Her Only Desire

by Gaelen Foley

  “No.”

  Derek laughed ruefully and clapped him on the back. “Come on, brother. We’ve got a job to do. I shall never understand why you always go galloping straight for the worst possible conclusion,” he remarked as they marched back to the palace, falling easily in step with each other. “You are a pessimist, you know.”

  He snorted. “I’m a soldier, and if you haven’t noticed, I’m usually right.” Gabriel looked at him matter-of-factly and then they strode ahead of him into the palace.

  Inside, scores of people still milled about the glittering banquet hall, socializing and enjoying the antics of the nautch girls and other performers.

  Ian paused upon noticing a heavily veiled woman seated at King Johar’s table. He hid his shock when one of the courtiers told him that it was Queen Sujana herself. As the king’s head wife, she was sometimes granted the rare honor of appearing in public beside her husband, especially on state or ceremonial occasions. Of course, Her Majesty could only be viewed through various layers of veils, in observance of purdah.

  Eager for the chance to study the woman and do his best to read her in spite of her veils, Ian resumed his place at the maharajah’s table.

  When the Knight brothers sat down with him a moment later, he was still puzzling over how to draw the queen into conversation, when it was forbidden for any man except her husband, and possibly her son, to speak to her.

  Neither was present at the table. Johar had drifted off to another quarter of the grand hall and stood conversing with his advisers. Shahu was nowhere to be seen. Without them, the poor woman was merely to sit there, no more allowed to speak than the fan-waving servants.

  Ian sensed her watching everything, taking it all in. As he leaned back on the cylindrical pillow behind him, wondering how to approach this, he lifted his goblet to his lips to take a drink. The acute stare that he felt emanating from beneath the maharani’s veil suddenly made him wonder if he ought not to swallow the contents of his glass. Her avid intelligence, her raging curiosity—and her mistrust—all were palpable.

  Now he knew why Georgiana was suspicious. This woman was a force to be reckoned with.

  And so he reached for his favorite strategy when locked in the sights of a hostile party, and smoothly began engaging in disinformation.

  A few well-chosen lies to the courtiers about British plans regarding Gwalior would give Her Majesty something to pass along to Baji Rao. If her brother took action based on these little fictions, they would soon know that Queen Sujana was a traitor to her husband.

  If that was the case, Ian dearly wanted to catch her in the act—trap her in her lies. Not just for the sake of his treaty, but for personal satisfaction.

  There were few things worse in this world than betrayal by one’s wife.

  He should know.

  Only a few minutes prior to this, Georgie had gained entrance to the zenana. She passed the new pair of hulking bald-headed guards on duty, went down the golden corridor, and found the marble atrium quiet.

  Beyond the open doors to the garden, moonlight played on the lilting fountain. The children had been put to bed and the last of the ladies had withdrawn to their chambers.

  Her heart was pounding because she, too, had seen Queen Sujana at King Johar’s table when she had passed by the banqueting hall on her way back to the harem. Knowing that Her Majesty was safely distracted, Georgie turned silently and looked at the closed door of the maharani’s private audience room, under its pointed arch.

  Dared she?

  This was the perfect opportunity to snoop inside that mysterious chamber and try to figure out, if anything, what the woman was hiding.

  Impinge on the privacy of a queen? her better sense exclaimed. You must be mad!

  But if it would help Ian…

  A delicious sensation passed through her entire body at the thought of him. Oh, at this moment, she felt she could do anything for him.

  Of course, he had warned her not to meddle, but he was only being a typical male, overprotective. She knew the routine, thanks to Gabriel and Derek.

  She also knew—because Ian had trusted her enough to tell her—that this peace treaty was vitally important. People’s lives were at risk. And besides, hadn’t she promised Ian that she’d help him if she could?

  Well, here was her chance to prove her usefulness.

  Swearing to herself that she would be in and out of that secret room before anyone was the wiser, Georgie’s pulse escalated as she tiptoed toward the door.

  Locked.

  Well, naturally.

  But this proved no impediment, thanks to her cousin Jack. She reached up with a sly half smile and plucked a long hairpin out of her coiffure, then bent down and as quietly as possible, jiggled the pin about in the lock.

  Snick.

  Ah. Thanks, Jack.

  With a wary glance behind her, she opened the door and peeked inside. Reassured that no one was in the room, she sneaked in and closed the door silently behind her. She locked it again, just to be safe.

  The private audience chamber was spanned by an ornate wooden screen with a few feet of empty space on both sides. Through the intricate teakwood whorls of the screen’s tracery, the visitors’ door on the other side of the windowless room was propped ajar.

  The only light came in feebly through the open doorway, reflecting in from somewhere down that long corridor, near where the eunuchs stood guard. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she scanned the chamber.

  A cushioned throne atop a low platform was the chamber’s focal point The surrounding walls were richly decorated with paintings and mosaics with the usual retinue of statues in religious themes. Some were life-sized; others stood on pedestals.

  She noticed a dainty, European-style writing desk in the corner where the queen’s secretary, or perhaps Sujana herself, recorded the business carried out during her various audiences.

  Georgie sped across the room to it, opened the slanted desk top with painstaking care, and began rifling through the stationery, well aware that this could probably get her beheaded. She lifted stacks of papers toward the light, and knew just enough of the Marathi dialect to make out the general nature of each document: petitions, judgments, endowments, deeds, and various schedules.

  There was nothing suspicious here, just the tedious paperwork of a royal personage meticulously carrying out what few duties were granted to her.

  For a moment, Georgie felt sorry for Sujana, for even in the course of their short meeting, she had been struck by the aura of fierce pride and intelligence around the woman, and yet she was caged here, like that tiger in its elaborate pen outside. It could make a woman of talent and drive absolutely mad, she thought as she glanced around the room, wondering where to search next.

  She approached the empty white throne and felt about to see if anything had been concealed inside, sewn into the cushions.

  Nothing.

  Carefully, she put the cushions back exactly as she had found them.

  She had to hurry.

  Moving more swiftly, she tried the paintings, rugs, and tapestries next, moving them aside, trying to uncover any concealed compartments.

  Again, nothing.

  She looked around with a furrowed brow; all that remained were the statues. Some of them might be hollow, so she checked them all. Shiva, Ganesha, Indra, Parvati—they had no secrets to hide. But then she came to the Kali statue—as tall as Georgie herself, painted black as death—and she truly did not want to touch it.

  It’s only a statue, she thought, scoffing at her apprehension.

  Wincing a bit, she poked at all the hideous adornments of the death goddess, when all of a sudden, her searching fingertips detected a barely perceptible seam around the severed head in Kali’s ruthless grip. She grasped it harder, wiggling the head carefully. She let out a gasp as the face snapped open and swung outward like a little door.

  Inside was a folded paper.

  Glancing around guiltily, Georgie took the paper out and u
nfolded it, her heart thumping. Holding the message up toward the low light streaming in from across the chamber, she was able to make out the hastily penned lines.

  They had been written by the queen, all right. In her arrogance, Sujana had not even bothered using code, and as Georgie struggled to translate the the letter mentally, the evil that the words carried made her blood run cold.

  This was even worse than she had suspected.

  Queen Sujana was not only siding with Baji Rao, she was plotting to murder her husband and put Prince Shahu on the throne!

  Patience, little brother, the damning letter concluded. I will send word when the English party has left Janpur. Then we will act.

  Georgie was so intent on deciphering the letter that she failed to notice another presence approaching until the faintest jingle of jewelry tinkled on the air. Then it was too late.

  A curse exploded at the other end of the room.

  “What are you doing?” a deep voice demanded.

  As she looked up, wide-eyed, the blood drained from her face.

  Prince Shahu!

  She was caught.

  Red-handed.

  At once, she thrust the paper behind her back. Trying to hide the proof of Queen Sujana’s plot, she retreated as he stalked toward her in his curl-toed shoes.

  “How dare you invade my mother’s privacy?”

  Shadows twisted the sneer on his face and turned his countenance sinister while Georgie struggled to think of an excuse. She kept hoping some clever explanation would pop into her head in time to reassure him that this really wasn’t as bad as it looked.

  But of course it was.

  “I—” She glanced around in rising terror, trying to spot the best means of escape.

  “Foolish woman!” The jewel in Shahu’s turban gleamed, and his long golden earrings flashed in the low light, but the hollows of his eyes were in shadow below his brow ridge. “I had hoped for a friendly visit with you, apsara, but now…what a waste.” There was a whispery metal hiss as the prince drew his dagger.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  E veryone at Johar’s table in the banqueting hall froze at the distant sound of a piercing scream.

  Ian instantly came to attention and sat up straight, setting down his glass. He could tell it was a woman, though the voice was muffled through the palace walls.

  Gabriel and Derek also glanced toward the gilded doorway, the pair of battle-hardened warriors going at once on full alert.

  A second scream filled the air, closer now.

  “Help!”

  Derek and Gabriel shot to their feet and were already tearing out of the banqueting hall as Ian rose in horrified recognition of her voice.

  Georgiana…

  He was only a few steps behind them, his stomach in knots. What the hell had she gotten herself into now?

  Shahu clenched her in a murderous hold and very nearly succeeded in slitting her throat—indeed, he nicked the side of her neck with the edge of his blade—but flailing against him and fighting for all she was worth, Georgie reached up and ripped the big, dangling gold earring right out of his head.

  The prince roared with pain, clutched his torn earlobe, and she broke free. She bolted past him, out the open visitors’ doorway through which the prince had entered the maharani’s chamber. With terror stamped across her face and blood seeping from the cut on her neck, Georgie raced out into the palace proper, screaming for help, and clutching Queen Sujana’s traitorous letter in her hand.

  She burst out of the harem, past the startled eunuch guards, Prince Shahu mere paces behind her, chasing her at full speed, his face contorted in a vicious snarl.

  The next thing she knew, she saw her brothers sprinting toward her up the central corridor of the palace. She let out a sob of terrorized relief.

  Their keen stares homed in instantly on the blood trickling down her neck and chest, and their wrath exploded. They let her run past them and drew their swords, then put themselves between her and the heir of Janpur.

  In the blink of an eye they had cornered the prince, who was screaming curses at all of them in Marathi; in another heartbeat, his bodyguards swarmed the Knight brothers, in turn, and then all hell broke loose.

  Georgie was knocked to her knees in the eye of the storm, a furious whirlwind of hacking metal blades that spiraled around her within the narrow confines of the corridor. She was crying and trying to tell them all to stop.

  Nobody listened.

  Oh, what have I done?

  Derek and Gabriel kept her between them, fighting with all their skill as more and more palace guards piled into the hallway that had become a battleground. We’re going to die, she thought. They were too badly outnumbered.

  The giant eunuch guards now joined the fray, and as one of the potted palm trees tipped over, Georgie could feel her lungs starting to clench. The sudden shortage of air tripled her terror. The room began to spin.

  Gabriel’s sudden bellow rushed at her like a thunderbolt: “Get down!”

  She reacted without a second’s hesitation, diving onto the floor. A piercing scream arose as a serrated chakra wheel fell to the floor a few feet from her, clattering harmlessly across the polished marble.

  She looked up in shock to learn who had thrown it at her and saw Prince Shahu staggering back, a dagger sticking out of his chest.

  Gabriel stood, chest heaving, and watched the prince’s horror with a black look full of ferocious satisfaction.

  The whole brawl dwindled as the stunned guards realized it was their prince who had screamed; Shahu had just received a mortal wound.

  Quick-thinking as ever, Derek grabbed Georgie’s arm and pulled her toward Gabriel, prepared to help defend both siblings.

  One of Prince Shahu’s guards, who had been so friendly to her brothers earlier, picked up a long Maratha spear and walked toward them slowly, pointing it at Gabriel’s chest.

  Others followed.

  “Don’t, please,” Georgie begged the man.

  They found themselves hemmed in by a bristling phalanx of gleaming spearheads.

  The spears outreached their swords.

  “I’m afraid, dear brother and sis, that we’re about to become shish kebabs,” Derek drawled under his breath as the three of them backed slowly toward the wall in a tight cluster.

  Georgie swallowed hard. “Maybe you should put down your weapons.”

  “Trust in their mercy?” Gabriel growled. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Behind the guards, propped up against the opposite wall, Prince Shahu yanked the bloody knife out of his chest with a scream: “Kill them!”

  The warrior Marathas answered with a collective holler, and with crazed fury in their eyes, closed in to skewer them.

  At that moment, Ian came barging into their midst with a lordly roar: “Stand down!” He repeated the order several times as he shoved his way through the phalanx, jostling the guards out of formation. “What is happening here? Get a hold of yourselves! Lower your weapons, men! Everybody, calm down!”

  Taking up a position between the two embattled sides, Ian turned to face the guards and all those deadly spears, one unarmed man, his hands up in a calming gesture.

  The Marathas immediately began yelling at him to get out of the way, not to get involved in this, but he fearlessly refused to budge, and Georgie knew in that moment that he had just saved their lives.

  “Let’s all just stop and think for a moment and get this sorted out. Somebody send for a doctor. The prince needs help and others are wounded. Derek, Gabriel, sheathe your swords.”

  “Lord Griffith—”

  “Do it!” he bellowed harshly just as King Johar came striding onto the scene with a look of outrage.

  “Father,” Shahu croaked.

  Johar looked down and saw his son leaning against the wall, his face ashen, blood seeping past the hand pressed to his chest as he tried to staunch the wound. “My son!” the king shouted, rushing over to him.

  “Be ca
reful, Your Majesty! He is a traitor!” Georgie yelled, taking a step forward.

  From the corner of her eye, she was aware of Ian’s stare at the cut on her neck. His sweeping glance checked to see if she was all right, scanning her from her rumpled hair to her feet as she walked past him, bravely going toward the maharajah, and holding out the letter that was their only hope of survival now.

  Especially Gabriel’s.

  Her hand trembled as she offered it to him with a lowly bow. “My brothers only fought in my defense, Sire. His Highness tried to cut my throat to stop me from giving you this.”

  Shocked murmurs rippled through the crowded hallway.

  “She lies!” Shahu protested weakly, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

  With a dark look, Johar straightened up from his crouched position beside his heir. He snatched the letter out of her grasp, opened it, and read.

  He did not move for a long moment, but when he glanced over at Ian, he looked grimly unsurprised.

  At that moment, Queen Sujana rushed in, saw her son, and let out a bloodcurdling scream. “Shahu!” To their collective shock, the queen tore off her veil in front of everyone and flew to his side, using the cloth as a bandage to press to Shahu’s chest.

  The guards gasped and all tried to look away, but her husband was icily silent.

  “Get him a doctor! What is the matter with you, why are you just standing there? Hurry!” she screamed at the men in Marathi.

  The royal physicians had already been sent for and now came bustling in. They moved Shahu onto a litter and quickly sped him away to try to save his life. Sujana ran after them, staying with her son.

  Johar shook his head at his men, who looked at him in question, awaiting orders.

  Obviously the queen did not yet know her treachery had been found out, but Shahu might stay conscious long enough to warn her. Georgie scarcely dared wonder what might happen then.

  “Your Majesty?” Ian murmured.

  They all waited for his response, Georgie with her heart in her throat, for she knew perfectly well that for anyone who attacked a member of an Indian royal family, the customary punishment was beheading. She held on to both her brothers.