Dishonored Read Online Free Page B

stumbled forward
     into the last of the daylight, momentarily blinded after her hours of darkness. She still wore the memsahib’s shawl over her
     head and she clutched the baby to her breast, desperately trying to shush him quiet, his pathetic wails smothered by her grip.
     She made only a small anguished sound, a stifled sob, but her eyes were wild with panic, darting frantically over the ground
     as she moved out of the cover of the house; searching for any terror.
    The young officer reached her first. He gripped her shoulder with one hand to hold her steady and yanked the shawl from her
     head. Already he could see that she wasn’t what he had thought and the disappointment flared his anger. “What the hell is
     this…?” He clenched the edge of the shawl in his fingers, a French patterned silk, and crushed it. “Jesus! You impudent…” He raised his arm to hit her.
    “Leave her!” Colonel Mills stopped several feet away, panting hard. The realization of who the figure was sent a pain of such
     intensity through him that he had to bend double for a moment and hold his chest to ease it. He glanced up at the young officer.
     “It’s the ayah,” he said slowly. “Mrs. Mills’ ayah.” He straightened, making an almighty effort to regain his composure, and
     took several deep breaths. Finally, he walked across to them. “You can leave us, major,” he said. Without looking at the servant,
     he reached out for the baby and took his son into his arms.
    “I said leave us!” he ordered, and the baby whimpered at the force of his voice. The young officer turned away.
    Holding his son, Colonel Mills started for the bungalow, oblivious to the sobs of the ayah behind him. He carried the baby
     badly, inexperienced and disabled in his sorrow, and the child began to howl, a thin weak cry against the blanket of deathly
     silence that covered them all.
    It was dark when Colonel Mills finally came out of the bungalow. The ayah had gone in after a while and taken the baby from
     him to feed it and change it, but he had barely realized. He had sat for a long time in the eerie darkness amidst the horrible
     chaos the mob had left behind, and stared blankly out at what was left of the garden, Alicia’s precious garden. He did not
     try to make any sense of it all, he had seen too much of men and war for that, but he did try to find someone to blame. In
     his ordered military mind he believed there was someone or something responsible for everything. Nothing ever just happened,
     events were made. And in the time that he sat, his anger and grief focused on that one fact, Colonel Mills found the someone
     responsible he needed. In the distorted logic of pain and misery, he blamed Indrajit Rai.
    The trouble in Moraphur had been growing for some time, he realized that now. Hadn’t Rai’s son said so? What was it he’d said?
     That the situation was not a comfortable one? He must have known, Colonel Mills reasoned, he must have had some idea! And
     if he had known, then his father would have known! Indrajit Rai would most definitely have known, could probably have even
     been behind the whole thing! Smiling, gracious Indians, with their parties and European canapés; it was all a ruse, a trap
     to lull the British into a false sense of security. But that upstart of a son couldn’t keep quiet! He couldn’t keep his filthy
     native mouth shut, could he? Colonel Mills stood, for the first time in hours, his legs weak and stiff from sitting, he paced
     the floor. It all began to slot into place, the visit from Nanda, the party, the whole scene was so damn clear he wondered
     why the hell he hadn’t seen it before! As he paced, he worked it through. Nanda must have got wind of the mutiny, he worked
     for the maharajah, Rai was the maharajah’s jeweler. What if Rai had been planning something like this for years and then found
     the chance in the unrest among the ranks. He could have stirred it, raked the hornets’ nest, he