He came up from his crouch with considerable momentum, cleaving his way bodily through the crowd. He came up with her just in time to grab her and haul her away from the blade a cultist thrust at her.
Her gasp was drowned beneath a cacophony of sound-exclamations, shrieks, shouts. Others had seen the menacing sword, but even as the crowd turned and garrulously searched, the cultists melted away. Taller than most, Gareth saw them pull back. Over the heads, one cultist-an older, black-bearded man-met his eye. Even across the distance, Gareth felt the malevolence in the man’s gaze. Then the man turned and was swallowed by the crowd.
Mooktu appeared by Gareth’s shoulder. “Should we follow?”
Bister was already further afield, scouting.
Gareth’s instincts screamed
With her parasol now askew, he looked down into wide, moss-hazel eyes. Into a face that was as perfect as he recalled, but pale. She was stunned.
At least she wasn’t screaming.
“No.” He glanced at Mooktu. “We have to get away from here-off the docks-quickly.”
Mooktu nodded. “I’ll get the others.”
He was gone on the word, leaving Gareth to set Miss Ensworth back on her feet.
Gently, as if she were porcelain and might shatter at any instant.
“Are you all right?”
As the warmth-the heat-of his hard hands fell from her, Emily managed to blink. “Y-yes.” This must be what shock felt like.
Indeed, she was amazed she hadn’t swooned. He’d seized her, dragged her from danger, then held her close, effectively plastered to the side of his body. His brick-wall-hard, excessively warm-not to say hot-body.
She didn’t think she’d ever be the same.
“Ah…” Where was a fan when one needed one? She glanced around, and noise suddenly assaulted her ears. Everyone was talking, in several different languages.
Hamilton hadn’t moved. He stood like a rock amid the sea of surging humanity. She wasn’t too proud to shelter in his lee.
She finally located Mullins-her grizzly ex-soldier guard-as he came stumping back through the crowd. Just before the attack, a wave of bodies had pushed him ahead and separated them-then her attacker had stepped between her and Watson, her courier-guide, who’d been following on her heels.
Her people were armed, but having lost her assailant in the melee, they gradually returned. Mullins recognized Hamilton as a solider even though he wasn’t in uniform, and raised a hand in an abbreviated salute. “Thanking you, sir-don’t know what we’d’ve done without you.”
Emily noted the way Hamilton’s lips tightened. She was grateful he didn’t state the obvious-if not for his intervention, she’d be dead.
The rest of her party gathered. Without prompting, she quickly put names and roles to their worried faces- Mullins, Watson, Jimmy, Watson’s young nephew, and Dorcas, her very English maid.
Hamilton acknowledged the information with a nod, then looked from her to Watson. “Where were you planning to stay?”
Hamilton and his people-a batman in his mid-twenties but with experience etched in his face, a fierce Pashtun warrior, and his equally fierce wife-escorted her party off the docks, then, with their combined luggage in a wooden cart, continued through the streets of Aden to the edge of the diplomatic quarter, and the quietly fashionable hotel her uncle had recommended.
Hamilton halted in the street outside, studied the building, then simply said, “No.” He glanced at her, then past her to Mullins. “You can’t stay there. There’re too many entrances.”
Stunned anew-and she still hadn’t managed to marshal her senses enough to think through the implications of the cultists’ attack-she looked at Mullins to discover him nodding his grizzled head.
“You’re right,” Mullins allowed. “Death trap, that is.” He glanced at her and added, “In the circumstances.”
Before she could argue, Hamilton smoothly continued, “For the moment, at least, I’m afraid our parties will need to stay together.”
She looked at him.
He caught her eye. “We need to find somewhere a lot less…obvious.”
There was nothing the least obvious about the house in the Arab quarter Emily later found herself gracing. Not far from the docks, and in the opposite direction to the area inhabited by Europeans, she had to admit the private guesthouse was quite the last place anyone would think to look for her-the Governor of Bombay’s niece.
Nestled behind a high stone wall off a minor side street, the modest house was arranged around a central courtyard. The owners, an Arab family, lived in one wing, leaving the main living quarters and two other wings of bedchambers for guests.
At present their combined party were the only guests. From what she’d understood of the negotiations, Hamilton had hired the entire house for the duration of their stay.
He hadn’t consulted her, not even informed her of his intentions. He hadn’t told her anything at all-simply whisked her and her people up, and set them down there with his household.
Admittedly they were safe. Or at least as safe as they could be.
She’d been just a little distracted at the time as the implications of the attack on the docks had finally impinged. Realizing she’d come within an inch of death had sobered and shaken her, but had also raised questions-ones she couldn’t answer.
She was fairly sure Hamilton could. As soon as she’d seen her people settled, and had washed off the dust of the streets, she made her way to the salon that served as drawing room-cum-parlor.
Hamilton was there, alone, seated on one of the long cushion-covered divans. He looked up, saw her, and came to his feet.
With an easy smile, she went forward, and sat on the divan to his left. Opposite, wide doors stood open to the courtyard, with its small central pool and shading tree.
He resumed his seat. “I…er, hope you have everything you need.”
“The accommodations are adequate, thank you.” They were not what she was accustomed to, but they were clean and comfortable enough-they would do. “However”-she fixed her gaze on his face-“I have a number of questions, Major, that I hope you’ll be able to answer. I only caught the briefest glimpse of my attacker, but I saw enough to know he was a Black Cobra cultist. What I don’t understand is why he would attack me, or why a cultist should be here, in Aden, at all.”
When he didn’t leap into reassuring speech, she went on, “The only contact I’ve had with the Black Cobra cult is through the incident with poor Captain MacFarlane and the packet I delivered for him to your friend, Colonel Delborough. I presume the attack today was connected with that?”
Gareth studied her face-her determined expression, the directness of her gaze-and regretfully jettisoned his preferred option of revealing nothing at all. If she’d been a typical miss with not a great deal of wit…but there was intelligence, willfulness, and a definite-potentially dangerous-curiosity lurking behind her lovely eyes…“I suspect the cultists are here to intercept me, and yes, that’s linked to the packet you brought to Bombay. The only reasons they would have for attacking you is if they recognized you, and either thought you might still have the packet, or simply wanted to punish you for your part in the packet’s loss.”
“What’s in the packet the Black Cobra wants so desperately?”
As he’d thought-far too quick-witted. He’d hoped to gloss over his mission, conceal the major aspects, but…her moss-hazel gaze was too acute, too intent. And many-she, certainly-would argue she had a right to know, now more than ever given the cult had just demonstrated that it wasn’t inclined to overlook her part in the affair. He inwardly sighed. “I assume you’d prefer I start at the beginning?”
“Indeed.”
“Five of us-Delborough, me, Major Logan Monteith, Captains Rafe Carstairs and James MacFarlane-were sent to Bombay by Governor-General Hastings with specific orders to do whatever was needed to bring the Black Cobra
