Page 14 of In Just a Year
Ben pulled his coat straight but still looked rather disheveled from the climb, wonderfully mussed. Esther longed to touch his hair.
She wrapped her robe closer around herself. “How did you get here?”
“I walked. Then I climbed.” He surveyed the room. “So, this is your room?”
“It is, indeed. On the second level of the house.”
“Lovely,” he said. “Very pink.”
“The color’s called blush. Did you climb up the façade to reach my window?”
“Blushing pink, hm?” He gave a boyish half-smile.
She should have been outraged and called her father to escort Ben out of her room, but his dimples and green eyes did something to her insides that prevented her from protesting. It was like the suspense in a good book that she couldn’t put down. Except better. Exciting. And this was Ben. She sighed and screwed up her eyes in feigned disapproval of his intrusion.
Ben walked to the vase of fresh flowers by the side of her bed. He pulled one out of the bouquet and offered it to her. “I would have brought you two dozen red roses, but I didn’t have time—”
“Time for what?”
“I am leaving, Esther.” Ben held the flower out to her. “I came to say goodbye.”
Pain shot through her heart as if a bullet had hit her. She didn’t want the flower, she wanted him. Here. Now. Forever. “W-where are you going?”
“India.”
“India? The one—”
“Yes, the one.”
“Why?” Esther plopped on her bed; she needed to sit to process the news.
“You know since the capital moved from Calcutta to Delhi in 1912, the lieutenant governor of Bengal moved to Government House. That’s where I’m going, Belvedere House. It’s the Shah’s palace now and still the local headquarters of the East India Company and Fave thinks it matches what his grandfather had told him.” His eyes darted from her left to her right and back but she remained silent. “Well, Greg is going. Baron Gregory Stone, you know?
“What do you have to do with him?” She’d heard of this Greg, whose full name was Baron Gregory Stone, Member of Parliament and son of a baptized Jew—as if the paths in and out of Judaism were roads one could cross. Hannah had taken issue with Gregory Stone, but Esther only knew of him; she’d never met this Baron.
“It’s his fleet. I get to go and check on the mines, the trade route.”
“That doesn’t sound like a reason for Pavel to send one of his sons on such a long journey. What about university?”
Ben exhaled and smiled. “You’re right.” He folded his hands behind his back and pretended to kick a rock around the floor, but there was none—only the fringes of the Persian rug that he flipped up and down with his boot.
Esther swallowed hard. Of course, riches such as gems, silks, and rugs from around the world had to get to England somehow. And someone must have transported them. Yet, Ben wasn’t the type to go on a trade expedition to import goods to London.
Esther’s heart stopped when realization washed over her. “The treasure hunt?” She clasped her hands over her chest. “But it’s so dangerous! Your father always says that! Rosie nearly died!”
Ben took two large steps toward her and placed his hands gingerly on her upper arms. “I have to do this! Arnold thinks there’s something left in Belvedere House for us to find. Before they move it, one of us has to retrieve it.” Something glistened in his eyes that looked like devotion and danger. He was hungry for adventure.
“You don’t know if it’s still there.”
“True. But what if it is?”
“If it isn’t, you’ll have sailed halfway around the world to find nothing!”
“And if it is?”
“H-how long is the journey?”
“Greg said it’ll take four to six months. We have to sail around Africa.”
