Free The Betrayal of the Blood Lily by Lauren Willig Page A

hedgerow.
    Someone was turning the doorknob.
    His servant, Penelope prayed, shoving the page back beneath the others and springing away from the desk. Please let it be his servant. It would still be embarrassing, but she could make up a silly excuse about having lost her way or felt faint or some other nonsense.
    It wasn’t a servant.
    Captain Reid stood in the doorway, regarding her with an expression that could only have been described as nonplussed. Penelope would have enjoyed seeing him so had she not been showing to even worse advantage. It sapped all the pleasure from it.
    “Lady Frederick?”
    The very title came out as a question. Well, Penelope couldn’t begrudge him that. One did tend to question the status of women who showed up unannounced in one’s bedchamber.
    Penelope would have given anything to flee. Unfortunately, Captain Reid stood between her and the door, and there was nothing outside the window but water. Water and crocodiles. Penelope couldn’t see the crocodiles, but she deemed it safer to presume their existence.
    There was nothing to do but brazen it out. Fortunately, she had had a good deal of experience at being brazen.
    Tossing Captain Reid an arch look, Penelope fluttered her fingers at the closely written pages on the writing desk. “Love letters, Captain Reid?” she said. “The lady is fortunate, indeed.”
    If he was perturbed at finding her pawing through his belongings, he hid it well. “Did you want something, Lady Frederick?”
    “Yes.” It was the curved script on the letter that gave her the idea. Penelope shook back her hair and smiled up at him with the assurance of one well practiced in wiggling out of sticky situations. “I was looking for an Indian grammar. I had thought you might have one.”
    “An Indian grammar,” Captain Reid repeated.
    “Yes,” repeated Penelope, daring him to challenge her. “Is it really so odd that one would wish to learn the language of the place one intends to occupy? One wouldn’t live in England without learning English.” Of course, one was born in England, so one never had to bother with learning it, but that was quite another matter. “If I were to live in Italy, I would learn Italian. If I were to live in France—”
    “I believe I have the general idea,” said Captain Reid, cutting Penelope off in the midst of her continental tour. Had he believed her excuse? She couldn’t tell. The angle of the light was in his favor, falling from behind him so that his face remained in shadow, while hers was lit like a sinner’s conscience at the call of the last trump. “You may find it more difficult than you anticipated.”
    “I’ve always been rather quick at learning a language.” It was true enough. It had driven Henrietta mad that Penelope had managed to master the rudiments of Italian while Henrietta was still struggling with basic pronunciation. Penelope was lazy, but she was quick—at least, that was what her sorely tried governesses had reported to her mother.
    “Languages,” Captain Reid corrected. “I’m afraid you’ll find not one Indian language but many. Hindustani is the most common, but by no means universal.”
    “What do they speak in Hyderabad?”
    “Deccani. It’s an offshoot of Urdu.” That might have helped had she had any idea what Urdu was. One thing was clear, it wasn’t Italian, French, or German. “My advice is to hire a munshi once we arrive. A tutor,” he translated. “Although I doubt you’ll have much use for it.”
    “Why?” Penelope took a step towards him, bringing them only a hand’s breadth apart in the tiny cabin. The lantern on its peg in the corner swayed with the movement of the ship, creating a ripping river of gold on the scarred wood floor between them. “Because you think I’ll leave?”
    With a wry smile, Captain Reid shook his head. “No. Because the English community tends to keep to itself. And I imagine your husband will follow them in that.”
    “There’s nothing