Читать книгу Modern Romance February 2020 Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Louise Fuller - Страница 19

THEY LUNCHED WITH Sher the following day at his family home, which his late father had allowed to fall into rack and ruin.

Only a small part of the ancient Nizam of Tharistan’s palace had so far been made liveable, and they dined in that wing on a shaded terrace overlooking a vast stretch of uncultivated land, which Sher admitted had once been the gardens. At Willow’s request he had gathered old records, paintings and photographs from Victorian times in an effort to provide some evidence of what the gardens had once looked like, for what remained was simply undergrowth with the occasional hint of the shape of a path or flowerbed.

‘It’ll be a massive project,’ she warned him. ‘And hugely expensive.’

‘Not a problem for Sher.’ Jai laughed.

‘Would it be possible for me to take these records and old photos home with me?’ Willow pressed the other man. ‘What you really need is an archaeological garden survey done.’

‘No, I’ll be content with something in the spirit of the original gardens, rather than requiring an exact replica,’ Sher admitted. ‘I’ll bring the old maps over to you tomorrow. I keep them in a climate-controlled environment but as long as you wear gloves handling them, they’ll be fine.’

‘I can’t wait to see them,’ Willow confided, excitement brimming in her sparkling green eyes, all her attention on Sher. ‘Of course, I’ll wear gloves.’

Lunch with two highly creative people was not to be recommended, Jai decided at that point, unless you were of a similar ilk. And Jai wasn’t. A garden was only a green space to him that complemented a building. Books, technology and business alone held his interest.

When they had climbed back into the limo, Jai thought he should warn his wife of the possible pitfalls of what she was planning. ‘As you said, it will be a huge project,’ he reminded her smoothly. ‘Do you really know what you’re taking on?’

Willow straightened her shoulders and turned to him with an eager smile. ‘I can’t wait!’

‘But it will demand a lot of your time.’

‘What else do I have to focus on?’ Willow prompted.

Myself and my son, Jai reckoned. But he was too clever to say it out loud, admitting that it sounded like something his elderly father would have said and inwardly wincing at the comparison. ‘I had been hoping that you would take on some duties with the foundation when you have the time to decide which of our charitable groups would most interest you,’ he commented, and it wasn’t a lie, he reasoned, even if that possibility had only just occurred to him. ‘It would get you out and about more and give you a role of your own.’

‘That’s a wonderful suggestion,’ Willow said warmly. ‘But maybe best saved for when I’ve fully found my feet here.’

‘I thought you already had…found your feet,’ he admitted.

‘Different country, different culture, different languages, different everything,’ she enumerated with quiet emphasis. ‘I love my life here but right now I’m still acclimatising to the changes. I don’t think I’m quite ready yet to step out in a social setting as your Maharani, particularly when everyone will be expecting someone like you, experienced at making speeches and knowledgeable about community work.’

That explanation silenced Jai because he immediately grasped that he had not even considered the changes that her move to India on his behalf had made to her life. Rare discomfiture afflicted him. Had he always been so self-absorbed that he only saw in terms of what best suited him? That disposed to be selfish and arrogant? He gritted his teeth at the suspicion and said no more, quite forgetting the irritation that his best friend had inexplicably evoked in him.

The next morning, Sher brought the maps over and, together, he and Willow pored over the old parchments in the library, Jai soon taking his leave. Searching for evidence of former paths, banks, sunken areas and even small garden buildings, they discovered a wealth of useful facts. Thoroughly enjoying herself, Willow did sketches and made copious notes while Sher talked at length about what he liked to see in a garden. When Jai walked in again, they were trading jokes about what they suspected was the marking for an ancient surprise fountain that had been designed to startle the ladies as they walked past by drenching them.

For a split second, Jai froze on the threshold. Willow and Sher were on a rug on the floor laughing uproariously, one of his friend’s hands on her slim shoulder to steady her as she almost overbalanced in her mirth into the welter of papers that surrounded them.

‘Lunch,’ Jai announced coolly.

‘Oh, my goodness, is it that time already?’ Willow carolled in astonishment, almost as if she hadn’t been camping out in the library for a solid four hours with his best friend, Jai thought in disbelief. Evidently when in Sher’s company time had wings for his wife.

Sher’s entire attention was pinned to Willow’s face. His friend was attracted to her. Jai had already guessed that, for Willow was a classic beauty, but then Sher was attracted to a lot of women and, as a former Bollywood star, he flirted with all of them, be they grandmothers or teenagers, because he was accustomed to playing to admiring crowds. Even so, Jai trusted Sher with his wife, totally trusted him. He was fully aware that his friend would never ever cross a line with a married woman because that same scenario had destroyed Sher’s parents’ marriage.

No, Jai didn’t blame Sher for the intimate scene he had interrupted, he blamed Willow for getting too friendly, for curling up on the floor and making herself recklessly, dangerously approachable, his Maharani, acting like a giggly, frisky schoolgirl, he thought furiously. A man less sophisticated than Sher might have read her signals wrong and taken advantage, might have made a move on her, the concept of which sent such a current of lancing rage shooting through Jai that he clenched his lean hands into angry fists of restraint by his sides.

He wouldn’t lose his temper when he spoke to Willow later, but he would give her useful advice on how to keep other men at a safe distance, advice she certainly needed if what he was seeing was likely to be typical of her behaviour in male company.

‘You’ve been very quiet,’ Willow commented over dinner, hours after Sher had departed, leaving her free to spend a contented afternoon pondering the old photos while trying to visualise the lush and colourful garden that Sher would most enjoy.

That was the moment that Jai became aware that what he had planned to say to his wife didn’t sound quite the same as when he had first thought the matter over. He breathed in deep and decided that tact was all very well, but it might not get across the exact message he wanted to impart and that message was too important to hold back.

‘You flirt with Sher and I dislike it,’ Jai delivered bluntly, pushing back his chair and rising from his seat with his wine glass elegantly cupped in one lean brown hand.

For the count of ten seconds, Willow simply gaped at him in disbelief. He did not just say that, he could not have accused me of that, she was thinking, and then she looked at him, really looked at his lean, darkly handsome face, and realised by the glitter of his ice-blue eyes and the taut line of his sensual mouth that, no, sadly, he hadn’t been joking. She was stunned, incredulous that he could have misunderstood her banter with Sher to that extent, and then just as quickly angry at the speed with which he had misjudged her. In turn, she too rose from her chair and left the table.

‘For goodness’ sake, I don’t flirt with Sher,’ she said defensively. ‘It’s only a friendly thing, nothing the slightest bit suspect about it. I don’t know how you could possibly think otherwise.’

Jai’s cool appraisal didn’t waver. ‘But I do. You need to learn how to keep a certain distance in your manner with other men.’

‘And you need to learn how not to be irrationally jealous!’ Willow slammed back at him without warning, her patience tested beyond its limits and flaming into throbbing resentment.

Those two words, ‘irrational’ and ‘jealous,’ struck Jai like bricks. He didn’t do either emotion. Unfortunately, those same words also hooked into a phrase his aunt had, many years earlier, once used to describe his father. Later, when challenged by Jai, Jivika had withdrawn the comment and, unfortunately, Willow’s use of those offensive words sent a wave of antipathy travelling through him. ‘I’m not jealous, Willow. I’m merely asking you to monitor your behaviour in male company.’

‘But you’d really prefer me not to have male friends?’ Willow darted back at him.

Disconcerted by that surprising question, Jai frowned. ‘Well, yes, that may be the wisest approach.’

‘So, quite obviously, you are the jealous, possessive, irrational type you think you aren’t…or possibly a throwback to the dinosaurs when men and women didn’t make friends with the opposite sex?’ Willow shot back at him wrathfully. ‘Obviously you have about as much self-awareness as a stone in the wall! Sher’s like the brother I never had!’

‘You don’t have a brother!’ Jai fired back at her.

‘Didn’t I just say that?’ Willow exclaimed furiously. ‘There was no flirting between us, nothing anyone could criticise. I like him and that’s it! I certainly don’t fancy him.’

Marginally mollified by that admission and aware that Ranjit was loitering in the dining room beyond the doors opening out onto the terrace, Jai murmured in an effort to lower the volume of their dispute, ‘I’m not even saying that you knew that you were flirting. It may have been quite unconscious on your part.’

‘Well, it must have been unconscious because I don’t think I even know how to flirt, with my lack of experience in that field!’ Willow slung back at him even louder. ‘Whatever you think you saw between Sher and me, you got it wrong, Jai.’

The doors eased shut with diplomatic quietness and colour edged Jai’s spectacular cheekbones. She was being unreasonable, and he didn’t know how what he had said had escalated into a full-blown acrimonious scene. He was not the jealous type and he was never, ever irrational and, had he been possessive, he would have stopped Sher from offering her the project in the first instance. And now, he wished he had done that, he conceded grimly.

‘I didn’t get it wrong,’ he insisted, refusing to yield an inch.

Willow lifted her chin, outraged green eyes locking to his. ‘You got it wrong in every way possible,’ she told him succinctly. ‘There was no flirting but if you can’t even admit that you’re jealous, how is anyone to persuade you that you’re wrong? All right, I’ll even make it easier for you. I’ll admit that initially I was jealous of Cecilia.’

‘Why on earth would you be jealous of her?’ Jai demanded in astonishment.

‘Because she was all over you like a rash at the party and at no time did I see you pushing her away and respecting the sort of boundaries you’re accusing me of breaking with Sher!’ Willow accused.

‘That was a different situation,’ Jai argued. ‘She was a friend long before I became more deeply involved with her.’

‘Oh, have it your own way!’ Willow snapped back in frustration, wishing she could get inside his head to rearrange his brain into a pattern she could recognise. ‘I’m done here. I’ve got nothing more to say to you until you admit that you’re a jealous, possessive toad, and then I might forgive you for insulting me!’

Beneath Jai’s speechless gaze, Willow rammed open the door and vanished back into the palace without another word. He refilled his wine glass and stood looking out over the lake, watching a sloth bear slurp a noisy drink at the edge of the lake while the chitter chatter of monkeys at dusk filled the air. Slowly he breathed in deeply, telling himself he had been foolish to assume that marriage would be an easy ride.

And yet it generally was with Willow, he conceded grudgingly. She had slotted into his life as though she had always been there, and he shared more with her than he had ever shared with a woman. At the outset, he had assumed that their marriage would be all about Hari, only it wasn’t. Their son was a point of connection, but it was Willow’s unspoilt, gentle nature, her lack of feminine guile and her interest in learning about everything that was new to her that continued to intrigue Jai. The flirting, most probably, had been unconscious, he decided, and possibly he should have kept his reservations about the degree of friendliness between his wife and his best friend to himself.

After all, he fully trusted Sher, so why hadn’t he had the same amount of faith in Willow? Hadn’t he once even cherished the insane suspicion that Willow might have been a fortune hunter? Was he so truly a prisoner of his father’s unhappy past and Cecilia’s mercenary betrayal that he could not trust a woman? That idea shook him and put him into a brooding mood before he went back to his office to work, as was his wont, to escape his uneasy thoughts.

Several hours later, he entered their bedroom quietly and discovered the ultimate bed-blocker blinking up at him in the moonlight: his son, snuggled up next to his mother. Hari closed his eyes again and Jai went off to find another bed.

Willow woke early the next morning with Hari tugging at her hair, and looked down at her son in surprise because she hadn’t intended him to spend the night with her, had simply fallen asleep while cuddling him for comfort. It’s not safe to sleep with him, her conscience reproached her, and she freshened up and returned Hari to the nursery staff, who greeted him as though he had been absent a week. She breakfasted alone, assuming Jai was already in his office because he was fond of dawn starts. Her annoyance with him was still intense, but she was troubled by the stand-off she had initiated the night before because Jai could be as stubborn and unyielding as the rock she had compared him to.

Willow sighed. She had had to confront him. He had not given her a choice and how could she compromise? The answer was that on such a dangerous point of contention, she couldn’t compromise, not if she wanted their relationship to have a future. That truth acknowledged, she frowned as she realised that this was also the morning Jai’s mother had invited her to meet her. She hadn’t had time to dwell on that thorny issue in recent days but now it was first and foremost in her mind.

Did she ignore that invitation as Jai would unquestionably expect her to do, or did she meet Lady Milly because she now knew, thanks to Jivika, that Jai’s mother had been cruelly misjudged?

Surely she had a right to discover the facts of the situation for herself? Or, even as Jai’s wife, was that background none of her business? Sadly, Jai was too loyal to his father’s memory to take advantage of the same opportunity, she reflected, and that was tragic. Maybe she could be a peacemaker, a go-between, she thought optimistically. If the meeting went the right way, it could bring Jai a great deal of happiness, she reasoned, her heart lifting at that optimistic prospect. Even Jai’s aunt, however, had been unwilling to run the risk of getting involved and yet Jivika was neither a weak nor timid personality. Willow’s teeth worried anxiously at her lower lip as she weighed the odds and then a rueful smile slowly crept across her lips because when it got down to basics, it was a simple decision.

Jai had been badly damaged and hurt by his conviction that his mother had abandoned him as a baby. Willow loved him, even when she was angry with him. If there was anything she could do to ease that pain that Jai fought to hide from the world, she would do it. And if he rediscovered a lost mother from the exercise, it would be well worth the risk she took and far more than she had ever managed to achieve with her own father, she conceded sadly.

A couple of hours later, Willow walked into the Royal Chandrapur, an exclusive boutique establishment on the other side of the city. From reception, she wheeled Hari’s buggy into the tiny lift and breathed in deep.

The first surprise was that the small blond woman who opened the door to her appeared to be much younger than she had expected. Well-preserved, she assumed, meeting eyes of the same startling pale blue as her husband’s and taking in the huge smile on the other woman’s face.

‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ she said frankly.

Willow winced. ‘I almost didn’t. Jai doesn’t know I’m here,’ she admitted guiltily.

‘And this is…little Hari?’

As the door closed behind them, Jai’s mother knelt down by the side of the buggy and studied Willow’s son in fascination. ‘He is spookily like Jai was at the same age,’ she whispered appreciatively. ‘Just a little older than Jai was when I left India.’

Willow breathed in deep and settled into the seat the other woman indicated with a casual hand. ‘What I don’t understand is, if you wanted contact with Jai why did you virtually cut him dead when you did finally meet him as an adult?’

‘Let me start at the beginning and then perhaps you’ll understand better. If you don’t, that’s fine too. I’m grateful you came here. First of all, I am Milly…and you are… Willow, I gather?’

Willow harnessed the very rude impatience tugging at her and nodded with a smile.

‘Would you like tea?’

‘No, thanks. Being here with you makes me a little nervous. Let’s talk about whatever we have to talk about,’ Willow urged.

‘A little background first, then,’ Milly decided, seemingly magnetised by the tiny fingers Hari was stretching out to her. ‘May I lift him?’ she asked hopefully.

Leaning down, Willow detached the harness and watched her son being scooped gently into his grandmother’s arms.

‘Where do I start?’ Milly sighed then. ‘I was twenty and Jai’s father was fifty when we married. My family were against it from the start because of the age gap but I was madly in love and I thought I knew it all.’

‘I didn’t know that there was such a big age gap between you,’ Willow admitted.

‘The marriage didn’t work from the start. Rehan wanted a quiet little wife, who stayed at home, and I was very independent. He was insanely jealous and controlling but the assaults didn’t begin until after Jai was born,’ Milly murmured flatly.

Willow’s clear gaze widened in dismay. ‘He hit you?’ she exclaimed.

Milly nodded. ‘We had terrible rows and he couldn’t control his temper. But I’m talking about slaps and kicks, not severe beatings.’

‘Abuse is abuse,’ Willow opined.

‘When my mother was dying, I had to return to England to be with her and, before I left, I made the mistake of telling Rehan that I believed we should separate. My biggest mistake, though, was agreeing to leave Jai behind until I came back. I was only away for two weeks,’ Milly proffered. ‘Rehan attended my mother’s funeral and brought what he said were divorce papers for me to sign but they were all in Hindi. I was so relieved that he was willing to let me go without a fuss that I signed… I hadn’t the smallest suspicion that I was surrendering my right to have custody of my son or access to him and by the time I realised that it was too late.’

‘Jai’s father tricked you?’ Willow was appalled.

Milly lifted a thick file on the small table between them and extended it. ‘If you can do nothing else, give this to Jai. It’s the proof of all the years I fought through the courts to try and regain access to him. I failed.’

‘But why, if you wanted to see him, did you deny him or whatever it was you did when you did see him?’ Willow demanded bluntly.

‘My husband and stepchildren didn’t know Jai existed at that stage,’ Milly volunteered shamefacedly. ‘Steven, my second husband, knew about my marriage to Rehan but I didn’t tell him that I’d had a child. My battle to see Jai consumed a decade and a half of my life and I got nowhere in all that time. I needed to move on to retain my sanity and make a fresh start. But I will admit that I was fearful of telling Steven that I had been deprived of my right to see my own child because, with three kids of his own, it might have made him doubt the wisdom of marrying me.’

The picture Willow was forming became a little clearer in receipt of that frank admission. ‘Steven had three children? They’re not yours?’ she prompted.

‘He was a widower with a young family when we met. I did hope to have another child, but I was almost forty by the time we married and it didn’t happen. It was only a few months afterwards that I ran into Jai in the flesh,’ his mother confided with tears in her eyes. ‘Someone actually introduced me to him… I was floored—there he was in front of me with his face stiffening as he realised who I was and I had been too scared to tell Steven about him! I walked away because I didn’t know what else to do with other people all around us. I wasn’t prepared.’

‘And then you tried to see Jai afterwards to explain,’ Willow filled in with a grimace. ‘And it was too late. The damage was done.’

Milly’s regret was palpable as she rocked Hari, who was curled up in her arms, perfectly content. ‘If only people stayed this innocent.’ She sighed. ‘I left a baby behind and now he’s a man and they’re much more complicated.’

Tell me about it, Willow ruminated uneasily, wondering whether she should go straight back to the Lake Palace and tell Jai who she had been with, or whether to go shopping instead in an effort to make her cover-up lie the truth, which would give her time to choose the optimum moment for such a revelation. But would there ever be a right moment to tackle so very personal and controversial a subject?

Deepening the deception she was already engaged in, however, felt even more wrong to her. Indeed, even being with Milly without her son’s knowledge felt wrong to Willow at that moment. But good intentions had to count for something, didn’t they? She argued with herself as she lifted the file and told Milly that she needed to get home but hoped to see her again. The older woman’s answering smile was sad, as if she seriously doubted the likelihood of them ever having a second meeting, and she thanked Willow heartily again for being willing to see her and giving her the chance to meet her grandson. When Willow mentioned Jivika’s input, Milly simply rolled her eyes, unimpressed.

‘Jivika is sincere,’ Willow insisted defensively.

‘But nothing’s changed. My ex-husband and, by the sound of it, now Jai as well have too much influence, too much status to be treated like ordinary people.’ Milly studied her with embittered eyes. ‘They may not rule any more but they’re still royal in the eyes of thousands. That’s why I never had a hope of fighting Rehan and winning. It was never an equal playing field. There were witnesses, who could’ve supported me but who were unwilling to expose their Maharaja for the man he really was.’

‘I’m truly sorry,’ Willow muttered uncomfortably. ‘I can’t promise anything, but I will try to talk to Jai some time soon.’

Even if it cost her her marriage? she asked herself worriedly as the limo drove back to the palace with Hari dozing contentedly in his child seat. Or was that an exaggerated fear? Who could tell how badly Jai would react? No, it wasn’t her place to act as a persuader, she reasoned uneasily. She would admit to meeting up with his mother and give him the file and leave it at that. She had interfered enough. He would make up his own mind about what, if anything, he wanted to do with what he learned.

When Jai went in search of Willow mid-morning he assumed she had gone to see Sher until he recalled that his friend had mentioned a trip to Mumbai that day, and he phoned her driver instead to discover where she had gone. A hotel? A moment later he rang the hotel and without hesitation requested a list of the British guests staying there. Only a few minutes beyond that he knew the only possible reason for his wife’s visit to the Royal Chandrapur and he could not credit that, after what he had told her, she could have gone to meet his mother. It outraged him and it didn’t make sense to him. Even so, by the time acceptance of that unwelcome fact had set in, his outrage had settled into a far more dangerous sense of betrayal.

When Willow climbed out of the limo carrying her sleeping son, eager hands were extended to take him back to the nursery and his lunch. Straightening, she headed up the shallow marble steps and saw Jai poised in the empty hall. One glance at the narrowed chilling glitter of his eyes and the forbidding coolness of his lean, strong features and her stomach dropped as though the ground beneath her feet had suddenly vanished. Her mouth ran dry and she swallowed painfully.