The Wild Child (20 page)

It was an example he could understand. “A general must be a good judge of people, I think. Your father wouldn’t ask more than you can manage.”

Her smile became genuine. “He is the best of fathers. I should have listened when he told me that Morton was a fortune hunter, but I didn’t want to believe him.”

Dominic wondered what would become of her husband, but didn’t ask. With the general taking care of his daughter’s interests, Morton would get what he deserved.

They turned down a long walk that ran between banks of assorted flowers. Enormous effort had gone into making the rich tangle of blossoms appear natural. At the end of the walk stood an ancient statue of Artemis, the moon goddess. Her slim, half-wild figure reminded him of Meriel. “What was Meriel like as a child?”

“Bright and sweet and ethereal. She looked up to me, since I was several years older.” Jena laughed. “I enjoyed having a disciple. We were inseparable during the month she and her parents stayed at Cambay. She was small for her age, but clever as a whip. Did you know that she’d learned to read when she was only four years old? What happened to her was such a terrible, terrible waste.”

He felt a deep pang, wondering what Meriel might be now if her parents had chosen a different route through India. “You never saw her again after that visit?”

Jena’s face clouded. “Actually, the maharajah sent her to Cambay, since it was the nearest British cantonment. She was recognized immediately, of course. That’s how she was returned to her family.”

“I’ve wondered how an Indian prince explained having a captive English child,” Dominic said. “Do you know the story?”

“He said she’d been one of a number of gifts presented to him by a neighboring ruler. She was thought to be a Circassian slave because of her coloring, and since she never spoke, no one was the wiser. Eventually the maharani decided she must be English, so they sent her to Cambay.” Jena shrugged. “She was fortunate. A maharajah’s zenana is large enough for a small child to be overlooked indefinitely.”

They had reached the statue of Artemis. He looked up into the blank, otherworldly stone eyes. “Did you see Meriel while she stayed in Cambay?”

“I was told that she was unwell, but I demanded to be allowed to visit her. I thought perhaps I could reach her when the doctors couldn’t. She stared right through me. It was the uncanniest thing. As if I was a ghost. Or she was.” Jena’s mouth twisted. “I was furious, as if she’d deliberately turned away from our friendship.”

“You were still a child yourself,” he said mildly. “It’s understandable that you were upset that she had changed so much.”

Jena studied his face. “You are a very restful man, Lord Maxwell. Easy to talk to. I should think you are very good for Meriel.”

He blinked, startled. He would have said it was the other way around. Being around Meriel made him happier and more focused than he’d been in at least a decade. She could be a maddening little sprite, but the world was a more interesting place for her presence. Reminding himself acerbically that he was not supposed to think of her with such fondness, he said simply, “I like her, and hope she likes me.”

Leaving Artemis, he guided Jena into a fragrance garden that had been planted to release a succession of scents throughout the year. At the moment, the headiness of lilac dominated. “Did you call on Meriel when you returned to England?”

“I considered it, but didn’t. It’s common knowledge in Shropshire that Lady Meriel is mad.” Jena smiled self-mockingly. “I told myself that I didn’t want to upset her, but the truth is that I didn’t want to be disturbed myself. The thought of her madness repelled me. I’ve been royally punished for my lack of compassion.”

“Perhaps the time was not right to call on her,” he said thoughtfully. “Now you have much more understanding of mental disorders.”

“That’s certainly true. Sometimes I wondered if I was going mad myself.” Jena’s face tightened. “I can understand now why Meriel drew into herself—it was a way of surviving an intolerable world. I raged when I was first confined at Bladenham, and spent quite a bit of time in restraints. But as hopelessness set in, I found myself withdrawing more and more. There were days when I simply lay on my cot and stared at the ceiling, ignoring the attendants as if that would make them vanish.”

“What would bring you back to the world again?”

She thought about it. “Boredom or physical restlessness, I suppose. Or necessity. When you came to Bladenham I was taking my outdoor exercise as mindless as a honeybee, until I realized there was an outsider close enough to talk to. It was like a splash of ice water, because I hadn’t seen another person from outside the asylum the whole time I was at Bladenham. I knew I might never have such a chance again, so I watched like a hawk for the best time to approach you.”

He nodded. The women’s situations were very different, since Jena had never really been mad, only worn down by misery and despair. Meriel had been far more deeply damaged, and at a very tender age.

“What is Meriel like now?” Jena asked. “Is there anything I should know?”

“She doesn’t speak, and is still quite capable of ignoring people.” He gestured at their surroundings.

“She spends most of her time working in the gardens, and does it very well. I think she has been opening up to the world a bit more, but I suppose I haven’t known her long enough to be sure. I shall let you draw your own conclusions.”

A few more minutes of walking brought them to the kitchen garden. The sky had clouded up, so Meriel had discarded her hat. Her flaxen braid fell over her shoulder as she leaned forward to attend to her pepper plants.

Jena said quietly, “I would have recognized her anywhere. She looks… serene.”

“Most of the time, she is. This is her home.”

“And infinitely better than any asylum.” Jena scanned the kitchen garden, her brows drawing together when she saw Kamal. “The Indian—he looks familiar.”

“You might have seen Kamal at Cambay. He escorted Meriel from the maharajah’s palace,” Dominic explained. “He’s been with her ever since.”

After a last, intent look at the Indian, Jena took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Hello, Meriel. Do you remember me after all these years?” Heedless of the damp ground, she knelt beside Meriel. “I’m Jena Ames. From Cambay.”

Meriel stiffened and kept her head down, pointedly ignoring her visitor. Undeterred, Jena said softly,

“We were such good friends then. Do you remember how we used to ride together? How much you loved the Indian gardens I showed you? Before leaving Cambay, you gave me your favorite doll so I would remember you. In return, I gave you a small book of poems I had copied by hand. We… we promised to visit again someday, when I came back to England.” Tears glinted in Jena’s eyes, but didn’t fall. “Here I am, Meriel. It’s taken a long time, but I never forgot you.”

In the silence that followed, only the hum of bees could be heard. On the other side of the kitchen garden, Kamal had stopped and was watching as intently as Dominic.

Meriel pinched off a pepper blossom. Then, jerkily, she raised her head and looked Jena in the face. Their gazes locked.

Dominic held his breath as he watched, half expecting them to touch noses, like two cats meeting for the first time. Slowly Meriel lifted her hand and touched Jena’s cheek. Then she smiled with swift radiance. Jena caught Meriel’s hand, her face lighting up. “It’s so good to see you again!”

Dominic exhaled with relief. His gaze went to Kamal, who gave a faint nod. It mattered that Meriel had recognized someone from her past.

Meriel’s tunic sleeves were rolled up, revealing a bracelet pattern on her right wrist. Jena’s gaze fell on it.

“A mehndi! You were fascinated by them. Remember how I had our housekeeper paint mehndi on our hands? You asked questions the whole time.” Glancing at Kamal, she asked something in a foreign language.

He shook his head and replied in English. “No, memsahib. I obtain the henna and taught Meriel how to use it, but she is the artist.”

Jena looked at Meriel again. “Would you do mehndi for me? It would be like old times.” There was a wistful note in her voice for the lost innocence of two little girls who had been friends when life was simple.

Meriel rose gracefully and snapped her fingers for Roxana, who sprawled nearby. Then she collected Jena with a glance, and they all headed toward the house.

Feeling almost giddy, Dominic crossed the garden to Kamal. “Meriel understood Jena’s question, and is responding to it! She really is getting better—it’s not just my imagination.”

“Your presence is good for her.” Kamal deftly chopped a weed from the soil with his sharp-edged hoe.

“You bear a great responsibility. When teaching a young bird to fly, one must not let it fall.”

Dominic sobered. “I don’t intend to let her fall.”

“No?” Kamal’s gaze was so piercing that Dominic wondered uneasily if the Indian suspected that he was not Lord Maxwell. But Kamal said no more. Looking down, he neatly removed a tangled clump of weeds.

Dominic returned to the work of transplanting cabbages, his mood troubled. He’d thought in terms of helping Meriel to move into the outside world. Once she had mastered a larger life, she would not need his help. But what if she expected regular attention from her husband? Would Kyle provide that?

He imagined Kyle with Meriel, and his fingers tightened, snapping a fragile seedling. How could any man not want to be with Meriel as much as possible?

Chapter 19

India. Arms locked around her knees, Meriel sat on the window seat of her darkened bedroom, rocking slightly. Seeing Jena had released a torrent of distant memories that seemed almost to belong to a stranger. For years she’d refused to think of India, though nightmare fragments of horror and fire haunted her dreams.

But now the vivid colors and scents of the subcontinent threatened to overwhelm her. The first months had been a grand adventure of exotic plants, beasts, and people, completely different from Warfield. But there had been few playmates, until she met Jena. Despite their differences there had been an affinity, a sense that each had found the sister she’d always wanted. The month at Cambay had been perhaps the happiest of her life, for she’d had excitement, her parents, and her friend. Then they left the cantonment—how long? she could no longer remember—and the secure life she had known shattered when the cruelty beneath India’s beauty erupted into death and destruction. She’d survived by escaping in her mind, going back to the cool green hills of home. Warfield became more real than the madness around her. The best day of her life had been when her uncle had brought her back. Her land had been the one constant of her existence, the truest and the safest thing in her life. She wanted no one and nothing more.

At least, that was all she had wanted until Renbourne came, with his probing gaze and dangerous allure. Now Jena had arrived to roil the waters still more. While Meriel painted mehndi, her old friend had spoken haltingly of her husband’s betrayal and the horrible months in the asylum. Her dark eyes had been haunted by sadness, yet her essential spirit was undimmed. She’d always been a creature of fire, forceful and impetuous, and her presence brought back so much. Too much. Meriel thought sorrowfully of the doll she had given Jena, and the book of painstakingly copied poems she had received in return, now long gone to ash.

Rocking harder, she buried her face against her knees.

Dominic sighed as he took off his coat and loosened his cravat. Meriel had skipped dinner again. Sometimes he wondered if his presence was driving her to starvation. She must live on sunshine and spring rain, like a flower.

According to the ladies, Jena Ames had left smiling, her wrists decorated with mehndi, and promising to call again soon. Meriel had apparently enjoyed the encounter, but she’d vanished by the time Dominic came inside at the end of the afternoon. During dinner and a friendly game of cards he’d hoped she would appear. No such luck.

He pulled back the coverlet on his bed and found another nosegay between the pillows. A small bundle of pinks, tied with a strand of white yarn. Meriel might have missed dinner, but she’d been here. The thought quickened his pulse as he inhaled the spicy scent of the flowers. Why had she left them?

The language of flowers! There was a whole system of flower symbolism, just as there was a language of fan gestures. He didn’t know the exact meanings, but it was a fair guess that Meriel’s nosegays were meant to tease and captivate. Very successful, too.

After a day of vigorous physical work he should have been ready for bed, but he wasn’t. His mind was buzzing too much to allow sleep anytime soon. On impulse, he decided to go down to the library and look for books on India, since that was where Meriel’s life had taken its tragic turn. Learning more about what she must have experienced might increase his understanding of her. Kyle knew about India; he’d always loved reading books about exotic lands. Dominic wondered if his brother had yet traveled the five hundred miles from London necessary to qualify for the Travellers Club. Wrexham kept his heir on a short leash.

Not sure whether he was glad or irritated that Kyle would certainly be well informed about the country where his bride had lived for two critical years, Dominic took a lamp and silently went downstairs. The library was an appealing place, well stocked with books and comfortable furniture. He’d like to see it on a cold rainy day, with fires burning in the two fireplaces and Meriel and her pets for company. The door was open when he reached it, with light visible inside. One of the ladies must be looking for late night reading, too. He paused in the doorway, his gaze scanning the room. A branch of candles was lit at the far end. At the edge of the circle of light, a small feminine figure stood beside a bookshelf, engrossed in a volume in her hands. The lack of height and the silvery hair made him assume it was Mrs. Rector.

Then she shelved the book and pulled down another, turning so that he could see her more clearly. His jaw dropped. Meriel. And she was reading! The shock was as great as when he’d heard her sing and realized that she wasn’t mute.