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‘It is the custom, but you will never be alone with these men, there will always be older married women around you so there is nothing to fear. They will flirt a little, you will flirt back. It is quite acceptable.’
‘Flirt? I do not know that word.’ She sat down on the hatch cover, a safe distance from his chair, although quite what she was keeping safe from, she was not sure.
‘Flirting is a game, a courtship game, that all the young ladies and the single men indulge in. A sort of teasing. The men say gallant things, compliment the ladies. The ladies pretend to dismiss such blatant flattery, they blush a little, shield their faces, but their eyes tell a different story. Then in turn they say things that make the men feel strong and manly and laugh a little that they are so bold, and so it goes on.’
‘And that is allowed? You must teach me how to flirt.’ It sounded shocking, but if that was necessary to be accepted, to fit in, then she would do it.
Nick shrugged and she caught a slight wince, hastily suppressed. He had denied having any discomfort, so she should not fuss. ‘I am no good at flirting,’ he said.
‘Oh, but a man as gallant and brave as you cannot be afraid of talking to young ladies surely, Major Herriard.’ She opened her eyes wide at him, wondering the next moment if it was a safe thing to do.
‘You need no lessons, Miss Laurens.’ He shook his head, one of his rare smiles making him look years younger and far less formidable. ‘You are already an accomplished flirt. Look, we will be mooring in a moment. I will show you how to make dinner-table conversation while we eat.’
I would rather flirt, she thought, then caught herself. It was dangerous to play at love. Nick’s heart might be armour-clad—hers, she was beginning to worry, might not be.
* * *
‘That is a relief,’ Nick remarked as they regained the deck after going ashore to the port officer at Allahabad to check on the situation in Kalatwah. He had received news only that morning, he had told them.
‘Just got a message—it should be accurate. Altaphur’s camped outside the walls, making a lot of threatening noises. The raja’s sitting tight, wise man—he’s not making foolish sallies outside. There are Company cavalry within a few days’ march and his neighbours are gathering—none of them wants Altaphur turning on them next. My correspondent predicts that the maharaja will march away within twenty-four hours.’
Now, as the crew pushed off from the steps, Anusha stood beside him looking at the scene on the ghat with huge piles of marigold flowers and the garland sellers who were threading them, a barber shaving his client and a procession making its way with a shrouded corpse to the burning ghat, a little downstream.
‘May locusts consume his crops, his wives all be barren and his guts be filled with worms,’ she said in Hindi.
‘Quite,’ Nick replied with a grin. ‘I do not blame you, but it’s not exactly dinner-party conversation, Miss Laurens.’
‘I know,’ she sighed, reverting to English. ‘I have spent three days learning how to address an earl, a bishop, the governor and their ladies. And I have learned that at the dinner table one may only talk about foolish things and that women are not expected to have a brain.’
‘Unfortunately yes.’
‘Even this flirting is foolish. Do the men not want to know that their wives will be skilled in bed? Do they really want ignorant wives?’
‘Yes,’ Nick said with some emphasis as the boat’s sails were raised. The steersman took them out into the central current and they began to move downriver.
Anusha went to sit on the hatch cover that had become her favoured perch. ‘How strange. We are all taught how to pleasure our husbands.’
Nick was halfway into the canvas chair and sat down with a suddenness that made him swear under his breath. ‘Please, not pleasure, Anusha. Pleasure means to please him in, er, bed.’
‘But that is what I meant.’ Was the little wretch teasing him, or genuinely curious?
‘And how do you—no, do not tell me, I do not want to know.’
He did not want to talk about wives and the marriage bed. He did not want to remember Miranda shrinking in distaste from his caresses, forcing herself to do her duty, as she put it. He tried to tell himself, as he had so many times during that short marriage, that someone had told her something to frighten her or that she was naturally cold. But the conviction remained that he simply did not know how to make a respectable woman happy. He was a rake with too much experience, with tastes and habits that had shocked Miranda to the core.
