Free Duty Before Desire by Elizabeth Boyce Page A

if only for an hour. Her aunt hadn’t said a word when she and Poorvaja made to leave.
    London was so large, so busy, so
loud
. So many people going and coming, such a variety of diversions and entertainments. Begrudgingly, she acknowledged a trickle of excitement coursing through her veins. Perhaps she could find something about this place to enjoy.
    They’d wandered through Mayfair, then crossed the busy Piccadilly thoroughfare, before turning onto St. James’s Street, which was blessedly quiet. They walked in the heavy shadows cast by distinguished, looming structures. The stuccoed exteriors radiated a chill of their own, one accentuated by the frosty stares cast in her direction by other pedestrians. Arcadia shivered, pulling her paisley Kashmir shawl closer about her shoulders. She wished her hair covered her nape, rather than being tucked uselessly beneath a straw bonnet. The collar of her pelisse did not come up as far as she’d have liked. The cool breeze dipped inside and raised gooseflesh on the back of her neck.
    From the corner of her vision, Arcadia detected a hulking mass of humanity. She turned and found herself confronting a window full of men, all of them looking at her. What on earth were they doing? What was this place? Was this some strange English ritual she’d not yet learned about? Sitting front and center, enthroned like a king surrounded by his courtiers, was Lord Sheridan.
    She hadn’t wanted to see him again, had been sure that doing so would only remind her of that terrible day in Hyde Park. But now, impaled by his demanding gaze, she didn’t think of being robbed. She thought of his arms beneath her, of gentle hands tucking a blanket around her thighs. They were scraps of memory, shredded by fever like the unraveling edge of a gossamer ribbon. But they were real memories, nonetheless. He had touched her, held her, even as his inscrutable brown eyes held her now.
    It was an unnerving sensation. Arcadia did not care for it in the least.
    “What are they doing, I wonder?”
    Poorvaja’s question broke the trance cast by Lord Sheridan’s eyes. Arcadia turned to look where her ayah pointed at a row of carriages standing along the curb at a nearby corner.
    “Is it some sort of procession?” Poorvaja glanced at Arcadia and raised her brows expectantly before continuing down the street.
    “I don’t know any more than you do,” Arcadia replied. The sight of her ayah in English dress was still jarring, but the maid already seemed more comfortable in the clothes than Arcadia—of course, Poorvaja did not have to wear the same constricting undergarments.
    The older woman’s brown eyes twinkled. “I’m going to find out,” she said, lifting her skirts and darting forward.
    Arcadia chuckled. The excitement of being in a big city must be infectious, she supposed.
    “Miss Parks?”
    Startled by the sound of her name, Arcadia turned. Before her, as if she’d summoned him from the window, was Lord Sheridan.
    Arcadia had not much experience with the English aristocracy. In India, the Raj developed its own pecking order based on position within the East India Company. Her father, a mere baronet, had been the highest-ranking factor in the region. Serving as
de facto
ambassador of the Company—and therefore of the British Empire itself—he was received by Mughal princes and powerful Indian merchants who wished to engage in trade with the Company.
    To all of the Indian servants working in their house, Sir Thaddeus had been
sahib
, the master, while Lady Parks was
memsahib
, the master’s woman. As such, they were afforded respect as though rulers of their own tiny kingdom.
    Standing in the company of a genuine lord—and such a handsome one, too, dressed in a resplendent waistcoat embroidered with vines and leaves, topped by a striking coat of dark green and a hat with a brim that looked sharp enough to cut bread—Arcadia couldn’t help but tremble a bit in her half boots.
    “Lord Sheridan.”