Excerpt from The Strangler Vine by Miranda J. Carter, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'I am Ensign William Avery,' I said, as coldly as I could, resisting the instinct to flinch, 'and I am to deliver a letter personally to Jeremiah Blake. It comes direct from the Governor General's office. I am required to bring back an answer.'

He snorted and grimaced. 'Well, you'd better hand it over then.' He held out his hand, the blanket falling from his shoulders and on to the damp tiles. He appeared to be wearing some sort of baggy native garb made out of old sacking.

I regarded him sullenly, an unpleasant realization coming over me.

'I am Blake. Now hand it over,' he said.

As slowly as I could I retrieved the letter, and as I passed it to him I looked deliberately through him. 'I am required to bring back an answer,' I repeated. He looked over the envelope for a moment.

'Perhaps you would like me to open it for you?' I said with exaggerated courtesy.

He ignored me, tore off the top, pulled out the contents, and scrutinized them. 'The answer is no.'

At first I could not quite believe what I had heard. When the Governor General's office issued a request, one did not say no.

'What?'

'You heard me.' He shuffled round, dropping the letter on the ground as he went. I scrambled to pick it up and though under normal circumstances I should never have done so, I read it. It was a summons to Government House the following evening to discuss 'a confidential matter, which touches closely upon your own affairs'. It was signed with a name I did not recognize, 'on behalf of the Governor General and the Secret and Political Department'. Irritation and anger were swiftly overtaken by mild panic. I could not deliver this answer to Government House. I cursed the ill luck that had sent me on such an errand, though I found it hard to imagine how such a broken-down creature could be of any interest to anyone in Government House.

'Sir, I really think you must comply.' Jeremiah Blake kept on walking.

'Sir,' I said more urgently, 'I cannot deliver a refusal to the Governor General's office, you must know this. It is simply not done. You must attend. At the very least you must be sensible of the honour you are being paid.'

He looked round, his face quite expressionless, and said, 'I have no interest in the Company's affairs.'

I took a deep breath. 'I beg you, sir.'

'No.' His refusal met something angry in my own breast and though I should not have spoken, I did.

'Mr Blake, I have travelled all the way through Blacktown, a place which seems to me to demonstrate only too vividly the degradation and miserable depths to which this godforsaken country has fallen, to deliver your letter, and I wish to let you know'—I could hear my own excitability, but I could not stop—'that I regard my reception at your house as having been notably lacking in courtesy. I have been treated by your servant and yourself with incredible rudeness. I can only attribute this state of affairs to your marination in the lowest native ways. Whatever my own qualities or lack thereof, I am a representative of the Company and should have been treated with respect.' I looked pointedly at where the pan was splattered in a large red bloom on the ground near my feet. 'Your language was disgraceful and your darwan was offensive. He virtually refused to allow me in and he tried with the greatest insolence to force me to remove my boots.'

Jeremiah Blake, who had thus far continued to show me his retreating back, paused and turned.

'Listen, Ensign,' he said. 'I'm no longer a member of the Company's army. I live in Blacktown so I can live as I wish and not be troubled by the fastidiousness of ignorant lobsters and swoddies who find my habits too oriental. As for respect for the Company—it can whistle for it, as far as I'm concerned.'

Excerpted from The Strangler Vine by Miranda J Carter. Copyright © 2015 by Miranda J Carter. Excerpted by permission of Putnam Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.