Her initials, entwined with Paul’s, inside a flower-strewn heart.
“I said put that down!” Anna cried, and when he still paid no attention, looking at himself in the elegant mirror with a smirking smile meant to taunt her, she lost control completely and flew at him, snatching the mirror from his hands.
In her haste she misjudged her grip. The mirror felt to the floor, shattering. Anna stared down at the broken glass in numb horror as her hands slowly rose to her cheeks. Tears rose unbidden to burn behind her eyes, and she drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
“Here, now,” he said, sounding surprised, as two great tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I hate and despise you,” she whispered. Turning her back on him and the shattered mirror, she went to stand before the window, looking blindly out over the garden below. Not for anything in the world would she have Chelsea see her cry.
Julian, coming up behind her, saw her shoulders shake and suddenly felt like the greatest beast in nature. The silken mass of her hair, which she wore twisted into a thick knot at the nape of her neck, glinted with silver and gold threads that gleamed in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in around her. Her back looked very narrow and fragile in its prim black dress, her waist impossibly tiny. It came to him then how small she was, and how very young. His image of her as a bold adventuress cracked and shattered like that mirror. Watching her as she valiantly fought back tears, he felt once again that nagging sense of familiarity. Like a buzzing insect, the feeling teased him until he swatted it away in annoyance. The maddening chit was crying. There was no time for an exhaustive search of his past.
“Here, now,” he said again, feeling helpless in the face of her tears. Clumsily, his hands moved to rest on her shoulders. He would have turned her into his chest for comfort, but she stiffened, shaking him off. Julian, lips tightening, allowed his hands to drop. Her averted face gave him an excellent view of her delicate profile: mouth clamped shut; lashes like fans across her pale cheeks doing nothing to stop the seeping tears; straight little nose reddened from weeping—she was lovely. Then she drew in a deep breath and opened those huge green eyes. The sheer beauty of them, wide and slightly unfocused and awash with tears, struck him like a blow. For a long moment he stared, and as he stared he grew wary: eyes like those could haunt a man for the rest of his life.
“Mama!” The little girl had approached on silent feet to tug anxiously at her mother’s skirt. “Mama, are you crying?”
“No, chicken,” Anna answered, her hands moving quickly to dash the tears from her eyes before they could give the lie to her words. “Of course not.”
“Yes, you are too. Why did you hurt my mama?”
The child turned a mutinous little face up to glare accusingly at him. With her silvery fair hair and tiny frame, she looked ridiculously like her mother. The only difference was in the eyes: the child’s were a soft sky blue. Despite her fierce defense of her mother, her lower lip trembled. Julian had never been one to go into raptures over children, but he was absurdly touched.
“I didn’t hurt your mother,” he explained gently, hunkering down so that he and the child were on eye level. “Something made her sad, and she started to cry.”
“Oh.” The little girl pondered, the wrath fading from her face. Then she nodded. “I beg your pardon, then. It must have been because she doesn’t like to be in this room. My papa died in here, you know.”
“Chelsea!” Anna swooped down to kneel at the child’s side. Her arms came protectively around the little girl, and she glared at Julian over her daughter’s head. Julian ignored her, directing his attention instead to the sweet little face regarding him so solemnly.
“I didn’t know that,” he said. “I’m very sorry about your papa.”
“Thank you. My mama and I are sorry, too.” She looked him over, her eyes very clear and direct as she examined each feature, then finally she nodded once, as if pronouncing herself satisfied. “Are you my uncle?”
For a moment Julian was startled. He had never thought of himself as anyone’s uncle before. Then he said, “I suppose I must be.”
“Uncle-what?”
“Julian,” he answered, and smiled. “And you’re Chelsea?”
She nodded. Julian held out his hand to her. “How do you do then, Chelsea,” he said as she gravely shook his hand.
“Do you know my Uncle Graham? He’s mean,” Chelsea said with a confidential air.
“Chelsea!” Anna tried to pick up her daughter, but the child squirmed and protested. Scowling at Julian, Anna let her be, although she hovered just behind her chick. For a moment only Julian lifted his eyes to meet that hostile green gaze, then he switched his attention back to the child.
“I’ve met him, and you’re right: he is mean.”
“Mama was afraid of him. When we stayed with him at Gordon Hall, sometimes at night she would come and hide in my room. I was afraid of him, too. But I won’t be afraid of you, I think.”
“Thank you.” His answer was grave, while he tucked away her revelations to consider at his leisure. The picture he was gleaning of Anna was very different from the one he’d painted in his mind during those weeks in Newgate and on the ship. Then Chelsea smiled at him, and he was distracted. The smile lit up her whole face. He saw very clearly that one day she would be a heartbreaker like her mother. A heartbreaker—he didn’t like the thought of that. He frowned, and abruptly stood. Chelsea peered up at him, her smile fading into an uncertain expression. Julian, with a supreme effort, managed to grin down at her. Reassured, she looked less worried.
“Let’s go find Kirti, shall we?” Anna asked as at last she succeeded in picking up her daughter. “She must be wondering where you’ve got to. Did you run off from her again?”
Chelsea hung her head, answer enough.
“You mustn’t do that,” Anna told her sternly, her hand stroking along her daughter’s spine, deflecting the severity of the words. “And you know it. If you’d stayed with Kirti, you wouldn’t have run into the snake, would you?”
“I’m sorry, Mama. But I got hungry, and she went to fix me a pudding. She was gone a long time.”
“I see. And I suppose you were supposed to wait in the nursery?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Well, the next time Kirti tells you to wait for her, you wait, understand? Come on, let’s go see if we can find her. She’s probably back in the nursery with your pudding, looking under your bed and in your wardrobe and all around, wondering where you could have got to.”
This made Chelsea’s lips turn up into a tentative smile. Anna smiled back and, with a single cold look at Julian, headed for the door.
Jim hovered there, having apparently just reentered from the hall. As Anna approached him he bobbed his head and stood aside. Ruby was glaring at him, and it was apparent the two had exchanged their own hostilities while Anna had been otherwise engaged.
“I’ve found some other rooms further along that’ll suit instead of this one. If ’tis no problem for you, missus, they’ll do us just fine.” The new respect in Jim’s attitude surprised Anna. She regarded him warily.
“Those rooms will be fine,” she said.
“You’re not another uncle, are you?” Chelsea piped up.
“No, missy, I ain’t. Name’s Jim,” he replied.
“Thank goodness. One uncle at a time is quite enough to be going with, don’t you think?” Chelsea asked, causing Julian, behind them, to choke on a laugh he dared not utter, for fear of hurting the child’s feelings.
Anna, back stiffening, moved on through the door. Over her shoulder the child looked back at her new relative.
“I like you, Uncle Julian,” she said. “And my mama does too. Don’t you, Mama?”
Anna, murmuring something unintelligible, fled.
XVIII
I
t was well past midnight when the scream shattered the silence. Anna sat bolt upright in bed, needing no more than a few blinking seconds to realize what was happening. As that first shattering shriek was followed by another and another in a seemingly never-ending wave, she leaped from her bed, grabbed her wrapper from where it lay across the foot of the mattress, and flew from the room, fumbling to drag the wrapper on over her nightdress as she ran.
Chelsea was having another nightmare.
They’d come frequently right after Paul had died, frightening Anna with their intensity. At Gordon Hall they’d come less often, and since their return to Srinagar Chelsea had had none at all. Anna had hoped that they were a thing of the past as her daughter adjusted to her father’s loss.
Clearly her hope had been premature.
The door to Chelsea’s room was open. Kirti was already there, hovering over the child, her face anguished. An oil lamp sputtered and hissed on a table near the bed, casting an uncertain circle of illumination. By its light, Anna took in the all-too-familiar sight: Chelsea was sitting bolt upright, her arms straight down at her sides with her fists clenched and pushing against the mattress, her eyes huge and her mouth stretched wide with the screams that pealed forth.
Anna knew from grim experience that, although the child’s eyes were open, she saw nothing beyond the nightmare in which she was trapped. There was no reaching her in this state; the nightmare must be allowed to run its course. Then Chelsea, exhausted, would fall back into a heavy sleep. In the morning she would have no recollection of the events of the night.
“Memsahib, it comes again!” Kirti’s voice was strained.
“It’s all right, Kirti. I’ll deal with it,” Anna said in a quiet voice, and moved to sit on the edge of the bed beside her daughter. Even as Anna reached out to smooth back the tangled skeins of the child’s hair, the screams began to lessen in intensity.
“Shh, chicken. Mama’s here,” Anna murmured. To her surprise, Chelsea’s eyes focused. She was suddenly clearly aware of Anna’s presence. “I had a bad dream,” she said.
“I know, darling. Do you want to talk about it?”
Chelsea buried her head in the hollow between Anna’s neck and shoulder. “It was Raja Singha—he was standing over me. He was
looking
at me, Mama!”
Anna could feel her daughter trembling. “That doesn’t sound so very dreadful.” Her voice was deliberately light.
“It was. It was! He looked so—mean. As if he hated me.” Chelsea lifted her head from Anna’s shoulder and looked beseechingly at her mother. “And he said, ’Soon, little missy.’ ”
The quavering voice touched Anna to the heart. She gathered her daughter closer, pulled her head down to pillow on her shoulder again, and began to rock her back and forth.
“It was only a bad dream,” she said soothingly. “It’s all right. Go back to sleep.”
“Why does Raja Singha hate me?” Chelsea was already relaxing against Anna. Anna’s arms tightened around her daughter.
“He doesn’t hate you, Chelsea. He’s very fond of you. Bad dreams aren’t real.”
“This one
seemed
real.”
“They always do. Shh, now. Close your eyes.” Anna brushed a kiss against Chelsea’s temple.
“Sing to me, Mama. Like you used to.” The little girl’s voice was drowsy, her body heavy and trusting. Remembering how she used to sing Chelsea to sleep before Paul’s death, Anna felt her heart clench. She hadn’t done so in all the months since—how could she have let her own grief so blind her to her daughter’s needs? With a catch in her throat, Anna began to hum the long-familiar strains of a lullaby. Then the words came back to her, and she sang them softly, rocking Chelsea back and forth all the while. In a short time Chelsea’s even breathing told Anna that she was asleep. Carefully she eased the child down onto her pillow. Chelsea sighed and turned onto her side. Her lashes fluttered once, twice, then closed again. Instants later it was clear she was deep asleep.
“What the hell … ?” The deep voice behind her caused Anna to jump. Julian Chase, clad only in a pair of breeches that had, from the evidence of partially fastened buttons, been hastily pulled on, stood with one arm raised, leaning against the doorjamb as he surveyed the room. Anna got a blinding impression of bronzed muscles and black hair before she dragged her eyes away. Standing, her movements deliberately unhurried, she pulled the bed coverings over her sleeping child, then straightened.
“You’ll stay with her, Kirti?” she asked the old ayah quietly.
“Of a certainty, memsahib.”
Anna started to move away, then hesitated. “Kirti, no one’s been in here, have they? Not Raja Singha?” The question was so ridiculous that Anna felt foolish asking it, but Chelsea had seemed so convinced. Perhaps Raja Singha had popped in just to check on the child. Although, to Anna’s knowledge, he had never done such a thing before.
“No, memsahib No one.” Kirti glanced away. When she looked back, there was a faint shadow in her almond-shaped eyes. Was it fear?
“Is anything the matter?” Anna asked sharply. The troubling expression vanished.
“What could be the matter, memsahib? You need not worry over the little missy. I will stay with her. She will not be alone.”
Anna’s vague suspicions were banished. She knew that Kirti loved Chelsea as her own child. The situation was exactly what it seemed. Chelsea had simply suffered another of her recurring bad dreams. In fact, it was probably a good sign that the child had awakened and been able to recall this one. Surely it meant the nightmares were losing some of their power.
“Watch over her, Kirti,” Anna said softly. Dismissing the idea that Chelsea’s dream had any basis in reality, she turned back toward the doorway—and Julian Chase.
“I’m sorry you were awakened,” she said stiffly, doing her best to ignore his half-naked state as Julian stood aside to let her pass. “Chelsea had a nightmare.”
“Good God.” He took one final look at the tiny child now sleeping peacefully in her bed as Anna pulled the door shut behind her. “It sounded like someone was being murdered. Does she have them often?”
“From time to time. Since Paul died. Chelsea was very attached to her papa.”
“Poor little mite.” He was frowning, his brows drawn together over eyes that looked black in the shadowed hall. Only the light that spilled through the open door of the green room, which he had claimed for his own use, and the tiny fairy light at one end of the hall saved the hall from the tomblike darkness of the rest of the house.