by Penny Jordan
Take today. It was just over four weeks since she had last seen him—four weeks, two days and ten minutes, to be exact. Well, twenty minutes if she counted the extra ten minutes she had spent concealed behind the fretwork of the latticed jails, designed to keep the women of the harem from public view whilst enabling them to look down into the street below, watching Jay walk away from the palace.
Four weeks during which she had resolutely focused on her work, filling every heartbeat of time with a feverish busyness designed to deny her the ability to give in to the temptation to think about Jay. She had even taken to reading books on Indian culture and crafts when she went to bed, until her eyes became too heavy to stay open.
And yet earlier today, the minute she had looked up and seen him, every rule she had made to protect herself had been ignored and forgotten.
It had taken his insulting remark about Alex to force her to recognise reality.
In that regard at least she was most certainly not her mother’s daughter, Keira recognised tiredly. She felt no quickening of her senses at all where other men were concerned.
Which made her danger greater rather than less. Loving the wrong man could be every bit as destructive as loving too many wrong men—especially when that wrong man was a man like Jay.
* * *
Jay leaned against one of the pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling of the palace’s main reception room. The walls and the pillars were decorated with a traditional form of plasterwork that had been hand polished with a piece of agate, to create a marble finish, but of course that finish was a fake, false—just like Keira. Did she really think he had been deceived by that protest of hers about her fabric designer friend?
Jay paced the room restlessly. He had gone to Mumbai to escape from the ache of wanting her that being here with her gave him. He had even sworn that he would ease that ache in the arms of the actress who had been so delighted to hear from him. So why hadn’t he done exactly that? And why had he cut short his visit and returned here ahead of schedule?
He wasn’t going to answer that question. Why should he, when he had so many far more important matters to concern himself with?
* * *
Keira’s heart sank as she stood in the main entrance hall to the palace. Her driver had just brought her the unwelcome news that he was not going to be driving her to her appointment but that instead Jay was going to take her, and that he would join her shortly.
Up above her was the gallery she had just walked along, which separated the main part of the palace from the women’s quarters, where once they had lived in Purdah.
Purdah! The concealment of a woman’s face and body from the eyes of all men except those of her immediate family. To some a protection, but to others a form of imprisonment. As a Western woman the very thought of enduring Purdah was beyond comprehension.
But wasn’t the reality that what she herself was enduring, and had endured for most of her life, was in its own way an inner form of Purdah, imposed on her by her own fears? Her Purdah meant that her emotions and desires must always remain hidden away, denied the light of day for her own protection.
Keira tensed as she heard Jay’s now familiar footsteps crossing the hallway.
‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’
How formal he sounded—and looked, Keira thought, contrasting his immaculate appearance in a perfectly fitting lightweight neutral-coloured suit worn over a pale blue shirt with her own jeans and shirt. But then she had dressed for the bumpy, dusty ride she had been anticipating. Her driver tended to keep the windows of the car open rather than use the air-conditioning, so that he could engage in conversation with other drivers.
They were in the car before Jay spoke to her again.
‘Remind me again what the purpose of your visit to this manufacturer is?’
The sarcastic tone of his voice made Keira wish even more that he had not chosen to accompany her.
‘I want to see the finished furniture before it is delivered, to make sure that it will work. He’s making some special shelving units for the larger properties. They’re to go into the studies and the children’s rooms, and I wanted to see how he’s getting on with them. If my idea works I thought they could be adapted to various age groups if they were given different paint finishes. I also wanted to make sure that he understands that all the paint used must be lead-free. I’m trying where possible to ensure that all the raw materials used come from sustainable sources. Green issues are just as big here in India with the middle classes as they are in Europe, of course.’
Jay had been driving fast, but now he had slowed down to allow for the leisurely progress of several camel carts.
‘I see. And can I be confident that this designer is not another of your countrymen, looking for what you are so obviously eager to give?’
He was hateful, horrible, making accusations without any justification to back them up. Except that in his arms she had been eager to give, hadn’t she? And she could hardly tell him that he was the first, the last and the only man to whom she had wanted to give herself. Even if she did he wouldn’t believe her, and if he ever got to know about her background and her mother, he’d think he had even more reason for his accusations.
‘I am not the one who controls what you do or don’t think,’ was the only thing she could think of to say to him to show her feelings about his comment.
But it was no use. He swooped on her words as swiftly as a predatory bird of prey to the lure—so much so, in fact, that she could almost feel the verbal bite of his sharp talons as he countered, ‘But you are the one whose behaviour gives rise to my thoughts.’
Keira had had enough.
‘If you choose to think that a simple lighthearted exchange of words between a man and a woman is tantamount to an offer of sex then I feel sorry for you—or rather I feel sorry for the women who are the victims of your prejudice, should they happen to indulge in what they think is lighthearted conversation with you.’
‘Your sex does not indulge in lighthearted conversation. It plans the course of its words with military precision—from the minute a woman makes an approach to a man to the minute he hands over to her the reward she has already decided he will give her in exchange for the pleasure of her company.’
‘That is just cynical and unfair. There may be some women who do do that, but—’
‘Some women—of which you are one, as we both already know.’
Keira knew there was nothing she could say that would make him accept that he was wrong about her. And why should she care if he did? What benefit would it be to her? It would simply make her even more vulnerable to him. At least this way she had his contempt of her to strengthen her determination not to allow her feelings for him to betray her.
* * *
The furniture factory was outside a small, dusty and very busy town on the caravan route where the plain met the desert.
Henna painters sat cross-legged on the roadside, hoping for passing custom; up ahead of them a farmer was unloading cackling chickens onto a stall ready to sell, whilst hot food was already on sale at another stall, filling the air with the scent of spices and cinnamon. A group of temple musicians walked past, their brightly coloured turbans contrasting with their white clothes.
‘The factory is over there,’ she told Jay, pointing in the direction of a two-storey building set apart from the others.
The desert heat hit Keira the minute she stepped out of the air-cond
itioned car. It was post-monsoon now, and she couldn’t imagine what it must be like in the oppressive heat before the rains came.
The air was sharp with the smell of glue and paint, stinging her nostrils and making her catch her breath.
Their arrival had obviously been noticed, because the door to the factory owner’s office had opened and the owner himself was hurrying towards them. Keira saw the anxious look he gave Jay, and felt sorry for him. Jay was an extraordinarily formidable man, especially when his mouth was compressed and he was frowning, as he was doing now.
‘Hello, Mr Singh,’ Keira greeted the factory owner. ‘Please let me introduce His Highness Prince Jayesh to you.’
Keira could see how awed the factory owner was by Jay—which was hardly surprising. Jay dwarfed the other man, physically and materially, and poor Mr Singh was looking more anxious by the second.
They were ushered towards the office with many bows and a great deal of ceremony. The factory owner was plainly on edge, but no more than Keira was herself. This was a big test of her ability not just to locate and order furniture, but also to ensure that what she had ordered worked with the whole scheme.
She sensed that Jay had accompanied her not just to check up on her, but in the hope that she might fail—and that, of course, added to her anxiety.
‘And now, Miss, if you will come, please, and see your shelves?’ Mr Singh invited once they had gone through the formality of drinking tea.
Mr Singh led them into an anteroom of the factory, where Keira’s shelving had been put on display.
To her relief it was exactly what she had wanted: constructed in sections so that it could be put together in different combinations, to cover an entire wall or merely part of it, either low or high on the wall. These particular shelves had been painted black and then rubbed down for a modern look.
Keira went up to them to inspect them properly, checking the quality of the paintwork and then testing the shelves themselves for stability.
‘They are good, yes?’ the factory owner asked eagerly.
‘Yes,’ Keira confirmed.
The factory owner’s mobile phone rang. As he turned aside to answer it Keira ran her hand along the underside of one of the shelves, wincing when her finger was pierced by a small splinter of wood and quickly withdrawing her hand to inspect the damage.
‘Let me see,’ Jay demanded peremptorily
The factory owner had excused himself to deal with his call, and suddenly the small room felt very claustrophobic now that she was alone in it with Jay.
‘It’s only a splinter,’ Keira told him. But he was ignoring her, reaching for her hand and taking hold of it before she could stop him whilst he frowned over the splinter and then expertly removed it.
A single small drop of bright red blood had formed at the exit to the wound, but Keira barely noticed it. All her attention was concentrated on the fact that Jay’s fingers were still curled around her wrist, and that he was standing close enough to her for her to hear the sound of his heartbeat.
Her own heartbeat increased in speed. The drop of blood quivered in response to it. Jay looked down at it, and then lifted her hand to his mouth.
Keira drew in a sharp breath and then discovered that she couldn’t release it. She started to tremble.
The slow curl of Jay’s tongue around her finger felt like rough velvet stroking her skin. Molten heat invaded her body. She wanted to close her eyes and stay with him, savouring this feeling for ever. She wanted... The sound of footsteps outside the door as the factory owner returned jerked her back to reality. She pulled her hand free and exhaled unsteadily.
The factory owner was saying something, but she couldn’t concentrate, so it was Jay who responded to him.
How could something so simple be responsible for the sensations and emotions tearing her apart?
CHAPTER NINE
THEY WERE JUST over halfway back to the city when Keira happened to glance in the passenger-side wing mirror and notice the stormclouds that were rapidly darkening the sky behind them, piling on top of one another in a leaden grey and densely packed mass.
Jay had obviously seen them too, because he depressed the accelerator and told her crisply, ‘Looks like we could be in for a downpour.’
‘I thought the monsoon season was over,’ Keira told him. The clouds were toppling over one another now, spilling out to cover the sky in a billowing rolling wall that was moving speedily towards them.
‘It is,’ Jay agreed. ‘This is obviously a freak storm of some sort. It can happen. Hold on,’ he warned her, as he pressed the accelerator even further and the car surged forward at a speed that sent them bouncing over the poor-quality road.
‘I wouldn’t normally want to travel at this speed on a road like this, but I’d rather not be caught out here in the open if the storm catches up with us. If a deluge starts this road could all too easily be turned into a river.’
Keira nodded her head, recognising the truth of what he was saying.
The sky was almost purple-black behind them now, and the branches of the scrubby sparse trees were bending and twisting in the ferocity of the wind that was pushing the storm towards them. Flocks of birds rose from the trees, wheeling and screeching before turning to flee. Eerily electric yellow-white lightning flashed behind them, followed by crashes of thunder that made Keira wince and cling to her seat.
She no longer wanted to look in the wing mirror, but of course she couldn’t stop herself from doing so. The storm was catching up with them.
‘Watch out.’
Jay swung the car to avoid hitting a cow that had strayed into the road, throwing Keira hard against both her seat belt and the arm he had flung across to protect her. Her own immediate instinct was to hold tightly to his arm, as much for comfort as anything else.
‘Sorry about that.’
His voice was clipped, and Keira could feel him tensing his arm, ready to pull away from her as though he was keen to break their physical contact. Just as she should be.
‘I’m just glad you managed to avoid the cow,’ Keira told him shakily, trying to make some effort at normal conversation to distract herself from the dangerous direction of her thoughts. She released him, and then had to fight not to grab hold of him again as another bolt of lightning lit up the bruised tungsten-dark sky.
Large fat drops of rain hammered down on the car’s roof and hit the windscreen, mingling with the dust to turn it into muddy rivulets.
‘I’m going to have to slow down,’ Jay warned her. ‘Otherwise we’ll risk aquaplaning off the road.’
Keira nodded her head. She was grateful to him for keeping her informed of what he was doing and why, but she didn’t want to distract him from his driving by talking to him.
Not that she could talk to him now and be heard—not over the noise of the thunder and the rain that was engulfing them.
Sheet lightning illuminated a torrent of rain so powerful that it was as though they were driving under a waterfall. In the car’s headlights Keira could see the muddy froth of boiling water where the road used to be.
Jay had cut the car’s speed, but Keira could still feel the dangerous suck and pull of the flooding water as it seethed beneath their tyres, threatening to wash them off the road.
Strangely, she didn’t feel as afraid as she knew she should. Because she was with Jay? Keira glanced briefly towards him. He was staring ahead, concentrating on his driving, his hands on the steering wheel careful and controlled rather than white-knuckled with anxiety. Somehow she knew that Jay would not let the storm beat him.
‘Ralapur’s up ahead,’ Jay told her, and sure enou
gh, as Keira peered through the windscreen, she could see here and there the glimmer of lights.
Jay picked up speed again, leaving the storm behind, and they came to the new Tarmac road—commissioned and paid for, she had learned, by Jay’s brother, who was proving to be a forward-thinking and caring figurehead. The Tarmac gleamed wet under the drum of the rain, but at least it was free of any surface water.
By the time they reached the city car park the rain had actually almost stopped, but the storm was obviously following them.
‘If you want to stay here whilst I go and get you a raincoat and an umbrella—?’ Jay offered, as he switched off the engine.
Keira shook her head. ‘No, I’ll come with you,’ she told him. She’d rather risk getting a bit wet and having the safety of his presence than remaining dry and staying in the car on her own.
‘Come on, then.’
They were only yards from the square in front of the palace when the storm caught up with them, drenching them with a deluge of rainfall that soaked them through to the skin, hammering down so hard that Keira felt as though she could hardly breathe.
When Jay took hold of her hand, shouting to her above the noise of the rain, ‘We’ll go this way—it’s quicker!’ as he half-pulled her down a narrow passageway and through a high gate in the wall that took them into his own private courtyard, she didn’t have the breath to object, even if she had wanted to do so. Far easier and safer to simply let Jay lead her up the flight of stone stairs that led from his courtyard to his door, which he opened speedily, pushing Keira inside ahead of him, and then slammed closed behind them, enclosing them both in the welcome dry protection of the room beyond it.
The thought occurred to Keira that not once during the storm had she felt anything less than complete faith in Jay, and complete trust in his judgement as he had made decisions she knew she would not have had the confidence to make. But what she would remember most of all about the storm was the warmth of his hand holding hers. It was pointless telling herself that the sense of intimacy she had felt and the joy it had brought her were completely out of proportion to his actions, and therefore a warning sign of how dangerously out of her depth she was getting. It was too late. She suspected that somehow, somewhere along the journey from their first meeting to being here in this room, she had fallen in love with him.