Courting Trouble Read online

  “You were right.” She hugged him enthusiastically.

  He tilted her face up to his, wanting to kiss her.

  “Ahem.” The dourly amused throat-clearing came from Francis, who stood in the doorway.

  Jed glanced up impatiently while Esme backed out of his arms.

  “I thought you’d be wanting to know. That young Indian boy, Gupta, he’s here. Someone’s beaten him.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I’m s-sorry.” Gupta hugged his ribs miserably. His right eye, bloodshot and bruised, was swelling visibly. There was a graze on his chin and his jacket had torn at the left shoulder.

  Rage, red and hot, burned in Jed’s veins. The boy had trusted him to protect his cousin and himself. Yet Nazim had beaten him. He’d failed.

  His ire chilled to a deadly fury. It could have been Esme. Nazim could have attacked her.

  “Francis, have you called Dr. Palmer?” She touched Gupta’s face lightly, turning his head to show the imprint of a ring where a fist had hit him.

  “N-no,” Gupta said urgently. He looked down at his feet. “I failed Lajli. I told him she was not here.”

  “You didn’t fail anyone.” Jed nodded to Francis to make the phone call to the doctor. The way Gupta held himself, he likely had a couple of broken ribs. “Did Nazim demand the return of his blueprints?”

  The boy shook his head, winced and caught his breath painfully. “He just wanted to know where Lajli was. I couldn’t tell him. I think he believed me…in the end.”

  “He seems obsessed with Lajli,” Esme said.

  “She disrupted his plans and stole his money. He’ll want that back, or he’ll want revenge.” Jed understood the feeling. It boiled in him now.

  “Too bad for him. It’ll be all right, Gupta.” Esme gestured Maud forward from the shadows of the hallway. “You’ll stay here till we’ve finalized this business.” And to her housekeeper, “No, no questions now. Just look after Gupta. Admit Dr. Palmer to the house when he arrives, but no one else.”

  Jed looked at Gupta. “I’ll find Nazim. He’ll pay for this.”

  Esme caught Jed’s arm and tugged him into the seldom-used parlor, shutting the door for privacy and with scant regard for the proprieties. “What are you planning?”

  “Nazim wants the blueprints and notes. He can have them. They’ll do him little good. Then he and I are going to have a word. He’s getting desperate. He must know the Indian authorities are on his trail. I intend to take a chunk out of his hide first.”

  “Jed, don’t do anything rash.”

  He gripped her arms. “It could have been you he caught. You he tortured.”

  “I’d have fought back. Poor Gupta.”

  “Esme, you are not invincible. For the love of God, stay here.”

  “While you go out and hunt down Nazim?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t let you do that. Not by yourself.” She grasped his lapels, trying to shake some sense into him. In this unfamiliar mood, she couldn’t trust him not to do something reckless. He could get hurt.

  But even as she worried, a wild excitement coiled in her stomach as his hands tightened and hauled her against him.

  His eyes glittered fiercely as he searched her face. “Sweetheart, we’ve danced around the issue. But enough’s enough. You want to keep me safe. I need to keep you safe. Whatever your doubts, your pride, there’s one indisputable reality.”

  She waited, hands pressed against his chest.

  “You’re mine.” His kiss was hard, hungry and hotly possessive.

  Like a lion roaring, claiming its mate, she thought dizzily. Other men had kissed her, politely or sloppily. None had kissed as if she were the center of their universe.

  An answering passion blazed through her veins. She slid her hands up, around his neck, and opened her mouth.

  Jed groaned. He wrapped one arm around her waist and curled the other around her nape, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin behind her ear.

  She shivered and pressed into him.

  “This wasn’t what I planned.” He scattered hot kisses over her face.

  She was dazed, blissed, shocked at her own responsiveness.

  “Our first kiss. I wanted…” He found her mouth again and that sealed off further words.

  It was like falling into a sensual storm. She tasted the deep, rich maleness of him. His body, hard against her softness, made her ache. She wasn’t weakened but awed by the power of passion.

  He cupped her face with both hands, ending the kiss. “We must stop.” His forehead bumped hers, a gentle caress of regret, acknowledging their shared frustration. “Gupta…we’ll be interrupted.”

  “Jed.” She heard the breathless need in her voice.

  A shudder shook him. He caught her hands and set her at a distance. “You are death to my self-control.”

  “Mmm.” She licked her lower lip, tasting him on her.

  “Esme, have mercy.” His gaze was riveted on her mouth.

  “You started it,” she teased.

  Fire leaped in his eyes. “And I’ll finish it.” It was a vow.

  Shocks of responsive passion rippled through her body. She hugged herself.

  He smiled knowingly.

  “I didn’t know I could feel like this,” she said.

  “I knew. It’s been driving me crazy. First it was your politics and everyone’s insistence on helping me with my bounding-vehicle, not to mention your very busy servants. Then Nazim and your doubts.”

  She studied his face searchingly while he all but vibrated with the need for her to accept his protection, his right to protect the woman he loved. She sighed. “All right. Go and hunt down the villain.”

  “Sweetheart.” He gave her a smacking kiss, more about the violence of his relief at her agreement than of passion or tenderness.

  She tugged at his collar. “But if you come back hurt, I’ll never let you hear the end of it. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I promise,” he said easily.

  Too easily. Jed was in no mood to be cautious. He strode out the door and down the front path, tall, smart, strong and stubborn. And heaven help me, I love him.

  After all her heart searchings, the reality of love and life was devastatingly simple: desire was a risk, but it was also a fabulous gift.

  Still… She drummed her fingers on the sideboard, leaving smudged marks on the polished surface. She rubbed at them with her sleeve, then wandered around the room, thinking.

  She’d given him permission to play the hero while she waited, like a damsel in distress in her tower—and it felt as if she’d chosen well. Why?

  For so long she’d worried that accepting Jed’s courtship compromised her role as a suffragette. She had fought long and hard for women’s rights, and personally, for the respect of her community. But…

  She exhaled, stirring the peacock feathers arranged in a tall vase.

  “I confused independence with respect.” Strength didn’t mean going it alone.

  Worse, in striving for independence, what role had she left for Jed? She hugged her arms around herself, feeling cold as she recalled the desperate look in his eyes. As much as she craved respect, he needed to be needed—by her.

  Men as well as women had to adjust to the new role of women as equal partners. There had to be compromise so that women could assert themselves without emasculating the men—not that Jed’s masculinity could be so easily threatened.

  Gupta and Lajli had given him respect as a protective problem solver. She had to love and respect him for that inherent part of his nature, too.

  She crossed to the parlor door. She would honor the promise to stay safe while he saved the day.

  * * *

  “Miss Esme.” Andrew the gardener’s lad panted through the front door and skidded on the tiles.

  “Did you tell Dr. Palmer we need him to attend Gupta?”

  “Yes, miss. That is, I told his wife. He’s on his rounds but she’ll get a message to hi
m.”

  “Very good. Thank you, Andrew.”

  “Miss.” He thrust an envelope at her as she’d have turned away. “A gentleman said to give this to you. He said as how it was urgent.”

  “A gentleman?” She ripped open the envelope. “Oh, Lord.” She recognized the notebook tucked in with the letter. It was Jed’s inventor’s design book. He’d never willingly part with it. She dropped it on the hall table and shook out the letter. For all her confidence in Jed, that lone notebook terrified her. How deadly might a thwarted anarchist be?

  Miss Smith,

  Your American cavalier found me. I have him safely tied up, keeping company with some dynamite and a timepiece, so don’t try anything clever. You have an hour to bring me either Lajli or the emerald, or he dies. Attempt no heroics. Meet me at the abandoned mill, Carnarvon Street.

  Nazim

  Emerald? Her eyes widened in sudden, shocked understanding. The letter crumpled in her fist as she ran upstairs. She dashed into the guest room Lajli had occupied. The little thief hadn’t wanted sanctuary in a rich man’s house for herself, but for her ill-gotten gains.

  Cushions flew and vases wobbled as Esme searched frantically.

  “Miss Esme?” Gupta and the servants watched from the doorway.

  “Nazim has Jed. I must ransom him.”

  “Heaven defend us.” Maud gripped the doorframe. “I’ll call Colonel Munroe.”

  “No.” Esme spun fast. “Call no one. Say nothing. I am handling this.”

  “Mr. Reeve has not been gone long,” Gupta said doubtingly.

  “Long enough.” The desk lid thudded as Esme released it. She surveyed the room assessingly. Jed’s life was in danger for a stupid green rock. She glared at the crowded doorway. “Leave.”

  The servants scattered. Gupta shuffled off.

  “Lajli, where on earth would you have put it?” The emerald Nazim demanded had to be the stolen Jungle Heart stone, reportedly the size of a man’s fist.

  Lajli had mentioned the bathroom, but the emerald was too large to hide in a bar of soap. Too expensive to risk a servant finding amid the stack of towels.

  Esme looked up.

  The chandelier was remarkably beautiful, totally ridiculous and never used during the day. With no guests, it wouldn’t be lit at night, either.

  She dragged a chair across the tiles, ignoring the harsh grating sound, and climbed up. She balanced a fraction higher by stepping onto the rim of the high marble bath. Her fingers searched blindly, fumbling through dust and then, thank God, encountering a smooth, dustless, faceted surface. She gripped the emerald, hidden by the elaborate arrangement of brass and crystals, and withdrew it carefully, then jumped down from the chair.

  A towel hid the emerald from curious eyes as she ran for her room. In a few minutes she’d shed her dress and stepped into her most practical bloomers suit. She forced the emerald into her pocket. The long modest jacket, designed to disguise the swell of her hips, would serve to hide its bulge. She laced her boots, the special ones modified by her father to her design.

  She picked up a handbag and stuffed a pistol into it. That ought to distract Nazim when he went looking for the emerald.

  As far as she was concerned, he could have the wretched stone…except perhaps the Jungle Heart was large enough to bring down a building using Kali’s Scream?

  Never mind. She’d deal with Nazim. The important point was that the emerald—or rather, his greed for it—would distract him. She needed only an instant.

  She tucked a knife into the sheath strapped to her right wrist and tugged the sleeve down over it.

  On her left hand she fumbled on two rings made by Ayesha and filled with the finest, sharpest mix of eye-watering spices. They’d serve the purpose of distraction. She pinned a fob watch to her jacket. In reality it contained acid that would squirt out at the press of a button. The distance of the stream wasn’t as great as Ayesha had hoped, but again, it was a weapon of desperation.

  As Esme walked down the stairs, she coiled a radically thin and flexible whip and pushed it into her spare hip pocket.

  She was as ready as she’d ever be.

  Vengeance.

  And after she’d dealt with Nazim, she’d find Lajli and give that girl the trouble she deserved.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The big bay gelding Jed rode fretted as he leaned from the saddle to question the little socialist, Mr. Campion. “I’m looking for Ishaan Prasad. Since you organized his talk at the Mechanics Institute, I thought you might know where he is.”

  Mr. Campion shook his head as the tram he’d just descended from rattled away. “Although I believe he’s staying at the Raj Hotel.”

  “Thanks. I’m on my way there.” The decision to question acquaintances on Nazim’s whereabouts had struck him while waiting for the tram to pass by. It wouldn’t hurt to let Nazim know Jed was hunting him. Gupta’s beating—surely the action of a desperate man—meant the trappings of civilization had been dispensed with.

  Suits me. The thought that Nazim might attack Esme next made him fiercely protective. Not that his darling suffragette would appreciate his wrap-her-in-cotton-wool instincts. His gut tightened as he recalled her passionate response to his kiss. She was a woman of reckless daring. She had exploded into his life and he was keeping her. He vowed she’d never regret loving him.

  Which meant he had to catch Nazim today before she lost patience and slipped out to do her own hunting. He wouldn’t put it past her. Life with Esme might prove hair-raising, but it would never be boring.

  As for dealing with Nazim, fortunately he’d grown up in California and knew something of frontier justice. If blockheaded officialdom in the person of Colonel Munroe wouldn’t listen, then Jed was in the mood to deal with Nazim directly. He hoped the man would show some fight, because his own fists were itching to avenge Gupta’s beating. Then a bribe to a ship’s captain and Nazim would be on his way back to India, whether he wanted to be or not. And if he ever returned to the Swan River Colony—

  I’ll kill him.

  He urged the bay into a trot as they crossed the bridge to Bombaytown. Festive bunting was already strung over the bridge for Diwali. A butcher’s van’s horse took exception to its flapping. Jed skirted the traffic chaos and plunged into the greater chaos of Bombaytown. He passed the shop of Esme’s friend Mrs. Ayesha Dam on his way to the Raj Hotel. Its small walls were crammed with children and a few women in colorful saris. The children waved Diwali toys in the air. The women emerged cradling lamps. He decided against stopping to ask about Nazim’s whereabouts. He’d ask at the hotel, and if they didn’t know, a few bribes would send runners out through the crowded, gossiping streets, and someone would bring back the information of his whereabouts, even if he wasn’t in Bombaytown.

  The Raj Hotel failed to meet the grandiose promise of its name, but its white and blue interior was clean and tidy and as busy as everywhere else, with Diwali approaching. Jed caught the manager’s eye. The harassed man abandoned a family party unable to be accommodated in the already full hotel to his assistant and crossed over to Jed. Discreetly, Jed passed Mr. Kumar a pound note.

  Mr. Kumar sent a bellboy running to check Mr. Ishaan Prasad’s room.

  The shake of the boy’s head gave them the answer even before he snaked his way through the crowded foyer. “No.”

  “It is urgent that I speak with Mr. Prasad. May I trespass on your kindness and ask that you inform people that I am looking for him? There is a reward.” Jed passed over more money.

  The bellboy’s eyes lit up. It was regrettably obvious that he was about to abandon his regular duties. The hunt for Nazim was on.

  * * *

  In a militant mood that barely masked her fear for Jed, Esme marched through the hallway, past Gupta sitting limply by the telephone, and down the front steps. As ordered, her mare, Minnie, was saddled and waiting. Esme swung into the saddle.

  Francis handed her his prized set of brass knuckles, well-polished. “Rememb
er. If you have to hit, hit hard.” He patted her knee with grandfatherly concern.

  “And tuck my thumb away. I remember.” She slipped the brass knuckles into a pocket and set off at a canter.

  Magpies caroled in the trees. Children played hopscotch and skipped rope. Washing flapped on clotheslines, airing in the fresh spring breeze. Bees hummed among roses and in the sweetly scented lemon trees. The town gave way to open country. Nazim had chosen an isolated rendezvous point.

  She dismounted out of sight of the derelict mill and hitched the mare to the low branch of a gum tree. A quick check confirmed all her weapons were in place. It was time to squish Nazim like a bug. No one threatened Jed.

  As she approached the mill, she forced her shoulders to hunch, as if crushed with fear, and her footsteps to echo with hurried uncertainty rather than striding fury. She drew a resolute breath, tugged her fashionable hat forward to conceal the anger that undoubtedly glittered in her eyes, and rounded the corner of the ramshackle storage shed that leaned against the old mill’s redbrick wall.

  The small weatherworn door the miller had used as his private entrance stood open. At the edge of the stream of sunlight that poured in, she saw the pointed toes of Nazim’s polished boots.

  She heard the soft click of a pistol being cocked.

  “You are in my sights, Miss Smith. Enter carefully.”

  She did so and blinked in the dimness. Blast it. Here was a factor she hadn’t considered. Till her eyes adjusted, Nazim had the advantage. “Jed?” No answer, not even a muffled grunt. “Where’s Jed?”

  “I have no idea.” Nazim laughed as she whirled to face him. “No, no, stay your distance. You were ridiculously easy to fool, but I’m taking no chances. Where is the emerald?” He gestured with the gun. “No games.”

  Blood pounded through her body and pulsed up behind her ears, threatening her with untimely faintness. “Jed is safe?”