Duty Before Desire (37 page)

“All retired. An epidemic of fatigue has swept the house. Or something,” she muttered.

He came to stand at her shoulder and studied the page. He didn't touch her, but she felt his presence like a caress on her neck anyway. “Where?”

“Here is Hyderabad State.” She pointed to a region in the center of the vast land. “Our station was here”—she slid her finger—“in the northwest. The Company only controls a small area there. All around us was under Mughal command.”

He leaned closer, as if trying to commit to memory the lines of ink that stood in for rivers and hills. A lock of his russet hair brushed her cheek. Surreptitiously, Arcadia turned her head ever so slightly, committing to her own memory his unique, enticing smell.

“Is that where you'll go when you return?” His voice was peculiar. Maybe he was tired, after all.

“If I return. Still no brooch,” she reminded him. Then she said, half to herself, “Maybe I have to accept it's gone and leave without it. I can't have everything, can I?”

A shadow crossed his features. “It may yet turn up.” A long silence passed before he spoke again. “So is that where you'll go?”

“No.” She indicated an area some distance north of Sir Thaddeus's little station in the
mofussil
. “Poorvaja's uncle lives here. That's where we'll go.”

“Back to the harem?” He turned his face to her, a teasing glint in his eyes. She'd not been this close to his lips in weeks. If she leaned just the smallest bit … but the distance between them was like that on the map—small in appearance, vast in truth.

She swallowed. “The
zenana
, yes. For a short time, anyway. I'd like to find a house of my own near there. I don't want to take Poorvaja far from her family. Not again.”

“Hmm.” His gaze flicked back to the map. “And what will you do there, in that house of your own?”

Not too long ago, Arcadia wouldn't have had a satisfactory answer to that question. When she first arrived in England, she'd thought it would be enough to simply be in India. But her girlhood was over; there would be no more summers spent idling in the
zenana
, and no Sir Thaddeus greeting her from the shaded porch of their bungalow when she returned to the station at summer's end. She had to find her way as a woman now and make a meaningful life for herself.

“I want to help other people,” she said. “Do charitable work.” She bit her lip, then plunged ahead. “You inspired me.”

His brows drew together in a puzzled expression; he breathed a quiet laugh. “How's that?”

“You do so much.”

Sheri shook his head slowly. “I don't see how. I'm the most unproductive lump of clay God ever breathed life into.”

“Sheri!” She touched his shoulder. He glanced at her hand but did not move away. “I saw you at our ball. You didn't sit down once all night. Every moment, you were busy dancing with wallflowers or tending to elderly ladies.”

He did shrug her hand off then. “So my lone worth in life really
is
occupying a place in the dance formation? I'd suspected so, but outside verification is always valuable.” There was a bitter edge to his sarcastic words.

“Have you any idea what it means to those women, to be noticed? And it's clear that you really do see them as people, that they matter. We ladies are very good at sniffing out feigned gallantries, you know. The smiles I saw that night were genuine.”

“I hate to spoil a good run of adulation, but they were probably just laughing at me. I've had something of a presence in the scandal sheets lately.”

She nudged him with an elbow. “You're their Chère. They're all half in love with you. Not just because you're ridiculously handsome, but because you're a good man.”

He gave her an odd look. Arcadia turned her face, feeling heat spread up her neck. “Anyway, that's what I want to do.”

“Dance attendance on old ladies at balls?”

“Help people. Spread happiness where I can. There isn't enough of it in the world. It's a good calling, I think.” She closed the atlas, crossed her hands on the cover.

He tilted his head as if in thought. “Sounds demmed noble, when you put it like that.” He slid the book out from under her hands, returned it to the shelf, then offered his arm. “Well then, madam, shall we to bed? I can perform the invaluable service of heating your blanket, should you require it.”

She slanted a smile at him, but her heart twisted. If only he weren't teasing. If only he noticed that the person he could make happier than any other woman in the world was the one right in front of him.

• • •

An hour after their return to Town, Sheri was in his bedchamber, rifling through the case that housed his collection of cuff links and stickpins. Nudging aside monogrammed silver discs, mother-of-pearl studs, and a lone beryl come loose from its setting, he drew out the fowl he'd stashed in the box.

“Must be nice,” he muttered to the jeweled bird, “to be so wanted.” This brooch was the only thing holding Arcadia in England. Once she possessed it again, there would be nothing tying her to Sheri.

As he had numerous times over the last month or so, Sheri weighed Arcadia's desire of her treasure against his desire to keep her. It was a hopeless equation, for while his need for Arcadia was ever increasing, he'd seen at Elmwood that she was not meant for him. She belonged to an ancient land of mystics and spice, and he had made a promise.

Caring for Arcadia meant giving her what she wanted and needed, even if doing so broke his heart. He pocketed the peacock and entered his dressing room. Sheri rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, as if preparing for a boxing match. He took several huffing breaths, raised his hand, and knocked.

“Come in,” Arcadia called.

He opened the door connecting their rooms. He'd not stepped through it since their wedding night, and he did so now with his insides tied in knots and his mouth dry.

She sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace and smiled up at him in welcome. She wore a tunic and skirt similar to what she'd worn during the yoga lesson. Her hair was piled in a loose knot atop her head, a multitude of wayward strands providing a wispy veil over her ears and neck.

“Am—am I interrupting?”

“I was meditating, but I'm all done now.” She unfolded her legs and stretched them in front of her, wiggled her bare toes before the fire. She was so lovely, it almost hurt to look at her. No, it
did
hurt to look at her—and so he didn't. He tore his eyes away and spotted the valise from their trip to Elmwood on the foot of her bed.

He nodded to the luggage. “Shall I have French see to that?”

“No need to bother French. I can unpack my own things.”

He nodded. Blinked down at his shoes. Felt the weight in his pocket like stones in the pocket of a drowning man. He didn't have to do this. He could turn around and she'd never be the wiser.

“Did you need something, Sheri?” The hazel mosaics peered at him curiously.

She has a life she wants to live, you bastard—a life that, impossibly, you've influenced. Don't be a selfish clump now.

Reaching into his pocket, his fingers closed around his fate. “Does this look familiar, peahen?” He extended his hand.

Light danced over the facets of the peacock's brilliant sapphire body and winked in the blood-dark garnet eye.

With a shriek, Arcadia shot to her feet, her eyes as wide and round as the piece of jewelry. “My brooch!” Her hands trembled as she took it from him. “I can't believe it!” she exclaimed, her voice in an upper register. “How did—? Where—? Oh, Sheri, thank you.” She threw her arms around his neck, and he took full advantage, pulling her close and burying his nose in her hair while his hand rubbed up and down her slender back.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She squeezed him tight in return, rocking back and forth.

Her reaction delighted him—could only have been better if she chose to express her gratitude with a tumble in the sheets.

As if drunk on giddiness, she staggered back a couple steps, laughing, her face flushed and eyes bright. Her chest moved up and down rapidly, drawing his notice to the points of her taut nipples pressing against the thin material of her tunic. Murmuring to herself in Hindustani, she cupped the brooch in her hand and scrutinized each part, touching its enameled head and jeweled feathers.

“It is undamaged,” he assured her.

“How can this be?” she asked in wonder. “We've had no luck in our hunt. Where did you find it?” She beamed at him. “It must have been waiting for you when we returned from Elmwood this afternoon.”

His delight at her elation ebbed. His stomach clenched. Rubbing the back of his neck, he tried to gather his thoughts. He had little success.

“It was at the shop we visited with Mrs. De Vere.”

“The shopkeeper came across it recently, you mean? You're so clever to have left your direction.” Her brow furrowed. “Did he have your direction? You weren't living in this house when we visited that shop.”

“The peacock was there that day, Arcadia. When I described your brooch, the shopkeeper took me into a back room and opened a strongbox, and there it was. Evidently, he doesn't scruple to acquire quality pieces from dubious sources.”

Tilting her head, her eyes flicked to the peacock, then back to him. “I don't … I don't understand. I didn't notice—”

“You were engrossed in your conversation with Mrs. De Vere.” That fact was seared into his memory, because it was the overheard tail of that particular conversation that had taught him to fantasize about Arcadia practicing yoga. “And all the business was completed in the back room. There was nothing for you to see.”

“But you didn't give this to me then.” She wagged the brooch at him. “You didn't say anything.”

Sheri shifted his weight to the other foot. Scratched his neck. Couldn't meet her eye. “Things were going so fast. Poorvaja returned through no effort on my part. And then the brooch turned up on our second try …” His voice faltered.

“Did you think I wouldn't marry you if you gave this to me?”

“It crossed my mind,” he admitted.

One slim bare foot came towards him on a step, her expression stony. “I made a promise, and I wouldn't have broken it. This is mine, Sheri. The only material thing I care about.”

“Yes, yes, your mother and father and India.”

She gestured broadly with her arm. “The worry I felt, all the—” She made a sound of disgust in her throat. “All the hours we spent going to shops. Why would you do that, when you had it in your possession?”

He drove his hands into his hair, gripped the strands in a hard twist. “I wasn't ready. I intended to give it to you on our wedding day, but …” He dropped his hands, and his shoulders drooped as a feeling of defeat settled over him. “I wasn't ready. I thought … You were so damned beautiful, and I didn't want … I wasn't ready …” The words caught in his throat.

He'd wanted to keep her. He was selfish with Arcadia. Greedy. He always had been. From the moment he took her up in his arms in Hyde Park and reluctantly gave her back to her aunt, to every moment since, no amount of Arcadia was ever enough. Retaining the peacock had been his way of holding on to her just a little bit longer. But he knew now that he'd been a fool. Another day, a month, a year—it didn't matter. Nothing short of a lifetime would be long enough with this woman.

“You had no right.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I thought we were friends.”

He flinched.
Friends.
What a terrible word. “We were. We are.”

“Is this how friends treat one another in your country?” Her eyes clouded with hurt. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss it away. She turned her back, her head bowed. “You had no right.”

He lifted a hand, dropped it, useless. “Again, I apologize. You have it now.”

A beat of silence. “We both have what we agreed to, then.”

His jaw tightened. “Indeed. You may leave for India as soon as you like. A happy ending for all,” he added bitterly.

She swiveled to face him. Her eyes were shuttered. He hated that, not knowing what she felt. “Happiness was never the object of our agreement.”

“Then it's just as well we didn't ask it of one another.” With a curt nod, he turned and shut the door to happiness behind him.

Arcadia climbed slowly into the coach. Her feet felt like lead. The previous night had been sleepless, and her meeting this afternoon had her head in a muddle and her heart in tatters.

Poorvaja looked up from her knitting. “You were a long time.”

“You should have come in.” Arcadia sank onto the squabs and leaned her head back, her eyes sliding closed. “Mrs. De Vere was distraught to hear you were sitting out here in the carriage. She fretted she'd done something at the demonstration to cause you offense.”

Clack-clack-clack
went the knitting needles. “I did not feel like socializing.” Poorvaja's tone was testy. “What did you learn?”

She shifted her shoulders against mounting tension in her back. “Mr. De Vere's shipping company is sending a ship east. India is not the final destination, but there will be a stop for supplies in Madras. He offered us berths on the ship and wouldn't hear of accepting payment.”

She kept to herself that Henry De Vere had been visibly shaken by her request and had begged Arcadia to reconsider. Only when she mentioned it was Sheri who had suggested she speak to him, and she had assured him she was quite certain of her decision, had he offered passage.

“Generous.”

“He's a kind man.” Arcadia would miss Claudia and Lorna, as well as their husbands. She would miss Deborah and Elijah, gregarious Crispin and somber Webb. She would even miss the Dowager Lady Lothgard. A bit.