"Lamb kebab?" More repetition. No wonder Effie believed him slow, for he had a dreadful habit for parroting back particular words -- always with a mild lifting inflection. Inquisitive. And, this time, surprised. Lamb kebabs brought him back, so they did. Not that he'd had ample opportunity to eat them while on the march, but he could recall a sultry evening in an Indian summer. He'd spent five months in Bombay, though the majority of that time had been spent in the city castle as he sweat and shivered out a fever. But the sickness eventually broke and there he'd been -- a newly minted officer with the freedom to explore from the Malabar estates down to the mucky waterfront. Even with his sword and sash, he felt more at home in the latter. But that didn't stop him from dropping a coin here and there for information, companionship, or -- more relevant to this moment -- food.

Sharpe was left standing foolish, alone, and awkwardly in her doorway. Some vague sense of courtesy prompted him to shut her bedroom door before following at a respectable distance. "You made it?"