halting English were the private rooms of the palace’s maharani.
‘There is no seraglio here any more as His Highness’s great-grandfather married for love and had only one wife. She closed it down, but it is still our tradition that the maharani has her own apartment.’
Behind the fretted and gilded doorway, with its secret ‘windows’ that allowed those behind it to look out into the corridor beyond without being seen, lay an elegant hallway ornamented with mirrors and alcoves for the lanterns that reflected in them. A pair of highly decorated wooden doors opened out into a much larger room, its polished wooden floors covered in beautiful woven rugs whilst sofas similar to those she had seen downstairs were dotted around the room.
A huge chandelier illuminated the room’s vastness, throwing out sparkling light into the muted shadows of the large room. At one end of it, shutters opened out onto an enclosed illuminated courtyard garden with stairs going down to it from a balcony, the sound of running water reaching her ears from the rill of water below.
‘It is very beautiful,’ Sophia told the waiting attendant, who gave her a beaming smile in response before telling her in careful English, ‘The bedroom is this way, please.’
The bedroom was more European than she had expected, vaguely thirties in its design, with stunning, delicately crafted lamps and light fittings. It had its own wardrobe-lined dressing room and bathroom.
The maid cleared her throat, sounding slightly anxious. ‘Please, I take you now to eat with the maharaja.’ Sophia stopped exploring her new domain further. She would have liked to have had a shower and changed her clothes before having dinner with Ash but there obviously wasn’t going to be time. As she followed the attendant through a maze of corridors she reflected that she needed to contact her family to have the contents of her own wardrobes at home sent over to her.
The girl stopped outside a door secured by two of the turbaned guards who both bowed low to her and then pulled open the double doors.
As she stepped into the room Sophia blinked in the brilliance of the reflected light that filled the room. Every surface within it, or so it seemed, was decorated with a mosaic of glittering metalwork inlaid with pieces of mirror that reflected the light from the suspended lanterns, whilst Ash sat waiting for her on a richly embroidered cushion in front of a low table loaded with a variety of small, tempting-looking dishes.
When Ash saw Sophia gazing around her he explained, ‘These mosaic-mirrored rooms were once considered to be a status symbol amongst the Rajput rulers. They are called sheesh mahals, which roughly translates as “halls of mirrors.”’
Two waiters stood ready to serve them but Ash dismissed them, telling Sophia after they had gone, ‘I prefer to dispense with formality when I can.’
Sophia nodded her head as she took her place on her own cushion. ‘I agree, although my father tends to prefer pomp and ceremony.’
‘With those who work here dependent on their wages it would be unfair to let them go, but I suspect they find my preference for independence and privacy somewhat bewildering. A need for personal privacy isn’t the Indian family way, but it is my way.’
Was he warning her off expecting any intimacy with him other than the intimacy that would be necessary in order for her to conceive?
‘The dishes in front of you are a traditional Rajasthani thali,’ Ash informed her, ‘and mostly vegetarian, although you will find that laal maas and safed maas, which are spicy mutton dishes, are very popular and an important speciality of the Rajput community.’
‘It all looks delicious,’ Sophia told him truthfully. She loved spicy food and had no hesitation in helping herself to the dishes on offer, although a certain apprehension was inhibiting her appetite. Just for food or for the intimacies of marriage, as well?
It was late when they had finally finished eating; a word from Ash to the staff who had come to clear away the remains of their meal resulted in the appearance of the maid who had attended Sophia earlier. As she turned to follow the waiting girl, Ash leaned towards her and told her quietly, ‘I will come to you in an hour if that is acceptable to you?’
Her heart started thumping heavily, her mouth going dry. There was no logical reason for her to be surprised. She knew why Ash had married her after all.
‘Yes. Yes,’ she managed to agree, stumbling slightly over the words, conscious of how gauche she must seem and even more conscious of how much difference there must be between her wedding night with Ash and the wedding night he had shared with Nasreen. Then, no doubt, Ash would have taken advantage of the intimacy provided by the soft cushions to pull his bride closer to him and perhaps feed her morsels of food while he whispered to her how much he loved her….
She must not think like this. It weakened her and made her vulnerable and for no good purpose. The past was the past and she wasn’t an idealistic sixteen-year-old any more. It wasn’t being denied Ash’s love she grieved for, Sophia assured herself. It was the love she had so much longed to find with the man who would love her as Ash never had and never would. She grieved for what she would never know because of what she’d had to do.
Maybe in marrying as she had, putting duty before her own needs, she was proving to be more of a Santina than she had previously realised, Sophia admitted as she followed the maid, whose name she discovered was Parveen, back to her own apartment.
A silk nightdress was already laid out ready for her on her bed, and in the bathroom steam rose gently from the large, sunken, rectangular, mosaic-decorated bathing pool. Rose petals floated on the surface of the scented water.
‘Thank you, Parveen. I can manage on my own now.’ Sophia dismissed the maid.
An hour Ash had said. It had probably taken them a good ten minutes and more to walk back to her apartment, along the narrow twisting labyrinth of corridors, which Parveen explained had originally been designed to confuse enemy invaders.
In her bedroom Sophia undressed quickly, her hands all fingers and thumbs as her nervousness increased.
As tempting as the warm and fragrant water of her bath was, she didn’t dare linger in it just in case Ash arrived whilst she was still there. Clambering from it naked and dripping wet whilst he watched her was hardly going to add to her confidence.
Once she had dried herself she made her way back to the bedroom and looked at the silk nightdress. Ignoring it she wrapped herself in a towelling robe, instead. Maybe the knowledge that she was naked beneath its folds would ignite the same desire in Ash for her that knowing he was naked under his robe had ignited in her for him on the plane.
She could hear footsteps crossing the room beyond the bedroom. Her stomach tensed into tight knots of anxiety. Ash was bound to compare her to his first wife and no doubt find her wanting. Why had she done this? Because she had had no other choice, Sophia reminded herself as the richly painted wooden doors were opened and Ash walked into the bedroom.
He was wearing some kind of beautifully embroidered gold silk robe, its beauty instead of feminising him somehow actually intensifying his masculinity. His head was bare and the shadows of the room threw the sharp angle of his cheekbones into relief whilst concealing the expression in his eyes from her.
He had closed the doors. The room was so quiet Sophia could hear the sound of her own breathing.
‘If we are fortunate you will conceive quickly, which will spare us both the necessity of an ongoing intimacy that neither of us really wants.’
He had to make it clear to her that he had not married her out of any desire for her, Ash told himself as he caught the sound of Sophia’s indrawn breath. For Sophia’s benefit or for his own? Wasn’t it true that he had not been able to subdue the ache of need she had already aroused in him despite all his attempts to do so? And wasn’t it equally true that right now simply the sight of her and the knowledge of what was to come was accelerating the intensity of that need at a speed that he couldn’t control?
But he must control it. He must remember what this marriage was and why he had entered it.