Only Mir Alam continued to watch Lady Frederick, the pipe of the hookah dangling like a snake from his lips.

Taking her arm, Alex hauled her away, manhandling her into the stream of courtiers heading out of the durbar hall.

“You would have done better to have stayed in the Residency,” he said softly, in English.

Neatly twisting her arm out of his grasp, Lady Frederick said flippantly, “I thought the Nizam was rather a dear, actually.”

“You have an odd definition of ‘dear,’ ” said Alex grimly. “He’s as mad as a hatter and he wields the power of life and death in this part of the world.”

“Our military escort — ”

“Is all outside. And Calcutta is a very long way away.”

Lady Frederick’s lips pursed as she considered. “I’m glad he liked my flower,” she said.

Chapter Nine

There was a decided edge to Captain Reid’s tone. “What would you have done if you hadn’t been wearing a flower?”

“Torn a ribbon off my dress, I suppose,” said Penelope with a shrug. “Or offered him a kiss.”

Captain Reid favored her with an exasperated look. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

Penelope conceded the point with an airy wave of one hand. “Probably not. He looks the sort who would slobber. But if the situation called for it, there are worse fates. Kisses are currency like anything else.”

“Only in one profession.” He had clearly spoken without thinking. Penelope could register the exact moment when Captain Reid realized he had just called her a whore.

Fair enough. It wasn’t anything that hadn’t been said before.

She could practically see the wheels turning as he tried to work out a way to apologize without putting his foot even farther down his throat. Well, no need to make it easy for him. Penelope had always believed in living down to people’s expectations.

Penelope favored him with her sultriest smile. “Have you never used a judicious embrace to attain your ends, Captain Reid?”

From the appalled expression on his face, the answer to that was clearly no. “If I tried to embrace Lord Wellesley, he’d most likely have me court-martialed.”

The image surprised a startled snort out of Penelope. She couldn’t decide which was the more amusing, the image of the dignified, hawk-nosed Lord Wellesley suffering an embrace, or the equally taciturn Captain Reid offering one.

Naturally, Captain Reid took advantage of her momentary good humor to try to get rid of her. “Shall I escort you back to the Residency?”

“And miss the nautch? Not for the wide world. But if you’re so eager to be rid of me, you can deliver me back into the care of my husband.”

Some care that was. Looking around for Freddy, Penelope saw him standing with the Nizam’s chief minister, the same who had caused her so much discomfort in the durbar hall. That, thought Penelope with satisfaction, would be the last time the Nizam’s minister tried that . The Dowager Duchess of Dovedale would be so proud of her.

Of course, knowing the Dowager Duchess, she would probably have expressed her point with a good deal more force. Force applied with the pointy side of her cane, that was. When it came to moving men, the Dowager was in agreement with Signor Machiavelli that it was far better to rule by fear than love.

Penelope looked to Freddy, who seemed to be having a grand old time with the Nizam’s chief minister, although Penelope noticed that Freddy avoided looking directly at the man’s collapsing face, preferring instead to focus on the elaborate ruby diadem that fronted his white silk turban. Like a magpie, Freddy was invariably entranced by shiny objects, a category that included his own reflection.

“The Nizam’s minister appears to have taken to Freddy,” observed Penelope, as Captain Reid led her across the durbar hall.

“The Nizam’s minister,” replied Captain Reid spiritedly, “has all the fellow-feeling of an asp. If Mir Alam is cultivating your husband, he has a reason for it.”

Mir Alam. Penelope filed away the name for future use. “Are you implying that this Mir Alam is wiggling into Freddy’s bosom in order to bite?”

Captain Reid scrupulously avoided looking at her bosom. “If you choose to put it that way, yes.”

“One might almost think you didn’t want me to trust him. I wonder why?”

“Because he is entirely untrustworthy,” said Captain Reid flatly. “Or what would you call his attempt to embarrass you just now?”

Penelope indulged in a little smirk. “I don’t think he’ll be trying that again, do you?”

“No.” The thought didn’t appear to please him as much as it did her. There was a distinctly troubled cast to Captain Reid’s face as he looked down at her. “Watch your back, Lady Frederick.”

“I will when you’re behind it,” said Penelope spiritedly.

He had said something like that to her before, on the road. It was, Penelope decided, the human sacrifice bit all over again, trying to scare her away with vague threats and hints of bloody barbarity. What made him so eager to keep her on the bad side of the Nizam’s chief minister, Mir — well, whatever his name was?

Wellesley had suspected Kirkpatrick of placing Hyderabadi interests above British ones. Reid was unmistakably Kirkpatrick’s man; each spoke of the other with affectionate respect. Both were the sons of East India Company army officers, both had served in East India Company regiments, both were more Indian in their habits than English, although Captain Reid, unlike the Resident, still sported English dress, at least on those occasions when Penelope had been in his presence.

What if Captain Reid and the Nizam’s chief minister were in collusion? Freddy was as much Wellesley’s man as Reid was Kirkpatrick’s. If Freddy had been a different sort of man — or a different sort of husband — that scene before the Nizam might have had a very different sort of outcome. Penelope could imagine more than a few ways it might have played out, any of which would have resulted in Freddy’s summary dismissal or departure from Hyderabad.

Penelope smiled sourly to herself. Neither of them had reckoned on Freddy’s indifference.

“Pen, old thing,” he said lazily, as she drew forward, dragging Captain Reid along with her. “You haven’t met the Nizam’s chief minister yet, have you?”

“Not as such,” said Penelope smilingly. Lord, Freddy could be thick sometimes. The barb was completely wasted on him, although it was duly registered by Mir Whatever-His-Name-Was.

She kept a close eye on both the chief minister and Captain Reid as Freddy performed the obligatory introduction, but neither obliged her by exchanging so much as a conspiratorial glance. Quite to the contrary, they reminded Penelope of nothing so much as two dogs circling each other, each prepared to make a jab for the other’s jugular. If they had had fur, it would have been standing on end.

If it was a performance, it was an awfully good one.

“Captain Reid. How charming to see you again,” said Mir Alam. His smile bared more teeth than were strictly socially required.

Captain Reid wasn’t smiling. He was a picture of military discipline, his back as straight as the proverbial ramrod and just about as friendly. “May I take that to mean that you have changed your position on the matter of the three soldiers since this morning?”

The Prime Minister carried on as though Captain Reid had never spoken. “Lord Frederick and I have been having the most delightful conversation.”

“Delightful,” Captain Reid said in clipped tones. “Shall we address another delightful topic? I doubt Lord Frederick will be delighted to know that three soldiers from the English cantonments were arrested last night in the name of Nizam on the charge of appearing drunk in the streets of the city.”

“English soldiers?” Freddy asked.

“Sepoys,” Captain Reid said shortly.

Freddy gave a slight shrug, as if to disclaim any further interest in the matter.

“They are, however, under English command,” said Captain Reid, with heavy emphasis. Penelope had to admire his tactics. What Freddy wouldn’t champion for justice, he would for pride.

“What is the sentence?” she asked.

Captain Reid turned to her, his expression inscrutable. “Being blown alive from the mouth of a cannon.”

“Oh,” said Penelope.

“The same cannon or different cannons?” Freddy asked Mir Alam.

A small smile played across the remains of Mir Alam’s lips. He knew he had his man. “Three cannon to be fired in unison. It is,” he added, “a spectacle to impress all would-be transgressors with the force of the law.”

“All for drunkenness?” interjected Penelope. “Surely a flogging would do as well. And be far less messy,” she added as an afterthought.

“Not merely for drunkenness,” said the chief minister with just the right amount of sorrowful solicitude. “There have been, of late, a number of thefts committed within the city. In his infinite wisdom, the Nizam has increased the penalties for those who loiter as a means of discouraging crime.”

“His infinite wisdom?” said Captain Reid in disgust.

“Can you doubt it?” said the chief minister smoothly, but there was something about his watchful expression that reminded Penelope of the snake Captain Reid had called him, coiling to spring.

“The Nizam is all wise and all knowing. But ” — Captain Reid pressed forward, with dogged determination — “these three men are not residents of the city. They are soldiers in the Subsidiary Force and thus under the jurisdiction of their commanding officers. Let them discipline their own.”