The Maharajah's General (25 page)

The sound of polite laughter and the chime of cut crystal were clearly audible over the chirp and buzz of the thousands of insects that had come alive as soon as the sun had set. The bungalow in front of them was ablaze with light, the shadowy forms of people flitting across the drawn curtains as they moved within.

Jack turned to look at Isabel, wanting to savour the moment. He knew it would be the last time he would be able to look at her so freely. The sense of impending doom was heavy upon him, but he strode towards Proudfoot’s bungalow nonetheless. He had made his choice.

The journey had exhausted them. He had forced the pace, making them ride through all but the very hottest hours of the day. They had encountered no interference, and seen barely a sign of another living being. Jack sensed the Maharajah’s hand in their eventless journey. Whether it was to preserve Isabel’s skin or to ensure the delivery of his dire warning he was not sure, but he felt a sense of relief as they finally made it to the British cantonment at Bhundapur.

‘Wait here, if you please, sir.’ Colour Sergeant Hughes spoke respectfully yet firmly. The four redcoats he had brought with him stamped to a halt, the presence of their colour sergeant necessitating the utmost attention to their drill.

Jack noticed Hughes’s furrowed brow. He did not know what reaction he would get from the men he had commanded for barely more than a day. He could read little in the colour sergeant’s expression, the man’s demeanour as calm as it had been the first time he had met his bogus captain.

He nodded his understanding, and watched as the 24th’s senior non-commissioned officer marched up the steps to Proudfoot’s home, his bearing erect and disciplined, as if the arrival of the most wanted felon in all of Sawadh was an everyday occurrence. He risked a surreptitious sniff at his armpit. He stank. The hard ride had left him reeking, his shirt and breeches stained and rank. He had decided against wearing his blue lancer’s uniform. There was no sense in reminding Proudfoot of his role in the Maharajah’s army; it would only add to the man’s belief that he was a traitor. So he had hidden it, bundling it up and pushing it deep under some rocks a mile from the cantonment. He still wore his talwar, the curved blade hanging at his hip, and now he reached across, running his fingers over the coarse sharkskin hilt, seeking reassurance as he prepared to welcome his fate.

‘Jack.’ Isabel whispered his name. ‘Everything will be all right. We are doing the right thing.’

Jack smiled at her reassurance. It was some indication of how much she had grown up that she now sought to support him despite her own misgivings. ‘Whatever happens, I don’t regret my choice,’ he replied.

‘Neither do I.’ Isabel’s face betrayed her own anxiety. He was not the only one meeting his fate that day. They had talked on the journey. He knew she faced little physical danger, her punishment likely to be nothing more than her father’s ire followed by a rapid departure for the backwaters of an English county. But disgrace and ruin were no small punishment, and Jack thought he could understand just what it was costing her. Her duty to her kin and to her countrymen had come first, even though she would be forced to pay the price for her wanton behaviour for years to come, perhaps for the rest of her life.

In Proudfoot’s bungalow, the sound of polite conversation froze, the shadowed room falling into silence as the tall colour sergeant interrupted the soirée to deliver his news. Jack could picture the faces as the first whiff of scandal whipped around the room. Like vultures spying a fresh corpse, the upper echelons of the cantonment’s limited society would relish the occasion of Jack’s disgrace. That the villain had returned to the scene of his crime was a juicy morsel that would only add to their enjoyment of the dish.

Proudfoot emerged to stand at the top of the steps. He was dressed in a crimson smoking jacket and he still held a crystal goblet of dark red wine the colour of old blood. If he was surprised to see Jack and Isabel, it did not show on his urbane features. He even managed a thin smile, the kind a gracious host reserved for an uninvited guest.

‘Mr Lark, so very good of you to return. Miss Youngsummers, I am delighted to see you back safely.’

He stood straighter as his guests pushed to the door behind him, elbows and sharp heels working furiously to secure a better view of the entertainment. Jack saw Major Dutton, his florid face flushed from the heat and from the effects of the first of the evening’s sharpeners. Kingsley was there too, but he hung back, as if unwilling to be seen, or perhaps simply bored with the evening’s turn of events. Jack caught a glimpse of Fenris before his face disappeared from the throng. He could only wonder at how their first meeting would turn out, but he was certain it would not be pleasant, for him at any rate.

‘I have sent a runner for your father, Miss Youngsummers. I am sure he will be as delighted to see you as I am,’ Proudfoot continued, clearly relishing the chance to be the lead actor on the stage. ‘However, I’m afraid I doubt there is anyone here pleased to see
your
return, Mr Lark.’

Colour Sergeant Hughes emerged from the crowd. Major Proudfoot nodded in Jack’s direction, and Hughes came down the stairs to stand a yard away from him. Jack felt the shackles of his former life slip around him with all the iron-hard resolution of the manacles that he was sure awaited him. He said nothing in reply to Proudfoot, merely standing by as if he were a fascinated spectator to the events unfurling around him. The only emotion he felt was one of disappointment that his arrival had created precisely the reaction he had expected.

Proudfoot, however, was clearly delighted by the turn the evening had taken, and he puffed himself up so that he would not let his audience down. ‘Colour Sergeant Hughes. Have that man arrested and taken to the guardroom. He is to be watched at all times.’ The dramatic words had the desired effect, and Jack could see the pleasure on Proudfoot’s face as his guests welcomed his order with a gasp of gleeful horror.

‘Sir!’ Hughes stiffened to attention. Whatever the non-commissioned officer thought was well hidden behind the dignified facade of a British sergeant, the twitch of his thick moustache the sole reaction to the command to arrest a fellow redcoat.

‘No!’ Isabel shouted the single word firmly. ‘Major Proudfoot. Mr Lark saved my life. He is not a common criminal and you must not treat him so.’

Proudfoot appeared genuinely taken aback by Isabel’s firm denial of his orders. He turned and handed his glass to Major Dutton, who had arrived to stand at his shoulder, before carefully walking down the steps.

‘Miss Youngsummers. I cannot begin to imagine what you have gone through. It must have been a traumatic experience for someone of your tender years.’ Proudfoot spoke in the oily tones of the professional diplomat. ‘I can only hope that the love of your father and the opportunity to rest will allow you to recover your senses.’

‘Damn you, Proudfoot.’ Isabel stamped her foot, her mouth twisting in vexation as her oath drew a sharp intake of breath from the watching crowd. ‘Jack came here of his own free will to warn you.’

Proudfoot winced at Isabel’s language before turning to face Jack. ‘It is clear you have had some significant effect on Miss Youngsummers.’ He chuckled at the notion before continuing. ‘So you have come to warn me? That really is very magnanimous of you, given your straitened circumstances. It must be something of grave importance to risk having your neck stretched for it.’ He smiled at his own pun, turning to acknowledge the one or two men in the audience who chuckled at his wordplay.

Jack watched Proudfoot closely. He could see the delight in the major’s sparkling eyes. It would feel good to puncture his conceit.

‘The Maharajah of Sawadh has gathered his forces. He plans to attack Bhundapur. As of yesterday, you are at war.’ Jack spoke softly, lowering his voice so his announcement did not carry to the watching crowd.

Proudfoot absorbed the news without a twitch. The silence drew out, the official not even deigning to reply. His guests had spilled out on to the wide veranda that surrounded his bungalow, and now they pressed forward, anxious to listen to the hushed exchange taking place between the cantonment’s commander and the charlatan who had been the topic of nearly every whispered conversation for weeks in the news-starved community.

Then Proudfoot began to laugh. There was no shred of enjoyment in the dry, humourless sound. It was the noise of a man suddenly realising he had managed to carry off an outrageous bluff at cards.

‘You are not surprised?’ Jack managed to keep the disappointment from his voice. He had staked his life on the news, hoping that the warning would keep him from the scaffold.

‘Surprised! Why on earth would I be surprised?’ Proudfoot spun on the spot, suddenly unable to stand still as he savoured the news. ‘Why, it is exactly as I planned.’ He spoke quietly so the audience on the veranda could not hear his words, but the triumph in his voice was unmistakable.

Jack looked at Isabel. Her expression betrayed her distress at the official’s reaction to the news they had ridden so hard and so far to deliver.

‘You planned this?’ Her face was white as he spoke.

‘Of course.’ Proudfoot was all scorn now. ‘Why else would I give the damn man the news that his kingdom will lapse when he dies? I wanted him to react.’

‘Why?’ Jack asked the question, yet he already knew the answer. His stomach churned as the full scale of Proudfoot’s ambition became clear, the sour taste of having been fooled bitter in his mouth.

‘Because only then can I crush him.’ Proudfoot’s voice was dispassionate as he discussed the death of hundreds of men. ‘How else was I to draw the sting of this damned viper? I have not long left here and I simply have to get this done before I go. One has to think of one’s career. How can I compete with Nicolson and the rest if I fail to deliver this pathetic little place?’

‘You bastard.’ Jack hissed the words, stunned at the man’s ruthlessness.

‘I shall take that as a compliment, coming from you.’ Proudfoot’s voice was cold. He turned to the colour sergeant. ‘Bring me this villain’s sword and have him put in manacles.’ He offered Jack a mocking bow. ‘Welcome home, Mr Lark.’

There was nothing more to be said. Even Isabel was stunned to silence. Neither offered a word of protest as Jack was turned and led away by the four-man escort brought to ensure he did not escape for a second time.

Jack and Isabel had ridden hard to warn their countrymen of the impending attack. Yet it had been Proudfoot’s plan all along to drive the Maharajah to war. Hundreds would now die, sacrificed to a single man’s ambition.

Jack sat alone in the darkness. The guardroom had a single cell set aside for detaining errant redcoats. It was windowless and boasted nothing more than a simple cot with a straw mattress, a single thin blanket and a rusty piss-pot. The floorboards were stained and scuffed, whilst the once white walls were scarred with the markings of the dozens of men who had picked and scraped at them to leave some evidence of their passing.

It was hard not to notice the contrast with the gilded cage he and Isabel had been shown to when they threw themselves on the Maharajah’s mercy, but at least there was no pretence here, and it was certainly an improvement on the storeroom prison used by the bandits. Jack grunted as he considered his fate. He was heartily sick of being held captive, but he was beginning to suspect he would be seeing the inside of many more prison cells in the coming months. For any hope of reprieve had been cruelly dashed, his naïve assumption that by delivering warning of the Maharajah’s attack he might somehow be forgiven his crimes now proven to have been utterly false. He had been wrong to think that warning the British would save him, just as he had been wrong to think that serving the Maharajah would offer him a new life.

Yet as much as he regretted his fate, he could not see how he could have stayed with the Maharajah. He tried to picture riding at the head of the blue-coated lancers against the red-coated soldiers of the Queen. It was an impossible notion. Lakshmi had been right. For better or worse he was a redcoat. He had done what his conscience dictated, and now he would have to wait and see what penalty he would pay for staying loyal to the country of his birth.

He heard footsteps outside his cell, the heavy tread of more than one man loud on the hard wooden floor beyond the locked door. He couldn’t make out what was said, the low voices speaking too quietly for their words to penetrate the thick door.

He rose to his feet as he heard the key turn in the lock, his heart pounding a little faster as the door opened, revealing the face of the man who had come to disturb his peace.

‘Hello, Lark.’ The voice was laced with derision, the haughty upper-class drawl relishing Jack’s incarceration.

The door was closed quietly and the two burly redcoats who had followed the man into the room took up station either side of Jack. None of the men were armed, but Jack sensed that violence had crept in along with the three red-coated soldiers. The two at his sides took a firm grip on his arms, their fingers digging into his flesh, forcing him to stand facing the officer who had ordered them into position.