Mist of Midnight (22 page)

Rebecca,

Would you honor me by joining a guest and me at dinner tomorrow evening? He is transporting the aforementioned surprise, and I think you'll find his conversation, in particular, a delight.

Ever yours,

Luke

I ran my hand over the card, knowing he had touched it. I tucked the card in the small drawer in the back of my bureau, where I kept the recent letters from India and the small packet of my mother's unsent to Honiton. Then I penned my reply.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“I
think the green dress would be best,” I said.

Michelene stood in front of my primary wardrobe. “All right.” She arranged my hair in a big sweep in the back and fastened it with pins.

“Ooh la la,” she said. “Cinnamon gloss as well?”

“Perhaps.” I wondered about her. She was clearly attracted to Captain Whitfield, and, truthfully, her experience with him predated mine. And yet she seemed given to making me as attractive as possible tonight. Perhaps that was professionalism. Maybe she flirted with everyone. The French way? I did not know.

Mrs. Ross and I descended the stairway and I noted, at the bottom landing, that the door to the music room was fully shut. Odd. Perhaps the carpets had been cleaned? Still, that should have been finished before guests arrived. I wondered, with a pang, if this was the last time I would dine with Luke and his guests, perhaps the last of his prearranged social events, as he would surely not invite any more now that my ownership was firmly settled and he was preparing to move.

Luke, in full uniform, waited at the foot of the stairs. I stopped two steps from the bottom and took him in, though I
tried to be discreet. Neither he nor his guest bothered to do likewise. They looked me up and down, the guest seeming to be pleasantly surprised. Luke looked like a man considering me as a first course. It was not a wholly unwelcome feeling on my part.

Mrs. Ross cleared her throat. “Perhaps introductions are in order, Captain?”

“Oh, yes, thank you. Mr. Anthony Breame, Miss Rebecca Ravenshaw. Miss Ravenshaw, Mr. Anthony Breame.”

“How do you do?” I held out my hand. My silver silk gloves reached halfway between elbow and shoulder and shimmered in the candlelight. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“I've just returned from India,” he said. “Captain Whitfield thought it might amuse you for me to bring some stories—some happy stories. We'd been corresponding on official business. He made a personal request, I was intrigued, and here I am.”

“I'm intrigued as well!” I said.

We were seated at the table, and the first course was brought out. Although Cook took great pains for the cooking aromas to remain confined to the kitchen as much as possible, I detected a familiar and welcome scent. I was proved correct when Landreth served.

“Curry!” I clapped my hands lightly.

“Cook thought it apt, given Mr. Breame's level of comfort with spices,” Landreth said. But he'd pinked, and I could tell that he was pleased that I was pleased. How I would miss him! And dear, dear Cook!

Mr. Breame spoke of his time with the East India Company, and how things would change now that matters would be officially under the Crown and not the company. He was well groomed and his refined clothes and manners spoke of a man with both family
and money. He was attractive in his own way but missed the vein of vitality that I always sensed in Whitfield.

“You speak Malayalam, honored miss?” he asked me in that language.

“Yes, respected visitor, I most certainly do,” I answered likewise. “Where did you learn to speak Malayalam so well?”

“I have an Anglo-Indian friend of many years who was originally from Kerala,” he said. “She taught me. A bit of Tamil, too.”

Ah.
She.
He saw my recognition, and also that I did not press for further details, as no lady ever would. I wondered if this was perhaps the Anglo-Indian Luke had spoken of during our time fishing. “It's a delight to speak in what is, in many ways, a native tongue to me and one I miss hearing.”

We reverted to English, and after the final course, Mr. Breame spoke up. “Captain Whitfield asked me, if at all possible, to return with a gift. I'll have you know, Miss Ravenshaw, that the gift was difficult and cumbersome to transport. It must be that he holds you in high esteem.”

“I'm eager to see what it is,” I admitted, standing up. Then I realized that was probably unseemly and continued. “Whenever the time is right, that is.” I sat down again. Luke winked, seeming to approve of my eagerness and curiosity.

“The time
is
right.” Luke came around and pulled out my chair, placing his hand on the small of my back, for just a moment. Even after he removed it, a slow, resonant burn remained at the place his hand had rested.

We walked toward the music room. Captain Whitfield opened the door, and there on the floor, surrounded by cushions, was a sitar.

“Oh, my goodness!” I impulsively wrapped my arms around him in thanks, and he, caring not for propriety, embraced me in
return. His thumb stroked my shoulder blade, a welcome and intimate gesture. Then, wanting to smooth things over, I also quickly hugged Mr. Breame and Mrs. Ross.

The sitar had a long neck, and the split gourd base of it was perfectly shined. “Teak?” I asked.

“Burmese teak,” Mr. Breame agreed. “Whitfield mentioned that your father had served in Burma and I thought this would be particularly apt.”

“Oh, yes, yes it is.” I eyed it.

“Would you like to play?” Luke asked me softly.

“I would love to play,” I answered as I held his gaze and lowered my voice. “For you.”

“It's strange that your parents allowed you to learn,” Mr. Breame said.

I shook my head. “It's only been in the past few years that Englishmen have been discouraged from learning about the culture they came to live in. Missionaries, in particular, are interested in understanding the people they came to serve. My parents felt that they came both to share the Gospel, teach and provide, but also to learn and to understand.”

“Besides”—I ran my hand up the neck and as I did, I saw Luke place a hand to his own—“there are several famous women sitar players.” I tuned the sitar, lightly.

“There are typically six or seven strings on top, and many more underneath.” I touched each string in turn.

I closed my eyes.

The hardwood floor that my mother had just swept was beneath me. The fringes of the cushion I'd embroidered, badly, tickled my leg and I smelt the heat fused with the rains of the monsoon just past. Hookah smoke floated across the air and through our window. My mother did not care for the scent of it, but I loved its
musky woodiness. A lizard skittered across the corner of our house. I plucked some strings.

There was a tinny jangle, a tangy note, like yogurt stirred into curry. Then the swaying melody that most sitar songs lent themselves to, deeper, softer, quicker. I could visualize elephants treading. People walking, baskets on their heads. An unrest of color and a chatter of language.

Soon enough the song was over and I opened my eyes back to England. My home now, beginning to be beloved as well. As I sat for a moment, I noted that, while I'd still had a few night terrors, when I spoke of India aloud, mostly to Luke, or shared a moment of India with him nearby, like now, the memories often came in pleasant waves instead.

“Your song makes me want to set sail on the next ship back home,” Breame said in Malayalam.

I smiled. “Do you consider India your home?” I asked in Malayalam.

“Yes,” he replied. “But that's a secret between us.”

I smiled. I turned to Whitfield, who had said nothing aloud but whose eyes held unconcealed pleasure and tenderness. Awe, even. I was delighted that though, as Michelene had pointed out, I was not the most beautiful woman in Winchester, nor a pianist, I could delight him in some unusual way. He'd called me a most unusual woman. I strove to keep that title. “I hope I shall be able to play once or twice more before Mr. Breame leaves?”

“The sitar is yours, Reb . . . Miss Ravenshaw.” Luke's voice was rough with emotion and he cleared it twice.

“Mine?” I caught my breath and looked at him, hoping, but not able to accept such a gift. “Oh no, that is too generous.” Burmese teakwood, carried here from India!

Captain Whitfield shook his head. “For your hospitality these many months . . . for saving Notos from the snake. You might just yet save me.”

“From what?” I asked.

He laughed to lighten the mood, but I saw the seriousness behind it. “From myself. ”

We were in the company of others, so I turned back to the sitar and ran my hand over the wood again to refocus. “This is truly, genuinely, absolutely mine. Yes?” Even Breame beamed at my enthusiasm.

“It's yours,” Whitfield said. “Truly, genuinely, absolutely. I hope, when I've moved on, you'll think of me each time you play it.”

The air thickened with intimacy. “I shall,” I said, already mourning the loss. “Depend upon it.”

We said good night and then I took my leave. Michelene came and helped me undress. “I could hear the music,” she said. “It was enchanting. I see why they say that is the music to charm the snakes.”

I laughed. “That's not snake-charming music.”

“Isn't it?” She pulled my hair out of its arrangement and brushed it to a shine. “They seemed charmed to me.” I glanced at her in the mirror, just above my shoulder. We were of the same age, same build and coloring, almost. She was definitely the prettier of the two of us, exotic even. And yet she served me. Could she have been jealous?

“Why do you think Mr. Breame and Captain Whitfield are snakes?” I insisted. “It could not have been a better evening.”

“There are prey animals and predators,” she said. “One or the other.”

“And men are predators?” I asked.

“Not all of them,” she admitted.

“Women can be predators, too,” I said.

“
Touché
.” She smiled and left for the night.

I closed my curtains, looking for just a minute across the way to the guesthouse. Although I could see into its sitting room, there was no movement present. No lamps were lit in the bedrooms, either, as far as I could judge.

I went back to bed, and as I was falling asleep Marie meowed. She'd been under my bed, and now she crawled out and clawed at the door.

“Oh, all right, then.” I got out of bed, kept it dark, and slowly opened up my bedroom door. She tore down the hallway like a bolt of lightning, all the way down to the dark right wing. A door was open. It was
her
bedroom.

I pulled my peignoir around me, quietly closed my door, and walked partway down the hallway, which was usually dead, and now, at the end, was a pulse of life and light. Voices murmured. Men's voices. I could not hear what they were saying, so I crept a bit farther down. The floorboards squeaked and I thought I would be discovered. But the men were too busy talking to pay attention. I became aware that I was, in fact, dressed indecently to be seen by two men. But what were they doing on this floor now, at night, anyway? In my home!

I had not seen anyone in that room since I'd returned to En­gland. Why did Captain Whitfield still have the key? I would insist on having a complete set of keys for myself, immediately. I should have acquired them long ago; indeed, I'd asked Mrs. Blackwood for one and it seemed to have slipped her mind, too.

I crept down the hallway, one step at a time, wanting to go far enough to hear what they were saying but no farther and be caught out. I stopped when I could hear them.

“I can't read it well,” Mr. Breame said. “I cannot make out
much. This . . .” There was a pause and then he spoke again. “This is the word
evil
.”

“Evil!” Captain Whitfield's voice rose. “Can you read no more of it, man?”

Some time elapsed. “No, I cannot. Why would someone write this?”

“I should have had it scratched out,” Captain Whitfield's voice came again.

“Why?” Breame's voice sounded suspicious now.

“It's . . . difficult to explain, might cause discomfort. I . . . I shouldn't like to leave it for Miss Ravenshaw to find. It could distress her. I shall do it soon. Let's leave.”

At that, I turned and fled. I quietly closed the door to my room and leaned against it, panting with effort and concern. Fear, perhaps. Who had written
evil
?

I would speak with Mrs. Blackwood, promptly, about the keys. Before Whitfield could return and scratch out whatever it was they'd been trying to read. Did it implicate him?

T
he next morning I rang for Mrs. Blackwood.

“How may we assist?” she asked, arriving in the breakfast room.

“Are there several sets of house keys?”

She shook her head. “Just the two—the one we have and the one Landreth carries.”

“I'd like one made for me, if possible. And, if it's not too much to ask, I'd like the key to the bedroom where the woman posing as me stayed, today.”

“That's the one key I do not have,” she said. “I gave it to Captain Whitfield and he has not yet returned it.”

“Can you ask for it to be returned, presently?”

She nodded.

Of course. He'd been in there with Breame. “I'd like it today, if at all possible,” I pressed.