Silk and Secrets(156)

"And you agree with him?" Ross asked skeptically. "Since Uncle Haddonfield will surely leave you most of his personal fortune, you'll be a very wealthy woman. If you feel the need of male protection, you can live with me." He gave her a hopeful glance. "Can I persuade you to do that? That great mausoleum I inherited is far too large for one person."

"I'd rather live in a rose-covered cottage surrounded by cats." Sara laughed. "I would quite enjoy that, you know, but I'd become so dreadfully eccentric that you would be embarrassed to admit to the connection."

"Never," he declared. "We both inherited our share of idiosyncrasies from the Magnificent Montgomerys. I shall move into the cottage next to yours and surround myself with piles of Asiatic texts. You and your cats will wander over for tea, and I will quote Turkish poetry to you." Then his whimsical tone turned serious. "Sara, do you love Charles Weldon?"

She glanced up at him in surprise. "Of course not, but I think we will rub along very well. It's no sacrifice to marry Charles—he is intelligent and well-bred, and we know what to expect of each other. It will please Father to see me wed, and I'd rather like a child of my own."

"And you will have a civilized marriage where you will each go your own way much of the time."

"Exactly," Sara agreed. "That is one of the things that commends Charles to me. I don't think I should like a husband who was underfoot all the time."

Her cousin shook his head sadly. "What a coldblooded creature you are, Sara. Have you never wanted to be in love?"

"From what I've seen, it's a cursed uncomfortable state." She squeezed his arm, adding softly, "I should have thought that you had been cured of believing in love matches."

Ross gave her a wry smile. "Once a romantic, always a romantic. It's a fatal affliction, I think. You always did have far more sense than I."

They came to a bench set in a small sunny glade, and he guided her to it so they could sit down. Traffic sounded faintly in the distance, but they were so surrounded by greenery and floral scents that it was hard to believe that the garden was in the heart of London. "If Weldon withdrew his offer or was run over by a carriage, would you repine?"

"If he withdrew his offer, I would be a little relieved," she admitted, then gave her cousin a stern governess stare. "However, I don't wish to see him run over, so you are not to push him under a carriage in the belief that you are rescuing me."

"I have no homicidal intentions," he assured her. "I just wanted to understand how you feel about this marriage."

"I appreciate your concern," she said, affection warm inside her. Their mothers had been very close, as twins often are, and Ross and Sara had been raised almost as brother and sister. They had always brought their secrets and sorrows to each other, shared their dreams, and gotten into trouble together.

More often than their mothers realized, it was one of Sara's mischievous ideas that got the cousins into trouble, though Ross always insisted that it was his duty as the male and the elder to take the more severe punishments for their crimes. In a world that thought Lady Sara St. James was a consummate lady—boringly so—Ross was the only one permitted to see her more unruly impulses. If she had had a real brother, she could not have loved him more. "You mustn't worry, my dear. Charles is a perfectly respectable man, and we shall do very well together."

Her cousin nodded, apparently satisfied, then changed the subject. "A friend of mine has just arrived in London, and I think you would enjoy meeting him. His name is Mikahl Khanauri, but he is called the Falcon among his own people. Since his own title is unpronounceable by British tongues, he is calling himself Peregrine, after the peregrine falcon. Prince Peregrine of Kafiristan. To the best of my knowledge, he is the first Kafir ever to visit Europe."

"Impressive." Sarah knit her brows as she invoked her memory. "Kafiristan is in the Hindu Kush mountains beyond the North-West Frontier of India, isn't it? Several years ago you wrote that you intended to travel into the area, but it was months until your next letter. By then you were back in India, and you said nothing about the trip to Kafiristan."

"I may be the only Englishman who has visited there." Ross's face lit up, the passionate scholar showing through his gentlemanly facade. Like Sara, his conventionality was only surface deep—but they both had excellent surfaces. "The Kafirs are remarkable people, unlike any of the other Himalayan tribes. It would be interesting to know their history—there is the most amazing jumble of races and languages in central Asia. In appearance and customs, Kafirs resemble Europeans more than they do their Muslim neighbors. Perhaps they are a Germanic tribe that went east instead of west—they claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great and his men.