Authors: Jennifer Donnelly
"Give them to him yourself, Mr. Foster," she shouted. "There's plenty of room in the carriage."
"That would be highly unusual, madam."
Fiona stopped midway down the staircase. "In case you haven't noticed, so is everything else that goes on in this house."
"Quite true, madam."
"Even so, we're all alive, aren't we, Mr. Foster?" The baby kicked.
Lipton and Twining tugged at her skirt. "It's all that really matters.
It's all we've got."
"It is indeed, madam."
"Then get Katie, Mr. Foster, and get your coat."
"Sid is it? Sid what?" the chief engineer asked.
"Baxter," Sid replied, caught off guard.
The engineer thrust a shovel into his hands and pointed at a pile of coal. "Welcome to hell, Mr. Baxter."
Sid took the shovel with a smile. A ship's boiler room held no
terrors for him. He was already in hell. The night India had come to him
at the Barkentine, he had thought that their love was damnation. Now he
knew it was. He had known heaven with her, now he knew hell--it was the
bleak gray endlessness of the years of his life stretching out one
after another, years without her in them.
"Andy McKean," a second boilerman said, by way of introduction.
"We'll work the first shift. You'll want to get stripped down. Won't be
long now."
Sid had come aboard the Adelaide half an hour ago. They'd been
waiting for him. Holding the ship was the least the captain could do;
Sid had made him rich by buying his smuggled opium. As soon as he was
aboard, a tug had nudged them out of dock toward the open water. He'd
barely had time to throw his bag in his bunk and get down to the boiler
room before the order came down from the bridge--full steam ahead.
"Oi, mate! Let's go!" Andy called.
Sid shrugged out of his jacket and pulled his shirt over his head.
Ten minutes later, sweat was pouring off him. He and Andy were no longer
men, just cogs in a machine. The monster of a boiler ate every
shovelful of coal and roared for more. The fire roasted Sid's skin. The
muscles in his bad arm screamed every time he lifted the shovel. The
bullet wound in his shoulder sent molten waves of pain through his body.
He didn't care. He welcomed the pain, it blocked out everything
else--every memory, every promise, every hope.
It blocked out the words he'd seen. Printed on an invitation. An
invitation that had been propped up on the mantel of Fiona's study. He'd
gone down there during his last night at Grosvenor Square. He hadn't
been able to sleep and had been desperate to get out of his room and
walk, if only around the house. He'd paced the study, picking up
photographs and putting them down again, examining Fiona's books and
mementos. And then he'd seen it-- elegant black copperplate printed on
an ivory card.
The Earl and Countess of Burnleigh are pleased to announce the
marriage of their younger daughter Lady India to Lord Frederick Lytton,
second son of Lady Bingham and the late Earl of Bingham.
The couple will marry at Longmarsh, the Bingham family seat, in a
private ceremony on Saturday, 24 November. They will enjoy a brief
honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands then return to London where they
will reside at 45 Berkeley Square.
Reading those words, Sid had felt as if someone had reached inside
him and torn out his heart. A sense of unreality so strong that it was
dizzying gripped it. It can't be, he'd thought. But it was. Lytton, of
all people. India knew what he was. Knew what he wanted--not her, but
her money.
"Why, India, why?" he'd said out loud.
Why would she marry Freddie Lytton after what he'd done to her?
He knew the answer--it was because of him. Because what he'd done to
her was worse. Loving her, then betraying that love--as she saw it--by
trying to take Joe Bristow's life and taking Gemma Dean's.
In the days that had followed, the anger he'd felt at India had
drained away. A terrible grief had taken its place. He couldn't blame
her for what she'd done. She was only going back to what she
knew--Freddie, an aristocratic marriage, safety, security. If anyone
deserved blame, it was him. For allowing himself to believe in love when
life had taught him otherwise.
He would never make such a terrible mistake again.
The Adelaide was carrying ploughshares and other farm implements to
Mombasa in British East Africa, then heading on to the city of Colombo
in Ceylon to take on tea. Sid planned to leave the ship in Colombo and
find work on a plantation--tea, rubber, he didn't care, as long as he
could do an honest day's work for a living wage, hard, physical work
that would leave him too tired to think at the end of the day. Too tired
to remember. Too tired to grieve.
He had always wanted to go to sea. It would wash him clean, just as
he'd once hoped it would. It already had. Sid Malone was dead and gone.
He was Sid Baxter now. A lowly boilerman. Invisible. Anonymous. A man
with no past, no history. A man with nothing but a future, endless and
unwanted.
"Slow down, mate!" Andy yelled. "Pace yourself. This is the devil's
own work. You won't last a day at the rate you're going, never mind from
here all the way to Colombo."
Sid smiled. "Is that a promise?" he shouted, and shoveled harder.
"India? Are you all right? What's going on in there?" Maud called, rapping imperiously on the loo door.
"Nothing, Maud, I'm fine," India called out.
She wasn't. She was leaning over the tiny toilet in the antechamber
of Longmarsh's chapel. She'd been sick in her room twice this morning.
And now again here.
"Nerves, that's all," she lied. She wiped her mouth, splashed water on her face, and opened the bathroom door.
Her sister was standing in the room, valise in one hand, a cigarette
in the other. She had just returned from Paris. "I arrived this very
minute. Lady Bingham said you were in here. India, what the hell is
going on?"
"I'm marrying Freddie. In about ten minutes' time, in fact."
"That's what Mother told me. Four days ago. When I chanced--
chanced!--to ring her from the hotel to see if she wanted some silks
brought back," Maud said angrily.
"I didn't want you to know. I thought you'd try to stop me. Mother thought so, too."
"Of course I would!" Maud sputtered, throwing her valise down. "Just a
few weeks ago you said you never wanted to see Freddie again. You told
me all the horrible things he'd done. Why have you changed your mind?"
"Please don't make this more difficult than it already is. I have my reasons. I don't expect you to understand them."
"I would very much like to try."
India looked at her sister. For once she was not mocking.
"All right, then," she said. She sat down on one of the wooden
benches in the room and smoothed the skirt of the highnecked ivory suit
she was wearing. "I am pregnant," she said. "The baby is not Freddie's.
He will acknowledge the child as his own in exchange for my dowry. The
world is a very harsh place, and I do not wish my child to suffer for
the circumstances of her birth."
"What about the father? Can't you marry him?"
"I was going to. In America, actually. But I can't now. He's dead, you see."
Maud took a deep drag on her cigarette, then exhaled a plume of blue-tinged smoke. "Bloody hell," she said.
"Yes."
"Who was he?"
"I can't tell you that. And trust me, you don't want to know."
"India, this is your life. You may be protecting your child's future, but you're destroying your own. Do you understand that?"
"I do."
Maud paced back and forth, shaking her head. "Is Mother here? What about Daddy?"
"They're in the chapel with the Lyttons. They came up from London yesterday. After finalizing the finances with Freddie."
A week ago in London, before the marriage contract had even been
signed, Freddie had hired an architect and a decorator to make over the
Berkeley Square house.
"A year from now it'll be the most beautiful, glittering home in
London," he'd told her. "Be sure to order some new dresses before the
wedding. We're having a ball for two hundred as soon as we're back from
our honeymoon. Campbell-Bannerman, bigwigs from both parties, everyone
who's anyone socially. I'll be damned if I don't get the Tower Hamlets
seat back."
India knew that Freddie's ambition had been limited only by a lack of
funds. With her father's money behind him, it would be boundless. She
thought of all the dinner parties ahead of her. The planning of menus
and settings. The tedious introductions and numbing small talk. And
never anywhere, in any room, would she ever see Sid's face again, hear
his voice, look into his eyes. Fresh grief washed over her. She bent her
head so that Maud couldn't see it.
"Mother bought me this suit," she said, plucking at the ruffles on the cuff. "Ghastly, isn't it?"
Maud sat down next to her. She was silent for a few long seconds,
then she said, "Do you remember that last time we were all together?
Here. With Wish."
"Of course I do."
"I quoted Tennyson to you: � 'Tis better to have loved and lost than
to never have loved at all.' " She laughed mirthlessly. "You said he was
a prat."
"I got my comeuppance, didn't I? The love I lost is all the love I'll
ever have. But he was right. I'm still glad I had that love, no matter
how briefly."
Maud covered India's hand with her own. "It won't be all bad. It
can't be. There are compensations, you know," she said. "Distractions."
India laughed bitterly. "What sort of distractions? The kind one finds at Teddy Ko's? No thank you, Maud."
"I was thinking of your clinic, actually."
"There is no more clinic. Not for me. That was one of Freddie's
conditions. I'm to be a good MP's wife. Devote myself to his causes."
"Well, then, there are always children," Maud said. �The one on the way and more besides, I'm sure."
"Yes, and there is much else I can do to occupy myself," India said
bravely. "Study French for starters. I've always wanted to do that.
Never had the time. Italian, too. I can read the great poets. Take up
drawing." She closed her eyes. Her face was anguished. "Oh God, Maud,"
she whispered.
There was a knock on the door and then the vicar poked his head in.
"Pardon me, Lady India, but are you ready? Your groom is here."
"I am, Reverend," India said resolutely. She took her sister's hand. "Will you stand with me?" she asked her.
"India, there must be another way. You don't have to do this. Leave. Hurry. I'll deal with Freddie."
India pressed a finger to Maud's lips, shushing her. "I'll sleep
tonight knowing that my child will be spared a difficult life. That's
all that matters to me now."
Sid was dead, but she had something left of him. He would live on in
this child. She would see him in the baby's smile, in her eyes. She
would hear him in her laugh.
Charlotte, she would call her, for Sid had once told her that Charlie
was his first name. Charlotte. Her own child. Not Freddie's, hers. She
would love the baby as she had loved her father, with her whole heart
and soul.
She picked up the bouquet Freddie had selected for her. Crimson
roses. He'd handed them to her earlier. "Can hardly expect you to carry
white ones, can I?" he'd said. "They're for virgins, not Sid Malone's
whore."
India had been shocked by his cruelty, but she'd quickly recovered.
"My father's giving you a draft for three hundred thousand pounds
today," she'd whispered back. "I rather think that makes you the whore."
His face had darkened then and he'd swiftly left the room. So this is
how it will be between us, she'd thought. This was the man she would
spend the rest of her life with. The man with whom she would share her
bed. Her nerve almost faltered at the thought.
"Come on, Maud," she said. "It's time to go."
They left the anteroom for the foyer. From there they walked into the
chapel proper. When they reached the bottom of the aisle, a lone harp
began to play.
Freddie was standing at the altar, smiling triumphantly. He was
sleekly handsome in a gray morning coat and striped trousers. Bingham
stood with him. India took a deep breath, then walked toward him.
The vicar beamed at her, but she barely saw him. He began to speak,
but she didn't hear him. She only heard Sid telling her he loved her,
telling her their love was a mistake. It wasn't, she silently told him
now. It never will be.
The service was conducted. Prayers were said and vows exchanged.
Freddie pushed a ring onto India's finger. She did the same to him. He
kissed her chastely and then it was over and they were wed. Lord
Frederick and Lady Lytton, man and wife.
Outside the chapel, the sun was setting. Evening was coming down. The
Lyttons' tenant farmers had assembled on either side of the chapel
steps. They cheered the new couple and threw rice at them. Freddie's
mother bustled them along toward the house, where a wedding supper was
waiting. Freddie took India's arm. She was glad that everyone was
chattering among themselves. It meant she didn't have to say a word to
anyone. She looked at Longmarsh as she walked. It was a winter landscape
and everything looked gray to her.
As the wedding party rounded a bend that led to the house, they got a
surprise. A deer, a huge stag with a majestic set of antlers, stood on
the path about twenty yards ahead of them.
"Good God! Where's the gamekeeper when you need him? Call the lazy oaf, Bing! Have him bring the guns," Freddie said.
Freddie released India's arm. He took imaginary aim at the animal and
made the sound of a rifle firing. The animal heard it, but did not
flinch. He was looking at India.
Run, she told him silently. Go away from here and never come back.
The stag blinked. He dipped his magnificent head and was gone.
"Bloody hell," Freddie sighed.