Two days passed, and nights to match. When Savitri finally woke, she was alone, and sicker than before. Her body was on fire, and her head ached so badly she could scarce open her eyes. She called, her voice a rough croak, yet no one came to her. The zenana was far too quiet. Where had they all gone? Why had they left her behind? She dragged herself from the bed, her legs swaying beneath her, and slowly made her way from her room and into the hall, leaning against the walls for support.
On the floor in the hall lay one of the handmaids, the pitcher she’d been carrying smashed beside her. Savitri didn’t have to look closer to know that the woman was dead, and had been for some time.
Her panic rising, Savitri staggered toward the servants’ quarters, wrongly silent for this time of day. The door was open, with more corpses curled on their pallets on the floor. Around them were scattered clothes and baskets and other signs of great haste, proof that those who could flee had done so.
With a little cry of despair, Savitri went to the door to the courtyard, a door she had never opened for herself. She must find Father. He would save her, and he would know where the others had all gone. Weak as she was, it took all her strength to unlatch the heavy door and push it open.
To her horror, the front gate to their estate yawned open, the porter and guards who so loyally defended them gone. Only one remained: he lay across the center path, his turban askew and his bald, shaven head gleaming in the sun, and his drawn sword still in his hand. Standing over his body were three hyenas, their muzzles stained red with the man’s blood as they raised their heads to stare boldly at Savitri, challenging.
Whimpering with fear, she shoved the door shut against the beasts, and forced her shaking legs to carry her to her sister’s bedchamber. Asha was two years older; together they could decide what to do.
But as soon as she saw Asha, lying on her bed in a tangle of sheets, Savitri knew her sister would have no answers for her. Her skin was yellow and gleamed with sweat, her cheeks hollowed and her lips cracked.
“Asha!” she cried, throwing herself onto the bed beside her sister. “You must not die, too. You cannot!”
Asha’s eyes fluttered open, and she managed a faint, ghastly smile. “Savitri,” she whispered. “You came.”
Savitri was crying, her tears falling as she smoothed her sister’s tangled dark hair back from her face.
“Lie with me,” Asha said. “We must be together.”
Savitri curled beside her sister, her head heavy on the shared pillow. They would die together, side by side, as they always had lived. She knew that now. With trembling fingers, she pulled off the oversized locket she always wore, a miniature of her mother framed in diamonds. She pressed the locket in her palm, and linked her fingers with her sister’s over it.
“Mama will watch over us, as she always has, Asha,” she whispered, exhausted with fever and despair. “She’ll keep us safe.”
Unable to keep her eyes open any longer, she felt herself falling, falling into the darkness.
“This one lives still,” the Englishman said. “Barely.”
Through a fever-haze, Savitri saw three men standing over her: two in the red uniform that matched the old one that Father kept in his trunk, another dressed in black, and all with scarves tied over their noses and mouths. Their faces above the white cloths seemed shockingly pale to her, with faded blue eyes and yellow hair. Englishmen, she thought, more Englishmen than she’d ever seen together in her life.
The black-clad man bent over her, chafing her hands and forcing her eyelid upward to peer at her eye. “We must do our best to save her for poor Carew’s sake,” he said. “She’s his daughter, of course. He always boasted of her beauty.”
“Brave little lady,” one of the others said. “She can’t stay here, that’s for certain. Here, miss, we’ll be as gentle as we can.”
Strong arms gathered her up, lifting her from the bed and her sister’s lifeless body. The necklace with her mother’s picture slipped from her fingers and dropped into the tangled sheets. She struggled weakly, wanting to tell them to bring Asha, to spare her from the hyenas, but her mouth was too dry and the words too far away.
“Take her to the wagon, Abbot,” said the man in black. “I’ll do what I can for her, but it will be a miracle if she survives to see Calcutta. The sooner this entire place is burned to the ground, the better. This fever’s like a plague, and fire’s the only way to purify it. I’ve never seen so many struck dead so fast.”
Now she could smell the smoke and hear the pop and crack of flames. Through the window she saw more soldiers with lit brands, setting fire to their great house. She tried to twist back for Asha, but the man’s arms were so much stronger as he carried her from the room and away from her sister.
“Be easy, miss, be easy,” he said. “You’ll be safe among your own people now, good Christian Englishmen.”
But she wasn’t. Her final glimpse of her home was red flames leaping through the roof, consuming all she’d known and everything she loved.
“Serena.”
She woke abruptly. Aunt Morley was holding her by the shoulders, her face full of concern. Her lady’s maid, Martha, stood holding the candlestick, and there were two rumpled-looking footmen, clearly roused from their own beds, standing near the door.
She took a deep breath, pulling free of her aunt as she struggled to orient herself. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and she was shaking with emotion after the horror of what she’d just witnessed.
But she hadn’t, not really. It was only a dream, a nightmare. She must remember that. Nothing could hurt her now. She wasn’t in Sundara Manōra any longer, and hadn’t been for seven years. She was safe in London, in her grandfather’s elegant town house in St. James’s Square. Everything was familiar, exactly as it should be, from the framed prints of the seven virtues on the wall over the mantelpiece to her mahogany dressing table to her armchair near the window, covered in pink damask to match the curtains. There were no ravening hyenas, or corpses in the hall, or soldiers with flaming brands.
She was awake, and she was safe.
“My dear child,” said her aunt gently. “It was the old nightmare again, wasn’t it?”
Wearily Serena nodded. She took a huge, shuddering gulp of air, and wiped her tears away with the sleeve of her night rail.
“Poor lamb,” Aunt Morley murmured, her voice low and soothing as she smoothed Serena’s hair back from her tearstained face. Widowed twice and her own children long grown, she had welcomed the chance to look after Serena. “I know how terrible they are for you.”
“It’s done now,” Serena said, her voice so hoarse that she realized she must have been crying out in her sleep. Her plaited hair was tangled, and her bedsheets were twisted and rumpled. It was always the same after she’d struggled to free herself from the dream, and the force of it left her shaken and anxious, her heart racing with terror. Determined to calm herself, she reached for the crystal glass of water on the table beside her bed, and Martha hurried forward to hand it to her.
“It’s been at least a year since you’ve had one of those nightmares,” Aunt Morley said. “I’d dared to hope you’d outgrown night terrors like that. I don’t know what could have brought it on tonight, especially after having such an agreeable time at the ball, dancing with his lordship and all.”
But Serena knew. Her conversation with Lord Geoffrey Fitzroy had reminded her of India, of her childhood, of far too many things that would be better forgotten than remembered.
“Now that I’m awake, Aunt, I shall be fine,” she said. This was real, she reminded herself again, and the dream had been only a dream. “Forgive me for disturbing you.”
Her aunt smiled, her eyes still filled with concern. “It was nothing to me, child,” she said. “Though I do believe you gave Martha quite a fright.”
Martha nodded vigorously, unable to keep quiet. “Oh, miss, it was terrible to hear! You was weeping and crying out and thrashing about like there was very demons attac
king you, and—”
“That’s enough, Martha,” Aunt Morley said firmly. “Serena, I believe I still have some of that decoction that the doctor left last time to help you sleep.”
“None of that,” Serena said swiftly, then sighed. Her aunt meant well, but the laudanum the doctors prescribed only made the nightmares impossible to avoid, playing them over and over in a heavy sleep that she couldn’t escape. “The best thing for me now is simply to stay awake. I’ll read. I promise I’ll be well enough in the morning.”
Her aunt released a small, wounded harrumph of disapproval, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her dressing gown. “I do not believe that is wise, Serena.”
“Of course it’s wise, Aunt,” she said, striving to be patient, “because it’s the only remedy that works.”
When Serena had first arrived in London, her health had indeed been fragile, and not entirely from the lingering effects of the fever that had nearly killed her, either. The troop of doctors that had hovered around her that first year had never figured out the reason, but she had. While the long, difficult voyage from Calcutta coupled with the perpetual damp and cold of the English climate had taken their toll, most punishing of all had been the grief and guilt that she had survived when her father and sister hadn’t.
But that had been seven years ago. The sorrow would never completely disappear, yet she’d found it did soften with time. Her health had recovered, and she’d grown from the pale and sickly girl arriving from India into an English lady who was admired wherever she went. Only Grandpapa and Aunt Morley seemed unable to accept the transformation, and continued to regard her as delicate.
“I will be fine, Aunt,” she said again. “You’ll see in the morning.”
Unconvinced, her aunt touched her palm to Serena’s cheek, ever-vigilant for signs of fever, and glanced at the little porcelain clock on the chimneypiece.
“It’s nearly four, and not much longer until daybreak,” she said. “I suppose no lasting damage will be done to your constitution.”
“It won’t,” Serena agreed. At least now she understood why she felt so exhausted: likely the nightmare had been playing itself over and over in her dreams for hours before her aunt had awakened her. She reached for one of the wool paisley shawls that she always kept nearby and wrapped it around her shoulders, and then purposefully took a novel from the table. “I’ll distract my thoughts by reading.”
“Very well, my dear,” said Aunt Morley with obvious reluctance. “As you wish. I shall leave you to the solace of your book. But because I do not wish you to tire yourself unduly after so little sleep, I shall cancel your engagements tomorrow, so that you may rest.”
“No!” Serena exclaimed, thinking of how she’d told Lord Geoffrey that she’d be riding in Hyde Park. “That is, you may postpone my gown-fitting with Mrs. Delamore in the morning, but I wish very much to go riding as I always do. The fresh air will do me good.”
“Then we shall take the carriage,” Aunt Morley said, leaning forward to kiss Serena’s forehead. “You’ll have your fresh air, without the exertion of sitting in a saddle. Good night, niece, or what is left of it.”
Serena watched her leave, followed by the two footmen. No matter what her aunt said, she would not be sitting in the carriage with her this afternoon, but riding her mare instead, and she’d wear her bright blue habit with the silver lacing, so that Lord Geoffrey would be sure to see her.
“Is there anything else you’ll be wanting, miss?” asked Martha hesitantly. “The kitchen fires will already be lit for breakfast.”
“Only tea,” Serena said, and with a curtsey, Martha, too, retreated, closing the door quietly after her.
Alone, Serena sank back against the pillows and pulled the soft woolen shawl more closely over her shoulders. She should have asked Martha to put fresh coals on the fire before she’d left. The embers in her hearth, banked when she’d gone to bed, were barely glowing. Although the faint light of first dawn was beginning to show through her windows, her bedchamber was holding on to the chill of the night. She was almost never sufficiently warm in London, even if everyone else was remarking on the balminess of this spring.
But she hadn’t been cold last night when she’d stood beneath the stars with Lord Geoffrey. She smiled, remembering. It was the first time she’d ever left a ball with a gentleman like that. To be sure, there had been any number over the last two years who’d wished her to join them in such an intimate conversation, and she’d refused them all. Of course she understood exactly why these gentlemen had hovered around her with such determination. Grandpapa assured her that because of Father’s gift for trading, she was worth £10,000 a year, an astonishing fortune, and she’d quickly learned that there were a great many more poor bachelors than wealthy unmarried ladies in London society. They reminded her of mosquitoes, buzzing about her with annoying persistence everywhere she went, and she brushed them all away like mosquitoes, too.
But absolutely nothing about Lord Geoffrey reminded her of mosquitoes. He was tall and lean and his shoulders were broad, and he’d worn his elaborately embroidered evening suit with a disarming nonchalance. He had black hair and brilliant blue eyes, with little lines that fanned out at the corners when he’d teased her. And when he’d smiled at her—ah, when he’d smiled she’d felt as if the very sun had burst out from behind the clouds.
He’d dazzled Serena when she’d first confronted him, his handsomeness overwhelming her so thoroughly that she’d turned wooden and awkward. Then he’d begun to speak of India, and her first impressions had been swept aside by rising panic. Could he possibly have discovered her secret? Was he toying with her, amusing himself before he shamed her in front of all the others at the ball?
She’d hidden her fear behind her most practiced mask, acting aloof and distant. She’d tried to avoid dancing with him, yet her aunt had insisted until it could not be helped. Even then she’d feigned such disinterest that any ordinary gentleman would simply have bowed and retreated.
Yet it had not stopped Lord Geoffrey. Far from it. He had pursued her, not with flowery, false compliments, but with Hindi and a genuine—or at least it had seemed genuine—interest in her. He said nothing of her secret, nothing she couldn’t deflect with ease. Gradually she’d let her initial fears slip away, and let her guard down as well. He’d held her in his arms, but he hadn’t tried to kiss her, though she was quite certain he’d wished to. She’d almost wished it herself.
Almost, almost. Her smile turned wistful, remembering the warmth and desire in his eyes when he’d gazed down at her, and how safe she’d felt in the circle of his arms. She’d tested him with the Hindi, and in turn he’d teased her until she’d blushed. She’d felt so comfortable with him that she’d foolishly begun babbling on about kismet, and how it must have been fated that they meet—a confidence that was in itself dangerous to make.
Oh, she’d been so foolish, betraying herself to him like that! Speaking of India, their conversation in Hindi, even the way she’d danced were all little clues to her past, and she’d freely revealed them. It was entirely her own fault, her own weakness, because she couldn’t deny that she’d liked him. She’d met so many gentlemen since she’d come into Society last year, but not one of them had tempted her as he had.
Yet nothing could ever come of it. If their conversation had been enough to inspire her nightmares, then that same nightmare in turn should have been a potent reminder of why she must never again let herself be beguiled by a man like Lord Geoffrey. The fact that he’d traveled to India and knew her homeland only made him all the more dangerous. Even she knew that love required more than desire: it required trust, and she could never risk trusting anyone, not even a man she’d accept as a husband. How could she, with the secret she kept buried deep within her?
Perhaps, in time, she might marry a lesser man, a man who would be so grateful for her fortune that he wouldn’t ask questions that she couldn’t answer. But to entangle herself with the son of the Duke of Breconri
dge, blessed with all his power, wealth, and royal blood, could only lead to disaster.
With a groan of frustration she hurled the unread book across the room, where it thumped against the wall. She’d no doubt that Lord Geoffrey would come to Hyde Park to meet her today; the hunger in his expression when they’d parted last night had assured her of that. He would come, and she would greet him, and her aunt, sitting in the carriage at a discreet distance, would be overjoyed and already planning their wedding.
But Serena intended to tell him that this first meeting between them would also be the last. She’d invent some sort of foolishness, the kind of polite excuse that ladies were always concocting, and he would be forced to accept it, as a gentleman must.
She could never tell him, or anyone else, the truth: that she was an imposter. She was Father’s daughter, true, but her mother had been a dancing-girl from a brothel near the fort at Golconda that he had bought and brought back to Sundara Manōra. He always said it was her beauty that had caught his eye, but her spirit that had captured his heart. Her mother had been beautiful indeed, with a heart-shaped face, dark golden brown skin, and enormous dark eyes beneath arching black brows.
She and Father had never married; being his mistress, his bibi, had been enough for her. To Father it hadn’t mattered, nor to anyone else in his little self-created kingdom of Sundara Manōra. Marriage had proven to be a great disappointment to him, a dutifully British union filled with bitterness and misunderstanding that had ended only with his wife’s death in childbirth. It was no wonder that marriage had had no place in the happiness he’d found with her mother. Serena’s mother had come from Lucknow, while Asha’s had been born in Scotland. Beyond that Serena was simply one of Lord Thomas Carew’s two daughters, girls whose mothers had died too soon, and he loved the two of them exactly the same.
A Sinful Deception Page 3
