Forbidden Jewel of India

* * *

‘Tomorrow we will reach Calcutta,’ Nick said. They were on the Hooghly River now, he had explained, one of the arms of the River Ganges, the one that flowed to the sea through the great river port of Calcutta.

It was not exciting any longer, this journey through muddy plains, jungle, the occasional low rise with a village or a cluster of temples. Green trees, brown river, brown mud, hot blue sky and Nick being kind and proper and pretending that she had not said those things to him in her cabin, that they had not been locked together, mouth to mouth, breast to breast and that she had not felt the heat, the reality, of his desire.

Every night she ached for him. And every night she told herself to be thankful that he had shown angrezi honour and resisted her.

‘It will be late, I think, but we will be safe back.’ Anusha could hear the relief in Nick’s voice. It was no wonder—they had been together for three weeks now and he had not wanted to be alone with her any more than she had at the start of this. Nick would want to hand her over to her father and go back to his own life, his own home and, no doubt, another woman for his pleasure.

Had she betrayed that she felt more than simply desire for him? She still did not understand what it was that she felt: liking, admiration—both those, of course. But there was something wounded inside him that she wanted to soothe, to heal. It was something to do with his marriage, she was certain. He must have loved his wife desperately, whatever he said, because otherwise, why was he so alone in his spirit?

Anusha leaned on the rail as they swept by a large village with fishing boats drawn up on the muddy beach, then a bend in the river took them and they were back between low bluffs covered in vegetation. It was peaceful—the current was no stronger than usual, there were no rocks. All the warning she had was a shout and then she was tumbling across the deck, her ears full of an ominous cracking of wood as the cook-boat swept down on them, struck them hard on the stern and slammed them into a sandbank.

‘The tiller has broken!’ the steersman shouted.

‘Dhat tere ki!’ Nick swore. ‘If they’ve holed the thing...’

But the damage was only to the rudder.

* * *

Half an hour later the crew stood around the slabs of splintered wood on the sand and watched Nick warily.

‘Can it be mended?’

‘No, sahib. But we can have another made at the village we passed. They had many boats, they will have carpenters.’

‘Go, then,’ Nick said. ‘And make haste.’

‘We must pole the cook-boat upriver,’ the captain explained. Nick’s restraint seemed to unnerve him. ‘It will take all of us against the current, and then it will be dark.’

‘Then hurry,’ Nick said. ‘Anchor this boat securely, leave us food and be back early in the morning.’

* * *

Within half an hour they had gone, leaving the pinnace moored fore and aft on a large, flat sandbank in midstream.

‘There is no need to worry,’ Nick said.

‘I am not. No animals from the bank can reach us, the men will be back tomorrow.’ It felt safe to be with Nick, even when danger threatened. Somehow, although he instinctively threw himself between her and any attack, he had given her the confidence that she could fight, too.

‘All true. I will light a fire on the sandbank. Do you want to cook for a change?’

‘No,’ Anusha said firmly. ‘I have never had to cook—there were always servants to do that. Why can you cook so well?’

‘All soldiers can, although the results are not always very edible. Let us see what they have left us.’

* * *

Night fell and the jungle was dark and full of noises. Overhead the dark-blue velvet of the sky was powdered with stars and on the sandbank the fire blazed high as Nick fed it with the driftwood she had gathered while he cooked.

Anusha leaned on the rail and watched him as he sat cross-legged, the three muskets stacked as a tripod beside him. ‘Go to bed,’ he called without looking back over his shoulder as though he could feel her eyes on him.

If the men came back at dawn with the rudder, then this was the last night they would spend together. Her last night as a princess of the court of Kalatwah. Tomorrow she would be Miss Laurens, trying to recall all Nick’s lessons in vocabulary and etiquette. Over the fish that he had cooked he had dismissed her thanks with a shrug—it was his duty, he had said. Perhaps he was worried that she would try to seduce him again. She just wanted to put her arms around him and hold him tightly, two people together with aching hearts.