Forbidden Jewel of India

Nick laid two slices of chicken on her plate. ‘Might I trouble you for the vegetables?’

She managed, he saw, with ferocious concentration and by watching what he and George did like a hawk. It would never do to underestimate either Anusha’s intelligence, or her ability to learn and adapt. His conscience had ceased to trouble him for lying to her—it was his duty to protect her, by any means, and he had done so—but he was very conscious that he had lost her trust. Whatever it had been between them that was so warm and so elusive had congealed into wary watchfulness on his side and hostile suspicion on hers.

‘You’ll like Lady Hoskins, Anusha.’ George had apparently decided to deal with the confrontation in the drawing room by ignoring it. ‘And her daughter Anna—Mrs Roper now—is a delightful young woman. Pass the salt, would you, Nicholas?’

It was a slight stretch. Nick suppressed the wince as the movement overextended the healing wound in his shoulder, but Anusha saw his reaction.

‘Is your shoulder paining you, Major Herriard?’ she asked with such sweet concern that it took him a moment to realise she had called him by rank and surname.

‘Shoulder?’ George looked up sharply. ‘What have you done?’

‘It was the dacoits, Father,’ Anusha said. ‘The major was shot in the shoulder, just outside Kalpi.’ She lowered her eyelashes so they feathered her cheeks and Nick suppressed a strong desire to pick her up and dump her back in her room. She was up to something. ‘And he was nursed at the house of Mr Rowley, the agent. His wife was most disapproving of me.’ The grey eyes lifted and opened wide. ‘Do you think I will be—what is it called?—ruined when she speaks of it?’

A good attempt, Anusha, Nick thought and produced a smile as false as her look of anxious enquiry was. ‘No need to worry, George. I had a word with the Rowleys and the doctor. One mention of your name and they were vowing complete discretion and eternal silence.’

‘So I should hope,’ George said with a grunt. ‘But how bad is this wound? I’ll call my doctor after dinner and have you checked over.’

‘Tomorrow is soon enough.’ There was going to be no escaping an examination, he knew the older man well enough for that. ‘It has healed well. Miss Laurens was good enough to dress it for me.’

‘Was she indeed?’

‘The major was incredibly brave,’ Anusha remarked. ‘There were the dacoits and the king cobra, and the maharaja’s men and the tigers.’

‘Tigers?’

‘We saw one pug mark,’ Nick said with a repressive stare at Anusha who was doggedly cutting chicken with the unfamiliar cutlery. ‘The men sent after us were easily headed on to the wrong trail. The dacoits were...troublesome. Fortunately we had trained cavalry horses.’

‘And the king cobra?’ There was a smile lurking in the concern. Nick knew George had seen his youthful self swarm up trees to escape snakes and knew all too well that they brought him out in a cold sweat.

‘The major was...’ Anusha’s voice trailed away. ‘He was... He saved my life and I thought he had been bitten.’ All the faux sweetness had gone, and so had much of the blood from her cheeks. ‘Excuse me. I am suddenly very tired. I will go to my chamber.’ She put down the cutlery with a little clatter, pushed back the chair before the servant had a chance to reach it and walked swiftly from the room.

‘Well,’ George remarked as they sat down again. ‘I think a full, unexpurgated report is called for, hmm? And no false modesty, Nicholas, or I’ll ask Anusha for all the details.’

Chapter Fifteen

The punkah had been still for over an hour. Distantly there were the noises of the city, and the house creaked as it cooled, but there were no human sounds except the watchman’s sandaled feet as he had padded past a hundred heartbeats ago.

Anusha slid out of bed, miscalculated the height and gasped as her heels jarred on the floor. After a few moments, when no answering sounds reached her, she breathed again and slipped into a dark robe. Her bare feet made no sound on the matting and her door opened without a sound, thanks to the ghee she had used to oil the hinges earlier.

She moved along the corridor by the light of her little lamp, its flame shielded by her cupped palm, the soft sounds of her movements masked by the snores of the man sleeping across the front door. He did not stir as she turned into the passage leading to the drawing room, the one that passed her father’s study.