“Papa, tell him to be quiet!” Linley cried. “He is being very unfair to Patrick.”
“No,” Sir Bedford said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid Archie is right. Lord Kyre is not part of this team and, therefore, does not get a vote. Now, all in favor of continuing on, raise their hands.” Archie, Reginald, and Linley’s father put their hands up. “All in favor of returning home…” Linley and Schoville raised theirs, knowing they’d been outnumbered from the start. “Then it is settled. Tomorrow we head for the Himalayas.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Patrick beat the tall grass with a large bamboo stick. For the first time in days, the rain eased up, making their walk through the tiger-infested forests a little more pleasant. The elephants and their masters had long since returned to Guahati, leaving the Talbot-Martin team to continue on foot.
In the distance, pale green mountains blurred the sky, pointing them in the direction of the Himalayas that lay beyond. Every day, Patrick kept his focus on the horizon, ignoring the blisters on his feet, and delighting in each moment he spent at Linley’s side.
“Haven’t seen a tiger today,” he said to her. “Have you?”
“No, not today,” she said, walking beside him.
“I wonder where they all are?”
“Probably sleeping off this heat. We’re the only ones foolish enough to be tramping through the grass at this time of day.”
Behind them, her father and the rest of their team hacked and sliced at the grass. Linley and Patrick were younger—although Patrick only beat Reginald by a few years—and they moved faster than the others.
Patrick used his free hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “Perhaps when we get to the edge of these grasslands we could ask your father for a break. I’m sure he could use a few minutes rest.”
“Good idea,” Linley said, looking back at her father. “I worry about him. He’s well into his sixties, but I don’t remember him ever slowing down. He is just the same as he was when I was little, and I wonder how long he can go on pushing himself like he does.”
They slowed their pace to let the others catch up. Schoville tied his bandana around his forehead to keep the sweat from dripping in his eyes, and soon it grew damp with perspiration. Archie and Reginald’s wet shirts clung to their muscular frames. Linley’s father, head shielded from the sun by a wide-brimmed bush hat, still wore his khaki jacket even though it hung from his body wrinkled beyond belief.
“It’s awfully hot, Papa,” Linley said. “Don’t you think we should rest until everything cools off?”
“When it cools off it will be dark,” he replied. “And tigers hunt at night.” Her father patted her shoulder as he passed, refusing to slow his pace for anyone. “Best to keep moving, Button.”
Moving. That was all they did. By the time Linley turned twenty, she’d lived in Calcutta, Cairo, Athens, Hong Kong, and the Holy Land—not counting the six months she spent in Machu Picchu, or their “permanent” home in Malta.
“You look tired,” Patrick said. “Do you want me to carry your pack?”
Linley shook her head. “No, you have your own to worry about.”
“I may not be as strapping as your friend Archie,” he said, “But I assure you I can handle the extra load.”
“Why there is this need for competition between the two of you, I’ll never know. You are not rivals, especially not for my attention.”
“Perhaps for your father’s attention, then. Though I must admit Archie is the clear winner in that respect.”
She smiled at him. “Archie can have my father and you can have me.”
“That is a good compromise,” Patrick said, grinning.
***
As the sun sank behind the mountains, the Talbot-Martin team set up camp at the edge of the forest. The journey would be almost entirely uphill from that point on. Thankfully, the temperature cooled with the rise in altitude.
Patrick sat at the edge of camp, as it was his turn to be on tiger duty. Somehow, Linley convinced the team he was capable of handling a rifle—something not even his own repeated assurances managed to do. To them, he was incompetent, spoiled, and downright idiotic. Archie slung insults at him. Reginald repeated every blunder Patrick made, much to the team’s amusement. Even Linley, the only person on his side, found his ineptitude endearingly funny.
They wouldn’t be laughing when he saved them from being hauled off by a man-eater. As Patrick sat in the dwindling twilight, rifle across his lap, he fantasized about drawing a bead right between the eyes of a tiger. He’d drop the beast in the nick of time—just after it mauled Archie’s face, but before it took that final, lethal swipe of its razor sharp claws.
No, they wouldn’t be laughing then.
“I brought you some coffee,” Linley said, settling down beside him. “And I slipped a bit of whiskey in when Papa wasn’t looking.”