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comrades. Apparently only one among them could sleep.
She wondered which room was Tom’s.
Such thoughts came often to Emma, no matter how much she tried to suppress them, and
on the heels of that image came an even less welcome one. The memory of Tom and Amy sitting
close at one end of the dinner table, oh so very clearly enjoying each other’s company while she was
stranded at the other end, saddled with the impossible Michael Everlee. Even she had to admit Tom
and Amy were well matched. Both fair and quick to laugh, much like impish children poking at each
other in church. Yes, they were a natural pair, while she…
She matched no one.
Perhaps I should search for my own Indian prince, Emma thought. Or at the very least a
stable boy with suspiciously good grammar. I should go back to my room this very instant, to my bed,
and pick up another book for instruction on how to find him.
Instead, she folded her arms across her chest and looked up at the unfamiliar sky. The
sky that had sheltered Geraldine and Anthony all those years ago and it occurred to her that the young
Gerry had been much like the characters in all of Mrs. Steel’s books – inexperienced and easily
duped. Only where those heroines were unable to see the hero that lurked beneath the skin of the
common man, Gerry had been unable to see the opposite. That her dashing young officer was about to
dash off. That her lover had loved another woman first and better. That the romantic twist of fortune
which had brought them together would be, in the end, a cruel twist. That the man she viewed as a
hero was merely a cad.
Is this the gist of all romances? Emma wondered, as the trees whipped around
themselves and jasmine filled the air. Is the plot of all love stories really so simple? That a woman
is never able to see who or what a man truly is… not until the very end of her story?
***
It was a heavy volume, but Tom was glad he had packed it. The Means of Death. An
ominous sounding title and one guaranteed to cause alarm in any unfortunate stranger who happened to
be sitting beside one on a train. But the book had a full section on poisons and that was all that
mattered. He had read through the list twice since retiring to bed and now his eyes were blurring as
he struggled to focus on the small print.
He hated this sort of feeling. Exhaustion, accompanied by the knowledge that when one
is this tired it is nearly impossible to sleep. He pushed to his feet and walked to the door which led
out into the garden. He was tempted to prop it open to the evening breeze but at least half of the
toxins listed in the tropical chapter were borne by animals and not plants. In other words they were
poisons capable of traveling on their own, danger that moved, death carried in fangs and barbs and
stingers and so – nice night or not – he could not bring himself to open his door.
But through the large glass plate he could see Emma.
She appeared almost as a ghost – a slender form in a white muslin nightdress, the folds
of which billowed in the wind. She is not like me, he thought. She fears nothing. She walks among
the dark garden like a shadowy Eve, confident in her majesty. And the sight of her there made him
curse out loud, although he could not have said why.
***
Thanks to Rayley’s time studying with the French, who had developed fingerprinting to a
fine art, the entire team had gotten quite adept with the brush and silica dust. But yet Davy still
practiced.
He knew he should be sleeping. Tomorrow would be there soon enough and it would