Nora watched William and Mr. Alford pull the table from the cabin. Mr. Taylor followed with a couple of cardboard boxes, which she knew contained the butterflies the men had found over the previous two days.
“Oh, honestly.” She stomped over to Owen’s tent. “I must talk with you.”
He pushed aside the flap, and she stepped back at his sudden closeness.
“You need to talk to Mr. Alford,” she said. “He still has me working only on illustrations, and he hasn’t spared me a word since the . . . incident.”
Owen bent over her, and she caught the scent of his lovely cologne. It had to be imported, though how he managed to smell so good when the other men stank of body odor and garlic was beyond her. When he spoke, his breath sent the tendrils that had escaped her chignon dancing, and they tickled her ear. “You should do something to endear yourself to him.”
It took a moment for his words to register, but when they did, she frowned. “I’m not going to manipulate him in order to further my career.”
“Making yourself useful isn’t manipulation. Try being . . . pleasant.”
Nora’s mouth dropped. “Aren’t I always?”
His eyebrows leapt as though they pulled a laugh from his throat and held on while it danced across his face. She watched with fascination. She’d never seen a man so expressive.
So handsome.
She inhaled sharply. Where had that thought come from?
“It might be hard for Mr. Alford to see pleasantness,” Owen said, “beneath all of your other idiosyncrasies.”
He sauntered toward the cabin, where the rest of the men huddled.
Idiosyncrasies? That sounded like an insult.
She stalked after him, catching up before he reached the cabin, and poked him in the back. When he turned, she said, “Fine. You’re right. I haven’t properly apologized. But I’m not admitting to any idiosyncrasies.”
Nora took a few steps toward Mr. Alford, whose face was mottled by angry red marks. He drew his thin brows—so different from Owen’s—together, and his mustache drooped, giving him the look of a sad hound.
Something twinged beneath her ribs. He looked terrible. And, as much as she wanted to blame him for standing under the tree, Owen was right—it was her fault. She’d been bullheaded in her determination to study the ants despite Mr. Alford’s probably appropriate objections.
She stopped in front of him. “I’m truly sorry you were hurt, Mr. Alford. It wasn’t my intention, and I never dreamed that thing would go flying through the air.”
Mr. Alford ran a finger over the welts covering his jawline. He narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
“I’d like to go out with you today. I give you my word that I’ll do only what you ask of me, even if I see something interesting. I’d be a help to your team. My knowledge and experience in tracking butterflies would be an asset.”
His pale skin between the ant bites turned vermillion, and Nora couldn’t tell the marks from his flush. “No.”
Her shoulders sank, and she could almost feel herself shrinking. She tried to resist the despair. Tried to throw back her chin and look him in the eye and demand he respect her abilities. But she knew he was no longer denying her because of her gender. He didn’t want her around because he didn’t trust her. And she had only herself to blame for that.
A deep sigh shuddered her chest, and she pressed her lips together, knowing she had to overcome an even steeper mountain of effort to win his favor. “Okay. I understand. I might, though, when my work is done, do a little exploring on my own.”
“There are tigers and leopards in the shola and grasslands. You may go if you wish to be eaten. It is safer in a group.” He shrugged.
“Mr. Taylor goes out alone all the time searching for his elusive land leeches. Do tigers not like the taste of British men?”
Mr. Taylor, who stood beside the fire, drinking a cup of tea, leveled a stare at her. “Few things like the taste of British men.”
Owen snorted and leaned close. “Something you have in common with them, Peculiar?”
She nudged him with her shoulder and didn’t break eye contact with Mr. Alford. “You leave Pallavi and me alone every day in camp. Is that unsafe?”
“Tigers won’t attack a human if they have an abundant food supply. However, if you chance upon one outside of camp, they just might grow annoyed enough to bare their claws and teeth.” Mr. Alford stared at her, unblinking, until his eye twitched. He whirled and waved his hand above his head. “Come on, men, let’s get things packed up.” Then he stomped toward his tent and disappeared inside.
Owen laid his large hand on her shoulder. “You tried.”
Warmth traveled down her arms at his touch, right to her fingertips. “It didn’t seem to help.”
He turned her toward him and gripped her hands. “A soft answer turns away wrath. Don’t worry. He’ll come around.”
“I didn’t realize you were a philosopher.”
His teeth flashed in a boyish grin. “That’s from the Bible. Proverbs. Do you want me to finish it?”
His blue eyes fixed on her. Nora thought it incredible that the same theory observed by Hooke and Newton—structural coloration—could affect both insect wings and Owen’s eyes. She tipped her head toward him, trying to get a closer look.
“All right, tell me,” she said, hoping to distract him a moment longer.
His mouth tipped to one side as though he knew her motive. “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” He blinked, his fair lashes sweeping over his eyes, cutting them from her observation, and she focused on what he was saying. “I admire your strength and drive, but sometimes those things need to be tempered with grace. Words, especially, can bring healing or pain.”
“Have I ever spoken to you in a way that brought you pain?” she asked, not sure she really wanted to know. They’d gone to school together long enough that she was certain she must have.
He rubbed his thumbs over her knuckles, and Nora, having forgotten he still held her hands, drew a deep breath. His eyes grew soft, almost as though someone had filled the pigment with pastel chalk.
“It doesn’t matter. Your words don’t intimidate me.”
“Do you think that’s what I mean to do?” She dropped her voice and stepped closer so that only the whisper of a dragonfly’s flight separated them. What had gotten into her? Her hands began to sweat, and she didn’t know if it was the sticky humidity, Owen’s clasp, or her own forward behavior.
There was something about India. . . .
Owen’s lips settled into the laugh lines running down the sides of his face. She wanted to run her finger over those creases. She tugged one hand from his and kept it there, hovering between them like a fly caught in a spider’s web. Trapped between the wanting and the knowing. She felt the languid pace of her new home seep into her pores and thicken her blood so that it traveled through her veins as unhurried as the Indian people who lived life without any clocks.
Nora lifted her hand, her trembling fingers only a hairsbreadth from his jaw. And for once, Owen’s brows stilled. They rested over eyes so filled with wonder and hope that her breath hitched, and she made a small noise in her throat.
And then something sounding very much like an elephant stampeded into camp and shook Nora from her hazy dream as it shrieked and stomped and wailed.
Nora whirled. Pallavi wrestled a little girl—about eleven—in an embrace that seemed more intent on harm than affection. She could hardly keep her grip on the child, though, who hollered and struggled.
Owen rushed toward them. “Pallavi, what are you doing to that poor child? Let her go.”
Pallavi loosened her grip but gave her head a harsh shake. “No. She can’t be here.” She smacked the girl on the side of the head, sending her eyes skyward.
When Owen pried Pallavi’s hand free, the cook let loose a stream of Tamil and shook her finger in the girl’s face. The child remained stoic, standing just outside Pallavi’s reach, but a single tear dripped down her dirt-streaked cheek.
A thread of empathy twisted around Nora’s heart, and she hurried over. “What’s going on?”
Pallavi stuck out her lower lip and crossed her arms. The child looked up at Nora with brown eyes so wide and deep that Nora felt unable to keep from sinking beneath the despair she recognized in them.
“I am Sita.” The girl spoke perfect English.
Owen crouched. “You seem to have made an enemy of our cook.”
Sita sent a scornful glance at Pallavi. “She is my aunt. My father’s sister.”
Nora’s eyes widened. “Why would your aunt treat you so abominably?”
Sita lifted a slim shoulder and scratched at her scalp.
Nora pursed her lips and looked at Pallavi, whose fingers reached for Sita’s bare arm. “Pallavi?”
“She needs to stay away!” Pallavi punctuated her words with a ringing clap. “She’s very bad. Stubborn.”
Sita’s chin trembled and her nose wrinkled, turning her expressive mouth into a sneer—a look of defiance Nora well knew covered a broken heart.
Nora pulled the girl to her side and rested her hand against Sita’s shoulder. “It sounds like we have much in common.”
Sita turned her face upward. “I only wanted to see the foreign lady scientist everyone speaks of, Akka.”
“That doesn’t sound like it deserves punishment, Pallavi.” Owen touched the small of Nora’s back. She shivered, which seemed an odd response to the heat pouring through her shirtwaist.
She forced herself to ignore the pressure of Owen’s touch and put her attention back on their cook just as Pallavi grabbed Sita’s arm, her bony fingers biting into the girl’s soft flesh.
“I won’t let her come. I said no. I will lose my work and have no money!”
Sita wriggled from Pallavi’s grip, and Nora imitated her mother, using as soothing a voice as possible. “Pallavi, you’re not going to lose your position because Sita wanted to meet me. I’m quite flattered by her—”
“What is that beastly child doing in my camp?” Mr. Alford’s strident voice cut through their conversation. Sita dropped her chin to her chest and began to spin the gold bracelets circling her wrist.
“I told her not to come.” Pallavi jerked her arms heavenward, palms out.
When Mr. Alford huffed and approached them, Owen stepped to the right, blocking him from reaching Sita. Nora stared at his broad back, his shoulders pulling at his shirt’s seams when he held up his arms. Why had she never noticed how good Owen was?
“What’s the problem with her visiting?” Owen asked. “She’s just a child.”
Mr. Alford tried to sidestep Owen, but Sita slithered around Nora’s legs, wrapped her arms around Nora’s midsection, and buried her head into the small of her back.
“That child managed to undo a week of work the last time she was here. Emptied all of our insect boxes and used their parts to create a portrait of one of their idols.”
“I didn’t!” Sita’s arms tightened, crushing Nora’s hips.
She extricated herself. “You didn’t destroy the insects?”
Sita’s eyes filled before she blinked away the tears, and her lips flattened. So stubborn. And rebellious. This child, this girl with the silver stud in her nose and the mischievous glint in her eyes, captivated Nora.
She bent and whispered in Sita’s ear, “Tell me what happened.”
The little girl’s jaw tightened and worked. Her eyes skittered between Owen, Pallavi, and Mr. Alford before landing on Nora, lighting up when they paused on her brooch. Sita touched it with a fingertip. “It’s beautiful.” She tipped her head. “It’s a cilvantu.” She squeezed her eyes shut and wrinkled her brow. “A cicada?”
A smile tugged at Nora’s lips. “It is. What a smart girl you are.”
Mr. Alford sighed. “Just get her out of camp as soon as you can.” As he walked past, he shook a long finger at Sita. “And don’t get into anything.”
Pallavi muttered beneath her breath and shoved at the always-burning fire with a stick. It sent sparks through the air, and Nora pulled Sita farther from the flames toward the grouping of camp chairs.
“Come and sit with me.” She shook her head at Owen when he started to follow them and shooed him away. Some things were better left to feminine pursuit.
“Look,” she said after they’d sat down. She removed her gold and jade brooch and nestled it in Sita’s palm.
Sita stroked the scarab-embossed stones studding the cicada.
“My father gave it to me,” Nora said. “It’s very special.”
Sita smiled and gave it back to Nora. “Thank you for letting me hold it. It’s beautiful. I’d like to draw it sometime.”
“Do you like art?”
Sita nodded. She glanced at the cabin Mr. Alford had disappeared into, and her shoulders slumped. “I did take apart the insects. They were so nice, and I saw what they could be if I put them all together.”
“Why did you say you didn’t?”
She leaned close, a wide grin flashing and swallowing her face for a moment. “I meant I didn’t make a picture of an idol.”
“What did you make a picture of?”
Sita’s eyes shuttered.
Nora could see her pulling away. Closing a door. “Please tell me. I will keep it secret, if you want.” She didn’t know why she wanted to know this little girl. Why did she want to understand her? Hear her story?
Sita nodded once, and her nostrils flared with a quick intake of breath. “They showed us a picture of him at school, but I wanted him to look like me, so I used the black wings for his hair and beard. It took three white and tan butterflies to give me enough tan for his skin, but I pieced it together. And there was one butterfly with soft brown wings that I shaped into his eyes.”
She didn’t look guilty for having destroyed so many specimens. Nora thought she looked . . . radiant.
“Who were you making?”
The girl peered around Nora, then put her mouth to Nora’s ear. “Jesus.”
Nora pulled back. “Why is that a secret?”
Sita slumped against her chair and hugged her legs to her chest, the embroidered edge of her tunic fanning out around her square feet. “I am dedicated to Yellamma.” She sat upright and grasped Nora’s hands, squeezing them until they tingled. “You cannot tell my aunt that I am a Christian. What would my father say? A servant of the goddess who has placed all of her trust in a foreign god.”
She released Nora’s hands and stroked them, her calloused fingertips rubbing small circles over Nora’s smooth knuckles. She bowed her head, and Nora felt an urge to hug the child. She ignored it and spoke logic instead.
“Why does that bother you? You don’t have to believe what your father tells you to.”
Sita raised her face, despair written in the premature lines between her softly arched brows. “Because after I bleed, I will be sent to the temple to work. I cannot serve Yellamma, and if I don’t, my father will turn me out.”