speak. But her chance came at last, less than a fortnight before Corlath's messenger arrived at the Residency at four a.m.
It was at another small dinner party at the Greenoughs'. When the gentlemen brought themselves and an appalling reek of Sir Charles' finest cigars into the drawing-room to join the ladies, Colonel Dedham came across the room and tossed himself down on the window-seat beside Harry. She had been looking out at the mysterious white pools the moon poured across the desert.
"Open the window a bit," he said, "and let some of this smoke out. I can see poor Amelia being brave."
"Cigars should be like onions," she said, unfastening the catch and pushing back the pane. "Either the whole company does, or the whole company does not."
Dedham laughed. "Poor Melly! She would spoil many a party, I fear. Have you ever smoked a cigar?"
She smiled, with a glint in her pale eyes, and he reflected that some of the young men had labeled her cold and humorless. "Yes, I have: that is how I know. My father was used to giving dinners for his hunting friends, and I would be the only woman there. I was not going to eat in my room, like a punished child, and I liked to stay and listen to the stories they told. They permitted themselves to become accustomed to my presence, because I could ride and shoot respectably. But the smoke, after a few hours, would become unbearable."
"So your father - ?" prompted Dedham.
"No, not my father; he taught me to shoot, against his better judgment, but he drew the line at teaching me to smoke. It was one of his friends - Richard's godfather, in fact. He gave me a handful of cigars at the end of one of these very thick evenings and told me to smoke them, slowly and carefully, somewhere that I could be sick in private. And the next time the cigars went around the table, I was to take one for myself - and he'd help me stand up to my father. It was the only way to survive. He was right."
"I shall have to tell Charles," said Dedham, grinning. "He is always delighted to find another cigar-lover."
Her gaze had wandered again to the moonlight, but now she turned back. "No, thank you, Colonel. I am not that. It was the stories that made it worth it. I only appreciate smoke when I'm seeing things in it."
"I know what you mean, but you must promise not to tell Charles that," he replied. "And for heaven's sake call me Jack. Three months is quite long enough to be called Colonel more often than business demands."
"Mmm," she said.
"Cassie and Beth do it very nicely. Say 'Jack.' "
"Jack," she said.
"There, you see? And for your next lesson I will walk across the room and ask you to say it again, and you will see how quickly I turn around and say 'Yes?' "
She laughed. It was hard to remember that Dedham was a few years older than Sir Charles; the latter was portly and dignified and white-haired. Dedham was lean and brown, and what hair he had left was iron grey. Sir Charles was polite and kind; Dedham talked to one like a friend.
"I see you staring out of the windows often, at our Darian wilds. Do you see yew hedges and ivy-grown oak and, um, cattle and sheep in green pastures?"
She looked down at her lap, a little uneasily, because she had not thought she was noticed; but here was her chance. She looked up. "No. I see our Darian wilds."
He smiled a little at the "our." "You're settling in, then? Resigned to too much sun all of the time - except for when there is too much rain? But you haven't seen our winter yet."
"No - no, I haven't. But I'm not resigned." She paused, surprised at how hard it was to say aloud, and her club's first law floated across her mind. "I like it. I'm not sure why, but I like it here."
The smile disappeared and he looked at her thoughtfully. "Do you?" He turned and looked out of the window himself. "There aren't many of us who do. I'm one - you must have guessed that I love the desert. This desert. Even in winter, and the three weeks of jungle after the rain stops and before the sun gets a good hold again. Quite a lot of my griping about being the oldest colonel