Page 157 of The Siren of Sussex

Her lips compressed. She was very close to losing her temper. “Really, uncle.”

“It’s a fair question.”

“It’s an offensive question. Mr. Malik isn’t ashamed of who he is. If his being part Indian makes people uncomfortable, that’s their problem, not his.”

“It will be your problem soon enough if you wed the fellow.”

Evelyn didn’t need reminding. She was clear-eyed about her future. There would be plenty of obstacles. But she and Ahmad would face them together. “People may say what they like. I’m not afraid of the opinions of strangers.”

“Not only strangers, my girl. You’ll lose friends.”

“Not true friends,” she said. “Not people who matter.”

“You’ll never know, will you, until it comes to the point. You might well lose everything. Is it worth it for the sake of such a man?”

Evelyn recalled how Ahmad had waltzed with her around the pavilion. How he’d held her and kissed her as fireworks exploded in the evening sky above them. Warmth bloomed in her breast. “He’s worth it,” she said. “And a great deal more, besides.”

The carriage rolled steadily through the fog. Gaslight from the lamps that lined the streets shimmered through the gaps in the velvet curtains that covered the carriage windows, intermittently illuminating Uncle Harris’s face.

He shook his head in disappointment. “Nora said you were the sensible one. And here you are, going the same way as your sister.”

“It’s not the same at all,” Evelyn said.

Fenny had abdicated all of her responsibilities to run away with Anthony. She’d chosen love over duty. Evelyn refused to make the same stark choice. She had no intention of throwing her hat over the windmill. There was Hephaestus to consider. And her little sisters, too. They were more than obligations; they were as essential to Evelyn’s happiness as Ahmad was himself. She wouldn’t forsake one to have the other.

What she needed was a new plan.

It was already beginning to take shape in her head. Only half-formed at present—and not entirely guaranteed to succeed—but a plan, all the same.

“I have half a mind to send you home,” Uncle Harris said.

She drew her wrap more firmly about her bare shoulders. “I might go anyway.”

“You what?”

“If Mr. Malik is obliged to travel there to ask permission from Aunt Nora, I’d like to be there, too. I could leave as soon as next week.”

Her uncle’s brows lowered over his half-moon spectacles “You’ll do nothing of the sort.”

She frowned. “But you just said—”

“I know what I said,” he snapped. “The séance is next week. I’ve promised Lady Arundell and the others you’ll be in attendance.”

“My presence is hardly necessary. We both know I haven’t any talent in that regard.”

“What of the message you received? Telling me it was high time I turned my eyes to the living instead of the dead?”

She flushed. “That was my own opinion.”

“Rubbish. It was the wisdom of the ages.”

“It was common sense.”

“It was guidance from beyond. And prescient, too. If I hadn’t been concerned with your temporal whereabouts, Lady Arundell would never have gone looking for you. And then where would you be?”

Evelyn blinked. “You sent Lady Arundell after me?”

“Quite so.” Uncle Harris settled back in his seat. “One never prospers by ignoring advice from the spirit realm.”