The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

Chapter Three

On the bank, a crocodile yawned in the heat, its jaws stretching open until Penelope thought its head must surely snap in two. The air was thick with moisture and mosquitoes as the pilot’s schooner plowed slowly down the Hooghly River. They had left the boats and villages nearer Calcutta behind them. They had left behind the women carrying their washing down to the banks, the houses and temples visible through the trees. Instead, the jungle grew close by the banks of the river, like something out of a lyric poet’s tortured dreams, and crocodiles waddled to the edge of the waters to yawn their contempt to potential trespassers.

Penelope bared her teeth right back, even if the dental display wasn’t quite as impressive. It wouldn’t do to let an amphibian stare her down. Although it did rather help that she was on a boat and the crocodile wasn’t.

The water churned muddy and dark behind them, thick with silt, but Penelope could already see the breakers ahead of them that signaled the mouth of the Hooghly and the place where they were to change to a proper sailing ship to bring them all the way down the coast.

She yawned again, this time in earnest. In London, she had grown accustomed to sleeping well past noon. The schedule of the London Season was a nocturnal one, lighting the night with the artificial glow of candles and drawing the drapes against the intrusive light of day. Her father’s mother, who preferred the saddle to the ballroom, had always been frankly contemptuous of the whole process, wondering loudly why anyone would be fool enough to waste the day God gave them (this usually said with a pointed look at her daughter-in-law). Her grandmother, Penelope thought, leaning her arms on the rail, would have enjoyed India.

Breakers lay to one side, but on the other squatted a dense mass of thickly matted vegetation. Penelope thought she could see a tiger through the trees, its striped pelt a vivid amber against the hanging fronds of the trees.

“What is that?” she asked Captain Reid as he passed behind her.

“The island of Sangor,” he said briefly. After a moment, he added, “The island is sacred to Kali. Sangor has long been used as a ritual center for human sacrifice.”

Penelope could feel the Captain’s eyes on her, gauging the impact of his comment. He no doubt expected her to be spooked, to express womanly alarm, to demand his protection against the big, bad beasties who ate pretty little Englishwomen — or, even better, to demand that he turn around and take her back to the metropolitan protection of Calcutta posthaste, tide or no.

There was only one thing to be done.

“What kind of human sacrifices?” Penelope demanded, twisting around to look up at him.

It was marvelous watching Captain Reid’s discomfiture.

Blinking rapidly, he managed to effect a quick recovery. “In human sacrifices one generally sacrifices humans. I understand that that is the usual practice.”

Penelope rolled her eyes. “Yes, but how do they go about it? Do they burn them? Cut them up into little bits? Flay them alive?”

Captain Reid backed up a step. “I believe they generally fling them into the river.”

Penelope made a moue of disappointment. “That is fairly tame, I must say. If one is to have a blood sacrifice, I would hope there would at least be a bit more drama about it. Otherwise, it strikes me as a waste of a perfectly good human.”

A tiny glint of humor showed in Captain Reid’s steely eyes, clearly much against his own inclination. “If it makes you feel better, they do have a fair amount of ceremonial around the event. The devotees are robed in scarlet and draped in flowers. There are hymns and all that sort of thing.”

“Rather like Evensong,” commented Penelope, with an arch glance at Captain Reid.

“Only rather more fatal.” He had given up the battle against his better self; the glint expanded into a bona fide grin. It was a quirky sort of grin, pulling up one side of his mouth more than the other, but it was oddly engaging for all that.

He was really rather attractive when he wasn’t scowling at her.

“Why do they do it?” she asked.

“Why? For the same reason one petitions any deity; for riches, for health, for advancement. It is,” he added wryly, “rather amazing what a man will do for the hope of advancement.”

There was a self-mockery in his tone that suggested there was more than abstract philosophy at play.

Penelope wondered just what dubious measures Captain Reid might have been driven to in the interests of advancement. Human sacrifice didn’t seem likely to be on the list, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he might have joined with the Resident in selling out British interests for Hyderabadi gold. Or, perhaps, as the Resident was rumored to have done, even converted to Islam for the purposes of currying local favor. That would explain why Reid was so dead opposed to Freddy’s fulfilling Wellesley’s commission in Hyderabad, why he was so transparently eager to see them both back to Calcutta, even if he had to make up tall tales about ritual sacrifice to accomplish it.

Oh, he thought he had been so subtle about it at Begum Johnson’s soiree, making those stilted comments about the wonders of the Calcutta Season, the rigors of the road, the unalleviated monotony of life in the provinces, but the pretense had been so laughable that a child of five could have seen through it. Captain Reid obviously didn’t give a damn about balls or routs or the wonders of the Calcutta Season; what he did give a damn about was detaining her and Freddy in Calcutta as long as possible. He appeared to be under the misguided impression that she had any influence at all over her husband, and that if she teased and wheedled, Freddy would dawdle away the cold months in Calcutta with her, leaving Captain Reid a free hand to do whatever it was he intended to do in Hyderabad unsupervised.

Penelope could have told Captain Reid that there were two fallacies at play in that approach. The first mistake was assuming that she had any interest at all in the social life of Calcutta.

The second was presuming that she had any influence over Freddy.

It would, Penelope thought, be rather a nice shot in the eye to her spouse if she was to uncover what was rotten in the state of Hyderabad before he did. Freddy wouldn’t recognize treason at work unless it happened to get between him and a hand of cards. Add in a spot of hunting, and Wellesley’s suspicions could go hang.

Lord Wellesley had sent Freddy to investigate James Kirkpatrick, but what if he was misinformed? What if the source of the unrest in Hyderabad wasn’t Kirkpatrick at all, but his subordinate, Captain Reid?

“How long have you been in Hyderabad, Captain Reid?” Penelope asked cunningly.

“Long enough to know the route,” he said with polite finality. “We’re almost to Point Palmyras. If you’ll excuse me, I really should see about the baggage before we change ships.”

“I doubt it’s going anywhere on its own,” pointed out Penelope.

Captain Reid inclined his head. “My point precisely, Lady Frederick.”

Penelope watched with narrowed eyes as Captain Reid exchanged a few words with the pilot of the schooner. Tugging at the brim of her hat to deflect the sun, which was full in her eyes, she saw the passage of a pale packet being passed from Captain Reid to the pilot. Letters? Penelope squinted against the sun, but it was no use. Whatever it was had already disappeared from Captain Reid’s hand into the pilot’s pocket. That is, if there had been anything there at all. The glare of the sun seemed to bleach the insides of her eyes, creating inverted shadows that slithered upon the scene like ornamental goldfish in a fountain. Penelope blinked hard, trying to clear her vision, but the spots wouldn’t seem to go away.

“You need to get out of the sun for a bit,” said Captain Reid, assessing her condition with a professional air, as he handed her across the deck, Freddy having blithely traipsed along ahead. “Or get a wider hat.”

“Nonsense!” Penelope snapped, sounding more like the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale than the Dowager Duchess, but she was forced to cling to his arm as she navigated her way into the dinghy that was to row them to the Intractable , the sailing ship contracted to convey them down the coast.

Penelope added that into the account against him and resolved to buy a broader hat.

It must have been the sun, because she found herself doing the unthinkable and taking an afternoon nap, curled into the cool of her berth in the ship’s very best cabin, from which she was shaken awake by an impatient Freddy, who wanted his dinner and informed her they were keeping everyone waiting.

“Everyone” turned out to be no one more than their small party and the captain of the ship, who was incoherent in his excitement at having such exalted passengers. Freddy seemed to grow even more burnished in the candlelight as he preened at the praise, like a medieval saint’s painting limned in gold leaf. Captain Reid held his tongue, but there was something sarcastic about his shadow as it fell against the wall, as though made darker by Freddy’s luster.

“And how have you been occupying yourself, Captain Reid?” she asked, as they sat down to dinner in a narrow chamber where the roof sloped down sharply on one side, and navigational maps had been thrust hastily out of the way to make room for the soup tureen on the sideboard. “More human sacrifices?”

The young ship captain’s fork rattled against his plate as he looked from her to Captain Reid with palpable alarm, as though expecting to see severed limbs sticking out of the Captain’s waistcoat pockets. Penelope smiled reassuringly at the young man. He smiled uneasily back, but Penelope noticed him sneaking another nervous glance at Captain Reid.

“Nothing so interesting as that,” Captain Reid said equably, helping himself to fish from a dish that swayed with the movement of the ship. His fingers bore the slight traces of ink, testament to his afternoon’s activities. Penelope wondered just what it was that he had been writing. “I’ve had a tedious afternoon of facts and figures. An overland journey for a large party always requires a certain amount of advance preparation.”

“But we aren’t a large party,” Penelope protested. Even if one counted the servants the Governor General had been kind enough to have engaged for them in Calcutta, they were no more than ten at most.

Captain Reid regarded her with a jaded eye. “We will be.”

“Where are you bound?” asked the ship captain, a young man with a faint fuzz on his cheeks that gave the impression he hadn’t quite graduated to shaving yet. He had a pink-cheeked look about him that marked him as not long out of England. “After Masulipatam, I mean,” he added, with an embarrassed duck of his head. “I know you’re going there, of course. Since I’m bringing you.”

“Hyderabad,” said Freddy, dealing with the problem of wine splashing over the rim of his glass by the simple expedient of draining it in one long swallow. “I’m to be joining the Residency there.”

He chose his phrasing carefully to avoid any mention of his subordinate role. It was such a silly sort of snobbery, thought Penelope impatiently. What did he care what a ship captain he was never going to see again thought of his role in the Residency? The man was clearly flustered enough at having a titled gentleman on his ship, even if it was only a courtesy title.

“Lord Frederick is to be a sort of messenger to the Court at Hyderabad,” Penelope specified helpfully. “Aren’t you, darling?”

“I am a Special Envoy.” Freddy gave her a look over his wineglass that promised retribution later. It was an empty promise. By bedtime, he would be far enough in his cups — or deep enough into a game of cards — that he would have entirely forgotten.

“Who is the current Resident at Hyderabad?” asked young Wheeley or Weatherly or whatever his name was. Something beginning with W , at any event. His fair face flushed as he admitted, “I’m new to this part of the world, you see, so I don’t know as much as I ought yet.”

“Kirk-something,” said Freddy offhandedly, toying with his turbot.

“Kirkpatrick,” supplied Captain Reid, the hard consonants sounding like gunshots. “James Kirkpatrick. He has devoted a decade of his life to serving British interests in Hyderabad.”

“You admire him, then?” asked Penelope, watching Reid closely.

“I think he has done admirable work,” said Reid simply. “But for Kirkpatrick, Hyderabad might well have gone over to the French in 1798. There were more than fourteen thousand soldiers under French command in Hyderabad. Kirkpatrick got the Nizam on his side and engineered a bloodless coup. It was a brilliant piece of maneuvering, and one that saved our government in Calcutta a great deal of bother.”

He might not have come right out and charged the Governor General with ingratitude, but the meaning was clear.

Freddy looked down his nose at Reid, exuding aristocratic hau teur. “What about the rumors of a native wife?” challenged Freddy. “From what I’ve heard, Kirkpatrick has conducted himself most irregularly.”

Captain Reid smiled a tight social smile. “I believe a man’s private life is his own.”

Freddy crossed his arms over his chest and kicked back in his chair, nearly oversetting Wheeley’s glass in the process. The young captain made a hasty grab for his wine before it could land in his lap. “Even when he’s meant to be serving the Crown?”

Captain Reid raised one brow. “I fail to see how the two are connected. Would you contract your marriage to suit the wishes of your superiors?”

The words acted on Freddy like a match to tinder. Penelope could practically hear the flames crackling in the suddenly too-still air. Mandated marriages were a sensitive topic for Freddy at the moment.

Penelope broke the tension by saying languidly, “Lord Frederick doesn’t believe he has superiors.”

It came out somewhat more acidly than she had intended it, but it served the desired cause.

“Oh, but everyone has superiors,” broke in Captain Wheeley earnestly, delighted at having something to add and entirely immune to atmosphere. “There’s the King — and we shouldn’t forget the Lord Almighty, King of us all.”

“Unless you’re Hindu,” put in Captain Reid blandly. Under his blank façade, Penelope had the impression that he was still seething, although over what she wasn’t quite sure. Kirkpatrick’s native wife? Perhaps he had a local amour of his own, and resented the slur on such alliances. “They have gods and kings of their own.”

“But you can’t count them, surely?” said the young captain uncertainly. “Since they’re heathens.”

“From their viewpoint, we’re probably the heathens,” pointed out Penelope frivolously. “With our silly ceremonies and one measly divinity. It’s positively parsimonious of us. And not a human sacrifice to be had in all of the Anglican communion.”

Over the rim of his glass, Captain Reid eyed her assessingly. Unlike Freddy’s, his glass was still three quarters full. Candlelight reflected off the wine, casting a warm glow on his cheeks, like sunlight through a stained-glass window.

“That might depend on how one interpreted sacrifice,” he suggested, like a boy dangling a stick in front of a dog to see if he would jump.

“Being forced to sit in a drafty church on cold Sundays, you mean?” said Penelope. “Quite. Especially when the sermon is a long one.”

“Lady Frederick is joking,” interjected Freddy repressively. “She frequently does.”

“I believe that life is one large jest,” agreed Penelope, baring her teeth at her spouse. “Usually on us.”

In that, at least, she and Freddy were perfectly in accord. Their marriage was little more than a massive joke. On them.

Young Wheeley looked uneasily from Penelope to Freddy and back again, as though he feared that sentiment might be theologically unsound, but didn’t dare to contradict a lady, especially not a lady who had already expressed an interest in taking up human sacrifice as a hobby.

Penelope tossed down her napkin and pushed her seat back from the table. The men rose as well, the unfortunate young captain cracking his head on the sloping ceiling in the process.

Penelope favored them with a sultry glance all around. “Enjoy your port, gentlemen.”

She processed to the door in queenly fashion, head held high, well aware of the way that candlelight played against the fine muslin of her dress, offering the illusion of transparency that had entrapped more than one male fancy in the past. She held the pose until the door had closed behind her, giving the gentlemen time to recover from her presence and get back to suffering one another’s company. Then, with a quick look to either side, she slipped light-footed down the passage.

It wasn’t merely tact that had prompted her to withdraw. She had another mission in mind, one best accomplished while Captain Reid was fully occupied. It would be rude for him to excuse himself without the ritual glass of port. There would be toasts to be drunk, rude stories to be told, all the usual sort of things men did once the women had demurely retreated to the drawing room.

Penelope had a different room in mind, and there was nothing demure about it.

Instead of stopping at the cabin she shared with Freddy, she fumbled her way to the next door down, pushing the portal open with one swift, decisive movement. A movement on the far wall caused her a moment’s alarm, but it was only the shadow cast by the lantern swaying on its hook. Cast in relief on the opposite wall, it looked like a condemned man swaying in a gibbet. Ugh. Penelope pushed the macabre thought aside. After all, it wasn’t thievery she was engaged in, just a spot of . . . inspection. That was it. A nice clean word for a somewhat dubious activity.

Slipping into the room, Penelope eased the door shut behind her and took stock of her surroundings. Captain Reid’s quarters were smaller than the cabin she shared with Freddy, a narrow rectangle with space for little more than the basic amenities. The room already displayed all the obvious signs of masculine occupation. A shirt was tossed carelessly across the narrow berth and the Captain’s shaving kit jostled for space with a set of battered, wood-backed brushes on the narrow washstand. There was a book left open on the bed, something to do with irrigation and agricultural improvements. After shaking it vigorously to check for hidden letters, Penelope left it alone.

There were more books in a narrow bookcase, which had been bolted to the floor, a motley collection of works, apparently abandoned by a series of occupants over time, unless they were overflow from young Captain Wheeley’s own library. He did seem the sort to wallow in Lyrical Ballads in his spare time. Penelope didn’t waste any time on them. She had found what she was looking for.

On the warped table by the bookshelf, a portable writing desk lay open, several pages distributed across its surface, as though the writer had left them to dry before going off to dinner. They were closely written, in a tidy hand.

They were also completely illegible.

The hand might be tidy, but it was a script that Penelope had never seen before, all dots and curlicues like eyelashes scattered across the page. It was a letter to be sure — there was something that looked like a salutation at the top — but about what? And to whom? It felt like a cruel joke. On her.

There were other pages beneath, though, pages that looked as though they might be written in English. Penelope had only managed to wiggle the first one free, one that began with the salutation, “Dear Lizzy” — a woman’s name, but not exactly a loverly beginning — when a horrible sound made her freeze like a rabbit in a hedgerow.

Someone was turning the doorknob.

His servant, Penelope prayed, shoving the page back beneath the others and springing away from the desk. Please let it be his servant. It would still be embarrassing, but she could make up a silly excuse about having lost her way or felt faint or some other nonsense.

It wasn’t a servant.

Captain Reid stood in the doorway, regarding her with an expression that could only have been described as nonplussed. Penelope would have enjoyed seeing him so had she not been showing to even worse advantage. It sapped all the pleasure from it.

“Lady Frederick?”

The very title came out as a question. Well, Penelope couldn’t begrudge him that. One did tend to question the status of women who showed up unannounced in one’s bedchamber.

Penelope would have given anything to flee. Unfortunately, Captain Reid stood between her and the door, and there was nothing outside the window but water. Water and crocodiles. Penelope couldn’t see the crocodiles, but she deemed it safer to presume their existence.

There was nothing to do but brazen it out. Fortunately, she had had a good deal of experience at being brazen.

Tossing Captain Reid an arch look, Penelope fluttered her fingers at the closely written pages on the writing desk. “Love letters, Captain Reid?” she said. “The lady is fortunate, indeed.”

If he was perturbed at finding her pawing through his belongings, he hid it well. “Did you want something, Lady Frederick?”

“Yes.” It was the curved script on the letter that gave her the idea. Penelope shook back her hair and smiled up at him with the assurance of one well practiced in wiggling out of sticky situations. “I was looking for an Indian grammar. I had thought you might have one.”

“An Indian grammar,” Captain Reid repeated.

“Yes,” repeated Penelope, daring him to challenge her. “Is it really so odd that one would wish to learn the language of the place one intends to occupy? One wouldn’t live in England without learning English.” Of course, one was born in England, so one never had to bother with learning it, but that was quite another matter. “If I were to live in Italy, I would learn Italian. If I were to live in France — ”

“I believe I have the general idea,” said Captain Reid, cutting Penelope off in the midst of her continental tour. Had he believed her excuse? She couldn’t tell. The angle of the light was in his favor, falling from behind him so that his face remained in shadow, while hers was lit like a sinner’s conscience at the call of the last trump. “You may find it more difficult than you anticipated.”

“I’ve always been rather quick at learning a language.” It was true enough. It had driven Henrietta mad that Penelope had managed to master the rudiments of Italian while Henrietta was still struggling with basic pronunciation. Penelope was lazy, but she was quick — at least, that was what her sorely tried governesses had reported to her mother.

“Languages,” Captain Reid corrected. “I’m afraid you’ll find not one Indian language but many. Hindustani is the most common, but by no means universal.”

“What do they speak in Hyderabad?”

“Deccani. It’s an offshoot of Urdu.” That might have helped had she had any idea what Urdu was. One thing was clear, it wasn’t Italian, French, or German. “My advice is to hire a munshi once we arrive. A tutor,” he translated. “Although I doubt you’ll have much use for it.”

“Why?” Penelope took a step towards him, bringing them only a hand’s breadth apart in the tiny cabin. The lantern on its peg in the corner swayed with the movement of the ship, creating a ripping river of gold on the scarred wood floor between them. “Because you think I’ll leave?”

With a wry smile, Captain Reid shook his head. “No. Because the English community tends to keep to itself. And I imagine your husband will follow them in that.”

“There’s nothing to say that I need to follow my husband.”

“You said it yourself. Whither he goest . . .”

“That was purely a matter of geography, not the mind.”

“Freethinking, Lady Frederick?”

She hated that name. It was like a shackle around her neck, engraved with the name of her master. She took a step back, her face openly mutinous in the light of the single lamp. “I don’t like being told what to do.”

Captain Reid quirked an eyebrow. “I shall remember that.”

Unexpectedly, Penelope grinned. “No, I don’t expect you will. But I shall keep reminding you.” Turning her back on him quite deliberately, she scanned the books scattered across the shelves. “Do you have that Hindustani grammar for me?”

“This one.” He reached from behind her to tip a book out of the row. His sleeve brushed her shoulder in passing. It was a coarser weave than Freddy favored, which must have been why it seemed to leave such a trail across her bare skin. She could smell the clean scent of shaving soap on his jaw and port on his breath, almost overwhelming the small space, as though not being able to see him somehow made him larger than he was, blowing his presence out of proportion in the brush of fabric against her back, the whisper of breath against her hair.

Penelope twisted around, so that the bookshelf pressed into her back, pinning her between the writing desk on one side and Captain Reid’s extended arm on the other. She tipped her head back to look him in the eye, the ribbons in her hair snagging against the shelf.

Captain Reid made no move to remove his arm. They were face-to-face, chest-to-chest, close enough to kiss. But for the fact that they weren’t on a balcony, and there was no champagne in evidence, it might have been a dozen other encounters in Penelope’s existence, a dozen dangerous preludes to a kiss. But this wasn’t a ballroom, and this man wasn’t any of the spoiled society boys she had known in London. He studied her face in the strange, shifting light, as the ship rocked back and forth and they rocked with it, pinned in place, frozen in tableau, his own face dark and unreadable in the half-light.

One might, thought Penelope hazily, her eyes dropping to his lips, attempt to seduce information out of him. From what she had heard, it was a far-from-uncommon technique. One needn’t go too far, after all. A sultry glance, a subtle caress . . . a kiss. It was all for a good cause — and it could be so easy.

Or maybe not.

Captain Reid was no Freddy. Stepping abruptly back, he favored her with a stiff, social smile, the sort one would give a maiden aunt who was being tedious at a party, but to whom one was bound to be polite.

With a brusque motion, he thrust the red-bound book into her hands, gesturing her, with unmistakable finality, towards the door. “Here is your grammar, Lady Frederick. I wish you . . . an instructive time with it.”

“Oh, yes,” said Penelope, with more bravado than she felt. “It has certainly been most instructive.”