Free Star of the East: A Lady Emily Christmas Story by TASHA ALEXANDER Page B

maharaja asked. “That he kept it so that we could not marry Sunita to anyone else?”
    “I would never do that, sir,” Ned said. “You do not know how I have tried to convince her that we ought not elope, that we should go to you and throw ourselves on your mercy. I want nothing more than to marry your daughter, but I do not want it done under the cover of night, away from her family—”
    “That is enough, Ned,” I said. “Why didn’t you return the bangle?”
    “I did. I swear I did. I had it and the tika in my jacket pocket and put them both in your jewelry case. I don’t know what happened after that.”
    “What jacket?” I asked.
    “My evening kit.”
    “Could there be a hole in the pocket lining?” I remembered that his other clothes had shown signs of mending.
    “I do not believe so,” he said. “Surely I would have felt the weight of the gold even if it had slipped into the lining.”
    “This might, Drayton, be the time to check,” Colin said.
    “Right. Of course. Very good.” He all but ran from the room. Before the door closed, a small figure slipped past him.
    “Henry!” My son, covered with copious evidence of what I could only assume had been a breakfast of porridge and dragging behind him an ivy-and-yew garland that ought to have been draped over a fireplace mantle, came towards me, his little arms stretched wide.
    “Mama! Pwetty for Mama. Don’t want nasty dwawing. Pwetty for Mama.” Clutched in his filthy hand was Sunita’s bangle, which he dropped onto my lap.
    Nanny crashed into the room, coming to a sudden stop when she saw the entire party assembled before her. “Lady Bromley, I cannot apologize enough for my small charge. I fear he—”
    “Has quite saved the day,” Colin said, scooping up the little boy. “Where did you find the pretty bangle for Mama, Henry?”
    “Down,” Henry said, and his father put him gently on his feet. Henry grabbed Colin’s hand—smearing his coat sleeve with porridge—and pulled him to the door. “Up. Mama’s bed.”
    “You found it in Mama’s room?” Colin asked. Henry nodded and ran back to me, climbing onto my lap. I feared my dress would never recover, but it had never been one of my favorites. “Was it in a box with something else? Something …” Colin searched for a word. “Something glittery, Henry?” Henry looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. “Glittery,” Colin continued, looking around. “Like this?” He picked up the boy and held him in front of the maharini, who was wearing an exquisite diamond bracelet.
    Henry nodded so hard he nearly hit his head on his father’s chest.
    “But you didn’t think Mama would like glittery?” Colin asked.
    “No. Pwetty for Mama.” He kicked until Colin put him down and then crawled back onto my lap. I held him close and picked the sticky remains of porridge out of his hair.
    “You are going to have to do something about that child,” my mother said.
    Ned charged back into the room, saving me from having to reply. He was holding his evening jacket in front of him. “It is not here, I do not have it.” He fell to his knees in front of the maharaja. “I cannot apologize enough for what I have done. Please know that all I wanted was to make Sunita happy.”
    “Rise, rise,” the maharaja said. “We have found the bangle and I suspect my daughter was more culpable than you for what happened.”
    Ned did as instructed and stood. “I cannot place the blame on her, sir. I ought to have insisted on finding another way, but I was not strong enough.”
    “Indeed you were not,” the maharini said. “I am most displeased.”
    “As am I,” the maharaja said. “I do not want my daughter to think she must lie to me in order to find happiness. You will go to Oxford, Sunita, to this St. Hilda’s, if you wish.”
    “But you will marry the groom of our choice,” the maharini said as her husband nodded in agreement.
    Sunita gasped. “You won’t do that,