The numbers on the paper he held blurred together in one long, senseless line. Frustrated, he dropped the paper, stood from his desk, and crossed to the window. From the casement, he could see all of his flourishing fields covering the ground below him like a thick blanket. He balanced his hands on either side of the sill and leaned toward the cool glass.
He had spent weeks in France trying to encourage his brother to return to England, where he could finally keep a closer eye on him. But Barric’s younger brother had been obstinate since birth, and with the death of their parents, Charlie had severed the leash and rushed off in search of pleasure at the first opportunity. Barric was tired of paying off Charlie’s mistresses, of sweeping away his rakish indiscretions. He had just set things back to rights in France, for the time being, when he’d returned home to find Rena beneath the stalks of grain.
Stepping back from the window, Barric reminded himself, again, she was none of his business. As William had already said, he had done his duty, and surely that was enough. Yet no one speculated about Charlie’s income. No one batted an eye when Barric paid all of Charlie’s debts or made his mistresses disappear with a few well-placed pounds. And yet Rena’s name was smeared at every opportunity. Harlot, they called her. Leech.
And then there was her room, if it could even be called a room. Where the poor girl slept on the floor amid moldy blankets, her skin kissed by brittle air rather than her late husband’s lips. And somehow she’d still had enough pride to challenge him as he tested her, though he was a lord and she was nobody. Enough pride to scold him, to make him hesitate and feel actual shame for suspecting the worst about her as everyone else had done.
Such pride would draw attention in a place like that, would stand out. The men at the Gilded Crown might let her alone for now, but they still watched her. They still smiled at her and talked to her. Anything might happen with time.
Barric wasn’t sure where he was going when he pulled into his boots and grabbed for his jacket. He still hadn’t made up his mind when he saddled Samson and darted out of the stables at a reckless pace. But the beast seemed to know its master’s course without being prodded in any certain direction. Perhaps because they had made the journey so many times when Barric was in a thunderous mood.
The ride lasted but a few minutes, leading Barric to a modest stone house at the center of his property. Vines scaled the home’s rustic walls, creeping up toward the high roof. The yard was well manicured, though most of the foliage had already crisped beneath autumn’s warning frost.
Dismounting, Barric tied up his stallion and crossed through the wooden gate, his hands easily unjamming the stubborn latch. He was just about to knock when William opened the front door, already awaiting his lord with a tired, albeit mocking, smile.
CHAPTER 6
India, August 1858
Rena watched the soldiers from her usual place of concealment in the upper hall, the lantern light tangling strands of gold against her veil. She wore a traditional Indian gown, the sari hung loose around her chest and shoulder, with tight flowers woven in deep indigo.
As the soldiers made their greetings, her father’s handsome features became lined with the strain of subservience. It had been more than a year since the start of the Indian uprising, when a dangerous rumor spread that the new Enfield cartridges, to be used by Indian foot soldiers, were oiled with pig and cow grease—a taboo for Muslims and Hindus alike. In answer, sepoys from the Bengal army had risen up against their commanding British officers and launched a battle for independence which had already left thousands dead.
“We need these translated,” ordered one tall soldier, thrusting a parcel at her father. “Urgently.”
As her father nodded, glancing through the documents, another mentioned a series of nearby riots, which, as always, required a local’s particular insight.
The soldiers’ accents were strange, and they spoke quickly, but the language itself was not altogether unfamiliar to Rena, whose father had spurned tradition by teaching her much of the language in her youth.
Then English women had begun entering the zenanas to minister to upper-caste women who lived in far stricter purdah than Rena. Zenana schools, they called them. These British women, missionaries in their own right, taught the English language to their cloistered charges, as well as the basic tenets of Christianity, even seeing to medical needs which required a woman’s touch.
While Rena’s father had never demanded she and her mother be confined to the zenana, as many households did, he had secured a matronly British woman—Mrs. Price—to come into their home and sharpen Rena’s English. To her father’s delight, Rena learned quickly, her English far more advanced at age seventeen than any of the other women in Jaipur. Granted, Rena’s father could not have suspected she would use her knowledge to eavesdrop from upper corridors while he spoke business with British soldiers, but she did.
“We want to end the rest of this with as little bloodshed as possible,” one of the soldiers remarked.
“Of course,” her father agreed in a bland voice. “Come with me. Let us talk.”
Watching the soldiers move in a powerful line across the tiled floor, Rena pulled her purple veil closer around her face so that only her eyes gleamed through the gauzy layer. She was generally unimpressed with the soldiers who frequented their front hall. Many spoke to her father as if he was an incompetent fool who could barely understand them, though he understood very well. Others wore their suspicion of him openly, as if he was reporting back to the rebel rousers, though he certainly wasn’t.
She lingered in the upper hall long after the uniforms had disappeared into her father’s study, where the voices were reduced to murmurs, then returned to the sanctuary of her mother’s garden. There she paced the halls of the vaulted terrace, allowing the desert heat to sink through her veil and caress her skin as she thought of her father, so proud, now forced to serve the Crown.
Very few were actually surprised by the hard nature of Britain’s unyielding fist. Westernization had been seeping into India for years—altering the country’s practices, amending its laws, even usurping the princely states of their rights to self-rule. India had found itself in a battle for its own traditions, and many feared the battle was already lost.
From the end of the terrace, Rena spied two soldiers moving slowly in her direction from the inner hall and pulled back into the shadow of the stairs. “He says there’s a back entrance to the stables up ahead,” explained the one on the left. “You’re to go at once to the commander and give him this translation.”
“Of course, of course,” said the other, slipping the proffered parcel into his coat pocket.
The first man nodded his farewell and returned inside, presumably to join the others in her father’s study. The other scuffed his toe against the tile before continuing his course for the stable.
Rena could easily have slipped away, up the stairs to her chamber, and she and the man would never have met. But there was something uncommonly bright about his eyes, clear as the sky, even from a distance. And so, instead of disappearing to her room, she slipped behind a pillar for a foolish, closer look.
The man was apparently well trained at feeling the weight of an unseen enemy’s gaze.
“Who is there?” he demanded, coming to a stop.
Rena froze, her breath held deep in her chest. As soon as he sensed her on the other side of the terrace, he approached. She knew at once he could follow her, catch her if she tried to flee. It felt more foolish to run than to face him.
The soldier’s eyes widened as she stepped out of her hiding place and lifted her chin to see him better. He seemed even brighter in the open sunlight, with freckles around his nose and a thin, white scar above his right eyebrow. She considered the sword at his side, which was sharpened to a gleam, and wondered how many of her countrymen had been gutted on that very blade for their insurrection. Eyes narrowing reluctantly, he darted a quick glance to the other end of the hall, presumably to m
ake sure they would not be seen. Assured they were quite alone, he settled his eyes on her more deliberately.
“Good afternoon,” he said by way of greeting.
To which she tipped her head and solemnly responded, “Good afternoon, sahib.”
His eyes glinted. He seemed bemused by the title, as if he already knew formality would not become either of them. When he stepped closer, she felt stuck between two heartbeats and reached reflexively to fix her veil, to make sure her face was still covered. But the man halted her, curving his hand carefully around her wrist.
“Your eyes,” he said. “They’re lovely.”
She jerked her hand away from him, flustered by how softly he had spoken, as if a lowered voice could mask such brazenness. “Your boldness does you no credit, sahib,” she replied, this time striking him with his title to make him go away.
“I have plenty else to do me credit,” he answered vaguely. “And my name is Edric.”
She glanced around the terrace, pulse spiking. She wondered if her father might confine her in the zenana forever if he overheard such words.
She ducked beneath an archway, into the nearest inner hall, heading quickly in the direction of her own chamber. The man called Edric followed, his soldier shoes tapping a steady rhythm as he pursued her. “I’m surprised they don’t keep you locked up, away from me and my kind.” His words were now sharpened like the weapon at his side, but Rena ignored the jab and kept on walking. “Your father is either much more negligent than his countrymen,” he went on. “Or he loves you a great deal.”
“You know nothing of his countrymen,” she said over her shoulder, and instantly regretted her words. Clearly, this soldier knew what everyone knew—her countrymen had risen up against the Crown, had slaughtered women and children because they were British. And they had lost. Her people would always live in fear of British revenge.
“I know you will marry one of them,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “And he’ll lock you in a room and take a mistress, maybe two. Does that not frighten you more than I do?”
His words were unsettlingly accurate. Though Rena’s father was kind, he also brushed shoulders with many powerful men and warriors, rajputs, some of whom had supported the rebellion and saw her father as a useful political alliance. Rena had often thought about how it would be for her if she was married to a cruel man who supported such bloodshed. She made it to the steps, her hand curving around the banister as she willed herself to leave the soldier and his cutting words behind her.
“I’m curious,” the man said in parting, “if it’s the color of my uniform that makes you so afraid of me? Or perhaps it’s my accent that has your armor up?”
Rena halted with her foot on the lowest step. “I am not afraid of your uniform,” she lied, rounding on him. “I have no armor, sahib, nor would I need any. I’m not afraid of you at all.”
“What about my lips?” He drew near enough to grab her arm and command her attention entirely. “Surely they frighten you, at least a little.”
Rena did not answer that particular question.
But she did meet him in her mother’s garden later that night.
For nearly three weeks, she met the mysterious soldier at the fountain to talk, to listen to his laugh, and sometimes just to sit in companionable silence. Once he asked if he might be permitted to see her face, but she would not move aside her veil, would not allow him to glimpse anything more than her eyes.
“No matter,” he said. “Your eyes are enough.”
And so she began to love him.
The other soldiers knew. When Edric disappeared from the barracks each night, most presumed he’d taken Rena on as his mistress, though this was not the truth. When Edric confided his true intentions to a few of his fellow officers, they tried to talk him out of it—and very nearly succeeded. There were two especially difficult nights when Rena received notes from him and waited in the garden as he’d asked, but he didn’t come to see her. She thought he had finally listened to reason, and perhaps this was for the best. But then he appeared on the third night at her bedroom window, smiling tiredly as he asked one final question of her.
Their midnight ceremony was officiated by a tall missionary who had been sent over with Edric’s battalion and eschewed his church’s rules by allowing the elopement. Dazzled and slightly afraid, Rena stared at the missionary’s cross as he read to them from the Bible about loving one another always. His cross was a shiny talisman which seemed made of starlight. Its foreign shape made her shiver, and her mind couldn’t help drifting to her poor parents, who would find her bed empty in the morning, and a cryptic note that sought to explain what she had not yet understood herself. She still did not know if Edric’s parents would welcome her or if they would sooner spit on her for bewitching their son.
When Edric’s hands circled hers, her eyes left the missionary’s cross to stare into her husband’s open, promising expression. “I will love you always,” he whispered into the silence.
And at that moment, Rena finally lowered her veil….
England, September 1861
“Excuse me? Are you ready?” Rena’s eyes flew open to find the present facing her like an endless stone wall. A young man with sandy hair waited behind a counter, studying her with a confused, awkward grimace.
She unclenched her hands, let out a breath, and nodded abruptly. “Yes, yes, of course. I’m sorry, I was just…thinking about something else.”
Thinking of someone else, she amended in her mind, of another time, another person, another life that might have been if youth had not withered far too early.
The young apprentice offered her a half smile, then turned to the older baker, who worked in the back by the ovens. The baker was a pudgy man with gray hair, whose hands and apron were coated with a layer of sweat and flour. He wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, leaving another white streak as he offered her a tentative smile.
Following their usual transaction, she handed over her bag of grain, which had been gleaned from Barric’s field and ground by the miller that morning. The baker nodded to his apprentice, who stepped forward and placed the bag on a small table scale, squinting his eyes as he read whatever number was indicated. Then he reached into a box beneath the bar and handed her a few coins in trade. With this money, Rena purchased two thin loaves of bread and, as it was market day, made her way to the stalls to buy a small chunk of cheese and some watered-down milk.
She returned to the Gilded Crown with her bundle of food beneath her arm. She strode across the front room, completely ignoring Mrs. Bagley’s newest quips about “learning the art of pride and self-reliance.” The old woman’s voice still jangled in the background as Rena fought with the door and pushed her way into her room.
Her hand tightened on the knob as she stared at the large crate resting on the table—inside she saw their blankets, Nell’s shawl, the family portrait. Even the cross above their door was placed reverently on top of the pile. Dropping the two loaves to the floor, Rena crouched to check for her dresses beneath the bench, and her father’s book, but even these were gone, packed away in the crate.
She was leaving, she realized, her stomach clenching.
When someone placed a hand on Rena’s shoulder from behind, her emotions were knit together so tightly she nearly cried out in alarm. But when she pivoted, it was Nell who slid into the room beside her with a strangely serene expression.
“You said you wouldn’t send me away,” Rena reminded her quickly, swinging her body like a door between Nell and the crate. “You promised I could stay with you.” Her voice pitched higher with desperation as she finally begged, “Please, Nell, I don’t want to go back to India.”
Nell placed two fingers to Rena’s lips and fondly whispered, “Hush, child.”
Then a third person joined them in the room, stepping over the loaves of bread she’d let drop in her startled confusion.
William’s shoulders were stiffer than normal when he nodded his silent
greeting to Rena. She stared back, mouth slightly agape. Over the past three weeks, she had seen very little of Lord Barric’s steward, neither had he spoken with her since the first day he’d let her pick from the field. He seemed a sharp man with a catlike smile, and many in the fields said he was the only one who ever challenged Lord Barric and got away with it.
“Mr. Wilmot!” Though she was mostly shocked by his presence in her room, her voice came out harsh and demanding. “What are you doing here?”
Ignoring her question, he glanced at Nell and spoke pointedly. “Are you packed, Lady Hawley?”
Rena frowned, her gaze darting from William to Nell. “What does he mean? Where are we going?”
Nell placed a hand on Rena’s shoulder. “We have been offered lodging on Lord Barric’s estate.” Her voice unwound slowly, the words incredibly soft, no hint of the shock which ought to accompany such an outrageous offer.
Rena’s eyebrows slanted together. Just last night Nell had told her to be on her guard when it came to Lord Barric; now she was encouraging her to move onto the man’s property?
“But you told me Lord Barric couldn’t be trusted.”
Nell looked sidelong at William and laughed awkwardly, as if she’d been caught saying something she shouldn’t.
“I said no such thing!” she exclaimed, trying to sound surprised, though her cheeks flushed slightly. “Now, I’ve just been speaking with Mr. Wilmot here, and I think we ought to accept his very generous offer.”
But was this an offer made of honor or of pity? Rena remembered too well the way Lord Barric had studied her home with that unreadable sharpness.
Shadow among Sheaves Page 9