LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast and spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. Visit her at www.louiseallenregency.co.uk,@LouiseRegency and www.janeaustenslondon.com.

A Regency Rake’s Redemption
Ravished by the Rake
Seduced by the Scoundrel
Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Ravished by the Rake

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Seduced by the Scoundrel

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Endpage

Copyright

Ravished by the Rake

Chapter One

7th December 1808—Calcutta, India

It was blissfully cool, Dita assured herself, plying her fan in an effort to make it so. This was the cool season, so at eight o’clock in the evening it was only as hot as an English August day. Nor was it raining, thank heavens. How long did one have to live in India to become used to the heat? A trickle of sweat ran down her spine as she reminded herself of what it had been like from March to September.

But there was something to be said for the temperature: it made one feel so delightfully loose and relaxed. In fact, it was impossible to be anything but relaxed, to shed as many clothes as decency permitted and wear exquisitely fine muslins and lawns and floating silks.

She was going to miss that cat-like, sensual, indolence when she returned to England, now her year of exile was over. And the heat had another benefit, she thought, watching the group of young ladies in the reception room off the great Marble Hall of Government House: it made the beautiful peaches-and-cream blondes turn red and blotchy whereas she, the gypsy, as they snidely remarked, showed little outward sign of it.

It had not taken long to adapt, to rise before dawn to ride in the cool, to sleep and lounge through the long, hot afternoons, saving the evenings for parties and dances. If it had not been for the grubby trail of rumour and gossip following her, she could have reinvented herself, perhaps, here in India. As it was, it had just added a sharper edge to her tongue.

But she wanted so much now to be in England. She wanted the green and the soft rain and the mists and a gentler sun. Her sentence was almost done: she could go home and hope to find herself forgiven by Papa, hope that her reappearance in society would not stir up the wagging tongues all over again.

And if it does? she thought, strolling into the room from the terrace, her face schooled to smiling confidence. Then to hell with them, the catty ones with their whispers and the rakes who think I am theirs for the asking. I made a mistake and trusted a man, that is all. I will not do that again. Regrets were a waste of time. Dita slammed the door on her thoughts and scanned the room with its towering ceiling and double rows of marble columns.

The Bengal Queen was due to sail for England at the end of the week and almost all her passengers were here at the Governor’s House reception. She was going to get to know them very well indeed over the next few months. There were some important men in the East India Company travelling as supercargo; a handful of army officers; several merchants, some with wives and daughters, and a number of the well-bred young men who worked for the Company, setting their feet on the ladder of wealth and power.

Dita smiled and flirted her fan at two of them, the Chatterton twins on the far side of the room. Lazy, charming Daniel and driven, intense Callum—Mama would not be too displeased if she returned home engaged to Callum, the unattached one. Not a brilliant match, but they were younger brothers of the Earl of Flamborough, after all. Both were amusing company, but neither stirred more than a flutter in her heart. Perhaps no one would ever again, now she had learned to distrust what it told her.

Shy Averil Heydon waved from beside a group of chaperons. Dita smiled back a trifle wryly. Dear Averil: so well behaved, such a perfect young lady—and so pretty. How was it that Miss Heydon was one of the few eligible misses in Calcutta society whom she could tolerate? Possibly because she was such an heiress that she was above feeling delight at an earl’s daughter being packed off the India in disgrace, unlike those who saw Lady Perdita Brooke as nothing but competition to be shot down. The smile hardened; they could certainly try. None of them had succeeded yet, possibly because they made the mistake of thinking that she cared for their approval or their friendship.

And Averil would be on the Bengal Queen, too, which was something to be grateful for—three months was a long time to be cooped up with the same restricted company. On the way out she’d had her anger—mostly directed at herself—and a trunk full of books to sustain her; now she intended to enjoy herself, and the experience of the voyage.

‘Lady Perdita!’

‘Lady Grimshaw?’ Dita produced an attentive expression. The old gorgon was going to be a passenger, too, and Dita had learned to pick her battles.

‘That is hardly a suitable colour for an unmarried girl. And such flimsy fabric, too.’

‘It is a sari I had remade, Lady Grimshaw. I find pastels and white make me appear sallow.’ Dita was well aware of her few good features and how to enhance them to perfection: the deep green brought out the colour of her eyes and the dark gold highlights in her brown hair. The delicate silk floated over the fine lawn undergarments as though she was wearing clouds.

‘Humph. And what’s this I hear about riding on the maidan at dawn? Galloping!’

‘It is too hot to gallop at any other time of day, ma’am. And I did have my syce with me.’

‘A groom is neither here nor there, my girl. It is fast behaviour. Very fast.’

‘Surely speed is the purpose of the gallop?’ Dita said sweetly, and drifted away before the matron could think of a suitably crushing retort. She gestured to a servant for a glass of punch, another fast thing for a young lady to be doing. She sipped it as she walked, wrinkling her nose at the amount of arrack it contained, then stopped as a slight stir around the doorway heralded a new arrival.

‘Who is that?’ Averil appeared at her side and gestured towards the door. ‘My goodness, what a very good-looking man.’ She fanned herself as she stared.

He was certainly that. Tall, lean, very tanned, the thick black silk of his hair cut ruthlessly short. Dita stopped breathing, then sucked down air. No, of course not, it could not be Alistair—she was imagining things. Her treacherous body registered alarm and an instant flutter of arousal.

The man entered limping, impatient, as though the handicap infuriated him, but he was going to ignore it. Once in, he surveyed the room with unhurried assurance. The scrutiny paused at Dita, flickered over her face, dropped to study the low-cut neckline of her gown, then moved on to Averil for a further cool assessment.

For all the world like a pasha inspecting a new intake for the seraglio, Dita thought. But despite the unfamiliar arrogance, she knew. Her body recognised him with every quivering nerve. It is him. It is Alistair. After eight years. Dita fought a battle with the urge to run.

‘Insufferable,’ Averil murmured. She had blushed a painful red.

‘Insufferable, no doubt. Arrogant, certainly,’ Dita replied, not troubling to lower her voice as he came closer. Attack, her instincts told her. Strike before you weaken and he can hurt you again. ‘And he obviously fancies himself quite the romantic hero, my dear. You note the limp? Positively Gothic—straight out of a sensation novel.’

Alistair stopped and turned. He made no pretence of not having heard her. ‘A young lady who addles her brain with trashy fiction, I gather.’ The intervening years had not darkened the curious amber eyes that as a child she had always believed belonged to a tiger. Memories surfaced, some bittersweet, some simply bitter, some so shamefully arousing that she felt quite dizzy. She felt her chin go up as she returned the stare in frigid silence, but he had not recognised her. He turned a little more and bowed to Averil. ‘My pardon, ma’am, if I put you to the blush. One does not often see such beauty.’

The movement exposed the right side of his head. Down the cheek from just in front of the ear, across the jawbone and on to his neck, there was a half-healed scar that vanished into the white lawn of his neckcloth. His right hand, she saw, was bandaged. The limp was not affectation after all; he had been hurt, and badly. Dita stifled the instinct to touch him, demand to know what had happened as she once would have done, without inhibition.

Beside her she heard her friend’s sharp indrawn breath. ‘I do not regard it, sir.’ Averil nodded with cool dismissal and walked away towards the chaperons, then turned when she reached their sanctuary, her face comically dismayed as she realised Dita had not followed her.

I should apologise to him, Dita thought, but he ogled us so blatantly. And he cut at me just as he had that last time. Furthermore, he apologised only to Averil; her own looks would win no compliments from this man.

‘My friend is as gracious as she is beautiful,’ she said and the amber eyes, still warm from following Averil’s retreat, moved back to hers. He frowned at the tart sweetness of her tone. ‘She can find it in herself to forgive almost anyone, even presumptuous rakes.’ Which is what Alistair appeared to have grown into.

And on that note she should turn on her heel, perhaps with a light trill of laughter, or a flick of her fan, and leave him to annoy some other lady. But it was difficult to move, when wrenching her eyes away from his meant they fell to his mouth. It did not curve—he could not be said to be smiling—but one corner deepened into something that was almost a dimple. Not, of course, that such an arrogant hunk of masculinity could be said to have anything as charming as a dimple. That mouth on her skin, on her breast …

‘I am rightly chastised,’ he said. There was something provocative in the way that he said it that sent a little shock through her, although she had no idea why. Then she realised that he was speaking to her as a woman, not as the girl he had thought her when he had so cruelly dismissed her before. It was almost as though he was suggesting that she carry out the chastisement more personally.

Dita told herself that one could overcome blushes by sheer force of will, especially as she had no very exact idea what she was blushing about now. He did not recognise her; even if he did, what had happened so long ago had been unimportant to him, he had made that very clear at the time. ‘You do not appear remotely penitent, sir,’ she retorted. Sooner or later he would realise who he was talking to, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging him and thinking she attached any importance to it.

‘I never said I was, ma’am, merely that I acknowledged a reproof. There is no amusement in penitence—why, one would have to either give up the sin or be a hypocrite—and where’s the fun in that?’

‘I have no idea whether you are a hypocrite or not, sir, but certainly no one could accuse you of gallant behaviour.’

‘You struck first,’ he pointed out, accurately and unfairly.

‘For which I apologise,’ Dita said. She was not going to act as badly as he. Even as she made the resolution her tongue got the better of her. ‘But I have no intention of offering sympathy, sir. You obviously enjoy fighting.’ He had always been intense, often angry, as a youth. And that intensity had miraculously transmuted into fire and passion when he made love.

‘Indeed.’ He flexed the bandaged hand and winced slightly. ‘You should see the other fellow.’

‘I have no wish to. You appear to have been hacking at each other with sabres.’

‘Near enough,’ he agreed.

Something in the mocking, cultured tones still held the faintest burr of the West Country. A wave of nostalgia for home and the green hills and the fierce cliffs and the cold sea gripped her, overriding even the shock of seeing Alistair again.

‘You still have the West Country in your voice,’ Dita said abruptly.

‘North Cornwall, near the boundary with Devon. And you?’ He did not appear to find the way she had phrased the statement strange.

He misses it, too, she thought, hearing the hint of longing under the cool tone. ‘I, too, come from that area.’ Without calculation she put out her hand and he caught it in his uninjured, ungloved, left. His hand was warm and hard with a rider’s calluses and his fingertips rested against her pulse, which was racing. Once before he had held her hand like this, once before they had stood so close and she had read the need in his eyes and she had misunderstood and acted with reckless innocence. He had taken her to heaven and then mocked her for her foolishness.

She could not play games any longer. Sooner or later he would find out who she was, and if she made a mystery of it he would think she still remembered, still attached some importance to what had happened between them. ‘My family lives at Combe.’

‘You are a Brooke? One of the Earl of Wycombe’s family?’ He moved nearer, her hand still held in his as he drew her to him to study her face. Close to he seemed to take the air out of the space between them. Too close, too male. Alistair. Oh my lord, he has grown up. ‘Why, you are never little Dita Brooke? But you were all angles and nose and legs.’ He grinned. ‘I used to put frogs in your pinafore pocket and you tagged along everywhere. But you have changed since I last saw you. You must have been twelve.’ His amusement stripped the eight years from him.

‘I was sixteen,’ she said with all the icy reserve she could manage. All angles and nose. ‘I recall you—and your frogs—as an impudent youth while I was growing up. But I was sixteen when you left home.’ Sixteen when I kissed you with all the fervour and love that was filling me and you used me and brushed me aside. Was I simply too unskilled for you or too foolishly clinging?

A shadow darkened the mocking eyes and for a moment Alistair frowned as though chasing an elusive memory.

But he doesn’t seem to remember—or he is not admitting it. But how could he forget? Perhaps there have been so many women that one inept chit of a girl is infinitely forgettable.

‘Sixteen? Were you?’ He frowned, his eyes intent on her face. ‘I don’t … recollect.’ But his eyes held questions and a hint of puzzlement as though he had been reminded of a faded dream.

‘There is no reason why you should.’ Dita pulled her hand free, dropped the merest hint of a curtsy and walked away. So, he doesn’t even remember! He broke my foolish young heart and he doesn’t even remember doing it. I was that unimportant to him.

Daniel Chatterton intercepted her in the middle of the room and she set her face into a pleasant smile. I am not plain any more, she told herself with a fierce determination not to run away. I am polished and stylish and an original. That is what I am: an original. Other men admire me. It is good that I have met Alistair again—now I can replace the fantasy with the reality. Perhaps now the memories of one shattering, wonderful hour in his bed would leave her, finally.

‘Never tell me that you do not idolise our returning adventurer, Lady Perdita.’ Apparently her expression was not as bland as she hoped. She shrugged; no doubt half the room had heard the exchange. She could imagine the giggles amongst the cattery of young ladies. Chatterton gestured to a passing servant. ‘More punch?’

‘No. No, thank you, it is far too strong.’ Dita took a glass of mango juice in exchange. Was the arrack responsible for how she had felt just now? Without it perhaps she would have seen just another man and the glamour would have dropped away, leaving her untouched. As she raised her drink to sip, she realised her hand retained the faintest hint of Alistair’s scent: leather, musk and something elusive and spicily expensive. He had never smelled like that before, so complex, so intoxicating. He had grown up with a vengeance. But so had she.

‘If you mean Alistair Lyndon, the insolent creature who spoke to Miss Heydon and me just now, I knew him when he was growing up. He was a care-for-nothing then and it seems little has changed.’ Now she was blushing again. She never blushed. ‘He left home when he was twenty, or thereabouts.’

Twenty years, eleven months. She had bought him a fine horn pocket comb for his birthday and painstakingly embroidered a case for it. It was still in the bottom of her jewel box where it had stayed, even when she had eloped with the man she had believed herself in love with.

‘He is Viscount Lyndon, heir to the Marquis of Iwerne, is he not?’

‘Yes. Our families’ lands march together, but we are not great friends.’ Not, at least, since Mama was careless enough to show what she thought of the marquis’s second wife, who was only five years older than Dita. With some friction already over land, and no daughters in the Iwerne household to promote sociability, the families met rarely and there was no incentive to heal the rift.

‘Lyndon left home after some disagreement with his father about eight years ago,’ she added in an indifferent tone. ‘But I don’t think they ever got on, even before that. What is he doing here, do you know?’ It was a reasonable enough question.

‘Joining the party for the Bengal Queen passengers. He is returning home, I hear. The word is that his father is very ill; Lyndon may well be the marquis already.’ Chatterton looked over her shoulder. ‘He is watching you.’

She could feel him, like the gazelle senses the tiger lurking in the shadows, and fought for composure. Three months in a tiny canvas-walled cabin, cheek by jowl with a man who still thrived, she was certain, on dangerous mischief. It wouldn’t be frogs in pinafore pockets these days. If he even suspected how she felt, had felt, about him, she had no idea how he would react.

‘Is he, indeed? How obvious of him.’

‘He is also watching me,’ Chatterton said with a rueful smile. ‘And I do not think it is because he admires my waistcoat. I am beginning to feel dangerously de trop. Most men would pretend they were not observing you—Lyndon has the air of a man guarding his property.’

‘Insolent is indeed the word for him.’ He did not regard her as his property, far from it, but he had bestowed his attention upon her just now and she had snubbed him, so he would not be satisfied until he had her gazing at him cow-eyed like all the rest of the silly girls would do.

Now Dita turned slightly so she was in profile to the viscount and ran a finger down Daniel Chatterton’s waistcoat. ‘Lord Lyndon might not admire it, but is certainly a very fine piece of silk. And you look so handsome in it.’

‘Are you flirting with me by any chance, Lady Perdita?’ Chatterton asked with a grin. ‘Or are you trying to annoy Lyndon?’

‘Me?’ She opened her eyes wide at him, enjoying herself all of a sudden. She had met Alistair again and the heavens had not fallen; perhaps she could survive this after all. She gave Daniel’s neckcloth a pro-prietorial tweak to settle the folds, intent on adding oil to the fire.

‘Yes, you! Don’t you care that he will probably call me out?’

‘He has no cause. Tell me about him so I may better avoid him. I haven’t seen him for years.’ She smiled up into Daniel’s face and stood just an inch too close for propriety.

‘I shall have to try that brooding stare myself,’ Chatterton said, with a wary glance across the room. ‘It seems to work on the ladies. All I know about him is that he has been travelling in the East for about seven years, which fits with what you recall of him leaving home. He’s a rich man—the rumour is that he made a killing by gem dealing and that his weakness is exotic plants. He’s got collectors all over the place sending stuff back to somewhere in England—money no object, so they say.’

‘And how did he get hurt?’ Dita ran her fan down Daniel’s arm. Alistair was still watching them, she could feel him. ‘Duelling?’

‘Nothing so safe. It was a tiger, apparently; a man-eater who was terrorising a village. Lyndon went after it on elephant-back and the beast leapt at the howdah and dragged the mahout off. Lyndon vaulted down and tackled it with a knife.’

‘Quite the hero.’ Dita spoke lightly, but the thought of those claws, the great white teeth, made her shudder. What did it take to go so close, risk such an awful death? She had likened it to a sabre wound; the claws must have been as lethal. ‘What happened to the mahout?’

‘No idea. Pity Lyndon’s handsome face has been spoiled.’

‘Spoiled? Goodness, no!’ She forced a laugh and deployed her fan. His face? He could have been killed! ‘It will soon heal completely—don’t you know that scars like that are most attractive to the ladies?’

‘Lady Perdita, you will excuse me if I tear my brother away?’ It was Callum Chatterton, Daniel’s twin. ‘I must talk tiresome business, I fear.’

‘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.

‘A rupee for your thoughts?’ Dita said, her wary expression replaced with amusement at his abstraction. It almost had him smiling back, seeing a shadow of the patient child in an unusual young lady who did not take offence at a man forgetting she was there. But then, she was probably relieved his attention was elsewhere. ‘Are you daydreaming of home?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘But the thought was hardly worth a rupee. Ma’am, it was a pleasure.’ He bowed his hatless head for a moment, turned his horse towards Government House and cantered off.

For a moment there he had been tempted to stay, to offer to escort her back to wherever she was living. He must have hit his head in that fall, Alistair thought, to contemplate such a thing. He was going to be close to Dita Brooke for three months in the narrow confines of the ship, and he had no intention of resuming the role of elder brother, or however she had seen him as a child. He was not going to spend his time getting her out of scrapes and frightening off importunate young men; it made him feel old just thinking about it. As for that impulsive kiss, she had dealt with it briskly enough, even if she had responded to it. She was sophisticated enough to take it at face value as part of the repertoire of a rake, so nothing to worry about there.

Alistair trotted into the stable yard of Government House and dismounted with some care. The Governor General was away, but he was interested in plant hunting, too, and had extended a vague invitation that Alistair had found useful to take up for the few weeks before the ship sailed.

Damn this leg. He supposed he had better go and show it to the Governor’s resident doctor and be lectured on his foolishness in riding so hard with it not properly healed. But the prospect of weeks without energetic exercise had driven him out to ride each day for as long as the cool of the morning lasted. No doubt Dita had been motivated by the same considerations.

Which led him to think of her again, and of violent exercise, and the combination of the two was uncomfortably vivid. No, his feelings were most definitely not brotherly, any more than those damnably persistent dreams about her were. ‘Bloody fool,’ he snapped at himself, startling the jemahdar at the front door.

Intelligent, headstrong, argumentative young women with a scandal in their past and a temper were not what he was looking for. A meek and biddable English rose who would give him no trouble and cause no scandal was what he wanted and Dita Brooke had never been a rosebud, let alone a rose. She was pure briar with thorns all the way.

Chapter Three

As Alistair limped up the staircase to the first floor he thought of Dita’s threat to apply a tourniquet around his neck and laughed out loud at the memory of her face as she said it. The two men coming out of an office stopped at the sound.

‘Hell’s teeth, Lyndon, what’s happened to you?’ It was one of the Chatterton twins, probably Daniel, who had been flirting with Perdita last night. ‘Found that tiger again?’

‘My horse fell on the maidan and I’ve opened up the wound in my thigh. I’d better get a stitch in it—have you seen Dr Evans?’ Stoicism was one thing, being careless with open wounds in this climate quite another.

‘No, no sign of him—but we only dropped in to leave some papers, we haven’t seen anyone. Let’s get you up to your room while they find Evans. Daktar ko bulaiye,’ one twin called down to the jemahdar.

That was Callum, Alistair thought, waving away the offer of an arm in support. The responsible brother, by all accounts. ‘I can manage, but come and have a chota peg while they find him. It’s early, but I could do with it.’

They followed him up to his suite and settled themselves while his sirdar went for brandy. ‘Horse put its foot in a hole?’ Daniel asked.

‘Nothing so ordinary. I damn nearly collided with Lady Perdita, who was riding as if she’d a fox in her sights. I reined in hard to stop a crash and the horse over balanced. She wasn’t hurt,’ he added as Callum opened his mouth. ‘Interesting coincidence, meeting her here. My family are neighbours to hers, but it is years since I have seen her.’

‘Did you quarrel in those days?’ Daniel asked, earning himself a sharp kick on the ankle from his brother.

‘Ah, you noticed a certain friction? When we were children I teased her, as boys will torment small and unprepossessing females who tag around after them. I was not aware she was in India.’

‘Oh, well, after the elopement,’ Daniel began. ‘Er … you did know about that?’

‘Of course,’ Alistair said. Well, he had heard about a scandal yesterday. That was near enough the truth, and he was damnably curious all of a sudden.

‘No harm in speaking of it then, especially as you know the family. My cousin wrote all about it. Lady P. ran off with some fellow, furious father found them on the road to Gretna, old Lady St George was on hand to observe and report on every salacious detail—all the usual stuff and a full-blown scandal as a result.’

‘No so very bad if Lord Wycombe caught them,’ Alistair said casually as the manservant came back, poured brandy and reported that the doctor had gone out, but was expected back soon.

‘Well, yes, normally even Lady St George could have been kept quiet, I expect. Only trouble was, they’d set out from London and Papa caught them halfway up Lancashire.’

‘Ah.’ One night, possibly two, alone with her lover. A scandal indeed. ‘Why didn’t she marry the fellow?’ Wycombe was rich enough and influential enough to force almost anyone, short of a royal duke, to the altar and to keep their mouths shut afterwards. A really unsuitable son-in-law could always be shipped off to a fatally unhealthy spot in the West Indies later.

‘She wouldn’t have him, apparently. Refused point blank. According to my cousin she said he snored, had the courage of a vole and the instincts of a weasel and while she was quite willing to admit she had made a serious mistake she had no intention of living with it. So her father packed her off here to stay with her aunt, Lady Webb.’

‘Daniel,’ Callum snapped, ‘you are gossiping about a lady of our acquaintance.’

‘Who is perfectly willing to mention it herself,’ his twin retorted. ‘I heard her only the other day at the picnic. Miss Eppingham said something snide about scandalous goings-on and Lady Perdita remarked that she was more than happy to pass on the benefits of her experience if it prevented Miss Eppingham making a cake of herself over Major Giddings, who, she could assure her, had the morals of a civet cat and was only after Miss E.’s dowry. I don’t know how I managed not to roar with laughter.’

That sounded like attack as a form of defence, Alistair thought as Daniel knocked back his brandy and Callum shook his head at him. Dita surely couldn’t be so brazen as not to care and he rather admired the courage it showed to acknowledge the facts and bite back. He also admired Wycombe’s masterly manner of dealing with the scandal. He had got his daughter out of London society and at the same time had placed her in a situation where it would be well known that she was not carrying a child. Three months’ passage on an East Indiaman gave no possibility of hiding such a thing.

But what the devil was Dita doing running off with a man she didn’t want to marry? Perhaps he was wrong and she really was the foolish romantic he had teased her with being. She certainly knew how to flirt—he had seen her working her wiles on Daniel Chatterton last night—but, strangely, she had not done so with him. Obviously he annoyed her too much.

But, whatever she thought of him, the more distance there was between them mentally, the better, because there was going to be virtually none physically on that ship and he was very aware of the reaction his body had to her. He wanted Perdita Brooke for all the wrong reasons; he just had to be careful that wanting was all it came to. Alistair leaned back and savoured the brandy. Taking care had never been his strong suit.

‘Perdita, look at you!’ Emma Webb stood in the midst of trunks and silver paper and frowned at her niece. ‘Your hair is half down and your neckcloth is missing. What on earth has occurred?’

‘There was an accident on the maidan.’ Dita came right into the room, stripped off her gloves and kissed her aunt on the cheek. ‘It is nothing to worry about, dearest. Lord Lyndon took a fall and he was bleeding, so my neckcloth seemed the best bandage.’ She kept going, into the dressing room, and smiled at the ayah who was pouring water for her bath from a brass jug.

‘Oh?’ Her aunt came to the door, a half-folded shawl in her hands. ‘Someone said you were arguing with him last night. Oh dear, I really am not the good chaperon my brother expected.’

‘We have not seen each other since I was sixteen, Aunt Emma,’ Dita said, stepping out of her habit. ‘And we simply picked up the same squabble about a frog that we parted on. He is just as infuriating now as he was then.’

And even more impossibly attractive, unfortunately. In the past, when she had told herself that the adult Alistair Lyndon would be nothing like the young man she had known and adored eight years ago, she had never envisaged the possibility that he would be even more desirable. It was only physical, of course. She was a grown woman, she understood these things now. She had given him her virginity: it was no wonder, with no lover since then, that she reacted to him.

It was a pity he did not have a squint or a skin condition or a double chin or a braying laugh. It was much easier to be irritated by someone if one was not also fighting a most improper desire to …

Dita put a firm lid on her imagination and sat down in eight inches of tepid water, an effective counter to torrid thoughts. It was most peculiar. She had convinced herself that she wanted to marry Stephen Doyle until he had tried to make love to her; then she had been equally convinced that she must escape the moment she could lay her hands on his wallet and her own money that was in it.

She was equally convinced now that Alistair Lyndon was the most provoking man of her acquaintance as well as being an insensitive rake—and yet she wanted to kiss him again until they were both dizzy, which probably meant something, if only that she was prone to the most shocking desires and was incapable of learning from the past.

‘I think everything is packed now,’ Emma said with satisfaction from the bedchamber. ‘And the trunks have gone off to the ship, which just leaves what you need on the voyage to be checked. Twelve weeks is a long time if we forget anything.’ She reappeared as Dita stepped out of the bath and was wrapped in a vast linen sheet. ‘I do hope Mrs Bastable proves as reliable as she appears. But she seems very happy to look after you and Miss Heydon.’

Averil was going to England for the first time since she was a toddler in order to marry Viscount Bradon, a man she had never met. Perhaps I should let Papa choose me a husband, Dita thought. He couldn’t do much worse than I have so far. And her father was unlikely to pick on a pale imitation of Alistair Lyndon as she had done so unwittingly, it seemed. ‘It isn’t often that we see brides going in that direction,’ Lady Webb added.

‘Do you think me a failure?’ Dita asked, half-serious, as her maid combed out her hair. ‘After all, I came over with the Fishing Fleet and I haven’t caught so much as a sprat.’ And do I want to marry anyway? Men are so fortunate, they can take a lover, no one thinks any the worse of them. I will have money of my own next year when I am twenty five …

‘Oh, don’t call it that,’ her aunt scolded. ‘There are lots of reasons for young ladies to come India, not just to catch husbands.’

‘I can’t think of any,’ Dita said. ‘Other than escaping a scandal, of course. I am certain Papa was hoping I would catch an up-and-coming star in the East India Company firmament, just like you did.’

‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ Lady Webb said happily. ‘Darling George is a treasure. But not everyone wants to have to deal with the climate, or face years of separation for the sake of the children’s health.’ She picked up a list and conned it. ‘And you will be going home with that silly business all behind you and just in time for the Season, too.’

That silly business. Three words to dismiss disillusion and self-recrimination and the most terrible family rows. Papa had been utterly and completely correct about Stephen Doyle, which meant that her own judgement of men must be utterly and completely at fault. On that basis Alistair Lyndon was a model of perfection and virtue. Dita smiled to herself—no, she was right about him, at least: the man was a rake.

10th December 1808

‘Two weeks to Christmas,’ Dita said as she hugged her aunt on the steps of the ghat. ‘It seems hard to imagine in this climate. But I have left presents for you and Uncle on the dressing table in my room, and something for all the servants.’ She was babbling, she knew it, but it was hard to say goodbye when you had no idea if you would ever see the person again.

‘And I have put something in your bag,’ Emma said with a watery smile. ‘Goodness knows what happens about Christmas celebrations on board. Now, are you sure you have everything?’

‘I went out yesterday,’ her uncle assured her, patting his wife on the shoulder and obviously worried that she would burst into tears. ‘You’ve got a nice compartment in the roundhouse below the poop deck, just as I was promised. That will be much quieter and the odours and noise will be less than in the Great Cabin below. It is all ladies in there as well, and you will be dining at the captain’s table in the cuddy with the select passengers.’

‘But those wretched canvas partitions,’ his wife protested. ‘I would feel happier if she was in a cabin with bulkheads.’

It had been a subject for discussion and worry for weeks. ‘The partitions give better ventilation,’ Dita said. ‘I felt perfectly secure on the outward passage, but that was in a compartment forward of the Great Cabin and it was so very stuffy.’ And revoltingly smelly by the time they had been at sea for a month.

‘And all your furniture is in place and secured,’ her uncle continued. All made it sound as though she was occupying a suite. The box bed that was bolted to the deck was a fixture, but passengers were expected to supply anything else they needed for their comfort in the little square of space they could call their own. Dita had a new coir mattress and feather pillow, her bed linen and towels, an ingenious dressing chest that could support a washbasin or her writing slope and an upright chair. Her trunk would have to act as both wardrobe and table and her smaller bags must be squashed under the bunk.

‘And there are necessaries for the passengers’ and officers’ use on this ship,’ Lord Webb added. Which was a mercy and an improvement on a slop bucket or the horrors of the heads—essentially holes giving on to the sea below—that had been the only options on the outward passage.

‘I shall be wonderfully comfortable,’ Dita assured them. ‘Look, they want us to go down to the boats now.’

Plunging into the scrimmage of passengers, porters, beggars, sailors and screaming children was better than dragging out this parting any longer, even if her stomach was in knots at the thought of getting into the boat that was ferrying passengers to the ship. It hurt to part with two people who had been understanding and kindly beyond her expectations or deserts, and she feared she would cling and weep and upset her aunt in a moment.

‘I love you both. I’ve written, it is with the Christmas presents. I must go.’ Her uncle took her arm and made sure the porter was with them, then, leaving her aunt sniffing into her handkerchief, he shouldered his way to the uneven steps leading down into the fast-running brown water.

‘Hold tight to me! Mind how you go, my dear.’ The jostling was worse on the steps, her foot slipped on slime and she clutched wildly for support as the narrow boat swung away and the water yawned before her.

‘Lady Perdita! Your hand, ma’am.’ It was Alistair, standing on the thwarts. ‘I have her, sir.’ He caught her hand, steadied her, then handed her back to one of the Chatterton twins who was standing behind him.

‘Sit here, Lady Perdita.’ This twin was Callum, she decided, smiling thanks at him and trying to catch her breath while her uncle and Alistair organised her few items of hand baggage and saw them stowed under the plank she was perched on. ‘An unpleasant scrum up there, is it not?’

‘Yes.’ She swallowed hard, nodded, managed a smile and a wave for her uncle as the boat was pushed off. Alistair came and sat opposite her. ‘Thank you. I am the most terrible coward about water. The big ship is all right. It is just when I am close to it like this.’ She was gabbling, she could hear herself.

‘What gave you a fear of it?’ Alistair asked. He held her gaze and she realised he was trying to distract her from the fact that they were in an open boat very low in the water. ‘I imagine it must have been quite a fright to alarm someone of your spirit.’

‘Why, thank you.’ Goodness, he was being positively kind to her. Dita smiled and felt the panic subside a little.

‘Presumably you got into some ridiculous scrape,’ he added and the smile froze as the old guilt washed through her.

Without meaning, to she gabbled the whole story. ‘I was walking on the beach with my governess when I was eight and a big wave caught me, rolled me out over the pebbles and down, deep.’ She could still close her eyes and see the underneath of the wave, the green tunnel-shape above her, trapping her with no air, beating her down on to the stones and the rocks. ‘Miss Richards went in after me and she managed to drag me to the beach. Then the next wave took her. She nearly drowned and I couldn’t help her—my leg was broken. The poor woman caught pneumonia and almost died.’

‘Of course you couldn’t have helped,’ Callum said firmly. ‘You were a child and injured.’

‘But Lord Lyndon is correct—I had disobeyed her and was walking too close to the water. It was my fault.’ No one had beaten her for her bad behaviour, for Miss Richards had told no one. But the guilt over her childish defiance had never gone away and the fear of the sea at close quarters had never left her.

‘It has not prevented you from taking risks,’ Alistair said dispassionately.

‘Lyndon.’ Chatterton’s tone held a warning.

Alistair raised one eyebrow, unintimidated. ‘Lady Perdita prizes frankness, I think.’

‘It is certainly better than hypocrisy,’ she snapped. ‘And, no, it did not stop me taking risks, only, after that, I tried to be certain they were my risks alone.’

‘My leg is much better.’ Alistair delivered the apparent non sequitur in a conversational tone.

‘I cannot allow for persons equally as reckless as I am,’ Dita said sweetly. ‘I am so glad you are suffering no serious consequences for your dangerous riding.’

‘We’re here,’ Chatterton said with the air of a man who wished he was anywhere rather than in the middle of a polite aristocratic squabble.

‘And they are lowering a bo’sun’s chair for the ladies,’ said Alistair, getting to his feet. ‘Here! You! This lady first.’

‘What? No! I mean I can wait!’ Dita found herself ruthlessly bundled into the box-like seat on the end of a rope and then she was swung up in the air, dangled sickeningly over the water and landed with a thump on the deck.

‘Oh! The wretched—’

‘Ma’am? Fast is the best way to come up, in my opinion, no time to think about it.’ A polite young man was at her elbow. ‘Lady Perdita? I’m Tompkins, one of the lieutenants. Lord Webb asked me to look out for you. We met at the reception, ma’am.’

‘Mr Tompkins.’ Dita swallowed and her stomach returned to its normal position. ‘Of course, I remember you.’

‘Shall I show you to your cabin, ma’am?’

‘Just a moment. I wish to thank the gentleman who assisted me just now.’

The ladies and children continued to be hoisted on board with the chair. Most of them screamed all the way up. At least I did not scream, she thought, catching at the shreds of her dignity. What had she been thinking of, to blurt out that childhood nightmare to the men? Surely she had more control than that? But the tossing open boat had frightened her, fretting at nerves already raw with the sadness of departure and the apprehension of what was to come in England. And so her courage had failed her.

Dita gritted her teeth and waited until the men began to come up the rope ladder that had been lowered over the side, then she walked across to Alistair where he stood with Callum Chatterton.

‘Thank you very much for your help, gentlemen,’ she said with a warm smile for Callum. ‘Lord Lyndon, you are so masterful I fear you will have to exercise great discretion on the voyage. You were observed by a number of most susceptible young ladies who will all now think you the very model of a man of action and will be seeking every opportunity to be rescued by you. I will do my best to warn them off, but, of course, they will think me merely jealous.’

She batted her eyelashes at him and walked back to Lieutenant Tompkins. Behind her she heard a snort of laugher from Mr Chatterton and a resounding silence from Alistair. This time she had had the last word.

Chapter Four

Dita sat in her cabin space and tried to make herself get up and go outside. Through the salt-stained window that was one of the great luxuries of the roundhouse accommodation she could see that they were under way down the Hooghly.

Every excuse she could think of to stay where she was had been exhausted. She had arranged her possessions as neatly as possible; thrown a colourful shawl over the bed; hung family miniatures on nails on the bulkhead; wedged books—all of them novels—into a makeshift shelf; refused the offer of assistance from Mrs Bastable’s maid on the grounds that there was barely room for one person, let alone two, in the space available; washed her face and hands, tidied her hair. Now there was no reason to stay there, other than a completely irrational desire to avoid Alistair Lyndon.

‘Perdita? We’ll be sailing in a moment—aren’t you coming on deck?’ Averil called from the next compartment, just the other side of one canvas wall.

Courage, Dita, she thought, clenching her hands into tight fists. You can’t stay here for three months. She had grown up knowing that she was plain and so she had learned to create an aura of style and charm that deceived most people into not noticing. She was rebellious and contrary and she had taught herself to control that, so when things went wrong it was only she who was hurt. Or so she thought until her hideous mistake with Stephen Doyle meant the whole family had had to deal with the resulting gossip. And in India she had coped with the talk by the simple method of pretending that she did not care.

But I do, she thought. I do care. And I care what Alistair thinks of me and I am a fool to do so. The young man she had adored had grown up to be a rake and the heir to a marquisate and she could guess what he thought about the girl next door who had a smirched reputation and a sharp tongue. Hypocrisy. Had the tender intensity with which he had made love to her eight years ago been simply the wiles of a youth who was going to grow up into a rake? It must have been, for he showed no signs of remembering; surely if he had cared in the slightest, he would recall calling her his darling Dita, his sweet, his dear girl …

‘I’m coming!’ she called to Averil, fixing a smile on her face because she knew it would show in her voice. ‘Just let me get my bonnet on.’ She peered into the mirror that folded up from the dressing stand and pinched the colour into her cheeks, checked that the candle-soot on her lashes had not smudged, tied on her most becoming sunbonnet with the bow at a coquettish angle under her chin and unfastened the canvas flap. ‘Here I am.’

Averil linked arms with the easy friendliness that always charmed Dita. Miss Heydon was shy with strangers, but once she decided she was your friend the reserve melted. ‘The start of our adventure! Is this not exciting?’

‘You won’t say that after four weeks when everything smells like a farmyard and the weather is rough and we haven’t had fresh supplies for weeks and you want to scream if you ever see the same faces again,’ Dita warned as they emerged on to the deck.

‘I was forgetting you had done this before. I cannot remember coming to India, I was so young.’ Averil unfurled her parasol and put one hand on the rail. ‘My last look at Calcutta.’

‘Don’t you mind leaving?’ Dita asked.

‘Yes. But it is my duty, I know that. I am making an excellent marriage and the connection will do Papa and my brothers so much good. It would be different if Mama was still alive—far harder.’

In effect, Dita thought, you are being sold off to an impoverished aristocratic family in return for influence when your family returns to England. ‘Lord Bradon is a most amiable gentleman,’ she said. It was how she had described him before, when Averil had been excited to learn that Dita knew her betrothed, but she could think of nothing more positive to say about him. Cold, conventional, very conscious of his station in life—nothing there to please her friend. And his father, the Earl of Kingsbury, was a cynical and hardened gamester whose expensive habits were the reason for this match.

She only hoped that Sir Jeremiah Heydon had tied up his daughter’s dowry tightly, but she guessed such a wily and wealthy nabob would be alert on every suit.

‘You’ll have three months to enjoy yourself as a single lady, at any rate,’ she said. ‘There are several gentlemen who will want to flirt.’

‘I couldn’t!’ Averil glanced along the deck to where the bachelors were lining the rail. ‘I have no idea how to, in any case. I’m far too shy, even with pleasant young men like the Chatterton brothers, and as for the more … er …’ She was looking directly at Alistair Lyndon.

As if he had felt the scrutiny Alister looked round and doffed his hat. ‘Indeed,’ Dita agreed, as she returned the gesture with an inclination of the head a dowager duchess would have been proud of. Alistair raised an eyebrow—an infuriating skill—and returned to his contemplation of the view. ‘Lord Lyndon is definitely er. Best avoided, in fact.’

‘But he likes you, and you are not afraid of him. In fact,’ Averil observed shrewdly, ‘that is probably why he likes you. You don’t blush and mumble like I do or giggle like those silly girls over there.’ She gestured towards a small group of merchants’ daughters who were jostling for the best position close to the men.

‘Likes me?’ Dita stared at her. ‘Alistair Lyndon hasn’t changed his opinion of me since that encounter at the reception, and the accident we had on the maidan only made things worse. And don’t forget he knew me years ago. To him I am just the plain little girl from the neighbouring estate who was scared of frogs and tagged along being a nuisance. He was kind to me like a brother is to an irritating little sister.’ And who then grew up to discover that she was embarrassingly besotted by him.

‘Well, you aren’t plain now,’ Averil said, her eyes fixed on the shore as the Bengal Queen slipped downriver. ‘I am pretty, I think, but you have style and panache and a certain something.’

‘Why, thank you!’ Dita was touched. ‘But as neither of us are husband-hunting, we may relax and observe our female companions making cakes of themselves without the slightest pang—which, men being the contrary creatures they are, is probably enough to make us the most desirable women on board!’

Dinner at two o’clock gave no immediate opportunity to test Dita’s theory about desirability. The twenty highest-ranking passengers assembled in the cuddy, a few steps down from the roundhouse, and engaged in polite conversation and a certain jostling for position. Everyone else ate in the Great Cabin.

Captain Archibald had a firm grasp of precedent and Dita found herself on his left with Alistair on her left hand. Averil was relegated to the foot of the table with a mere younger son of a bishop on one side and a Chatterton twin on the other.

‘Is your accommodation comfortable, my lord?’ she ventured, keeping a watchful eye on the tureen of mutton soup that was being ladled out to the peril of the ladies’ gowns.

‘It is off the Great Cabin,’ Alistair said. ‘There is a reasonable amount of room, but there are also two families with small children and I expect the noise to be considerable. You, on the other hand, will have the sailors traipsing about overhead at all hours and I rather think the chickens are caged on the poop deck. You are spared the goats, however.’

‘But we have opening windows.’

‘All the better for the feathers to get in.’

Dita searched for neutral conversation and found herself uncharacteristically tongue-tied. This was torture. The way they had parted—even if he had no recollection of it—made reminiscence of their childhood too painful. She was determined not to say anything even remotely provocative or flirtatious and it was not proper to discuss further details of their accommodation.

‘How do you propose to pass the voyage, my lord?’ she enquired at last when the soup was removed and replaced with curried fish.

‘Writing,’ Alistair said, as he passed her a dish of chutney.

The ship was still in the river, its motion gentle, but Dita almost dropped the dish. ‘Writing?’

‘I have been travelling ever since I came to the East,’ he said. ‘I have kept notebooks the entire time and I want to create something from that for my own satisfaction, if nothing else.’

‘I will look forward to reading it when it is published.’ Alistair gave her a satirical look. ‘I mean it. I wish I had been able to travel. My aunt and uncle were most resistant to the idea when I suggested it.’

‘I am not surprised. India is not a country for young women to go careering around looking for adventures.’

‘I did not want to career around,’ Dita retorted, ‘I wanted to observe and to learn.’

‘Indeed.’ His voice expressed polite scepticism. ‘You had ambitions of dressing up as a man and travelling incognito?’

‘No, I did not.’ Dita speared some spiced cauliflower and imagined Alistair on the end of her fork. ‘I am simply interested in how other people live. Apparently this is permissible for a man, according to you, but not for a woman. How hypocritical.’

‘Merely practical. It is dangerous’. He gestured with his right hand, freed now of its bandage.

Dita eyed the headed slash across the back, red against the tan. ‘I was not intending to throw myself at the wildlife, my lord.’

‘Some of the interesting local people are equally as dangerous and the wildlife, I assure you, is more likely to throw itself at you than vice versa. It is no country for romantic, headstrong and pampered young females, Lady Perdita.’

‘You think me pampered?’ she enquired while the steward cleared the plates.

‘Are you not? You accept the romantic and headstrong, I note.’

‘I see nothing wrong with romance.’

‘Except that it is bound to end in disillusion at the very best and farcical tragedy at the worst.’ He spoke lightly, but something in his voice, some shading, hinted at a personal meaning.

‘You speak from experience, my lord?’ Dita enquired in a tone of regrettable pertness to cover her own feelings. He had fallen in love with someone and been hurt, she was certain. And she was equally certain he would die rather than admit it, just as she could never confess how she felt for him. How she had once felt, she corrected herself.

‘No,’ he drawled, his attention apparently fixed on the bowl of fruit the steward was proffering. ‘Merely observation. Might I peel you a mango, Lady Perdita?’

‘They are so juicy, no doubt you would require a bath afterwards,’ she responded, her mind distracted by the puzzle of how she felt about him now. Had she ever truly been in love with him, and if so, how could that die as it surely had, leaving only physical desire behind? It must have been merely a painful infatuation, the effect of emotion and proximity when she was on the verge of womanhood, unused to the changes in her body and her feelings. It would have passed, surely, if she had not stumbled into his arms at almost the moment she had realised how she felt.

But if it was merely infatuation, why had she been so taken in by Stephen? Perhaps one was always attracted to the same looks in a man … Then she saw the expression on Lady Grimshaw’s face. Oh goodness, what had she just said?

‘Bath,’ Alistair murmured. He must have seen the look of panic cross her face. ‘How fast of you to discuss gentlemen’s ablutions, Lady Perdita,’ he added, loudly enough for the elderly matron’s gimlet gaze to fix on them intently.

‘Oh, do hush,’ she hissed back, stifling the giggle that was trying to escape. ‘I am in enough disgrace with her already.’

Alistair began to peel the mango with a small, wickedly sharp knife that he had removed from an inner pocket. ‘What for?’ he asked, slicing a succulent segment off the stone and on to her plate.

‘Existing,’ Dita said as she cut a delicate slither and tried it. ‘Thank you for this, it is delicious.’

‘You have been setting Calcutta society by the ears, have you?’ Alistair gestured to the steward who brought him a finger bowl and napkin. ‘You must tell me all about it.’

‘Not here,’ Dita said and took another prim nibble of the fruit. Lady Grimshaw turned her attention to Averil, who was blushing at Daniel Chatterton’s flirtatious remarks.

‘Later, then,’ Alistair said and, before she could retort that he was the last person on the ship to whom she would confide the gossip that seemed to follow her, he turned to Mrs Edwards on his other side and was promptly silenced by her garrulous complaints on the subject of the size of the cabins and the noise of the Tompkinson children.

Dita fixed a smile on her lips and asked the captain how many voyages he had undertaken; that, at least, was a perfectly harmless topic of conversation.

When dinner was over she went to Averil and swept her out of the cuddy and up on to the poop deck.

‘Come and look at the chickens, or the view, or something.’

‘Are you attempting to avoid Lord Lyndon, by any chance?’ Averil lifted her skirts out of the way of a hen that had escaped from its coop and was evading the efforts of a member of the crew to recapture it.

‘Most definitely,’ Dita said. ‘The provoking man seems determined to tease me. He almost made me giggle right under Lady Grimshaw’s nose and I have the lowering suspicion that he has heard all about the scandal in England and has concluded that I will be receptive to any liberties he might take.’

The fact that she knew she would be severely tempted if Alistair attempted to kiss her again did nothing to calm her inner alarm.

‘Forgive me for mentioning it,’ Averil ventured, ‘but perhaps if one of the older ladies were to hint him away? If he has heard of the incident and has wrongly concluded that you … I mean,’ she persisted, blushing furiously, ‘if he mistakenly thinks you are not …’

‘I spent two nights in inn bedchambers with a man to whom I was not married,’ Dita said. ‘An overrated experience, I might add.’

It had been a dreadful disillusion to discover that the man she had thought was perfect in looks and in character was a money-hungry boor with the finesse of a bull in a china shop when it came to making love.

The realisation that she had made a terrible mistake had begun to dawn on her by the time the chaise hired with her money had reached Hitchin. Stephen had no longer troubled to be charming, to be witty, to converse or to show the quick appreciation of her thoughts he had always counterfeited before. He had fretted about pursuit and asked interminable questions about her access to her funds. When the postillions, who quite obviously realised that an elopement was afoot, became impertinent he blustered ineffectually and Dita had to snub them with a few well-chosen words.

By the time they had stopped for the first night Dita decided she had had enough and declared that she would hire another chaise and return alone. It was then that she discovered that Stephen was quite capable of forcing her into the inn and up to a bedchamber and that he had removed all the money from her luggage and reticule.

The effort to keep him from her bed involved a sleepless night and a willingness to stab him with a table knife after he had run the gamut from trying to charm her, to attempting to maul her, to a desperate attempt to force her.

The second day had been worse. He had been furious and sulky and every pretence that this was anything but an abduction had gone. Papa had caught up with them as they had arrived in Preston and by that time she was so exhausted by lack of sleep that she had simply flung herself on his chest and sobbed, unconscious of the audience in the inn yard and uncaring about his anger.

Averil was blushing, but it did not stop her putting the question she was obviously dying to ask. ‘Is it really horrid? You know, one hears such things.’

‘With the wrong man it is,’ Dita said with feeling. And that had been without the actual act taking place. She shuddered to think what it would have been like if Stephen had forced her. ‘With the right one—’ She stopped on the verge of admitting that it was very pleasurable indeed.

‘I am sure it would be wonderful,’ she said, as if she did not know. There was no point in making Averil fearful of her own nuptials, even if she suspected that her betrothed had no finesse to speak of. Dita shivered a little, wondering what would happen if another man tried to make love to her.

Oh, but she had enjoyed Alistair’s impertinent kiss on the maidan. The cockerel in the chicken coop flapped up on to the perch and crowed loudly, ruffling his feathers and throwing his head back. ‘Yes, you are a fine fellow,’ she said to him and he crowed again. Male creatures were all the same, she told herself. They needed feminine admiration and attention all the time. And Alistair had sensed she had enjoyed that meeting of lips, she was certain. No wonder he was so confident about teasing her. It would be well to exercise considerable caution if he was to not to guess the way she felt about him now—which could be summed up in three words: desirable, treacherous, trouble.

‘Let us walk,’ she said firmly. ‘We must exercise every day, it will help keep us healthy.’

They strolled round and round the poop deck, both of them sunk, Dita guessed, in rather different thoughts about wedding nights. The view was not particularly diverting, for the river banks were hardly higher than the water, here in the delta of the Ganges, and mud banks, fields covered in winter stubble and herds of buffalo were all that could be seen between the small villages that dotted the higher ground.

‘I had better go and unpack,’ Averil said after a while. ‘I can see now why I was advised to bring a hammer and nails to hang things up. I cannot imagine how I am ever going to fit everything in and still live in that space. It is a quarter the size of my dressing room at home!’

Dita could well believe it. For all that she was unpretentious and unspoiled, Averil was used to considerable luxury. She wondered what she would make of the chilly Spartan grandeur of her betrothed’s home. But doubtless her own money would go a long way to making it comfortable.

When her friend went below Dita leaned her forearms on the rail and let herself fall into a daydream. Soon the rhythms of shipboard life would assert themselves and the passengers would develop a routine that could become quite numbing until landfalls, quarrels or hurricanes enlivened things. On the way out she had read her way through a trunk full of books, determined to keep her mind off her problems with light fiction. Now she was equally determined to face the reality of her future. There was only one problem, Dita realised: she had no idea what she wanted that to be.

‘That was a big enough sigh to add speed to the sails.’

She turned her head, but she had no need to look to know who that was, lounging against the rail beside her. Her biggest problem, in the flesh.

‘I was trying to decide what life will be like when I return to England,’ she replied with total honesty. ‘What I want it to be like.’ Whatever was the matter with me when I was sixteen? Perhaps all girls that age believe themselves in love without receiving the slightest encouragement. Only she had received rather more than a little encouragement. She sighed again, thinking of the girl newly emerged from childhood, suddenly realising the boy she had idolised had turned into a young man, just as she was becoming a woman.

‘Will the scandal be forgotten?’ Alistair asked.

Dita blinked at him. Most people politely pretended they knew nothing about it, to her face at least. Only the more catty of the young women would make snide remarks, or the chaperons hint that she needed to be particularly careful in what she did.

‘You know about it?’

‘You eloped and your father caught up with you after two nights on the road and you refused to marry the man concerned.’ Alistair shifted so that his elbow almost met hers on the rail. Her breath hitched as though he had touched her. ‘Is that a fair summary?’

‘Fair enough,’ Dita conceded.

‘Why did you refuse?’

‘Because I discovered he was less than the man I thought he was.’

‘In bed?’

‘No! What a question!’ The laugh was surprised out of her by his outrageous words. She twisted to stare at him. No, this was not the boy she remembered, but that boy was still there in this man. The trouble was, every feminine instinct she possessed desired him. Him, Alistair, as he was now.

He was waiting for her answer and she made herself speak the truth. ‘He was after my money. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been a bore and a lout into the bargain. He must be a very good actor.’ Or I must have been blinded by the need to escape the Marriage Mart, the restrictions of life as a single young woman.

‘Or you are a very poor judge of men?’ Alistair suggested.

‘Perhaps,’ Dita conceded. ‘But I have your measure, my lord.’

He was staring out to sea and she could study his profile for a moment. She had been correct when she had told Daniel Chatterton that the savage slash of the scar on his face would only enhance his attractiveness. Combined with the patrician profile and his arresting eyes, it gave him a dangerous edge that had been missing before.

Then he turned his head and she looked into his eyes and realised that the edge had been there already: experience, intelligence, darkness. ‘Oh yes?’

She straightened up, pleased to find she could face him without a blush on her cheeks; it had felt for a moment as though every thought was imprinted on her forehead. Alistair turned so he lounged back against the rail, shamelessly watching her. She tried not to stare back, but it was hard. He looked so strong and free. Bareheaded, the breeze stirred his hair and the sun gilded his tanned skin. I want him. He fills me with desire, quite simple and quite impure.

‘You have a great deal in common with that creature there.’ She nodded towards the cockerel’s cage. ‘You are flamboyant, sure of yourself and dangerous to passing females.’

There was no retort, not until she was halfway across the deck and congratulating herself on putting him firmly—safely—in his place. His crack of laughter had her pursing her lips, but his words sent her down the companionway with something perilously close to an angry flounce.

‘Why, thank you, Dita. I shall treasure the compliment.’

Chapter Five

After their exchange on the poop deck Dita did her best to avoid Alistair without appearing to do so, and flattered herself that she was succeeding. It did not prevent the disturbing stirring in her blood when she saw him, but it gave her a feeling of safety that, in the restless small hours, she suspected was illusory.

She was helped by the captain relaxing his seating plans at dinner. Having clearly established precedent, he acknowledged that to keep everyone tied to the same dining companions for three months was a recipe for tedium at best and squabbles at worst.

Breakfast and supper were informal meals and by either entering the cuddy with a small group, or after he was already there, Dita ensured she was always sitting a safe distance from Alistair.

During the day, when she was not in her cabin reading or sewing alone or with Averil, she sought out the company of the other young women on deck. They were all engaged in much whispering and secrets, making and wrapping Christmas gifts, teasing each other about who was giving what to which of the men.

They irritated her with their vapid conversation, giggling attempts to flirt with any passing male and obsession with clothes and gossip, but they provided concealment, much, she thought wryly, as one swamp deer is safer from the tiger in the midst of the herd.

Alistair had no way of realising that this was not her natural habitat, she thought, as she watched him from under the tilted brim of her parasol while Miss Hemming confided her plan to get Daniel Chatterton alone under the stars that evening.

It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that Mr Chatterton was already betrothed, and had been for years to a young woman who awaited him in England, and that with the amount of cloud cover just now there would be no stars to flirt beneath. But she bit her lip and kept the tart remarks to herself. Alistair bowed slightly as he passed the group, accepting both the wide-eyed looks, nervous titters and her own frigid inclination of the head with equal composure.

Now, why is Dita so set on avoiding me, I wonder? Those chattering ninnies are boring her to distraction and in five days I cannot believe we have not sat next to each other for a meal simply by chance. That kiss on the maidan? Surely not. Dita has more spirit than to flee because of that, even if she knows I want to do it again. And more. And I’ll wager so does she.

‘Oh, Lord Lyndon!’ It was one of the Misses Whyton, indistinguishable from each other and with a tendency to speak in exclamations.

He stopped and bowed. ‘Miss Whyton?’

‘What is your favourite colour, Lord Lyndon?’

Ah, Christmas gifts. He had hoped to escape that by the simple expedient of not flirting with any of the little peahens, but it was obviously not working. ‘Black,’ he drawled, producing what he hoped was a sinister smile.

‘Ooh!’ She retreated to her sister’s side, a frown giving her face more expression than it usually bore. Apparently whatever she was making would not work well in mourning tones.

He glanced across and saw Dita’s head bent over a book. Now, it would be amusing to surprise her with a Christmas gift. What a pity he had no mistletoe to accompany it.

Or, perhaps he could improvise; he certainly had the berries. Smiling to himself as he plotted, Alistair strolled along the main deck to where the Chatterton twins and a few of the other young men had gathered. With the captain’s permission they were going to climb the rigging. After a few days out most of them were already feeling the lack of exercise and it seemed an interesting way of stretching muscles without overly shocking the ladies. Wrestling, sparring or singlestick bouts would have to be indulged in only when a female audience could be avoided.

Daniel and Callum had already taken off their coats and were eyeing the network of ropes as they soared up the main mast. ‘It looks easy enough,’ Daniel said. ‘Climb up on the outside and you are leaning into the rigging the whole way.’

‘Until you get to the crow’s nest,’ his brother pointed out. ‘Then you have to swing round to the inside and climb up the hole next to the mast.’

‘Bare feet,’ Alistair said. Like the other younger men he was wearing loose cotton trousers. He heeled off his shoes as he looked up. ‘I tried this on the way out.’ He squinted up at the height and added, ‘Smaller ship, though!’

‘We cannot all get up there at once, not with a sailor already in the crow’s nest,’ Callum pointed out, and the others moved off to stand at the foot of the smaller foremast, leaving the Chattertons and Alistair in possession of the main mast.

‘We three can if we move out along those ropes the sailors stand on to bundle up the sails,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘And don’t snort at me, Cal, I don’t know the name of them and neither do you, I wager.’

‘Sounds as though that will work.’ Alistair took a yard in his hand and swung up to stand on the rail. ‘Let’s try it.’

The tarred rope was rough under the softer skin of his arches, but it gave a good grip and his hands were toughened by long hours of riding without gloves. It felt good to reach and stretch and use his muscles to pull himself up and to counteract the roll of the ship, one minute dropping him against the rigging, the next forcing him to hang on with stretched arms and braced legs over the sea.

The newly healed wound in his thigh reminded him of its presence with every contraction of the muscle, but it was the ache of under-use and weakness, not the pain of the wound tearing open. His right hand was not fully right either, he noticed with clinical detachment, and compensated by taking more care with the grip.

The wind blew his hair off his face and ripped through his thin shirt and Alistair found he was grinning as he climbed. Daniel appeared beside him, panting with effort as he overtook. From below Callum called, ‘It isn’t a race, you idiot!’

But Daniel was already twisting around the edge of the rigging to hang downwards for the few perilous feet up into the crow’s nest. Alistair heard the look-out greeting Chatterton as he reached the top spar of the mainsail himself and eyed the thin rope swinging beneath it. It was a tricky transfer, but if sailors could do it in a storm, he told himself, so could he. There was an interesting moment as the sail flapped and the foot rope swayed and then he was standing with his body thrown over the spar, looking down at the belly of the sail.

Callum appeared beside him. ‘I wouldn’t want to do this in a gale at night!’ he shouted.

‘No. Damn good reason not to get press-ganged,’ Alistair agreed as he twisted to look back over his shoulder. The young women had stopped all pretence of ignoring the men and were standing staring up at them. Dita, hatless, was easy to pick out, her face smoothed into a perfect oval by the distance.

‘We have an audience,’ he remarked.

‘Then let’s get down before Daniel and make the most of the admiration,’ Callum said with a grin.

Going down was no easier, as Alistair remembered. As he glanced down at the ladies, and to set his feet right on the rigging, the scene below seemed to corkscrew wildly, as though the top of the mast was fixed and the ship moved beneath it.

‘Urgh,’ Callum remarked, and climbed down beside him. ‘Remind me why this is a good idea.’

‘Exercise and impressing the ladies, if that appeals.’ Alistair kept pace with him as the rigging widened out. His leg was burning now with the strain, but it would hold him. He’d be glad to relax his hand, though. ‘It is Daniel who is betrothed, is it not?’

‘Yes,’ Callum agreed, somewhat shortly. ‘A childhood friend,’ he added after another rung down. ‘I’m not looking for a wife myself, not yet while I don’t know whether the Company wants me to come back out or work in London.’ After another two steps down he seemed to unbend a trifle. ‘What about you?’

‘I certainly require a wife,’ Alistair agreed. ‘There’s the inheritance to think of. I shall no doubt be braving the Marriage Mart this Season in pursuit of a well-bred virgin with the requisite dowry and connections, not a thought in her brain and good child-bearing hips.’

Callum snorted. ‘Is there no one below us right this minute with those qualifications? What about Lady P—?’

He broke off, obviously recalling that Dita fell scandalously short of one of Alistair’s stated requirements. ‘Er, that is—’

‘That is, Lady Perdita has enough thoughts in her brain to keep any man in a state of perpetual bemusement,’ Alistair said, taking pity on him. ‘I have had my fill of troublesome women, I want a placid little English rose.’

And besides, he thought as he jumped down on to the deck and held out a hand to steady Callum, she certainly hasn’t got child-bearing hips. She’s still the beanpole she always was.

A beanpole, he was startled to realise, who stood regarding him with wide-eyed interest. So, she was not above getting in a flutter over displays of male prowess. How unexpected. How stimulating. She came up to him as he shrugged back into his coat and he braced himself for gushing admiration.

‘That looks wonderful!’ Dita exclaimed, her eyes fixed on the crow’s nest and not on him, or any of the men. ‘I would love to do that.’

‘No! Of course you can’t, you’re a girl!’ It was the response that had become automatic through years of her tagging along behind him. ‘A lady,’ he corrected himself as the wide green eyes focused on his face, and he was conscious of an odd feeling of disappointment.

‘That’s what you always said,’ she retorted. ‘You always snubbed me, and I always got my way. I climbed the same trees, I learned to swim in the lake—I even rode a cow backwards when you did. Do you remember?’

‘Vividly,’ Alistair said. ‘I got a beating for that. But what you did when you were eight has nothing to do with this. Besides anything else, you couldn’t climb rigging in skirts.’

‘That is a very good point,’ she said, bestowing a smile on him that left him breathless. Before he could think of a response she turned away.

Dita Brooke had obviously been taking lessons in witchcraft, he concluded, wondering whether he was foolishly suspicious to read a promise of trouble into that radiant smile.

‘Ooh! Lord Lyndon, you must be ever so strong to do that!’ One of the merchants’ daughters, he had no idea which, gazed at him in wide-eyed adoration.

‘Not at all,’ he said, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I get dizzy at heights and had to be helped by Mr Chatterton there. Fine physical specimen, and all that money, too …’ He let his voice trail off in admiration and watched with wicked pleasure as she hurried off to hang on Callum’s arm.

Alistair sauntered back to his cabin to wash. He took care not to limp and reflected that unless he wanted to become a circus turn it would be better to confine vigorous exercise to the early morning before the ladies were about.

It was not until he had stripped off his shirt and was pouring water over his head that he identified the strange feeling of disappointment that had hit him during that brief exchange at the foot of the mast. Dita had wanted the adventure, the experience, but for the first time, she did not want it in order to follow him.

But why should she? he thought. He was no longer thirteen, she was no longer eight, and she was most certainly not the troublesome little sister he had always thought of her as. But she was going to be trouble for someone.

Dita retreated to her cabin and piled all the items from on top of her trunk on to the bed so she could open it. She was restless and impatient and they had only been at sea a few days; she needed exercise and adventure and she was going to get it, even if it meant getting up an hour early.

The fact that the close proximity of Alistair Lyndon was contributing to the restlessness could not be helped. She closed her eyes and let her memory bring back the sight of him, his thin shirt flattened against his back by the wind, the muscles in his forearms standing out like cord as he gripped the ropes, the curiously arousing sight of his bare feet. He had always been tall, but the lanky youth had filled out into a well-muscled man.

She had watched him like a hawk for any signs of weakness from his wounds, but he had shown nothing, not until he had strolled away and she had seen what she doubted anyone else had: the effort not to limp. He should take it more easily.

Then she gave herself a little shake. Alistair could look after himself and there was no point in torturing herself with worry about him. She should think about her own plans. Alistair was right, she could not climb in skirts and she couldn’t climb at all if the captain realised what she was about, so it was a good thing that she had packed her Indian clothes.

Dita dug out a pile of cottons and laid them on the bed. She had beautiful shalwa kameezes in silk, but she had stowed those in the trunks below decks. In her cabin luggage she had kept the simple cotton ones for lounging in comfort in the privacy of her cabin.

She shook out a pair of the trousers, tight in the lower leg, comfortably roomy around the waist and hips: perfect for climbing. And she had a kurta, the loose shirt that reached well down her thighs. That would give her plenty of room to move. All she had to do was to wake at dawn.

The deck was cool and damp under her bare feet, still not dry after the early morning holystoning it had received. Most of the crew on deck were gathered near the main mast, with few close to the shorter of the three masts nearest the stern.

Dita dropped her heavy plait of hair down inside the kurta, used a coil of rope as a step and climbed on to the rail, her hands tight on the rigging, her eyes fixed on a point above her head and not on the sea. Her heart pounded and for a moment she thought her fear of the water would root her to the spot, but it was far enough below.

No one had noticed her in the early light, they were too busy with their tasks and she had deliberately chosen garments dyed the soft green that, improbably, cow dung produced.

She stepped on to the first horizontal rope in the rigging that tapered upward to the crow’s nest and grimaced at the tarry smell and the roughness under her hands and feet. But it felt secure and after a moment she began to climb, slowly and steadily, not looking down.

It was harder than it had looked when the men had done it, but she had expected that. After several minutes she rested, hooking her arms through the ropes and letting her body relax into the rhythm of pitch and roll. Perhaps that was far enough for today; there was a burn in her muscles that warned her they were overstretched and when she risked a downwards glance the deck seemed a dizzying distance below.

Yes, time to get down. As she hung there, deciding how much longer to rest, a figure came out on to the deck. Even foreshortened she recognised Alistair in his shirtsleeves. He seemed to be holding a pole of some kind. He turned as though to climb the companionway to the almost deserted poop deck and as he did so he glanced up.

Dita froze. Would he would recognise her?

‘Get down here this instant!’ He did not shout, but his voice carried clearly.

Defiant, Dita shook her head and began to climb. She had rested; she could do it and she was not going to come down just because Alistair told her to. A rapid glance showed he was climbing after her and she kept going. But she was slow now, slower than he was, and he reached her as she neared the top where the rigging narrowed sharply.

‘Dita, don’t you dare try to get into the crow’s nest!’

She glanced down to the wind-tousled black head on a level with her ankles, suddenly very glad he was there. ‘I have no intention of trying,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll just have a rest and then I’ll come down.’

‘You are tired?’ His face was tipped up to her now, and the world below him—one moment the sea, the next the hard and unforgiving white deck planks—twisted and turned in the most disconcerting manner.

‘Just a little.’

‘Hell. Keep still and hang on.’

‘I have no intention of doing anything else. Alistair! What on earth are you doing?’ He climbed up beside her and then swung over so his body bridged hers and his hands gripped the rope either side of her wrists.

‘Stopping you falling off. Your face has gone the nasty shade of green I remember from when you climbed the flagpole on the church tower.’

‘Oh.’ She certainly felt green now. ‘Alistair, you can’t do this, I’ll push you off.’

‘There’s hardly any bulk to you,’ he said. ‘Put one foot down. Good, now the other.’

Awkwardly they began to descend. When the ship swung one way his body crushed hers into the rigging, even though she could feel him fighting to keep his weight off her. When it went the other way she knew his arms would be stretched by the extra extension her body created. She glanced over to his right hand and watched the way his knuckles whitened and the tendons stood out under the strain.

His breath was hot on her neck, her cheek, her ear, and she could feel his heartbeat when his chest pressed into her back. And, as her mind cleared and she gained enough confidence to think of other things, she realised that he was also finding this proximity stimulating—with his groin crushed into her buttocks with every roll of the ship there was no disguising it.

The realisation almost made her lose concentration for a moment. She was enjoying the feel of his body so close too, frustrating though it was to be pinned down like this, unable to do anything but place hands and feet at his command. I remember how his body felt over mine on a bed. I remember the scent of his skin and his hands on my …

‘We’re at the rail. Slide round in front of me and jump down,’ Alistair ordered, shaking her out of her sensual reverie.

Dita very much doubted her legs were up to jumping, but she had too much pride to argue. With an awkward twist she swung down from the rigging and landed on the deck on all fours with an inelegant thump. ‘Thank you.’

Alistair’s face as he straightened up beside her showed nothing but anger. If he had enjoyed being so close to her, it did not show now. ‘You idiot! What the blazes do you think you were doing? You could have been killed.’

‘I doubt it.’ They were attracting attention from some of the deck hands; Dita turned on her heel and walked away towards the cuddy, her shoulders braced against the coming storm. Behind her she could hear the slap of Alistair’s bare feet on the deck.

The space was empty, she was relieved to see, and the stewards had not begun to lay the table and set out breakfast. There was little hope of outdistancing Alistair and reaching the roundhouse, although she was going to try—he could hardly pursue her into that all-female sanctuary. Dita lengthened her stride, then his grip on her shoulder stopped her dead in her tracks. His hand was warm and hard and the thin cotton caught in the roughness of his palm. Struggling would be undignified, she told herself.

‘I should go and change,’ Dita said, her back still turned.

‘Not until you give me your word you will not try that damn-fool trick again.’ The thrust of his hand as he spun her round was not gentle, nor was the slap of his other palm as he caught her shoulder to steady her. ‘Are you all about in your head, Perdita?’

She tipped up her chin and stared back into the furious tiger eyes with all the insolence she could muster. ‘Perdita? Now that is serious—you never called me that unless you were very angry with me.’ Alistair’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let me see. The last time must have been when I borrowed your new hunter and rode it.’

‘Stole,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘And tried to ride it. I can recall hauling you out of the ditch by your collar.’

‘And you called me Perdita for a week afterwards.’ She remembered his strength as he had lifted her, the fear in his voice for her—and how that had changed to anger the moment he realised she was unhurt. He had never failed to rescue her then, however much she annoyed him.

‘And it is not funny! ‘

She must have been smiling at the memory. He took a step forwards; she slid back, still in his grasp.

‘And I am very angry now and I am not fifteen and you are not a child and a fall from a horse is not the same as plunging into the sea from a great height.’

‘No,’ she agreed. The door was quite close. If she just edged a little more to the right and ducked out of his grip … She needed to distract him. ‘You enjoyed that.’

His brows snapped together as he took the step that brought them toe to toe. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We were pressed very close together. Did you think I would not notice, or not understand? I am not an innocent.’ What had possessed her to say that? The fact that he was obviously thinking of her as a child to be extracted from scrapes, even though his body was well aware of her age? He really does not remember that last night, she thought. He had been drinking, a little, when she had gone into his arms; she had tasted the brandy on his lips, but he had not been drunk.

‘No, you’re not, are you?’ Alistair agreed, his voice silky as he moved again, turning them both so that he was between her and the door. Once she had been small and lithe enough to slip from his hands, evade his clumsy adolescent attempts to control her. Now he was a mature man, with a man’s strength, and he was not going to let her go. Not until he was ready. She was angry and a little frightened and, it was disturbing to realise, aroused by the fact. ‘You would be wise to behave as though you were.’

‘I mean—’ Dita bit her tongue. But she was not going to explain herself to Alistair and tell him that her only experience was their eager, magical, lovemaking. If he chose to believe that she had lost her virginity to Stephen Doyle, that was up to him. She could hardly accuse him of failing to understand her, when she couldn’t forgive herself for going off with the man. ‘I mean, why should I trouble to pretend, with you?’

‘Is that an invitation, Dita?’ He was so close now that she had to tip her head back at an uncomfortable angle to look up at him. He gave her a little push and she was trapped against the massive table.

‘No,’ she said with all the composure she could muster. ‘It is an acknowledgement that we were … friends, once, a long time ago and I do not think you have changed so much that you would deliberately hurt me now.’

‘And an affaire would hurt?’ He lowered his head so his mouth was just above hers. His lids were low over those dangerous eyes and she stared at the thick fringe of spiky black against his tanned cheek. Not a young man’s fresh skin any more. There were small scars, fine lines at the corners of his eyes. Her gaze slid lower. He hadn’t shaved yet that morning and the stubble showed darker than she remembered. Alistair’s mouth was so close now that she could kiss him if she chose.

I do not choose, she told herself fiercely. ‘Naturally.’ And an affaire is all you would consider, isn’t it? You’ve as much pride as I have and you wouldn’t offer to marry another man’s leavings. And I am not the girl I was, the one who was dazzled by you and had no idea what the fire was she was playing with that night. I am the woman who desires you and who knows that to surrender would be my undoing and the last blow to my reputation. I must be sensible.

She made herself shrug, then realised that her hands had come up to clasp his upper arms, her fingers pressed against the bulge of muscle. Dita made herself open her hands and pressed them instead to his chest. Pushing was hopeless, but it gave her at least the illusion of resistance.

‘A dalliance with you, Alistair, would doubtless be delightful—you have so much experience, after all. But I have my future to consider. In this hypocritical world you may dally all you wish and still find yourself an eligible bride. I must do what I may to repair my image. One slip, with my name and my money, might be overlooked. Two, never.’

‘You are very cool about it, Dita. Where’s the impulsive little creature I remember?’ His right hand moved up her shoulder and she stiffened, refusing to give in to the shiver of need running through her. Between her legs the intimate pulse throbbed with betraying insistence and she made herself stand still, expecting him to cup her head and hold her for his caress. Instead his hand curled round her neck and pulled the long plait out of the back of her shirt.

‘Where’s the intense, straightforward young man of my memory?’ she countered as he twisted her hair around his hand and tugged gently.

‘Oh, he is still intense,’ Alistair said. ‘Just rather less straightforward.’ He was close enough for her to see the pulse in his throat, exposed by the open-necked shirt. Close enough to smell the fresh linen and the soap he had used that morning and the salt from the sea breeze and the sweat from that rapid climb to reach her.

Dita closed her eyes. He was going to kiss her and she was not strong-willed enough to stop him, nor, in her heart, did she want to. One kiss could not matter; it would not be of any importance to him. He pulled gently on the plait and she swayed towards him, blind, breathless, and felt his warmth against her upper body in the thin cotton. His knuckles brushed her cheek, his breath feathered over her mouth and she tipped her face up, remembering the feel of his lips on hers, the sensual slide of his tongue as he had explored her mouth while he sprawled on the ground.

Nothing happened. Confused, Dita opened her eyes and looked straight into his dark, amused amber gaze where her reflection was trapped like a fly. Alistair flicked the tip of her nose with the end of her plait and stepped back. She swayed and threw out her hands to grip the edge of the table to keep from falling

‘As always, I will do my best to keep you out of trouble, Dita my dear.’ He sauntered to the head of the companionway leading down to the lower deck and the Great Cabin and paused at the top. ‘The stewards are on their way, Dita. What are you waiting for?’

Chapter Six

What am I waiting for? A kiss? An apology? The strength to walk over there and slap that beautiful, assured, sardonic face? Whatever it was, she was not going to let him see how shaken she felt, how close she was to reaching for him. Dita blinked back angry tears, furious with herself and with Alistair.

‘Waiting for? Why, nothing.’ It was quite a creditable laugh and really should have been accompanied by the flutter of a fan. ‘I had thought you might have wanted a reward for your gallant rescue just now, but obviously you are not as predictable as I thought you were.’ The door to the roundhouse was mercifully close. ‘I will see you at breakfast perhaps, my lord.’

Something showed in his face, just for a second. Admiration? Regret? Dita got safely through the door and ran, her hand pressed against her mouth to stifle the furious sob that was struggling to emerge.

‘Dita!’ Averil’s startled cry stopped her dead in her tracks. ‘What on earth are you doing dressed like that?’

Dita pushed back the canvas flap of her own cabin and pulled her friend inside. ‘Shh!’ The walls were the merest curtains, enough for an illusion of privacy only. She pulled Averil down to sit beside her on the bed. ‘I have been climbing the rigging,’ she muttered.

‘No! Like that?’ Averil whispered back.

‘Of course, like this. I could hardly do it in a gown, now could I?’

‘No. I suppose not. I was going to come and see if you were ready for a walk before breakfast. I thought if the other ladies weren’t out there we could walk faster and stretch our legs.’

‘Without having to stop every minute to exclaim over an undone bonnet ribbon or bat our eyelashes at a man?’ Dita stood up to pull off the kurta and Averil modestly looked away as she tugged off the trousers. ‘Pass my chemise, would you? Thank you.’ Her stomach was churning with what she could only suppose was a mixture of unsatisfied desire and sheer temper.

‘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.’

‘Yes, I—what’s that?’ Both swung round at the sound of screams and running feet and a deep-throated snarling. The alleyway cleared as though a giant broom had swept through it. Men leapt on to counters, dragging women with them as a small boy ran down, screeching in fear, followed by a dog, snarling and snapping, its mouth dripping foam.

‘Up!’ Dita grabbed Averil and thrust her towards the fan seller, who took her wrists and dragged her on to the narrow counter amidst a heap of feathers. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the boy and the dog hurtled towards her and she realised there was no room on any of the stalls now and the alley was a dead end. Dita snatched the child as he reached her and clambered up a pile of baskets as though it were a stepladder until they were perched on the top of the teetering heap, the dog leaping and snarling at the foot.

‘Hilo dulo naha,’ she murmured to the boy as he clutched her, his dirty, skinny little body wrapped around hers. But he needed no warning to keep still and, as their fragile sanctuary began to tilt with an ominous cracking sound, he seemed to stop breathing.

The dog leapt at them, clawing at the baskets. It was mad, there was no mistaking it. Dita tried to put out of her mind the memory of their jemahdar who had been bitten. His death had been agonising and inevitable. She had to stay calm. If the baskets collapsed—when they collapsed—she would throw the boy to Averil and pray she was strong enough to hold him. And she would try and get behind the baskets.

Something flew through the air and hit the dog and it turned, yelping. Alistair, a long, bloody knife in his hand, came down the alley at the run and kicked out as the dog leapt for him, catching it under the chin. As it spun away he lunged with the knife, but his foot slipped on rotting vegetables in the gutter and he went down on to the snapping, snarling animal.

Dita screamed as she slid down the baskets and thrust the little boy into Averil’s reaching arms. As she hit the ground, groping for the stone he had thrown, Alistair got to his feet. The dog, throat cut, lay twitching in the gutter.

‘Did it bite you?’ Frantic, she seized his hands, used her skirts to wipe the blood away. ‘Are you scratched? Have you any cuts on your hands?’

Alistair dropped the knife and caught at her wrists. ‘I’m all right. Dita, stop it.’

‘You fell hard, you might not have felt a bite.’ She tried to see if there were any tears in his coat or the light trousers he wore. ‘Alistair, don’t you know what happens if you’ve been bitten, even a graze—’

‘Yes, I know. I am all right,’ he repeated. ‘Dita you are getting covered in blood. What the devil were you thinking of, scrambling up there with that child?’

‘There was nowhere else to go,’ she protested as the alley began to fill up. One man, a fish seller by the state of his clothes, picked up the bloody knife and walked away with it. A woman, weeping loudly, ran and snatched the child from Averil. The noise was deafening.

‘It wouldn’t bear the weight of both of you.’ Alistair released her and she began to shake. ‘It was going to collapse at any moment.’

‘I know that. I couldn’t leave him!’ ‘Most people would have.’ Someone brought a bowl of water and Alistair plunged his hands into it. Dita held her breath until they emerged, the skin unbroken. His coat was stained, but she could see no evidence of teeth marks on it, or tears in his trousers.

Alistair gestured for more water. When it was poured he took her hands in his and washed them and she thought back over the crowded, terrified, minutes. ‘You came to rescue the child,’ she said. ‘You must have gone for the knife the moment you heard him scream, or you wouldn’t have got here with it when you did.’

‘Well, that’s two of us who are sentimental,’ he said, his voice harsh, but his eyes as he looked at her held admiration and the shadow of fear, not for himself, but for her. ‘Don’t do that to me again, Dita. My nerves won’t stand it. The mast was bad enough, this—’

They stood, their hands clasped in the reddening water and the noise of the crowd faded. Dita wondered if she was going to faint. Alistair was staring at her as though he had never seen her before.

‘Dita! Dita, are you all right?’ She looked round, dazed and a little dizzy, to see her friend supporting their weeping chaperon. ‘I don’t think Mrs Bastable can walk back.’

‘Rickshaw,’ Alistair snapped at their two porters. ‘Two. Can you help Lady Perdita, Miss Heydon?’ As Averil’s hand came under her elbow he scooped Mrs Bastable up and followed the porters out of the market.

‘Oh, my,’ Averil said with a laugh that broke on a sob. ‘She’s gone all pink. At least it has stopped her weeping.’

‘Are you all right?’ Better to think about Averil than what might have happened to the child, to Alistair, to her.

‘Me? Oh, yes. I’ve feathers sticking in me and doubtless any number of bruises, but if it wasn’t for you I don’t know what would have happened. You are a heroine, Dita.’

‘No, I’m not,’ she protested. ‘I’m shaking like a leaf and I would like to follow Mrs Bastable’s example and have hysterics right here and now.’ I wish he was holding me. I wish …

Mrs Bastable sank into the rickshaw with a moan. ‘I’ll get in with her,’ Averil said. ‘I have a vinaigrette in my reticule and a handkerchief.’

Dita held on to the side of the other rickshaw while Alistair got Averil settled. She would like to sit down, but she didn’t think she could climb in unaided. Her legs had lost all their strength and the bustling street seemed to be growing oddly distant.

‘Don’t faint on me now.’ Alistair scooped her up, climbed into the rickshaw and sat down with her still in his arms.

‘Can’t I?’ she murmured against his chest. ‘I would like to, I think. But I never have before.’

‘Very well, if you want to.’ There was the faintest thread of amusement in his voice and he shifted on the seat so he could get both arms around her as it tilted back and the man began to trot forwards between the shafts.

‘Perhaps I won’t. This is nice.’ That was he said when he kissed me on the maidan. Nice. ‘Where’s my bonnet?’

‘Goodness knows. Lie still, Dita.’

‘Hmm? Why?’ He is very strong, all those muscles feel so good. His chest was broad, his arms were reassuring and his thighs … she really must stop thinking about his thighs.

‘Never mind.’ He was definitely amused now, although there was something else in his voice. Shock, of course. Alistair wasn’t made of stone and that had been a terrifying few minutes.

‘You are all right, aren’t you?’ she asked after a moment, the panic spiking back. ‘You would tell me if you had been bitten or scratched?’

‘I am all right. And I would tell you if I had been bitten.’ Alistair added the lie as he bent his head so his mouth just touched the tangled brown mass of her hair. He was still shaken to find that his skin was unbroken and his stomach cramped at the thought of those few seconds after the dog had collapsed twitching into the gutter and he had looked, felt, for any wound on his body and on hers.

It was good that he was holding Dita, because he suspected his hands would shake if he was not. Never, in his life, had he been more afraid—for himself, for another person. She thought he had grabbed the knife when he heard the screams because he wanted to save the child and he could not tell her the truth, that he had reacted purely on instinct: she was where those screams had come from.

‘Something smells of fish,’ she said. She still sounded drugged with shock; the sooner she was in bed, warm, the better. Despite the heat she was shivering.

‘I do. That was a fish-gutter’s knife and I ran through those puddles by their stalls to get it.’

She chuckled and he tightened his arms and made himself confront the nightmare that was gibbering at the back of his brain. If he had been bitten, then he would have shot himself. He had seen a man die of the bite of a mad dog and there didn’t seem to be any worse way to go. But what if it had bitten Dita? What if he had arrived just too late? The vision of her slender white throat and the knife and his bloody hands and the dog’s foaming muzzle shifted and blurred in his imagination.

‘Ouch,’ she murmured and he made himself relax his grip. All his young life it seemed he had looked out for Dita, protected her while she got on with being Dita. Eight years later and, under the desire he felt for her, he still felt the need to do that—but would he have had the courage to do for her what he would have done for himself? Would it have been right?

‘Alistair? What is wrong?’ She twisted round and looked up at him, her green eyes dark with concern, and he shook himself mentally and sent the black thoughts back into the darkness where they belonged. The worst hadn’t happened, they were both all right, the child was safe and he had to keep his nightmares at bay in case she read them in his face and was frightened.

‘Our wardrobes are wrecked, I smell of fish and now you probably do too, we haven’t finished our Christmas shopping, Mrs Bastable is still wailing—it is enough to send a man into a decline.’

Her face broke into a smile of unselfconscious amusement and relief. ‘Idiot.’

It was the least provocative thing to say, the least flirtatious smile, but the desire crashed over him like a wave hitting a rock. He wanted her, now. He wanted her hot and trembling and soft and urgent under him. Somehow he knew how she would feel, the scent of her skin, of her arousal. He wanted to take her, to bury himself in her heat and possess her. He wanted her with all the simple urgency of a man who had felt death’s breath on his face and who had tasted more fear in a few seconds than he would surely ever feel for the rest of his life.

She was still looking at him; her wide mouth was still smiling and sweet and her eyes held something very close to hero worship. Alistair bent and kissed her without finesse, his tongue thrusting between lips that parted in a gasp of shock, his hands holding her so that her breasts were crushed against him; the feel of soft, yielding curves against his chest, against his heart, sent his body into violent arousal.

Dita must have felt his erection and she could not escape the message of a kiss that was close to a brutal demand, but she did not fight him. She melted against him, her mouth open and generous, her tongue tangling with his, her hands clinging while he tasted and feasted and felt the need and the primitive triumph surge through him. He had killed the beast for her and now she was his prize.

The seat tilted sharply, almost throwing them out of the rickshaw as the man lowered the shafts to the ground. Alistair grabbed the side with one hand and held tight to Dita with the other, shaken back into reality and the realisation that he had damn near ravished a woman in a rickshaw on the streets of Madras.

‘Hell.’

She stared at him, apparently shocked speechless by what they had just done, then scrambled down on to the ground unaided and went to the other rickshaw.

Alistair got out, paid the drivers, found the boat, paid off the porters and oversaw loading the parcels before he turned to the three women. By then, he hoped, he would have himself under control again. Mrs Bastable was leaning on Averil’s arm, fanning herself, but looking much more composed. Averil smiled. Dita, white-faced, just looked at him with no expression at all, although if either of the others had been themselves they could not have failed to see her mouth was swollen with the force of his kisses. She had said nothing, he realised.

He got them into the boat, the three women in a row, and sat down opposite them so he could look at Dita. She sat contemplating her clasped hands, calm while they were rowed out, calm when he helped her into the chair, last of the three so he could get up the ladder and be there when she landed on the deck.

‘I’ll take Lady Perdita to her cabin,’ he said to Averil and picked her up before either of them could react.

‘Second on the left,’ she called after him. ‘I’ll come in a moment.’

If there was anyone in the cuddy he didn’t see them. He fumbled a little with the ties on the canvas flap, uncharacteristically clumsy with delayed shock, then he had her inside and could put her on the bed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said as she raised her eyes to meet his. ‘It happens, it’s a male reaction to danger, fear—we want sex afterwards. It doesn’t mean anything … It wasn’t you. Don’t think it was your fault.’

‘Oh.’ She arched her brows, aloof, poised, the acid-tongued lady from Government House despite her stained, torn gown and tumbling hair and bruised mouth and shaking hands. ‘Well, as long as it wasn’t me. I would hate to think I was responsible for that exhibition.’ He could not read her eyes as she watched him and her smile when it came did not reach them. ‘Thank you for saving my life. I will never forget that.’

‘Dita?’ Averil said from outside. ‘May I come in?’

‘Ma’am.’ He opened the flap and stepped out, holding it for her to enter. ‘I’ll have the parcels sent down to the cuddy.’

‘Oh, Dita.’ Averil sat down on the trunk. ‘What a morning. Mrs Bastable is resting and I’ve asked the steward to make tea.’

‘Thank you. A cup of tea would be very welcome.’ Incredibly she could still make conversation. Alistair had kissed her as though he was starving, desperate—for her. And she had kissed him back with as much need and desire and with the certainty that he wanted her. And then he said it wasn’t her. That any woman would have provoked that storm of passion. That kissing her as she had always dreamt he would kiss her meant absolutely nothing to him. He needed sex as Mrs Bastable had needed to have hysterics.

That time when they had made love fully, gloriously, he had looked at her as she had smiled up at him dreamily afterwards and told her harshly to get out, to go, all his tenderness and passion hardening into rejection and anger.

Alistair had saved her life, risked a hideous death, behaved like the hero she had always known him to be—and stamped on her heart all over again.

‘Oh, don’t cry!’ Averil jumped up with a handkerchief. She must have an inexhaustible supply, Dita thought, swallowing hard against the tears that choked her throat.

‘No, I won’t. It is just the shock. I think I will lie down for a while. That would be sensible, don’t you think?’

‘Yes.’ Poor Averil, she doesn’t need another watering pot on her hands. ‘You get into bed and I’ll bring your tea and tuck you in. I’ll put all our shopping in my cabin; you just rest, dear.’

Chapter Eight

24th December 1808

They rounded the southern tip of India and headed across the ocean towards Mozambique as dinner was served on Christmas Eve. The stewards had brought a load of greenery on board from Madras and the Great Cabin and cuddy were lavishly decorated with palm fronds and creepers.

The ladies cut both red and gold paper into strips to weave amongst it and there were garlands of marigolds that had been kept in the cool of the bilges and were only a little worn and wilted if one looked too close.

‘At least that reduces the look of Palm Sunday in church that all those fronds produced,’ Averil observed as they made table decorations to run down the length of the long board.

The captain had decreed a return to formality and precedence, Dita noticed as the stewards began to set out place cards with careful reference to a seating plan. It meant she would be sitting next to Alistair. She had been avoiding any intimacy ever since their return on board ship, despising herself for cowardice even as she did so.

She had tried not to be obvious about it: she owed the man her life, after all. But it was torture to be close to him. She wanted to touch him, to have him take her lips again, and yet she knew that the passion he had shown her would have been the same for any woman. It was not much consolation that he appeared to have been avoiding her, too.

‘We can put out the presents now,’ Averil said. ‘The place cards will help.’ Dita made herself concentrate on the task at hand. The stewards were having a difficult time of it, trying to lay an elaborate formal setting while ladies ducked and wove between them, heaping up little parcels that slid about with the motion of the ship, but the mood was good natured and, as Miss Whyton said, sorting out the gifts could only add to the jollity.

Dita juggled her pile of packages, squinting at labels and tweaking ribbons while she tried to avoid thinking about the fact that there was one person she had no gift for. Alistair wouldn’t notice, she tried to tell herself, not with such a pile of parcels in front of him. But she suspected he would. It was not that she wanted to snub him, but she had had no idea what to give him. A trivial token was just that: trivial. She could not insult the man who had saved her life with a trinket. A significant gift—and she was a good enough needlewoman to make a handsome waistcoat from the silks in her trunk if she applied herself—would cause comment.

There was only one thing and it nagged at the back of her mind until the last teetering pile was stabilised with tightly rolled napkins.

‘Just time to get changed,’ Averil said as they all stood back to admire the effect, then Dita followed her to their cabins.

The jewellery box was locked in her trunk and she lifted it out and set it on the bunk. Emeralds for dinner, she decided, and lifted out the necklace and earrings and set them aside.

Her hands went back to the box, hesitated, then she lifted out the top tray, then the items below until it appeared to be empty. There was a pin to be pulled, a narrow panel to be pushed and then the secret drawer slid out. In it was a slim oblong package wrapped in tarnished silver paper. The amber velvet ribbon was frayed and the label, Alistair, Happy Birthday with love from Dita XXX, was crumpled.

It was almost nine years since she had wrapped it up. The stitches might be embarrassingly clumsy—she should check. Certainly it needed rewrapping. Dita hesitated, then lifted out the package, slid it into her reticule just as it was, and reassembled the box before she locked it safely away.

The cuddy was filling up as she returned and the noise level was rising, helped by bowls of punch and glasses of champagne. The doors had been thrown open to the deck so the sea breezes could mitigate the heat of twenty-one bodies, hot food and scurrying stewards and some of the sailors had been posted on the deck to play fiddles and pipes.

‘Lady Perdita.’ Captain Archibald bowed over her hand and handed her wine.

‘You look, if I may be so bold, utterly stunning, Lady Perdita.’ Daniel Chatterton appeared at her side, his gaze frankly appreciative as he took in her amber silk gown and the glow of the emeralds. ‘You look so … uncluttered—’ he glanced towards some of the other ladies, weighted down with jewellery and feathers ‘—and that shows off your beauty.’

There was no denying the pleasure his words gave her. She had deliberately set out to dress her hair without ornament, only one long brown curl brushing her shoulder. The emeralds were simply cut and simply mounted to achieve their effect by their size and quality and her gown shimmered in the light.

But it was not Daniel Chatterton she had dressed for. It was a satisfying statement of the polished style she had made her own and it was a defiant gesture to Alistair. See what you spurn.

He was on the opposite side of the cabin, talking to Averil, making her laugh and blush, and Dita allowed herself a moment’s indulgence to admire the dark tailcoat, the tight breeches, immaculate striped stockings, exquisite neckcloth. He would look perfectly at home in a London drawing room, she thought. Then he moved and the play of muscle disturbed the cut of the coat and the look he swept round the crowded room held the alertness of the hunter. He isn’t quite civilised any more, she thought, and found she was running her tongue over dry lips.

The gong sounded, the patterns shifted and broke up as people went to their places, the chaplain said grace and then went below decks to do the same in the Great Cabin, and Alistair was holding her chair for her. She smiled her thanks and he smiled back. No one looking at them could have imagined that kiss in the rickshaw, she thought. It almost seemed like a dream now. But, of course, he didn’t want her, so there would be nothing in his look to betray him.

The meal passed in a noise-filled blur. The food was good, but too rich, the wine flowed too freely, Alistair made unexceptional, entertaining small talk, first to her, then to his other partner. Dita nodded and chatted and smiled and plied her fan and drank a second glass of wine and wondered if the room was spinning or whether it was her head.

Finally the dishes were cleared, fruit was set out, more wine was poured and the captain raised his glass. ‘A toast, my lords and gentlemen, to the ladies who have created this festive table.’

The men rose and drank, the ladies smiled and bowed and the captain picked up his first present, the signal for them all to begin.

There were shrieks and laughter and people calling their thanks down the length of the board. It would be impossible, Dita thought, to notice if someone had omitted to give you a present unless you were looking for one gift in particular. The Chattertons waved and mouthed Thank you for the watercolour sketches she had done of them. Averil seemed delighted with the notebook she had covered in padded silk and the captain was most impressed with her drawing of the Bengal Queen’s figurehead.

Her own collection of gifts was delightful, too. Thoughtful, handmade presents from some people, well intentioned but prosaic ones from others. The Chattertons had given her a pair of beautiful carved sandalwood boxes, Averil a string of hand-painted beads. There was nothing from Alistair.

Dita carefully folded up the wrapping paper, handed it to a steward and glanced around the table. No, no unclaimed gift, nothing had fallen to the floor. He had not given her a present—that would teach her to be complacent and expect something.

‘What a clever idea these knots made into paperweights are,’ she remarked to Alistair with a bright smile, holding out her own gift from the captain. ‘You have a different knot, I see.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed as he pushed back his chair. ‘Please excuse me.’

Dita watched him leave the cuddy. He had gone down to the Great Cabin, she realised, hearing the noise coming up the companionway from the company below. Why? Was he going to come back? On the impulse Dita got to her feet and followed him. She would give Alistair her gift even if he scorned it. It was that or throw it over the side.

There was a passage at the foot of the steps formed by the screens that divided up the cabins down on this deck. To her right she could hear the passengers in the Great Cabin toasting each other amidst much laughter. A small boy ran out astride a hobby horse, a toy trumpet in one hand. He stared at her, then rushed back.

This was foolish. She could hardly confront Alistair with her tattered little parcel in front of everyone down here; she would go back and lay it at his place. Even as she thought it he emerged from the same opening that the child had run through.

‘Dita?’

‘I have a gift for you.’

‘And I one for you. Come down here.’ Alistair led her past several doors and along the cramped passageway, lit only by a few lanterns. They turned a corner and were quite alone, even the noise from the Great Cabin fading into a murmur like the sea. In the shadows he seemed larger than ever and somehow mysterious.

‘I realised there would be one thing missing from a traditional Christmas, beside a flaming Yule log and snow.’ He held something in his hand, a spray of foliage that caught the light with a myriad of soft creamy orbs.

‘Oh, how lovely! Mistletoe—where on earth did you get it?’ Dita reached for it, but he held it just out of her reach.

‘Magic.’

She could believe that. The ship pitched and she stumbled towards him and was caught in his free arm. ‘Will you trust me with a kiss now?’

‘I thought you didn’t want me. You said you did not.’

‘I said that the way I kissed you then was simply a reaction to danger, to fighting. It was wrong to have done it like that, then. But I would have to be dead not to want to kiss you, Dita.’

‘Oh. I see. I thought—’ So he does want me, just as I want him. ‘Yes.’ Her heart soared and she did not hesitate now. Trust him? It was herself she could not trust, here in the semi-darkness, but she was not going to fight the way she felt. He was so close, and what she could not see clearly she could read with every other sense. He smelled of wine and smoke and she leaned a little closer to inhale clean, hot male and the scent that was his alone. His breathing was slow and calm, but she could detect just the slightest hitch in it as though he was controlling it consciously. And touch—solid, strong male in clothing she wanted to rip from his body.

Around her waist his hand held her steady and she fought the need to press against it, to feel those long fingers move on her skin. She wanted them on her, all over her. In her. Dita blushed in the shadows, hot with desire and shaken by her own imaginings and memories.

Alistair’s free hand moved and touched her hair and she felt him fasten the mistletoe sprig in amongst the heaped curls before he drew her to him with both hands.

‘Just a kiss,’ he murmured as he bent his head.

‘Yes,’ she agreed and reached up her own hands to touch his hair. It was soft and strong, thick and rebellious under her fingers and she recalled the unruly length of it when he had been younger, long enough for him to tie back with a cord when he was outside. When they had been in bed together she had untied the cord and run her fingers into the silk of it. ‘I like this short, it feels like fur.’ She stroked as she would a cat and he pushed against the caress, his eyes hooded and heavy.

Just a kiss, a Christmas kiss. The taste of him when he touched his mouth to hers had her closing her eyes and opening her lips. The darkness was arousing, gave an edge of danger now she could not see him, only feel and smell and taste. Alistair kissed her as deeply as he had in the rickshaw, but with no desperation, as leisurely as he had on the maidan, but with no mockery; she sighed into his mouth as their tongues met and tangled and stroked, sharing the wet heat and the intimacy and the trust.

Just a kiss, he had said. Dita wanted more, more of him. She pressed close, feeling the ache as her breasts crushed against the silk of his waistcoat, the heat as his erection pressed against her and she rocked into him, moaning now because a sigh was not enough for the need inside her. The man knew how to tantalise and prolong as his young self had not.

‘Dita.’ He lifted his head and she caught his ear between her teeth as he bent to kiss her neck, his hands sliding up to cup her breasts. Stephen had done that and she had recoiled and his hungry grasp had hurt her; now the pressure made her want to rub herself shamelessly against Alistair. It was an effort not to bite and she forced herself to concentrate on licking, nibbling, probing the intriguing whorls of his ear.

‘Perfect,’ Alistair murmured as his fingers found the edge of her bodice and began to stroke the aureole of her nipple. Her breast ached and swelled, heavy and tight in the silken bodice, and she moved under his hands, restless, needing to be free of corsets and camisole, needing his hands on her bare flesh.

He bent to kiss the swell of her breast above the silk, his teasing fingers fretting at the nipple until it was tight to the point of an exquisite pleasure that was almost pain. Dita gasped and Alistair lifted his head, his eyes glinting in the lantern light. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No. No … kiss me.’

It was almost too much, the heat of his mouth on hers, the demanding pressure, the tug at her breast that went deep, deep into her belly, down to where she felt the heat building and twisting into something that made her arch to rub against him—but that only made the ache worse. Her back was against the panelling now, Alistair’s weight pressing her, the thick length of his erection just where she needed him to be.

There was something behind her, digging into her back, and she shifted, felt it move and the wall vanished.

Alistair caught her as she stumbled back. ‘The door must have been unlocked,’ he said as she stared about her, confused. ‘It’s an empty cabin.’ There was just enough light to see. Alistair reached outside, lifted a lamp from the wall and came in, closing the door behind him. She heard the click of the key as he stood there, the light spilling out over the bare deck, the unmade bed with its coir mattress. ‘Alistair—’

‘Yes,’ he said, putting down the lantern and coming to pull her into his arms. ‘What do you want, Dita?’

‘I don’t know.’ She tugged at his waistcoat buttons. ‘You.’

‘I want you, too,’ he said as she undid the last of them and began to pull his shirt from his waistband. ‘I only meant to kiss you: I should have known it wouldn’t stop there. Trust me a little more, Dita? Trust me to pleasure you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, not quite understanding what he was asking, what it meant. ‘I need to touch you. Aah …’ Her hands slid around his waist against the hot skin and she stood there, resting against him, catching her breath and feeling him tense under her caress.

That evening so long ago, there had been no time to simply hold each other. He had reached for her, she had stumbled into his arms, thinking to give comfort for whatever was causing him such pain, finding her innocent intentions going up in a blaze of scarce-understood desire in the arms of a young man who had been, it seemed, as desperate as she had been and who had somehow found the control to be gentle despite their urgency.

Alistair moved and lifted her and then they were lying on the bunk and her skirts were around her thighs and her hand was cupped around his erection through his trousers and he groaned as he stroked up her legs. She trembled as he pressed them apart, opened her, slid his fingers into the slick folds that parted for him with no resistance. She had fought Stephen off before he touched her with such intimacy; now she had no shame and no fear, only the desperate need for this man.

That time before she had been passive and uncertain under his seeking hands and urgent mouth; now she wanted to touch him, all of him.

‘Touch me,’ he said against her mouth, echoing her thoughts, and she struggled to understand for a moment. She was touching him. Then she found the fall of his trousers and somehow undid them, slid her hand inside, found the hot, hard length of him and closed her fingers. ‘More. Dita …’

She squeezed and stroked and he shuddered and slipped one finger inside her as she clung to him. Then another, and his thumb found a place that felt hard and tight with tension and stroked and she cried out until he stopped her mouth with his, pressing into her circling hand, stroking and squeezing until she screamed silently, arching upwards as everything broke inside her and he surged in her grasp and shuddered above her and the world spun out of its orbit.

‘Dita, sweetheart. Are you all right?’

‘Hmm?’ She was on a bed, in a strange cabin, with Alistair, and he had made love to her—and she had made love to him and it had been everything she remembered yet different. ‘Yes. Yes, I am quite all right.’

He was sitting up, putting his clothing to rights and she lay there, just looking at him in the lamplight. Beautiful, mysterious, male. Even more mysterious now he had let her come so close to him again. As close, almost, as it was possible to be. Alistair gave her his handkerchief and got up, his back turned, while she tidied herself and got unsteadily to her feet.

‘Are you all right?’ He turned to look at her in the lamplight and she smiled. ‘That wasn’t what I really want, you know that.’ He reached out and began to put her hair into order. ‘There. I’ll leave the mistletoe in place for some other lucky fellows to snatch a kiss.’

‘What do you want?’ she asked, ignoring her hair, not caring about any other men and their kisses.

‘To make love with you, fully. But I won’t take that risk, Dita. You said it yourself—one slip would be fatal to your reputation. This was certainly a slip—but I think we’ll get away with it.’ He pulled her closer. ‘Was it all right for you, our loving, even though it was not complete?’

She answered him truthfully. ‘You gave me more pleasure just now than Stephen did in two days and nights.’ You gave me as much pleasure as that boy had done, so long ago, even though I ache because I need you inside me.

Alistair laughed and caught her to him for another kiss. As they stood there, her arms twined round his neck she said, ‘Do you want your gift?

‘Of course!’ He sounded eager, almost the young Alistair that the present had been intended for all those years ago.

‘Where is my reticule?’ They found it on the floor and she pulled out the package and handed it to him and watched as he flattened out the crumpled label.

‘Happy birthday?’

‘I was going to give it to you the day you left home. I tossed it into the secret drawer of my jewellery box when I realised you were gone. Then I found it again, quite recently. I thought it might amuse you.’ She shrugged, ‘I will not vouch for the embroidery—I think I will have improved since I was sixteen.’

‘You were sixteen when I left?’ He frowned at her. ‘I suppose you must have been. Dita, did we quarrel, that last day? There was something, some memory in the back of my mind that I cannot catch hold of. Dreams like smoke. A kiss? But that cannot be right: I would not have kissed you.’ She thought he muttered, Let alone more, but she was not certain. ‘God, I was drunk that night. The whole thing was such a hellish mess I can’t recall properly.’

‘Yes, we quarrelled,’ she lied. He does not recall making love, his anger, the things he said afterwards. He must have been beside himself. ‘And I cried and you … I left.’

‘Ah.’ The tarnished silver paper flashed in the light as he turned it over in his hands. ‘What are you going to give me for my birthday this year if I open this now?’

‘It depends upon what you deserve,’ she said, and tried to keep her voice light to match his tone.

‘Mmm.’ The low growl held a wealth of promise as the paper tore away to reveal the comb case, wavy stripes of amber and gold and black on one side, on the other a tiger, copied painstakingly from a print in her father’s library. The stitching was a little uneven, the sewing not quite smooth.

‘You made me a tiger?’ Alistair slid the comb out and then back, turning the case in his hands. ‘You had powers of prediction?’

‘No. I always thought you had tiger’s eyes,’ she confessed. ‘When I was a little girl I used to dream you would turn into a tiger at night and stalk the corridors of the castle.’

Alistair stared at her from those same uncanny amber eyes. ‘I frightened you that much?’

‘No, of course not. I thought it was exciting. You know you never frightened me, even when you were angry with me. You looked after me.’

‘I did, didn’t I.’ There was a silence that was strangely awkward while he stood there, quite still except for the restless fingers that turned the comb case over in his hands. Then, just as she opened her mouth to break it, he pushed the gift into his pocket and took up the lantern.

‘We shouldn’t have done that, Dita,’ he said flatly. She stared at him as he turned the magic of their lovemaking into an ill-judged romp with his matter-of-fact words. ‘You look a little ruffled—we had best go up the companionway at the end here and account for that with some sea air. Ready?’

It was as though another man entirely had come into the cabin: brisk, efficient and practical. ‘A good idea,’ Dita said, chilled, and followed him as he stepped with wary care into the corridor.

Chapter Nine

Alistair looked from the charming, slightly clumsy piece of embroidery in his hands and up to the generous mouth he had kissed until it was red and swollen. And then up again and into the green eyes that were Dita’s, just as they always looked, unchanged even though he had taken her with careless lust. He had seen the sophisticated, adult Dita at Government House and somehow she and the girl in his memory had seemed separate individuals; now, with her gift in his hand, the two slid together, became one.

It had been very strange, that feeling that they had done this before, that she had lain in his arms, that his lips had tasted the tender skin of her breasts, stroked those long, slim legs. It must be because he had known her so well. And those frequent dreams: confused, erotic, troubling dreams touched with anger and betrayal, all mxed with the memories of how he had left home.

The last thing he needed was her becoming in some way attached to him. Lovemaking was all very well, but perhaps he had underestimated her experience. His brain felt as though he had a fever, but one thing was clear: Dita might not be a virgin, but she was inexperienced. The man she had eloped with had obviously been a clumsy boor and now he had shown her a glimpse of what lovemaking could be like. He suspected he had given her her first orgasm.

Alistair led her up the companionway and on to the foredeck. Other passengers had come out, too, but they were laughing and talking and listening to the sailors playing, not paying any attention to two of their number who appeared to have strayed a little further along the deck to catch the warm breeze.

‘There—safe,’ he said, giving his neckcloth a final tug.

‘Indeed.’ Dita was a good actress, he thought with gratitude. Her voice was cool even though she looked flushed and a little … a little loved. He had thought her still a skinny beanpole, but now he had caressed those slight curves he knew he had been wrong: she was perfect and made for his touch. Her skin glowed under its slight golden tan, her lower lip pouted with a fullness that held the promise of passion with its potential still unfulfilled. Dita raised one hand and curled the loose ringlet around it and his body tightened at the memory of those slender fingers circling his flesh, the ache to sheathe himself in her tight, wet heat.

Perhaps he had been worrying unnecessarily and she was sophisticated enough for these kind of games. He would wait and see.

Some of the passengers had begun to dance a country jig. Alistair caught Dita’s hand and almost ran down to join them, whirling her into the end of the line next to the elder Miss Whyton and Lieutenant Tompkins.

‘Mistletoe!’ Miss Whyton cried as Dita was spun past her, on down between the row of dancers by the lieutenant. ‘Wherever did you get that?’

But she was safely down to the other end now and Alistair made himself focus on the steps as he caught her hands and waited for their turn to dance to the other end.

By the time the fiddler drew out the last chord everyone was flushed and laughing, the ladies fanning themselves, the men pretending to pant with exertion. Alistair saw Callum Chatterton admire Dita’s hair ornament and then snatch a kiss, followed by his brother. A positive queue of gentlemen formed.

‘I will lend it to you,’ Dita said to Daniel, ‘and then you may go and make mischief.’

Averil began to unfasten it for her, then stopped, the spray in her hands, and stared. Alistair strolled a little closer.

‘But these berries are pearls, Dita! Real pearls—you could make an entire necklace there are so many.’

Callum took the spray out of her hands and turned it close in front of his eyes. ‘And fine ones at that. You should have them locked in the strongbox, Lady Perdita, not be dancing a jig on the open deck in something this valuable.’

‘How lovely they are.’ Mrs Bastable came over to join the group, her arm linked through that of her taciturn husband. ‘But you ought to replace the pearls with glass beads, for safety. Who gave them to you, dear?’

‘Someone I was friends with a long time ago.’ Dita said. ‘I don’t think I know him any more.’ She looked up from the mistletoe and caught Alistair looking at her. Her eyes were bleak. ‘Excuse me. I will take your advice and lock them away.’

Alistair held the door to the cuddy open for her and she paused on the threshold. ‘I would have lain with you for glass beads, or none,’ she said in a vehement whisper. ‘You had no need to buy me with pearls. I am not a professional. Nor am I an innocent girl who has no idea what is happening when a man kisses her. Don’t behave as though we have just done something regrettable; something silly. If you want someone to patronise, go and flirt with Dotty Whyton.’

‘Damn it!’ The accusation was so unfair, and yet such an accurate stab at his conscience, that Alistair let go of the door and it slammed, shutting them off from the others.

‘Give them back, then,’ he said, smiling, not troubling to keep that devil out of his eyes.

‘No.’ She put up her chin. ‘I shall keep them to remind myself of the folly of passion. They will make a very lovely necklace.’

They were fortunate with the weather, everyone agreed. The wind held, the storms were not severe and they reached Cape Town a week ahead of Captain Archibald’s most optimistic prediction.

‘I will be so glad to stretch my legs on a surface that does not go up and down,’ Averil said as she tied her bonnet ribbons under her chin and tried to see the result in the small mirror that hung on her wall.

‘The land will go up and down just as much as the ship seemed to,’ Dita told her from her perch on Averil’s bunk. ‘You have got your sea legs now. What do you intend to do today? The captain says we have two days here.’

‘Lord Lyndon has asked me to form one of a party going to the Company’s gardens. Apparently they have the most wonderful collection from all over the world, and a menagerie as well. But surely he has asked you, too?’

‘He did, but I have shopping to do, so I refused.’ Dita met Averil’s questioning gaze with a look of bright interest. ‘I saw the gardens on my way out. They are very fine—you will enjoy yourself.’

‘I am sure I will.’ Averil stuck a hatpin in her pincushion and fidgeted about tidying her things. Dita waited for the next question.

‘Shopping for two days?’

‘I have something to take to the jewellers and then I must collect it the next day.’

‘Is there something wrong between you and Lord Lyndon?’ Averil went slightly pink; she was not given to intrusive personal questions.

‘Yes,’ Dita said. There was no point in lying about it.

‘Since Christmas Eve.’ Averil nodded to herself. ‘That is what I guessed. Whatever is the matter?’

‘We had a … a misunderstanding.’ Or, at least, I misunderstood. I thought he cared for me and wanted to make love to me because of that. How naive! He wanted to make love and so he seemed to care and once he had, then he was all cool practicality. It was a mercy he had held back from entering her. She was shamefully aware that she would not have stopped him.

‘I thought you liked him very well.’

‘I do … did. I find him too … attractive for prudence with a man like that.’

‘Oh.’ Averil fiddled some more, dropped her gloves and blurted out, ‘Did he overstep the mark?’

‘Overstep it? Yes, I think you could say he over-leapt it. I should have known better—’ Dita broke off, but the sound she heard had been from above their heads, not from anyone returning to the roundhouse, and the windows were closed.

‘Dita—you didn’t sleep with him?’

‘Absolutely no sleeping occurred. Oh, I am sorry, I should not be so flippant. No, if you mean did anything occur that might lead to, say, pregnancy. I was more intimate with him than I should have been, and, it is fair to say, we are both regretting that now.’

‘So he kissed you very passionately?’ Dita reminded herself that Averil was a virgin, and a well-behaved one at that, and nodded. ‘But if you are both regretting it, could you not put it behind you now?’

‘It is one thing both of you regretting something at the same time,’ Dita said, jamming her own hat on her head as she got to her feet. ‘That indeed might lead to eventual harmony. What is not … flattering is when the man shows every sign of wanting to run a mile within moments of the encounter.’

‘Oh, no! How—’

‘Humiliating, is the word you are looking for. The fact that this is, of course, the most sensible and prudent outcome does not help in the slightest.’

‘No, I can see that.’ Averil gathered up her parasol, reticule and shawl and opened the canvas flap. ‘What a pity. I thought he was perfect for you.’

Perfect. He is beautiful and insanely courageous and intelligent and apparently rich and he makes love like an angel and he … he is no angel. An angel would bore me.

‘Lady Perdita, Miss Heydon. Good morning.’ It was Dr Melchett, a tough old survivor of everything India could throw at a man. Except possibly tigers, Dita thought.

‘Good morning, Dr Melchett. Are you going with the party to the gardens?’

‘I am not, Lady Perdita. I have seen them several times and I have every intention of buying gifts for my godsons. Might I escort you ladies, if you are also looking for bargains? Ostrich feathers, for example?’

‘Thank you, I would be glad of your company, sir. Miss Heydon is bound for the gardens, so I will be your only companion.’

He was a dry and witty escort, Dita discovered, and the perfect antidote to troubling and handsome young men. He tempted her into buying a huge ostrich feather fan and plumes for her next court appearance and then enchanted her by taking her to a wood carver to buy amusing carved animals for his godchildren.

‘Oh, look.’ It was a small oval box, no bigger than a large snuffbox, with Noah’s Ark carved in low relief on the lid. When the lid was opened it was full of minute animals, each in exquisite detail and so small that she could sit the elephant on her little fingernail.

Dita played with it for several minutes before she found the pair of tigers and remembered Alistair and her reason for coming shopping.

‘Is there a good jeweller’s shop, do you know, Doctor?’ Reluctantly she slid the lid closed and handed the box back to the dealer. She already had a number of larger carved animals for nephews and nieces and they were all too young for anything so delicate.

‘You are not intending to buy gemstones? You would have done better in India. There is one along here, I seem to recall. Ah, yes, here we are.’

‘I need a necklace stringing,’ she explained as the jeweller came to greet them. ‘These. They are already drilled.’ She poured the pearls out on to the velvet pad on the counter. ‘Can you do it for tomorrow? I want them in one simple string.’

‘I can do it for tomorrow morning, madam.’ He produced his loupe and picked up a handful. ‘These are very fine and well matched. Indian?’

‘Yes.’ They agreed a price and she let the doctor take her arm and find a carriage back to the ship.

‘Your mistletoe pearls?’

‘They are.’ She gazed out of the window, willing the doctor to change the subject.

‘Interesting young man, that. And generous.’ So he had guessed who had given them to her.

‘We knew each other as children.’ Talk about something else. Please.

‘And yet you are no longer friends.’ The old man rested his clasped hands on the top of his walking cane and regarded her with faded blue eyes. ‘A pity to fall out with old friends. When you reach my age you appreciate the value of all of them.’

‘It is his birthday tomorrow,’ Dita said. There was a lump in her throat for some reason. ‘I … Perhaps I should buy him a present.’

‘What would he like, do you think?’ Doctor Melchett sat up straight, a twinkle of interest in his eyes.

‘I do not know. He can afford whatever he wants and it is too late to make anything.’

‘Then give him simplicity and something to make him smile. He does not smile enough, I suspect.’

‘The Noah’s Ark!’

‘That would make me smile if a lovely young lady gave it to me,’ the old man said with a chuckle, pulling the check string and ordering the carriage back to the shopping district.

After breakfast Dita waited until Alistair strolled out on to the deck alone. If he snubbed her, she did not want an audience.

‘Happy birthday.’ She could have sworn she had made no sound as she walked towards him where he leaned against the rail, but he did not start at the sound of her voice right behind him. Nor did he look round.

‘Thank you.’ She waited, despite her instinct to turn on her heel, and eventually he shifted until he faced her. ‘You are speaking to me again?’

‘And you to me. Kindly do not imply I have been sulking.’ She drew down a deep breath: this was not how she had meant this encounter to go. ‘You are the most infuriating man. I was determined to be all sweetness and light and in less than a dozen words you have me scratching at you.’

‘Sweetness and light?’ He smiled and she found herself smiling back with wary affection. Thank you, Dr Melchett. ‘That I would like to see.’

‘I would like to forget Christmas Eve, to put it behind us. I wish we could just be friends again and not think about who was to blame or who said what.’

His smile was wicked. ‘I would suggest that staying in plain view of at least three fellow passengers at all times might be a good idea if that is your plan. You might want to be just friends, Dita, I would be a liar if I said I did. And I am not sure I believe you either.’

‘Have you no self-control?’ she snapped, then threw up her hands. ‘I am sorry. Doubtless you are right. It was both of us, I know that. Can we not forget it?’

‘We could pretend to forget it,’ Alistair said, watching her. Could he sense how aroused he made her feel, just standing there? She had kissed his mouth, just there. Those long, clever fingers had touched her there and there and. ‘Would that do?’ he asked. Something in his expression made her doubt he intended pretending for very long.

‘It will have to, I suppose.’ Dita brought her hands out from behind her back to reveal the box. ‘This is for your birthday. It is quite useless—its only purpose is to make you smile.’

‘That seems a good purpose.’ He reached out and took it, his fingers scrupulously avoiding touching hers. ‘Local work?’

‘Yes. Best to open it over a flat surface and out of the breeze, I think.’

It was reward enough, just to sit and watch his face, intent over the box, his fingers delicately lifting each tiny creature on to the table, arranging them in pairs, finding the miniature gangplank that could slope up to the box. ‘Here is Noah.’ He lifted the final piece out and looked up at her, smiling. She swayed towards him a little, drawn by the curve of his lips.

‘Thank you, this is exquisite.’ He lifted a finger and touched her cheek. ‘It makes you smile, too. I hated that I killed your smiles, Dita.’

‘You did not,’ she said, stiffening. He had only to touch her, it seemed, and her self-control wilted. Attack seemed the only defence. ‘You have an exaggerated idea of the influence you have over me. If I have seemed sombre, it is no doubt because I have been reflecting on the folly of allowing myself to be attracted to a personable rake.’

‘Attracted?’ That smile was back. He must practise it to have such a devastating effect, she thought, fighting down equal measures of panic and arousal.

‘Do stop fishing for compliments, Alistair.’ Dita pushed back her chair and stood up and he rose, too, the movement of his linen coat scattering the tiny animals across the table. ‘Of course attracted. I would hardly make love with a man for whom I felt no attraction.’

‘Wouldn’t you? I really have no idea what you might do, Dita, if the fancy took you.’ The amusement had drained out of his expression, leaving it bleak and arrogant.

‘You are suggesting that I would—’ What? Sleep with any man I fancied, on a whim? She almost asked the question, then bit it back; she did not want to hear him say yes.

‘That so-called chaperon of yours, sweet lady though she is, just isn’t up to your weight, Dita.’

‘I am not a damned horse! ‘

Alistair’s eyes narrowed into an insolent scrutiny that had her balling her fists at her sides in an effort not to slap him. ‘No. You don’t need a jockey, you go fast enough as it is. What you need, Perdita my love, is a husband.’

‘Perhaps I do,’ she said with every ounce of sweetness she could get into her voice. ‘Perhaps, somewhere, there is a man who is not patronising, arrogant, domineering or interested only in my money or my body. On the evidence so far, however, I am finding that hard to believe.’

Behind them the door opened, bringing with it the sea air and the sound of shouted orders to the men in the rigging. Dita whirled round and walked out, almost colliding with Dr Melchett on the threshold. She managed a thin-lipped smile as she passed, intent on reaching the prow of the ship before anyone, anyone at all, spoke to her.

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