Revolutionary Hearts

by Pema Donyo

  The half-balding man’s eyes gleamed with a spark of something sinister. “But then again, you can afford to throw your career away now.”

  Warren’s stomach plummeted. Your identity has been compromised … of course it was Ellington! The ambitious lieutenant colonel had pined for the position of general since the moment he first stepped foot in India. There was every reason for him to keep tabs on all the generals, including Warren.

  “What are you referring to, Ellington?”

  “I think you know what correspondence I speak of.”

  Warren resisted the urge to curse aloud. The damned letters! He knew he should have burned all of them from the beginning. He hadn’t been able to keep track of every missive passing between him and the chief of the Bureau of Identification. If someone had found one of them and learned shorthand, he would be able to decipher them.

  Ellington sneered. “So sorry to ruin your little party.” Then the lieutenant colonel turned to the other guests. “Everyone! Everyone, I would like your attention, please!”

  Warren’s eyes widened. No time to waste. Adrenaline rushed through his veins as he released Parineeta’s arm. At her quizzical look, he leaned to whisper in her ear, “I’ll be in the front of the house, near the gates. I will see you in a minute.”

  Ellington had stepped too far forward on the floor to see Warren, who used the opportunity to slip away from the front of the room.

  The moment his right foot crossed the threshold between the hallway and the ballroom, a small hand tugged his arm back. He jerked at the hold, but the grip only tightened. Before he could shove his captor away, he found himself face to face once more with Parineeta.

  “There’s no reason for you to leave.” She wrinkled her nose. “This is your party.”

  “This won’t be my party anymore in a few minutes.”

  “What are you talking about?

  “I’ll explain later. Meet me in the front.” It would be easier for both of them to slip away unnoticed if they left separately. Without waiting for her reply, he pushed past her. Her hold loosened, and she allowed him to leave without uttering another word.

  His footsteps raced down the hall, as far as possible from the rest of the group. The cooler air of the corridors rushed against his back once he picked up his stride. His escape stood only a few yards away, an arched doorway highlighting the Indian desert beyond the safety of his walls.

  Not that there’s much safety for me here now. The sight of such unknown terrain provided no welcome relief to his soul. He sighed as he ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. If things went the way Ellington wanted, Parineeta would have her explanation soon enough.

  • • •

  “Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention? I have a grave admittance to make that concerns everyone in this room.”

  Parineeta looked behind her shoulder. Warren was gone; he would miss the important announcement. Her arm felt strangely bare without his own arm wrapped around hers. What had made him slip away so suddenly?

  Her cheeks burned as she thought of his request. It was hardly decent to ask a girl he’d just met to meet him in the dark in secret. She risked her reputation enough by agreeing to spend so much time alone with him in his office already. If he thought she was going after him, he must be mad.

  “I would like to inform all of you…”

  She frowned. But why would Warren leave in such a hurry? Was she in danger here and that was why she needed to meet him? She interlaced her fingers at the front of her dress. The silk gown rustled beneath her movement. Whatever this tiny bald man wished to say, she wished he’d make the news quick.

  “…that we have a spy in our midst!”

  Parineeta swore her heartbeat halted for several moments. She covered her mouth with one long, black glove and bit her lower lip before any words could leave her lips. How could anyone have known about her mission at the general’s house? The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  “Are you mad, George?” Another one of the generals waved his silver cup in the air. “We’re all friends here. Don’t be ridiculous! How could there be a spy?”

  “You do not seem to know everyone quite as much as you’ve assumed. The man we all know as General Carton is actually an American spy!”

  The woman standing next to him gasped. A few frightened looks from the guests were thrown about the room.

  Parineeta would have rolled her eyes at the theatrics if she were not so alarmed. She kept the glove over her mouth. An outburst from her would help no one. The general could not be a spy. The notion was even more outlandish than the idea of milking goats in her current gown.

  Whispers of scandal drifted through the guests. The short man who’d made the first announcement lowered his spectacles further down the bridge of his nose. His black, beady eyes scanned the crowd before him. “Where is this traitor? Bring him up here!”

  “What proof do you have?” A tall woman with curly, blond hair tossed her mane back behind her frilly sleeves and scoffed. “General Carton is a respectable leader in the British Raj. I highly doubt you can prove your claims.”

  “Letters! I have intercepted letters!” The man passed numerous papers to different members of his audience. Those in the crowd murmured among themselves upon reading each piece of paper, each one passing along the folded letters with traumatized looks on their faces.

  The man stamped his foot against the marble floor. He looked like a child, waving his arms like a lunatic and barking commands with impatience. “I said bring him to me! Who was with him? Who last saw him?” Parineeta couldn’t help but think of the village drunk who did little more than shout at others.

  The only difference between this man and the village drunk was that this small man had an entire troop of Indian and British soldiers at his command. The village drunk could throw broken bottles at his targets from time to time but never armed mercenaries.

  Parineeta stepped away from the crowd, her slippers edging backward inch by inch until she bumped into a cold wall. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears. She rubbed her palms against the front of her dress. Only one word echoed in her mind: escape.

  She turned her cheek to the ballroom and raced down the corridor. The long, draping material of the silk dress swished behind her. The warmth of the summer night air wrapped around her arms like a shawl, cloaking her in much needed darkness. She darted out the doorway between the marble columns and dashed down the wooden steps, along the narrow road and toward her safe home.

  She was jerked back as a large hand reached out to grab her wrist. The muscular grip behind the tree remained firm as she tugged her arm to wrench free from the hold.

  “Stop! Just stop, please.”

  She stepped behind the tree, and the man dropped his hand. Her wrist stung. “Warren?”

  “I told you to meet me here, didn’t I?” He shoved his hands into his pockets and closed his eyes. The dark brown of his hair nearly disappeared into the trunk of the tree, while the harsh illumination of the moon’s rays bathed him in critical light. He rested against the tree, one foot propped up against the bark while the other remained planted on the ground. “Glad you finally showed up.”

  She glanced past his shoulder to peek at the road leading out to the streets and her own village. The crickets chirped from the south, as if beckoning her home. Maybe it wasn’t too late to escape…

  He opened his eyes suddenly. One look from those clear ocean-colored orbs and she found herself suddenly rooted to the spot.

  “How did it go?”

  “As you would expect.” She placed both her gloved hands onto her hips. “I thought the man was lying at first.”

  “And now?”

  Parineeta pressed her lips into a thin line. “Who are you?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  He almost sounded amused. Crazy man. How anyone could act so nonchalant when his life was at stake, she could not understand. Her brows stitched together as she narrow
ed her eyes at him. “I am not the one hiding from my own party. What are you doing here?”

  “What does it look like?” One hand emerged from his pocket to run it through his hair. The other remained shoved in the pocket of his pressed trousers. “I’m clearly going back to receive their award and bask in their thunderous applause in my honor.”

  “Your voice … it’s…” Parineeta couldn’t believe her ears. The natural British accent she’d grown accustomed to hearing was replaced by an even more natural American one. She drew in a quick intake of breath. “You are not from Britain.”

  “I should hope not. Pretty certain Ellington told everyone, though.”

  She blinked. So he really was a spy! “You’re from America?”

  “Raised there. Not born there.”

  Parineeta looked back toward the mansion. The twisting marble stairwell on the side of the house remained bare, and the second-floor balcony held no traces of a search party. No one had left the house yet, but she figured it was only a matter of time before they started looking for him outside. “How could you be a spy?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. This man’s ability to see right through her secrets was unnerving. Oh, what would Raj do? Her firebrand of a brother would probably tell her to keep lying. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  Warren glanced behind the tree to risk another survey of the empty clearing outside his house and then gave her a pointed look. “Don’t try to pull one over on me. I followed you and heard you talking to your brother.”

  Her right hand balled into a fist. She’d been foolish to leave his house so quickly and not expect an ulterior motive. “You had no such right.”

  “Really? And you had such a right to spy on me?”

  Her cheeks felt hot. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Parineeta jutted out her chin. “Not that being caught has changed anything. Clearly you have no useful information for me to report, nor do you have the ability to expose me.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  She interlaced her fingers together in front of her, the satin gloves sliding over each other. A cool wind brushed past her cheek, causing her to shiver. When a warm summer evening faded into a chilling windy night, it was never a good omen. “Why were you waiting for me?”

  Warren grabbed her arm. “I’ll explain later.”

  “No!”

  “Let’s go, Parineeta.”

  “Let go of me!” She yanked her arm away from his hold, and his hand fell back. He wanted to kidnap her! She had stayed too long in this lavish nightmare. Time to return home.

  A sudden series of yells caught her attention. Before she could turn around to figure out the source of the sound, Warren held her chin in his hands and kept her gaze fixed on his.

  “Just follow my lead. Trust me.” His grip around her upper arm tightened, and they began to race away from the tree. Her feet flew across the ground at the same pace as his, but she had no idea where they were sprinting toward.

  Before she could ask, she heard another roar behind her. Even while her strides remained in tandem with Warren’s, she chanced a glance over her shoulder. Her throat became dry as she took in the sight.

  The balcony was no longer empty. The entire crowd from the ballroom had gathered on the second floor to watch the drama unfold before their eyes. Below them, a legion of the British Raj’s best generals and colonels streamed down the stairwell, headed straight in her direction. She could see other officers jumping onto horses in the background, while others who’d had an earlier start led the pack with their steeds.

  “Know any good hiding spots?”

  Parineeta guided him away from the dirt road and off the end of the paved path. She ran as fast as her feet would carry her as she led Warren further and further away from the road. He’d stopped trying to remain in step with her, instead choosing to follow her path, always a few steps behind. Her lungs began to constrict as she felt herself becoming winded, but every time she considered slowing down, she heard the stampede of footsteps behind them … or were they the harried gallops of hooves? Never had she been chased before, and the thought of capture was terrifying.

  She winced as her ankle scraped against an upturned root. Pain flashed through her calf as she continued to place weight on the injured foot. Branches snapped beneath their weight as the cleared dirt started to give way to forest ground.

  It wasn’t until they were deep into the foliage that Parineeta finally stopped. She’d been here before as a child, playing with other village children. Yet the sight of so many Ashoka trees overhead had never seemed more ominous than when she noticed them by night. She cupped a hand around her ear and craned her neck to listen for any sounds behind them. No footsteps, no horse hooves. They were safe.

  For now.

  A clicking brought her attention back to the man before her. He was panting, his beige pants splotched with dark spots of dirt and his shirt untucked from his wide belt. He had pulled out two guns, holding them to his sides at the ready as he scanned the jungle around them. There was a crazed look in his eyes. He raised both his revolvers to the sky, as if in a stance to shoot whoever—or whatever—approached him.

  All right, maybe she wasn’t so safe.

  “Put those down,” she begged. “You have no use for them here.”

  He refused to make eye contact with her, his own gaze fixed on the dark foliage before him. His unsteady steps formed a small circle in the dirt. “Wild animals. They could attack.”

  Parineeta laughed. The fearsome man in disguise was afraid of nature. “I thought you were a trained spy.”

  “Spying in a cosmopolitan city and spying in the middle of nowhere are much different, I assure you.”

  “And this is no city. I think you were the one who needed my help to escape, not the other way around. What do you know of the jungle?”

  Warren put the guns away, to her relief. He gave one last distrusting gaze to the trees surrounding him on all sides. “You’re right. I don’t know very much about it.”

  At least we agree on one matter. She bent down, resting her hands on the insides of her thighs and sucking pockets of air into her lungs like a man dying of thirst. “You have finally admitted my usefulness after all.”

  “Exactly. That’s why you’re going to guide me out of here and help me reach Lucknow.”

  Parineeta brought herself back up to her full height and folded her arms across her chest. He couldn’t just order her around as he pleased. “I am not your servant anymore.”

  “Of course you are not my servant. But you must still help me.” He started walking ahead of her, weaving his way in and out of the thicket of the bushes in a zigzag motion. She half expected him to start using the butt of his pistol as a scythe against the leaves.

  Take him to Lucknow? Was he crazy? She pulled off the black gloves from her hands, sliding the constraining fabric off her wrists before she threw them on the forest floor. “What makes you think I would do that?”

  “Because if you do…” He pushed aside a tree branch and looked back over his shoulder at her. “I’ll give you any information you want.”

  “What?”

  “Plans to strike down rebellions. Hidden armories. Places where the independence movement will find wealthy sympathizers willing to donate money. Names of the freedom fighters that the British government has their eye on.”

  Her heartbeat quickened. “And what the British Army thinks of the revolutionaries? What they think of the Hindustan Republican Association?”

  “Yes and yes.”

  “But … you’re not a real general.” Parineeta bit her lower lip. Still, at least he had pretended to be one. Surely he must have picked up some useful information during that time. She smoothed a hand over her hair, fumbling with the pins and managing to release her tresses from the up-do. Her hat had fallen off during the chase as well. “How can I trust that you’re telling me the
truth?”

  “And how can I trust you?” Warren started toward her, pointing an accusatory finger against her chest. “You’re the one who spied on me first.”

  She puffed out her chest and stepped closer. The closing distance caused him to drop his hand. “You’re the one who got caught. Of the two of us, you are the one in the worse position.”

  “Me? Do you really think Lieutenant Colonel Ellington won’t question why an American spy was meeting with a ‘research assistant’?”

  She pressed her pointed index finger into his chest, agitation rising in her own. This man was determined to drive her crazy. “That’s your fault for bringing me to your event. Do not make demands of me.”

  He inched closer to her until she could feel his hot breath upon her face. “You have a choice. Walk away now if you want.”

  “I said nothing about walking away.” She swallowed hard as she noticed the quick rise and fall of his chest with each breath he took. His lips were so close that if she turned her head, her lips would brush his. Heat spread across the apples of her cheeks. “Your information would be helpful.”

  “I told you, it is yours.” He leaned toward her. His breath was heavy, and his hands were clasped together before him. Speaking with him in his office and arguing with him about their survival were two entirely different matters. “You help me, and I will help you.”

  If he thought wielding weapons would be enough to take them to Lucknow, he was in for a surprise. She gave a small smile. “I believe there will be more of me helping you. How can I trust you will give me the information?”

  “How can I trust that you will guide me to Lucknow?” He brushed back a stray lock of dark hair that had fallen across his forehead. There was little patience in his tone.

  Many of the other generals were blond, fair-haired, and fat. Warren was different. While his complexion remained far fairer than hers, his dark brows and thick hair were striking. The height difference between them was such that if she stared directly ahead, she saw only his chiseled jaw and…

  Parineeta tore her eyes away from his lips and drew away, bringing herself back to reality. In spite of the numerous tears at the end of her dress, she smoothed out the creases in her far-from-salvageable gown as if it were one of her own saris; she would look anywhere except that dangerous and demanding mouth of his.