Allure of Siren's Song

Chapter One

Two ladies headed east with all possible speed. The younger devoured huge amounts of coal as she built up a full head of steam, while her elder struggled to bridle her emotions as they sped to India. The first lady was a nearly virginal steamship leased to the Peninsular and Oriental lines, bound from the horn of Africa to a noisy berth in colonial Bombay. The second lady was Miss Daphne Penelope Finch, fresh from visiting her brother in Cape Town, an infantry captain stationed with a regiment of Derbyshire yeomanry. Now she was bound for India with a most determined and private purpose. Though Miss Finch had a posh cabin, adhering to that basic rule of all seasoned shipboard travelers–Portside Outbound, Starboard Home–and the steamer, Siren's Song, knifed through the ruffled seas of the Mozambique Channel with little effort, Daphne's tormented soul churned beneath a squall of anxious fear. An unkind observer might label her one of her tiny island nation's annual fishing fleet. Anxious, she stood facing forward, directly into the stubborn wind of the dry monsoon, the hot breath from India drying the scalding tears racing down her cheeks. If Daphne was part of the fishing fleet–one of thousands of lonely women scouring the ends of the earth for a husband, then she at least fished for a particular catch, and for bait, offered a lifetime of devotion from her broken heart.

It had been a year almost to the day since Duncan Trent had marched out of her life. They'd met in London as she headed home on university holiday, and he was bound north after a voyage drawing and painting in the South Seas. Mutually attracted from their first sighting of each other, they postponed their plans; instead spending a delightful three days together exploring the ancient city and each other. By week's end, they were madly in love. As their involvement stretched to a month, they'd taken lodging together near her university so she might finish her medical studies. Finally, Daphne decided it was time to enlighten her family. Time to face Father, the true patriarchal despot of her world. They took the train together into Derbyshire, traveling on in the pouring rain as far as Arkwright. By the time the smug-mouthed servant, sent to fetch them in a brand new motor car, pulled up in front of the estate's grand entrance, they'd hatched their plan of action and were confident of convincing Daddy. However, within ten minutes of Duncan's solo sequester with Papa Finch, the defeated youth returned crestfallen to the parlor where Daphne sat fidgeting and wringing nervous hands. One look into his blazing blue eyes screamed how badly he'd failed. Their hearts' desires were trampled, their cause crushed, almost as quickly as their hopes dashed away in full rout.

A self-made industrialist of no small means, her father thought Mr. Trent's proposal asking for his daughter's hand in marriage totally absurd. The brash young man had no visible means of support–a dreaming painter, by God, virtually without a pound to his name. Trevor Finch had worked too hard building an empire supplying the Empire with munitions and Lee-Enfields; too hard providing shelter and a bright future for his beloved wife and only daughter to allow some young upstart to march right in and snatch his precious Daphne away. No, it would not happen! Most assuredly not!

With a look of pleading in his stinging eyes, Duncan asked Daphne to run away with him; turning her back on Daddy, family, career, and all she'd known in her twenty-one years of pampered life.

I-I don't know what to do. They're my family, Duncan. You can't expect me to just–leave them! If I left–if we ran away together–it would kill Mummy. Daddy would probably come after you with one of his infernal guns. No, we must wait, sweetheart. A year, maybe two. What else can we do? I've one more semester and I'll graduate. If I can land a position on the hospital staff in London–

Daph–I love you! I can't bear the thought of being apart–of waiting. You know there's a war coming–everybody says so. Maybe this year. You know I'll have to go. Come away with me now! Please!

Though her heart shrieked yes, the look on her face cried no, and within three minutes, Duncan Trent marched out of her home and life.

* * * *

Within a week Daphne followed him back to London. Behind her, she left her family fuming in turmoil; the thick ivy covering her home's stone walls withered and brown beneath the constant downpour of tears and firestorm of angry words. Banished from her father's house and stripped of his love, she fled back to London, in hopes of finding Duncan and pouring out her change of heart. But he was gone; enlisted in a local militia, the 7th London Hussars. Unable to face his painful loss, he'd fled away a mere eight hours after his return. He'd taken the King's shilling, and headed for Southampton with his regiment, boarding a troopship heading to far off India, bound for the Northwest frontier. The stifling heat of Afghanistan and a thousand border skirmishes would burn the sorrow from his eyes, as he was forced to endure a life of boredom and peril stretching on for seven long years. He prayed it would also burn away the bittersweet memory of Daphne's dark dancing eyes and sweet smile.

* * * *

Her hopes and heart torn apart, Daphne had no choice but to return to college and complete her studies. At least her father had left her that; in all other ways, he’d left her penniless. She'd received a letter from his manufacturing office in Enfield, still full of hurt fury, explicitly disinheriting her of any financial support or further consideration. As he was firmly convinced she'd fled back to London to live in sin with her worthless lover, she need never darken their doorstep in Arkwright again. Graduating with honors from her medical studies, Daphne had no one to share her good news with. Her pleas home for reconciliation were returned unopened. Her letters chasing after Trooper Trent of the 7th Hussars simply vanished. Not a single letter wandered west from India. Although trained as a medical doctor, she quickly learned most hospital doors would be slammed in her face the second she sought employment. Six months later saw her working in a second rate clinic as a nurse, emptying bedpans. She moved into more modest lodgings, frugally saving most of her meager funds toward a ship's passage east. Broken-hearted but determined, she'd waited. And waited. Until one hopeful day.

Chapter Two

Once the Siren's Song tied up in Bombay, Daphne had little trouble finding the current billet of the 7th London Hussars. She'd met an elderly couple, the Fitzpatricks, aboard ship. Taking an immediate shine to the sweet, young woman with a romantic tale, they took Daphne under their wing. India was home to the Fitzpatricks. Archie Fitzpatrick was a senior civil magistrate in a section of outlying Bombay, and claimed to know all there was to know about the sprawling coastal city. Together, he and his wife, Colleen, chaperoned their delightful young friend right to the regiment's very front door.

After a lengthy and tearful good-bye with the Fitzpatricks, Daphne turned to face the impatient sergeant of horse alone, and with her heart in her throat, asked after Trooper Duncan Trent. She hoped her grimy spectacles would hide the fearful tears hovering at the corners of her large brown eyes, but she rather doubted it.

And 'oo might you be, my pretty? replied the red-faced sergeant, obviously undressing her with his protuberant brown eyes.

Quite a feat if he can see beneath all these damned stifling clothes, thought Daphne, her hopeful heart hammering, as she tried to ignore the constant pinching stays of her tightly laced corset. Miss Daphne Finch, please. His fiancée.

His fiancée? You, Miss? He's a damned fool kid. 'E ain't ere, Miss. Gone north, 'as our firebrand. 'E didn't take with our sitting around enjoying the occasional chota-peg and spending our time in this god-forsaken 'ell-ole playing cards and football. He turned his head and spit a thick glob of phlegm into a priceless Indian vase nestled against his dusty boot. Staring at the pretty young thing quivering before him, he lifted his tepid chota-peg in his scarred right fist and drained the fiery gin off in one swallow. 'E wanted action, 'e did. Got himself seconded to a native regiment heading out to the frontier. Got 'imself a promotion too, 'e did. Some armaments bloke from back 'ome wired in to our colonel and set the whole thing up. Made him a cherry lieutenant on the spot; long as the kid got his wish and was posted immediately to the shootin war. Just what our firebrand wanted! Last I 'eard, they was right in the thick of it, fighting them damned Afghani devils. Beggin yur pardon Miss–you being 'is lady an all, but that one struck me as looking for glory or death, and not caring much which found 'im first."

Handing the bow-legged sergeant a few shillings as baksheesh, Daphne asked if he knew the name of the regiment Duncan had been seconded to, and how she could find it. Grinning around a mouth brimming with teeth his horse might envy, the hussar sergeant made the coins disappear in a blink. Then with a lecherous smile, he told her.

Within two hours, she was on an over-crowded train headed north. By day's end, she and her dusty luggage had bumped and banged their way to the northwest frontier, leaving cleanliness and any claim to civilized comfort far behind. She felt herself completely bathed with clammy sweat and sugar-coated in sandy grit, some of which crawled across her body on tiny legs. Luckily, she was able to find reasonable lodging with an enterprising half-caste who'd taken over an abandoned army bungalow, and set it up as safe over-night lodging for exhausted travelers. Further baksheesh, and he promised to procure her an escort to Duncan's encampment. A night spent in the dubious comfort of the spartanly furnished lodge relieved some of her body's aches, but did nothing to ease the gut-churning agonies of her heart. What if he didn't want to see her? What if she never found him? What if he was dead?

Not long after daybreak, as she finished dressing, the chubby half-caste manager, Ram, knocked on her door with good news. Buttoning the last of the pearly buttons to her high-necked shirtwaist, Daphne shyly opened her door, expecting some sort of excuse or delay. Instead, the pudgy faced Hindu with the large liquid brown eyes flashed her a jovial smile of pride, and informed her in his sing-song voice, I've managed to arrange a most desirable two man escort to accompany memsahib the entire rest of the way to Trent sahib's regiment.

* * * *

To say Daphne’s two Indian guides were suspicious characters was like saying India was hot. They were both quite a bit bigger than her, both taller and in the case of the one constantly ogling her, much heavier. The thinner one, the one with the hawkish nose and close-set beady eyes, wore a much patched faded red tunic of some long departed Welch fusilier regiment. She doubted any present army would have him, even the lazy hard-drinking hussars she'd left behind in Bombay. The fat one wore dingy white pajamas beneath a stained kurta, topped by a sloppily tied bright green turban. When he smiled, Daphne wasn't quite sure which revolted her more: his half rotted teeth or his particularly foul breath. Although the beaming Ram had vouched for her escorts in brimming words of praise, they were barely out of sight of the bungalow before Daphne began to feel the icy fingers of fear skipping down her unprotected back.

Nothing happened. After the previous day's experience broiling in her rigid underwear, Daphne had begun the day's ride modestly attired in high-heeled boots, long riding skirt, a lacy white shirtwaist and a beribboned riding derby. That both men constantly snuck peeks at her breasts jouncing beneath her thin blouse was blushingly obvious, but if all the brazen touching they did was with their heathen eyes, she could endure that. After all, day's end might find her nestled in Duncan's loving arms. If he still wanted her.

* * * *

Her nightmare came three hours later. Drooping in her saddle from the oppressive heat, she was slow to notice the sudden change in her escort's attitude. Only when her mare stopped, stooping to snap at some scraggly half-dead bush, did she jolt awake and realize her two laughing guides were gleefully ransacking her luggage.

W-what are you doing? Why have we stopped? That's my dress–don't tear it–please!

The fat one stopped poking through her strewn belongings first, and approached her foraging nag. Unnoticed, his thinner companion ceased his pilfering too and approached from the other side, quietly seizing her drooping reins.

Flashing his rotting grin, the fat brute lurched at Daphne, easily wrenching her from the saddle in spite of her pummeling fists. Throwing her to the ground, he pawed at the jeweled broach closing her high-necked shirtwaist, pocketing it without a second glance, and set his grubby fingers to baring her other treasures. Hovering at his working shoulders, his gaunt accomplice mumbled something about being second, again.

A heavy rifle butt across the back of the fat creep's bulbous neck ended the pig's exploration. From her disheveled position in the dust, Daphne looked up to see herself ringed by a half dozen heavily bearded men, each sporting one of her Daddy's infernal rifles. Her two whimpering guides were held and pinioned, far less than the fearsome brutes they'd been minutes before.

Behind her askew and smudged glasses, Daphne watched a handsome bearded Duffadar detach himself from his comrades and gently offer her a hand up. Taking it, she fumbled her torn blouse closed even before she regained her feet.

I am Duffadar Jowar Singh, of the Coastal Bombay Light Horse. Are you all right, Miss? Have these two dacoits in any way hurt you?

Realizing his implication encompassed far more than robbery, cuts and bruises, Daphne blushed, and assured the Sikh sergeant of horse that she was all right. She was so grateful, realizing if this patrol of native cavalry hadn't come along, her fate would most definitely have been far worse.

Who are you, Miss, and if I may be so bold, why have you come here in the company of these two despicable dacoits–thieves. The fat one is known throughout the Punjab as a violent despoiler of women. Looking down at her, he scratched his thick black beard and blushed uncomfortably beneath his dark tanned skin. I am thinking you are most lucky we came along.

I'm most grateful you did. These–men– were recommended to me by the station manager back down the trail a day. I never dreamt they were such ruffians. Tears smarting at the corners of her eyes, she looked briefly away, and then turning to look up to him, extended her slender gloved hand in friendship and gratitude. I'm Daphne Finch. I've come in search–I'm looking for Trooper Duncan Trent.

Discomfort flashed across the duffadar's handsome features, though whether it was the unfamiliar contact with a memsahib's gloved hand of gratitude, or the mention of her English name was hard to tell.

Miss Finch. You're looking for Lieutenant Trent. There came an indecisive moment, as though the man wondered if the door he was about to open might unleash a coiled cobra, but at last he spoke in a loud determined voice. I will take you to him.

Turning abruptly on his boot heel, the Sikh crunched away across the loose scree. Come. Follow me, memsahib. I will take you to Trent sahib.

Barely finished repairing her disheveled appearance, Daphne hastened to follow after the departing Sikh. She’d merely scurried about fifty yards when she heard two rifle shots ring out behind her.

The dacoits, memsahib. When Singh saw the pretty one's face cloud up with concern, he added, Despoilers of women, Miss. Repeat offenders. I have it on good authority. They might have murdered you.

Or worse, she thought by rote. What could be worse than dying; especially painfully? She shoved the thoughts aside, realizing she didn't really want to know, and hastened after the indifferent duffadar.

Another sixty yards winding through the rocky terrain, and the Indian sergeant of horse motioned for her to wait. Her anxious heart beating like a military band, she couldn't be sure, but it seemed that he actually said Stay, treating her like one of her father's obedient hunting dogs. She did stay, but her large eyes filled with the vision of the man she saw with his back to her, a mere twenty yards away, and her dancing heart began to sing, willing him to turn around and see her. He didn't.

As soon as Duncan's duffadar approached him, there came a heated exchange of grumbled whispers, and a wildly gesturing arm. Daphne heard none of it clearly, but it was quite obvious Duncan was not happy to have her there. She never should have come. What was she thinking? A year and more had passed–the man didn't love her anymore.

He still didn't turn around. The woman did. His woman. Daphne looked towards the ridge of the cliff and saw a kneeling Hindu version of herself glaring back. Had she ever been that lovely? The young woman dropped his bloodied hand and came at her, a ferocious dislike spreading across her heart-shaped face as she recognized a hated rival. Her delicate features shriveled into a hateful mask of fury. Spewing forth a vile string of Hindi curses, she glared at Daphne, spit dramatically on the dusty ground and stormed away.

Shushi! He spun around at last, his exasperated gaze following the heaving shoulders of the hastily retreating woman. She was openly bawling.

You know, you shouldn't have come. Traveling up country in the company of two known felons–my god, Daphne–I never took you for a foolish woman. He turned around again, looking out across the dusty plain far below, obviously very uncomfortable in her presence. You might have been...ravished–or worse.

He looked different to her. Bigger. Leaner, more muscular and taller. Handsome still, in spite of the full light brown beard he'd grown to fit in with his men.

I-I thought–I'd hoped–you'd be glad to see me, Duncan.

Did Daddy send you to see if he'd got his money's worth out of buying my commission. A lieutenancy in a native regiment–the only condition being that I instantly go where I might be shot. End of problem. He seemed very angry now. Was he going to strike her–throw her off the cliff?

I didn't know. I had nothing to do with that!

My fault. I should have realized you were Daddy's little girl and would never give up being rich to run away with a mere foolish dreamer. He'd turned to face her again, bitter fury distorting his features.

This was all going so horribly wrong; not at all what she'd dreamt of. And his hand–his clutched hand was bleeding badly.

I was just a plaything for you; a toy to while away the hours. I couldn't believe it when you just let me walk out the door!

He was wounded! Trying to see what his injury was, she mumbled, barely loud enough for him to hear, I couldn't believe you actually left.

That seemed to stop him dead in his tracks. The fury drained from his face and he stood there gazing at her with tired sorrow-filled eyes, the only sound between them the constant harsh wind beyond the cliff and the steady drip-drip of his blood. You never answered my letters. Not a single one.

What? A sick truth began to dawn on her. I never got any letters. You wrote to me?

Of course I wrote to you. Every week. By the time the troop ship docked I had a dozen steamy missives to send back home to–oh god–your father!

Duncan, I never got a one. I moved. Father disinherited me. I haven't seen or heard from Mummy or Father in over a year. If you sent the letters to Arkwright–

I thought you didn't love me. As soon as I got to Southampton I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. I should have stayed with you, fought it out toe to toe with your father. Of course, by then I was in the hussars, and that was the end of any freedom. When you didn't write, I figured you didn't really care any longer and that was an end to it.

I did write. Constantly. My letters obviously went astray. Darling, I've come half way around the world, foolish woman that I am, because I'm still madly in love with you. Tell me that you don't love me too, and I'll go. Do you still care for me– a little?

For an answer, he swept her into his arms, and kissed her with all the pent-up passion he'd kept buried for over a year. The blood from his wounded hand began to seep through the back of her shirtwaist, but she didn't seem to notice.

* * * *

It turned out Duncan's men were on the return leg of their patrol, and headed back to the Light Horse cantonment. Daphne bandaged Duncan's slashed hand–an injury he'd got when an irate Pathan villager took a swipe at him with a very dirty tulwar–marveling that he hadn't lost the last three fingers of his pistol hand. He was worried that he'd not be able to paint or draw–apparently his work had been selling quite well since he'd followed the drum. He needn't have worried. Bleeding profusely, the wound across the bottom knuckle of those three fingers looked a lot worse than it actually was. Even so, it'd be a good three weeks before he could safely fire his Webley. Feeling selfish, she wondered if he'd still be able to caress her breasts the gentle way she missed so much. As she finished bandaging his hand, and knotting her work, he lifted the steamy spectacles from the tip of her nose, and asked when she'd started wearing glasses. Her work finished, she kissed her patient's cheek, and told him that the last semester in college she'd had trouble seeing. Too many late nights cramming for exams, and–she added with a mischievous twinkle in her dark eyes–too many tears. Duncan laughed, and kissed the tip of her nose. He got