The Betrayal of the Blood Lily by Lauren Willig Read Free Book Online Page B

Lady Frederick. Cleave. Fiske.”
    “Good man.” Lord Frederick favored him with a perfunctory nod before turning back to Fiske. “Now about that filly . . .” Alex heard him saying as he walked away.
    Alex concentrated on putting one foot in front of another and breathing deeply through his nose. The Begum’s house was as familiar to Alex as his own quarters. He turned to the left, pushing open the door to the deserted book room. Behind him, he could hear the slap and shuffle of his father’s boots against the marble floor.
    “Easy, my lad, easy,” warned his father, peering down the corridor and pushing the door shut behind them. “Keep a rein on that temper of yours.”
    Alex regarded his father sourly. His father had many virtues, but restraint of any kind was not known to be one of them. Otherwise, Alex would never have had quite so many half-siblings.
    Besides, he had no temper. He was a remarkably even-tempered man. Except in the face of sheer stupidity. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a good deal of that going around Calcutta.
    “That,” Alex said pointedly, jerking his head towards the room they had just vacated, “is a disaster waiting to happen.”
    “Just so long as you don’t allow it to happen to you,” returned his father equably. Beneath their wrinkled lids, his faded blue eyes were surprisingly shrewd. Self-indulgent he might be, but no one had ever called him stupid. “I’m within an ace of wrangling that district commissionership for you. So don’t go fouling it up out of some high-minded notion.”
    At the moment, Alex was feeling more bloody-minded than high-minded. It was all very well for his father to counsel prudence, but as far as Alex could see, he was damned either way.
    “Fine,” said Alex. “Let’s say I hold my tongue and cart Lord and Lady Freddy meekly off to Hyderabad a week Tuesday. What happens when that idiot sparks off a civil war? I doubt I’ll receive commendations when Mir Alam’s lads kick us out of Hyderabad, lock, stock, and barrel. With matters the way they stand, Wellesley’s new pet could undo in a moment what Kirkpatrick took six years to accomplish.”
    His father regarded him patiently. “It’s not all on your shoulders, Alex.”
    “Then whose?” Alex demanded, frustration ringing through his voice. “Wellesley doesn’t trust Kirkpatrick to piss without someone writing a secret report on it; Russell isn’t a bad sort, but he’s untried—”
    “—and a bit too much in love with himself,” the Colonel humored him by adding.
    Alex glowered at his father. Just because he had said it before didn’t make it any less true or any less problematic. “Precisely. The new Nizam is a tin-pot Nero who gets his amusement using silk handkerchiefs to throttle his concubines. He’ll go wherever Mir Alam tells him to, just so long as Alam doesn’t cut off his supply of expensive hankies and cheap women. And Mir Alam is half rotted with leprosy and demented with the desire to be revenged upon the British, because he blames us for his bloody exile four years ago.”
    “It is unfortunate, that,” admitted his father.
    “ ‘ Unfortunate’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s a bloody fiasco. And do you know what makes it even worse?”
    “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me, lad,” said his father, patting him fondly on the shoulder.
    Alex ought to have resented the pat, but he was too busy with his main rant to waste time on peripheral grievances. “It was Wellesley that bloody saddled us with Mir Alam! He met him years ago in Mysore and decided he was a good chap. But, no, he couldn’t be bothered to look into what might have happened in the interim! He’s too busy poking into Kirkpatrick’s bedchamber, like a bloody peeping Tom!”
    “Whoa, there.” The Colonel’s hand tightened on his arm. “Keep your voice down. You don’t want to be losing your post for a moment’s ill-humor.”
    “It’s more than a moment,” said Alex tiredly,