Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3) (15 page)

Nashruu’s throat tightened. Did she know about the top
secret engines on board Hadre’s ship?

“Tell Grandfather that the crew of the
Golden Barracuda
needs to be much more
discreet, or the Ravidians will figure out it’s not a typical junk, if they don’t
already know,” QuiTai said. “Remember, any farwriter can receive your
transmissions if someone stumbles upon the frequency, even if you change it
daily. That’s why Grandfather delivers his most important messages in person.
So chose your words carefully when you share my warning with him.”

QuiTai had a way of clipping the end of her sentences to
indicate she’d said all she meant to say. Nashruu certainly thought she’d said
enough.

“Is the
water hot?” QuiTai asked.

She
changed subjects so abruptly.

“Yes.”

“Go ahead
and make your cup. I prefer you be settled before we start the next part of
this conversation.”

Nashruu
rinsed out the pot with some of the heated water. “What is the next part?”

“We
discuss why you’re here. I gather Grandfather has instructed you to make some
sort of deal with me.”

“Do you take sugar?” Nashruu put leaves in the pot and
poured the rest of the water over them.

“None for me, thank you.”

“No sugar?”

“No tea. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s a little quirk of
mine.”

Nashruu laughed uncertainly. “But you ate the cake.”

QuiTai held out her hand. It was almost too dark to tell,
but the cake she held looked whole. Yet Nashruu was sure she’d seen her eat it.

“Never assume. What you believe you’ve seen may be an
illusion.”

“Why would I poison you now? We haven’t even begun to talk,”
Nashruu said.

“This is going to sound fanciful–”

“I’ve never heard you described that way.”

QuiTai smiled down at her feet.

She’s modest, or at
least she pretends well. Grandfather never mentioned that!

“In the jellylantern
serials, they always slip poison to the hero and then withhold the antidote
until he does what they tell him to. Pure rubbish, I think, but one can never
be too sure. The chemists in Thampur have been so busy in their laboratories
lately. Busy, busy, making weapons of war, great and small. Who knows what they
might be concocting?”

“And you’re
our hero, Lady QuiTai?”

“Oh no,
my dear. Never. I’m the villain.”

She knew the spike of fear that went through her was
silly, because QuiTai couldn’t possibly have magical powers. Nashruu had
watched her every second since she’d entered the dungeon, hadn’t she? It wasn’t
possible that QuiTai could have slipped between the bars and doctored her tea
while she was watching, any more than it was possible that QuiTai had been standing
inches away from her in the darkness at the top of the stairs earlier. The woman
couldn’t possibly glide through iron bars like a spirit, and she couldn’t
become invisible.

The dungeon walls echoed with a guttural moan. It had to
be her imagination. This was a little play that QuiTai was staging for her
benefit. That sound couldn’t be real.

Nashruu set down her cup and pushed it away.

Two rings of gold glowed from the dark pits of QuiTai’s
eyes. With her chin lowered and the jellylantern casting dim light up on her
face, she gave Nashruu the shivers.

“Now, let’s talk about why Grandfather sent you here, Ma’am
Zul.”

Nashruu
knew she should
tell Grandfather that QuiTai had turned down his deal, but
she was putting it off. From the moment she’d returned to the compound, her
servants had harassed her with a million stupid questions. Unpacked crates
still sat in the foyer. The remains of their meal littered the dining table.
Tempers were on edge.

Her maid, Simarn, followed her up the stairs and
breathlessly delivered a list of complaints against the others. Nashruu made
sympathetic noises and unbuttoned her jacket. Before it could fall to the
floor, the maid snatched it away.

Nashruu drew in a deep breath as her maid unlaced her
corset. Underneath, her shift was damp with sweat.

“No wonder those snakes wear nothing under their thin
blouses,” Simarn said.

“Maybe if I went without my corset I wouldn’t get so hot.
Oh, that look? You’re the one who brought it up.”

“It wasn’t a suggestion, Ma’am.”

Allowances had to be made for the heat, but that attitude
had to change quickly. Simarn had received an outrageous bonus for agreeing to
come to Ponong. She shouldn’t blame Nashruu if the colony wasn’t to her liking.

“Governor Zul says we are to refer to the natives as
Ponongese, not snakes,” Nashruu reminded her.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Is my bath ready?”

“Yes, Ma’am, although you might wilt in that steam, so I
also left you a pitcher of water by your basin. We drew it up from a well, so
it’s cool, but not enough to give you a chill.”

The idea
of getting a chill in Levapur was absurd.

“That was
very thoughtful of you, Simarn. I’ll need my blue dress when I go out this
afternoon.”

“You’re
leaving again?”

Being
scolded by one’s maid was simply too much. Nashruu gave her a stern look.

“Yes, Ma’am.
Shall I close the doors?” Simarn indicated the typhoon shutters that were open
to the veranda, although wood screens had been pulled across the opening for
privacy.

“Leave them open. Perhaps the breeze will pick up.”

Even if it hadn’t been so hot, with her eyes closed,
Nashruu would have known she was far from home. She’d never thought about
Surrayya having a scent until now. It never smelled of dirt, verdant plants,
decay like the jungle, the sharp spices of the marketplace, or the cloying
sweetness of the flowers that grew on the trellis over the typhoon shutters.
Surrayya smelled of the canals and damp velvet frocks, or like a storm coming
over the ocean.

Simarn put Nashruu’s afternoon frock into the wardrobe,
bowed, and left the room.

Nashruu pulled her shift over her head and let it drop on
the floor. It seemed so improper to stand naked inside her room with the doors
wide open to the courtyard. No one could see through the wood screens unless
they stood on the veranda, but still, it felt dangerous. She never would have
done it in Surrayya. She wondered if Kyam would ever be tempted to creep across
the veranda that linked their rooms to peek in at her.

How funny to think of her husband coming to her bedroom as
scandalous, wicked even. The idea probably wouldn’t have sent a shiver down her
spine if it hadn’t been forbidden. She’d never given much thought to Kyam as a
husband. He’d always been more theoretical than a reality to her, but for the
first time since their wedding, they would be living in the same house. Anything
could happen on this island.

She dipped a sponge in a basin of water, squeezed it, and
dragged it from her wrist to her shoulder. The warm breeze flowed over the
drops of water on her heated skin. She lifted her hair to wipe the nape of her
neck. It felt so lovely.

After the terrible things she’d heard about Ponong, she’d
been prepared to hate it, but at her first glimpse of the agricultural terraces
carved into the steep slopes of the mountains, the white streaks of waterfalls
cascading hundreds of feet through the deep green of the jungle, and the
turquoise lagoons, she’d felt free. Grandfather was miles away. The rules that
had governed her every waking moment no longer seemed to apply. If one were
smart, one could get away with almost anything here – she hoped. For
eight years, she’d been forbidden a lover. Eight long years of listening to
friends complain about their husband’s physical demands, of fending off libertines,
of praying for release.

Rivulets of water trickled down her thighs. If only she
could have written to Voorus and told him she was coming to Levapur. Kyam
couldn’t have done anything to stop her from flinging herself into his arms at
the dock.

Except that he might have beaten or killed her afterward.
He would be expected to. Grandfather’s protections were always such
double-edged swords. Constrained and practically imprisoned in his house for
years, she’d at least been safe from Kyam. She didn’t think he was the type to
do such a thing, but one never knew with men.

She assumed she was safe from him. Grandfather seemed to
anticipate everything… with the exception of Lady QuiTai.

Nashruu smiled at the memory as she squeezed the sponge
and let water spill down her spine.

The evening before the rice riot in Levapur, back in
Surrayya, Nashruu had gone to the ballroom with Grandfather. Grandfather had
been genuinely shocked when QuiTai had used Kyam’s farwriter to contact him.
Then he’d chuckled. But the thing Nashruu remembered most about that night was
how, for the first time, she’d seen fear on Grandfather’s face, and she knew
QuiTai was the person who’d made him feel that way.

She had to save QuiTai today, because QuiTai was the only
one who could shatter Grandfather’s shackles. QuiTai had done it for Kyam.
Would she do the same thing for a woman she had just met? Maybe she would to
thwart Grandfather…

Yes, QuiTai might help move her beyond Grandfather’s
reach. But first, she had to convince QuiTai to accept his deal. She had to
hand him what he wanted to get free. A prisoner exchange. QuiTai for her. How
could she trick QuiTai into it? There had to be something the woman wanted,
something QuiTai valued above her own life.

Nashruu set down the sponge and looked about the room for
her silk wrap. Simarn hadn’t put it out. Perhaps it was still in the luggage.

It felt strange to move around the room absolutely naked.
One stepped immediately from a bath into a warmed towel, from a night shift
into an undershift. One was never naked for more than a few seconds at most.
One never looked at one’s own body, or touched it, or took pleasure in it. A
Thampurian lady was above such animal behavior.

She tugged the top sheet from her bed and quickly wrapped
it around herself.

~ ~ ~

Nashruu tucked the corner of the bed sheet between her
breasts so she could type with both hands when she sat before the farwriter.
How scandalized would Grandfather be if he knew her shoulders were bare and she
was wearing a sarong of sorts?

Now
she
was one
of those mysterious people sending messages to Grandfather. She pictured him
hovering over the receiving farwriter. A card with her chop would be placed in
front of the machine. A farwriter was dedicated solely to her.

After cranking the generator, she cleared her throat as if
she were about to speak. Was someone reading what she wrote? Maybe QuiTai was
right, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She had to report. Her
short, slim fingers curved over the keys as she composed her message.
 

I went to the
fortress as ordered. Made offer to Q. NaZ

And? TtZ

She could picture him tapping his fingernails on the table
beside her farwriter. She’d never squirmed under the gaze of her parents or
tutors, but she shifted uneasily now.

What would he want to know about first? She might as well
get the worst out of the way.

Q refused deal. NaZ

Tell me the
conversation, from beginning to end. TtZ

Nashruu realized she couldn’t remember QuiTai’s exact
words. She wasn’t sure what had been said, what was implied, and what she’d
imagined anymore. Grandfather would be so angry.

The
farwriter’s bell rang again before she could type. He was impatient.

The conversation, in detail. TtZ

“I’m typing as fast as I can,” she told the farwriter.

We talked for a
while. It’s difficult to remember exactly what was said. NaZ

I warned you that
with her, one must pay attention to every detail. TtZ

He always made her feel miserable and stupid.

She cleared her mind and let impressions of the
conversation float through it. What was important to pass along? Except that
QuiTai had turned her down, not much. She shared QuiTai’s warning about the
ship’s doctor and the sailors giving away the secret engine on board the
Golden Barracuda
as cryptically as she
could. The longer she typed, the more pieces of the conversation came back to
her. Her confidence rose. She could do this.

She doesn’t seem to
care if she dies, or to want what you offered her. NaZ

Did she say what she
wants? TtZ

Nashruu winced as she typed QuiTai’s words as faithfully
as she could remember them. She expected the secret police to crash through the
door and arrest her for repeating them. It had to be treason to even think of
the King kneeling to someone, much less apologizing for stealing their land.

A typical
negotiating tactic. It would be more convincing if her situation wasn’t so
dire. Let her sit in the dark for a few hours and imagine the noose around her
neck. Then go back and offer her less. She’ll fold as the sun dips in the sky.
TtZ

I don’t think so.
NaZ

You don’t think so?
You know nothing. TtZ

She shrank back. Nothing was ever good, no effort was ever
enough.

It gave her grim satisfaction to type,
She said she’d go to the noose smiling
because she denied you what you wanted from her. NaZ

Minutes passed. Nashruu picked at her fingernails and
chewed on the cuticles. Simarn came in with her dress and parasol. She rose
from the dressing table and let the sheet drop. Her maid averted her eyes as
she helped Nashruu put on a sleeveless chemise with a pink silk flower at the
neckline. Nashruu stepped into the skirt. It was always a tug-of-war to
persuade her undergarments to stop bunching up under the silk. Once she’d
donned the jacket, her maid smoothed her curls and placed a matching hat on her
head.