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Nick reached out and pulled something from a bag by his side. She could not see what it was, but after a few moments a soft beat floated on the still air. He had brought the tabla from the village.
Her feet moved, almost of their own accord. Tonight she was still Anusha and there was one gift she could give Nick.
Chapter Thirteen
The tala came without conscious thought, his fingers striking the taut drum skin in the rhythm that the men in his troop had taught him on long, quiet nights in camp. He could listen for danger despite it and the intricate pattern kept him alert and awake.
But it did not stop him thinking, and another sleepless night thinking of Anusha was a penance. Perhaps he deserved it—his conscience still nagged him about the lies he had told her, the way he had deceived her about the life she was going to. But how could he tell her the truth, that her father would be expecting to arrange a marriage for her, that her life as a married English lady in Calcutta would be almost as restricted as life in the zanana, that her dowry would go to her husband, not to her?
That she had believed him was clear from the way she had offered herself to him. She wanted to enjoy that new freedom and she thought there would be no danger that she might have to marry.
There was something else, he had see it in her eyes, heard it in her voice. She wants to fall in love, she wants romance like her mother did. He had almost told her he knew, almost told her it was a cruel dream and a fantasy, but who was he to give lessons in loving? Anusha deserved to hope, perhaps even to find love with a man who deserved all that she could give.
If she realised the truth, Anusha would bolt at the first opportunity unless he locked her in her cabin, he was convinced of it. What could I tell her? That marriages at her level in society would not be forced, but they would always be arranged? That her father would keep her closely chaperoned and give her only pin money?
She had been on the verge of asking him to give his word. He’d had a split second to prevent her from making him choose between honour and duty.
Anusha had offered herself with a shy courage that had him impossibly hard and needy at the first touch. She tasted of tea and spices and rosewater, of sex and woman and innocence and, remembering, something shifted in Nick’s chest as though his heart had jolted. It was what he had wanted almost from the first moment he had seen her, the fantasy that had haunted his nights.
He closed his eyes and let himself believe for a moment, believe that she was his and that she was not an innocent who wanted love and deserved cherishing, but an experienced, worldly-wise courtesan from whom he could part without pain on either side.
Tomorrow night, provided all went well with the rudder, he would have her back where she belonged and if she hated him for it, then that was the price to be paid. He would not be around to see those grey eyes look at him full of hurt betrayal. He would just have to live with the memory of them.
Now when he tried to remember Miranda her blue eyes were overlain with long-lashed grey ones, her pale skin that had flushed so painfully in the heat was a pale ghost behind honey-gold curves.
Alert as he was, the subtle addition to his own drumming took him by surprise. Nick froze as a figure spun into sight, swirling skirts, tight trousers, the chime of bangles, bare feet slapping down on to the hard sand with the beat of the drum.
Anusha danced into the firelight, her shadow thrown long and dramatic behind her, the blue and red of her garments picking up the colours of the flames, the silver thread sparking gold with reflected light.
She was doing something no respectable woman would do, except for her husband or her female friends, performing one of the classical court dances. Her head moved in impossible, stylised sideways movements, her hands twisted and turned, conveying the meaning of the dance to those who could read its language. Her bare feet stamped and slapped in a complex counter-rhythm to his own hands as, almost mesmerised, he let the pace of the music increase.
The tension rose with the speed until Nick breathed as though he was running, or making love with vigorous, urgent strokes. His heartbeat echoed the tabla and he felt himself panting with the effort, but still Anusha twisted and wove her way through the tala until, just as he thought they would both collapse, she looked directly at him and brought her palms together with a sharp slap.
Nick lifted his hands from the drum and she stopped, poised like a temple carving, only the rise and fall of her breast, the sheen of perspiration on her forehead, the swinging folds of her lehenga, betraying that she was a living woman.
