Just Deserts (9 page)

Not so Persephone. Informed of the approaching change in
their lives, she had gazed at her father aghast, tears starting to
her eyes.

‘
Leave Bombay? Leave
India
? But my horses!
Oh, Papa,
no!’

She saw the regret in her father’s eyes, the jubilance in
her mother’s, and knew it was true.

‘
But
Shiveen
—’ She
whispered the name, the vision of her favourite mount filling her
mind.

‘
You may take Shiveen,’ her father said at once, ‘but for
the rest. . .’

He did not finish the sentence. Grief flooded Persephone’s
heart. Tears spilling over, she fled the house and ran to the
stables.

Ufur, the old Indian martinet who ran the stables and had
taught her to ride almost before she could walk, was not there. A
sleepy groom, dragged from his afternoon slumbers, saddled the
grey, while his mistress’s clouded eyes wandered from one loved
glossy head to another and she fought down the lump in her
throat.

Her horses. They were her friends. Her world,
her
life.
And she had to leave them. Ufur, too. How could
she bear to part from the grumbling, scolding old man to whose
strictures and blandishments she owed everything she knew of
horseflesh?

She rode out of the Fort and down to the bay where she had
ridden all her horses across the sands. Her distress was
communicated to Shiveen, and the mare bounded forward under the
unconscious pressure of her hand, hurtling over the beach at the
water’s edge, kicking up sand and spray.

Wind whistled past Persephone’s face, streaking the hot
salt tears across her cheeks, catching at the loosened golden locks
and whipping them about her head.

But after a few moments of this heady pace, long habit
reasserted itself. Even through the desolation in her breast,
Persephone knew that the heat of the afternoon was too much for
Shiveen. It did not need the heaving flanks of her mare as she
slowed her to a walk to tell her that she had been imprudent. Ufur
would be furious.

At that thought, a fresh deluge of tears coursed down her
cheeks and she bent her head over Shiveen’s silky mane and wept as
if her heart must break.

Ufur, her beloved mentor. Under his stern rule, Persephone
had grown up to have a respect and care of her horses which far
surpassed anything she might feel for people, with the exception of
her immediate family, and of Ufur himself. Though she no longer
needed his guidance, she could not bear the thought of going out of
his sphere of influence, far away to the other side of the
world.

Her first grief spent, Persephone turned the mare and
trotted her gently home. Back at the stables, a familiar turbanned
figure awaited her, arms folded, arrogant head thrown back, on his
wrinkled brown features a fierce frown.

Ufur seized the bridle, glaring up at his
mistress.

‘
Missee Seffee,’ he growled, ‘I am taking my stick to your
back, never no mind you are big girl now.’

‘
Don’t scold, Ufur,’ Persephone begged, slipping
out of the saddle. ‘
Please
don’t.’

He saw her ravaged face as she slid down and his
dark eyes softened. ‘
Salla
, Missee Seffee!
Time is coming now. I am waiting many moons knowing this time is
coming.’

Persephone looked at him. ‘Ufur, I think I shall
die.’

His mouth split apart, showing the cracked and broken
stumps of his remaining teeth in a cackling grin.

‘
No, Missee Seffee. It is I am dying soon. I am old man. You
are young lady. You must be living many years, and knowing many
horses before you are dying.’

Persephone’s lips trembled on a smile, but her eyes filled
again. ‘Oh, Ufur, I shall miss you.’

‘
And I am missing you, Missee Seffee. But you are not
forgetting old Ufur and the lessons you are learning.’

‘
How could I forget?’ She stood gazing at the old man,
trying to visualise a life without him. ‘How will I bear it?’ she
cried, and, bursting into fresh sobs, she fell upon his
chest.

He patted her, muttering soothing phrases in his own
tongue, but his own stern eyes were moist.

In the end all the horses were sold, with the exception of
Shiveen. Persephone, finding she could not endure to subject her
ageing mare to the rigours of a long sea voyage, and feeling that a
complete break would be marginally less painful, gave Shiveen to
her old mentor, who had been provided with a home and a generous
pension. At the final moment of parting, Ufur told her with
determined cheerfulness that Shiveen would grow old and they would
die together, to be reborn perhaps in her own English
stables.

Once in England, Persephone had been agreeably surprised at
the quality of the English cattle, but the foul weather and the
cold had produced a resurgence of her loss and she refused
point-blank to appear in public with a view to finding herself a
husband. Thanks to the nabob, she had been allowed to have her way,
seeking solace in flinging herself into violent exercise in the
appropriation of her cousin Rossendale’s horses.

But the debut had inexorably arrived, and she had perforce
given in at last to Penelope’s entreaties.

‘
Dearest Seph, I know you don’t care for
socialising, but it is my heart’s desire to cut a dash. Papa is so
clever to have sworn us all to secrecy about there being two of us,
and to have hit upon us wearing the exact same ensemble when we
appear at last together. And, what is more, I
might
have
betrayed you, but I
did
take the blame for you, you know I
did.’

‘
Yes, I know, but—’

‘
I never said a
word
to let either
Chiddingly or Fitz imagine that it was not I, but
you
who had behaved so very badly.’

‘
They will know soon enough that it was I,’ Persephone
said.

‘
Yes, but not if you don’t come tonight and—oh,
drat you, Seph, I am depending on you! I am
nothing
without
you, you know I am not.’

‘
Devil take you, Pen, that is nonsense. You would charm a
snake better than any trickster in India.’

‘
But I can’t throw a thunderclap on my own. You
are my
twin
, dearest. I
need
you.’

So Persephone had capitulated, promising to behave with all
the propriety in the world when her mama had begged her, almost
tearfully, to remember her company manners and refrain from putting
them all to shame.

A taste of London fashionable life, however, had
confirmed all Persephone’s worst suspicions. She had not minded the
dull and uncomfortable parties in Bombay that drove her sister to
screaming boredom, for it was a highly parochial milieu which
demanded no social graces. The
beau monde
of England
was altogether different.

And the worst aspect of the whole enterprise, to
Persephone, was her father’s accursed fortune. Bad enough in
Bombay, where they were naturally enough sought after by every
bachelor, whether eligible or otherwise, but here it was infinitely
worse.

‘
Mark my words,’ she told Penelope, as soon as her parents
had withdrawn, ‘that abominable Chiddingly is after a
fortune.’

‘
Well, and why not?’ Penelope said. ‘I must say,
Seph, we are extremely fortunate. If our portions were merely
respectable, we would be obliged to accept almost
anyone
who offered and be thankful. As it is, we may please
ourselves.’

‘
If I pleased myself, I would have none of them.’

‘
Fiddle.’ Penelope’s eyes danced with mischief. ‘Ten to one
you will end by bestowing your hand and heart upon Chiddingly, for
by all accounts he is as horse-mad as you.’

‘
I?’ Persephone gasped. ‘Marry that—that insolent
knave? That hectoring bully? That—that
devil?
I would
die rather!’

Penelope twinkled. ‘So would he, I dare say. I must ask
Fitz.’

‘
If you dare to do anything of the sort—’

‘
Don’t put yourself about,’ recommended Penelope,
smiling. She rose from the table and crossed to the door, casting
as she did so a disparaging glance over her sister’s attire. ‘I
hope you mean to change your dress. That old habit is positively
shabby, Seph. It may do well enough for your dawn antics, but it
will
not
pass muster in the fashionable
promenade.’

‘
I have a very good mind not to come with you,’ Persephone
snapped.

‘
If you cry off now, Seph, it will be the most abominable
thing in the world,’ cried Penelope with reproach.

‘
Oh, very well, but it is a great bore.’

‘
Fiddle. I dare say you will meet all manner of useful
persons. Any number of fashionable gentlemen are addicted to
sporting pursuits, Cousin Alice tells me. You may hunt and see the
racing. I am certain you will soon find yourself mightily at
home.’

She ushered her reluctant sister out of the room, adding
naughtily as they went along the corridor, ‘And if you are desirous
of entering that set, let me recommend you to get upon terms with
your hectoring bully. An acknowledged nonpareil, they tell
me.’

She then whisked into her bedchamber before her incensed
twin had a chance to express again her undoubted preference for
death.

Chapter Four

‘
Daisy
cutters!’ uttered Persephone in disgust, looking about at
the sedately high-stepping mounts chosen by the
bon ton
for
hacking in the park at the fashionable hour of the
promenade.

She was herself bestriding a raking bay, whose sidlings and
tossings evidenced his uncertain temper. The Winsfords were still
borrowing from Lord Rossendale’s stables, until, as the nabob
expressed it, his experienced daughter should have learned her way
about and might choose her own cattle.

Penelope, thankful for the ill opinion of her skill held by
her sister that had prompted her to pick for her use a
well-mannered, quiet horse who could give her a comfortable ride,
saw nothing amiss.

‘
They look perfectly well to me.’

‘
That is because you know nothing of the matter,’ said her
twin, controlling the plunging progress of her own mount with an
effortless grace that won the admiration of the new groom riding
behind. ‘For the most part, they are peacocky specimens, obviously
meant only for show.’

Her eye then fell upon a grey trotting towards them. She
pointed with her whip.

‘
Now
there
is a fine horse.
Pure Arab, I would say at a guess.’

‘
And guess who is riding it,’ Penelope gurgled.

Looking from the horse to its rider, Persephone drew in her
breath sharply.

‘
Salla!
’

‘
Seph, you bad girl,’ Penelope scolded in an under-voice.
‘Thank heaven no one can understand you.’ She turned her welcoming
smile on Chiddingly and his companion, who were halting their
mounts as they came abreast. ‘Good day, Fitz. How do you do, Lord
Chiddingly? My sister has just been admiring your grey. You must
know she dotes upon horses.’

‘
Be silent,’
hissed her twin.

‘
Indeed?’ said Chiddingly, his gaze travelling coldly and
indifferently over Persephone. ‘I confess I had not observed
it.’

Persephone’s eyes flashed. ‘Your observations, sir, are
quite without interest.’

‘
You look a dazzling sight, the two of you,’ interpolated
Fitzwarren, looking them over.

Obedient to her sister’s plea, Persephone was clad in a
dashing habit of military cut in olive-green with gold braid.
Penelope, also in green, had chosen an altogether more feminine
garment garnished with a quantity of lace, and her frivolous
feathered hat formed a pretty contrast to the stark severity of her
twin’s unadorned beaver.

‘
But how rash to speak first, Miss Penelope,’ Fitz teased,
‘and so deprive us of the agreeable game of guessing.’

‘
Oh dear, how silly of me,’ she laughed. ‘Yet I do not know.
You could hardly fail to observe our differences on horseback. Why,
I am cast quite into the shade by Seph’s skill.’

‘
You seem perfectly competent to me,’ Chiddingly said,
turning his mount and bringing it up alongside. ‘May I ride a
little way beside you?’

‘
By all means,’ Penelope agreed, throwing a quizzing glance
at her sister’s stormy face as she urged her horse
forward.

But Fitzwarren was even now taking his friend’s lead, and
guiding his mount ready to accompany her sister.