A Duke's Wicked Kiss (Entangled Select) (28 page)

He motioned her inside the dark corridor and closed the door behind them. She followed him as the passageway turned left and right and finally emptied into the marble room where Tanush set the oil lamp on the table.

The room was empty.

Suri’s heart sank.

She turned to Tanush, but he was gone, back through the corridor. She stared at the door they’d come through, now closed and invisible amongst the marble panels.

Minutes could have been hours for as long as Suri waited, the muscles in her jaw sore from clenching her teeth. When she was certain something must have happened to Tanush, he reappeared. In his arms, he carried Jeremy.

“Jerri,” Suri cried. Scrambling to her feet, she rushed to him.

The boy fell into her arms and held on to her, his small body trembling. “Where’s your mama, Jerri?”

He sobbed into her shoulder and nearly tore her flesh, his little fingers dug in so hard.

“What happened, sweetheart? Tell me.”

“I…I was supposed to go with Nanny, and Mum was to come later, but I slipped away from Nanny and came back to find Papa.” His sobs turned into wails.

Suri swayed back and forth, rocking Jeremy as she stroked his back. She shot a speaking glance to Tanush. “Do you know where Nanny was to take you?”

He nodded. “Uh huh. To Flagstaff House.”

Straight through Delhi! Suri squeezed Jeremy tight to cover the spasm that ran through her body. She did not move except to rub her hand up and down Jeremy’s back. The walls were closing in on her, but where would she go? Not out in that carnage. And she couldn’t set Jeremy aside and walk away swimming in her own pain.

Tanush shook his head at her silent regard of him. “We cannot get there, Suri. You know as well as I, it is impossible.” His eyes darkened. “You have a great responsibility now, memsahib. We must leave for Bombay while we can. All the other gates are closed, and soon they will close Kashmiri Gate—if they have not done so already.”

Jeremy lifted his head and regarded Suri, his eyes as red as the mussed hair atop his head. His bottom lip quivered. “I want Mummy.” An odd look swept over him. “Papa. He…he’s been hurt. His neck…”

Oh, dear God. He’s seen his father!
She clutched Jeremy to her breast and held him tight. He sobbed into her shoulder again.

Tanush stepped forward. “We must leave here
now
, memsahib.” His words had grown harsh. “You must think of the boy.”

They couldn’t barricade themselves in here for long. Suri knew then she had no choice but to follow Tanush’s directive. “Can we leave a note on the table? Here would be the first place Marguerite would be certain to check.”
If she’s still alive. Oh God!

He turned to leave. “Wait here.”

Suri sat in a chair with Jeremy in her lap. He clung to her as if they were perched high off the ground and he feared falling. He wept, crying out for his mother. “Jeremy, listen to me, sweetheart. There are bad men out there and we have to leave here. Your mother is at Flagstaff House where she is safe. There are soldiers guarding the place. When everything settles down, she’ll return and see the note we’ll leave for her. She’ll join us later.”
I can only hope and pray I’m not lying to you.
“But you and I must leave with Tanush now. Do you understand? It is not safe for us to linger here any longer.”

Tanush returned with a pen and paper and native clothing for Jeremy that he’d retrieved from the servants’ quarters. He nodded to the other side of the room. “We must leave through a secret exit.”

Suri glanced to the plain marble wall. Who would have known? “Why didn’t we enter that way?”

“One can only exit. It’s a deathtrap if one tries to enter.”

Suri helped Jeremy into the diminutive kurta and
churidars
while Tanush smeared dirt on the boy’s face and hands to darken his skin. He wrapped a child’s turban around the boy’s head to hide the shock of red hair. “You must keep your head lowered at all times if we are approached on our way to Bombay, or your blue eyes will give you away. Do you understand?”

When Jeremy failed to respond, Tanush bent on a knee and, holding the boy by the shoulders, turned him until they faced one another, eye to eye. “It is very important you follow instructions like the man you are. You must keep your head down. You must pretend your Aunt Suri is your mother, and you will hide in her skirts out of shyness if anyone stops us. Do you understand?”

Jeremy stared into Tanush’s dark eyes for a long while. And then he nodded his head, sniffed and swiped a sleeve across his runny nose. Like a good little soldier, he straightened his spine, then pivoted and marched back to Suri, where he climbed onto her lap and grew silent. He stared at Tanush with solemn eyes that suddenly held far more wisdom than any six-year-old should possess.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

John managed to collect himself enough to open his eyes at Vámbéry’s less-than-silent entry into the darkened chamber. “I hope to hell you don’t intend to pour fire into my wounds again.” His words rasped across a sand-dry throat. He lifted his head. Dizzying pain shot through his temples. He flopped back onto the pillow. “Christ Almighty.”

Vámbéry hovered over him, his turban slightly askew. “Ah, Ravenswood. Awake at last. Since your uncivil mutterings bore nary a modicum of intelligence, I didn’t know whether or not you were even aware I’d been treating you.”

“Stuff it, you arrogant ass.” John squinted at the man. The light streaming through the shutters hurt like the devil. “With the amount of laudanum you’ve poured into me, I’m fortunate to string two thoughts together. Even my skin reeks of the scent of almonds.”

“Had to use it—you grew rather boisterous at times.” Vámbéry stepped over to a small table and lifted a bottle of clear liquid to eye level. “I’d like to dispense a bit more of this
fire
, as you choose to call my fine Hungarian liquor, into your chest wound. It’s not healing as quickly as I’d like.”

Aw, hell.
A shudder rippled through John. “Any word?”

Vámbéry carried the bottle and a stack of linens cut into small squares back to where John lay. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he drew the thin coverlet to John’s waist, exposing a stained bandage wrapped around his bare chest and shoulder. “Tanush set off for Bombay with Suri and her nephew three nights ago.”

A torrent of relief swept through John. He tried to raise his head again but gave up at the excruciating pain. “When will this god-awful ache disappear?” He passed a hand over his sweaty forehead. “Only the nephew? How do you know?”

“I managed to get to the Chathams’s where I found a note Suri left behind in the marble room.” Removing the bandage, Vámbéry inspected the oozing lesion above John’s heart and then soaked a few squares of the cloth in the clear liquid before setting them to the wound.

Fire blazed through John’s shoulder and chest. “Christ!” Exasperation took hold at both the searing pain and Vámbéry’s few words. “Speak up, damn it. Pulling hens’ teeth is easier than getting you to talk. How’s Suri? Where’s Chatham? And see to getting me out of here.”

He paused in his ranting and regarded Vámbéry through still-squinting eyes. “By the way, where am I?”

Soaking a new set of cloths, Vámbéry set them to John’s shoulder and squeezed more of the stinging liquid into the injury. Curses flew from John’s mouth like a swarm of bats out of a night cave. “Bloody hell, man, are you trying to finish me off with that rot?”

“Sorry,” Vámbéry said. “I know this hurts, but giving up my last bit of fine Hungarian pálinka to disinfect your wound pains me, as well.” His face a blank canvas, he put the bottle to his lips, took a swig, and let go with a noisy exhale before drizzling more of the liquor over another set of squares. “You’re right, Ravenswood—burns like blazes down my throat.”

John scowled. “As I said, arrogant ass.”

Vámbéry ignored him and dabbed at the wound. “The note was brief, but I gathered Suri was fit enough to travel and look after her nephew.”

He regarded John with sudden seriousness. “The madness in the streets is still at its worst, I’m afraid. The throng of sepoys is busy destroying anything in its way—even their own kind. Brevet Major Hodson arrived yesterday, so he’ll soon have things under control. You’ll be free to leave once the dizziness and weakness gives way.”

“What about Chatham? Have you heard anything from him?”

Soaking a third set of cloths, Vámbéry went about cleaning John’s wound with surprising gentleness. “I’m afraid our man didn’t quite make it through the revolt,” he said quietly.

The shock of Vámbéry’s words whipped through John’s heart, stinging worse than the liquor seeping into his laceration. “Oh hell!” He struggled to contain his emotions. “What of Lady Marguerite?”

With the precision of a practiced surgeon, Vámbéry laid out a small pile of the dry linen squares atop John’s stomach along with a pair of scissors and a length of cloth. He went about bandaging the cleansed wound. “Her son said she’d gone to Flagstaff House. At least let’s hope so.”

Something’s not right.
John’s brows furrowed together. “She went without her son?”

“According to Suri’s note, the boy’s nanny was seeing him there ahead of his mother, but he slipped away from her and went back to locate his father.” His voice grew tentative and slowed in its delivery as he chose his words carefully. “Young Jeremy found him after the fact, I’m afraid. It wasn’t a pleasant sight, what was done to Chatham.”

“Good God!”

Vámbéry cast him a furtive glance. “I took proper care of our friend’s remains if that gives you any solace.” He tore the length of cloth into narrow strips as he spoke. “I’ve a hunch by the time Lady Marguerite got to Flagstaff House it was too late to turn back. The place was stacked full of British—men, women, and children. The whole lot barricaded themselves inside, waiting for help to arrive, until some fool dumped a pile of bodies, mostly British officers, in front of the building. Those locked inside figured the sepoys were coming to kill them and panicked. They evacuated the premises and moved on to Meerut and Karnal, so I suspect that’s where Chatham’s wife is at the moment.”

At the shocking news, John again attempted to rise on his elbows. “Meerut and Karnal? But there’s—”

Vámbéry shook his head and gently pressed a hand on John’s good shoulder, easing him back. “Lie still. They’re all safe. Nothing much is happening in either place any longer. All the carnage is right here in Delhi. I passed on word that should anyone run across Lady Marguerite, to tell her to make haste to the marble room once the danger of travel has passed. The note Suri left explained that Tanush was seeing her and Jeremy to a ship out of Bombay.”

When Vámbéry grew silent, John regarded his surroundings—walls hung with brightly colored silks, golden statues, finely woven carpets atop a gleaming wooden floor.
Expensive goods.
“You failed to answer me awhile back. Where the hell am I?”

The makings of a sardonic grin twitched one corner of Vámbéry’s mouth but failed to materialize fully. “Right under the devil’s own nose. Or at least you were.”

Irritation ransacked John’s insides.
Bloody idiot.
“What’s your meaning?”

“I mean that despite my telling Maurya I’d fed you to the lions, I managed to hide you in his palace. You are two floors above his private quarters.”

The bed could have dropped out from under John and left him floating in air just then. “How the devil did you manage such a devious undertaking?”

“Paying particular attention to the layout of whatever dwelling my host resides in has its advantages. Besides, he no longer gives a care where you are.”

Foreboding crawled under John’s skin at the odd look that passed through his friend’s eyes. “What are you implying?”

Vámbéry shrugged. “I carted you to a patch of sissoo trees where I was supposed to leave your remains. Instead, I secreted you beneath a blanket and towed you right back here.” He swept his hand around the opulently appointed room. “And hid you thusly.”

A faint dawning curled around the edges of John’s mind, sharpening it like a razor set to a strap. “Go on.”

“When I reported back to Maurya that I’d tossed you to the lions, I told him I’d stumbled across something he might find of great significance, but preferred to reveal it in private where the walls had neither eyes nor ears. Naturally, this piqued his interest, so I gathered up a chest I brought along and followed him to a secret chamber similar to the marble room at the Chathams’s.”

A hint of smugness crossed Vámbéry’s countenance. “I set the coffer on the table, and while he was preoccupied with figuring out the opening, I slipped from the room and locked it from the outside. Thick as the walls were, it wasn’t long before I heard muffled screams. Said screams told me that he’d got the box open and met with a rather sizeable king cobra. I imagine the snake’s magnificent hooded head rose up in deadly greeting.”

Repulsion fisted John in the gut. “Good Christ!” He knew firsthand what that meant, having watched his wife succumb to snake venom.

He’d have killed Maurya outright.

“He screams like a girl,” Vámbéry said matter-of-factly.

“Oh for God’s sake, I told you I wanted him to myself!”

Vámbéry sat back, stroked his beard, and studied John for a long moment. “Had you done what you’d intended, you’d have had Maurya’s blood on your hands for the rest of your life.”

“Well, the man had my brother’s blood on his, for pity’s sake.” Filled with heated fury, he flung the cover off his hot body, paying scant attention to the fact that he was clad only in a pair of unfamiliar drawers. “James deserved retribution.”

“And your brother finally got it, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but not from my hands.”

Vámbéry lined up the strips of cloth in neat rows across John’s stomach and cast him a long look. “In years to come, you will thank me,” he said quietly. “No matter how vile the enemy, blood on one’s hands leaves scarred memories in one’s winter years.”

John clenched his jaw so tightly, a muscle rippled. “At least I still have that good-for-nothing Resident to get my hands on before I exit Delhi.”