Bold Destiny

by Jane Feather

  “Annabel … ?”

  “No. Unless I have lost free will in everything.”

  Kit sighed and stood up again. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone.” He started to leave the room just as there came a knocking at the front door. “Who the hell’s that?” He went into the hall, closing the bedroom door carefully behind him.

  Harley was already unlocking the front door. “Good afternoon, Captain … Lieutenant Graham … Lieutenant Troughton.” He stepped aside to admit Bob Markham, Derek Graham, and William Troughton.

  “Thought we might drown our sorrows together,” Bob stated, flourishing a bottle of claret. It was obvious that he was already well on the way to achieving that happy goal, and his companions were not looking exactly miserable.

  Kit frowned. Surely Bob hadn’t forgotten about his friend’s “guest.” “It’s a little awkward,” he began, and then changed his mind. Annabel had made it very clear that she did not wish for his company, so why should he sit in miserable solitude staring into the sitting room fire?

  “Come in. Harley, open a couple of bottles of the thirty-five claret, will you?”

  He ushered the three into the sitting room. “I could do with some cheering up.” He threw more wood onto the fire and went to pull the curtains across the window, shutting out the bleak approach of evening. “Whist?” He rummaged in a drawer for cards.

  In the room next door, Annabel heard the murmur of voices through the thin interior wall. Stepping out of the bath, she dried herself, all the while straining to distinguish words and voices from the generalized murmur. How many visitors did he have? She thought she could make out the voice of the man she had met that morning—the one who had appeared to know all about her. Were Kit’s other visitors also party to the mess gossip? It was reasonable to assume so. He had clearly not thought Ayesha’s part in his adventures deserving of a gentlemanly reticence when recounting the story. For some reason, the thought hurt as much as it angered, and provoked both the desire and scheme for retaliation.

  She dressed in her trousers and tunic, slipped her feet into the curly-toed slippers, hooking the toes to the hem of the trousers, and plaited her hair, letting the heavy braid fall down her back. All she lacked was a veil.

  Christopher’s dresser drawers yielded shirts, underclothes, handkerchiefs, and cravats. She took one of the latter, shook it out of its neatly ironed folds and nodded her satisfaction. It would make a perfectly serviceable veil draped over her head and drawn across her face, leaving only her eyes visible. A small enameled box on top of the dresser offered a diamond-headed pin. Reasoning that since Kit had removed her from her own belongings without thought or consideration, he had the obligation to make good their lack, she used the pin to fasten the makeshift veil at her ear.

  The dresser mirror showed her Ayesha.

  Quietly, she left the bedroom, paused outside the door to the sitting room, listened to the laughter and the voices, some of them sounding a trifle thick, then she turned the knob and opened the door.

  The four men looked up from the card table expecting to see Harley. They saw an Afghan woman in the door. Her hands touched her forehead in a salaam of greeting before she moved as smoothly as sunlight across the room and sat on the floor before the fire. Folding her hands in her lap, she sat with lowered eyes, quite motionless.

  Kit recovered first. “Annabel, what are you playing at?” he demanded uneasily.

  Her eyes lifted to his. “Am I permitted to speak in front of your guests, Ralston, huzoor? I had thought that maybe you might wish me to entertain them in some way. You are aware, I believe, that I have some skills.” There was such pointed insolence in her voice that for a moment he was speechless, until he realized what she meant. His chair clattered to the floor under the vigor of his rising.

  “You dare to suggest—”

  Bob sobered dramatically as his friend, white with anger, descended upon the seated woman. “Steady on, Kit. Keep your temper, old man.”

  “Keep my temper!” Kit exclaimed. “Do you realize what she’s suggesting?”

  “Why should it trouble you?” Ayesha inquired, more calmly than she felt. For some reason she had not expected Kit to evince quite this degree of fury, had rather assumed he would be rendered mute with shame and embarrassment. “I’m sure your friends are well aware of the entertainment an Afghan host offers his guest … if only by listening to your experiences. You have taken possession of me, in the manner of any khan. It is customary for a host to share his possessions. I assumed you would wish to do so.”

  There was an instant of shocked silence, then Bob Markham coughed awkwardly and stood up. “Really sorry, Kit, I forgot all about this … this other matter. Should never have come … we’ll be on our way.”

  Kit waved him back to his chair, without taking his eyes off Ayesha. The wave of blind anger had receded, leaving an icy calm in its wake. He did not know what lay behind this extraordinary scene, but he had a feeling it was not pure mischief. “No, there’s no need for any of you to leave. Let me make formal introductions.” Reaching down, he took her hands and drew her to her feet. “Miss Spencer, may I introduce Bob Markham, Derek Graham, and William Troughton.” Deftly, he took the diamond pin from the makeshift veil and flipped the cravat aside. “Ingenious,” he remarked dryly. “Gentlemen, Miss Annabel Spencer.”

  “Damn, Kit! You got her out then,” observed William Troughton in much the same tone as Bob had used that morning.

  “What a brilliant deduction,” Annabel said acidly. “I should be flattered, I’m sure, to be a subject of such interest. Have you been laying bets on the matter?”

  Kit closed his eyes for a second. “All right,” he said quietly. “You’ve made your point … hammered it, one might say. Now, let’s go into the other room and sort this out.”

  “I cannot imagine what there is to sort out—”

  “Well, I can,” he interrupted. “Excuse us a minute. The wine’s on the table.” He gestured toward the side table before planting a hand in the small of Ayesha’s back and pushing her toward the door.

  She went unresisting, since she suspected that resistance might result in an undignified rout.

  In the bedroom, Kit kicked the door shut. “What are you implying, Annabel?”

  “I’m not implying anything,” she said, stepping away from him. “It’s perfectly obvious that I’ve been the subject of mess gossip. You must be deriving great satisfaction from being able to show your friends the woman from Akbar Khan’s zenana who gave you such pleasure for one—”

  “You cannot possibly believe that I have discussed you in such terms.” Two bright flags of color flew on his cheekbones. “As if you were some back-street harlot! How dare you insult me in such fashion.”

  “Insult you?” she exclaimed. “I am the one who has been insulted. Those men out there knew all about me. Deny that, if you can.”

  “What kind of man do you think I am?” He caught her arm, his fingers bruising the skin beneath the thin wool of her tunic. “Yes, I told them of the presence in Akbar Khan’s zenana of an Englishwoman abducted as a child. Yes, I said that you could not be left there … that no Englishman worthy of the name could leave you there. They all agreed with me. But if you think I would have said anything about the night we passed, or what I feel for you, then you do me the gravest injustice.”

  Annabel stood looking at him, hugging her breasts with crossed arms. Then she offered him a tiny smile, her head tilted to one side. “If that is so then I apologize, Christopher Ralston.”

  “Of course it is so!” He was for the moment unappeased by the apology. “Do you know nothing of gentlemen? Of honor?”

  She shrugged. “I know much of the honor of the Afghan. But how should I know of the honor of an English gentleman?”

  “You were twelve before you were abducted.” He dismissed this quibble with the derision it deserved. “Don’t give me that nonsense. You knew your father.”

  A shadow scudded across the cool
green surface of her eyes, and that vulnerability he had seen once before was writ clear upon her face. Before she could banish it, he took her in his arms. “Don’t fight me anymore, Annabel.” He whispered the plea into the fragrance of her hair, stroking the curve of her cheek with a finger, rubbing her back gently with the palm of his other hand. “Don’t fight either of us anymore.”

  For a second she was unresisting in his hold, then she pulled away. “You had no right to bring me here. I was content where I was.”

  He sighed. “If you say so. But since you are here, will you come back to the sitting room, at least?”

  “As Annabel or as Ayesha?” she asked.

  “That is for you to decide.” He held the door for her.

  “Matters appear to be improving.” She moved past him and didn’t see the frustration flickering in the gray eyes. But she felt its current surge through his body, rigidly upright in the doorway.

  The three men in the sitting room had left the card table in the absence of their host and his other rather more unusual guest, and were standing around the fire, glasses in hand. The abrupt silence that fell as the door opened was clear indication of the intensity and content of their previous conversation.

  “We’ll be on our way, Kit,” Bob declared with an attempt at heartiness. “Pleased to have made your acquaintance, Miss Spencer.” He offered a small bow before placing his glass on a side table.

  “Yes, indeed,” the other two concurred, bowing in turn. “Delighted, ma’am.”

  “Please don’t leave on my account,” Annabel said, smiling. “Finish your game. I would like to watch your play.” She drew a chair over to the card table and sat down expectantly.

  Kit gestured toward the table and the neglected cards. “Come, let us finish. It would be impolite to deny the lady her wish.”

  “It may not be as exciting as a game of buzkashi,” Annabel commented, “but it will certainly be new to me.”

  “This may be also.” Kit poured a glass of claret and handed it to her.

  She took a tentative sip and her nose wrinkled. “What a strange taste. I don’t think I care for it in the least.” She held the glass out to him.

  “It grows on you,” Kit said with a wry smile, taking the glass. “If you give it the chance.”

  Her eyes held his. “I don’t see much point in giving it the chance … not at the moment. It can only compound the disadvantages of a disadvantaged position.”

  “Whose position, Miss Spencer?” William Troughton looked up from his cards and blinked in some bemusement.

  “Yours,” she replied bluntly.

  “Mine?” The blinking became more rapid.

  “Never mind, William,” Bob Markham said. He regarded Annabel with eyes that no longer bore the least sign of befuddlement. “You mean the British position in Afghanistan, I take it, Miss Spencer.”

  She nodded. “The hill tribes will flock to Kabul and Akbar Khan now … now that you have suffered such a signal defeat and made no attempt to reverse it. If you are besieged in the cantonment, how do you think you will ever get free and clear?”

  “Free and clear?”

  “You explain the rules of buzkashi, Kit,” she said. “I am going to see if Harley will make me some tea.”

  “What an extraordinary woman,” Bob declared once the door had closed on her departure. “How could you ever have thought to give her into Lady Sale’s charge, my dear fellow? Lunatic idea!”

  “Lady Sale?” Derek interjected. “Miss Spencer goin’ to be her protégée? Is that the idea?”

  “Not anymore,” Kit said. “Look, would you consider me very rude if I asked you to call it an evening?” He made a swift excluding gesture in Bob’s direction and his friend nodded in comprehension.

  William and Derek were far too polite to do anything but make an immediate departure. Kit watched their stumbling progress down the path, then closed the door. “Damn it, Bob, but I think Annabel’s right. How can we possibly see things clearly, make any kind of sensible decisions, in that condition?”

  “Is it going to make any difference?” Bob asked, turning back to the sitting room. “Drunk or sober, we’re doomed, it seems to me.”

  “Maybe so, Captain Markham, but maybe not.” Annabel came into the room, followed by Harley carrying a tea tray and wearing his customary air of resignation. “But I’ll tell you this much. Akbar Khan is going to have all his wits about him. If you don’t have yours, you might as well slit your own throats.”

  “Will you be wantin’ supper, sir?” Harley asked. “I’ve made cabbage soup and potato cakes. There’s not much else in the stores at present.”

  “That will do splendidly, thanks,” Kit said. “Supplies are short throughout the cantonment, but our commissariat fort is well held, thank God.”

  “Unlike the shah’s,” Bob said, thinking of the beleaguered Colin Mackenzie.

  “I wouldn’t be too confident of that,” Annabel said, pouring tea. “The Afghans have only to occupy the forts of Mahmood Khan and Mahomed Shereef to threaten the cantonment’s commissariat. Their guns can be trained directly onto your supply station.”

  “Must you be such a Jonah?” Kit asked wearily.

  “I have big ears,” she said, “and I’ve been listening in the right places.”

  “Are you serious, Miss Spencer?” Bob stared in dismay.

  “I wish you would call me either Annabel or Ayesha,” she said. “Yes, I am entirely serious. You don’t really imagine Akbar and the other sirdars are going to retreat? Permit you to bring in supplies unmolested?” She shook her head in a gesture of exasperation. “You do not seem to understand. I tried to explain it to Kit, but you are all so obtuse!”

  “Not obtuse,” Kit said, “just trying to look for a ray of hope.”

  “I’ll serve supper in the dining room, sir,” Harley stated, having listened to this exchange without a flicker of emotion on his stolid countenance.

  Supper was a generally silent meal. Annabel, who had, it seemed to Kit, the enviable ability to concentrate simply upon the moment at hand, ate soup and potato pancakes with the air of one willing to experiment and to be pleased.

  “It’s a rather peculiar sensation,” she announced, finally laying down her knife and fork. “I know these tastes and textures, yet it’s been so long since I’ve experienced them that it’s as if they are quite unfamiliar.”

  “If you’re right, they are about to become so again, Kit observed, not sharing her ability to put foreboding aside.

  “On which note, I think perhaps I’ll bid you good night.” Bob rose to his feet. “It’s late and I’ve trespassed on your hospitality enough.”

  Kit made no attempt to detain him. Annabel offered a friendly good night and went into the sitting room, where she stood gazing down into the fire, waiting for Kit to return from bidding farewell to his friend.

  “Where am I to sleep?” she asked directly, as he came into the room. “There appears to be only one bedroom.”

  The sharpness of his disappointment took Kit aback. He had not realized how much he had taken it for granted that Annabel’s denial of desire was only a temporary performance, one prompted by an understandable but short-lived resentment.

  Lest she should see his chagrin, he bent to the fire, throwing on an unnecessary log, before responding with seeming insouciance, “Have the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch in here.”

  She shook her head. “You are at least seven inches longer than I am. I’ll be quite comfortable on the couch. I’ll ask Harley to find some sheets and blankets.”

  “If you insist,” he said.

  She gave him a bland smile. “I do.”

  She went out, leaving the door ajar, and Kit cursed her obstinacy in an undertone. Irritably thinking that she would need some kind of a nightgown, he went into his bedroom to fetch one of the nightshirts he rarely wore himself.

  He was going to have to procure her some more clothes from somewhere. And how long could he keep her hidden? And on
ce her presence was known, how could he preserve the reputation of maidenly innocence she must present if she were to make any kind of a life for herself in the society to which she rightfully belonged? And why the hell had he not thought through these seemingly intractable problems before he had acted in that rash and intemperate fashion? He had not thought things through, simply because he had been consumed by a passionate wanting beyond description, a wanting that he had had to gratify without thought for the consequences. And now, he had the consequences and no gratification. It was a fitting penalty, he decided sourly.

  “Here, you might have need of this.” He tossed the nightshirt onto a chair in the sitting room, where Harley was putting sheets on the sofa.

  “Thank you,” she said neutrally. “You’re very kind.” She offered him that bland smile again and his palms itched. No other woman had ever had this effect upon him, had ever aroused these startlingly crude and tempestuous impulses. But then, no other woman had ever really mattered to the Honorable Christopher Ralston, who had taken his pleasure where he found it; behaved impeccably but without much emotion; paid whatever price was set, be it in coin or kind; and gone on his way again, essentially untouched. Even that ridiculous business with Lucy had been prompted mainly by his drunken anger at his so-called friends.

  “Good night.” He spun on his heel and left the room, closing his bedroom door with a near slam.

  “Good night, miss.” Harley gave a final straightening tug to the quilt on the couch, before hastening from the room without meeting her eye.

  “Good night,” Annabel muttered toward the closed door. She undressed and slipped Kit’s voluminous nightshirt over her head. Then she went to the window, drawing aside the curtain and looking out into the night. The window was barred like all the others, and it was to be assumed all the outside doors were securely locked.