It was almost as if they were having a moment of sympathy. Jane nodded; he pulled his hand back from her shoulder and then quietly left the room.
“I suppose you know which barrister she’s visiting?” the Countess of Cambury asked. “I would have said more to force the issue. But it hardly seemed necessary.” She shrugged, and then smiled at Jane. “You handled yourself very well.”
Jane smiled back. “Of course I know where she is,” Jane said. “At least, I know his name. Or, rather, I know the sound of it—and I don’t think he’ll be that difficult to find.”
Earlier that day in London…
Anjan didn’t think he was ever going to get used to the noise of London. He’d grown up in a more populated city. One might have thought, he supposed, that London was nothing. But the noises here were a totally different thing. Nothing he could pinpoint aside from a collective wrongness.
It bothered him, that difference, even at the desk he had in Lirington and Sons.
Anjan had a position. A position with a battered desk in the copyists’ room, true, and never mind his graduation with honors or his recent admission to the bar. But it was a start, and for a start, he’d smile and sit with the copyists. Once he made himself invaluable, matters would begin to change.
As if in answer to that, George Lirington opened the door to the room. He looked over the bent heads of the scriveners before his eyes lit on Anjan.
“Ho, Batty,” he said. “You’re wanted.”
Anjan stood. Lirington and Sons specialized in maritime issues. They’d hired Anjan for a number of reasons—not least of which was the fact that he spoke both Hindi and Bengali. Being able to understand the lascars aboard ships had its benefits.
Anjan reached for his notebook and stood. “Is it the Westfeld accounts again?”
Lirington shook his head. “No. It’s a lady. She’s alone and she wants to hire us.” He glanced at Anjan curiously. “She asked for you by your full last name.”
“Tell me it’s not my mother.” She’d arrived in London a few weeks past, and even though he’d let her know, very nicely, that she couldn’t visit him at work… Well, she was his mother.
“No, I said already. She’s a lady.” He looked at Anjan again. “I didn’t know you knew any ladies, Batty. You’ve been holding out on me.”
Anjan hadn’t realized he knew anyone who might visit. He simply shrugged, gathered up his notebook, and followed his friend. They traversed the file room, and then turned into the front chambers. The room nearest the entry was used for discussions with clients. The door was ajar a few inches; Lirington stepped inside and nodded to someone there, just as Anjan came in behind him.
He stopped dead in the doorframe.
Emily—Miss Emily Fairfield—was standing at the window.
She had always looked marvelous, but she stunned him now. Her hair shone in the daylight that streamed from the windows. She wore a blue muslin gown, so different from the walking dresses he’d seen her in. Those had sported gathered sleeves and loose waists. This, though—this fit her figure to the waist as if it had been poured over her body. He and Lirington paused in the doorway together and issued a joint sigh of appreciation.
Anjan didn’t know what to think. She was here after all these months. What could it mean?
Lirington—perhaps, Anjan thought, because he did not know Emily—recovered first.
“Miss Fairfield,” he said. “I’ve brought Mr. Batty, as you requested.” He walked to a chair and gently pulled it out for her. “Please sit,” he said, “and tell us how we might be of service to you.”
She glided over to the table, slid her hands over her skirts, and then—Anjan swallowed hard—folded herself gracefully into the chair.
“Batty,” Lirington said over his shoulder, “fetch some tea, would you please?”
She frowned at that, a slight hint of darkness flitting across her features.
When Anjan returned with a tray, she was seated properly, looking as comfortable in the chair as if she took tea in the office every day.
“You know, Miss Fairfield,” Lirington was saying, “I do hope we can find a way to be of service to you, but I suspect we will not. You’ll have to find a solicitor, of course, although I have some excellent suggestions there. And our specialty is maritime matters. So if you would tell us what it is that is bothering you…?”
“If you can’t help me,” Emily said calmly, “I’m sure you can refer me to someone who can. I had hoped you would listen to my story.”
“Of course,” Lirington said smoothly.
She had gazed at Anjan briefly when he’d returned to the room—a cool, questioning look. But she folded her hands and contemplated them now without sparing him a second glance.
“My uncle is my guardian,” she finally said. “I have a medical condition, one that Doctor Russell here in London says is a convulsive condition.” Her fingers played with a button on her cuff. “There is no cure for it, not one that has been discovered, at least.” She shrugged. “It is an annoyance, of course, but it leaves me in no danger.”
Anjan nodded, remembering the fit he had seen.
“My uncle,” she continued, “nonetheless wishes to seek a cure. He believes that no man will wish to marry me until the matter is resolved.”
So saying, she set her hands to her cuff at her wrist and very deliberately undid it.
“I say,” Lirington said. But he didn’t speak beyond that. He stared at the pale skin of her wrist, utterly riveted at the sight, leaning forward. Anjan wanted to smack his friend or turn him away from the sight of her skin.
“He has had me shocked with galvanic current,” she said, undoing a second button. “He had a man hold my head underwater. There was the man with a contraption. It utilized leverage to apply bruising force to my leg when a convulsion started.” She undid more buttons as she spoke. “We stopped use of the machine after it broke my femur.”
His eyes rose to hers, and he felt a moment of sick comprehension. When she’d talked of their walks being an escape, he’d imagined her as simply rebellious. But this? This was awful.
She spoke so matter-of-factly that Lirington simply nodded in tune to her recital, as if these things that she were listing were normal activities. If he hadn’t been looking for it, Anjan would have missed the way her fingers shook as she undid the next button and rolled up her sleeve, revealing a white, perfectly round scar.
“A doctor had me burned with a red-hot poker,” she said. “He thought it would disrupt my convulsions. It did not.”
Anjan gripped the arms of his chair. Barbaric, that’s what it was. It was barbaric. And how had he not known this? All those weeks they had walked together, and she had said not a word. He’d lectured her about family. About doing as her uncle told her.
He felt a fury rising in him.
“Gentlemen,” she said, still calm, “I hope you will understand when I refrain from showing you the burns on my thigh.”
“Miss Fairfield,” Lirington said in confusion, “this is all well and good, but I am at a loss as to how we are to help you. It is your guardian’s duty to provide medical care, after all.”
“It is not well,” Anjan heard himself growl. “Neither is it good.”
She heard him and smiled. “Well, one possibility is to petition for a change of guardian. I had hoped…”
“We handle maritime affairs,” Lirington said. “This is a matter for Chancery.” He shook his head. “As grievously as you no doubt have suffered, I do not see how we could be of service. My secretary, Mr. Walton, can provide you a list, but—I am desolate to admit—we ourselves can do nothing. Now, if you’ll excuse us…” He stood. “Batty, as you’re here, I think we should discuss the Westfeld accounts after all. My father is in his office, and—”
He turned as Emily stood. For the first time in her visit, she looked perturbed. “But I don’t know them,” she said. “I don’t know those other people. And the situation is more urgent than can be sol
ved by a motion in Chancery. I’ve objected to the treatment. In return, my uncle is—that is, I found correspondence with…” She swallowed and met Anjan’s eyes. “He wants to declare me incompetent. He’ll put me away. I’ll never be able to make my own decisions.”
Anjan swallowed away a sick feeling. People made jokes about Bedlam, but the things he’d heard… An asylum was no place for anyone, let alone Emily.
“Already he refuses to allow me out of the house. When he discovered I was sneaking out…” She turned her head to Anjan, and nodded. “…he had a servant start sleeping in my room. I didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye.”
Lirington shook his head. “I’m sorry.” It was a dismissal, not an apology.
Anjan didn’t move. He was rooted in place, everything he knew about her falling into order.
Her breath was coming faster now. “My sister will help. She’s of age, and she has enough money to pay whatever it is you need.”
“I do wish you the best,” Lirington said, “but—”
“Be quiet, Lirington,” Anjan heard himself grate out. “She never asked for your opinion. She came to me.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Lirington frowned, though, and then his lips quirked, as if he were just remembering that in fact, she had asked for Anjan. By name. “I don’t understand,” he finally said. “Why would she do that?”
Anjan didn’t answer.
“Because I knew,” Emily said. “I knew if I came here, I would get a fair hearing. I knew, at the very least, that you would listen. That you would care.”
“Is that what you think?” Anjan said, almost curious to hear her answer. “I haven’t seen you in months; you disappear with scarcely a word to me. And you think that you can just arrive and tell me that I care?”
Emily tossed her head back. “Don’t be daft,” she said. “I know you do.”
Anjan felt a smile spread across his face—a slow, real smile. “Good.”
“I told you once that if our marriage had been arranged, I would not complain,” Emily said. “Since then…”
Anjan leaned forward, ignoring the surprised noise Lirington made.
“In the worst months of my uncle’s excesses, when my sister was away and I had no outlet for my frustration, I imagined that it was so. That I knew I would marry you. That I had that to look forward to, no matter what happened in the meantime.”
Anjan swallowed.
“And then I discovered that my uncle had been corresponding with an asylum.” She shut her eyes. “I couldn’t stay and risk that. And that was strangely freeing. I could go anywhere, could choose anything. Nothing was arranged, not a single thing in my future except the things that I could arrange for myself.”
Anjan couldn’t look away from her. She smiled at him, and he felt himself smiling in response.
“So I came here,” she said. “To you.”
Lirington looked at Emily—really looked at her—and then turned his head to look at Anjan. “Batty,” he said slowly, “I do believe you’ve been holding out on me.”
Across the table, Emily grimaced again and slapped her hand against the table.
“The name,” she said primly, “is Bhattacharya. And since it’s going to be mine, you had best learn to pronounce it properly.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“My sister left on her own,” Jane said when Oliver returned to the hotel late that evening. “I know where she’s gone, and I think she’s safe.”
Jane was smiling at him in open, friendly welcome. They’d obtained rooms on opposite sides of the hotel, for propriety’s sake. But shortly after he’d come back from his walk with Sebastian, she’d slipped through the hallways and knocked on his door.
She now sat on his bed, shoeless, her hair down, and he didn’t want her anywhere else. He wanted time to freeze. He wanted her in his room. He never wanted her to leave. And she knew where her sister was.
Perhaps it was the very shortness of the love affair that made every moment seem so dear.
“I’m so happy,” she said. “We have only to find her.”
It was easy for Oliver to put his arms around her, to draw her in close and inhale the scent of her. To think her not only possible, but likely—the only likelihood that he could comprehend.
He refused to think of the end.
He nuzzled her neck instead. “I’m glad everything is turning out for the better,” he said. “You’ll need me then, just a little longer. Just to be sure.” He held his breath.
“Yes. If you don’t mind.”
He kissed her ear, pulling her close. He didn’t want to let go of her. His hands played along her hair, tangling in it, and he inhaled her scent.
“You’re affectionate,” she said.
“No. Just besotted.” Besotted and beset by that worry in his gut. Once she was reunited with her sister, once the threat of her uncle’s guardianship dissipated, he would no longer have an excuse. He could sense the end now, so close he could smell it, and he didn’t want to let her go.
“Where is she?”
“London,” Jane replied. “I’m almost certain of it.”
“How…useful,” Oliver said. “I have to go to London, too.”
But he’d been hoping they would have to go somewhere else. Oliver had duties waiting for him there. He shut his eyes and imagined those duties—the neglected appointments, the newspaper column that he might write about the latest proposed amendments—and then pushed them aside. “But we’re not there yet,” he said. “We’re here. And now.”
“I had noticed,” Jane whispered. “What should we do about it?”
He pulled her close. “This,” he said. And he turned her face to his and kissed her.
“I do not know, Anjan.”
The woman who sat on the other side of the table from Emily wore a purple and gold silk sari draped about her. She had Anjan’s eyes, dark, ringed with impossibly long eyelashes. Mrs. Bhattacharya’s face was unwrinkled except for the frown that she leveled at Emily. Her arms were folded, and Emily tried not to twitch under her perusal.
Anjan’s mother sniffed and looked at her son. “Is something wrong with her? She looks sickly.”
“She has not been outside much.” Anjan seemed entirely calm.
A feeling Emily did not share. Her stomach danced, and it took all her effort to keep herself still.
Mrs. Bhattacharya simply shook her head. “And what will your father say when I tell him that your bride-to-be has fits? We only want the best for you.” She frowned at Emily. “Could you not find some other girl? A nice girl from home, maybe…”
“I suppose that is possible,” Anjan said politely. “But Miss Emily’s father is a barrister, and her uncle is a tutor in law. She can introduce me to people besides just Lirington’s parents. It’s an advantageous match in that regard.”
Mrs. Bhattacharya narrowed her eyes at her son. “Of course you try to convince me that way. You are just being sensible.” There was a hint of amusement in her voice as she spoke. “You do not care that she is pretty. You did not write to me that you could talk to her of everything. It has nothing to do with any of that, does it?”
Anjan’s lips twitched into a real smile. “Of course,” he said dryly. “What could be more pragmatic?”
She gave him a look. “I am not stupid, Anjan.”
“You know me too well. But I’ve already told you I’m in love with her. If I want to someday have influence on the English, I need someone who understands them. Someone who does that, and yet doesn’t wish me to forget who I am, too.”
“Forget?”
“Practically everyone in England eats meat and drinks alcohol,” Emily said. “Imagine your son going to a gathering and being served a roast. Who would you talk to beforehand to make sure that didn’t happen? Who would make sure there was lemonade in his glass instead of white wine? Taking care of such arrangements is a wife’s work.” She glanced over at Anjan. “I do not think you son would ever forget, of course, b
ut I could help smooth the way.”
Mrs. Bhattacharya frowned, considering this.
“And of course we’re hiring an Indian cook.”
“Hmph.” Anjan’s mother looked somewhat mollified. But when she realized that her expression had softened, she glared at Emily with renewed intent. “Meals are meals. And India? You want him to forget about India? To never come home, never have his children know where they are from?”
“No,” Emily replied. “Of course not. We’ll visit as often as we can.”
“I see. Who is this girl, Anjan, who wants everything you want? I am not sure I believe her.”
“But I don’t want everything Anjan wants,” Emily said. “He explained to me how it works. I want everything you want.”
Silence met this at first. Then Mrs. Bhattacharya tilted her head and looked at Emily. “You do?”
“Of course I do. I know nothing about being married to Indians, raising Indian children. Who else would I ask for advice?”
Mrs. Bhattacharya raised one eyebrow and turned to her son. “You told her to say that.”
Anjan coughed into his hand. “I promise, Ma, I didn’t. I did tell her that you were in charge, but she figured the rest of it out herself.”
Mrs. Bhattacharya shook her head, but her lip twitched, too—an expression of suppressed humor that reminded Emily of her son. “Well, at least she knows how to go on.”
Anjan smiled at Emily, and she found herself smiling back. Getting lost in his expression…
His mother rapped the table smartly. “Did I say you could smile at each other like that? I promised my husband I would not go easy on you. There are still seventeen items on my list. We are by no means finished.”
The list ranged from questions of how Emily felt about hosting family members who came to sit for the civil service examination, children, religion, children again, Emily’s fits and her family’s history, children…