His Captive Indian Princess

Vikram saw her collapsing and tried to catch her before she fell but couldn’t reach her in time. As Gauri slid down she knocked her head on the edge of a wooden side table and Vikram winced as the thunk echoed around the room. He should have relayed the news more gently but anger had overridden his usually unflappable control.

He picked her up and, after laying her on the sofa in the corner of the room, pressed the alarm on his watch. His driver came rushing in and he dispatched him to fetch a doctor. In the meantime, he filled a glass with water and splashed some drops on Gauri’s face.

Despite his deep rage, he couldn’t fail to notice how her beauty shone and beckoned. Held close, the perfection of her delicate features was magnified.

He had last seen her as a young girl on the threshold of womanhood and now she had matured into a breathtakingly beautiful woman. Her long lashes fanned out in perfect crescents against her flawless skin. Desire coiled dangerously in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to touch her. Against his will, his hand reached out to gently smooth away a strand of hair that had escaped her tight braid, and he felt the satiny silk of her skin. He cupped his hand around her pale cheek and gently nudged her, calling her name.

Gauri opened her eyes and saw Vikram bending over her, a grim look on his face. Her insides turned at his proximity when suddenly remembrance struck and she closed her eyes in agony. Madhav Dada is dead, her mind whispered.

She heard Vikram calling out her name softly but kept her eyes shut. She didn’t want to open them and see anger and accusation on his face. It was better to lie still, hoping the agonising pain in her heart would ease a little.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of her apartment door opening. She opened her eyes cautiously and saw a man enter and murmur something to Vikram in a low voice.

The next instant she was lifted up in Vikram’s strong arms. Shock held her still for a moment. In so many years, they had never been within touching distance ever and here he was, holding her in his arms. She tried to wriggle away, but in vain, as Vikram held her tight and told her sternly to keep still.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked weakly, ignoring the throbbing in her temples. Vikram didn’t deign to answer and she fell silent, defeated by his forbidding expression. Her body was tingling and even through the drumming in her head she was extremely conscious of his strong arms enfolding her. Held close to his masculine chest, she could inhale the cologne that he always wore and which had been a part of her restless dreams for so long. She stiffened, mortified and self-conscious, trying to mask the sensations running through her body.

Vikram carried her effortlessly down the stairs and she demanded, ‘Where are you taking me?’

He answered curtly, ‘To the doctor. Now keep still until my driver comes.’

He lowered her into his car and snapped the door shut. He then got in from the other side and an oppressive silence filled the car as they waited for his driver.

Gauri closed her eyes in despair. She was back into the morass of her memories. Grief engulfed her when she thought of Madhav. She would never see her beloved brother again. Never have her hair pulled by him teasingly or see the twinkle in his eyes as he joked with her.

So deeply was she sunk in her painful memories that she failed to register that Vikram’s driver had returned and only when the car began moving did she come back from the past. They soon reached a doctor’s clinic and when the car stopped Gauri opened the door, determined to avoid being carried inside in Vikram’s arms. By the time Vikram reached her from the other side she was standing on her own, ignoring the pain shooting up her temples. Vikram ushered her in with grim authority, where they were greeted by a kindly-looking doctor.

The doctor made her lie down and examined her pulse. ‘I am fine …’ she tried to protest and then felt another excruciating pain shoot up the side of her head. With a stifled moan, she put a hand up to the painful area and found it was quite tender. The doctor examined her head gently.

‘She knocked her head on the edge of the table when she fainted,’ Vikram told the doctor.

The doctor finished his examination and said, ‘The area will remain tender for a couple of days. She seems fine, except for some stress, but the blow on the head needs to be monitored for concussion. Although there is nothing to worry about, she should rest and sleep. Apply this ointment and I’ll also give her a painkiller with a mild sedative. And make sure that she is not alone for the next twenty-four hours.’

He held out a painkiller. But Gauri refused, saying, ‘I’ll be fine in a moment. I don’t need it.’

Vikram was immediately at her side and, taking the painkiller, said with gruff impatience, ‘Don’t argue! Just take it!’

Gauri tried to sit up and bit back a cry as pain shot up her head. Vikram pushed the painkiller at her, an implacable look on his face. She wanted to protest but when the throbbing increased she capitulated and downed it in one go. Then, summoning all her willpower, she stood up.

Vikram took hold of her elbow and shepherded her out of the clinic. He seated her in the car and slammed the door shut.

Gauri collapsed in the seat and a mind-numbing sorrow filled her. Thoughts of her half-brother and father engulfed her. Feelings she had kept buried for six long years inundated her and she bit back a sudden sob.

Her half-brother had been the pillar of her life and she had loved him so much. She would never get the chance to see him again. She tried to keep her grief at bay but it had burst its banks. Silent sobs convulsed her and tears ran down her face in rivulets. She bent over, hiding her face, trying to control her sobs, but her tears wouldn’t be checked and kept falling incessantly.

When Vikram got in from the other side he noticed her huddled up but didn’t look too closely. She was probably feeling groggy, he thought. But gradually the silent tremors shaking her body registered and he realised that she was sobbing silently.

Unwillingly, he stretched out his arm and stopped, undecided. But when a particularly long tremor shook her, he grudgingly patted her shoulder. But she wouldn’t stop shaking. Seeing that her weeping wasn’t subsiding, Vikram hauled her close and tried to comfort her.

‘Shh …’ he murmured.

Gauri tried to pull away, conscious that it was Vikram who was holding her, but grief had overwhelmed her and she couldn’t stop crying. Vikram didn’t let her pull away and kept on holding her, stroking her back rhythmically and offering unwilling comfort.

Her piteous sobs tore through his composure and revived the agony of his best friend’s death that he had submerged deep down. He hadn’t had the luxury of breaking down. Ever. The news of Madhav’s accident had been a crippling blow and he had almost keeled over with grief but he had exerted superhuman control and trudged on stoically, ruthlessly suppressing his deep agony.

Gradually, Gauri’s sobs petered away and she stopped shuddering.

‘I’m sorry for losing control like this,’ she said haltingly, pulling away, agonised that it had to be Vikram who had witnessed her loss of control. He was the last person she wanted to bare her emotions to.

Face grim and hard, Vikram let her pull away. This was the second time he had held her in his arms. It had been torture. His body had been submerged by waves of sizzling awareness. The feel of her soft ripe breasts against his chest had set off unwanted sensations inside him and he had been tempted to crush her close.

He wondered why holding her nestled in his arms had felt so right and why now that she had pulled away did he suddenly feel bereft. The next moment he furiously berated himself for succumbing to her lure and letting her get under his skin.

She was adept at affecting people by batting her huge eyes and shedding crocodile tears. Just like her notorious actress mother! He, too, it seemed, wasn’t immune to her appeal. His rage returned. He sat up straight, angry with himself, all softness gone and a forbidding expression in place.

‘You are wasted as a lawyer. You should have been an actress like your mother,’ he said cruelly.

Vikram’s harsh words were like a hard slap on her face. Gauri recoiled, almost gasping aloud in pain. He had caught her at her most vulnerable point.

She stared at him with still wet cheeks, unable to react.

Vikram stared back at her stonily, steeling himself against the effect her wet cheeks were having on him. ‘These crocodile tears are wasted on me. I’m immune to your tricks.’

Gauri bowed her head and tried to pull her tattered emotions around her. She was in no fit state to argue any more. Her storm of weeping had left her feeling weary and she felt tiredness swamping her. She wanted to lay her head back and close her eyes but she dared not give in to any more weakness in front of him.

Biting her lip, she said hesitantly, ‘Can you please take me home? We can continue our discussion tomorrow.’

‘Don’t think you can dismiss me so easily! We have matters to discuss. I have found you with great difficulty and I don’t trust you. There’s no telling when you might skip out again,’ Vikram said in a soft, chilling voice which raised goose bumps on her skin.

His eyes bored into hers relentlessly and Gauri looked away, unable to meet his implacable gaze.

‘Lie back and close your eyes. It will take us time to reach our destination,’ he said tersely.

‘I … I’ll sleep once I reach home,’ Gauri mumbled.

‘Don’t make me more angry, Gauri. Just do as I say.’

Gauri capitulated with a sigh. She knew she didn’t stand a chance in the face of Vikram’s indomitable will. And she was feeling too spent to argue any further. It was only her air of bravado that was keeping her going.

She laid her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. Despair overwhelmed her again and, despite her bout of crying, fresh tears pricked at her eyes under her closed eyelids. But she didn’t let them escape. With tremendous control she lay soundlessly, pushing away the painful memories, blocking out everything from her mind and trying to focus on her breathing as she had been taught.

She had been an emotional wreck years ago and then she had run into Meenakshi Singh, who had been her saviour and on whose insistence she had seen a counsellor. The counsellor had trained her to switch off whenever painful memories began to intrude. She had had years of practice now and had become adept at pushing away agonising emotions while continuing to function stoically.

Vikram looked at her spent form, angry at the unwanted feeling of protectiveness that surged inside him. The only people he had ever truly cared about were his mother, his childhood friend Madhav and, later on, Madhav’s father. He had always been a loner and had never formed any attachments, even as a child. He’d always maintained an emotional distance with everyone, including Madhav’s family. But, ironically, Gauri always managed to disturb his equilibrium and had ruffled his equanimity on countless occasions.

The circumstances of her birth, her sudden appearance in Madhav’s family and the resulting furore had shaped his view of her. She had been the product of a one-night stand between Madhav’s father, Maharaj Sambhaji Rao, and a desperate and greedy actress who had seen the married Maharajah as a meal ticket and who had connived to get him very drunk at a party, seduced him and then trapped him by becoming pregnant.

That the Maharajah was bound to a terminally ill wife whom he could not leave had suited Gauri’s mother perfectly—knowing the limited shelf life of an actress, she had only wanted a benefactor to fund her expensive lifestyle. After Gauri’s birth, she had pretended great love for her daughter and had actively discouraged the Maharajah from having any contact with Gauri.

She had tearfully convinced the susceptible Maharajah that she didn’t want their daughter growing up ashamed of her illegitimate birth. The Maharajah had acquiesced and had retreated to the background. The astronomical sums of money she was given every month for Gauri’s upkeep were spent on leading a lavish, hedonistic lifestyle.

When Gauri turned five, Maharaj’s wife had died and, ironically, so had Gauri’s mother in an accident. Maharaj finally brought Gauri home.

Madhav had welcomed his chhoti bahen—younger sister—whom he lovingly called chhoti with open arms but the issue of her illegitimacy and her mother’s notorious reputation had filled Vikram with dislike.

As a child, she had been jealous of Vikram’s bond with her brother and would either ignore him or behave in a prickly manner. In turn, her doglike devotion to Madhav would irritate Vikram intensely and he had frequently been forced to hold his tongue, swallowing the scathing words springing to his lips in order not to upset Madhav.

And then, overnight, Gauri had grown up.

He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it had happened, but he’d started to realise that his breath often caught at the sight of her.

She had suddenly blossomed into a beauty and had wreaked havoc on his hormones. His senses would thrum with awareness at the sound of her light step and the blood in his veins would quicken at the sight of her long braid swinging against her hips as she turned and left a room. The disturbing effect she had on him had knocked him off balance and made him angry and he had often resorted to cold sarcasm in her presence.

With hindsight he recalled that they both had rubbed each other the wrong way right from the beginning.

He looked at her, wondering why she had the capacity to ruffle his unflappable calm and arouse disturbing feelings inside him, especially when he knew her true nature. The sedative worked and after a few minutes Gauri slid into a deep slumber.

Suddenly Vikram realised that Gauri hadn’t applied the ointment that the doctor had given her. He hesitated, unwilling to touch her again and uncertain about waking her up. Finally, aware that the doctor’s orders had to be followed, he applied the ointment on the swelling on her forehead. Her skin was like soft satin and his fingers tingled as he rubbed gently.

Gauri murmured something sleepily but didn’t awaken. He looked at her face.

The moonlight glinted on her face, highlighting the perfect symmetry of her features and her flawless luminescent skin. She had inherited her heart-stopping beauty from her actress mother, who had been an acclaimed beauty and had graced the covers of many magazines.

Gauri, too, had received a couple of acting offers while still in school, which her father, the Maharaj, had peremptorily turned down.

Vikram gazed at her heart-shaped face and sharp patrician nose, which always used to be adorned by a tiny gold nose pin. The nose pin was no longer there. But her lips were perfect as ever. They glistened invitingly in the moonlight.

A deeply buried memory of the kiss that they had shared almost six years back surfaced.

It had been during the festival of Holi, also known as the festival of colours. As part of a bet, Madhav and he, along with their friends, had downed numerous glasses of the traditional intoxicant drink bhang. Drunk and intoxicated on bhang, they all had danced in the moonlight and he had found himself dancing with an equally intoxicated Gauri. It was the first time he had touched her.

The next thing he remembered was kissing her under a secluded arch of the palace. The kiss had rocked him and ignited an explosion of feeling in him. Gauri had kissed him back and he had plundered the sweetness of her lips. They had tasted like ambrosia, and he had drunk greedily, passion flaring intensely between them. Their kiss had gone on and on and he had almost taken her there and then, and only the sudden realization that he was kissing the teenage sister of his best friend had stopped him. She had looked at him with her doe-like eyes, dazed and innocent, and his heart had slammed against his ribs.

The sensations had been so vivid and the experience so intensely arousing that for several days he had been unable to behave naturally in front of Madhav and had gone out of his way to ignore Gauri. His body’s intense reaction had shocked and disturbed him and, knowing the futility of pursuing their explosive chemistry, he had done his best to douse the raging hunger that had filled him since the kiss. Deep guilt had assailed him when he thought how close he had come to betraying his friend’s trust with his sister. Especially since Gauri was still so young, only sixteen and sweet and innocent—or so he had mistakenly thought.

It had been a struggle but he had fought hard against the searing attraction which seemed to infect him whenever Gauri appeared.

But his scruples had been misplaced, as he had soon learnt. Later events had shown how mistaken he had been to think of Gauri as a naïve and innocent teenager. While he had pulled back, thinking she was still a child, she had been conducting an affair with the stable boy under their unsuspecting noses. Even at sixteen she had been a master of deception and wiles and had crafted a careful web of lies and betrayal. He had felt like a fool for being taken in by her.

Gradually, he had buried the entire incident deep inside the recesses of his mind and had never permitted any recollection to cross his memory. But now Gauri was in his clutches and he would make her squirm for her deception and lies.

Vikram looked at her with ruthless satisfaction, bent forward towards his driver, gave him some instructions in a low voice and then stretched out his long legs and prepared to rest, too. It would be a long journey and he wanted to be fresh and alert when they arrived.

Chapter Two

DAWN WAS BREAKING over the sky when the car slowed down before the stately wrought-iron gates which slid open at the sight of the familiar car.

‘Bahadur Vilas Palace Hotel’ the sign proclaimed.

The guard came running and saluted smartly. ‘Salaam Saheb.’

Vikram nodded in greeting, and the car moved along the curving driveway which was surrounded by tall trees. It was an old and beautiful estate with an imposing palace set amidst rolling greenery. It belonged to the Rao Bahadur dynasty which had ruled the city of Mogragarh for generations. Royalty had been abolished after Independence in India but the titles and the way of life of many royal families remained as before. The royal family of Mogragarh was still counted among the important royal families in the country and commanded a lot of respect and awe. The present head of the family was Maharaj Sambhaji Rao and Vikram’s friend Madhav had been his son and the male heir of the dynasty.

He looked around pensively. This was Madhav’s ancestral home. But for as long as he could remember it had been home for him, too. Madhav and he had been inseparable as friends, and he had spent all his vacations at Madhav’s palace rather than his own.

He had hated his own palace. It held painful memories for him. He belonged to the royal family of Bijagarh which, too, could trace its ancestry way back and which had once upon a time been a wealthy and important princely state. But then rot had set in and his forefathers began squandering their wealth in pursuit of their selfish pleasures. Debauched and decadent, their dynasty became morally corrupt. His great-grandfather had even been accused of betraying the country for his selfish means, and the stigma and dishonour still clung to their family name.

Vikram’s father had also lived up to his family’s tarnished reputation. He had spent his entire life partying, hunting and having affairs, and his legacy to his heir after his death had been a mountain of debt which Vikram had cleared from the huge personal wealth he had accumulated.

Vikram had experienced a disturbed and traumatic childhood. His father had been abusive and violent and highly critical of Vikram. He’d mocked Vikram’s deep attachment to his mother and jeered at him, telling him princes had to be strong and unemotional. He had subjected his long-suffering wife and son to harsh beatings.

When he was eight, Vikram’s father had installed his mistress in his palace and Vikram’s frail and delicate mother, unable to bear the public humiliation, had shot herself.

His callous and uncaring father had shunted off Vikram to boarding school, where he’d met Madhav.

Madhav had befriended the grieving and morose Vikram and pulled him out of his depression. Vikram knew he was indebted to Madhav for having saved his sanity and in later years did his best to repay the debt.

Two years ago, after receiving the news about Madhav’s death, it had been Vikram who had buried his own pain and stepped in to comfort Madhav’s distraught father, Maharaj Sambhaji Rao. The inconsolable, grieving Maharaj had turned to Vikram for emotional support and assistance in his business affairs.

For the past two years Vikram had been managing Maharaj’s business affairs as well as looking after the expanding chain of luxury hotels which Madhav and he had jointly set up about five years ago. The additional load had meant that for the past two years he had been working his butt off and the last year had been even more frantic since Maharaj had suffered a stroke and gone into coma.

Vikram had continued at the helm of Maharaj’s business affairs but things had become complicated when the husband of Maya—Madhav’s sister and Maharaj’s elder daughter—had started legal proceedings to try and wrest control of the family property from Vikram.

But after Madhav’s accident, the Maharajah had written his will and had taken Vikram into his confidence. So Vikram knew that though the Maharajah had bequeathed considerable wealth to his legitimate daughter Maya, he had determinedly named Gauri, his illegitimate daughter, as his principal successor.

Locating Gauri at this point of time was a stroke of luck. Her presence would untangle the legal mess of Maharaj’s property and enable him to safeguard Maharaj’s wealth until he recovered and assumed control for himself. Vikram glanced at the lying and cheating girl, who was even now sleeping the sleep of an innocent. Gauri hadn’t stirred even once on the way. The sedative had been very effective. And it had worked out for the best.

The car purred to a stop in front of an imposing building. Vikram shook Gauri. She was in for a shock, he thought with grim satisfaction. But Gauri didn’t awaken.

The sedative must have been really powerful, Vikram thought wryly. He got out of the car and lifted Gauri in his arms. Shaking his head at the durban who rushed to help him, he turned to go inside. He entered the lobby and turned towards an entrance marked ‘Private’ on the side of the reception hall. A waiting lackey produced a card and opened the door, which swung inside noiselessly to reveal a plush carpeted gallery which led to his suite of rooms.

Soon he had deposited her on the bed and stood looking down at her sleeping form. In sleep she exhibited vulnerability and innocence, which he knew was deceptive. Women, he had learnt early on, were conniving and unscrupulous and his father’s numerous mistresses, Gauri’s mother and even a couple of his girlfriends had only reinforced his belief that they could cheat and deceive with ease for their own selfish interests.

Gauri, too, had been adept at twisting people around her finger. He remembered sourly how she just had to look with her huge doe-like eyes at Madhav or Kaka Maharaj and they would be like putty in her hands. He, too, had not been immune to her wiles.

Face tightening with displeasure, he turned away from her. He desperately needed a shower.

Gauri rubbed her eyes sleepily and opened them slowly—they met unfamiliar surroundings. Suddenly, remembrance struck and she sat up with a jerk, unsure if the events of the night had been real or a nightmare.