Still…
I found out soon enough, anyway.
It was twenty-eight minutes, seven seconds and three hundred seventy-five milliseconds later when I suddenly heard a gasp from behind me. Not her gasp, either. No, that was what truly put me on alert: it was Karim’s. There weren’t many things which could make that gnarled, hardened fighter afraid. Whatever he had seen had to be truly horrifying.
I turned around and-
Holy golden throne of Midas!
I felt my whole body stiffen. Before I could get my face under control, my eyes widened infinitesimally, and, even in this humidity, my mouth went dry.
Miss Linton stood there, sliding off her tailcoat as cool as a cucumber, a devious little smile on her lips that made my insides churn. The waistcoat she wore beneath suddenly seemed a lot more revealing than it had in London, and the linen shirt clung to her skin, wet from top to bottom.
‘What do you think you are doing, Mr Linton?’
‘Why, removing some unnecessary clothing, of course, Sir.’ Still smiling that insidious little smile, she slid the rest of the way out of her tailcoat and let it hang loosely from one hand, swinging back and forth, as if baiting a bull. ‘Thanks so much for giving me the idea, by the way.’
My left little finger twitched. ‘I? I did nothing of the sort!’
‘Of course you did. Don’t you remember?’ Stowing the tailcoat away in her backpack as if she were merely packing away a pesky piece of luggage, she took a deep breath of air and stretched herself. ‘You said the natives do it, didn’t you?’
‘True.’ With considerable effort, I raised my eyes away from where her shirt clung to her body in a way that… No! Think pounds. Think gold bars and high-return investments. Yet, whereas these thoughts had always helped to clear my mind of anything else before, they suddenly seemed to have lost their allure. Clenching my teeth, I forced myself to continue. ‘But there are two important differences between you and a native of South America, Mr Linton.’
‘Indeed, Sir?’
Oh, that tone of voice…
I took a step towards her. ‘Yes, indeed, Mr Linton! Firstly: you are English!’
‘You don’t say.’
Another step. Why was I moving towards her? I had to stop! Gold bars. Big, glinting gold bars decorated with diamonds. ‘And secondly: they don’t work for me.’
‘How disappointing for you. Haven’t you opened a branch down here yet?’
That infuriating little…!
A noise erupted from my throat, somewhere between a growl and the grinding of stone on stone. I stared at her for a moment, not knowing what in Croesus’s name to do with her - then I whirled around and gave a curt shrug. ‘Fine! If you wish to run around the jungle without your tailcoat, Mr Linton, be my guest. But be warned that such improper attire will not be tolerated in my office.’
‘Of course not, Sir,’ she purred from behind me, sounding like a wildcat on the prowl. I would have to keep an eye on her once were back in the London office. But right now, what I had to do was keep my eyes and my mind off her. I needed to think of other things. Gold. Diamonds. People who pay their debts on time. Big, chocolate brown eyes gazing at me from under teasing lashes-
No! No! Rubies and diamonds! Rubies and diamonds!
We continued on. For several hours, we marched in silence through the jungle, the only noises around us the chirping of the birds in the trees and the rustling in the underbrush as unknown animals slipped by us in the darkness. Maybe she had given up. Maybe she had seen the foolishness, the danger in acting as she did, and had decided it was better to stop while she still-
The rustling of cloth from behind me interrupted my thoughts. A moment later, Karim cleared his throat, sounding urgent.
‘Um…Sahib? Sahib!’
I froze. ‘What is it, Karim? Is there a problem? Did you see something suspicious?’
‘Err…in a manner of speaking, Sahib, yes. Sahib, she-’
She.
Of course. She.
Slowly, I turned around to face her - just in time to see a pair of trousers fall to the ground. Not too extraordinary an occurrence, you might think. During my time in the west of America, I had seen plenty of trackers and cowboys discard their trousers when they wanted to swim, fish, or were just too damn hot in the burning sun. But the sight that met my eyes now wasn’t a pair of typical cowboy legs, to put it mildly.