At the gateway, John stopped. ‘I will leave you here, Mrs Buckley.’
Alice was hurt by his sudden coolness towards her. ‘I hope I may see you again, Lieutenant. Perhaps you would care to visit me and Lotty?’
‘Perhaps,’ he said, turning away.
A moment later he was gone, disappearing into the shadows of the cantonment. Alice felt bereft and hurried home to breakfast with her daughter.
The following morning, while Vernon stayed in Kabul, Alice went out riding early. Her disappointment not to find John was overwhelming. Why should he come seeking her? He held none of the deep feelings that she did.
On the third morning, he was waiting for her in the shadow of the gatehouse. Alice could not keep the delight from her face.
‘You came.’ She smiled, then regretted her sudden presumption that he was there for her.
With relief, she saw him smile back. ‘I see you are determined to carry on with your morning rides so I thought I would provide an escort.’
‘Thank you.’
Her heart drummed faster than the canter of their horses as they rode to the river and followed its course to a sheltered orchard on the edge of the King’s Gardens. She wasn’t sure what his being there meant yet was joyful at his presence. She knew it could never be more than friendship but how she longed for any small gestures and signs that they were still friends.
At the orchard they stopped and dismounted. John asked Ravi to tend their horses while he walked a little way off with Alice.
‘I’m sorry for what I said the other day,’ Alice began. ‘I had no right to pry into your family life and I could see that it upset you. I shan’t ask again. Is it possible for us to be friends in spite of everything that has happened between us?’
John stopped and gazed out over the river where the early light was glinting off its surface. He turned to look at her, his eyes glinting with that fierceness she had seen in them at their last encounter. Her insides tensed; she had judged things wrongly again.
‘I admit I was angry with you,’ he said. ‘The first time I saw you again – when I was with Colin – I thought you must have known. I thought you were deliberately trying to hurt me – get back at me for not being there to save you from Vernon. The way you talked about your daughter and goaded me about my family missing me . . .’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Alice said, astounded. ‘I would never try to hurt you or be disrespectful to your family—’
‘That’s what Colin thought,’ John interrupted. ‘And after you said it again two days ago, I realised that you didn’t know. I assumed Vernon must have told you.’
‘Vernon?’ Alice queried. ‘Told me what?’
She saw his jaw clenching as he tried to speak. The words came out between gritted teeth.
‘I have no family,’ he said. ‘Not anymore. My wife and child are dead. They were murdered. In Baltistan. That is why I live the life I do, going where others will not go. I care nothing for my own safety for I have nothing left to lose.’
Alice was appalled. She saw his eyes glinting with tears of grief.
‘John,’ she whispered, ‘that is terrible. I’m so sorry. You poor, poor man.’
She reached out and took his hand, pressing it between her own hands but he stood rigid, not responding to her gesture.
‘When did this happen? Will you tell me?’ she encouraged.
At first he said nothing but she held onto him until he found his voice. He began to talk about his arrival in Baltistan and saving Sultana, a Kazilbashi girl, and her brother Aziz from robbers; how he had been encouraged to marry the girl to save her honour and how she had given him a son. But then one day when he had been out hunting with the king, the robbers’ kin had returned to wreak their revenge.
John looked harrowed as he told her. ‘I had moved Sultana and the baby into a house in the village where she could have a garden to remind her of home in the Kohistan – I should have left her in the safety of the fortress or taken her back to Afghanistan sooner as I kept promising.’
Alice’s sympathetic look and understanding silence helped him continue.
‘I couldn’t bear to stay in Skardu after that,’ he said with a shudder. ‘I left and took Aziz back to his people in the Kohistan. I lived with them for a short while – they were kind to me despite my failing to keep their daughter safe, or their grandchild—’ John broke off, his jaw clenching.
‘What was he called; your son?’ Alice asked gently.
‘Azlan Hercules Sinclair,’ John said with the ghost of a smile, ‘after the two men who brought me up at Ramanish.’
‘A good name,’ she said.
He broke away and drew his hand across his eyes, spilling the tears that had been brimming in them.
‘You loved her,’ murmured Alice. ‘Your Sultana.’
He gave her an intense look. ‘I married her out of pity but I grew to care for her. And when she gave birth to my son I thought I had never been happier.’
Alice nodded, her heart sore for him. ‘You would have made a fine father.’
‘Thank you,’ he rasped with emotion.
Alice glanced away, unable to bear the raw pain she saw in his face.
‘Did you . . . Did you ever get the message I sent to you through Colin?’ she asked. ‘Telling you that George had died?’
‘Aye, I did,’ said John.
Alice felt a wave of disappointment. So it had made no difference that she had been widowed; he would have married his Sultana anyway.
He took her by the arm and pulled her round to face him. ‘But only long after I was married. Azlan had just been born when Colin’s letter finally caught up with me.’
Alice tried to read the expression in his face.
‘I came to Kabul to work for Burnes in the hope of being allowed back to India but I soon got to hear that you had remarried.’ John’s look was intense. ‘I could hardly credit it. Once Buckley arrived in the city he was quick to boast to me how he had won you over so easily.’
Alice burnt with shame to think what Vernon might have said to John about her. Her hateful husband had never mentioned meeting his old rival but she could well imagine how Vernon would have gloated over John about his conquest of her.
‘He lied to me about you,’ Alice said indignantly, ‘and about himself.’
‘How could you have fallen for such a man?’ John was incredulous. ‘Colin said he warned you about what Buckley was like – how he mistreated women. You of all—’
‘I’d heard you were married to an Afghan and had a child on the way,’ Alice cried. ‘What was I supposed to do? You were beyond my reach forever – and Vernon said such terrible things about you that I began to doubt you had ever loved me.’
‘I have always loved you!’ John said with vehemence. His grip tightened. ‘Do you know why I agreed to marry Sultana? Because she reminded me of you! Her long auburn hair and her dimpled cheeks – if I tried hard enough I was able to imagine it was you . . .’
Alice gasped. ‘Oh, John!’
‘But you and Vernon,’ he said, his voice hardening, ‘it’s like a dagger in the guts to think of you together. Him of all men!’
‘I wanted a child,’ Alice said, shaking under his hold. ‘Longed for one. I’d miscarried twice with George. That’s what Vernon offered me – a chance to be a mother. Is that so very wrong?’
John released his hold and let go an agonised sigh. ‘Of course not. I’m sorry, Alice; I have no right to judge you. I just can’t endure seeing you with that devil. The way he treats you—’
‘I know what he’s like,’ she said with disgust. ‘I know what he does in Kabul – who he lives with. I’ve met his mistress – she’s just a girl – and I’ve seen the boy she gave him – the son he craves that I could not provide. There is nothing you can tell me about my husband that I don’t already know – nothing that can shock me anymore.’
Abruptly, he pulled her into his arms and held her close.
�
��I could kill him for what he’s done to you,’ he declared.
Alice could hardly believe she was standing in the shadow of a mulberry tree in John’s strong hold. She had never thought to feel his embrace again.
She looked into his vivid eyes and whispered, ‘Kiss me. I don’t care what happens after this. I just know that I can’t leave without feeling your lips on mine. I’ve craved it for so long.’
She saw the surprise in his eyes turn quickly to passion. He bent and kissed her with a firm mouth, like a man who had hungered long for this moment too. He covered her face with kisses and then returned to her lips and embraced her till she was lightheaded with desire.
It was Ravi who came and warned them that the grass cutters from the cantonment were approaching; Alice and John were oblivious of anything but themselves. Life was stirring with the dawn. Alice tore herself away from John with reluctance.
‘You must not be seen with me,’ John cautioned. ‘You should return first with Ravi before the sun is fully up.’
‘Can I see you again tomorrow?’ Alice pleaded. ‘I’ll ride out earlier.’
He raised her hand and pressed it to his lips for a last lingering kiss.
‘Only come if it’s safe,’ he warned.
By that she knew he meant if Vernon was still from home.
Alice rode back feeling reckless and fully alive for the first time in an age. John still loved her; she knew that to be true with every fibre of her being. And the love she felt for him was like a wildfire raging through her and threatening to grow out of control. At that moment, in the orange blaze of dawn, she was exultant. She would not think of the future beyond her next meeting with John.
CHAPTER 30
Kabul, August 1841
John had his beard shaved off by a barber in the bazaar for Johnny Sturt’s wedding to Dinah Sale. His chin felt raw from the cut-throat razor and the cheerful Indian barber soothed his skin by rubbing on musky-smelling oil. Back home in the small house he shared with Rajban and his family – John’s servant had married a Hindu merchant’s daughter in Kabul and now had two sons – John stripped off and washed in cold water. Then he dressed in the uniform that Rajban had laid out for him.
‘Do you think the jacket still fits?’ John asked his friend. The last time he had worn his best dress uniform was two years ago for the celebrations of Shah Shuja’s arrival in Kabul.
‘It will fit,’ said Rajban, ‘like a glove. A tight glove.’
John laughed. ‘You think I have grown fat with sitting around in Kabul eating too much of your wife’s curry?’
‘Not fat’ – Rajban grinned – ‘but your appetite has been healthy since you met Memsahib Alice again.’
John’s jaw reddened. ‘Is it so obvious?’
‘To me, yes,’ said Rajban. ‘To the outside world you are discreet. Not like that worthless husband of hers, flaunting his women and—’
‘That’s enough,’ John ordered. He did not mind Rajban’s outspoken comments – for years he had been more comrade than servant – but John didn’t want to think of Alice’s husband.
His stomach clenched as it always did when Vernon was mentioned. The man was odious. Alice’s pre-dawn rides had come to an abrupt end in June. John suspected that someone had spotted them or had at least reported seeing Alice going out of the cantonment. Word must have got back to Vernon because, for two months now, Alice had not been able to meet him alone.
They contrived to see each other in passing; when John visited the MacNaughtens to hand on intelligence or at Sunday services at the cantonment church. But they could only exchange small pleasantries and longing looks. He would go over in his mind the few precious clandestine meetings they had had at the King’s Gardens, sitting talking under the mulberry trees and stealing passionate kisses.
How he had longed to make love to Alice but it had been too risky and the snatched moments too short. She was nervous of Vernon finding out about their trysts and he had held himself in check. He suspected that, despite Vernon’s ill-treatment of her, Alice still felt an obligation as Vernon’s wife not to break her wedding vows. It infuriated John that Vernon should have any sort of hold over Alice, but for the moment all John could do was cherish the few sweet encounters with her in the cantonment.
Today they would see each other at Sturt’s wedding in the cantonment church. John liked the young engineer; he was a plucky but level-headed officer and John had been touched to be asked to be his best man.
‘Fellow engineer and all that,’ Johnny Sturt had said bashfully.
In the early days of the British force’s arrival in Kabul, Sturt had supported John when he’d advised MacNaughten to renovate the lower citadel to house the British. Both of them had thought it rash to leave the safety of the fortified city to build a cantonment on the plain as if they were in some peaceable part of India. But MacNaughten had ignored their warnings.
‘Makes us look like we don’t trust our Afghan allies,’ the envoy had said. ‘And they’ll just accuse us of trying to manipulate the amir if we stay in the Balla Hissar.’
‘Sir, they will respect us more if we fortify our barracks in the citadel and show that we are not going to be pushed around.’
‘Listen, Sinclair,’ MacNaughten had said with a polite pat on the shoulder, ‘you understand these people well but I know Shah Shuja better than most. He thinks he looks weak if we keep all our troops here in the city. He wants his own guard to protect him, not foreigners. So we will build ourselves a comfortable residence outside the city walls, eh?’
It still worried John that the majority of the British were housed on the broiling plain in full view of all the surrounding forts and hilltops. Recently, over cups of wine in John’s small courtyard, he and Sturt had discussed such matters while Rajban had strummed a guitar under the stars.
‘It’s madness that our supplies of grain and weapons are stored outside the cantonment in those old forts,’ Sturt had said. ‘Elphinstone couldn’t believe it when he arrived. Not that the old boy’s done anything to change matters since.’
‘He’s too ill for the job,’ John had said.
‘Perhaps you could try to speak to him?’ Sturt had suggested.
‘I’m here to advise the envoy, not the commander,’ John had sighed. ‘It would be nice if they would communicate with each other once in a while but I doubt my information is being passed on. MacNaughten likes to bury bad news.’
Sturt had looked so glum that John had changed the subject quickly.
‘Let’s drink to your forthcoming marriage,’ he’d said with a smile, ‘to the delightful Miss Sale. May you have many happy years together – you are well suited.’
Johnny Sturt had grinned. ‘Dinah is a wonderful girl – she’s got her father’s courage and her mother’s sociable nature. And I can’t wait to be married.’
They had drunk to that.
Lotty was almost as excited as Alice. The girl knew something very special must be happening for her to be wearing her best dress and have Ayah Gita tie blue ribbons in her hair and fix a sun bonnet on her. She got her ayah to put a ribbon around her rag doll’s plait and a new piece of muslin for a sari. The doll was called Gita too.
‘Pretty Gita.’ Lotty grinned, holding up her doll and waving it at her mother. Alice was wearing a white muslin dress with peach-coloured trimmings and bonnet. Around her shoulders she draped the soft feather-light pashmina shawl made from the wool that John had sent her from the mountains five years ago.
‘Very pretty.’ Alice kissed Lotty on the nose. ‘And you are sweet as a pea.’
‘Come Daddy now,’ Lotty said, rushing up to her father and pulling on his braces, which were hanging down past his knees.
Vernon screwed up his face in irritation. Alice could tell he was hung over.
‘Come on, Lotty,’ Alice said, quickly pulling the girl away. ‘We’ll leave Daddy to get ready. Let’s see if Alexander is outside.’
‘Don’t set off without me,’ Vernon barke
d after them. ‘Do you hear?’
Alice didn’t care how irritable her husband was, she had been looking forward to this day for weeks, especially since hearing that John was to be Sturt’s best man. Outside they were joined by the Aytons, who had returned in April. Emily was huge with child and hung onto Sandy’s arm. Alexander was riding a hobby-horse and Lotty began running after him, so that Alice had to go after her. In the mêlée in the street, she ended up arriving at the church with her friends without waiting for Vernon.
John was standing at the entrance, immaculate in his uniform, his sword at the ready for the ceremonial sabre arch to honour the bride. He turned, caught sight of Alice and smiled.
Alice felt her insides melt. His dark hair was groomed and his face newly shaven. His eyes shone with desire for her. She had never seen him look more handsome. It was the John she had first fallen in love with – older and more rugged-looking – but with the same open, amused expression.
Her heart hammered as she and the Aytons filed past him and he kissed Emily’s hand and then hers.
‘Mrs Buckley,’ he murmured, holding hers for longer than was necessary.
‘Lieutenant Sinclair,’ she said, feeling breathless. ‘What a special day for our friends.’
‘Indeed,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘And you are in danger of eclipsing the bride with your beauty.’
Alice felt the flush rise from her chest into her neck and cheeks. Lotty tugged on her other hand. John crouched down to speak to the girl.
‘Hello, Lotty. And who is this?’ he asked, pointing at the rag doll.
‘Gita,’ said Lotty.
‘Hello, Gita.’ John grinned, shaking the doll’s hand and tickling Lotty under the chin.
Lotty giggled and ducked her chin. Suddenly she spotted her father. ‘Daddy, Daddy!’
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