Dear Deceiver
Chapter One
1816
Emma stood leaning over the rail of the Silken Maid as it made its way up the river estuary, but
she could not see the shore for the mist which blanketed everything except the deck at her feet
and the grey water immediately around the brig, in which floated the detritus of a large city: lumps
of wood, cabbage leaves, even a dead dog. It was every bit as dirty as the Hooghly in Calcutta,
though the smells were different, less spicy, more rank.
The mist was enough to soak her cloak and make her auburn hair spring into tight little curls, but
it was nothing like the fog of Calcutta, nor the torrential rain of the monsoon they had left behind
them; it was simply wet and uncomfortable.
So this was England! This, grey, murky, cold place was the country which the British in India
referred to so longingly as home. Even her father, who had lived in India over twentyfive years,
had spoken of it with a wistful note in his voice.
She and her brother, Teddy, had been born in Calcutta, had left it only in the summer to go to the
hills away from the oppressive heat; t ... read full excerpt from Dear Deceiver ebook
