He wanted to make love to her. Velvet trembled at the thought. No one had ever made love to her but Alex.Alex.She tried desperately to remember his face and found to her horror that it was difficult to recall. Not because she loved him any the less in death, but because it had been so long since she had last seen him and she had no miniature to remind her. Silent tears ran down the sides of her face. This sudden realization made her feel disloyal and guilty. Rising from her bed, she wrapped the silk coverlet about her body and, softly opening her chamber door, stepped over the sleeping Adali and slipped down the hall to Pansy’s small cubicle.
“M’lady!” Pansy whispered as Velvet entered the room.
“Can you not sleep either?”
Velvet shook her head, and then said as she settled herself on the floor next to her tiring woman, “Can you remember what Dugald looked like, Pansy? I meanreallyremember?”
Pansy looked unhappy. “Nay,” she answered her mistress. “I cannot, m’lady, not his features—just the fact that he had a mop of red hair, blue eyes, and was as freckled as I am. The rest is gone, but perhaps if me baby is a lad he’ll look like his pa, and I’ll remember then.”
“I cannot remember Alex,” Velvet said sadly. “Like you I remember that his face was a strong one, his hair black, and his eyes amber. The rest is gone!”
“Maybe it’s better for us that way,” Pansy said wisely. “Maybe it’s best that we not remember. We ain’t going home neither of us, m’lady. You ain’t said it to me, I know, for fear of harming my child, but I know it to be true. We’re going to have to make our lives here, or we ain’t going to have no lives at all.” She struggled to sit up on her pallet, and as her gown tightened across her stomach Velvet could see the movement of the child so near to its birth. “Lord Akbar, the emperor of this land, now he loves you; even I can see it when you come to visit me each morning. I don’t think he’d be an unhappy man if you made your life with him.”
“He has already made me his legal wife,” Velvet said softly, “though the marriage had not been consummated yet.”
“And he wants to, but you don’t?” Pansy questioned her outright.
“Yes.”
“I think in the end, m’lady, if you’ll not be angry with me for being so bold, you really haven’t any other choice. Besides, it appears to me that you could have done worse than to have the ruler of such a rich land fall in love with you and make you his wife. I always remember me mum saying that her Mistress Skye survived by facing the situation honestly.
What’s past is past, m’lady. ’Tis here and now, and we’ve got to go on. I’m not happy about never seeing me Dugald again, but I’ve had time to think about that these last few weeks, and I’ve faced it. I’m going to have me bairn, raise it, and maybe even find me another husband! I don’t hold no illusions that Dugald ain’t going to find another woman for hisself.”
“Another husband! Oh, Pansy, you are so much wiser than I am, and you are right. We cannot wish away what is. I thought it was so awful of me not to be able to recall Alex’s face, and I grew frightened. Now I had better return to my chamber lest Adali awake and rouse the watch looking for me.” She stood up. “I shall ask my lord Akbar to move you to my chamber as quickly as possible. I miss you!” She smiled at Pansy and then slipped from the room to return to her own.
Laying back down upon her bed, she thought of all Pansy had said. The tiring woman was only a few months older than she was, and her experience hadn’t been any greater than Velvet’s. Still, she had her mother’s practical nature, and Velvet was glad that she did, for Pansy’s words had comforted and reassured her. She had to admit that she was a little afraid of Akbar’s making love to her, but it was, she thought, only because she was not particularly experienced. She had to admit when he had kissed her and fondled her this evening she had not found it unpleasant. Her distress had mainly stemmed from her guilt. All she had been able to think of was that she was Alex’s wife. Now she was ready to face the fact that she was Alex Gordon’s widow and the Grand Mughal Akbar’s bride.
These things now clear in her mind, Velvet slept. She did not hear, nor had she heard in all the nights she had lain in this room, Akbar’s entry into the chamber. Bare-footed, he came across the floor to stand by her bed and gaze down upon her, his face alive with the love and the passion he felt for her. Reaching out his hand, he gently drew the coverlet aside so that he might look upon her nude beauty. For some time he drank in her loveliness, aching with his desperate need to possess her. Then with a deep sigh he turned and left the room. Behind him, she stirred slightly as the door clicked shut, but she did not awaken until the morning.
Adali had been briefed by Akbar himself that this night would be the night that the Mughal would consummate his marriage to the English Rose. Since she needed coaxing, the lady Jodh Bai was sending her a Pillow Book, which would arrive sometime that day. The bride was not to be forewarned lest the anticipation distress or frighten her. Her day would be as usual.
Velvet awoke at midmorning and, after her usual meal of yogurt, fruit, and tea, went off to the baths, which she very much enjoyed. It was there that Jodh Bai and Rugaiya Begum made their first overtures of friendship. Having been bathed, Velvet was swimming about the pool happily relaxed when the two other women joined her.
“What is your name, eunuch?” Rugaiya Begum demanded of Adali.
“I am called Adali, gracious lady,” he answered her.
“Tell your mistress that we bid her good day,” said Rugaiya Begum.
Adali was almost beside himself with joy. Recognition by the Mughal’s first wifeandhis most favored wife was an incredible social step forward in the tight little world of the zenana. “My princess,” he called to Velvet, who swam to the pool’s edge.
“Yes, Adali?” She smiled at the two women.
“My princess, Rugaiya Begum bids you good day!”
Realizing the importance of the situation, Velvet replied, “Tell the lady Rugaiya Begum that I return her salutation and am honored that she has deigned to notice me.”
Adali translated, and Velvet could see the great approval in the older woman’s eyes as he spoke.
Then Jodh Bai said to Adali, “Greet the Rose Princess for me also, Adali, and offer my felicitations to her upon her marriage to our lord Akbar.”
The eunuch was quivering with excitement. As he spoke in his improving French to Velvet, he knew that the bath mistress and her attendants were already spreading word about the baths that these two senior wives of the lord Akbar were in conversation with the youngest and least important of his women. Velvet’s stature would now rise a thousandfold.
“Greet the Amber Princess for me, Adali, and tell her that her kindness and that of Rugaiya Begum mean much to me, a stranger in what is for me an unknown land. Would it be impolite for me to invite them to tea one day, Adali?”
“No, my princess, it would not. I must first ask the Mughal’s permission and tender your invitation based on his approval. I shall invite them for several days from now.” He then turned to the two older women and repeated Velvet’s message. Rugaiya Begum spoke back to him, and then Adali returned to his mistress. “They will come!” He tried to keep the excitement from his voice, but his eyes were dancing and his smile was broad.
Rugaiya Begum and Jodh Bai nodded politely to Velvet, who nodded back with a smile, and then the two women left the baths.
