Still, it didn’t stop her grumbling to Asha when she had held out the parasol.
“I’ll look sallow,” she’d complained. “Using this won’t make me any paler. This is silly.”
Asha had set her jaw. “It’s what English ladies do.”
“English ladies would envy a corpse!”
“Better than being an actual corpse if Vikram gets his hands on you.”
Sarani had buttoned her lips and taken the dratted parasol, resisting the urge to crack it over her knee. At first, Red had laughed himself silly…until she’d produced her kukri blades from the hidden pockets sewn into her skirts and told him to laugh again. Wisely, he had refrained.
Asha and Tej had both taken the news of her impending engagement in stride, agreeing that it was for the best. She personally might not need a man to survive…but in the world of English aristocracy, society decreed that she did. A woman needed a husband to have value.
It was a concept that had always rubbed her raw. Even as the daughter of a maharaja and the inherent privilege that came with it, she’d worked on standing on her own merit in Joor. She fought for her people where she could, made up her own mind by considering the facts, not what was spoonfed to her. And it wasn’t in her to withdraw or need to be rescued. But now she had no choice.
This was England…a different world entirely.
A different universe, if she was being honest. Admittedly, she was afraid, despite never having been cowed by anything in her life. Not when she’d been promised in marriage to Talbot. Not when the sepoy infantry had come guns blazing to their gates during the rebellion and Markham’s army had made an equally vicious stand. But now…the fear gnawing in her gut threatened to cripple her.
All because of the threat of strange, foreign shores.
“Your best friend Manu died defending her people,” Sarani hissed to herself while stirring broth under the watchful eye of the ship’s cook. “The least you could do is hold your head high. You’re a princess, not a helpless damsel.”
In truth, she felt as though she were about to jump off a plank into shark-infested waters, only these sharks would be dressed to the nines in yards of silken finery while wearing smiles that hid their bloodthirsty, razor-sharp teeth.
“Well, you’ll just have to make do then. You’ve handled worse,” she told herself.
“Less talking, more working,” the cook snapped, making her startle.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
True to his word, the duke had ordered her to switch jobs with Tej, and now she spent most of her time helping in the galley: baking bread, stirring boiling pots, or sifting dried grain to separate from vermin. It was tedious, but at least she wasn’t shoveling manure or forced to endure the duke’s presence in a cabin that grew smaller by the day. Rhystan might have relented, but he was still short a boatswain thanks to her, and she would not make others shoulder her share.
Tej was Rhystan’s primary cabin boy now, and though he was free with information on the captain’s whereabouts—allowing Sarani to slip in unnoticed to borrow one of Rhystan’s many volumes of poetry or novels to stave off boredom—a part of her missed their private interaction.
A stupid, cabbageheaded part of her.
She knew it wasn’t because he was intentionally avoiding her. The entire crew, including their captain, had been busy. They’d faced some rough weather along the stretch of the Atlantic, then outraced a few suspicious-looking ships that a wide-eyed Asha had whispered were smugglers. A few warning cannons had been fired, and Red had told Sarani with a grin not to worry, that the captain had a reputation for being a right mean bastard.
Hunched near the gangplank leading to the quarterdeck, Sarani had glimpsed said mean bastard standing on the poop deck, shouting orders, hands clasped behind his back, legs apart, shoulders proud and strong, and didn’t doubt Red’s boast for a second.
Rhystan’s face had been grim, his expression deadly. Power and danger emanated from him in spades, making her shiver. And yet the sight had also made a scalding heat distill through her body like ink through water.
Cabbageheaded was clearly too weak a description for her.
Despite his promises, Sarani forced herself to keep his letter etched in her memory. His words had been succinct, with the precision of a dagger set to remove a heart from its prey, and the letter had done its job, even if it’d been written in anger. Years later, those cruel words still bit like blades in her memory.
It didn’t matter that he’d changed his tune.
Sarani wasn’t so naive that she didn’t know Rhystan had some other motive and that this sham betrothal would benefit him in another hidden way at her expense. The hard, intractable man he’d become didn’t forgive or forget slights. So what did he want from her? Every instinct in her brain screamed not to trust him. But she’d had no choice then, and she had none now.
Like Odysseus, she was stuck between a monster and a whirlpool. Or like the boatswains said when they hung in the precarious bosun’s chair to caulk the long seam that ran from bow to stern—that they were hanging between the devil and the deep. Neither scenario presented pleasing odds. With Rhystan in front of her and a killer behind her, the duke was obviously the lesser of two evils.
Or is he?
Sarani suppressed the clench of warning that gripped her spine. Now was not the time for doubts. She would use him to get settled in England, see Tej and Asha safe, and accept his help in determining the identity of the assassin if he tracked her to London.
Sarani repeated her mantras.
The betrothal is a means to an end.
The Duke of Embry is a means to an end.
* * *
Rhystan watched with a narrowed eye as Gideon expertly navigated the crowded Thames, the putrid stench of its riverbed climbing into his nostrils. He trusted his quartermaster’s skill as they steered toward the fairly newly constructed six-year-old Victoria Dock. Collisions happened frequently given the volume of movement on the river, but pillaging by thieves was more predominant, which was why he and several of his men kept a keen eye out as they sailed past nearby vessels.
His throat tightened as a cold sensation settled over his shoulders, the mantle of duke thumping over his shoulders like a salt-crusted, waterlogged blanket. London—it was the only place in all the world he truly didn’t want to be. On the sea, he was judged on his effort and worth as captain. Here, every step was measured, every action noted, but for the flimsiest of reasons. One wrong word and a goddamned scandal would be certain to ensue. He resented the charade with every bone in his body.
Scowling, Rhystan shook off his annoyance. The only solution was to make this visit as short as possible and be back out to sea where he belonged. He thought of his mother and sister, and guilt speared him. They’d done fine without him all these years. No sense changing something that wasn’t broken.