“We lived at Manipora,” he said, then cleared his throat.
She should have interrupted and told him it wasn’t necessary that he tell her the story, but the truth was that she very much wanted to know. Everything about him incited her curiosity.
“By June the rebellion had spread, getting closer to Manipora. General Wheeler, however, thought the locals would remain loyal. After all, he’d married an Indian woman and he’d learned the local language. He was so convinced of that fact that he sent most of the soldiers assigned to Manipora to help Lucknow.”
“Leaving Manipora without defenses?” she asked.
“Not entirely,” he said. “Some military men were left as well as a significant number of businessmen.” He stared at the far wall for a moment, almost as if he was viewing Manipora seven years ago.
“The rebels attacked the entrenchment. Their forces numbered over twelve thousand men, but we held on for three weeks.”
She asked the next question softly, wondering if she should. “Your wife was at Manipora. Were you there, too?”
He nodded, leaving Suzanne to wonder if she should stop him now. There was an expression on his face that wasn’t hard to interpret. The tale of Manipora wouldn’t be easy for him to relate.
“On June twenty-six,” Adam continued, “we were overrun. Somehow, the rebels learned of our defenses and entered the entrenchment. Wheeler surrendered and accepted the offer of safe passage to Allahabad. The next day we headed for the Ganges and the forty boats arranged to take us there. Safe passage evidently didn’t mean the same to the rebels as it did to Wheeler because we were shot at after we boarded the boats and left the dock. Two boats got away. I was in one of them. The boats holding the women and children were brought by the Indians back to Manipora.”
Her meal forgotten, she was caught up in Adam’s story, relayed in such a calm tone that it might seem, to a casual listener, that he felt nothing about the circumstances. Yet emotion was there in the timbre of his voice, in the way he kept having to stop as if to guard his words, and the deep breaths he took. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was the first time he’d ever discussed Manipora with anyone.
“The women and children were moved from the entrenchment to another house in the city,” he said. “The plan was to use them for bargaining with the East India Company. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.” He took another deep breath.
“Where were you?”
“I’d been assigned to General Wheeler’s boat. We led a charge against the rebel soldiers and were able to get away. We decided to take refuge in a shrine, but we were overrun by a crowd of villagers with clubs. We finally reached the river again and began swimming downstream. I didn’t realize, until much later, that the women had been taken prisoner.”
“How much later?”
“Several weeks,” he said in that same dull voice. “I’d been shot. We were rescued by men who worked for Raja Singh, who was still loyal to the British, but by the time I was able to make it back to Manipora, word had already come of what had happened.”
George had told her about Manipora and she’d read the horrible details in the newspaper. The rebels had been alerted that British troops were headed for Manipora to rescue the women and children. In those last days, one hundred twenty-four children and seventy-three women had been killed, their bodies thrown down a well. Soldiers had reached Manipora the day after the killings. Incensed by what they saw, they’d retaliated with violence against the population of the city.
She didn’t know what to say or what kind of comfort to offer Adam. Words were just noise that echoed against the wall you’d built around yourself.
What people said sometimes didn’t make any sense. Time heals all wounds. God never gives us anything we can’t handle. One intrepid soul had the temerity to tell her, “God evidently wanted Georgie to be one of his angels.” Someone—and she couldn’t remember who—had stepped between her and that woman as if afraid that Suzanne would say something cutting. They needn’t have worried. She’d been so shocked by that announcement that she’d been unable to speak.
Now she had nothing to say to Adam. All she had to offer him was her empathy, compassion, and tears. None of those things, however, were worthwhile in the face of his loss.
She stretched out her hand, kept it in the air until he clasped it and brought their joined hands down to the mattress.
Her other hand wiped her tears away from her cheeks.
“I’ve made you cry. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s a daily occurrence. I’ve gotten quite used to it.”
She smiled at him and he surprised her by returning the expression.
They didn’t have the opportunity to speak further because the door to the sitting room opened. Adam dropped her hand and stood as Emily rushed into the room, breathless.
“I’m so sorry, Your Grace. I apologize. We couldn’t find the camphor so I had to go to the stables and get some from the stable master.”
“That was very responsible of you, Emily. Thank you. And thank you, Drummond,” she said. “For bringing me my tray.”
He only bowed slightly, his faint smile still in evidence.
When he was gone, she explained to Emily that her tears were due to the pain in her head, no doubt leaving the young maid thinking that she was weak and infirm. Better that than what she was truly feeling, anguish for Adam. For the first time in a very long time she was not immersed in her own pain. She was not the only one to have suffered a loss. At least she’d not had to fight for her life on top of everything else.
In the newspaper accounts of Manipora she’d learned that only four men had survived the attack. Evidently, Adam was one of the four.
Her majordomo was a hero. A survivor who’d managed to escape being killed not once but countless times under monumental odds. Upon his return to England he’d avoided the attention the press would have lavished on him. Now here he was, at Marsley House.
George thankfully rarely spoke about India because his command there had happened before their marriage. On one occasion, however, he’d talked about General Wheeler and his idiocy in not guarding his magazine.
She’d listened attentively, said something supportive when George hesitated, and tried to be a good wife. All in all, her husband’s account of Manipora had been remarkably different from Adam’s.
The more she knew of Adam, the more she admired him. Yet in addition to that admiration was another emotion, one that startled her. She liked him. She liked the way he looked at the world.
She’d become frozen in time while Adam had kept moving through his life. She’d never heard him say anything that would make her think he was mired in sadness. Instead, he struck her as a man who had his eyes focused on the future, not the past.
She liked him and even more. He attracted her, intrigued her, and charmed her down to her toes.
He hadn’t asked her why she had been in the library. Would she have told him the truth?
I wanted a kiss, Adam.
No, perhaps that wouldn’t have been the wisest course.