Chapter 8 #3
He frantically wrote out another line of the script. He had nearly reached the end of the Brahmi text—which begged the question of what he would do then. Go back and start over at the beginning?
The constable lingered just outside the door, looking bored.
Neil’s nerves jarred at the soft scuff of Borthwick’s boot on the floor.
“And that is ultimately why any effort at increasing Indian representation in the administration is doomed to failure,” Borthwick commented.
“What’s that?” Neil’s mind struggled to connect the man’s words to the earlier thread of their conversation.
Borthwick ignored him. “Some of the more liberal-minded among the civil service might claim to be working toward the goal of an independent India,” he continued casually. “But India is no more capable of ruling herself than dogs are of organizing a kennel.”
Neil’s fingers clenched around the pen.
Constance was hearing all of this as she stood behind him, invisible and silent.
Neil’s own silence made him feel complicit.
Every cell of his body rebelled against it—until he realized with a shiver of fear that Borthwick wasn’t just putting noise into the room.
The secret police chief was casually sharing his abominable thoughts on India for a deliberate and specific reason.
Coming here was a mistake. They should have gone to find Ellie and Bates. They should have asked Constance’s uncle to loan them an army. A maharaja must have some sort of army, mustn’t he?
Another thought tugged at the back of Neil’s mind, fighting to be heard over the racket of his rising fear… something about Dawson’s proximity that Neil ought to have remembered. Something important…
Neil had copied the last line of the Brahmi. He blinked down at a page filled with characters he didn’t understand.
Now what?
Purple light sizzled across the night, accompanied by a tearing boom. The sky ripped open with a thick, drenching downpour that pounded against the narrow ledge outside the window. Neil blanked with momentary awe at the sheer, furious force of the storm.
Borthwick was still talking. “What the liberals fail to understand is that it has always been a matter of war here, however much it might currently wear the veneer of civil cooperation. The British presence in India has been and always will be a matter of conquest.”
A door slammed open below.
Constance went still.
The constable called down over the railing. “Ki-e achhi?”
The reply was inaudible.
“Let him up this time,” Borthwick snapped with a note of irritation.
Let him up. Had Dawson come back to work on the manuscript? Neil could certainly imagine the professor inspiring that tone of bare tolerance.
He shot a frantic look at Constance—but she didn’t return it. Her focus moved from the door to the open window as her expression firmed with grim determination.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Neil pushed to his feet.
Borthwick turned at the scrape of the chair legs on the floor, pinning Neil with a watchful, curious look.
Neil needed a reason for standing.
Clearly, he wanted to stretch his legs for a bit.
How would Dr. Bartholomew Culpepper do that?
He could pick up the manuscript.
As soon as he thought of it, Neil was suffused with the knowledge that it would be a very bad idea.
Neil snatched up the sheet of notepaper instead. He held it out in front of him as though reading it while he paced.
Run, his instincts screamed. Run now.
But where could he go? There was only one bloody door.
Neil forced himself to breathe. This was Dawson he was worried about. Dawson was an idiot. Maybe Neil really could bluff his way through this. Perhaps he could paint the professor as a dissatisfied academic rival. Translate a word or two of the Brahmi to show off his skills.
The footsteps reached the top of the stairs. Neil froze by the window as reality snapped into place.
He wasn’t going to translate any of the Brahmi.
The newcomer stepped into the room—and at the sight of his face, fear solidified in Neil’s gut like a shard of ice.
Not Dawson, he thought with cool, blinding panic as he stared at the only man who had ever actively threatened to torture him.
A man it was impossible to bluff.
A man who would kill him without being put off his tea.
Mr. Jacobs wore his usual black suit and bowler hat. Rain dripped from the brim.
“Ah,” he said in a dry, even voice as he met Neil’s panicked stare. “I was wondering when you’d turn up.”
“Blast,” Constance bit out in a very English and female voice.
Everyone’s heads snapped around as though seeing her for the first time.
She bolted for the desk—and the manuscript.
Borthwick’s whip fell into his hand. The coiled leather lashed out toward Constance’s reaching hand with a crack like a gunshot.
She dodged away with barely a breath of space to spare.
Neil reacted on instinct. He shoved the page into his pocket, grabbed the bewigged statue of Mr. Clive from the plinth, and chucked it at Borthwick and Jacobs.
Jacobs ducked, momentarily prevented from aiming the pistol he had just torn from his coat. The statue crashed against the wall, forcing Borthwick to flinch back from the shards of stone.
Constance was still running.
She hit Neil in the chest and shoved him backwards through the open window.
He fell into a curtain of pounding rain. Borthwick shouted. A pistol cracked, and Neil felt a burn against his flank.
Terror jolted him wildly at the notion that he was about to plummet headfirst to the ground—until his back slammed against a solid surface.
The ledge, Neil blankly recalled. He had landed on the narrow band of stone that circled the upper floor of the building.
A rifle blast thundered, and chips of stone peppered down onto Neil’s spectacles.
Constance’s solid weight came down on top of him. Gripping the lapels of his jacket, she rolled—and they tumbled over the side.
Neil crashed into the thick, woody hedge that framed the building.
Branches tore at his face, the smell of flowers choking him. He spilled out of the shrubbery onto the gravel drive, soaked, battered, and dizzy.
Constance grabbed his sleeve, hauling him up.
“Run, Stuffy!” she shouted, and yanked him into the blinding wash of the rain as the rifle fire behind them mingled with the crack of thunder.