The Game - Laurie R. King [86]
Just then his eyes scanned the wide room to where Gay and I stood, and the frown on my face seemed to catch his attention—either that or my height and the straw-coloured hair piled on my head. He shook off his admirers and stalked across the floor to us. His dark eyes were on me the whole way, unreadable in a face arranged for polite greeting, but once in front of me he continued on for another step and seized my companion’s face in both his hands to kiss her full on the mouth, taking his eyes from me only at the last instant. A shock ran through the room, but it was nothing to Gay’s reaction. She dropped her glass and her cigarette to push against his shoulders, squirming back from the embrace that went on for about three seconds too long for friendly greeting. I had just reached the reluctant decision to intervene when he let her go, laughing heartily. Gay’s face darkened with fury as she bent to snatch cigarette and holder from the floor.
“Jimmy, you’re such a bastard,” she hissed, jabbing the end of the cigarette back into the ivory, all of us ignoring the servant’s quick gathering-up of glass from around our feet.
“Cousin, aren’t you glad to see me?” he asked, and without waiting for her answer, turned at last to me. Fortunately with his hand, not his lips.
I hesitated. Had I not been here for a purpose, I would have turned my back on the maharaja of Khanpur, but the impulse ran up against the thought of explaining to Geoffrey Nesbit why I had departed the state so hastily. I looked at his outstretched hand just long enough to make my feelings clear, then without enthusiasm allowed him my fingers.
“Mrs Russell, I trust you found your rooms to your satisfaction?” His grin was boyish, his eyes danced with amusement, but there was something altogether too calculating behind the charm.
“It’s Miss Russell,” I corrected him coolly, “and yes, Your Highness, they’re quite nice, thank you.”
“Ah. Tommy told me you were married,” he said, his voice rising to a question.
“I am.” Let him figure it out. The element of puzzle allowed the calculation to edge further into his expression, and then it was gone, and his firm and welcoming handshake was over. “Very well: Miss Russell, welcome to Khanpur.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you ride?” he asked, as at a sudden thought.
“I do.”
“Some of us are going out in the morning,” he said. “If you don’t object to blood sport. You too, Gay. You used to be one for the spear.” I could not tell if I was imagining the air of double-entendre to his last comment, but Gay seemed in no doubt. She put up her chin and gave him a regal glare.
“I’ve grown up some since then, Jimmy. I’m a little more choosy about my sport.”
He laughed, and said to me, “Seven o’clock if you like, Miss Russell, just ring for a riding outfit.”
And then he was gone back to his other guests, leaving me wondering at the peculiar tremors that followed in his wake.
Gay was working to get the knocked-off end of her cigarette alight, her hands not altogether steady. I watched her, thinking that it would take a good deal to shake an aristocrat like this from her self-confidence.
“He’s your cousin?” I asked.
She finally had the thing going, and drew deeply on it, closing her eyes briefly against the smoke. “Distant cousin, of a sort. My mother’s mother was married to Jimmy’s father’s sister’s brother-in-law.”
“And people say the European monarchy is confusing.”
She did not seem to register my remark. “We went to school together for a couple