“Indeed. I daresay I am in the process of training my palate to the spiciness of that country’s food.” He grinned at Pen.
“All this talk about hot spicy food makes me thirsty. There, take a drink.” Lord Mountroy lifted a finger, and a footman appeared with a tray of champagne glasses. “You will have to excuse me, gentlemen, as I see Lady Mountroy summoning me. Let us talk later about your plans.” He nodded at Alworth and returned to his wife.
Alworth took a glass of champagne and handed it to Pen.
A slim figure separated from the group and tripped towards them.
“Well, would you have it,” Alworth raised his glass. “Miss Mountroy.” He revealed a bright set of teeth and a dimple as he smiled. “Well met.”
She wore an excessively plumed bonnet and nodded at him, so that the entire construct wobbled up and down. “La. Viscount Alworth.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
“Miss Letty Mountroy. This is my good friend, Pen Kumari.”
Miss Mountroy’s eyes widened. “The Indian Prince? It has come to our ears that you have made an acquaintance with an Indian Prince.”
By George. She talked like the king. With a lisp. Pen fidgeted uncomfortably. “Er.”
First-rate reply, Pen. Eloquent and sensible. She raked her mind for something more but was rendered speechless by her violet vapid eyes blinking rapidly. Pen wondered whether she had a dust speck in them.
Alworth threw Pen an amused look. “News travels fast.”
“How fascinating,” Miss Mountroy breathed.
Letty Mountroy was every bit as birdwitted as Pen feared she’d be. When she talked, she sounded breathless. She looked like a doll, with wide eyes, pale eyebrows and perfect corkscrew curls. Her smile was pasted on her face. Pen watched her closely. Indeed, there was no depth of emotion at all. Pen wondered what Alworth saw in her. Then she remembered that he’d said precisely that her lack of depth was what he found so attractive.
She watched how he bent over her, listening to her lisping account of the balloon ascent.
Then she batted her eyelashes at Pen.
Pen, who just took a sip of her champagne, swallowed the wrong way and spluttered. “I beg your pardon. If you will excuse me.” She left the tent to cough up the liquid from her air pipe.
“I have never seen an Indian Prince before,” she heard Miss Mountroy tell Alworth. “It is like in a fairy tale, is it not?”
Oh, heavens. How could Alworth bear listening to her?
Pen turned away and watched the crowd. Her gaze was arrested when a well-dressed young man strode across her path. Slim physique, proud head, with a devil-may-care tilt to his chin. Pen dropped the champagne glass. She knew this figure! She’d quarrelled with him daily on the ship. No, it wasn’t Marcus. It was— “Fariq!” she bellowed and elbowed her way through the crowd.
Fariq, Marcus’s valet. Dressed in an excellently tailored suit, plus a turban and a stately beard. Goodness! Fariq with a beard! The last time she’d seen him, he’d been a lanky boy, several years older than herself. Marcus had plucked him from the streets of Bombay and made him his valet. They’d been rivals for his attention.
He stopped and turned, with a frown knitting his forehead.
“Itisyou! Fariq!” Pen held herself back from hugging him just in time. “I’ve never been so glad to see someone.”
Fariq’s mouth dropped. “By the eye of Shiva. Miss Penelope? How can it be? Is that really you? You’ve grown up. Into a—man?”
She pulled him behind the pavilion. She felt like laughing and crying simultaneously. For where Fariq was, Marcus was not far behind.
“Fariq! I’m so glad to see you!” She finally fell around his neck.
“But, Miss Pen. In such an outfit!” He untangled himself, looked her up and down, and tsked disapprovingly. He himself was dressed in the most exquisite clothes; his boots shined to perfection.
When did Fariq become so noble? She remembered the scrawny, lively youth he’d been on the ship. He’d acquired a perfect King’s English and carried himself with pride.
“I take it you’re supposed to be a man?” He looked at her critically. “The trousers are too short. Is that a waistcoat? Your boots are passable. Your haircut is a disaster. You’d have been better off wearing a turban.”
“I know. I know. It’s beside the point. Can we stop talking about what I’m wearing?” He was almost as bad as Alworth. “Where is Marcus?” Pen stretched her neck.
“Marcus? Oh. You don’t know.”
