Dark Road to Darjeeling. Deanna Raybourn

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      I cleared my throat. “Yes, very well, Morag, but do you think you might manage to help me dress? You are actually my maid, you know. Mr. Brisbane does have the hotel valet to assist him.”

      Morag sniffed. “Foreign devils. As if they knew how to take care of a proper Scottish gentleman. I shall have to find the pink. Keep your wig on,” she finished saucily.

      She left, banging the door behind her, and I turned to Brisbane. “She was impossible enough before you came along. Now she is thoroughly unmanageable. I ought to let you take her on as valet and find a new lady’s maid for myself,” I added in some irritation.

      Brisbane said nothing, but began to divest himself of his clothing. I gave him a broad smile. “I am glad you changed your mind about coming tonight,” I told him.

      “I haven’t,” he said, dropping his coat. The waistcoat and neckcloth followed swiftly and he began to work his way out of his collar and cuffs. “When I said I was not going, I was not referring to dinner with the viceroy, although you are quite right, as it happens. The fellow has a positive mania for drains. And railways,” he added, dropping his shirt onto the growing pile.

      With perfect immodesty, he began to disrobe his lower half and I let my gaze slide to the clothes upon the floor. Even after so many months of marriage, I was still somewhat shy about such things. Of course, I had spent the first few weeks of our honeymoon simply staring, but it had finally occurred to me that this was impolite and I had made a devoted effort to afford him some measure of privacy, although he seemed thoroughly unconcerned. I put it down to his Gypsy blood. In my experience, Gypsies could be quite casual about nudity.

      Brisbane, now completely unclothed, went into the bathroom and flung himself into the tub with a great slosh. He was something of a sybarite, and I had discovered that although he could be remarkably relaxed about domestic arrangements in general, he insisted upon a scalding hot bath before dinner, an activity we sometimes shared with vastly interesting results. But there would be no such goings-on afoot this evening. I followed him, tightening the sash of my dressing gown.

      “Then perhaps you will be good enough to clarify. If you are content to dine with the viceroy, then where precisely are you not going?” I asked.

      Brisbane took up a washcloth and cake of soap and began to scrub vigorously. “I am not leaving Calcutta,” he said.

      The sight of his broad, muscular chest was a diverting one, and it took a moment for the words to register completely. I blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

      He stopped soaping himself and fixed me with that implacable black stare. “I. Am. Not. Leaving. Calcutta.”

      “Yes, I did hear you the first time,” I said with exaggerated politeness. “But it makes no sense. We are supposed to depart for Darjeeling tomorrow,” I protested. “The arrangements have been made.”

      “Without my knowledge,” he pointed out.

      I felt a thorn-prick of guilt and thrust it aside. I ought not to have waited until almost the end of our sojourn in Calcutta to explain about Portia’s suspicions, but it had never occurred to me that he might simply refuse to oblige us. “What am I supposed to tell Jane? The Cavendishes are expecting us.”

      Brisbane curled a lip. “The domestic arrangements of your hostess are not my foremost concern.”

      “Pray, what is your foremost concern?” I demanded.

      “That my wife and her sister think they can twitch the puppet strings and make me dance to their tune,” he replied. His tone was light, but there was a hard gleam in his black eyes that I did not like.

      “I have apologised for that,” I replied evenly. “I myself did not know of Portia’s plans until well after Aden. What was I supposed to do then? I could not very well confess the truth to you and demand to be let off at the next port. Calcutta was the next port.”

      “You might have trusted me enough to tell me the truth as soon as you learned of it,” he said in a reasonable tone that lashed my conscience.

      I considered for a moment, then drew the sharpest weapon in my arsenal. “I understand you are put out with me,” I began. He curled his lip again and I ignored it. “But I should like to remind you that you have not always been forthright yourself.”

      He stopped scrubbing and speculation dawned in his eyes. “You know,” he said flatly, and—I thought smugly—with a trace of admiration.

      “Yes, I do know you apprehended a jewel thief on board the ship. I know the captain consulted you and requested your help and I know you unmasked the culprit at considerable personal risk. I understand the fellow was armed with an Italian stiletto dagger,” I finished.

      “As it happens, it was Japanese,” he corrected.

      “Near enough,” I retorted. “But none of those facts were related to me by you.”

      He had the grace to look a trifle less adamant than he had a moment before. “I was in no real danger,” he said finally, his expression softening. He thrust a hand through his long black hair, tousling the hair damply and causing a wet lock to drop over his brow. “And if I were, it is my lot. You cannot protect me.”

      “And you cannot protect me,” I returned. I went to him and sat upon the edge of the bathtub, putting a hand to his cheek, just touching the crescent moon scar that rode high upon one cheekbone. “I know you wish to wrap me in cotton wool and leave me on the highest shelf when you go off adventuring, but that simply will not do. I mean to be your partner in every sense of the word.”

      He rose from the steaming water and wrapped his arms about me, wetting me as he kissed me thoroughly. I put my arms about his neck, happy that he understood.

      He pressed his lips to my cheeks, my eyelids, grazed them over the curve of my ear. And whispered firmly, “No.”

      I jumped back. “What do you mean, ‘no’? You cannot just dismiss me out of hand.”

      “And neither will I recklessly expose you to danger. You are my wife. It is my place to protect you.” He stepped from the bath and strode across the marble floor to reach for a towel, rubbing himself briskly. His sleek black head disappeared into the folds of the towel, but I kept up my part of the conversation, no easy thing with the view he presented me. It was a testament to my state of mind that I scarcely noticed the long, hard stretch of the muscles of his thighs.

      “Good God, Brisbane, is that what we have become? Conventional? Normal? Is that what you want from me, an ordinary marriage to an ordinary wife? I thought my boldness was what drew you to me!”

      He dropped the towel so that just his eyes showed above it. “To be precise, it is among your most attractive and most maddening qualities,” he said.

      “You cannot expect me to sit quietly at the fireside whilst you see the world,” I told him, hating the pleading note that had crept into my voice.

      He dropped the towel and wrapped it about his waist, securing it low upon his hips. “I have given you the world these last months, have I not?”

      “A honeymoon is not the same. Your work is the greatest part of who you are, and if you will not share that with me, then you have locked me away from what is most important.”

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