She had been an emotional wreck years ago and then she had run into Meenakshi Singh, who had been her saviour and on whose insistence she had seen a counsellor. The counsellor had trained her to switch off whenever painful memories began to intrude. She had had years of practice now and had become adept at pushing away agonising emotions while continuing to function stoically.
Vikram looked at her spent form, angry at the unwanted feeling of protectiveness that surged inside him. The only people he had ever truly cared about were his mother, his childhood friend Madhav and, later on, Madhav’s father. He had always been a loner and had never formed any attachments, even as a child. He’d always maintained an emotional distance with everyone, including Madhav’s family. But, ironically, Gauri always managed to disturb his equilibrium and had ruffled his equanimity on countless occasions.
The circumstances of her birth, her sudden appearance in Madhav’s family and the resulting furore had shaped his view of her. She had been the product of a one-night stand between Madhav’s father, Maharaj Sambhaji Rao, and a desperate and greedy actress who had seen the married Maharajah as a meal ticket and who had connived to get him very drunk at a party, seduced him and then trapped him by becoming pregnant.
That the Maharajah was bound to a terminally ill wife whom he could not leave had suited Gauri’s mother perfectly—knowing the limited shelf life of an actress, she had only wanted a benefactor to fund her expensive lifestyle. After Gauri’s birth, she had pretended great love for her daughter and had actively discouraged the Maharajah from having any contact with Gauri.
She had tearfully convinced the susceptible Maharajah that she didn’t want their daughter growing up ashamed of her illegitimate birth. The Maharajah had acquiesced and had retreated to the background. The astronomical sums of money she was given every month for Gauri’s upkeep were spent on leading a lavish, hedonistic lifestyle.
When Gauri turned five, Maharaj’s wife had died and, ironically, so had Gauri’s mother in an accident. Maharaj finally brought Gauri home.
Madhav had welcomed his chhoti bahen—younger sister—whom he lovingly called chhoti with open arms but the issue of her illegitimacy and her mother’s notorious reputation had filled Vikram with dislike.
As a child, she had been jealous of Vikram’s bond with her brother and would either ignore him or behave in a prickly manner. In turn, her doglike devotion to Madhav would irritate Vikram intensely and he had frequently been forced to hold his tongue, swallowing the scathing words springing to his lips in order not to upset Madhav.
And then, overnight, Gauri had grown up.
He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it had happened, but he’d started to realise that his breath often caught at the sight of her.
She had suddenly blossomed into a beauty and had wreaked havoc on his hormones. His senses would thrum with awareness at the sound of her light step and the blood in his veins would quicken at the sight of her long braid swinging against her hips as she turned and left a room. The disturbing effect she had on him had knocked him off balance and made him angry and he had often resorted to cold sarcasm in her presence.
With hindsight he recalled that they both had rubbed each other the wrong way right from the beginning.
He looked at her, wondering why she had the capacity to ruffle his unflappable calm and arouse disturbing feelings inside him, especially when he knew her true nature. The sedative worked and after a few minutes Gauri slid into a deep slumber.
Suddenly Vikram realised that Gauri hadn’t applied the ointment that the doctor had given her. He hesitated, unwilling to touch her again and uncertain about waking her up. Finally, aware that the doctor’s orders had to be followed, he applied the ointment on the swelling on her forehead. Her skin was like soft satin and his fingers tingled as he rubbed gently.
Gauri murmured something sleepily but didn’t awaken. He looked at her face.
The moonlight glinted on her face, highlighting the perfect symmetry of her features and her flawless luminescent skin. She had inherited her heart-stopping beauty from her actress mother, who had been an acclaimed beauty and had graced the covers of many magazines.
Gauri, too, had received a couple of acting offers while still in school, which her father, the Maharaj, had peremptorily turned down.
Vikram gazed at her heart-shaped face and sharp patrician nose, which always used to be adorned by a tiny gold nose pin. The nose pin was no longer there. But her lips were perfect as ever. They glistened invitingly in the moonlight.
A deeply buried memory of the kiss that they had shared almost six years back surfaced.
It had been during the festival of Holi, also known as the festival of colours. As part of a bet, Madhav and he, along with their friends, had downed numerous glasses of the traditional intoxicant drink bhang. Drunk and intoxicated on bhang, they all had danced in the moonlight and he had found himself dancing with an equally intoxicated Gauri. It was the first time he had touched her.
The next thing he remembered was kissing her under a secluded arch of the palace. The kiss had rocked him and ignited an explosion of feeling in him. Gauri had kissed him back and he had plundered the sweetness of her lips. They had tasted like ambrosia, and he had drunk greedily, passion flaring intensely between them. Their kiss had gone on and on and he had almost taken her there and then, and only the sudden realization that he was kissing the teenage sister of his best friend had stopped him. She had looked at him with her doe-like eyes, dazed and innocent, and his heart had slammed against his ribs.
The sensations had been so vivid and the experience so intensely arousing that for several days he had been unable to behave naturally in front of Madhav and had gone out of his way to ignore Gauri. His body’s intense reaction had shocked and disturbed him and, knowing the futility of pursuing their explosive chemistry, he had done his best to douse the raging hunger that had filled him since the kiss. Deep guilt had assailed him when he thought how close he had come to betraying his friend’s trust with his sister. Especially since Gauri was still so young, only sixteen and sweet and innocent—or so he had mistakenly thought.
It had been a struggle but he had fought hard against the searing attraction which seemed to infect him whenever Gauri appeared.
But his scruples had been misplaced, as he had soon learnt. Later events had shown how mistaken he had been to think of Gauri as a naïve and innocent teenager. While he had pulled back, thinking she was still a child, she had been conducting an affair with the stable boy under their unsuspecting noses. Even at sixteen she had been a master of deception and wiles and had crafted a careful web of lies and betrayal. He had felt like a fool for being taken in by her.
Gradually, he had buried the entire incident deep inside the recesses of his mind and had never permitted any recollection to cross his memory. But now Gauri was in his clutches and he would make her squirm for her deception and lies.
Vikram looked at her with ruthless satisfaction, bent forward towards his driver, gave him some instructions in a low voice and then stretched out his long legs and prepared to rest, too. It would be a long journey and he wanted to be fresh and alert when they arrived.
DAWN WAS BREAKING over the sky when the car slowed down before the stately wrought-iron gates which slid open at the sight of the familiar car.
