The Tiger's Bride. Merline Lovelace
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curtained platform, she reminded herself, then flushed again at the direction of her wayward thoughts. Giving up all hope of controlling what she knew was an unbecoming wash of color, Sarah lifted her chin and waited for him to acknowledge her presence.
He certainly took his time about it.
Slipping the pale, nervous nephew a coin, he slid the door panel shut. Sarah saw him wince when it banged against the door frame. His black brows lowered into a frown, as if the mere sound of the bamboo striking bamboo pained him. When he turned and saw who stood at the foot of the bed, his frown deepened into a decided scowl.
Sarah stiffened as startlingly blue eyes raked her from head to toe. When his gaze lingered far too long on the slope of her bosom, evident even under the loosely fitting blue cotton robe, her hands curled into fists inside the wide sleeves.
His gaze returned to her face at last, and the dangerous look on his face lifted the hairs on the back of Sarah’s neck. She found herself quite unable to break the silence that stretched between them. After a long, tense moment, Straithe shrugged out of his green frock coat and tossed it onto the foot of the bed.
“I take it Mei-Lin is indisposed,” he drawled. “I hope you know her repertoire. I’ve developed a decided partiality for her version of the Fluttering Butterfly.”
Sarah wet her lips. Obviously, Straithe was not at all pleased to find someone other than his chosen paramour awaiting him in this decadent chamber. Before she could respond, he lifted a brow in mocking inquiry.
“Perhaps you have your own specialty?”
Sarah shook herself out of her uncharacteristic timidity. He was only a man, after all. There was no reason for her flesh to raise into goose bumps at the mere sound of his voice. Deciding to let her actions speak for her, she drew herself up to her full, if not particularly impressive, height and tugged off the concealing straw hat.
As she’d known it would, her hair drew his eyes like a lodestone draws iron filings. Sarah realized that the heavy mass must be frizzing in its usual undisciplined manner all over her head. The humidity of Macao’s summers defied her every attempt to subdue the stubborn mass. An undistinguished color somewhere between brick and ginger, it was hot, heavy, and the bane of her existence. One of the banes, she amended, remembering her father. At the thought of The Reverend Mr. Abernathy, she lifted her chin.
“I’ve come to speak with you, Lord Straithe.”
“Have you, Miss Abernathy?”
The fact that he knew her name took some of the starch out of Sarah’s spine. It was one thing for her to recognize the rogue who caused a veritable storm of gossip whenever his ship appeared in the bay. It was something else again for the dissipated lord to recognize her.
“How do you know who I am?” she asked, curiosity overcoming her nervousness at his rather sinister expression.
“Why shouldn’t I know you? You appear to know me.”
“I hardly think the one leads to the other.”
“Does it not, Miss Abernathy?”
Sarah stiffened at the mockery in his deep voice. Gathering her dignity, she met his sardonic look with a steady one of her own. “Macao is a small community. It would be strange indeed for me not to recognize someone of your reputation.”
That black brow went up another notch.
“And it would be stranger still,” she continued, “not to notice someone of your…generous…proportions. Which explains how I know you, my lord. Now perhaps you’ll explain how it is that you recognize me?”
The saturnine expression on his face deepened. One corner of his mouth curled downward as he crossed both arms, straining the shoulder seams of his linen shirt.
“As you say, Macao is indeed a small community. There aren’t more than a handful of Englishwomen in residence. It would be difficult for any man not to notice someone of your…generous…proportions.”
Sarah didn’t care for the way he’d turned her words back on her. She’d never enjoyed anything close to Abigail’s sylphlike slenderness, but until this moment she hadn’t considered herself more than well-boned. She soon realized, however, that Lord Straithe considered only a particular portion of her anatomy generous. His blue eyes traveled once again down her throat to her bosom and stayed there for a thoroughly unnerving length of time.
Heat surged through Sarah’s cheeks with a vengeance. The urge to cross her arms over her chest and shield herself from Straithe’s inspection battled with an equally compelling urge to smack his face.
These very proper impulses gave way almost immediately, however, to the very improper one that frequently overtook Sarah at the most inopportune times. After a brief struggle, her sense of the absurd won out over other, more violent emotions. Lifting rueful brown eyes to the blue ones watching her with such lazy menace, Sarah gave a low, reluctant chuckle.
“Touché, Lord Straithe. Or, as my brother Harry would say, a neat riposte.”
At the sound of her low, musical chuckle, Jamie Kerrick felt his jaw tighten ominously. He was in no mood for laughter.
“You have a damned peculiar sense of humor, Miss Abernathy,” he growled.
She nodded. “I fear you’re right. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that it’s my worst fault Or one of the worst,” she amended with a small smile.
Jamie glared at her, unable to comprehend her levity. If the truth were told, he was having difficulty comprehending much of anything at this moment. His temples pounded from cup after cup of syrupy-sweet plum wine and his temper tugged at a short rein from hours of fruitless negotiation with the mandarin who controlled the port. More to the point, his loins ached in anticipation of what normally occurred in this chamber.
From the instant he’d turned and discovered that the woman waiting for him wasn’t his usual companion, his tenuous hold on his temper had grown more uncertain with each passing moment.
He’d identified her immediately, of course. There weren’t many young Englishwomen in Macao with her generous physical endowments, and damned few who’d have the audacity to track him down to the House of the Dancing Blossoms. She was certainly her father’s daughter, Jamie thought sourly.
He’d met The Reverend Mr. Abernathy briefly the last time he was in port, just before his first mate pitched the missionary overboard. The crew of the Phoenix hadn’t taken kindly to the wild-eyed zealot who’d stormed aboard and tried to point out the error of their admittedly loose ways. Especially since they’d just completed a rough, three-month voyage and were far more interested in boat girls than baptisms.
Jamie had glimpsed the man’s daughter for the first time just a few days ago. She’d been taking the air on the Praya Grande with a lively young lad at the time. At first he’d mistaken her for a governess, given her dowdy dress and sturdy, no-nonsense walking boots. But even the unadorned green gown couldn’t disguise her noble feminine attributes. A man would have to be blind or dead from the neck down not to appreciate that prominent bosom, and Jamie was neither. The information that she was the missionary’s spinster daughter had quickly killed his incipient interest, however. He much preferred willing, experienced matrons or the delightful residents of the House of the Dancing Blossoms to dedicated, desiccated virgins.
Seeing her now at close quarters, Jamie wondered if he should have pursued his initial interest. Miss Abernathy possessed a mouth as full and generous as a man could wish for, a slender nose, and eyes that looked out on the world with a disconcerting directness. Fringed by thick, black lashes, their brown irises flecked with gold, they reminded Jamie of fine sherry poured from a crystal decanter. At this moment, they glowed with the remnants of her surprising, irritating, and wholly unexpected