Forbidden Jewel of India. Louise Allen

his face.

      ‘Excellent. Of course.’ She looked up at the rows of handprints at the side of the gate, left by the women who had gone through it to become sati on their husbands’ funeral pyres. She shuddered and the Englishman felt it and followed her gaze.

      ‘Another good reason for not marrying a maharaja twice your age,’ he observed as he took her elbow and steered her into the courtyard.

      ‘Do not touch me!’

      He ignored her until they were past the bustle of the elephant lines and into the straw-strewn stables, virtually empty now the cavalry had ridden out. Then he stopped, jerking her against him. He would say it was so he could keep his voice low, but she knew it was a show of dominance.

      ‘Listen to me, Miss Laurens. Hard as it may be for you to believe, your beauty does not inflame me with lust and, even if it did, I am not fool enough to waste time dallying with you when a small war is about to break out around our heads.’

      He released her and began to strap the blanket rolls behind the saddles of the three horses that still stood in the stalls: a handsome, raking grey, a smaller, well-muscled black and a bay with the brand of her uncle’s stud. ‘Take this.’ He thrust the bay’s reins into her hand. ‘When I need to touch you, I will touch you, and when I do you had better be prepared to obey me because it will be an emergency. I promised your father I would get you back to him, but I did not promise him not to tan your backside in the process.’

      ‘You … swine,’ Anusha hissed.

      Herriard shrugged. ‘If I am, then I am the swine who is going to keep you alive. And, while we are on the subject of touching, I should point out that you are the one who sneaked into the bathhouse and touched me when I was naked. Your hands were cold and your technique could do with some work.’ He led out the other two horses and tied the black’s reins on its neck—the blanket rolls were strapped to its back. ‘Here, I’ll give you a leg up.’

      ‘I do not need your help.’ Anusha jammed her foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. ‘And I only wanted to see—’ She shut her mouth in confusion at where her temper had led her.

      ‘See what?’ He was up on the grey now. In the torchlight his lean features showed nothing but amused curiosity.

      ‘What colour you were,’ Anusha snapped.

      ‘And your curiosity was satisfied?’ Herriard clicked his tongue and the grey and the black moved out into the yard. Anusha dug in her heels and sent her horse after them.

      ‘Yes. Where you are not touched by the sun you are pink. Not white at all.’ She would not be shamed or embarrassed by him.

      ‘I suspect that after many days with you I will be turning white on a regular basis,’ he said. ‘Now, be quiet and cover yourself.’ He pulled the tail of his turban round and tucked it in to veil the lower part of his face. Seething, Anusha followed his example and the three horses passed out of the main gate and down the road towards the town without challenge.

      She twisted in the saddle for a last look at the great walls towering above her, the fort that contained a palace, the palace that had been her home. Now she was simply a fugitive, neither Anusha, the raja’s pampered niece, nor Miss Laurens, the rejected daughter of an Englishman. The thought was frightening and strangely liberating. She did not have to think about where she was going or how she would get there—for days she would be floating on the stream of fate.

      At the pressure of her heels the bay drew alongside Herriard’s big grey. ‘Where do we go?’ she asked in English. She had best practise it, she supposed.

      ‘Allahabad to start with. Speak Hindi.’

      ‘So we do not attract attention?’ Anusha tucked the end of the cloth more snugly into the turban as he nodded. ‘You do that without a word spoken. You are too big and too pale.’ She would die rather than admit that she found the sheer size of him comforting.

      ‘With my hair covered I can be taken for a Pathan,’ Herriard said.

      ‘They are tall and light-skinned and they have grey eyes, some of the men from the north, I have seen them,’ she agreed. ‘But your eyes are green.’

      The town was seething like a disturbed ant heap with the news of the maharaja’s approaching army. The bay snorted and sidled at the press of bullock carts, the running figures and the trains of camels. Herriard reached for her rein, then withdrew his hand when she hissed at him. She had her mount back under control within seconds.

      ‘I am flattered that you noticed my eyes.’ He skirted round a cow that lay in the middle of the road chewing the cud as it ignored all around it with complete indifference.

      ‘You should not be. Of course I noticed—you are different. Strange,’ she added to make certain he did not think it a compliment. ‘It is a long time since I saw someone like you.’

      He did not answer her, but guided his horse around a spitting, grumbling knot of camels and out over the rickety bridge that spanned the river. So, he was either not easy to goad or he simply dismissed her as unimportant. The moon was up, noticeable now they were away from the torches and the fires, and the angrezi stood in his stirrups to survey the road in front of them.

      ‘We can take that track there.’ Anusha pointed. ‘It cuts through the fields and it will be deserted now. We will make better time and no one will see us.’

      ‘And we will leave the tracks of three horses plain on soil that is trodden only by bare feet and oxen. Here, on the road, we will be less easy to track.’

      At least he explains, Anusha conceded, then the implication hit home. ‘We will be followed?’

      ‘Of course. Once it is realised that you are no longer in the palace the maharaja’s spies will pass the word out. I am counting on half a day’s start, that is all.’

      Anusha’s stomach tightened. Suddenly the Englishman’s frankness was no longer so welcome. ‘It is more dangerous out here than in the fort. Why did we not stay there until help came?’

      He shot her a glance, the silvery light catching his eyes, making them unreal, like the greenish pearl of the inside of a shell. ‘Because your uncle could not be certain that he could protect you within the palace. Your father makes you a very tempting prize for a man who wishes for nothing but his own power and to keep the Company at bay.’

      ‘I was in danger within the palace?’

      ‘I think so. I removed you easily enough, did I not?’

      ‘Yes.’ She took a deep breath. Treachery, spies, danger, lies. And she had thought her life had been so tranquil, so … boring. I could have been kidnapped at any time.

      ‘Frightened?’

      ‘Of what?’ she demanded. ‘There is much to choose from.’

      That surprised a laugh from him. ‘Of the pursuers, of the journey, of where you are going. Of me.’

      ‘No,’ Anusha lied. She was afraid of all of those things, but she was not going to admit it. His faint snort of derision showed what he thought of that.

      ‘You appear to be competent, so I imagine you will evade pursuit,’ she said. It seemed important to convince him of her courage, her ability to undertake this journey. ‘I look forward to being able to look around me, to see things openly and not through the screens of a travelling palanquin. I will deal with my destination when I get there. And as for you, Major Herriard, you are a—’ She searched for the equivalent in Hindi and resorted to English. ‘Gentleman, are you not, if you are an officer? And my mother said that English gentlemen must behave honourably to ladies.’

      ‘That is the theory,’ he agreed, his voice dry. And then he laughed and spurred his horse into a canter, leaving her to follow, her body tight with apprehension.

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