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‘It was very slow,’ she grumbled.
‘Indeed, we would have been overrun by the enemy or eaten by the tiger by now. Try again.’
‘I need more practice,’ Anusha lamented when the second musket took almost as long as the first. ‘You do it so fast.’
‘I was drilled in it until I could load in the heat of battle or in total darkness. Even on an elephant.’ Nick took the weapon back from her and ran his hand down over the barrel, down the polished stock, like a lover caressing a woman. ‘Like all things, it needs practice.’ He glanced up. ‘Now what have I said to put you to the blush?’
Practice. ‘Nothing!’ Of course making love needed practice as well, not just the theory gained from looking at books and listening to the married women. She would be hopelessly clumsy at first—her foolish daydreams about Nick catching her in his arms and being enraptured by her sensual skills were just that, foolish. And, of course, if he did try such a thing, common sense would take over and she would push him away, slap his face, remind him of who he was and who she was. ‘Nothing at all.’
And she did not want him to make love to her anyway, not really. He might be beautiful to look at, but he was her father’s man and he had no sympathy for her at all. Perhaps Nick was jealous of her. She pondered the idea as he slid the muskets back into their sheaths on the saddles. He had been like a son to her father all these years and now a real child of Sir George would be in his home.
‘Do you enjoy fighting?’
‘Yes,’ he said without hesitation.
‘Killing?’
‘Not for itself, no. If the enemy would all surrender or run away, I would be very happy, but if they want to kill me, then...’ He shrugged. ‘I find satisfaction in the politics of war, the use of strength to gain power and then build on it. But I enjoy doing that by talking and dealing just as much as by fighting.’
‘You would have been a very poor clerk,’ she observed as they moved off again.
‘Indeed I would. Sir George saw that, too—you both know me better than my own father did.’
‘Perhaps he did not realise when you were so young that you would want to be a warrior.’
‘Perhaps. I certainly did not.’ They fell silent as the horses began to pick their way down a slope towards what must be a stream, its water hidden by thick foliage and trees.
‘Where are we?’
‘About seventy-five miles west of Sikhandra. If we keep going in this direction, we will find the Jumna River just above or below that town, then we can take a boat down to the confluence with the Ganges and then down to Calcutta.’ Nick spoke absently, his head moving as he scrutinised the land ahead and then the increasingly soft ground beneath their horses’ hooves.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Tiger.’
‘Oh.’ It came out as a squeak and Anusha turned it into a cough. She had seen many tiger hunts, but only with scores of armed men, beaters, elephants and stout stockades for the watchers. Out here she felt as though slitted amber eyes were already fixed on her unprotected back.
‘I am comforting myself with the thought that a tiger is likely to be at least as scared of us as we are of it,’ Nick remarked.
‘You are scared?’ That was no help at all. She did not want Nick to be capable of being scared of anything. He had admitted to being frightened of the cobra, she recalled. But he had killed it anyway, without hesitation. Soldiers must be afraid a lot of the time and have to learn to ignore it. She wished she could.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said with a cheerfulness that had her glaring at his back as her stomach swooped. They were in tall grass now, over the heads of the horses. ‘There could be anything in here—rhino, buffalo, tiger, leopard. Keep talking nice and loudly.’
Her mouth felt as dry as dust. Anusha groped for something to say as Pavan plunged down the stream bank and up the other side. ‘Look.’ Nick pointed down at the mud. ‘Tiger spoor.’ The paw prints looked enormous.
‘I wish I was on an elephant,’ Anusha confessed as they rode up the other side.
‘That,’ Nick agreed drily, ‘makes two of us. The grass is getting shorter though.’
‘What do we do if one attacks us?’ She tried to speak as lightly as he did.
‘I kill it with great skill and bravery while you ride in the opposite direction as fast as you can.’
That was comforting. ‘Have you killed many tigers?’
