Company Of Spears

And he had seen the hamadryad there. He had watched as the male had approached the female, had edged the length of her, inch by careful inch, as cautiously as may be, for at any moment she might turn on him, sink her fangs into him, shoot her venom deep in his vitals – and without warning. With the raj kumari he had watched their coiling, their writhing-mating. He had watched with a strange and increasing awareness of her at his side, and then there had been the beginnings of their own congress, the hamadryads potent and threatening only yards away, and the jungle all-concealing. There had been no consummation, however. The female hamadryad had taken sudden objection to the male’s advance, and with a terrible hissing and thrashing she had put an end to him – and to herself, for the male had struck back, too late for self-defence but not for retribution. And Hervey and the raj kumari, the trance violently broken, had sped from the trysting place believing themselves in mortal danger – and Hervey certain that his soul had been.

‘Major Hervey?’

He woke. ‘I’m sorry, I…’

‘I asked if the python were a water snake.’

‘I … I think they may swim if needs be. I think all snakes may, though on this I am uncertain.’

He observed her closely. There was nothing of the forest in Kezia Lankester. She was of an altogether purer fire, as beautiful as the raj kumari but in so different a way. She was a civilized, thinking woman. When the raj kumari thought – that is when she had not been acting wholly on impulse – it had been to calculate, and her calculating had been her ruin (and his, almost).

‘Lady Lankester, I … that is, would it be improper if I expressed to you my very great admiration, and…’

Her expression remained impassive but benign.

‘And my wish that you would consider a proposal of marriage?’

Kezia Lankester entirely kept her countenance. She said nothing for the moment, seeming instead to be reflecting on what she had heard, utterly composed still, as if it had been an invitation to some diversion or other.

Hervey looked at her intently, trying not to reveal his mounting alarm. He had botched it; he felt sure.

She caught her breath a little before answering (alarming him the more). ‘Major Hervey, I am most deeply obliged to you.’ A faint smile came to her lips, as though she were dismissing a child, kindly, for some amusing excess. ‘I can only suppose that you are moved by some sense of obligation, and it does not surprise me – and certainly does not dismay me – for in my short acquaintance with your regiment I have come to see its great virtue of constancy.’

He made to speak, intending to reassure her that his proposal was in no sense prompted by any sense of obligation (at least not to her), but he hesitated, and she stayed him with the merest gesture of a hand.

‘Major Hervey, I assure you, I am by no means offended by these thoughts. On the contrary: they are very noble.’

Again he would have spoken to this point had not she anticipated him once more and bid him wait.

‘I am flattered by your proposal. Such a one, to a widowed mother, might not be forthcoming again. Your prospects, on the other hand, are decidedly handsome.’

‘Lady Lankester—’

‘I have made myself plain, I trust.’

On the contrary, Hervey was wholly uncertain. And he would know with what finality he was being rejected. He frowned slightly, inclining his head a fraction, but enough to persuade her that she must repeat what she had presumed to be plain speaking.

‘Major Hervey, I am honoured to accept your proposal.’

Hervey’s mouth fell open. ‘I … I had not imagined …’ He took her hand. He bent forward to kiss her. Her lips were still parted slightly, and it was Hervey, not she, who ended the kiss.

He caught a glimpse of Perdita eyeing him – coldly, he sensed. She would get used to it; she would have to. If Kezia Lankester could accept him – ‘the coldest woman’, poor Strickland had thought her; but the widow of Sir Ivo, a man he admired in highest degree – then so could an undersize greyhound from that fickle, fiery country!

XI

RECKONINGS

Hounslow, 27 March

The last Tuesday of each month was the quartermaster’s day for interior economy, as it was known in the Sixth, and so there was no general parade. Hervey had arrived back from Gloucestershire in the early hours; Emma had tried to persuade him to stay for another day and then drive back with them, but he had explained that there was Private Lightowler’s funeral to attend to as well as business with the Horse Guards, and promised instead to call on them in Bedford Square at the first opportunity. At eight o’clock he breakfasted quietly in the officers’ house, and at nine he stepped into regimental headquarters hoping not to hear too dispiriting a report of the weekend’s ‘crime’.

‘Good morning, Hervey,’ said Vanneck cheerily as the acting commanding officer passed through the adjutant’s office and into his own. ‘I trust that Gloucestershire was restorative?’