Desert Honeymoon

There were placid-looking pale grey cattle standing about, unattended, on the verges of the wide tree-lined road to the city. Near a roundabout where there seemed to be a hair-raisingly casual attitude to traffic lanes, Nicole noticed a slogan pasted on a hoarding. Be not anxious about what you have, but about what you are.

It reminded her of Rosemary’s bitter disapproval of this undertaking. Her stepmother had been careful not to express it again in her husband’s presence, but had found several opportunities to upbraid Nicole in private.

Am I being selfish? she wondered, for the umpteenth time. Saying goodbye to Dan had been agony. She could still feel his arms round her neck as they exchanged their last hug at the London airport where, with her father, he had seen her off.

If there had been tears in his eyes when they drew apart, she didn’t think she could have left him. But Dan, already keenly looking forward to his own flight to India in twelve weeks’ time, had been cheerful rather than dejected.

She had had to seem cheerful too. Only in the privacy of a cubicle in the washroom on the airside of the security and customs barriers had she cried, but only briefly. Then she had washed her face, braced herself and joined the rest of the passengers waiting for flights to places even more distant than where she was going.

Beside her, Strathallen said, ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve had a bath. Then, if I were you, I’d go to bed until lunchtime. If you didn’t nap on the plane, there’s no way you can stay awake until bedtime tonight’

‘Whatever you say. You’re the expert. How many times have you flown from Europe to India?’

Tve lost count I’ve been coming here a long time. For me the culture shock is at that end, not this.’

Nicole’s first impression of Delhi was of chaotic traffic and swarms of people. Then their taxi turned through a gateway where a short avenue of tall palms led to the porticoed entrance to a building.

The rear passenger door was opened for her by a massively built bearded and turbanned doorman. ‘Good morning, madam.’

‘Good morning. Thank you.’

When Strathallen came round the back of the taxi and took hold of her arm to escort her up the steps, it was the polite gesture of a man who at some stage of his life had been trained in traditional courtesies. But all the way up the entrance stairs and through the imposing lobby to the lift, she was conscious of the light touch of his fingers just above her elbow.

‘Shouldn’t I register?’ she asked, at the door of the lift.

He released his hold. ‘They can take your passport details later.”

‘But the room key...’

‘The door will be open.’

From the lift they entered a wide corridor decorated and thickly carpeted in a soft shade of apple-green. At the far end she saw her luggage being wheeled through a door by one of the hotel staff.

Moments later, to her surprise, she found the room he had entered was not her bedroom but an ante-room leading into a large and elegantly appointed sitting room.

‘This is Prince Kesri’s suite,’ Strathallen explained. ‘The hotel is full tonight. There’s a large wedding party staying here.’

The luggage porter reappeared through the door of an adjoining room. He smiled and bowed to Nicole. Strathallen gave him a tip and was handed the room key.

When the man had gone, he said, ‘Would you like some coffee or tea before you have your shower?’

‘What I’d really like is some water.’

‘It’s in here.’ Showing her that what she would have taken for an elegant sideboard was actually a luxury version of a mini-bar with glasses in one section and an ice-box in the other, he put some ice in a tall glass and opened the seal on a bottle of water with an effortless turn of his strong wrist. ‘If there’s anything else you need, call Room Service or Reception. The switchboard operator will give you a wake-up call if you want one. I’ll be back about one. We’ll have lunch in the garden. See you later.’

As he strode to the door, Nicole said, ‘Thank you for meeting me. I hope it wasn’t too inconvenient’

As he opened the door, he turned. ‘Not inconvenient at all. It was a pleasure.’ He gave her one of his rare and charming smiles.

She was woken, as she had requested, at half past twelve. For some minutes she lay taking in the unaccustomed opulence of her surroundings. This bedroom was many times larger than her room in her father’s house, with a lofty ceiling from which hung a large electric fan.

She had already unpacked fresh underwear and a change of clothes more suitable for lunch in a grand hotel than the combat trousers, shirt and zip-up fleece she had travelled in.

When she had dressed and put on a little light make-up, she went back to the sitting room to drink another glass of water. It was only then that she noticed there was another door opposite the entrance to the bedroom. Perhaps it was another bedroom for the use of the Prince’s wife if he had one. So far she knew very little about her employer, although his forebears were mentioned in more than one of the books on the reading list she had received from Strathallen.

Curious to see what lay behind the closed door, Nicole opened it. As she had surmised, the room within was another bedroom—and someone was using it. There was a laptop computer with a couple of floppy disks on top of it on the writing table. A book with a marker protruding from it lay on the night-table between the twin beds. A document case had been left on one of seat cushions of the sofa facing the beds.

As she took in these indications that the room was occupied and realised they had to mean that Strathallen was sharing the suite with her, Nicole remembered him saying the hotel was full. Even so, it seemed odd, to say the least, for him to have taken for granted that she wouldn’t mind this arrangement Surely the proper thing to have done was to book himself, or her, into another hotel?

Within a couple of minutes of her closing the door of his room, Strathallen joined her.

‘Did you get some sleep?’ he asked.

‘Yes, thank you. I feel much better.’

‘Good...then we’ll go down and eat. No need to bring your key. I picked mine up from the desk in case you were still in bed.’

As they were walking to the lift, Nicole said, ‘Won’t the hotel staff think it strange...our sharing the Prince’s suite?’

He looked down at her. ‘Is that an oblique way of saying you don’t want to share the suite with me?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ she began.

‘Women often don’t say what they mean,’ he said dryly. ‘It’s one of their characteristics. Taking your question at its face value, the hotel staff are paid to think about making us as comfortable as possible. What we do, unless it interferes with the comfort of other guests, isn’t their concern.’

The lift was at another floor. He pressed the call button. ‘Do you want me to move somewhere else?’

‘No...no, of course not.’ She could see that, from his point of view, it would be less convenient, not to mention more expensive. Presumably the Prince, not the sardonic-eyed man beside her, would be paying the bill for their stay here.

The lift opened. As she stepped inside, Nicole felt herself blushing. She wished she had held her tongue. All she had done, by raising the matter, was to embarrass herself.

The hotel’s garden was screened by tall trees that muted the noise of the city surrounding this exclusive oasis. Immediately outside the building there was a paved terrace where people were eating light refreshments. Beyond it was a sunlit lawn where tables were laid more formally.

A portly major-domo in leg-hugging white trousers, the knee-length tunic which she knew was called an Achkan and a spectacular crested green turban to match the broad sash round his middle came to meet them as they stepped onto the lawn.

‘Dr Strathallen...madame...where would you like to sit?’

‘In the shade, please. My guest arrived from Europe this morning. She might find the sun too hot.’

The major-domo conducted them to a table under a sunbrella. A waiter was summoned, gin and tonics brought.

‘Does the Prince spend a lot of time in Delhi?’ she asked.

‘He comes about once a month. His sister works here. She’s a gynaecologist and very involved in women’s pressure groups. The Prince also tries to influence the future of India. He also enjoys the more sophisticated social life here... something that I would pay to avoid,’ he added dryly.

‘But surely everyone needs some social life.’

‘I enjoy meeting my friends. I don’t care for large smart parties.’

He had been looking at her, but now he turned his cool grey gaze on two groups of people taking their places at nearby tables. One was a party of well-dressed businessmen. The other group consisted of three attractive young women, one wearing European clothes, the second a silk sari and the third dressed in loose trousers and a long tunic, both garments made of pale blue and white cotton voile.

‘What’s the name of the outfit the girl in blue is wearing?’ Nicole asked.

Strathallen had given them only cursory attention before turning back to Nicole. He must be exceptionally observant, she realised, when, without a second look at the three women’s table, he said, ‘That’s a salwar kameez, traditionally from the Punjab, but city girls aren’t sticklers for tradition. They wear what they like.’

At that moment Nicole caught sight of a small bushy-tailed striped creature darting across the grass towards the damask-clothed table on which, shaded by an awning, an array of puddings and gateaux awaited the lunchers after they had eaten their selections from the range of hot food in the huge silver-topped dishes on the main table.

‘What’s that little animal?’ she exclaimed.

‘A palm squirrel. They’re the reason the puddings are protected by plastic domes. If they weren’t, those little marauders would be tucking in with great gusto,’ he said, smiling.

Perhaps it was just as well that he didn’t smile often, she thought. Every time he did, it had a peculiar effect on the pit of her stomach.

He rose. ‘Let’s go and choose something to eat, shall we?’ he suggested.

When lunch was over, Nicole expected him to leave her to her own devices for the afternoon. But he said, ‘I have an hour to spare before my meeting. Do you feel like stretching your legs?’

The truthful answer would have been that she felt so full of delicious food that, on her own, she would have retired to her room for another nap. Instead she nodded and reached for her bag.

Leaving the grounds of the hotel was like entering another world, but only a short walk along the dusty, noisy main thoroughfare that Strathallen said was called Janpath was a relatively quiet sidestreet where women were selling textiles in all the roseate colours of dawn and sunset. Their wares were spread on a bank at one side of the lane like a huge magic carpet. On lines strung between the trees, hand-stitched quilts made from pieces of antique velvet and silk were displayed.

Although the vendors’ cotton saris probably cost nothing compared with the silk ones worn by guests at the Imperial, the colours were still wonderful, perhaps enhanced by long exposure to the sun and many washings.

‘How graceful they are,’ she remarked to Strathallen.

‘Grace seems to go with bare feet or flat sandals and to disappear with high heels.’ He glanced down at her low-heeled shoes. ‘I’m glad to see you don’t wear them.’

She found some of his views irritatingly arbitrary. ‘I do sometimes, when I’m not going to have to walk far.’

‘I’ll take you along to the government-sponsored emporium and leave you there,’ said Strathallen. ‘You’ll probably want to spend an hour looking round the various craft sections and it’s only a short walk back to the hotel. We’ll convene for dinner about seven.’

Nicole was ready and waiting in the suite’s sitting room when, a few minutes to the hour, Strathallen came out of his bedroom. His hair still damp from the shower, he was no longer wearing a lounge suit but had changed into chinos and a cotton shirt a little darker than his tan.

‘You got back all right then?’ he said.

‘No problem,’ she smiled. ‘After I’d left the emporium I had a browse in a bookshop where the proprietor told me I must read this.’ She held up the book she had bought.

Strathallen read out the title. ‘A Princess Remembers...The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur. It’s very popular with women tourists. The Maharani and her mother were both famous beauties in their day. I haven’t read it myself but I’m told it’s an interesting insight into a vanished era.’

‘Why haven’t you read it? Because it’s written by a woman?’

His mouth curled with amusement. ‘You think I’m a woman-hater?’

‘Not a hater, that’s too extreme, but perhaps not very pro women.’

‘Not en masse,’ he agreed. ‘But there are some women whose company I enjoy. Don’t tell me that, given the option of being, let’s say, stranded somewhere with a group of men or women, you wouldn’t choose your own sex as more likely to be on your wavelength.’

‘That would depend on the situation. On a bus that had broken down in the middle of nowhere, I certainly wouldn’t be the one to get it going and nor would most women. In any random group of men, there’s almost certain to be one with mechanical know-how. I’m sure you would have a crack at fixing an engine. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

‘I’d start by looking for the manual. Let’s go down to the bar, shall we?’

As they left the suite, four women emerged from a door at the far end of the corridor. All were dressed in exquisite saris with borders of real gold thread. They glittered with costly jewels. But while three had their lustrous black hair uncovered, the fourth had her hair and face concealed by the shimmering folds of a diaphanous scarlet sari with gold embroidery all over it.

Like a cluster of iridescent dragonflies, they approached the lift.

‘We’ll go down by the stairs,’ said Strathallen. Lowering his voice, he added, ‘The one in red is the bride.’

As the three unveiled woman glanced at him, he placed his palms together and inclined his head in a gesture that made Nicole wonder if, behind the rather ruthless exterior he presented, there was a streak of chivalry.

CHAPTER THREE

‘WILL her bridegroom have been chosen by her parents?’ Nicole asked, as they walked down the staircase.

‘Yes...and she probably has as good a chance of being happy as a western bride,’ he said. ‘Most of the people here believe that love is something that grows in a lifetime of living together.’

‘Perhaps they’re right,’ said Nicole. ‘I suppose if you grow up with the idea of your parents picking out a husband for you, it doesn’t seem as outlandish as it does to us. Anyway our system isn’t all that successful. But it must make their wedding nights horribly fraught if the brides and grooms barely know each other.’

‘It may make them more exciting,’ he commented dryly. ‘It’s no big deal going on a honeymoon with someone you’ve been sleeping with for months.’

‘I should think it would be a much better deal,’ said Nicole.

‘Was your first time a disappointment?’

She couldn’t believe he had asked such a personal question on so short an acquaintance. Her cheeks flaming, she said stiffly, ‘I was speaking generally, not personally.’

He made no comment. She knew he didn’t believe her. What made it all the more annoying was that his guess was correct. It had been the worst disappointment of her life. She had thought that love was the passport to rapture. Perhaps, for some people, it was. But it hadn’t been for her.

When they reached the lobby, the bride and her attendants had just emerged from the lift and were moving in the direction of a wide corridor leading off the lobby.

‘The hotel has a small shopping arcade,’ said Strathallen. ‘The windows might interest you. What did you think of the emporium?’

Still annoyed by his earlier question, Nicole said, with forced politeness, ‘It was fascinating...a very useful overview of the things being made here. Thank you for thinking of it.’

‘I’m glad you enjoyed it. Did you buy anything?’

‘I was tempted several times, especially by the cashmere shawls, but I managed to resist them. It’s usually a mistake to shop when you’ve just arrived somewhere.’

They had come to the first of the window displays he had mentioned. It was full of jewellery and ornaments of the type to appeal to wealthy tourists in search of lavish mementoes. Her taste ran to simpler things. She could see at a glance there was little she liked.

Again, Strathallen showed uncanny perspicacity. ‘Not your style?’ he asked.

‘Not really...and I’m sure you would rather be sitting down with a drink. Was your meeting successful?’

‘I don’t know. I was summoned to address a government committee on ways to protect the interests of the nomads. Whether the committee was persuaded by my arguments only time will tell. Did you go anywhere else apart from the bookshop?’

‘No, I came back and had my first taste of lassi on the terrace.’

She did not tell him she had also asked at the desk if the hotel had facilities for sending an email to Dan. They had and, to her delight, when she had keyed in the password to her Yahoo mail box, there had been a message from him, sent the night before when he got home from the airport.

Dear Mum, Hope you enjoyed the flight. Did you have your own TV screen? Email soon. Lots of love. Dan xxx

Her reply had been longer. When he printed it out it would cover a couple of pages. She had included messages to her father and Rosemary. Once a week she would send an email for family consumption. The daily messages would be for Dan’s eyes only.

‘Did you like it?’ Strathallen asked.

‘What...? Oh, the lassi...yes, delicious. When the waiter told me it was made with yogurt, I was sure I would like it I eat a lot of yog as—’ She stopped short, on the brink of saying ‘as my son calls it’.

Fortunately the bar steward was approaching the corner table where they had just sat down and his arrival distracted Strathallen’s attention from her slight slip of the tongue.

In fact Alex was aware that she had clipped off the end of her remark. He also knew that, for a minute before that, her mind had been miles away from where they were.

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