Excerpt from
by
Sarah A. Hoyt
Maiden In Peril
Dispossessed
Desperate Gamble
cd Mama, don’t make me marry him,” Miss Sofie Warington said.
Seventeen years old, clad in a white dressing gown and clutching a blue muslin dress to her ample bosom—with her hair quite untamed and her expression wild—Miss Warington should not have looked ravishing. But the way her dark hair fell in tumultuous waves to the bottom of her spine; the way tears trembled at the end of the end of the long eyelashes surrounding her blue-violet eyes; the way her lips opened to let through her impetuous words would have brought strong men to their knees.
They had less effect on her mother, Lavinia Warington. “Don’t be foolish girl,” she said, her voice severe. “What are you doing out of your room? And why are you not dressed?” As she spoke, she skillfully shepherded her daughter up the spacious stairs, carpeted in expensive, red velvet that showed wear in discolored, threadbare patches.
Sofie resisted, but it was useless. She felt out of step and like a stranger in this house. She’d been born into it seventeen years ago, and she’d spent her first ten years in its vast, resounding, sun-washed rooms, attended by a native ayah and adored and indulged by her parents’ various servants. But at ten, she’d been put aboard a carpetship to London where, for seven years, she’d been a pupil in Lady Lodkin’s Academy for Young Lady Magic Users.
The summons to return home two months ago had overjoyed her. London had never felt like home to her. Too dark, too dank, and people were too ready to sneer at her honey-colored skin—the result of one of her ancestresses’ being the Indian mistress of an English officer. She’d felt like a wayfarer in London. And yet, now home proved no home at all.
She’d found her mother and father to be far from the mythical, god-like figures who had watched over her childhood with pride and care. Her mother had grown bitter and her father... Her father didn’t bear thinking about. She knew nothing of magical maladies, but she knew enough to guess when someone had been using dark magic, and using it far too extensively. And she knew it was an illness that could hardly be cured.
And then there was the reason they’d summoned her back home a year before her education was completed. It wasn’t a longing for her company, as she’d hoped. And it wasn’t even that they’d missed her. “Lalita told me that the man visiting tonight was a rich native Raj from a distant kingdom,” she accused her mother. “That he offered for me several months ago, and you... you accepted! Before I even returned.”
“And how would she know this, since she has been in London as your attendant till just three months ago?”
“She says the kitchen servants talked about it. They said that’s why you sent for me.”
Sofie’s mother’s lips closed tightly, until they seemed to be but a single red line. “Lalita talks too much.”
Sofie turned around fully, still clutching her dress, anxious fingers digging deeply into the folds of the material. “But is it true, Mama? Did she tell me the truth? How can you agree to give me away to a man I haven’t even met? A man who...” Oh, if it was true, she had to run—somewhere, somehow—and find or make her own fortune.
“Child, you’re being foolish. We are not giving you away to anyone. We found you a most advantageous marriage, one that most women in your position would give their eyeteeth for. The Raj Ajith is a powerful man, the ruler of a vast kingdom as native domains go, and he’s agreed to make you his only wife. You will live covered in jewels and surrounded by servants. Trust me, Sofie, your lot could be worse.”
As she spoke, Madame Warington propelled her daughter up the steep staircase, till, at the top landing, she could put her arm around the girl’s small shoulders and shepherd her gently into the open door of her room.
The room, if not her parents, exactly matched Sofie’s memories of childhood. It was, by far, vaster than anything she’d seen in England—almost as large as the dormitory which, at the academy, she’d shared with twenty other girls. The walls were whitewashed, since to wallpaper walls in India’s hot and humid climate was quite futile. Even magically-applied wallpaper started mildewing from the moisture within days of being put up, and peeled all together from the humidity and heat within months. But the whitewash was fresh, and if the occasional lizard wandered in through the open balcony door and climbed the wall, it looked like a planned ornament.
The bed was piled high with lace and silk pillows, and covered in an intricate, colorful bedspread. The tightly-woven lace netting draped over it lent it an air of romance. At least, it would if you didn’t know how necessary it was to keep out the noxious flying insects that flourished in this climate. And all the silk and lace might give the impression of riches, if one didn’t know how cheap they were. Why, even the servants wore silken saris and gaudy gold jewels on ears and nostrils.
Still clutching her dress, Sofie allowed herself to be pushed all the way to the vanity in the far corner. The mirror—showing dark spots in its silver backing—gave her back her own image, with high color on both cheeks and moisture in her eyes, and she wondered how her mother could distress her so and not care.
Meanwhile, her mother had removed the dress from Sofie’s clutching fingers and clucked at the wrinkles marring the fine blue fabric. “Why, you absurd creature. You nearly ruined this. Lalita!”
Sofie’s maid and the constant companion of her adolescence emerged from the balcony where, doubtless, she’d run at their approach, trying to evade Mrs. Warington’s wrath. But Mrs. Warington was more preoccupied with her daughter’s attire right now than with punishing her garrulous maid.
Lalita, whose name meant playful and who looked it, wore a bright sky-blue sari, and large, golden hoop earrings through her ears. Her hair was caught into a heavy braid at her back. Not for the first time, Sofie found herself envying her maid’s vitality, her beauty and, most of all, her unrepentant certainty of who she was. Not for Lalita to wonder if she were Indian or English, and which one she might be more. Lalita, born and raised in Calcutta—the daughter of people born and raised there for generations uncountable—might have gone to London with Sofie for seven long years, but had never had any reason to consider herself anything but Indian.
She walked into the room with an expression of repentance that was no more believable than an expression of humility upon a cat’s face. Bobbing a hasty courtesy, she took the dress and fairly ran with it out the door, presumably to do whatever it was one did to a dress to remove wrinkles.
Sofie, who didn’t know nor care what that might be, allowed her mother to fuss over her hair. “I can’t believe you’d go out there like this, Sofie,” Mrs. Warington said. “What if anyone had seen you?”
“Lalita said he was with papa in the veranda off the parlor, and she said he is quite gross. And, Mama, she was right.” She shuddered at the memory of the enormous native grandee, his shapeless form covered in bright silks that would have done better service as sofa or bed coverings. But it was not his gross physique that had disgusted her. No. What made her tremble and swallow hard in fear was his features.
A native he might be, but Sofie, raised by natives, didn’t consider that a problem. However, she’d never seen anyone who looked like him. His face was broad and oddly arranged, with a very low nose and cruel lips. Between the scars crisscrossing his features, and the intricate tattoos marking his forehead and cheeks, he looked ... not quite human.
And then there were his eyes, slit-like and quite yellow. The pupils were yellow-gold, but the sclera too had a yellowish tint, like aged porcelain or the teeth of a heavy smoker. Sofie shuddered at the memory.
“Mama, I...”
“Hush, girl,” Mrs. Warington said, pulling hard on the heavy tresses she was plating into two braids on either side of her daughter’s face. “Don’t make this into a melodrama. No one is going to force you to marry anyone you don’t wish to. All I ask is that you look at Raj Ajith and think whether you could not stand to marry him.”
“I’ve looked at him,” Sofie said, as she remembered the man’s smile, and the large sharp fang-like teeth that protruded from his thin lips. “There is nothing that could prevail upon me to consider marriage to—”
With a clatter Mrs. Warrington set Sofie’s silver-handled brush upon the polished mahogany dressing table. “Sofie, listen. You are old enough to know the truth. And the truth is the chances of us finding you a respectable marriage with an Englishman in either England or India are next to none.”
“I know you’re going to say this is because I have Indian blood, but... Mother! Plenty or girls with more Indian blood than I have married exceedingly well. And besides—”
“Yes, doubtless,” Mrs. Warington said. “Your father’s grandmother married very well, but she brought with her an immense dowry accumulated by her Nabob father. Enough for no one to say anything about her blood, or about the fact her parents never married and her mother was nothing but her father’s native bibi. Yes, Sofie, money covers a multitude of sins, but that’s where we fail, for we have none.”
“No money?” Sofie asked, somewhat shocked.
A shadow crossed her mother’s features. For a moment, the greenish eyes meeting hers in the mirror looked away.
“But you sent me to England!” Sofie protested. After all, only a small minority of girls got sent to England for their education, and certainly not those born to the very impecunious. Officer’s brats, as a rule, stayed in India. As did almost any girl with any Indian blood. “And papa inherited his mother’s money, and—”
“We spent all our money sending you to England,” her mother said, looking down, seemingly wholly absorbed in arranging Sofie’s hair. Sofie wished she would look up and meet her eyes. Then she might judge the truth of her mother’s words. Unnatural or not, she didn’t feel as though she could trust her. “There is none left for your dowry, but surely you must understand what you owe me and your father. We ruined ourselves for your education. The least you can do is consider the marriage we arranged for you.”
Sofie was stunned into silence by this consideration—a silence that subsisted till she was mostly dressed and her mother left to allow Lalita to drape a shawl artistically around her. Oh, she knew her family was not wealthy. But they had sent her to England and she thought there would be at least enough money for a modest dowery.
As soon as the door closed behind Mrs. Warington, Lalita looked at her mistress and said, with remarkable understatement, “You don’t like him?”
“Like him? How could I? Lalita, he’s the most despicable—” She didn’t notice her own voice rising until Lalita put her finger to her lips.
“The other servants say he’s not... Not what he seems,” Lalita said, in an urgent murmur. “His kingdom is very distant, but there are rumors...” She made a gesture, mid air, as of someone averting a curse. “They call it the kingdom of the tigers, and it is said all English who go there disappear.”
“But...what could he want with me?” Sofie asked, bewildered. It all came down to that one question. Granted this man was a local ruler of some distant domain. But why would he want her? What could he possibly see in an English miss freshly returned from Britain that would justify a promise to make her his only wife? “I don’t think he’s ever even glimpsed me.”
Lalita looked grave, an expression ill-suited to her normally smiling countenance. “He told your father he saw your face and heard your name in a seeing. That you were the only one for him.”
“He told my father...” Sofie repeated, as she, absentmindedly, arranged the folds of the shawl. “But you don’t think it’s true?”
“I...don’t know. I think... I mean, I know he was very interested in your dowry.”
“My dowry?” Sofie asked, shocked. “I have a dowry? But my mother said...”
“The ruby,” Lalita said.
Sofie stared, astonished. “The ruby?” It wasn’t that she didn’t know what Lalita was talking about. She knew well enough. The jewel was all that remained of her father’s half-breed grandmother’s dowry. The money had been spent, and the other jewels sold for more money and also used up. All except the ruby.
The only reason it had been preserved was that, though it was deep blood red and of exceptional size, it was also flawed. A dark crack at its center marred not only its aesthetics but its magical properties as well. You could feel power flowing off the jewel, but it was erratic—now starting, now stopping, as unpredictable as the lightning that crossed the sky at monsoon season. And as likely to be harnessed for anything useful. Why, then, would the Raj want that? Surely he was neither crazy nor stupid?
It had to be an excuse, and the excuse had to mean that he wanted her. But why?
“I don’t understand it either, Miss,” Lalita said, and shrugged. “Only all the talk in the servants’ hall is that he insisted on the ruby for your dowry.”
Sofie shook her head. In the middle of her room, she could see her reflection in the mirror without turning her head fully. Half-glimpsed through the corner of her eye, she looked to herself like a comely woman, and shapely enough. Shapely enough to command love where her dowry could not demand respect.
She didn’t think much of her dark locks, or the fact that her skin always had a slight honey-tinge to it. But she had to admit she looked well enough.
Desperately, she thought of her days in London, and the carefully chaperoned balls she’d attended. There had been several men who had tried to fix their favor with her—though she supposed that her mother would say they did it in the belief her father had made his fortune in India. Perhaps they did. Sofie had always been a little suspicious of those men who declared they’d fallen in love with her after one look, or that one glance from her was enough to sustain them for days. She was doubtful of the ones who sent her roses and flowers and danced attendance to her night and day, with no encouragement and very little sustenance.
But one man hadn’t been like that. In her mind rose the image of Captain William Blacklock. He had smokey gray eyes, and was slim, dark haired and ravishing in his red regimentals. He had told her he would marry her had circumstances been different. By which she was sure he meant he was afraid her parents would think him a disgraceful fortune hunter. Well, they couldn’t think that now.
Her mind brought her, unbidden, the image of the man her parents had chosen for her. Beside Captain Blacklock, he didn’t even seem the same species. And Sofie had no doubt whom she preferred.
Captain Blacklock had shipped to India three months before she did. She was sure of it. He’d told her he was being sent to Meerut with his regiment to put down some disturbance related to weres. Sofie had never heard of weres in India, except in her nursemaid’s stories, so she wasn’t sure she’d heard Captain Blacklock right.
But she remembered Meerut. She had no idea where it was, but she knew it was somewhere in India. Surely she could make it there? She must run away from home anyway. She had decided that as soon as she’d looked at the cruel, inhuman face of the unknown Raj.
In his last words to her, William Blacklock had said he would gladly marry her if their circumstances permitted. Surely if she could make it to his side, he would not refuse her now?
Without a fortune, surely she was not beyond his reach.
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cd Peter Farewell stumbled down the streets of Calcutta, looking like a drunken man but feeling all too starkly sober.
A tall Englishman with dark curls, his classical features—whose symmetry could have shamed the marbled perfection of ancient statues—was marred only by a black leather eyepatch, hiding his left eye. The right one, as though to compensate, shone brightly, and often sparkled with irony.
Many a woman had gazed into that eye and been captivated by the verdant depths that seemed to hide all promises and sparkle with possible romance. Peter Farewell knew his gaze’s power and had consciously avoided capturing any hearts when he could not offer his own in return. For the last ten years, he’d known he wouldn’t make anyone a good husband. Once, he’d dreamed of a world where he could live like anyone else—a world where he loved and could be loved. Now, he did not know what dreams he had, if any. All he had was a mission. One at which he was failing miserably.
He walked blindly through Calcutta. He’d arrived here six months ago, and was staying in one of the palatial mansions of Garden Reach—that place inhabited by East India Company employees and their families. The vast houses would make most noble families in England blush with envy, and it put Peter’s own inherited estate, the rambling Summercourt, to shame.
Summercourt.. As his mind dwelt on his ancestral house, his hand plunged into the pocket of his exquisitely tailored suit to feel a bundle of papers. He did not need to take it from his pocket to see its text floating before his gaze as vividly as if he were reading. The top line read: To Peter Farewell, Lord Saint Maur.
He hadn’t needed to read the next lines—though he had—nor the twelve pages following to know what his estate manager was telling him. That Peter’s father was dead. That Peter was now the only heir to that ancient and noble family name descended from Charlemagne.
The manager’s faithful account of Peter’s inheritance made Peter groan. He’d received the letter—by bearer—just before dinner, and how he’d got through dinner, he’d never know. He’d left immediately after. He’d come, without quite knowing how, all the way to Esplanade Row, where he now stared at the impressive facade of Government House. Like his estate manager’s letter, it resonated with the power of the expected and the prearranged. The manager never said it, but it was clear in his every word that he expected Peter—who, for the last ten years, had been abroad and sown his wild oats, such as they were—to return and shoulder the name of Farewell, the title of Saint Maur, and the responsibilities and needs of his house and retainers.
Not that there was much. At least, there hadn’t been when Peter had last seen it. A large, rambling farm, and an assortment of smaller farms, let to various tenant families. Enough for a shabby gentility of the kind that supported a living similar to a wealthy farmer’s, with pretensions that would make the Royal Family’s seem small.
But compared to the way he had been living, it would be paradise. He couldn’t think of his north-country domains without longing for the smells of the fields around his house. He craved the twang of local speech; the Sunday afternoons in semi-deserted streets; the parks visited by serene families, the children named for kings and queens; the museums; the lending libraries; the places that had sheltered his childhood when he was, in fact, still full of illusions. When he still thought that he might grow up to be Peter Farewell, Earl of Saint Maur, and scion to a noble family.
Only it couldn’t be. Oh, England had shape shifters aplenty among its noble families. Despite the law’s command that they all be killed upon discovery, it was an open secret that several noble families threw out weres now and then.
But all known noble weres were foxes or dogs or—at worse—wolves.
There was even a charming story of a Scottish nobleman who turned into a seal at the waxing of the moon. But Peter didn’t have that innocuous a form. His other shape was a dragon. An eater of humans. A killer.
It was beyond the pale to even think of such a dangerous beast being tolerated. Witness the story of Richard Lionheart, trudging his weary way home from the crusades only to be put to death because more of him was a lion than his heart.
The laws that had allowed John Lackland to execute his older brother and lawful sovereign were still extant. And still enforced.
Tomorrow morning, early, he’d pen a letter for his manager, apprising him of his intent to never return. The man would be disappointed. He would possibly be crushed, destroyed by such a complete break with the past and by his internal certainty that Peter did not care about house or family. Let him think it. If that kept Peter’s secret—and if it kept Peter safe—it was enough.
Peter would stay in India and try to fulfill his mission here. He’d find Soul of Fire, the ruby once used to bind all the magic of Europe to Charlemagne. Six months ago, on the highlands near Darjeeling, he’d separated from Nigel, who might be his last friend in the world, and he’d promised Nigel that he’d find the ruby. And then he’d reunite with Nigel—who held the ruby’s twin, Heart of Light, which would attract Soul of Fire like a beacon—so Nigel could return both stones to the temple at the heart of Africa: the oldest temple of mankind.
Neither man knew what would happen once the jewels were returned to the temple. They’d been convinced that such an act was necessary to prevent horrible catastrophe, and as close to the end of the world as bore no distinction. But Peter didn’t think it would in any way improve his life or his material circumstances. He presumed he would still be followed by his curse, still separated from normal men and limited in how close by them he could live. Yet, for the last six months, since his visit to the temple, the curse had been so slight and so easily controlled that he’d dared to dream. Perhaps, once the rubies were returned, he would be free...
But now, after six months of following a long-dead trail for the ruby that Charlemagne had used to bind magical power to him and his descendants, and then abandoned, he’d grown to believe the jewel had been cut up or destroyed, and no longer existed. His scrying instruments and all his attempts at divination showed him nothing. They had led him here, to Calcutta. For a brief, shining moment, he had been sure the jewel was here. Right in this city. And then, before he could pinpoint its location, the trail had vanished. His scrying instruments had been unable to find it again.
Meaning he’d live out his days in India, futilely trying to find an artifact that couldn’t be found.
He’d already broken his father’s heart, through no design of his own, on that cold morning, so many years ago, when his father had discovered Peter’s secret. He had packed his son up and told him to get out—and stay out. Money would find him, but he must not—he must never—make his way to Summercourt again. He remembered his father’s dour face and the instruction to: “Seek some form of employment that will not disgrace you. And strive not to commit more sins than needed.”
Did his father know, then, that it would be the last time they’d see each other? He had to, didn’t he? He’d told Peter to stay away and never let their paths cross again.
Something caught at the back of Peter’s throat, something that might have been laughter or tears; he wasn’t sure which. He looked up, trying to find something to fix his eyes upon, something that would take his mind off his own misery and the final renunciation of his inheritance, his birthplace—his own being—that he must perform in the morning.
And he saw the girl creeping along the outside of a verandah’s railing. “Good God,” he said to himself. “What can she be about?”
Then his body contorted in cough, as fear for the stranger’s circumstances disturbed the balance of his mind, and allowed the beast within to take control....
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cd “How far away is Meerut?” Sofie asked.
“I’m sure I don’t know, Miss,” Lalita answered, primly, with just that hint of panic in her eyes. After all, she’d known her mistress since they were both small girls and she’d been prey to a thousand of Sofie’s plans. She was doubtless thinking of the unfortunate incident with the cat and the bread pudding. “But I’m sure it would be very far away.”
Sofie was aware that many of her more elaborate schemes had failed to come off, but this time she had no room for doubt, and no room for fear. Fear was that thing in the verandah with Papa – the unknown raj who coveted her who knew for what dark reasons.
“Yes, I suppose it would,” she told Lalita, reasonably. Then, quickly, “Find me one of my portmanteaus, the sort I brought back with me. One of the small ones that I can lift myself. We’ll put into it as many outfits as will fit. They will have to do, I suppose.”
Lalita hesitated, her lively face showed something very much like a doubt. “Miss, only...”
“Only what?” Sofie asked.
“Only... Shouldn’t you dress yourself as a boy, perhaps, and cut your hair?”
“No time for that,” Sofie said. The thought had crossed her mind though. After all, it was what girls did when preparing to run away from home in all the novels that she and Lalita had read while in England. But then she wasn’t running away from home, or not exactly. She was going to find her fiancé. Or at least the man who would be her fiancé as soon as he knew he would be permitted to claim her. As such, it was the height of folly to dress as a boy. William wouldn’t like that. Besides finding male clothes – they would have to be her father’s, or else servant attire and she wasn’t sure how that would look since she spoke none of the native dialects and had been away so long that she wasn’t sure of the customs, either – and cutting her hair would take time. Sofie had none.
“Any moment now, mama will come back and demand to know why I’m taking so long.” While she spoke, she hurried to the large, delapidated wardrobe that took up a whole wall of her room. Opening it, she reached in, grabbing armfuls of dresses and blouses, skirts, shawls and a sturdy traveling cloak, which she proceeded to try to cram into a large carpet bag.
Lalita made a sound of distress, as any would seeing her own profession so dreadfully mis-performed, and took bag and clothes away. Folding the clothing swiftly, she said, “You could wait till after dinner. While the men have port and cigars, you could come upstairs and cut your hair. I’ll get a suit of clothes for you while you are gone, and I’ll find out the best way for you to take. Perhaps we could take a boat.”
“That’s quite ridiculous,” Sofie said, sternly. “Since we have no idea if Meerut is near water. As for the rest...” she gave it a moment’s thought, Then she shook her head. “I don’t trust my parents, Lalita. All of this is so strange – their having accepted an offer on my behalf, and such an offer, from a native whose kingdom they haven’t bothered to describe to me that...” She shook her head. “They could very well decide to imprison me, or perhaps to give me over to this creature somehow, during the dinner. I’m sure they will if they sense the slightest reluctance, or even suspect that I have intentions of escaping. No. Lalita, I must leave now.”
She could never explain all of it to Lalita. The girl might be her best friend from childhood, but she was also a servant and a native. However, Sofie was thinking of the way her father looked, as though he’d aged thirty years in the seven years she’d been away. That and the curious darkness around his eyes spoke of the use of black arts – of employing evil resources such as human sacrifice to augment his natural magical power inherited from his parents. If this was true – if her father had been devoting himself to the unholy – she wasn’t even sure that he wouldn’t attempt to sacrifice her.
She felt unnatural even thinking it, but she had – while in England – read more than fiction. She had read enough of the histories and compendiums in the academy’s moldy library to know about dark magic and what it did to people and their morals.
But Lalita looked reluctant and pale. Sofie wasn’t sure if she was afraid for her, or simply afraid of the retribution Sofie’s parents would visit on Lalita herself, once Sofie’s escape became known.
“I’m not sure...” she begun.
“I am,” Sofie said, firmly.
“Sofie?” Mrs. Warington’s voice sounded, up the stairs. “Sofie?”
“I have to go, Lalita.” Sofie picked up the valise and ran across the room, through the open doors onto the verandah. Behind her, she could hear her room door open and her mother cry, “Where is she, Lalita? Where did she go?”
She couldn’t hear Lalita’s reply, but she could hear the sound of her mother’s hand hitting the maid’s face. And then her mother’s steps towards the verandah.
Sofie had run around the corner. The house had three verandahs on the three upper levels – and each completely encircled the house. This one was on the topmost level. From the level below, she could hear her father and the creature talk.
Mentally, she was thinking she needed a sheet or a rope, or a curtain. But the open doors she passed – the doors to her parents’ rooms – showed servants moving about inside. She ran blindly, hearing her mother’s steps behind her.
She must climb the verandah railing. Perhaps she could dangle from this level onto the next one. Perhaps she could...
Blindly, she climbed over the railing, hands scratching at the rough stone. Holding on with one hand, the other grasping her valise, she tried to feel with her foot for the railing below. But the railing was too far away and she couldn’t manage it, and her mother was running and calling, “Sofie. Oh, you unlucky girl. Don’t–”
And then her hold on the stone parapet gave.
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