His Captive Indian Princess. Tanu Jain

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      ‘But the southern wing was part of the queen’s chambers. Why did Baba shift?’ Gauri asked mystified.

      ‘So curious and yet for the last six years you haven’t bothered even once to find out what happened to your family?’ Vikram asked, cold fury lacing his voice.

      Gauri flinched and lowered her eyes, unable to deny the truth in his accusations and unwilling to offer any explanation of why she had acted the way she had.

      Thereafter, she trailed silently after Vikram as he led her outside into the bright sunshine. They walked down the steps to a waiting car and Vikram opened the passenger door and gestured impatiently for Gauri to get in.

      Giving him a nervous glance, she got in, holding her breath when she was forced to brush past him since he was standing close to the door. Her body seemed to have acquired an unsettling awareness around Vikram.

      When they were younger, she and Vikram had viewed each other with mutual distrust and the vibes between them had always been cold. The opposite of her warm and open older brother, Vikram had always been distant and reserved with everyone except Madhav. She had known that he viewed her with irritation and tolerated her merely because she was the sister of his best friend.

      That had changed when she’d reached puberty. She had suddenly become aware of Vikram’s devastating appeal and her hormones would go into overdrive if Vikram so much as even entered the room she was in. She was not alone in feeling the effects of Vikram’s rampant masculinity. His dark, handsome looks and the power he effortlessly exuded attracted girls like moths to a flame. Maya’s friends would flirt shamelessly with Vikram whenever the opportunity arose and, though he was disdainful and cold, they didn’t give up.

      Courtesy of Maya, Gauri heard snippets about his mother’s death and a traumatic childhood. Her girlish teenage fantasies had turned him into a brooding romantic figure, and her heart would knock at her ribs when he looked out at her with those unfathomable eyes. She had spent many disturbed nights dreaming of him holding her and kissing her. For a short while, around her sixteenth birthday, he had changed, softened his usual abrasiveness and even smiled at her a couple of times. He had further astounded her by giving her a beautiful charm bracelet on her birthday.

      But then the business with Maya had blown up and he had reverted to his cold, scathing self and had looked at her with withering contempt. Thank God, she had hidden her attraction well, never revealing to anyone the disturbing effect Vikram had on her senses.

      This time around also she vowed to exercise all her restraint and not let the betraying awareness take over her senses.

      The car glided along the winding driveway and entered the massive iron gates which led to the southern part of the palace. They stopped in front of a familiar stone building which Gauri recognised very well. She wanted to get out and flee but felt welded to the seat, unable to move.

      She didn’t want to go inside. She had fled this place ignominiously six years ago and she had thought she would never return here again. Her childhood had been spent here and she still had memories of cavorting around happily at the Mahal, but later events had made sure that she would always view this place with fear and despair.

      Suddenly her door opened and a grim-faced Vikram held out his hand insistently. When she wouldn’t comply he bent and took hold of her hand and easily pulled her out.

      Unwilling to make a spectacle of herself, Gauri stood up and hissed, ‘Let go of my hand. I’m not running away anywhere.’

      Vikram dropped her hand and went inside. Gauri looked around, trying to gather her composure. Thankfully, there was no one around. Slowly, she followed Vikram.

      ‘Does Baba know that I’m coming?’ Gauri blurted out hesitantly.

      ‘Why don’t you satisfy your curiosity by asking Maharaj directly? We are going to meet him now,’ Vikram said with perverse pleasure.

      Gauri felt her legs almost give way. She couldn’t bear to face her father and see accusation and disapproval on his face or, even worse, face his silent disappointment.

      ‘I cannot meet Baba like this. I need some time,’ she murmured piteously.

      ‘Haven’t six years been enough? You have had six years in which to prepare yourself and if you couldn’t do it in that time what hope do you have of doing it in a few minutes?’ Vikram said caustically, grim satisfaction filling him when he saw how she paled and trembled.

      Panic engulfed Gauri and she blurted, ‘You cannot force me to see him.’

      She looked around, desperate for a way out of the coming ordeal. But Vikram held her elbow firmly and led her towards a room on the left where a lackey awaited.

      Gauri looked at Vikram’s implacable face. She hated him.

      She dreaded going inside, and her heart began thudding hard as she tried to compose herself to meet her father, whom she had left lying seriously sick when she had fled in shame.

      The lackey bowed and opened the door, and Vikram marched Gauri inside. As soon as he entered he let go of her arm and walked away, almost as if she were contaminating him.

      Gauri looked around, aware of a pin-drop silence which was broken at regular intervals by the beep of a machine. She looked towards the far end of the room where an inert figure lay upon a vast bed.

      Unwilling to believe what she was seeing, she approached on trembling legs and looked down, stunned, at the face of the man who lay comatose on the bed. As she looked on in disbelief she registered just how gaunt and drawn her father looked. He had aged considerably in the last six years and seemed a pile of flesh and bones.

      ‘What happened to him?’ She dragged the words out, stunned.

      ‘He has been in a coma for the last year,’ Vikram replied.

      ‘Coma … but how?’ Gauri asked, turning stunned, pained eyes towards Vikram.

      ‘Madhav’s death hit him hard and he became careless of his health. He began suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes and this resulted in a stroke, which paralysed him and he went into a coma. He hasn’t recovered since then,’ Vikram replied tonelessly but Gauri could sense emotion simmering under the surface.

      She looked for a chair to sit on since she felt her trembling legs give way. She found it difficult to take in that not only was Madhav Dada, her dear brother, gone but Baba, her father, was in a coma.

      Unable to locate a chair, she simply collapsed on the side of Maharaj’s bed. Thick tears clogged her throat and she looked at the now frail and spent man who had protected her and looked after her as well as he could in her childhood.

      All through her childhood years Gauri had been taunted by the bitter truth that she was the result of a one-night stand, conceived as part of her cunning and greedy mother’s devious plan to trap the wealthy Maharajah.

      When her mother had died in an accident, the Maharajah had taken five-year-old Gauri to his home, overruling his family’s disapproval and disregarding scandalous gossip. He hadn’t shirked his responsibility as a father.

      But Gauri hadn’t been able to fulfil her responsibility as a daughter. She bowed her head in shame. In the end she had failed him. And, rather than see the СКАЧАТЬ