Free That Silent Night by TASHA ALEXANDER Page B

his partner in life.
    â€œI am doing this all for you, my dear. Vanderbilt’s daughter caught a duke and we cannot tolerate falling beneath that family. I should be unable to take so much as a step out of the house. We have got to take her abroad without delay.”
    â€œI would never deny you something you want so badly, Birdie.” Mr. Wells folded up his newspaper and left for his office, where, after finalizing a deal that nearly doubled the family’s already enormous fortune, he set about making plans for their trip. That he chose to start with India reflected his priorities. An old friend who had wrangled himself a plum position after the dissolution of the East India Company had invited him to visit, with the object of convincing him to invest in what he was certain would prove a most profitable arrangement. They would be in India by February, and stay until the following winter, when they would remove themselves to Egypt, and form all the acquaintances necessary to make an appropriate splash in London the following spring. Birdie would have preferred to start in London, but understood her husband too well to suggest an alternative to his itinerary.
    Within hours of their arrival in Bombay, Amity was being heralded as the belle of expat society. Invitations poured in, and the family found themselves in even greater demand than that to which they were accustomed in New York. Birdie’s exuberant parties proved a great success with the British community, although Amity noticed more than a few ladies looking down their nose at her mother, especially when she insisted they ride camels to the site of one of her picnics. Regardless, Amity allowed herself to be escorted to countless events by a series of young men Birdie had vetted, but she took little pleasure in the company of any of them. She did not object to making a good marriage, but felt that she ought at least to be allowed to like her future husband. Her new friend, Miss Christabel Peabody, shared this view. Miss Peabody, a young lady whose British manners and affability were approved of by Birdie, had traveled to India to visit her brother, who was serving there in the army. Within a fortnight of their introduction, she and Amity were inseparable.
    â€œI do not think I shall ever adjust to being here,” Amity said, as she and Christabel lounged in the courtyard of the villa Mr. Wells had taken for their stay. “The humidity is intolerable.” She stretched out on a chaise longue and waved a large ostrich fan in front of her face.
    â€œAnd it is not yet summer,” Christabel said. “You will adore Simla, though. Everyone spends the summer there. The society is incomparable.”
    â€œIncomparable society in Simla?” A stocky man in uniform approached them, Birdie’s housekeeper following behind, doing her best to announce the visitor. “Christabel, you are giving this young lady the wrong idea altogether.”
    â€œCaptain Charles Peabody, Miss Wells!” The servant made a slight bow, her hands pressed together as if she were praying.
    â€œVery good, thank you,” Amity said.
    â€œAnd Captain Jack Sheffield as well.”
    Amity thanked the housekeeper again and inspected the new arrivals. Christabel’s brother, Captain Peabody, was a bit of a disappointment; Amity preferred her officers to cut rather more of a dashing figure in uniform. Fortunately for her, his companion filled the role admirably. Tall and lanky, Captain Sheffield moved with careless ease, and Amity was taken at once with his easy humor and self-deprecating ways.
    â€œThe society in Simla is the worst sort of colonial balderdash,” Captain Peabody said. “If one is to be in India, one ought to be there, not set up some sorry version of England instead.”
    â€œGoing native, Peabody?” Captain Sheffield’s grin brightened the room.
    â€œI take all my opinions from you, old boy, so you ought not criticize