clearer.
But she answered stoically, ‘You may think what you want to! I will not say anything further about this.’
Vikram sensed that there was something Gauri wasn’t telling him. ‘You are hiding something. If you are so sure of their innocence why can’t you explain properly?’ he said fiercely.
Gauri refused to say anything and kept her eyes lowered and hands clenched.
‘So, you’re not going to answer? All right then, let’s try some different questions. Why did you flee six years ago? That, too, in the dead of the night and without informing anybody! You didn’t stop to think that we would be worried? You didn’t even care?’
Gauri turned paper-white as Vikram hurled a volley of accusations. Her legs began trembling and she felt she would collapse. Vikram saw her tremble but the anger inside him had burst its dam and he couldn’t stop. ‘Answer me, damn you!’ he hurled.
‘I … I left a letter for Madhav Dada, explaining that I had to go away and not to worry.’ Gauri forced out the words through trembling lips.
‘Don’t lie! I was with Madhav when we discovered your absence and there was no letter.’ Vikram was ready for every possible falsehood that she would offer.
Gauri raised her eyes in confusion. ‘But I left a letter in his room. He must have found it. Probably he didn’t mention it to you.’
‘Do you expect me to believe your untruths? If you had left a letter he wouldn’t have hired a detective to trace you,’ Vikram raked out.
‘He did that? But why? I mentioned that I would call him once I was settled to assure him that I was fine,’ Gauri said tremulously, bewilderment writ on her face.
She must think I am a fool. Her doe eyes and seemingly sincere expression would have swayed a more susceptible man, Vikram fulminated. But he knew better. She was a consummate actress and, even as a young girl, she had been adept at putting on performances and deceiving others.
‘Then why didn’t you call, as you claim?’ he countered with patent disbelief.
Gauri remained silent for a moment as another painful memory flitted across her mind. She had called once after about a month and Madhav’s grandmother, who was also her grandmother and whom she called Aaji Ma had received her call.
Aaji Ma had abused her, calling her names and then had banged down the phone on her after hissing venomously, ‘No one here wants to even hear your name, let alone speak to you! You are dead to us. Don’t ever call here again!’
Gauri said in a low pain-filled voice, ‘I did call but Aaji Ma answered and said that Madhav Dada had returned to England and Baba didn’t want to speak to me ever again. She said that I was dead to everyone and forbade me from calling again.’
‘What a convenient explanation,’ Vikram sneered. ‘If you had called as you claim, why didn’t Aaji Ma ever mention it? She knew detectives had been employed to trace you and she wouldn’t have kept quiet. I don’t believe you. You should have chosen a better story,’ he delivered cuttingly.
‘I don’t believe you.’ The harsh, dismissive words reverberated in Gauri’s head like bullets. Pain sliced through her. The majority of her childhood had been spent hearing these words. Aching thickness clogged her throat as she recalled how she had been branded a liar and a cheat as a child. And the slur had always remained.
Being the illegitimate daughter of her father, who had brought her to live with his family when her mother died, she had always been regarded as being conniving and dishonest and had been punished all her childhood for the circumstances of her birth. She had grown up suffocated under a crushing burden of guilt, believing that being born was her unforgivable crime. But she had learnt to school the hurt and the pain and had rarely revealed the depth of her misery.
‘Whether you believe me or not doesn’t matter. Madhav Dada will believe me once I tell him,’ she asserted.
Naked emotion streaked across Vikram’s face before it was hastily masked. ‘And how do you propose to do that?’
Gauri looked at him uncomprehendingly and Vikram said, ‘Madhav is no more. He is dead.’
Gauri let out a faint cry. ‘No!’
She looked at Vikram in numb disbelief, sure that he was playing a cruel joke on her, but the bleakness in Vikram’s face convinced her more than his words. Madhav Dada was no more. Her dear brother was dead. There was a roaring in her ears. She swayed and felt the floor rushing to meet her as she slid down in a dead faint.
Vikram saw her collapsing and tried to catch her before she fell but couldn’t reach her in time. As Gauri slid down she knocked her head on the edge of a wooden side table and Vikram winced as the thunk echoed around the room. He should have relayed the news more gently but anger had overridden his usually unflappable control.
He picked her up and, after laying her on the sofa in the corner of the room, pressed the alarm on his watch. His driver came rushing in and he dispatched him to fetch a doctor. In the meantime, he filled a glass with water and splashed some drops on Gauri’s face.
Despite his deep rage, he couldn’t fail to notice how her beauty shone and beckoned. Held close, the perfection of her delicate features was magnified.
He had last seen her as a young girl on the threshold of womanhood and now she had matured into a breathtakingly beautiful woman. Her long lashes fanned out in perfect crescents against her flawless skin. Desire coiled dangerously in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to touch her. Against his will, his hand reached out to gently smooth away a strand of hair that had escaped her tight braid, and he felt the satiny silk of her skin. He cupped his hand around her pale cheek and gently nudged her, calling her name.
Gauri opened her eyes and saw Vikram bending over her, a grim look on his face. Her insides turned at his proximity when suddenly remembrance struck and she closed her eyes in agony. Madhav Dada is dead, her mind whispered.
She heard Vikram calling out her name softly but kept her eyes shut. She didn’t want to open them and see anger and accusation on his face. It was better to lie still, hoping the agonising pain in her heart would ease a little.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of her apartment door opening. She opened her eyes cautiously and saw a man enter and murmur something to Vikram in a low voice.
The next instant she was lifted up in Vikram’s strong arms. Shock held her still for a moment. In so many years, they had never been within touching distance ever and here he was, holding her in his arms. She tried to wriggle away, but in vain, as Vikram held her tight and told her sternly to keep still.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked weakly, ignoring the throbbing in her temples. Vikram didn’t deign to answer and she fell silent, defeated by his forbidding expression. Her body was tingling and even through the drumming in her head she was extremely conscious of his strong arms enfolding her. Held close to his masculine chest, she could inhale the cologne that he always wore and which had been a part of her restless dreams for so long. She stiffened, mortified and self-conscious, trying to mask the sensations running through her body.
Vikram carried her effortlessly down the stairs and she demanded, ‘Where are you taking me?’
He
