Courting Trouble by Jenny Schwartz Read Free Book Online

said.
    “I think I go stay with her.” Lajli ran into the Chai House after Esme before Jed could stop her.
    “Women!”
    “T-trouble,” Gupta commiserated.

Chapter Five
    Mad as fire, Esme shouldered open the door of the Chai House and pulled on her cycling gloves. She’d show Jed she wasn’t some brainless ninny, some hothouse flower. How dare he try to exclude her from the situation? Why, he didn’t even know if Kali’s Scream was feasible. There might be no danger whatsoever. The whole thing could be a storm in a teacup.
    “Oh, sorry.” In her haste, she’d barreled into a stranger just passing the front doors.
    “My fault entirely, my lady.” He was just her height, a fraction less, really, given the green suede hat she’d pinned to her hair. His dark eyes expressed frank admiration.
    She found herself conscious of her bloomers. They were well-cut and modest, but they were bifurcated. Scandalous, in some people’s eyes. Jed didn’t approve of them. He’d scowled when an apprentice had whistled at her on last week’s bike ride.
    Deliberately, she smiled at the stranger.
    He swept off his hat and bowed. “If only all happenstance encounters introduced me to such beauty. Mademoiselle, I confess, I cannot be sorry for so happy an accident.”
    The Oxford voice, full-bodied and assured, made the flowery language an enjoyable courtesy. Although he appeared somewhat older than the typical Oxford undergraduate, he wore the wide-flowing silk necktie and narrow-legged trousers of the breed. He also wore their air of detached amusement. A flickering smile invited her to share it.
    “No harm done,” she said.
    He straightened, replacing his hat.
    Running footsteps inside the Chai House caught her attention. She’d more than half expected Jed to chase after her, intent on continuing his ridiculous argument, but these footsteps weren’t heavy with anger. They were light and quick.
    Lajli burst out of the Chai House. “Miss Esme, I go with you—oh!”
    “Lajli?” Esme reached out a concerned hand.
    The girl literally swayed, her eyes blank with shock. Then she shrank back. “Nazim.”
    Esme followed the direction of the girl’s horrified stare and encountered the stranger’s handsome face. “You are Nazim?”
    “Alas, no. My name is Ishaan Prasad.” He bowed again. “At your service, dear lady.”
    “You lie,” Lajli said.
    “Who lies?” Jed loomed up in the doorway of the Chai House, Gupta peering around him.
    Prasad kept his gaze on Esme. “I am afraid I recognize the young woman who accosts you and seeks to hide behind your kindness. I am newly arrived in your beautiful colony of Swan River, but before my journey here I had the misfortune to employ a thief as a maid. I am desolated to inform you this is she.”
    “I have told these people all about you. You are a bad man.” Lajli stood straighter, evidently reassured by Jed’s presence.
    Esme frowned. Surely anarchists weren’t so effeminate, so dandified. Perhaps she’d been too hasty to believe Lajli’s story and to listen to Jed’s worries. Not that she thought he would lie to her. He might be bossy, but he was honorable. But perhaps he’d been overpersuaded by Lajli’s pretty face into asserting mitigating factors for what was, in essence, outright theft.
    Perhaps this Ishaan Prasad, Lajli’s “Nazim,” was really the injured party?
    He watched Lajli with grieving, melting chocolate eyes. “So young and already so brazen. I am a gentleman and a socialist, and so, when you stole from me, I did not give you over to the police wallahs as you deserved. Now, you repay my generosity with your lies. Worse, you seek to deceive these fine people with your fairy tales.”
    “Some people find fairy tales fascinating,” Jed drawled.
    “Children, perhaps, or uneducated minds.” A tilt of one eyebrow effortlessly conveyed Prasad’s disdain. He tapped his cane on the ground. “Americans.” The single word was spoken in an undertone, but