by Anne Weale
Now all she had to do was to tell Alex.
She was having her lunch break when he came storming into the studio.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’ he demanded.
She had anticipated that he wouldn’t be pleased, but she hadn’t foreseen this eventuality.
‘Hello, Alex. Do come in,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Tell you what?’
‘You know what I’m talking about. I don’t like being taken for a ride. This is something you should have made clear from the outset.’
She met his angry glare calmly, determined not to be upset. ‘I really don’t see why. It has nothing to do with my professional qualifications. Kesri isn’t fussed about it. Why should you be?’
It was plain that he was enraged, his control of his temper close to snapping point. ‘You lied by default,’ he accused her. ‘You knew I wouldn’t have backed your application if you had told me the truth.’
Nicole’s chin lifted. Her lips firmed. ‘Why wouldn’t you have backed it?’ she challenged him.
It was obvious from his hesitation that he hadn’t thought the thing through. Kesri had mentioned the matter to him and Alex had shot round to see her without working out why he was angry and giving himself time to calm down.
‘A mother’s place is with her child,’ he said curtly. ‘Has it occurred to you that, if your son had an accident, there’s no way you could reach him quickly?’
It had not only occurred to her, it was a waking nightmare that she had difficulty pushing to the back of her mind.
‘Of course I’ve thought about that,’ she said impatiently. ‘But people can’t let their lives be governed by worst-case scenarios. I weighed all the pros and cons and concluded that taking this job would be best for me...and for my son. He’s at an excellent boarding-school, his grandfather lives nearby and Dan and I write every day. If we hadn’t been able to do that, I probably wouldn’t have applied for a job overseas. But with email, distance doesn’t matter. We’re in touch with each other on a daily basis.’
Alex continued to glower. ‘All that doesn’t alter the fact that you were behaving dishonestly by keeping silent about him. I thought better of you.’
The sting of contempt in his tone hurt her more deeply than she was prepared to admit. It also lit the fuse of her temper. ‘No, you didn’t,’ she told him hotly. ‘You never thought well of me. If you had, you wouldn’t have tried to get me into bed with you at the Imperial. If you’d known that I had a child, you’d have made yourself even more objectionable. You’d have told yourself I was begging for it. I’ve met men like you before.’
This was completely unjust and she knew it as she was saying it. He was nothing like the men who had made unwelcome passes at her. Nor had he done a thing that, at her most primitive level, she hadn’t welcomed.
‘And hate our guts...is that what you’re trying to tell me?’ he asked, coming closer. ‘One of us let you down and you hate the entire male sex. Especially me because, though wild horses wouldn’t make you admit it, you wanted to be in my bed as much as I wanted you there.’
To be taunted with the truth was more than she could bear. In a reflex she hadn’t known was in her, she brought up her hand in the age-old response of a woman goaded beyond endurance.
In an even faster reflex, Alex caught hold of her wrist and stopped her palm reaching its target.
‘Denials are a waste of breath. I know and you know it’s true...and very easy to prove.’
He swept her into a crushing embrace and brought his mouth down on hers. For a few seconds she resisted. Then, knowing it was futile, she surrendered.
Afterwards she had no idea how long they lasted, those fiercely passionate moments in his arms. She felt he despised her and desired her in equal measure, but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered but the feel of his powerful body and the sensuous warmth of his lips to which her lips were responding as eagerly and freely as if they were husband and wife, reunited after a long separation.
That, all the time they were kissing, was exactly what it felt like; the coming together of two halves now made one. She couldn’t believe that their anger could, by fusing, become something different, something exquisitely pleasurable. But she had to believe it because it was happening and if it went on much longer she was going to...
And then, at the precise moment when she recognised the quivering of her thighs and other unfamiliar sensations as signals of losing control even more catastrophically, Alex released his hold and put her away from him.
He was barely in control himself. That much was obvious from his breathing and the blaze she could see in his normally cool grey eyes.
‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was rough with violent emotion. ‘I didn’t intend to do that. But the treaty we had couldn’t have lasted much longer. The sooner I get back to the desert, the better for both of us.’
He turned and walked out of the room.
Alex was still in the desert when Dan arrived.
The day before, Nicole was flown to Delhi by Kesri’s pilot. She spent the night at his sister’s apartment in New Delhi, the modern part of the capital. Next morning they both went to the airport to meet Dan.
It took all Nicole’s self-control not to weep with joy at the sight of her son. He had shot up at least an inch since they said goodbye. When they had finished hugging, she introduced him to Chandra, glowing with maternal pride as he pressed his palms together and bowed his head respectfully before taking the hand she offered him.
‘Should I have touched her feet?’ he asked later, when Chandra had left them and they were waiting to board the Maharaja’s plane.
‘I don’t think so. It’s a lovely gesture of respect from young Indians to their elders, but as far as I know it’s not customary for foreigners to do it...unless they’re presented to someone very old and venerable,’ said Nicole.
With Dan sitting next to the pilot, she occupied one of the seats in the aircraft’s small main cabin. From the air, most of the terrain they flew over between Delhi and Karangarh looked like a barren and empty landscape traversed by a few roads. But in one of the conversations during their friendly phase Alex had told her that this was a false impression. Had they been driving across this apparently deserted countryside, and had they stopped in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, a surprising number of people would suddenly have materialised to stare with uninhibited curiosity at the strangers passing through their territory.
Like her, Dan hadn’t slept during the flight from London. By the time they reached the palace he was covering huge yawns and looking cross-eyed with tiredness. When she suggested a nap, he agreed that he was sleepy.
It was early evening when Nicole went to his room to wake him for supper. Like all boys of his age, he was sleeping so deeply that only a shaking would rouse him. She sat on the side of the bed, gazing at his unconscious face. It had lost the rounded contours of childhood and was beginning to show the first hints of how he would look in maturity, although his full lips and long eyelashes would not change for a while yet.
She thought of Alex’s mouth as it was now and wondered what he had looked like at thirteen. She would ask Kesri if he had any photos of himself at Dan’s age. They might include shots of Alex. When would he come back? What would his attitude to Dan be?
Dismissing Alex from her thoughts, she put her hand on Dan’s shoulder and gently shook him awake.
They talked without pause for the rest of the evening until it was time for them both to go to bed.
To Nicole’s delight, everyone who came into contact with her son seemed to find him as lovable as she did. She had prepared him for the fact that he might find gestures of friendliness and affection more vigorous than similar gestures in the west.
It was as well that she had. In his first few days at the palace, he received several pokes in the ribs and good-natured slaps that were actually intended as pats. He took them all in his stride, his natural friendliness and interest in everything around him maki
ng the transition easier than if he had been a shyer, less confident boy.
Dan had been at Karangarh for a week when Alex returned. Chandra and one of her aunts were spending a few days at the palace. They both had brief speaking parts in a new promotional video Kesri was having made.
Nicole and Dan and the video team had been invited to dinner and were having drinks beforehand when Alex walked in. Nicole didn’t know at first that he had arrived because she was chatting to Chandra. It was the way Chandra’s face lit up that made Nicole glance over her shoulder and see him crossing the room to greet the elegant older woman who was wearing a lavender chiffon sari.
Nicole resumed her conversation with Chandra, as if his arrival was of no special importance to her. But in that momentary glimpse of the involuntary brightening of the other woman’s eyes she had recognised love: a love that was normally masked but tonight, caught off guard, had revealed itself for an instant.
It was several minutes before Alex came over to join them. ‘Good evening, ladies.’
His smile for Chandra was warm, but he didn’t smile at Nicole. A rather formal inclination of the head was all she received from him.
‘I’ve been talking to your son,’ he told her.
‘He’s been looking forward to meeting you,’ she answered calmly, though the memory of their last encounter made it difficult to maintain her composure. ‘But I think his ideas about the desert are probably far more romantic than the reality.’
‘At Dan’s age Alex and Kesri were full of romantic ideas,’ said Chandra. ‘They spent most of their time acting out stories from the past. I wasn’t allowed to take part. I think it was being excluded from their exciting games that made me determined to become a doctor and to help other women have more control of their lives. But we still have such a long way to go,’ she added, with a sigh.
Nicole felt a touch on her hand and found Dan standing at her elbow. She made room for him to join them, resting her arm lightly on his shoulders. She felt Alex’s eyes on them, but Chandra had continued and Nicole listened, pretending to be unaware of the male presence on her right
Chandra was still deploring the inequalities suffered by many of her countrywomen when Kesri led them through to the adjoining dining room where he indicated where he wished his guests to sit.
Nicole had her son on one side of her and the director of the video on the other. On the other side of the table Alex was seated between Chandra and her aunt. During the meal they received more or less equal shares of his attention, Nicole noticed. But even if he would have preferred to spend all the time talking to Chandra, politeness would have obliged him to make himself equally agreeable to the older woman. When he was listening to Chandra, it was impossible to tell how he felt about her.
Perhaps if he realised she loved him, he might see her in a new light. They had so much in common; memories going back to their schooldays, the same deep commitment to India. It might be that Chandra was the one woman who could thaw his frozen heart.
CHAPTER SIX
WHAT Nicole had not foreseen was that Dan would quickly decide Alex was hero material. She had thought her son would be more impressed by Kesri’s past exploits as a polo player and skier. But it was Alex and his journeys in the desert whom he seemed to find more exciting than the Maharaja and his silver trophies.
Even more surprisingly, in view of her own strained relationship with him, Alex responded to Dan’s interest, patiently answering his questions and spending time with him.
Late one afternoon, when she had spent the day working on designs for embroideries which combined traditional shapes with exportable colour combinations, Dan came rushing in to announce that, if she agreed, Alex was willing to take him into the desert.
‘He thinks you may not say yes, but you will, Mum, won’t you? I’ll be OK with Alex. I want to go more than anything.’
‘How long would you be gone?’
‘Not long, only a few days. Think how educational it will be,’ he said earnestly.
‘All right, if you think you’ll enjoy it.’
‘Excellent!’ He slung his arms round her. ‘I knew you’d agree...can’t think why he thought you wouldn’t.’
Relieved that Dan’s antennae had not picked up any signals that his new hero and his mother had fallen out with each other, Nicole said casually, ‘Perhaps he thought I might not like your going off without me.’
‘You could come with us...if you wanted to. I’ll ask him, if you like?’
‘No, no...I don’t want to come. I have too much to do and it’s a guys’ thing anyway.’
Although Dan was used to her working during his holidays, she wished she could spend more time with him. Sometimes she found herself envying her grandmother’s generation who, if they had had careers, had usually put them on hold while their children were growing up. But even in those days a woman had needed a husband who was able to support her. Nicole’s father had been willing to do that for her, but she hadn’t felt comfortable with it. For the first four years of Dan’s life, she had freelanced from home. Then he had started at play school and she had worked full-time, with her father minding his grandson when she wasn’t there for him.
At the weekend they joined a picnic Kesri had arranged for some visiting travel agents. Alex was also present.
The picnic took place at a small pleasure palace built by one of Kesri’s ancestors on the shore of a small ‘tank’, the name for a man-made lake. They were having lunch in one of the airy sandstone pavilions overlooking the lake when the talk turned to the desert.
In a pause in the conversation, Dan turned to Alex and said, ‘Could Mum come into the desert with us?’
She was about to say that she didn’t have time when Kesri intervened. ‘If you would like to go, Nicole, I’m sure Alex would be happy to take you.’
She saw a muscle flicker at the point of Alex’s jaw and felt sure he was secretly annoyed at his friend’s intervention. But he didn’t allow his private feelings to show.
‘As long as you’re perfectly clear that it won’t be a comfortable excursion...’ he said, giving her a keen look. “There are no mod cons where we’re going.’
‘I think I can cope with that on a short term basis.’ She turned to Kesri. ‘If I have your permission to take the time off.’
‘By all means. The break will do you good. You’ve been working very long hours since you’ve been here. You know what they say about “all work and no play”. You may find the desert inspires you.’
There were moments, in the desert, when Nicole suspected Alex of making their journey especially arduous. Dan loved every minute, but there were times when she had to grit her teeth and endure the long jolting drives between stops and the uncomfortable conditions when they did reach where they were going.
Determined not to betray by so much as the flicker of an eyelash that she longed to be back in the luxury of the palace, or even somewhere with fairly primitive mod cons, she forced herself to adapt to being hot, sticky, dirty and, much of the time, uncomfortable.
There was no way she could avoid looking a mess and the fact that Alex was unshaven and unwashed didn’t make her feel any better. Several days’ growth of stubble looked good on him and even the smell of his sweat was not offensive. Something deeply primitive in her responded to the sheen and scent of his hot tanned skin. But she felt he must find her increasingly unattractive as heat and dust took their toll.
He had an uncanny knack of picking her lowest moments to make a sardonic remark. Once, when she had been relieving herself behind the inadequate shelter of a thorn bush, praying not to encounter a snake or scorpion, he greeted her return with, ‘The nightmare will soon be over.’
Nicole raised her eyebrows. ‘What makes you think it’s a nightmare?’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Not in the least...it’s a fantastic adventure.’
And, in a way, it was. Despite the physical discomforts, despite her longing for a shower, she wasn’t sorry s
he had come. If only for a little while, the three of them felt like a family. It gave her a sense of unity she had never previously experienced.
But perhaps from his perspective, having a woman and child with him was an encumbrance.
As their journey came to an end, Alex glanced at Nicole who was sitting beside him, gazing ahead at Karangarh which, from this angle and this distance, looked like one of the lost cities of legend.
He knew, although she denied it, that much of the trip had been an ordeal for her. But she had stood up to it well, never complaining about the primitive conditions. How much of her stoicism had been motivated by a desire not to spoil things for Dan, it was hard to tell.
Alex had half expected her to crumble when the reality of desert travel, uncushioned by tourist concessions, made itself felt. Instead, when her hair became lank, she had hidden it with a turban that drew his attention to the beauty of her forehead and cheekbones. If she minded having dirty feet and less than perfectly clean hands, she did not allow it to show. Nor did she wrinkle her nose when he was near her. For his part, he found her natural aroma curiously erotic. If they had been on their own, he would have found it hard to restrain himself.
Even now, with the boy sitting behind them, he had to control an urge to take one of her hands from her lap and sink his teeth into the softness at the base of her thumb. He wanted her more than he had on her first night in India. She was becoming an obsession which he would have to cure.
Although it was a long time since Dan had believed in Father Christmas, he still enjoyed finding a football sock stuffed with small presents on the end of his bed on Christmas morning. The Christmas after his eighth birthday, he had filled a stocking for Nicole. It had not been his grandfather’s idea. Dan had thought of it off his own bat and continued it every year since.