by Alyssa Deane
Captain Grovsner stopped and lit a cigarette.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Roxane answered. She glanced back toward the bungalow. The glow of the lamp arced above the black hulk of shrubbery between. She could hear voices, but indistinctly. It was, she thought archly, a secluded spot which had prompted Captain Grovsner to require a smoke. She took a small step away, pretending an admiration of a bit of statuary.
“What is this?” she said, running her fingertips over the stone figure. “A lion of some sort?"
“What? Oh, yes, I suppose it is,” answered the man, carelessly.
“The carving is exquisite. I wonder if it came from home, or if it is the product of some local artisan?"
“Who knows?” said Grovsner, inhaling deeply of smoldering Turkish tobacco. “Do you really find it interests you?"
“Yes,” said Roxane, turning to him. “I do."
He smiled, his cigarette hanging from his mouth. The tip glowed bright red, curling smoke into the air. “Rose said that you were a very serious young lady. I can see she was right."
“Rose ... Peabody?” He nodded. “You are on familiar terms, then. Funny, but I had received the impression that you were not, or that you did not like her, at any rate."
Drawing on his cigarette once more, he cast it down, crushing the ember beneath his shoe on the path. “We are on very familiar terms, Rose and I. Intimate terms, you might say. But that does not mean I have to like her. No, I do not have to like her at all."
Roxane extended her hand to the lion again, opening her palm along the statue's head. The stone felt cold and grainy beneath her skin. “Well, if that isn't a pretty picture,” she said sarcastically.
The man laughed. “I am glad to find you appreciate the finer points of humor, Miss Sheffield. I like you much better than I like her."
“Which is not, I would suppose, much of an effort, considering the fact that you do not care for her at all."
He laughed. “You underrate yourself."
“In your estimation,” said Roxane.
“You excite me,” he said, stepping nearer.
She eyed his approach warily, but found he stopped a comfortable distance away. “Your conclusions are drawn too quickly to denote intelligent judgment, Captain Grovsner,” Roxane stated quietly. She measured the length between them carefully with her eye, and his position on the pathway. He had planted himself firmly in the center of the walk, the bushes hemming him in to either side. If he made a move, she could, of course, always call out, but the situation would be more than a little embarrassing. Narrowing her eyes, she considered her options.
“Miss Sheffield, let us be reasonable, shall we?” he went on in conversational tones. “You are an adult. What passes between adults, consenting adults, is their business alone. The very fact that you were unaware of my association with Rose should assure you of my discretion. You may as well begin your duration here in India with me. I can promise you pleasure, where that fool Harrison leaves off. What is he to you, anyway? I thought that you had been here less than a week. Do you move that quickly? Or am I to be shocked into discovering that he does?"
“Of course not!” Roxane cried, unthinkingly defending both herself and Captain Harrison. “You are mistaken in your slander of my character and, I daresay, of his."
“Oh?” said Grovsner, moving nearer. “Is he still the unremitting gentleman? The insufferable bore I remember so well from our days at Addiscombe?"
Evading his approach, Roxane found her heels grinding up against the stone base of the statue. Lifting her skirt slightly, she stepped back, and up, so that she was standing on the low pedestal. She was tall, and the added height of stone beneath her feet enabled her to meet the man, eye to eye. Somehow, she felt more secure in that position, and oddly unafraid of the wicked intent so patent in his countenance.
“You are drunk, sir,” she said.
“Am I? Not quite."
Those four words were all the warning she received.
He did not move like a man who was drunk. There was no clumsiness, no hesitation. He lunged forward, pinning her arms against her sides with his own. His other hand came up behind her head, and his face pressed close as he attempted, with a panting, roguish purpose, to kiss her. He did not seem to particularly care where he kissed her, as long as his mouth came in contact with some part of her person. She tried to pull away, but the stone lion was against her hips, firmly grounded, the curve of the snout embedded in the small of her back. She pushed with her hands against his waist, but this only seemed to incite him further.
“Captain Grovsner,” she said fiercely, hissing through her perfect white teeth, “you will desist, or you will regret it, I can assure you."
The man laughed, disbelieving, raising his head. His brown eyes were glassy and over-bright. “Will I?” he said. “I cannot possibly imagine that I will come to regret any of this."
Roxane bit her lip. Then she kicked him, squarely, in the shin.
With a small yelp, the man released her and leaped back. Bending, he rubbed at his leg, but his eyes never left her. He was angry, and in his anger, he was determined.
“Is that your best?” he drawled, straightening and beginning, once again, to advance.
“No,” said Roxane, still standing her ground, eye to eye, on the lion's base. She waited, just long enough. “But possibly,” she said, “this is."
Whatever he had expected from her, Roxane felt certain that it was not what followed. She, herself, was shocked at her action, yet it appeared a reasonable enough recourse, considering his attack. Her movement was swifter than she would have thought possible, catching him completely off guard, as, with a closed fist, her arm shot out in a most unladylike manner, making full contact with his jaw. His expression of surprise remained intact, even as he tumbled backward, sprawling over the crushed shell of the path.
Roxane stared, open-mouthed, for a full moment and then, lifting her skirt into her hands, she leaped over the officer's prone form to race away into the moonlit garden.
* * * *
Collier's brandy rippled in the glass, reflecting golden candlelight across an amber surface. He gazed down over the rim, held close to his nose, then lowered the glass to the verandah rail with a decisiveness of motion and sound that made the woman beside him start and pull away.
“You have not been paying attention to a word I have said, have you?” pouted Rose, lifting her chin with an arch of her neck.
“No, Miss Peabody,” said Collier. “I have not."
“And why not? Don't I interest you?"
Collier did not trouble himself to answer. He turned his gray eyes to the shadows where he had last seen Roxane conversing, much to his dismay, with Harry. She was gone. So was Harry.
Not wanting to appear alarmed, he straightened, casually glancing about, hoping that she had merely altered her position. She was nowhere among the other ladies and the four officers attendant upon them.
Beside him, Rose continued to sulk. “Our departure for Simla will come none too soon,” she said, “for me. I have tired of the society here. It has begun to bore me. In the hills, where it is cooler, there will be so much that is new and exciting. And you will have missed your opportunity, Captain,” she finished, with a smile and a deep, theatrical sigh that lifted her breasts, shimmering with powder, against her gown. Discovering that her tactics were being ignored, she turned her head to follow the line of Collier's gaze.
“Oh,” she said. “Miss Sheffield has been gone for some time now. With Captain Grovsner. She surprises me. I thought she was far too serious to take up with his type. For that matter,” she added, a trace of bitterness in her tone, “he surprises me also."
“Bloody hell,” swore Collier, softly, and without so much as another word to Miss Peabody, he strode down the length of the verandah, vaulting over the railing into the shadows beyond the rose bushes.
The soles of his shoes ground roughly over crushed shell a
s he trod the moon-silvered paths. Damn the fool, he thought; he's drunk. He knew Grovsner's drunkenness, knew his tendencies when in that state. The man was not polite at such times, nor was he stricken by conscience. He fancied, in his opium-fogged, liquor-hazed state, every man or woman within his sphere to be as depraved as he. As Collier had said before, Roxane trusted too easily to strangers. She would not know the man for what he was, until, perhaps, it was too late.
Unconsciously, Collier's right hand clenched into a fist against his thigh, as an image, fleeting and swiftly set aside, came to mind of Grovsner's usual handling of women. Damn him, he thought again, and strode on.
Rounding, blindly, a high shrubbery, Collier stopped dead in his tracks. There on the path, fully illuminated by the moon, lay Harry Grovsner at his length. He was propped on one elbow, while with the hand of the other arm he tenderly massaged his jaw. The flesh of his face was mottled with new bruising. About his eyes, as he raised them to view Collier's astounded countenance, there was a look of utter sobriety.
“Hullo, Harrison. Give me your hand, will you?"
Wordlessly, Collier stooped and took the man by the shoulder, hauling him roughly to his feet. The other officer stood back, wincing with the pain in his face, and met Collier's gaze.
“What happened, Harry?"
The man stalled before answering, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette. He struck a lucifer against his shoe and lit the rounded end. Smoke billowed about his head. The flare of the match, before he extinguished the flame, revealed the damage done more clearly than the moonlight had.
“Well?"
Grovsner shrugged. “I misjudged her, I suppose. She clouted me, with a closed fist. Never expected it. Went down,” he said, “like a babe."
For a long moment, Collier was silent. Then he said, with a voice that was deadly calm.
“What reason had Miss Sheffield for such an action, Harry?"
Grovsner shrugged again, and attempted to smile. The effect was warped by the swelling of his jaw. “Oh, you know me, Collier. I was carried away. I took a liking to her at dinner. She has a look about her, our Miss Sheffield. But, as they say, one must not judge a book by its cover—"
“Shut up, Harry. That is enough."
Brown eyes narrowing, Captain Grovsner clamped his lips on the end of his cigarette.
“Once,” said Collier, “you were a good man, Harry, one of the best Britain had to offer the Company. But idleness, drinking, gambling, your addiction to opium"—at this, the other man started in surprise—"have made of you a man whom I am no longer proud to know. It is your good fortune, I suppose, that your past reputation has not quite deserted you, or you would be cooling your heels in some backwoods post where you could do the least harm."
“Am I supposed to be moved by this maudlin speech, Harrison?” said Grovsner languidly. “Quite frankly, I am less than impressed. Why someone as promising as Miss Sheffield should find interest in your sort, I cannot imagine. She has fire and strength which, if turned to the proper pursuits, could prove most pleasurable. But that, my dear old friend, is not something which I imagine you will ever experience for yourself."
Collier's glance was as cold as the stone of its color, and as hard. He breathed deeply, without change in his expression. Only the snaking muscle in his jaw revealed the extent of his anger.
“Harry,” he said, “you are a drunken fool."
“That is my excuse,” said Grovsner, stepping back to lean his elbow atop the lion's head. “What is yours?"
Collier continued to breathe deeply, evenly, as he neared the man. He paused, less than an arm's length away. He smiled. It seemed to him, as he did so, that he witnessed something akin to fear in Grovsner's demeanor. There was satisfaction in that. That was enough.
“You will not provoke me, Harry,” said Collier. “I have no desire to waste further time with you. Where is Miss Sheffield now?"
Grovsner drew back, pressing closer to the statue. “I don't know,” he said. “Has she not returned to the house?"
“Not that I saw,” said Collier. “Which way was she headed?"
“I believe that way,” said Grovsner, pointing with his cigarette. The long gray ash fell from the tip onto his coat. “When she left me, I was not in a condition to observe such things with much accuracy or clarity."
“Are you ever?” snarled Collier, and left him.
He walked quietly, without calling her name. He had no desire to alarm her into thinking Grovsner was in pursuit, nor to embarrass her by possibly making those on the verandah aware of the situation. He located her, eventually, by a sound which he at first was mistaken in believing, with a wrench to his heart, was weeping, but which, he realized as he quickened his pace toward the source, was stifled laughter.
He realized too, when he found her, that her laughter, though not quite hysterical, held its own share of tears. This much he knew in an instant, as she raised her head at the noise of his footfall. Her green eyes were silver with moisture, reflecting the moonlight. Even the lashes were clumped and wet, like small, steely swords in the moon's argent illumination. He witnessed an anger there, in her eyes, followed by some strange and secret acknowledgment, and then, at last, by resignation.
But no surprise. She displayed no surprise at all at finding him at her side.
“Roxane,” he said.
She rose from the seat she had taken upon an iron bench, releasing the skirt she held bunched in her hand. The fabric fell, like deep-blue water, to brush a whispering hem along the grass. Her shoulders, above the bodice, were very white, shadowed by their natural contours and by the thin webbing of tendrils of hair, loosened from her dark chignon. There was something both defiant and vulnerable in the manner of her stance.
For a long moment, Roxane looked at Collier, saying nothing. He could see the beat of her blood in her temples, her throat.
“I hit him,” she said, eyes wide and steady on his face. A tiny bit of blood, leaking about her knuckles, went ignored. “I knocked him down."
“I know, Roxane, dear."
She shook her head and made a sound in her throat, her gaze traveling slowly over his countenance. Watching her, his expression revealed an odd mixture of tenderness, hesitancy, and amusement. She held up her hand to him. He took it, turning her fingers over in his own.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Not much,” she answered. “Does he?"
“Enough, I should think, that he will not soon forget."
Collier removed his handkerchief from his pocket and began dabbing blood with the wine-stained square of linen. He saw her flinch before submitting quietly to his ministrations. “Let us bind this up,” he whispered, wrapping the handkerchief about her hand, “so that you do not spoil your lovely gown.” Turning her fist, he opened her fingers, palm up, knotting the fabric loosely. In fascination, he studied the structure of her hand, reveling in the feel of it within his own. The flesh was smooth, soft, the fingers long and warm as he slipped his own between, the ball of the knot pressing close into the curve of his palm. He brought her hand to his mouth, opening his lips against the fragrant skin of her upturned wrist. He could sense her pulse, beneath his touch, coursing the pale veins. Over the arch of her hand in his, he watched her green eyes widen, her lips part, the swift intake of breath lift her breast against the bodice of her gown.
“Collier,” she breathed, “please—"
“Should I be cautious, my dear?” he murmured against sinew and warmth. His eyes twinkled with soft amusement. “Do you dispatch all your would-be suitors with such violence?"
“I have ... I have never had the need,” she confessed.
He smiled and lifted his head. “Then I shall be cautious,” he said. “I am not as that lout Grovsner. I am not insensitive, I am not cruel, I am not drunk. Indeed, Roxane, my head is very, very clear."
With that, he slipped the fingers of his free hand along her waist, to the small of her back, drawing her nearer.
“
Collier—"
“I will not hurt you,” he said. “I will not even kiss you, if you do not wish it. I merely want to hold you close—like this."
He pulled her, gently, against his jacket, turning his cheek against the crown of her head.
“Collier,” she said, “I have cared little for propriety in the past. But we are strangers...."
“Hardly that,” he replied, and his chuckle rumbled deep in his chest.
“I never cared for male companionship. Not in this way,” she went on.
“No?” he responded idly above her head. His hands moved, with languor, up and down her spine. Her respiration, beneath his touch, was suspended.
“If I permit this to continue,” she whispered, more fiercely, “I shall feel no better than—than Rose!” And she jerked free of his embrace. He stepped back, confounded.
“Rose?” he echoed. “Do you mean Miss Peabody?” he cried incredulously. And then he laughed, reaching out to grasp her hand as she would have turned away. “Oh, Roxane! Roxane, stop. Sit down."
With both hands, he forced her to sit quietly on the bench she had recently abandoned. The vulnerable expression had returned to her countenance, so that he touched the side of her face reassuringly, as he might a child. She remained unmoved for just a moment, then turned her cheek into his hand with a sigh.
“I could not fathom the reason you would go off with such a lout, but now I see, quite clearly. You were jealous, weren't you?"
Roxane's head came up, defiantly. “Jealous? Why should I be?"
“Because, my dear, Miss Peabody is a flirt—and worse—and she chose tonight to turn her dubious charms my way. Her attentions did not please me, Roxane, I assure you. But they served a purpose, of which I was, until now, unaware."