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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.’
