Virginia Henley by Seduced Page A

with you,” she said softly.
    “There are two cargoes my ships will
never
carry to the Orient, opium and ivory. Butchers wound and trap elephants and cut off their tusks while they are still alive. It, too, is abhorrent to me.”
    Ivory!
thought Eve.
Why didn’t I think of ivory? Fortunes are paid for Oriental carvings.
    Savage glanced down at her and saw the tortoiseshell combs. He swept his fingers into her immaculate coiffure and pulled out the two combs. “Just like this stuff. Tortoiseshell is taken from the back of a living hawksbill; an inhuman practice!”
    He had said all he had come to say and more besides. “Forgive my rude interruption, Lady Lamb.” In a voice more cutting than any nobleman possessed he said, “I know no better. I am from peasant stock.” He bowed with more than a little irony and arrogance and departed for Leopard’s Leap.
    Savage called for all his overseers and banyans that same afternoon. John Bull stood at the front door like a sergeant major, ordering them to remove their shoes before they entered the bungalow. They stood respectfully in the master’s office, listening to his every word.
    “Very soon now, before the next full moon, I shall be returning to England. There will be a new sahib come in a few days. I want you to work as hard for him as you have for me. I am not selling Leopard’s Leap. It will still be my plantation, but it is doomed to failure unless you give your loyalty to the new man. This is the only place in all Ceylon where tea and rubber are grown. I brought the seedlings from China and Burma as an experiment almost ten years ago and I have you to thank that Leopard’s Leap has flourished. Only now are tea and rubber plantations being cultivated across the water in India. You know what needs to be done in times of drought and in times of flooding. The pruners know the rotation, the cattle keepers know when the manuring must begin. In fact, you will know far better than the new sahib how to keep the plantation running smoothly. My great ship will carry your tea crops to me in London. My nose will tell me if you fail to produce top quality.” The harsher planes of his face relaxed and he allowed himself a rare smile.
    The Tamils did not smile, however. It was a terrible day for them to learn that the master was departing for his homeland. Leopard’s Leap lay in the foothills of Adam’s Peak, the holiest mountain in the world. Legend told how Adam had been hurled from the Seventh Heaven of Paradise for his sin with the woman. It had been expiated forone thousand years. He had landed on one foot upon Adam’s Peak and had left his footprint there in stone. There was not one worker at Leopard’s Leap who did not believe that Adam Savage was the Adam of legend. His size, his strength, and his abilities, to say nothing of his piercing blue eyes, were a gift from the gods. If they shirked their duties he would know all the way from Londontown across the seven seas. They hurried off to spread the word to their workers.
    Savage took out the journals that held the tallies and accounts of the plantation to bring them up to the minute, but he was distracted by John Bull’s authoritative voice.
    “When we are in England, His Excellency will expect you to dress in the English manner. You will shame him by looking like a foreigner. There is no need what-somehowever to take all your heathen clothes and possessions.”
    Adam Savage always tried to be diplomatic when he interceded in his servants’ altercations. Kirinda was Sinhalese and of a higher caste than his Tamil manservant. On the other hand John Bull was his majordomo and a man must have dominion over a woman or lose face.
    “John Bull, it seldom happens, but this time you are wrong,” Savage said tactfully. “Lotus Blossom is most beautiful in her native dress. She knows that exotic, brilliant silks suit her best. Please see that she has as many trunks as she needs for her clothes and personal