Her Only Desire (2 page)

It seemed that Ian's suspicious reaction had already been anticipated, for the note had been sealed with a red wax wafer firmly stamped with the family crest of the house of the Dukes of Hawkscliffe. The moment he saw the authentic Hawkscliffe insignia, he nearly grinned. He knew this coat of arms as well as he knew his own. He might be a stranger in a strange land here, but the familiar sight went a long way toward making him feel at home.

Lord Arthur was Hawk's uncle, younger brother to the previous Duke. A bit of a carousing rake in his youth, as younger sons of the nobility tended to be, Lord Arthur had been a great favorite with all the lads before he had set out some thirty years ago to make his fortune with the East India Company.

Ian had promised to deliver salutations from the London branch of the Knight family to the scion that had taken root here, but he had not expected to make a social call until he had gotten settled in at the hotel and had taken care of preparations for his mission.

In any case, short of Lord Arthur coming to greet him in person, the authentic Hawkscliffe crest was the best proof he could ask for to ensure that the footman's story was genuine and not the cunning trap of some enemy agent. With that, he cracked the seal and read.

Dear Lord Griffith,

Welcome to India! The finest hotel in Calcutta cannot rival the hospitality of a good friend's home, and as I hear that you are all but a member of the family back in England, you must hasten here and be our guest. We shall endeavor to see to your every comfort.

Very truly yrs,
Georgiana Knight.

Well, well, well,
he mused.
Georgiana.
Lord Arthur's daughter. He had been trying hard not to think about her.

It wasn't easy, considering he had been hearing intriguing stories about the young lady from as far away as the Bay of Bengal—not just of her beauty, but of her good deeds. Though she was a leading belle of British society in Calcutta, with innumerable friends and more suitors than she could count, the bulk of her considerable energy, it seemed, went into her charitable work for the good of the Indian people.

Rumors of an orphanage Georgiana had endowed with the proceeds of her father's East India Company fortune were only the beginning. There was also an almshouse for old ladies, an animal hospital in the Jain tradition, a shrine she had prevented from being destroyed to make way for a new British road, and she was a major patroness of the Orientalist Society, funding the livelihoods of scholars who were dedicated to the study of ancient Sanskrit texts and all branches of Eastern thought and art.

The villagers a hundred miles away had spoken Georgiana's name in a reverent hush, as though invoking some divine or sainted being. But having known all about the shocking exploits of the first Georgiana, Hawk's mother, for whom she had been named, Ian had his doubts.

Knight women were pure trouble, born and bred for scandal.

And yet somehow he could hardly wait to have a look at her.

There had been talk for generations, after all, of a desire to unite their two powerful clans, the Hawkscliffe dukes and the Griffith marquesses. But it did not signify. His interest was academic only; the grand alliance would have to wait for a new generation. Perhaps one day his boy, Matthew, could marry Hawk and Bel's new baby daughter. Himself, his married days were over.

He had been married once. Once had been enough.

The footman looked at him expectantly, but Ian hesitated. If he was being watched by foreign powers, he did not want to bring danger to his friends.

On the other hand, with two military officers in the house besides himself—Gabriel and Derek, waiting to join him on his mission—any spy would think twice about coming too close. Besides, old Lord Arthur might have something useful to tell him about the renowned Maharajah of Janpur.

His mind made up, Ian tucked the note into his breast pocket, nodding to the footman. “Thank you. I will come.”

“This way, my lord.” But as the servant began to show him over to the carriage, a slight shift in the wind suddenly carried the strong scent of smoke to his nostrils.

Something was burning.

He turned to look and saw a change in the crowd's shifting currents; the people in the market were surging toward the west.

“What's happened?” he asked quickly, worried a fire had broken out somewhere in the cluttered bazaar. His instant reaction was to begin looking for a way to stop pandemonium from breaking out, fearing people would get trampled if there was not a swift and orderly evacuation of the old tinderbox of a market.

Ravi halted a passerby and asked what was happening, then turned back to Ian in relief. “It is only a funeral, sahib. Some local dignitary has died and is being cremated. His ashes will be scattered on the river.”

“Ah.” Relief washed through him, and he gave his servant a cautious nod. “Very well, then. Let us be on our—” His words broke off abruptly, for at that moment, without warning, a rider came barreling into the market.

Astride a magnificent white Arabian mare, she came tearing through the bazaar, careening nimbly through the crowded zigzag aisles and leaving a tenfold chaos in her wake. Chickens went flying, vendors cursed, a tower of handwoven baskets crashed down, knocking over a fruit stand, and people flung themselves out of her way.

Ian stared.

In a cloud of weightless silk swathed exotically around her lithe figure, the woman leaned low to murmur in her horse's ear. Above the diaphanous veil that concealed the lower half of her face, her cobalt eyes were fierce.

Blue.

Blue eyes?

As he watched in disbelief, she leaped her white horse over a passing oxcart—and then she was gone, racing off in the direction of the fire.

Ravi and Ian exchanged a baffled look.

He and Ravi and both coolies, along with the Knight family's footman, stared after the girl for a moment, dumbfounded.

There was only one sort of woman he knew who could cause that much chaos that quickly.

Aye, in an instant, somehow, deep in his bones, Ian knew exactly who she was.

The footman had turned pale and now started forward in recognition, but Ian stopped him with a sardonic murmur.

“I'll handle this.” With a cautionary nod at Ravi, he walked away from the servants, and followed irresistibly in the direction the young hellion had gone.

         

Georgiana Knight urged her fleet-footed mare onward, dodging rickshaws, pedestrians, and sacred cows that loitered in the road until, at last, she reached the riverside, where a gathering of some fifty people surrounded the funeral pyre.

Towering flames licked at the azure sky.

The sickening, charred-meat smell made her stomach turn, but she would not be deterred. A young woman's life depended on this rescue—more than that, a dear friend.

The relatives of old, dead Balaram now noticed Georgie's approach. Most of them still milled about the funeral pyre, sending up all the spectacle of mourning for the respected town elder, wailing and waving their hands, but a few watched her uneasily as she arrived at the edge of the crowd. They knew the British detested this holy rite, and she quite expected that at least a few of them would try to stop her.

The self-immolation of a virtuous and beautiful widow not only pleased the gods, but brought great honor to her family and that of her husband. Burning herself alive in a ritual suicide just to honor her husband's name!

There could be no more perfect illustration, Georgie thought, of
everything
that was wrong with the whole institution of marriage—in both their cultures. It gave all the power to the man. And, good heavens, the way females were treated in the East was enough to put any sane woman off marriage entirely!

A cheeky aphorism from the writings of her famous aunt, Georgiana Knight, the Duchess of Hawkscliffe, trailed through her mind:
Wedlock is a padlock.
Well, today, she would not allow it to become a death sentence, too.

Then she spotted dear, gentle Lakshmi standing before the blaze in her red silk wedding robes, heavily encrusted with gold and pearls. The raven-haired beauty was staring at the fire as though contemplating what agony she would know before oblivion. Absorbed in her thoughts and no doubt lightly drugged with betel, the dead man's bride was not yet aware of her British friend's arrival.

Angered by the smoke, the white mare reared up a bit on her hind legs as Georgie pulled her mount to a halt at the fringe of the funeral crowd; she gave her horse a firm command to stay and leaped down from the saddle.

Murmurs rippled around her as she stalked through the gathering, her sandals landing firmly in the dust with each long, limber stride. The tiny silver bells on her anklet tinkled eerily in the hush.

Everyone knew the two girls had played together since childhood, and that Georgie was far more Indianized than most British folk, so perhaps the relatives thought she had merely come to say her last goodbyes. Lakshmi's family were wealthy Hindus of the Brahmin caste, on a par with the aristocratic rank of Georgie's clan in their respective cultures.

They let her pass.

Behind her, she now heard Adley's rather noisy arrival at the edge of the crowd, tumbling along after her, as always, but Balaram's relatives did not let the foppish young nabob any closer. She could hear him sputtering with indignation.

“I say! This will not do! Miss Knight! I am here—should you need me!”

Fixed on her purpose, she did not look back, surveying the dire scene before her.

The massive bonfire had already turned old Balaram's bones to dust when Lakshmi looked up from the inferno and saw Georgie marching toward her. She faltered slightly at Georgie's infuriated stare.

Reaching Lakshmi's side, Georgie gripped her shoulders with a no-nonsense look and turned her friend away from the flames. “You are out of your mind if you think I'm going to let you go through with this—ridiculous superstition!” she scolded in a hushed tone. “It's savage and cruel!”

“What choice do I have?” Lakshmi's delicate voice quavered. “I cannot dishonor my family.”

“You most certainly can! It was bad enough they made you
marry
the old goat, but to die for him, as well? It is obscene!” she whispered furiously.

“But it isn't dying, really,” Lakshmi insisted half-heartedly. “I'll go straight to heaven, and w-when the people pray to me, I'll grant their wishes.”

“Oh, Lakshmi. What have they done to you?” Had the three years her friend had spent living in the strict marital seclusion of purdah robbed her of all common sense? “I know you know better than this!”

“Oh, Georgie—my life will be too awful if I live!” she choked out, her big brown eyes filling with tears. “You know how it is for widows. I'll be an outcast! People will flee me and say I'm bad luck! I'll be a burden on my family, a-and I'll have to shave off all my hair,” she added woefully, for Lakshmi's night-black hair was her crowning glory, hanging all the way to her waist. “What's the point?” she said in utter misery. “My life is over. It's forbidden that I should ever remarry. All my childhood happiness came to an end the day of my wedding, and it will not return, so I might as well be dead.”

“You don't know that. No one knows the future. My dear, you mustn't give up.” Georgie hugged her for a moment, with angry tears in her eyes. “Look,” she resumed in as soothing a tone as possible, “don't try to think about the whole rest of your life right now. Just think about this moment, and the next.”

Georgie coughed a little from the smoke, but willed away the pain that flared up in her chest and ignored the fear as the smoke began snaking through her lungs, agitating her old ailment.

“Think of all the reasons left to live,” she continued, “all the fun we have. Throwing powder paints on people at the Holi festival? Playing pranks on Adley? If you die, who will finish teaching me the Odissi dances? If you die, oh, my dearest, you can never dance again.”

Lakshmi let out a strangled sob, barely audible above the fire's roar.

“Now, you listen to me,” Georgie ordered softly. “You won't be a burden on your family, because—” A painful spasm in her lungs halted her words all of a sudden. She clutched her chest, alarmed. She hadn't felt that harsh constriction in her lungs since she was a child. It was worsening. She cleared her throat but it was no use; she had begun to wheeze.

“What's wrong?” Lakshmi searched her face.

“Nothing,” she lied impatiently, determined to save her friend or die trying. “You won't be a burden on your family,” she repeated, refusing to yield to panic, “because you will come and live at
my
house. Papa won't mind. He's never home anyway, and as for my brothers, well, Gabriel and Derek will never forgive you if you go through with this—and they'll never forgive
me
if I fail to stop you.”

When she coughed again and then muttered a curse, Lakshmi realized for certain what was wrong. “It's your asthma, isn't it?”

“Don't worry about me!” Georgie retorted, but concern for her was now rousing Lakshmi out of her trance of despair.

“Gigi, you can hardly breathe,” she insisted, using her childhood nickname. “You have to get away from this fire!”

Georgie fixed her with a meaningful stare. “So do you,” she replied in an urgent whisper. “Be brave, my dear. Be brave enough to stand up to them, and
live.
”

“Miss Knight, you must let her go now,” Lakshmi's father interrupted. “It is time. Hurry, Lakshmi, while the fire is still hot enough.”

A shower of sparks popped violently and flew toward Lakshmi in a plume, as though old Balaram himself were reaching out from the depths of the fire, trying to grab the poor girl and drag her down with him to her doom. Lakshmi glanced from her sire back to Georgie, sudden panic in her eyes. “Help me,” she whispered.