Free Just Deserts by Elizabeth Bailey

visualise a life without him. ‘How will I bear it?’ she
cried, and, bursting into fresh sobs, she fell upon his
chest.
    He patted her, muttering soothing phrases in his own
tongue, but his own stern eyes were moist.
    In the end all the horses were sold, with the exception of
Shiveen. Persephone, finding she could not endure to subject her
ageing mare to the rigours of a long sea voyage, and feeling that a
complete break would be marginally less painful, gave Shiveen to
her old mentor, who had been provided with a home and a generous
pension. At the final moment of parting, Ufur told her with
determined cheerfulness that Shiveen would grow old and they would
die together, to be reborn perhaps in her own English
stables.
    Once in England, Persephone had been agreeably surprised at
the quality of the English cattle, but the foul weather and the
cold had produced a resurgence of her loss and she refused
point-blank to appear in public with a view to finding herself a
husband. Thanks to the nabob, she had been allowed to have her way,
seeking solace in flinging herself into violent exercise in the
appropriation of her cousin Rossendale’s horses.
    But the debut had inexorably arrived, and she had perforce
given in at last to Penelope’s entreaties.
    ‘ Dearest Seph, I know you don’t care for
socialising, but it is my heart’s desire to cut a dash. Papa is so
clever to have sworn us all to secrecy about there being two of us,
and to have hit upon us wearing the exact same ensemble when we
appear at last together. And, what is more, I might have
betrayed you, but I did take the blame for you, you know I
did.’
    ‘ Yes, I know, but—’
    ‘ I never said a word to let either
Chiddingly or Fitz imagine that it was not I, but you who had behaved so very badly.’
    ‘ They will know soon enough that it was I,’ Persephone
said.
    ‘ Yes, but not if you don’t come tonight and—oh,
drat you, Seph, I am depending on you! I am nothing without
you, you know I am not.’
    ‘ Devil take you, Pen, that is nonsense. You would charm a
snake better than any trickster in India.’
    ‘ But I can’t throw a thunderclap on my own. You
are my twin , dearest. I need you.’
    So Persephone had capitulated, promising to behave with all
the propriety in the world when her mama had begged her, almost
tearfully, to remember her company manners and refrain from putting
them all to shame.
    A taste of London fashionable life, however, had
confirmed all Persephone’s worst suspicions. She had not minded the
dull and uncomfortable parties in Bombay that drove her sister to
screaming boredom, for it was a highly parochial milieu which
demanded no social graces. The beau monde of England
was altogether different.
    And the worst aspect of the whole enterprise, to
Persephone, was her father’s accursed fortune. Bad enough in
Bombay, where they were naturally enough sought after by every
bachelor, whether eligible or otherwise, but here it was infinitely
worse.
    ‘ Mark my words,’ she told Penelope, as soon as her parents
had withdrawn, ‘that abominable Chiddingly is after a
fortune.’
    ‘ Well, and why not?’ Penelope said. ‘I must say,
Seph, we are extremely fortunate. If our portions were merely
respectable, we would be obliged to accept almost anyone who offered and be thankful. As it is, we may please
ourselves.’
    ‘ If I pleased myself, I would have none of them.’
    ‘ Fiddle.’ Penelope’s eyes danced with mischief. ‘Ten to one
you will end by bestowing your hand and heart upon Chiddingly, for
by all accounts he is as horse-mad as you.’
    ‘ I?’ Persephone gasped. ‘Marry that—that insolent
knave? That hectoring bully? That—that devil? I would
die rather!’
    Penelope twinkled. ‘So would he, I dare say. I must ask
Fitz.’
    ‘ If you dare to do anything of the sort—’
    ‘ Don’t put yourself about,’ recommended Penelope,
smiling. She rose from the table and crossed to the door, casting
as she did so a