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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.
