The Elusive Bride

One

17th September, 1822

My cabin aboard the sloop Mary Alice

1st October, 1822

My cabin aboard the Mary Alice

October 2, 1822

Aden

What the…?” Gareth Hamilton stood in the bow of the Egret and stared incredulously at the pale pink parasol bobbing through the crowd on the wharf alongside.

They’d followed another of the company sloops into the harbor, and had had to wait for that vessel, the Mary Alice, to be unloaded first.

His bags, along with the minimal luggage carried by his small but efficient household-his batman, Bister, his houseman, Mooktu, an ex-sepoy, and Mooktu’s wife, Arnia-were being stacked that very minute on the wooden wharf, but that wasn’t the cause of the consternation-to put it mildly-that had seized him.

He’d noticed the parasol bobbing down the gangway of the Mary Alice, tied up almost at the end of the long wharf. He’d watched the bearer, a lady in matching pale pink skirts, tack and weave through the crowd. She and the contingent of staff following at her heels, with one heavily muscled man clearing a path through the noisy, jostling throng ahead of her, had to pass along the wharf beside the Egret in order to enter the town.

Until a moment ago, he hadn’t been able to see the parasol holder’s face. But passing the Egret, she’d tipped the parasol aside and glanced up-and he’d glimpsed…a face he hadn’t expected to see again.

A face that, for the last few weeks, had haunted his dreams.

Yet all but immediately, the damn parasol had come up and re-obscured his view.

“Damn!” One part of his mind was telling him, calmly, that it couldn’t possibly be she, that he was seeing things he wanted to see…Some other part, a more visceral part, was already sure.

He hesitated, waiting to see again-to know for sure.

Movement in the crowd behind the parasol caught his eye.

Cultists.

His blood literally ran cold. He’d known they’d be waiting for him-he and his people were expecting a welcome.

But Emily Ensworth and her people weren’t.

He’d vaulted the railing on the thought. He landed on the wharf, his gaze locked on her.

He came up from his crouch with considerable momentum, cleaving his way bodily through the crowd. He came up with her just in time to grab her and haul her away from the blade a cultist thrust at her.

Her gasp was drowned beneath a cacophony of sound-exclamations, shrieks, shouts. Others had seen the menacing sword, but even as the crowd turned and garrulously searched, the cultists melted away. Taller than most, Gareth saw them pull back. Over the heads, one cultist-an older, black-bearded man-met his eye. Even across the distance, Gareth felt the malevolence in the man’s gaze. Then the man turned and was swallowed by the crowd.

Mooktu appeared by Gareth’s shoulder. “Should we follow?”

Bister was already further afield, scouting.

Gareth’s instincts screamed follow, to pursue and deal appropriately with any cultist he could find. But…he glanced down at the woman he still held, his hands locked about her upper arms.

With her parasol now askew, he looked down into wide, moss-hazel eyes. Into a face that was as perfect as he recalled, but pale. She was stunned.

At least she wasn’t screaming.

“No.” He glanced at Mooktu. “We have to get away from here-off the docks-quickly.”

Mooktu nodded. “I’ll get the others.”

He was gone on the word, leaving Gareth to set Miss Ensworth back on her feet.

Gently, as if she were porcelain and might shatter at any instant.

“Are you all right?”

As the warmth-the heat-of his hard hands fell from her, Emily managed to blink. “Y-yes.” This must be what shock felt like.

Indeed, she was amazed she hadn’t swooned. He’d seized her, dragged her from danger, then held her close, effectively plastered to the side of his body. His brick-wall-hard, excessively warm-not to say hot-body.

She didn’t think she’d ever be the same.

“Ah…” Where was a fan when one needed one? She glanced around, and noise suddenly assaulted her ears. Everyone was talking, in several different languages.

Hamilton hadn’t moved. He stood like a rock amid the sea of surging humanity. She wasn’t too proud to shelter in his lee.

She finally located Mullins-her grizzly ex-soldier guard-as he came stumping back through the crowd. Just before the attack, a wave of bodies had pushed him ahead and separated them-then her attacker had stepped between her and Watson, her courier-guide, who’d been following on her heels.

Her people were armed, but having lost her assailant in the melee, they gradually returned. Mullins recognized Hamilton as a solider even though he wasn’t in uniform, and raised a hand in an abbreviated salute. “Thanking you, sir-don’t know what we’d’ve done without you.”

Emily noted the way Hamilton’s lips tightened. She was grateful he didn’t state the obvious-if not for his intervention, she’d be dead.

The rest of her party gathered. Without prompting, she quickly put names and roles to their worried faces-Mullins, Watson, Jimmy, Watson’s young nephew, and Dorcas, her very English maid.

Hamilton acknowledged the information with a nod, then looked from her to Watson. “Where were you planning to stay?”

Hamilton and his people-a batman in his mid-twenties but with experience etched in his face, a fierce Pashtun warrior, and his equally fierce wife-escorted her party off the docks, then, with their combined luggage in a wooden cart, continued through the streets of Aden to the edge of the diplomatic quarter, and the quietly fashionable hotel her uncle had recommended.

Hamilton halted in the street outside, studied the building, then simply said, “No.” He glanced at her, then past her to Mullins. “You can’t stay there. There’re too many entrances.”

Stunned anew-and she still hadn’t managed to marshal her senses enough to think through the implications of the cultists’ attack-she looked at Mullins to discover him nodding his grizzled head.

“You’re right,” Mullins allowed. “Death trap, that is.” He glanced at her and added, “In the circumstances.”

Before she could argue, Hamilton smoothly continued, “For the moment, at least, I’m afraid our parties will need to stay together.”

She looked at him.

He caught her eye. “We need to find somewhere a lot less…obvious.”

There was nothing the least obvious about the house in the Arab quarter Emily later found herself gracing. Not far from the docks, and in the opposite direction to the area inhabited by Europeans, she had to admit the private guesthouse was quite the last place anyone would think to look for her-the Governor of Bombay’s niece.

Nestled behind a high stone wall off a minor side street, the modest house was arranged around a central courtyard. The owners, an Arab family, lived in one wing, leaving the main living quarters and two other wings of bedchambers for guests.

At present their combined party were the only guests. From what she’d understood of the negotiations, Hamilton had hired the entire house for the duration of their stay.

He hadn’t consulted her, not even informed her of his intentions. He hadn’t told her anything at all-simply whisked her and her people up, and set them down there with his household.

Admittedly they were safe. Or at least as safe as they could be.

She’d been just a little distracted at the time as the implications of the attack on the docks had finally impinged. Realizing she’d come within an inch of death had sobered and shaken her, but had also raised questions-ones she couldn’t answer.

She was fairly sure Hamilton could. As soon as she’d seen her people settled, and had washed off the dust of the streets, she made her way to the salon that served as drawing room-cum-parlor.

Hamilton was there, alone, seated on one of the long cushion-covered divans. He looked up, saw her, and came to his feet.

With an easy smile, she went forward, and sat on the divan to his left. Opposite, wide doors stood open to the courtyard, with its small central pool and shading tree.

He resumed his seat. “I…er, hope you have everything you need.”

“The accommodations are adequate, thank you.” They were not what she was accustomed to, but they were clean and comfortable enough-they would do. “However”-she fixed her gaze on his face-“I have a number of questions, Major, that I hope you’ll be able to answer. I only caught the briefest glimpse of my attacker, but I saw enough to know he was a Black Cobra cultist. What I don’t understand is why he would attack me, or why a cultist should be here, in Aden, at all.”

When he didn’t leap into reassuring speech, she went on, “The only contact I’ve had with the Black Cobra cult is through the incident with poor Captain MacFarlane and the packet I delivered for him to your friend, Colonel Delborough. I presume the attack today was connected with that?”

Gareth studied her face-her determined expression, the directness of her gaze-and regretfully jettisoned his preferred option of revealing nothing at all. If she’d been a typical miss with not a great deal of wit…but there was intelligence, willfulness, and a definite-potentially dangerous-curiosity lurking behind her lovely eyes…“I suspect the cultists are here to intercept me, and yes, that’s linked to the packet you brought to Bombay. The only reasons they would have for attacking you is if they recognized you, and either thought you might still have the packet, or simply wanted to punish you for your part in the packet’s loss.”

“What’s in the packet the Black Cobra wants so desperately?”

As he’d thought-far too quick-witted. He’d hoped to gloss over his mission, conceal the major aspects, but…her moss-hazel gaze was too acute, too intent. And many-she, certainly-would argue she had a right to know, now more than ever given the cult had just demonstrated that it wasn’t inclined to overlook her part in the affair. He inwardly sighed. “I assume you’d prefer I start at the beginning?”

“Indeed.”

“Five of us-Delborough, me, Major Logan Monteith, Captains Rafe Carstairs and James MacFarlane-were sent to Bombay by Governor-General Hastings with specific orders to do whatever was needed to bring the Black Cobra to justice.” He sank back against the cushions, his gaze fixing, unseeing, on the wall opposite. “That was in March. Within a few months, we’d identified the Black Cobra, but the evidence was circumstantial, and given our suspect, our case needed to be beyond question.”

“Who is the Black Cobra?”

He turned his head and regarded her. If he told her…but the cult had just demonstrated it didn’t care if she knew or not, and now she was with him, had been seen with him…“The Black Cobra is Roderick Ferrar.”

“Ferrar? Great heavens! I’ve met him, of course.”

“What did you think of him?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not a nice man.”

“Indeed not. So we knew it was him, but had no way to prove it conclusively. We kept searching…then, while James was at Poona fetching you, he stumbled on a letter from the Black Cobra to one of the princelings. We’d found similar missives, but this one was different. It was signed by the Black Cobra, but sealed with Ferrar’s personal seal-the ring seal he wears on his little finger and can’t take off. Once you’d brought that letter to us, we had what we needed, and we’d already consulted others back in England, so we knew what we had to do.”

He saw her shut her lips on an eager prompt, but she’d guessed at least part of it. “We have to get that letter-the original-to the Duke of Wolverstone in England. Ferrar, of course, will do everything in his considerable power to stop us. Our instructions from Wolverstone-he’s the key planner in this-were to make four copies, and each bring one home, all traveling by widely different routes.”

“To make it harder for the Cobra to stop you.”

He nodded. “With James gone, there are four of us, now all on our way back to England. Only one of us has the original, but the Cobra doesn’t know which one, so he has to try to intercept each of us.”

Head tilting, she studied him. “Are you…” She paused, eyes on his, then went on, “I suspect you’re carrying one of the copies-a decoy, as it were.”

He was glad there was no one else in the room. He frowned. “How…?”

Her lips curved briefly. “On the wharf, you and your men wanted to chase the cultists-if you’d been carrying the original, you wouldn’t have risked engaging directly. You would defend, not attack-you’d do all you could not to draw attention to your party.”

He humphed. “Yes, well, from here on, we’ll be running. My orders are explicit-I’m to do all I can to distract the cultists between here and the Channel, do all I can to make them chase me, to make the Cobra throw as many of his forces in Europe into dealing with me.”

“Without making it obvious you’re carrying a copy and not the original.” She nodded, then looked frowningly at him. “You’re not carrying the letter on you, are you?”

“No.” He couldn’t see any reason not to tell her. “It’s in one of those wooden scroll holders the Indians use to ferry documents.”

“Ah-I see.” She studied him a moment more. “Arnia’s carrying it.”

He stared at her. “It can’t be that obvious.”

She lifted one shoulder. “That’s who I’d leave it with-she’s from a warrior tribe and quite dangerous, I imagine, yet to the cultists she’ll be all but invisible. They’ll never think of her.”

He grunted, partly mollified. “Watson mentioned you’d decided to return home by the overland route-that you hoped to see the pyramids and other sights along the way.”

She shrugged again. “It seemed sensible to see more of the world while I can, and as I was already in Bombay…”

“Be that as it may, now that the cult have sighted you, and clearly would be happy to do you harm, it would be wiser, for safety’s sake, to combine our parties, at least until we reach Alexandria.” He paused, then went on, “I don’t believe Ferrar knew of our endeavor before we left Bombay, but he must have learned soon after, and has moved quickly to get cultists ahead of us-I believe they were waiting, watching the docks. They were already here.”

“Which means they might be ahead of us, potentially all the way home?”

He nodded. “If I were Ferrar, in the position he’s now in, that’s what I’d do, and he has men to spare. Which, of course, is the principal aim of my mission-reducing his forces.”

She nodded, her gaze abstracted. When she ventured nothing more, he prompted, “So, do you agree that it’s best to go onward together? To combine our parties in the interests of safety?”

Hers, especially.

To his relief, she smiled. “Yes, of course. I see no reason why we shouldn’t proceed together. I have my maid with me, and in the circumstances, my parents would approve.”

“Excellent.” He felt like a weight was slipping from his shoulders, yet he’d just taken on all responsibility for her safety. For her life. With the cultists at large, that wasn’t putting it too highly.

She continued to smile at him. “Besides, I became involved in this through helping poor Captain MacFarlane, and in light of his sacrifice I feel compelled to do whatever little I may to ensure his mission succeeds.”

The mention of James reminded him that, in some respects, he now stood in James’s shoes, taking on a responsibility that originally had been James’s-seeing Miss Ensworth safely home.

For a moment, he felt as if James’s ghost hovered in the room beside them-he could almost see his insouciant smile. James had died a hero. He’d been dashing and handsome, a few years older than Miss Ensworth-hardly surprising if, in the circumstances, she harbored some romantic feelings for his dead friend.

He wondered if that was what he saw in her eyes.

Somewhat abruptly, he stood. “I must check with the others about setting a watch-we can’t be too careful. I’ll see you at dinner.”

She inclined her head. “We’ll need to decide how best to journey on.”

“I’ll check what our options are tomorrow. I’ll tell you once I know.” He headed for the door.

“Excellent-we can discuss it in the morning.”

In the doorway, he looked back, then nodded. “In the morning.”

He strode down the corridor, a sense of relief returning. She’d agreed to travel on together. He’d be able to keep her safe. That was the critical point. The instant he’d seen the cultist making for her on the dock, he’d known he’d have to keep her with him, almost certainly all the way back to England, until he could leave her somewhere the cult couldn’t reach her.

The responsibility wasn’t one he could possibly shirk. Quite aside from all else, honor wouldn’t allow it. She’d become a target for the Black Cobra through helping with their mission, and he and his comrades, James included, owed her a huge debt. If she hadn’t played her part and brought the letter to Del, they would still be chasing cultists through the Indian countryside, and the Black Cobra would be continuing his reign of terror and destruction unabated.

Instead, thanks in large part to Emily Ensworth, the Black Cobra was now chasing them.

All they had to do was keep one step ahead of the fiend’s minions all the way back to England, and all would be well.