Once and Always

by Alyssa Deane

  “Consider,” Augusta had said to her less than an hour earlier over breakfast, in a discussion regarding Captain Harrison's invitation, “your options. Looks, you certainly possess in abundance, I will cheerfully admit; however, there is that ... maturity. In the present society, you are a full four years past marriageable age."

  Four years past marriageable age. My goodness, Roxane thought ironically as she shifted her center of gravity in the rocking conveyance, soon I will be in my dotage.

  Noting, suddenly, that the buggy had slowed nearly to a stop, she glanced up from beneath the ruffled edge of her headgear to the facade of a large building of decidedly British architecture. It was surrounded by a hedge which served to separate the edifice from the contrasting site of a neighboring structure to which the term residence would have been applied loosely. The overgrown walls resembled a ruin rather than a home, and were probably the remains of a temple of some sort. However, there was evidence of habitation in the presence of a tethered goat and a pile of what appeared to be refuse, and if it were not, Roxane was not certain she wanted to know otherwise.

  Collier began a brief chronicle of both structures, which was quickly taken up by Unity, surprisingly no stranger to the history to which he alluded, albeit tainted with a flavor of that once-popular work of fiction, The Arabian Nights. Roxane turned her head to find the ayah listening with rapt and loyal expression, and Collier's jemadar eyeing critically a spot on the edge of his sleeve. Collier himself looked faintly amused at Unity's descriptions, but he continued to nod encouragingly in her direction until the girl ran out of lyrical applications to her subject matter. Thanking her, Collier snapped the reins lightly over the mare's rump and moved on.

  The better part of the next two hours was spent in this same manner, viewing and exhorting the virtues of, in some form or another, everything they saw. However, while riding through some of the more squalid sections of the city, which lived, by strange symbiosis, cheek by jowl among the opulent, Unity was unusually uncommunicative. Roxane could understand why. The squalor of the life of much of the native element was disturbing in its very contrast. Yet, viewed in the particular agenda of their travels, the alien nature of the British component was strongly reflected, and encouraged one to recognize the extraordinary diversification of a dissimilar culture for which Roxane had heretofore had no frame of reference.

  At one point, she turned and thanked Collier.

  “This was deliberate on your part, wasn't it?"

  “What's that?” he asked with feigned indifference, murmuring reassurance to the mare, who seemed about to balk at the sight of a bullock blocking the road as they were departing the native bazaar to return, once more, to the city.

  “Clarification,” she said.

  “It was my hope,” he rejoined, with a smile. “You are one of the few women I have met who I believed would be able to grasp the truth. There is a savagery to India, and a beauty beyond words, and you have not, my dear, yet seen the half of it."

  “I daresay you are right,” Roxane agreed. “Nor, perhaps, will I be able to countenance it all, given the insular prejudices which bounded my upbringing,” she added, with no small amount of sarcasm. “However,” she continued, leaning close to Collier, voice lowered, “I believe Unity has had enough."

  She saw him glance over the seat at the silent girl, then back, where Roxane leaned with her weight upon her hands, her upturned face a handspan from his own, awaiting a suggestion which might lighten Unity's spirits. He looked to the street, a contemplative frown between his brows, and spent what Roxane viewed as an inordinate amount of time in thought before replying.

  “I would suggest that you sit back, Roxane, or I shall find myself, much regulated by base male proclivities, kissing you. And although it would afford infinite pleasure for me, and a source of renewed material for Unity's romantic nature, I would probably find myself on the receiving end of a less-than-affectionate diatribe. After all, Miss Sheffield, Mrs. Peabody and her two daughters are pulling alongside this very minute ... Good morning, ladies,” he said, with a gracious nod of his head to the three women whose ghari, driven by a handsomely garbed Indian male, drew even with their own. The Europeans were accompanied by a pair of female servants and a footman of sorts, clinging to the back of the hooded conveyance.

  “Captain Harrison, Miss Sheffield, Miss Stanton,” said the eldest of the three passengers, by way of greeting, while Anastasia blushed and muttered a good morning. Rose, particularly fetching in pale blue muslin, turned her blond head and smiled seductively at the captain, ignoring Roxane and Unity altogether.

  “We have,” said Collier, “been showing our Miss Sheffield the sights."

  “Have you?” Mrs. Peabody rejoined, but not as though she were entirely interested. “How splendid. Miss Sheffield, how do you find India?"

  Roxane straightened her spine, giving a self-conscious tug to the ribbons of her bonnet.

  “Most interesting,” she answered, hating herself for the inanity of her reply.

  “Indeed,” said Rose beside her mother, arching yellow brows at Roxane in a manner that made the hair rise on the back of her neck.

  Mrs. Peabody spoke, leaning past her daughter. “Captain Harrison, did you not receive my invitation to join us at our home for dinner? I have not yet had your reply."

  “I'm afraid,” Collier answered, without prevarication, “that I have other plans.” His eyes rested on Roxane quite deliberately. Roxane blushed at the inference.

  Inhaling deeply through her nose, Mrs. Peabody withdrew her perfect coiffure into the ghari's shaded interior. Still inclined forward, Rose's eyes narrowed, glittering in the sunlight.

  “Collier, dear,” she mouthed, batting the length of her tawny lashes, Roxane felt, once too often, “if you are going to insist on taking these ladies about, might I make a suggestion?"

  “If you must,” Collier answered. Roxane noted the flat intonation of his voice with satisfaction.

  “Do get them out of the sun, and soon. Miss Sheffield is quite pink."

  So saying, she did not wait for her mother's signal, but gestured to the driver with a light tap of her fan on his back to move on.

  “Well,” said Roxane, leaning back and giving the end of the ribbons on her bonnet a swift, theatrical flip of vexation, fingers falling splayed across her heart, “I never.” And she broke into a grin.

  Beside her, Collier laughed outright.

  “Neither,” he said, “have I. You have naught to worry your lovely head on that account. That particular young lady possesses neither subtlety nor charm."

  Roxane dropped her head onto the back of the padded seat, smiling up at the hood of the carriage. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Collier wink and reach over, jerking the bow at the side of her throat so that the bonnet tumbled free from her hair. Unity rescued the hat before it struck the floor and handed it back, her elfin smile conspiratorial—and happy, without question.

  * * * *

  Tiffin was, as promised and prearranged, served in the green shade lining the reflecting pool at Eden Gardens. Pillows had been provided for the ladies, while Collier stretched himself out on a blanket smelling rather strongly of jasmine. For the better part of an hour, he had observed Roxane eat, in an utter and simple fascination, but which left him with the uncomfortable predicament of not being able to rise when she did, lest the telltale sign of his arousal be made plain. Unity was soundly asleep with her ayah, drowsy-eyed, curled protectively beside her. Their only other chaperon had wandered away, to smoke.

  “Where are you off to, Roxane?"

  Looking down at him, she shrugged, and the movement of her shoulders beneath the white blouse she wore was eloquently graceful. She held her bonnet in front of her, turning the brim with the tips of her fingers, then released the hat to dangle loosely by the ribbons in her grasp.

  “Aren't you coming?"

  “Give me just another moment,” he stalled, “for the sake of digestion."

&nbs
p; Consenting, she whirled on her heel and took several steps away, looking back at him over her shoulder.

  “You aren't going to fall asleep, are you?"

  “I shouldn't think so,” he said.

  Smiling, she continued on her way, her perambulation such that he found himself counting slowly backward, from one hundred, in order to distract his mind from thoughts which were nothing if not prurient. Then he hastened to his feet, dusting his pale trousers, and followed after her.

  He caught her up beside the water, studying a pair of green parrots roosting in a nearby tree. The cloudless sky was reflected in the pool, but beneath, one could see the scales of giant carp flashing like pearls dropped into brown-green ink. He stood a long moment behind and slightly to her right, watching the tiny pulse that beat just below her ear and the feathery wisps of her dark hair, which had loosened from the glossy knot at her nape, dancing as if with life over the white linen of her blouse. He could see the thick lashes about her eyes, double grown, and the rosy curve of her cheek. She held herself with uncommon stillness; even when the parrots had flown with raucous cries out over the water, she did not move.

  He felt, of a sudden, the unmistakable need to protect her, to keep her safe, and an unequivocal fear that he would not, when the time came, be able to do so. He stepped near, crushing the voluminous fabric of skirt and crinoline to her thighs with the pressure of his knees, one hand sliding around in front of her and across the narrow expanse of rib cage to encircle her far arm, urging her with gentle insistence into the sanctuary of his embrace. He burrowed his face into the curve between shoulder and nape, breathing in the sweet fragrance of her skin.

  “Oh dear God, Roxane,” he murmured, in pain and fear and joy so acute, he felt the tears start to his eyes. Her hand came up, stroking his hair, his brow, the line of his jaw, an instinct to comfort circumventing whatever trepidation caused her to tremble within his arms. He kissed her, in the cool hollow behind her jaw, where the pulse beat wildly, like a bird frantic for flight, pressed his mouth, hard, into the convex arch of muscle and flesh beneath and held it there, open and yearning and wanting terribly to utter all manner of endearments and promises and declarations of eternity which he knew, Lord he knew, he could not.

  “Roxane,” he whispered into her hair, resting his cheek against it as he stared blindly out across the water.

  She dropped her hand from his face, laying her fingers over his own upon her arm. She relaxed against him, the tension seeming to seep from her like water into the earth at his feet. He could feel her respiration within the circle of his arms, and the low cadence of her voice along her backbone, even before she spoke.

  “Collier, I don't ... I don't know what it is you will expect of me..."

  “Shhhh...” he breathed. “I will expect nothing."

  “I am unschooled, Collier, in affairs of the heart, but I have no cause to trust them."

  “Hush. I will take care of you."

  “I don't want to be taken care of, Collier,” she said, squirming free of his embrace. He maintained a grip on her hand, lightly, as she turned to face him. The anguish and bewilderment in her eyes wrenched his heart.

  “I do not want to be beholden to you. I do not want to be known as some man's chattel, to follow him about or be left behind. I do not want to place my trust and love in the care of a stranger, which is really all that we are, Collier Harrison—"

  “No,” he said. “We are not strangers—"

  “We are. What little we know of each other could be recited by Unity in the course of an hour. Whims may change, and hearts may falter, and who can promise any different?"

  “I know what I feel, Roxane. And the condition of life itself precludes any absolutes. Why, I might die tomorrow, in battle or sickness."

  Raising her hand, Roxane pushed at his chest. He grabbed her fingers, pressing them to his lips.

  “Do not speak of that,” she said.

  “Death? It is always there. But as I live and breathe, I swear to you, I will not hurt you, Roxane."

  In dismay, he witnessed the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes and the desperate little shake of her dark head. A closed, crooked smile passed fleetingly across her countenance. She shrugged.

  “I really am no coward, Collier."

  “I know that, dear."

  “Just—just ask that lout Harry Grovsner,” she declared, and laughed.

  Collier smiled, regarding the woman before him with a grave and tender affection. As he watched her, he recognized that he was not now, nor had he ever been, the composite center of his own universe. The firmament was set, immutable, and her star had always been there.

  Chapter Seven

  Roxane pushed the food around on her plate listlessly. Her dark, heavy hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck in simple fashion; her gown, a once-crisp, pale-green cotton, seemed to her to cling to her skin like a damp rag. Across the table, she felt the gentle brown eyes in Colonel Stanton's ruddy face studying her in confusion.

  “Looking a mite peaked, this morning, Roxane,” he said, his mouth full of food, which he appeared quite able to enjoy heartily.

  “It's warm,” said Roxane.

  “Bound to get warmer still,” answered the man.

  Roxane nodded. Outside, the sun had not yet risen, and all that was seen of the Indian sky through the lifted chiks was a pale glimmer. The breeze that blew so often at that time of day was dishearteningly absent. Overhead, the punkahs ceaselessly creaked, pulled by silent, dark-skinned servants.

  “Roxane does not look so very pale to me,” commented Mrs. Stanton, beside her husband. “After all, pale cheeks are the height of fashion."

  “Miss Sheffield's cheeks,” said the colonel, with an abrupt return to formality, “bloomed like the roses in my mother's garden when first she came here, and I was mighty glad to see it. I have not been so long in this country that I've forgotten what a healthy woman looks like. Many a pleasant memory came back to me. But now—” And here he cocked an eye in Roxane's direction once more. His wife followed his glance, in some alarm.

  “You are not ill, are you, Roxane, dear?"

  Roxane managed a wan smile. “Not at all,” she assured them both. At her elbow, she witnessed, peripherally, the ever-present servant as he replenished her empty glass. Beyond him, Unity watched anxiously. “I would suppose that any paleness on my part is due to the heat, which I will get used to, and the late hours I have been keeping. I am afraid that at home I was not nearly so social, and was normally retired for the night shortly after the hour at which social evenings seem to begin here in Calcutta."

  At this, the colonel threw back his head, barking laughter. “You will have to accustom yourself to that, too, eh?” he chortled. His wife restrained a bemused smile.

  “What a staid life you must have led for a young woman,” remarked Mrs. Stanton. “But I suppose, considering the circumstances of your upbringing—"

  Without meaning to, Roxane glanced sharply up at the woman. Flustered, Mrs. Stanton made an attempt at apology, waving her napkin in the air, color high. The hair framing her embarrassed countenance was perfectly arranged, unlike that of many of the women whom Roxane had chanced to meet in the privacy of their homes. With a silent vow, the younger woman promised to do something about her own heavy locks immediately after breakfast.

  “I received a letter from my father,” she said, the natural progression of her thoughts leading her to this admission.

  Unity leaned forward. “I thought you had,” she smiled.

  “Unity!” cried her mother. “Have you been examining Roxane's correspondence?"

  “You know I always check the post when it is brought in. If I have noticed that Roxane has received an envelope, what harm? It is not as though I steamed the seal off and read the contents."

  Roxane smiled.

  “What does your father say?” Unity chattered on, unperturbed by her mother's remarks. “Is he looking forward to your arrival? How is he? You will enjoy
Delhi. I know you will."

  “Yes,” replied Roxane slowly, “yes, he is looking forward to my arrival.” She uttered this with a note of bewilderment of which even she was aware in her voice. She understood the reason. In his letter, her father had somehow inserted a tone of anxiousness, of—of fondness—for his daughter that had not ever, to her recall, been present before. “He seems most anxious for my arrival,” she reiterated, and this time, the perplexity of her tone was obvious to all, for curious glances were exchanged between the colonel and Mrs. Stanton.

  Suddenly, the colonel lowered his utensils to the cloth-covered table. He cleared his throat. “You are not very keen on going now, are you, Roxane?” he said. “Not that you don't want to see your father, but there is a reason why you would wish to stay here in Calcutta, isn't there?"

  Roxane turned to look at the man. The colonel glanced at his wife and winked broadly. Roxane watched with dread.

  “It is that rascal Harrison, is it not?” he said, with broad jocularity. Mrs. Stanton tapped him on the arm with her fingers, chiding him on his indelicacy.

  “We've seen quite a bit of him, on one excuse or another, haven't we, Mrs. Stanton?” the colonel continued, addressing his wife with a smile.

  “He's not been by for a week,” Unity interjected.

  “Duty,” Colonel Stanton pronounced deeply. “Only duty has taken the captain away, Roxane, never fear. I made it a point of checking up on the fellow. Sent off rather abruptly, he was. He should be returning to Calcutta some time today. No doubt,” he added, with a bark of laughter, “at the opportune moment to claim you for the first dance tonight at Government House ball!"

  “First dance?” echoed Augusta Stanton, idly picking up a slice of melon and stripping the fruit from the rind. “That place is normally reserved for the favorite among one's suitors, or the lady sits out. If Roxane were to permit the captain the first dance, the significance would be remarked upon. Perhaps we should not allow it? Her father's wishes might be such—"

  “A father's wishes,” interrupted the colonel, frowning hard at Roxane's deepening pallor, “are not likely to govern a twenty-year-old woman, I expect. Roxane, are you all right?"