The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

by Lauren Willig

  As if reading his thoughts, Tajalli said blandly, “I heard you just returned from Berar.”

  Alex was sure that hadn’t been all he had heard. “I never made it all the way there. We had a casualty along the way.”

  “Ah, yes. The Special Envoy.” Tajalli’s father’s spies had been busy. He made a lazy gesture that set the pearls on his wrist glimmering like condensed moonlight. “As I recall, he won’t be any great loss. What did he do, fall off his horse again?”

  “He was bitten by a snake.” Alex suspected his friend knew that already. “Potentially one of the two-legged variety.”

  “Why?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  There were too many suspects, too many possibilities, among them the most mundane of all, the possibility that the snake might have simply been a snake, acting of pure snakeish instinct.

  Tajalli proffered a dish of sugared sweetmeats. “Someone might not have wanted him to reach Berar?”

  Alex waved away the sweets. “Is that idle speculation, or do you know something?”

  Tajalli dodged the question. “Me, idle?” he said laughingly.

  He worked very hard to give the appearance of being so, but Alex knew few men quite so active, or quite so well informed. “Far less than you would have me believe. What do you know?”

  Tajalli helped himself to one of the rejected sweets. “He had taken Nur Bai to his bed, hadn’t he?”

  Alex leaned forward, on the alert. “That much was common knowledge. Is she still working for Mir Alam?”

  “Would she neglect a source of income?” Swallowing the last of the sweetmeat, he said more definitively, “Let’s just say that it wasn’t just your man’s personal charms that enticed her to take up a position in his bed.”

  “Several positions from what I’ve heard,” murmured Alex, his mind elsewhere. If Nur Bai was Mir Alam’s creature, then the whole trip to Berar took on an entirely different complexion. It was a work of genius. No one would suspect a snakebite of being other than what it was, and even if they did, no one would think of holding the First Minister or the Nizam accountable for an event so far outside the capital. With the typical English disregard for the zenana, no one—short of James, whose own position was too precarious to force an inquiry—would make the connection between Lord Frederick’s mistress, his death, and the First Minister.

  Alex looked up at his friend, blinking at the swaying shadows as a chance breeze set the lanterns in motion. “But why would Mir Alam bother? Why Lord Frederick?”

  “A blind?” Tajalli suggested sagely. “Something to distract your Residency while the Marigold does his work?”

  “Hence the timing,” said Alex slowly. “The meeting tonight, while the Resident is busy with the preparations for Lord Frederick’s funeral.”

  Tajalli spread his hands. “Possibly. It is all merest speculation.”

  Levering himself up, Alex smiled wryly down at his friend. “Your ‘possibly’ makes a good deal more sense than any of my probablys.”

  “You won’t stay?” Tajalli indicated the cushions. “There is some time left until midnight.”

  “Thank you, but no. I have other matters that need settling.” The pesky matter of a duel to arrange. Some things, he didn’t particularly feel like sharing, especially since he had a feeling that Tajalli’s reaction would involve a certain amount of polite incredulity and impolite derision. His own reaction would have been the same had their positions been reversed. “Good night. And thank you for the . . . news.”

  The wind rocked the lantern forward, sending a pattern of shifting shadows across Tajalli’s face. He looked, for a moment, like another person entirely, a stranger, and an alarming one.

  “Think nothing of it,” he said.

  With one last nod, Alex saw himself out, leaving the perfumed perfection of the garden for the squalor of the streets beyond. The contrast never ceased to amaze him. From the street, the beauties cultivated so carefully within the walls of Tajalli’s father’s compound could only be guessed and wondered at; the high white walls formed a complete barrier between the pleasure gardens within and the thoroughfare without.

  Bathsheba had been tended to and was wordlessly returned to him at the gates. Mounting, Alex made his way through the city, so familiar to him by now, all its twistings and turnings and scents and sounds, as much at night as by day. He had ridden this same route time and again before, visiting Tajalli or other friends for evening entertainments in the city, even though the city was technically banned by night to the denizens of the Residency, short of special permission to the Nizam.

  It was all familiar, but tonight there seemed to be a shadow across the moon, something hanging in the air, lurking over him. Lord Frederick’s death? Penelope? The prospect of a duel? Tajalli’s so fortuitously supplied information?

  He would have to make arrangements with Fiske before setting out for Raymond’s Tomb. Alex heaved a heavy sigh. He hadn’t the first idea what he was supposed to be doing; he had never put himself in a position to fight a duel before, or even to second one. It had always struck him as a profoundly silly and wasteful practice, the plaything of a leisured class with more time than sense. Honor was something one kept close by one’s side, not a commodity to be bandied about on the point of a sword. At least, not until it became a matter of Penelope’s honor rather than his.

  He could send a message to Ollie Plowden over at the Subsidiary Force, he supposed, ask him to second him. Ollie would know what needed to be done, who was meant to be contacting whom.

  It had been an impulse of the moment, that challenge, wrung out of him by the expression on Fiske’s face as he regarded Penelope, looking at her in a way he had no right to look. All the frustration and anger Alex had felt, all the impotent rage at the shade of Freddy Staines and at the strange Fate that flung Penelope into his path only to dance her out of reach, had found a vent in that red-rimmed moment, when all the injustice of it all reduced itself to a contest of strength, sword to sword, like the trial of ordeal of old.

  Too bad it wasn’t really that simple. Once the moment had passed, it was impossible to delude himself that the world would right itself simply because he beat Lieutenant Sir Leamington Fiske at a contest of arms. Fiske would still go about spreading his poison about Penelope. And Penelope . . . Alex rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, feeling the ache of an incipient headache. He had no idea what she would do.

  She wouldn’t fling herself into his arms and thank him for defending her honor, that much was for certain.

  He had felt a momentary surge of hope at her obstinance in forbidding him to fight, but his irrational optimism had been forced to give way before the cold weight of reality. Just because she didn’t want him on her conscience didn’t mean she wanted him for anything else.

  It was a grim thought. Alex grimaced to himself as he rode along the last stretch towards the Residency. The feeling of foreboding that had settled upon him as he left Tajalli’s grew heavier. His father would claim it was the Sight, legacy of some witch back along the family line. Alex called it instinct, and instinct was warning him that something was decidedly wrong.

  He checked his pace, feeling to make sure his pistol was by his side even as he leaned forward to scan the shadows along the road for followers.

  He never expected the danger to come from ahead.

  Before he had time to do more than feint for his weapon, a rough hand grabbed his stirrup and an imperious voice called, “Halt!”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “What in the blazes?” Alex demanded. “Penelope?”

  “Ouch,” complained Penelope, shaking out her hand where he had kicked it. “A fine welcome for your official rescue party!”

  “What do you expect when you leap out of nowhere and grab someone’s foot?”

  It was a fair point, but one Penelope didn’t intend to acknowledge.

  “Stop quibbling and listen,” she ordered. “Someone struck Fiske in the head. Everyone
thinks you did it. They plan to put you in custody and bring you to trial.”

  She congratulated herself on an intelligent and succinct rendering of a complicated situation. Alex stared at her as though she had grown a second head.

  “Would you care to run through that again?” he said very carefully.

  Penelope held up one finger. “Fiske—assaulted.” A second finger. “Your handkerchief—next to him.” A third. “You—blamed.” She unfurled the rest of her fingers and waved them through the air in front of his horse’s nose. “Clear enough?”

  “As mud,” said Alex blankly. “My handkerchief?”

  “Next to the body—I mean, Fiske.”

  “But I wasn’t there.”

  “I told them that.”

  “Someone assaulted Fiske,” Alex repeated.

  “Haven’t we just been through that?” Penelope said impatiently. “His crony Pinchingdale is baying for your blood. He wants you arrested as soon as you set foot back through the gates of the Residency.”

  An expression of intense irritation passed across Alex’s face. “Damn!” he cursed uninventively. “Of all the evenings . . .”

  “Did you have other plans?” inquired Penelope caustically.

  Sparring was easy. Sparring kept uncomfortable emotions at arm’s length. Sparring kept all of Alex’s attention focused on her.

  Alex looked down at her, the branch of a tree casting a long shadow across one side of his face. It was a long way down from horseback to where she stood, one hand on his horse’s bridle. Penelope was beginning to get a crick in her neck from looking up at him.

  “I might as well tell you,” he said after a very long moment. Good. If he hadn’t, she was going to have had to beat it out of him, and that wouldn’t be pleasant for either of them. “If my sources are correct, the Marigold intends to venture abroad tonight. To Raymond’s Tomb.”

  “Unless Fiske was the Marigold,” provided Penelope. “In which case, the Marigold won’t be going anywhere. We’ll soon find out.”

  “We?”

  Penelope had already reached her decision. “Give me a hand up, won’t you? It wouldn’t do to be late.”

  Alex ignored her outstretched hand. He frowned down at her. “Penelope, if I’m under some sort of cloud back at the Residency, I can’t just run away. And you can’t help me run away. There’s a word for that. Accomplice.”

  For a bright man, he could be terribly thick sometimes. It was all that honor; it clouded his thinking. “We aren’t running away. We have an assignation to keep. At Raymond’s Tomb. Think,” she said impatiently. “If you can return with the Marigold’s head on a platter, do you really think that anyone will have the nerve to blame you for Fiske? You’d be a hero. And have an alibi,” she added, as an afterthought.

  “And if Fiske was the Marigold?”

  “Well, then, the Resident can’t very well complain about your bashing his head in, can he? It would be practically an act of patriotism.”

  “Remind me to hire you as my advocate at trial,” he said. “Fair enough. But there’s no need for you to go with me. It’s not too late for you to go back.”

  Penelope bared her teeth at him. “Trying to get rid of me, Captain Reid?”

  “Never,” he said quietly. “But I shouldn’t like to see you hang either. Obstructing the King’s justice is a dangerous business.”

  “Have you ever known me to shy away from danger?”

  A slow, rueful smile spread across Alex’s face as he looked down at her. Penelope felt an unaccustomed ache in her chest. It was a new and not entirely comfortable sensation. Charlotte would undoubtedly call it love. Penelope preferred to leave it nameless.

  “No,” he said. “Not even when you ought.”

  With that, he held out a hand to her.

  Penelope looked at it and looked at him. He didn’t offer any explanations, and she didn’t demand them. If she did, he might change his mind. It never did do to look a gift horse in the mouth. And she wanted this, so very badly, one last adventure together, one more journey as partners, even if not quite such intimate partners as they had been before.

  Taking his outstretched hand, Penelope clambered up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist as he slid forward in the saddle to make room for her behind.

  Penelope couldn’t remember ever riding pillion before. She squirmed, trying to find a more comfortable spot. There wasn’t one. Her one consolation was that it was almost undoubtedly as uncomfortable for him as it was for her. On the other hand, he at least got the satisfaction of being able to handle the reins. Not to mention that his view included more than an expanse of someone else’s back.

  It was an odd feeling, being so entirely reliant on another person, a body’s breadth away from the reins, blinded by his back, forced to trust his judgment and skill to lead them safely forward. She had never allowed anyone else to take the reins for her before, even when Freddy protested that he should bloody well be able to drive his own phaeton.

  Penelope resisted the urge to poke him in the back and demand that they switch places. He knew where they were going and she didn’t. And, when it came down to it, it was Alex. He wasn’t going to take it into his head to leap them over a fence just for the fun of it and send her toppling off backwards or ride off on a tangent just because the mood took him. Penelope gritted her teeth, swallowed her protests, and linked her arms around Alex’s waist, feeling the muscles move beneath his jacket as he leaned forward to urge his mount into motion.

  Denied the distraction of sight, Penelope’s other senses seemed sharper than usual. Every movement was magnified by proximity as Alex gently urged Bathsheba from a walk into a trot, forcing Penelope to tighten her hold on his waist, her skirt ruched up around her thighs, the angle of her legs mimicking his as she pressed close for balance, missing stirrup and reins.

  She could smell the shaving soap Alex used and the slight tang of perspiration, redolent with memory. He smelled a good deal cleaner than he had after three days on the road, but still smelled like himself. He smelled like he had that first afternoon in the lee of the abandoned shrine, or that last morning, before they found Freddy, or any number of afternoons, mornings, or evenings, hands, lips, eyes, arms.

  It was a strange thing, desire. Strange to ride behind someone in silence on a grim and deadly errand, and be rendered weak by a whiff of soap; strange to retain the memory of touch, so strong that even such impersonal and enforced contact could bring back a shiver of anticipation, as though the foolish flesh still anticipated treats the conscious mind had already deemed unwise. Penelope didn’t care whether it was wise or not; she still wanted him, despite Berar, despite Freddy, despite knowing that in the eyes of the world her widowhood was meant to have rendered her as stiff as stone in continual contemplation of the memory of the man who had been legally licensed to share her bed. Not that Freddy would have denied himself any of the usual pleasures had the situation been reversed. But she doubted anyone else would see it that way. Including Alex.

  Penelope leaned her cheek against his back, feeling the scrape of his wool jacket against her skin. There was no mistaking the way his muscles tensed every time she adjusted her position.

  She could make Alex desire her, she knew that. She certainly had enough experience in that department. But desire was no substitute for what she really wanted. It was no substitute for affection.

  Once, she had believed it might be, that it was the closest she might come, but she knew better now.

  Not that the knowing helped. It just made it worse. At least one could manufacture lust; it was a simple enough formula. Some organs were more susceptible to manipulation than others. Unfortunately, the heart did not fall into that category. Penelope’s usual weapons dangled blunted from her hands, an entire arsenal of tricks without a single one to accomplish the thing she wanted. It made her feel itchy and restless and irritable, a thousand times worse than being denied the reins.

  At least Alex seemed equally restle
ss. She could feel him gearing up to speak long before he did, with that uncanny knowledge provided of being pressed chest to back, with every breath and movement common property.

  Well, there was something about a long ride in the dark that prompted reflection. They had a good deal of unfinished business left after their encounter that afternoon. Penelope held herself alert, waiting to hear what it was that Alex had to say.

  At long last, he came out with, “I wonder who attacked Fiske.”

  So much for grand declarations of thwarted desire.

  “It could be anyone,” said Penelope nastily. “Someone he cheated at cards, a servant he kicked, a woman he propositioned. He wasn’t exactly the sort to accumulate friends.”

  “But why would any of those people leave my handkerchief next to him?”

  That was what had been bothering him for the past mile?

  “Maybe they didn’t like you either,” suggested Penelope. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you dropped it there yourself days ago and it was pure happenstance. Maybe you loaned it to someone and he dropped it. You loaned one to me at one point.”

  “Are you saying that you hit Fiske and tried to frame me?”

  “If I had, would I tell you?”

  He was smiling. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew it all the same. “Probably. Just to rub it in.” His tone turning serious again, he added, “There are too many potential wrongdoers roaming about. It could be nearly anyone. If Fiske weren’t the Marigold, but knew who the Marigold was . . .”

  “Your brother,” Penelope said. From the way his muscles tensed, she could tell her guess had hit home. It was better than a truth serum, sitting as they were. “That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? That it’s Jack.”

  She expected Alex to try to deny it, to leap to defend his brother as he had with Cleave. Instead, he said, in a voice so low she could hardly hear it, “It is a possibility.”

  The depth of the potential betrayal shook Penelope all the way to her cynical core. It was one thing if this Jack wanted to go about working for the French or whoever it was he was supposed to be serving, but quite another to stab back at the brother who had defended him, protected him, and shielded him at the cost of his own career and reputation. The brother who, contrary to all common sense, loved him.