But she had only ever brought him up to be Rajah of Sittapore. His stepfather might have had dreams of making him into a soldier, but his stepfather was dead.
And how was the boy to be told that his dreams of inheriting his kingdom were now also dead?
How she hated the Company, and everything to do with it! They should have been defeated, and massacred in the mountains.
And now, to top it all, Guy was here. She had last seen him bound naked to the back of a horse. But he had lived and prospered, as she could tell by looking at him. He had clearly shed much of the callow youthfulness she remembered.
She knew he was going to come to see her. But whether to receive him or not when he did so, she had not yet made up her mind.
*
The servants were all very curious to know what had passed between their mistress and the English envoys, but Laura did not immediately tell them. She wanted her own emotions to settle down first. When Nanja came to her to say that there was an English officer at the door, the woman obviously supposed the visit was a continuation of their morning confrontation at the palace.
By then Laura had washed her face and changed her clothing; she was wearing the pale green that suited her best.
Why had he come? He could have nothing but hatred for her in his heart after she had apparently been a party to the destruction of his company.
And if he were to learn what she had done since...
Yet she could not send him away. Just to see him again would bring a touch of sanity into her tortured life.
‘I will receive the officer, Nanja,’ she said. ‘Please show him in.’
Nanja hesitated, obviously considering that it would be more appropriate for her mistress to receive the Englishman in the main part of the house rather than in her private apartment, but she bowed and left. Five minutes later Guy was ushered in.
‘Highness!’
‘Major Bartlett. Thank you, Nanja.’
Nanja again hesitated, then left the room and closed the door behind her.
‘It is good of you to call,’ Laura said.
‘I...’ Guy swallowed. ‘I heard that Prince Batraj was killed in battle.’
‘Yes,’ Laura said.
He seemed at a loss for words, so she gestured to the other divan. ‘Will you not sit down?’
‘Ah...thank you.’ He seated himself, somewhat awkwardly with his sword.
‘You may remove your sword,’ Laura suggested. ‘There is no danger here.’
‘Ah...thank you.’ He stood up again, unbuckled his sword, belt, and laid it beside his shako on the divan, then sat down again.
There was a knock on the door, and Nanja entered, carrying a tray of iced sherbet, which she placed on one of the low tables, bowed, and left, casting a hard look at her mistress as she did so.
‘I am afraid, as we are in a Muslim country, there is no alcohol to he had,’ Laura explained.
‘May I ask what your intentions are now, in all the circumstances?’ Guy ventured. ‘Will you be returning to Sittapore? Or Bombay?’
‘Neither. I shall be remaining here.’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘I have been informed that if I return to either Bombay or Sittapore I will be put on trial for my life,’ Laura told him.
‘Well, I suppose that would be inevitable,’ he said. ‘I would offer testimony on your behalf.’
‘You? What would you say?’
‘That you tried to save the lives of my people by getting them to surrender. You did try to do that, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Laura said. ‘Why did you not accept my advice?’
‘Do you suppose Batraj would have kept his word?’
‘Yes,’ Laura said. ‘He would have kept his word.’
‘How can you be sure?’
Had he forgotten what she had told him, so long ago? Or had he disbelieved it? She had not chosen to use her pact with Batraj as a lever with McNaghton; she had felt sure it would not have influenced that unpleasant gentleman at all. But why should she keep any secrets from Guy, now? ‘We had made a bargain, the lives of you and your men for...my faithful allegiance.’
‘My God,’ Guy muttered. ‘Then it was true.’
‘Do you not believe me?’
He swallowed. ‘Oh, I believe you. I wanted to, then. I did. But when I learned of the massacre at Slopan...’
‘I was forced to watch that. I did not take part in it.’
‘Laura, have you told McNaghton all this?’
‘I have declared my innocence to him. I have not told him of my arrangement with Batraj. I do not think it would serve any purpose. Your Mr McNaghton has conceived a powerful dislike for me. Had it not been for Mr Burnes I suspect I would have been hanged by now. But even Mr Burnes did not give me the support I had expected.’
‘He is constrained by Company policy, but he is a good man at heart. But do you mean that since that day, you have followed Batraj...’
‘Because I had sworn to do so, if you lived.’
Guy crossed the room to sit beside her on the divan. ‘Then I owe you my life.’
‘At that time...’ she bit her lip.
‘At that time, I loved you,’ he said.
‘At that time, I loved you.’
‘I love you still. Seeing you...Laura...Batraj is dead.’
‘Yes.’
Their faces were very close together. What am I doing? she asked herself. What am I permitting? We may have loved each other once, but this man and I are as far removed from each other now as it is possible to be.
‘I love you still,’ he said again, and took her into his arms.
*
To her surprise, but also her relief, the hesitancy and shyness had gone with his youth. Now it was on her side.
She did not know what he wanted, how easily he would be shocked. Batraj and Dost Mohammed had both wanted to be imprisoned in her hands as part of their loveplay, but she had no idea if Englishmen indulged in such things. As he opened her sari to hold her breasts she remained very still, trembling, but when he lowered his head to kiss her nipples, she could not prevent stroking the front of his breeches.
His head came up.
‘I am a wanton,’ she said. ‘I have been taught to be so.’
‘Then be so, I beg of you. I have dreamed of you for so long.’ He stood away from her, to strip, and she also undressed, while her hair came away from its chignon and shrouded her shoulders.
When he came to her, she held him, as he kissed her mouth, and sent his own hands roaming over her.
Then he possessed her, and gasped with sheer ecstasy.
‘Oh, Laura,’ he said. ‘Laura, Laura, Laura. How I have dreamed of you, all the time certain we would never meet again.’
She lay on her back and gazed at the ceiling. She had noticed the ring on his left hand. ‘Does your wife know of me?’
He raised himself on his elbow. ‘My marriage is a sham. It has always been a sham.’
Laura smiled. ‘Is that not the protestation of every man bent on seduction?’
‘In my case, it is true.’
‘I do not doubt you, Guy. What of your children?’
‘We have none. I do not even have my dogs any more. Laura, my dearest, dearest Laura, will you come back to Bombay with me? I will obtain a divorce from Prudence, and marry you.’
‘Dear Guy, I have told you that I cannot return to Bombay, or anywhere controlled by the Company.’
‘That is absolute nonsense. When I tell them the truth of the matter...have I your permission to speak of the pact you made with Batraj?’
‘Certainly.’ Her heart began to pound. Could it be possible?
‘Then you may leave your case in my hands. Will you marry me, Laura?’
She hesitated. If she were permitted to return to the south, would it not be her duty to attempt to re-instate Sivitraj? It would clearly have to be done through diplomatic rather than military channels, and her own position might be the stron
ger for being the wife of a Company officer.
Mrs Guy Bartlett, she thought. Fourteen years before she had been about to assume that name, and had allowed herself to be led astray by wealth and position. Well, she had surely suffered for it. Now it was time to return to the fold, and perhaps be happy.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will marry you, Guy.’
*
He stayed to dinner, met all of the family, and then stayed the night. Nanja, having surreptitiously opened the door earlier in the evening, had seen them wrestling together on the bed and gone away again.
They loved again and again, all through the night. By the end of it their intimacy had become sufficient for her to guide him in the ways she had become used to, and which she most enjoyed, and he sighed his ecstasy as her back nestled against him, and he was able to use his hands as well as his manhood at the same time.
When Guy left at dawn, he promised to return that evening, with the lifting of her proscription an accomplished fact.
*
But when he returned he was at once furious and despondent.
‘They would not listen,’ Laura said, as soon as she saw his face. Her happiness which she had always known to be a delusion, drained away.
‘They would not listen,’ he confirmed. ‘Never have I met two such hidebound fools. To them there are only two sides to a coin: it is simply a choice between placing you on trial, which they feel will be bad for British India, or forgetting you exist.’
‘And they have opted for the latter course, and feel that they are doing me a great favour,’ Laura pointed out. ‘There is no point in being angry.’ She smiled, sadly. ‘We had one night of dreams.’
‘Do you think I am going to be put off by those idiots?’ he demanded. ‘I intend to write to the Governor of Bombay, the Governor-General, and the directors in London if I have to.’
‘I cannot ask you to undertake so much on my behalf, Guy. You will do your career little good.’
‘Damn my career. It is you I am concerned with. Oh, Laura, my Laura...’
In his arms she could forget the impossibility of her situation. But she knew her dream had been even more of an impossibility. Kabul had become her home, and was to remain her home; that was clear.
*
Over the next few months, the Afghan capital began to resemble any other British-controlled city in India. For a while it was necessary to continue campaigning against the Afghans and their Amir, but then Dost Mohammed was captured and sent into exile in India.
As soon as it was considered that all possibility of resistance was at an end, the Company forces moved out of the Bala Hissar and into cantonments outside the city where, as the British inevitably did, they settled down to making themselves comfortable. A race course was laid out, and a cricket pitch. Card parties and polo matches were held, and by the following spring nearly all the married officers had brought their wives up to join them in what appeared destined to be a lengthy occupation. The Company apparently intended to maintain a military presence in Kabul until Shah Shuja’s rule was firmly established and, although Sir John Keane and the main part of the army departed as soon as the passes were open, Sir Willoughby Cotton was left in command with a brigade of nearly five thousand men under Brigadier General Sir Robert Sale, including the British Regiment, a force regarded as amply sufficient to keep the country in subjection.
With the arrival of the women, parasols and poke bonnets, hooped skirts and swinging reticules appeared in the market places and on the streets of the city, while the Afghans stared in wonder.
Prudence Bartlett did not make the journey north. Undoubtedly news of her husband’s carrying on with the notorious Dowager Rani of Sittapore had percolated back to Bombay; it was certainly widespread gossip in Kabul.
‘Are you sure you know what you are about?’ Laura would ask Guy. She would not dream of refusing to receive him, but with every visit she was certain he was damning himself more and more in the eyes of his fellow officers and his superiors.
‘If I am to divorce her, I must give her the necessary ammunition,’ he said. ‘Will you be ashamed to he named as co-respondent?’
‘I shall be proud,’ she told him. If it ever happens, she reminded herself, refusing to believe in it. Her fears were well-founded. In July 1840, just under a year since the Company army had marched into Kabul, Guy came to her house looking more distressed than she had ever seen him.
‘I have been ordered back to Bombay,’ he said. ‘My petition has been refused, and I am considered an embarrassment to everyone by remaining here.’ He raised his head. ‘I shall resign, of course.’
‘You will do no such thing,’ Laura told him.
‘But, my dearest girl...’
She held his hands. ‘Guy, we have been given twelve glorious months together, far longer than I, at least, deserve. But your career is the army. What, would you become an Afghan chieftain? That is a savage and uncertain game, which invariably ends in death. Guy...go back to your own people, and prosper.’
‘You have had enough of me,’ he said bitterly.
‘If you believe that, then have we truly wasted our time together.’
‘Oh, Laura, Laura!’ He swept her into his arms. ‘What will become of you?’
‘I will remain here, until opinion in Bombay changes. Then you will send for me, and I will come to you.’
‘Yes,’ he said fiercely. ‘Yes. It will change. I will make it change.’
‘And I will be content to wait for that,’ she said.
‘But Laura...to leave you now...’
‘Not now,’ she reminded him. ‘Tomorrow.’
*
The next day Laura stayed in bed and wept her heart out. She had been so close to happiness, but all the while, in reality it had been as far away as ever. She could hardly restrain herself from running after Guy, and shouting, ‘Yes, resign, and live here with me. Become a renegade, like me, and let us seek what happiness we can, for as long as we can.’
But she knew that that would take away every standard by which he had always lived, leave him less than half a man. It would be a crime. She had been criminal enough, in allowing him to love her at all, to put his career in jeopardy. Now he must be forgotten.
And she must weep.
*
Oddly, with Guy’s departure, Laura found herself, if not accepted, certainly taken up by British society. She knew perfectly well that this was mainly a result of curiosity on account of her notoriety. ‘My dear, you’ll never guess with whom I took tea yesterday? The Dowager Rani of Sittapore, Laura Dean that was. My dear, she is a Thug, who smears blood on her naked body and strangles people with a knotted noose.’
The first invitation actually came from Florentia Sale, the wife of the Brigadier, a gracious lady who was at great pains to defer to Laura’s rank.
‘You do take tea, Highness?’ she inquired, having blinked at her guest’s sari-clad figure before politeness restored her self-control.
‘Thank you,’ Laura said.
Servants scurried to and fro, and Lady Sale settled herself. ‘Kabul is such a delightful place,’ she ventured.
‘In the summer,’ Laura agreed. ‘It is very bleak in the winter.’
‘So I have been told,’ Lady Sale agreed. ‘Well, we shall just have to make the best of it. As you have done, Highness.’
With Lady Sale was her daughter Barbara, a young woman not yet twenty, Laura estimated. Then other guests arrived, obviously deliberately late, having been informed of the identity of the guest of honour. Laura smiled and talked with them all, about clothes and food and servants, and thus told them nothing of what they truly wanted to hear. But she duly invited them back, and most of them came, to gape at the luxury of Laura’s house, the evidence of wealth.
Even Florentia Sale was somewhat taken aback, having clearly expected evidence of Thuggism to be visible on every hand. ‘It must have taken you considerable time to adjust to the Indian way of life, Highness,’ she remarked.
‘Why, yes, Lady Sale’ Laura said. ‘I have been adjusting, as you put it, for fifteen years.’
*
She longed for a letter from Guy, but there was none before the first snows fell and word arrived in Kabul that the roads were blocked. No doubt, she thought, he has realised his folly now that he can no longer come to my bed, and is anxious to forget me.
But she slept badly that night, and awoke with a start of mingled horror and ecstasy to find a man standing by her bed. It was Batraj.
*
Laura sat up, staring at him in consternation.
He wore ragged clothes and had not bathed for some time. But he looked as fit and strong as she had ever known him. ‘I was told you were dead,’ she whispered.
‘No doubt.’ He began to take off his clothes, throwing them on the floor. ‘I was carved by a bayonet. Look.’ He stood close to her, and she saw a hideous scar curving round the side of his body. ‘I should have died, but Vijay Dal saved me, put me on his own horse and, although wounded himself, carried me to safety.’
‘Vijay is alive?’ How happy that news would make Nanja.
‘He died of his wounds. I did not die of mine. But regaining my health has been a tedious business.’
‘Batraj...the Company will hang you.’
‘Only if they know I am here.’ He knelt on the bed, drove his fingers into her hair to raise her head so that she winced with pain. ‘Will you tell them?’
‘No,’ she panted. ‘No, I will not. But they will find out.’
‘Not until I am ready for them to do so.’ He threw her down and lay on her, moving his body on hers. ‘Laura, my Laura. How have I missed you. I feared you would have made your peace with the Company, and been lost to me.’
‘The Company wants no peace with any associate of yours,’ she gasped.
‘Then you did try.’ He knelt astride her. ‘Now tell me of this Major Bartlett who has shared your bed.’
Laura tried to move, but his knees and his weight kept her pinned to the bed.
‘Tell me,’ he said.
‘I thought you dead,’ she said.
‘And considered it your right to indulge yourself with an old lover. I should whip you for not mourning me.’
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