by Louise Allen
‘What nonsense have you been saying, Nicholas?’ her father demanded, breaking into their exchange. ‘What money?’
‘Anusha believes that her dowry will belong to her, that as your daughter she will be rich and independent. She wishes to travel, not to marry.’
There was a fraught silence then, ‘Be damned to that!’ Sir George said. ‘Of course you are going to marry, my girl. Who has put such foolishness into your head? Nicholas—what fairy tales have you been telling her?’
‘What she wanted to hear. My choice was to betray your trust and risk her running away or to deceive her. What would you have me do?’ Nick kept his voice calm and reasonable, but Anusha could hear the anger in it and the frustration that he was too respectful of the older man to show.
‘What you did, of course.’ The anger seemed to drain out of her father. His shoulders slumped. ‘Anusha, you have no idea what you are talking about, no idea about European marriage. There is nothing to worry about, nothing to fear.’
Suspicious, she watched the men through narrowed eyes. ‘You will not force me?’
‘Of course not! Did your uncle and I not give you perfect freedom to refuse any marriage offer made to you?’
‘Yes.’ Anusha cut a glance at Nick’s face. He was his usual impassive self again, although she could still sense his reined-in tension. But her father had been angry with him, so perhaps that was the source of it. ‘And so…I can travel? I do not have to have a husband?’
‘Of course you cannot travel! And of course you must have a husband, but I will not force one on you that you cannot like.’
She stared at him. ‘I must marry, yet you will not force me? I can choose and yet I am not free? Is it my English? I know it is not perfect yet, but I cannot misunderstand so much, surely?’
Her father stared back, obviously frustrated by her lack of comprehension. ‘Nicholas, you explain it to her: I’m damn… I obviously cannot.’ He turned on his heel and marched out.
‘Yes, please, Nick. You explain it to me,’ she said sweetly. ‘And I will try to believe you this time as well. Or perhaps you could kiss me again until my brain is as muddled as soup and I stop asking difficult questions.’
The betraying flags of colour were on his cheekbones again, but he took a deep breath and answered her patiently, ‘There will be no kissing. Your father wants only the best for you. He will have decided upon suitable suitors for you to consider.’
‘Who are these men? What are they?’ The anger almost drowned the panic as she took an impetuous step forwards and took his forearm in both hands. She would shake the truth out of him if need be.
‘I have no idea which poor fellow he has in mind.’ Nick said with what she guessed was a misplaced attempt to mollify her with humour. ‘But Sir George will want you safely married off as soon as possible. You are older than most of the single girls in Calcutta society.’
‘Married off!’ For a moment she could not work out the English idiom and she stared at him as though he had spoken Greek. ‘To an angrezi husband he has picked out for me.’
‘Of course. You are to become an English lady, that is all I know. What else would you do in Calcutta? How else would you live with him? He hardly needs a housekeeper.’
Anusha let go of his arm and took an unsteady stride away from him. ‘Do? I want to do nothing in Calcutta except leave it! I did not ask to come here. I do not want a husband, I have turned down offer after offer.’
‘I know. But this is different. We are not talking of a political marriage to a man old enough to be your father or to a princeling who could be murdered in a palace coup at any time. You will be an English lady and you may choose your husband, face to face.’
‘Anyone?’ she demanded, twisting to look at him over her shoulder, knowing the answer perfectly well. Choice offered by a man was nothing but a mirage. ‘Any man I wish?’
‘Of course not, but any eligible man your father approves. As I said, he is sure to have some in mind for you. Not just anyone, Anusha, but men of wealth and influence who will give you a good life.’
Wealth and influence. So that was why she had been summoned back, virtually kidnapped from her uncle’s court. The threat from Altaphur was real enough, but that gave her father his excuse. No doubt there was some alliance he wished to cement so he had thought of her, a pawn on his chessboard. At least it explained why he wanted her back after all this time.
Instinct had warned her that danger awaited and at least now she knew what it was: the risk of being married off to some Englishman who would treat her like her father had treated her mother. Only she would be legally tied to him, so she would be expected to stay with her husband however badly he behaved to her.
‘Anusha, listen to me.’ Nick caught her by the shoulders, turned her to face him. ‘With the dowry Sir George will give and the influence he wields, there will be no problem in finding you a suitable husband, one you will like. A leading merchant, a promising army officer, the younger son of a noble house—that sort of gentleman.’
A promising army officer, the younger son of a noble house… She shot Nick a fulminating glance. Did he mean himself? Marriage to her would make him the son and male heir of the man he regarded as his father. It would give him more money, more standing to help him build what was obviously a promising career. Had that been what his kisses and his kindness had been about—careful first steps in seducing a bride?
If Nick married her, he would march off as soon as he had planted a child in her and go to whatever exciting and interesting things he spent his life doing and she would be left with the corsets and the babies and the memsahibs with their disapproving mouths, and she would never belong and never be free.
‘I see.’ She felt strangely calm all of a sudden. She had been moved from the gilded, luxurious cage of the court to another cage, not so gilded, not so luxurious. And, she could see already, not so secure. ‘He chooses some men, parades them in front of me, I say no, he finds some more… How long does this go on?’
‘Until you find someone you like.’ Nick watched her face with the patience she had grown accustomed to. It was the implacable patience of the hunter and, worst of all, there was pity deep in the green eyes. ‘Anusha, I am sorry I had to deceive you, but you have no idea how dangerous it is out there for a gently reared lady alone—you would not have lasted a day.’
How innocent she had been, how romantic, to think that this alien warrior would be her friend or perhaps, in those half-waking dreams around dawn, more than her friend.
At the court, if she had refused a match and her uncle had insisted, she would have been shut up in her room until she submitted. Here, it seemed, there would be no physical coercion so it would be a game of cunning to escape. And she knew she was cunning—court life taught you how to be that.
‘I understand.’ She turned from him in case he saw the calculation in her eyes. ‘And who will teach me to be an English lady that these desirable men will want to marry? Or would they marry anyone to secure my father’s money and patronage?’
‘They will want you for yourself, Anusha. How could they not when they come to know you?’ Yes? I know already that you will tell me any lies if it suits you. ‘And Lady Hoskins will take you under her wing. She lives three houses further along this street. She is married to Sir Joshua Hoskins, a colleague of your father, and they have a daughter who married last year and a son of seventeen.’
An experienced matron, one who would not be easy to deceive. Best to begin now to disarm suspicion. ‘I see I will have to make the best of it,’ she said with a shrug. It would not do to seem too ready to accept her fate.
‘Come and have dinner, then. Take your mind off your troubles by wrestling with the silverware.’
‘I am certain I will have no problem.’ She stalked out of the door in front of Nick. ‘After all, I have had the benefit of your lessons.’
*
Anusha was angry with him, her nose was severely out of joint and she was
, however well she was hiding it, deeply uneasy in this house, uprooted from everything she knew and understood. Nick followed on her heels into the dining room, worry and sympathy warring in his breast. On their journey, however difficult and dangerous it had been, they had been in her world and she had been the raja’s niece.
Now she did not know who she was, only that she was with the father she believed had rejected her, and a man who had lied to her and lured her into coming here.
A servant held her chair for her at the foot of the table and she sat, back straight, hands folded in her lap, chin up. Nick took his own place, halfway along the board between Anusha and Sir George at the head, as servants began to bring in the dishes that made up a typical Anglo-Indian dinner.
The way the table was arranged mirrored the Indian style of setting out an array of dishes all at once, but the dishes themselves were a hotchpotch of Indian curries, chutneys and rice and English roasts, soups and vegetables. ‘May I help you to anything?’ Nick offered. ‘A slice of lamb or chicken?’
‘Thank you. Chicken.’ She eyed the vegetables, then extended her right hand towards the rice and snatched it back, lips pursed in embarrassment as she found the serving spoon and used that. The servant poured wine into her glass.
Nick laid two slices of chicken on her plate. ‘Might I trouble you for the vegetables?’
She managed, he saw, with ferocious concentration and by watching what he and George did like a hawk. It would never do to underestimate either Anusha’s intelligence, or her ability to learn and adapt. His conscience had ceased to trouble him for lying to her—it was his duty to protect her, by any means, and he had done so—but he was very conscious that he had lost her trust. Whatever it had been between them that was so warm and so elusive had congealed into wary watchfulness on his side and hostile suspicion on hers.
‘You’ll like Lady Hoskins, Anusha.’ George had apparently decided to deal with the confrontation in the drawing room by ignoring it. ‘And her daughter Anna—Mrs Roper now—is a delightful young woman. Pass the salt, would you, Nicholas?’
It was a slight stretch. Nick suppressed the wince as the movement overextended the healing wound in his shoulder, but Anusha saw his reaction.
‘Is your shoulder paining you, Major Herriard?’ she asked with such sweet concern that it took him a moment to realise she had called him by rank and surname.
‘Shoulder?’ George looked up sharply. ‘What have you done?’
‘It was the dacoits, Father,’ Anusha said. ‘The major was shot in the shoulder, just outside Kalpi.’ She lowered her eyelashes so they feathered her cheeks and Nick suppressed a strong desire to pick her up and dump her back in her room. She was up to something. ‘And he was nursed at the house of Mr Rowley, the agent. His wife was most disapproving of me.’ The grey eyes lifted and opened wide. ‘Do you think I will be—what is it called?—ruined when she speaks of it?’
A good attempt, Anusha, Nick thought and produced a smile as false as her look of anxious enquiry was. ‘No need to worry, George. I had a word with the Rowleys and the doctor. One mention of your name and they were vowing complete discretion and eternal silence.’
‘So I should hope,’ George said with a grunt. ‘But how bad is this wound? I’ll call my doctor after dinner and have you checked over.’
‘Tomorrow is soon enough.’ There was going to be no escaping an examination, he knew the older man well enough for that. ‘It has healed well. Miss Laurens was good enough to dress it for me.’
‘Was she indeed?’
‘The major was incredibly brave,’ Anusha remarked. ‘There were the dacoits and the king cobra, and the maharaja’s men and the tigers.’
‘Tigers?’
‘We saw one pug mark,’ Nick said with a repressive stare at Anusha who was doggedly cutting chicken with the unfamiliar cutlery. ‘The men sent after us were easily headed on to the wrong trail. The dacoits were…troublesome. Fortunately we had trained cavalry horses.’
‘And the king cobra?’ There was a smile lurking in the concern. Nick knew George had seen his youthful self swarm up trees to escape snakes and knew all too well that they brought him out in a cold sweat.
‘The major was…’ Anusha’s voice trailed away. ‘He was… He saved my life and I thought he had been bitten.’ All the faux sweetness had gone, and so had much of the blood from her cheeks. ‘Excuse me. I am suddenly very tired. I will go to my chamber.’ She put down the cutlery with a little clatter, pushed back the chair before the servant had a chance to reach it and walked swiftly from the room.
‘Well,’ George remarked as they sat down again. ‘I think a full, unexpurgated report is called for, hmm? And no false modesty, Nicholas, or I’ll ask Anusha for all the details.’
Chapter Fifteen
The punkah had been still for over an hour. Distantly there were the noises of the city, and the house creaked as it cooled, but there were no human sounds except the watchman’s sandaled feet as he had padded past a hundred heartbeats ago.
Anusha slid out of bed, miscalculated the height and gasped as her heels jarred on the floor. After a few moments, when no answering sounds reached her, she breathed again and slipped into a dark robe. Her bare feet made no sound on the matting and her door opened without a sound, thanks to the ghee she had used to oil the hinges earlier.
She moved along the corridor by the light of her little lamp, its flame shielded by her cupped palm, the soft sounds of her movements masked by the snores of the man sleeping across the front door. He did not stir as she turned into the passage leading to the drawing room, the one that passed her father’s study.
That was where the maps would be, his strong box, news sheets with shipping advertisements. Ammunition that she could not use now, but which she needed to locate. How easy would the strong box be to open? Anusha
tried the study door, found it unlocked and went in.
It was as she remembered it from her childhood. Then she would come to this room on a Saturday to sit on Papa’s—Father’s—knee and receive a shiny silver rupee that was all hers to spend in the bazaar when her ayah took her there.
She sat down in his big chair now, her vision blurred as the room filled with daylight and the sound of
Papa’s laugh when she brought back trinkets and toys and sweetmeats to show him at the end of the day.
Weakness. Just memories of a man’s indulgence to a child—now she was a woman. A daughter who was a possession and a bargaining counter, but whose value was diminished by her mixed blood and her illegitimacy.
Anusha lifted down the set of red leather ledgers and there, just as she remembered, was the heavy iron safe. It was bigger than anything she had tried to open before and it would need more than hairpins.
‘An urge to visit the night bazaar and so a need for spending money?’ a low voice behind her enquired. She whirled around. Nick was watching her, his back against the closed door. How had he found her? And how the devil had he got inside the room, closed the door behind him, all without her hearing him?
‘I want to see if there is somewhere safe for my jewels.’
‘Liar,’ he said softly. ‘At three in the morning?’
‘I could not sleep. How did you hear me?’
‘I was watching for you.’
‘Where?’ As her breathing steadied she began to take in details. He was wearing a robe of heavy black silk, belted at the waist and in the vee of the neckline she could see skin and a curl of hair. His feet were bare, his hair loose on his shoulders.
‘In my bedchamber.’
‘You are sleeping here?’
‘I live here. I have a suite of rooms at the rear of the house.’
‘The women’s quarters,’ Anusha said flatly. Where she and Mata had lived for twelve years.
‘Yes. When you left George had part of it converted for me. I can see your window and the light shines through the shutters.’
No sooner had she and Mata gone than Nick had invaded
their territory, filled the space they had left. ‘You are spying on me.’ She picked up the ledgers and thrust them back on the shelf, aligning the edges perfectly to give herself time to think.
‘It seemed wise to do so. Was I right?’ She had forgotten how he could move like smoke, like a tiger. He was beside her when she turned, so close that she could smell the familiar tang of his skin overlain by something new, the soap he had washed with that night, she thought, dizzy with reaction to the shock of his appearance, of his closeness.
‘You cannot stay awake every night.’ Somehow
Anusha managed to get her tongue around the words.
‘No, but I can put a watchman to sleep across your door and another to sit beneath your window. Who knows how vindictive the maharajah might be? You must be protected.’
‘You do not believe he will try to snatch me here,’ she said scornfully.
‘No. But your father might if I suggest it.’
‘And you are his spy and my jailer.’
‘I am your friend, Anusha. I wish you could believe it.’ Nick moved closer. The flickering light sent shadows chasing across his face, turned his hair to gilt, made his eyes dark and mysterious. The air was thick in her lungs and it was hard to breathe.
‘I—’ She meant to curse him, but all that came out was a small gasp. To her horror she felt tears prick the back of her eyes. I want to believe you. I want to trust you.
‘Anusha.’ Nick gathered her to him, into the softness of silk, against the hard strength of his body. She buried her face into the fabric and felt skin against her cheek, the beat of his heart against her ear. Every fibre of her being told her that he was safety and protection and desire, every instinct told her he was danger and betrayal. And desire.
‘It hurts, doesn’t it? To be back here, to not understand. But you were a child then, you are a woman now. Talk to your father, try to reach each other. He loves you.’