Forbidden Jewel of India

Chapter Nineteen

It took a month to be married, they told her. ‘So short a time?’ Anusha asked. ‘But what of all the preparations and the feasting and the dancers?’ Lady Hoskins laughed and Anusha blushed. This was a different world and she had forgotten.

The time seemed to flow past like water and as the day grew closer a panic closed around her heart like

a fist. She had trapped him. She should have known when she had wept in his arms that he would always protect her, only this time it was not with his life, but his freedom, and he would grow to resent her, she was certain.

Ajit returned from Kalatwah with messages and news: everyone was safe, they missed her. The maharaja’s spies had been eliminated, for the moment. He slipped back into Nick’s service, a soft-footed, smiling shadow.

The horses arrived from Kalpi, tired, but unmarked by their journey. Nick took her to the maidan early each morning so she could ride Rajat astride in her Indian clothes, but she knew she would have to master the side-saddle soon.

Nick had been using part of the disused women’s quarters as his bachelor’s rooms when he was in Calcutta, although he had a house in the hills a day’s ride away. Now her father had them turned into a self-contained home for the newly-weds with two bedchambers, dining room, drawing room, a study for Nick and a sitting room for Anusha and a wide veranda overlooking the gardens at the rear.

Except for these morning rides they seemed to see very little of each other. Nick was at the fort most of the day and when he was at the house he seemed remote and formal. It was expected that a bridegroom kept his distance, Lady Hoskins explained, and of course, she did not want to be a trouble to him, but she missed him.

‘Do you mind?’ Nick asked ten days after their betrothal as they sat on their veranda and watched the gardeners turning a small patch of tangled vegetation back into a garden. He had come back mid-morning and, unusually, seemed intent on spending time with her.

Anusha did not pretend not to understand him. ‘Not having a separate house of our own in Calcutta? No, Papa would be lonely and so will I be when you are away.’

‘You will miss me?’ It was asked casually.

‘Of course. And I will worry about you, now I know the kind of risks your missions lead you into.’

‘Don’t worry. I cannot imagine that any future commissions will necessitate escorting dangerous young

ladies.’ He means it as a joke, she told herself. ‘How will you spend your time when I am away?’

‘I shall help Papa and be his hostess. Lady Hoskins says that is the best way to learn to be a proper English lady. Then when you come home I will know how to...deport myself.’

‘Comport.’

‘I thought that was something for putting fruit in. And I will make the house nice and buy clothes and accustom myself to them.’ Instinct told her to keep the conversation light. Like that she could almost pretend they were still on their journey. She flipped her skirts back and forth, exposing a bare foot.

‘Anusha! Are you patterning your feet with henna?’ Nick dropped to one knee and lifted her foot in his hand. ‘Wicked woman.’

‘No one can see under my stockings and shoes.’ His thumb was stroking the top of her foot, following the complex twisting design. She glanced around, the gardeners had gone. It seemed a very long time since they had been alone together.

‘So this is just for your husband?’

‘No, of course not.’ She tried to cover herself, but he bent his mouth to the bare skin and desire washed through her. ‘Stop doing that!’ But she twisted in the chair, tried to position her foot in the perfect place for his caresses. ‘Nick!’ He sucked her toes into his mouth and began to tease them with his tongue. ‘Nicholas, that is very...very...’

Unable to speak, he waggled his eyebrows at her lasciviously and she collapsed into giggles. It felt so good to laugh, such a long time since she had. ‘Idiot man, stop it at once or the servants will see.’

‘How very European and repressed of you, my dear.’ He released her foot and sat back in his chair. Anusha wriggled her wet toes and tried to look reproving.

‘I am trying to learn to be good.’

‘Well, don’t learn it for the bedroom,’ he said, his voice suddenly husky.

‘No. I won’t.’ The silence that followed seemed to need a lot of filling. Anusha scrabbled for a safe topic. ‘Lady Hoskins says that I am fortunate not to have to learn all the things that an aristocratic lady must know, like how to go on at court and how to wear the strange court dress, and being a political hostess and holding a salon in London and managing an enormous house in the country. She says that young ladies are brought up from childhood to know all that.’