Only it wasn’t.
At a slight gesture, Mir Alam’s servant removed the point of his hookah from his mouth. Bending slightly, so that his mouth was level with the Nizam’s ear, Mir Alam murmured something to his master. Whatever it was made the Nizam sit up a little straighter, scanning the room in a way that made more than one courtier take a hasty step back. Alex didn’t blame them; the Nizam’s tastes ran much towards Nero’s. Or was it Caligula’s? It was Jack who had been the bookish one.
Mir Alam whispered something else in the Nizam’s ear, redirecting his attention, with the sort of veiled impatience governesses use for their charges. Alex went as cold as a dead Roman emperor as the Nizam followed the swing of Mir Alam’s finger—straight to Lady Frederick, who was idly and unconcernedly running her tongue experimentally along the edge of her burned lip, as though testing the new scar tissue.
The Nizam gestured Lady Frederick forward with an imperious flick of his wrist.
Alex felt Lady Frederick stiffen beside him, looking from one side to the other as though to say, Who me? No fools, the courtiers on either side of them backed away, leaving Lady Frederick and Alex alone in a pool of harsh tallow light, while Mama Champa progressed purposefully in their direction.
“Just curtsy,” whispered Alex out of the side of his mouth, experiencing a powerful urge to strangle Mir Alam with his ill-gotten hookah. “Curtsy and try to look humble.”
Lady Frederick cast him a haughty look. “I have been to court, you know,” she whispered back, rising regally to her full height. “If I can manage Queen Charlotte, I can manage him.”
Alex rather doubted that, but it was too late to do anything about it. Lady Frederick was already on the move, striding to the front of the room with the careless confidence of an accomplished rider about to take a fence. Without any help from Mama Champa, she sank to the floor, prostrating herself before the Nizam’s feet. She was, perhaps, a little too prostrate, but no one seemed to mind, not least the courtiers clustered around Alex, who were rating the properties of her nether regions, or at least such as could be discerned beneath the concealing fabric of her dress.
As the Nizam considered the view, Mir Alam leaned forward and murmured something in his ear. It was like watching a puppet show. All that was needed were the strings.
Instructing Mama Champa to raise Lady Frederick to her feet, the Nizam slurred out a question in an indistinct voice that suggested that he had been hitting a hookah of his own before the durbar.
“Where is my nuzzar?” piped up the translator, his voice reedy in the hushed silence. “Have you no gift for me?”
At the Nizam’s elbow, his Prime Minister’s eyes were bright sparks in the ruined mass of his face as he waited for the new English envoy’s wife to stammer her way into a gaffe, a gaffe that would embarrass the English embassy, a gaffe that could be trotted out as a bargaining chip by the Nizam’s chief minister on future occasions. It was like watching two baggage carts about to collide and knowing there was nothing one could do to stop it.
Just as Alex was on the verge of barging forward and interceding, faux pas or not, Lady Frederick took matters into her own hands.
She lifted her eyes to the Nizam in a skillful mimicry of humility. “I would not,” she said, in a voice that carried to the farthest reaches of the hall, “do you the dishonor of appearing before you empty handed.”
Mir Alam looked pointedly at her hands. They were, not to put too fine a point on it, empty.
Lady Frederick waited out the translator’s anxious murmur before striking a pose worthy of a nautch dancer, both hands extended palm up in the classic gesture of supplication.
“But what might so insignificant a creature as myself possibly offer that would be worthy of so great a ruler?”
The courtiers on either side of Alex had their own opinions on that matter, mostly of the sort better not overheard by the lady’s husband. Too skinny, opined the man on Alex’s left, comparing her figure unfavorable to that of Nur Bai’s, one of the city’s more expensive courtesans.
Lady Frederick had to speak very loudly to be heard over the assorted whispers and murmurings. “Not riches, for those you have in plenty. Nor wisdom, of which Your Majesty has more than I by far.”
The translator hurried to relay her words to the Nizam, while those courtiers who spoke some English spread their own mangled translations through the crowd.
Like an actress anticipating her cue, Lady Frederick stood poised, waiting for the din to die down.
It worked. Bit by bit, the chatter fell off, the translations ceased, and all eyes turned to the still, poised figure at the front of the room. In her unadorned white satin, she made the brocades of the courtiers look fussy and loud, turning priceless jewels into little more than trumpery bazaar ornaments. Bathed in blue light from the candles by the Nizam, she seemed to crackle with a cold energy, unearthly, uncanny, and more than a little imperious.
Alex couldn’t help but receive the distinct impression that she was enjoying every moment of it.
In the hushed silence, Lady Frederick brought one hand to her breast. As one, the cream of Hyderabad stared, expectant, at Lady Frederick’s chest. When her hand came away, she held a single blossom from the nosegay at her bodice. It was a white bud, half-opened. It was also beginning to wilt from the heat of the room, the one false note in an otherwise masterly tableau.
Lifting it high enough for all the curious members of the durbar to see, Lady Frederick held the blossom out to the Nizam.
She spoke very slowly and clearly, allowing the translator time to follow. “Having found nothing else worthy of you, I offer you this humble flower, which I have carried close by my heart, in token of the warm regard I feel for Your Majesty and in the hopes that our friendship shall blossom like the rose.”
The only noise was the low tones of the translator behind the Nizam’s chair, hastily gabbling back Lady Frederick’s speech into the Nizam’s ear. The courtiers ceased their chatter, all eyes on the Nizam as they waited for his reaction. Only Lady Frederick appeared unperturbed, her arm unmoving as marble as she extended the flower to the Nizam.
The seconds ticked by, marked by the guttering of the candles and the crackle of the brazier. Alex could feel the sweat beginning to trickle down his neck.
Alex looked to Mir Alam, but the minister was staying his hand, watching with the same fixed attention as the other bystanders, his assumptions betrayed only by the slight smile that played around the corners of his mouth. He had rolled the dice; now he was waiting for them to fall.
As she held her pose for one minute, then another, and another, almost imperceptibly, Lady Frederick’s arm began to tremble.
What would she do if the Nizam refused her? What would they all do?
A sigh went through the room as the Nizam extended his hand to accept the token from Lady Frederick’s hand. The sigh savored more of disappointment than relief. It would have been much more amusing for all concerned had the new envoy’s wife been summarily savaged by lions.
Lady Frederick dropped her arm and sank into a deep European curtsy. Damp darkened the fabric beneath her sleeves in discrete circles, like shadows on the moon.
Balked of a bloodletting, the courtiers had begun to breathe again and to return to their own private intrigues when Mir Alam’s voice rustled through the renewed chatter like a snake in the grass.
Speaking as though for the Nizam’s ears alone, but pitching his voice high enough to carry, he said, “Does not the rose fade?”
Alex mentally damned Mir Alam and all his progeny to the tenth generation. From the look on Lady Frederick’s face, she was entertaining similar fantasies, many involving exceedingly pointy pitchforks and boiling pots of Turkish coffee.
Rising from her curtsy, Lady Frederick gave a brisk shake of her skirts, the only sign of nervousness she betrayed. Her smile was very fixed and very bright as she batted her eyelashes at the Nizam’s chief minister. “The petals may indeed fade, but the fra
grance lingers on. Like the goodwill between our countries.”
It was a well-aimed barb, designed to remind all concerned that she had the might of England behind her, backed by infantry, elephants, and an expansionist Governor General who was prone to invading first and asking questions later.
The implications weren’t lost on Mir Alam, who closed his mouth tightly over whatever else he had been about to say and took a subtle step back from the Nizam’s chair, like a tennis player conceding a match. A match, but not the game. Whether she knew it or not, Lady Frederick had just made a powerful enemy.
Alex suppressed a groan. Just what they needed.
The Nizam, on the other hand, had already reached the limits of his boredom. As he turned to say something to a courtier behind him, Mama Champa waved Lady Frederick away from the dais, and gestured to her counterpart, Mama Barun, to begin herding courtiers towards the gardens for the nautch that was to follow the durbar. In gaily colored groupings, chattering like the parrots painted on the walls, the courtiers began to drift towards the gardens, already intent on the next intrigue, the next scandal, whatever it might be.
Only Mir Alam continued to watch Lady Frederick, the pipe of the hookah dangling like a snake from his lips.
Taking her arm, Alex hauled her away, manhandling her into the stream of courtiers heading out of the durbar hall.
“You would have done better to have stayed in the Residency,” he said softly, in English.
Neatly twisting her arm out of his grasp, Lady Frederick said flippantly, “I thought the Nizam was rather a dear, actually.”
“You have an odd definition of ‘dear,’ ” said Alex grimly. “He’s as mad as a hatter and he wields the power of life and death in this part of the world.”
“Our military escort—”
“Is all outside. And Calcutta is a very long way away.”
Lady Frederick’s lips pursed as she considered. “I’m glad he liked my flower,” she said.
Chapter Nine
There was a decided edge to Captain Reid’s tone. “What would you have done if you hadn’t been wearing a flower?”
“Torn a ribbon off my dress, I suppose,” said Penelope with a shrug. “Or offered him a kiss.”
Captain Reid favored her with an exasperated look. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
Penelope conceded the point with an airy wave of one hand. “Probably not. He looks the sort who would slobber. But if the situation called for it, there are worse fates. Kisses are currency like anything else.”
“Only in one profession.” He had clearly spoken without thinking. Penelope could register the exact moment when Captain Reid realized he had just called her a whore.
Fair enough. It wasn’t anything that hadn’t been said before.
She could practically see the wheels turning as he tried to work out a way to apologize without putting his foot even farther down his throat. Well, no need to make it easy for him. Penelope had always believed in living down to people’s expectations.
Penelope favored him with her sultriest smile. “Have you never used a judicious embrace to attain your ends, Captain Reid?”
From the appalled expression on his face, the answer to that was clearly no. “If I tried to embrace Lord Wellesley, he’d most likely have me court-martialed.”
The image surprised a startled snort out of Penelope. She couldn’t decide which was the more amusing, the image of the dignified, hawk-nosed Lord Wellesley suffering an embrace, or the equally taciturn Captain Reid offering one.
Naturally, Captain Reid took advantage of her momentary good humor to try to get rid of her. “Shall I escort you back to the Residency?”
“And miss the nautch? Not for the wide world. But if you’re so eager to be rid of me, you can deliver me back into the care of my husband.”
Some care that was. Looking around for Freddy, Penelope saw him standing with the Nizam’s chief minister, the same who had caused her so much discomfort in the durbar hall. That, thought Penelope with satisfaction, would be the last time the Nizam’s minister tried that. The Dowager Duchess of Dovedale would be so proud of her.
Of course, knowing the Dowager Duchess, she would probably have expressed her point with a good deal more force. Force applied with the pointy side of her cane, that was. When it came to moving men, the Dowager was in agreement with Signor Machiavelli that it was far better to rule by fear than love.
Penelope looked to Freddy, who seemed to be having a grand old time with the Nizam’s chief minister, although Penelope noticed that Freddy avoided looking directly at the man’s collapsing face, preferring instead to focus on the elaborate ruby diadem that fronted his white silk turban. Like a magpie, Freddy was invariably entranced by shiny objects, a category that included his own reflection.
“The Nizam’s minister appears to have taken to Freddy,” observed Penelope, as Captain Reid led her across the durbar hall.
“The Nizam’s minister,” replied Captain Reid spiritedly, “has all the fellow-feeling of an asp. If Mir Alam is cultivating your husband, he has a reason for it.”
Mir Alam. Penelope filed away the name for future use. “Are you implying that this Mir Alam is wiggling into Freddy’s bosom in order to bite?”
Captain Reid scrupulously avoided looking at her bosom. “If you choose to put it that way, yes.”
“One might almost think you didn’t want me to trust him. I wonder why?”
“Because he is entirely untrustworthy,” said Captain Reid flatly. “Or what would you call his attempt to embarrass you just now?”
Penelope indulged in a little smirk. “I don’t think he’ll be trying that again, do you?”
“No.” The thought didn’t appear to please him as much as it did her. There was a distinctly troubled cast to Captain Reid’s face as he looked down at her. “Watch your back, Lady Frederick.”
“I will when you’re behind it,” said Penelope spiritedly.
He had said something like that to her before, on the road. It was, Penelope decided, the human sacrifice bit all over again, trying to scare her away with vague threats and hints of bloody barbarity. What made him so eager to keep her on the bad side of the Nizam’s chief minister, Mir—well, whatever his name was?
Wellesley had suspected Kirkpatrick of placing Hyderabadi interests above British ones. Reid was unmistakably Kirkpatrick’s man; each spoke of the other with affectionate respect. Both were the sons of East India Company army officers, both had served in East India Company regiments, both were more Indian in their habits than English, although Captain Reid, unlike the Resident, still sported English dress, at least on those occasions when Penelope had been in his presence.
What if Captain Reid and the Nizam’s chief minister were in collusion? Freddy was as much Wellesley’s man as Reid was Kirkpatrick’s. If Freddy had been a different sort of man—or a different sort of husband—that scene before the Nizam might have had a very different sort of outcome. Penelope could imagine more than a few ways it might have played out, any of which would have resulted in Freddy’s summary dismissal or departure from Hyderabad.
Penelope smiled sourly to herself. Neither of them had reckoned on Freddy’s indifference.
“Pen, old thing,” he said lazily, as she drew forward, dragging Captain Reid along with her. “You haven’t met the Nizam’s chief minister yet, have you?”
“Not as such,” said Penelope smilingly. Lord, Freddy could be thick sometimes. The barb was completely wasted on him, although it was duly registered by Mir Whatever-His-Name-Was.
She kept a close eye on both the chief minister and Captain Reid as Freddy performed the obligatory introduction, but neither obliged her by exchanging so much as a conspiratorial glance. Quite to the contrary, they reminded Penelope of nothing so much as two dogs circling each other, each prepared to make a jab for the other’s jugular. If they had had fur, it would have been standing on end.
If it was a performance, it was an awfully good one.
r /> “Captain Reid. How charming to see you again,” said Mir Alam. His smile bared more teeth than were strictly socially required.
Captain Reid wasn’t smiling. He was a picture of military discipline, his back as straight as the proverbial ramrod and just about as friendly. “May I take that to mean that you have changed your position on the matter of the three soldiers since this morning?”
The Prime Minister carried on as though Captain Reid had never spoken. “Lord Frederick and I have been having the most delightful conversation.”
“Delightful,” Captain Reid said in clipped tones. “Shall we address another delightful topic? I doubt Lord Frederick will be delighted to know that three soldiers from the English cantonments were arrested last night in the name of Nizam on the charge of appearing drunk in the streets of the city.”
“English soldiers?” Freddy asked.
“Sepoys,” Captain Reid said shortly.
Freddy gave a slight shrug, as if to disclaim any further interest in the matter.
“They are, however, under English command,” said Captain Reid, with heavy emphasis. Penelope had to admire his tactics. What Freddy wouldn’t champion for justice, he would for pride.
“What is the sentence?” she asked.
Captain Reid turned to her, his expression inscrutable. “Being blown alive from the mouth of a cannon.”
“Oh,” said Penelope.
“The same cannon or different cannons?” Freddy asked Mir Alam.
A small smile played across the remains of Mir Alam’s lips. He knew he had his man. “Three cannon to be fired in unison. It is,” he added, “a spectacle to impress all would-be transgressors with the force of the law.”
“All for drunkenness?” interjected Penelope. “Surely a flogging would do as well. And be far less messy,” she added as an afterthought.
“Not merely for drunkenness,” said the chief minister with just the right amount of sorrowful solicitude. “There have been, of late, a number of thefts committed within the city. In his infinite wisdom, the Nizam has increased the penalties for those who loiter as a means of discouraging crime.”