Cleave swallowed hard, his eyes snaking over towards the two kegs that mercifully concealed Guignon’s fallen form from view. “I killed him. I—I’ve never killed anyone before. But I killed him.”
“Never killed anyone before?” asked Jack with all the exasperation of a professional dealing with an untalented amateur. “What did you think happened when you passed on those coded messages? Tea parties?”
“That was . . . different.”
Jack’s lip curled. He regarded Cleave with undisguised contempt. “Just because you didn’t spatter their brains yourself?”
Cleave went an unpleasant shade of green, swaying slightly where he stood. Penelope could almost bring herself to feel sorry for him.
Almost.
How many men had he killed? Even leaving aside those shadowy figures who might or might not have been condemned to early graves by the intelligence Cleave had passed along to the other side, there was still Freddy, Freddy who would have been alive but for the misfortune of learning Cleave’s close-kept secret. Cleave had killed Freddy, and he would have killed her, too, had he believed her a threat.
When it came down to it, Penelope wasn’t entirely sure that cobra in her room hadn’t been meant for her, no matter how Cleave chose to recall it. Penelope tried to remember what they had discussed that night on the balcony, and couldn’t, other than that some of it had been about Alex. But if she had said anything that had triggered Cleave’s sense of self-preservation, he would have sent the groom to do his work for him and then murmured about tragic accidents afterwards. He would probably even have convinced himself that he had never meant it to happen.
“Did you hit Fiske over the head?” she asked coldly. “Or did the groom do that for you, too?”
“I think not,” said Jack Reid. “If Mehdi Yar had done it, Fiske would have been dead as planned. The Frangipani seldom misses his man.”
Cleave looked at him blankly. “The what?”
“You didn’t know that, did you? You thought you were simply slipping a bit of extra to a servant to do your dirty work for you.” Jack shook his head. “No. Mehdi Yar is an old hand at the game. That’s not his real name, of course. He’s been at this so long, I doubt even he remembers what his name once was. Frangipani suits him as well as any.”
Alex was looking decidedly grim around the lips. “In other words, Mehdi Yar is yet another spy.”
“Our superiors weren’t entirely sure that Daniel could be trusted to keep his nerve, so they sent Mehdi Yar to keep an eye on him. If you had showed any signs of weakening, an . . . accident would have been arranged.”
“He went off to Hyderabad when I sent him,” argued Cleave. “How he could he watch me from there?”
“But you followed him, didn’t you? And I’d wager it was because of a message he sent you.”
The dropping of Cleave’s jaw was answer enough. “He’ll kill me, won’t he?” he said after a minute. “When he finds out what happened here tonight.”
“If we don’t shoot you first,” said Jack idly.
Penelope couldn’t tell whether or not he was serious.
Alex sent him a hard look. “No one is shooting anyone. I believe there’s a way out of this. Justice may not be best served by it, but at least fewer heads will roll.”
“Pity,” said Jack. “I enjoy a good rolling head. It was why I originally joined up with the other side.”
Ignoring him, Alex turned to Cleave. “You have to turn in Mehdi Yar.”
“But he’ll denounce me. He’ll tell them I’m the Marigold.”
“No,” said Alex succinctly. “We’ll put it about that Guignon was the Marigold. Our authorities won’t quibble. They’ll simply be happy to have the Marigold out of the way. You might even get that reward you so badly wanted,” he added dryly.
Cleave had the grace to flush.
“There is a quid pro quo, I imagine,” his brother drawled.
“Naturally,” said Alex. He looked to Cleave. “In exchange for our silence, you maintain yours. Not a word about Jack, one way or the other. As far as anyone was concerned, he wasn’t here tonight. And neither were you,” he added, looking full at Penelope for the first time in a very long time. “Cleave and I came alone. We cornered the Marigold. He fought back. We prevailed. In the struggle, he gasped out the name of a confederate. If Mehdi Yar attempts to implicate Cleave, it will be taken as sour grapes, revenge for capture.”
“All very neat and tidy, brother. As usual.” Jack turned to Cleave, who looked more dazed than anything. “You will have to leave the country, of course. If Mehdi Yar doesn’t finish you off, someone else will.”
“That is part of the deal,” said Alex. “You go back to England. You stay in England.”
“But . . . ,” Cleave began.
“You’ll have your life,” said Alex in a tone that extinguished all further protest. “Perhaps even your pension. It’s more than you could otherwise expect.”
As if to underline the finality of it, he gestured towards the stairs, indicating that Cleave should precede him.
“I’m sure your mother will be delighted to see you,” commented Jack, as they began to mount the stairs. “She might even have found a nice girl for you.”
Cleave’s look of consternation would have been amusing but for the trail of dead bodies in his wake. It was a bit much to cut up stiff about a few dances when one had, until recently, been lobbing snakes into people’s bedchambers.
Penelope found it hard to muster much sympathy. By all rights, Cleave ought to have been shackled, bound, not walking freely up the stairs of his own accord, his life and his reputation intact. Alex had been more than generous. But that was Alex, wasn’t it?
It wasn’t all generosity, though. Penelope could see the logic behind it. If Cleave were brought to trial, he would waste no time in implicating Alex’s brother. In that event, one of two outcomes was certain. If Jack maintained his cover, he would hang as a French spy. If the truth came out, the English wouldn’t kill him, but the French probably would. Once again, Alex was pulling his little brother’s fat out of the fire.
He probably wouldn’t fare too badly out of it either. They could blame Guignon for the attack on Fiske—Cleave would have to back Alex up on that, or risk exposing himself. The capture of the so-called Marigold would probably merit a promotion for Alex as well as a reward for Cleave. It was the perfect solution all around.
The only person left out in the cold was Penelope.
Outside the night was cool, the air fresh. Penelope hadn’t realized quite how fetid it had become below until she breathed the clear, cool air above. The stars were out, glittering like diamonds from the Gol conda mines, like the jewels for which Cleave had been willing to perjure himself and sell his country.
There was something a bit flashy about their brightness, a bit mocking. Penelope looked away, following the others away past the obelisk that marked a former French commander’s passing, down the crest of the hill to where they had tethered the horses. By tacit agreement, the two brothers had disposed themselves on either side of Cleave, ready to grab him should he lose his nerve and try to bolt. For all their differences, there was a bond of long understanding between the two that made Penelope feel like an outsider or, worse, an interloper.
Funny, the things one took for granted. That whole long journey back from Berar, she had taken it as a matter of right that she should have Alex’s undiluted attention, watching her, looking out for her, worrying about her. She had taken it so for granted that it had seemed like nothing to shrug it aside, in the smug assurance that she could rebuff him and rebuff him and rebuff him and he would still come back for more. But this—Penelope glanced sideways, watching how like his brother he moved. They might be dissimilar in other ways, but they couldn’t hide the similarity in gait, in inflection, in tone, all those relics of a childhood in common. This was Alex’s real world, and it was a world in which she had no place.
For a wonder, Alex’s horse was whe
re they had left her, with the addition of Jack’s gelding, which was eyeing Bathsheba with an expression uncannily reminiscent of his master’s. Cleave, shrunken and dazed, couldn’t remember what he had done with his horse, and a vague squint from side to side did little to refresh his faulty memory.
“She’s probably run halfway back to the Residency by now,” he said, as if it were a matter of supreme indifference. Penelope noticed that Cleave kept rubbing his hands against the tails of his coat, like Lady Macbeth and her damned spot. She doubted he even realized he was doing it.
“You’ll have to ride pillion with Alex,” said Jack to Cleave, with barely concealed amusement. “I would offer,” he added mendaciously, “but I’m going off in the opposite direction. It wouldn’t do for me to show up at the Residency. Officially, I don’t exist, you know.”
“You do exist,” said Alex tiredly. “You’re simply not here.”
“Oh, right,” said his brother. “Such an easy mistake to make.”
Folding her arms across her chest, Penelope looking challengingly up at him. “You’ve dealt very neatly with everyone else,” she said, in a high clear voice. “What of me? What are my orders?”
Alex looked down at her, and a rueful smile creased his lips. “I would be a fool to order you anywhere,” he said. “I’ve made that mistake before.”
The word “mistake” set a series of warning bells ringing in Penelope’s ears. Rue hadn’t been quite the reaction Penelope had been angling for. She gathered her resources for one last offensive.
“You don’t have to order,” said Penelope. “But you might consider asking.”
She held his gaze and her breath, feeling the world slow and still around them as she waited for his answer. Their companions seemed as remote as the silent obelisk on the hill above them. They might have been there alone, in the middle of the Hyderabadi night, with only the skeptical stars keeping score.
“Asking what?” said Alex, and the entire fragile structure came crashing down around them.
Penelope didn’t know what. But he was supposed to. If he didn’t know, she couldn’t tell him.
As if matters weren’t bad enough, Alex’s brother chimed in. “I have a question,” he said, looking down at her from all the height of his saddle. “Who are you?”
Penelope crossed her arms across her chest, venting all her irritation on the nearest convenient target. Jack made a very convenient target. He might as well have had a bull’s eye painted across his chest. “Shouldn’t so accomplished a double-dealing agent already know?”
“For whatever reason, you didn’t make it into my last dispatch.” Jack’s eyes slid sideways to his brother. “Although I believe I may have heard something of you from another source.”
Alex hastily intervened. “This is Lady Frederick Staines.”
“Was Lady Frederick Staines,” Penelope corrected.
“The name doesn’t change,” said Alex softly, and cupped his hands to help boost her into her saddle.
Looping Bathsheba’s reins around her wrist, Penelope looked down at him. “But everything else has,” she said pointedly.
Releasing his hold on the bridle, Alex stepped back. It felt like more than a step. It felt like a renunciation.
But all he said was, “I know.”
I know. That was all he could find to say? I know? Penelope had never more resented the ambiguities of the English language.
Alex’s brother raised a hand. “Well, that’s my cue,” he said cheerfully. “I’m off. Lovely to have met you, Lady—er.”
Self-loathing settled on Penelope’s chest like a weight of heavy stones. Why should Alex’s brother bother to recall her name? It wasn’t worth knowing. She wasn’t worth knowing. She had spoiled her chance with Alex just as she spoiled everything else.
That didn’t mean she was going to let him have the last word.
With bitter bile bubbling in her chest, Penelope ignored Alex and vented her spleen on the departing rider instead, calling derisively after him, “And what am I to call you, sir? Mr. Um?”
Checking his horse, Jack twisted sharply in his saddle. His rogue’s grin seemed to hang in the air behind him, like the curve of a sickle moon.
“You can call me the Moonflower,” he said, and cantered away into the moonlight.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Would you like to travel on to Mysore with us? A change of scene might do you good.” Charlotte perched on the end of a settee, her hands wrapped around a cup of chocolate. Unlike Penelope, Charlotte had remembered to wear her sun hat. In the light from the windows, her skin was as porcelain pure as it had been in a Norfolk winter. She looked at Penelope with evident concern. “Somewhere away.”
“You are probably right,” Penelope said wearily. “But—”
Charlotte looked at her over the rim of her cup. “But?”
Penelope tilted her cup from side to side, watching as the congealed chocolate left a wash of dark sediment in its wake. She drank her chocolate without sugar, strong, dark, and bitter. But today, she didn’t really feel like drinking it. It was wasteful, she knew, cavalierly tossing aside so dearly bought a luxury. But she was good at tossing things aside. She had practically made a profession of it. Friends, husband, lover. Some clung anyway, despite her best efforts, like the tracks of grainy chocolate adhering to the bowl of the porcelain cup.
Alex hadn’t.
Since they had ridden back to the Residency with Cleave three days before, she had scarcely spoken to him. In the hullabaloo surrounding the so-called Marigold’s capture and death, Penelope had been discreetly pushed to the side. According to the official version, she had been prostrate in her bed at the Residency, overcome with grief like the good little widow that she was. It made Penelope want to gnash her teeth. Unfortunately, tooth gnashing was about the only outlet open to her. There was no way she could voice any of the highly sarcastic things she was dying to say without ruining the story Alex had gone to such trouble to concoct—a story that neatly wrote her out of the entire narrative.
She had never felt so insignificant or so powerless in her life, and that counted her days with Freddy. At least, then, she had been able to kick up a fuss, create a scandal, anything to draw attention to herself, however briefly. But, now, all her old weapons were blunted.
That was the problem with caring. One starting worrying about consequences and what people thought of one and all sorts of other irritating things. It made her feel uncertain. Shy, even. She, who had never felt shy in her life. Even as an infant, she had bawled louder than any other baby in the county.
Perhaps Charlotte was right. Perhaps she did need to get away. She could amuse herself in Mysore by scandalizing Charlotte and picking fights with her duke. There would be more officers with whom to flirt, gardens in which to conduct assignations, an endless round of the same old dissipation, without purpose or meaning.
Without Alex.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she told herself, gulping down the remains of her tepid chocolate in one joyless gulp.
She was the one who had set the terms. She was the one who had kept him at a distance. She had done her best to push him aside in those dark days after Freddy’s death. And even before that, she had been the one who refused to speak of the future, to acknowledge anything other than the pleasures of the moment. She had made her bed, and she would have to lie on it.
Alone.
“I’m just not sure I’m ready to go,” she said brusquely, avoiding Charlotte’s eyes. “And you and your duke are far too happy. It’s irritating. I don’t think I could endure that for six months at a time.”
Without bothering to put down her chocolate cup, Charlotte reached out to squeeze Penelope’s hand. Her hand was as small and soft as a child’s, with none of the calluses that marked Penelope’s palms. “You will be, too.” She sucked absentmindedly at the droplets of chocolate that had landed on the back of her other hand, adding, with typical Charlotte honesty, “Eventually.”
Penelope levered herself up from the settee, shaking her hand free from Charlotte’s. “I don’t think I can ever be as happy as you until I can become as good as you. And that,” she added definitively, turning away from the settee, “is never going to happen.”
“I don’t think you need to be good to be lovable,” said Charlotte, tilting her head thoughtfully to one side. “You just need to be you.”
“Thank you,” said Penelope dryly.
Charlotte colored. “I didn’t mean it like that. What I meant was that you’re lovely just as you are.” Rallying, she added defiantly, “And Captain Reid clearly thinks so, too.”
“Who said anything about Captain Reid?” said Penelope, stretching languorously, as though she hadn’t a care in the world, when what she really wanted to do was grab Charlotte’s hand and demand to know whether Charlotte really thought he thought she was lovely and, if so, why. With details. In triplicate.
“You did,” said Charlotte, with inimitable Charlotte logic. “By not saying anything at all.”
“I haven’t mentioned Bonaparte either,” said Penelope sarcastically. “Would you care to read anything into that?”
“Why not just tell him you love him?” suggested Charlotte.
“Bonaparte?”
Charlotte cast her a reproachful look. “Captain Reid.”
Penelope turned to give Charlotte her best derisive stare. And froze. Behind Charlotte, framed in the doorway, stood a man in ill-cut clothes with a suntanned face and close-cut black hair.
“Penelope?” There was a rustling noise as Charlotte twisted on the settee, followed by a faint “Oh.”
Penelope had heard the expression “speak of the devil” before, but she had never thought that it would work quite that literally. The bitter chocolate congealed in an undigested lump in the back of her throat, blocking any possibility of speech. That was probably a good thing. Penelope didn’t trust herself to speak judiciously. Not right now.
Of course, right now what she most wanted to do was murder Charlotte.
After eleven years of friendship, Charlotte had developed a very sound sense of self-preservation where Penelope was concerned.