The Scandalous Collection. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ he admitted as they were ushered into the waiting limousine, the crest of his ancestors on its door and on the pennant flag flying from the bonnet. Ritual and the preservation of tradition were very important to his senior officials, many of whom could remember not just his parents but also his grandparents before the terrible monsoon floods in the area in which they had been staying had swept them away to their deaths.

      Their car left the modern highway which had sped them from the airport through agricultural land and towards the walled city, whose main gate was flanked by huge stone tigers, similar to those in the car’s family crest they were now driving. Sophia held her breath. She wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting. She’d read of the fabled cities of Rajasthan but there had been very little information about Nailpur, other than a description of its architecture as being typically Rajput in its beauty and richness.

      Now, though, as they emerged from the gate in the wall, despite the fact that it was late at night, Sophia could see how busy the city was, the narrow street barely wide enough for the limousine flanked by impressive-looking stone buildings, their narrow windows shuttered and sightless. Up ahead of them the street opened out into a busy square thronged with people. Motorcyclists, often carrying several passengers, eased their way past camels adorned with colourful tassels and enamelled jewellery, their awkward progress accompanied by the stately elegance of the women who accompanied them, the colours and intricate embroidery of their traditional clothing captivating Sophia as she leaned closer to the car window to see them.

      Despite the lateness of the hour, the steps to some of the elegant buildings enclosing the square were filled with merchants selling their wares, rich spices, colourful flowers, a joyful display of enamelled bangles. Instead of saris or salwar kameez, the women in the square were wearing brilliantly coloured gathered skirts with tightly fitting blouses, one end of the veils they were wearing tucked into their waistbands then taken over the right shoulder to cover their heads.

      Sophia looked as entranced as a child, Ash realised as he glanced at her and saw the way she was leaning towards the window as though anxious not to miss anything. Nasreen had disliked the traditionalism of Nailpur. She had rarely worn Indian dress, preferring Western couture outfits. The sari she had been wearing when she had died had been the cause of a row between them. He had asked her to wear it to a formal event to which they’d been invited earlier in the day in honour of the women of Nailpur who had so lovingly made the beautiful sari for her as a wedding gift. Wearing it had killed her as much as her reckless driving had. He had made her wear it. He had killed her. The old guilt sat within him, a cold leaden weight from which there was no escape even if he had been prepared to allow himself it.

      They crossed the square, their progress the subject of curious but discreet attention from Ash’s subjects, and then they were going down another narrow cobbled roadway, with women sitting outside doorways attending to cooking pots whilst children played around them. The road widened out, the buildings either side of it becoming larger and far more intricately adorned with filigree balconies and impressive doorways, and then they were in another square and in front of them was the palace flanked on either side by imposing buildings of a similar stature.

      As someone who had grown up in a royal palace, Sophia had not expected to be overwhelmed by Nailpur’s, but when they had been welcomed into it by a guard of men in traditional dress with huge Rajasthani turbans, she had been unable to stop herself from turning to Ash and commenting, slightly awed, ‘How impressive they look and so very fierce. Far more so than my father’s uniformed guard. Their turbans are gorgeous.’

      ‘Rajasthan’s warriors are known for their ferocity in battle and their loyalty to their leaders. As for their turbans, their style and colour indicates the wearer’s status,’ Ash informed Sophia. ‘That is why these men—members of what was once the Royal Guard—are wearing scarlet turbans that mirrors the background colour of my family crest.’

      ‘They certainly are magnificent,’ Sophia responded, pausing as they reached the top of the cream marble steps inlaid with contrasting bands of dark green onyx to ask him, ‘I suppose you wore traditional dress for your marriage to Nasreen?’

      ‘Yes,’ Ash answered her in a dismissive tone that warned her it wasn’t a subject he wanted to discuss. Nevertheless it was hard for her not to imagine the emotional significance of such a wedding with all its history of tradition and culture and the happiness with which Ash must have committed himself to his bride.

      What was the reason for the pain that was stabbing through her? Her ability to suffer pain over the realisation that Ash loved someone else and not her had burned itself out a long time ago. Scars sometimes ached long after the original pain had gone, Sophia reminded herself. It meant nothing other than a reminder not to invite that kind of hurt again.

      They were inside the grand reception hall to the palace with its alabaster columns decorated with gold leaf, and its marble floor. Long, low, carved-and-gilded wooden sofas ornamented with beautiful, intricate and richly coloured silk cushions stood in elegant alcoves, prisms of light dancing across the floor from the many hanging lanterns suspended from the ceiling. The scent of jasmine wafted in the air and rose petals floated in the ceremonial gold-embossed bowls of water that were brought in for Ash and Sophia to wash their hands.

      A maid dressed in a gold-and-cream salwar kameez was summoned to take Sophia to her room after Ash had informed her that they would be eating within the hour.

      Upstairs and along a corridor decorated with what Sophia suspected were priceless works of art, she was escorted into what the maid explained to her in halting English were the private rooms of the palace’s maharani.

      ‘There is no seraglio here any more as His Highness’s great-grandfather married for love and had only one wife. She closed it down, but it is still our tradition that the maharani has her own apartment.’

      Behind the fretted and gilded doorway, with its secret ‘windows’ that allowed those behind it to look out into the corridor beyond without being seen, lay an elegant hallway ornamented with mirrors and alcoves for the lanterns that reflected in them. A pair of highly decorated wooden doors opened out into a much larger room, its polished wooden floors covered in beautiful woven rugs whilst sofas similar to those she had seen downstairs were dotted around the room.

      A huge chandelier illuminated the room’s vastness, throwing out sparkling light into the muted shadows of the large room. At one end of it, shutters opened out onto an enclosed illuminated courtyard garden with stairs going down to it from a balcony, the sound of running water reaching her ears from the rill of water below.

      ‘It is very beautiful,’ Sophia told the waiting attendant, who gave her a beaming smile in response before telling her in careful English, ‘The bedroom is this way, please.’

      The bedroom was more European than she had expected, vaguely thirties in its design, with stunning, delicately crafted lamps and light fittings. It had its own wardrobe-lined dressing room and bathroom.

      The maid cleared her throat, sounding slightly anxious. ‘Please, I take you now to eat with the maharaja.’ Sophia stopped exploring her new domain further. She would have liked to have had a shower and changed her clothes before having dinner with Ash but there obviously wasn’t going to be time. As she followed the attendant through a maze of corridors she reflected that she needed to contact her family to have the contents of her own wardrobes at home sent over to her.

      The girl stopped outside a door secured by two of the turbaned guards who both bowed low to her and then pulled open the double doors.

      As she stepped into the room Sophia blinked in the brilliance of the reflected light that filled the room. Every surface within it, or so it seemed, was decorated with a mosaic of glittering metalwork inlaid with pieces of mirror that reflected the light СКАЧАТЬ