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'That's the last time I go into the jungle without a gun,' Peter said grimly. He shot her a look. 'Come on, who's that fellow? A bit taciturn, isn't he?'
'He told you his name,' Marie said evasively. Since Stonor had not given Peter any information she hesitated to do so. She might annoy Stonor if she told anyone who he was—she knew him well enough by now to know that his trip to Jedhpur was probably basically a business trip. Whatever he was planning, he obviously did not want anyone to know about it.
'Yes, but who is he? What does he do? What on earth was he doing out in the jungle?'
'He's in business,' she said carefully. 'I met him through my father. They… did business together.'
'What sort of business?' Peter asked.
'I think he's in the hotel business,' she said truthfully enough. A lie of omission was not altogether wrong, she told herself.
'But why should he be wandering around the jungle?' Peter asked insistently.
She hesitated. 'I expect he was looking for me. He knew I was out here, and my father probably asked him to look me up. Dad was a bit worried about me coming to such a remote spot.'
Peter shrugged. 'I suppose that must have been it. He was pretty annoyed about the tiger, wasn't he? A grim sort of chap. I didn't take to him.'
'He's… rather alarming,' she agreed quietly.
Peter gave her a furtive glance. 'You… like him, do you?'
For a moment she did not answer, then she s
aid evasively, 'He can be a bit overwhelming at times.' It seemed an enormous understatement, but it was honest as far as it went.
CHAPTER SEVEN
NEXT morning when Jess had gone to the stilt hut to work, Marie took Jeremy into Lhalli to do some shopping at the market, as she had promised. Rahaib and Lispa came too, so after she had brought Jeremy the new pencils he needed and a stick of chewy liquorice toffee, Marie left him with Lispa while she walked through the market to the modern hospital which the King had built some years earlier.
The tall Indian nurse at the reception desk in the low-ceilinged lobby smiled at her, listened to her question and pointed to a room at the far end of the corridor to the left.
'Mr Grey is in room 12,' she said. A mischievous twinkle came into her eyes. 'Be warned, Miss Brinton, he is in a very bad mood. The nurse who took him his medicine an hour ago came out looking as if she, too, had been mauled by a tiger.'
Marie laughed. 'As bad as that?'
'He is most irascible man,' the receptionist said sadly. 'But men make bad patients—we all know that. They hate being in bed for hours with nothing to do.'
'How is his shoulder?' Marie asked.
The receptionist glanced at her carefully. 'He is as well as can be expected. He was lucky to get off so lightly. A tiger can kill quickly. He might have lost the use of his arm had he not been rescued so soon.'
Marie walked down the corridor and tapped on the door softly. A sharp voice growled, 'What is it?'
She pushed the door open. Stonor lay in a stark little bed, his shoulder swathed in bandages, the dark head turned to survey her.
'Come in and shut the door,' he said after a moment, his voice expressionless.
Marie obeyed and came towards the bed, depositing on his little bedside table the bag of fruit she had brought him. He stared at it.
'What's this? Occupational therapy?'
'Fruit,' she said. 'I hear you've been giving the nurses a lot of trouble.'
His dark brows lifted ironically. 'Gossiping with the nurses, were you? Did they tell you that you saved my life?'
She flushed. 'Nonsense.'
'It's true,' he Said crisply. 'Another minute and I would have been a tiger's dinner.'
