Eliza felt so happy she couldn’t stop smiling. ‘I’m so pleased you have forgiven her. I did worry what would happen.’
‘And I know a certain young firebrand whose mother will no longer be able to stand in the way.’
‘Dev?’
‘The very one.’
She experienced a sudden flash of anxiety. ‘I’m worried you might one day resent me. You know, for giving up the chance to rule.’
‘You worry too much. I think everything in India is going to change before too long, and far more than we realize now. Anyway, I have enough on my hands with the water project.’
‘Yes.’
‘By the way, I need to bring you up to speed on that. I’ve had some new ideas and, more importantly, I have the permission to dam the river I talked about. It will make a huge difference to what we’re doing. And don’t forget I’ll be working as an adviser with Laxmi too. But enough of all that. Have I told you how gorgeous you look today and that this is a very auspicious time for an engagement?’
‘Have I told you that you really have the most amazing eyelashes for a man?’
He batted his eyelashes at her and then laughed.
‘And yes, I know it’s the festival of Teej. I’ll have to pray for a happy ending!’
‘You’d look amazing with henna-painted hands,’ he said, and then paused. ‘So what’s happening about your exhibition?’
‘I still haven’t got a venue.’
‘What about in the main hall at my palace? We’d need to fix the floor, of course, but the light is terrific and if we send out the invitations in good time we should get a crowd.’
‘Really? Oh, thank you. I’d love that.’
‘My pleasure.’ He paused and smiled at her. ‘So, how many children shall we have?’
‘Two perhaps, maybe three?’
‘I was thinking at least five.’
She swallowed. Should she tell him now or wait a little longer, until she was certain? She hesitated, but then began to speak in a serious voice. ‘Actually, on that point I do have something to say.’
He looked suddenly grave. ‘We don’t have to. I mean, if you want to focus on your career, and don’t want –’
‘No, you idiot. Stand still and listen. I’m late. Only a week, so it’s too soon to really know, but we may have already started on number one.’
He looked up at the sky and thumped his chest and then he began to roar with laughter. She threw back her head and laughed with him, and only out of the corner of her eye did she see the merchants opening up and hear the tinkling of anklets as the women passed by, all the locals smiling at the sight of Jay and her laughing with such wild oblivion.
The sun rose in the sky and for the first time Eliza experienced the matchless perfection of life: each moment, each fragment of joy to be savoured, and when sorrow came, as it surely must, she would face it with an open heart, and know she would survive. She looked around her at the exotic pink city and knew she had, at last, moved on. And while she would always love her father, despite his faults, and would always feel a degree of regret over her mother, the future was what mattered now: her career, her love for Jay, and nurturing the next generation. Her mother had been wrong. There was no reason a woman should not have it all, and Eliza vowed that in the days and years ahead she would prove it. Not only would she follow a career she loved, she would also have a real family of her own, including the sister she had always wanted. She raised her head to the heavens. Be happy for me, Mum, she whispered. Be happy.
Epilogue
Three months later
Shubharambh Bagh
On a cool October day, the date set for Eliza’s exhibition finally arrived. She rose early, leaving Jay still sleeping, and, wrapping her robe around her, she wandered through the corridors of his palace – now her home. Eliza loved the luminous light of the early morning and often explored on her own before anyone else had risen. She frequently had to pinch herself at the fortune that had brought her to this point. She and Jay had married quietly in Delhi and she was now growing accustomed to the idea of becoming a mother in another few months. What’s more, she had finished the project for Clifford’s archive and had been paid accordingly. And though Clifford had never actually admitted it, she had come to believe that while his personal intentions towards her had been honourable, he’d really had an ulterior motive in placing her at the castle, and that had been to keep an eye on the royals and report back while also photographing them.
When she arrived in Jay’s huge reception hall, with the high windows and newly repaired floor, she gazed at the seventy-five photographs she had hung over the last couple of weeks. Jay had rolled up his sleeves and, working together, they had presented her work in the best possible light. Every picture was framed elegantly in black and they had been placed equidistantly along the entirety of one wall. The proud faces of the royals stared out, but so did the faces of the villagers, the children, and the poor. Each moment had been captured, sometimes in a soft grainy image, sometimes in harsh sharp light, and sometimes in shadow. Each picture was a work of art in its own right and Eliza was proud of what she had done. Against the opposite wall and in complete contrast to the black and white photographs, bright red perfumed roses in ten porcelain vases now lifted their blowsy heads to the light breeze and, in between them, chairs painted white were ready for those who wanted to sit and gaze. Eliza walked along the wall checking each photograph, straightening one, touching the surface of another, ensuring each one hung exactly as it should, and then she went upstairs to wake her husband.
That afternoon Eliza slipped into a long black dress, loose over her expanding tummy, and Kiri, who had come to live with them, dressed her hair with one of the red roses. Over her shoulders she wore a white silk shawl and when Jay came in and saw her he whistled.
‘Well, my darling, you are even more beautiful than your pictures.’
