Virginia Henley Read Online Free PDF Page A

oval pool. It was breathtaking in its beauty and grace. Leopards had a trick of appearing with no perceptible approach.
    His strong brown hand went to the pistol tucked in his belt, but it was an unconscious gesture to reassure himself it was there if needed. To Adam Savage shooting animals who came to drink was murder. High leather boots reached to his well-muscled thighs to guard against scorpion, centipede, and snake.
    A half-smile touched his lips as he recalled how waryhe’d been of snakes when he first arrived in the Indies. He’d worked his way on an East Indiaman to buy wood for his father, who was a cabinetmaker. He’d sent back satinwood, ebony, teak, mahogany, sandalwood, and he had discovered calamander, stronger and finer than any rosewood. In those early days he’d seen pythons on every trunk, cobras beneath every fern, but there was an Eastern saying, “Only he who fears snakes sees them,” and it was true. Now, he never saw them. They were there. He’d hear them slither through the rafters, hear them thrash about catching rats, and hear the rats squeal when they became a meal, but once he accepted snakes as necessary to keep down vermin, he never noticed them again.
    One of the things he would truly miss when he returned to England was the fantastic wildlife. In the distance he heard the banshee wail of a pack of jackals. Every hour of the day and night was filled with the sights and sounds of Ceylon’s exotic fauna. Twilight was the hour of winged creatures. At sunset the caves disgorged their hordes of fruit bats. Some, called flying foxes, had four-foot wing-spans, others no bigger than a bumblebee would fly to his bungalow as if they were invited dinner guests to feed on the swarms of insects that were attracted to the glow of the oil lamps. Anything like the gekko or house lizard that dashed about everywhere and devoured flies and mosquitoes was devoutly welcomed.
    Suddenly Adam’s nostrils were filled with the sweet, heavenly perfume of the iron tree. Hindus believed that the God of Love tipped his arrows with this blossom. Savage closed his eyes and thought of Eve. He finally admitted to himself that he wanted her. Now that she was a widow, no barrier prevented him from taking her. She liked to flirt, she liked to have men at her feet, but that was a game many pretty women played. It was Important to him that their attraction was mutual. His hand went to his face to finger the scar that marred him. Not that he’d had any claim to beauty before the knife had carved adeep gash that ran from the side of his nose right through his top lip. But now his strong, masculine features had taken on a dark, sinister look that hinted at an unsavory past.
    He knew Fate had marked him as a grim reminder of his sins, and as Omar Khayyam had written, not all his piety could cancel half a line. His looks frightened off young women, yet ironically, older women, especially married ones, were attracted to his saturnine face almost irresistibly.
    Sometimes he thought Eve sent him subtle invitations, but he had never acted upon them. Not that it was against his code to seduce a married woman, it was only against his integrity to dishonor a trusted friend by sleeping with his wife. And Russell Lamb had been a trusted friend.
    One more white devoured by the tropics. The Indies did that with relentless frequency, yet he had always thrived here. He respected the country and its climate, realizing from the beginning that large meals accompanied by flagons of wine at midday would kill off a white man quicker than disease.
    Tomorrow, Lady Evelyn Lamb was coming to Leopard’s Leap to dine with him for the first time. Previously he had always dined with Lord and Lady Lamb at Government House, their palatial home on the next plantation. Though the house was imposing, the plantation was insignificant when compared with his twenty thousand acres, but the paperwork of the East India Company had kept Russell chained to his desk