Logan shrugged. “That was inevitable. He couldn’t be oh-so-clever and yet miss the fact we’re here, on Hastings’s direct orders, and with no mission we’ve seen fit to divulge.”
Rafe nodded. “At this point, it can hardly hurt. Perhaps knowing we’re after him will make him careless.”
Del humphed. “So far he’s been unbelievably shrewd in keeping everything unincriminating. We’ve turned up even more of those documents, more or less contracts he’s enacted with various princelings, but the cheeky sod always uses his special Black Cobra seal on the correspondence, and he signs with a mark, not a signature.”
“And his writing is English-grammar-school-standard,” Gareth added. “It could be any of ours.”
Another moment of glum resignation passed, then Rafe asked, “Where’s James?”
“Not in yet, apparently,” Del replied. “He’s expected today—I thought he’d be in earlier, but he must have been held up.”
“Probably the lady didn’t approve of riding above a sedate canter.” Rafe managed a weak smile, then turned back to the maidan.
“There’s a troop coming in,” Logan said.
The comment focused all eyes on the group approaching the gates. It wasn’t a full troop, more a mounted escort riding alongside a wagon. It was the slow, steady pace the small cavalcade held to, as much as the somber deliberateness of the sowars, that told them this wasn’t good news.
A minute ticked past as the cavalcade drew nearer, cleared the gates.
“Oh, no.” Rafe pushed away from the railing and started across the maidan.
Narrowed eyes locked on the cavalcade, Del, Gareth and Logan slowly came to their feet, then Del swore and the three vaulted over the railing and headed after Rafe.
He waved the cavalcade to a halt. As he strode down the wagon’s side, he demanded to be told what had happened.
The head sowar, a sergeant, dismounted and quickly followed. “We are very sorry, Captain-sahib—there was nothing we could do.”
Rafe reached the tail of the wagon first and halted. Face paling under his tan, he stared at what lay in the bed.
Del came up beside him, saw the three bodies—carefully laid out, but nothing could disguise the mutilation, the torture, the agony that had preceded death.
Distantly conscious of Logan, then Gareth, ranging behind him, Del looked down on James MacFarlane’s body.
It took a moment to register that beside him lay his lieutenant and the troop’s corporal.
It was Rafe—who of them all had seen more of the Black Cobra’s lethal handiwork than any one man should ever have to bear—who turned away with a vicious oath.
Del seized his arm. Simply said, “Let me.”
He had to drag in a breath, physically drag his gaze from the bodies before he could raise his head and look at the waiting sowar. “What happened?”
Even to him, his voice sounded deadly.
The sowar wasn’t a coward. With creditable composure, he lifted his chin and came to attention. “We were more than halfway back on the road from Poona, when the Captain-sahib realized there were horsemen chasing us. We rode on quickly, but then the Captain-sahib stopped at a place where the road narrows, and sent us all on. The lieutenant stayed with him, along with three others. The Captain-sahib sent the rest of us all pell-mell on with the memsahib.”
Del glanced at the wagon bed. “When was this?”
“Earlier today, Colonel-sahib.”
“Who sent you back?”
The sowar shifted. “When we came within sight of Bombay, the memsahib insisted we go back. The Captain-sahib had ordered us to stay with her all the way to the fort, but she was very agitated. She allowed only two of us to go with her to the governor’s house. The rest of us went back to see if we could help the Captain-sahib and the lieutenant.” The sowar paused, then went on more quietly, “But there were only these bodies left when we reached the place.”
“They took two of your troop?”
“We could see where they had dragged them away behind their horses, Colonel-sahib. We didn’t think following would do any good.”
Despite the calmness of the words, the outward stoicism of the native troops, Del knew every one of them would be railing inside.
As was he, Gareth, Logan, Rafe.
But there was nothing they could do.
He nodded, stepped back, drawing Rafe with him.
“We will be taking them to the infirmary, Colonel-sahib.”
“Yes.” He met the man’s eyes, nodded. “Thank you.”
Numbly, he turned. Releasing Rafe, Del led the way back to the barracks.
As they climbed the shallow steps, Rafe, as usual, put their tortured thoughts into words.
“For the love of God, why?”
Why?
The question rebounded again and again between them, refashioned and rephrased in countless ways. James might have been younger than the rest of them, but he’d been neither inexperienced nor a glory-hunter—and he wasn’t the one they called “Reckless.”
“So why in all hell did he make a stand, rather than at least try to escape? While they were moving, they had a chance—he had to have known that.” Rafe slumped in his usual chair at their table in the officers’ bar.
After a moment, Del answered, “He had a reason—that’s why.”
Logan sipped the arrack Del had ordered instead of their usual beer. The bottle stood in the center of the table, already half empty. Eyes narrowed, he said, “It had to have been something about the governor’s niece.”
“Thought of that.” Gareth set down his empty glass and reached for the bottle. “I asked the sowars—they said she rode well, like the devil. She didn’t hold them up. And she tried to veto James’s plan to stay behind, but he pulled rank and ordered her on.”
“Humph.” Rafe drained his glass, then held out his hand for the bottle. “So what was it? James might be lying in the infirmary very dead, but damned if I’m going to accept that he stayed back on a whim—not him.”
“No,” Del said. “You’re right—not him.”
“Heads up,” Rafe said, his gaze going down the verandah. “Skirts on parade.”
The others turned their heads to look. The skirts in question were on a slender young lady—a very English lady with a pale, porcelain face and sleek brown hair secured in a knot at the back of her head. She stood just inside the bar and peered through the shadows, noting the groups of officers dotted here and there. Her gaze reached them in the corner, paused, but then the barboy came forward and she turned to him.
But at her query, the barboy pointed to them. The young lady looked their way, then straightened, thanked the boy and, head high, glided down the verandah toward them.
An Indian girl swathed in a sari hovered like a shadow behind her.
They all rose, slowly, as the young lady approached. She was of slightly less than average height; given their size, and that they were all looking as grim as they felt, they must have seemed intimidating, but she didn’t falter.
Before she reached them, she halted and spoke to her maid, instructing her in soft tones to wait a little way away.
Then she came on. As she neared, they could see her face was pale, set, features tightly, rigidly controlled. Her eyes were faintly red-rimmed, the tip of her small nose pink.
But her rounded chin was set in determined lines.
Her gaze scanned them as she came to the table, circling, not on their faces, but at shoulder-and-collar-level—reading their rank. When her gaze reached Del, it stopped. Halting, she lifted her eyes to his face. “Colonel Delborough?”
Del inclined his head. “Ma’am?”
“I’m Emily Ensworth, the governor’s niece. I…” She glanced briefly at the others. “If I could trouble you for a word in private, Colonel?”
Del hesitated, then said, “Every man about this table is an old friend and colleague of James MacFarlane. We were all working together. If your business with me has anything t
o do with James, I would ask that you speak before us all.”
She studied him for a moment, weighing his words, then she nodded. “Very well.”
Between Logan and Gareth sat James’s empty chair. None of them had had the heart to push it away. Gareth now held it for Miss Ensworth.
“Thank you.” She sat. Which left her looking directly at the three-quarters empty bottle of arrack.
With the others, Del resumed his seat.
Miss Ensworth glanced at him. “I realize it might be irregular, but if I could have a small glass of that…?”
Del met her hazel eyes. “It’s arrack.”
“I know.”
He signalled to the barboy to bring another glass. While he did, Miss Ensworth fiddled below the table’s edge with the reticule she’d been carrying. They hadn’t truly noticed it before; Miss Ensworth was neatly rounded, softly lush, and none of them had noticed much else.
Then the boy delivered the glass, and Del poured a half measure for her.
She accepted it with a strained almost-smile and took a small sip. She wrinkled her nose, but then gamely took a larger dose. Lowering the glass, she looked at Del. “I asked at the gate and they told me. I’m very sorry that Captain MacFarlane didn’t make it back.”
His face like stone, Del inclined his head in acknowledgment. Hands clasped on the table, he said, “If you could tell us what happened from the beginning, it would help us understand.” Why James gave up his life. He left the last unsaid, but the others clearly heard it. He suspected Miss Ensworth did, too.
She nodded. “Yes, of course.” She cleared her throat. “We started very early from Poona—Captain MacFarlane was very insistent, and I wasn’t averse, so we left at sunrise. He seemed keen to get on, so I was surprised when we ambled at a quite ordinary pace at first, but then—and I realize now it was as soon as we were out of sight of the town—he dug in his heels and from then we went at a cracking pace. Once he realized I could ride…well, we just rode as fast as we could. I didn’t understand why—not then—but he was riding alongside, so I knew when he saw the riders chasing us—I saw them, too.”
“Could you tell if they were private militiamen, or were they robbers?” Del asked.
She met his gaze directly. “I think they were Black Cobra cultists—they wore black silk scarves tied about their heads and wound around their faces. I’ve heard that’s their…insignia.”
Del nodded. “That’s correct. So what happened once James spotted them?”
“We rode even faster. I assumed we would simply outrun them—we’d seen them on a curve so they were some way back along the road—and at first that’s what we did. But then I think they must have cut across somewhere, because suddenly they were much closer. I still thought we could outrun them, but then we came to a spot where the road passes between two large rocks, and Captain MacFarlane stopped. He gave orders for most of the sowars to go on with me and make sure I got to the fort safely. He and a handful were going to make a stand and hold the cultists back.”
She paused, dragged in a breath, then remembered the glass in her hand and drained it. “I tried to argue, but he would have none of it. He drew me aside—ahead—and gave me this.” From beneath the table, she drew out a packet—a blank sheet of parchment folded and sealed about other documents. She set it on the table, pushed it toward Del.
“Captain MacFarlane asked me to bring this to you. He said he had to make certain it reached you, no matter the cost. He made me promise to get it to you…and then there wasn’t time to argue.” Her gaze fixed on the packet, she drew a shaky breath. “We could hear the cultists coming—ululating, you know how they do. They weren’t far, and…I had to go. If I was going to bring that to you, I had to leave then…so I did. He turned back with a few men, and the rest came with me.”
“And you sent them back when you came within sight of safety.” Gareth spoke gently. “You did the best you could.”
Del put a hand on the packet and drew it to him. “And you did the right thing.”
She blinked several times, then lifted her chin. Her gaze remained fixed on the packet. “I don’t know what’s in that—I didn’t look. But whatever it is…I hope it’s worth it, worth the sacrifice he made.” At last she lifted her gaze to Del’s face. “I’ll leave it in your hands, Colonel, as I promised Captain MacFarlane I would.”
She pushed back from the table.
They all rose. Gareth drew back her chair. “Allow me to organize an escort for you back to the governor’s house.”
Gareth’s gaze touched Del’s, and he nodded. No sense taking any unnecessary chances with Miss Ensworth.
Their interaction had passed over Emily Ensworth’s head. She nodded graciously to Gareth. “Thank you, Major.”
Then she inclined her head to Del and the other two. “Good evening, Colonel. Gentlemen.”
“Miss Ensworth.” They all bowed, waited as Gareth led her away, then resumed their seats.
They stared at the packet lying on the table before Del. Without a word, they waited for Gareth to return.
The instant he did, Del picked up the packet. Removing the outer sheet, he laid it flat, revealing it was blank. It had been wrapped around a single document, a letter, the seal already broken.
Del unfolded the letter, briefly scanned. After a quick glance around, he leaned on the table and, voice low, read the contents aloud.
The letter was addressed to one of the more influential Maratha princelings, one Govind Holkar. It began innocently enough, with nothing more sinister than social news revolving about what was loosely termed the younger Government House set. But after those first paragraphs, the tone of the letter changed to one of offer, a blatant inducement to persuade Holkar to commit more men and resources to the Black Cobra cult.
The further he read, the more Del frowned. Reaching the end, he concluded with, “And, as usual, it’s signed with the mark of the Black Cobra.”
Letting the letter fall through his fingers to rest on the table, Del shook his head. “This isn’t anything more than we’ve already got—than James knew we already had.”
Gareth reached for the letter. “There has to be something more in it—something concealed.”
Del sat back, feeling oddly dead inside, and watched while Gareth silently went through the letter. Then Gareth raised his head, grimly shook it. “If there is, I can’t see it.”
Logan took the letter, read it, then, with a swift shake of his head, passed it to Rafe in his corner.
It didn’t take Rafe long to scan the single sheet. He slumped back in his chair, the letter held in one hand at arm’s length. “Why?” He shook the letter. “Damn it, James, why did you give your life for this? There’s nothing here!”
Rafe flung the letter toward the table. It flipped and landed upside down. He scowled at it. “That’s not worth—”
When he said nothing more, Del glanced at him and saw him staring, as if mesmerized, at the letter. As if it had transformed into their nemesis.
“Oh, Lord,” Rafe breathed. “It can’t be.” He reached for the letter.
For the first time in all the years he’d known him, Del saw Rafe Carstairs’s hand shake.
Rafe lifted the letter, held it closer to his face, staring….
“It’s the seal.” Voice firming, Rafe leaned forward and turned the letter, held it so the seal, largely intact, was on a level with the others’ eyes. “He’s used his own seal. Bloody Ferrar finally made a mistake, and James—youthful-sharp-eyes-and-even-sharper-wits James—caught it.”
Gareth reached out and took the letter. He was the most familiar with Ferrar’s seal; he’d been the one to go through the man’s desk. He studied the imprint closely, then looked up and met Rafe’s eyes. Nodded. “It’s his.” The suppressed excitement coming off both of them was palpable.
Del asked, “Could he say someone had stolen the seal and used it to implicate him? One of us, for instance?”
A slow smile spread across G
areth’s face. He looked at Del. “That won’t wash. It’s a seal ring, and it never leaves Ferrar’s pinky. In fact, short of him losing the finger, it can’t. All the clerks and secretaries at Government House know that—he makes quite a show of his lineage and its accoutrements. The whole office knows about his seal ring—and there’s not another like it in all of India.”
“Could it have been duplicated?” Logan asked.
Gareth handed him the letter. “See what you think. And anyway, why would anyone bother?”
Examining the imprint, Logan grunted. “I suppose that’s why people use seals, but you’re right—this has curlicues, swirls, and they look like they’re cut to different depths. It wouldn’t be easy to duplicate.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rafe said. “What matters is that we know that’s real—and so does the Black Cobra.” He met the others’ eyes, excitement plain in his. “And I’ve just realized the true beauty of Wolverstone’s plan.”
Del frowned. “What? Beyond being the most effective way for us to get this back to England.”
Rafe checked their surroundings, then leaned in, forearms on the table. He spoke soft, low, quickly. “He told us to make copies, and then separate and head home. What do you think Ferrar’s going to think—and do—once he learns we’ve done that, as of course he will? You said it yourself—he knows we’re investigating him. Suddenly, without warning—worse, immediately after James’s death at the hands of the Black Cobra—we up stakes and resign, something we’ve been thinking of, but no one else knows that. And, to cap it off, we all head home by different routes. What will he think? What will he do?”
Logan had caught his enthusiam. “He’ll think we’ve found something that incriminates him.”
“And he’ll come after us, and by that very action prove the validity of our evidence.” Del nodded. “You’re right.” He looked at the others, met each gaze. “Gentlemen, thanks to James, we have our proof. Thanks to Devil Cynster and Wolverstone, we have a plan and know what we have to do. Thanks to Hastings, we have the freedom to do as we wish. I vote we follow the plan, carry out our last orders, and bring the Black Cobra to justice.”