After taking a few steps behind the desk he bent down, then held up a shard of broken glass.
‘My clock had a glass face.’ He glanced at his desk. ‘It’s missing.’
Eliza also spoke in a whisper. ‘I thought I heard something crash.’
‘Dear God, what has she got herself into now? Better come into the corridor,’ he said and opened the door.
Once out in the corridor he looked around and continued to speak in hushed tones.
‘What will you do?’ she asked.
‘Inform Chatur that I know what’s been going on. That should put a stop to it.’
‘Can’t you get rid of Chatur?’
‘I wish. Only Anish can do that.’
‘So tell him?’
‘He won’t take my word for it, and it might only make trouble for Indi. I’ll think of something.’
‘You are very protective of her.’
‘Apart from her ageing grandmother, she is alone in the world.’
‘That’s all?’
‘I’m very fond of Indira, though not in the way you once thought. I blame myself for that. I’d become accustomed to thinking of her as a sister. I’ve been trying to distance myself a little, but I don’t want to hurt her.’
Aware that her face was reddening, she turned away. ‘Especially now that you’re about to be engaged,’ she managed to say, despite being blown about by confused emotions: fear, disappointment, embarrassment, but, worst of all, longing.
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘You, my dear friend, have been listening to my mother. Let’s get away from here.’
They went to her rooms, where he sat on the small sofa.
‘Sit with me, Eliza. I promise I am not engaged, nor do I wish to be. Now tell me that you’re really not leaving us? Leaving me?’
Her heart somersaulted with relief and she smiled. ‘I’m staying.’
Even though she knew there could be nothing permanent with Jay, at least he cared that she might be leaving and, as she sat down next to him, she took a very deep breath. He picked up her hand and turned it over, then traced the lines on her palm.
‘Can you see my future?’ she said.
‘Not yet,’ he said, ‘but maybe soon.’
She felt a strange humming in her head and lifted her other hand to smooth the hair from his temples. Watching his beautiful amber eyes, she marvelled at the intensity she saw boring into her. He let her palm go and took hold of her other hand, then he lifted it to his lips and gently kissed her fingertips. She loved it when he touched her, though he had never touched her like this before. The closer he was to her the more alive she felt, the love, the hope and the heat chewing up her mind until she felt empty of fear.
22
Later that day Eliza was summoned to Anish’s outer sitting room, a place so ornate it was hard to know where to rest her gaze. He sat on a huge cushion, legs spread wide to accommodate his ever-increasing paunch, and Jay sat in a chair opposite. The floor was piled with more satin cushions, placed around a large low table. Eliza glanced at the slimpunkawallahwho was pulling a heavy rope that operated a large fan made of cloth stretched over a wooden frame. Back and forth it floated, as it hung from the ceiling directly above Anish. And little gusts of air reached as far as where Eliza stood, feeling increasingly uncomfortable.
‘Do not hover, girl! Sit.’
She glanced around and chose a hardback chair, where she sat stiffly and with her hands folded in her lap. ‘Are you well now?’ she asked. ‘I remember you were ill soon after Holi.’
He inclined his head. ‘It started some while before, in fact. But at Holi, Chatur came to me with a bottle of some kind of chemical he had discovered hidden away somewhere. You are the only person with access to such things.’
‘Which chemical was it?’
