Discovery of Desire

by Susanne Lord

  Oh dear. He was distracting.

  Emma must have been similarly affected. She sighed. And rather lengthily. “We weren’t waiting. Perhaps a moment, but that is not any wait at all. I mean, it’s quite all right, Mr. Mayhew.”

  Mina smiled with real amusement. But really, a woman would have to be blind not to be attracted. And deaf. And she could not touch any part of Mr. Mayhew, not with those muscles. Yes, she’d have to be altogether insensible. Perhaps dead.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Mayhew,” she said.

  Mr. Mayhew pushed back his hat and his sea-green eyes latched on hers and—drat him—that triggered a strange quiver in the pit of her stomach. He smiled the slowest, loveliest smile.

  And then, of course, he winked at her.

  She turned to look out the window, and then stupidly hurried to pull back the curtain a moment later. She had never been so affected by a man. And the timing was truly terrible.

  He wasn’t entering the carriage. A small hope lit within her. Perhaps he had changed his mind; perhaps he wouldn’t come?

  “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me.” Mr. Mayhew stepped back from the carriage. “I thought I might ride up on the box, get a view of the city.”

  “Nooo, Mr. Mayhew.” Emma leaned forward in her seat. “You must not deprive us of your company.”

  “It pains me to refuse a pretty woman, but I don’t think I can listen to Tom hold forth on all his rousing tales of chicken hunts.”

  “Quail.” Thomas shook his head but he was grinning. Perhaps the men were becoming friends after all.

  Mr. Mayhew’s eyes glanced off Mina’s before he pulled his hat brim low and closed the door. What was that look? Why would he not ride inside—?

  Oh. He didn’t wish to intrude on her time with Thomas.

  Oh! And after she had forestalled their work today. Without Thomas, how much would he accomplish? There were scores of Company men to ingratiate himself with today. To be seen arriving on the box would be embarrassing. Was she that callous to his situation? And to wish him away…

  “Mr. Mayhew?” she called.

  He stopped, his hand on the door. “Yes, Miss Mina?”

  Thomas sat still and watchful, but she pressed on. It was only right and sensible. Besides, the faster she proved her impartiality to handsome explorers, the better. “Won’t you join us?” she said as lightly as she could. “The box will not be comfortable.”

  He searched her face. “No, I—”

  “Get in, Mayhew.” Thomas slid over. “There’s room enough. Even for you.”

  He hesitated a moment, then doffed his hat, the carriage tipping as he climbed in. Mina angled her knees to the side to avoid his long legs, and he smiled in apology. Which was adorable.

  She frowned hard at the thought. Fine. She was attracted—that hardly mattered in her circumstances. She could sit here and converse like the sensible woman she had been all her four and twenty years, and he would soon be persuaded that his winks and wiles and flattery were wasted on a woman like her.

  Perhaps he was already done flirting with her. “And how was your morning, Mr. Mayhew?”

  “Full of smiles knowing I’d be seeing you, Miss Mina.”

  No, he wasn’t done. “Well, I… Thank you. And productive too, I hope?”

  “We sent telegrams to the Calcutta and Delhi offices, and a couple letters back to England in case Georgie was trying to reach me. And here’s a stroke of luck—Tom’s mate, Mr. Walpole, will be at the hunt—”

  “Not really a mate—” Thomas said.

  “—so that’s a door opened. There’s no knowing how many gents Tom will be introducing me to today. Right, Tom?”

  “One gent,” Thomas said. “I know one.”

  “The men will be curious over you,” she said. “And inclined to be friendly, I think.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping, Miss Mina.”

  The carriage jerked to a start and she aimed her gaze out the window. Mr. Mayhew looked out at the same view and somehow even that felt intimate. She turned toward Thomas. “How often do you travel outside of Saharanpur, Thomas?”

  “In the past year, once.”

  “And where did you go?”

  Thomas looked confused by the question. “Oh, here. Bombay’s my only trip this year. The year before—no, it’s nearly two years now, I trekked a bit west, deeper into the Punjab, but was struck by a mild bout of dysentery. Might have been a parasite. But by and by, I returned to the plantation and the babu sorted me out in a few months.”

  Months?

  Emma leaned forward, her eyes wide. “I understand most English outside of the cities contract malaria within the first months, often in the first weeks.” Her eyes widened. “Or the cholera or typhoid or dengue or blackwater fever or—”

  “And what is a babu, Thomas?” Mina asked, squeezing Emma’s hand.

  “A doctor.”

  She smiled. “Oh.”

  “Of sorts.” Thomas tipped his head, thinking. “He’s not so much a doctor as a…medic…or therapeutist?”

  Her smile slipped. “Oh,” she said more quietly. She sat back in her seat. Mr. Mayhew watched her so she busied herself with smoothing her skirt.

  Thomas opened the window curtain wide and sighed. “A fine day.”

  “Yes.” She faced Thomas—but he faced the window.

  She held Emma’s hand tight and tried not to worry over the fact there was not yet a ring on either of their fingers. She had to be patient. Thomas was a gentleman and would not rush an intimacy between them that would be unnatural. And yet…

  And yet he seemed to have no more feeling for her than she did for him.

  “You have a kitchen garden up there, Tom?” Mr. Mayhew asked.

  The question surprised her. Mr. Mayhew had been oddly quiet. Even now, his brooding stare was aimed at her lap.

  “A kitchen garden?” Thomas asked. “Yes, the plantation is home to over three hundred men and their families so there’s a rather large one.”

  “What did you grow in your garden, Miss Mina?” Mr. Mayhew didn’t raise his head. “Potatoes? Turnips? Did you grow any flowers?”

  “My garden? Yes, all that, and oats and onions and my mother’s peas and—” Her voice broke with some surprise emotion and she dropped her eyes.

  What was the matter with her? Hot tears blurred the sight of her lap. And no one was saying anything—

  “You grow English vegetables up there, don’t you, Tom?” Mr. Mayhew’s voice was loud and gruff in the close space.

  “We do,” Thomas answered quickly. “Indeed. Many, uh, many of the same.”

  “Good,” Mr. Mayhew said. “And probably a fair number of plants the ladies wouldn’t know of. I had my first Bengal quince yesterday. Looks like a grapefruit on the outside, but it doesn’t eat like one.”

  Thomas’s gaze was heavy on her, so she blinked the moisture from her eyes and raised her head. “A Bengal quince? I shall have to try one.” She could barely hold Mr. Mayhew’s gaze, as deeply as he looked into her eyes. But at last, he gave her a small smile.

  Thomas sat forward in his seat. “I will find you one tomorrow, Mina. I did not wish to bombard your stomach with too much of the exotic. Unlike Mayhew here, who fears no food.”

  “Have to sample what I can, when I can,” he said.

  “Indeed, Mr. Mayhew,” Emma said. “Once you find your sister and quit India for good, you will find nothing so novel in your garden.”

  “No, likely not,” Mr. Mayhew said. “But when I’m back in Matlock, I’ll be well content imagining the Adams girls of Chesterfield tending to their eastern gardens.”

  “An eastern garden,” Mina murmured. “I should like one, I think. What would I grow in it?”

  Mr. Mayhew leaned back against the squabs, his eyes not leaving hers, and said quietly, “Anythin
g you want, Miss Mina.”

  His eyes crinkled, and it struck her they would always do so. In happiness and sorrow, and even compassion, like now. Lulled by that gaze, she remembered what was true: She was in India and she would stay here. And she would live here.

  But she could have a garden again.

  She smiled her thanks to him, and he winked at her. She took a bracing breath of air scented by the sea, and everything was clear. She was here forever, as was Thomas. And they could make a life of respect and civility toward one another. Because it wasn’t love that mattered.

  After what happened to Mary, love never would.

  * * *

  Seth leaped out of the carriage. “Now there’s a lake!”

  He spoke too loud, exited too fast, but damned if he didn’t need to be out of that carriage. Nine miles should have been an easy distance, but not in company that included Mina being sad. Not when he couldn’t say all he wanted.

  Not when there wasn’t a thing he could do to help.

  It wasn’t his place to help Mina from the carriage, either. He moved aside so Tom could hand the women down.

  Mina’s lips parted at her first sight of Vehar Lake, the water wide and blue and bordered by a range of long, green hills that seemed to stretch without end. The sun was warm and the prospect the finest he’d seen in India. Would it be enough to spirit up a venture girl?

  She strolled to the front of the carriage to pet the horses and his eyes followed, lured by the marvel of her little waist, nipped in by her skirt, and the filmy white blouse hugging the sweet curve of her breasts. Her dark hair was shiny as glass in the sun before she tied on her bonnet and hid all that prettiness from him.

  But for all that was so calm and composed on the outside, Mina couldn’t hide the trouble showing in those big, brown eyes of hers. And in the carriage, it had nearly made him haul her onto his lap and hold her.

  Tom said she’d come to marry, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Wasn’t even most of it. What was clear was that Emma was the one committed to wed. With Tom and Colin Rivers working together in the Northwest Province, Mina must have come because she wasn’t about to let her sister be alone.

  No, India wasn’t any place for an Englishwoman.

  “Mayhew?” Tom was at his shoulder. “I asked what you hunt?”

  He steered his attention back to Tom and caught the knowing look in the man’s eye. He knew he watched Mina too much, and Tom was being patient with his interest. For now. There was no understanding the man. Hell, Tom didn’t seem to be courting her at all.

  What had he asked? “Ay? No, never hunted for sport,” Seth mumbled. “Isn’t a pleasure outing for me anyway.”

  “There may be something useful to be had from Walpole,” Tom said.

  “Maybe, but he’s just a clerk. We know a man higher in requisitions.”

  “Not one keen to help.”

  Seth nodded grimly. “We’re here—we’ll talk to Walpole. Just remember why you’re here. You need to win over Miss Mina.”

  “It’s been one day.”

  “And you better work on that powerful charm of yours. Hell, Tom, what was all that talk of dysentery?”

  Tom stared. “What? She asked—”

  “She asked for a nice story about your travels in-country, and you give her tales of bowel disorders.”

  “That’s what happened.”

  “Minnie doesn’t want to be here, might even be afraid of being here, and you’re not helping with all your talk of sickness. Hell, I couldn’t think of anything to say. Not even a bit of nonsense to make her smile or blush.”

  “It’s not your concern, Mayhew.”

  “I know it,” he growled. Damn idiot. “But if you want to marry her, go and talk to her. And leave off stories of the ass-stinging blister flies you have over here.”

  Tom mumbled something under his breath but stalked over to Mina. The smile she gave Tom hit Seth like a blow to the gut—but that was all right. Mina needed settling first. Once the search for Georgie took them out of Bombay, at least Mina would be safe.

  Seth walked in the other direction. A dozen carriages had arrived before them. Ladies unrolled straw mats higher on the hill and arranged the picnic, while the servants unpacked the carriages and herded the dogs.

  The men inspected their rifles for the benefit of the women, while Seth studied the men. Even on a snipe hunt at the edge of Bombay, the gents wore English suits.

  He’d never owned any suit—let alone a sporting suit—that fit as fine as those the men were wearing. He pulled down the hem of his coat and straightened his hat. In London, Will Repton had given him the name of his tailor, but he couldn’t afford such things. Mina would never see him in anything good.

  Damn stupid of him to be thinking on it.

  Mina, Emma, and Tom joined him, and Seth looked at the lake, the hills, the dogs—nearly twisted his head off looking at anything but Mina and Tom standing arm in arm.

  “Look, Mayhew.” Tom pitched his voice low. “The one in the green waistcoat is Mr. Walpole. You might not want to outshoot him.”

  “No danger in that,” he said. “Didn’t bring a gun.”

  Tom squinted at him from behind his spectacles. “No gun? Why not? You own several.”

  What did he do wrong now? “They’re for traveling.”

  Tom blinked. “You’re at a hunt.”

  “I told you—never hunted for sport.”

  “Huzzah, Mr. Mayhew!” Emma cried.

  Was Mina as pleased with him? She was admiring the view and there was no deciphering from that small smile if she approved of a nonsporting man or not. “I can shoot, of course,” Seth said. “And fish. And ride—I stick on a horse real tidy.”

  Mina turned a puzzled gaze on him.

  Well…right. Damn awkward thing to be mentioning just then.

  “No gun,” Tom grumbled, his stare screwed on him. “Don’t think you’ll loll about among the ladies, Mayhew. You’ll stay with the men, even if you aren’t hunting.”

  “I know it,” he mumbled.

  “And no pulling out Georgiana’s poster unless the conversation turns in that direction.”

  Seth frowned and just managed to stay his hand from pulling Georgie’s poster out of his pocket. Tom may not credit him with much of a brain, but there was no cause to be scolding him in front of Mina—especially when Seth only agreed to come to give Tom a little time with her.

  Mina didn’t seem to be listening anyway, her eyes intent on her friends. The venture girls waved and smiled at each other. And nodded and pointed and shook their heads, communicating women’s matters silently.

  “Shooting cannot be to everyone’s taste,” Mina said distractedly, smiling at a couple strolling toward them. “Oh look, here is my friend Beatrice.”

  Seth grinned at the false surprise. Even Beatrice’s brows rose at Mina’s big welcome.

  “Hello, Mina.” Beatrice presented the gent with her. “May I introduce Mr. Hodges to you all?”

  Introductions were made and the ladies did the pretty, saying all the civil things ladies said, leaving the men to stare blankly at each other and nod.

  Hodges turned toward him. “Mr. Mayhew, I understand from this enchanting creature”—he patted Beatrice’s hand—“that you require information from John Company.”

  Seth perked up. “I do at that.”

  “I can offer an inroad into that prickly territory, I daresay,” Hodges said. “Let’s not disturb these gentle ladies with our talk. Come along, Mayhew.”

  Come along? Seth corrected the frown on his face and followed. Come along…like a damn dog. But he sent Mina a grateful nod for the help.

  When they’d removed themselves from the ladies, Hodges took out his card. “Call on me tomorrow. We’ll discuss the matter of your sister.”

  Seth grinned.
“I appreciate that—”

  “What’s this I hear of a missing Englishwoman?” A thin gent with an ivory stick demanded loudly as he joined them, but he appeared to be posing for a redhead who looked ready to swoon with ecstasy at the man’s question.

  And suddenly, Seth was in a circle of gents proclaiming themselves the only possible solution on the matter of the missing Georgiana Mayhew. Voices were rising, too, but Seth collected cards as fast as he could reach for them. Damn me, a productive day, after all.

  “Attention!” A stout man in tall boots shouldered his rifle and waved his arm, ending the men’s posturing over whom was best positioned to gain information and rescue Georgie. “The snipe are nesting in the dry rice paddies just around the bend of this hill. Ladies, as I’m sure you wish to see the men shoot, we must all come upon them silently so as not to frighten them off before the dogs set them to wing.” He tucked his chin coyly, holding a plump brunette’s eye. “So none of your giggles, Hester.”

  The ladies giggled and a few men frowned. Married men, likely. If they were keen to shoot, they’d come on the wrong day. Today was all about suitoring.

  “Should the ladies not wait here, then?” Mina asked.

  The giggles died and the venture girls all turned to look at her. Mina looked from one stricken face to the next. “We’ll frighten off the snipe.” She used her smallest voice. “Won’t we?”

  The man with the rifle smiled sheepishly. “Oh my dear, what fun is there in that? You must walk with us, ladies. At a suitable distance for your safety, of course.”

  The women relaxed into smiles and sidled next to their men. Mina and Emma stayed with Seth as Tom collected his rifle and kit from the carriage.

  He chuckled at the blush rising on Mina’s cheeks and bent to whisper in her ear. “You don’t know how to flirt at all, do you, Minnie?”

  She took a fast step from him. “Evidently not, Mr. Mayhew.”

  His heart cracked and the grin slipped right off his lips. And he didn’t miss her glance at Tom, either. Well…hell. He shouldn’t have done that. He was embarrassing her. He didn’t even own a proper sporting suit.