by Olivia Drake
With a wistful sigh, Sarah brought her eyes up to Damien. Shoulders hunched, he met her gaze for only a moment before looking away. He tapped his foot and fiddled with his cigar.
“I don’t mean to bore you,” she said. “Aunt Violet must have seemed shallow to you, but believe me, she was a good woman. Surely you had an aunt or grandmother like her.”
“No.” He ground the cigar stub beneath the heel of his sandal. “No one.”
“Oh.” Too late, she recalled Shivina’s words: His childhood was most unpleasant. Curiosity burned in Sarah, but she suppressed the urge to question him. His past was his own affair. And she had things to hide, too. “At any rate, I owe it to my aunt’s memory to return to Meerut. Uncle John will need me.”
“He’ll have his hands full subduing the riots. He doesn’t need a female to worry about. If he isn’t dead already.”
The gruesome possibility made her shiver. “I must believe he’s alive. I must.”
“You’d be a damned fool to walk back into a bloodbath. You’re safer staying with me.”
She sat up straight on the wooden chest. “With you? You must be joking.”
“I never joke,” he said brusquely. “I’ll pay you to be my son’s nursemaid. Five hundred pounds—until the mutiny dies down and I can find a permanent nanny.”
Her mouth dropped open. He couldn’t be serious. “That’s a ridiculously large sum.”
“Don’t you think you’re worth it?”
“You live like a pauper. How do I know you can afford to pay me so much?”
“Trust me, Miss Faulkner. My parents may have disowned me, but I have resources. I’ll get you a bank draft the instant this madness is over.”
Hope sparked in the void of her grief. She’d lost Reginald and the security he offered. She could buy her independence. Yet why would Damien Coleridge do her any favors?
“You detest everything English,” she said. “Why would you employ me when you could engage a woman from the village—a woman like Madakka?”
“Madakka can’t leave her husband. I need someone reliable to care for my son. For all your other irritating qualities”—his gaze raked her from head to toe—”I know you’d never desert Kit.”
She repressed the urge to tidy her wrinkled sari again. Annoyed, she snapped, “Perhaps you should watch him yourself.”
“All I know about babies is that you feed one end and clean the other.”
“I hardly know much more.”
He shrugged. “You’re a female. You have instinct on your side.”
Pig, she wanted to say. He settled onto the charpoy, the ropes beneath the flimsy straw pallet squeaking under his weight. Propping his hands behind his head, he stretched out his long legs. Sarah gazed at him in fascinated distaste. With his mussed hair and the stubble of a beard shadowing his jaw, he looked every inch the disreputable knave.
Hardly pleasant company for the long trek to the hills. And definitely an unacceptable companion for a lady.
She bit her lip and remembered her vow to Shivina. “Why not hand Kit over to me?” she said. “I’ll take him to safety. Then you can go on your merry way.”
“Believe this, Sarah. I’ll never give up my son.”
Conviction lurked in his steady gaze. She hadn’t thought him capable of that. Neither had she thought herself capable of even considering an offer like his. Yet what other choice did she have?
“Well?” Damien said. “ Do we have an agreement?”
Glancing down at Kit’s trusting face, Sarah felt the binding tug of affection. “I’d have to send a message to Patel. He and Uncle John will be frantic.”
“I’ll fetch you paper and pencil in the morning. When the danger calms down, one of the village boys can deliver your note.”
“All right, then. I’ll go.”
There. She’d committed herself to spending the coming days—perhaps even weeks—in the company of a scoundrel.
“Excellent,” Damien said. “We’ll leave before the first light.”
He crossed his legs and adjusted his position on the bed. He looked disgustingly comfortable. Too comfortable.
Gloom gathered in the small room, creating an uneasy aura of intimacy. Sarah folded her arms over her bosom. “You’d better go now,” she said. “The women will be coming to bed soon.”
“Not here they won’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I needed to speak to you in private, and I didn’t know how long it would take to persuade you. So I told them you and I would be spending the night together.”
She reared off the wooden chest. “You told them what?”
“Shush, or you’ll wake the baby.”
“Explain yourself,” she said in a harsh whisper.
Damien shrugged. “What’s to explain? They think you’re my woman. It’s expedient to let everyone go on believing so.”
“That’s another thing I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. How dare you let Jawahir believe that you and I—”
“Calm down, Miss Priss. I don’t much like this charade, either. You aren’t exactly my kind of woman.”
“Thank heaven for that.”
“There’s a reason behind my madness. You see, Jawahir and a few of the villagers have agreed to travel with us. To avoid being murdered by any mutineers we meet on the road, we’ll dress and act like Hindus. You’ll be more protected as my wife.”
Disbelief jolted her. “Your wife! This is getting worse by the moment.”
“Come now, surely you can manage. When we see other travelers, keep your face and hair veiled. We’ll pose as pilgrims on our way to Hardwar, in the foothills of the Himalayas.”
Hardwar, revered as the origin of the Ganges, and one of the seven sacred sites of the Hindus. Despite her antipathy, she was intrigued by the prospect of visiting the holy city and viewing the shrines and temples there.
“And what about you?” she asked. “People will surely guess you’re English.”
“I’m dark enough to pass as one of the lighter-skinned people from Kashmir. I’ll grow a beard to obscure my features.”
“But what if someone sees through our disguises? Someone might challenge us. ‘
“Then he’ll be damned sorry.”
His cold, brutal tone crawled over her skin like a deadly serpent. She leaned against the wall and rubbed her arms through the thin silk. With absolute certainty, she knew Damien would kill to save his son. With stunning shock, she realized she would do the same.
In that, at least, they shared a common bond. Perhaps through protecting the infant, she and Damien could become friends. The thought chased away the chill inside her and left a mellow warmth.
“Go back to sleep, Sarah. You’ll need a good night’s rest so you don’t hold everyone up tomorrow.”
He rolled onto his side and presented his back to her.
She glared at the ghostly white of his clothing through the shadows. Hold everyone up, would she? Just when she felt a small softening toward him, he managed to vex her again.
The urge to kick him in the shins seized her. Let him explain to the villagers why his “wife” had thrown him out.
Releasing a breath, she controlled the wild impulse. Good sense resurrected itself. Despite the day of rest, her muscles still screamed for more. She lay down beside Kit and fit his small body against hers. Conscious of Damien’s deep breathing from the adjoining charpoy, she stared into the darkness. She had never before slept in the same room with a man. Lying so near to him roused a peculiar fluttering in the bottom of her stomach.
A gentleman would have offered to sleep elsewhere. But Damien himself had admitted he was no gentleman.
She closed her eyes. Her virtue was safe, though, for no one in his right mind would believe they were man and wife.
Chapter 9
“What a handsome man,” said Lakshmi. “He makes you a fine husband.”
Pursing her lips to hold back a retort, Sarah followed the older woman’s
gaze to the small group of men a short distance ahead. Sunlight flashed off the distant, snakelike Ganges River, and she shaded her eyes with her hand. Jawahir and Damien led the band of villagers along the dirt track.
White native homespun draped his hard-honed form and left his legs bare from his knees to his rope sandals. He bore a remarkable similarity to the Indians, yet his height and his arrogant carriage hinted at his blue blood. With the heavy beard darkening his jaw, he resembled a dacoit, one of those robbers who haunted the back roads and preyed upon lone travelers.
He was handsome, Sarah supposed, if one favored scoundrels.
Madakka plodded behind the two men, holding a black umbrella over her husband’s head. The other women trailed them, Lakshmi and Sarah bringing up the rear. The faint clink of the women’s silver bangles mingled with the murmur of voices.
Dust coated Sarah’s clothes and gritted her eyes. Kit wiggled in the makeshift sling at her hip, and she stroked his downy hair until he settled back into his nap. Her “fine husband” hadn’t even offered to carry his son.
“I did not think,” Lakshmi continued in her frank but friendly way, “that the English could take a second wife. How did the burra sahib do so?”
“It’s rather complicated,” Sarah hedged. “Perhaps you should ask him to explain.”
‘Oh, but I could never question a man.”
“I suppose that’s just as well. On second thought, Damien likely wouldn’t speak of the matter, anyway.”
Gracefully balancing a huge basket on her veiled head, Lakshmi turned a thoughtful glance at her companion. “Ah, you mean your people did not acknowledge his marriage to a Hindu.”
“Something like that.”
Sarah hated having to lie. She hated misleading this guileless woman. Most of all, she hated posing as Damien’s wife.
Her stomach squeezed with dull pain. Seven days ago, she’d been a young woman happily anticipating marriage to a man who promised her security. Now she posed as wife to a despotic knave who roused only resentment in her heart.
Damien annoyed her at every turn. He alternately treated her like his personal slave and acted as if she didn’t exist.
Broiling beneath the midday sun, she adjusted the bundle of sleeping mats atop her head. A week of walking hadn’t accustomed her to the clumsy load. Her neck and shoulders ached perpetually. Her legs quivered from constant fatigue. Her bare feet bore painful blisters. Though Lakshmi and the other women toted the heavier cooking pots and sacks of food, her own burden felt as weighty as a granite statue of Brahma.
Like the other men, Damien strolled along, unhampered by any burden, oblivious to all but his own selfish needs. Perhaps what irked Sarah the most was the way he fell so easily into the patriarchal role of an Indian male.
Her submissive pose was all part of the charade, she reminded herself, the charade that made her wear the silver bride bangles and anklets of a Hindu wife. The charade that required her to darken her fair skin with walnut juice and to dye her blond hair black. The charade that would help them reach safety in the Himalayan foothills.
Luckily, so far from the main roads, they’d met few travelers. Yet she burned to see someone who could give news of the mutiny.
At least now she could write from firsthand experience about the harsh lot of the Hindu women. She felt guilty at the freedom and privilege she’d enjoyed in English society, a life she’d chafed under.
Careful of her burden, she turned to study Lakshmi’s sharp features, the beaky nose and squinty eyes. “We’re grateful to you for allowing us to travel with you on such short notice.”
“Every day you tell me so,” said Lakshmi. “Every day I tell you there is no need for thanks. My husband merely wishes to repay the burra sahib.”
“Repay Damien for what?”
“I do not think it is my place to say.”
The statement roused Sarah’s curiosity. “Tell me, please.”
Lakshmi hesitated. “For his kindness in rescuing Jawahir’s sister, Shivina.”
Sarah nearly stumbled. Her weariness faded before the startling news. “His sister? Shivina was Jawahir’s sister?”
“See? I should not have told you.” Lakshmi glanced ahead and grinned, displaying horsey teeth against shoe-leather skin. “The second wife does not always care to hear tales told of the first wife.”
“I have no such prejudices.” Making sure the others were out of earshot, Sarah hastened to keep up with Lakshmi on the rutted track. She stepped on a sharp rock and winced in pain. “Why doesn’t Jawahir grieve for his sister?
“He did not know Shivina well. You see, he was many years older than she. In truth, we were already married when she was born. She was wed as a child and went to live with her husband’s family in Delhi.”
Sarah blinked. “Shivina was married before?”
“Yes. Her husband was a scribe in the court of Bahadur Shah.”
“The King of Delhi?”
“Yes. Raman was not a kind man, unlike my Jawahir.” She cast a fond smile at the headman, who walked with a boyish spring to his step. “Raman ruled his wife with a harsh hand. He beat her when she failed to bear him a son.”
Sarah was incensed. “As if it were her fault! My Aunt Violet also never bore a child, but my uncle still respected and loved her.”
“Ah, but Raman was a weakling. A strutting peacock who could not make Shivina’s womb quicken.” A grin wrinkled Lakshmi’s cheeks. “But how swiftly she bore a son for Coleridge-sahib. His seed must be potent, indeed.”
Her shrewd gaze swept over Sarah, as if she were checking for more evidence of his virility. A flush hotter than the sun scorched Sarah’s cheeks. Hastily she said, “What happened to Raman?”
“By Sita’s will, the cholera took his life more than a year ago. He held to the old Hindu rites, and left orders that his widow should join him on the funeral pyre.”
Horror iced Sarah’s skin. “Suttee has been banned. Bahadur Shah would never allow one of his people to flout British law...” Her words trailed off as she remembered how swiftly Delhi had fallen. The Moghul ruler must have thrown in his lot with the rebels.
Once, she had prided herself on her awareness of the political climate. How smug I. M. Vexed had been; how insignificant her editorials seemed now. Like a vulture flapping its great black wings, ghastly memories of the mutiny shadowed her. Aunt Violet with a knife in her breast. The soldier lying spread-eagled. Shivina gasping her last breath...
Sarah bit her lip hard. If only she’d had the courage to speak out, at the dinner party or at the punishment parade or at a score of other occasions, perhaps she might have done her small part to ward off the bloodshed.
“The King of Delhi makes his own law,” Lakshmi went on. “He knew the wish of his loyal scribe, and promised to look the other way so long as the rites were held outside the city gates.”
“Yet Shivina escaped. Do you know how? Were you there?”
“No, I heard the story from my husband’s sister. The ceremony was to be held at dawn, the day after Raman’s death.” With the air of a seasoned gossip, Lakshmi dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. “At the darkest hour of the night, the court ladies dressed Shivina in her wedding sari. A group of mourners—all friends of Raman—escorted her to a secret temple far down the Jumna River. A temple dedicated to the honor of Kali.”
Sarah shuddered. In her mind she heard the echo of the fakir screeching the name of the blood-goddess, the Destroyer. “Shivina must have been terrified.”
“She was too faithful a wife to disobey the command of her husband and his family. As the priest chanted mantras before the rising sun, she walked to the funeral pyre and knelt beside the body of Raman.” Lakshmi paused, and the eerie whistle of a pariah kite carried from high in the brassy blue sky.
“Then what happened?” Sarah prodded.
“Then the priest held a torch to the tinder. The flames began to dance and smoke began to rise.” The Hindu woman lifted her brown hands to the
heavens. “My husband’s sister smelled the stench of Raman’s burning flesh. Slowly, slowly, the fire crept toward Shivina until the flames licked at the edge of her sari.”
Her heart beating fast, Sarah imagined the inferno inching closer. “What did she do?”
“She prayed for deliverance. And suddenly out of the tall reeds along the riverbank, Coleridge-sahib appeared.” As if conjuring up a magician, Lakshmi waved her arms, the bracelets chiming. “He pushed aside the friends of Raman. He ran to Shivina and snatched her from the flames of death.”
Sarah released a breath. “Didn’t the mourners stop him?”
“Pah! What could they do to one so bold? Like a thundering god, he said that his picture-box had captured their images and he had sent the picture back to Delhi with his bearer. He swore if they did not let Shivina go with him, everyone present would be imprisoned by the British for practicing suttee.”
“He really did that?” Sarah said in disbelief.
“Indeed so. The friends of Raman grumbled and threatened, yet in the end they had no choice but to let the burra sahib carry Shivina to a new life. She became an outcast, but Jawahir was grateful nonetheless.”
“I see.”
Sarah suspected that with the Indian love for a good story, Lakshmi had embellished the tale. Yet sympathy burrowed through her mistrust and formed a tender nest inside her heart. Absently she touched Kit’s silken cheek. No wonder Damien had balked at burning Shivina. No wonder he’d stared with strange fascination at the flames.
He must have been reflecting on the sad irony of saving her from suttee only to relinquish her body to the blaze.
He himself knew the horror of fire. His scarred hands were proof of that.
Sarah turned her gaze to him. Among the bright oranges and blues and greens worn by the pilgrims, Damien in his simple bleached garments commanded attention. The shimmering heat enveloped him in a mirage; pure white sunlight limned him with radiance. She pictured him charging from the underbrush like Krishna swooping down from the heavens.
