Bold Destiny

by Jane Feather

  “And you truly embrace that philosophy?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, turning from him with sudden impatience. “What is the point in this discussion, anyway?”

  “If you don’t know that, I’m not going to tell you,” he said, allowing his anger because it masked his hurt. “You had better go back to the bungalow. I have other duties.”

  She offered him a mock salaam and with a violent exclamation he seized her hands, pulling them away from her forehead. “Why must you make me so angry, Annabel? I could shake you till your teeth rattle!”

  “You only become angry like that when I point out the truth as I see it,” she said calmly. “But if I don’t point it out, then you will begin to believe I view the world with your eyes, and it is not so.”

  He sighed and released her. “Go with Harley to his stallkeeper this afternoon. I shall feel easier when you are properly clothed for whatever eventuality your precious Destiny decides to drop in our laps.”

  He watched her glide from the building with that graceful, apparently unhurried step that did set her apart from any of the young women of his acquaintance. He didn’t know anyone who moved as Annabel did, who was capable of such immobility, such serenity. But she wasn’t always like that, he remembered with a flicker of encouragement. She was capable of furious outbursts worthy of any ill-schooled brat … shades of her past, as she had admitted, resurrected by the situation in which she now found herself. Perhaps she was not irreclaimable after all.

  On that heartening thought, he swung himself astride Charlie and rode him back to his stable.

  He returned to the bungalow in early evening, having been working all afternoon on plans for a counterattack on the besieging forts. Harley popped out of his kitchen as Kit stepped into the hall.

  “Oh, there you are, sir. What an afternoon I’ve ’ad,” he said, following Kit into the sitting room.

  “Did you go shopping with Miss Spencer?” Kit, deciding that his new regime entitled him to the first drink of the day at six in the evening, poured himself a brandy.

  “I did that, sir. Lord, you never seen nothin’ like it. The two of ’em goin’ at it ’ammer and tongs, Captain, jabbering away in this ’eathen language. I didn’t know what they was sayin’, but miss got the price down from six hundred rupees to two hundred!” The flabbergasted expression on Harley’s usually stolid countenance, combined with his unusual eagerness to describe his extraordinary experiences, offered an accurate reflection of his awe and dismay at the strange shopping habits of women in foreign parts.

  Kit grinned appreciatively. “Did she buy much?”

  “I dunno, sir, but it sounded like it. The wench is bringin’ it round in the mornin’. Miss said as ’ow the girl didn’t ’ave everythin’ in cantonments and would ’ave to go to the city fer it.”

  The captain’s grin faded. “The guards will never let her pass freely. Or at least, they had better not.”

  Harley nodded wisely. “Miss said as ’ow the girl ’as a way of gettin’ in and out.”

  Kit frowned, sipping his drink. It should not surprise him. The defenses were full of holes, and they could not plug them all. “Where is Miss Spencer?”

  “Havin’ a bit of a nap, sir. Seemed a bit tired like, after the ridin’ and all that shoppin’.” He wiped his brow expressively. “It was enough to finish anyone.”

  “I can imagine. What’s for supper? I’m famished. I’ve had nothing since breakfast.”

  “Couldn’t get anythin’ from stores today, sir. They weren’t givin’ out, but the hen’s still layin’, although she’s an old bird,” he added on a note of foreboding. “We’ve still got a sack of flour, a few potatoes, and leeks. And a bit o’ bacon—”

  “Yes, but what are we having for supper?” Kit broke in, his mouth watering.

  Harley looked hurt. “I’ve made a bit of a stew with potatoes and leeks, sir, in bacon fat. I’ll save the bacon for breakfast, if that’s all right.”

  “You’re a prince among batmen,” Kit said. “I didn’t mean to snap.” He smiled the disarming, crinkly smile that had won him Harley’s undying loyalty five years before.

  The batman looked a little warm and slipped a finger into the neck of his collar as if it were suddenly constricting. “Well, I’ll get on with it then, sir.” He took himself back to his kitchen, and Kit took his drink into the unlit bedroom.

  Annabel rolled over on the bed as he came in, stretched luxuriously, and yawned. “I have been asleep.”

  “With good cause, Harley tells me,” he said with a chuckle, coming over to the bed. “How about a kiss.”

  Her eyes shimmered in the shadowy light. “You don’t want to shake me anymore, then?”

  “Not at the moment,” he said on a dry note. “But I’m sure I shall again in the not-too-distant future.” He put his glass on the side table and bent over her. “Kiss me, you infuriating creature.”

  She obliged with some thoroughness, then sat up. “We went shopping. Did Harley tell you?”

  “With most out-of-character eloquence.” Kit unfastened his sword belt and stretched. “He tells me the shopkeeper can slide in and out of the cantonment with her wares.”

  “Of course,” she responded matter-of-factly. “You don’t imagine there are no spies here, surely?”

  “I suppose I did.” He unbuttoned his tunic. “Although why I should have, I don’t know, when Macnaghten has his own spies in Kabul and is setting them to all kinds of nefarious plots.”

  “Plotting against Akbar Khan?” Annabel swung off the bed and struck a match, lighting the oil lamp on the table. “I’m not sure how wise that is.”

  “Why not?” He sat on the bed to pull off his boots. “It’s tit for tat, surely?”

  “That depends. What are they plotting?”

  “Oh, Macnaghten has charged one of his agents, an Afghan called Mohun Lal, who is living in the city residence of a Kuzzilbash chief, to offer blood money for the heads of some of our most virulent opponents.”

  Annabel stared in dismay. “But that is treachery by any standards.”

  “Your erstwhile khan suggested it himself,” Kit declared.

  “Akbar Khan suggested that Macnaghten, huzoor, organize the assassination of some of the chiefs? I do not believe he said such a thing.”

  Kit massaged his cheekbones wearily. “No, he did not suggest exactly that, and it is utterly despicable that the Envoy should have decided upon such a course. But Akbar Khan did suggest that if we could sow dissension amongst the various factions, then they would be too busy fighting each other to fight us.”

  “And you believed that? After everything I have told you of Akbar Khan, and everything you saw and heard in his fortress! How could you have been so stupid, Kit?” She began pacing the room, the length and restlessness of her strides potent evidence of her agitation.

  “No, I did not believe it,” he snapped, stung by her tone. “But I was merely a messenger. My opinions were not required. I delivered the message and the Envoy—”

  “Played right into Akbar Khan’s hands,” Annabel interrupted flatly. “If the British prove their treachery, their faithlessness, then Akbar Khan will have no compunction in acting any way he pleases.”

  “But he did put the idea into Macnaghten’s head,” Kit pointed out.

  “But it was up to Macnaghten to make the decision. Akbar Khan was testing him, to see how trustworthy he is. You know how devious Akbar is. He will offer the apple, but will disclaim all responsibility if it is eaten.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Kit shrugged into a dressing gown of brown velvet, knotting the belt with irritable emphasis.

  Annabel felt his weariness, his surfeit of frustration and acrimony. Coming over to him, she slipped her arms around his waist, resting her head on his chest. “I don’t really know. Let us not talk of this anymore tonight. You’re tired and I would rather soothe you than argue with you.”

  He stroked her hair as she held him, held him withou
t passion but imparting a gentleness, some of her own serenity that she seemed to be able to draw upon at will, banishing the sharp edges, the rough surfaces, the grating exchanges.

  “I expect you are hungry,” she said. “Harley has been cooking since we returned. Come into the dining room and I will serve you.”

  He yielded to the seductive softness of Ayesha, feeling the tension and anxieties slip from him as she attended to his wants, served him, poured his wine, built up the fire, talked of many things, none of them related to destiny, to battle, to treachery, to dangerous incompetence. He began to have the wonderful, magical feeling that he was the center of her universe, that she existed only to ensure his peace and comfort, and that sense of wandering in an illicit yet entrancing wonderland lapped him as it had done the first night he had spent with her. And later, in the soft lamplight, she brought that same peace and comfort to his body, so that sleep crept up on him and took him without his will or conscious thought.

  Annabel stroked the hair from his brow as he slept, a soft smile on her face as she traced the line of his jaw with a delicate fingertip, brushed his lips in the same way. In sleep, there was no sign of that occasionally disfiguring curl of self-mockery on his face, or of the dark gleam of disillusionment in the gray eyes. She wondered what sort of a child he had been, and her smile broadened. Angelic-looking, at least, with that shock of curly golden hair and the disarming smile that he could still produce when he was forgetting to be cynical or bored. One would find it hard to withstand the blandishments of such a child.

  Still smiling, she blew out the lamp and snuggled down beside him, pulling the quilt up to her nose. Sharing a bed was really very pleasant, she decided, as sleep hovered. It was not something she had ever done before, but the presence of another body, particularly such a loving one, was most soothing and comforting … for as long as Destiny left these pieces where they were on her board. Why was she so convinced that Destiny was female …

  At first the noise beyond the window barely penetrated the world of dreams beneath the nesting covers, then she sat up at the same moment that Kit sprang into full awareness.

  “What the hell … ?” He leaped naked from the bed and strode to the window. “Damn, I can’t see a thing!” He began to pull on shirt and britches. “I don’t hear any firing, so it can’t be an attack. What’s the time?”

  “Three o’clock,” Annabel told him, her voice muffled as she pulled her tunic over her head. “Where’s my veil?”

  Kit opened his mouth to tell her she was to stay in the house, then closed it and tossed her the cravat. “Promise me you won’t speak to anyone, or express to the world in general any of your uncomfortable opinions on the subject of feringhee bungling.”

  “I’ll save them until we’re back,” she agreed, fastening the veil at her ear and picking up her cloak. “Ready?”

  Kit nodded and went to the door. Harley was already in the hall, pulling open the front door. “Now what?” he demanded gloomily, looking out at the street where house lights blazed through the early-hours darkness.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Kit replied. “Nothing good, that’s for sure.” He went out into the street. “Ayesha, stay with me. I don’t want you out of my sight, understand?”

  “I understand, Ralston, huzoor,” she said, bowing her head. “I will walk two paces behind you, in the correct manner.”

  Despite the grim hour and the absolute conviction that yet another nail had been hammered into the British coffin, Kit’s lips twitched. He cuffed her playfully. “See that you do.”

  They hurried to the barrack square, to a scene of massed confusion. Kit stopped abruptly. “God Almighty! It’s Warren and his garrison. He’s abandoned his post!”

  “What post?” She stepped up beside him, staring into the square where horses and soldiers milled, voices raised above the general cacophony, bellowing orders.

  “I don’t believe it, Kit.” Bob Markham separated himself from the throng and loped across to them. “Warren says he did not receive the message to hold on to the last. Goddamnit, man! Major Griffiths was about to leave with a sizable force to storm Shereef’s fort. Warren would have been relieved by dawn.” He looked as rumpled as Kit, his hair uncombed, his tunic buttoned awry. “Oh, Annabel, sorry, I didn’t see you standing there,” he offered in distracted greeting, before continuing, “Warren says the enemy had fired the gate to the fort, but he admits they hadn’t effected entrance. But he wasn’t waiting for that.” Disgust laced Bob’s voice. “Apparently, he had a hole cut in the wall of the fort and evacuated that way.”

  “Of all the bungling idiots!” Kit ran his fingers through his hair so that it stood out in a wiry halo around his head.

  “You do him a kindness,” Bob said harshly. “I’d call it something else.”

  “Yes, I suppose I would, too. But maybe he didn’t receive the second message. Anyway—” Kit shrugged expressively. “Either we fight or we talk terms now. Unless Elphinstone’s prepared to sit back and accept starvation.”

  The two men seemed to have forgotten Ayesha, and she did nothing to draw attention to herself, standing immobile beside Kit, listening and thinking. Others came over, all expressing the same disgust and concern, and the discussion raged in the freezing air, while she continued to stand there, reflecting that she was as unable to participate in male conversation as if she were still inhabiting a zenana. There were only four men in the cantonment, apart from Kit and Harley, who knew who and what she really was, and since Kit wanted it to stay that way, she had no choice but to subsume Annabel under Ayesha, as she had done for so many years. It seemed ironical in the light of Kit’s so fervently expressed determination to resurrect Annabel Spencer and bury Ayesha.

  So motionless was she, and so absorbing the conversation, that Kit turned to leave the square, still in the company of his fellows and still deep in talk, without acknowledging her in any way. Wondering how long it would be before he remembered her, she remained where she was, watching them turn out of the square.

  Three minutes later, Kit reappeared, his face creased with anxiety. When he saw her still standing in the same place, the anxiety was replaced with puzzlement. He came over to her at a run. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “I just wanted to see how long it would take you to realize you had left me behind,” she said.

  Kit looked stricken as he struggled to deny the charge but couldn’t.

  Annabel laughed. “Don’t worry, I am not in the least hurt or annoyed. It just seems to me that men are the same in essence the world over, whether they inhabit Afghan mountain strongholds or European bungalows. Put them together with an absorbing topic of conversation, and women might as well not exist.”

  “That’s not true,” he denied. “Life without women would be insupportable.”

  “So long as they keep to their place.” Her eyebrows lifted quizzically.

  “Oh, come along,” Kit said. “I’m not standing around here bandying words with you. Your place is in bed, and that’s where I want you.”

  “We’re going to have to find some substitute for eating,” she said. “I suppose making love will do as well as anything else.”

  The light banter overlaid their recognition of the disastrous turn events had taken, overlaid it but did not deny it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “The wench is ’ere, miss, with your clothes.”

  Harley came into the dining room, where Kit and Annabel were eating breakfast.

  “Oh, thank you.” Annabel stood up. “I’ll go and see what she’s brought. I’ll need two hundred rupees, Kit, if she has brought everything she promised.”

  “I’ll fetch it,” he said easily, putting down his teacup.

  The girl stood in the hall. She was veiled, but wore no chadri, and in her arms was a sizable bundle. Annabel greeted her cheerfully in Pushtu but received no response. Mutely, the girl held out her bundle. She had the terrified air of one desperate to flee, as if she were in danger of
contamination.

  Annabel looked at the clothes and understood why. “There’s no payment needed,” she said in a flat voice to Kit as he came in with the money. Her face wore a strange expression and he gazed at her, uncomprehending.

  “Why not?”

  She did not answer him straightaway, but said something in rapid Pushtu to the girl, whose scared eyes darted around the room above the veil. She responded in a low, fearful voice, salaamed hastily, and vanished into the street.

  “What’s the matter? Why was she to have no payment?”

  “These are my clothes,” Annabel told him, still in that same flat voice. “You do not pay for what you already own.”

  “You’re talking in riddles.” Impatience laced his voice, but it was an impatience born of anxiety.

  She returned to the dining room and dropped her bundle on the table amongst the teacups. “Akbar Khan has sent me my own clothes.”

  “What?” He stared at her. “I don’t understand.”

  “We were talking of spies last night, were we not?” Her face and voice still carried that strange flatness. “I don’t know why I did not think of the logical extension. Of course he would instruct his spies to report on me. He made it clear he knows I’m here, after all.”

  “So the girl reported to Akbar Khan that you had made contact with her and he chose to supply your needs himself?”

  “Can you think of another explanation?” She began to sort through the pile of clothing, cashmere, silk, fur sliding through her fingers. “See, he has even sent my riding dress and boots.” She held up the butter-soft leather trousers and fur-lined leather tunic, the highly polished boots that had been molded to her foot. “And the chadri.”

  “Why?” The one word question was all he could manage as he looked at the clothes, at the glowing richness of the material spilling upon the table.

  Her mouth moved in the travesty of a smile, humorless but knowing. “It’s just his way of reminding me that I am bound to him, whatever I may do. That I am in essence dependent upon him, and upon his generosity.” She hugged herself suddenly with crossed arms. “That his generosity could at any moment be withdrawn.” A note of weary resignation entered her voice. “That is why he has sent these things. The hawk will drop upon his prey when he decides he wishes to.”