"Well, I don't enjoy hearing about it. What about the honor of these
women's families? They sound reprehensible, with less dignity than
_nautch _girls."
"Oh no, they're very different." He turned with a wink and tweaked her
ear. "They don't dance."
"That's even worse. At least most _nautch _girls have some training."
"You already think English women are wicked, and you've never even met
one. That's not fair. But I think you'd come to love England. If we
were in London now, right this minute, we could hire one of those
coaches you don't believe exist . . . a coach with two horses and a
coachman cost scarcely more than ten shillings a day, if prices haven't
gone up . . . and ride out to a country inn. Just outside London the
country is as green as Nadir Sharif's palace garden, with fields and
hedgerows that look like a great patchwork coverlet sewed by some
sotted alewife." Hawksworth's chest tightened with homesickness. "If
you want to look like an Englishwoman, you could powder your breasts
with white lead, and rouge your nipples, and maybe paste some beauty
stars on your cheeks. I'll dine you on goose and veal and capon and
nappy English ale. And English mutton dripping with more fat than any
lamb you'll taste in Agra."
Shirin studied him silently for a moment. "You love to talk of England,
don't you? But I'd rather you talked about India. I want you to stay.
Why would you ever want to leave?"
"I'm trying to tell you you'd love England if you gave yourself a
chance. I'll have the _firman _soon, and when I return the East India
Company will . . ."
"Arangbar will never sign a _firman _for the English king to trade.
Don't you realize Queen Janahara will never allow it?"
"Right now I'm less worried about the queen than about Jadar. I think
he wants to stop the _firman _too, why I don't know, but he's succeeded
so far. He almost stopped it permanently with his false rumor about the
fleet. He did it deliberately to raise Arangbar's hopes and then
disappoint him, with the blame falling on me. Who knows what he'll
think to do next?"
"You're so wrong about him. That had nothing to do with you. Don't you
understand why he had to do that? You never once asked me."