Freddy scrubbed a hand through his guinea gold hair. “I had a run of bad luck,” he said irritably. “It happens to everyone.”

“Mmm-hmm,” purred Penelope. “To some more frequently than others.”

“Wellesley needs me in Hyderabad,” Freddy said stiffly. “I’m to be his eyes and ears.”

Penelope made a show of playing with the edge of her fan. “Hasn’t he a set of his own?”

“Intelligence,” Freddy corrected. “I’m to gather intelligence for him.”

Penelope broke into laughter at the absurdity of Freddy playing spy in a native palace. He would stand out like a Norman knight in Saladin’s court. “A fine pair of ears you’ll make when you can’t even speak the language. Unless the inhabitants choose to express themselves in mime.”

“The inhabitants?” Freddy wrinkled his brow. “Oh, you mean the natives . Wouldn’t bother with them. It’s James Kirkpatrick the Governor General wants me to keep an eye on. The Resident. Wellesley thinks he’s gone soft. Too much time in India, you know.”

“I should think that would be an asset in governing the place.”

Freddy regarded her with all the superiority of his nine months’ stint in a cavalry unit in Seringapatam. From what she had heard, he had spent far more time in the officer’s mess than the countryside. “Hardly. They go batty with the heat and start reading Persian poetry and wearing native dress. Wellesley says there’s even a chance that Kirkpatrick’s turned Mohammedean. It’s a disgrace.”

“I think I should enjoy native dress,” said Penelope, lounging sideways against the carriage seat, like a perpendicular Mme. Recamier. The thin muslin of her dress shifted with her as she moved, molded to her limbs by the damp. “It should allow one more . . . freedom.”

“Well, I’ll be damned before I go about in a dress,” declared Freddy, but he was looking at her, genuinely looking at her for the first time since he had rolled out of bed that morning.