Soul of Fire by Sarah A. Hoyt Read Free Book Online Page B

maharajah.”
    This got her a widened eye, showing she had surprised him. “Your parents wanted you to marry—”
    “They accepted his suit while I was away in England,” she said. “And then presented it to me as a done thing. I was to marry the maharajah, and he said I’d be his only wife.”
    The eye sparkled with something like amusement. “Yes, I can see how that would drive you to despair. I’m sure it has always been your secret and active ambition to be part of a seraglio.” And then, as though reading the shock in her eyes, he added, with quick sobriety, “I’m sorry. That was ill-spoken.”
    “No, I beg pardon,” she said, confused. “I expressed myself poorly. What I meant is that he had discussed marriage with my parents before ever he met me, which seems . . . very odd.”
    “Though done often enough in India, which is, in that respect, a more traditional society than ours. Marriage is made for other reasons than sudden and unavoidable love.” He pronounced the last word as if he didn’t quite know what it meant—a foreign word culled from an unknown language.
    She shook her head, unable to tell whether he was joking or just persisted in misunderstanding her—and feeling, somehow, deep within, that it was all her fault for failing to explain it more coherently. After all, she’d never before had problems getting words to obey her and she’d always been able to make her meaning quite plain when she chose. Why was she now tongue-tied and unable to explain this matter, when it was of the utmost importance that he understand her? “I know that,” she said, curtly. “My father’s grandmother was Indian and we— I know that.” Then she shook her head. “But you see, there is no reason for him to marry me. My father is not very important. He tried to make a go of a shipping service, but it did not prosper and our ships kept sinking. The whole family is terribly unlucky,” she said bluntly. “Always has been. If we were to make hats, boys would be born without heads. So, he didn’t prosper, and though our house is well enough, or at least I thought it was till today, and . . . and I . . . I suppose I’m well enough, too, though not beautiful. ” She rushed on, afraid he would dispute this point, and even more afraid he would fail to dispute it, “I am nothing special and neither is my family, so why would a native want to marry me sight unseen? My maid says there are rumors he saw me once in a vision, but that seems unlikely. And he can’t have gone to England, because he’s something special in the way of looks and I’m sure there would have been talk about him if he had visited London.”
    “Something special?”
    “He’s . . . ugly,” she said, and tried to convey her feeling of disgust and fear in that one word, sure that she was coming short of it. “A face broad and scarred, and little slits of eyes, which are quite yellow.”
    “I see,” the dragon-man said again, this time making it obvious that he did not. “And so you don’t want to marry him. But, my dear girl, surely you know that in this day and age no one can force you to marry anyone else? There are laws against that sort of thing.”
    “I know. And yet . . .”
    “And yet?”
    “I feel that if I go back, somehow I will be forced to marry him.”
    He should have disputed that, but he didn’t. He just frowned at her for a while. “And what do you plan to do with your hard-earned freedom? Surely you didn’t count on me?”
    She shook her head yet again, then said, her voice coming out oddly young and breathless, “Oh, no. You were quite . . . providential.”
    “Yes, that’s me. Providence on the wing. But we can’t stay here talking. Sooner or later they’ll look for you, and I don’t care to explain why, exactly, a dragon took you and now they find you with me.”
    It crossed her mind suddenly, and with some surprise, that he stood under a penalty of death for the mere fact of having been born a