Dishonored (26 page)

Twenty minutes later, her face bathed properly and dressed by the doctor, Suzanna Harvey sat on the white sofa in Jane’s and
Phillip’s sitting-room and stared blankly across at Jane. She picked at her fingernails absent-mindedly, her hands trembled.
She took in the order of the room, the framed wedding photograph, the immaculate pale Jane, and a huge swell of anger washed
over her. It should be me, she thought, a bitter taste rising in the back of her throat, sitting here, helping someone, it
should be me. She clenched her hands together in her lap, locking her fingers, digging her nails into the flesh. Then she
looked up and, unable to stop herself, said, “You’re not at all like I expected.”

Jane turned away from the window and looked at the woman. She had the oddest sensation, down in the pit of her stomach, a
nervousness, a small, tight knot of tension. She saw an expression of distaste on the woman’s face and a gentle quizzical
look crossed her own. “I’m sorry?” she said, “I don’t understand.”

The anger erupted, a terrible, intense need to hurt, to strike out. “No,” Suzanna answered coldly, “I don’t expect you do.”
She bit a fingernail and tore the skin, making it bleed and, placing her hand on the sofa beside her, she left a small smear
of dark red blood on the cream silk.

Jane winced. She had begun to feel panicky, trapped almost, and she took a deep breath to calm herself. She went to stand,
to call DhaniRam for some drinks, anything to relieve the tension but as she did so Suzy said, “You think you’re so smug,
don’t you? You think you’ve got it all here, servants, position, Phillip.” Her face twisted suddenly as she said his name
and Jane’s stomach lurched. She held on to the arm of the sofa and froze.

“Well you haven’t!” Suzanna cried suddenly. “Phillip is mine! He’s mine! He always has been and always will be!” A sob caught
in the back of her throat and she gasped for air. “I love him… he… he loves me!” She stood and lashed out, knocking
the photograph frame from the table and smashing it on the cold marble floor. Jane watched with horror. She tried to call
DhaniRam but her voice dried up in her throat.

“He doesn’t want you!” Suzanna cried. “He married you to get his job, to keep me! He told me that you were there for us, to
screen us to make sure… to make sure…” Suddenly she lost track of what she was saying and her voice trailed away.
“To make sure…” She put her hands up to her face, her eyes were blank and confused. “Oh God…” She began to weep.
“Look at me, look at my face,” she murmured. “Oh God…”

Jane took her hand off the sofa. She had been gripping it so hard that she’d left an imprint of her fingers on the silk. She
moved back, away from the woman, frightened, her body sweating, her legs weak. She had never seen such emotion, such violent
anger. She edged toward the door, her back to the wall, her eyes continually on the woman. She held her hands in front of
her body, protectively, ready to defend herself. She was shaking.

“He said it’d be all right,” Suzy whispered. “He said to trust him…” She looked up as Jane made it to the door. “He’s
my life, you know.”

Jane nodded, not daring to move. She heard a commotion behind her in the hall and prayed it was the bearer. She pressed herself
back, holding her breath.

“He said to trust him, he said he knew…” Suddenly Suzy’s head jerked up. Phillip had appeared in the doorway behind Jane.

“Jesus! Suzy!” He ran forward and pulled her in to his body, surrounding her with his arms. “Oh my God… my darling! What’s
happened?” Suzanna started to cry again and he stroked her hair with infinite tenderness. “Please, baby, don’t cry, don’t…” He broke off and glanced behind him. He saw Jane, saw her frightened, confused face and shut his eyes, trying to blank
it out. “Suzy, please, please don’t cry,” he whispered. Gently he released her and helped her down on to the sofa. He dug
in his pocket for his silk handkerchief and tenderly wiped her eyes, careful of the dressings. He turned.

“Jane?” Jane heard her name but she didn’t react. She stood motionless, pressed back against the wall, shocked and confused
by what she had just witnessed. She shook her head.

“Jane? I…” Phillip moved toward her but she backed away, out of the door. “Jane, please…”

She stood outside the room and stared at him inside it. She had seen his face, seen the love, seen the terrible fear there
but she had to hear it, she had to know from him.

“Is it true?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse, hardly a whisper. Phillip closed his eyes for a moment, then he nodded.

“How long?”

He walked toward her. “Jane, please, it doesn’t matter how…”

“How long?” she shouted.

He dropped his head and his shoulders slumped. “Three years,” he murmured, unable to look up. “Three years.”

Jane stared at him for a moment longer, then she turned and ran. She ran down the steps of the bungalow, down the drive and
across the palace grounds. She saw nothing and heard nothing. She ran as fast as she could, she didn’t know where she was
going or what she was doing but she knew she had to get away, she knew she had to escape this horrible ugly mess.

Jane didn’t know how far she had run or for how long when she stopped. She slowed to a walk, her whole body pounding, the
blood roaring in her ears. It was dark, the clouds covered the moon and it was hot and still, the air trapped close to the
earth, wrapped close around her body. She didn’t know where she was for a while, she wandered across a lawn, the grass dry
and rough underfoot, she saw bushes ahead, a creeper-covered wall and then she recognized the arch, the opening to the water
garden. She carried on, through the opening and down onto the low stone wall, walking along it until she jumped down into
the open space and walked across to the still, black waters of the pools. She sat on the edge of one as she had done that
night with Rami and curled her knees up under her. She lay her cheek down on her knees and closed her eyes. She didn’t think
about Phillip, she didn’t think about anything; she felt empty and numb.

Rami came to the water garden from the road. He left his bicycle on the ground and climbed over the lowest part of the ruined
wall, dropping down the other side, silently and easily, with the grace of a cat. He stood and looked at Jane, here alone
just as Shiva had told him she was, her head bowed in sadness, her body curled up in a gesture of defense. He moved forward,
his footsteps silent on the ancient mosaic tiled floor, and reaching her, he knelt down before her and gently lifted her face
up.

“Jane?”

She felt no alarm at the sight of him, no fright. She had sensed his presence; it was almost as if she had been waiting for
him. “My grandfather told me you had run away. I came after you.”

“How did he…?”

Rami put his fingers up to her lips to silence her. He did not know and he did not care. Moving his hand to her hair, to the
back of her neck, he gently eased her face toward his. He loved her, of that much he was certain, he loved her gentle strength,
her kindness and her humility. He loved everything about Jane Mills in a way he had never loved before and knew he would never
love again. He had found the keeper of his soul and, as he kissed her, moving his hands across her back and pulling her body
down to his, he knew that this would change his life and that he wanted it to be changed.

Jane closed her eyes. For one peculiar moment she remembered her father and what he had said about love. She smiled fleetingly
and realized that he had been right, that she had found someone she would the for just as he’d said she would. Then she opened
them again and looked at Ramesh as he broke their kiss and dragged his mouth down over her throat to her neck, slipping the
buttons of her shirt through their holes, easing the material back, exposing her, caressing her. She wrapped her fingers in
his hair, the black of it stark against the white of her breast and she moaned as his lips found her nipple. His tongue darted
across it and she felt such a sharp desire run through her that it was almost painful. She wrapped her bare legs over his,
and he pulled at her skirt, bunching it up over her hips, fumbling with his own
churidar
. He moved over her and looked down at her face, her eyes half-closed, her mouth parted. Then he knelt back and slowly he
finished unbuttoning her shirt, his fingers trembling now, struggling slightly with the zip of her skirt. Gently he eased
her clothes down over her narrow hips and the lean, long thighs and stared at her naked body, her pale gold skin as smooth
and warm to touch as sun-drenched marble. He undressed himself, letting her help him, flinching, not with pain but with intense
pleasure at her touch. Finally, he rolled his silk
kurta
and placed it as a pillow under her head. He covered her with his body and she moved her legs apart, high up over his hips,
she looked up at the sky and for that one second the clouds parted and she caught sight of the moon. She cried out and her
face was lit with its extraordinary, pale white light.

Phillip stood in the sitting-room and looked anxiously out at the driveway to the bungalow for sight of Jane. He was worried
sick; he had sent a servant to that Indian Ramesh Rai’s place and another over to the club. He hoped to God nothing had happened
to her; he would be in for a hell of a scandal if it had.

Turning away from the window for a few minutes, he walked out of the sitting-room and along the passage to the guest bedroom
where Suzanna was asleep. He glanced in, watched her for a few moments filled with longing and despair, then silently he closed
the door again. As he went back to the sitting-room, he saw Jane come up the steps of the bungalow and stopped in the hall,
facing her.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked.

Jane looked away. “Walking,” she answered coldly. “Why?”

“I was worried.” Phillip walked out toward her but stopped as she backed down the step. “Janey, I’m sorry,” he said, “I really
am.”

Jane turned to look at him. She didn’t know what to say in reply. She knew the love he felt, she understood him and she pitied
him but she didn’t forgive him. He had dishonored his word, married her knowing at the time that he was shaming the vows he
made. She couldn’t forgive that. She knew and she understood because she too loved, with a force and passion that astounded
her but she had fought it and struggled with it until tonight, until there was nothing left to fight or struggle for.

She put her hand on the balustrade and leaned wearily against it, pulling herself up the steps. She walked past Phillip and
into the bungalow. He caught her arm.

“Will you stay, Jane?” His voice was desperate, pitiful.

She carefully removed his hand. “Yes,” she answered, “I’ll stay.” She had no choice, she could not leave Rami, not now, not
after tonight, even though an affair was impossible. But she could not live alone here, she knew that, the scandal would be
too great, it would destroy Rami. She looked up at Phillip’s face. “But I’m not staying for you, I’m staying because I want
to.”

He nodded and hung his head, relief swamping him.

“I never, never want to hear of this woman again or catch a hint of scandal. You do understand that, don’t you?”

Again he nodded and Jane carried on into the house. She stopped in the hallway and glanced back. “I can understand your love,
Phillip,” she said sadly, “but I cannot understand the deceit, the dishonor.” And without another word, she turned and went
inside to bed.

I
T WAS MID
-O
CTOBER AND
M
ITCHELL
H
ARVEY SAT IN HIS OFFICE
on the Embankment, at the top of a huge stone Victorian building overlooking the Thames and buzzed his secretary. He had
a file open on the desk in front of him.

“Send in my next appointment, Miss Warner,” he said over the intercom. He released the button and sat back to wait.

“Morning, Mr. Harvey.”

A young man came in, half Indian, half English. He wore an expensive suit and tie, his shirt was handmade. Mitchell knew;
he’d paid for it. Mitchell nodded at him.

“Sit.” He pointed to the chair in front of his desk and the young man did as he was told. Mitchell looked at him for a few
moments, enjoying the sight of him, then he said, “You saw her yourself?”

The young man nodded. He was pleased with himself, he almost smiled.

“And you have the address?”

He patted the soft leather case he held on his lap. “Here, with the rest of the details.”

Mitchell stood and turned his back on the young man, looking out of the window at his spectacular view. He was angry, just
the mention of her incensed him, and the muscle in his jaw twitched. It had taken too long to find her after that incident
in Delhi, ten weeks they’d been watching out, three months Imran had been away. He knew she’d slip in the end, though; Suzanna
wasn’t bright, she had to make a mistake sometime, he’d always been certain of that. Mitchell smiled and the muscle was still.

“You have the money, my things?”

“Yes, they’re back in the safe.”

Mitchell came back to the desk. He flipped the file open and looked down at the photograph of Suzanna with a blond man. He
turned it over and fingered the next shot. Poor Suzy, couldn’t spot a con man inches from her nose. He closed the file on
the picture of Mick Capper face down in a ditch; he had a bullet through the back of his head.

“Where is she?”

Imran had been waiting for this question. He opened the briefcase and squared his shoulders, passing a number of files across
the desk. He was pleased with himself; he had reason to be. “In Baijur, like you said she’d be.” He leaned forward. “Mills
moved her, though, three times, practically every three weeks, which is why I couldn’t suss it at first.” He ran his tongue
provocatively over his lips. “They must have met up at different places every time, he hardly ever went to hers and when she
went out she always wore Indian dress.”

Mitchell’s mouth curled into a sneer; Suzanna was a racist, it must have pained her terribly to give up her Chanel for a sari.