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‘Did you really climb up? All the way? What if someone had seen you?’ Averil clasped her hands together in horror.
‘Someone did.’ Dita unrolled a pair of stockings and began to pull them on. She had to tell someone, pour it all out, and Averil was the only person she could trust. ‘Alistair Lyndon. And he climbed up after me and made me come down.’
‘How awful!’ Averil got up to help lace Dita’s light stays.
‘I was glad to see him, if truth be told,’ she admitted, prepared to be reasonable now that Averil was aghast. ‘Or, rather, I was glad when he came after me. My first instinct when he told me to come down was to climb higher and then I wished I hadn’t! It is much harder work than I realised and my legs were beginning to shake and when I looked down everything seemed to go round and round in circles.’
‘What did he say when you reached the deck again? Was he angry? I would have sunk with mortification, but then you are much braver than I am.’ Averil bit her lip in the silence as Dita, words to describe what had happened next completely deserting her, shook out her petticoats. ‘It was rather romantic and dashing of Lord Lyndon, don’t you think?’
It was and she would have died rather than admit it, even if what had happened next was anything but romantic. ‘He lectured me,’ Dita said, her head buried in her skirts as she pulled her sprig muslin gown on. Instinct was telling her to dress as modestly as she could. ‘He thinks of me as a younger sister,’ she added as she pinned a demure fichu over what bare skin the simple gown exposed. ‘Someone to keep out of trouble.’
And that’s a lie. That teasing near-kiss and the feeling of Alistair’s hard, aroused body pressed against her had told her quite clearly that whatever his feelings were, they were not brotherly. He had felt magnificent and just thinking about it made her ache with desire. What would he have done just now if she had bent her head and kissed his bare throat, trailed her tongue down over the salty skin to where she could just glimpse a curl of dark hair?
She remembered the taste of him, the scent of his skin. But there had not been so much hair on his chest eight years ago. He’s a man now, she reminded herself. What if she had reached out and cupped her hand wantonly over the front of his trousers where his desire was so very obvious?
‘What a pity,’ Averil surprised her by murmuring as she stood up to tie the broad ribbon sash. ‘Perhaps he’ll change his mind. It is a long voyage.’
‘He will do no such thing,’ Dita said. ‘He knows about my elopement. Bother, I must have an eyelash in my eye—it is watering. Oh, thank you.’ She dabbed her eyes with Averil’s handkerchief. ‘That’s better.’ I am not going to weep over him, not again. Not ever.
‘But you are Lady Perdita Brooke,’ Averil protested. ‘An earl’s daughter.’
‘And Alistair is about to become a marquis, if he isn’t one already. He can look as high as he likes for a wife and he won’t have to consider someone with a shady reputation. If we were passionately in love, then I expect he would throw such considerations to the wind. But we are not, of course.’ Merely in lust. ‘Not that I want him, of course,’ she lied. Marriage isn’t what either of us wants; sin is.
‘I can’t imagine why not,’ Averil said with devastating honesty. ‘I would think any unattached woman would be attracted to him. He might fall in love with you,’ she persisted with an unusual lack of tact. Or perhaps Dita was being better at covering up her feelings than she feared.
‘Love?’ Dita laughed; if Averil noticed how brittle it was, she did not show it. ‘Well, he had plenty of opportunity when we were younger.’ She brushed out her hair and twisted it up into a simple knot at her nape.
Not that it had occurred to her that what she felt for him was more than childish affection, not until that night when he had been so bitterly unhappy and she had reached out to him, offering comfort that had become so much more. But now she realised that he had hardly cared who he was with, let alone been concerned about her feelings, whatever endearments he had murmured as he had caressed the clothes from her body. If he had, he would never have rejected her so hurtfully afterwards.
It was a blessing that he had not understood, simply seen the innocent love that burned in her eyes, the trust that had taken her into his arms.
She could still feel the violence with which Alistair had put her from him that last day, the rejection with which he had turned his face from her. He had been upset about something, desperately, wordlessly upset, and he had been drinking alone, something that she had never seen him do before, and her embrace had been meant only to comfort, just as the eight-year-old Dita would hug her idol when he fell and cut his head. But it had turned into something else, something the sixteen-year-old Dita could not control.
He had yanked her into his arms, met her upturned lips in a kiss that had been urgent on his part, clumsy and untutored on hers. And then it had all got completely, wonderfully, out of control and she had discovered that, however innocent she was, he was not and that he could sweep away her fears, melt them in the delight of what he was teaching her body—until he had pushed her from him, out of his bedchamber, his words scathing and unjust.
For several months she had thought she had driven him away by her actions, had shocked him with her forwardness. After a while she had made up stories to console herself and blank out what had really happened; then she overheard her parents talking and learned that he had left after a furious quarrel with his father.
‘When Alistair left home,’ she told Averil as she stuck in combs to hold her hair, ‘I had this fantasy that his father had refused to allow him to pay his addresses to me. Wasn’t that foolish? There was absolutely no reason why we wouldn’t have been a perfectly eligible couple then. In reality, they had a row over Alistair taking over one of the other estates, or something equally ridiculous to fall out about.’
‘So you were in love with him then?’ Averil asked.
‘I fancied I was!’ Dita was pleased with the laugh, and her smile, as she made the ready admission. ‘I was sixteen and hopelessly infatuated. But I grew out of it and I would expire of mortification if he ever found out how I had worshipped him, so you must swear not to tell.’ Hero worship, affection, calf love and desire: what a chaos of feelings to try to disentangle.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Averil assured her. ‘I would hate it if a man guessed something like that about me.’
‘So would I,’ Dita assured her as she adjusted her shawl. ‘So would I.’
They managed a brisk walk around the deck, which Dita thought would account for any colour in her cheeks, and then went straight in to breakfast. Alistair was already at table, seated between the Chattertons; Dita deliberately sat opposite. The men half-rose, greeted them and resumed their conversation.
‘I was going to try some singlestick exercises early this morning, but I got distracted,’ Alistair said, continuing his conversation with Callum.
So that was what he was doing, up so early. Dita accepted a cup of coffee and took a slice of toast.
‘I think I’ll do that every morning,’ he went on, without so much as a glance in her direction to accompany the warning. ‘Why don’t you two join me? We could box, wrestle, use singlesticks.’
‘Good idea,’ Callum agreed, with a nudge in the ribs for Daniel who was grumbling about early rising. ‘We will be sure to avoid the ladies by doing that.’
And that put an end to any dawn exercise on her part, Dita recognised, slapping preserve on her toast with a irritable flick. It was easier to be angry with Alistair than to confront any of the other feelings he aroused in her.
‘What a charming picture you two ladies make.’ Alistair again, smiling now. Beside her Averil made a small sound that might have been pleasure at the compliment, or might have been nerves. ‘So English in your muslins and lawns and lacy fichus.’
‘You do not like Indian female dress, my lord?’ Dita enquired. She was not going to allow him to needle her and she rather thought he knew exactly why she had changed into something so blandly respectable. It had been an error to show him that she cared for his opinion. She had morning dresses that would make him pant with desire, she told herself, mentally lowering necklines and removing lace trim from the contents of her trunk.
‘It is suitable for Indian females, but not for English ones to ape.’
‘But English gentlemen resort to Indian garb to relax in, do you not? Why should ladies not have the same comforts? But of course,’ she added, ‘you do not appreciate the wonderful freedom of casting off one’s stays.’
Averil gave a little gasp of horrified laughter, Callum went pink and Alistair grinned. ‘No, but I can imagine,’ he said, leaving her in no doubt he was thinking of garments he had unlaced in the past.
She was not going to rattle him, she realised, and all she was succeeding in doing was embarrassing Averil and scandalising Callum Chatterton, who was too nice and intelligent a man to be teased.
‘And how do you ladies intend passing the day?’ Callum enquired, changing the subject with rather desperate tact.
‘I am making Christmas gifts,’ Averil confided. ‘I thought that all of us who dine in the cuddy make up a house party, as it were. On Christmas Eve after supper it would be delightful to exchange little tokens, just as though we really were at a Christmas house party, don’t you think?’
‘Gifts for everyone?’ Daniel asked, chasing some tough bacon around his plate.
‘It would be invidious to leave anyone out, I think.’ Averil frowned. ‘Of course, it is not easy to prepare for this sort of thing, not knowing everyone who is of the party. But twenty small gifts are not so very hard to come up with.’
‘Twenty-one with the captain,’ Dita pointed out. ‘I think it is a charming idea, but we should let everyone know we will do it, don’t you think? In case there is anyone who had not thought of gifts and is embarrassed.’
‘Oh. I had not considered that. If there are people with nothing suitable to exchange, it would indeed put them out.’ Averil’s face fell.
‘If you mention it now, then anyone who needs to do last-minute shopping can go to the bazaars when we call at Madras,’ Alistair suggested. Averil beamed at him and Dita found herself meeting his eyes with something like gratitude for his thoughtfulness to her friend.
‘That was a kind thought,’ she said across the table when Averil was distracted by Daniel teasing her about what she could possibly give the captain. ‘Thank you.’
‘I do occasionally have them,’ he said laconically. ‘Miss Heydon is a charming and kind young woman and I would not like to see her embarrassed.’
‘I do not accuse you of being unkind,’ Dita began. That had felt like an oblique slap at her, the young woman he had no compunction about embarrassing.
‘You, my dear Dita, are a feline. You walk your own path, you guard your own heart and you will not yield to anything but your own desires. Miss Heydon is a turtle dove—sweet, loyal, affectionate. Although,’ he added, glancing along the table to where Averil was fending off Daniel’s wit with surprising skill, ‘she has more intelligence and courage than at first appears. She would fight for what she loves.’
‘Whereas you think me merely selfish?’ Dita’s chin came up.
‘And intelligent and courageous and quite surprisingly alluring. But you are going to find it hard to bend that self-will to a husband, Dita.’
‘Why should I?’ Alluring? The unexpected compliment was negated by the fact he found it surprising that she should be attractive. She sliced diagonally across the slice of toast with one sweep of her knife. ‘Men do not have to compromise in marriage. I cannot imagine you doing so, for example, even for a woman you love.’
Alistair gave a harsh laugh. ‘What has love got to do with it? That is the last thing I would marry for. Excuse me.’ He pushed back his chair and left the table.
How had he let that betraying remark escape? Alistair wondered as he strode down to his tiny cubicle off the Great Cabin. Or was it only his acute consciousness of his own ghosts that made him fear his words would expose him?
Love brought blindness with it and rewarded trust with lies. It had blinded him, humiliated him—he was not going to give it a chance again. Physical love was easy enough to take care of, even if one was fastidious and demanding, as he knew himself to be. Alistair grimaced as he sat on his bunk and tried to remember what he had come down here for. Not to run away from Dita Brooke, he sincerely hoped, although the wretched chit was having the most peculiar effect on his brain.
Easier to think about sex than about emotion—and Dita seemed to produce emotional responses in him he rarely experienced: anxiety, protectiveness. Possessiveness, damn it. Yes, better to think about sex and she certainly made him fantasise about that, too.
He had dreamed about her for years, erotic, arousing, frustrating dreams that had puzzled him as much as they had tormented him. They had been too real. Had he really thought about the girl he had grown up with in that way and suppressed it so the desire only emerged when he was asleep? Now it was damnably hard not to indulge in waking dreams about the adult woman.
Three months’ celibacy was not something he would seek out, he had to admit. He was a sensual man by nature, but he prized control and he was not going to seek relief either here on board or in any of their ports of call. Fortunately there was no one on the Bengal Queen who attracted him in that way. No one except Lady Perdita Brooke, of course.
Hell. How could he feel responsible for her—a hangover from all those childhood years, he supposed—and yet want to do the very things he would kill another man for trying with her?
She was so responsive, with all the intensity and passion of the child grown into the woman. Her reckless riding, the way she had flung herself from her horse and run to him, her uninhibited attempts to care for him. That kiss. Alistair fell back on to the bed and relived those stimulating seconds.
He had enjoyed that, irresponsible as it had been. And so had Dita. And being Dita, when she thought he was offering to do it again she had wanted it, as filled with passionate curiosity for risk and experience as she always had been. Passion. A shiver ran through his long frame as he thought about passion and Dita.
Damn it, no. By all accounts she had been hurt enough by her own recklessness—the last thing she needed was an affaire with him. And the last thing he needed when he arrived in London for the Season was the rumour that he had been involved with the scandalous Lady Perdita. He was hunting for a bride as pure as the driven snow and for that he had to preserve the mask of utmost respectability that was expected in this artificial business. He owed it to his name. And he owed it to his own peace of mind not to become embroiled with a mistress who would expect far more than he was prepared to give.
Alistair sat up abruptly. He was leaping to conclusions about what Dita might expect. She knew he was no saint. His mouth curled into a sensual smile. If Dita wanted to pay games—well, there were games they could play, games that would be just as much fun in their own way as those innocent sports of their childhood.
Alistair left the cabin half an hour later, notebooks under one arm and his travelling inkwell in his hand. He had told Dita that he was going to write a book; now he must see whether he could produce prose that was good enough and turn his travels into something that would hold a reader’s attention.
There was a lady seated at the communal table in the middle of the cabin, a sewing box open and items strewn around. Ah, yes, Mrs Ashwell, the wife of newly wealthy merchant Samuel Ashwell. He had seen her at work before, it was what had prompted his idea about mistletoe for Christmas.
‘That is very fine, ma’am,’ he observed.
She was instantly flustered. ‘Oh! You mean my artificial flowers? I used to be … I mean, I always used to make them, for myself and friends, you understand. I enjoy the work …’
In other words, she had been an artificial flower maker before her husband made his money. He, no doubt, wished his wife to hide the fact, but she enjoyed the creativity. The products were as good as any society lady would buy.
‘Can you make mistletoe?’ Alistair asked. ‘A spray of it that a lady might put in her hair?’
‘Why, yes, I suppose so. I never have, but it should be straightforward.’ She frowned and rummaged in her work box. ‘This ribbon is the right green. But I would need white beads for the berries and I have none.’
‘I have.’ Alistair went back into his cabin and unlocked the small strong box he had bolted to the deck. ‘Here.’ He handed her a velvet bag. ‘Use all of them if you can.’ Now, how to recompense her for what would be a considerable amount of fiddling work without giving offence by offering payment?
‘And thank you. You have rescued me from the embarrassing predicament of having no suitable gift for a lady. I do hope, when you are in London next, you will do me the honour of leaving your card? I would very much like to invite you and Mr Ashwell to one of the parties I will be giving.’
‘My lord! But … I mean … we would be delighted.’ He left her ten minutes later, flushed and delighted. If only pleasing a woman was always that easy.
Chapter Seven
20th December 1808—Madras
The Bengal Queen dropped anchor opposite Fort St George close to the mouth of the Kuvam River and the harassed ship’s officers set about sorting out the groups of passengers. Some wanted to go ashore to shop in Madras; there were men who were eager to hire a boat and go upstream to shoot duck and the East India Company supercargo—very senior men indeed—demanded to be taken ashore to transact Company business with all speed.
‘I really do not think we should go ashore without a gentleman to escort us,’ Mrs Bastable said for the fourth time since breakfast. ‘And Mr Bastable is clerking for Sir Willoughby and will be in the Company offices all day. Perhaps we could join the Whytons.’
Averil and Dita exchanged looks. The thought of a morning in the company of the Misses Whyton was excruciating. ‘Um … I think they are already a very large group. I asked the Chattertons,’ Dita said, ‘but Daniel is committed to the shooting party and Callum is going to the offices with Sir Willoughby.’ She surveyed the rest of the available men without much enthusiasm. ‘I suppose I could ask Lieutenant Tompkins, if he is off duty.’
‘A problem, ladies?’
Dita turned, her heart thumping in the most unwelcome manner. ‘Merely a question of an escort to the markets, Lord Lyndon. Please, do not let us detain you—I am sure there are ducks awaiting slaughter.’
‘I was not intending to join the shooting party and I have my own shopping to do.’ He appeared to take their acceptance for granted. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes, we are. Thank you so much, my lord.’ Mrs Bastable had no hesitation snatching at this promise of escort. ‘Oh dear, though, there’s that dreadful chair to negotiate.’
‘Safest way down,’ Alistair said. ‘Let me assist you, ma’am. There you are.’
Averil and Dita watched their chaperon being whisked skywards. ‘She’s landed safely,’ Averil announced. ‘Look.’
‘No, thank you.’ Dita remained firmly away from the rail.
‘Why do you climb the rigging if you won’t look over the side?’ Alistair demanded as Averil sat down in the bos’un’s chair with complete unconcern.
‘The further I get from the sea, the happier I am,’ Dita said and turned her back firmly on the rail and all the activity around it. She fixed her gaze on Alistair’s mouth, which was a reckless thing to do for the sake of her emotions, but was a great help in taking her mind off small boats and open water. ‘Don’t ask me to explain it, I know it is irrational.’
‘That is no surprise, you are female after all,’ Alistair remarked. She glanced up sharply and met a look that was positively lascivious.
Dita opened her mouth, shut it again with a snap at the expression in his eyes and took two rapid steps back. Alistair followed her, gave her a little push and she sat down with a thump in the chair.
‘Why, you—’ He flicked the rope across the arms and signalled to the sailors hauling it up. Seething, Dita found herself in the flat-bottomed boat being helped out by Averil.
‘You devious, underhand, conniving creature,’ she hissed as Alistair dropped into the boat from the ladder.
‘It worked,’ he said with a grin as he sat down beside her. ‘And I take it back—you are irrational, but not because you are female. But I cannot apologise for any looks of admiration—you do look most charming.’
Dita sorted through the apology and decided she was prepared to accept it. ‘Thank you. But you really are the most provoking man,’ she added. ‘I don’t recall you being so—except when you wouldn’t let me do something I wanted to, of course.’
‘Which was most of the time. You always wanted to do the maddest things.’
‘I did not!’ The boat bumped alongside the ghat. ‘You wretch! You are doing it again, arguing in order to distract me.’
‘I have no idea why you are complaining,’ Alistair said, as he got out on to the stone steps and held out his hand to Mrs Bastable, who glanced from one to the other with a puzzled frown. ‘You have made the transition from ship to shore without turning green in the slightest.’
They were enveloped in the usual crowd of porters jostling for business, trinket sellers, garland merchants and beggars. Alistair dropped into rapid, colloquial Hindi as he cleared a way through for the ladies to climb the steps; by the time they had reached the top they had two of the more respectable men at their heels.
… double that when we get back here with all our packages intact, Dita translated when she could hear more clearly. Coins changed hands, the men grinned and set off.
‘I told them I wanted the best general market,’ Alistair said as they followed, skirting a white-clad procession bearing a swathed body towards the burning ghats.
‘Oh, I can never get used to that,’ Mrs Bastable moaned, turning her head away. ‘I so long for the peace of a green English churchyard.’
‘But not yet, I hope,’ Alistair murmured. Dita caught his eye and stifled a choke of laughter. Now that she had recovered from his trickery she discovered that today she was quite in charity with the man, which was dangerous. She reflected on just how dangerous as she picked her way round potholes and past a sacred cow that had come to a dead halt beside a vegetable stall and was placidly eating its way through the wretched owner’s produce.
‘And cows that stay in a field would be nice,’ she remarked.
The market they were guided to was down the usual narrow entrance that opened out into a maze of constricted alleys, lined on each side with tiny stalls and booths, many of them with the owner sitting cross-legged on the back of the counter.
‘Do you know what you want?’
‘Not fish!’ Mrs Bastable turned with a shudder from the alley to their left, its cobbles running with bloody water, the flies swarming around the silvery heaps.
‘Down here.’ Averil set off confidently down another lane and they soon found themselves amidst stalls selling spices, baskets of every kind, toys, small carvings and embroidery. ‘Perfect!’
Soon their porters were hung around with packages. Mrs Bastable fell behind to haggle over a soapstone carving and Alistair stayed with her to help.
‘We’ll be in the next alley on the right,’ Averil called back. ‘I can see peacock-feather fans. They are charming and useful,’ she said as they stood examining them. ‘We could buy a dozen between us; they will do very well for gifts.’