Courting Trouble (5 page)

Jed’s chair grated as he stood. “Where are you going? I’ll escort you home.”

“Thank you, but I’ll be quite safe in daylight on the public roads.”

“Esme.” How the heck had his scheme fallen apart so fast? He’d asked of her only what was reasonable in the circumstances he’d outlined. He’d envisaged quiet intimate sessions in her library, just the two of them, studying the notes, researching the physics of sound.

“Jed.” Her smile was more a baring of teeth. “Gupta, Lajli.”

He watched her march back through the Chai House, heard her respond to the waiter’s farewell, and slumped back in his chair. “Tarnation.”

Lajli looked thoughtful. “This Miss Esme Smith, she is very rich?”

“Her father is the wealthiest man in Australia,” Gupta said.

“I think I go stay with her.” Lajli ran into the Chai House after Esme before Jed could stop her.

“Women!”

“T-trouble,” Gupta commiserated.

Chapter Five

Mad as fire, Esme shouldered open the door of the Chai House and pulled on her cycling gloves. She’d show Jed she wasn’t some brainless ninny, some hothouse flower. How dare he try to exclude her from the situation? Why, he didn’t even know if Kali’s Scream was feasible. There might be no danger whatsoever. The whole thing could be a storm in a teacup.

“Oh, sorry.” In her haste, she’d barreled into a stranger just passing the front doors.

“My fault entirely, my lady.” He was just her height, a fraction less, really, given the green suede hat she’d pinned to her hair. His dark eyes expressed frank admiration.

She found herself conscious of her bloomers. They were well-cut and modest, but they were bifurcated. Scandalous, in some people’s eyes. Jed didn’t approve of them. He’d scowled when an apprentice had whistled at her on last week’s bike ride.

Deliberately, she smiled at the stranger.

He swept off his hat and bowed. “If only all happenstance encounters introduced me to such beauty. Mademoiselle, I confess, I cannot be sorry for so happy an accident.”

The Oxford voice, full-bodied and assured, made the flowery language an enjoyable courtesy. Although he appeared somewhat older than the typical Oxford undergraduate, he wore the wide-flowing silk necktie and narrow-legged trousers of the breed. He also wore their air of detached amusement. A flickering smile invited her to share it.

“No harm done,” she said.

He straightened, replacing his hat.

Running footsteps inside the Chai House caught her attention. She’d more than half expected Jed to chase after her, intent on continuing his ridiculous argument, but these footsteps weren’t heavy with anger. They were light and quick.

Lajli burst out of the Chai House. “Miss Esme, I go with you—oh!”

“Lajli?” Esme reached out a concerned hand.

The girl literally swayed, her eyes blank with shock. Then she shrank back. “Nazim.”

Esme followed the direction of the girl’s horrified stare and encountered the stranger’s handsome face. “You are Nazim?”

“Alas, no. My name is Ishaan Prasad.” He bowed again. “At your service, dear lady.”

“You lie,” Lajli said.

“Who lies?” Jed loomed up in the doorway of the Chai House, Gupta peering around him.

Prasad kept his gaze on Esme. “I am afraid I recognize the young woman who accosts you and seeks to hide behind your kindness. I am newly arrived in your beautiful colony of Swan River, but before my journey here I had the misfortune to employ a thief as a maid. I am desolated to inform you this is she.”

“I have told these people all about you. You are a bad man.” Lajli stood straighter, evidently reassured by Jed’s presence.

Esme frowned. Surely anarchists weren’t so effeminate, so dandified. Perhaps she’d been too hasty to believe Lajli’s story and to listen to Jed’s worries. Not that she thought he would lie to her. He might be bossy, but he was honorable. But perhaps he’d been overpersuaded by Lajli’s pretty face into asserting mitigating factors for what was, in essence, outright theft.

Perhaps this Ishaan Prasad, Lajli’s “Nazim,” was really the injured party?

He watched Lajli with grieving, melting chocolate eyes. “So young and already so brazen. I am a gentleman and a socialist, and so, when you stole from me, I did not give you over to the police wallahs as you deserved. Now, you repay my generosity with your lies. Worse, you seek to deceive these fine people with your fairy tales.”

“Some people find fairy tales fascinating,” Jed drawled.

“Children, perhaps, or uneducated minds.” A tilt of one eyebrow effortlessly conveyed Prasad’s disdain. He tapped his cane on the ground. “Americans.” The single word was spoken in an undertone, but the scorn was clear. “The sort of people who consort with thieves and deal in stolen goods.”

Jed stepped out of the doorway.

Esme tensed instantly, aware that Prasad’s insult had been of the deadly kind. Jed put such stock in being respectable. She shifted sideways, placing herself squarely between the two men. “May I inquire what was taken from you?”

“My wallet and watch. The watch, although a gift from my grandfather, can be replaced. But the contents of the wallet…no, they are irreplaceable. Not simply money, you understand. Private papers. Only a wretched thief would have stolen them from me after my many kindnesses to her.”

“Bah.” Lajli threw oil on the flames. “Better a thief than a slithering snake. These people, they know you are a bad man. A bad man who hates the so-handsome prince.”

“What nonsense is this?” Prasad frowned.

Gupta plucked at his cousin’s sleeve. They were beginning to attract attention. Across the road, an apprentice tailor paused in sweeping the veranda floor of his master’s store. He leaned on the broom and stared.

“You are a common thief, Lajli Joshi,” Prasad said. “An uneducated woman. What stupidity have you imagined from the blueprints you stole from me?”

“Me? I imagine nothing. I speak truth. You may ask—”

“I do ask. I ask that you return my private papers. I don’t expect miracles. I know a woman such as you will have spent my money and pawned my grandfather’s watch, but I want my papers back.”

“Well, you can’t have them.”

“Why not?” Prasad lowered his voice. There were echoes in it of a tiger’s menacing purr.

Gupta shuffled his feet.

Jed moved and Esme hastily stepped back to block him. The warm strength of him pressed into her back. He halted.

“Because I do not have your nasty papers.” Lajli threw her hands in the air, fingers widespread to demonstrate their emptiness. She waggled them. “All gone.”

Prasad scowled at her, then he looked over Esme’s shoulder to Jed. “If this thief has passed my property on to you, her gallant defender, I would appreciate its return.”

Jed stepped around Esme and took her arm. He tipped his hat forward, shading his eyes. “I have more interesting things to concern myself with than your correspondence.”

“It is as well.” Prasad spun his swagger stick. “The enclosed blueprints would not be easily deciphered by the uneducated.”

“Mr. Reeve is not uneducated.”

“Thank you, Lajli.” Jed’s gaze stayed on Prasad. “As it happens, I’m something of an inventor.”

Prasad’s hand tightened on the stick. “Then you may comprehend my anger at having the blueprints stolen from me. They are the work of a very dear friend, a very clever inventor, a genius I am proud to have known. It is the last device he ever designed and of the dearest import to me. Kali’s Scream is a music box and sonic amplifier. My friend had a most compassionate heart. He profoundly pitied the silent world of the deaf. With Kali’s Scream he sought to overcome the barriers preventing the deaf from enjoying music. The sonic amplification generates vibrations that the deaf can sense. Thanks to my friend, the deaf may know the joy of dancing to music.”

The explanation sounded utterly convincing. Esme half turned to look up at Jed. It was he who had read the stolen blueprints and notes. Could he have misinterpreted them?

He met her gaze and his mouth twisted derisively.

She flushed, aware that he’d read her doubts. She looked hastily back at Prasad, the epitome of a Western-educated intellectual. A late-night reading of papers, colored by whatever story Lajli had told, could have affected Jed’s understanding of the notes.

Or Prasad could be lying.

“I do not know you, sir,” Prasad continued. “But if you are in possession of my stolen wallet, of my dear friend’s papers, then I ask of you—on your honor—to return them to me.”

“But of course,” Jed said calmly. “If I find myself in possession of blueprints for a device designed to enable deaf people to appreciate music, I will forward them to you. You must supply me with your direction.”

There was an electrifying pause, then Prasad smiled thinly. “I am staying at the Raj Hotel.”

“It is very comfortable there,” Gupta said nervously.

“As you say.” Prasad didn’t take his eyes off Jed.

“You must excuse us now. Goodbye, sir.” Jed nodded, gripped Esme’s elbow and propelled her irresistibly toward the livery stables.

She glanced back at Prasad. He stood rigidly, one hand clenched around his swagger stick and eyes narrowed as he observed them. Gupta and Lajli scurried in their wake, blocking her view.

Had he or had he not just raised his hat in polite farewell? She turned her attention forward. Not that there was any need to watch where she trod. Jed’s grip brooked neither trip nor dispute. “Where are we going?” she asked him.

“Home. You get your wish. Lajli’s going with you.”

She contemplated his changed attitude and pronounced jawline. “Why?”

“Because Lajli, at least, recognizes a snake when she sees one.”

When she tried to dig in her heels, he simply swept her onwards. It was disconcerting to realize the power his casual good humor generally disguised. “Jed Reeve, this habit you’re developing of using your greater physical strength to win an argument is very annoying.”

“I don’t trust that man. Music for the deaf to dance to. Pah.” A snort of disbelief.

“A very worthwhile objective, one that sounded credible to me.”

“So I noticed,” he grumbled. “A fussing dandy making sheep’s eyes at you.”

“A
socialist
dandy,” she corrected him provokingly.

He stopped dead at the corner of the livery stables. “Are you saying you like him?”

“I’m just saying…” She saw Lajli trotting behind them. “Never mind.”

But he caught the drift of her thinking. “In my book, an honest thief beats a lying anarchist any day.”

Lajli nodded vigorously. “That Nazim is a very big liar.”

“Takes one to know one,” Gupta said, sotto voce. Lajli elbowed him.

Jed hired a carriage with a clipped efficiency that had grooms running to hitch the horse.

“What about my bicycle?”

“Gupta?” A flick of Jed’s head and the boy ran to fetch her bicycle.

“I could have collected it myself.” It was her turn to grumble.

“I want you where I can see you.”

“Why?”

“Do you really think your meeting with Nazim was a coincidence? He’s barely arrived in the colony and already he knows who Lajli’s allies are, who to undermine. I think I underestimated him—and the danger.”

“If you imply I’m your weakness again, I’ll scream.”

He glared at her, then smacked his fist against the wall of the stable. The corrugated iron vibrated. The stable cat that had been sunning itself on a feed bin vanished into the shadows of a cart in a corner of the yard.

“What on earth?” His violence astonished her.

“This is my fault,” he growled. “My own darn fault for being too darn clever.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

But he wasn’t listening to her. Gupta had returned with her bike and Jed lifted it into the carriage. Then he helped her and Lajli inside.

“Jed, I insist you explain.”

He looked pointedly at the back of the coachman’s head. “Later.”

She folded her arms and contemplated his angry expression. The anger seemed self-directed, but she could see no reason for it. Lajli was waving regally at the people they passed. Whatever fears she’d had concerning Prasad-Nazim appeared forgotten.

Realization struck Esme with the force of a lightning bolt. “Jed Reeve, you’ve landed me with a guardian-cum-chaperone.”

“Good heavens.” Gupta clutched the side of the carriage, stunned by this new vision of his cousin.

“As I said, at least she can recognize a snake. Just given the way you call him Prasad, you’re halfway to believing his story.”

This time it was she who cast a chiding glance at the back of the coachman’s head. Jed cursed under his breath. Her own anger had solidified to something strangely cold. Jed didn’t trust her. By his own admission, he trusted her less than he did a recently met thief.

“Very well.” She settled back against the thin cushions and held his gaze in level challenge. “When we reach home, I want to see those plans.”

Chapter Six

“You don’t trust me,” Jed said in a low, deadly voice.

“Sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose,” she misquoted. “
You
don’t trust
me.
”

She could probably have gotten the stolen papers from him if she’d employed a bit of patience and exercised some charm, but she didn’t want to use tact. She wanted the blind fool to acknowledge her independence and equality.

Breathe.
She had to stay calm, reason logically, convince the bullheaded man that there were two sides to every story—and she wasn’t simply talking about Lajli and Nazim. She and Jed had to understand one another better if their courtship wasn’t to founder on the rocks of their equally strong characters.

But that was okay. She had seen the problem. She could be calm enough for the two of them. They would have a meaningful dialogue, resolve their argument in a sane and orderly fashion and be the better for it.

“Nazim is handsome,” Jed said.

Whoosh.
She almost heard the reignition of her temper, it was that violent.

So much for good intentions.

“Are you implying I’ve been bowled over by a handsome face?” She closed the library door. If they were going to have an argument, then to heck with the proprieties. She intended to have privacy. Maud, her housekeeper, was escorting Lajli to a guest room. Gupta had opted to accompany them. Wise man. He’d foreseen that the library would be a battleground.

“Oh, he’s more than a pretty face. I heard his introduction. He’s a gentleman and a
socialist.
”

“A man can claim to be many things.” She paused to add emphasis to the next sentence. “So can a woman.”

Jed took her up instantly. “If you don’t trust Lajli, why in heaven’s name bring her into your home?”

“Because I have an open mind. I haven’t made a decision either way, with only half the facts.”

“I’m a scientist, sweetheart. I don’t need a lecture on evidence.”

“And I don’t need lectures on behaving
reasonably.
”

“Oh, you need those lectures all right. You just don’t listen. Yet you listened to Nazim’s plausible little story. A device to help the poor deaf kiddies.”

“Be accurate. He didn’t mention children.”

“Because I didn’t give him time to do so. He was feeding you a line, sweetheart, and you were eating it up.”

Outrage swelled in her breast. “And what has Lajli been feeding you?”

“Nothing. For heaven’s sake, Esme. You know I wouldn’t look at another woman.”

“Do I? You don’t seem to know I wouldn’t look at another man.”

His anger dropped from him and he strode forward. “Sweetheart, you have me coming and going. But I know your honesty, your loyalty. I’m just jealous.” He ran his palms up her arms to her shoulders, then around to cup her shoulder blades. “I want to know your love.”

Her heartbeat accelerated frantically. He was bending toward her. She was rising on her toes. Her hands slid of their own volition to his shoulders as she tilted her face.

Desire smoldered in his dark eyes, promising, inviting, demanding.

Her spirit leaped to answer the challenge. Her body tingled with anticipation. Her lips parted to draw a breath.

Someone knocked.

She tore herself out of his arms, pressing a hand to her throat and the fast-pounding pulse at its base.

“Come in,” Jed said, his eyes blazing with thwarted passion.

Gupta opened the door cautiously, looking embarrassed.

Lajli showed no such hesitation as she bounced into the library. “My room is beautiful. Gupta must bring all my clothes here. I have told him.”

“I have told her she must not steal anything from you or yours,” Gupta said with surprising sternness.

Lajli pulled a face. “I would not do so. I am a guest in a grand house. I know how to behave.”

Jed took the packet of papers from the inner pocket of his jacket. “Esme and I are about to study these. You can join us, if you choose.”

Gupta backed away. “I m-must collect Lajli’s belongings.”

“Me, I am going to have a bath. I have never seen such a bathroom. There is running water, hot water, many bath oils, mirrors.”

Gupta pulled her out of the room, scandalized at her improper conversation. He forgot to close the door, came back and shut it with a little bang behind them.

“Finally.” Jed smiled crookedly. “Alone at last. Perhaps I shouldn’t complain at Gupta’s timing. There is something I must explain before I kiss you.”

“Explain quickly,” she invited boldly.

“To Hades with explanations.” He caught her hands.

The door opened. Maud walked in, followed by a maid pushing a tea trolley.

“Frogs’ fine feathers!” Jed released Esme, pushed his hands in his pockets and stalked to the window.

“It is time for morning tea.” Maud looked suspiciously from Esme to Jed, then busied herself setting out the tea. “Past time.”

“We’re working on a project related to Lajli’s visit,” Esme said. The difficulty with employing servants who were also friends was that one had to explain oneself. Haughty orders would be offensive and hurtful—and doubtless, not heeded. “Can you please tell Francis that no one is to be admitted to the house—and that goes for the kitchen, too. Oh, and send a message to Owens. We need him and Brutus.”

“We’re circling the wagons,” Jed said.

“Pardon?” Esme glanced at him. Heavens, but he was handsome. Strong, intelligent. A shiver snaked down her spine. She wanted the kiss he’d promised her. She wished she could push Maud and the maid out of the library and lock the door. Instead, she had to control her demanding passions and pretend the very air didn’t vibrate with their almost-kiss.

“Never mind. It’s an American saying. The wagon trains that traveled west used to arrange themselves into circles when they felt an attack was likely.”

“An attack? Gracious me.” Maud put a hand to her ample bosom.

“Jed wasn’t speaking literally. Lajli is having trouble with a man. He’s clever and he could try anything, so we won’t trust anyone who calls without an invitation, most especially if they’re strangers.”

“Heavens.” Maud shooed the wide-eyed maid out of the library and unpacked the tea trolley herself. “I wish your father were here, or Captain Fellowes.”

“Uncle Henry is expected back any day,” Esme said. “He prides himself on keeping the
Athena
to schedule.”

“Although it’s not like they could have prevented you offering refuge to this Lajli, who is no better than she should be. You’ve always been one to leap into trouble.” Maud placed a plate of brandy snaps filled with cream on the table beside a fruitcake, added a plate stacked high with shortbread and pushed the empty trolley out of the room. She paused in the doorway. “This door stays open.”

“Yes, Maud.” Esme saw Jed’s lips twitching into a wry grin. “Be careful, you, or I’ll pour you a cup of tea.”

“Threats, sweetheart?” A dedicated coffee drinker, Jed walked over to the coffee geyser that occupied a low shelf on the far wall and started the automated process that would grind the beans and ultimately produce a jet of steaming coffee.

Until the process finished, the noise blocked out any possibility of conversation.

Esme looked at the open library door, sighed and poured herself a cup of tea. She carried it over to her desk, swept up the pamphlets and political notes scattered over the polished jarrah surface, and tucked them into a drawer. From another drawer, she extracted clean paper, pencils and a spare fountain pen for Jed.

Since they were under observation, they might as well work.

Clearly, Jed agreed. He put his coffee cup down on the corner of the desk and handed her the packet of stolen papers. “Go ahead. You decipher the scrawled notes. I’d appreciate your assessment, if we’re really dealing with an assassination plot. I didn’t think it existed, but Nazim isn’t letting any grass grow under his feet, so the papers must have some importance—and Lajli did mention a police raid. I doubt she’d have made that up. Meantime, I’ll have another look at the blueprints. If the threat is credible, and Nazim’s actions make me wary, then we need to know what Kali’s Scream is truly capable of.”

“Jed, I…” She stopped and thought about what she wanted to say. He was trusting her judgment, including her in the danger. The thought warmed her as much as the missed kiss. “Thank you.”

He nodded, understanding, and sat opposite her at the desk. The blueprints rustled as he unfolded them. “Do you subscribe to the
Journal of Unseen Science and Beyond?
I read something, about a year ago, on radio waves.”

“Father subscribes. To the left of the suit of armor, third shelf down.”

“Thanks.” He selected a couple of other journals, plus a stack of three books, and returned with them to the desk. Within seconds he was completely absorbed.

She forced her attention back to the tightly written, nearly indecipherable notes in front of her.

…the casing of the device…of gold…judged to appeal…

The pages appeared to be out of order, but a shuffle of them showed no natural starting place. She went back to the first one.

…our protection is…their unwillingness to believe…

She doodled a heart and pinged it with Cupid’s arrow before realizing quite what her hand had betrayed. She dropped the pencil.

Through the open door, maids talked as they dusted and swept the stairs. From beyond the French windows came the cheerful whistle of the gardener’s lad, weeding the garden. Francis, the general factotum, stomped into the hall and urged the maids to hurry up with their dusting because the morning wasn’t getting any younger, “none of us are.” They giggled.

She looked at Jed’s bent head, his dark hair slightly mussed from his hat. Broad shoulders, enhanced by quality tailoring, were outlined by the light from the window. Once before, she’d trusted in the strength implied by those shoulders and hadn’t been disappointed. He was a man of loyalty and honor. But still, conflicting emotions tore her to and fro. To trust someone with your heart, with your passion and dreams, with all that you were, required such a huge leap of faith in them. How did anyone make that leap?

Years ago, she’d asked her mother how she could bear the rough life of the goldfields, living at her father’s mining claim as he fossicked. It was the only life Esme knew, but her mother had been a schoolmaster’s daughter who’d known a more settled, comfortable life.

Her mother had said, “When you love someone, you share their dreams.”

Did that work both ways? Would Jed share her dreams of universal suffrage, of education and welfare for all?

She would support him in his inventing.

“Are you finding the notes difficult to decipher?”

She blinked and, finding Jed watching her, fought down a revealing blush. How long had she been dreaming? “I’ll manage.”

“I believe you will.”