by Louise Allen
‘Now, I’ll just put these towels here and sponge the dressing free,’ she said, settling beside him again.
She was good at this, he realised after a minute. She did not dab, overcautious and hurting him more as a result. She was firm but gentle, her hands moving on his body with an assurance that only served to fuel his hopeless fantasies.
‘There,’ she said with a final wriggle of the probe to lift the dressing free. ‘That is better now.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ And it was—the heat and tightness around the wound were immediately relieved.
‘But it needs cleaning,’ she added, reaching up to the shelf.
‘Oh, no—’
‘Oh, yes. This might sting a little,’ she said, tipping the contents of a small phial directly on to the half-healed wound.
‘Blood and sand!’ Nick reared up off the bed and was promptly pressed back down again.
‘I am sorry.’ She did not sound remotely regretful as she used a piece of soft cloth to sponge the liquid into the raw area. ‘Now I will kiss it better. That is what Mata always used to say.’
‘Does it work?’ He could hear the desperation in his own voice, even if she could not. There was only so much will-power a man could exert.
‘Tell me,’ she suggested and bent to drop a kiss on the skin just beside the wound.
‘It does not help at all,’ Nick said with complete truth, unfisting his hands from the sheet before he tore it.
‘A pity.’ He could not see her face, but she sounded regretful. ‘Now I will bandage it again. Can you sit up?’
Nick sat and she swayed upright with him, her fingers light on his shoulder. ‘I have clean dressings and the old bandage is all right to use again if I cut off the ends.’
‘Good,’ he managed as she redressed the wound and began to wind the bandage around his chest and over his shoulder. Which was fine, provided he could ignore how close she had to sit or how her arms went around his rib cage and how her fingers brushed across his skin, which he had never considered particularly sensitive and was now acting like one large, throbbing erogenous zone.
‘Anusha.’
‘Yes?’ She frowned in concentration as she tied the end securely.
‘Thank you.’ He could do this. He could behave like a gentleman, thank her and get out of the cabin safely. Nick produced what he hoped was a friendly, grateful smile. ‘I will just go and—’
*
‘Please, wait.’ Anusha bit her lip, her lashes lowered so he could not see her eyes. This is so difficult… ‘There is something I must say to you, something I should have said before now. When you came for me to Kalatwah, I hated you because you are the agent of my father and because I had never met a man like you.’
‘You have not met many men,’ Nick said. He sounded uneasy.
‘No, that is true.’ She glanced up and looked him directly in the eye. ‘I did not trust you. I learned quickly that I was wrong when I worried about trusting you with my body. But I did not trust you with my future,’ Anusha added doggedly.
‘Your future? I do not understand.’
‘I need to be free, to be independent, to discover who I am. That could not happen at Kalatwah, I was beginning to realise it. But it can happen in Calcutta if I can be accepted into society there—and you have begun to teach me, and you have given me confidence.’ And it was true. She had not realised how frightened she had been, deep down, at what awaited her. ‘Otherwise I would be shut up in my father’s house and not able to go out and be free if I did not know how things were to be done.’
‘But your father will find you teachers and older women to guide you,’ Nick explained.
‘Yes, but they will be thinking about finding me a husband.’
‘And that would not be a good idea?’
‘No, of course not. Why should I want a husband if I can be free? I have turned down suitor after suitor at Kalatwah because I do not want to be tied.’ And because somewhere, out in the wide world, there might be love, like Mata found. Only this time a love that lasts.
‘My father is a rich man, so I am rich, am I not?’
‘He will give you a dowry, yes,’ Nick agreed cautiously.
‘So you see? I did not know how to behave and whether I would have any money, so I was planning to sell my jewels and run away from you before we got to Calcutta. But now you have been kind and explained things and looked after me so I do not need to run away.’
Nick stared at her. ‘Jewels?’
‘It is all right, I have them hidden.’ He looked worried, but he had no need to be—she had kept them well concealed.
‘Excellent,’ he said, but he did not sound very relieved. ‘Your father…’
‘He only wants me back because of these foolish politics, because I am a nuisance to the wretched Company if I stay in Kalatwah. He does not want me, I do not want him.’
Nick’s lips compressed, but he did not lecture her for speaking disrespectfully. It was as though he was thinking about something else entirely.
Anusha lifted a hand to his shoulder, craving the comfort of touch. Under her palm his skin was hot, smooth. He did not try to dislodge her hand. ‘Nick, it will be as Mata used to say, will it not? She said English women did as they pleased and no one forced their daughters to get married. That is right, is it not?’
She felt the deep breath he took, as if bracing himself for something. Then he smiled. ‘Of course. You will be a wealthy young lady with all the freedom you could wish for.’
‘Yes? I will be free. I can choose. ‘You prom—’
Nick caught her against his chest and kissed her. The suddenness was shocking, liberating. She melted against him, her arms around his neck, her breasts so tight against his bare skin that she could feel his nipples hardening through the thin cotton shift she wore.
Under the demands of his mouth her lips parted without hesitation, her tongue meeting his to explore and stroke. He tasted of tea and spice and something dangerous and male.
His hands slid down from her shoulders, down past her waist to the curve of her hips as she sat on the bed, and he lifted her so she sat across his thighs. Anusha gasped against his lips as she felt the hard ridge of his desire. He wants me that much. He needs me. I need him. This is meant, this is right…
Nick turned her to cup the weight of her breast. She had always thought them too small, but she filled his palm as he teased the tight bud until she was gasping into his mouth. This was arousal, she realised, she could feel her own moist heat, smell the heady musk of their mutual desire.
Nick lifted his head and set his hands to her waist as if to lift her away. Anusha opened her eyes and looked into his face. He had released something in her: a passion, a feminine understanding that had not been there before. He had told her she did not have to marry. This adventure had given her the courage to be free, to make her own world. And she knew what she wanted: this strong man who shielded his own hurt as well as he shielded her. She could not have him for long, she understood that, but…
‘Nick, please—lie with me.’
‘What?’ Nick recoiled. It felt as though he had slapped her. He doesn’t want me. That was just a few moments’ dalliance for him. ‘Anusha, I am sorry, I should never have touched you.’ She saw his struggle for the kind words, the right tone to save her pride. ‘You see why ladies must be chaperoned? You cannot trust men.’
He was allowing her to pretend she had not understood what she was asking, giving her a way to salvage her pride. She would not take it. ‘I can trust you. I am not saving myself for a husband, so why should I not make love to a man if I want him?’
‘Because it would be dishonourable of me to take your virginity. I should not even have kissed you, or touched you like that.’ His eyes had become dark, the colour she had learned to associate with pain, mental or physical.
‘It would be dishonourable if I did not want it,’ she countered.
‘I could get you with child.’ He said it as if sna
tching desperately at an excuse.
‘No, it is the wrong time of the moon,’ she said with calm practicality. ‘And besides, I have the means to stop it happening.’ She nodded towards the pack of medicines. She had alum in there. It worked for stopping bleeding, and sweating, but it also helped prevent conception, although she did not know how.
‘Your father—’
‘Am I his slave?’
‘No, but I am his man.’ She opened her mouth to protest, but he pushed on. ‘You say you trust me—he trusts me also. Would you have me betray both of you?’
‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘No, I would not ask you to break your trust. Maf kijiye.’
‘Do not be sorry, Anusha,’ Nick answered her in Hindi. ‘You do me much honour, but it is a gift I cannot take.’
So, he salves my pride by pretending he is sorry. My protector. She managed to smile as he took his shirt and slid from the bed. She could pretend, too. Perhaps he was right, not for the reasons the gave, but because there was something fragile and tentative between them she could not put a name to, and that intimacy, with guilt on his side and something like desperation on hers, would have shattered it.
*
‘Tomorrow we will reach Calcutta,’ Nick said. They were on the Hooghly River now, he had explained, one of the arms of the River Ganges, the one that flowed to the sea through the great river port of Calcutta.
It was not exciting any longer, this journey through muddy plains, jungle, the occasional low rise with a village or a cluster of temples. Green trees, brown river, brown mud, hot blue sky and Nick being kind and proper and pretending that she had not said those things to him in her cabin, that they had not been locked together, mouth to mouth, breast to breast and that she had not felt the heat, the reality, of his desire.
Every night she ached for him. And every night she told herself to be thankful that he had shown angrezi honour and resisted her.
‘It will be late, I think, but we will be safe back.’ Anusha could hear the relief in Nick’s voice. It was no wonder—they had been together for three weeks now and he had not wanted to be alone with her any more than she had at the start of this. Nick would want to hand her over to her father and go back to his own life, his own home and, no doubt, another woman for his pleasure.
Had she betrayed that she felt more than simply desire for him? She still did not understand what it was that she felt: liking, admiration—both those, of course. But there was something wounded inside him that she wanted to soothe, to heal. It was something to do with his marriage, she was certain. He must have loved his wife desperately, whatever he said, because otherwise, why was he so alone in his spirit?
Anusha leaned on the rail as they swept by a large village with fishing boats drawn up on the muddy beach, then a bend in the river took them and they were back between low bluffs covered in vegetation. It was peaceful—the current was no stronger than usual, there were no rocks. All the warning she had was a shout and then she was tumbling across the deck, her ears full of an ominous cracking of wood as the cook-boat swept down on them, struck them hard on the stern and slammed them into a sandbank.
‘The tiller has broken!’ the steersman shouted.
‘Dhat tere ki!’ Nick swore. ‘If they’ve holed the thing…’
But the damage was only to the rudder.
*
Half an hour later the crew stood around the slabs of splintered wood on the sand and watched Nick warily.
‘Can it be mended?’
‘No, sahib. But we can have another made at the village we passed. They had many boats, they will have carpenters.’
‘Go, then,’ Nick said. ‘And make haste.’
‘We must pole the cook-boat upriver,’ the captain explained. Nick’s restraint seemed to unnerve him. ‘It will take all of us against the current, and then it will be dark.’
‘Then hurry,’ Nick said. ‘Anchor this boat securely, leave us food and be back early in the morning.’
*
Within half an hour they had gone, leaving the pinnace moored fore and aft on a large, flat sandbank in midstream.
‘There is no need to worry,’ Nick said.
‘I am not. No animals from the bank can reach us, the men will be back tomorrow.’ It felt safe to be with Nick, even when danger threatened. Somehow, although he instinctively threw himself between her and any attack, he had given her the confidence that she could fight, too.
‘All true. I will light a fire on the sandbank. Do you want to cook for a change?’
‘No,’ Anusha said firmly. ‘I have never had to cook—there were always servants to do that. Why can you cook so well?’
‘All soldiers can, although the results are not always very edible. Let us see what they have left us.’
*
Night fell and the jungle was dark and full of noises. Overhead the dark-blue velvet of the sky was powdered with stars and on the sandbank the fire blazed high as Nick fed it with the driftwood she had gathered while he cooked.
Anusha leaned on the rail and watched him as he sat cross-legged, the three muskets stacked as a tripod beside him. ‘Go to bed,’ he called without looking back over his shoulder as though he could feel her eyes on him.
If the men came back at dawn with the rudder, then this was the last night they would spend together. Her last night as a princess of the court of Kalatwah. Tomorrow she would be Miss Laurens, trying to recall all Nick’s lessons in vocabulary and etiquette. Over the fish that he had cooked he had dismissed her thanks with a shrug—it was his duty, he had said. Perhaps he was worried that she would try to seduce him again. She just wanted to put her arms around him and hold him tightly, two people together with aching hearts.
Nick reached out and pulled something from a bag by his side. She could not see what it was, but after a few moments a soft beat floated on the still air. He had brought the tabla from the village.
Her feet moved, almost of their own accord. Tonight she was still Anusha and there was one gift she could give Nick.
Chapter Thirteen
The tala came without conscious thought, his fingers striking the taut drum skin in the rhythm that the men in his troop had taught him on long, quiet nights in camp. He could listen for danger despite it and the intricate pattern kept him alert and awake.
But it did not stop him thinking, and another sleepless night thinking of Anusha was a penance. Perhaps he deserved it—his conscience still nagged him about the lies he had told her, the way he had deceived her about the life she was going to. But how could he tell her the truth, that her father would be expecting to arrange a marriage for her, that her life as a married English lady in Calcutta would be almost as restricted as life in the zanana, that her dowry would go to her husband, not to her?
That she had believed him was clear from the way she had offered herself to him. She wanted to enjoy that new freedom and she thought there would be no danger that she might have to marry.
There was something else, he had see it in her eyes, heard it in her voice. She wants to fall in love, she wants romance like her mother did. He had almost told her he knew, almost told her it was a cruel dream and a fantasy, but who was he to give lessons in loving? Anusha deserved to hope, perhaps even to find love with a man who deserved all that she could give.
If she realised the truth, Anusha would bolt at the first opportunity unless he locked her in her cabin, he was convinced of it. What could I tell her? That marriages at her level in society would not be forced, but they would always be arranged? That her father would keep her closely chaperoned and give her only pin money?
She had been on the verge of asking him to give his word. He’d had a split second to prevent her from making him choose between honour and duty.
Anusha had offered herself with a shy courage that had him impossibly hard and needy at the first touch. She tasted of tea and spices and rosewater, of sex and woman and innocence and, remembering, something shifted in Nick’s chest as tho
ugh his heart had jolted. It was what he had wanted almost from the first moment he had seen her, the fantasy that had haunted his nights.
He closed his eyes and let himself believe for a moment, believe that she was his and that she was not an innocent who wanted love and deserved cherishing, but an experienced, worldly-wise courtesan from whom he could part without pain on either side.
Tomorrow night, provided all went well with the rudder, he would have her back where she belonged and if she hated him for it, then that was the price to be paid. He would not be around to see those grey eyes look at him full of hurt betrayal. He would just have to live with the memory of them.
Now when he tried to remember Miranda her blue eyes were overlain with long-lashed grey ones, her pale skin that had flushed so painfully in the heat was a pale ghost behind honey-gold curves.
Alert as he was, the subtle addition to his own drumming took him by surprise. Nick froze as a figure spun into sight, swirling skirts, tight trousers, the chime of bangles, bare feet slapping down on to the hard sand with the beat of the drum.
Anusha danced into the firelight, her shadow thrown long and dramatic behind her, the blue and red of her garments picking up the colours of the flames, the silver thread sparking gold with reflected light.
She was doing something no respectable woman would do, except for her husband or her female friends, performing one of the classical court dances. Her head moved in impossible, stylised sideways movements, her hands twisted and turned, conveying the meaning of the dance to those who could read its language. Her bare feet stamped and slapped in a complex counter-rhythm to his own hands as, almost mesmerised, he let the pace of the music increase.
The tension rose with the speed until Nick breathed as though he was running, or making love with vigorous, urgent strokes. His heartbeat echoed the tabla and he felt himself panting with the effort, but still Anusha twisted and wove her way through the tala until, just as he thought they would both collapse, she looked directly at him and brought her palms together with a sharp slap.