“Quite right,” Breksby said in response to his unspoken criticism. “Why on earth would the English government need aught from a gently bred young lady? But the fact is that Gabrielle Jerningham’s father is queer in the stirrups. And I’m afraid that no one realized quite how queer until recently.” Breksby’s tone was grim.

“What has he done?”

“It’s less what he’s done than what he’s supporting. He’s put himself up against the East India Company over a matter of internal politics and one of the Indian rulers.”

Quill thought it over. Given that he had been at one time a major proprietor of East India stock, he tended to hear about many of the wrangles in which the company engaged its army. In the previous year, the army had attacked the fortress of Bharatpur, leaving some three thousand persons killed or wounded—and failed to gain Bharatpur, naturally.

“Is the problem to do with the Holkar region?”

Breksby looked unsurprised at Quill’s knowledge of internal Indian politics. “Precisely. Holkar is in the Marathas—the central region of India, you know.”

“The Marathas are not owned or governed by the company,” Quill observed.

“Just so. And that is why I am speaking to you, rather than to anyone at India House or any of the representatives of the governor-general. It is the opinion of quite a few of us in the government that the Board of Control is not sufficiently curbing the, uh, warlike nature of the company’s army. We have been working in a quiet sort of way to make our opinion known.”

Quill did not reveal by so much as a flick of an eyelash what he thought of their “quiet” methods.

But Breksby did not achieve his current eminence for nothing. “I know, I know,” he said with a sigh. “Our efforts are undoubtedly insufficient. Be that as it may, Lord Richard Jerningham has apparently taken matters into his own hands—and in a way that threatens the entire Marathas region.”

“What’s he done?”

“Were you aware that the current ruler of Holkar had gone around the bend?”

“Tukoji Holkar? I heard some rumors,” Quill said cautiously. Actually he had heard that Holkar was addicted to the cherry brandy supplied to him by East India men.

“Utterly cracked,” Breksby confirmed. “Sat around all day swilling brandy until he went ‘round the bend. Apparently his relatives have him tied up with rope and are feeding him only milk. I gather there are a couple of illegitimate heirs waiting around like jackals in the wings. But Tukoji does have a legitimate heir.

“The problem is that Jerningham has secreted that heir away somewhere.”

Quill blinked. “Why on earth would he do that?”