‘Give me a minute,’ Fiona called out over her shoulder. ‘I’ve left Nicole downstairs pulling out the rest of the stock books, so I’ll examine those, then come and see your little statue.’
Fujimoto nodded, already moving on.
THE DATE
Pulling away from Brooke, Sarah touched her lips with her fingers. Still tingling from the kiss, she was at a loss as to what to do next.
‘Should we come back tomorrow, when there’s more light, then?’ Sarah asked innocently, her hand brushing against Brooke’s, fingers entwining.
‘That doesn’t suit you,’ Brooke answered brusquely.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Sarah shot back, shocked at the sudden change of atmosphere.
‘You don’t get to turn into an insipid female, all fluttering eyelashes and coy glances. You are so much more than that. So don’t pretend to be something you’re not, it’s unbecoming.’
‘It’s unbecoming? What the hell do you think gives you the right to comment on my behaviour? You walk me to a deserted building, in the dark, one lantern between us, and you kiss me. What am I meant to think? That you’re in it for the thrill of the chase? Unbecoming, my arse.’ Sarah stomped off down the hall, moving away from the lamplight, further into the shadows cast by the violent act which had gone before.
‘Sarah ... Miss Williams, wait ... you don’t know what’s down there.’ Brooke hurried after her with the lantern.
Sarah stood in the doorway of her old room – the furniture was all still in place, draped in the same white cloth as the other rooms. A tiny piece of red silk was caught in the corner of the doorway, a remnant from one of the garments Simeon had slashed into a rainbow of ribbons before he died. She bent down, picking it up. Running it through her fingers, she sensed Brooke behind her.
‘There can always be more dresses.’ Brooke reached out and slid the silky fabric from her hand. He looked past her into the room. ‘I would have thought all this would have been shipped back to England, unless it came with the house – some of them do come fully furnished, but not many. They like to make you buy the stuff to fill the houses with. Makes it more awkward for everyone except them.’
‘You know that sounds particularly racist, right? Sarah was still smarting from his last stab at her.
‘Not racist, Miss Williams, it’s just the way it is in India. Surely you’ve been here long enough to know that?’
‘You’ve got no idea what’s coming. You’ve trampled an entire culture under your English boots, and they’re about to rise up and slap you all in the face.’
Brooke laughed, ‘You’ve spent too long listening to Albert; he’s all doom and gloom too. For what it’s worth, I think you’re right. But I’m just a soldier, following orders.’
‘You certainly know how to show a girl a good time, that’s for sure.’ Sarah wheeled away, retracing her steps to Simeon’s room. The door was shut. She paused, her hand on the knob. Do I really want to go in? She didn’t doubt that his body was gone, the blood cleaned up, the furniture shrouded like the others, but would his essence remain? She shuddered.
Brooke put his hand over hers. ‘You don’t have to go in. Tell me what it is you’re looking for, and I’ll find it. Let me do this for you. You don’t have to be strong all the time. Let someone else shoulder it for you.’
Sarah slid her hand out from underneath Brooke’s. Stepping to one side, she smiled at him, her first smile since the kiss. He turned the handle. Swinging he lantern ahead of him, the room looked as barren as the salt plains of Utah. Even the bed had gone. The floors had been stripped of their coverings, perfect round circles the only evidence that rugs and furniture had been in the room.
As one, they stepped inside, the lantern casting their separate shadows into one.
‘There’s nothing here!’ Sarah exclaimed, the shock on her face exaggerated by the lamplight.
‘That is odd,’ Brooke agreed. He strode over to the windows, nudging open one of the shutters, pushing the lantern through. ‘There’s nothing outside. They probably got the untouchables to clean it up, and they’ve taken that a dash too literally. It is strange though, compared to the rest of the house. Whatever you were hoping to find will be long gone now. I’m sorry.’
The wallpaper in the room remained magnificent. Sarah trailed her finger along the ivy tendrils painted directly onto the paper, its convoluted loops and whorls impossible to follow with the eye. What was it I hoped to find? The necklace from the Viceroy was uppermost in her mind. She knew where the katar had come from, but didn’t know how they’d landed in Lord Grey’s house. She wasn’t to know Simeon had gambled them away. If she’d been party to that information, she might have been able to guess where the Viceroy’s necklace had ended up.
‘Why would this room be emptied, and none of the others? It just doesn’t make sense,’ Sarah said redundantly. Turning to look at Brooke, she swallowed her pride, ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Sorry? There’s nothing to be sorry for, Miss Williams. Sorry that your brother was a delinquent? That’s the way his cards fell, Miss Williams. It’s most certainly nothing to do with you.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant, and you know it. Jesus, men are all the bloody same.’
If he was taken aback by her unnatural profanity, he gave no sign bar the slight lift of an eyebrow. ‘Are all men the same, truly, Miss Williams? Do none of us excel in your eyes?’
‘Now you’re playing the flirtatious fool. Nothing has changed in the last hundred years.’
Her last comment confused him greatly, but he shrugged it off, as men do when a woman speaks and they have no understanding.
‘Shall we go back? There’s nothing to be achieved here tonight. We can arrange some carters tomorrow, if the remaining pieces do indeed belong to your family. I can even make enquiries into who cleaned up, if you like, if it’s imperative that you know?’
Sarah nodded. What a complete debacle the night had been. There was nothing here from the shop. She’d ruined an intimate moment with a man who was clearly interested in her. I’m an utter idiot. If there was anything to be saved from the situation, perhaps she’d be able to ship a few of the pieces back, pay a very, very long storage fee, in a warehouse which wouldn’t get bombed during the Blitz. Who am I kidding? She was a bubble-head for even thinking she could salvage anything out of this. Unbidden, a solitary tear snaked down her cheek.
‘You are a peculiar woman, Sarah Williams,’ Brooke announced, placing the lantern on the floor, wiping away the one tear with his fingertip. ‘Enough of this dancing about, now.’ Taking her in his arms he crushed his mouth against hers, enveloping her in his arms. The scent of cigars, and whisky, and man, jostled for superiority.
As shocked as she was by his sudden change, like a summer squall moving through a sheltered valley, she threw herself wholeheartedly into the kiss. Entwined, their two bodies cast a single shadow against the papered walls.
THE TICKET
‘If it’s good enough for our Queen and our Prime Minister, then it’s good enough for me, so please just pour the tea,’ Lady Laura Grey imperiously waved towards the brightly polished silver teapot.
Her youngest son smirked, his suggestion of starting afternoon tea with a dash of gin meeting with the expected resistance of his all-too-posh mama.
Being in this house was a living hell. Forbidden to interact with any of the female staff since the nervous breakdown of one of the clueless maids, he’d initially spent his time at various sub par establishments, where gambling and whoring were interchangeable. He’d have frequented more salubrious premises, but no one would have him, regardless of his family name. His final descent into the position of persona non grata was about to be finalised, he just didn’t know it yet.
‘We’ll wait till your brother arrives before we start,’ her Ladyship stated, signalling the conversation was at an end by gazing out her London window and sipping her fine Assam tea. Prime Minister Gladstone had once joked he loved it so much t
hat he filled his hot water bottle with the stuff, making it the most popular of all the teas the English consumed by the boatload.
Ben Grey was content to sit there in silence. He had a splitting headache from his debauchery the night before, with a lovely Irish lass, who was far cheaper than the other girls in the brothel. He couldn’t understand why the country of birth of a girl rendered her any less desirable than another. He’d tried girls from a dozen different countries and continents. Under the sheets, and in the dark, they all performed pretty much the same way. Some were blatantly better actresses, but it bothered him not a whit whether they were black or white, fat or thin, freckled or dimpled. He fancied himself akin to a sommelier, or a horse breeder; you had to sample all the different varieties of wine or mare to find the best match, and he had a whole world left to try.
The door opened, ‘Sorry for my lateness, Mother.’ Lord Edward Grey strode into the parlour, his freshly pressed trousers, and clean-shaven face the complete opposite to his younger brother’s dishevelled appearance.
‘The tea is fresh,’ his mother offered, picking up the pot herself.
‘I wasn’t aware you were acquainted well enough with the mechanics of a teapot to know how to pour, Mother,’ Ben threw out sarcastically.
Unfazed, Lady Grey continued pouring for her eldest son, knowing the conversation she was about to have with the younger would be far more contentious than whether she knew how to pour refreshments or not.
‘Get on with it, Mother, I’ve some sleep I need to catch up on, and my dearest brother is getting poorer by the minute sitting here without a wealthy bride on his arm to prop him up.
Lady Grey handed Edward his tea. Imperceptibly she pulled herself up straighter in her chair. She’d chosen an uncomfortable ladder-backed occasional chair instead of one of the more gracious armchairs she normally favoured. Edward had noticed at once, but kept his own counsel. Her other son was oblivious, his eyes glassy, yawning widely without the common courtesy to cover his mouth.
Months of sleepless nights, mounting piles of debt, whispers behind fans, the drying up of social invitations, and Edward’s broken engagement to Elizabeth Williams, had all coalesced into her pronouncement. She slid a piece of paper from the table. Turning it over, she examined one last time the writing in spidery black ink, before handing it to Ben. Her hands returned to nervously stroke the pearls at her neck, lips pressed tightly together as if one word would reverse her decision, the hardest decision she’d ever had to make.
‘What’s this, Mother, some invitation to a charity ball you’re holding? I didn’t think I’d be welcome at any of your little soirées any more?’ He didn’t even look at the words, waving it as one would a fan.
‘It’s a cheque, for a thousand pounds. In the study there’s a prepaid ticket in your name, for a berth on a boat to New Zealand, and an agreement you’ll sign accepting this money on the condition you never return to England. I’ve amended my will, denying you any place in this family from this day forth. Should you not accept this condition, the cheque will be void, there will be no money, and you’ll leave the premises by nightfall tonight.’ Lady Grey’s gaze was unwavering. She was scared of her youngest son, and wanted him gone from their lives.
Ben stared at the cheque. It represented an escape from this stuffy life, constrained by a society he had no interest in being a part of. He imagined his immediate reaction was going to be fuck you, I’m off. What he didn’t expect was the pain coursing through his heart. With the stroke of a fountain pen, his family were ridding themselves of him, leaving him with nothing. No legacy, no ties. And he was pissed off, humiliated. His mother had placed a paltry value on his life. Racehorses were worth more than he was. The ridiculously ornamental Spode tea set they were drinking out of cost almost as much as she’d determined he was worth.
He shot to his feet, sweeping the tea service from the table with one arm. Chinaware flew across the room, shattering. Assam tea stained the pale rugs Lady Grey had favoured for this room. The lid of the silver teapot caught against the leg of the table, irrevocably twisted, destined in time to be melted down as scrap. Boiling water splashed Lady Grey’s ankles. Her screams echoed through the house, sending servants scurrying, and raising eyebrows out on the street.
Edward Grey rose to restrain his brother, but was spared the need, as Benjamin Grey stormed from the room, eyes filled with a burning hate, disguising the hurt that was engulfing him. With the cheque firmly clasped in one hand, he slammed the front door behind him as he left the house, immune to the curious glances from the passers-by on the street outside.
Timidly, Adelaide crept into the room, eyes wide at the mess which greeted her.
‘Adelaide, we’ll need some cool water. There’s been an accident and Lady Grey has been burnt. Send for Doctor Thomson – she’ll need her burns properly checked. Also, send in Sutcliffe. I have further instructions for him.’
Adelaide dropped a quick curtsey to Edward, and hurried off, the delicious gossip bubbling up within her. As far as the rumour mill went, no one had a better grasp of it than the servants of the upper classes.
Sutcliffe appeared as if by magic, ‘I’m required, sir?’ he asked, ignoring the mess, as if it were a normal occurrence.
‘Benjamin is booked on the New Zealand Government, departing this Friday. He’ll need the appropriate bags and trunks packed with his belongings. Just the items in his room, I think. Book a room for him at the wharf. His ticket is on the desk in the study, you’ll need that. Leave the rest of the paperwork there. I’ll bring it with me when I come down to see him off. Thank you.’
Sutcliffe slipped out as unobtrusively as he’d entered. Adelaide had already been in with a basin of cool water, and has eased Lady Grey’s slippers off, putting her bare feet into the bowl. Any embarrassment she might have felt was superseded by the relief that ‘the Benjamin issue’ had been dealt with.
‘It’s a solution, Mother, not an easy one, but one nonetheless.’
‘I’m feeling quite unwell now ...’
‘That’s shock, Mother, you’ll be fine,’ Edward interrupted. He didn’t have the strength to deal with any histrionics. She had to deal with the consequences of her decision, and he had more pressing concerns than her health. ‘The thousand pounds – can I enquire as to how you raised that sum of money without going through me? As you’re no doubt aware, given our current finances, I would be hard pressed to honour a cheque for a hundred pounds, let alone a thousand ...’
Lady Grey shifted uncomfortably in her seat, water sloshing around in the basin. ‘It’s merely a loan from an acquaintance, one who is very familiar with my concerns about your brother and the damage he has done to this family.’
‘And do I know this acquaintance?’
Colour graced the powdered cheeks of his mother, and he watched fascinated as she fiddled with her pearls – as a big a tell as there could be to anyone familiar with a poor poker player about to bluff their way through a hand. ‘No, you don’t ...’
‘I hope you know what you’re doing. The consequences of losing this game you’re playing are huge. This house you live in? Sold. Those pearls? Sold. The life you lead? Gone.’ He bent down and took her hands in his. Kissing her palms took some of the sting out of his words, but couldn’t soothe his fears that she was leading them straight to the poorhouse.
THE RETURN
Naomi Abbott stood like a sentry at the grand entrance of the Viceregal Lodge. Stout legs apart, hands on ample hips, her critical eye took in every detail of the returning duo as they approached her. The bruised lips, the mussed hair, the concerted effort they were making to appear entirely disinterested in one other patently obvious, even to the casual observer – and she was hardly that. Inwardly she smiled. The Major was a far better suitor than the Raja, and she thoroughly approved, although she was aghast at the subterfuge by the pair of them, sneaking off after dinner to God knows where, and she was about to say so, when Albert Lester loomed up behind her. He rude
ly pushed her out of the way and hissed at Sarah, ‘Where have you been?’
‘Come now, Lester, that’s no way to speak to Miss Williams.’ Brooke calmly stepped forward to intercede.
‘You stay out of it,’ Albert Lester grabbed Sarah by the hand, ‘Come inside. You can’t go running off round the countryside; you’ve no idea what you’re doing.’ He was about to pull her inside, when Sarah wrenched her hand from his.
‘What the hell is wrong with you? One minute you want nothing to do with me, and now you want to know what I’ve been doing? You’re trying to control me. Well I’ve got news for you, buddy, I’m a grown woman, now. I’ve managed quite nicely without you, and you know what else? I don’t need you. Bet that hurts, right? So take your hands off me, and let me live the life I want to lead – without you.’
‘Sarah, you have no idea of the damage you can cause, that you are causing, even now, with this childish display ...’
Brooke interrupted, his low voice eerily calm, ‘Lester, I really do think the lady told you to take your hands off her. I don’t have a clue what this is about, but when a lady tells you to remove yourself, you do. Or I can do it for you.’
Lester backed away, holding up his hands in supplication. He looked imploringly at Sarah. ‘Seriously, Sarah, you cannot enter into a relationship with a man here. No man. You have to go home.’
‘I’ve tried that – there was nothing left in Simeon’s room.’ A light dawned in her eyes. ‘But you’d know all about that now, wouldn’t you?’
Naomi was lapping it up like a cat with the cream. She had no idea what was going on, but what a delicious scene. Has Sarah been involved with Albert Lester this whole time, right under my nose? As much as she loved the girl, she was turning out to be a right little hussy. This is exactly what happened when a young girl had no parents or responsible adults to chaperone them; they took up with an entire retinue of unsuitable men – not that Major Brooke was unsuitable, no, not by a country mile – but the other two ... Albert Lester was old enough to be her father.
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