Forbidden Jewel of India (Harlequin Historical) Page 18

‘And how do you like Calcutta, Miss Laurens?’

  ‘I cannot say, Sir Clive. I have only just arrived. I knew it as a child, of course.’

  ‘The riding is very good here. The maidan around the fort is excellent. I ride there every day. Do you ride, Miss Laurens?’

  ‘Certainly. I do not have my own horses here, of course.’

  ‘And how do ladies ride in Indian dress?’

  ‘Astride.’

  ‘My goodness! That would cause a stir here, I must say. Let us step outside—the room is growing intolerably stuffy,’ he suggested.

  ‘Very well.’ There were several couples on the torch-lit terrace and servants standing around and the air was, indeed, more pleasant out there.

  A series of loud bangs and a rainbow flash of lights were greeted by cries of delight. ‘Fireworks near the fort,’ someone said and there was a general rush to the balustrade.

  ‘What a pity one cannot see better from here,’ Sir Clive said. ‘It seems a fine display—a wedding celebration, perhaps.’ There was another explosion of colour, greeted by clapping. ‘I know—let us go to the upper terrace.’

  Anusha loved fireworks and the steps he led her to were marked with torches, so Lady Hoskins obviously expected her guests to use that part of the garden. There would doubtless be servants up there too.

  When they arrived at the upper level the burst of lights was so spectacular that she ran to admire them and it was not until they died down that she realised that they were alone in a shadowed space, looking out on to a terrace below.

  ‘Miss Laurens…Anusha.’ He was very close. Far too

  close.

  ‘We should go down, there is no one else here.’

  ‘That is good, surely?’ Sir Clive put a hand either side of her so that she was trapped against the balustrade, his forearms bracketing her hips. ‘We came up here to be alone, did we not?’

  ‘I came up here to see the fireworks, I thought other people would be here too.’ She was not frightened, for surely this was only flirting going rather too far, but she was becoming annoyed and a little flustered. Anusha did not enjoy the sensation. ‘Please move your arms, Sir Clive.’

  ‘Not until I get my kiss.’ He moved in closer. Now she could feel his heat, smell the sandalwood he used on his hair. His breath smelled of brandy.

  ‘I have no wish to kiss you, Sir Clive.’ He was too close in now for her to raise a knee sharply, or twist free. She began to feel rather more than flustered.

  ‘Now don’t tell me you are a little tease, Anusha.’ He bent his head and kissed the side of her neck. She twisted her head away and his mouth found her cheek.

  ‘Stop it! I am not teasing you.’

  His lips moved down to her neck, down to the swell of her breast. ‘Oh, but you were,’ he murmured. ‘Those big grey eyes, those long, long lashes, that pouting mouth.’ He lifted his head and his eyes were bright, narrowed. Predatory. ‘I know what they taught you in that zanana—how to please a man and all manner of exotic tricks to do it, too, I’ll wager. Now you can show me some of them.’

  *

  ‘We need to speak about Anusha, George.’

  Nick took the older man by the arm and steered him into a deserted retiring room.

  ‘Now? Here?’ Sir George regarded him from beneath lowered brows and Nick wondered if he still had the uncanny power to detect wrongdoing that he had possessed when Nick had been a scrubby seventeen-year-old. His conscience was giving him hell and it probably showed.

  ‘I am worried about her. You need to talk to her about her mother, George. She’ll never settle to marriage with that in the forefront of her mind because she’s expecting to be rejected again, let down.’

  ‘I never intended—’

  ‘I know. You did the only thing in an impossible situation. But she doesn’t trust you and she sees marriage as a trap at worst, a burden at best.’

  ‘So do you, unless something has changed.’ The older man settled in an armchair, offered Nick a cheroot, then, when he shook his head, lit one for himself.

  ‘We are not discussing my situation.’ He wondered sometimes what a happy, loving marriage would be like, but that was just a daydream. He had seen his parents’ marriage, seen George’s troubles, experienced for himself the dull ache of a loveless union between two people without a thing in common. He should have done something—been kinder, more indulgent. Or perhaps firmer. He shook his head, exasperated at his own lack of understanding. No, marriage was not for him, not again.

  ‘I know. And I know, too, that I put a lot of pressure on you to marry Miranda, and that was a mistake. I won’t try to interfere with your love life again, believe me, Nicholas! But I want happiness for Anusha, security, respectability. I’ll find the right man for her.’

  ‘Then talk with her, convince her that you love her, that you loved her mother and never stopped. Let her see that she can trust you. Otherwise I fear she might run away.’

  ‘She would never do that, surely?’ Nick realised he understood her far better than her father. George was underestimating her fierce determination. ‘But I will talk to her about her mother. I… It shook me to find her so beautiful, so grown up—so cold. I don’t know what I expected when I saw her again and I haven’t handled it well.’ He looked up, a vulnerability in his eyes that grabbed at Nick’s heart. This was his strong father-figure? George couldn’t be getting old! ‘Thank heavens I’ve got you to help me look after her.’

  *

  If she screamed it would attract a lot of attention. Anusha thought longingly of the little knife that slipped into her riding boot. ‘Oh…very well.’ She lifted her face and Clive bent his smirking lips to hers. Anusha opened her mouth, let his touch it, then bit hard on his lower lip.

  Sir Clive jumped back, swearing, one hand clamped to his mouth, the other lifted as if to hit her. ‘You little bitch!’ he mumbled.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me again!’ Anusha hissed at him. ‘If I had a knife—’

  ‘If Miss Laurens had a knife she would doubtless castrate you, Arbuthnott. So be grateful that I am merely going to break your jaw.’ It was Nick, smiling, green eyes glinting in the torchlight.

  ‘The little baggage led me on. And as for you, Herriard, I’d like to see you try to lay a finger on me.’

  Anusha swallowed and gripped the stonework behind her as Nick’s smile changed subtly into something lethal. ‘I was going to break your jaw. For that I am going to throw you over the balustrade.’ He moved fast, caught the still-spluttering baronet off-balance in a twisting grip against his hip, and tipped him over the edge. There was a crash, a chorus of feminine shrieks and the sound of swearing.

  ‘Oh, I say!’ Nick leaned over, his voice full of exaggerated concern. ‘Are you all right, Arbuthnott? I told you not to stand up there to watch the fireworks.’

  ‘Bloody hell! I’ve got thorns in my ar—’

  ‘Not in front of the ladies,’ a man said below. ‘Come on, Arbuthnott, let’s get you out of there.’

  Nick turned. ‘That has punctured his dignity.’

  She found it was difficult to speak. ‘Thank…thank you. I thought you were going to kill him.’ Tears were threatening to choke her, she realised. Where had her courage gone?

  ‘Did you want me to kill him?’ Nick asked. ‘Did you expect me to call him out?’

  ‘To duel? That is what you mean?’ She swallowed hard. ‘No, of course not. It was just foolishness.’ What is wrong with me? And him? He still looks so angry?

  ‘He called you a baggage. What the blazes were you doing up here with him anyway?’ So that was what was wrong with him—he was angry with her. As though it were her fault! What hypocrites men were. ‘Well?’ he snapped. ‘What was it? Were you looking for another man to pleasure you, like a cat on heat?’

  The injustice of it stung like a whiplash. Anusha tried to be angry, but all she felt was utterly miserable. She had been frightened, confused, she had needed him and he had come. And now he thought s
he had encouraged that man?

  ‘How am I expected to know there would be no one else up here? It is all shocking and strange…all these men, being expected to flirt with them…strolling about, arm in arm down there,’ she stammered. ‘Do I tell one of Lady Hoskins’s guests to his face that I do not trust him?’

  Nick spun on his heel and stalked away to the other side of the terrace, his shoulders rigid. She sank down on a low bench and felt the tears begin to slide down her face. It was too much. I love you and I cannot have you and now you think I am just a…just a…

  He turned as abruptly as he had left her. ‘I am sorry. I apologise. You are quite right and I am not angry with you. I am angry with myself.’

  ‘It is—’ She tried to say all right, but her voice vanished in a sob. It was not all right, it never would be. This was the reality: she loved him, she could not have him and she would have to marry some other man who would not understand her, a man she could never love.

  ‘Hell!’ He strode across the terrace and fell on his knees beside her. ‘Anusha—he hurt you?’ He took her hand, but she tried to shake him off.

  ‘No,’ she managed. ‘You did. I am so unhappy. I can’t be brave any more, Nick. I do not want to be here, I do not understand the rules, I do not want to marry some suitable man and now you…you hate me. And…’

  ‘No.’ His fingers tightened on her wrist. ‘I don’t hate you, Anusha. It will be all right, you will become accustomed to this life and then you will meet a man you can like.’

  *

  Nick winced at the inadequacy of his own words. He was spouting platitudes and she knew it. You hate me. God, that hurt. But not as much as she is hurting. ‘I was frightened for you and it made me angry—you must be used to that by now.’

  She ignored his feeble attempt at a joke. Nick had never seen her like this, almost defeated.

  ‘Anusha, please.’ He hated this. Every instinct told him to protect her as he had tried to do ever since they left Kalatwah and all he had done was to reduce her to abject misery. How to stop her crying? He had never managed it with Miranda. ‘Anusha. Oh, hell.’ Nick pulled her roughly into his arms, crushing her against his jacket front, against gold braid and buttons. ‘Come here and don’t you dare cry.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Her voice was muffled and shaky.

  ‘Liar.’ Somehow she was locked tight against him now and his mouth was in her hair.

  After a few minutes she sighed and wriggled. Nick opened his arms and she sat back, scrubbing her fingers across her eyes. ‘Here.’ He found a handkerchief and she blew her nose with a defiant lack of elegance that made something twist inside him. This was genuine misery, not a fit of the vapours or tears to be interesting.

  ‘I am sorry.’ She had her voice under control again, almost. ‘Thank you for looking after me.’

  ‘Better now?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I do not think it will get any better. I will have to marry someone, I suppose, and try to be a proper English wife. He will not love me and he will have mistresses, I suppose.’ She squared her shoulders, a little gesture that clutched even deeper at his heart. ‘It is my fate, so I must not be a coward.’

  ‘I want to help you. How can I help you, Anusha?’ He would fight anything for her—tigers, rakehells, a pit full of cobras—but this blank, brave misery defeated him.

  ‘Find me someone to marry who will not break my heart,’ she said with a bitter twist of a smile.

  Who? A suitable husband would either break her until she was just another dutiful wife or goad her into rebellion and scandal. What man is going to understand her heritage, her pride, her fears as I do? As I do. The words seemed to echo in his head. He would make a poor excuse of a husband for any of the conventional little misses dancing downstairs, but for this woman perhaps he might be better than the alternatives.

  Nick sat back on his heels and tried to think with his head and not with his protective instincts. He was well born, which mattered to society, if not to her. He could afford a wife, even if he could not keep her in luxury. He would be faithful to her and that, at least, would be no hardship. And she clearly found him physically attractive enough to want his lovemaking—in that, at least, this should not be a repeat of his marriage to Miranda.

  ‘There is one man I could think of,’ he suggested, before his brain could catch up with whatever was doing the thinking for him at the moment. ‘One who would do his best to look after you and understand you, give you freedom.’

  She understood him immediately, he saw it in the widening of the grey eyes, still shimmering with tears. ‘You?’

  ‘You’re not looking for love, I understand that,’ he said. ‘You needn’t worry that I’d be expecting it either. And I will be away a lot, but you’ll not miss me.’

  ‘I won’t?’

  ‘And I will be faithful, so you have no need for concern about mistresses. All I ask is that you don’t take any lovers,’ he finished.

  ‘I…wouldn’t. Nick, you don’t want to get married again, to anyone. You told me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind being married to you.’ As he said it he realised it was true. She would be wonderful in bed, stimulating out of it. Probably reckless enough to get into any number of scrapes but, he felt deep down, honourable enough to keep her promises to him. ‘I am not a rich man,’ he added. ‘But I can afford children if you want them. Only if you want them.’

  There was an ache inside now. He could almost think it was anxiety that she might refuse. What was the matter with him? This was a practical solution to her problems that would not cost him much except some money. And George would be happy that at last she was settled, if not brilliantly. But if she said no, then he would try to think of something else, it was not as though his heart was involved.

  ‘I would be such a trouble to you.’

  She was wavering. The unexpected relief made him speak roughly. ‘You have been trouble since the moment I saw you, you and your damned mongoose.’

  ‘It is Paravi’s mongoose—’

  ‘Do you never stop arguing?’ He kissed her, dragging her tight against him. He wanted her, was all he could think as he plundered her mouth, felt her response, tasted the sweet, sensual tang that was uniquely Anusha.

  And this way he could have her and she could have what she needed.

  When he let her go she did none of the things he expected. She did not smile, or slap his face or even weep. Anusha buried her face in her hands for a long moment, then lowered them and met his gaze with eyes that held the same resolution that he had seen in them when they left the palace.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice steady. ‘I will marry you, Nick.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Is this wrong? The question spun round and round in her mind as Nick took her arm and led her to the steps. But I love him and I will make him the best wife I can possibly be and he doesn’t want anyone else. He will never guess I love him; he knows I desire him, he will think that is all it is. She was still dizzy with the shock of the assault, her own misery, Nick’s incredible proposal. I am not thinking properly, she realised as they entered the reception room again. ‘There is my father.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nick agreed. ‘I think we had better go home and confess.’

  When they found him her father took one look at her, then glanced sharply at Nick, but said nothing except, ‘Tired, are you, my dear? Then let us call the carriage.’

  As the vehicle jolted over the rutted street Nick said abruptly, ‘I have asked Anusha to be my wife and she has accepted me.’

  ‘This is very sudden.’ He did not sound displeased. ‘I cannot pretend that I am not delighted, of course, but are you both certain?’

  Anusha could not be sure, his face was lost in the gloom of the carriage, but Nick sounded perfectly happy when he said, ‘I am very certain, sir.’

  ‘So am I, Father.’ She tried to sound pleased, but not so eager that Nick might guess at her feelings.

  ‘There will be many
disappointed young men,’ her father said with a chuckle as they drew up at the front steps.

  ‘Father—’

  ‘Anusha, I must speak with Nicholas. You are tired, child. Go to your bed, we can talk in the morning.’ He dropped a kiss on her cheek and she nodded and made herself smile.

  They would want to talk about money, she supposed. It would be good for Nick, if her father dowered her well. Something else she could do for him. ‘Goodnight.’

  *

  ‘Goodnight.’ Nick took her hand, just he had on the boat, and bent over it. This time he did not kiss the air above it, but her knuckles through the thin kid gloves she wore. Her fingers tightened in his, but when he released her she looked at him, a long, steady look from those grey eyes that were so like her father’s, then turned on her heel and walked away, her full skirts swishing around the corner.

  ‘She seems a trifle shaken,’ George observed as he opened the door of his study.

  ‘I found someone bothering her, dealt with him and then we talked. She is frightened of marriage, George, marriage to one of those eligible men you’ve got your eye on. And I realised I could see why—they won’t understand her, they’ll try to force her into a mould and make her lose everything that makes her unique, makes her Anusha.

  ‘She knows I didn’t want to marry, that I made a mull of things with Miranda. I expect she’s afraid I’ll take a string of mistresses and neglect her, whatever I promise. But she doesn’t feel she belongs here and yet she knows she can’t put things back as they were.’ He shrugged. It was painful laying out all these reasons in cold blood, the reasons he was the solution of a problem, not the man of her dreams. ‘Anusha meant it when she said she wanted to be free. She doesn’t know who she is and I think she wants to find out. I can at least protect her, understand her a little—she trusts me for that.’

  ‘Well, she’s not a fool, so she should know when she’s fortunate,’ her father said robustly. ‘She will make you a good wife, Nicholas. She’s no pale little waif like poor Miranda. She’s intelligent, she’s strong and she doesn’t appear to be shy with you. And, though I say it myself, she’s a beauty. Takes after her mother.’