Suniti blushed, a tinge of pink showing against her caramel-colored skin. Rob wondered if it was as smooth as it appeared, and whether her skin was a different tone beneath her clothes. He’d fantasized about it every night since they met.
“You do so often. I think I’ve laughed more in the past month than in years.” Suniti’s smile radiated warmth, and Rob wished to bask in it.
“I shall endeavor to continue making you smile. It’s brighter than the summer sun.” Rob snapped his mouth shut, not intending to share that thought. Her eyes widened before she glanced past his shoulder. She expected to find a disapproving guard watching them, but they were free of any supervision.
“Thank you. I?—”
“Suniti, I’m drawn to you in a way I’ve never been with anyone else, but I must ask you something. I know you’re older than Vinita, and your father is working on her betrothal. Are you already betrothed?”
Suniti shook her head and looked down. “I was a year ago. The man I was to marry died fighting in Jodhpur.”
Rob’s heart pinched for her grief and his envy.
“It is hard to lose someone you love.”
Suniti’s head jerked up. She shook her head. “I didn’t love him. I didn’t even know him. We’d never met. It was only out of respect for the dead that I looked away.”
“Is there no one now you wish to marry or that your father intends for you to marry?”
“I don’t think my father is negotiating anything. He’s focused on finalizing Vinita’s marriage.”
Rob stepped forward and slid his hands into hers. “You didn’t tell me if there was someone you wish to marry.”
“There’s someone I think I wish to, but I don’t know that he would want that type of relationship with me.” She looked away again. He saw the sadness and frustration in the stiff set of her jaw.
“Suni, look at me. I do not take advantage of maidens. I don’t toy with women. I have never and will never keep a mistress. I detest the practice. In a month, I’ve told you more about myself than any woman besides my mother knows. If you do not want what I do, then I will settle for your friendship. But that is not what I want.”
“What do you want?” Suniti met his gaze.
“To marry you.”
“There is no English church near here.”
“So? Could we not marry with a Hindu ceremony?”
“You don’t want an English marriage?”
“Not in the least. I don’t care about a church wedding, and I do not want some cold marriage where I see my wife long enough to beget an heir and a spare.”
“You will think differently when you return to England. You will want an Englishwoman on your arm.”
“I don’t think you realize how deeply insulting that is to me.”
Suniti watched Rob’s brow furrow, and she realized she’d unintentionally hurt him. She was trying to protect herself from disappointment. He wouldn’t be the first man to say he wanted an Indian wife, then leave her and their children behind to marry an Englishwoman in England.
“If I wanted an English wife, I could have stayed there and been married already. I didn’t realize I wanted a wife at all until I met you. We can travel to England if you wish to visit or live there. But if you do not, then my home remains here in India. I have no reason to go back unless it’s what you want.”
“But your family?”
“I love my mother and brother, but I couldn’t care a wit about my father.”
“He will disown you.”
“Likely. But it’s not his life to live. He made one with my mother, for better or for worse. Do you fear it would embarrass me to take you to England? To have people know we married?”
Suniti nodded. He cupped her jaw and brushed his lips against hers before pulling back.
“You or the family we build together will never embarrass me. I would show you the sights and sounds of London, then shout from the rooftops that I have the most beautiful, kind, funny, intelligent wife in the world. I care not what anyone says, but if anyone hurts you because you married me, they won’t live long enough to apologize.”
