The Betrayal of the Blood Lily (9 page)

“There’s nothing to say that I need to follow my husband.”

“You said it yourself. Whither he goest . . .”

“That was purely a matter of geography, not the mind.”

“Freethinking, Lady Frederick?”

She hated that name. It was like a shackle around her neck, engraved with the name of her master. She took a step back, her face openly mutinous in the light of the single lamp. “I don’t like being told what to do.”

Captain Reid quirked an eyebrow. “I shall remember that.”

Unexpectedly, Penelope grinned. “No, I don’t expect you will. But I shall keep reminding you.” Turning her back on him quite deliberately, she scanned the books scattered across the shelves. “Do you have that Hindustani grammar for me?”

“This one.” He reached from behind her to tip a book out of the row. His sleeve brushed her shoulder in passing. It was a coarser weave than Freddy favored, which must have been why it seemed to leave such a trail across her bare skin. She could smell the clean scent of shaving soap on his jaw and port on his breath, almost overwhelming the small space, as though not being able to see him somehow made him larger than he was, blowing his presence out of proportion in the brush of fabric against her back, the whisper of breath against her hair.

Penelope twisted around, so that the bookshelf pressed into her back, pinning her between the writing desk on one side and Captain Reid’s extended arm on the other. She tipped her head back to look him in the eye, the ribbons in her hair snagging against the shelf.

Captain Reid made no move to remove his arm. They were face-to-face, chest-to-chest, close enough to kiss. But for the fact that they weren’t on a balcony, and there was no champagne in evidence, it might have been a dozen other encounters in Penelope’s existence, a dozen dangerous preludes to a kiss. But this wasn’t a ballroom, and this man wasn’t any of the spoiled society boys she had known in London. He studied her face in the strange, shifting light, as the ship rocked back and forth and they rocked with it, pinned in place, frozen in tableau, his own face dark and unreadable in the half-light.

One might, thought Penelope hazily, her eyes dropping to his lips, attempt to seduce information out of him. From what she had heard, it was a far-from-uncommon technique. One needn’t go too far, after all. A sultry glance, a subtle caress . . . a kiss. It was all for a good cause—and it could be so easy.

Or maybe not.

Captain Reid was no Freddy. Stepping abruptly back, he favored her with a stiff, social smile, the sort one would give a maiden aunt who was being tedious at a party, but to whom one was bound to be polite.

With a brusque motion, he thrust the red-bound book into her hands, gesturing her, with unmistakable finality, towards the door. “Here is your grammar, Lady Frederick. I wish you . . . an instructive time with it.”

“Oh, yes,” said Penelope, with more bravado than she felt. “It has certainly been most instructive.”

The scent of Lady Frederick’s perfume lingered behind her, as pungent as crushed frangipani petals, in the confined cabin. Shaking his head to clear it, like a sleepwalker slapping himself into wakefulness, Alex forced his attention to his writing desk, where the letter he had been writing to George appeared to have dried. It was, he thought, rather a good thing he had written in Urdu. The description he had provided of Lord and Lady Frederick had not been a flattering one.

Why in the devil had she suddenly felt the burning need for a Hindi grammar? And why come to his room to find it? It would have been just as easy to have made the request at dinner.

Shuffling the pages together, Alex snaked a glance over at the bookshelf. She hadn’t been trying to . . . No. Too absurd. Alex shook his head and went on shuffling. He rooted about with one hand, feeling for the sealing wax. And yet. There had been that odd moment, by the bookshelf, where a letter opener could scarcely have sliced through the space between them. Admittedly, there wasn’t that much space in the cabin to begin with, but . . . Opening the glass door of the lantern, Alex abstractedly thrust the wick of the wax at the small flame.

She hadn’t been trying to seduce him, had she?

Crimson dots spattered across the worn wood floor like freshly shed blood.

Alex flapped his hand up and down, cursing vehemently in three languages. He had just dripped hot wax all down his hand and it bloody well stung.

Served him right.

Scowling, Alex picked up the fallen wafer and finished the job with brutal efficiency, stamping the wax with far more force than the act required. A burnt hand was no more than he deserved. Lady Frederick wasn’t trying to seduce him; she simply flirted as naturally as she breathed. Like his father. They were two of a kind, masters of the meaningless flirtation. Look at the state to which she had reduced that poor, calf-eyed dolt of a captain.

Even if she did have a bit of dalliance in mind—and it was purely a hypothetical situation, Alex assured himself, slamming the lid of his writing case—there wasn’t anything the least bit flattering about it. It didn’t take more than ordinary intelligence to notice that something wasn’t quite right between her and her titled goop of a husband. Alex had no desire to play the pawn in a civil war between husband and wife. Being assaulted by a jealous husband—or doing the assaulting oneself—would do little to enhance his bid for a district commissionership. Even his father would have to agree with that.

Alex didn’t like to think what else his father would have to say about the affair. Not that there was an affair. English could be a bloody infuriating language at times, with its denotations and connotations and multiple meanings running rampant around perfectly innocent words. It had been no more than an encounter, a chance brush in a too-small room.

Flopping backwards onto his berth, Alex took up the book he had been reading before dinner but the words refused to behave in a proper manner, all running together into a gray blur. It was no use. He couldn’t make himself concentrate on the wonders of irrigation. It had all been a bit premature, to be sure, educating himself on improved agricultural methods. There was no guarantee that the district commissionership would be his, or that he would ever have the chance to put any of his plans into practice. No guarantee, but a good shot. With the efficiency of born bureaucrats, the Governor General’s office was parceling out the land extracted by treaty from the Nizam of Hyderabad into new districts, districts to be run by appointees of the British government. This would be no diplomatic mission, no perpetual practice of persuasion on a vacillating ruler, but the chance to govern oneself, to govern justly and directly, with minimal interference from either Calcutta or Bombay. It was the chance of a lifetime.

But first, he had to get Lord and Lady Frederick to Hyderabad. It was, thought Alex bitterly, as he tried to make his eyes focus on canals and waterways, rather like one of those fairy tales in which the hero was put to absurd tests before he could win the hand of his lady fair and half the kingdom.

For ten days, Alex stayed mostly to his cabin, making interminable lists of supplies needed and dodging Lord Frederick’s increasingly frequent inquiries about the nightlife of Hyderabad, the quality of the available women, and the hunting around the Residency (animals, women, or both). Alex experienced a very un-Christian sense of relief when Lord Frederick succumbed to a stomach ailment midway through the voyage.

Of Lady Frederick, Alex saw little, although there was once or twice a lingering scent of frangipani when he returned to his cabin after the nightly ritual of port with the captain. Alex put that down to an overactive imagination and prescribed himself a course of reading about irrigation. The books didn’t extinguish inappropriate musings but they did at least bore him to sleep and that was close enough.

When they finally docked in the decaying port city of Masulipatam, there were letters waiting for him, responses to the communications he had sent out from Calcutta. Nothing from George, but Kirkpatrick had taken Alex’s message under advisement and replied that someone would be there to meet him once he had crossed the Krishna. That was all, but it was enough. Alex went about the task of assembling the necessaries for an overland journey in much-improved spirits, despite the vile stench of fish that hung over the city, clinging to its human inhabitants and making everything smell like yesterday’s rotting catch.

It took five days to assemble the army of beasts and attendants necessary for their journey. After five days of the stench of fish, Alex had assumed that his charges would be delighted at anything designed to convey them hence. But when she saw the conveyance in which she was to travel, Lady Frederick balked.

“No,” said Lady Frederick.

Alex lifted an eyebrow. “No?”

Admittedly, the palanquin was a little old-fashioned. Many of the newer ones were fitted with sliding doors and glass windows in imitation of a carriage, but the curtains were lighter for the bearers to carry over such an extended trip as theirs was to be. Otherwise, it was a perfectly good palanquin, hung with silk, lined with cushions, supported with sturdy bamboo poles.

Having been up since before dawn, organizing a battalion of servants and pack animals, Alex was in no mood to pander to the petty pretensions of the peerage. He had already been spat at by a camel; la dylike tantrums were superfluous. This was precisely the sort of nonsense he had expected from her, pointless and time-consuming carping about an insufficiently fashionable equipage. And yet, he was oddly disappointed.

He was disappointed at the delay, that was all. Nothing more.

“This is, I assure you,” Alex said, with a tinge of asperity in his voice, “the best that could be had. If it displeases you, you are certainly welcome to return to Calcutta to commission a more appropriate one.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” said Lady Frederick. She made a show of looking around. “And where is your palanquin? I only see the one.”

“I don’t have one. I ride.”

“My point precisely.”

“Your—What
?
” Alex’s jaw dropped in genuine shock as the import of what she was saying hit home. Realigning his facial muscles to their usual position, he managed to get out, “You can’t expect to ride.”

“Why not? You are.”

“This is not a pleasure jaunt, Lady Frederick. We won’t be galloping around Hyde Park three times then coming home for tea.”

“Of course not. Tea would be absurd in this heat. And one seldom gallops in Hyde Park. There are usually people in the way. Now,” she said, looking around as though that had settled everything, “do you have a mount for me?”

In fact, they had sixty-two horses, forty ponies, eleven camels, and ten bullocks. Whether any of the riding animals were suited for a lady’s mount was another question entirely. He was also fairly sure that he had neglected to procure a sidesaddle, having assumed that the lady would prefer to travel by palanquin.

Alex sighed, envisioning further delays and complications, while the whole caravan sweated and scratched and wilted in the growing heat. “I’ll see what I can arrange,” he lied. “If you would consent to ride in the palanquin just for today, until we can find something more fitting . . .”

Hopefully, by then, she would be fast asleep in the palanquin with the curtains drawn against the heat, having entirely forgotten that she had ever desired otherwise.

“Never mind,” said Lady Frederick airily, and Alex felt his shoulders relax. “I’ll find my own. Ah! Perfect.”

It wasn’t perfect. It was Alex’s horse. And Lady Frederick was maneuvering herself up into the saddle—with a leg up from a too-helpful groom, who grinned at Alex as though to say,
What was one to do?
—as though she had every right to be there.

“Oh no,” began Alex, but it was too late. With a valedictory wave of her hat, Lady Frederick was off down the road like a shot.

“That’s torn it,” muttered Lord Frederick, and settled back against the side of the palanquin with his hat tipped over his eyes, as though the very high likelihood of his wife’s breaking her neck were a matter of complete indifference to him.

Perhaps it was.

“Bloody—!” There was no time to curse. Alex snatched the reins of Lord Frederick’s horse, Aurangzeb, away from the syce, swinging hastily up into the saddle.

Applying his heels to its sides, he set off in pursuit of Lady Frederick. Lord Frederick’s was an excellent mount. It should be; Alex had picked it himself. Unfortunately, his own horse was even better, and it appeared to have run away with its current rider, galloping flat out along the road as though a pack of devils were in pursuit.

Astonishingly, Lady Frederick had managed to keep her seat. Her skirts were kilted nearly to her knees as she leaned low over the horse’s neck. The stirrups were too long for her, so she had abandoned them altogether, staying in the saddle by the pressure of her knees alone. Her hair had come uncoiled, flapping behind her like a triumphal pennant in the breeze of her passage.