In the Arms of a Marquess(27)

Aunt Imene took her to tea amongst the English ladies, always making certain to comment on her poor looks, pointing out how lovely Alethea had been at that age and tut-tutting Tavy’s lack of grace and fashion. Going mad with confinement, Tavy mostly ignored her gaoler. Instead she begged her uncle to take her along when he did errands about town. He complied, but he never allowed her out of the carriage. Enveloped in humid heat, she stared through windows at the world just beyond her reach, the color and beauty she had dreamt of for so many years but was not permitted to touch.

Then Aunt Imene suffered a fever. During her lengthy recovery, with help from discreet servants with whom Tavy had made friends in her two years of incarceration, finally she escaped to the market. Always she stole away at the hottest part of the day when the English and high-caste Indians all reclined upon their fanned verandas.

Lingering over a shopkeeper’s wares on one of those escapes, drawing the scents of spiced fruit into her nostrils and shaded by her parasol, she met him for the second time.

“No longer in need of rescuing, shalabha?”

Warmth shivered along Tavy’s shoulders. She turned and her gaze traveled up a perfectly proportioned male chest encased in a bright blue and gold waistcoat of the finest silk only an Indian prince would wear.

But Lord Benjirou Doreé was exactly that now, a mercantile prince. His uncle had died of fever months earlier, and when his heir returned to India from university in England, Tavy heard news from the servants. She had wondered whether the English were discussing it too, the spectacular funeral that filled the streets, the blazing white procession through Madras to mourn its lost son, friend to peasants, princes, Mughals, soldiers, and Company officials alike. There must be talk. After all, the Indian manufacturer’s heir was an English nobleman, the son of a peer.

His black eyes glinted with gentle pleasure as he gazed down at her, one hand slung casually over the edge of the shop awning beneath which she stood. He was twenty-two, with the sleek grace of a tiger and the confident carriage of a young lord.

“Oh, no,” she said breezily, brushing an errant wisp of hair from her brow with quivering fingers. “Now I am the one who does the rescuing.”

His mouth curved into a slow smile. “Do you often find the need?”

“All the time, I daresay.” She waved her hand about. “Why, just the other day Mrs. Fletcher tripped over a stack of tea bricks and fell flat upon her face on the baker’s stoop. I was obliged to pass smelling salts beneath her nose at least thrice before she revived.”

“How unfortunate for her,” he said solemnly, but a small crescent-shaped dent appeared in his cheek. He had beautiful skin, the color of firelight glinting off teakwood, or polished bronze. His features were neither English nor Indian, but a melding of both only a master artist could have invented—lean cheeks that lent him the air of an aesthete, square jaw, aristocratically straight nose, and ink-black hair worn considerably too long for a student at Cambridge. Tavy had never seen the Marquess of Doreé and rarely his second wife, who was always thoroughly wrapped in sumptuous saris and flowing veils when she left her villa next door. She supposed they both must be quite handsome to have produced such a son.

She nodded gravely. “It was dreadful. But she recovered remarkably well when Mr. Fletcher threatened to hire a pair of sepoys to carry her back to the house hammock-style.”

He cocked a single brow, its abrupt downward angle accentuating the wonderfully languid dip of his eyes.

“Sounds like a beastly fellow.”

“Would you have treated her better?”

“With the respect a lady always deserves.” His tone seemed so sincere. And oddly caressing. Tavy’s knees felt gelatinous.

Everyone in the port town knew Benjirou Doreé was a wild young man, keeping late nights near the docks with his childhood friends even now after his uncle’s death. Rumors of his reputation at university back in England, all revolving around fighting and women, filtered to her through the servants who overheard much because, like she, they were invisible even while standing right beside an Englishman.

This wild young Englishman, however, was still technically a stranger.

Foolish propriety. What was the use in living four thousand miles from London if one could not occasionally break the rules? She sucked in breath and extended a gloved hand for him to shake.

“I am Octavia Pierce.”

The corner of his beautiful mouth lifted again. He bent, curled her fingers around his, and raised them to his lips, his gaze never leaving hers.

“I know who you are, shalabha.” He brushed a kiss upon her knuckles and released her hand.

Her stomach careened against her lungs. “They say you are quite wild.”

“Do they say it convincingly?”

She stared. Then laughed.

He quirked a grin. “Well I wouldn’t wish to make so much effort all for nothing.”

She giggled, trying to rein in her delight. Aunt Imene called her overexuberance her greatest fault. Tavy suspected her mother and father had agreed to send her abroad for the same reason. They loved her, but she was far too plain spoken for their comfort, and she laughed aloud far too often.

“All for nothing? But I suppose it must be enjoyable, after all, I mean to say, er—whatever it is you do that makes the gossips chatter.”

His expression sobered. “No.”