Sophisticated Seduction

by Jayne Bauling

  ‘Do it! Phone Loris now, Bridget!’ he adjured tautly, almost urgently, and looked at his watch. ‘I’ll pay for the call. Let me work out where he’ll be at present.’

  ‘No,’ Bridget said stonily, and saw his head lift, the angle eloquent of the pride that wouldn’t let him share, a pride she understood and respected, and once again she knew a pang of guilt about the lie that selfpreservation demanded.

  ‘Then goodnight, Bridget,’ he offered on a note of finality, and turned away, leaving her to enter a lift alone, although she knew his room was on the same floor as hers.

  The agitated self-questioning that kept her awake for a couple of hours made Bridget late up in the morning, and Nicholas was already leaving the ultra-modern breakfast-room as she arrived, so it wasn’t until they made their departure from Agra in the car that she spent time with him again.

  Initially, he was uncommunicative, which suited her, although she was acutely conscious of the tension in the silence. Soon after they left Agra, the countryside began to change dramatically, becoming harsher, more rugged, and gradually sheer fascination with the land succeeded in diluting the strong mix of resentment and discomfiture that had kept Bridget as silent as Nicholas. They stopped for cold drinks and a light lunch, and when they went on they found themselves in increasingly rocky and desert land.

  ‘Rajasthan, former Rajputana,’ Nicholas introduced it. ‘Where the desert itself symbolises the tradition of the people, Hind’s chevaliers. Have you heard or read about them, Bridget—the fierceness of their pride and severity of their honour, the extravagance of their chivalry and grimness of their valour?’

  The grandeur of the desert stunned Bridget, and fascinatingly studding the region were its fabled cities, forts, serais and palaces, all pink, terracotta, yellow, brownpink, or whole towns of the dull, dusty gold colour of the desert, and unexpected man-made lakes out of which rose white palaces, cool pale fantasies. It was a land both strict and lavish, glorious relic of a fabulous past, country of camels and the Rajput people, slim women in startling tie-dyed saris—indigo, saffron, pink, turquoise, sky-blue and maroon—men in turbans of yellow, orange or red: sun colours.

  ‘They worshipped the sun, and I’ve felt for myself the way it sears itself into the brain here,’ Nicholas told Bridget.

  And the sun was there, sovereign above it all, filling a burning blue sky, scorching a savage land of blood and fire, rock and desert, and searing the flesh.

  ‘Those artificial lakes must have cost a fortune.’ Bridget commented on what she related to most easily, finding their gentle serenity a relief amid such harshness.

  ‘The Rajput princes possessed fortunes, and a prince must have five things—a temple, a fort, a palace, a lake and a garden. A desert people, but a lacustrine one too. Often a raja might build his lake palace for a queen he honoured but no longer wanted too close to him. There were many trouble-making wives and jealous concubines, as a man must expect if he has more than one woman in his life at the same time. They were dramatic times; the girls in the harems were incredibly pampered, but even so the histories say that much of the intrigue, scheming, poisonings, politically expedient quarrels and alliances could be traced to the women’s quarters.’

  ‘It’s amazing to think that people lived like that.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Those princes had it all,’ Nicholas continued reflectively. ‘The music and art, poetry and the pleasures of sport. They loved the chase, women and luxury, but they also loved the challenge of hardship and war, and their endings were often holocausts. There were so many wars and sieges. You’ll see their forts, charnel houses of their inability to surrender. Saffron is the colour of Rajput honour. When they knew there must be an end, the women would put on their brightest clothes and go down to a chamber deep in the fort, there to commit the rite of jauhar, dying by fire, while the men, poets and lovers in times of peace, would go out from the fort in their glory robes to die. I find it a bit of a tragedy that the world no longer contains such desperate and extreme characters.’

  For a moment Bridget stared at him with a rapt, intrigued expression. His description had entranced her, but now she was realising that he had spoken with less than his usual cynicism, and she understood that it was because he respected those Rajput princes of old, and perhaps even identified with them. She knew they had ruled almost absolutely, responsible for the lives of their subjects and consequently taking to themselves the right to direct those lives as they chose.

  Well, if power was the one thing Nicholas found romantic, it just proved how little he and she had in common.

  Bridget found the idea depressing, inexplicably so, because why should she want the two of them to have anything in common?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SOME way into this sun-scorched death-or-glory land of high pride and princes, blood and fire, suttee and the rite of jauhar that was Rajasthan, they passed through a large town, rose-pink and walled about its older part, its ancient buildings and narrow ways overlooked by a half-ruined pink fort standing on a solitary ridge near by.

  ‘This was once the desert capital of Chiranji Narayan’s forebears,’ Nicholas told Bridget. ‘The hotel here is still owned by the family, one of their lesser palaces. Chiranji is well-known in the hotel business and he was telling me, when I rang to let him know I was bringing you, that he has just acquired one of the lake palaces you seem to have taken such a fancy to, with a view to turning it into a hotel. If you’ve got time we’ll take you over to have a look at it.’

  ‘He…they are expecting me, then?’ Bridget questioned him with evident relief.

  ‘Oh, yes. I’ve learnt a few things about you by now, Bridget, and I know how you’d shrink from arriving unannounced,’ he responded. ‘The Narayans are old friends, so I needn’t have bothered otherwise, as they’re accustomed to my arriving with a companion.’

  ‘But the sort of companion Wanda would have been?’ she prompted, and he laughed.

  ‘And you could be, if you weren’t so obstinate. But yes, that’s one more reason I decided it was necessary to notify them, as I don’t usually arrive requiring two bedrooms.’

  ‘I suppose by now you’re wishing it were Wanda who was here with you?’ Bridget guessed caustically.

  ‘You sound jealous, Bridget,’ Nicholas observed with soft satisfaction.

  ‘You sound conceited, Nicholas,’ she countered mockingly. ‘Far from being jealous, I feel sorry for her!’

  ‘Because she can’t have me and you can?’ he suggested outrageously, and, despite the implicit arrogance, she knew a traitorous urge to laugh. ‘But you know what you have to do first.’

  Now an odd, intense resentment held her silent, pretending to be absorbed in where the road was taking them. The palace in which their host now lived was a short distance out of town, also rose-pink, and they came to it while the sun was still shining. It was a dream, but a warmer, more tangible one than the Taj, because the living had their existence within its romantically coloured walls.

  Bridget was entranced. A vast sweep of mown grass with beds of marigolds here and there was embraced by an imposing drive, three sides of a square and shaded by mango trees, but the real gardens would lie enclosed behind those pink walls, the formal courtyards with their channels and pools and fountains, as Nicholas had told her that the possession of water in the desert had been counted a symbol of wealth among the old Rajputs. The glittering sun illuminated fretted marble casements, balconies and arcades, delicately scalloped archways and ornate columns.

  Emerging from the car, Bridget pulled a breath of the hot, dry air into her lungs, making up her mind to enjoy this experience and not let this disturbing man spoil it for her—although he could hardly deliberately mean to do so when it was he who had arranged this for her, however insulting to her his motives had been.

  Simple gratitude made her turn to Nicholas with an unaffected smile, her eyes shining.

  ‘Oh, I hate your reasons, but I’m still glad you arranged this, Ni
cholas,’ she confided spontaneously. ‘The desert appalled me at first, but I’m beginning to understand the magic.’

  His face hardened as he looked at her standing there, tall and slender in her cream cotton dress, with the sun illuminating the purity of her face, driving the shadows from her green eyes and picking out deep red glints in her glossy dark hair which she had tied in a loose French braid.

  ‘And I’m beginning to suspect all sorts of things I don’t much like, because although this sudden absence of hostility and resentment could be construed as progress you seem to have taken a wrong turning somewhere, sweetheart,’ he taunted, so harshly that it was almost as if the savagery of the land was affecting him. ‘I do not want you getting any romantic feelings about me.’

  Mortified, she stared at him incredulously. Then anger rose. ‘Just sexual!’

  ‘Or is this your way of justifying what you do feel, dressing lust up as love?’ he continued grimly, catching hold of her by the wrist, his encircling fingers hard. ‘Is that it, Bridget? Do you imagine you’re in love with me now? Well, the best cure for lovesickness is consummation! All you have to do is tell my cousin it’s over between you and I’ll inform the Narayans we want one bedroom after all.’

  Stricken, Bridget couldn’t speak for a moment, her expression vulnerably bewildered, eyes dark with hurt. She felt wounded by his rejection of her gratitude, and plain embarrassed by his final suggestion.

  Then resentment rescued her and she pulled her wrist free of his hold, saying heatedly, ‘You couldn’t be more wrong! Just look how incompatible we are! You turn horrible every time I—I try to be nice!’

  It produced one of his lightning changes of mood, and he laughed sardonically.

  ‘Is that what you think you were doing? You don’t have to try, Bridget. You are nice.’

  ‘I was just glad to be here,’ she muttered, disconcerted by the change and even more resentful because of it.

  ‘Then come in,’ he urged her, as blandly as if he had never said the things that were still causing her so much distress.

  Ahead of them rose a short flight of shimmering tiled steps leading to a vast archway glittering with vivid, detailed inlay representing gaudy peacocks, and falcons and hawks, those proud, predatory birds of this desert region, at the back of which double doors stood closed. As they mounted, however, these were flung open and Bridget glimpsed a militarily smart manservant in white trousers and matching tunic, long and narrow-waisted. Then he stepped aside and Chiranji and Rohini Narayan were welcoming them with a warmth which dispelled Bridget’s apprehension that, despite being forewarned, they might regard her presence as an imposition.

  It was a relief, too, to be separated from Nicholas when Rohini suggested they leave the men alone, and showed her to a luxurious bedroom which was furnished with a happy mixture of Indian and western styles and had an en-suite bathroom.

  ‘Chiranji tends to try out his ideas for modernising our hotels here at home, so it probably won’t look like this for much longer,’ Rohini laughed in response to Bridget’s praise. ‘Come to the living-room and have a drink when you feel like it, Bridget. See, your case is already here, so you’ll probably want to unpack. It’s nice to have you and Nicholas to stay, and especially someone as young as you. Both our children are away at university… And I see you look surprised, like everyone else, but I promise you I wasn’t one of the child-brides, just a very young one. I’m thirty-eight now and my husband is forty.’

  Left alone, Bridget found her mind returning tormentingly to Nicholas, and his latest amazing suggestion that she might be imagining herself in love with him. She didn’t know why it should disturb her so much when it was absolutely ridiculous. She wasn’t that fickle. It was such a short time since she had believed she was in love with his cousin, and anyway, the things Nicholas made her feel were very different from whatever she had thought she felt for Loris.

  All right, she reacted physically to Nicholas; she was attracted to him, she supposed, but that was all—except that she found that hard to accept as well, because how could she feel like that about someone who meant nothing else to her? It made her a wanton, ruled by her flesh, and Bridget simply didn’t believe she was like that.

  But she couldn’t be in love with Nicholas either!

  She was still troubled when she had showered and put on a fresh dress, a straight simple eau-de-Nil cotton-knit, and was making her way through the palace, breathing in the scents of incense, fresh roses and sandalwood. She got lost once, but a servant directed her to the large room where Nicholas and the Narayans were already seated with drinks.

  The men rose and came over to her, Nicholas reaching her first, grey eyes unexpectedly concerned as they searched her face.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he questioned her abruptly. ‘Why are you looking so pale? What has upset you?’

  ‘The heat,’ Chiranji suggested, and Bridget gave him a look of gratitude, not having realised that her inner turmoil was visible on her face. ‘You’re probably a little dehydrated. You must have a glass of fruit juice at once, and then perhaps another one. Come and sit down.’

  He and Rohini, beautiful in a pink sari, were kind, and Bridget was sorry to find herself left alone with Nicholas a little later, Chiranji having excused himself to take a phone call from the hotel in town, and Rohini to oversee preparations for dinner.

  ‘Is it just the heat?’ Nicholas enquired sceptically, coming to stand over her as she finished her second glass of lime juice.

  ‘No, it’s you,’ she flared candidly, horrified to discover how fragile her composure suddenly was, but unable to do anything about it. ‘You upset me.’

  ‘Tough,’ he retorted brutally, a certain tension manifesting itself around his mouth. ‘There are a few things I have to tell you. First, Chiranji is going to supply you with a car and driver for your buying, and, as you heard for yourself, Rohini is looking forward to taking you sightseeing. Next… But come for a short walk with me now and let me show you around. That way, you can be upset in privacy.’

  Bridget went because she had something to say to him and she didn’t want any interruptions.

  The palace distracted her initially. Inside and out, it was everything she had imagined the home of a princely family would be, high ceilings studded with brilliant mirror work reflecting floors of pale marble inset here and there with blazing tiles of red and blue, carved window-screens and glowing silk Indian rugs. The main courtyard was immense, set out in intricate symmetry about a central pool and fountain; but there were other courtyards too, often unexpected, delightful surprises when a passage or door suddenly led to one or other of them, and Nicholas explained that one such had been the women’s garden in the days when Chiranji’s forebears had kept harems, and usually had more than one wife as well. Beyond the palace there was another large garden and other buildings, all glittering blue-tiled terraces falling away and a long vista of pavilions and gilded domes amid the splendour of acres of rose-garden.

  It was all so beautiful, but Bridget found herself looking at Nicholas most of the time, liking him when he was in this mood, and after a while she suddenly remembered something.

  ‘Oh! Nicholas, you said I was to tell you if I felt like a victim when I was standing in front of the Taj Mahal, but I forgot. I didn’t.’ Then, recognising the way his face tightened as signalling one of his most devastating taunts, she gave a dry, hopeless little laugh. ‘Only, you’re about to have one of your best shots at making me feel like one right now, I know!’

  At least it stopped whatever put-down he had been about to administer. Instead, Nicholas studied her in silence for several seconds. Then he said slowly, ‘Is that what you think I’m trying to do?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Without warning, angry despair had surfaced. ‘I don’t know why you’re doing any of this! Bringing me here was your idea—you hijacked my arrangements—but…I want to say something! If you did it because you still believe I’m incapable of carrying out Virginia’s wo
rk properly, then… Nicholas, I will not have you accompanying me while I’m out doing it. For one thing, there’s no way the Narayans wouldn’t know, and I won’t let you humiliate me like that. If you still don’t trust me, you’ll just have to interrogate me privately at the end of each day’s ordering—’

  ‘It’s all right, Bridget,’ Nicholas interrupted, startling her with the gentleness of his tone. ‘I accepted quite a while back that you do know what you’re doing.’

  Surprised, Bridget hovered between relief and resentment, knowing him too well by now to expect an apology for all the insults to her ability.

  ‘Then why this trip?’ she demanded aggressively, and regretted it because of course she knew why.

  ‘So I could spend time persuading you to break up with Loris,’ he confirmed blandly.

  ‘Do you still believe it’s only his name or his money that attracts me?’ she heard herself asking curiously, wondering if he might have had a change of mind here too, to go with his revised opinion of her professional competence.

  Nicholas was regarding her thoughtfully as he said quietly, ‘I think you’re a romantic, that you imagine you’re in love with him, but think about your reaction to me, Bridget. Really think about it!’

  ‘I don’t need to! It makes me ashamed,’ she said scathingly.

  ‘Yes, you’re having a hard time staying faithful to Loris, aren’t you?’ he prompted almost sympathetically, his voice disconcertingly warm, but then it hardened as he went on, ‘And that—your idealistic determination to be faithful—plus my abhorrence of sharing, is keeping us apart.’

  ‘At least you have some principles!’

  She made it caustically derisive, afraid of letting him know she respected him for it. Nicholas was so clever that she suspected he would find some way of taking advantage of it.

  ‘Where do we compromise, and which of us does it?’ he wondered, and she was conscious of tension between them once more as she heard the impatient note.