LITMIR.BIZ

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finally looked at the man on the hill and the other cooling corpse, still lying on the ground where he had fallen from Huntley’s shot.

      “Should I bury them?” Huntley asked.

      Thalia shook her head and turned away. “Bodies of the deceased aren’t interred in Mongolia. They’re taken to a hillside and left to nature, returned to the earth and heavens that created them. It’s called ‘sky burial.’”

      That explained why Huntley had seen human remains out in the open in Urga. “All the same, I’d rather have my bones covered,” he said. “I’d be right sore if I knew some jackal was running around with one of my ribs in his mouth.”

      “If I’m around for that unfortunate event,” she answered, “I’ll be sure to keep the dogs away.”

      Before he could reply, she set her heels to her horse. Batu followed right behind her, and, after checking to make sure that none of the attackers were returning, Huntley also kicked his horse into a canter. He came over the rise and saw Thalia and her servant continuing to ride west. She rode well, straight and tall, standing in the stirrups as the Mongols did.

      Huntley trailed after them, keeping his gaze alert and attuned should the Englishmen and their giant slab of a Mongol decide to finish their business within the day. Even as he watched for trouble, and as his eyes kept traveling to the slim back and shoulders of Thalia Burgess, the trim span of her waist bound with a silken sash, he could not help but marvel at the landscape. He had had no idea what to expect when he learned he would be traveling to Mongolia; all his mind had come up with was a gray, featureless plain. But what he now saw changed that. He rode a spread of grass and sky so wide and open that he could believe that he was sailing across a stretch of green ocean, an endless banner of azure sky above. And the dark blue robe of Thalia Burgess riding ahead of him was the star by which he set his course.

      He was no sailor. He was a soldier. Escort and guardian for a reluctant Thalia Burgess, a woman he hadn’t known existed until yesterday, and who now occupied a goodly portion of his thoughts. His life was a strange one, all right. It didn’t bother him nearly as much as it should. Bloody wonderful to have a mission again, a purpose beyond Inwood’s promises of work and wife in a country that hadn’t been his home for fifteen years. He forced away thoughts of the letter, still residing in his pocket.

      He nudged his horse, and the mare responded instantly, ready to gallop across the steppes with almost no encouragement. Within seconds, he had ridden abreast of Thalia. She glanced at him over her shoulder, her dark hair catching the wind and light, but said nothing.

      “You’re going to have to tell me what this is about,” he said after they had ridden together for a few minutes. “Who your attackers are, why Morris was killed, where we’re headed, what’s at stake. All of it. I can’t do my job properly unless I know everything.”

      “You don’t have a job,” she reminded him and tried to push her horse farther ahead.

      “Everything that happened back in that valley says I do.” He didn’t have to see her face to know that she was scowling. The curse words she muttered in Mongolian were also something of a giveaway. Huntley’s mare sped up without urging, as if goaded by the lead Thalia’s horse had, until the two were again side by side. “Like me or don’t, Miss Burgess, it doesn’t matter to me. But either way, I’m protecting you until we see this through.”

      Her jaw tightened. Then released. He already knew what she was thinking. Damned strange. He’d never been particularly attuned to any woman’s mind before.

      “Losing me won’t work,” he added, and by the way she clenched her teeth he knew that he had been correct. With a jolt, he felt himself slipping inside of her, her mind, her body, and it bound him to her, suddenly, powerfully, in a way he’d never experienced with another woman. A tight knitting of self to self. He’d killed for her, and he’d do it again, kill anyone who tried to harm her. Even Morris’s mission meant less than keeping her safe. The revelation stunned him.

      “I’ve lived in Mongolia since I was a small child,” she said. “I know this country better than you, Captain. It wouldn’t be difficult to elude you.”

      He tried to collect himself. “Doesn’t matter where we are,” he answered. “A trail is a trail. And you’ll leave one.”

      “You sound awfully sure of yourself.”

      Huntley almost laughed, but wisely checked the impulse since it would only rile her further. “I once tracked down the notorious brigand Ali Jai Khan to his gang’s secret hiding place in the Aravali Mountains of Rajasthan, and that bloke knew how to disguise his trail.” He realized too late that discussing brigands with ladies was probably unwise, but he kept forgetting that Thalia Burgess was a lady. On further reflection, after the hem of her robe flipped back in the breeze, revealing a long, shapely leg in trousers, he was very much aware that she was a woman. The term “lady,” however, which brought to mind images of painted china and cramped rooms full of overstuffed furniture, didn’t seem to apply.

      And, far from being horrified at his anecdote, Thalia Burgess seemed reluctantly impressed. “I wouldn’t mind learning how to track,” she said so quietly he almost didn’t hear her above the sounds of the horses’ hooves and rushing wind.

      “I may show you, someday,” he answered. He didn’t know if he ever would, but the prospect seemed almost pleasant. He tried to steer his thoughts back toward the matter at hand, and not to the idea of spending long hours crawling on forest floors with her, just them alone, in the cool damp seclusion of the woods. “So you may as well face facts: I’m sticking with you. Tell me everything. Better for all of us if you do.”

      “I wish I could,” she said after a pause, and there was real regret in her voice. He found that he liked to hear her speak. She had an unusual accent, not fully English, tinged with a husky, almost Russian flavor. It sounded of long nights under fur blankets.

      But despite her remarkable voice, Huntley felt his patience begin to fray. “Look, Miss Burgess,” he growled, “whoever or whatever you’re protecting—”

      “Is far more important than your sense of obligation,” she finished. She turned and looked at him directly. “I take my own responsibilities very seriously, Captain. And one of them is maintaining my silence.”

      Huntley didn’t respond, nor did she expect him to. They rode on without speaking, but he was a patient man. When he’d tracked Ali Jai Khan, he and his men had had to lie in wait for days, barely moving, making no noise, even when it rained for an entire day and they’d been lying in mud and mosquitoes, until the time for the bandit’s capture was exactly right. It had been hell, but worth it. The situation he was in now would be a paradise by comparison. Though that might not be true, either. He was a soldier, she was a gentleman’s daughter, they were on a dangerous journey together, and no matter what his body wanted, he was going to force himself to keep his hands, and other parts, off of her. There were things he needed to know, things that didn’t involve the taste of her mouth or the feel of her skin.

      He’d have to content himself with finding out her secrets. Where they were headed. What they sought. And why. But those mysteries were much easier to solve than the ones presented by Thalia Burgess. And while he knew he shouldn’t learn her secrets, they were becoming much more intriguing to Huntley than anything else he’d ever come across in his jumbled life.

      Sunrise was not for some time, but Thalia was already awake. Despite the long hours in the saddle and her physical exhaustion from the trying day, her sleep had been shallow, her dreams troubling. She kept seeing the face of the man she had killed, kept watching him ride up the hill over and over, and each time she raised her rifle and the shot fired sounded louder than disaster. But in her dreams, the man would fall off his horse and roll down, down the hill, until he lay sprawled at her feet, and his face would no longer be his face, but her father’s. Blood, bright and accusing, covered her hands.

      Many times, over the course of the night, she would wake, gasping and sick. Then she would turn her head toward where she knew Captain Huntley was

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