Aurora (16 page)

“Nothing. Well, perhaps Clare gave me a little cause.”

“Clare? Have you been seeing her? I thought she held herself aloof from the family.”

“No, she sees
me,”
she confessed a little sheepishly.

“She is up to anything. She wants to know what I’m doing. What did she say to reawaken your suspicions?”

“She thought Lady Alice had been discovering the secrets of Eton from her brother, Hanley, and coaching you. Hennie and Alfred are prejudiced, she feels, and the footman as well.”

“Biased, not prejudiced. They know her pretty well. I see she has done a splendid job of undermining your judgement. But Hanley didn’t know what schoolmates were to be chosen. For that matter, he wasn’t in my class at Eton. I had very little to do with him. He’s only twenty-four, you know, whereas I am an old man of twenty-seven. And feel closer to fifty-seven as a result of my Indian adventures. God, what a place it is. It is like stepping into an icehouse to be back in England, to be able to walk along the street with your jacket buttoned, and not have your shirt glued to your back.”

“Is it so hot in India?” she asked, relieved to have cleared her chest, and also curious to hear about his travels.

“Hot, humid, bug-ridden, filthy. I don’t know why I stayed so long.”

“Why did you?”

“I had to make my fortune. That’s why I went. It is the haven of the disinherited—the misfits, younger sons, the disgraced, the adventurers and outright rotters. The most raffish collection of men to be found anywhere outside of Newgate, or in it for all I know. They say it was worse in the old days, before Warren Hastings cleaned things up, but there is still plenty of crime there, and plenty of gold to go around too.”

“What did you do there? What sort of work were you involved in?”

“I was first a mere box-wallah—junior clerk for the East India Company. Well, green as grass, you know, when I arrived, still wet behind the ears. But I soon made friends, and in a few years got myself made British resident at the court of one of the Indian princes—the nawab of Bengal it was.”

“What did you do?”

“Sort of liaison officer between the public and the prince. I was the prestigious gent who decided who my nawab would condescend to see. Also liaison man between the prince and the British. A good part of my time was spent in buying up European things for him, too. All the crack for the princes to surround themselves with the trappings of the British, in much the same way as we returned nabobs surround ourselves with Indian finery. In the true nabob’s fashion I have toted home some cartons of ugly ivory carvings and brass pots and silken scarves. I don’t know what I’ll do with them—set up an Indian Room at the Hall I suppose, to amuse posterity. I had sundry other duties as well—polishing up his English and manners. He didn’t realize how poorly he had chosen for that latter job. The blind leading the blind, but at least I knew more than he did. There is a fortune to be made in these posts. Even without bribery a man can do very well for himself. One fellow, the resident of a nawab of Carnatic, is said to have made well over a million during his term of office. I must confess I wasn’t quite bent enough to gross a million, but I am not complaining. I would be wealthy independent of my lawful inheritance.”

“What was it like there?”

“Everything is controlled by the heat. The early mornings—and I mean before breakfast—are the only times cool enough to do anything active. Races, riding or whatnot all take place in the morning, then a little of what we jokingly called work in the forenoon. By noon every shutter is closed, and nothing more is attempted till evening, when we get down to serious entertainment. A trip to the New Playhouse or the Harmonic Tavern, followed by a
staggering
dinner where the food is so heavily spiced you must accompany every bite with a glass of wine, then on to a ball or party. The balls last till morning. I have known ladies to die as a result of those balls.”

“It sounds rather fun.”

“Oh yes, they died laughing. The British make it as British as they can, import their horses and carriages and even wear their British clothing—a dangerous thing. Import their wine and some women, but still it is no place for a human being.”

“And where did you live? In what city, I mean?”

“Calcutta for the most part, on the hot and humid banks of the Hooghly. My nawab liked the bright lights.”

“Is that a river, the Hooghly?”

“Yes, a mouth of the Ganges, and what a sewer that is! The baths at Bath are nothing to it for communal bathing. Quite a family affair. I mean the large family, including animals. Calcutta is the finest of the cities. A sort of imitation British decor. The Esplanade is its showpiece, with Palladian buildings, the stucco already crumbling away and showing the brick beneath. All along the riverbanks from Garden Reach to Barrackpore the nawabs have built their mansions, resembling country gentlemen’s homes, with porticoes and pillars and invariably green shutters to keep out the sun and heat. The Maidan, actually a military place but used as a park for riding and racing, is the Hyde Park of the place. There is a wretched amount of drinking that goes on to make life tolerable. Three bottles an evening for the gentlemen, and one for the ladies. It has ruined more livers and complexions that you can count. I
think
I got out with my liver intact, but of course I have lost my maidenly pallor forever. I will no doubt look like a blackamoor for the rest of my days. My hide is tanned like a piece of leather. Even my back and chest, as I did quite a bit of swimming. But then I am not vain.”

“That is why I took you for a gypsy the day I saw you in the woods,” Aurora said. “You were so very dark, and wearing rough clothing too.”

“You’re no help at all, you know,” he said, turning to her with a roguish smile. “I thought I was beguiling that episode from your memory with all my Indian tales, but you revert to it. I took you for a servant. A poor excuse for molesting you, of course, but I hadn’t kissed an English girl since I left eleven years ago, Aurora, and was eager to try it.”

“You got little enough pleasure from it, if memory serves.

“I wouldn’t say that,”

“You already have, sir. You advised me strenuously not to take up lovemaking as a career, as I hadn’t the knack for it.”

“But I didn’t know you were a
lady
then. One expects a proper frigidity from a lady. I expect this whole conversation is not at all the thing. Swat me down if I pass the bounds of what is acceptable, won’t you? I have not been properly schooled in how to disport myself with a well-bred female. However, there can be no harm in saying I still advise you not to take up lovemaking as a career, but as an avocation I recommend it highly.” He took his eyes from the reins long enough to cast a questioning glance at her.

She felt some stricture ought to be delivered, but decided instead to reform him by turning the conversation to a more discreet topic. “I imagine the countryside looks unusual to you after India,” she attempted.

“I find it refreshingly green, like the girls,” he said, returning determinedly to his preferred subject, with a bantering smile.

“You didn’t seem to find the gypsy girl green.”

“No, she’s half Indian, like myself, and a married lady to boot.”

“Married!”

“She isn’t awfully strong on monogamy. Has lost one husband already, and he was destined to be the gypsy chief, too. Sometimes they choose their leader on his abilities, and sometimes he inherits, like our present string of Hanoverian Georges, despite his lack of them. The present chief is Ghizlaine’s papa-in-law. She was first married to his son, and thought she had herself set up to be queen, but the husband unfortunately died.”

“How did he die? In a duel defending her honour, I expect.”

“Possibly. I hinted around once, but she was coy with me. Maybe the new gent who bought her had a hand in it. She dislikes him for some reason.”

“Bought
her?” Rorie asked, astonished.

“You haven’t been taken in by that old canard that the best things in life are free? A rumour started by those who already have everything.”

“It seems hard that she should be sold outright to a man she dislikes.”

“Don’t weep for her. She is trying to convince me I ought to do him in and become the chief when old Killu ends his days. That’s the chief, Killu. Do you think I’d make a good gypsy prince, Aurora? Or should I say gypsy baron, considering my own title? I wouldn’t care to relinquish it entirely, after all the trouble I am having to claim it.”

“You would make an extremely elegant gypsy chief, and have the complexion for it too.”

“But then Ghizlaine is so dark she reminds me of the half-caste mistresses of Calcutta, and I hope to get away from all that. A nice blonde is what I’m keeping an eye out for.”

As Marnie and Lady Alice were both blonder than herself, Aurora could read no compliment into this, and turned to another subject instead. “Did you and that old gypsy hag fix it up between you for her to come and read Marnie’s fortune? She came spouting off about a tall, dark stranger that Marnie should help.”

“She was supposed to say dark and handsome,” he confessed. “I told her to stress the need to help. Now had I known
you
were there, I would have sent a message for you as well. Did she read your fortune?”

“She prophesied a future as dull as my past. I think you might have done a little better by me.”

“Had I known, you may be sure I would have consigned the dark stranger to your particular care. You were the only one who was a stranger to me, actually. But you might be nice to me without a gypsy’s urging, you know. Now that I have remembered for you how I got my fingers burned, I hope you will stop staring at me as though I were a ghost every time I enter your door.”

“I’m sure I didn’t!”

“But you did. I always take careful notice of the reactions of all pretty young ladies, and you did not react at all well. I was unsure whether it was my brown face or my black behaviour in the forest that had got your hackles up. As they seem to be settling down, may I conclude I am forgiven—for both?”

“Naturally I wondered, and if you
were
Horace Rutley, I could not like to accept you as Kenelm.”

“They do poor old Horace an injustice to make him out so crafty. He had a little devious twist in him, of course, but he was not at all a scheming fellow from what I ever heard. Well, his mother was not bright, and I fear he inherited a little of her paucity of brains. Father’s main worry was that he lacked the wits to stay out of trouble. Here we are discussing the thing again; it’s hard to stay off the subject, isn’t it? Papa used to worry what was to become of Horace once he began growing up. He had some schooling and it was hoped he might be got a position in London, but he wasn’t bright enough. The fact that he ended up in that grave with a bullet in his back pretty well shows it. Clare knew he was a near moron too, and for her to be pretending now that she thinks I am he, devising some elaborate scheme to snatch Charlie’s title . . .” He stopped a moment and shook his head. “I don’t understand the woman. Nothing she does makes any sense. She knows I’m Kenelm; knows bloody well Horace is in that grave, and likely put him there herself. She wasn’t a bit surprised at what she saw—the uniform, the rings. But still the rings make me wonder. I don’t see her burying those rings. It would have been the last straw if the emeralds had been there too. I get the feeling she is dashing from pillar to post—from expediency to expediency, I mean—as things turn out differently from what she expected. I wonder what she’ll do next.”

Rorie cleared her throat and said nonchalantly, “Clare is going up to London tomorrow on some business connected with the case.”

“To
London?
But her man Coons is here, and it will do her no good to go pestering the judge. Why the devil is she doing that, I wonder? How did you find out, by the way? I hadn’t heard.”

“She told me. I am going to Raiker Hall to mind Charles while she is away.”

“Oh,” Kenelm said, and looked at her in open astonishment.

“She does not like to leave him alone because of the gypsies—alone with the servants, I mean.”

“I see,” he answered automatically, but sounded unconvinced. “Why doesn’t she send him down to the Dower House? You will be lonesome there alone. I would offer to call if I dared, but it would be taken as unwarranted meddling. In fact, she probably asked you there to see I
don’t
decide to pay her a call. The servants would gladly welcome me.”

“I don’t think you had better come.”

“I shan’t. How long will you be there?”

“Just two days.”

“Two whole days!” he objected, frowning. “You could bring Charlie down to the Dower House for a visit if you were at all eager for my company,” he suggested. “I shall undertake to neither kidnap nor poison him, and it seems the only way I might see you. I should like to see you.”

“You will have plenty to do,” she countered, blushing with this unexpected show of gallantry.

“Indeed I shall. Any spare moment my case leaves me will find Sally in my pocket too. I think you might help me extricate myself from her. It is damnably hard to set her down when I am accepting her father’s hospitality. I’m likely to find myself compromised, but it is such a good base for me, housed so respectably with old Dougall, that I don’t want to give it up. It allows me to keep an eye on the competition too—Hanley,” he mentioned with a quizzing smile. “Come now, let me be able to tell her I have an appointment at the Dower House tomorrow afternoon at three.”

“You can go to the Dower House without my being there.”

“I could, but it would not achieve my aim. Berrigan will take the notion I’m making up to Marnie, too, and he’s already so jealous he’d like to think I’m Rutley. I don’t mean to turn a soul against me till I’m wearing my full title and dignities. Then I’ll tell him he’s an upstart, and none of his dashed business either if I want to help Bernie’s family into a decent house.”

“They have a decent house.”

“It will soon be only half one, and never mind diverting me. Say you’ll go, and bring Charlie. I’d like to see him. He’s my half brother, and I’m never allowed a single peek at him.”