by Louise Allen
‘You are different,’ Anusha said with certainty.
‘Am I forgiven?’ It should not matter—he had done the right thing for her protection.
‘For lying to me about what my father intended?’
‘And for last night,’ he added.
‘That does not require forgiveness. No,’ she interrupted when he opened his mouth to disagree. ‘It was me, too.’
‘We must talk about it, but not here.’
‘No, not here,’ she agreed. ‘And for the other thing, I have forgiven you,’ she said, her face serious and a little troubled. ‘I understand why you deceived me, I know your first loyalty is to my father. But I have not forgotten.’
‘I see. Forgiven but not trusted.’ That was just, but it hurt.
‘I do not trust anyone,’ she said flatly. ‘Not you, not my father, not Lady Hoskins who is sorry her son is not older and who has twice mentioned her brother’s most promising sons and her very wealthy cousin who has just lost his wife.’
‘Come and meet the young ladies,’ Nick said with a feeling of mild desperation. He just hoped George knew what he was doing. If he tried to force Anusha into the midst of the Calcutta Marriage Mart there was no knowing what she might be driven to. ‘Ladies! May I introduce you to Miss Laurens? Miss Wilkinson, Miss Clara Wilkinson, Miss Browne, Miss Parkes.’
Anusha regarded them carefully, then inclined her head a very precise one inch. ‘Good evening.’
‘I’ll…er…leave you to become acquainted.’ Nick backed off, feeling as though he had three feet and all of them left ones. It might make him a coward, but he had no intention of being within earshot if they asked Anusha about eunuchs.
*
‘Do you know the major very well?’ the skinny blonde one asked. Parkes, that is her name. ‘He is terribly handsome, is he not?’
‘I do not know any men except my uncle, the raja, and my father,’ Anusha said with a sweeping disregard for the truth. ‘I find it most immodest the way one is expected to mix with men not of one’s family in English society. And I find all Englishmen too big, too pale and not—’ she gestured with both hands, seeking for the word ‘—not elegant.’ Except Nick. He moves like a tiger and his hair is moonlight on gold. My love, don’t leave me here and walk away.
‘Oh.’ Miss Parkes seemed somewhat crushed by this observation. ‘But how will you find a good husband if you do not meet men?’
‘My father will find one for me. Will your father not do the same?’ These girls were the best way to find out how the English really did go about matchmaking.
‘Well, yes. Papa will approve him. But how do I meet men so I can decide who I want if I do not move in society—and how can the men decide which ladies to court if we do not meet?’
‘But your father will refuse any man who is not rich enough, or well born enough or who has a poor character, even if you like him. So why do you meet them all first? What if you fall for a man and he is not suitable? Much better never to meet them and to rely upon your father’s judgement.’ Hypocrite, she thought to herself. Still, it was interesting to provoke these girls into telling their true feelings.
‘Yes, but…’ Clara Wilkinson was frowning, ‘…but it will make for a much better marriage if there is mutual liking first.’
‘You mean it will stop the man having mistresses? I doubt it.’ The girls all went pink. Interesting—obviously one did not mention mistresses. ‘At least your husbands will only have one wife apiece.’ What if she married Nick and he took mistresses? It would break her heart. But he would do, of course he would. She could hardly expect him to be faithful to her. Why should he be? Not that he would marry her. The death of his wife had hurt him too much. She did not believe him when he said it had not been a love match.
‘Um… That is a very elegant gown, but do you not have any jewellery?’ Miss Browne asked with the desperate air of someone turning the subject.
‘Oh, yes, a great deal, but it is all Indian cut and the settings are not suitable for this European gown.’
‘But do you not have Lady Laurens’s jewels?’
‘I would not wear hers,’ Anusha said flatly. ‘My mother’s, of course, are Indian, too.’ That produced a flurry of coughs, strategic fan-waving and pink cheeks. Apparently her irregular birth was another unmentionable.
Ears attuned to the pad of bare feet on thick carpets heard the masculine tread behind her. It was not Nick. ‘Ladies, I have been studying the seating plan and have come to inform you of your good fortune in your dinner partners tonight.’
Anusha turned and found herself almost toe to toe with a young man, close enough to assess the diamond stick-pin in his neckcloth and smell the oil he used on his hair. He seemed to find her mouth fascinating, so she lifted her fan as a barrier between them. His eyes slid lower and she restrained the urge to kick the insolent youth on the ankle. But of course this was not insolence, this was permitted.
‘Oh, Mr Peters, do tell.’ Miss Wilkinson was positively simpering. ‘Who is your lucky partner?’
‘Why, you, ma’am, and I am the lucky one.’ He bowed and managed to take a comprehensive look at Anusha’s cleavage as he did so. She folded her fan, just missing his nose.
‘I am so sorry. Did I hit you?’
‘No, not at all, ma’am. Miss Laurens, is it not? Will none of you ladies introduce me?’
‘Miss Laurens, The Honourable Henry Peters,’ Miss Wilkinson said with a hint of a pout. Apparently she had her eye on the gentleman himself.
An Honourable. A slight curtsy? No, he was still ogling her. Anusha gave him a cool nod. ‘Mr Peters.’
‘And who is escorting Miss Laurens in to dinner?’ Miss Clara Wilkinson enquired.
‘Let me think.’ He applied the tip of one forefinger to his chin and struck a pose of mock thoughtfulness. ‘You are to partner the Reverend Harris, Miss Clara.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Miss Browne has the gallant Major Herriard and Miss Laurens, I am sorry to say, has that prosy bore Langley.’
‘That is Lord Langley, the son and heir of the Earl of Dunstable,’ Miss Browne explained. She was apparently more than happy with her partner. ‘Over there—the medium-sized gentleman with the brown hair and the blue coat. Lucky you—he is considered quite a catch.’
Along with the paunch and a double chin and a braying laugh. But he is a lord, so I am to be dangled in front of him. She tried to recall Nick’s lessons. An earl was a sort of raja.
‘How are dinner partners decided?’ she asked.
‘By rank, of course,’ Miss Parkes said. ‘At least, that is the start of the setting. But family members will not be put together, or husband and wife, so it is a bit muddled up. If a couple are courting, then the hostess might take pity on them and put them together. And if there are any scandals or feuds or difficulties, then she has to keep those people apart—it is all quite complicated. Have you never eaten with gentlemen before?’
‘No.’ Nick did not count. She tried to remember his lessons—cutlery from the outside in—and Lady Hoskins’s instructions. Talk to the gentleman on her right during the first remove, then change to the left for the next one. Do not converse across the table. Put her gloves in her lap beneath her napkin. Do not let them slide off. Only sip at the wine. Pretend not to be hungry and just nibble at the food. Follow the conversational leads of the gentlemen and laugh at their jokes even when they are not amusing… Be a little idiot with perfect deportment, in other words.
‘Dinner is served, my lady!’
The plump young lord was making his way across the room towards her, but Nick reached her first. ‘Courage,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘You have vanquished dacoits.’
‘I wish I was eating by a campfire under the stars,’ Anusha murmured back. However vulnerable she was when she was near Nick Herriard, at the moment she would have given a great deal to be alone with him leagues from this crowded, alien room.
‘So do I. We need to talk.’
Lord Langley introduced him
self, offered his arm and guided her into the room. Anusha shot a harried glance over the table setting in front of her.
The amount of silverware flanking her dinner plate was ridiculous! What on earth did the angrezi need all this for? Anusha sat down with rather a thump as Lord Langley surprised her by sliding the chair in right behind her knees. She slipped off her gloves and tried to trap them under her napkin.
Everyone else was settling into their places amidst a buzz of chatter and she glanced to her left as a tall, slim man took his place.
‘Good evening. Clive Arbuthnott, at your service, ma’am.’
‘Anusha Laurens.’ Was she supposed to tell him her name? And why had he not told her his title? Now she did not know how to address him. Perhaps she was supposed to know that already. But he was on her left, so he could wait. She glanced across the table and realised that Nick was sitting opposite.
He gave her a slight nod and went back to chatting to Miss Browne, who appeared highly gratified by the attention, judging by the way she was making eyes at him. Lord Langley enquired if she did not find the weather intolerably hot for the season. For some reason this question appeared to necessitate him gazing at her mouth.
‘Not at all, it seems cooler here than I imagined.’ Oh, no, that is wrong. I am supposed to agree with everything he says. Anusha managed a vacant smile which seemed to please him.
She could hardly open her fan and shield her face behind that at the dinner table. But it seemed that the ladies found nothing amiss in the close attention the men were paying to their faces, or to the snowy slopes of bosom that were exposed by evening necklines.
The ladies were all so pale, so pink. She suspected that Lady Hoskins had chosen the deep amber of the gown she was wearing because it made her own skin seem lighter by contrast. Anusha managed a smile and told herself that she was being foolishly self-conscious. None of the gentlemen meant anything sinister by their close attention to the ladies, it was simply the custom and no one had snubbed her because of her birth or blood.
As the meal was served she managed well enough by keeping an eye on what the other ladies did and with subtle prompts from Nick who would tap his finger against the correct glass, or pause, a spoon half-lifted from the cloth, so she could observe what to use next. She sent him a fleeting smile of thanks and tried not to colour up when he smiled back.
Conversation was easy, she found. All one had to do was to listen to the gentlemen talking and occasionally agree, or make a vapid comment of one’s own. They seemed quite content with that. Perhaps they did not want wives who were schooled in the classical poets, in music and in the arts, women who could converse on whatever subject they raised. It was very strange. She had thought that women of education would be valued, but it seemed only those oddly named bluestockings believed in female intelligence.
Nick, flanked by two admiring young ladies, appeared to be enjoying himself, Anusha thought critically. It was a fine example of flirtation in action. And none of the older matrons appeared to think anything was amiss, so the constraints on the men to behave themselves must be very great, which was a relief.
And then she thought about how Nick had shed those constraints last night, how she had so badly wanted him to lose all control, and she felt the blood colouring her cheeks. But I love him and I do not want any of these other men—that makes all the difference.
*
She ventured a question when the servants cleared the table for the second remove and she turned to her left to converse. ‘I am sorry, but I do not know how to address you. Is it Mr Arbuthnott, or Lord—?’
‘Sir Clive. I am a baronet.’ He did not appear offended by her ignorance so she tried another question.
‘And is a baronet like a knight?’
‘It is an hereditary title. A knighthood is not inherited by the son.’
‘So it is like a little baron?’ Her father was a knight.
‘It is a rank lower, yes.’ Sir Clive did seem rather offended by her turn of phrase, so Anusha hastened to make amends.
‘I am so ignorant about English titles, you see.’ She did the eyelash-fluttering thing that these men appeared to find so attractive. It certainly worked with Sir Clive. He relaxed and settled down to explaining all about the aristocracy and, to her surprise, did it rather well. By the time she turned back to Lord Langley and dessert, she realised that she had been taking to a strange man without the slightest discomfort. Quite an attractive man, in fact.
She caught Nick’s gaze as she turned—he did not look very pleased. In fact, the look he directed at Sir Clive was positively cool. He is jealous! The thought made her want to grin, but she caught her lower lip in her teeth just in time and managed to keep her gaze demure.
Was he remembering that night in her cabin when he had held her and had fought so hard against his own desires? Was he thinking of their kisses last night, of their naked flesh pressed intimately together, of the pleasure he had given her? He would not let that happen again, she knew. He was her father’s man, and his loyalty lay there and her father wanted her for some wealthy man of influence.
Chapter Seventeen
The ladies rose at their hostess’s signal, the men standing, too, and they all trooped out, maintaining an air of elegance and poise until the doors shut behind them and the entire group fell to chattering and laughing. One party, Anusha assumed, went off in search of the privy and to dab at noses made shiny by the heat of the dining room, others strolled arm in arm on the terrace, heads together and, so far as she could hear, gossiping about the men. The older matrons sat down on the rattan sofas and fanned themselves. Anusha waited to see what would happen next.
Nothing, apparently, but gossip and giggling for half an hour, by which time she was bored to distraction. Anusha strolled round the room and found a chair half-concealed behind some potted palms next to the older ladies. Their conversation had to be more interesting than that of the unmarried girls.
‘…so surprised to see Major Herriard here tonight,’ one of the older matrons was saying. ‘When was the last time we saw him at a formal dinner?’
‘Oh, months,’ one of the others remarked. ‘Are you still thinking of trying to attach him for dear Deborah?’
‘Would that I could, Lady Ames! He appears to have forsworn matrimony. Perhaps it was a love match with that pallid little Miranda Knight, although one would hardly think him a man of sentiment.’
‘Perhaps Sir George intends him for Miss Laurens.’ The comment was almost a whisper. Anusha dropped her fan and scrabbled for it on the floor, ears straining.
‘One might have thought so—but I understand him to have told Dorothea Hoskins that he wanted considerable wealth for her.’
‘Aiming high, under the circumstances…’ Anusha’s fingers curled into claws. ‘She would not do for any of the titled bachelors, of course—they will be going back to England in the fullness of time and a half-Indian love-child is not going to be accepted at Court!’
‘But she is a handsome young woman and very well bred in her manner. And he will dower her royally, I have no doubt. Out here her husband will have all the benefits of Sir George’s influence. He will want to invest in his grandchildren.’
‘Ah well, that is that, then. What Sir George wants, he usually gets.’
Considerable wealth. The waking dream of that morning, that perhaps her father would allow her to marry Nick, died. Nick was a professional soldier, not a trader, not a wealthy Company official. And besides, whatever she might dream, Nick showed not the slightest desire to marry her. Bed her, certainly. But proximity, normal male desire and the fact that she had virtually hurled herself at him would account for that.
And I do not want to marry, she thought fiercely. If he loved me…but he does not. It is weak to love a man who does not love you—remember what happened to Mata. Remember the pain.
‘Anusha? Why so sad?’ The men had come into the room without her noticing and Nick was standing in front of her. ‘Is it abou
t last night? Anusha, we still need to—’
‘No.’ She shook her head and got to her feet, her smile back in place. It was easy to smile at him, even with an aching heart, as he stood there, tall and so handsome in his uniform. ‘No, I was wrong. There is nothing to speak about—it was a mistake best forgotten.’ She stepped forwards bringing them toe to toe and for a moment she thought he would not give way. Then Nick bowed and stepped aside and she walked out into the room.
The whole atmosphere had changed. Anusha dragged her attention back from Nick’s silent presence just behind her and made herself pay attention. It was, observed as an outsider, fascinating. The married women’s eyes followed their daughters, but flickered back and forth to glance at the bachelors. She tried to work out who was an eligible suitor and who was not by the carefully schooled expressions of the mothers.
And then there were the unmarried girls, pretending indifference, clinging together in little groups, feigning not to notice the men and then blushing prettily when addressed.
The men, Anusha decided, were not serious in their attentions. They were enjoying the flirtation, but were they seeking wives in their turn? The rather older ones might be, she supposed—they would be thinking about families and inheritance and titles.
Her father seated himself next to their hostess and said something to her that made her nod. They glanced at Anusha and then away, as if they had been speaking about her.
I had best do some of this flirting, she thought. Lull Father into thinking I am being an obedient daughter. Doing my duty.
Several couples had gone out on to the terrace. It surprised her, but none of the older women seemed concerned, so it must be acceptable behaviour. How well the men must behave to be trusted so!
‘Miss Laurens?’ It was Sir Clive. She smiled, saw Nick watching them and added more warmth. He must not guess how she felt about him, she realised. ‘Would you care for a stroll around the room?’
Anusha took his arm as Nick had shown her and they walked up and down in front of the long, open windows.