It seemed to Venetia that the speeches went on forever. This was certainly not the kind of adventurous life that she had anticipated. She was relieved when it was time to dance.
Even then there was a formality about matters that oppressed her. First she danced with the Viceroy, followed by his deputy and then with all the most important guests.
Finally she was free to pick her own partners and she found a crowd of good-looking young officers begging to dance with her.
“I say, what fun it will be having you here with us,” one of them said as they waltzed.
“But I don’t know how long I’m going to be here.”
“Well, at least until Lord Mountwood gets back from the frontier. We’re all longing to show you around.”
“Hmm!” she murmured thoughtfully.
In the same moment she saw her husband dancing by. He was looking at her and scowling. Then she realised that the young officer was holding her improperly close and looking down at her with an infatuated expression.
The evening was finally over. The guests dispersed and she was free to go to bed, enjoyably weary and full of thought.
There was a great deal to ponder, plans to make.
When her husband entered he found her sitting before her mirror attired in a floaty gauze creation that suited her so admirably that for a moment he was struck silent.
His next action was to lean down and kiss the back of her neck.
Only then did he recall that he had come to reprove her.
“I thought it was quite unnecessary for you to give that young man so much encouragement,” he ventured.
“What you mean?” she asked in genuine confusion. There had been so many dancing partners that they had all blended into one.
“You know very well which one I mean. He was leaning over you and yearning in the most theatrical way.”
“Well, I could hardly push him off in the middle of a ballroom, could I? Besides, our soldiers are the backbone of the Empire. They should be encouraged, not repulsed.”
“When an upstart young fellow starts making eyes at my wife, I expect her to repulse him. Let that be clear to you madam.”
“He wasn’t making eyes at me. Well, maybe just a little bit, but in a very gentlemanly fashion.”
“He was holding you improperly close.”
“Only to make sure that I could hear him properly above the music. He was telling me about your plan to go North.”
“Of course. You always knew I was going to the frontier.”
“Without me?”
“It will be a long, tiring and dangerous journey. No place for a woman. You’ll be much better off here.”
“I most certainly will not. I’m not spending all my time making official visits and sitting through interminable speeches while you have all the fun.”
“Fun? First we have a long train journey to Lahore. Then we go by horseback through the Khyber Pass, between some of the most bare and inhospitable mountains in the world. You call that fun?”
“It sounds more fun than staying here being bored,” she said defiantly. “I’m coming with you.”
“You are not.”
“I am.”
“You will stay here in safety.”
“That won’t suit me at all.”
“You are my wife and you will obey me.”
For a moment the air soured, as they squared up to each other. Then, abruptly, Venetia’s hostility faded and she smiled sweetly at him.
“Of course I will. What was I thinking of? I will obey you in everything.”
“You will?” he asked, regarding her with well-founded suspicion.
“Of course I will. I’m sure I’ll find plenty of things to do here. After all, Captain Fitzhoon said they were all looking forward to showing me around.”
“Captain who?”
“Captain Fitzhoon, the young man you saw me dancing with. I’ve just remembered his name. Or was he the other one? That’s right. It was Major Langley I was dancing with and Captain Fitzhoon who’s going to take me on a picnic. I get confused because they’re all so fine and handsome, but I’ll learn their names soon – riding with them and dancing with them and –”
“You will do no such thing,” her husband said through gritted teeth. “You are coming to the frontier with me.”
“Yes, dear,” she said meekly.
“And take that gleam out of your eye.”
“Yes, dear.”
“And come to bed.”
“Yes, dear.”
*
They set off next day in the Royal train, travelling from Calcutta to Jhelum in the north.
“What exactly does the Queen want you to do?” Venetia asked.
“Study the military situation, and see if we have enough troops in the area for both official and unofficial duties.”
“Unofficial? You mean pretending to be tribesmen?” she asked eagerly.
“I say, yes!” Anthony said at once.
“Will the two of you please stop that? We’re embarked on the serious business of assessing the Russian threat.”
“Of course we are,” Venetia said gravely.
“Although frankly” the Earl replied, “I think as soon as the Russians hear that you’ve arrived they’ll withdraw back to Moscow. At least, they will if they have any sense.”
Venetia chuckled.
They spent the next two days travelling through the most savagely beautiful scenery she had ever seen. Mountains, greenery and flowers lined their way, all in the most brilliant colours.
At last they pulled into Jhelum, which was as far as the train went. After that they would go on horseback to Peshawar for the entrance to the Khyber Pass.
A contingent of soldiers was waiting to greet them. They looked surprised at the sight of Venetia, but surprise changed to delight when they saw how pretty she was.
“Don’t worry ma’am, we’ll protect you,” one of them said.
“Are we likely to encounter trouble?” the Earl asked.
“One never knows what those devils are up to, my Lord,” came the reply. “The other night, when I went out to get a breath of fresh air, I found there were quite a number of hostile creatures trying to set fire to the fort. We are quite certain it was a band of Russians, who had suggested they should burn us to death as they were unable to shoot us.”
“I say!” Anthony murmured.
The Earl turned abruptly to Venetia.
“I think –”
“It’s too late to send me back now,” she told him. “Come on. The sooner we start the better.”
The soldiers cheered her, and it was a merry party that went on its way.
All except for the Earl. When he considered the danger into which he might be leading Venetia, he remembered the glow in the eyes of the young officers and he was not sure which worried him more.
CHAPTER NINE
At last they reached the fort at Peshawar and beyond lay the Khyber Pass.
Here the land was very bleak and lonely. Even the fort seemed forbidding, a large grey building that loomed up ahead, seeming to offer more of a threat than a welcome.
Scanning the walls Venetia saw gaps in the bricks, through which huge guns could be glimpsed.
“We keep the cannon ready to repel attack at all times,” said the young officer riding beside her. “There are three facing the Pass and one on each of the other sides.”
“They look so grim,” she murmured.
“They do, but they keep us safe. The Russians know they’re there and it makes them cautious, ma’am. In fact, you could almost say that life gets dull sometimes. It’s a great treat when visitors arrive.”
She soon discovered how true that was, as they reached the fort and received an excited and enthusiastic welcome.
They were greeted by eight officers who took them immediately into the fort itself, where food and drink were waiting for them.
The Commanding Officer introduced himself as Colonel Arkwright.
“It’s not often that ladies are sufficiently intrepid to struggle over these rough roads.”
“I think you are wonderful to hold back the enemy so effectively,” Venetia said.
The Colonel smiled at her.
“Well, we are always kept on our toes, so to speak, but some of the stories which go south are exaggerated and it’s not as bad as they pretend.”
“You should be very proud to have kept the fort in our hands,” the Earl said. “I want to explain to Her Majesty how brave you are being and how successfully you have kept the Russians at bay. Although I expect they will go on trying.”
The Colonel laughed.
“They never give in,” he replied. “We have to be alert night and day. At the same time they don’t attack us as frequently as they did when I first came here.”
The Earl inspected all the soldiers on duty, not only in the fort itself, but in tents in a compound outside the walls.
“You have more men than I expected,” he commented when they returned to the fort.
“I insist on having enough troops,” Colonel Arkwright told him. “Although it’s a rough and hard life, those down in the south all seem to wish to join us sooner or later.”
“Yes, I remember my own army days,” the Earl mused. “Especially the excitement of action.”
As he said this he looked up to see Venetia coming towards him and grinned at her. But she did not smile back. There had been something in his voice that told her he wanted to be in the thick of it.
And he must not do that, she thought wildly. He must not risk his life just when she was discovering how much he meant to her. She could not endure it.
She wondered how the other women managed. There were several ladies at the fort, as the higher ranking officers were allowed to have their wives with them. They seemed to live serenely, dividing their time between domestic affairs and helping out in the fort hospital.
The Colonel’s lady took Venetia under her wing. She was kind and pleasant, but Venetia would rather have been listening to the men.
That evening the officers entertained them to a feast. She found herself sitting far apart from the Earl and there was no chance to talk to him.
Later he suggested that she must be weary after the long journey and everyone would understand if she retired. This she understood to mean that he wanted her to leave, so that he could talk freely with the men.
There was nothing for it but to do as he wished. She said goodnight graciously to conceal the fact that she was seething inside and departed.
It was another three hours before the Earl joined her.
“I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” he said.
“I wasn’t asleep,” she said truthfully. She had been lying awake, worrying.
She heard him undress and get into bed beside her.
“Are you tired?” he asked in the tender voice that always made her heart beat faster.
But she refused to yield to it.
“I’d like to talk,” she said firmly.
In the darkness she sensed his surprise.
“Very well. What would you like to talk about?”
“About tomorrow, and what we’re going to do.”
“You might like to visit the fort hospital. I’m sure those poor wounded fellows would appreciate it.”
“And what will you be doing?” she asked.
“Exploring the area. I want to take a look at the Khyber Pass.”
“Because that’s where the Russians come from?”
“It’s virtually the only way into India from Afghanistan. We have to keep our eyes on it constantly. But my dear, there is nothing for you to worry about.”
“I worry about you. You wish you were back in the army, don’t you?”
He gave a grin that was almost sheepish.
“Well, perhaps I do – just a little.”
“But you are not in the army,” she said fiercely. “Fighting the Russians is their business, not yours. Remember you have to return to England and report to the Queen. You mustn’t risk your life. It belongs to her.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean that it belongs to you?” he asked.
She tensed, hearing in his tone an accusation of possessiveness.
“Certainly not,” she said quickly. “I would never burden you with claims for myself.”
In the dim light she could not see the look that passed across his face. It might have been one of disappointment. `
“Let us go to sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow will be a busy day.”
“Yes,” she replied in a colourless voice. “Goodnight.”
She lay listening to the sound of his breathing, until at last she could tell that he was asleep. Slowly she sat up and looked down at his face, which she could just discern.
In sleep he looked completely relaxed and untroubled, and she realised that whatever went on in his head was hidden from her.
In one sense they had grown close, but at this moment she discovered the limits of that closeness. He could still shut her out, leaving her with no clue as to what he was thinking.
And she wanted everything. Passion was not enough. She wanted to be the companion of his mind as well as his heart, and she was a long way from that.
It was as though she had been travelling down a long road, confident that she had almost reached her destination, only to discover that the gate she had thought led to home, merely opened onto a distant and far more complicated journey.
On this thought she fell asleep.
She awoke to find herself alone. Through the cracks in the curtains she could see that the sun was brilliant.
The door opened quietly, and Mrs Arkwright, the Colonel’s wife, looked in, smiling and coming into the room when she saw that Venetia was awake.
“Your husband said you were not to be disturbed,” she said. “So we let you sleep off the rigours of your travels.”
“Oh – thank you. Is it very late?”
“Nearly ten o’clock.”
“Goodness, I must get up. Ivan will think I’m going to sleep forever.”
“Don’t worry. He isn’t here. My husband is showing him the Khyber Pass.”
“But isn’t that very dangerous?”
“They have a troop of soldiers with them. Lord Anthony went too. They’ll probably be back tomorrow.”
“Probably? Tomorrow?” Venetia echoed, aghast.
“They’ll stay away overnight, I dare say. Don’t worry. I have lots of things to keep you amused.”
She seemed to think that this solved every problem, but Venetia knew a sudden, devastating sense of betrayal.
Ivan had crept away while she slept, and she knew why. It was so that she would not ‘make a fuss’. She was only a woman and women did not understand military matters. It was better to keep the little dears in the dark until the men had escaped.
He had even taken Anthony, a charming creature but as useless a specimen of manhood as it was possible to imagine.
Venetia wanted to throw something.
Somehow she got through the day that followed. When evening came there was no sign of the men returning. She joined the other women for dinner, and although they expressed conventional concern it was clear that they saw nothing unusual in the matter.
“My husband is sometimes away for weeks at a time,” Mrs Arkwright said. “But he always returns.”
“And you’re not frightened?” Venetia asked.
“Of course, but you soon grow used to it.”
Venetia did not think she would ever grow used to it. She would happily have braved any danger at her husband’s side, but to know that he was out there in the darkness was terrible to her.
She lay awake all that night, veering between fear for her husband and anger against him for slipping away without telling her.
In the morning there was still no sign of him. It was late afternoon before the party returned and when she saw him
again she had a shock.
Before her stood a man in scruffy old rags, a turban around his head and a dirty scarf covering the lower part of his face. Only his eyes were unmistakeably the Earl’s.
“Hello,” he said, pulling the scarf away and grinning at her.
“You!” she said explosively.
Beside him another tribesman, equally shabby, shouted with laughter.
“I say,” he said.
“Anthony? You too?”
“It’s been a great day,” Anthony said cheerfully. “Well, except for poor Devenish. He had a bad fall.”
Their injured comrade was being hurriedly taken into the hospital.
Venetia seized her husband’s hand.
“Come with me,” she said.
“I have to report to the Colonel first –”
“Come with me.”
He gave up protesting and allowed her to drag him inside and up to their room.
“It was terrible of me to go off like that, wasn’t it?” he said, but although his words were contrite his eyes were gleaming with fun.
“It was monstrous,” she said, in a fury now that she knew he was safe. “It was wicked, it was unspeakable.”
That was all she was able to say. The Earl’s arms closed around her with crushing force.
Her first instinct was to be angry. How dare he think he could simply overwhelm her like this when she was rightly angry with him.
With all her mind she tried to resist the effect he had on her, but the feel of his lips moving over hers drove all other thoughts from her head. Now there was nothing in her but feeling.
The sensations, both physical and emotional, that he knew so well how to induce in her, were rising, engulfing her, until she had no will but his.
“Do you know how much I’ve missed you?” he whispered.
She could only shake her head dumbly, while her pulses raced.
“Then let me show you,” he said, lifting her and carrying her towards the bed.
*
Lieutenant Devenish had a broken leg. He would recover, but he would be out of action for some time.
“And that is awkward,” the Colonel confided over supper that evening, “because he speaks fluent Russian. We have nobody else with such a skill.”
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