do not need your help.’ Anusha jammed her foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. ‘And I only wanted to see—’ She shut her mouth in confusion at where her temper had led her.
‘See what?’ He was up on the grey now. In the torchlight his lean features showed nothing but amused curiosity.
‘What colour you were,’ Anusha snapped.
‘And your curiosity was satisfied?’ Herriard clicked his tongue and the grey and the black moved out into the yard. Anusha dug in her heels and sent her horse after them.
‘Yes. Where you are not touched by the sun you are pink. Not white at all.’ She would not be shamed or embarrassed by him.
‘I suspect that after many days with you I will be turning white on a regular basis,’ he said. ‘Now, be quiet and cover yourself.’ He pulled the tail of his turban round and tucked it in to veil the lower part of his face. Seething, Anusha followed his example and the three horses passed out of the main gate and down the road towards the town without challenge.
She twisted in the saddle for a last look at the great walls towering above her, the fort that contained a palace, the palace that had been her home. Now she was simply a fugitive, neither Anusha, the raja’s pampered niece, nor Miss Laurens, the rejected daughter of an Englishman. The thought was frightening and strangely liberating. She did not have to think about where she was going or how she would get there—for days she would be floating on the stream of fate.
At the pressure of her heels the bay drew alongside Herriard’s big grey. ‘Where do we go?’ she asked in English. She had best practise it, she supposed.
‘Allahabad to start with. Speak Hindi.’
‘So we do not attract attention?’ Anusha tucked the end of the cloth more snugly into the turban as he nodded. ‘You do that without a word spoken. You are too big and too pale.’ She would die rather than admit that she found the sheer size of him comforting.
‘With my hair covered I can be taken for a Pathan,’ Herriard said.
‘They are tall and light-skinned and they have grey eyes, some of the men from the north, I have seen them,’ she agreed. ‘But your eyes are green.’
The town was seething like a disturbed ant heap with the news of the maharaja’s approaching army. The bay snorted and sidled at the press of bullock carts, the running figures and the trains of camels. Herriard reached for her rein, then withdrew his hand when she hissed at him. She had her mount back under control within seconds.
‘I am flattered that you noticed my eyes.’ He skirted round a cow that lay in the middle of the road chewing the cud as it ignored all around it with complete indifference.
‘You should not be. Of course I noticed—you are different. Strange,’ she added to make certain he did not think it a compliment. ‘It is a long time since I saw someone like you.’
He did not answer her, but guided his horse around a spitting, grumbling knot of camels and out over the rickety bridge that spanned the river. So, he was either not easy to goad or he simply dismissed her as unimportant. The moon was up, noticeable now they were away from the torches and the fires, and the angrezi stood in his stirrups to survey the road in front of them.
‘We can take that track there.’ Anusha pointed. ‘It cuts through the fields and it will be deserted now. We will make better time and no one will see us.’
‘And we will leave the tracks of three horses plain on soil that is trodden only by bare feet and oxen. Here, on the road, we will be less easy to track.’
At least he explains, Anusha conceded, then the implication hit home. ‘We will be followed?’
‘Of course. Once it is realised that you are no longer in the palace the maharaja’s spies will pass the word out. I am counting on half a day’s start, that is all.’
Anusha’s stomach tightened. Suddenly the Englishman’s frankness was no longer so welcome. ‘It is more dangerous out here than in the fort. Why did we not stay there until help came?’
He shot her a glance, the silvery light catching his eyes, making them unreal, like the greenish pearl of the inside of a shell. ‘Because your uncle could not be certain that he could protect you within the palace. Your father makes you a very tempting prize for a man who wishes for nothing but his own power and to keep the Company at bay.’
‘I was in danger within the palace?’
‘I think so. I removed you easily enough, did I not?’
‘Yes.’ She took a deep breath. Treachery, spies, danger, lies. And she had thought her life had been so tranquil, so … boring. I could have been kidnapped at any time.
‘Frightened?’
‘Of what?’ she demanded. ‘There is much to choose from.’
That surprised a laugh from him. ‘Of the pursuers, of the journey, of where you are going. Of me.’
‘No,’ Anusha lied. She was afraid of all of those things, but she was not going to admit it. His faint snort of derision showed what he thought of that.
‘You appear to be competent, so I imagine you will evade pursuit,’ she said. It seemed important to convince him of her courage, her ability to undertake this journey. ‘I look forward to being able to look around me, to see things openly and not through the screens of a travelling palanquin. I will deal with my destination when I get there. And as for you, Major Herriard, you are a—’ She searched for the equivalent in Hindi and resorted to English. ‘Gentleman, are you not, if you are an officer? And my mother said that English gentlemen must behave honourably to ladies.’
‘That is the theory,’ he agreed, his voice dry. And then he laughed and spurred his horse into a canter, leaving her to follow, her body tight with apprehension.
Chapter Four
‘Why are we stopping?’ Anusha demanded. The horses had dropped into a trot and then a walk as Major Herriard turned off the road. Beneath their hooves the ground was stony and uneven. ‘This is a terrible surface, we cannot canter on this.’
‘Are you going to question every decision I make?’ he asked without turning his head.
‘Yes.’ Now she did not have to concentrate on keeping her aching body in the saddle the desire to slide off and simply go to sleep was overwhelming. Perhaps when she woke it would all have been a bad dream.
‘The moon will be down very soon and then it will be hard to see where we are going. There are trees over there, cover. We will make a temporary camp and sleep until sunrise. I turned off here because the ground will not show tracks.’
‘Very well,’ Anusha agreed.
‘That is very gracious of you, Miss Laurens, but your approval is not required, merely your obedience.’ Herriard was a dark shape now as he sat motionless on the horse and studied the small group of trees and thorn bushes in what was left of the moonlight. He spoke absently, as though she was peripheral to his interest.
‘Major
