‘I can’t remember, Your Royal Highness,’ Keira lied again, not wanting to get Sayeed into trouble. Normally she would have been filled with admiration for the stance being taken by both the Maharaja and Jay, but on this occasion she was all too conscious of how difficult it would make putting as much distance as possible between Jay and herself.
The look he was giving her was openly contemptuous, as well as grimly angry.
‘It is not necessary for you to address me in such a manner. Since I have chosen not to play a role that requires me to use my title, I see no reason why I should be addressed by it.’
Now he had surprised her—but why should that bother her? She wasn’t afraid of him, was she? She wasn’t afraid that somehow she would end up begging him to make love to her? No, of course she wasn’t. The very idea was ludicrous, unthinkable. Because if she did then…Her heart had started to pound and a now familiar and very dangerous ache had started to spread slowly but unstoppably through her.
He was driving them up to the top of a steep incline, onto a small plateau, the wheels of the four-by-four were still throwing up clouds of dust, and Keira didn’t know what she would have done to stop that ache from spreading if she hadn’t suddenly caught her first glimpse of the development site and realised just what it was that Jay was creating.
‘You’re building a copy of the old city!’ she exclaimed in astonishment, as she looked through the dust towards the rose-red sandstone city walls and the open gateway into them, beyond which she could see a mass of buildings and workmen. ‘Sayeed said you were building apartments.’
‘We are. These are apartments,’ he told her, gesturing towards the buildings inside the city wall. ‘And once we’ve finished work on this we’ll be building the office blocks that will house the new IT industry on the other side of the new city. The office blocks are going to be mirror-fronted, so that they’ll reflect the natural landscape rather than intrude on it, and we’re using an up-to-date version of traditional building and design methods where the residential area is concerned. The idea of an ancient city excites everyone’s imagination, including mine, so we’ve decided to see if we can recreate it from the outside whilst making what’s inside more suitable for modern-day living, as well as environmentally sound. For instance, the new city will be a car-free area, and each group of homes will share an inner courtyard complete with swimming pool and private family spaces. Flat roofs will be converted into gardens. We want the new community to be serviced as far as possible from within the existing population, rather than bringing in a workforce from outside.’
It was a hugely ambitious project, and Keira could hardly take in the scale of it.
‘Ethically it makes good sense,’ Keira agreed, ‘but you have to consider that the local population may not have the necessary skills. Even if they do, they may not be able to service the demands of a large number of new households.’
‘Which is why I am already in discussion with my brother and some of the local family elders with a view to setting up training schemes to be run by skilled local craftsmen to teach the skills that will be needed. By the time the office blocks are ready for occupation, it is my intention that all the necessary infrastructure and practical aspects of comfortable everyday living for the people who will work in them will be in place and working efficiently.’
Jay stopped the car on a dusty expanse of hard flat earth.
‘The first phase of the housing development is almost finished. I’ll take you over so that you can have a look at them. We’ll have to walk from here.’
Two hours later Keira acknowledged that what she’d been shown was any designer’s dream—or nightmare, depending on that designer’s self-confidence and the support he or she would get from those in charge of financing the project.
The architecture of the residential area followed that of the old city very closely. The homes were grouped in clusters, each with its own personal, enclosed courtyard garden for privacy, and each grouping also shared a larger courtyard with formal gardens. The houses were mainly two-storey, with large balconies on the first floor and access to a sheltered flat roof space. They were either two-or four-bedroom, and each bedroom had its own bathroom. The master bedroom had a good-sized dressing room.