The Jasmine Wife: A sweeping epic historical romance novel for women

He spoke slowly, as if to give more weight to his words. “Darling, you must never visit him. Things are different here, it’s a small community and people talk. A woman’s reputation is very important, even more so than in England, and remember you’re the wife of the District Magistrate. We must set an example to the natives, otherwise they’ll lose their respect for us. Anyway, he’ll have forgotten about you by now. Your promises mean nothing to a man like Sabran.”

“He doesn’t seem to like you much either.”

“He has no reason to like me. We’ve clashed often over various legal issues. He simply won’t accept English justice … fights tooth and nail to defend the indefensible. But I don’t want to talk about him. I’d much rather talk about you.” He bent to kiss her again, giving her at the same time a particularly tender glance. “But we can’t avoid seeing him sometimes, even if I wish him gone to the devil. He’s managed to get his polo team to the finals. There’s the last match of the season in a few weeks and I intend to thrash the brute.”

“He plays well then?”

“Too well. So far we haven’t managed to beat him … But this time …” Charles banged his fist down on the table, making the teacups shake.

Sara was shocked by the anger in his voice. He seemed almost obsessively determined. “Is it really so important you beat him? Really, Charles, does it matter that much?”

He answered her with a silent nod, then turned away, the conversation at an end.

Charles rose to join Cynthia on the other side of the room, and Sara’s spirits sank within her. She unconsciously pulled at the neck of her blouse as she looked around Lady Palmer’s over-furnished drawing room. The brilliant day had lost its beauty, and what she had so recently thought exciting and exotic appeared shoddy, ugly and dull.

She toyed with Charles’s gift of jasmine she had tucked at her waist so to admire it better. Already it had turned brown and hung lifelessly from her belt, its once heady fragrance now sickly and rancid.

Chapter 6

Sara hated herself for her failure to like her new home, even though it was one of the largest and best built in the community, and, at her first sight of it, had to struggle to hide her dismay, though Charles spoke with unmistakable pride in his voice.

“What do you think of it? I like to see it as our own little patch of England.”

The house was an exaggerated version of a Surrey country cottage, burdened with both mock Tudor features and a prim picket fence. There was something ridiculous about it, like an Englishman Sara had met on the ship, who wore heavy tweeds despite the heat and always carried an umbrella.

A dainty path bordered by half-dead roses snaked from the veranda across a faded yellow lawn to the front fence. It was clearly her husband’s pride and joy and as he paused at the front gate he solemnly contemplated the grass, poking at the bare patches with his walking stick.

“My home,” she murmured, but even to her own ears the words seemed wistful.

The servants appeared to welcome them, laughing and generously bestowing blessings on their new mistress. She was swept towards the house while fragrant flowers were thrown in her path. Only one servant hung back, unsmiling and watchful, her eyes fixed on Sara. Even the drab brown of her servant’s sari couldn’t disguise the fact that she was lovely in a way that set her apart from the rest of the servants.

Charles seemed not to notice her beauty. Her presence seemed only to inspire him to anger. “There you are! Quick! Come here at once and meet your mistress.”

The girl crept forward and prostrated herself on the ground before them both, then slowly raised her kohl-rimmed eyes, her expression a mixture of fear and curiosity. She glanced in Charles’s direction as though asking for permission to speak. Despite her heavy gold nose-ring disguising almost half her face, it was plain she was not from South India. Her pale skin and slightly curved nose showed something of Arabic roots.

Charles gave her permission to speak.

“I am Lakshmi, memsahib.” Her huge almond-shaped eyes flashed, then were cast down once more.

“Lakshmi, what a pretty name—it means the goddess of good fortune, doesn’t it, Charles? I hope we will be good friends, Lakshmi.”

The girl gave Charles another furtive look before venturing to speak.

“Thank you, memsahib.”

“That’ll do. Wait over there.” Charles was cross again and Sara couldn’t understand why.

“Is something wrong?”

He answered her at last, speaking as though she were a small child who must be humoured. “Darling, you don’t have to be friends with her, but from now on Lakshmi will do everything for you.”

“Couldn’t it have waited a little? I would’ve liked to choose my own maid. Perhaps we won’t suit each other.”

“My sweet girl, you know you can’t turn up in your own home without a maid; the servants will despise you if you do. Anyway, it’s not for her to decide if you suit her. She’s here to do what you ask of her; that’s all there is to it.”

“I would like her to be happy, just the same.”

“As I said, her happiness is not an issue. She’s a hard worker, that’s what’s important, and trained by Lady Palmer herself. She’s been given to you as a wedding gift and you’re very lucky to have her.”

“A wedding gift? I was under the impression that slavery was illegal.”

“We do pay her, you know.” He spoke with a tinge of impatience in his voice. “Very well, as it happens, and she’s very grateful to have the position, I can assure you.”

“Then I must thank Lady Palmer when I see her,” she replied almost sweetly, though her eyes showed her resentment. “She’s very pretty.”

“Is she? I hadn’t noticed. One can never think of the Indian women as pretty … but of her type I suppose she’s attractive enough.”

Sara smiled up at him, wanting to break down the stiffness between them. “Has she a sweetheart?”

“Of course not …” he spluttered, and shook his head almost violently, as though the idea was unthinkable. “The men won’t have her … She has no family or dowry!”

“Poor girl … Is that why she seems so unhappy?”

He frowned, his patience at an end now. “Sara, my dear, you really do have an over-fanciful imagination. How can you tell if she’s happy or not without even knowing the girl?”

Sara was taken aback by the passion of his response, but at the sight of her shocked face, as soon as the servants were dismissed from the room, he hurried to console her.

“I’m sorry … Forgive me. It’s just that, after all this time, it’s a strain for us both and,” he added, taking her hand to kiss it, “I’m not used to being in the company of such a lovely and accomplished girl. I’ve forgotten how to behave.”

The gentle tone of his voice softened her a little, and she didn’t protest when he put his arms around her.

“I can’t believe you’re here at last.”

“I would have come at once if you’d sent for me.” Her tone was cool. She had to admit to having harboured a secret resentment towards him. It had been a niggling and often painful thought in the back of her mind that if he really cared for her there would’ve been no delay. In her heart she felt he should have swept her up in his arms and insisted on taking her on the ship with him, despite her aunt’s sudden illness. Though, even though she thought it, she studied his face and saw the truth of it. Despite his romantic exterior, it wasn’t his way to be impulsive.

“Well, you’re here now, and we have the rest of our lives together. Anyway, I couldn’t take the risk of you falling ill. You must trust me. We lost two of our community to the cholera this last time, one of them a young woman about your age …”

“Then you do care for me?” she asked with a smile.

“Of course I do, perhaps even more than I did before.”

He put out a hand to touch her hair. “I don’t remember you being so lovely; it’s come as quite a shock to me.”

“Have I changed so much?” She raised her face to his, while his eyes lingered on the tempting shape of her upper lip. He wondered why he’d never noticed it before.

“As I said, it’s almost as though you’re a different person. I wasn’t sure if you still loved me.” His voice was almost harsh now. “I suppose I need you to be devoted to me. Like any new husband.”

“Well, I am devoted to you.” She laughed, surprised at his intensity. “And prepared to love you, even more than I do already, if you give me half a chance.”

He studied her face as she gazed at him. It was impossible not to see how eager and sincere she was.

He nodded, satisfied at last. In truth he was a little disappointed to discover he’d married such a beautiful girl. It had never been his intention to marry for beauty. He felt a wife was expected to be a wife, not an ornament. It made him uneasy to think other men might now look at her with lustful ideas. It increased her power over him, and he hated to be at a disadvantage. He changed the subject at once, not wanting to linger on unpleasant thoughts.

“I’ve arranged for us to leave for Tanjore as soon as I can get away.”

“Tanjore?”

“South of here. you’ll like the place. It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other, away from prying eyes. One is never really alone in Madras.”

His eyes lingered on her body, taking time to appreciate her shapely form. She unconsciously crossed her arms over her breasts, at the same time experiencing a strange little flutter in her chest. It was real, after all. She really was married to this man standing before her and he had a right to look at her in that way.

“Our honeymoon … Of course, I’d almost forgotten.” She blushed and looked away.

“I don’t see why you’re so shocked.” He laughed, for the first time showing a touch of humour. “That’s what you’re here for, you know, to love, honour and obey.”

She bit her lip and stared down at her hands, wondering what to do next. Then, before she could stop herself, the words spilled out. “I will love and honour you, but I have no intention of obeying you, Charles, unless I want to, of course.”

He stared at her for a long moment as though weighing up her words and struggling with his own thoughts, then he stepped forward in a determined way and drew her to him, kissing her hard on the lips.

It was the first time they had actually kissed with any kind of intensity, and she wasn’t sure if it was pleasurable or not; his transformation from practicality to passion came as such a shock.

“I can’t wait. I can’t wait to have you to myself,” he breathed. She was aware of his beating heart as she was pressed almost violently against his chest. Then she felt the warmth of his fingers as they stole up the back of her neck and grasped at the strands of her hair, pulling her head back to be kissed once more.

She gave a little gasp. It was almost as if he was another man. Then for a blinding instant she saw a little into his soul. He kept his feelings close, and only sometimes would he allow them to be seen. This was what marriage was about; she must try to understand him, and with that understanding would come a deeper love. It was such a relief, such a relief to know, deep down, she hadn’t been wrong about him after all.

Chapter 7

It soon became clear that, apart from the climate, there was very little difference between the life Sara had left behind and the society she now found herself marooned in. The only difference being that the codes of behaviour were even more rigid for women than for men.

Even the regulations themselves were frozen in the earlier time of dusty Victorian rule, as antiquated as the horsehair sofa she sat upon most evenings in the drawing room of Lady Palmer’s cloying over-furnished mansion.

At yet another gathering where it was deemed essential she attend, she looked around at the assembled guests, trying to discern signs of unease in the faces of the other women. Were they too struggling with the endless rules of behaviour imposed on them? But their faces betrayed only contentment, even pride, as they fanned themselves against the insufferable heat and watched their menfolk at play.

Many of the women she knew had come from the lower middle classes of England and had once been part of the “fishing fleet” of the past years. They’d found husbands amongst either the minor civil servant community or the military and were now in a society they could never have hoped for in England. Here in Madras, even those from the most humble of backgrounds had at least a dozen servants who enabled them to live with total freedom from domestic servitude.

They were proud of their new status and couldn’t help but boast of it with, it seemed to Sara, sometimes an almost vulgar display of arrogance against the Indian natives. Her compatriots were more than happy with their position, and it was unlikely they would buck the system they had so recently found themselves a part of.

At the far end of the room a group of men were standing together, arms around each other’s shoulders and singing a faintly disreputable ditty from one of London’s faraway music halls. She tried to be indulgent as it was harmless enough, but she resented the fact that men could be silly and loud and drink too much and stumble the night away without any recriminations, while she was supposed to be restrained and corseted, as stiff and emotionless as a mummy in a tomb.

Her face was outwardly serene, but inside her head her thoughts were in turmoil as she ran through the endless list of rules an Englishwoman in India must abide by.

A lady must never be seen alone in the street without at least one servant. A lady must never appear too forward in the company of a gentleman or discuss politics with an air of knowing something about the subject. A lady must always defer to the opinion of the gentleman, even if she felt he was wrong. A lady must not interrupt a gentleman while he was speaking. And, above all, she must never be seen to be amused or interested in the company of an Indian man if she should ever meet one, no matter how high his status. She must always be aware any relations between the races must be kept strictly at arm’s length.

So far, she had broken nearly all those rules, and on the first day of her arrival in India, and had been made to pay for her unconventional behaviour with sly looks of censure and haughty glares, especially from Lady Palmer.

Sara’s head spun with it, and she experienced a familiar tightening in her throat whenever she was in Lady Palmer’s drawing room.

Card tables, occasional tables, vases of dried flowers and tall brass buckets of peacock feathers, silver picture frames, large bronze statuettes and examples of the local bird life preserved under domed glass, their brilliant plumage ragged and dusty. They jammed up against each other and competed on the walls with damp and dreary landscapes of the Scottish Highlands, and scenes of quaint English villages brought from “home”.

Sara’s own house had been adorned in much the same way when she first arrived, and Charles had confessed the furnishings were due to Lady Palmer’s influence. Within the first month, though, Sara had removed the dusty trinkets and condemned most of the heavy Victorian furniture to a storeroom. The walls were painted white and she hung curtains of a vivid turquoise blue and decorated the rooms with exquisite antiques and weavings she’d found in the marketplace for a pittance. The finished result was light and elegant and, most of all, unique, despite the objections of Charles, who declared the look a trifle bohemian. He was concerned about how Lady Palmer would react if she ever found out. But, being in the first throes of fascination with his lovely new wife, he soon adjusted to the changes, only keeping the stuffed head of a tiger in his study, and the largest of Lady Palmer’s paintings, a gloomy still life of a collection of dead animals arranged on a tartan rug after a shoot, which took pride of place above his narrow bed in the dressing room, causing Sara to emit a little shudder of horror whenever she walked past.

A servant bearing a tray of wilting cucumber sandwiches roused her to her present world. She took a bite then put it down at once; it was warm, and tasted vaguely of rancid butter. A sudden roar of coarse laughter from the other side of the room made her flinch.

She longed to be alone, but she knew Charles would be disappointed if she asked to leave before he was ready. He liked nothing better than to be at the centre of a gathering where he knew he was respected and admired. He was at home with his people and, for a clouded moment, Sara had a fear that she’d never feel the same way. But she told herself it was nonsense to be so uneasy. It had only been a few weeks, and there were bound to be difficulties at first, and with time she’d carve her own niche in this new world.

Though she was beginning to wonder what she had committed herself to.

Where was the adventure she’d so longed for? There was none in being transported across the world from one drawing room to another.

For a wild fleeting moment she wished it wasn’t taboo to be alone with a man before they married, if only for a few hours, just to discover what happened in the bedroom before a bride was bound for life.

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