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‘He’s removing me from danger before I am called out,’ Daniel interpreted, rolling his eyes. ‘But he’ll make me work as well, I have no doubt.’
‘Go then, Mr Chatterton,’ she said, chuckling at his rueful expression. ‘Work hard and be safe.’ She stood looking after them for a moment, but she was seeing not the hot, crowded room with its marble pillars, but a ripple in the long, sun-bleached grass as gold-and-black-striped death padded through it; the explosion of muscles and terror; the screaming mahout and the man who had risked his life to save him. Her fantasy of Alistair’s eyes as being like those of a tiger did not seem so poetic now.
She turned, impulsive as always. She should make amends for her remark, she should make peace. That long-ago magic, the hurt that had shattered it, had meant nothing to him at the time and it should mean nothing to her now. Alistair Lyndon had haunted her dreams for too long.
But Alistair was no longer watching her. Instead, he stood far too close to Mrs Harrison, listening to something she was virtually whispering in his ear, his downturned gaze on the lady’s abundantly displayed charms.
So, the intense young man she had fallen for so hard was a rake now, and the attention he had paid her and Averil was merely habitual. A courageous rake, but a rake none the less. And he was just as intrigued to find his plain little neighbour after all these years, which would account for his close scrutiny just now.
It smarted that he did not even seem to remember just what had happened between them, but she must learn to school her hurt pride, for that was all it could be. And he had found a lady better suited to his character than she to talk to; Mrs Harrison’s reputation suggested that she would be delighted to entertain a gentleman in any way that mutual desire suggested.
Dita put down her glass with a snap on a side table, suddenly weary of the crowd, the noise, the heat and her own ghosts. As she walked towards the door her bearer emerged from the shadows behind the pillars.
‘My chair, Ajay.’ He hurried off and she went to tell Mrs Smyth-Robinson, who was obliging her aunt by acting as chaperon this evening, that she was leaving.
She was tired and her head ached, and she wished she was home in England and never had to speak to another man again and certainly not Alistair Lyndon. But she made herself nod and wave to acquaintances, she made herself walk with the elegant swaying step that disguised the fact that she had no lush curves to flaunt, and she kept the smile on her lips and her chin up. One had one’s pride, after all.
Alistair was aware of the green-eyed hornet leaving the room even as he accepted Claudia Hamilton’s invitation to join her for a nightcap. He doubted the lady was interested in a good night’s sleep. He had met her husband in Guwahati buying silk and agreed with Claudia’s obvious opinion that he was a boor—it was clear she needed entertaining.
The prospect of a little mutual entertainment was interesting, although he had no intention of this developing into an affaire, even for the few days remaining before he sailed. Alistair was not given to sharing and the lady was, by all accounts, generous with her favours.
‘There goes the Brooke girl,’ Claudia said with a sniff, following his gaze. ‘Impudent chit. Just because she has a fortune and an earl for a father doesn’t make up for scandal and no looks to speak of. She is going back to England on the Bengal Queen. I suppose they think that whatever it was she did has been forgotten by now.’
‘Her family are neighbours of mine,’ Alistair remarked, instinct warning him to produce an explanation for his interest. ‘She has grown up.’ He wasn’t surprised to hear of a scandal—Dita looked headstrong enough for anything. As a gangling child she had been a fearless and impetuous tomboy, always tagging along at his heels, wanting to climb trees and fish and ride unsuitable horses. And she had been fiercely affectionate.
He frowned at the vague memory of her wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him. That had been the day before he packed his bags and shook the dust of Castle Lyndon from his shoes.
He had been distracted with grief and humiliated anger and she had tried to comfort him, he supposed. Probably he had been abrupt with the girl. He had been drinking, too, the best part of a bottle of brandy and wine as well, if his very faint recollection served him right. But then his memory of that day and night were blurred and the dreams that still visited him about that time were too disturbing to confront. Dita … No, the dreams had not been of an affectionate kiss from a tomboy but of a slender, naked body, of fierce passion. Hell, he still felt guilty that his drink-sodden nightmares could have produced those images of an innocent girl.
Alistair glanced towards the door again, but the emerald silk had whisked out of sight. Dita Brooke was no longer a child, but she had most certainly developed into a dangerous handful for whichever man her father was aiming to marry her off to.
‘You think her lacking in looks?’ It was amusing to see the venom in Claudia’s eyes as she thought about the younger woman. He had no intention of asking her to speculate about the scandal. Given the repressive English drawing rooms he remembered, it had probably been something as dreadful as being caught kissing a man on the terrace during a ball. Dull stuff.
‘No figure, too tall, her face lacks symmetry, her nose is too long, her complexion is sallow. Other than that I am sure she is tolerable.’
‘A catalogue of disasters to be sure, poor girl,’ Alistair agreed, his fingertip tracing lazy circles in Claudia’s palm. She made a sound like a purr and moved closer.
She was right, of course, all those things could be said of Lady Perdita. Little Dita Brooke had been as plain and ungainly as a fledgling in a nest. And yet, by some alchemy, she had overcome them to become a tantalising, feminine creature. Poise, exquisite grooming and sheer personality, he supposed. And something new—a tongue like an adder. It might be amusing to try his luck as a snake charmer on the voyage home.
Chapter Two
‘Steady, Khan.’ Dita smoothed her hand along the neck of the big bay gelding and smiled as he twitched one ear back to listen to her. ‘You can run in a minute.’ He sidled and fidgeted, pretending to take violent exception to a passing ox cart, a rickshaw, a wandering, soft-eyed sacred cow and even a group of chattering women with brass bowls on their heads. The Calcutta traffic never seemed to diminish, even at just past dawn on a Wednesday morning.
‘I wish I could take you home, but Major Conway will look after you,’ she promised, turning his head as they reached one of the rides across the maidan, the wide expanse of open space that surrounded the low angular mass of Fort William. Only one more day to ride after today; best not to think about it, the emotions were too complicated. ‘Come on, then!’
The horse needed no further urging. Dita tightened her hold as he took off into a gallop from almost a standing start and thundered across the grass. Behind her she heard the hoofbeats of the grey pony her syce Pradeep rode, but they soon faded away. Pradeep’s pony could never catch Khan and she had no intention of waiting for him. When she finally left the maidan he would come cantering up, clicking his tongue at her and grumbling as always, ‘Lady Perdita, memsahib, how can I protect you from wicked men if you leave me behind?’
There aren’t any wicked men out here, she thought as the Hooghly River came in sight. The soldiers patrolling the fort saw to that. Perhaps she should take Pradeep with her into the ballroom and he could see off the likes of Alistair Lyndon.
She had managed about three hours’ sleep. Most of the night had been spent tossing and turning and fuming about arrogant males with dreadful taste in women—and the one particular arrogant male she was going to have to share a ship with for weeks on end. Now she was determined to chase away not only last evening’s unsettling encounter, but the equally unsettling dreams that had followed it.
The worst had been a variation on the usual nightmare: her father had flung open the door of the chaise and dragged her out into the inn yard in front of a stagecoach full of gawking onlookers and old Lady St George in her travelling carriage. But this time the tall man with black hair with her was not Stephen Doyle, scrambling out of the opposite door in a cowardly attempt to escape, but Alistair Lyndon.
And Alistair was not running away as the man she had talked herself into falling for had. In her dream he turned, elegant and deadly, the light flickering off the blade of the rapier he held to her father’s throat. And then the dream had become utterly confused and Stephen in a tangle of sheets in the inn bed had become a much younger Alistair.
And that dream had been accurate and intense and so arousing that she had woken aching and yearning and had had to rise and splash cold water over herself until the trembling ceased.
As she had woken that morning she had realised who Stephen Doyle resembled—a grown-up version of Alistair. Dita shook her head to try to clear the last muddled remnants of the dreams out of her head. Surely she hadn’t fallen for Stephen because she was still yearning for Alistair? It was ludicrous; after that humiliating fiasco—which he had so obviously forgotten in a brandy-soaked haze the next morning—she had fought to put that foolish infatuation behind her. She had thought she had succeeded.
Khan was still going flat out, too fast for prudence as they neared the point where the outer defensive ditch met the river bank. Here she must turn, and the scrubby trees cast heavy shadow capable of concealing rough ground and stray dogs. She began to steady the horse, and as she did so a chestnut came out of the trees, galloping as fast as her gelding was.
Khan came to a sliding halt and reared to try to avoid the certain collision. Dita clung flat on his neck, the breath half-knocked out of her by the pommel. As the mane whipped into her eyes she saw the other rider wrench his animal to the left. On the short dusty grass the fall was inevitable, however skilled the rider; as Khan landed with a bone-juddering thud on all four hooves the other horse slithered, scrabbled for purchase and crashed down, missing them by only a few yards.
Dita threw her leg over the pommel and slid to the ground as the chestnut horse got to its feet. Its rider lay sprawled on the ground; she ran and fell to her knees beside him. It was Alistair Lyndon, flat on his back, arms outflung, eyes closed.
‘Oh, my God!’ Is he dead? She wrenched open the buttons on his black linen coat, pushed back the fronts to expose his shirt and bent over him, her ear pressed to his chest. Against her cheek the thud of his heart was fast, but it was strong and steady.
Dita let all the air out of her lungs in a whoosh of relief as her shoulders slumped. She must get up and send for help, a doctor. He might have broken his leg or his back. But just for a second she needed to recover from the shock.
‘This is nice,’ remarked his voice in her ear and his arm came round her, pulled her up a little and, before she could struggle, Alistair’s mouth was pressed against hers, exploring with a frank appreciation and lack of urgency that took her breath away.
Dita had never been kissed by a man who appeared to be taking an indolently dispassionate pleasure in the proceeding. When she was sixteen she had been in Alistair’s arms when she was ignorant and he was a youth and he had still made her sob with delight. Now he was a man, and sober, and she knew it meant nothing to him. This was pure self-indulgent mischief.
Even so, it was far harder to pull away than it should be, she found, furious with herself. Alistair had spent eight years honing his sexual technique, obviously by practising whenever he got the opportunity. She put both hands on his shoulders, heaved, and was released with unflattering ease. ‘You libertine!’
He opened his eyes, heavy-lidded, amused and golden, and sat up. The amusement vanished in a sharp intake of breath followed by a vehement sentence in a language she did not recognise ‘… and bloody hell,’ he finished.
‘Lord Lyndon,’ Dita stated. It took an effort not to slap him. ‘Of course, it had to be you, riding far too fast. Are you hurt? I assume from your language that you are. I suppose you are going to say your outrageous behaviour is due to concussion or shock or some such excuse.’
The smouldering look he gave her as he scrubbed his left hand through his dusty, tousled hair was a provocation she would not let herself rise to. ‘Being a normal male, when young women fling themselves on my chest I do not need the excuse of a bang on the head to react,’ he said. He wriggled his shoulders experimentally. ‘I’ll live.’
Dita resisted the urge to shift backwards out of range. There was blood on his bandaged hand, the makings of a nasty bruise on his cheek; the very fact he had not got to his feet yet told her all she needed to know about how his injured leg felt.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked. She shook her head. ‘Is my horse all right?
‘Pradeep,’ she called as the syce cantered up. ‘Catch the sahib’s horse, please, and check it is all right.’ She turned back, thankful she could not understand the muttered remarks Lyndon was making, and tried to ignore the fact that her heart was still stuck somewhere in her throat after the shock. Or was it that kiss? How he dared! How she wanted him to do it again.
‘Now, what are we going to do about you?’ she said, resorting to brisk practicality. ‘I had best send Pradeep to the fort, I think, and get them to bring out a stretcher.’ At least she sounded coherent, even if she did not feel it.
‘Do I look like the kind of man who would put up with being carted about on a stretcher by a couple of sepoys?’ he enquired, flexing his hand and hissing as he did so.
‘No, of course not.’ Dita began to untie her stock. Her hands, she was thankful to see, were not shaking. ‘That would be the rational course of action, after all. How ludicrous to expect you to follow it. Doubtless you intend to sit here for the rest of the day?’
‘I intend to stand up,’ he said. ‘And walk to my horse when your man has caught it. Why are you undressing?’
‘I am removing my stock in order to bandage whichever part of your ungrateful anatomy requires it, my lord,’ Dita said, her teeth clenched. ‘At the moment I am considering a tourniquet around your neck.’
Alistair Lyndon regarded her from narrowed eyes, but all he said was, ‘I thought that ripping up petticoats was the standard practice under these circumstances.’
‘I have no intention of demolishing my wardrobe for you, my lord.’ Dita got to her feet and held out her hand. ‘Are you going to accept help to stand up or does your stubborn male pride preclude that as well?’
When he moved, he moved fast and with grace. His language was vivid, although mostly incomprehensible, but the viscount got his good leg under him and stood up in one fluid movement, ignoring her hand. ‘There is a lot of blood on your breeches now,’ she observed. She had never been so close to quite this much gore before but, by some miracle, she did not feel faint. Probably she was too cross. And aroused—she could not ignore that humiliating fact. She had wanted him then, eight years ago when he had been a youth. Now she felt sharp desire for the man he had become. She was grown, too; she could resist her own weaknesses.
‘Damn.’ He held out a hand for the stock and she gave it to him. She was certainly not going to offer to bandage his leg if he could do it himself. Beside any other consideration, the infuriating creature would probably take it as an invitation to further familiarities and she had the lowering feeling that touching him again would shatter her resolve. ‘Thank you.’ The knot he tied was workmanlike and seemed to stop the bleeding, so there was no need to continue to study the well-muscled thigh, she realised, and began to tidy her own disarranged neckline as well as she could.
‘Your wounds were caused by a tiger, I hear,’ Dita remarked, feeling the need for conversation. Perhaps she was a trifle faint after all; she was certainly oddly light-headed. Or was that simply that kiss? ‘I assume it came off worst.’
‘It did,’ he agreed, yanking his cuffs into place. Pradeep came over, leading the chestnut horse. ‘Thank you. Is it all right?’
‘Yes, sahib. The rein is broken, which is why the sahib was not able to hold it when he fell.’ The syce must think he required a sop to his pride, but Alistair appeared unconcerned. ‘Does the sahib require help to mount?’
He’ll say no, of course, Dita thought. The usual male conceit. But Lyndon put his good foot into the syce’s cupped hands and let Pradeep boost him enough to throw his injured leg over the saddle.
It was interesting that he saw no need to play-act the hero—unlike Stephen, who would have doubtless managed alone, even if it made the wound worse. She frowned. What was she doing, thinking of that sorry excuse for a lover? Hadn’t she resolved to put him, and her own poor judgement, out of her head? He had never been in her heart, she knew that now. But it was uncanny, the way he was a pale imitation of the man in front of her now.
‘What happened to the mahout?’ she asked, putting one hand on the rein to detain Lyndon.
‘He survived.’ He looked down at her, magnificently self-assured despite his dusty clothes and stained bandages. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘You thought he was worth risking your life for. Many sahibs would not have done so.’ It was the one good thing she had so far discovered about this new, adult, Alistair. ‘It would be doubly painful to be injured and to have lost him.’
‘I had employed him, so he was my responsibility,’ Lyndon said.
‘And the villagers who were being attacked by the man-eater? They were your responsibility also?’
‘Trying to find the good side to my character, Dita?’ he asked with uncomfortable perception. ‘I wouldn’t stretch your charity too far—it was good sport, that was all.’
‘I’m sure it was,’ she agreed. ‘You men do like to kill things, don’t you? And, of course, your own self-esteem would not allow you to lose a servant to a mere animal.’
‘At least it fought back, unlike a pheasant or a fox,’ he said with a grin, infuriatingly unmoved by her jibes. ‘And why did you put yourself out so much just now for a man who obviously irritates you?’
‘Because I was riding as fast as you were, and I, too, take responsibility for my actions,’ she said. ‘And you do not irritate me, you exasperate me. I do not appreciate your attempts to tease me with your shocking behaviour.’
‘I was merely attempting to act as one of your romantic heroes,’ he said. ‘I thought a young lady addicted to novels would expect such attentions. You appeared to enjoy it.’
‘I was shocked into momentary immobility.’ Only, her lips had moved against his, had parted, her tongue had touched his in a fleeting mutual caress … ‘And I am not addicted, as you put it. In fact, I think you are reading too many novels yourself, my lord,’ Dita retorted as she dropped the rein and turned away to where Pradeep stood holding Khan.
Alistair watched her walk, straight-backed, to her groom and spend a moment speaking to him, apparently in reassurance, while she rubbed the big gelding’s nose. For all the notice she took of Alistair he might as well not have been there, but he could sense her awareness of him, see it in the flush that touched her cheekbones. Momentary immobility, his foot! She had responded to his kiss whether she wanted to admit it or not.
The syce cupped his hands and she rose up and settled in the saddle with the lack of fuss of a born horsewoman. And a fit one, he thought, appreciating the moment when her habit clung and outlined her long legs.
In profile he could see that Claudia had been right. Her nose was too long and when she had looked up at him to ask about the mahout her face had been serious, emphasising the slight asymmetry that was not apparent when she was animated. And a critic who was not contemplating kissing it would agree that her mouth was too wide and her figure was unfashionably tall and slim. But the ugly duckling had grown into her face and, although it was not a beautiful one, it was vividly attractive.
And now he need not merely contemplate kissing her, he knew how she tasted and how it was to trace the curve of her upper lip with his tongue. The taste and feel of her had been oddly familiar.
He knew how she felt, her slight curves pressed to his chest, her weight on his body, and oddly it was as though he had always known that. It was remarkably effective in taking his mind off the bone-deep ache in his thigh and the sharp pain in his right hand. Alistair urged the bay alongside her horse as Dita used both hands to tuck up the strands of hair that had escaped from the net. The collar of her habit was open where the neckcloth was missing and his eyes followed the vee of pale skin into the shadows.
Last night her evening gown had revealed much more, but somehow it had not seemed so provocative. When he lifted his eyes she was gathering up the reins and he could tell from the way her lips tightened that she knew where he had been looking. If he had stayed in England, and watched the transformation from gawky child into provocatively attractive woman, would the impact when he looked at her be as great—or would she just be little Dita, grown up? Because there was no mistaking what he wanted when he looked at her now.
‘We are both to be passengers on the Bengal Queen,’ he said. It was a statement of the obvious, but he needed to keep her here for a few more moments, to see if he could provoke her into any more sharp-tongued remarks. He remembered last night how he had teased her with talk of chastisement and how unexpectedly stimulating that had been. The thought of wrestling between the sheets with a sharp-tongued, infuriated Lady Perdita who was trying to slap him was highly erotic. He might even let her get a few blows in before he …
‘Yes,’ she agreed, sounding wary. Doubtless some shadow of his thoughts was visible on his face. Alistair shifted in the saddle and got his unruly, and physically uncomfortable, imaginings under control. Better for now to remember the gawky tomboy-child who had always been somewhere in the background, solemn green eyes following his every move. ‘You will be anxious to get home, no doubt,’ she said with careful formality. ‘I was sorry to hear that Lord Iwerne is unwell.’
‘Thank you.’ He could think of nothing else to say that was neither a lie nor hypocritical. From the months’-old news he had received from Lyndonholt Castle there was a strong chance that he was already the marquis, and try as he might to summon up appropriate feelings of anxiety and sadness for his father, he could not. They had never been close and the circumstances of their parting had been bitter. And even if his father still lived, what would he make of the hardened, travelled, twenty-nine-year-old who returned in the place of the angry, naïve young man who had walked away from him?
And there was his stepmother, of course. What would Imogen be expecting of the stepson who had not even stayed to see her wed?
She was in for a shock if she thought he would indulge her or had any tender feelings left for her. She could take herself off to the Dower House with her widow’s portion and leave the Castle for the bride he fully intended to install there as soon as possible. And that bride would be a gentle, obedient, chaste young lady of good breeding. He would select her with care and she would provide him with heirs and be an excellent hostess. And she would leave his heart safely untouched—love was for idealists and romantics and he was neither. Not any more.