by Liz Carlyle
Suddenly his hands captured hers, pinning them to the bed as his weight bore her down into the softness of the bed. Anisha lifted her legs, twining them round his waist. She was faintly sobbing now; her need for him like a physical ache, her blood thrumming in time with his.
And in that perfect moment, with her desire drawn taut as a sitar’s string, they came together in a blinding rush that outshone the lightning and forged them, ever so fleetingly, into one soul.
Chapter 13
Th’ hast spoken right, ’tis true.
The wheel is come full circle, I am here.
William Shakespeare, King Lear
Rance awoke not once but twice the next morning, the second time to a shaft of brilliant sunshine streaming through Anisha’s bedchamber window. Cupped around her, he rolled a little away and lifted an arm to block the light, his head falling back onto the bolster near hers.
Beside him, Anisha made a sweet, breathy sound, tucking her derriere back against his hip bone, and a strange, warm feeling began to steal over him, beginning at his toes and sweeping pleasantly upward, then spreading and surging, like an unfurling flower.
It was a long moment before he knew the feeling for what it was.
Happiness.
The pure, unadulterated kind, not the false, fleeting cheer that could be bought with brandy or worse. Here, at the beginning of a new day, with the storm settled and Anisha’s warmth beside him, he felt happy, and wonderfully ordinary. Almost at peace, the ax hanging over his head briefly forgotten.
Only the unpleasant tasks before him blighted the serenity of his new morning. But for perhaps half an hour, he managed to hold perfectly still and savor it, unwilling to break the spell even as the stable yard began to stir with activity and the old inn’s stairs began to creak beneath the tread of servants’ feet.
But how long, really, could one remain locked in a fantasy?
This wasn’t real life, this rustic little inn in the middle of nearly nowhere. He might prefer not to think of it, but soon enough they would be back in London; back to the tasks that lay before him, one of which was a doubtless unpleasant trip down to Brighton. Back to his old life—with Jack Coldwater dogging his every step; reminding him at every turn of the promises he’d broken and the damage rumor might do.
And back to Tom and Teddy, who needed their mother—and a good father, too.
Was that him? Was he good enough?
It would have to be. He would have to be. He rolled back to fold Anisha to his chest, certain now he could never let her go to another. Not now. Not after this. In all likelihood, he never could have.
He was lucky, he suddenly realized, that Geoff had refused her and saved him the awful task of dragging two dear friendships asunder instead of just the one. For that, he now realized, he might well have done. Because, in the end, he would have had no choice. Because she was Anisha, and they were fated. Because he was increasingly, perhaps selfishly, certain he could not live without her.
He buried his face in her hair, breathed her rare scent deep into his lungs, and wondered if ever he would have enough of her. How long could a need like his last?
Forever. He knew that was the answer. Forever he would feel like a part of him had been torn away were he never to make love to her again.
She was awake now, turning in his arms to smile at him. “Umm,” she said, stretching her length like a bestirred housecat. “You look like a wicked pirate, meri jaan, with your harsh beard and your too-long curls. And yet you are more handsome in the morning than in the night.”
Returning her dreamy smile, Rance set his lips to her temple. “What does it mean, Nish?” he asked softly. “Meri jaan?”
She looked languidly into his eyes. “Literally? It means my life,” she said, threading her fingers through his hair. “As in you are my life. My love. That’s what it means, really. My love.”
He drew himself up in the bed and levered onto his elbow to look at her. “And is that what it means, Nish, when you say it?” he asked, lightly stroking his thumb over her cheek. “Are you sure?”
She held his gaze unblinkingly. “You know I am,” she said. “As you have always loved me, I have always loved you. You are meri jaan, Rance. You are my life. You always have been.”
“And my life . . . it’s still rather a mess,” he admitted. “What if I never get it sorted?”
She shrugged one slender shoulder against the pillow. “Then I’ll stand by you,” she said. “But you will, Rance. You’ll go to Brighton tomorrow, won’t you?”
“Aye,” he said. “We’ve a Fraternitas contact there. I penned a message to Belkadi whilst you slept and carried it out to the stables. They were to send it at daybreak with a fast rider. Belkadi will go smoke this Hedge fellow out.”
She widened her eyes. “You think time is of the essence?”
“It could be.” Rance spread his hand across her womb again. “We cannot know for certain. And you are the thing that matters most to me in all the world, Nish. I almost wish it was not so. I almost wish—”
She cut him off with a chiding sound, setting a finger to his lips. “Not now,” she commanded. “Not today, when we have beautiful sunshine and a few hours yet to be together.”
“Aye, you’re right.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “But I’m going to have to write to Ruthveyn soon. I’m going to have to tell your brother . . . something.”
“Tell him that you love me, and that you will take care of me, for that is all he needs to hear,” she said, curling her arm round his waist and setting her head on his thigh. “But not today. Today—or part of it—belongs to us. And I think we should use our time wisely. I think, meri jaan, that you should make love to me again.”
He laughed, and felt the happiness slowly well up again—this time a little lower than his heart. And so he rolled her onto her back and mounted her slowly as his mouth took hers. This time it was a loving of exquisite gentleness, with no rush or raw need between them, but merely the joining of two bodies and two souls. Anisha rose to him as naturally as the wind, and again he drew to her like the tide. And this time, when they found bliss, it was in a quiet, shuddering moment of joy, tinged with the hope of something more to come.
But hope and happiness are tenuous things when a man’s life is fraught with uncertainty and perfection lies just beyond his grasp. They drove away from the inn yard just as two stable hands came striding out with broad-headed axes in hand, their newly honed blades glistening in the sun as they headed toward the ruined apple tree, much of which now leaned precariously against the inn’s wall.
Anisha turned halfway round as they clattered under the carriage gate. “They cannot save it,” she said sadly. “It has been splintered and cleaved apart.”
With a snap of his whip, Rance turned his horses onto the village road, afraid to look back. Afraid, really, that the ax and the tree were metaphors for the truth of his life.
That it had been splintered and cleaved apart; unsalvageable.
And that the ax was still destined to fall.
Anisha arrived home alone in the early afternoon, having insisted that Rance set her down in the drive and hasten on. Tomorrow he had a train to catch—and they, she was increasingly hopeful, just might have a life to get on with.
Even before she had extracted her key, however, she was greeted by a great hue and cry that seemed to rise up from the rear of the house. Slipping inside, she flung aside her hat and shawl. The sound was echoing from the conservatory.
Hastening through the house, she went out to find Lucan stretched supine on her chaise, the cats piled atop him and Milo perched along the curved rattan back. It looked a peaceful scene, until the bird saw Anisha.
“Pawk!” said the giant parakeet, rising up on great, green wings. “Pretty, pretty! Pretty pretty!”
“Good God, could someone please pluck that imp and roast him?” Lucan rolled limply up on one elbow, clutching to his forehead what Anisha recognized as ice Chatterjee had bagged up
in gutta-percha.
“Ah, well! No rest for the wicked,” said Anisha as Milo sailed onto her shoulder with a soft whuff! But Silk and Satin, disturbed from their languor, had bounded down onto the flagstone with disdainful backward glances.
Luc’s gaze narrowed. “Where’ve you been, anyway?”
“Never mind that.” Anisha strolled nearer, regarding Luc with disapprobation. “Got the morning-head again, I see. You’ll pardon me if I feel little sympathy.”
“Pawk!” said Milo, now toddling across her shoulder to pluck at her dangling earbobs. “Pretty, pretty!”
“Ungh,” said Luc, collapsing back onto the chaise.
But a second scream sent Milo flapping and Anisha bolting for the garden. “Oh, heavens, has Tom broken another bone?”
“No, you’ve a visitor,” Luc managed. “They’re having a romp, I collect.”
But the clamor came again, this time peals of laughter. Anisha froze, one hand on the garden door. “A caller?”
“That hoyden of Bessett’s,” he muttered, eyes closed now. “Chatterjee let her in.”
“Lady Bessett?” Anisha turned slowly around. “But it sounded like bloody murder when I came in.”
“Could be.” He rolled to one side with another grunt of pain. “Last I looked, she was playing King Edward, and the lads were Mortimer’s minions, locking her up in Berkeley Castle.”
“Ooh,” said Anisha, wincing. “That did not end well.”
“Nor will this, I daresay.” Luc waved a limp hand in the general direction of the door. “Best go and save her, eh? And be warned—the lads have swords.”
Exiting through the door set in the conservatory’s glass wall, Anisha waded out into the brilliant green of the garden. Situated in the rear, now cast in deep shade, the arbor had been roped around some five or six times, the ends now hanging slack, forgotten.
Tom and Teddy stood with their backs to her, arms akimbo, gazing up at the sky.
“Go! Go!” she heard Tom shout. “Do it!”
“Now!” chimed Teddy.
Anisha’s gaze followed theirs up. “Good heavens!” she cried, propelled into action. “Miss de Rohan, really! You mustn’t!”
But her legs didn’t carry her fast enough. Perched atop the arbor, Lady Bessett lifted her arms—or something that passed for arms—and came sailing off the arbor in a billow of blue muslin and petticoats, landing with a splintering sound in a patch of daffodils beyond.
“Huzzah!” Tom and Teddy were cheering and jumping, arms waving madly about.
“Thirty feet, at least!” cried Teddy.
Anisha ran past them to kneel into the daffodils beside her. “My dear girl!” she cried. “Oh, say something!”
Lady Bessett levered herself awkwardly up onto her elbows, which Anisha now realized were strapped into some sort of basketry. “Did I make it?” she asked, looking at Teddy through a shock of black hair.
“Oh, yes!” the boy exclaimed. “A proper flight, that was!”
Anisha collapsed onto her derriere in the flowers. “Dear Lord, you three scared the life out of me!” she cried. “What in God’s name? Lady Bessett, what are those frightful things on your arms?”
“Trugs,” Tom proudly interjected. “Teddy and me found ’em. In the box room over the mews. Brogden said we might have ’em.”
“T-Teddy and I,” said Anisha reflexively, her heart slowing. “And what, pray, are trugs?”
“Grain baskets,” piped Tom. “Made of willow.”
“And chestnut,” Teddy added. “We sawed part of the frames off ’em. We thought we might fly.”
“You thought you might fly?” Anisha felt suddenly queasy. “And you . . . you used a saw?”
“And some old harnesses,” Tom cheerfully added.
Anisha forced herself to breathe deep and exhale slowly. Sometimes she was not entirely sure her prana was up to the challenge of motherhood.
Arms bound oddly outward, Lady Bessett staggered to her feet. “Here, Teddy, unstrap me,” she said, giving an unladylike shimmy to shake down her skirts. “I need a word with your mother.”
Anisha was still glowering at Teddy, though it was awkward, given that Lady Bessett was involved. “Well, we are all lucky someone didn’t lose a finger or worse,” she said, managing to her feet. “And our guest might have been killed.”
Lady Bessett cast a sheepish glance at Anisha. “They were bound and determined to try it,” she said aside. “I thought better me than them, you know?”
“Yes, well . . . I daresay,” Anisha managed. “But Lady Bessett, you are a married woman now.”
Lady Bessett grinned. “Oh, Bessett knows how I am,” she said.
Anisha widened her eyes quite deliberately and set a hand over her own womb. “That is not what I meant!” she said more hotly. “You are married—!”
Lady Bessett’s color drained as the last willow contraption fell away. “Oh,” she murmured weakly. “Oh, heavens. I take your point.” She turned to beam down at the boys. “Well, that was quite a lark, wasn’t it, lads? But best take those back to Brogden, eh? For safekeeping?”
After picking up their wooden swords, the boys went glumly through the back gate in the direction of the mews. The ladies set off down the garden path arm in arm. Despite the fright, Anisha was very glad to see her new friend.
Inside the conservatory, Luc was still wallowing in misery.
“Out!” said Anisha as he staggered to his feet. “Go upstairs to bed.”
After bowing and scraping and kissing Lady Bessett’s hand, Luc went, his gutta-percha bag tucked behind his back. At least he had the good grace to be ashamed of his condition.
Anisha rang for tea, and they settled into the deep rattan chairs amidst the ferns and palms. The setting reminded Anisha of her odd visit to Mr. Kemble’s, and once more hope stirred. She opened her mouth to tell Lady Bessett all about it, but her guest spoke first.
“I’m so sorry we frightened you,” she said just as Milo sailed back onto Anisha’s shoulder and took up his battle with the earbobs again. “Good heavens! That is a big parrot!”
“Actually, he’s just a parakeet,” said Anisha. “I found him in my garden along the Hooghly River. He was no bigger than a teacup.”
Lady Bessett drew back an inch. “Does he . . . talk?”
“Pretty, pretty!” Milo declared. “Help, help! British prisoner! Let-me-out!”
“Oh, my!” Lady Bessett set her fingers to her mouth, her eyes dancing. “Do the cats trouble him?”
“Oh, not anymore,” declared Anisha. “But let’s talk about you. How do you find married life, my dear?”
Lady Bessett grinned shamelessly. “Ooh, I find it very nice indeed,” she said in a low undertone. “In fact, I think it vastly under-rated, if you know what I mean.”
“I daresay I do,” said Anisha on a spurt of laughter. “Congratulations, then. You have chosen well.”
Her smile deepening, Lady Bessett leaned conspiratorially nearer. “And what of yourself?” she asked. “Have you brought the dashing Lord Lazonby to heel yet?”
For an instant, Anisha grappled for words. “I am not sure such a thing is possible,” she finally answered. “I fear he is not much amenable to a leash.”
At that, Lady Bessett laughed—and in a most unladylike fashion, too. For an instant, Anisha wondered how she got on with Lady Madeleine MacLachlan, who was grace and elegance personified. But she had not long to wonder. All was well, it seemed.
“Mamma asked me to go with the two of you to Lady Leeton’s party on Monday,” Lady Bessett said when the tea had been brought. “But I wish to spend some time with my parents before they leave again.”
“So she has asked you to call her Mamma,” said Anisha, who had never been invited to address her mother-in-law as anything—not even Mrs. Stafford. “You must account yourself fortunate to have such a welcome.”
“Oh, I do!” said Lady Bessett earnestly. “Bessett has some hope, I believe, that she will prove a c
ivilizing influence on me. And I begin to hope so, too, quite honestly.” She paused to catch her lip in her teeth. “Your little gesture in the garden just now—oh, that swiftly brought me to the realization that my life has altered.”
“Indeed, it has,” Anisha agreed, passing her a cup of tea. “I’m sorry you can’t go with us to the party.”
“I did get to meet Hannah Leeton,” Lady Bessett confided. “Mamma and I went with her yesterday to Regent Street to choose the bunting colors for the bandstand.” Then her shoulders fell a little. “The color theme is yellow and white. I tried to pretend I cared, but I haven’t many feminine virtues, I fear.”
Anisha set down her tea and reached out to pat the younger woman’s hand. “You have all the feminine virtues your husband requires,” she said, “or he would not have married you so swiftly. He is an excellent judge of character.”
Lady Bessett looked up a little dewy-eyed. “And he thinks so highly of you, too!” she cried. “And you have been so terribly kind to me . . .”
Suddenly Anisha got the dreadful sense that the young lady was at last going to apologize for stealing her fiancé. “Well, enough of that,” she said hastily. “May I buy you anything in the stalls Monday? I mean to purchase a new lace fichu and some other fripperies for Janet. She may be leaving me soon for a new life.”
“Oh!” Lady Bessett set her cup abruptly down. “That’s precisely why I came by!”
Anisha felt her brow furrow. “About Janet—?”
“No, no, about the Leetons’ maid. The girl’s mother fell ill and they sent her off to Chester on the mail coach yesterday.” At Anisha’s blank look, she added, “The maid who is the gypsy fortune-teller.”
“Oh, yes! To raise funds for the charity.”
“Indeed, she’s done it for years—Hannah had a little red tent made for her and everything. People have come to quite count on it.” Lady Bessett rang her hands a little. “Hannah was almost in tears. And then Madeleine said—”