Forbidden Jewel of India

‘Hah! Corsets,’ Anusha muttered.

‘And curtsies and learning to dance and to converse with men at parties.’ Nick had his temper under control again. He seemed positively amused, describing such indecent things as dancing with men, talking to them.

It was very dangerous to mix the sexes like that. She was discovering it only too vividly herself and this was just one man. Anusha gave herself a little shake. It was incredible how danger and a shock made one feel. For a moment back there every inhibition had vanished, leaving only a primitive urge to lie with this man, to roll naked in the dust with him. She could only hope he had not realised.

How did Englishwomen cope with this constant nearness to the opposite sex? But perhaps they were not really alone with them as she was with Nick, perhaps there were rules and older married women to stop things becoming...elemental.

But English women were allowed to fall in love, so Mama had told her. Even in Altaphur, for a lady of the court, one with influence, there was the possibility of choice. Is that why I kept turning down those marriage offers? Did I think it would happen for me as it did for her?

Apparently her mother had taken one look at her father and then acted in the most scandalous manner to make sure she met him. Anusha could not understand it. Her own first sight of an angrezi as an adult woman most certainly did not provoke any desire to place her entire future in his hands, whatever alarmingly lustful feelings he provoked. And her mother had done that foolish thing—she had fallen in love and thought George Laurens had too. Obviously he had not. Or he had fallen out of love, which proved how fickle men were. How cruel.

She urged Rajat up alongside the big grey so she did not have to look at Nick riding in front of her. That had been what had led to all this in the first place.

‘I do not want to be an English lady,’ Anusha stated.

‘What do you want, then?’ he asked, still tolerant. Anusha shot him a sideways glance, but his face was unsmiling.

‘To travel.’ It had never occurred to her before, but now, experiencing the freedom and the dangerous excitements of being free, it was as though she could see the entire world unrolling before her.

‘Rich unmarried European ladies of rank travel alone, often in disguise, I have read of them. A Lady Montague, I think, and others. I will go to Europe and North Africa and the lands of the Middle Sea.’ Moving on, not settling, meant she would never have to decide who she was, would never have to face not belonging anywhere.

‘Eccentric spinsters,’ Nick said with distaste. ‘Rich ones with a bee in their bonnet. They end up sick and old, dying in some ramshackle castle, miles from family and friends, preyed upon by unscrupulous dragomen and fortune hunters.’

‘Spinsters? That is an English word I do not know. Do ladies spin, then? And why would they have bees in their hats?’ Bonnets she did understand. Mama had told her about ludicrous angrezi hats. And piles of false hair even when one had perfectly good hair of one’s own and corsets to pinch you in and push you out and padding.

‘Unmarried women who are on the shelf—beyond marriageable age—are called spinsters. And having a bee in your bonnet is to have a foolish obsession with something.’

‘Hah! Well, I am not on a ledge, it is only that I do not choose to surrender myself to some man. And I have no bees in my hair. But when I have my money—’

‘What money?’ Nick enquired and this time when she glanced across at him she saw he was smiling, a quizzical smile that made her want to hit him.

‘My father is a rich man, is he not? So I am rich. I am his only child.’

‘He will make you an allowance, of course. When you marry a man he approves of, then he will settle money on you for your children.’

He was telling the truth. She had learned to believe what Nick said in that calm way he used when he was explaining things. So, she would have money, although there would be more when she married. And she had her jewels. There were not many, but they were very fine. And perhaps her father would feel guilty about the way he had treated her and her mother and she could persuade him to give her more money, more gems, enough to run away with.

It had been foolish to give Nick some hint of her plans, even if he mocked them and did not believe she could do it. ‘Is it acceptable for a lady to be alone with a man as I am with you?’ she asked after a few moments, the continuation of her earlier thoughts presenting a possible escape. Surely not, not when there was the possibility of a kiss like the one they had just shared. He had hardly touched her and yet her heart was still beating too fast as she thought of it