"Skanda assumed the form of an old bangle seller, and sold bracelets to Valli, in return for a local delicacy of honey-soaked corn flour. A conversation ensued between the two, which was interrupted by the arrival of Valli’s brothers, a valiant lot who were highly possessive and protective of their sister.
"Flustered by their sudden appearance, and unwilling to indulge in battle, Skanda manifested himself as a statue, a stump of which is still seen in the Temple at Velimalai in Southern Tamilnadu.
"Skanda appeared again, in the guise of an old tribal king and sought her hand in marriage. The brothers materialised again, and Skanda transformed himself into an old monk from the Himalayas, and they left the spot.
"Upset by the ongoing hindrance, Skanda sought the help of his brother Vinayaka, the remover of obstacles, who appeared on the spot as a wild elephant. The brothers all ran away. The terrified Valli embraced Skanda and promised to offer him anything in return for protection from the wild beast.
"Skanda sought her hand in marriage, and Valli consented gladly, realising that her suitor was none other than her old friend the kind bangle seller, whom she and her tribe held in great regard. Valli married Skanda and the marriage was celebrated in great splendor by Nambirajan, the king of Kuravas."
The children applauded at the end and prattled excitedly about elephants for a moment.
A slight movement by Ellen alerted Ash to her presence, and he stood immediately.
"Forgive me for my rudeness in remaining seated. I did not see you there." He bowed.
"I didn’t wish to interrupt the story. But if I might join you now?"
He indicated a chair, introducing her to the children as he did so, She noted his whole posture was now stiff and alert. Wary. Just as she always was around men. Was he also fearful of being hurt?
"I’m sorry," she blurted out before her bottom even hit the seat of the chair. "I had no right to be so rude and mean-spirited. I have to take each person as they come, not suspect everyone. I have some women friends, but they usually either end up being friends with Georgina and not me, or they don’t take to me because they dislike her and do not wish to be associated with her."
"You poor thing. That’s wretchedly unfair."
"Yes it is," she said with a lift of her chin, "just as I have been to you. I don’t have so many friends that I can just cast them all away. Please forgive me for the hasty manner in which I spoke to you before. You are a disarmingly candid chap, but that can be no bad thing when there is so much Spanish coin about."
"If I complimented you, it was because I meant it," he said with quite sincerity. "I do not flatter or flirt."
She nodded. "I know. You could have made yourself pleasant to any one of a dozen ladies in that shop if you’d had a mind, but you stayed with your aunt and myself. And it was good advice about the gown."
His golden eyes regarded her steadily. "I will not lie to you, though, Ellen. I find your person most attractive. You need to think about whether you could bear our friendship advancing to something more serious in the future. I’m not in a position to take a wife for some time, since I feel I should be better established, and the hours a new doctor works are really not very sociable. If you are looking for marriage in the next two to three years, I would be a bad bargain."
Her eyes flew open. "My, you most certainly are direct. But we have only just met!"
"No, I met you five years ago, if you will be so kind as to recall," Ash said patiently. "Our acquaintance has not advanced. That must be my fault as much as yours. And perhaps we have just been thrown together by circumstances and we can never really be friends because we are so different.
"But now that we have met and like each other, it is something worth exploring. Something Platonic, by all means. However, I would be lying if I didn’t say you are the most lovely woman I’ve ever met. Needless to say, I will never act upon my desires myself, for I do not wish you to have any unpleasant reminders of Bridges.
"Also, we will both do well to recall that in our society men and women keeping company also leads to gossip and speculation. Not all of it pleasant. You will not always be so glad to know me when some of the tabbies get their claws into you for consorting with a mere young doctor, and a foreigner to boot."
Ellen nodded calmly. "Your aunt was kind enough to try to warn me of the pitfalls."
Ash looked surprised. "And?" he asked.
She looked him straight in the eye. "And I don’t care. It is the old tabbies’ problem, not mine."
"So why have you come here, Ellen?" he asked softly.
"You know why."
"Do you?" he challenged.
Her cheeks flushed. "Yes, I do. I hated that we quarrelled and didn’t want to leave it to fester," she said with the same degree of candour he had given her.
"Good, I don't wish to allow that to happen either."
"I know we won’t always agree on everything, but we need to talk, discuss things, as I have seen your mother and Martin do. Not walk away and then avoid each other. That is the way friendships are lost."
"And marriages too, when couples are not truthful," he pointed out, before pouring her some tea. "I would like to be truthful with you, Ellen, always. It’s just that there are some things you are not ready to hear."
"Like what you said to me in the shop? Really, I am sorry I flew off the handle like that. I can see now that you are attracted to me, but were really trying to teach me more about myself. For that I am grateful. I would like to think I know the difference between impertinence, and improvement and correction."
"Very well. If you are content to be in my company, and I promise not to flirt, what about some music?" He handed her the cup of tea.
"By all means."
As soon as she had finished partaking of their refreshment, they discovered they were very well-matched at the pianoforte, able to play and perform duets, and each with a wonderfully wide repertoire of their own.
"You are so superb. I wonder you have the time!" Ellen exclaimed.
"I enjoy it. It relaxes me at the end of a hard day’s study. The Deverils had a particularly fine instrument. I lived at the vicarage, and had the run of the house. I also had a wonderful shed in which I kept all my scientific samples. Mother said it was singularly unhealthy. I even kept and fed the leeches until she made me get rid of them. But they have the most remarkable properties, and I can see their uses, in surgery, for example."
He leaned forward, his eyes alight with enthusiasm for his subject.
Ellen made a face.
"I am sorry. Not a fit subject for ladies," he apologised, lapsing against the back of the chair.
"No, go on. I don’t like them, but I do wish to hear about your work."
"For example, operating on an eye, the work is so delicate. You could place one along the main blood vessel and..."
She listened avidly as Ash spoke about his most recent cases. Soon they went into the dispensary and commenced making the supply ordering lists she had suggested the evening before.
So engrossed were they that it was only when his sister Jayashri began to grizzle because she was wet did they break off to attend to her needs.
"Would you like to change her?" Ash asked.
She blushed. "Oh, I don’t really know how—"
"Nonsense, it’s simple," he said with his usual breaktaking confidence. "We’d better get them both cleaned up for bed and find some supper."
She helped him as he washed the children in the tub, put nappies on them, and then their little night clothes. She had never done anything so intimate in her life. Their hands met on the children’s small backs as they shared the soap, as they dried and dressed them. Her senses were filled with nothing but Ash, and it was all too easy to pretend that they were married, that she lived there and never had to leave.
But that way lay madness. She hardly knew him, and he had already made his feelings upon marriage perfectly clear.
With the children safely fed and in bed, she had
another pleasant evening with Martin and Eswara, with Peter and Leela joining them for a good lively debate on parliamentary reform.
Ellen enjoyed the discussion, but it was over all too soon. Ash led her upstairs at ten o’clock and told her to rest.
"Sunday tomorrow. I shall take you into Brimley for services at ten."
"Oh, no, really, I don’t have to go every Sunday."
"There’s no need to be shy. Besides, I would like to see everyone again now that I’m home. I’ve not seen a soul since Christmas, what with all of my swotting up to get through my last exams."
Ellen grinned. "I’m sure an intelligent young man like you didn’t have to do much studying."
"Not have to, no, but I do love it."
"You really are the complete man, are you not? A good son, brother, student, doctor," she said with obvious admiration.
"You make me sound so dull. What about adding lover to that list?" He smiled down at her warmly, and kissed her hand.
"Friend for certain. Lover some day?" she said with a pretty blush.
"Very good. I shall be more than content with that." He kissed her hand again warmly. "I’d better go before they tease me for spending too much time alone with you. But thank you for coming again today. And for being brave enough to patch up the quarrel. It took a lot of courage."
"Not really. You make everything seem, well, easy in a way. Your honesty and forthrightness. As Leela said, we should never be at odds with each other if we can help it."
Ash looked at her appraisingly. "Odd, you don’t look like the meek and acquiescent type."
"No, indeed not," she said pertly, with a toss of her honey-gold locks. "Unless of course I'm in the wrong, in which case, I'm happy to say so."
"I’m glad. I shall try to be as well."
He kissed her hand once more and with a last, "Sweet dreams," he went downstairs and left her alone, pining for more of his thrilling presence.
Chapter Ten
The following morning Ash insisted he wanted to take Ellen to church despite her protests that he did not need to be so polite. Dressed in one of Eswara’s sober dark gowns, he was sure he had never seen anyone so breathtaking. He and Martin escorted her to Brimley for services in the carriage, and she wondered at how easily she seemed to fit into their little family group.
The mass seemed interminable to Ash since he could not speak with her, but they sat close in the pew, practically thigh to thigh, and it was the most exquisite torment for them both.
Ellen could not get his question last night out of her head. That he might become her lover some day? The mere thought of it made her giddy with both excitement and apprehension.
Ash could not seem to focus on anything other than her reply: some day. He prayed it might be soon.
Jonathan Deveril was delighted to see them all at mass, and eagerly invited them back to the vicarage for dinner with he and his wife Pamela.
"Jonathan helped tutor me, especially when I was ill," Ash explained to Ellen. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Of course not. In fact, I insist we stay, if we're not giving Mr. Deveril and his wife too much trouble."
"Not at all. Delighted. Martin, wonderful to see you looking so well." He lead the way from the church to the vicarage, down the treelined lane and through the wychgate.
After asking Ash all about his plans now that he was qualified, he said, "I hear you have a new neighbour, Lawrence Howard. Yet another old Rakehell just back from India. A tea trader."
"Interesting. Though I've not met him yet," Ash admitted.
"Nor I, though it would be good to see him again after so many years. And for you and your mother to have another person to talk to about your homeland."
"We should be glad to make his acquaintance when he arrives."
The handsome young vicar looked rather sheepish. "Yes, I was rather hoping that you and your mother would be so kind as to look in on him from time to time. Lawrence is supposed to have married Matthew Dane’s old, er, um, friend."
"You mean mistress," Ellen supplied. "I had heard the rumours, yes."
"How shocking," Martin said with a shake of his head. "That woman Matilda was most vile. Caused all sorts of trouble from the moment she came into the district."
Jonathan's expression was unusually sombre. "That’s why I’d like you to keep an eye on him. She is bound to lead him a merry dance. He’s a good chap, for all he had a bad falling out with some of the Rakehells.
"You must remember him, Martin. Poorer family, second son, huge inferiority complex, but smart and hardworking. He’s lived in India ever since he left school, and could really use some friends here in Somerset. I’m sure the two of you will have a lot in common."
Martin nodded. "Gladly. We’ll call around some time when he takes up residence. There’s still no sign of him, though his factor and servants are there so far as I can tell."
"And I shall do as well. Mother is so busy with the latest wave of babies being born in the district, it’s a wonder she has time to sit. But we shall do our best to make him feel welcome," Ash promised.
"Ah, but Eswara has you to help now. In any event, I hope you’ve been playing. My wife and I have missed hearing you tinkling away every night. If you don’t mind, we’ll just bring in our portmanteaux and start packing while you entertain us."
Ash raised his brows. "Oh?"
"We’re off to London to bless the new extension to the women’s clinic."
"Wonderful. Give everyone there our best, won’t you?"
"I certainly will."
Martin shook his hand. "Great news, old chap."
"I do little enough, but thank you for the kind words."
"Yes, we have been playing, and would be glad to oblige."
Ash gave Ellen a warm, intimate smile which made her toes curl and her cheeks flame. "I was just practising with Ellen last evening. Would you like to hear one of our duets?"
"Delighted, my dear fellow," Jonathan said with a broad grin, looking at the young couple with a new light of understanding in his eyes. They were not the most obvious match, but stranger things had happened…
Ellen wasn’t sure how she managed to sing considering how breathless Ash made her feel every time he looked at her, but their audience was rapt. After being treated to a fine dinner of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, green beans and potatoes, they thanked Jonathan and Pamela, and headed back to Millcote.
When they arrived back at the house, Martin went in to see his wife and children, leaving the young people outside.
Ash proposed a walk in the woods just to clear the cobwebs out of their heads.
Ellen agreed at once, for the weather was mild given the time of year, though she thought she could smell snow in the air.
She took his arm and went with him up the path into the forest.
"Jonathan and Pamela seem a most happy, steady couple," Ellen commented as they went.
"Quite shocking about Lawrence Howard marrying Matilda, though. I mean, it’s one thing having a woman like that as a mistress. But to be so taken in by her as to wed himself irrevocably? It’s just too bad. She’s a Tartar."
"Yet sometimes people can reform," Ellen pointed out mildly.
"That’s true. Look at Philip Marshall, for example. Or Randall Avenel. Both ladies’ men, yet completely devoted to their wives."
Ellen nodded thoughtfully.
Ash said suddenly, "So tell me about the state of you heart now that Adam Neville turned out to be such a monster?"
She was startled by the question, but answered him honestly. "Well, I never really cared about him is the short and truthful answer. I was young, barely seventeen. I was dazzled, as I said, to have someone pay so much attention to me. To have a man want to marry me, and not just for my money. Though of course he fooled us in that regard, as in so many others.
"I suspected there was much amiss, and I should have known better than to trust a man who could be so fickle that he would have pursued Blake’s wife Arabella
ardently before they married, and then turned his attention to me so rapidly once they did.
"But Georgina was driving everything on with Oliver Neville. Told me wouldn’t it be so fine to have a double wedding. That we would be the envy of the County and so we should make the most of our chances."
She lowered her voice and whispered confidentially, "She was awfully young, silly, but I think this was how it all started. I’m fairly sure she gave herself to him. I mean, I can’t be certain, but from a few of the things she said… And she has been looking for love and romance ever since. And getting more and more embittered in the process."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 5 Page 46
