“You might have trusted me enough to tell me the truth as soon as you learned of it,” he said in a reasonable tone that lashed my conscience.
I considered for a moment, then drew the sharpest weapon in my arsenal. “I understand you are put out with me,” I began. He curled his lip again and I ignored it. “But I should like to remind you that you have not always been forthright yourself.”
He stopped scrubbing and speculation dawned in his eyes. “You know,” he said flatly, and—I thought smugly—with a trace of admiration.
“Yes, I do know you apprehended a jewel thief on board the ship. I know the captain consulted you and requested your help and I know you unmasked the culprit at considerable personal risk. I understand the fellow was armed with an Italian stiletto dagger,” I finished.
“As it happens, it was Japanese,” he corrected.
“Near enough,” I retorted. “But none of those facts were related to me by you.”
He had the grace to look a trifle less adamant than he had a moment before. “I was in no real danger,” he said finally, his expression softening. He thrust a hand through his long black hair, tousling the hair damply and causing a wet lock to drop over his brow. “And if I were, it is my lot. You cannot protect me.”
“And you cannot protect me,” I returned. I went to him and sat upon the edge of the bathtub, putting a hand to his cheek, just touching the crescent moon scar that rode high upon one cheekbone. “I know you wish to wrap me in cotton wool and leave me on the highest shelf when you go off adventuring, but that simply will not do. I mean to be your partner in every sense of the word.”
He rose from the steaming water and wrapped his arms about me, wetting me as he kissed me thoroughly. I put my arms about his neck, happy that he understood.
He pressed his lips to my cheeks, my eyelids, grazed them over the curve of my ear. And whispered firmly, “No.”
I jumped back. “What do you mean, ‘no’? You cannot just dismiss me out of hand.”
“And neither will I recklessly expose you to danger. You are my wife. It is my place to protect you.” He stepped from the bath and strode across the marble floor to reach for a towel, rubbing himself briskly. His sleek black head disappeared into the folds of the towel, but I kept up my part of the conversation, no easy thing with the view he presented me. It was a testament to my state of mind that I scarcely noticed the long, hard stretch of the muscles of his thighs.
“Good God, Brisbane, is that what we have become? Conventional? Normal? Is that what you want from me, an ordinary marriage to an ordinary wife? I thought my boldness was what drew you to me!”
He dropped the towel so that just his eyes showed above it. “To be precise, it is among your most attractive and most maddening qualities,” he said.
“You cannot expect me to sit quietly at the fireside whilst you see the world,” I told him, hating the pleading note that had crept into my voice.
He dropped the towel and wrapped it about his waist, securing it low upon his hips. “I have given you the world these last months, have I not?”
“A honeymoon is not the same. Your work is the greatest part of who you are, and if you will not share that with me, then you have locked me away from what is most important.”
“You do not understand,” he began.
I broke in, my voice harsh. “No, I do not. And I cannot. It seems the cruelest trick to offer me marriage under pretenses you knew were false.” I regretted the words as soon as I had uttered them, but of course I could not call them back. They had flown at him, and I had only to look at his face to see they had flown true and pierced him.
“Do you regret marrying me?” His voice was deadly calm. If he had raged at me, I would have been at my ease. But this cool detachment was a mood I had seen once or twice before and I knew to be wary of it. He could not be touched when he was in the grip of one. He was polished and hard as an ebony chess king, implacable and immovable.
“Of course not,” I said, deliberately gentling my tone. “You know the depth of my feeling for you. But I also esteem what I become when I am with you, when we are working, hand in hand. And you seem determined never again to let that happen.”
“And you are determined to press the matter until I do,” he countered. It was astonishing to me that he could stand before me wearing nothing but a bath towel and yet preserve as much dignity as if he’d been draped in a judge’s robes. But then Brisbane wore anything well, I reflected.
I gave him a rueful smile. “You know me well enough to know that.”
“Then we are at an impasse,” he observed.
“And you will not leave Calcutta?” I asked one last time.
“Not now,” he said gravely. “I have business here.”
I gaped at him. “Business? What manner of business? I know nothing of this.”
“As it happens, the viceroy has invited me to join a hunting party he is putting together. He is heading out after tigers. There is a man-eater preying upon a village near Simla. It promises to be excellent sport.”
My mouth gaped farther still, and I shut it with a decisive snap. “You do not hunt,” I said after I had recovered myself.
He lifted one heavy shoulder in a careless shrug. “People do change.”
“Not you!” I cried. “It is one of the things I depend upon.”
His expression did not alter, but I smelled something of savagery in him just then. “You will have your secrets, Julia. You must leave me mine. I will see you soon enough, I promise you that. And so we will leave it.”
Even then I could have mended it. I could have conceded his concerns for my safety and his outrage at my sister’s manipulations, his sudden need for convention and normalcy. I could have trimmed myself to fit the mould of a proper wife. It would have taken but a phrase, gently spoken, and a smile, sweetly offered. But I had been such a wife once before, and I had vowed never again.
So I did not offer him either the gentle phrase or the sweet smile. I merely turned on my heel and left him then, closing the door firmly behind me.
And so I set my gaze toward Darjeeling and left with my sister and brother, my maid, Morag, and a party of porters that would have put Stanley’s expedition to shame.
“Is it absolutely necessary to travel with so many men?” I demanded of Portia. “It looks as if we mean to claim Darjeeling in the name of the March family and establish a colony of our own. For heaven’s sake, Portia, the porters are laughing at us.”
Portia shrugged. “They’re being paid well enough to carry Buckingham Palace on their backs if we ordered it.” I continued to needle her about the size of our party, but she did not rise to the bait. She knew Brisbane and I had quarrelled over the investigation and that her methods had been at the centre of our disagreement. Nothing more need be said upon the matter, at least not yet. Once my anger had burnt itself to cinders, no doubt I would have need of her sisterly bosom for a good weep, but for the present, I was content to embark upon the adventure we had set ourselves. I could not worry over Brisbane, I told myself sternly. He had sent his trunks with us as he required only a small bag on his trip, and I held on to the sight of those trunks as proof I would see him again soon. Besides, I reflected, there was quite enough to do just to navigate into the foothills of the Himalayas with an increasingly bitter Plum on our hands. As it happened, he had taken Portia’s manipulations no better than Brisbane had, and it had only been her pointed threats to dispatch a telegram to Father that had persuaded him to continue on with us.
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