‘Oh, he would be,’ Indi said, and gave a chilly smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
‘Indi, I –’
‘Oh, don’t worry; I can see it in your eyes. His too for that matter. But be warned, if I can see it, everyone else will too.’
‘I’m sorry. We just started out as friends.’
‘Don’t be. I’m over it. But I wouldn’t fall in love with him. You’re not the first, Eliza, not by a long way. And Laxmi won’t like it at all.’
‘She doesn’t know,’ Eliza said, as calmly as her thumping heart would allow. In her mind she was remembering his legs tangled with her own, so dark against the white of the sheets.
Indi pulled a face, then shook her head. ‘She may seem all kindness to you, but when it comes to her darling sons, they can do no wrong. Make no mistake, she will not allow it to continue. You’d better watch your step.’
Eliza examined her nails but didn’t reply for a moment. When she spoke it was in a small tight voice. ‘You mean not the first English woman?’
‘Of course. But he must have told you about them. Isn’t that what lovers do? Tell each other. And you’re not a virgin anyway, so what does it matter? He usually likes the married ones. Over soonest.’
Eliza swallowed hard. How many had there been?
‘Is that why Jay was reading about toxic chemicals?’ Indi said.
‘I don’t follow?’
‘To poison Laxmi.’ She threw back her head and laughed, but Eliza was horrified. Jay had probably just been reading up on pyro.
At that moment Jay walked in. Eliza saw the anxiety in his eyes when he caught sight of her face.
‘It’s a joke, Eliza, just a joke,’ Indi said.
‘Something wrong?’ he said, looking from one to the other.
Eliza shook her head. ‘Just a joke I didn’t get.’
He frowned. ‘That’s all?’
‘Relax,’ Indi piped up. ‘Gosh, you’re tense. Been doing something you shouldn’t have, Jay?’
‘Indira knows about us,’ Eliza said, thinking it best to just come out with it.
He shrugged. ‘It was bound to happen. Now, Eliza, where do you want me?’ he said, as he turned away from Indi.
‘Sitting at the desk. Is that OK?’
‘Good idea,’ Indi said. ‘The Prince at his desk. The British will love it.’
Jay laughed, but Eliza knew exactly what he was recalling in his mind’s eye. Just before they had left his palace to come back here she had found him pacing his study. He’d asked her to come to help with the papers that lay all over the room, but when she took a few steps towards him he’d picked her up and sat her on the desk. Then he’d kissed her neck.
‘I thought you needed me,’ she’d said, glancing at the papers.
‘I do need you, more than you know.’
She laughed as he undid her blouse and then lifted up her skirt.
‘Glad you’re not wearing trousers,’ he said.
She helped him slip off her underwear and then he removed his trousers. He bent his head and kissed her stomach. She threw back her head and gazed at the ceiling, no thoughts in her mind at all, just the sensation of his lips brushing her skin and his hands on her breasts. When it got too much to bear, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. The papers went flying and ended strewn across the floor as they made love. When it was over they were both so damp they’d gone to her room and she had wiped the moisture from his skin. Then he had done the same for her, although it hadn’t ended there. He had washed her hair, gently massaging her skull afterwards. Indian head massage, he’d said. He had made her sit on a stool and had spent ages massaging her head, neck and shoulders until she felt as if her muscles were made of liquid. Then he’d carried her to the bed, where they’d made love again, although this time so slowly Eliza felt she had slipped outside herself.
She was in the process of learning what he liked, how he sighed when she touched him, how he liked her to move with him inside her, but he seemed to already know exactly what she wanted, even before she knew herself. For those last few days at his palace they hadn’t been able to stop themselves. They had lived in their own world, safe from everything that might hurt them, and it had made everything beautiful. The sunsets were especially splendid, the dawns heart-breaking, the wind had carried the fragrance of frangipani and jasmine and the sun had shone. Her love for him, and her love for life and his beautiful palace, had expanded until that was all there was and all there would ever be. ‘What is this?’ she’d said. He’d replied that it was a result of his terror of losing her after she’d been bitten. He had to make her truly his.
