Yamini recalled Rani Suchitra’s amused smile while her mother was embarrassed.
Sanjana smiled. “You must have been quite a handful.”
“Oh yes, totally,” she said. “I loved exploring the places around the palace. I remember crawling into the caves around the temple and getting my dresses torn and dirty.”
Sanjana laughed.
“Ram told me about his childhood adventures at Rewa too,” Sanjana said. “They all grew up here but spent summers at their respective ancestral palaces.”
Yamini nodded. That explained why she had never crossed paths with any of Rani Suchitra's sons during her childhood visits. Their summers had taken them elsewhere.
She and Bharat had grown up moving through the same spaces and never once crossed paths until the engagement.
She wondered sometimes how differently things might have gone if they had.
Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. He would have been exactly who he was. And so would she.
Or maybe it would have mattered enormously.
Sanjana suddenly swayed beside her.
Yamini caught her arm immediately. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” Sanjana steadied herself. “Just a dizzy spell. I'm fine.”
Yamini frowned. The weather wasn’t too warm.
She guided Sanjana to the stone bench under the nearest shaded tree.
“Stay here. I’ll call the staff and ask them to bring—"
Even before she finished the sentence, she spotted Ram.
He crossed the garden in long, purposeful strides and stood in front of Sanjana.
“Have water,” he said.
A staff member appeared almost immediately with a glass.
Sanjana exhaled. “Ram, I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t.”
Yamini watched as Sanjan let out an exasperated breath. “I'm a doctor, remember?”
Ram didn’t budge. “I do. And I am your husband.”
Letting out another exasperated breath, Sanjana took the water. “Overbearing,” she muttered.
Ram said nothing. He waited until she had drunk most of it before stepping back and then turned to return to his brothers.
Sanjana glared at Ram’s broad back as he walked away.
“He's impossible,” she said.
Yamini smiled. Bharat was apparently not the only one of Rani Suchitra's sons who could be impossible and commanding most of the time.
“Maybe we should go in,” Yamini said.
