Courting Trouble

by Jenny Schwartz

  “And here in Swan River…we’re not perfect, but there is respect, engagement with the Indian community and its traditions. Like with the Diwali celebrations. If Indian anarchists were to kill the prince, they’d light a powder keg of civil violence against all Indians.” Esme was appalled. “I can’t—won’t—let that happen to my friends.”

  Lajli pushed away her second cake, half-eaten. “Very bad.”

  “You!” Gupta turned on her. “You stole this.”

  “Easy,” Jed said. “The notes give only hints of such a plan. We don’t even know if the device works. If it does, Lajli’s theft may have given us a chance to prevent a tragedy. I need to know everything of how she came by the wallet.”

  “Yes.” She straightened in her chair. “I tell you. I am a thief. That is the family’s honor. We are good thieves, clever. Auntie Abha, she married Gupta’s father and took his family’s honor. They are traders. She is very honest now—or as honest as traders can be.”

  Gupta shifted restlessly, but a look from Jed kept him from interrupting.

  “Three babus, they moved into a house near where my family lives, just far enough away that they, strangers, would not know what I am. I got a job as a maid. Busy, busy, because they very messy babus.”

  “Babus?” Jed queried. Lajli’s tone of voice had indicated it wasn’t a compliment.

  “Indian men educated in the European system,” Esme said. “They are educated, capable and yet denied the position and power of their abilities because they are Indian, not Anglo. It is a terrible waste.”

  “Nobody likes them,” Lajli said. “They want to be pukka sahibs, but they are babus.”

  “I r-respect them.” Gupta tugged at the sleeves of his jacket, tailored in imitation of Jed’s. “They are learned men.”

  “Go on,” Jed said.

  “The babus were all talk, talk, talk and meetings. One had a room I was not to enter. No cleaning ever. He said it was dangerous because of things he made in there. I slipped in one night. It did not look dangerous, but it was dirty and smelly with oil and the guts of machines everywhere. I was glad I did not have to clean it.”

  “More chai?” The waiter hovered.

  “Yes, please, Tukaram.” Esme found a smile for him.

  He took their empty cups inside.

  “Then eight days after I joined the house as a maid, agents of the British Raj raided it.” Lajli nodded, gratified by her audience’s riveted attention. “They took away two of the babus. The one who had the locked room, whispers in the market said he died on the way to prison.” She shivered. “The other babu, I do not know what happened to him.”

  “And the third babu?” Jed asked.

  “He is the one who arrived here in Swan River, yesterday. He is Nazim.”

  “Your chai.” The waiter bustled cheerfully. “It is a good day, yes? Not many clouds. Much sunshine. Good for flowers. Diwali will be lovely this year.”

  After he returned inside, Lajli curled her hands around her cup of chai. For the first time she looked young and scared, defenseless.

  Jed suffered a pang of conscience. He would do his best to wind up this little adventure in time for them all to enjoy Diwali.

  “Nazim is a bad man,” Lajli continued. “He was the boss of the other babus and of all the men who visited the house. He told everyone what to do.”

  “Did the agents of the Raj question you?” Esme asked.

  “No, miss.”

  “Esme.”

  “Esme, yes. They did not question me because I was not there. When the police whistles blew, I slipped away.”

  “Typical,” Gupta said.

  “Yes, I have a talent for it. I am a good thief. I used the noise and panic to lift Nazim’s wallet and take it with me. All he wanted was to get into the locked room. I heard him smashing something in there.”

  “Destroying evidence.” Jed watched a skimmer boat vanish over the horizon. “And now he is after you because he suspects you stole his wallet.”

  Esme traced jagged patterns on the white tablecloth with her spoon. “A raid by agents of the Raj suggests Lajli’s former employers are known for their anti-British sentiments. This Nazim will be desperate to recover the blueprints for Kali’s Scream.” She dropped the spoon. “Jed, we have to keep Lajli safe.”

  “That is not easy.” Gupta sighed deeply.

  “Nonsense. Lajli shall come and stay with me. She will be safe in my home.”

  “No,” Jed said. Heaven only knew what Lajli’s presence in the house would do to his courtship of Esme. The girl was trouble.

  “It won’t be for long,” Esme soothed. “Just until we sort things out.” She began ticking off points. “The authorities must be alerted regarding Nazim’s presence in the colony. Clearly, the agents of the Raj want him. They can have him.”

  “If they can catch him,” Gupta said gloomily.

  “And if they’re willing to take Lajli’s word as to his identity.” Jed raised an eyebrow at Esme. “To put it bluntly, she’s a thief, and even if the police here aren’t aware of her light-fingered habits, who do you think they will believe? A girl or an educated man?”

  “I won’t talk to the police.” Lajli folded her arms. “No.”

  “We will vouch for you,” Esme assured her.

  “It could easily go wrong.” Jed’s scheme to work closely with Esme, to show her he trusted her with danger, wouldn’t bear close official scrutiny. “A device such as Kali’s Scream sounds fanciful, but the police know where they stand with the theft of a wallet. They’re quite likely to settle for arresting Lajli.”

  “What about the notes mentioning the prince?” Esme objected.

  “They lack concrete dates and times, and the names of people involved. Coupled with a strange new device such as a sonic amplifier, I fear the police would dismiss them as evidence.” He forestalled Esme’s protest. “We can force them to take the matter seriously by proving the device works.”

  Her forehead wrinkled as she considered his argument.

  “The prince visits India in three months,” Gupta said. “It is in all the newspapers.”

  “Which means we have a short time.” Jed set his chai cup down with a click. “I’ll get started on building the prototype immediately. Lajli needs a safe place to hide.”

  “My house.”

  “Sweetheart,” Jed said, “I was thinking of a nice long boat ride. She’d be safe at sea and she could stay there till the situation was settled.”

  “Me, I get seasick,” Lajli stated.

  “But you’d be safe.”

  “She would be safe in my house, too. Jed, you know Father built the house to be secure. Plus there are servants around all the time. I’ll borrow Owens’s hellhound from the sanctuary, and it can patrol the grounds. I have a pistol and I can teach Lajli how to fire one, too.”

  Gupta looked alarmed.

  “And if you’re still not satisfied we’ll be safe, Jed, then you can move in, too!”

  “Thereby adding scandal to our other problems. Esme—” He bit off the plea to be reasonable that had got him into trouble yesterday. He drew a deep breath. It seemed she’d forgiven him, and that was the whole point of this scheme. He’d be a fool, indeed, if he ruined it by losing his temper. Owens, the surly manager of the animal sanctuary Esme funded, and his monstrous dog could defend Fort Knox, but that wasn’t the point.

  Dammit all. The idea had been to give Esme an adventure with little danger attached, but what kind of man was Nazim? Lajli could be tangled up in anything. Harboring the impudent thief would put Esme in danger—and would definitely endanger her reputation.

  “I’ll be busy. I can’t afford the time away from my workshop to guard you.”

  Her lush lips thinned at the inference she couldn’t protect herself and half the world. “You can build the prototype at my house.”

  “No.”

  “No, no, no,” she mocked him, impatient and derisive.

  He flattened both hands on t
he table. “Lajli cannot stay in your house.” And when her chin went up mutinously, he reached for arguments. In all conscience, he couldn’t allow her to harbor a thief. Besides, she had to see things from his perspective—or what she assumed was his perspective. “Hellfire, Esme. I could use your help examining the papers and researching the physics of sound to assess the threat to the prince, but I want you safe. You’re important to me, and that makes you my weak point. If I am to investigate this matter—if we are to investigate it—you must stay safe.”

  Gupta wriggled uncomfortably and tugged at his tie.

  Lajli leaned forward, fascinated.

  Esme raised her brows and her voice. “Your weak point? Jed Reeve, that is an unfair argument. I am part of this, and partners don’t push other partners aside. Claiming that worry for me would distract you is contemptible.”

  “It’s the truth. Do you have any idea how much I worry about you? Signing up for crazy dirigible flying lessons. Riding around the colony in outrageous bloomers.”

  She gasped. “My bloomers are perfectly respectable, and I’ll thank you not to mention them in mixed company.”

  “Uh, I m-must…” Gupta pushed back his chair, intent on escape.

  “Wait,” Jed ordered.

  The young man subsided reluctantly.

  Esme, contrarily, stood and gathered her gloves, slapping them together. “You’ve made it clear you don’t require my assistance in this matter, so I’m leaving. Lajli, if you need sanctuary, you are welcome in my home. Gupta, goodbye.”

  Jed’s chair grated as he stood. “Where are you going? I’ll escort you home.”

  “Thank you, but I’ll be quite safe in daylight on the public roads.”

  “Esme.” How the heck had his scheme fallen apart so fast? He’d asked of her only what was reasonable in the circumstances he’d outlined. He’d envisaged quiet intimate sessions in her library, just the two of them, studying the notes, researching the physics of sound.

  “Jed.” Her smile was more a baring of teeth. “Gupta, Lajli.”

  He watched her march back through the Chai House, heard her respond to the waiter’s farewell, and slumped back in his chair. “Tarnation.”

  Lajli looked thoughtful. “This Miss Esme Smith, she is very rich?”

  “Her father is the wealthiest man in Australia,” Gupta said.

  “I think I go stay with her.” Lajli ran into the Chai House after Esme before Jed could stop her.

  “Women!”

  “T-trouble,” Gupta commiserated.

  Chapter Five

  Mad as fire, Esme shouldered open the door of the Chai House and pulled on her cycling gloves. She’d show Jed she wasn’t some brainless ninny, some hothouse flower. How dare he try to exclude her from the situation? Why, he didn’t even know if Kali’s Scream was feasible. There might be no danger whatsoever. The whole thing could be a storm in a teacup.

  “Oh, sorry.” In her haste, she’d barreled into a stranger just passing the front doors.

  “My fault entirely, my lady.” He was just her height, a fraction less, really, given the green suede hat she’d pinned to her hair. His dark eyes expressed frank admiration.

  She found herself conscious of her bloomers. They were well-cut and modest, but they were bifurcated. Scandalous, in some people’s eyes. Jed didn’t approve of them. He’d scowled when an apprentice had whistled at her on last week’s bike ride.

  Deliberately, she smiled at the stranger.

  He swept off his hat and bowed. “If only all happenstance encounters introduced me to such beauty. Mademoiselle, I confess, I cannot be sorry for so happy an accident.”

  The Oxford voice, full-bodied and assured, made the flowery language an enjoyable courtesy. Although he appeared somewhat older than the typical Oxford undergraduate, he wore the wide-flowing silk necktie and narrow-legged trousers of the breed. He also wore their air of detached amusement. A flickering smile invited her to share it.

  “No harm done,” she said.

  He straightened, replacing his hat.

  Running footsteps inside the Chai House caught her attention. She’d more than half expected Jed to chase after her, intent on continuing his ridiculous argument, but these footsteps weren’t heavy with anger. They were light and quick.

  Lajli burst out of the Chai House. “Miss Esme, I go with you—oh!”

  “Lajli?” Esme reached out a concerned hand.

  The girl literally swayed, her eyes blank with shock. Then she shrank back. “Nazim.”

  Esme followed the direction of the girl’s horrified stare and encountered the stranger’s handsome face. “You are Nazim?”

  “Alas, no. My name is Ishaan Prasad.” He bowed again. “At your service, dear lady.”

  “You lie,” Lajli said.

  “Who lies?” Jed loomed up in the doorway of the Chai House, Gupta peering around him.

  Prasad kept his gaze on Esme. “I am afraid I recognize the young woman who accosts you and seeks to hide behind your kindness. I am newly arrived in your beautiful colony of Swan River, but before my journey here I had the misfortune to employ a thief as a maid. I am desolated to inform you this is she.”

  “I have told these people all about you. You are a bad man.” Lajli stood straighter, evidently reassured by Jed’s presence.

  Esme frowned. Surely anarchists weren’t so effeminate, so dandified. Perhaps she’d been too hasty to believe Lajli’s story and to listen to Jed’s worries. Not that she thought he would lie to her. He might be bossy, but he was honorable. But perhaps he’d been overpersuaded by Lajli’s pretty face into asserting mitigating factors for what was, in essence, outright theft.

  Perhaps this Ishaan Prasad, Lajli’s “Nazim,” was really the injured party?

  He watched Lajli with grieving, melting chocolate eyes. “So young and already so brazen. I am a gentleman and a socialist, and so, when you stole from me, I did not give you over to the police wallahs as you deserved. Now, you repay my generosity with your lies. Worse, you seek to deceive these fine people with your fairy tales.”

  “Some people find fairy tales fascinating,” Jed drawled.

  “Children, perhaps, or uneducated minds.” A tilt of one eyebrow effortlessly conveyed Prasad’s disdain. He tapped his cane on the ground. “Americans.” The single word was spoken in an undertone, but the scorn was clear. “The sort of people who consort with thieves and deal in stolen goods.”

  Jed stepped out of the doorway.

  Esme tensed instantly, aware that Prasad’s insult had been of the deadly kind. Jed put such stock in being respectable. She shifted sideways, placing herself squarely between the two men. “May I inquire what was taken from you?”

  “My wallet and watch. The watch, although a gift from my grandfather, can be replaced. But the contents of the wallet…no, they are irreplaceable. Not simply money, you understand. Private papers. Only a wretched thief would have stolen them from me after my many kindnesses to her.”

  “Bah.” Lajli threw oil on the flames. “Better a thief than a slithering snake. These people, they know you are a bad man. A bad man who hates the so-handsome prince.”

  “What nonsense is this?” Prasad frowned.

  Gupta plucked at his cousin’s sleeve. They were beginning to attract attention. Across the road, an apprentice tailor paused in sweeping the veranda floor of his master’s store. He leaned on the broom and stared.

  “You are a common thief, Lajli Joshi,” Prasad said. “An uneducated woman. What stupidity have you imagined from the blueprints you stole from me?”

  “Me? I imagine nothing. I speak truth. You may ask—”

  “I do ask. I ask that you return my private papers. I don’t expect miracles. I know a woman such as you will have spent my money and pawned my grandfather’s watch, but I want my papers back.”

  “Well, you can’t have them.”

  “Why not?” Prasad lowered his voice. There were echoes in it of a tiger’s menacing purr.

 
; Gupta shuffled his feet.

  Jed moved and Esme hastily stepped back to block him. The warm strength of him pressed into her back. He halted.

  “Because I do not have your nasty papers.” Lajli threw her hands in the air, fingers widespread to demonstrate their emptiness. She waggled them. “All gone.”

  Prasad scowled at her, then he looked over Esme’s shoulder to Jed. “If this thief has passed my property on to you, her gallant defender, I would appreciate its return.”

  Jed stepped around Esme and took her arm. He tipped his hat forward, shading his eyes. “I have more interesting things to concern myself with than your correspondence.”

  “It is as well.” Prasad spun his swagger stick. “The enclosed blueprints would not be easily deciphered by the uneducated.”

  “Mr. Reeve is not uneducated.”

  “Thank you, Lajli.” Jed’s gaze stayed on Prasad. “As it happens, I’m something of an inventor.”

  Prasad’s hand tightened on the stick. “Then you may comprehend my anger at having the blueprints stolen from me. They are the work of a very dear friend, a very clever inventor, a genius I am proud to have known. It is the last device he ever designed and of the dearest import to me. Kali’s Scream is a music box and sonic amplifier. My friend had a most compassionate heart. He profoundly pitied the silent world of the deaf. With Kali’s Scream he sought to overcome the barriers preventing the deaf from enjoying music. The sonic amplification generates vibrations that the deaf can sense. Thanks to my friend, the deaf may know the joy of dancing to music.”

  The explanation sounded utterly convincing. Esme half turned to look up at Jed. It was he who had read the stolen blueprints and notes. Could he have misinterpreted them?

  He met her gaze and his mouth twisted derisively.

  She flushed, aware that he’d read her doubts. She looked hastily back at Prasad, the epitome of a Western-educated intellectual. A late-night reading of papers, colored by whatever story Lajli had told, could have affected Jed’s understanding of the notes.

  Or Prasad could be lying.

  “I do not know you, sir,” Prasad continued. “But if you are in possession of my stolen wallet, of my dear friend’s papers, then I ask of you—on your honor—to return them to me.”