by Laura Parker
“I believe you poisoned Papa!” Eyes blazing and bosom still heaving, Laurel took a step toward Japonica, drama as innate a part of her as breathing. She trod on her torn sash and might have tripped had fury not carried her forward. “When he was too weak to protest, you forced your vile plan of marriage upon him!”
“Slut!” Cynara whispered.
Japonica saw Hyacinthe smile at last. But it possessed a mean thinness. “If you have the least feeling for our father’s memory you will leave at once!” She looked left and right and gave a nod to her younger siblings who quickly followed her as she stalked away.
“I certainly carried that off well,” Japonica declared under her breath, but her hands were locked so tightly together before her that the skin had cracked and begun to bleed. Ignoring the pain, she moved to a nearby wing chair and collapsed gratefully into its concealing depths.
Lord Abbott, it seemed, had played a nasty trick on all of them!
“Why would he do such a thing?” she murmured. Did he think her more likely to accept the role of mother to infants than young ladies? Not only were they far older than she had been led to believe, but also considerably less well bred!
She had supposed that aristocratic children would be beautifully groomed, with the serene nature of swans. Instead they looked and behaved like wealthy fishmongers’ children. Only the eldest appeared to have washed before dressing. And their hair, well that did not bear thinking about just yet. The instant impressions she had formed of them did not bode well for the person who would assume the responsibility to marry them off.
“Bismallah!” Japonica muttered. Three grown stepdaughters and two nearly so. What was she to do with them? She had thought—oh, but what she thought did not matter. Toddlers or debutantes, they would not long be her concern.
“Miss—My lady?”
Japonica leaned forward until her vision cleared the wing of her chair. A thin middle-aged woman in dustbin brown stood a little distance away wringing her hands.
“I don’t mean to disturb you, my lady.” She dipped into a curtsey. “I’m Miss Dorothea Willow, the Abbott governess.”
“Hello, Miss Willow.” Poor dear, she thought. The reed-thin woman seemed intimidated by her own shadow. The Abbott girls must bend this “willow” to their whim at every moment of the day. “What may I do for you?”
The governess’s gaze faltered before her new mistress’s. “With your permission, my lady, I should like to tender my resignation.”
“Resign? But you mustn’t. I shall need every sort of ally I can muster in this household. Say that you will stay.”
The sudden droop in the governess’s posture answered before she did. “With your indulgence, I must insist, my lady. The young ladies are of an age ….”
The door opened behind the governess and the butler strode in. “You’ll be wanting the Shrewsbury carriage then, madam?”
Japonica cocked a brow in surprise. “To what purpose?”
“I was told ….” The elderly man exchanged glances with the governess. “… that madam would be retiring to the coaching inn at Ufton Nervet.”
The Abbott girls’ second volley had been fired. Japonica sat forward. “Quite the contrary. Please see that my things are taken upstairs. I do not care which room I am given. I wish to rid myself of travel dust before tea.”
She saw him glance back over his shoulder to the open doorway where two footmen stood in the hall with her things in hand. So then, her position within the household was in doubt. The last ember of her strength flared to life as anger. She might have been too startled to adequately defend herself with the Shrewsbury Posy, but she had had a moment to regroup.
She stood up, seeking to reach every quarter inch of her five feet and two inches. “Are you new to service?”
The butler’s head snapped back toward her with a startled expression. “No, madam.”
“Then we will not stand on formality this day as it is my homecoming. But do not mistake my informality for lack of understanding of how things work. I am the viscountess and you are the butler.”
The flick of anger in her voice made the older man stiffen. “Yes, my lady.”
“You have your instructions. That will be all for now.”
She picked up a handful of her damp India muslin gown and moved toward the exit. She did not allow her eyes to focus on any one of the male servants in the hallway as she headed for the main staircase. She was too angry to risk a confrontation should anyone take the opportunity to test her authority. All she had in her favor was rectitude and that, she knew from experience, would carry her only so far.
When she had climbed half the way to the second floor she turned back to the people below. “Oh yes, Miss Willow, you will join me for tea. Until I have time to think over the matter, no one is sacked or may resign. Please inform my stepdaughters that they are also invited to join us.”
Miss Willow pinkened like a berry. “I meant no insult, my lady, but….”
All cast startled gazes upwards as a crash sounded above their heads, followed by screams of rage.
“Mercy!” Japonica cried. “What was that?”
“The mistresses possess high spirits, my lady,” the butler answered with a sigh of long-suffering.
“Do they indeed?” Japonica firmed her mouth. “They stand in need of someone to curb them.”
“Indeed, my lady.” The old retainer gave her a significant look from beneath his bushy brows.
It shan’t be I, she added in afterthought as she continued her climb. She had detested every second of her time in England so far. Nor did she intend to spend a minute longer than necessary beneath this roof. It was clear what had to be done. She must go to London at once to see the Shrewsbury solicitor and learn how she might rid herself of the duty of caring for Lord Abbott’s daughters.
Sweet resinous essence of frankincense and the pungency of orange saffron perfumed the air. Overhead, the clear deep blue of a turquoise sky mocked the presumed perfection of a Pasha’s ring. Ancient hills buckled by time and sculpted by timeless winds lay beneath the ageless sun. Gray snags of nabug trees rooted in the outcroppings, their branches swelling with plumlike fruit. Far below spread orchards of date trees, green limbs fed by the curving path of a silver river. Farther on, orange groves, then acres of pomegranates grew along the banks of this blessing in the desert.
The day abruptly dwindled into evening, twilight resting like a glowing azure jewel on a horizon banked by a lapis heaven. Cool and sweet, the night air issued an invitation to slumber ….
Something stirred in the shadows, golden feline eyes gleaming in the dark. Movement of sleek musculature rolled beneath the rich striped pelt of an Arabian cheetah with a mortal face. Not animal, yet not quite a man. A face to fascinate and frighten and beguile, an exotic visage with a penetrating gaze that held a promise of adventures unknown—a chimera made real.
His kiss! Such pleasure! Yes, yes, here in his embrace is pleasure. But the cost! There is a cost.
Blood on the sheets. Flowing crimson bright, like an overturned jug of wine. It flows from the wounds of the creature stretched over her.
Japonica sat up in bed gasping for breath as tears streamed down her cheeks. Her eyes and cheeks burned but the rest of her was icy-cold. The fire had gone out, leaving her in utter darkness. For a moment she did not know where she was. The room no longer smelled of incense and spice. Then she remembered. Far from Persia, she lay in a bed that smelled of mold and damp wool in a room smelling faintly of smoke and dust. She was in England. So then it was only a dream.
The Hind Div is dead.
She collapsed back against the bedding and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. After all this time she should be free of his memory. To mourn for a man she despised made no sense. The tears on her cheeks must be from fatigue and worry.
She sighed, pressing a hand deep into her middle where until four months before life lay.
“Oh, Jamie, my love.”
With each passing hour she felt less certain that she had chosen right in coming here. After the unpleasant shock of the morning’s events, she wanted nothing to do with the Shrewsburys!
A feeling of tightness in her chest came whenever she tried to reason her way through the complications of the day. On this night it had so tight a grip, she could scarcely breathe. She tried to sit forward again to ease the struggle of her breaths but she felt so weak.
The first spate of coughing caught her halfway through an indrawn breath. The hacking seared her throat and brought tears to her eyes. She fumbled around in the dark for the tumbler of water she had placed by the bedside but sips of it did not help for long. Dizzy and weak, she fell back among the pillows, wheezing for breath, her face covered by sweat but her limbs beginning to shiver. She could not be sickening, must not. There was no time to lose. She needed to get away, go back to Lisbon and then …
The coughing began again. The second round seemed about to bring up the lining of her lungs.
When she could finally draw a steady breath, she found the tinderbox and lit a candle. She had brought with her a variety of herbs and elixirs for just such an emergency. Chamomile was good for the throat, as was anise and an infusion of marjoram. But when her feet touched the floor she found she had to grab onto the bedpost to keep from falling.
“I am sick,” she whispered because she could not be louder. No, no, she mustn’t be ill. No time for it She was simply tired, oh so very tired. She would just go back to bed and sleep. In a week or two, when things were nicely settled, she would return to the two people who she loved most in the world and forget she ever was the dowager countess or even married.
She took a step toward the bed and instead stepped off into darkness.
“Should we send for a doctor?”
“Certainly not. You heard her yourself. She wishes only to be left alone.”
Japonica opened her eyes a slit to find two women holding handkerchiefs to their faces as they stood over her. Had they been there long? She could not remember. Only that there were occasionally voices about her bed and some kind soul spooned broth into her at regular intervals.
“She’s been down with the fever for three days. What if she should die?”
“She would not be that obliging.”
“Laurel!”
“You know what I mean. Besides, there’s Miss Willow to care for her. Come away before one of us sickens. It would be like her to bring an Infidel fever with her. Mercy! We might all perish!”
“Quinsy,” Japonica murmured through a throat so swollen she could barely breathe.
“Did she say something? What did she say?”
Hyacinthe bent down low over Japonica. “We cannot hear you.”
“Quinsy,” Japonica whispered a second time.
“Ah.” Hyacinthe stood up. “She says ’tis a vile infection of the tonsils. Not usually deadly.”
“Her illness buys us a bit of time. I’ve been through her things but I—Ouch! Why did you pinch me?” Laurel asked crossly.
“Do shut up and come away!” Hyacinthe ordered. “She may hear you.”
“She will not remember what we say. Her fever’s too high,” Laurel assured her elder sister. “If she has squandered the fortune Father left her, she did not bring the results with her. I could not find one piece of good jewelry or a single lovely gown! Yet I did find something of consolation for all my efforts. Five tins of Turkish Delight from Fortnum and Mason! My favorite! She will not miss one, I’m sure.”
The voices drifted away and the light with them. Japonica could only be grateful. No, she was not going to die. Nor was she alarmed by the news that her belongings had been searched. One thing did bring a smile to her fever-chapped lips. She now knew her stepdaughters were not above spying. She had been right to tuck her half-finished letter to Aggie beneath her mattress.
Chapter Six
December, 1809
In a private room in the inn at Hartford Bridge, some thirty-five miles out of London, a retinue of five British officers shared a late supper. Augmenting the inn’s own fare of chops and oysters were boned pheasants in aspic decorated with lobsters and prawns, potted meats with savory jellies, slices of fresh ham, and iced cakes soaked in brandy, all shipped by their request from London’s renowned grocer, Fortnum and Mason. No John Company of officers with any pretense to fashion would have done without such delicacies. Fortified by tobacco and claret, successfully smuggled into the country beneath the watchful eyes of customs men, they played cards for high stakes.
“Gad! I had forgotten how dismal England is in winter!” declared Mr. Hemphill, a lieutenant in His Majesty’s Indian Army in Calcutta. He had played his hand badly and needed something to blame for his present ill temper. “There’s only six hours of daylight on the best day. Damnable rain and snow turns even that to twilight!”
“Foreign Service has made you soft.” Mr. Howe rested a foot shod in gold-tasseled Hessian on the ornate brass fire screen.
“And lazy.” Mr. Frampton broke the seal on a fresh deck of cards with his thumbnail.
“ ’Tis the country that’s grown soft and lazy,” Hemphill rejoined, picking up the newspaper he had been perusing earlier. “It says right here the war with France goes badly. Seems to be little hope of it going otherwise.”
“The fault of command.” Mr. Winslow smoothed the spot on his upper lip where a mustache grew until a week ago. “Since the Duke of York was forced to resign, the army’s been without a Commander-in-Chief. Over a petticoat scandal! The worst sort of folly!”
“Bloody right!” Hemphill echoed. “Better to die in battle than sicken like those poor bastards idling off Antwerp last spring.”
His compatriots nodded in agreement. While stranded on the isle of Walcheren after an aborted attempt to rout Napoleon’s forces at Antwerp, illness swept through the English troops. Nicknamed the “Walcheren Fever” it killed four thousand and disabled eleven thousand more.
“Blame not the army but Parliament!” Howe muttered. “It has damned little to show for itself beyond a dreadful inertia.”
“Worse yet, the Americans dare aid the French by carrying on continental trade! Mark my words, we are not done there,” Frampton added. “It will come to war again with the colonies.”
“I shouldn’t think you’d care to be part of it.” Winslow smirked. “How will you keep all that lace and those medals clean in the wilderness?”
“We’ll not be gone long enough to stink.” Frampton winked at Howe. “Shouldn’t take a crack brigade long to sort them out.”
Howe and Frampton were boastfully aware that their positions as captains in the Royal Household Cavalry gave them social superiority over their fellow officers who, though of higher rank, served in the Indian Army. Those officers were serviceably dressed in simple jackets and overalls. The Cavalry officers wore expensive red jackets with gold buttons replacing the regulation brass, gold lace cuffs, and spotless white breeches tucked into mirror-bright boots. Even at play they kept strapped to their waists the sword of their rank with its unique gilt half-basket hilt.
“Disgraceful, the loss of the American colonies,” Mr. Howe continued. “That blunder I place on the shoulders of the monarchy.” He leaned in with lowered voice to mutter, “A mad old King teeters on the throne!”
The Indian officers glanced at one another. Few Englishmen dared speak of the King’s ill health. Considering their present mission, it was a taboo subject. They were an English honor guard of the Persian envoy, Mirza Abul Hassan Shirazi, who had arrived in England aboard the Formidable exactly one week earlier.
As the next hand was dealt, Howe glanced at their fifth and so far silent companion. “Have you nothing to say on the matter, Sinclair?”
The only man in civilian dress among them, Sinclair sat a little apart. The depression of two vertical lines drew together black brows over his tawny-eyed sco
wl. Candlelight played along the severe planes of his face, etching the deep scar on his forehead that hinted at a calamitous experience he never spoke of. Now his disturbing gaze singled out Howe. He did not, however, speak.
“Have you nothing to say, sir?” Howe repeated in challenge, for he did not like to be afraid and Sinclair’s gaze discomforted him more than he cared to admit. “Or do you admit to ignorance on the subject?”
Sinclair reached with his left hand for the cards Winslow had dealt him. “Had I the ear of the Duke of York or the Duke of Portland or even the monarch himself I’d have advised them to better effect.”
“I’m sure you would,” Frampton drawled good-naturedly. “That is why we must needs travel cross-country in a blizzard to help you three play handmaidens to a gibbering Infidel who fancies himself an ambassador.”
“One who dresses in women’s silks!” Howe added. “Only Sinclair seems to understand him, even when he’s attempting English. But I suppose that is to be expected,” he rolled his eyes in Sinclair’s direction, “for one who went native.”
Unease passed like a ripple through the room. All gazes swerved toward Sinclair but he gave no sign he’d heard a slur in the phrase.
Until six months ago his fellow officers had thought Devlyn Sinclair dead, lost in a mountain skirmish with the Afghans in 1807. Then this past July he had miraculously appeared at the home of the Governor General of Calcutta. Alive, but just barely. It was obvious he had been tortured.
Dressed in rags and suffering sepsis in several severe wounds, he lingered near death for a month before recovery seemed certain. When he became rational he could not—or would not—explain the last two years of his life.
Rumor bloomed in the wake of conjecture. Some said he had been a prisoner of the Hindi. Others had it that he, having escaped the Afghans, had been in hiding with the tribes that lived in the mountains along the Afghan-Persian border. Detractors whispered the suggestion that he had been consorting with the Russians. The governor, ever a practical man, chose not to put Sinclair to an official inquiry. Declaring Sinclair a captive of English enemies, the governor nonetheless took the first opportunity to send him back to England and out of the way of lingering disconcerting questions.