“An understatement, perhaps.” She pulled out of his arms.
He grasped her wrist and with his other hand stroked back her hair. Then he released her, pulled on his trousers, and went to the door, closing it behind him.
Tavy tugged a bed linen around her body and sat motionless. She suspected his servants would not disturb him like this unless absolutely necessary. But her heart spun around the seven-year-old memory of waiting for a man who never returned. And he had not said he loved her.
The door opened and Ben came across to her. He bent, wrapped his hand around the side of her face and tilted her mouth up to his. The kiss was too sweet, too perfect, and far too brief.
“I must go out now.” His voice was low.
“Now?”
“I must attend to a bit of business.”
In the middle of the night. Business as only this man would have.
She managed to nod. “All right.”
“I will return shortly. Don’t leave.”
“Don’t—”
“Stay.” He backed toward the dressing room door.
“Stay?”
The corner of his mouth lifted, the dent appearing in his cheek. “Stay.” He went into the other chamber. He reappeared shortly, dressed with a careless elegance that stole Tavy’s breath, and crossed to the door. He paused. Then he returned to her, scooped his hand around the back of her head and kissed her hard.
“Stay.” He broke away and departed.
Tavy stared at the door. Finally she crawled up the bed to the pillows, lay down on her side and tucked her hands beneath her cheek. But without his body to heat her, she was chilled. She rose and went to the fire to stoke the coals. Their clothing lay scattered upon the floor. She draped her gown and undergarments over a chair.
With ridiculous shyness she gathered Ben’s discarded clothes too. His chambers were understated and masculine, done in dark woods and jewel-toned fabrics. She glanced about, hoping to find hints of India, but it felt like prying to look too closely, so she laid his clothing on the dressing table. She hesitated, then took up his cravat and shirt again and pressed them to her face, breathing in deeply. Her legs got wobbly, of all things.
She set down the clothes, her fingers brushing over a stiff square in the pocket of his waistcoat. She yanked her hand away. If it was prying to look around his chambers, then it certainly would be a greater intrusion to dig into his pockets.
Instinct and something more than curiosity drove her. The note unfolded easily between her fingers. Take particular care of your loved ones.
The air of the chamber seemed to grow colder. Was that where he had gone? Were his loved ones in trouble now, in the middle of the night? Who? Constance? Lord Styles?
Tavy stuffed the paper back into the pocket, her stomach sick and heart racing. She crossed the frigid chamber to the bed, climbed in and pulled the blankets up to her neck.
She did not sleep, eyes wide to the deepening black of night as the coals in the grate died to embers, then to ash, and still he did not return. Again. In the darkness, her body strung with mingled fulfillment and dread, Tavy began to understand about all those years ago and a beautiful young man who, perhaps, simply could not return to her. Who, with the world’s troubles as his daily responsibility, might never be able to. Just as he might never be able to tell her everything she longed to know. Or, even, to love her.
Finally, she understood. And it made her feel very small indeed.
Chapter 22
DESERTION. The act of forsaking a ship or boat, or running without leave of absence.—Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine
“He’s counting his last minutes, milord, or else I wouldn’ta bothered you like that.” Sully’s thick brow furrowed as he climbed aboard his cob.
“How long ago was he shot?” Ben pulled Kali around.
“An hour, I ’spect. Jimmy’s watching him now, but he ain’t no surgeon. If the bully-back kicks a’fore we get there, I wouldn’t blame the lad for it.”
Ben rode fast, pressing Kali through the dark streets, her hooves striking cobbles then hard-packed dirt when they accessed the narrower alleys. He pulled the mare to a halt before the mews in the most familiar street to him this side of Mayfair, threw the reins to the stable hand, and went inside. The scents of horses and gin met him in the chill air.
Sully pressed open a stall door. “In here, milord.”
Beside a prone form, a hulking youth with half-lidded eyes crouched against the wall. He stood and pulled the brim of his cap.
“Bloke’s frightful bad off, milord.”
“Thank you, Jimmy. That will be all.” He gestured the men out then knelt in the straw beside Sheeble.
He was a small man, dark-whiskered, and wiry like most sailors. Now his weathered face shone ghostly pale in the lamplight, his lips gray.
“If ye’ve come to finish me off,” he gurgled, barely moving his mouth, “then go ’head and do it right quick, yer lordship. I’d ’preciate it. I got me a nast—” He coughed and blood flecked onto his lips. “—nasty belly ache.”
Ben drew back the blanket covering him. Crimson soaked Sheeble’s shirt and waistcoat. His narrow body shook, the life losing force in his veins. Ben replaced the coverlet.
“Who did this to you?”
Sheeble’s face screwed up. “His connivin’, belly-stabbin’ lordship.”
“Lord Styles or Crispin?”
“ ’Tweren’t Crispin. ’Fraid of his own shadow, that one.” He coughed, sending another trickle of blood along his chin. Ben took up a corner of the blanket and wiped the stain away.
“Lord Styles hired you to load the girls aboard ship in secret here in London, then to make certain they arrived in the East Indies, is that correct?”
Sheeble’s eyes closed.
“You may as well tell me,” Ben said. “You will die very shortly anyway. A confession will place the blame where it is most merited. Lord Styles will be punished for murdering you.”
The man’s eyes slid open a crack, but it cost him effort.
“Went over there in ’nineteen.”
“To Madras? Crispin met the girl on that trip?”
Sheeble’s thin lips twisted. “Didn’t know they was all below until halfway there. Then we had him.”
No wonder so many girls had perished, stored in the hold like cargo aboard a slave ship.
“Why English girls? Why take them to India?”
“He don’t like our boys consortin’ with them womens over there. Got to keep ’em apart to rule ’em right. Ev’rybody knows that.”
English brides for Company men and soldiers. No Indian wives like Ben’s mother. No family connections. No . . . “advantage,” as Styles had put it.
“Lord Styles was not on that journey to Madras two years ago. How exactly did he blackmail Lord Crispin?”
“My idea.” Sheeble hacked again. This time he was silent for an extended minute. His eyes did not open when he spoke, and his voice rasped. “Thought his lordship’d give me half for finding a bloke to sign the shippin’ papers, ’stead of him.” He spoke with obvious difficulty. “Only gave me fi-five percent, the bum Turk.”
“Why did he stab you tonight?”
“So’s I wouldn’t tell you what’s I just did.”
“You intended to tell me all of this before?”
“Crispin was gettin’ cold feet.” He coughed, a liquid sound. “Thought I’d get me another hundred before the game was up.”