Three
Drums pulsed andtrumpets blared.A cheer roared up as flower petals exploded from the rooftops—and Constance grinned with delight.
She was inIndia.
Her royal uncle—or first cousin once removed, if one wanted to be particular—had been as dashing, charming, and charismatic as she could possibly have dreamed.The hug he’d given her had been full of genuine affection, as though there had never been any question over her welcome into this long-distant side of her family.
Constance couldn’t wait to get to know Vijay better, along with the rest of her Indian relatives—but first, she had a secret policeman to catch.
She scanned the surrounding buildings for a handy way to gain some altitude and spotted it in an incongruously familiar contraption attached to a European-style hotel across the way.
The iron fire escape was nearly hidden in the shadows of a narrow alley.Constance hurried over to it and made a jump for the ladder, which was tucked up against the lower landing.Her fingers fell just shy of the bottom rung.
“Stuffy!”she called out with an imperious wave as Neil pushed through the crowd to join her.“Give me a leg up!”
Neil looked from her to the ladder.
“Well?”Constance prompted impatiently, waiting for him to offer her a boost.
Neil’s eyes glinted with an uncharacteristic spark of mischief behind his wire-framed spectacles.He reached up, grasped the lower rung, and easily pulled it down.
His expression remained conspicuously straight—save for a telling twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Constance glared at him.“Are you calling me short?”
“I never said a word,” Neil protested innocently.
Constance considered this—and then curved her mouth into a smile.“I’m sure I can make it up to you later.”
She made sure that the words were rich with threat.
Neil blanched.After all, he knew better than most just how creatively she could make good on it.
She set her boot onto the bottom rung—pausing as Ellie conspicuously cleared her throat.
“Perhaps Neil ought to go first?”Ellie pointedly suggested.
Neil’s brow furrowed with confusion—until his eyes dropped to Constance’s skirt.
The tips of his ears turned pink.
Constance’s smile widened.Neil really was her favorite person to torment.He simply left one with so many marvelous ways to go about it.
With a burst of wicked triumph, she started to climb.
?
Constance was surveying the festival from the rooftop when Neil hauled himself over the ledge.
“It’s a lot bloody harder to climb when you can’t look up, you know!”he complained, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.
“Is it?”Constance returned innocently.
He joined her at the front of the building.Ellie hopped over the ledge behind them, and Constance took in the sprawl of the festival.
The sheer scale of Lord Jagannath’s party awed her.The street was packed as far as she could see in every direction.Even the men were dressed colorfully, decked out in long collarless kurtas in festive hues of emerald green or sunset orange.Others accented their dhotis and shirts with bright-hued scarves or painted gold and crimson symbols on their foreheads as signs of their devotion.
Tilak, Constance remembered her grandmother calling those ritual marks.
