The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt (4 page)

Then the boy delivered the glass, and Del poured a half measure for her.

She accepted it with a strained almost-smile and took a small sip. She wrinkled her nose, but then gamely took a larger dose. Lowering the glass, she looked at Del. “I asked at the gate and they told me. I’m very sorry that Captain MacFarlane didn’t make it back.”

His face like stone, Del inclined his head in acknowledgment. Hands clasped on the table, he said, “If you could tell us what happened from the beginning, it would help us understand.”
Why James gave up his life
. He left the last unsaid, but the others clearly heard it. He suspected Miss Ensworth did, too.

She nodded. “Yes, of course.” She cleared her throat. “We started very early from Poona—Captain MacFarlane was very insistent, and I wasn’t averse, so we left at sunrise. He seemed keen to get on, so I was surprised when we ambled at a quite ordinary pace at first, but then—and I realize now it was as soon as we were out of sight of the town—he dug in his heels and from then we went at a cracking pace. Once he realized I could ride…well, we just rode as fast as we could. I didn’t understand why—not then—but he was riding alongside, so I knew when he saw the riders chasing us—I saw them, too.”

“Could you tell if they were private militiamen, or were they robbers?” Del asked.

She met his gaze directly. “I think they were Black Cobra cultists—they wore black silk scarves tied about their heads and wound around their faces. I’ve heard that’s their…insignia.”

Del nodded. “That’s correct. So what happened once James spotted them?”

“We rode even faster. I assumed we would simply outrun them—we’d seen them on a curve so they were some way back along the road—and at first that’s what we did. But then I think they must have cut across somewhere, because suddenly they were much closer. I still thought we could outrun them, but then we came to a spot where the road passes between two large rocks, and Captain MacFarlane stopped. He gave orders for most of the sowars to go on with me and make sure I got to the fort safely. He and a handful were going to make a stand and hold the cultists back.”

She paused, dragged in a breath, then remembered the glass in her hand and drained it. “I tried to argue, but he
would have none of it. He drew me aside—ahead—and gave me this.” From beneath the table, she drew out a packet—a blank sheet of parchment folded and sealed about other documents. She set it on the table, pushed it toward Del.

“Captain MacFarlane asked me to bring this to you. He said he had to make certain it reached you, no matter the cost. He made me promise to get it to you…and then there wasn’t time to argue.” Her gaze fixed on the packet, she drew a shaky breath. “We could hear the cultists coming—ululating, you know how they do. They weren’t far, and…I had to go. If I was going to bring that to you, I had to leave then…so I did. He turned back with a few men, and the rest came with me.”

“And you sent them back when you came within sight of safety.” Gareth spoke gently. “You did the best you could.”

Del put a hand on the packet and drew it to him. “And you did the right thing.”

She blinked several times, then lifted her chin. Her gaze remained fixed on the packet. “I don’t know what’s in that—I didn’t look. But whatever it is…I hope it’s worth it, worth the sacrifice he made.” At last she lifted her gaze to Del’s face. “I’ll leave it in your hands, Colonel, as I promised Captain MacFarlane I would.”

She pushed back from the table.

They all rose. Gareth drew back her chair. “Allow me to organize an escort for you back to the governor’s house.”

Gareth’s gaze touched Del’s, and he nodded. No sense taking any unnecessary chances with Miss Ensworth.

Their interaction had passed over Emily Ensworth’s head. She nodded graciously to Gareth. “Thank you, Major.”

Then she inclined her head to Del and the other two. “Good evening, Colonel. Gentlemen.”

“Miss Ensworth.” They all bowed, waited as Gareth led her away, then resumed their seats.

They stared at the packet lying on the table before Del. Without a word, they waited for Gareth to return.

The instant he did, Del picked up the packet. Removing the outer sheet, he laid it flat, revealing it was blank. It had
been wrapped around a single document, a letter, the seal already broken.

Del unfolded the letter, briefly scanned. After a quick glance around, he leaned on the table and, voice low, read the contents aloud.

The letter was addressed to one of the more influential Maratha princelings, one Govind Holkar. It began innocently enough, with nothing more sinister than social news revolving about what was loosely termed the younger Government House set. But after those first paragraphs, the tone of the letter changed to one of offer, a blatant inducement to persuade Holkar to commit more men and resources to the Black Cobra cult.

The further he read, the more Del frowned. Reaching the end, he concluded with, “And, as usual, it’s signed with the mark of the Black Cobra.”

Letting the letter fall through his fingers to rest on the table, Del shook his head. “This isn’t anything more than we’ve already got—than James knew we already had.”

Gareth reached for the letter. “There has to be something more in it—something concealed.”

Del sat back, feeling oddly dead inside, and watched while Gareth silently went through the letter. Then Gareth raised his head, grimly shook it. “If there is, I can’t see it.”

Logan took the letter, read it, then, with a swift shake of his head, passed it to Rafe in his corner.

It didn’t take Rafe long to scan the single sheet. He slumped back in his chair, the letter held in one hand at arm’s length. “Why?” He shook the letter. “Damn it, James,
why
did you give your life for this? There’s nothing here!”

Rafe flung the letter toward the table. It flipped and landed upside down. He scowled at it. “That’s not worth—”

When he said nothing more, Del glanced at him and saw him staring, as if mesmerized, at the letter. As if it had transformed into their nemesis.

“Oh, Lord,” Rafe breathed. “It can’t be.” He reached for the letter.

For the first time in all the years he’d known him, Del saw Rafe Carstairs’s hand shake.

Rafe lifted the letter, held it closer to his face, staring….

“It’s the seal.” Voice firming, Rafe leaned forward and turned the letter, held it so the seal, largely intact, was on a level with the others’ eyes. “He’s used his own seal. Bloody Ferrar finally made a mistake, and James—youthful-sharp-eyes-and-even-sharper-wits James—caught it.”

Gareth reached out and took the letter. He was the most familiar with Ferrar’s seal; he’d been the one to go through the man’s desk. He studied the imprint closely, then looked up and met Rafe’s eyes. Nodded. “It’s his.” The suppressed excitement coming off both of them was palpable.

Del asked, “Could he say someone had stolen the seal and used it to implicate him? One of us, for instance?”

A slow smile spread across Gareth’s face. He looked at Del. “That won’t wash. It’s a seal ring, and it never leaves Ferrar’s pinky. In fact, short of him losing the finger, it can’t. All the clerks and secretaries at Government House know that—he makes quite a show of his lineage and its accoutrements. The whole office knows about his seal ring—and there’s not another like it in all of India.”

“Could it have been duplicated?” Logan asked.

Gareth handed him the letter. “See what you think. And anyway, why would anyone bother?”

Examining the imprint, Logan grunted. “I suppose that’s why people use seals, but you’re right—this has curlicues, swirls, and they look like they’re cut to different depths. It wouldn’t be easy to duplicate.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rafe said. “What matters is that
we
know that’s real—and so does the Black Cobra.” He met the others’ eyes, excitement plain in his. “And I’ve just realized the true beauty of Wolverstone’s plan.”

Del frowned. “What? Beyond being the most effective way for us to get this back to England.”

Rafe checked their surroundings, then leaned in, forearms on the table. He spoke soft, low, quickly. “He told us to make
copies, and then separate and head home. What do you think Ferrar’s going to think—and do—once he learns we’ve done that, as of course he will? You said it yourself—he knows we’re investigating him. Suddenly, without warning—worse, immediately after James’s death at the hands of the Black Cobra—we up stakes and resign, something we’ve been thinking of, but no one else knows that. And, to cap it off, we all head home by
different
routes. What will he think? What will he do?”

Logan had caught his enthusiam. “He’ll think we’ve found something that incriminates him.”

“And he’ll come after us, and by that very action prove the validity of our evidence.” Del nodded. “You’re right.” He looked at the others, met each gaze. “Gentlemen, thanks to James, we have our proof. Thanks to Devil Cynster and Wolverstone, we have a plan and know what we have to do. Thanks to Hastings, we have the freedom to do as we wish. I vote we follow the plan, carry out our last orders, and bring the Black Cobra to justice.”

While Del had been speaking, Rafe had recharged their glasses. They each claimed theirs.

“To success,” Del said, raising his glass.

“To justice,” Gareth offered, putting his glass alongside.

“To James MacFarlane’s memory.” Logan raised his glass to the other two.

They all looked at Rafe.

Who raised his glass to theirs. “To beheading the Black Cobra.”

They clinked, then drained their glasses.

Setting them down with a snap, they rose and left the bar.

September 14, twelve days later
Bombay

They met in the back room of the Red Turkey Cock, a smoke-filled tavern down a minor side street in one of the seedier native quarters of Bombay.

The tavern’s back room was a small square chamber with no window, the only entrance the doorway behind the scarred bar through which they’d entered. Logan, the last to arrive, let a bamboo screen rattle down to the floor behind him, a sufficient impediment to interested eyes. With Gulah, a massive ex-sepoy, manning the bar, and the otherwise flimsy walls reinforced by countless boxes and crates stacked against them, they weren’t too worried about interested ears.

“I don’t think I was followed.” Logan sounded disappointed as he slipped onto the last of the four rickety chairs set about a square wooden table.

“I don’t think I was either,” Gareth said. “But in this district, four anglos like us will be noticed and remembered—the Black Cobra will hear about our meeting without a doubt.”

“Ferrar knows something’s up.” A grim smile curved Del’s lips. “He knows we’ve resigned, and isn’t swallowing the gossip that we’re all devastated because of what happened to James. He’s been asking questions about our plans for the future.”

“Perhaps he’d like to recruit us?” Rafe said. “Come to think of it, that’s a tack we never tried.”

“Because he’d never believe it. The man isn’t just a cold-blooded killer—”

“Torturer, maimer, fiend,” Rafe supplied.

“—he’s clever, and cunning, and a great deal too powerful. So”—Del looked at Gareth—“are we ready to move against him?”

Gareth reached down, lifted a woven basket from the floor beside his chair, and set it on the table. His chair squeaked as he reached into the basket and lifted out four wood-and-brass cylindrical scroll-holders. “As ordered. The subcontinent’s version of a diplomatic pouch.”

The scroll-holders were identical, each about ten inches long and a bit more than two inches in diameter. Formed from strips of rosewood clamped together by brass bands,
their lids were secured by a complicated set of brass levers of varying length and thickness.

They each took a holder, fiddled. “How do you open them?” Logan asked.

“Watch.” Setting the basket back on the floor, Gareth picked up one holder and deftly moved the six levers, one after the other. “It has to be done in that order, or the metal teeth inside don’t disengage. Try it.”

They all practiced. Gareth insisted they worked at it until they could open and close the holders by touch alone. “You might need to at some point—who knows?”

Rafe reached across and took the holder Gareth held, compared it with the one he’d picked up. “They truly are identical.”

“I don’t think anyone could tell them apart.” Logan looked at Del, then Rafe. “So we have the holders. Now for what goes in them.”

From his pocket, Del drew the sets of instructions Wolverstone had sent. “Five packets.” He separated out one with
Original
scrawled across a corner. “That one goes with the real letter. These”—he fanned out four identical packets—“are the decoys’ instructions. But we only need three.”

Now that James was gone
.

They all looked at the four letters. Rafe sighed. “Shuffle the four, I’ll select one, and we can open it and see what form of instructions we’re going to find when we open our own sets later.”

“Good idea.” Del shuffled the four packets, held them out. Rafe drew one and handed it to Logan.

Logan took it, opened it, scanned the sheets inside, then handed them on to Gareth. “Comprehensive, but not specific, of course. The route we should follow, but no dates, no specified modes of travel. He does specify which English port we’re supposed to head for—Brighton, in this instance. Apparently we’ll be met by two men, Dalziel’s ex-operatives, who will have our route through England and our ultimate destination, neither of which are included here.”

Del nodded as he received the sheets from Gareth. He scanned them, then handed them to Rafe, who exchanged them for four slim packets he’d pulled from his inside coat pocket. “The three copies and the original.” Rafe cast a cursory glance over the now-to-be-discarded set of instructions while Del and the other three carefully unfolded and compared the copies and the original.

Reaching the end of the instructions, Rafe looked up. “We should destroy this.”

Logan held out his hand. “I’ll burn it.” Rafe handed the folded sheets over.