Revolutionary Hearts (3 page)

“Glad to hear it. Any rational man would do the same.” He cleared his throat. “I assume your brother will be resting for a few days?”

“Today, yes.” He watched her bite her bottom lip, then lift her widened eyes. “Though he wishes to return to his gardening duties as soon as possible.”

“Give him time.” So no anarchist activities for the time being. “How is your life at home?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

A politician’s response, countering his question with one of her own. “I believe the soldiers yesterday said Raj called them his ‘jailers,’ correct? Is this a sentiment held by both you and your brother in your house, or singular to his perspective?”

“I believe my brother is only echoing sentiments he’s heard within our village.”

“How do the Indian villagers view the British colonization? I understand there have been several attempts at a noncooperative movement by Gandhi recently.
Swaraj
, I believe you call it…”

Her clipped tone cut him off. “Yes. We have no desire to be told how to run our own country.”

“We?”

A blush swept across her cheeks. “The freedom fighters have no desire to be told. Not I.”

He clucked his tongue. “Really? And how do
you
feel your country is being run by the British?”

“Inefficiently.”

“In what ways?” His pen began to scribble over the piece of paper in front of him, noting her observations.

“Several of the railroads have caused misallocation of food and created famine. Indians are cut off from proper jobs and education, reduced to aspiring to be servants. We are given no say in how our government should be run.”

He’d heard of her information before. Many of the British officers knew of the Deccan Riots … not that they cared to discuss the cause of such riots among themselves. The local farmers in western India had protested against rising taxes and farmers being forced to grow cotton. The cotton had been profitable, yet the plant had destroyed the soil and caused agricultural hardship. But that was nearly a generation ago. He hadn’t realized that the British economic system still caused such harm. “Did you not have a caste system heavily imposed before we arrived?”

“Not all Hindustanis agreed with the caste system. Even then, we never committed deliberate violence against members of the lowest class, such as the British do to us. The racial superiority is worst. We are told that we matter less in this world simply because we are Indian.”

He paused his writing. “Surely most Indians do not agree.”

“No, we do not; many of us wish to fight for a new government. We fight for basic liberties.”

A government? Not a system of anarchy? “The British government is not so terrible.”

“And the Rowlatt Act was not?”

He set down his pen. The act had allowed the British government to imprison anyone suspected of terrorism in the Raj without a fair trial. In his opinion, it hadn’t been too different from Roosevelt’s crackdown on anarchists. He’d read that the Rowlatt Act had been so unpopular in India that even the British couldn’t deny it. “The act’s been repealed.”

“Yet it was still imposed.” He watched her eyes narrow. “As are all the other laws the British Raj puts in place.”

“Self-rule takes time. What is so urgent about replacing one form of government for another?”

“One cannot replace lentils with stones. Even your British government cannot ignore the better political representation my Hindustanis can…” The flow of her words stopped, as if a wooden cork had prevented the words from overflowing. Her downcast gaze flicked up to meet his. “You wish to know about the details of our rebellion.”

He bit back a laugh. The woman was good. “It is difficult to believe you were never formally educated, Miss Singh. Your vocabulary is impeccable.”

“Do not change the subject, sir.” Her tone was scathing. “Is it our rebellion you wish to know the details of?”

“Possibly.” He nodded. “Not that your rebellion is much worry to speak of thus far.”

“I would not say so, sir. I would say it should cause you much worry.”

He’d never seen eyes as expressive as Parineeta’s. They were full of questions and intelligence, yet there was something furtive about her glance at the same time. It was as if no matter how much information she shared with him, there was always something she held back.

“I have heard there are several revolutionaries living in the nearby villages.”

She sniffed. “I know nothing of it.”

A response too quick to be truth.

Warren gritted his teeth. He’d spent enough time as an operative to know when a woman was telling a lie. “I believe you do know, Miss Singh.”

“I assure you that I do not.”

He rubbed his jaw and swallowed down his frustration. Their conversation was starting to run in circles, tracing the same path and arriving nowhere significant. He had not invested a year undercover only to return empty-handed. So she wouldn’t answer him directly, would she? Maybe not in so interrogative a setting.

Warren glanced around his office. The steel filing cabinets behind Parineeta loomed over her head. Diplomas and trophies the NBCI had supplied him with lined the many oak shelves, adding an aura of authority and intimidation to the room. Even if inauthentic, the memorabilia likely did nothing to calm her nerves. Maybe all she needed was a less pressuring environment.

A look of wariness filled her eyes and her shoulders stiffened. She certainly wasn’t going to admit anything about the Indian revolutionaries now. He needed her trust. His fingers drummed against the table.
She’s the best information source about Raj that I’ll be able to find.
He had to find a way for her to open up to him.

“I appreciate you being able to speak with me so candidly,” Warren backpedaled. He wracked his brain, searching for an opportunity. “Perhaps we can talk again tonight.”

“Tonight?” Her lips pressed into a fine line. If her words had flowed like water down a river before, they were as rare as dry ground during the monsoon now. “I do not think so.”

He chuckled. “No, no, nothing of that sort. I am organizing a small gathering for some guests tonight in my ballroom. I would love for you to attend.”

“A party?” She shook her head. Dark tendrils that she’d gathered behind her shoulders fell forward, framing her high cheekbones and curling around her chin. “You must be mistaken. I am a...”

A pregnant pause filled the air. Warren watched her gaze flicker to her lap once more, as if confirming her skin color. A what, he wondered. A half-caste? An Indian?

She cleared her throat. “I would not be welcome.”

“It is my party, after all. It is a chance to meet some other people in the region.”
And a chance to try to figure out who knows my identity.
“You must come. I will introduce you as a woman who is helping me with my research.”

“A half-Indian maid assisting you with research?”

The idea did sound better in his head. But what other choice did he have? “I want you to trust me, Parineeta.” Before he could stop himself, her name rolled off his tongue like honey. He studied her expression as he spoke, hoping the look of fear would melt away. “I must insist. You are not just a maid. You are helping me with a very important project of mine.”

She opened her mouth to protest. Doubt warred across her conflicted expression for a moment. Then she nodded. “Yes. Yes, I will go.”

“Then it’s settled! You’ll be there tonight.” His heart lifted as he clapped his hands. The brass buttons at the edge of his sleeve cuffs clinked together. “That is all for today. You may leave now.”

“We have finished for the day so quickly?”

“It seems we have.” Maybe he could bribe her to trust him. Who didn’t like shortened tasks? “Considering you will be spending a few extra hours at my party tonight, I would say your day’s work will still be the same as normal.”

Parineeta raised an eyebrow. If she suspected anything, she didn’t voice her suspicions. The ends of her skirt dragged across the floorboards as she stood up from her chair. Golden bangles clinked down her wrists as she opened the door and left the room.

As soon as the door closed, Warren stood from his own chair. This girl expected him to believe she knew nothing of the independence movement? He would have sooner believed Calvin Coolidge was the Queen of England!

He waited for her to stroll to the end of the hall before he followed after her. His leather shoes fell against the marble tile as quietly as he could manage, but her bare feet slapped against the tile and hurried away so fast that he doubted she would hear him even if he ran behind her.

He traced her path out the door, down the winding walkway, past the gardens, and across the dirt road leading away from the gates of his house. She headed toward a cluster of houses next to the gardens, right before the gate entrance, where some of the gardeners lived and a few of the soldiers went to smoke. He’d seen his soldiers hanging around the area a few times after drills, but he’d never seen a woman there before.

He ducked behind a tree as soon as he saw her stop. He leaned his head out from behind the trunk to watch her figure. She stood in place for a few moments, scanning the houses before her. Warren cautiously stepped forward. A large twig snapped beneath his right shoe.
Damn.
He whipped his head back behind the tree and waited for his breath to even out. It had been a while since he’d had to do field work.

He waited a few seconds and then risked looking back again. She was walking to the end of one of the white walls, where she knocked on a door three times.

Warren ducked behind another tree, closer to the door. Next to the new cluster of trees, she would not be able to see him … but he was within perfect earshot of whatever she uttered.

A creak could be heard from behind the corner. “Parineeta!”

Hold on, I recognize that voice
. It was the gardener, wasn’t it? The Indian his men had been beating yesterday. He leaned closer against the tree, craning his neck to hear more.

“What does he think of the HRA? What information have you learned?”

Information?

“I have only been spying on him for two days, Raj. I do not know much.”

Warren frowned. He’d suspected she was a revolutionary, but he hadn’t realized she’d been spying on him. The wisps of green plants before him, one of the few spots of color across the barren desert, swayed to the sound of her voice.

Perhaps she was his own spot of color. Who possessed more useful information about the revolutionaries than another spy?

• • •

“Yes, but two days is still a long while!”

Parineeta tapped her foot. She tried to peer beyond Raj’s shoulder and into the garden shed he sometimes occupied. “Can you not let me in?”

“No, another gardener is sleeping in here.” Raj’s smile told her the person in his shed was no gardener. She shuddered.

“Look, I do not care who she is; just listen to me.” Parineeta leaned forward. She attempted to keep her voice even. Now was not the time to worry him more than necessary. “I have been invited to the general’s party tonight at his house.”

“What?” Then he winced. After a hasty glance behind him at whoever was sleeping, he turned back to Parineeta. He kept his voice low. “Why would he invite you?”

“That is what I do not understand.” She smoothed out the folds in her sari. The motion gave her a sense of comfort, unlike her current task. “This mission does not make any sense. He tells me that my information is essential to his project. He’s asking me about the independence movement; he says I need to help him with his research…”

Raj’s voice became cold. “You haven’t given him any reason to know you’re spying on him, have you? You do not want him to question your loyalties.”

“No! Of course I wouldn’t.” She gulped.
At least I hope not.

“Good.” He pressed his lips together. “Then you should go tonight. See if you can find out any plans of how the British army is going to deal with my group. We’ll take him down. Just wait.”

Take him down? Her heartbeat quickened at the loaded threat. Parineeta’s eyes drifted to the pocket in Raj’s white trousers where she knew he kept his gun. When she was younger, she never understood why he even had the weapon. Even after beatings from other soldiers, he’d never pulled out his revolver. Not yet, anyway.

“Promise me you won’t hurt him.”

He scowled. “Why do you care?”

“He saved your life yesterday!”

“I was fine.” Her brother looked away. His hand rested on his gun.

Parineeta folded her arms over her chest. “Let us not rush anything. I do not think this general is the same as all the other cruel ones we’ve known.” Her memories jumped back to when her grandfather had still been alive. The past general had forced farmers to grow a crop that failed in their fields and still imposed the annual land tax that year, causing the entire village to suffer from famine. Her grandfather had given all the food they could afford to her grandmother, her mother, Raj, and herself. He’d died of starvation by the end of the winter. “But General Carton has been nothing but nice toward me.”

“Nice enough for you to be deceived by him?”

She nearly slapped Raj across the cheek. The nerves in her palm twitched at the imagined contact. “That’s enough, brother.” She could hardly believe this gun-slinging revolutionary was the same brother who helped her with the laundry and made her
palak paneer
for dinner when her mother was working in the previous general’s house. He’d seemed so innocent then. “I am nothing but loyal to the independence movement.”

“Good.” Raj shook his finger at her. “First rule—don’t get caught. If you get caught, they’ll find out about me. And then our whole village back home. They’ll hurt
our grandmother. Second rule—do not start to care for your boss.”

Her cheeks burned. “What?”

“You are his servant. He would never care for you.”

“I do not find him attractive.” She whisked the thoughts of a blue-eyed, brown-haired general out of her mind. Her brother would find more comfort in her lies. “I learned from our mother that you can never trust men.”