by Alyssa Deane
The mounted sowars showed no sign of slackening speed, as if planning to run them through and go on, straight into the water and across. Or, Roxane realized suddenly, as if they did not see them at all. Reflexively, her hand came up before her, a pale expanse of flesh in the dreary morning. A word went out, from one of the men in front, and then the animals were ridden hard to ground, back onto their haunches as the troopers to the fore hauled on the reins. Those behind, unable to stop, careened around their comrades, skidding in the mud, galloping madly past Roxane and her family, while still others wheeled their mounts about, charging off into the green growth to either side of the road. Roxane stood with her hands fisted at her sides, nails biting into the skin of her palms. As the troopers slowly milled about, surrounding them on all sides, Roxane began, once again, to breathe. A smile quavered on her lips.
“What the devil is all this?” demanded a distinctly imperious English voice.
“Good morning, Harry,” said Roxane.
The uniformed British officer started, leaning forward in his saddle to peer more closely at Roxane. He looked different, somehow, Roxane mused, as if inactivity had been his enemy, and now that a crisis was at hand, he had come alive.
“Who are you?” he asked, and she realized that, if the change in his appearance was subjective, hers was most certainly objective and would require some clarification. She took a step forward.
“Harry, it's Roxane. Roxane ... Harrison. Formerly Sheffield. How is Rose?"
From where she stood, she heard the swift intake of the man's breath, and then he threw back his head to laugh. “By God,” he crowed, “the lucky devil married you after all, did he? And has probably left you a widow, too, I would hazard to guess."
“Only,” stated a weak male voice rising to Roxane's shoulder, “if you keep me much longer from medical help, Harry. In which case, I do not think Roxane would be much inclined to forgive you, would you, dear?"
Roxane spun about, catching Collier in her arms as he stumbled forward, somehow managing to keep both of them from falling. His full weight was on her, and she slipped her arms behind his back to hold him up. She pressed her mouth against his ear.
“Never, sweetheart, I never would forgive him."
She heard him chuckle, very softly. And then there were helping hands all around, lifting his weight away from her, lifting all of them, one by one, into saddles behind mounted men. The man who had taken Collier up, a tall, strongly built Sikh, seemed most happy to see him. In fact, he was crying openly, and without shame.
“You will promise me,” said Harry, passing close by Roxane with a shout to his men, “a full accounting while your husband recuperates. Rose will be most anxious for every detail."
With tears in her eyes, Roxane promised what he asked. There was, to Roxane, nothing suggestive in Harry Grovsner's statement, merely the proprietary invitation of a man who was settled, whose wife he wished to please, who was truly happy to see erstwhile neighbors—she would never, in the past, have called herself his friend—alive and well. Yes, thought Roxane, as she clung to the waist of the trooper before her, the mount breaking into a canter beneath them, Harry was indeed a changed man.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“So, just when did the nuptials occur?"
Roxane, seated with elbows resting on the chair arms in Rose and Harry's parlor, tipped her head sideways against her hand, scratching, for a moment, at a circle of irritated skin above her temple. She smiled contentedly at Rose, who was reclined into the rump-sprung sofa, cuddling her sleeping infant son against her breast. He was a beautiful child, with Rose's golden hair and perfect little ears, and the tiniest nose Roxane had ever seen. Rose herself had blossomed with motherhood, bestowing maternalistic favors, rather than those that had been her wont, upon everyone. She had not yet lost the weight she had gained with pregnancy, but it became her. She wore her hair differently, too, and batted her eyelashes only for her son.
“We were wed at the end of March,” Roxane answered.
“Then,” said Rose, smoothing the honey curls along her baby's scalp with the length of her finger, “you were not with child at the time."
Roxane's brows arched slightly. Otherwise, she gave no outward sign that Rose's words had surprised her. The Roxane who would have bristled at the implication was no more; after all, it might very well have been so, for she and Collier were, indeed, lovers in advance of the wedding night. Roxane also had the ability now to recognize that there was no insult intended. In this moment of intimate converse, the other woman's frame of reference was the circumstance of her own union.
“No,” she said.
“Does he know you are pregnant now?"
Slowly, Roxane straightened. She reached for the glass of lemonade on the small table at her elbow, lifting it to her lips. She took a small sip.
“Is it that obvious?"
“To me,” smiled Rose, “and a few others, I am certain. So,” she persisted, curling a tendril of Harry Jr.'s hair about her fingertip, “he doesn't know?"
Roxane drew a deep breath, slowly releasing it. “Not yet,” she said.
Rose made a little face and shifted carefully around to rise from the sofa. Crossing the floor, she set the baby down in his cradle, pulling a lightweight blanket up over the tiny shoulders. Roxane followed her, standing a moment watching as she patted the infant's back, then stroked the rosy, soft cheek with the backs of her fingers. Outside the window, a gentle rain fell beyond the verandah in a soothing monotony of sound. Soon, the sun would be out, and the rains would end.
Straightening, Rose pressed her hands into the upper part of her hips and arched backwards with a grimace.
“Better,” she murmured after a moment, and resumed her seat. Roxane did not, but still stood, staring down at the sleeping child.
“I understand,” continued Rose, “why you would not wish him to know while you were fleeing the horror of what was happening—my goodness, what is still happening!—in the north, but why do you remain silent now, Roxane? Is the child not his?"
Roxane whipped around at this evidence of the old Rose, only to find her smiling a small, apologetic smile, pale brows arched, as if to say, if not that, then what reason could you possibly have?
Roxane went back to her chair and perched on the edge of the chintz cushion.
“Every night, since he is well, when we are together, I make an effort to ensure that he does not touch me in such a way that he will discover what you have so easily noticed,” she confided glibly, compressing her lips in thought. “I undress away from his eyes, and dress in the same manner. In the morning, I ask myself why. Why do I not share with him this news which I know would gladden his heart?"
“And what,” asked Rose, “do you answer yourself? For surely you must know."
Roxane folded her hands together in her lap. She raised her eyes to a small watercolor hanging on the wall across the room. It was of an English countryside. Roxane recognized the place; she had most certainly been there in her youth. She felt her heart contract in a pang of homesickness.
“Nicholson,” she said softly, “is in Delhi. He has taken charge of the returned British troops and plans to retake the city."
Rose stretched out languorously on the sofa, dropping her head back over the arm. She folded her plump arms beneath her breast.
“I know this,” she said. “Day and night, your husband and mine speak of little else."
“Exactly,” said Roxane, and pressed her spine into the back of her chair. She watched Rose, waiting for the other woman to put words to her own dilemma. Closing her hand over the top of the lemonade glass at her side, she felt the condensation drip between her fingers.
Rose, who had closed her eyes in repose, suddenly opened them again. She turned her head to look directly at Roxane.
“You don't mean to say that Collier plans on returning there? Has he said so?"
“Not clearly,” Roxane admitted.
Struggling in her haste to s
it up, Rose's voice rose in agitation. “Then you must tell him straightaway that you carry his child! If you tell him this, then surely he will not go. Surely, he will choose to stay here! He ... oh."
“Oh,” Roxane echoed.
“Damn them, and their honor!” Rose muttered fiercely. In the corner, Harry Jr. started with a small noise, and was still. Rose craned her neck to peer into his cradle; then, satisfied all was well, she returned to the crisis at hand.
“Tell him tonight, Roxane! Do not cosset that man. Do not protect him from the full burden of his choosing. If he elects to follow the name of honor, then let it be with all the pain that you are forced to bear by his decision. Indeed, you do him an injustice by removing that factor for him. Tell him tonight, Roxane, promise me you will."
Roxane had never seen such an expression of earnest entreaty on Rose's countenance before, and she found herself swayed by it, and by the common sense of Rose's argument. Roxane nodded.
“Very well,” she agreed. “I will do it."
“Good,” said Rose, “then that is settled.” She resumed her lounging position, taking a long drink from her own dripping glass. Closing her eyes, she smiled a long, slow, secretive smile, stamped by irony.
“Once,” she commented archly, tawny lashes still lowered, “I was certain Harry was a man without honor. He has lately made a habit of proving me wrong. I wonder if I, too, should be concerned."
Roxane received the impression, when Rose spoke, that she had nary a concern at all.
* * * *
In the twilight, Roxane strolled at Collier's side, watching him sidelong from beneath her lashes. He had not yet returned to his full strength and vigor, but he was far healthier than he had been only three weeks earlier. His skin had lost its ashen dryness and was bronzed once more. Hair that had been limp now bore the sheen of life deep within the black locks. His walk was one of vitality and purpose, marked by a distinctive, most alarming, restlessness.
He had, she knew, spent the entire day waiting for an interview with Lord Canning, which late in the afternoon he was granted. Returning to the Grovsners’ bungalow to collect Roxane, he was reticent regarding the objective or the outcome, but it was then, as he walked through the doorway beside Harry, that Roxane had noticed how he vibrated with some inner restraint. Seeing that, Roxane felt her mouth go dry, and she had turned to Rose to find, in the other woman's countenance, that she had seen it, too.
“Tonight,” Rose had whispered to her, as she was leaving.
Yes, thought Roxane, glancing once again at Collier's handsome profile, tonight.
Puddles in the roadway reflected the last of the sun in ever-enlarging circles, as drops of water from the earlier rain dripped off leaves overhead, seeking the earth. Everything smelled wet, sodden, but somehow fresher than it had, green and new, and with the cooling temperatures of September lifting the atmosphere. Certain flowers, impervious to the onslaught of the monsoons, lifted regal heads, dispersing their perfumes into the coming night. Colors were clean-edged, and the white picket fences were like moonlight.
So different, she mused, than what they had left behind in Delhi, what they had witnessed along the way. Turning her head, she looked to the distant buildings, built by the English, and remembered those they had seen pitted and breached by guns; remembered that inside them huddled people without food, without clean water, dead, or waiting to die, racked with disease or hopelessness, praying for rescue, for aid, for assistance. She turned her head again to look at Collier. The sky behind him was a deep green-blue, of such clarity and beauty it nearly broke her heart.
If he goes, she thought, I cannot blame him.
At the gate to the Stantons’ bungalow, Collier stood aside, holding the wooden portal for her to precede him. He chucked her beneath the chin as she passed, winking one storm-gray eye. He was playful, in a distracted manner, as he had not been for many long weeks, as if a weight had lifted from his shoulders. She knew then, and finally, that he had made his decision. What she told him tonight would make no difference. For a moment, she almost hated him for it.
The staff at the Stantons’ had been greatly reduced, but Govind had temporarily taken up the position of butler. He appeared at the door and held it wide, taking Roxane's shawl from her shoulders. After their months together, Roxane felt he had lost his servant's status, but it made him more at ease to retain it, and she tried to accommodate him when she could.
“Where is the colonel?” she asked.
“Gone for the evening. He does not expect to return before the early morning hours."
“And Sera?"
“Sleeping."
Roxane nodded and headed for Unity's bedroom, which she and Collier now shared. Both Unity and Augusta had been packed off to England by the colonel at the end of May. Unity had not departed, however, without first obtaining a promise from Corporal Lewis, who had addressed her father regarding a betrothal. This the colonel had confided to Roxane shortly after her return. There were many others who had gone also, including, so Roxane was informed by Rose, Olivia Waverly and her father.
In the bedroom, Roxane swept aside the netting and sat down on the edge of the mattress. She kicked off her shoes.
“Collier, I—"
“No,” he said, “let me speak first.” Closing the door, Collier crossed the room, dropping to his knees in front of Roxane on the floor. He lifted both of her hands into his own and seemed to study them, as if their form, of a sudden, held absolute fascination for him. He bit at his lip, with the edge of his teeth. She had never seen him do that before.
“Roxane..."
Shaking her head in an abbreviated movement, she plucked her hands from his grasp, folding the fingertips of both hands against his lips.
“Not yet,” she whispered. “Please, not yet."
“But Roxane—” he murmured, beneath her fingers. She shook her head again and took her hands away, silencing him with the pressure of her mouth upon his own. Gently, he pushed her back, turning his face aside.
“Roxane—"
“No!” And she kissed him again, desperation making it rough, and aggressive, and not gentle at all, while the tears coursed down her cheeks, salt liquid mingling with the taste of the gin on his tongue.
“Roxane—"
“Wait! Oh, God, wait,” she pleaded tearfully and stood up, pulling him to his feet before her. Frowning, he lifted his hand to brush the water from her skin, and she saw that his own eyes were welling with moisture. He kissed her then, softly, brushing his lips across her cheek, then to her mouth, where he lingered for a very long time. She took his hands and placed them on her shoulders, spinning beneath them as she turned her back to him.
“Help me,” she said. “Help me take off my things."
Wordlessly, he complied, unfastening every hook, every button, every stay, and sliding each garment to the floor about her feet. She could hear the quickening of his breath against her ear every time he bent to drop something new to the floor. When he was done, he slipped his arms around her and lowered her across the bed. Roxane watched as he divested himself of his attire, wincing at the definition of his ribs, so clearly delineated, and the scars, still pink, of sword cut and bullet, which had grazed deeply but had not entered. In the last light of the day, he laid his battered body down beside her own.
“Give me your hand."
Silently, he obeyed. Taking his hand, Roxane began to move it slowly down the length of her body. She felt her nipples rise beneath the caress of his calloused palm, and heard the small noise he made in his throat, but she did not permit him to linger. Down, across her rib cage, to her hip, then up again, to the gentle swell of her abdomen. Not large, yet, by any means, but enough, and more than enough, for him to know, if he would allow that knowledge.
“What—? Is there something you are trying to tell me, Roxane?” he whispered, pushing his body closer to hers and releasing his hand from her grip to roam across the roundness of her womb on its own.
�
��I—I am pregnant, Collier,” she stammered. “I carry our child."
“I know that, sweetheart.” He smiled in the gathering darkness. “I have known for quite some time."
With an expulsion of breath, Roxane rolled against him.
“How?” she demanded. “How did you know?"
Collier propped himself up on one elbow, toying with a lock of hair that had fallen across her collarbone. “I did not need words to tell me what my eyes could see. How many nights do you think I watched you while you slept, Roxane? Or touched you, like this, while you were sleeping, drawing you near to me? I know your body as intimately as I know my own. Maybe more so.” He smiled again. “Did you not think I would see the changes that have come? For that matter, dear heart, in all the time we were on the road, did you think I would not notice that you had no bleeding? It would not have been something, under those conditions, which you could easily hide."
Roxane was silent.
“You thought to keep me from worrying, didn't you?"
“And it seems,” she said dryly, “that I failed."
“No,” he murmured, “it was the knowledge of your courage, and of your caring, of your own particular strength, which gave me courage and kept me strong."
“Truly?"
“I swear it,” he said, crossing his fingers over his heart before touching the tip of her nose. Roxane snuggled closer, nuzzling her face into the side of his neck. She could smell the soap he had used when washing that morning, and the pine scent of the alcohol he had consumed before coming to meet her. He did not, however, appear drunk. She slipped her hand under his arm, just behind his shoulder, and pulled him closer.
“But you will leave me,” she said, not as a question, but as a statement of fact. She did not require a response. There was no need, when she already knew what that response would be.
“Yes,” he whispered, after a moment.
“When?"
For several minutes, he did not answer. With her head in the crook of his arm, he curled finger and thumb into her tresses, drawing out the pins still clinging here and there, and dropped them onto the bedside table. Pushing against the linens, he turned down the bed, assisting Roxane to a place beneath the sheets. He slid in beside her. Outside, the ink of night settled over the world.
