He dredged up a light tone, which was becoming near impossible with each passing minute. “She’d love to see you, of course, but I’m afraid Mother isn’t at home right now. On a bit of a holiday to Ooty with friends.”
As he feared, that light of challenge in her eyes dimmed. A trace of dejection showed in the downward sweep of her lashes, but only until that chin of hers came up again, and renewed battle sparked in her eyes. “Well then, another time. And perhaps, Adam, we shouldn’t offend your cook by dawdling any further. I’m fading from starvation as we speak.”
Bella got to her feet. “Splendid idea, Laine. Lead on.”
Adam gestured for the two women to go into the dining room.
With Bella at his right and Rory on his left, Laine sat directly across from him. Most nights he was happy to eat by a few paraffin lamps, but tonight Ravi used the chandelier. It hung from the teak beam in the ceiling, lifting all shadows from the room. He had a better chance to really see Laine now. And she him.
She shook out her napkin and laid it across her lap as Ravi served the mulligatawny soup. Color had returned to her face in two round spots of red on her cheeks. The color of anger and not just hurt, though you’d never know it from her laughter at Bella’s comments. But then, Laine in her youth had gone out of her way for frivolity. She’d preferred a game of golf to a serious conversation. Loved a dart match over a discussion of good literature. Laine would never understand why he’d persuaded his mother to keep his whereabouts secret.
~*~
Silence thundered around the table. Or was that real thunder Laine heard? Had she seen a flash of lightning through the window? It had been nigh impossible to look Adam in the eye since that moment she first heard his voice. When he’d stepped into the light, and she knew for sure, the bandages of her barely healed world had been ripped off. She still felt the sting.
All this time she’d thought she wouldn’t feel a thing if she ever did run into him. But the sight of his dark hair and lean face, that absentminded look of a scholar that use to delight her and drive her mad at the same time, was now not two feet away. She went dizzy. Times when he had read and read and read—seemingly unaware of her—until she’d tossed aside his book, and he’d laughed and drawn her onto his lap to kiss her in apology.
She wanted to storm out of his house, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. That lamentably cold letter he’d sent her while she was still in France had been as vague as it had been cruel. But tonight, hearing that Auntie Margaret had...
She wanted answers.
Only by forcing herself to chat with Bella about trivial nonsense helped her get through the salad and fish course. Bella pretended to be interested in the larks of her fellow nurses in Amritsar and from when she’d worked in the military hospital in Colchester.
Rory’s kind smiles across the table helped too. “You worked in Colchester?” He renewed his gaze with interest. “I imagine you patched up many a man who’d lost limbs. See much facial reconstruction?”
“A bit. I only worked there six months. Mostly I served at Étables in France.”
“Was that where you earned your RRC?”
Adam’s head shot up.
At the same time Bella piped in with, “My word, you’ve been decorated with the Royal Red Cross. Why, I’m sure any hospital in the British Empire would be happy to have you. Bless you, my darling girl, for coming to the back of beyond to help us with our poor villagers.”
Laine took a sip of water, ignoring the pull of Adam’s gaze. Though she didn’t look at him, she was attuned to everything about him. His throat moved convulsively as he continued to recuperate from his earlier shock. She could smell the scent of alum on his clean-shaven face. Rubbing her fingertips together, she could almost feel that lock of hair that fell over his brow. Feel that ever-so-slight bump on the upper bridge of his nose from the smack of a hockey stick during a tournament when he was a boy.
Adam’s voice jolted her out of her thoughts. “The RRC, well I must say I’m not at all surprised, Laine. You always were...amazing.” He cleared the roughness from his voice. “The last I heard, you were at Étables. I passed through that hospital on my way back to England.”
He’d been so close to where she’d been stationed and had not stopped to even speak with her. She trembled. She’d gone over it in her mind countless times. If he’d been well then, surely he would have found her, explained why he no longer wished to marry her.
She forced herself to study him with clinical interest through the next courses. He had not so much as a limp. His speech and ability to hold intelligent conversation—not to mention run a plantation—proved there was nothing wrong with him mentally. Even his face. Unscarred. Unmarked. Except for a touch of gray at his temples, he appeared as sound as he’d always been. Still though, she’d seen enough of the horrors to understand. Men whose faces had been half blown off, limbs gone, their memory lost, their minds shattered by shellshock.
She kept control of her voice. “Were you wounded, Adam? I did receive the news that you were missing in action.”
He turned his startling blue gaze away from her. “Compared to many, you could say I got out with barely a scratch.” Something in his buoyancy rang untrue.
Her fingernails dug into her palm. She still had no idea what had happened to him, only that first report that he’d been declared dead. Then months later his letter had arrived. She’d opened it, breathless with joy that they’d made a mistake—he was alive—only to read his baldly written note that he no longer wanted to marry her and wished God’s blessing on the rest of her life. Bad manners? Yes, she could find a few other words to describe that letter, but not any she could speak aloud. Her mind spun. But Auntie Margaret?
For a long time she’d licked her wounds. If he’d wanted to marry someone else, he could have at least said so. But it was clear now there was no Mrs. Adam Brand. No womanly touches graced his home at all. At least she didn’t have to suffer that humiliation.
“You were listed as dead, Adam. I know this because I checked.” She was aware of Rory and Bella’s shocked expressions.
A tinge of crimson mottled Adam’s cheeks. “True. But in reality my company was merely cut off from our own lines for a number of weeks. We survived.” He said this in the same vein as if he were discussing the weather, not as if he were a man who had wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
“I see.” So that was it. She still wasn’t entitled to a better explanation.
They moved into the parlor for coffee. In a numb stupor she listened to the conversation shift to Adam’s interest in the forestry works. She excused herself, needing to get outside even if the air was as sultry and unmoving as it was in the drawing room.
She strode through the house to the front door, across the wide veranda and down the steps. The garden’s darkness reached out, a haven to quiet herself so that she would not cry. With her hands clenched at her sides she counted her breaths and stalked down the road along a high wall of bamboo that enclosed a group of huts, all the while fighting the trembling of her limbs.
She veered around once, thinking she heard the soft pad of footsteps behind her. Only the clammy winds moved the lemon trees, and she strode closer to the bamboo wall.
A flurry of movement behind the wall brought her up short. So too did a hiss of indrawn breath. Right now she didn’t care if a Bengal tiger watched her through the gaps between the bamboo stocks. She leaned closer. In the darkness she couldn’t see what hid between the barricade and back of one of the huts. But something breathed hard.
Running footsteps pounded on the road. “Come away, Laine, please.” Adam swung her around to face him. She could