Page 12 of Mistress of Misfortune

“I do, a little.” She smiled, and then quickly flattened her lips. “You should know that I am a penniless outcast here, Mr. Naveya. I cannot afford to give offense, particularly to the one gentleman who has bothered to be so mannerly to me. My apologies.” She glanced at the clouds billowing up from the horizon. “I think the rain intends to revisit us. I should return home.”

“You could join me for tea to wait out the storm, and talk more about English things.” He nodded toward the cottage he occupied on the edge of the estate.

“My brother the vicar would never approve of that,” Lucetta informed him, and then smiled again. “Happily, I never concern myself with his approval.” She offered him her arm.

Once he led her inside his cottage Harshad inspected the front room to assure it was tidy before showing her to the best of his chairs. “If you will sit, Miss Branwen, I will make the tea.”

“I would rather help you, if I may?” When he nodded, she followed him into his kitchen. “What is that wonderful smoky smell?”

“Patchouli.” As he lit the lamps he nodded at the urn where he burned the fragrant incense sticks. “It makes the air like home.”

“You are from India, of course. I should have guessed that, given the rumors about the colonel.” Lucetta began rolling up her sleeves.

Harshad touched her bare forearm. “What have you heard?”

She went still and stared down at his hand, which Harshad just then realized looked almost burnt against the whiteness of her skin. “Only that he came from your country to settle in Renwick after he resigned his commission. Your fingernails are very long, Mr. Naveya.”

“I cannot attend to them,” he said, dropping his hand. “I am at the house all day, and it is bad luck to do so after the sun sets.”

The jewels of her eyes glowed rather than glittered in the lamplight. “You are superstitious.”

“I am careful not to walk where there is talk of snakes,” Harshad admitted.

A sadness flickered over her face. “I wish I had learned such caution.”

Outside the rain began to fall in earnest, and thunder grumbled all around the cottage, but neither of them paid attention to it. Lucetta seemed indifferent to the violence of the weather, and her presence kept Harshad from thinking about it.

Once his water pot boiled, Harshad demonstrated the Hindi method of tea-making by adding Darjeeling leaves, green cardamom and crumbles from a dried cinnamon stick. He allowed the blend to steep for a short time, and then strained it into cups before he added sugar cubes and milk.

“That smells most exotic,” Lucetta told him as he presented her with one cup. She did not wrinkle her nose or pretend to taste it but sipped carefully. “Delicious. What is this blend called?”

“Chai.” He gestured for her to sit at his small morning table and brought another chair in from the front room to join her. “My mother added peppercorns and dried ginger root to hers, but I do not know where to buy them in England.”

“Peppercorns can be had at market, but for ginger root I think you must visit the apothecary,” she advised him.

“I will do that, thank you, Miss.” He reached for the plate of sweet cakes he kept on the shelf over his stove and removed the napkin covering them. “My master's cook made these for us so that the memory of home would stay sweet in our mouths. My people call them chomchom.”

Lucetta sampled one of the cakes and nodded her approval. “Very sweet and delicate.” She tried another bite, chewing it slowly. “They taste of roses.”

“They are made with…the water of the flower.” Harshad felt frustrated that he did not know the proper term. “It is a very special cake to my people, the Bengali. They even call their beloved ones 'chomchom'.”

Her lips curved as she set down the cake. “Have you family back in India, Mr. Naveya?”

“No, Miss.” He did not like to think about what had been taken from him, so he rose and began to tidy up. “You have come to visit your brother the vicar?”

“I am presently living with him and his wife, much to our mutual despair.” Lucetta’s tone seemed indifferent, but Harshad saw the heaviness of emotion causing her shoulders to sag. “It is an unhappy arrangement, but given my lack of funds I must tolerate it.”

Harshad could not agree with her. “Family is never tolerable.”

She smothered a sound almost like a laugh. “I did not mean to imply that my brother and his wife are unbearable to me. Rather it is the reverse; I am a terrible burden on them.”

“No, you are not,” he assured her. “You and they are the same blood. If they are penniless, and you are not, would you take them in? Would you call them a burden on you?”

Lucetta’s pretty brows drew together. “Of course not, but it is different for–”

“It is the same,” he corrected her. “Family is not tolerable. Family is everything. It is love.”

“I wish that were true.” She stood. “I must return now or they will wonder where I have got to. Thank you for the lovely tea and cakes.”

“You are a kind woman, Miss Branwen, even if you do not wish anyone to know it.” Harshad bowed to her. “You should make friends with the young woman who crashed her rig this morning. She is also very kind.”

“Mr. Naveya,” Lucetta said carefully. “Where, exactly, is this young woman?”