“Is that vessel following us?” she asked Gideon, sidling over to him.

Unreadable eyes met hers. “Why?”

“Rhystan, er, the captain said something the other day, that it might be the navy.”

“Perhaps.”

Sarani waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. She resisted the urge to kick the unhelpful giant in the shins. “Are you expecting trouble?”

“It’s not for you to worry about.”

Oh, you have no idea, you big, uncooperative lump.

She sensed she wasn’t going to get anything out of him, at least not about that ship. Or anything about this ship. Or Rhystan, or why the British navy could possibly be tracking them. Or any useful information at all. Her eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion, recalling the crates in the hold that were sectioned off and padlocked.

“What cargo does the Belonging carry?”

Gideon grunted. “What?”

“If this isn’t a passenger ship, what does it carry?”

The man had the audacity to smile, or offer what passed for a smile anyway. It was more of a grimace on that taciturn face. Sarani knew that whatever he was going to say was going to aggravate her even further. She wasn’t wrong. “Ask the captain.”

“Fine, I will.”

Knowing Asha was safe with the ogre, even though Sarani wanted to kick him in his truculent shins, she decided to make her way down into the hold. Not to see the crates in question and assuage her curiosity but to feed the livestock and clean out the paddock. Anything would be better than thinking about what that ship on the horizon meant. Even shoveling piles upon piles of smelly dung.

She should have known Vikram wouldn’t let her go so easily, not when he’d murdered a maharaja without a qualm. Sarani feared for Asha’s family and the rest of her handmaidens—she hoped they were safe—and she worried for her people because Vikram would be looking out for himself, not them. Her father, for all his faults and concessions to the crown, had tried to keep Joor’s interests at heart. Even her loathsome engagement to Talbot would have been a necessary evil.

Though it had only been a few weeks, she felt the loss of her father keenly. While she knew Western traditions of mourning meant she’d be garbed in black for months, her people treated death differently. Their cultural and religious traditions were tied up in rebirth, what they called samsara. She hoped her father would have been cremated—not even Vikram would provoke the gods, despite his certain hand in the maharaja’s death. And initial mourning would have lasted thirteen days, whereupon she would have worn white, not black, to honor him.