“There you are, old thing,” Freddy said, as though it was she who had walked away from him, rather than the other way around. “I wondered where you had got to.”

He had brought two friends with him, one in regimentals, the other in evening clothes. Penelope wondered which one of them carried Freddy’s vowels this time. From the smug expression on the face of the army man, Penelope suspected it was he. On the other hand, smugness might very well be his habitual expression. Penelope would expect nothing less of a man who wore three rings on one hand.

Penelope stepped out from under Freddy’s questing hand. “I’ve been very gallantly entertained by Colonel Reid,” she said, batting her lashes at the Colonel and achieving a very petty satisfaction at completely ignoring his son.

Freddy nodded lazily to the Colonel, the gesture amply conveying his complete lack of interest in any man who had served in the East India Company’s army rather than a proper royal regiment. Having dispatched the Colonel, Freddy took inventory of the Captain’s tanned face, his uninspired tailoring.

“And you are?” he demanded.

For a moment, Captain Reid forbore to answer. He simply stood there, studying Freddy with an expression of such clinical detachment that Penelope could feel Freddy beginning to shift from one foot to the other beside her.

After a very long moment, a grim smile sifted across Captain Reid’s face.

“I,” said Captain Reid, “am the man who has the honor of escorting you to Hyderabad.”

Chapter Two

“Right,” said Lord Frederick, with an obvious lack of interest. “Wellesley mentioned he would be sending someone.”

From the moment Captain Alex Reid set eyes on the new Special Envoy to the Court of Hyderabad, he had that sinking sensation in his gut that attends a slow tumble off a steep cliff.