Talk of the Ton

by Eloisa James

  Lady India had accounted for all the passengers taken from the Portsmouth except her governess. “What about Miss Lockwood?” Jonathan asked gently.

  India’s voice was wooden. “Mustafa strangled her with the red silk cord he keeps in his pocket.”

  The same red silk cord India had pulled from the eunuch’s pocket and handed to Jonathan to use to tie Mustafa’s hands behind his back. “What did she do to offend him?”

  “Nothing,” India replied.

  “Then why?” Jonathan asked the question, even though he was afraid he already knew the answer.

  “To punish me.” India began to tremble uncontrollably. “For biting him.”

  Jonathan hugged her close. “Oh, my sweet . . .”

  “She told me not to cry. Not to show any weakness.” India closed her eyes. “And he murdered her. He murdered my friend and my teacher. He murdered Miss Lockwood.” She looked up at Jonathan, and he saw the horror in her face. “Oh, God . . .” She began to cry once again. “He killed her because of me. . . . He killed my friend, and he made me watch while he did it—even though I begged his pardon. Even though I fell to my knees and begged him not to hurt Miss Lockwood. Even though I promised to behave. He laughed as he strangled her. He enjoyed it. And Miss Lockwood . . . Oh, God, Miss Lockwood . . .” India’s breathing grew ragged as she struggled to talk. “She was so brave. So wonderful. When we were on the pirates’ ship, she made me promise to survive, made me promise to do whatever I had to do in order to survive. When Mustafa wrapped his red cord around her neck, she looked him in the eye and spat in his face. Mustafa tightened the cord until she was dead, then dropped her body like a rag doll. I crawled over to her and held her until he ordered the other eunuchs to strip me and beat me with rods upon the soles of my feet.” She choked back a sob. “The sultan was very angry with Mustafa when he heard about Miss Lockwood and about my punishment because we were English and because the dey had sent us as gifts and Mustafa had disposed of one of the gifts before the sultan had the chance to see her and had damaged the other without the sultan’s permission.”

  “Who told the sultan about Miss Lockwood?”

  “I did,” India said. “When I was sent to the sultan’s bed a fortnight after Miss Lockwood’s death, when I had recovered well enough from my beating to walk again. Mustafa had told the sultan that Miss Lockwood died but not how she died.”

  A muscle in Jonathan’s jaw began to twitch when India mentioned being sent to the sultan’s bed. “You were able to communicate with the sultan?”

  India nodded. “He speaks perfect French and considers himself a very progressive ruler and a social reformer.”

  “For an absolute monarch with the power of life and death over his subjects . . .”

  “Yes,” she answered. “He thinks he’s progressive, but his private world is no different from the previous sultans’. He wants to be enlightened, but he’s as superstitious as the women of his harem. He is fascinated by blue eyes, light skin, and the red and blond hair color of European women. . . .”

  “Yet your blue eyes troubled him . . .”

  “Because he thought I saw too much. And because I told him that he was cursed because a blue-eyed, blond-haired innocent English woman had died at the hands of his chief eunuch and the all-powerful sultan was too weak to do anything about it.”

  Jonathan winced. “It’s a miracle he didn’t have Mustafa dispose of you.”

  “He would have,” India said. “But he wanted what I had, so he punished Mustafa instead.”

  “Something other than your innocence?” Jonathan tried but failed to keep the sting out of his voice.

  “He took my innocence as a matter of pride because he could,” India told him. “But what he really wanted was knowledge. He couldn’t take the knowledge locked in my brain or force me to share it. He had to persuade me to share it. And my cooperation came at a price.”

  “Why’d he bother?”

  “Because he is allied with the French, but he fears Bonaparte’s ambitions.”

  “He needed to learn English.” Jonathan guessed.

  “Yes,” she said. “And about England. In secret so his ministers wouldn’t know he was gaining knowledge or question his motives. The sultan is ignorant of nearly everything that goes on in the outside world. He relies upon his ministers, but he doesn’t trust them. He spent the first thirty years of his life locked in the Cage, a vast warren of rooms beside the women’s quarters, wondering if he’d live to become sultan or if he’d be dispatched to make way for one of the other princes locked in the Cage.”

  “Survival of the fittest,” Jonathan said.

  “Or at least the luckiest or the craftiest.”

  “Or the most ruthless.” Jonathan smoothed a stray lock of long dark hair off India’s cheek.

  “Or the most ruthless,” she agreed. “It is very important that the sultan be on the winning side of any conflict. And with England and France at war . . .”

  “He’s trying to hedge his bet.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” India told him. “But the sultan doesn’t want his empire annexed by Bonaparte if France wins or carved up into little pieces if England is victorious.”

  Jonathan grinned. “You’ve just given a perfect example of a man hedging his bets, trying to be on the winning side regardless of who wins.”

  “Every time he complimented me on my knowledge, I reminded him that I had been taught by Miss Lockwood. That I knew only a fraction of what Miss Lockwood had known and that he could have learned so much more if Mustafa hadn’t murdered Miss Lockwood. I tried to convince the sultan that the only way to gain favor with England was to release all his English prisoners.” She looked at Jonathan. “I didn’t know there were ransom efforts under way. I didn’t know if there were survivors from the Portsmouth or that my father was paying for information regarding my whereabouts or that the trail had led to the dey of Algiers, and from there to the sultan. I didn’t know that my father had worked to persuade the East India Company to pursue ransom as a way to have me returned or that my grandfather was pursuing the same end in London until the sultan told me. All I knew was that I had promised Miss Lockwood I would do whatever it took to survive, and befriending the sultan seemed the best way. But in befriending the sultan, I made enemies in the harem.”

  Jonathan furrowed his brow. “Mustafa.”

  She nodded. “But we were at war with France, and I was afraid of becoming a traitor, so every time the sultan asked me to describe the vast numbers of wondrous ships of His Majesty’s navy or to compare England’s far superior modern weapons to his, I would smile and tell him that I was sure Miss Lockwood would have known the answer, but that she hadn’t completed my military education, that I was sorry, but I couldn’t tell a pistol from a rifle, and despite the fact that my grandfather was an admiral, all ships looked alike to me. Eventually the sultan tired of being reminded that his chief eunuch had murdered his greatest source of knowledge. But by that time, I was known in the seraglio as the witch who had enthralled the sultan. He used my eye color as an excuse to ransom me back to my grandfather, by saying that I was sorceress in human form.”

  “You did what you had to do to survive.”

  “Yes, I did,” she said softly. “When the eunuchs dragged Miss Lockwood’s body away, I swore I would survive. I swore I would keep my promise to her and that I would have my revenge on Mustafa. I hated every moment I spent in the sultan’s company,” India confided. “I would return from his chambers and scrub myself with the hottest water I could find, but I could still smell the stench of him. I’m afraid I always will.” To her very great mortification, her tears came with the force of the monsoon rains. She who hadn’t cried during her five years in a harem had turned into a veritable watering pot within a sennight of her return to England. She who had gone uncomforted and had not been allowed to mourn her dear friend suddenly had someone to hold her and comfort her and promise her everything was going to be all right.
“I am so sorry, Lord Barclay. I don’t usually cry, and I’ve suddenly become a watering pot.”

  “Sssh,” Jonathan murmured, holding her against him. “There’s no shame in shedding tears for people you loved or for yourself upon occasion. Some of the strongest men I know have shed buckets of tears at one time or another.” He leaned closer and sniffed her ear. “And just so you know, you smell clean to me.” He breathed in the scent of her fragrance. “Cleaner than a spring morning. Cleaner than a field of daisies. Cleaner than a brook babbling in Scotland. Cleaner than a ray of sunshine. Cleaner than the prince regent’s wash on Monday morning. Why, I’ll vow you’re the cleanest girl in all of England.”

  India smiled through her tears.

  “Nothing you did and nothing the sultan or his eunuch did to you can ever sully you in my eyes.”

  “Except murder,” she reminded him, sobbing harder. “I wanted him dead. I tried, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t . . .”

  “That just proves how clean and good you are,” Jonathan told her. “And believe me, by morning, Mustafa will wish you had. So, let him suffer. Let him live with the fact that you bested him, that you would have killed him had I not pulled you away. Let him live with his failure. That’s a better revenge, because you’ll be free to live your life however you choose, and Mustafa will be back in Istanbul.”

  “Back to his old life and his old ways,” India replied bitterly. “Back to strangling troublesome concubines for pleasure.”

  “No,” Jonathan told her. “Because by the time Mustafa returns to Istanbul, someone else will be sultan’s most trusted chief eunuch. And if Mustafa ever sets foot on English soil again, it will be to stand trial for the murder of Miss Lockwood, I promise you that. Now,” he whispered, “close your eyes and go to sleep.”

  “I can’t . . .”

  “Of course, you can.”

  “No, really,” she protested. “I’m afraid I’ll see it all in my dreams.”

  “Then we’ll just have to give you something else to think about.” Jonathan leaned down and brushed her lips with his. He meant his kiss to be a light, pleasant, comforting sort of kiss, but Jonathan cursed himself for a fool when his dormant desires sprang to life, and his body began to stir beneath her bottom. He tried to will his erection away, but it refused to be dismissed, and Jonathan groaned at the knowledge that resuming sleep had just become an impossible dream.

  India looked up at him. “Are you going to ask me to share your bed?”

  “You’re already sharing my bed,” he said. “Or rather, we’re both sharing Mustafa’s.”

  India grimaced at the mention of the eunuch’s name.

  He smoothed away the grimace with the pad of his thumb, then tenderly kissed the corner of her mouth. “Are you going to . . .” India blushed, faltering for words. “Make yourself my lover?”

  “No.” Jonathan shook his head. “If I ever become your lover, it will be because we both want it, not because you feel the reaction of my body and think you’re obliged to appease it. You belong to yourself now, Lady India, you’re not obliged to service any man in order to survive.” He made a face at her. “This isn’t the first time I’ve held a woman in my arms and become randy with desire. And God willing, it won’t be the last, but I hope I’m enough of a gentleman to assure you that if you’ll just close your eyes like a good little lady and go to sleep, it will eventually go away.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked before closing her eyes.

  “Talk,” Jonathan told her. “I’m going to talk you to sleep.”

  “How?”

  “I’m going to tell you a story guaranteed to put you to sleep.”

  “My nurse used to tell me stories to help me fall asleep,” India confided.

  “Then pretend I’m your nurse.”

  “Impossible.” India giggled. “My nurse was Indian. She was short with dark hair and eyes. You look nothing like her.”

  “Then pretend I’m her tall English lover.”

  India giggled harder.

  “Now, go to sleep.” Jonathan smiled down at her as she opened one eye to peek at him, then he cleared his throat and began to tell the story.

  “Once upon a time there was a little boy of seven who was sent away from London to school in the faraway wilds of . . .”

  “Where?”

  “Middlesex.”

  “No, I meant where was the little boy sent to school?”

  “The Knightsguild School for Gentlemen.”

  “The Knightsguild School for Gentleman,” she repeated. “It sounds very old-fashioned.”

  He nodded. “Indeed.”

  “Is there really a place like that?”

  “There is indeed,” Jonathan confirmed. “It’s a military academy, and it’s produced some of the finest soldiers and statesmen this country has ever known. And our little boy desperately wanted to join that august roster of heroes.”

  “What was his name?”

  Jonathan thought for a moment. “Why don’t we call him Johnny? Little Johnny Manners . . .”

  India fell asleep listening to Jonathan’s deep baritone as he related the wonderful adventures of Johnny Manners and his friends as they took on the wicked Mr. Norworthy, headmaster at the Knightsguild School for Gentlemen.

  Chapter Eight

  India awoke to the sound of a horse snorting somewhere close by. She felt a rush of warm air in her hair and heard the steady cadence of a muffled drumbeat beneath her ear.

  She opened her eyes and discovered they were swollen and felt full of sand. She yawned widely, then focused her gaze on the object directly in front of her: a long, flesh-colored object she soon determined was the heavily muscled upper arm of a man.

  India realized then that arm she saw belonged to Lord Barclay as did the chest she was using as her pillow and the other arm holding her firmly in place. The muffled drumbeat she heard was the sound of Lord Barclay’s heart, and the motion she felt beneath her cheek was the rise and fall of his deep, even breathing as he slept. She lifted her head and attempted to move away, but Lord Barclay tightened his arms around her in response.

  She rubbed her swollen eyes with her fists, regretting the vast volume of hot tears she’d shed. But when she’d attempted to apologize for becoming such a watering pot, Lord Barclay had looked her in the eyes and told her that he found no shame in shedding tears—that some of the strongest men he knew had been known to shed buckets of tears on numerous occasions, and then he’d proceeded to talk her to sleep by telling her a story about a boy who was afraid of his own shadow, but who desperately wanted to become a hero. Suddenly she understood that Lord Barclay was little Johnny Manners, the boy who had been sent to the Knightsguild School for Gentlemen at the tender age of seven and had been so sick for home that he’d cried himself to sleep every night.

  The horse nickered a second time, demanding recognition from the human beings sharing his quarters.

  India turned her head and spied four black hooves and a black nose through the gap in the stall boards. As she watched, the horse lipped at a lock of her hair.

  India reached out a tentative hand and patted him on the nose. “Good morning, Fellow,” she whispered.

  “Good morning.”

  India blinked in surprise. For a moment, she thought the horse had replied. But the greeting had come from the man she was using as a pillow. “You’re awake.”

  “I’ve been awake for a while.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” she demanded, disturbed by the thought of his being awake while she slept on his chest.

  “You needed your sleep,” he replied. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  India put her hand to her hair and combed it with her fingers as best she could. “I must look a fright.”

  The air around them grew thick with desire as Jonathan and India gazed at one another.

  “You look perfectly lovely.” Jonathan spoke the truth. Even with swollen, red eyes, and a red nose, Lady India Burton was t
he loveliest woman he could ever remember waking up to. And the truth was that he’d spent the better part of the hour while watching her sleep, trying to convince himself that waking up to her every morning would eventually grow old. Unfortunately, he’d failed miserably. He leaned toward her, but India suddenly shied away. Jonathan understood. She was too vulnerable here like this in the bed they’d shared. They were both too vulnerable. He took a deep breath and changed the subject. “I see you’ve made my borrowed horse’s acquaintance,” Lord Barclay said.

  “He’s very friendly,” India said. “He made my acquaintance by tugging on my hair.”

  “No doubt he’s hungry as well as curious. If you’ll be so kind as to shift your weight a bit, my lady, I’ll see to him.” Jonathan waited patiently as Lady India pushed herself off his chest, blushing as she moved to the corner of the pallet.

  Jonathan sat up, flexed his shoulder muscles, then pushed himself to his feet. He grabbed his shirt off a peg as he left the stall to tend to the horse. It was still quite early. But the village would be stirring with people preparing for their workday.

  “Have you anything less revealing to wear?” Jonathan asked India as he bent to check the gelding’s leg.

  India glanced down at her nearly transparent garments, then peered at him through the stall boards, watching as he fed and watered the horse. “Except for my burnoose, they’re all like these,” she answered rather wistfully. “I don’t have any frocks. Mine were all taken from me, and even if they hadn’t been . . .” She glanced down at her bosom. “. . . they’d be terribly out of fashion and much too tight.”

  Jonathan turned away from the horse and gave her a quizzical look.

  “It’s been nearly five years,” India reminded him. “Fashions change, and so have I.”

  He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.