The Mask

He rose to his feet and moved over to the table by the door and was surrounded by the pool of light cast by the oil lamp. She tried not to look at him, but to no avail. Dear heaven, he was as beautifully exotic as a jungle animal and just as free from shame.

A faint smile touched his lips. "This must have been meant for you."

On the table was an extravagant feathered mask of brown, black, and turquoise peacock feathers. "Pretty thing. I'd like to see you in it." He held up the mask to his own eyes. "Would you care to oblige me?"

The exotic feathered mask covered the entire top of his face and a spray of sable peacock feathers jutted out on either side. His blue eyes shimmered through the almond-shaped holes and the close fit of the mask enhanced the beautiful molding of his cheekbones.

He looked wild, wicked, and completely male, a rare, splendid creature from an alien land.

The

Tiger

Prince

IRIS JOHANSEN

BANTAM BOOKS

NEW YORK TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND

Prologue

Promontory Point, Utah

November 25, 1869

“Wait!”

Dear God, he hadn't heard her. He was still striding across the wooden platform toward the train. In a moment he would be out of reach.

Panic soared through Jane Barnaby and she broke into a run, the faded skirts of her calico gown ballooning behind her. Ignoring the pain caused by the ice shards piercing her feet through the holes in the thin soles of her boots, she tore through ice-coated mud puddles down the wheel-rutted street toward the platform over a hundred yards away. "Please! Don't go!”

Patrick Reilly's expression was only a blur in the post-dawn grayness, but he must have heard her call, for he hesitated for an instant before continuing toward the train, his long legs quickly covering the distance between the station house and the passenger railway car.

He was leaving her.

Fear caught in her throat, and she desperately tried to put on more speed. The train was already vibrating, puffing, flexing its metal muscles as it prepared to spring forward down the track. "Wait for me!"

He kept his face turned straight ahead, ignoring her.

Anger, fired by desperation, flared within her and she bellowed, "Dammit, do you hear me? Don't you dare get on that train!"

He stopped in midstride, his big shoulders braced militantly beneath the gray-checked coarse wool of his coat. He turned with a frown to watch her dashing toward him down the platform.

She skidded to a stop before him. "I'm goin' with you."

"The hell you are. I told you last night at Frenchie's you were to stay here."

"You gotta take me."

"I don't have to do nothin'." He scowled down at her. "Go back to your ma. She'll be looking for you."

"No, she won't." She took a step closer to him. "You know all she cares about is her pipe. She don't care where I am. She won't mind if I go with you."

He shook his head.

"You know it's true." Jane moistened her lips. "I'm goin' with you. She doesn't want me. She never wanted me."

"Well, I don't want you eith—" A flush deepened his already ruddy cheeks, and his Irish brogue thickened as he said awkwardly, "No offense, but I don't have no use for a kid in my life."

"I'm not so little, I'm almost twelve." It was only a small lie; she had just turned eleven, but he probably wouldn't remember that. She took another step closer. "You gotta take me. I belong to you."

"How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not your father."

"My mother said it was most likely you." She touched a strand of the curly red hair flopping about her thin face. "Our hair is the same, and you visited her a lot before she went on the pipe."

"So did half the men of the Union Pacific." His expression softened as he suddenly knelt in front of her. "Lots of Irishmen have red hair, Jane. Hell, I can name four men on my own crew who used to be Pearl's regulars. Why not pick on one of them?"

Because she desperately wanted it to be him. He was kinder to her than any of the other men who paid her mother for her body. Patrick Reilly was drunk more than he was sober when he came to Frenchie's tent, but he never hurt the women like some men did and even treated Jane with a rough affection whenever he saw her around. "It's you." Her jaw set stubbornly. "You can't know for certain it's not you."

His jaw set with equal obstinacy. "And you don't know for certain it is me. So why don't you go back to Frenchie's and leave me alone? Christ, I wouldn't even know how to take care of you."

"Take care of me?" She stared at him in bewilderment. "Why should you do that? I take care of myself."

For an instant a flicker of compassion crossed his craggy features. "I guess you've had to do enough of that all right. With your ma sucking on that damn opium pipe and growing up in that pimp's hovel."

She immediately pounced on the hint of softening. "I won't be a bother to you. I don't eat much and I'll stay out of your way." He was beginning to frown again, and she went on hurriedly. "Except when you have something for me to do, of course. I'm a hard worker. Ask anyone at Frenchie's. I empty slops and help in the kitchen. I sweep and mop and run errands. I can count and take care of money. Frenchie even has me time the customers on Saturday night and tell them when they've had their money's worth." She grasped his arm. "I promise I'll do anything you want me to do. Just take me with you."

"Hell, you don't under—" He was silent a moment, gazing at her pleading face before muttering, "Look, I'm a railroad man. It's all I know and my job here is over now that the tracks have been joined. I've got an offer to boss my own crew in Salisbury and that's a big chance for an ignorant mick like me. Salisbury's way across the ocean in England. You don't want to go that far away."

"Yes, I do. I don't care where we go." Her small hand tightened on his arm. "Try me. I promise you won't be sorry."

"The devil I won't be sorry." His tone was suddenly impatient as he shook off her grasp and rose to his feet. "I won't be saddled with no whore's kid for the rest of my life. Go back to Frenchie's." He started toward the train again.

The rejection frightened but didn't surprise her. She had been rejected all her life by everyone but the inhabitants of Frenchie's crib and had learned long ago she wasn't like the children of the respectable wives who followed the railroad crews from town to town. They belonged in a world of clean crisp gowns, Saturday night baths, and church on Sunday mornings while she . . .

Jane felt suddenly sick as memories flooded back to her of the lantern-lit haze of Frenchie's tent, where the cots were separated only by dirty blankets hung on sagging ropes, the sweetish smell of the opium her mother smoked from the funny-looking glass bowl by her cot, Frenchie's hard palm striking her cheek when she wasn't quick enough to do his bidding.

She couldn't go back to that now that escape was so near.

Her nails dug into her palms as her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "It will do you no good to leave me. I'll only follow you."

He reached the train and placed his left foot on the metal step.