‘Bath,’ Alistair murmured. He must have seen the look of panic cross her face. ‘How fast of you to discuss gentlemen’s ablutions, Lady Perdita,’ he added, loudly enough for the elderly matron’s gimlet gaze to fix on them intently.
‘Oh, do hush,’ she hissed back, stifling the giggle that was trying to escape. ‘I am in enough disgrace with her already.’
Alistair began to peel the mango with a small, wickedly sharp knife that he had removed from an inner pocket. ‘What for?’ he asked, slicing a succulent segment off the stone and on to her plate.
‘Existing,’ Dita said as she cut a delicate slither and tried it. ‘Thank you for this, it is delicious.’
‘You have been setting Calcutta society by the ears, have you?’ Alistair gestured to the steward who brought him a finger bowl and napkin. ‘You must tell me all about it.’
‘Not here,’ Dita said and took another prim nibble of the fruit. Lady Grimshaw turned her attention to Averil, who was blushing at Daniel Chatterton’s flirtatious remarks.
‘Later, then,’ Alistair said and, before she could retort that he was the last person on the ship to whom she would confide the gossip that seemed to follow her, he turned to Mrs Edwards on his other side and was promptly silenced by her garrulous complaints on the subject of the size of the cabins and the noise of the Tompkinson children.
Dita fixed a smile on her lips and asked the captain how many voyages he had undertaken; that, at least, was a perfectly harmless topic of conversation.
When dinner was over she went to Averil and swept her out of the cuddy and up on to the poop deck.
‘Come and look at the chickens, or the view, or something.’
‘Are you attempting to avoid Lord Lyndon, by any chance?’ Averil lifted her skirts out of the way of a hen that had escaped from its coop and was evading the efforts of a member of the crew to recapture it.
‘Most definitely,’ Dita said. ‘The provoking man seems determined to tease me. He almost made me giggle right under Lady Grimshaw’s nose and I have the lowering suspicion that he has heard all about the scandal in England and has concluded that I will be receptive to any liberties he might take.’
The fact that she knew she would be severely tempted if Alistair attempted to kiss her again did nothing to calm her inner alarm.
‘Forgive me for mentioning it,’ Averil ventured, ‘but perhaps if one of the older ladies were to hint him away? If he has heard of the incident and has wrongly concluded that you … I mean,’ she persisted, blushing furiously, ‘if he mistakenly thinks you are not …’
‘I spent two nights in inn bedchambers with a man to whom I was not married,’ Dita said. ‘An overrated experience, I might add.’
It had been a dreadful disillusion to discover that the man she had thought was perfect in looks and in character was a money-hungry boor with the finesse of a bull in a china shop when it came to making love.
The realisation that she had made a terrible mistake had begun to dawn on her by the time the chaise hired with her money had reached Hitchin. Stephen had no longer troubled to be charming, to be witty, to converse or to show the quick appreciation of her thoughts he had always counterfeited before. He had fretted about pursuit and asked interminable questions about her access to her funds. When the postillions, who quite obviously realised that an elopement was afoot, became impertinent he blustered ineffectually and Dita had to snub them with a few well-chosen words.
By the time they had stopped for the first night Dita decided she had had enough and declared that she would hire another chaise and return alone. It was then that she discovered that Stephen was quite capable of forcing her into the inn and up to a bedchamber and that he had removed all the money from her luggage and reticule.
The effort to keep him from her bed involved a sleepless night and a willingness to stab him with a table knife after he had run the gamut from trying to charm her, to attempting to maul her, to a desperate attempt to force her.
The second day had been worse. He had been furious and sulky and every pretence that this was anything but an abduction had gone. Papa had caught up with them as they had arrived in Preston and by that time she was so exhausted by lack of sleep that she had simply flung herself on his chest and sobbed, unconscious of the audience in the inn yard and uncaring about his anger.
Averil was blushing, but it did not stop her putting the question she was obviously dying to ask. ‘Is it really horrid? You know, one hears such things.’
‘With the wrong man it is,’ Dita said with feeling. And that had been without the actual act taking place. She shuddered to think what it would have been like if Stephen had forced her. ‘With the right one—’ She stopped on the verge of admitting that it was very pleasurable indeed.
‘I am sure it would be wonderful,’ she said, as if she did not know. There was no point in making Averil fearful of her own nuptials, even if she suspected that her betrothed had no finesse to speak of. Dita shivered a little, wondering what would happen if another man tried to make love to her.
Oh, but she had enjoyed Alistair’s impertinent kiss on the maidan. The cockerel in the chicken coop flapped up on to the perch and crowed loudly, ruffling his feathers and throwing his head back. ‘Yes, you are a fine fellow,’ she said to him and he crowed again. Male creatures were all the same, she told herself. They needed feminine admiration and attention all the time. And Alistair had sensed she had enjoyed that meeting of lips, she was certain. No wonder he was so confident about teasing her. It would be well to exercise considerable caution if he was to not to guess the way she felt about him now—which could be summed up in three words: desirable, treacherous, trouble.
‘Let us walk,’ she said firmly. ‘We must exercise every day, it will help keep us healthy.’
They strolled round and round the poop deck, both of them sunk, Dita guessed, in rather different thoughts about wedding nights. The view was not particularly diverting, for the river banks were hardly higher than the water, here in the delta of the Ganges, and mud banks, fields covered in winter stubble and herds of buffalo were all that could be seen between the small villages that dotted the higher ground.
‘I had better go and unpack,’ Averil said after a while. ‘I can see now why I was advised to bring a hammer and nails to hang things up. I cannot imagine how I am ever going to fit everything in and still live in that space. It is a quarter the size of my dressing room at home!’
Dita could well believe it. For all that she was unpretentious and unspoiled, Averil was used to considerable luxury. She wondered what she would make of the chilly Spartan grandeur of her betrothed’s home. But doubtless her own money would go a long way to making it comfortable.
When her friend went below Dita leaned her forearms on the rail and let herself fall into a daydream. Soon the rhythms of shipboard life would assert themselves and the passengers would develop a routine that could become quite numbing until landfalls, quarrels or hurricanes enlivened things. On the way out she had read her way through a trunk full of books, determined to keep her mind off her problems with light fiction. Now she was equally determined to face the reality of her future. There was only one problem, Dita realised: she had no idea what she wanted that to be.
‘That was a big enough sigh to add speed to the sails.’
She
