The Betrayal of the Blood Lily (7 page)

There was a curious emptiness that came with the thought that henceforth the old rascal would be a full five months away. He would miss him.

“You’ll keep an eye on George for me, won’t you?” said the Colonel.

Alex raised both eyebrows. “You’ve asked George the same about me, haven’t you?”

The Colonel stretched his arms comfortably in front him. “I like to see you all looking out for one another,” he said placidly. “It’s what a family is for.”

“Except Jack,” said Alex.

His father didn’t like to talk about Jack.

The Colonel’s bland smile didn’t wobble, but there was nothing he could do to hide the slight trembling of his hands. “That Lord Frederick Staines is a piece of work and no mistaking,” he said, changing the subject as though that was what they had been talking about all along, “but his wife seems to have a head on her shoulders.”

“I hadn’t realized it was her head that interested you,” said Alex, letting the subject of Jack drop. It wasn’t particularly pleasant for any of them.

“Now, now. I appreciate a witty woman as well as the next man. She seems like a feisty lass, with no nonsense about her,” announced the Colonel. “I like her.”

This did not exactly come as a surprise. “Have you ever met a woman you haven’t liked?”

After giving the matter deep consideration, the Colonel said triumphantly, “There was your sister’s governess . . . Miss Furnival, as she was.”

“She didn’t like you,” corrected Alex. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Poor girl,” said the Colonel generously. “She had that unfortunate problem with spots. It would be enough to sour anybody. But your Lady Frederick is a different matter.”

“I should say she is,” said Alex. She was an irritant. A very attractive irritant, but an irritant nonetheless. A very attractive, very married irritant. “She’s Lord Frederick’s matter. And even if she weren’t,” he added, before the gleam in his father’s eye could translate into advice of which the resident religious authorities—of any denomination—would not approve, “I don’t have time to dabble in dalliance.”

The Colonel laughed that rolling laugh that had earned him the sobriquet the “Laughing Colonel.” “Nonsense!” he declared. “All it will take is the right woman to make you change your mind.”

“Or women?” Alex shot back. It was a cheap blow and he knew it.

Alex would have taken it back if he could, but it had already hit its mark. His father’s face seemed to sag around the edges.

“We can never undo what we’ve done,” said the Colonel, with none of his usual bluster. He looked his full age and more. “But I never meant ill by any of you. You know that.”

“I know,” said Alex roughly. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Until it does,” said the Colonel, looking at Alex far too acutely for Alex’s comfort. Alex hated when his father looked at him like that. If his father wanted to be philosophical in his old age, well and good, just so long as his father didn’t philosophize about him. “Don’t shut yourself off from all the pleasant things in life, lad.”

“Trust me,” said Alex dryly, “I enjoy a good day’s hunting as much as the next man.”

The Colonel looked at him closely, realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere, and gave up, with a philosophical shrug of his shoulders. “Humor an old man’s fancy and write me a letter to let me know how you get on once you get that lot to Hyderabad.”

There was a glint in the old rogue’s eyes that made Alex feel decidedly twitchy. “With any luck, there won’t be anything to tell.”

His father grinned at him, displaying a full set of yellowing teeth. “That depends on your definition of luck.”

On the bank, a crocodile yawned in the heat, its jaws stretching open until Penelope thought its head must surely snap in two. The air was thick with moisture and mosquitoes as the pilot’s schooner plowed slowly down the Hooghly River. They had left the boats and villages nearer Calcutta behind them. They had left behind the women carrying their washing down to the banks, the houses and temples visible through the trees. Instead, the jungle grew close by the banks of the river, like something out of a lyric poet’s tortured dreams, and crocodiles waddled to the edge of the waters to yawn their contempt to potential trespassers.

Penelope bared her teeth right back, even if the dental display wasn’t quite as impressive. It wouldn’t do to let an amphibian stare her down. Although it did rather help that she was on a boat and the crocodile wasn’t.

The water churned muddy and dark behind them, thick with silt, but Penelope could already see the breakers ahead of them that signaled the mouth of the Hooghly and the place where they were to change to a proper sailing ship to bring them all the way down the coast.

She yawned again, this time in earnest. In London, she had grown accustomed to sleeping well past noon. The schedule of the London Season was a nocturnal one, lighting the night with the artificial glow of candles and drawing the drapes against the intrusive light of day. Her father’s mother, who preferred the saddle to the ballroom, had always been frankly contemptuous of the whole process, wondering loudly why anyone would be fool enough to waste the day God gave them (this usually said with a pointed look at her daughter-in-law). Her grandmother, Penelope thought, leaning her arms on the rail, would have enjoyed India.

Breakers lay to one side, but on the other squatted a dense mass of thickly matted vegetation. Penelope thought she could see a tiger through the trees, its striped pelt a vivid amber against the hanging fronds of the trees.

“What is that?” she asked Captain Reid as he passed behind her.

“The island of Sangor,” he said briefly. After a moment, he added, “The island is sacred to Kali. Sangor has long been used as a ritual center for human sacrifice.”

Penelope could feel the Captain’s eyes on her, gauging the impact of his comment. He no doubt expected her to be spooked, to express womanly alarm, to demand his protection against the big, bad beasties who ate pretty little Englishwomen—or, even better, to demand that he turn around and take her back to the metropolitan protection of Calcutta posthaste, tide or no.

There was only one thing to be done.

“What kind of human sacrifices?” Penelope demanded, twisting around to look up at him.

It was marvelous watching Captain Reid’s discomfiture.

Blinking rapidly, he managed to effect a quick recovery. “In human sacrifices one generally sacrifices humans. I understand that that is the usual practice.”

Penelope rolled her eyes. “Yes, but how do they go about it? Do they burn them? Cut them up into little bits? Flay them alive?”

Captain Reid backed up a step. “I believe they generally fling them into the river.”

Penelope made a moue of disappointment. “That is fairly tame, I must say. If one is to have a blood sacrifice, I would hope there would at least be a bit more drama about it. Otherwise, it strikes me as a waste of a perfectly good human.”

A tiny glint of humor showed in Captain Reid’s steely eyes, clearly much against his own inclination. “If it makes you feel better, they do have a fair amount of ceremonial around the event. The devotees are robed in scarlet and draped in flowers. There are hymns and all that sort of thing.”

“Rather like Evensong,” commented Penelope, with an arch glance at Captain Reid.

“Only rather more fatal.” He had given up the battle against his better self; the glint expanded into a bona fide grin. It was a quirky sort of grin, pulling up one side of his mouth more than the other, but it was oddly engaging for all that.

He was really rather attractive when he wasn’t scowling at her.

“Why do they do it?” she asked.

“Why? For the same reason one petitions any deity; for riches, for health, for advancement. It is,” he added wryly, “rather amazing what a man will do for the hope of advancement.”

There was a self-mockery in his tone that suggested there was more than abstract philosophy at play.

Penelope wondered just what dubious measures Captain Reid might have been driven to in the interests of advancement. Human sacrifice didn’t seem likely to be on the list, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he might have joined with the Resident in selling out British interests for Hyderabadi gold. Or, perhaps, as the Resident was rumored to have done, even converted to Islam for the purposes of currying local favor. That would explain why Reid was so dead opposed to Freddy’s fulfilling Wellesley’s commission in Hyderabad, why he was so transparently eager to see them both back to Calcutta, even if he had to make up tall tales about ritual sacrifice to accomplish it.

Oh, he thought he had been so subtle about it at Begum Johnson’s soiree, making those stilted comments about the wonders of the Calcutta Season, the rigors of the road, the unalleviated monotony of life in the provinces, but the pretense had been so laughable that a child of five could have seen through it. Captain Reid obviously didn’t give a damn about balls or routs or the wonders of the Calcutta Season; what he did give a damn about was detaining her and Freddy in Calcutta as long as possible. He appeared to be under the misguided impression that she had any influence at all over her husband, and that if she teased and wheedled, Freddy would dawdle away the cold months in Calcutta with her, leaving Captain Reid a free hand to do whatever it was he intended to do in Hyderabad unsupervised.

Penelope could have told Captain Reid that there were two fallacies at play in that approach. The first mistake was assuming that she had any interest at all in the social life of Calcutta.

The second was presuming that she had any influence over Freddy.

It would, Penelope thought, be rather a nice shot in the eye to her spouse if she was to uncover what was rotten in the state of Hyderabad before he did. Freddy wouldn’t recognize treason at work unless it happened to get between him and a hand of cards. Add in a spot of hunting, and Wellesley’s suspicions could go hang.

Lord Wellesley had sent Freddy to investigate James Kirkpatrick, but what if he was misinformed? What if the source of the unrest in Hyderabad wasn’t Kirkpatrick at all, but his subordinate, Captain Reid?

“How long have you been in Hyderabad, Captain Reid?” Penelope asked cunningly.

“Long enough to know the route,” he said with polite finality. “We’re almost to Point Palmyras. If you’ll excuse me, I really should see about the baggage before we change ships.”

“I doubt it’s going anywhere on its own,” pointed out Penelope.

Captain Reid inclined his head. “My point precisely, Lady Frederick.”

Penelope watched with narrowed eyes as Captain Reid exchanged a few words with the pilot of the schooner. Tugging at the brim of her hat to deflect the sun, which was full in her eyes, she saw the passage of a pale packet being passed from Captain Reid to the pilot. Letters? Penelope squinted against the sun, but it was no use. Whatever it was had already disappeared from Captain Reid’s hand into the pilot’s pocket. That is, if there had been anything there at all. The glare of the sun seemed to bleach the insides of her eyes, creating inverted shadows that slithered upon the scene like ornamental goldfish in a fountain. Penelope blinked hard, trying to clear her vision, but the spots wouldn’t seem to go away.

“You need to get out of the sun for a bit,” said Captain Reid, assessing her condition with a professional air, as he handed her across the deck, Freddy having blithely traipsed along ahead. “Or get a wider hat.”

“Nonsense!” Penelope snapped, sounding more like the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale than the Dowager Duchess, but she was forced to cling to his arm as she navigated her way into the dinghy that was to row them to the
Intractable
, the sailing ship contracted to convey them down the coast.

Penelope added that into the account against him and resolved to buy a broader hat.

It must have been the sun, because she found herself doing the unthinkable and taking an afternoon nap, curled into the cool of her berth in the ship’s very best cabin, from which she was shaken awake by an impatient Freddy, who wanted his dinner and informed her they were keeping everyone waiting.

“Everyone” turned out to be no one more than their small party and the captain of the ship, who was incoherent in his excitement at having such exalted passengers. Freddy seemed to grow even more burnished in the candlelight as he preened at the praise, like a medieval saint’s painting limned in gold leaf. Captain Reid held his tongue, but there was something sarcastic about his shadow as it fell against the wall, as though made darker by Freddy’s luster.

“And how have you been occupying yourself, Captain Reid?” she asked, as they sat down to dinner in a narrow chamber where the roof sloped down sharply on one side, and navigational maps had been thrust hastily out of the way to make room for the soup tureen on the sideboard. “More human sacrifices?”