A sentiment with which Freddy would heartily agree.

“Married?” The Colonel rearranged his features in a comical look of dismay. “That’s a pity. I meant to introduce you to my Alex.”

“Your Alex?”

“My boy,” the Colonel said proudly. Before Penelope could stop him, he raised his arm to hail a man who stood in conversation with an elderly lady in an exuberant silk turban, his back to them. “Alex! Alex, lad.”

Hearing his father’s exuberant hail, the man turned in a fluid movement that bespoke a swordsman’s grace. “Boy” was the last word Penelope would have used to refer to him; he was tall and lean, with the muscles of a man used to spending long hours in the saddle. Unlike his father, he wore civilian dress, but the indifferently tailored breeches and blue frock coat looked wrong on him, like a costume that didn’t quite fit. His face was as tan as the Colonel’s was ruddy. Had she not been told otherwise, Penelope would have taken him for an Indian, so dark were his hair and eyes. A thin scar showed white against the dark skin of his face, starting just to the left of one eyebrow and disappearing into his hair. He was a handsome man, but not in the way the Colonel must have been handsome once. Where one could picture the Colonel in a kilt and claymore, standing by a distant loch, his son looked as though he belonged in a white robe and Persian trousers with a falcon perched upon his wrist.

Tact had never been Penelope’s strong suit. “Are you quite sure you’re related?”

Far from being offended, the Colonel chuckled comfortably. “It takes many people that way on first meeting — sometimes after, too! My Maria, the boy’s mother, was of Welsh extraction. He gets his coloring from her. It’s been a mixed blessing for him out here,” said the Colonel.

Penelope looked at him quizzically.

“Life is seldom kind to the half-caste,” explained the Colonel, and some of the twinkle seemed to go out of him. “Or those perceived to be so. And especially not in India.”