by Louise Allen
Nick stretched out his long legs on the roughly made bunk and regarded with disfavour the evidence of what seemed to be a constant state of arousal. Will-power did not seem to work, neither did the illusory safety of a thin wooden barrier shut Anusha out of his imagination.
He eased his sweaty back against the pillows, uncomfortable in the heat. To call the spaces they were sleeping in cabins was a wild exaggeration—cupboards was more like it. There were no portholes and, with the hatch closed as it was at night, precious little ventilation.
Nick got up and rolled his shoulders experimentally. Not too bad, he thought. Luckily he had always healed well and he doubted anyone observing him would realise how bad the wound had been. He pulled on the pajama trousers and a kurta that was loose over his bandages, picked up his musket and a pillow and eased open the door. Then he wedged Anusha’s door ajar and climbed the ladder to unbolt and push open the hatch onto the deck.
On the flat expanse of sand the small crew were gathered around a fire, talking quietly now their meal was finished. Soon they would be asleep, a man at each of the four mooring ropes, one at the foot of the gangplank, the others on the cook boat.
He laid the pillow by the open hatch, put the musket within reach, slid his dagger under the pillow and stretched out. Like this some air would filter down to Anusha and he would have the relief of several more feet between them. His wound throbbed, his groin ached, but the air, at least, was cool on his hot body. Nick willed himself to sleep.
*
‘Teach me about etiquette.’ Anusha was proud of herself for getting her tongue around the word. Her first word of French. ‘What must I know?’
Nick, slumped in the canvas chair, sat up and sighed. ‘I find it a dead bore at the best of times: I am not a dratted governess!’
‘Please. I do not wish to seem foolish.’
‘Very well. When you meet someone new you should wait to be introduced. If you are of higher rank than they are, they will be presented to you, and the other way around. If they are the same rank as you, then you defer to an older person.
‘Then you curtsy. After that, if they are of higher rank and you meet them, you make a little curtsy. For everyone else, a slight bow of the head, or shaking hands.’
‘Show me how to curtsy,’ she demanded.
‘How should I know? I can’t see under ladies’ skirts when they are doing it!’ Anusha merely waited. She was finding that if she gazed soulfully at Nick for long enough he usually did what she wanted over trivial matters. She had not tried it in any major clash of wills yet.
‘Er…put your heels together, toes apart. Now bend your knees outwards, keep your back straight and sink down.’ He frowned as she obeyed. This was no effort, her thigh muscles were strong. ‘That looks about right—and up again. The more important the person, the lower you curtsy.’
‘That was easy. And bowing my head?’
He stood up and inclined his head. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Laurens.’
She copied him. ‘Good afternoon, Major Herriard. That is easy too. But shaking hands? I only do that with ladies?’
‘Oh, no, anyone of rank.’
‘Men? I touch hands with them?’
‘Certainly. Some may then kiss your hand.’ Anusha whipped both hers behind her back. ‘Come, let me show you—you will be wearing gloves, of course.’ Nick held out his right hand. ‘Give me your right hand.’
Their fingers slid together. His big, warm hand enveloped hers as he closed the grip in a light squeeze, then released her. Surely he could feel her blush from its heat, let alone see it! He must be able to feel her pulse, jumping erratically, as she had felt his, strong and steady. His palms were slightly rough, with rider’s calluses. Anusha hid her hands again.
‘No, it is nothing, the merest pleasantry,’ he assured her. ‘Now, pretend we are at a reception and you have been introduced to me. Give me your hand again, palm down, like this.’ She copied him, wary. Nick caught the ends of her fingers in his, bent, raised the back of her hand almost to his mouth and kissed the air a rice-grain’s width above her skin, released her hand and bowed. ‘Miss Laurens, you are in great beauty this evening. Now you curtsy and smile and say You are too kind, Major Herriard.’
‘You are too bold, you mean!’ She took a step back, hands gripped together. His breath had feathered the sensitive skin on the back of her hand. She had felt his lips even though they had not touched her, and her pulse was all over the place. ‘That is indecent—and I am meant to endure those caresses from men I have only just met?’
‘It is the custom, but you will never be alone with these men, there will always be older married women around you so there is nothing to fear. They will flirt a little, you will flirt back. It is quite acceptable.’
‘Flirt? I do not know that word.’ She sat down on the hatch cover, a safe distance from his chair, although quite what she was keeping safe from, she was not sure.
‘Flirting is a game, a courtship game, that all the young ladies and the single men indulge in. A sort of teasing. The men say gallant things, compliment the ladies. The ladies pretend to dismiss such blatant flattery, they blush a little, shield their faces, but their eyes tell a different story. Then in turn they say things that make the men feel strong and manly and laugh a little that they are so bold, and so it goes on.’
‘And that is allowed? You must teach me how to flirt.’ It sounded shocking, but if that was necessary to be accepted, to fit in, then she would do it.
Nick shrugged and she caught a slight wince, hastily suppressed. He had denied having any discomfort, so she should not fuss. ‘I am no good at flirting,’ he said.
‘Oh, but a man as gallant and brave as you cannot be afraid of talking to young ladies surely, Major Herriard.’ She opened her eyes wide at him, wondering the next moment if it was a safe thing to do.
‘You need no lessons, Miss Laurens.’ He shook his head, one of his rare smiles making him look years younger and far less formidable. ‘You are already an accomplished flirt. Look, we will be mooring in a moment. I will show you how to make dinner-table conversation while we eat.’
I would rather flirt, she thought, then caught herself. It was dangerous to play at love. Nick’s heart might be armour-clad—hers, she was beginning to worry, might not be.
*
‘That is a relief,’ Nick remarked as they regained the deck after going ashore to the port officer at Allahabad to check on the situation in Kalatwah. He had received news only that morning, he had told them.
‘Just got a message—it should be accurate. Altaphur’s camped outside the walls, making a lot of threatening noises. The raja’s sitting tight, wise man—he’s not making foolish sallies outside. There are Company cavalry within a few days’ march and his neighbours are gathering—none of them wants Altaphur turning on them next. My correspondent predicts that the maharaja will march away within twenty-four hours.’
Now, as the crew pushed off from the steps, Anusha stood beside him looking at the scene on the ghat with huge piles of marigold flowers and the garland sellers who were threading them, a barber shaving his client and a procession making its way with a shrouded corpse to the burning ghat, a little downstream.
‘May locusts consume his crops, his wives all be barren and his guts be filled with worms,’ she said in Hindi.
‘Quite,’ Nick replied with a grin. ‘I do not blame you, but it’s not exactly dinner-party conversation, Miss Laurens.’
‘I know,’ she sighed, reverting to English. ‘I have spent three days learning how to address an earl, a bishop, the governor and their ladies. And I have learned that at the dinner table one may only talk about foolish things and that women are not expected to have a brain.’
‘Unfortunately yes.’
‘Even this flirting is foolish. Do the men not want to know that their wives will be skilled in bed? Do they really want ignorant wives?’
‘Yes,’ Nick said with some emphasis as the boat’s sails were
raised. The steersman took them out into the central current and they began to move downriver.
Anusha went to sit on the hatch cover that had become her favoured perch. ‘How strange. We are all taught how to pleasure our husbands.’
Nick was halfway into the canvas chair and sat down with a suddenness that made him swear under his breath. ‘Please, not pleasure, Anusha. Pleasure means to please him in, er, bed.’
‘But that is what I meant.’ Was the little wretch teasing him, or genuinely curious?
‘And how do you—no, do not tell me, I do not want to know.’
He did not want to talk about wives and the marriage bed. He did not want to remember Miranda shrinking in distaste from his caresses, forcing herself to do her duty, as she put it. He tried to tell himself, as he had so many times during that short marriage, that someone had told her something to frighten her or that she was naturally cold. But the conviction remained that he simply did not know how to make a respectable woman happy. He was a rake with too much experience, with tastes and habits that had shocked Miranda to the core.
He must be concealing his thoughts well enough, he realised. Anusha was blithely answering his question. ‘By reading the classical texts, of course. And studying the pictures and talking to our mothers and sisters. Why? How did you imagine we might learn?’
‘I was attempting not to imagine,’ Nick said. He could picture her, lying in silks on heaps of cushions, idly turning the pages of some illustrated text. Those long limbs would stir restlessly in the heat with her imaginings, those full lips would curve into a sensual smile as she propped her chin on her hand and…
‘I am sorry to mention such a subject,’ she said penitently. ‘I was forgetting that it must be many days since you lay with a woman.’
‘Anusha—’
She slanted a glance in his direction. ‘Do English ladies not discuss sexual matters?’
‘No! At least, unmarried women do not discuss them. Unmarried girls are not supposed to know anything about such things.’
‘So their husbands are supposed to teach them?’
‘Yes.’ He tugged off his neckcloth and opened the neck of his shirt. It was hot, that was all.
‘That might be rather nice if the woman is in love with the man,’ she mused. ‘But if not it must be a dreadful shock.’
‘I couldn’t say,’ Nick said, trying to keep the edge from his voice. She looked at him, lips parted. Something in his face must have given her pause, for she lowered her lids and stayed mercifully quiet. I couldn’t say because my wife obviously did not love me. I thought I could make her love me, teach her to love. But then, you see, I doubt I am very lovable. Though I am skilled enough in bed if I am matched with a woman of experience…
Stop it. He caught at his bitter, unravelling thoughts. Hurt pride is all it is. Hurt pride and a valuable lesson. He made his voice firm and matter of fact. ‘Anusha, I beg you, when we get to Calcutta, do not say anything about illustrated texts, or pleasuring men or bed.’
‘Very well, Nick,’ she said.
Anusha turned to look out over the water and he caught a glimpse of her eyes, thoughtful and with all the teasing gone. She guessed he had been thinking about Miranda. Nick felt a sudden urge to tell her everything, share the pain and the anger and the sense of failure, to break through the self-sufficient loneliness. Self-indulgent weakness. He stared at the sun-dazzle on the water until he was certain the blurring in his eyes came from that alone and the impulse was beaten back where it belonged.
*
Anusha woke in darkness. It felt very late and the air was finally cooling. A little breeze brushed over the bed, which was strange because she always closed her door properly at night. But now she came to think about it, she was never as hot and uncomfortable as she might have expected in a closed cabin. The door, she realised, was ajar. Had someone opened it every night? Silent as the breeze, she slid out of bed and went to look. The door had been wedged open, but Nick’s door was closed.
As she stood there in her shift, puzzling over it, there was a faint sound from the deck, a grunt, as though someone had stubbed a toe and was suppressing the exclamation of pain. Anusha reached for the dagger that lay on her pile of clothes and climbed the ladder to the open hatch.
The moon was full, lighting the wide sandbank where the blanket-wrapped forms of the crew surrounded the banked embers of their fire. The silver light washed across the deck and the man who sat cross-legged, his back to the mast. Nick.
Anusha froze, her eyes just above the rim of the hatch. There was a pillow and a blanket on the deck, a musket by the side. She knew him well enough now to guess what this meant—Nick was sleeping on deck so he could leave the hatch and her door open to let the cool night air below decks for her, while he slept on the hard boards to guard her.
But why was he not resting now? As her eyes adjusted to the light she saw him clearly. He was barefoot, bare-chested, wearing only light pajama trousers and he was unwinding the bandage from around his torso.
I had forgotten his wound, Anusha realised with a stab of guilt. How could I have done that? But he had seemed so unaffected by it that after the first day she had ceased to worry and then, unforgivably, had managed to disregard it. He was a man, a warrior—of course he would not mention it until he fell flat on his stubborn, proud face.
Nick finished unwinding the bandage, but he was still twisted round, doing something to the dressing on his shoulder. In the stillness she heard his hiss of pain and was up on the deck and running to his side before she could think about it.
As he got to his feet she laid her hand on his uninjured shoulder. ‘Nick, your wound—I am so sorry, but you should have said it needed redressing. Let me see.’ She tried to press him back down to sit on the hatch. He resisted.
‘I can manage, go back to bed, Anusha.’ The moonlight turned his hair to silver, his bare chest was so close she could see the individual hairs, the way the brown aureoles of his nipples had tightened in the cool air.
She pushed aside his hand and lifted the trailing bandage. ‘This has stuck to the wound.’
‘I had noticed,’ he said wryly.
‘Then it needs to be soaked off and the wound redressed. Come down and I will do it. You need to be lying down and in my cabin there are all those lamps you gave me. I cannot see clearly enough up here.’
‘I can see far too clearly.’ Nick sounded grim. ‘What the blazes are you wearing?’
‘My shift—you have seen it before when you woke me the night we left Kalatwah.’ She pushed the end of the bandage back into his hand, abrupt because she was moved by his stoicism and felt guilty about her neglect of his hurt. ‘Why are you up here on this hard deck and not sleeping? How can you look after me properly if you make yourself ill?’
‘Do you know, I had not considered that,’ Nick said. ‘Go back to bed.’
‘Not without you.’ His eyebrows soared. ‘Foolishness,’ she scolded. She would not let him see how that unspoken thought affected her. ‘Is that all men ever think about?’ It eased her conscience to put him in the wrong. ‘I want to dress your shoulder and I want to know why you are up here.’
Nick allowed her to tug him towards the hatch. ‘It was too hot below to sleep. I opened the hatch, and your door, but then it needed guarding. I can manage.’
‘No, you cannot or you would have changed the dressing before now.’
He picked up the musket and went down the ladder. ‘I suppose I will get no peace unless I let you torture me.’
Anusha did nor dignify that with a reply. She filled a copper urn from the water barrel tied to the foot of the mast and followed him down. ‘No, go to my cabin, the lights are better and I need my things.’
Chapter Twelve
The fact that the infuriating woman was right was no consolation. He should have redressed his shoulder at least three days ago, it was going to be a devil of a job doing it himself and Anusha’s cabin had the broader bed and the better lamps.
It also smelled of the jasmine oil she used on her hair, the myriad of feminine potions and lotions that she seemed to have acquired in Kalpi and, most distractingly, of herself.
It would be simplest to take the line of least resistance, do what she wanted and then escape.
‘Lie down,’ Anusha said, wriggling past him with a jug in one hand and a basin in the other. The pressure of a rounded backside against his thigh was more than enough incentive to obey. Nick lay down, swamping the hollow her body had made in the thin mattress, his head on a firm, Anusha-scented pillow.
‘Lie still.’ She sat on the edge of the bed, her hip against his, snipped through the loose length of bandage with a pair of tiny scissors, then leaned close to peer at the part that had dried on to the wound. Nick closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. ‘I haven’t done anything to hurt you yet,’ Anusha protested.
No, but that shift is virtually transparent with the lamp behind you, your right breast is squashed against my chest and I am fantasising about simply rolling over and crushing you into this mattress. ‘Lying down must have jarred it,’ he lied with an heroic effort of self-control. Why he was bothering to pretend when she only had to glance below his waist to see what the problem was, he did not know. He was rock hard. For all her theoretical knowledge she would be terrified.
Anusha got up and began to set things out on the shelf. ‘It is a good thing I packed my medical box.’
Nick opened a cautious eye. ‘Do you know what you are doing with it?’
‘Of course.’ She dropped a small sponge in to the basin and picked up a sinister sharp object. ‘It is part of our lessons in the women’s mahal, to know how to care for our man if he is sick or wounded.’
He realised that she was speaking Hindi again, as though what she was doing was taking her mind back to Kalatwah. Our man. She said it with complete unconcern. She was not flirting, it had been an unconscious slip. Nick felt his groin tighten again and locked eyes with Anusha. The thin, loose trousers were no shield for his all-too-obvious thoughts.
