The Reluctant Princess

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Kholo Matsha. The Reluctant Princess

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To my sister Matome: this one is for you.

Today’s case – the family she had just visited – was something else, though. Lesedi couldn’t distance herself enough to think of them as just her job, to leave her heart out of it. She tried hard to dispel the impoverished home and half-starved children from her mind, but even as she did so she felt her eyes fill up with tears.

.....

Tsietsi eyed Phetana, who had suddenly gone still, her hands frozen in the sink. This was not going according to plan, he thought – not that he had believed that it would, considering the circumstances. He could not believe that his father had caved in when the chief’s people had come and asked for his daughter’s hand. They had come bearing gifts, true, but his and Lesedi’s family was not some charity case. Tsietsi swallowed his anger, knowing it to be futile, wrapped his fingers around Lesedi’s arm and gently guided her out of the door.

Five minutes later Tsietsi had Lesedi settled in his bakkie and they were on their way up a sloping gravel road. Lesedi was stunned. She couldn’t move a muscle. Thoughts and questions warred with each other in her mind. And the most prevalent question was: What could Mogale possibly want from her? Apart from their brief encounter that morning, she hadn’t seen him in over six years. He hadn’t tried to contact her. For all she knew he hated her. What could he possibly want?

.....