Mrs. Watson’s lips flapped a few times. “Your son thought he was writing to an intermediary of Kaiser Wilhelm?”
“Exactly. This so-called intermediary conveyed his master’s interest in freeing India from the yoke of British rule. The said master would offer not merely moral support, but arms and military expertise so that those goals not realized in the great rebellion of 1857 might once again see light of day.”
The maharani sighed. “Even if I believed the letter writer to be representing the kaiser, I would have wondered why he was contacting the very new maharaja of a minor kingdom. At the very least, I would have inquired whether others in our position have received similar offers. My son, of course, did not think of it. He dreamed of being as great as Akbar. Or Ashoka. Why shouldn’t an imperial adversary of Britain contact him and him alone with such delicate and dangerous proposals?”
Mrs. Watson grew only more incredulous. “And he conveyed those sentiments in writing?”
“He did. The correspondence ceased as soon as that happened. My son realized at last that he had been bamboozled. It seemed to him that the confession had been drawn from him for the purpose of blackmail, so he wrote his extortionist one final time and explained that he didn’t have any money to spare. He had invested in significant public works, and every other rupee in the treasury was already budgeted for other things.”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing. For nearly two years nothing, and then a letter informing us about the Van Dyck at Château Vaudrieu.”
The room fell silent. Mrs. Watson looked down at her lap. She wanted very much to embrace the maharani and tell her that everything would be all right. But she could only hold her hands tightly together.
“I hope this is not an intrusive question, Your Highness,” said Miss Charlotte, after a while, “but why is the maharaja himself not in Europe, looking after this matter?”
“He is not well,” said the maharani. Her throat moved, at last betraying a sign of emotion. “His ailment might have nothing to do with fearing every hour of every day that the might of the British Raj would be brought to bear on himself and his kingdom. But I for one shall never forgive the blackmailer for ruining his health and stealing all his joy at coming into manhood.”
No one said anything for a long time.
The maharani took another sip of her coffee. “I will understand, of course, that you won’t wish to help someone whose desires run contrary to British interests.”
The last thing Mrs. Watson cared about now was British interests. There was very little chance of the young maharaja mounting any serious challenge to British rule in India, and every chance that he himself would be ground to dust under that vast machinery.
But Mrs. Watson wasn’t alone in this venture. The Misses Holmes and Mr. Marbleton probably wouldn’t mind, but what about Lord Ingram? He was, after all, an agent of the Crown and had risked his life for that very same.
Miss Charlotte turned toward her. “I have spoken to the gentleman you are thinking of about this matter, and he has judged that there would be very little harm done to the Crown to allow the maharaja’s sentiments to remain private.”
By now, Mrs. Watson should have become accustomed to being astonished by this young woman. Yet she was still very nearly speechless. “Ah, when?”
“Before we left London. And I’ve spoken to his ally, too. That gentleman also has no objections.”
Mrs. Watson bit the inside of her lip. A lifetime ago, she had met the young maharaja. He’d been a beautiful, friendly toddler who’d loved it when she put on performances for him in her real theatrical costumes. She could not bear to think of him in such ill health that his mother worried for his life. She wanted even less for him to spend all his remaining days under the crushing weight of his greatest mistake.
She squared her shoulders. “In that case, if it’s quite all right with you, Your Highness, we will carry on with our work.”
The maharani looked from Mrs. Watson to Miss Charlotte and back again. Her gaze was contemplative, almost melancholy. “That will be quite all right with me. Thank you. Thank you both.”
Mrs. Watson felt an upsurge of both warmth and terror. For the first time, they were all in this together.
Miss Charlotte, however, seemed to feel none of the emotions buffeting Mrs. Watson. She gave her coffee a leisurely stir, set it aside, and said, “Your Highness, you would best thank us by telling us what you have thus far held back.”
Ten
It was not raining, but a wet sheen lay on the boulevards. The air was damp and cold. Despite the ermine-lined hood of her cloak, Mrs. Watson shivered.
“Miss Charlotte,” she said, “did you happen to notice that even though the maharani disapproves strongly of her son’s naivety and impetuousness, she never condemned, explicitly or implicitly, his desire to expel the British from India?”
“I did take note of that.”
Mrs. Watson wrapped her cloak tighter about herself, but the cold air still penetrated. “Do you think then, that in her heart, the maharani also wishes to expel the British from India?”
“Yes,” said Miss Charlotte without a moment’s hesitation.
“But she never said anything to me!”
Mrs. Watson’s words rushed out like pellets propelled by exploding black powder. Miss Charlotte’s answer, on the other hand, was slow in coming. “Do you, ma’am, disapprove of the existence of the British Raj?”
“I—I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it one way or the other.”
“To you, that Britain occupies India is but the way the world is. To her, it is something to be overturned. Perhaps not by her, perhaps not even in her lifetime, but she wants that change. And who knows, she may even be working toward it, just not in such a way as could be traced back to her.”
“But we were in love and we talked about everything.”
“You were in love not long after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.”
“I—I see,” said Mrs. Watson.
The rebellion of 1857 had mattered little to her while she clawed her way up in the world. But to the maharani it would have been a formative experience.
And when they had met, Mrs. Watson could speak frankly of everything that was important to her, because nothing she said could have got her into trouble—at least, not the sort of trouble that would have bothered a woman who had already been the mistress of three men.
It had not been the same for the maharani, who, visiting the heart of the empire that controlled her country, had to watch every single word she uttered.
Mrs. Watson squeezed her eyes shut. She had thought her beloved much too sheltered. That her beautiful Sita Devi, raised in the lap of luxury and prestige, had known nothing of the darker underbelly of life.
But as it turned out, Mrs. Watson had been, in her own way, just as divorced from reality. And unlike Sita Devi, who had asked a thousand questions about the world beyond her ken, Mrs. Watson hadn’t even known enough to realize the extent of her ignorance.
* * *
Lord Ingram was sitting in the library at Hôtel Papillon, sealing a letter to his children, when Mrs. Watson came in.
He rose and smiled at her. “Good morning, ma’am.”
She rushed forward and enfolded him in an embrace. After some hesitation, he hugged her back.
“I’m so happy you are all right,” she said, her face buried in his lapel. “I kept imagining you dragging Mr. Marbleton toward the inn while thinking desperately of your children.”
He didn’t know how to tell her that he’d been thinking of Holmes instead. “Nothing happened to either Mr. Marbleton or myself. As you can see, I’m fit as a fiddle.”
She pulled back to have a better look at him. “You are looking very well.”
He offered her a seat on the chaise longue. “You had a pleasant outing, I hope?”
“The maharani is in town—Miss Holmes and I called on her just now.” Mrs. Watson hesitated. “I learned, much to my shock, what the maharani wishes to keep hidden. But I also learned that Miss Holmes made her own deductions concerning the matter and spoke with you about it.”
“She did.”
“She assured me that the nature of the maharani’s secret did not bother you. Are you sure about that?”
Ten years ago, he would have given a very different answer. But now he’d grown wary of the empire. “If an Indian queen reigned as the empress of Britain, and the Subcontinent was in charge of the general direction and development of our country, would you be surprised that our nobles pondered, while among ourselves, on how we might be rid of our colonizers?”
“Pondering is one thing. But what if there were concrete plans?”
So she was still conflicted herself, even though she had thrown in her lot with the maharani.
“Remington’s office keeps track of just that,” he assured her. “It might be one of the reasons that the maharani—or was it her son? Holmes thought her son was more likely.”
“Her son.”
“That might be the reason the young maharaja felt more comfortable writing to someone who appeared to represent a rival European power, because he knew that at his own court there would be someone ready to report on him to the British.”
Mrs. Watson needed a moment to digest his words. Her brow furrowed in distress. “I knew nothing of her life. Nothing.”
He sat down next to her on the chaise longue and took her hands. “Ma’am, we can none of us know the entire truth of someone else’s life.”
“I know that,” she said sadly, leaning her head on his shoulder. “What I regret is that while I knew nothing of her life, I thought I knew everything.”
* * *
Charlotte was warming up.
Hôtel Papillon had a ballroom—of course it did—which she decided to appropriate for her canne de combat exercises. Mrs. Watson had taught her a series of movements that the older woman had developed during her theater days, to keep herself loose and limber while waiting to go on. Charlotte circled the room, performing shuffling steps, knee lifts, and lunges. Coming to a stop, she rolled her neck and shoulders. Next, she bent over and set her palms flat on the parquetry floor.
“Holmes—”
The speaker sounded as if he had forgotten whatever else he’d been about to say.
She straightened and turned around. “Hullo, Ash.”
She wore a gentleman’s sporting suit. This was not the first time she’d dressed as a man before him. But on previous occasions, her goal had been verisimilitude. Which meant that she’d had to glue on a beard and a mustache, use an orthodontic device to change the shape of her face, and don a great deal of padding so that her stomach protruded more than her bosom.
But this suit, and the attendant waistcoat and shirt, had been made for her body. Underneath she wore a half-corset, a merino wool combination, and not much else. The ensemble was intended strictly for swordsmanship practice and not public consumption. She was covered, of course—every inch beneath her chin—and men’s trousers did not cling. Still, no feminine garments delineated the shape of a woman’s lower body with such blatant clarity, and she might have caused a riot on the street.
Lord Ingram did not appear as if he were about to riot. In fact, he seemed to have wiped his countenance of all expression in the time it took for her to turn around. Dressed in a Harris Tweed sporting suit similar to hers, he looked lithe and remarkably fit.
He picked up one of the Malacca sticks she’d set out. “Shall we begin?”
“Did Mrs. Watson send you in her stead?”
Mrs. Watson had meant to be here to practice canne de combat with her.
“I volunteered. My canne de combat is a bit rusty.”
She raised a brow. He was one of those people who believed modesty to be an actual virtue. For him to consider his grasp of a particular combat technique rusty probably meant that at the moment he could only flatten ten of her, rather than twenty.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s begin.”
She was a far better fighter than she had been in summer, but he proved a far more underhanded opponent than Mrs. Watson. As soon as their weapons met and he slid past her, he swung his cane around to attack her from the back of her arm to the back of her head.
She leaped out of the way and held up a hand, her skin smarting where he’d struck her, however lightly.
Mrs. Watson was an excellent swordswoman. She was also a woman who hadn’t lived in dangerous surroundings or used her cane for anything except training and sport for many years. Lord Ingram, on the other hand, sometimes returned from trips abroad with injuries inconsistent with the known risks of archeology.
“I like what you did,” said Charlotte. “Teach me how to defend against it. Then teach me how to do it.”
“One moment,” he said.
He left the ballroom and returned with a stack of broadsheets, which he rolled into two solid cylinders, and secured them with twine. “Let’s hope these don’t come loose too easily.”
The newspaper sticks were softer, but that just meant he pulled back less on his strikes—and moved faster. His footwork was different from Mrs. Watson’s, and his aim was also different. Instead of disarming his opponent, he sought to inflict damage.
Clearly he hadn’t been fighting London footpads. And clearly he’d been facing multiple assailants, in the sort of melee that didn’t allow for the luxury of merely disarming one’s opponents, because they would simply pick up their weapons and attack again.
He taught her how to pivot after the initial parry, to avoid exposing her back to an assailant spinning around to whack at her further. Then he showed her what to do when he instead attacked her kneecaps.
“Vile,” she said. “Excellent.”
“Don’t be so open about your perverted tastes,” he murmured. “Now see how I move differently when I intend to strike low? I can’t lean back at the same time. I must lean in.”
“Can I use your own momentum against you here?” she asked. “By the way, my lord, not all of us are as good as you are at hiding perverted tastes.”
“You can try, but only if you don’t—”
She stepped back, but not before he hit her across the kneecaps.
“And I don’t have perverted tastes. I have varied tastes.”
She raised a brow. “Is that what they call it these days? Well then, I like how varied your tastes are.”
His gaze dropped to a quick sweep of her body. She exploited his momentary distraction with a strike across his chest, which earned her a series of ferocious jabs, forcing her backward, until her retreat was blocked by a pillar.
He pointed his newspaper stick at her. “You’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg with regard to my varied tastes, Holmes.”
She knocked his weapon aside with hers. “I won’t believe it until I see the rest of that iceberg in person.”
She pivoted, spun, and struck him from his back to the side of his head, much as he’d done to her on their very first pass.
He gave her a dirty look, unbuttoned his jacket, and tossed it aside. She did the same.
He picked up the cane he’d discarded earlier and tossed her hers. “This might hurt a little.”
She smiled. “Promises, promises.”
* * *
It hurt more than a little to be hit left and right. But she also managed some choice strikes of her own.
An hour flew by. Or rather, the first forty-five minutes flew by. The last quarter hour crawled, sobbing a little, to the finish line. The ballroom, like all big, high-ceilinged spaces in winter, was chilly. Still, she perspired freely, her limbs as heavy as cannons and as mobile as clay.
When he at last allowed the sessio
n to end, she hobbled to the carafe of mineral water that she’d prepared ahead of time and drank a long draught.
He joined her at the console table and handed her jacket to her.
“Thank you,” she said, panting.
He was barely breathing faster.
At least the last time she had panted this hard he had been equally affected.
The console table was near a radiator, genteelly concealed behind a low screen—the house had been outfitted with central heating—so she didn’t need to put on the jacket yet.
He was also barely perspiring, but he opened a button on his shirt.
She blinked.
“I have enjoyed looking at you today,” he said dryly. “I thought I should return the favor in some measure.”
Before she could respond, he poured himself a glass of water and asked, “Did you learn anything new from the maharani?”
“Did Mrs. Watson not tell you?”
“She appeared preoccupied, so I didn’t ask.”
That was likely the reason he had volunteered to take her place, so that Mrs. Watson could have some time to herself.
“You don’t need to do everything for everyone. Mrs. Watson would also have been all right if she fought me for an hour.”
“If I didn’t do everything for everyone, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”
That was probably God’s truth. It was his great weakness, this sometimes-compulsive over-generosity that arose at least partly in response to his doubts about himself and his place in the world.
When she’d been younger, she’d thought of it as only a weakness. But in time she came to understand that it was also his great strength. The doubts did exist, they were deep-seated, and he would always, in one way or another, try to assuage them. But he was kind, and he was generous, deeply, sincerely so.
And she—
She looked up at his lean, compelling features, his rueful expression, his thick, dark hair, ever so slightly tousled from exertion—and it startled her, how much she liked him.
The Art of Theft Page 14
