Maharaja's Mistress

The Ramprakeshi were a gracious people, and they were a proud people, who didn’t even try to hide the happiness they felt at seeing Ram come home. When Ram had greeted his staff, he showed her into a marble hall of such vast proportions there was room for a fountain complete with three full-sized marble warriors mounted on stallions that spouted streams of water from their yawning mouths.

‘I had no idea,’ Mia gasped.

‘That I live so modestly?’

As Ram shot her a wry smile she could almost believe they’d left the shadows behind and that the idyll could continue for ever. ‘I was thinking more of the extraordinary kindheartedness and the welcome from your people. You must have missed them dreadfully.’

‘Some are exceptional,’ he agreed.

‘And some are not?’

‘A few of the courtiers and the professional hangers-on—’

‘Ram, you don’t need to explain to me.’

‘But now you’re here you should know,’ he insisted, drawing her out of earshot.

‘Are you referring to the old man who greeted you—the one who mentioned a new queen?’

Bullseye. Storm clouds gathered immediately in Ram’s eyes.

‘Not now,’ he said.

‘Perhaps I should know sooner rather than later so I don’t put my foot in it. Can’t you explain what he meant by your queen?’

The light in Ram’s eyes had narrowed to a pinprick, but she was primed with insecurity and didn’t know when to stop. ‘I realise I’m not exactly fairy-princess material—’

‘Stop that!’ Ram snapped, shocking her into silence. ‘This has nothing to do with how you look.’

Even if, right at that moment, she couldn’t have felt more flawed?

‘In fact,’ Ram went on coldly, ‘this has nothing to do with you at all.’

Opening the door, he gestured with a curt nod of his chin that she should go ahead of him. But she couldn’t leave it here. ‘Ram, please…I understand there are things in Ramprakesh I shouldn’t interfere in.’

‘And things you don’t understand,’ he emphasised as he started to walk off. ‘You would be doing me a great favour, Mia, if you kept your opinions to yourself in future.’

‘Ram, where are you going?’ She glanced round, only to meet the concerned stares of the servants. What was she supposed to do now? The hall was the size of two football pitches and Ram had just taken off down one of the broad open-air avenues that bisected his enormous palace. ‘Please come back.’

She only knew one way and that was forward. She ran after him, oblivious to the servants who were trying to direct her another way. ‘Ram,’ she called, angrily now.

He must have heard her, but he didn’t even break stride.

Putting on a sprint, she caught up with him. ‘You’re right,’ she said tensely. ‘I don’t understand. I thought I was a guest in your house, and at least in my house guests are escorted to their bedrooms by their host.’

‘And what do you think the servants are waiting to do?’ Ram demanded, staring somewhere over her head.

‘Well, clearly you’re right and I’m wrong,’ Mia agreed. ‘This is your house and your rules. Just leave me here and I’ll make my own way to my room. Do you have a map I could use?’

‘You’re being ridiculous, Mia,’ Ram told her impatiently. ‘Just go back to the hall and they’ll be waiting for you there.’

‘They?’ she snapped. ‘Do they have names?’

He whirled around at that, all power and fury. ‘It’s you who needs a reality check, Mia. This is not downtown Planet Space-Cadet, but a royal palace in an ancient land, where generations have worked side by side for millennia. Of course I know the names of my staff just as they know mine. What they couldn’t be expected to know is that I’d be bringing someone like you along—’

‘Someone like me?’ she exclaimed.

‘Someone with no respect for protocol at all.’

‘Protocol? Or sheer bloody rudeness. Whatever happened to the courtesy of princes, Ram?’

‘I think you’ve said enough. What exactly do you expect me to do, Mia?’

Explain what I should do—be considerate towards someone feeling really out of place here? ‘You could dredge up some civility, maybe? Considering—’

‘Considering what?’ he cut across her coldly. ‘Considering I slept with you? Is that what you were going to say, Mia?’

‘You didn’t do much sleeping, as I remember—’

‘I don’t want to hear this—’

‘I bet you don’t. What’s happened to you, Ram?’ She clung onto his arm to stop him leaving. ‘What happened on the dock to spoil everything? What did that man say that upset you so much? How can you change towards me so quickly? And how can all this leave you flat?’ she demanded finally in exasperation. ‘First the people on the dock and now the servants here who plainly adore you?’

‘They’re all being manipulated.’

‘All of them? All those thousands of people who lined the route are being manipulated?’

‘Yes, and by someone who doesn’t want anything to change—someone who believes that showing off is more important than dealing with the real issues. I’m talking about a man who lines his own pockets at the expense of the people, Mia—a man who lays on a bash like this to herald my arrival purely to seduce me into his way of thinking. Now do you understand?’

‘I had no idea—’

‘No, that’s right, you don’t,’ Ram agreed, and this time she didn’t try to stop him when he turned on his heel and walked away.

Mia wandered the ballroom-sized rooms of her suite, feeling out of place amidst such grandeur. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Ram had said. She was lucky to be staying in what had to be one of the most beautiful palaces in the world, but all she really wanted was a cosy sitting room and a heart to heart with him. Ram’s people had clearly enjoyed the parade, and on big occasions surely there was no harm in a festival cavalcade so long as the funds came from Ram’s purse, rather than the public one. She hoped he wouldn’t throw Ramprakash into deep austerity just because one evil man had used such occasions for his own nefarious reasons.

But Ram was right about turning this palace into a historical showpiece for everyone to enjoy, Mia mused as she traced the decoration on a wall with her fingertips. Richly enamelled in jewel-colours picked out in gold, the exquisite workmanship was a monument to the country’s skilled craftsmen and this palace should be opened to the public so that people could see the riches they had inherited.

Thinking about Ram made her long for him, but she had no idea when she would see him again. Ram didn’t have to explain himself to her, and his manner had been so volatile since arriving back in Ramprakesh she couldn’t predict when he would turn up. She was only now discovering that physical intimacy didn’t open the deepest portals in a person’s mind, it simply drew a veil of pleasure over them. But there was no way she was going to wander about aimlessly for the rest of the day. Even if Ram was too busy to see her she still had work to do. She had done enough coasting since the accident and now she had a chance to put her life back in gear. She was itching to get started. She wasn’t a tourist and she wasn’t really a guest, and if Ram was serious about her submitting ideas for both his yacht and his new home, then the first thing she had to do was visit the site—which in turn meant having the right equipment.

She was smiling by the time she put down the phone. A requisition form would be delivered to her rooms immediately. Ramprakesh was nothing if not quaint.

Having completed the form, Mia folded it neatly and placed it on the golden platter that had been left in the room for that very purpose.

‘You could have rung your order through—’

‘Ram!’ Mia’s heart exploded in a frenzy of activity. ‘What are you doing here?’ She sounded angry—and yet she was so happy to see him it hurt.

Ram appeared as cool and sexy as always—as if they had never exchanged a cross word. Leaning back

against the door with his arms folded, he said, ‘I did knock, but you were too busy pacing to notice.’

‘I thought you were too busy to see me,’ she countered.

‘I thought I’d better check you like your accommodation.’

‘Finally,’ she said.

‘I had things to do when we arrived—people to speak to—’

‘And a guest to settle in.’

‘So you do like your accommodation,’ he said, refusing to be thrown.

‘You are joking? No one lives like this, Ram.’

‘At least one person you know does,’ he said dryly.

‘But not for long.’ Mia smiled.

‘Yes, as you know, I have other plans. So, what’s it to be, Mia?’ Easing up, he came towards her, steadily, relentlessly, reminding her—and not for the first time—of some sleek, dark jungle cat. ‘Am I in for storm-force tantrums or a fit of the doldrums?’

‘Neither,’ she said. ‘But you do need a good shake.’

Unfortunately, that would mean getting closer than was strictly advisable right now.

‘So what do you think of the palace?’ he said.