by Louise Allen
Anusha smelled the town before they reached it. The thick, cloyingly sweet smell of boiling sugar filled the air and they began to pass small sugar-mills along the side of the road with pairs of oxen yoked to a beam that turned the crushing wheels while men pushed in the canes.
‘These look honest people. We must stop.’
‘No.’ She leaned from the saddle to catch the muttered words. ‘The town…there’ll be a Company agent.’
That was true. Anusha fought the instinct to get help, any help, as quickly as possible and rode on. A qualified doctor and someone of influence, that was what they needed. She began to call to people as they passed and the road became busier, lined with market stalls, an encampment of gypsy tinsmiths, more sugar-mills. They all pointed onwards.
Assuredly there was an angrezi, at least six of them, came the replies. Where? At the big house or at the sugar-boiling place or perhaps at the riverside. Who could tell what the angrezi would do?
There was no one, no one in this bustling, stinking chaos, she thought in despair and then, suddenly in front of her, there was figure wearing a broad straw hat, head and shoulders above the crowd.
Anusha urged Rajat forward, shouting in English, abandoning Nick to catch the man before he vanished into some side street. ‘Sahib! Sir! Help, please, for an officer of the Company who is hurt!’
The man started, frowned at her and pushed forwards, the bearers at his back hurrying with him. ‘An officer? Where, boy?’
‘There!’ She pointed and the men ran and caught Nick as he slid, completely unconscious, into their arms.
*
‘The bullet will have to come out, of course. As soon as possible.’ The cadaverously thin doctor stood looking down at Nick, hands on hips as though sizing up a choice cut of meat on the butcher’s block. His patient was laid out, stripped to the waist, on the agent’s best spare bed on to which he was bleeding sluggishly.
‘Not yet.’ Nick opened his eyes and Anusha sat down with a thump on the nearest chair, ignored by the entire household. She had thought he was dying, dead, if it had not been for that steady soak of blood, yet he could speak. She scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes and tried not to sniff.
‘And why not, might I ask?’ Doctor Smythe was already reaching for his instrument case.
‘Because it is going to take some digging. I don’t think I am going to be at my best when you’ve finished and there are things I need to organise first.’
‘There is nothing you need to organise!’ Anusha exploded from the corner and pushed to the bedside to glare down at Nick. ‘Nothing except getting better, you stupid, stubborn man,’ she added.
The doctor and the agent both turned on her. ‘Now look here, boy, your master may give you licence to speak your mind,’ Mr Rowley, the agent, snapped, ‘but insolence I will not have—’
‘Gentlemen, allow me to present you to Miss Anusha
Laurens, daughter of Sir George Laurens of Calcutta and niece to his Highness the Raja of Kalatwah.’ Nick’s voice was slurred, but he sounded amused. ‘One does not have to give Miss Laurens licence to speak her mind,
she does it anyway.’
‘Ma’am.’ They both bowed, both looked utterly scandalised.
‘Major Herriard is taking me to my father,’ Anusha said quickly, scrabbling for her English. Better to explain and hope Nick would stay quiet and rest. ‘It was necessary to not be found…to evade…the Maharaja of Altaphur who wishes to marry me, which is why I am as a boy, disguised. We were ambushed by dacoits outside the town.’
‘Outrageous!’ It was not clear whether that was directed at the dacoits, the maharaja or her travelling, dressed as a boy, with a man. Probably all three. ‘Well, you are quite safe here, Miss Laurens. You will doubtless wish to change into your proper clothes and make yourself comfortable while the doctor deals with Major Herriard. My wife will organise that.’
‘I have no proper clothes and I do not leave Major Herriard.’ She did wish Englishmen were not all so large. Anusha set her feet apart and squared her shoulders—he was going to have to carry her out of there.
‘Rowley, I need a pinnace, something that will get us downriver safely to Calcutta.’ Nick cut through the argument raging over his body. Anusha shut her mouth and listened. ‘And I need it crewing, equipping and provisioning. And I need our horses taken down by reliable grooms. If you can give me a round reckoning for that, I can pay for it now and remit any shortfall when I arrive.’
‘Plenty of time to worry about organising that, let alone paying for it.’ The doctor was laying out an appalling array of instruments on a strip of linen. Anusha swallowed before her heaving stomach got the better of her. ‘You won’t be fit to travel for a week or so after this. It will—’
‘We go as soon as a boat can be made ready,’ Nick interrupted him, propping himself up on his right elbow. ‘The day after tomorrow at the latest. Altaphur has many agents and he will have sent word out faster than we could travel. If we had arrived in the town quietly I would not be so concerned—as it is, we might as well have sent trumpeters to announce ourselves.’
‘Lie down,’ Anusha snapped in Hindi. ‘You are as white as a sheet. You are very aggravating, but I do not want you to die.’ There was a hideous lump in her throat and she was terrified she was about to cry.
‘In that case I will do my best not to,’ Nick replied in the same language, then switched back to English. ‘Rowley, will you organise the boat and the horses?’ To her relief he lay down flat again.
‘Certainly. You won’t be up and about as soon as you think, but I’ll sort it out right away, if that will keep you quiet. Now, come along, Miss Laurens.’
‘No.’ She was not going to leave him, not alone with that doctor who looked like a skeleton and his instruments of torture.
‘But I don’t want you,’ Nick said. His hands were spread flat on the sheet as though he was fighting the need to fist them.
Mr Rowley took her arm and drew her aside. ‘This isn’t going to be pleasant, Miss Laurens,’ he murmured. ‘If he wants to scream or pass out or throw up, he won’t while you’re here. And if you faint it will simply distract the doctor. So think about the major and not about yourself. Yes?’
Anusha stared at him. ‘You mean it would be…’ She searched for the English word ‘…selfish, to stay?’ He nodded. ‘Very well.’ She marched up to the doctor, opened her mouth, then snapped it closed. None of the things she wanted to say—Don’t hurt him, don’t kill him—would be any use. But princesses did not plead, they gave orders.
‘Do it properly,’ she said, fixing the doctor with her haughtiest stare. ‘If he lives, my uncle the Raja of Kalatwah will reward you. If he dies—’ She left it hanging, turned on her heel and walked out of the room without a backwards glance.
*
‘You have no English clothes of any kind?’ Mrs Rowley sounded appalled.
‘No. And I do not wish to borrow any, thank you, ma’am.’ That, Anusha believed, was the right way to address a married lady, but she was not sure. She no longer felt like a haughty princess, but an unsatisfactory child who had disappointed this woman in her strange tight bodice and big bell skirts. She was obviously the mistress of the house although she wore hardly any jewellery.
It was very strange—there were no women’s quarters here at all. Mrs Rowley had led her to her own bedchamber, but that was right next to Mr Rowley’s room, and in the corridor outside both male and female servants came and went. There was no bathhouse either, just a tub, but she had been grateful for the cool water and the soap and the big towels and had tried to concentrate on getting very clean and not thinking about what was happening to Nick.
‘You are betrothed to Major Herriard, I presume.’
Anusha wrestled with the English. Mrs Rowley did not seem to have any Hindi beside very basic phrases for giving orders to her servants ‘Betrothed?’
‘You are going to marry him?’
‘Oh, no. He was
supposed to be escorting my caravan back to my father.’ It seemed wise to add, ‘Who has sent Major Herriard for me.’
‘But there is no caravan!’
‘No, ma’am. Because of the maharaja’s attack. But no one knows of the lack, except you and Mr Rowley and the doctor, of course, so it cannot matter, for I know you will not speak of it.’
‘Not matter! Of course it matters—you have been
ruined, my dear.’ She looked rather scandalously pleased at this pronouncement, as though she normally expected the worst and was gratified when it happened.
Ruined? Anusha worked that out. ‘Oh, no.’ She smiled at the other woman in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. ‘I am still a virgin.’
Mrs Rowley pursed her lips. Perhaps there was another word she should have used. ‘I should hope so! But that, my dear, is neither here nor there. You must marry the man—your father will insist upon it.’
Neither here nor there. Anusha liked the phrase. ‘And that is neither here nor there also. I will not have him.’
‘Not have him? My dear, Major Herriard is…and you are…’
‘Yes? I am the granddaughter of a raja. So, if I wanted him, it would be quite all right.’ And I do want him, but not as a husband. I do not want any man as a husband and he does not want me.
The other woman’s lips had vanished into a thin line. If she says I could not marry Nick because my parents were not married, or because I am half-Indian, then she will be very sorry for her insolence.
Something must have shown on her face, for Mrs Rowley gave a petulant shrug. ‘That can all wait until you reach Calcutta. Do not fear: I will let no one know you are here.’
‘The spies of the Maharaja of Altaphur will know already, I have no doubt.’ But the house and its grounds had a high wall around them and there were sentry boxes at each corner, she had been relieved to see. They would be safe enough in here.
‘I meant any of the English society here.’
Mrs Rowley believed that what a gaggle of gossiping traders’ wives thought of her was any cause for concern? Anusha almost said as much, then recalled that she was speaking to the wife of a trader and held her tongue. She needed this woman—or, rather, Nick did.
‘Surely the surgeon will have finished by now?’ The house was uncannily quiet. Had something gone horribly wrong and they were afraid to tell her? ‘I will go and see what is happening.’
The older woman looked horrified, but then, that seemed to be her usual expression. Nick’s bedchamber door was standing slightly ajar so she applied her ear to the gap.
‘If you were not so stubborn and would simply pass out, Major, you would make life much easier for both of us.’ The doctor sounded as though he was speaking through gritted teeth. Anusha sympathised with him.
There was a grunt of pain, then the rattle of something metallic dropping into a bowl. ‘There, that’s out, all in one piece. Now I will dress the wound and bleed you.’
‘Over my dead body.’ Nick sounded a trifle breathless, but very much alive. Anusha sagged against the doorframe.
‘It will be your dead body if you develop a fever.’
‘No.’
‘No,’ Anusha echoed and marched into the room. The doctor was bandaging Nick’s shoulder, there was a heap of bloodstained rags on the floor, bowls of unpleasantly red water, and the instruments looked even worse now they had been used. Nick was white around the mouth, but he rolled his eyes at her and one corner of his mouth twitched into a smile.
‘If he does not want to be bled, then he will not be,’ she added. ‘Thank you, Dr Smythe. What do we owe you for your services?’
‘I will send you my accounting when the patient no longer requires those services, Miss Laurens. I have every expectation of being recalled to his bedside before the day is out to find him in a dangerously febrile
state.’ He twitched the sheet into place and bowed. ‘Good day to you.’
‘He looks as though he has sat on a poker, foolish man,’ Anusha remarked in English as the door closed.
Nick snorted, then winced. ‘Do not make me laugh, I beg you. Where did you get that vulgar expression?’
‘I heard Papa… I once heard my father use it.’ Papa. When was the last time she had even thought of her father like that? ‘That is not important—what do you need?’
‘Nothing except something to drink. Tomorrow I will give you a list of things that we will need and things to be done so you can check what Rowley is doing—I don’t trust him to get on with enough urgency. This is a damnable nuisance, but I’ll fall flat on my face if I try to do anything much for twenty-four hours—I don’t need a sawbones to tell me that.’
‘Does it hurt?’ He shot her a look that spoke volumes. ‘I am sorry, of course it does. Would opium help?’
‘No.’ He spoke with some feeling. ‘I need my wits about me, not scattered in dreams. Are you all right, Anusha? You fought like a Rajput warrior—both against the dacoits and the doctor.’
She beamed at him and he blinked. ‘Thank you! I enjoyed it, except when you were hurt.’ But she did not want to think about the sheer terror of that, the seemingly endless search for help. ‘They have given me a room and water to wash in and food and that woman with the face like a purse with the strings pulled tight has been insolent, but I think she means well and does not understand. She wanted me to put on clothes like hers and was offended when I refused.’
‘I told you not to make me laugh,’ Nick said with a gasp.
‘Oh, I am sorry. I complain about that woman and all the while you are hurt and in pain.’ He made no answer, but his eyes closed slowly, as though they were too heavy to keep open. His breathing deepened and she realised he was asleep, or perhaps in a faint, tried beyond endurance by the doctor’s probing and finally able to let go.
Repentant, she fell on her knees beside the bed. ‘I wish I could do something. Are you warm enough?’ Foolish question, she told herself. He cannot hear me.
Nick was flat on his back under a single sheet pulled up to his armpits, his arms outside. Above the sheet the bandaging was stark white on his left shoulder, and down to his chest. The other shoulder was bare. Anusha
laid her palm on the right side. ‘You feel all right,’ she murmured. ‘Warm, but no fever.’ His eyes moved beneath the shielding lids and he tensed under her hand. ‘Now I have hurt you! I am so clumsy.’
He muttered something.
‘What did you say?’ She leaned closer to catch the words he had hissed between clenched teeth. Her plait slid over her shoulder on to his chest and she could feel his breath on her lips. ‘Tell me what you need, Nick.’
‘This,’ he murmured, eyes still closed. His right hand slid up to her shoulder, all that was needed to tip her down, breast to breast. Their lips met. For a heartbeat neither of them moved, then his palm was cupping the back of her head and his lips parted.
He is kissing me. This was not like that careful touch of the lips after he had killed the snake. Nick hardly stirred, only his lips against hers spoke, not with words but with sensation, warm and firm and tasting of the spirits they must have given him to dull the pain.
She expected to be alarmed and found she was not, only excited and shy. None of the texts she had read spoke of kissing and, when she had imagined it, she thought the man would be on top. But Nick was controlling things perfectly well, Anusha thought hazily. Who would have thought that one hand and a pair of lips could tie her to the spot, unable to move, hardly able to breathe?
And why did this touch, this exchange of breath, of heat, make her whole body tingle? Her breasts, tight under her man’s coat and shirt, ached as though they had suddenly become larger. There was a restless tingle down the inside of her thighs and an insistent pulse low down.
Anusha spread her hand on the naked skin of Nick’s shoulder and leaned closer into the kiss. She wanted to see him, she realised, look at him while he made love to her mouth. As her eyes opened so did his, deep and green.
Slowly, they focused.
There was not much room for him to recoil, but his convulsive movement was as violent a rejection as a slap. Anusha jumped back and fell on her bottom with a thump. ‘Ouch! Nick, what—?’
‘Get out. Just get out of here, Anusha.’
She scrabbled to her feet, stumbled, her legs uncertain and her vision blurred with anger and humiliation. ‘With pleasure,’ she spat at him. ‘I only kissed you because I was sorry for you—not because I wanted to.’
Chapter Ten
Blood loss, shock, a potent slug of spirits and virtually no sleep the night before were as good as a blow to the head for knocking the sense out of a man, Nick thought muzzily as he fought his way back to consciousness. It was morning to judge by the light and the lack of noise, so he had slept the night through.
He knew where he was and how he had got there. That was a relief. The last time he’d been wounded it had taken a day to get his memory back clearly and this time he could not afford the luxury of lying about, not with a boat to organise and Anusha—
Anusha. He sat up with a jerk and swore as the pain knifed through his shoulder and his head swam with dizziness. Anusha. Hell, had he kissed her or had he dreamt it? It had seemed all too real, both the delicious feel of her body, soft and curved, the cool of her hand on his bare skin, the untutored sensuality of her lips on his. The taste of her. And the words she had flung at him as she had backed out of the room: those where exactly what he would have expected her to say.
And yet he would not have kissed her, he could not have been that dazed, that unable to control his impulses, surely? No, it was a dream, he was almost certain. A delicious, arousing dream that left an ache of emptiness on waking.
Almost was not as reassuring as it might be. Nick threw back the sheet and swung his feet off the bed, hissing when his feet thumped on to the matting and jarred his shoulder.
Almost immediately the door opened and a servant peered round the edge. ‘Sahib! You are awake, but you must not get up.’ He flapped his hands as though to shoo Nick back into the bed. ‘The Doctor sahib will be angry. Go back to bed, Herriard sahib, and I will call him to you.’