The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

Chapter Four

The scent of Lady Frederick’s perfume lingered behind her, as pungent as crushed frangipani petals, in the confined cabin. Shaking his head to clear it, like a sleepwalker slapping himself into wakefulness, Alex forced his attention to his writing desk, where the letter he had been writing to George appeared to have dried. It was, he thought, rather a good thing he had written in Urdu. The description he had provided of Lord and Lady Frederick had not been a flattering one.

Why in the devil had she suddenly felt the burning need for a Hindi grammar? And why come to his room to find it? It would have been just as easy to have made the request at dinner.

Shuffling the pages together, Alex snaked a glance over at the bookshelf. She hadn’t been trying to . . . No. Too absurd. Alex shook his head and went on shuffling. He rooted about with one hand, feeling for the sealing wax. And yet. There had been that odd moment, by the bookshelf, where a letter opener could scarcely have sliced through the space between them. Admittedly, there wasn’t that much space in the cabin to begin with, but . . . Opening the glass door of the lantern, Alex abstractedly thrust the wick of the wax at the small flame.

She hadn’t been trying to seduce him, had she?

Crimson dots spattered across the worn wood floor like freshly shed blood.

Alex flapped his hand up and down, cursing vehemently in three languages. He had just dripped hot wax all down his hand and it bloody well stung.

Served him right.

Scowling, Alex picked up the fallen wafer and finished the job with brutal efficiency, stamping the wax with far more force than the act required. A burnt hand was no more than he deserved. Lady Frederick wasn’t trying to seduce him; she simply flirted as naturally as she breathed. Like his father. They were two of a kind, masters of the meaningless flirtation. Look at the state to which she had reduced that poor, calf-eyed dolt of a captain.

Even if she did have a bit of dalliance in mind — and it was purely a hypothetical situation, Alex assured himself, slamming the lid of his writing case — there wasn’t anything the least bit flattering about it. It didn’t take more than ordinary intelligence to notice that something wasn’t quite right between her and her titled goop of a husband. Alex had no desire to play the pawn in a civil war between husband and wife. Being assaulted by a jealous husband — or doing the assaulting oneself — would do little to enhance his bid for a district commissionership. Even his father would have to agree with that.

Alex didn’t like to think what else his father would have to say about the affair. Not that there was an affair. English could be a bloody infuriating language at times, with its denotations and connotations and multiple meanings running rampant around perfectly innocent words. It had been no more than an encounter, a chance brush in a too-small room.

Flopping backwards onto his berth, Alex took up the book he had been reading before dinner but the words refused to behave in a proper manner, all running together into a gray blur. It was no use. He couldn’t make himself concentrate on the wonders of irrigation. It had all been a bit premature, to be sure, educating himself on improved agricultural methods. There was no guarantee that the district commissionership would be his, or that he would ever have the chance to put any of his plans into practice. No guarantee, but a good shot. With the efficiency of born bureaucrats, the Governor General’s office was parceling out the land extracted by treaty from the Nizam of Hyderabad into new districts, districts to be run by appointees of the British government. This would be no diplomatic mission, no perpetual practice of persuasion on a vacillating ruler, but the chance to govern oneself, to govern justly and directly, with minimal interference from either Calcutta or Bombay. It was the chance of a lifetime.

But first, he had to get Lord and Lady Frederick to Hyderabad. It was, thought Alex bitterly, as he tried to make his eyes focus on canals and waterways, rather like one of those fairy tales in which the hero was put to absurd tests before he could win the hand of his lady fair and half the kingdom.

For ten days, Alex stayed mostly to his cabin, making interminable lists of supplies needed and dodging Lord Frederick’s increasingly frequent inquiries about the nightlife of Hyderabad, the quality of the available women, and the hunting around the Residency (animals, women, or both). Alex experienced a very un-Christian sense of relief when Lord Frederick succumbed to a stomach ailment midway through the voyage.

Of Lady Frederick, Alex saw little, although there was once or twice a lingering scent of frangipani when he returned to his cabin after the nightly ritual of port with the captain. Alex put that down to an overactive imagination and prescribed himself a course of reading about irrigation. The books didn’t extinguish inappropriate musings but they did at least bore him to sleep and that was close enough.

When they finally docked in the decaying port city of Masulipatam, there were letters waiting for him, responses to the communications he had sent out from Calcutta. Nothing from George, but Kirkpatrick had taken Alex’s message under advisement and replied that someone would be there to meet him once he had crossed the Krishna. That was all, but it was enough. Alex went about the task of assembling the necessaries for an overland journey in much-improved spirits, despite the vile stench of fish that hung over the city, clinging to its human inhabitants and making everything smell like yesterday’s rotting catch.

It took five days to assemble the army of beasts and attendants necessary for their journey. After five days of the stench of fish, Alex had assumed that his charges would be delighted at anything designed to convey them hence. But when she saw the conveyance in which she was to travel, Lady Frederick balked.

“No,” said Lady Frederick.

Alex lifted an eyebrow. “No?”

Admittedly, the palanquin was a little old-fashioned. Many of the newer ones were fitted with sliding doors and glass windows in imitation of a carriage, but the curtains were lighter for the bearers to carry over such an extended trip as theirs was to be. Otherwise, it was a perfectly good palanquin, hung with silk, lined with cushions, supported with sturdy bamboo poles.

Having been up since before dawn, organizing a battalion of servants and pack animals, Alex was in no mood to pander to the petty pretensions of the peerage. He had already been spat at by a camel; la dylike tantrums were superfluous. This was precisely the sort of nonsense he had expected from her, pointless and time-consuming carping about an insufficiently fashionable equipage. And yet, he was oddly disappointed.

He was disappointed at the delay, that was all. Nothing more.

“This is, I assure you,” Alex said, with a tinge of asperity in his voice, “the best that could be had. If it displeases you, you are certainly welcome to return to Calcutta to commission a more appropriate one.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” said Lady Frederick. She made a show of looking around. “And where is your palanquin? I only see the one.”

“I don’t have one. I ride.”

“My point precisely.”

“Your — What? ” Alex’s jaw dropped in genuine shock as the import of what she was saying hit home. Realigning his facial muscles to their usual position, he managed to get out, “You can’t expect to ride.”

“Why not? You are.”

“This is not a pleasure jaunt, Lady Frederick. We won’t be galloping around Hyde Park three times then coming home for tea.”

“Of course not. Tea would be absurd in this heat. And one seldom gallops in Hyde Park. There are usually people in the way. Now,” she said, looking around as though that had settled everything, “do you have a mount for me?”

In fact, they had sixty-two horses, forty ponies, eleven camels, and ten bullocks. Whether any of the riding animals were suited for a lady’s mount was another question entirely. He was also fairly sure that he had neglected to procure a sidesaddle, having assumed that the lady would prefer to travel by palanquin.

Alex sighed, envisioning further delays and complications, while the whole caravan sweated and scratched and wilted in the growing heat. “I’ll see what I can arrange,” he lied. “If you would consent to ride in the palanquin just for today, until we can find something more fitting . . .”

Hopefully, by then, she would be fast asleep in the palanquin with the curtains drawn against the heat, having entirely forgotten that she had ever desired otherwise.

“Never mind,” said Lady Frederick airily, and Alex felt his shoulders relax. “I’ll find my own. Ah! Perfect.”

It wasn’t perfect. It was Alex’s horse. And Lady Frederick was maneuvering herself up into the saddle — with a leg up from a too-helpful groom, who grinned at Alex as though to say, What was one to do? — as though she had every right to be there.

“Oh no,” began Alex, but it was too late. With a valedictory wave of her hat, Lady Frederick was off down the road like a shot.

“That’s torn it,” muttered Lord Frederick, and settled back against the side of the palanquin with his hat tipped over his eyes, as though the very high likelihood of his wife’s breaking her neck were a matter of complete indifference to him.

Perhaps it was.

“Bloody — !” There was no time to curse. Alex snatched the reins of Lord Frederick’s horse, Aurangzeb, away from the syce, swinging hastily up into the saddle.

Applying his heels to its sides, he set off in pursuit of Lady Frederick. Lord Frederick’s was an excellent mount. It should be; Alex had picked it himself. Unfortunately, his own horse was even better, and it appeared to have run away with its current rider, galloping flat out along the road as though a pack of devils were in pursuit.

Astonishingly, Lady Frederick had managed to keep her seat. Her skirts were kilted nearly to her knees as she leaned low over the horse’s neck. The stirrups were too long for her, so she had abandoned them altogether, staying in the saddle by the pressure of her knees alone. Her hair had come uncoiled, flapping behind her like a triumphal pennant in the breeze of her passage.

As he drew closer, riding for all he was worth, he realized that the sound she was making wasn’t screaming; it was laughter. She was laughing, laughing with the sheer exhilaration of movement and the joy of the ride.

Bathsheba, that traitor, flung back her head and whinnied in equine response, as happy to be ridden as Lady Frederick was to ride.

Women!

Taking pity on him, Lady Frederick reined up, drawing Bathsheba around in a graceful circle to face him. Both women, female and horse, grinned at him for all they were worth.

“No oats for you,” said Alex to Bathsheba.

Unrepentant, Bathsheba swiped a hoof through the mud.

“Well?” Lady Frederick demanded, swinging herself lightly to the ground. “What do you say, Captain Reid? Am I to have my oats taken away, too?”

She stumbled slightly as she landed, but that was the only sign of weakness she betrayed. Her cheeks were flushed with the exercise, her amber eyes glinted with mischief, and her red hair stood out all around her like a river of flame. There were streaks on the skirt of her serge dress from the saddle leather, where she had pressed too hard and her bonnet was nothing but a straw-colored splotch half a mile down the road. As Alex watched, she began prospecting for pins in her hair, smoothing the heavy mass away from her face and twisting it into a careless coil.

“That was a damn fool stunt,” Alex said shortly, doing his best to disguise the raggedness of his breathing.

Hers appeared entirely unaltered. But, then, she had known she wasn’t being run away with, while Alex had been riding hell-for-leather to an entirely unnecessary rescue. So much for dealing with damsels in distress. What about his distress, damn it? What about the food rotting in the heat, the animals getting restless, the — well, something else had to be going wrong. He was sure he would find out as soon as he got Lady Frederick back down the road and into the palanquin where she belonged.

Lady Frederick looked at him from under her lashes. “Only because it was your horse.”

There was something infectious about the glint of mischief in her eyes. Alex refused to give way to it.

“On anyone’s horse,” Alex said sternly, feeling like someone’s governess. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. “You don’t know the terrain. The road could have been pitted with potholes or studded with nails — ”

“Are the roads in India generally studded with nails?”

Alex gave her a look. “You know very well what I meant.” What was the use? He had had enough of diplomacy — and governessing. “You can break your own neck if you like,” he said bluntly, “but leave my horse out of it.”

Lady Frederick wasn’t the least bit offended. Patting Bathsheba’s neck, she said, “I would sooner break my own neck than harm such a beauty. Admit it. I ride beautifully.”

“That little exhibition just cost us a good half hour.”

“We’ll move much faster if you don’t cart me around in a palanquin like a parcel. You’ll make up your half hour and more.”

“Not when you get sunstroke. You may ride beautifully, Lady Frederick — ”

“Ha!” said she triumphantly.

“ — but you have no experience with the climate. Or with spending twelve hours a day in the saddle.”

Lady Frederick shrugged. “I can manage. And if I don’t, on my own head be it.”

“Your head isn’t the one Wellesley will come after if anything happens to you,” said Alex, with some asperity. He turned to look back down the road, where the members of the camp were, according to their temperaments, either craning their necks to enjoy the free show or seizing the opportunity for a last-minute nap. “We should be getting back. We’ve delayed our start long enough.”

“And our five days with Mr. Alexander didn’t?” The face she made spoke eloquently of Lady Frederick’s opinion of the East India Company’s agent in Masulipatam. There was a reason young Henry Russell had nicknamed the agent Old Mother Alexander. The man was as fussy as an old woman and twice as proper. “Were you waiting for more love letters, Captain Reid?”

“Buying tents,” he corrected succinctly, snagging Bathsheba’s reins and pointedly handing her those of her husband’s mount. “And cooking pots and blankets. I doubt you would enjoy sleeping directly on the ground. It tends to be prickly.”

Lady Frederick fluttered her lashes at him. “Rather like some individuals of my acquaintance.”

Alex had had enough of playing games. “If you’re looking for someone to flirt with, Lady Frederick, my father is back in Calcutta.”

“I rather thought you might need the practice more than he.”

“How very public-spirited of you.” Going down on one knee in the dust, Alex cupped his hands for her to mount.

“Oh, that’s me, all right,” said Lady Frederick airily, swinging up onto Aurangzeb with only the lightest pressure against Alex’s hands. It was a fluid, practiced movement, accomplished without any indication of effort whatsoever. “A regular one-woman philanthropic society.”

Dusting his hands on his breeches, Alex couldn’t resist asking, “Where did you learn to ride like that?”

He doubted it was standard practice for London debutantes.

“I’ve always ridden,” said Lady Frederick, setting her mount in motion with an ease that bore out her words. She looked at him challengingly as he brought his mount into pace with hers. “My grandfather bred horses.”

“And he let you ride them?” Bathsheba moved forward easily enough, but she seemed to cast a wistful look across at Lady Frederick. Brilliant. His horse and his charge were in cabal.

Lady Frederick grinned at a memory only she could see. “There was no ‘let’ about it.”

Alex imagined it would be rather hard to stop Lady Frederick doing anything Lady Frederick wanted to do. His sympathies were with her grandfather.

“I suppose,” said Alex resignedly, “that that is your way of telling me you shall be riding whether I like it or not.”

“We can bring the palanquin along if you like,” said Lady Frederick, generous in victory. “In case you want to use it.”

Over the next few days, they made better time than Alex had imagined they would. If Lady Frederick was feeling the strain of the unaccustomed activity, she hid it well, although he saw her wince once or twice when she thought herself unobserved, as she lowered herself into a sitting position in the dining tent.

The dwindling rains of the monsoon fell mostly at night, leaving the roads muddy but the skies clear during the day, casting an eerie mist over the early morning hours through which the cackling calls of monkeys swinging between the palms echoed oddly around them. Lady Frederick did a fair job of maintaining her veneer of bored sophistication, but from time to time Alex would see the façade slip as they passed roadside temples tenanted with many-legged gods and strewn with the remains of recent offerings, or crumbling suttee monuments onto which the images of long-dead warriors and their loyal ladies had been painstakingly carved in rounded relief. She held colloquy with the chattering monkeys from beneath the broad straw hat that had replaced her London bonnet, nearly unseated herself from her horse reaching for a palm gourd, and tucked a blue lotus flower in her hair in the style of the native women they had seen along the route.

Five days into the journey, Alex caught her attempting to make conversation in stilted Hindi with a group of short-skirted villagers, who clearly wanted nothing more than to be allowed to till their cotton fields in peace.

“They don’t speak Hindi,” Alex said, unsuccessfully trying to hide his grin.

He didn’t add that even if they did, they would have had a very hard time trying to make sense of her pronunciation. The grammar that she had been given, produced for the use of British soldiers recently come to India, was not known for its accuracy.

Lady Frederick turned her flushed face to his. Her skin had acquired a golden sheen from the sun, like sunlight on wheat, doubtless from her habit of impatiently shoving her hat back, as she was doing now.

“Then what do they speak?” she demanded, snatching off her hat and fanning her face with it. Crumpled strands of red hair stood out around her face like weeds. She looked a world removed from the creature of moonlight and muslin in Begum Johnson’s drawing room.

“Telagu. Besides,” he added, the grin breaking free, “even if they did speak Hindi . . .”

Lady Frederick stopped fanning. “What?”

“. . . You just told them to ‘row harder.’ Not exactly applicable, wouldn’t you agree?” And with that, he spurred ahead, in the happy assurance of having got the last word.

Lady Frederick cantered up beside him. “How do you say ‘good day’ in Telagu?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because ‘row faster’ has limited utility.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you were on a boat,” said Alex blandly. There was something oddly enjoyable about talking pure nonsense with Lady Frederick. Obviously a sign that the heat was addling his brain, rather than hers. “And you will be on one soon enough.”

“Trying to send me back to Calcutta again, Captain Reid?”

“A boat going in the opposite direction. We need to cross the Krishna. It’s generally not a bad crossing, but during the monsoon . . .”

“Dangerous?” asked Lady Frederick.

“Potentially.” Under ordinary circumstances, the crossing was not a bad one. Swollen with monsoon waters, the normally placid expanse of river was fiendishly dangerous to cross. “The waters are too deep to be forded just now, so we’ll have to ferry everyone across. The animals don’t always submit well to that.”

Lady Frederick considered for a moment, as though searching for a hidden sting. After a pause, she said, “Let me know what I can do.”

“Don’t jump in,” said Alex.

“Don’t be silly,” said Lady Frederick, and rode on.