The Bride Wore Pearls (21 page)

“No, but he was upstairs, for one of the lamps was lit,” said Lazonby. “The bounder was probably burning the midnight oil, busy running down the reputation of his next victim.”

Anisha laughed, and if it sounded a little forced, well, that was best overlooked. So Lazonby spent the next few minutes telling her what little he’d learned in the pubs and shops he’d visited during his forays into Hackney, realizing, as he stepped through it again, how very much he had needed to discuss it with her.

Coldwater and his sister had come from Boston a year or two earlier. The newspaperman was believed a little younger than she, and had never married. Nothing was known of the sister’s husband save that he’d left his wife childless and situated comfortably enough that she could keep a gig, a nice cottage, and two servants who lived in.

At the end, Anisha sipped pensively at her sherry. “And that’s it?”

“Aye.” Lazonby searched his mind, but there seemed nothing more to say.

A quiet mood fell across the room, broken only by the ticking of the mantel clock, and by the clinking of silver and porcelain as the dining table was laid across the passageway. He polished off the last of his whisky and considered pouring himself another—he’d always made himself at home here—but a glance at the clock suggested he ought not.

Instead, he made the mistake of saying what was on his mind.

“Anisha, you’re different tonight,” he said. “And it’s not just the exotic attire. You feel . . . distant.”

“Do I?” she murmured, staring at him over her glass. “I thought your legendary intuition was useless with me.”

“And my legendary charm,” he said, forcing a smile. “You’ve always been immune to both.”

She lowered her glass, and with it her gaze. “I believe that I am,” she said quietly. “What I feel for you . . . well, it has nothing to do with charm.”

“Nish.” He reached out and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “We are beyond something so trivial as that, you and I. Aren’t we?”

She looked away. “We are beyond a lot of things, I suppose,” she said. “We have become—just as you once predicted—old friends.”

He sobered his expression. “Aye, and I think any man worth his salt can sense when a woman whom he cares about is not perfectly content,” he said. “I wish, my dear, that your spirits were half as high as your looks. I have never seen you more lovely.”

At that, she set her glass away with a sharp
chink
. “Please, Rance, I am asking again,” she said, her gaze drifting to the window. “Don’t flirt with me. I’m tired of it.”

“Nish, I don’t flirt,” he said, touching her lightly on the shoulder.

“Rance, really!” She trilled with laughter, but when she turned back, there was no humor in her eyes. “You are the worst womanizer in Christendom. You’ve admitted as much.”

“Not with you,” he said, dropping his hand. “Anisha, I do not flirt with you. Not—well, not since that first day.”

“Then save your breath now,” she said churlishly, picking up her sherry again. “There will be near a dozen ladies here shortly. One of them will surely suit you.”

“Anisha,” he murmured. “If this is about what happened in the garden—”

“Look, never mind,” she said, rising abruptly. “I want to talk to you about something important.”

He wanted to tell her that she was important; that on no account did he wish her unhappy. But something was off between them tonight. It was as if they danced a familiar tune together, yet slightly out of step. So he held his tongue and watched as she went to the small secretary by the door, dropped the front, and extracted a folio.

“I went to see Napier yesterday,” she said, returning to her chair.

“Against my wishes,” he said gruffly.

“Yes, but in keeping with mine,” she retorted. “There was no connection to Coldwater that I could find. But I did take copious notes, which I wish you to read. I think it’s nothing you don’t already know, but see if a name or detail jogs your memory.”

He sighed and held out his hand. “Very well. And thanks.”

But she opened the folder and took out two small bits of paper. “Now these I simply stole,” she said, passing them to him instead.

“You stole them?” His eyes widened. “From Napier’s files?”

“Actually, I reappropriated them,” she said, “because, unless I greatly misunderstand the laws of England, they are your property, not the Crown’s. They should have been returned upon your exoneration.”

He looked at both papers, mildly surprised. “I daresay you’re right,” he said. “These are, at least on their surface, legally enforceable instruments of debt.”

“Yes, so long as no one quibbles about the gaming aspect of the thing,” she dryly added. “I take comfort in knowing my travails with Luc have at least gained me an education. So, are they significant to the case in any way, do you imagine?”

“No, they were probably taken from my rooms in the police search.” He tossed them back onto the file. “All water under the bridge now.”

“Still, that’s a lot of money,” said Anisha in the tone of a good Scot.

“Aye, well, I played deep, Nish, in those days,” he said ruefully. “Those debts are nothing to some I collected at the tables—and nothing to some I lost, once or twice.”

“Still, your rare losses aside, there must have been a great many people who were glad to see the back of you when you headed off to Newgate.”

“Oh, aye,” he said quietly.

“And these notes of hand?”

He shrugged. “Worthless, I expect,” he said. “As to the rest of my winnings, I spent that and plenty more on barristers and bribery. Just paying off the dashed hangman to turn his head cost me three hundred guineas.”

“How did you manage it?” she murmured. “I have often wondered.”

He stared long and hard at her over his whisky. “Sutherland did it,” he said quietly. “Sutherland and Father. They took care of everything because, as the padre always says, the
Fraternitas
looks after its own.”

“They did not do everything,” she said with asperity. “They did not suffer through those awful years in the French Foreign Legion, fighting for their lives in North Africa. They did not live through the horror of being twice imprisoned.”

She was defending him again; defending him even though she was angry with him. And perhaps she had cause to be. The heavy silence washed back in.

“Listen, Nish,” he finally said, slumping a little in his chair. “I owe you an apology for last week. For what happened between us. And for allowing you to drive off that day in St. James’s.”

“As if you could have stopped me?” she murmured a little haughtily.

“Oh, I could have stopped you, my girl,” he said grimly. “Depend upon it. And next time, I
will
.”

A dark, stubborn expression flitted across her face, as if she meant to snap back at him. Then suddenly Anisha bounded from her chair as if nervous energy propelled her, surrounding him in her exotic fragrance as she swept past. It was a scent he could have happily drowned in, he sometimes thought; a sort of Indian magnolia, she’d once said, blended with a touch of sandalwood. The result was a creamy, spicy, almost erotic perfume that was the very epitome of Anisha’s personality.

“I don’t want to quarrel with you anymore,” she said, drifting about the room. “What’s done is done.”

“Nish.” When he moved to follow her, she held up a staying hand.

“Pray keep your seat,” she ordered. “I just . . . I’m all on edge. I need to move.”

It was then, just as she turned, that her shawl slipped, revealing three faint bruises above her elbow. “Anisha—?” he murmured, reaching out to touch her.

She slipped beyond his grasp and looked away. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I was roughhousing with the boys, I suppose.”

And it
was
nothing. Still, his rush of sudden tenderness only added to his confusion. He shut it away and glanced at the clock, to see it was nearly six. Forcing himself to relax, he turned his whisky glass round and round, resisting the urge to comfort her. Even he could see that tonight she did not want his consolation. And he knew he should have been glad.

“You hate this, don’t you?” he said. “Entertaining. Society. My God, you’re even wearing a hat. Well, some feathers, at least.”

She shrugged, pausing to pick up a Meissen figurine of an apple-cheeked lady holding a beribboned spaniel in her lap. “I don’t precisely hate it,” she said pensively, turning it to the light. “But do you know, I sometimes feel a little like this dog. He looks pampered, does he not? His every need is met. He sits, literally, in the lap of luxury.”

Lazonby snorted. “Yes, well, luxury is overrated.”

“It can be, even for this little dog,” said Anisha. “Sometimes I think you are one of the few people I know who actually understands that. We can see, you and I, that the ribbon round his neck is in fact a leash that flows to her hand. He is bound to her. Bound to his duty.”

“And you think hosting this dinner is a duty?”

She looked at him a little wistfully. “I feel bound by English society,” she said. “Sometimes.”

Abruptly, Lazonby set away his glass and crossed the room, forgetting his vow. Taking her empty hand, he lifted it to his lips and pressed them hard to the back of it. “Nish,” he whispered. “You are the best person I know. Just . . . be yourself. Be as you are tonight, in your mother’s silks and jewels. Wear that—that thing wrapped—”

“A sari,” she prompted.

“Yes, that.” Absently, he stroked his thumb down the back of her hand. “Wear it as you please, and if you like, even put that pin back in your nose to—”

She stiffened. “You’ve never seen that.”

“Nish, there’s a little hole,” he gently chided, “if one knows where to look. I know. I saw it the day I met you.”

“Did you?” she murmured. “Oh, well. It’s mostly for childbirth, you know. But my father, he hated it—once he noticed it, three months after the fact.”

Rance felt his smile twist. “Nish, your father is dead,” he said, “and now, the point is, no one who matters gives a—”

“
Don’t
curse,” she gently interjected. “And you don’t understand. This isn’t about what matters to me. If it were, I would never have left India. But this is about Tom and Teddy.
This
is their world. A world I chose for them, Rance, the day I married an Englishman. In that, Papa was right to chide me.”

He hesitated, seeing her point. The English were a hidebound lot. “Aye, I’ll give you that one,” he reluctantly agreed. “But save for what you must do to help the lads get on, stop thinking in terms of
should
s and
ought
s. After tonight, just be Anisha. You don’t owe the rest of us anything—especially me.”

“Some days you act as if I owe you blind obedience,” she said, lowering her gaze. “But I do owe you my loyalty and my . . . well, my friendship, Rance. You have ever been a friend to me. To all of us, really.”

Anisha’s eyes were focused, he realized, on their fingers, now entwined. Until that moment, he’d scarcely realized he had not released her, and that she had made no move to withdraw.

Instead, her small, cool fingers lay curled in his, the soft scent of sandalwood and flowers still swimming all around them. Her head was turned slightly, exposing the warm, ivory length of her throat, and the tiny pulse point below her ear; a soft, creamy spot that all but demanded he set his lips to it and draw her scent deeper.

Lazonby closed his eyes and realized how desperately he yearned to simply pull her into his arms. To tuck her head beneath his chin and just to hold her close. Not in any sensual way—though it might quickly have come to that—but in the way one might hold a precious, treasured thing.

Unable to completely resist, and having forgotten the servants nearby, he cupped his empty hand around her cheek, lifting her face and turning her gaze back to his. But her warm, brown eyes seemed tonight to hold regret.

Oh, he didn’t want that. Not for her, this woman whose price was truly above rubies. For her, he wished only joy, and to make smooth her path through life.

“Anisha,” he whispered, “I wish—”

Just then, the knocker dropped, echoing through the downstairs. He cut an impatient glance at the door. He had the oddest sense that they were on the verge of something. But Anisha had fallen silent, one hand in his, the other still holding the Meissen.

“Well,” he said, stepping back, “I suppose more duty calls you.”

Hastily she set the figurine back down. “Rance, there is something—some
one
—I wish to warn you about.”

But almost at once, Lord Lucan Forsythe came bounding down the stairs and into the room, his golden curls still damp, his sunny smile firmly in place. “Rance! Well met, old fellow.”

“Evening, Luc,” he returned. “You’re looking in good spirits.”

By the time the words were out of his mouth, the longcase clock at the foot of the stairs was striking six, and an instant later the massive front door swung open and Lazonby could hear familiar feminine laughter ringing down the passageway.