THE RUMBLE OF a helicopter sounded in the distance. Meethi looked up, her hand stilling and her heart thudding violently. It was an alien sound. Helicopters were never heard here.
Her neck began prickling dangerously, and a hunted look entered her eyes.
Had he finally traced her? It had been a long time now—three years, to be exact—and she had begun to hope that he had finally accepted the facts that she had been at pains to scatter around.
But she trusted her instincts. They had stood her in good stead.
The paintbrush she had been holding fell from her nerveless fingers, and she sprinted inside her modest house. She couldn’t afford to wait and see who was in the helicopter. She wouldn’t risk staying. Not when it could be her husband or his men.
Hurriedly collecting the bag she always kept ready and dragging on her sports shoes, she locked the house and vanished into the adjoining forest.
HH Maharaj Vidyamaan Veer Singh of Samogpur jumped out of the helicopter he had been flying with a grim face. His back ramrod-stiff, he flexed his palms and stretched his powerful shoulders to loosen his tensely knotted muscles.
The bodyguards accompanying him exchanged nervous looks. They had known him long enough to sense that he was furious.
Veer tried to control the murky anger swirling inside him.
He was at breaking point. He wanted to give vent to the tidal waves of fury that were threatening to get out of hand. Anger rolled through him again as he thought of how his errant wife had deceived and betrayed him.
She had made a fool of him. A royal fool! he thought with dark bitterness.
She had feigned her own death and disappeared. He dragged his thoughts back to focus on the matter at hand.
He followed his bodyguards, who had gone forward to check out the house. One of them went inside while the other went to the small garden that stood in front of the house.
‘The house is locked, Hukum!’ one said. The other came with the news that there was a canvas with wet paint in the garden.
Canvas and paint. It had to be her. Wet paint meant that she had left in a hurry. But where had she gone? There were no vehicle marks and the nearest house in this small little village was at least three kilometres away.
He turned and looked at the forest. He nodded to his bodyguards, who spread out and began trawling the thick undergrowth silently and quickly.
Suddenly, Veer sensed a movement in the forest farther ahead. Adrenalin pumping, he increased his speed and, soon enough, espied a slight figure in shirt and jeans running silently.
His long legs ate up the distance and, reaching her, he grasped her from behind. She tried to evade his grip but he held her fast.
The sudden impact made them lose their balance and they both fell down, rolling a short distance.
Gritting his teeth as the dry undergrowth scratched his bare arms and small sharp pebbles dug into him, Veer tried to cushion her with his body, protecting her as much as he could, and they came to a stop when they crashed into a huge boulder. Jarred by the collision, they lay stunned for a moment.
Veer felt her heart fluttering like a tiny bird’s against his chest. The feel of her in his arms after so long sent tremors through his body. Filled with self-contempt at the betraying weakness, he got to his feet, holding her by her arm.
What would she do now? There was no escape. He had discovered her deception. Meethi bent her head, trying to stop her fear from showing. Her head seemed to be spinning and she could barely hold herself upright.
‘So, my dead wife is alive and kicking!’ Veer said with barely disguised fury.
Meethi felt a roaring in her ears and sweat trickling over her entire body.
‘You cold, heartless liar! You let us believe in your death and left us mourning and grieving for you whilst you ran away. You made fools out of us!’ he bit out ferociously.
After all that he had done for her, she had turned on him and betrayed him. She had made a mockery of their marriage vows and played with his emotions in the worst possible way.
Veer sensed his wife’s fear and felt a moment’s hesitation. She had hurt him, but he would never do the same to her. He knew he must hold back the fury rolling through him and control himself.
But when Meethi bent her head, refusing to even meet his gaze it infuriated him.
His burning eyes bore into her and he watched his beautiful young wife turn white before fainting in his arms.
Veer looked at her slumped body in shock and panic as he suddenly felt something wetting his fingers. Removing his hand from her hair, he saw that his fingers were red with blood. She had hurt herself, but how?
He looked down and saw that the boulder that they had crashed into had a sharp jutting edge; she must have cut herself on it. His heart constricted for a moment as he feared that she had hurt herself badly. He froze.
His bodyguards had caught up with them and stood there, hovering. One of them took out a clean handkerchief and held it to the wound, trying to staunch the flow of blood. He turned over her limp figure gently to ascertain how deep the cut was and discovered a gash; the bleeding hadn’t stopped and it would need to be looked at by a doctor.
Later, he stood looking down at her as she lay unmoving on the hospital bed. He had immediately flown her to the nearest town, where her cut had been bandaged. The doctor had said that she would have a few painful bruises but had assured him that there was nothing to worry about. The cut to her head was minor, but the doctor did express concern that his wife seemed underweight and suffering from slight stress.
Slight stress! Her stress was nothing compared to his since she had fled three years ago! Her purported death had brought his world crashing down and he had spent sleepless months, feeling miserable and guilty.
And all the time she had been alive.
His bitter eyes roamed over her pale, beautiful features. Over her closed doe eyes, her aquiline nose and her Cupid’s bow lips. Her perfect features still had the power to make him catch his breath.
Though the glow had dimmed and her skin no longer gleamed with lustre.
She looked wan and listless. Holding her in his arms, his body had registered her extreme thinness. His eyes traced over her slight figure and he noticed that she had lost her curves and seemed almost emaciated now.
The disquieting thought that running away had taken a toll on her physical well-being occurred to him. But his anger did not abate. She had broken her marriage vows, betrayed his trust and behaved treacherously.
And he couldn’t forget or forgive her lies and deceit—two things he could not abide.
Born with the proverbial silver spoon, in the important and wealthy royal family of Samogpur, Veer had been an only child. Though not particularly close to his parents, he had been the much pampered and cosseted scion with a phalanx of retainers at his beck and call, till he had been sent to The Scindia School, a boarding school where the children of most royals studied, at the age of seven.
Here he got a rude shock. Boys avoided his company and would fall silent when he appeared in the common room. His seniors passed scathing comments and treated him like a pariah. Amidst hushed whispers and asides, he became aware that his family name was dreaded and feared.
He remembered enduring four long and lonely months before going home to his father, HH Maharaj Arham Shakti