The Sandalwood Princess (12 page)

“From what I’ve glimpsed of your knowledge, Mr. Brentick, I should say it might have been an achievable goal.”

“My father had certain infallible methods for ensuring obedience and diligence.”
Torture, for instance. Torture works very well,
he added silently. “These were administered sufficiently early and consistently to remain effective, even when I was away at school and no longer under his unique tutelage. I did attend to my studies. All the same, by the time I was eighteen, I knew I could no longer obey his wishes.”

Papa had a perverse sense of humour, you see.
That was why Lord Felkoner had forbid the military career his youngest son most desperately desired. His lordship had chosen the Church with the same fine sense of irony. Incorrigible Philip might look forward to more years of the grinding studies he detested. After would come the eternal tedium, the steady drip, drip of hypocrisy and meaningless work, years of pious chores which bore not even the saving grace of vigourous physical activity. Lord Felkoner, obviously, had wanted his son walled up permanently, and the airless catacombs of clerical life would do very nicely, thank you.

Philip saw his frown reflected in anxious eyes, and quickly smoothed his features. “Hardly unusual,” he said lightly. “Hotheaded youths run away every day to become soldiers or sailors. I was lucky. I got to India, and the young officer I served led me to all the excitement and adventure my naive young heart could have wished for.”

“You were lucky to survive,” she said somberly. “India’s is not the most amenable climate for Europeans. Even my parents, who’d lived there many years before, didn’t survive the second visit.”

He remembered something Mrs. Bullerham had said. “Fever?” he asked.

“I suspect my mother was dying before she ever got on the ship,” she answered. “I think England had already-” She caught herself, and went on in brisker tones, “Yes, the fever took her first. Within another month, my father was gone as well.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been terrible for you, especially in a strange country, away from your friends and relatives.”

“I had Roderick.” She was silent a moment. When she spoke again, only the slightest quaver betrayed her. “Would you be very much shocked, if I told you it was a relief?”

“No.”

“I was relieved,” she went on more steadily, “because I didn’t have to worry any more. I didn’t have to wonder what I could do, or feel helpless because I’d never find an answer. Nothing could be done. My father returned to India because he was ruined, and needed Roderick to look after us. Papa was broken, you see, and couldn’t be fixed.”

Her eyes glistened. As Philip watched her slim hand rise up and dash a tear away, something tightened within him.

“That is what Mrs. Bullerham meant about my lack of proper supervision,” she continued. “My parents were broken. They weren’t living, really. They were like a pair of smiling dolls propped up on a shelf.”

To play a servant was a confounded nuisance. He ought to be able to hold her in his arms and let her cry away the hurt. He certainly wished he could stomp down to Mrs. Bullerham’s cabin and choke the life out her. Sentence after sentence, she’d cut and slashed. She’d even probed what must be a very old though still tender wound. Gad, but she and Lord Felkoner would have made a splendid pair.

“Miss Cavencourt,” Philip said gently.

She dashed away another tear and looked at him.

“Shall we get up a petition?” he asked. “To have Mrs. Bullerham keelhauled? It is accounted an infallible cure for digestive complaints.”

A watery smile rewarded him.

“I wish yours were not such a sympathetic countenance,” she said. “I’m not a watering pot. I rarely weep unless I’m thoroughly enraged.”

“I thought you were enraged. You have every right Not a syllable that woman utters but is calculated to wound, and cruelly. She deserves her liver. I hope she chokes on it.”

“That’s hardly charitable.”

“I’m not a charitable man. Moreover, I recognise the type. My fath—my family contains a few such vipers, and I’ve met more than enough in India as well, native and otherwise.” Too heated. He was letting words slip. Philip collected himself. “Let us not discuss these dispiriting topics. You’d promised to help me sort out some of the major Hindu deities. Let’s dwell on the gods, shall we, and consign the Mrs. Bullerhams of this world to—”

“Obscurity,” she quickly supplied. Then, to his relief, she laughed.

The storm struck
a few days later. It swept down suddenly upon the
Evelina
in a gale-driven, whirling mass of black clouds that swelled and churned round the lone vessel, heaving up the waters beneath her.

With startling efficiency, the crew took in the sails just as the storm roared down upon them. It was already raging when the top-gallant yards were sent down and the masts struck.

Philip, who’d never experienced a major storm at sea, stayed after the other landlubbers had gone below, but not long. A tremendous swell sent the vessel lunging perilously to port, and Philip skidding across the wet deck toward the raging waters. One of the mates grabbed him, and, in no polite language, ordered him below.

Philip staggered towards the companionway, and the heavens cracked open to light the ship blazing white for one wild instant. As he ducked below, the white flame was doused by heavy black, and a deafening crash rent the air and seemed to shake the very ocean bottom.

Another crash and heave threw him from the bottom step. He tumbled forward and cracked his head against a timber. Along with the blast of pain came an onrush of bile. He staggered on to the cabin, hurriedly unlocked the door, and dove for a basin in the very nick of time.

Though the storm was over by late morning, the sea continued violent, heaving and tossing the twelve-hundred-ton vessel as though it were a child’s toy boat.

For three days Philip clung to his mattress. He scarcely possessed the strength to cross the few feet to the cabin door. He was utterly unable to do anything for Jessup, barely able to look after himself. Luckily for the sorry pair, Miss Jones was immune to
mat de mer.
The indefatigable abigail appeared twice a day, bearing bowls of some bland but sustaining mixture. With her came a cabin boy, whose unenviable task it was to empty basins and chamber pots for the seasick landlubbers.

By the fourth day, the buffeting had subsided somewhat, and agony dwindled to mere misery. Able at last to observe with some degree of lucidity Miss Jones’s nursing methods, Philip soon ascertained precisely where all her sympathies lay.

Philip she simply handed his bowl and spoon. Then, turning away, Miss Jones devoted herself to Jessup. She lovingly fed and fussed over him. She fluffed his pillows, straightened and tucked his blanket, and tenderly held his hand until he sank into a doze.

By the conclusion of this operation, Philip was again beset by doubts. Had fifteen years of India, the last five spent dodging treachery at every turn, entirely poisoned his mind? Was it possible he saw intrigue and conspiracy where none existed?

As she turned back to him at last, Miss Jones must have remarked Philip’s frown, for she said comfortingly, “Don’t you worry now, Mr. Brentick. This pesky weathers just set him back a bit. But I do tell you, and I hope you won’t take it amiss, as you’d better help him change his ways. He can’t go back like what he was, you know.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She moved nearer, and spoke in lower tones.

“My pa was just like him, strong as an ox. Drank gin like it was rainwater and never felt it. Then the influenza
g
ot hold of him, and he was never the same after. The littlest chill’d keep him in bed near a fortnight. Finally, the leech just told Pa straight out if he didn’t want to be a pitiful
wreck all the rest of his life, he’d got to mend his ways.”

“My master spent half his life in India,” Philip answered defensively, as she stood, hands on her hips, fixing him with a reproachful look. “Consider the climate’s effects.”

“Mr. Wringle’d do better to consider his wenching and drinking and staffing himself,” Bella answered with a sniff. “Don’t tell
me
that ain’t a man likes his carousing, because I won’t believe you. An ignorant country maid I may be, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Nor I ain’t seeing all my tending go for nothing, and so I mean to tell him, soon as he’s feeling more himself again.”

Having delivered this lecture, her face softened. “There now,” she said somewhat abashedly, “don’t mind me. It’s just the worry. He scared me half to death when I seen him get so horrible sick again, after all these weeks doing so good, too.”

“I’m sure your careful nursing will not go for naught, Miss Jones,” Philip said. “My master is aware, as I am, that he owes you his life. In fact, I’m sure he owes it twice now, for I’ve been no good to him at all.”

She blushed and attempted to make light of his quite genuine praise.

“Goodness, Mr. Brentick, it’s but a bit of soup now and then, and I’d go clean mad if I’d to stay in one place all the day.”

“Yet Miss Cavencourt and Mrs. Gales need your services as well,” he said. “You must be exhausted, running back and forth.”

“Miss Amanda don’t like to be fussed over when she’s sick. She gets cross, you know, and wants to be let alone. And Mrs. Gales is only the tiniest bit under the weather. When I left she was setting up in the bed, just knitting away, like that was the only cure for anything.”

“Is—is Miss Cavencourt very ill?” Philip asked.

Bella appeared to consider. “Well, she’s green enough,” she said after a moment. “Greener than you are, Mr. Brentick. You look a deal better than yesterday, I’m happy
to say. All the same...” She eyed him thoughtfully. “Mr. Wringle’s whiskers make him look more distinguished, but I can’t say the same for yourself. You look like a sailor what’s been on a five-day binge.”

Philip stroked his rough chin. “Raffish, Miss Jones?”

She shrugged her plump shoulders. “Whatever that is. Where’s your shaving things?’’

“Thank you, but I don’t feel up to shaving at the moment. Perhaps later.”

“Well, don’t I know that?” she answered indignantly. “I got eyes, don’t I? I’ll shave you,” she added, to his astonishment.

His shock grew to horror as her gleaming eye lit upon the washbasin, where his neglected razor lay.

“Thank you, but that will not be necessary,” he said firmly. “Nor advisable. The ship is not altogether steady at present.”

“I was shaving my pa since I was twelve years old, and I done Lord Cavencourt time enough when his valet was too drunk to be trusted with even a towel. My hand is perfectly steady.”

“No one has...
ever
... shaved... me,” Philip said, picking out the words with all the cold deliberation of his sire at his intimidating best.
“No one.
Not even J—no one!”

She drew her hand back from the razor and sighed. “Oh, very well, if you’re going to get all in a roar about it I was just looking for something to do.”

Swiftly recollecting himself, Philip assumed a mask of penitence. “I do beg your pardon. Illness appears to make me cross, as well. But it is a quirk of mine. I can’t bear to be shaved.” He thought quickly. “If you truly want something to do... “

“Well, didn’t I just say so?”

“In that case, I would be immensely grateful if you’d sew the button back on my coat. It came loose the day of the storm. When I fell ill so suddenly, I tore my coat off, and the button came loose,” he explained. “It’s dangling by a thread.”

Bella’s round face brightened. “Well, that’s more like it, then.” She retrieved the coat, then glanced about. “Got anything else? I expect you don’t care much for mending, and there’s no tailors near to hand.”

When the door at last closed behind her, a choked guffaw broke the silence. Philip’s icy blue gaze fell upon his servant, whose shoulders were shaking.

“Are you experiencing convulsions, soldier?” he asked frostily. “It would serve you right, for pretending to sleep, only to eavesdrop.”

“Bless me, guv, if the wench wasn’t gonna shave you.
You,”
Jessup chortled. “I never heard your voice go so high like that afore. Lawd, did y’ think she meant to nick up somethin’ else for you?”

“You know perfectly well I let no one come near me with a razor. Not even you, you decrepit old budmash. She’s taken
your
measure, hasn’t she? You heard her, lad. Miss Jones means to see you mend your wicked ways. She’ll do it, make no mistake, even if it kills you.”

Jessup chuckled. “Well, and mebbe I might let her. She do make salvation look sweet enough, that one. And pluck to the backbone, ain’t she? I seen brave soldiers near wet themselves when they heard that tone from you, and she didn’t so much as blink. Damn but I thought I’d bust a gut, tryin’ to stifle myself.”

“Why don’t you try again?” Philip answered, taking up a pillow. “Or would you rather I
helped
you?”

***

Bella returned to the Cavencourt cabin bearing one coat, one shirt, and two pairs of trousers.

Amanda had dragged herself up to a sitting position. She gazed dully at the pile of clothing.

“What is that, Bella?”

“Mr. Brentick decided to come off his high ropes and let
me mend his things.” Bella took up her sewing
box
and deftly threaded a needle. “He took it ill when I asked to shave him,” she added, grinning. “I was afeard he’d jump clean out of bed and whack his head on the ceiling.”