Shock widened Vanika’s eyes.With an uncomfortable lurch, Adam realized that she stood in exactly the same spot.She hadn’t tried to run or hide from Borthwick’s threatened violence.It would have been futile to try—but thinking of the courage it must have taken to face Borthwick with defiance and dignity instead made Adam’s chest hurt.
Singh Rao gave Borthwick a nod.
The colonel’s steel gaze shifted to Adam.“Useful skills indeed, Mr.Bates.”
Adam forced himself to bury his rage, fear, and guilt behind a facade of bored indifference.“You might still need the girl after you get there.And she’ll be easier to transport if she’s uninjured.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Borthwick mildly agreed.“So long as we’ve made our point clear.”
With a flick of his wrist, the whip snapped out.
Adam took an instinctive, desperate step forward—even as he realized it would be futile.He could never reach her in time.
The flail snapped a breath away from Vanika’s face, cracking like a gunshot through the claustrophobic space of the tent.
Vanika flinched at the sound—and choked out a brief, heart-wrenching sob.
Borthwick assessed her reaction coldly.“It would seem that we have.”
Singh Rao’s gaze fell to Adam’s right foot—which lay one betraying pace ahead of the other.
Adam’s pulse ratcheted up.It had to be patently obvious that he’d been on the verge of intervening.
He waited for Singh Rao to call it out.Whatever personal dislike the subedar might have for the notion of whipping a child, he was still an officer—someone who’d been trained and sworn to strict notions of duty.
With an unreadable expression, Singh Rao looked away.“We can be on the ridge Mr.Bates indicated by early tomorrow afternoon.”
Borthwick’s icy gray stare still pinned Vanika in place.“Make it noon.”
“Yes, sir,” Singh Rao acknowledged briskly.
With an easy twist of his wrist, Borthwick coiled back up the whip.He gestured dismissively to the sepoys at the door.“Take her out of here.See that she’s watched.”
Singh Rao repeated the order in Punjabi.The men dragged Vanika from the tent.The girl didn’t resist—except to throw one last terrible look back at Adam, tears tracking down her cheeks.
Adam barely realized that he had started to follow, drawn after Vanika as his heart ached with the need to try to fix what he’d just broken.
Borthwick’s voice stopped him.
“Mr.Bates.”
Adam tore his eyes from the slight figure dwarfed by the soldiers at her sides.He forced himself to turn to where the colonel waited within the tent.
“Join me for dinner,” Borthwick invited.
Every cell in Adam’s body rebelled against the idea.A thousand responses flooded his brain, from thin excuses to shouts of outrage.
He couldn’t say any of them.
Because he was George Bates’s son.
“Sounds great,” Adam replied instead.
Something shriveled up inside of him like a dying leaf, and Adam walked back inside.
?
Twenty-Four
