know the rules before one can properly break them."

"You, sir, are incorrigible," she said as she took his arm.

"But never dull."

Lady Sara gave him a wry half smile. "True. But it is possible that you could give dullness a good name."

He chuckled. "May I return the compliment by saying that you accomplish the even more formidable task of making respectability seem interesting?"

In perfect charity, they worked their way through the upper floor. It proved equal to the ground level, with fifteen spacious bedchambers. Bathrooms and water closets needed to be updated, but when that was done, the accommodations for house parties would be ample and luxurious.

Last they investigated the long gallery that ran across the back of the house. It was an attractive room, with fireplaces at each end and large casement windows with padded, built-in seats overlooking the garden. After studying some of the gloomy portraits, Sara asked, "Are the portraits also part of the sale?"

"No, the paintings are to be shipped to Canada." After examining one, his mouth quirked up. "I could use some respectable ancestors, but I find these a boring lot. Perhaps I shall commission a painter to do a new set for me."

He glanced across the gallery, his smile fading. Releasing Sara's arm, he crossed the room for a better view. It took a minute to unlatch the casement. Then he threw the sashes wide and leaned out, bracing his hands on the sill and balancing with one knee on the window seat. Below him lay the English countryside in all its aching beauty, the misty hills rolling to forever, and he reacted to the sight with the same intensity as when he had first seen Sulgrave. He temporarily forgot his companion, and it was a surprise to hear her voice at his elbow.

"This house sings to you, doesn't it?" she said softly.

"I suppose that is as good a way as any of putting it." He tried to understand why, and couldn't. Probably he would not have explained even if he did know the reasons. Instead he said, "You are an English aristocrat, born and raised to this kind of life—the richness, the beauty, the peace, the chance for justice. You can't appreciate how much it means."

"Probably not." The window-seat cushion shifted as she sat at the other end. "But you were a rich man in your own country, and Ross said that Kafiristan has its own matchless beauty. Does this mean more to you?"

"Not more, perhaps, but it is different." Peregrine turned and sat on the window seat, only two feet of space separating him from Lady Sara. She was cool and self-possessed, except for the warmth in her grave brown eyes. Sara St. James, as much a woman as she was a lady. She had left her riding hat downstairs, and the slanting sunbeams touched her hair to molten gold.

Something twisted deep inside him, and again he experienced the surging, uncontrollable desire he had felt downstairs. It was not just her serene beauty, nor her quiet strength, that aroused him, though he admired both.

Perhaps it was her Englishness—like Sulgrave, like England itself. She represented a way of living that now, against all probability, lay within his grasp. He did not know if it was a life he wanted, nor would he have the leisure to decide until he had finished with Charles Weldon. But in the meantime, there was no denying Lady Sara's allure.

It took all his willpower to remain still. He yearned to touch her, to call forth her latent passion, but not yet, not when his own desire threatened to cloud his judgment. Better to talk, to weave a web of words until he was in control again. "Kafiristan is a poor country, unbelievably poor. It is not even really a country, just a collection of related tribes. It didn't take much wealth to be a great man there."

"But Ross said you were very rich. How… ?" Sara stopped, faint color appearing across her high cheekbones.

"I gather that it is rude and un-English to ask about a man's money? No matter, I am not easily offended," he said, amused. "The source of my fortune was not in Kafiristan. Have you ever heard of the Silk Road, the ancient trade route from China to the Mediterranean?"

"I've heard of it, but no more than that."

"For perhaps two thousand years, caravans carried goods between the East and West, from ancient Camay to imperial Rome. Silk and jade, spices, gold, and amber, and a thousand other things passed through many different hands, and were carried by every kind of beast used by man." Unconsciously his voice took on the compelling rhythms of the storyteller.

"Traders risked bandits and disease, but far worse were the natural hazards of mountains and deserts. Perhaps the most dangerous part of the journey was Chinese Turkestan. There, in the fiery, blasted heart of Asia, lies a desert called the Takla Makan, a wasteland of shifting, treacherous dunes three hundred feet high, surrounded by the tallest mountains in the world. It is a desert that makes Arabia seem tame by comparison, a place where the
kara-buran
, the black hurricane, can bury whole caravans with no trace of man or beast ever seen again.''

"You speak as one who has been there and survived."

He nodded. "The Silk Road skirted the southern edge of the Takla Makan, and cities grew up at the scattered oases. Once they shimmered with wealth and power, but several centuries back, most of the cities died, and the sands of the desert reclaimed them. I am not sure why, though the development of sea routes must have had much to do with it. There are many legends about the lost cities—tales of how heaven destroyed them for their wickedness, warnings of the demons that guard the buried riches."

Her eyes widened as she guessed where his story was leading. "You found one of the lost cities?"

He nodded again. "Yes, a city called Katak by a Kirghiz herder who told me a tale that had been passed from father to son for many generations. Katak lies amid the salt marshes of Lop Nor. Finding it was hard, locating its lost riches harder yet, but the greatest dangers lay in taking the treasure away across the sands and mountains."

"I gather that you did not fear the demons?" She shifted position, unconsciously drawing a little nearer to him.

"They were not the demons of my people, and hence had no power over me." Peregrine's gaze drifted, remembering. "Luckily I was also able to convince my friends of that. We made three journeys from Kafiristan to the lost city of Katak, each time bringing back gold, silver, and works of art. As the leader, mine was the largest share, and that became the basis of my fortune. I came down from the mountains into India and learned the ways of the merchant, investing and trading until I had great wealth even in European terms.''

Lady Sara's head was tilted to one side, her expression dreamy with imagination. "A fascinating and romantic tale."

"Only in retrospect," he said dryly. "At the time it was exhausting work and appalling discomfort, punctuated by occasional spells of heart-stopping danger."

"Ross has said the same thing about his travels. Real adventurers like you and him must think drawing-room romantics like me are rather silly." A trace of wist-fulness showed. "Listening to travelers' tales is the closest I shall ever come to such exploits."

"There are people who want only to be titillated or confirmed in their prejudices. I do not waste my time on them. But I would never think you silly, for you listen with your spirit as well as your ears." He gave her a conspiratorial, self-mocking smile. "Don't tell others how I made my fortune, though. I prefer to be mysterious."

"You are very good at that," she said with demure mischief.

Peregrine caught her gaze with his. The tension of pain was gone, and Lady Sara was rapt and receptive. The time had come to woo her. He concentrated with all the strength of his will, using his power to attract, spinning an invisible net to draw her to him. Her lips parted, uncertain, expectant, as she felt the increasing force between them.

"What drives you, Mikahl?" she asked softly, using his name for the first time. "What makes you different from the rest of your people? Why have you mastered so many skills, why have you crossed the world to come to this small, damp island where most men are too narrow to appreciate all you have achieved?"

"Ever since I was a child, I have known that my destiny lies in England." It was the truth, though not a truth Lady Sara was in a position to interpret. More than that he would not, could not, reveal. Continuing with another half truth, he said, "Perhaps you are part of the reason I am here."

He raised one hand and traced the elegant bones of her cheek and jaw with his fingertips. She stared at him, her lips parted and great eyes helpless with question and longing. Moving closer, he gave her the lightest of kisses, touching only her face, feathering across her forehead and the fragile skin around her eyes until their lips met.