by Kate Gray
outwitting his precocious offspring. She would, no doubt, be irritated to discover that her father had intended on the two of them making their acquaintances from the first. He was obviously aware of his daughter’s nighttime wanderings.
Why else would he assign a senior officer to make rounds, when it was a leftenant’s job? Abington was due to travel to Calcutta in the interim, and would have to entrust Ranajit with the task of keeping a watchful eye on Isabel.
His old friend, who had been with him for too many years to count, was well-versed in this duty. Ranajit had been fulfilling it ever since Isabel had learnt to walk.
ॐ
Macconnach walked through his thoughts for several days afterwards. During firing drills, he imagined himself in his new role. Afternoon mess found him considering the eventual reactions of his peers. The battalion’s field day was hardly on his mind as he warred with himself over his desires and his duty.
One evening after tea, he sat in his quarters, polishing his brass outfittings, still unable to come to any conclusion. It had been four or five days since he had chased down Isabel Alderton. A sharp rap on his tent pole brought him back to the surface, and he waved in a young corporal who held out to him a folded message.
"What’s this, then?"
"Sir! It’s a message from the big house, sir! One of the serving girls bade me give it you, sir!"
"All right then, you’re dismissed."
The lad ran out as fast as he could, leaving Macconnach to frown over the grubby patch of paper. A servant? For him? He opened it with trepidation, only to find another folded slip of paper inside, this one pristinely white, smelling of cloves. His heart leapt into his throat. Isabel Alderton. It had to be.
It read: Major, I do hope that the other evening agreed with you. I shall be again as I was, if it is of interest to you.
She had not signed it, but there was no need to. He understood precisely her meaning, and what her request was. It was the intent behind it which gave him pause. If only he could respond.
She might not understand his reservations, but she would respect them if he were able to share them with her. On the other hand, he disbelieved her assurances that she would be safe on her own.
The memory of what he’d sensed that night rose up in his mind, and he groaned in defeat, knowing where he would be after dark.
At the appointed hour, the same time as the other night, Macconnach slipped out of the gates, whispering to the sentry his intentions to walk the perimeter. He felt a pang of guilt for his untruth, but only as long as it took him to spot the movement of an indigo sari hemmed in gold.
She was even lovelier than she had been before, which hit him quite unexpectedly. He then realized that her eyes were lined with kohl. It gave her the distinct appearance of being truly native, to the unsuspecting. She moved from the shadows and met him as he walked to her.
“I understand that you are to be promoted."
Macconnach looked at her in surprise. He hadn’t assumed that the general would have shared this news, but supposed it made sense, given the peculiarities of both father and daughter.
"Yes. Your father informed me quite unexpectedly. I’d no idea that he brought me here for that purpose.”
"I had my suspicions. Though, I suppose," she said, whilst tossing pebbles into the shallows, "you might still be worrying over the wisdom of our journey the other night, as you obviously are still this night."
"You must be a sibyl. Those were my exact thoughts." He smiled, and felt how long it had been since he’d last done so.
"No, merely a student of the human mind."
"The human mind is a place of strange intentions and dangerous ideas." He edged closer to her, looking at the moonlight glittering in her hair. She sat in profile to him, still staring at the rippled surface passing them by.
"I thought you would not come. That your better sense would win out."
"Are you saying that it was poor sense for me to have come?" He watched as she turned her head quickly, propping her chin on her shoulder.
"Not really. But it is, perhaps, a bit reckless." Her smile curled around to him, a lotus flower eddying in a stream.
"That must be why I am jumping at every sound. It’s odd for me. I’m accustomed to sleeping through…everything." He grinned at her, feeling a bit foolish. She must have been feeling much the same, for she hid her face from him before speaking again.
"You must think me entirely silly and far too liberal." The current of her smile drifted downstream. So, that was what troubled her. He shifted to be able to see her better and leaned in to whisper.
"I hardly know what to think of you, to be honest. I might have thought you to be so before I met you, but you have utterly destroyed that impression from the moment you first spoke. Impetuous, devious, and worrisome, on the other hand….” His own smile lingered in his voice, but she scowled at him, clearly misinterpreting his humor.
“I had a feeling you would say something like that. I cannot apologize for being what I am, Major. I find society and convention deadly beyond words. I would rather become a nun than have to live in a world of terrible drear.”
He raised his eyebrows and held his tongue.
“Are you returning to the village tonight?”
“Not into the village, exactly. Rather, there is something I should like to examine, just on its outskirts.” She turned to the southwest, and set off. “Aren’t you going to accompany me?”
Macconnach sighed, and fell into step with her. He should have added ‘infuriating’ to that list he’d just given.
“You do have an innate ability to frustrate, Miss Alderton.”
“And you to stating the obvious. I might point out that this is how I normally rid myself of unwanted persons, but as you are not the typically dim sort of commissioned man, I find I can tolerate you.”
“Tolerate?? How kind of you to say so.” He looked over at her. “You truly must not know why your father brought me here.”
“He knows better than to bring me suitors, so I have to assume you are referring to some other hidden reason.”
Macconnach walked on, all silence.
“In time, perhaps. In time.” He walked on ahead of her, whistling a reel in satisfaction. He at last had the upper hand, if only for a moment. A rather strong sensation of needing to be a duelist around Miss Alderton had settled over him.
ॐ
Isabel was, in fact, rather torn about her current situation. Only her father knew that she had come back with him to his posting because of her habit of getting into mischief in “society”. Rather, that she sought it out.
Here, others sought her for things other than the next line on a dance card, or for tea and calling hours. She shuddered to think of all the petits four she had been forced to consume. Or the inane card games, and never mind the horrifying musical concerts everyone seemed to be holding in their salons these days.
The thought of balls and continental fashion trends was all it took to put her back in an ill temper. Here, there were no measures to prevent her from traveling to the local villages.
Nobody chided her for wearing last season’s frocks, nor even ones from several seasons past. Nor was she expected to titter and gossip. In this place, she felt free. It wouldn’t be terribly surprising to find out that Papa had tasked someone to shadow her, but she hoped not.
She watched Macconnach now, as he marched on ahead through the dense growth, and felt once again the impulse to knock the man off his feet. Why on earth was there such a strong fancy to lay hands on him, she wondered?
She decided to ignore it, as it was most disconcerting. He could be trusted to help her, but that was all. Otherwise, he was clearly going to be a challenge to her concentration.
You must really not know why your father brought me here. Piffle. Twaddle. He really was only maddening, if he spoke of talents that set him apart from the others. Self-importance, that was all.
She turned back to the task at hand, thi
nking smugly that she would be doing what she was doing, with or without Macconnach.
Never mind the odd compulsion she’d had in sending him that silly note. There was a very real issue with which to be dealt. All she had to do was determine what it was.
“You’ve not said what sorts of troubles this village has been experiencing. Perhaps our best approach would be to sort through what has been happening, and look for the likeliest reason that way.”
“I thought it better to show you, if you’d care to follow me, rather than plowing blindly through the night.”
Neither of them could see the other very well, and missed that they each rolled their eyes in unison. Macconnach sensed that he’d lost the slight upper hand he’d held, however, and capitulated.
“Very well, Miss Alderton, lead on, take me where you will.”
Isabel brushed past him unceremoniously, repressing the urge to give him a shove as she did so. She walked on with absolute certainty, even though it was like trying to march blindfolded.
The moon from the other night had shrunken much further. He noticed scudding clouds which must surely forebode rain. It was an unnerving feeling: walking without any sense of whether he was about to step onto a hill or into an abyss.
He could still feel the creeping presence he’d felt the night before. It was either following them or preceding them, but he was not positive which the case was. This uncertainty proved extremely distracting.
It was one thing to take on an enemy that he could name. It was quite another
