‘That’s a wonderful suggestion,’ Willow said warmly. ‘But maybe best saved for when I’ve fully found my feet here.’
‘I thought you already had…found your feet,’ he admitted.
‘Different country, different culture, different languages, different everything,’ she enumerated with quiet emphasis. ‘I love my life here but right now I’m still acclimatising to the changes. I don’t think I’m quite ready yet to step out in a social setting as your Maharani, particularly when everyone will be expecting someone like you, experienced at making speeches and knowledgeable about community work.’
That explanation silenced Jai because he immediately grasped that he had not even considered the changes that her move to India on his behalf had made to her life. Rare discomfiture afflicted him. Had he always been so self-absorbed that he only saw in terms of what best suited him? That disposed to be selfish and arrogant? He gritted his teeth at the suspicion and said no more, quite forgetting the irritation that his best friend had inexplicably evoked in him.
The next morning, Sher brought the maps over and, together, he and Willow pored over the old parchments in the library, Jai soon taking his leave. Searching for evidence of former paths, banks, sunken areas and even small garden buildings, they discovered a wealth of useful facts. Thoroughly enjoying herself, Willow did sketches and made copious notes while Sher talked at length about what he liked to see in a garden. When Jai walked in again, they were trading jokes about what they suspected was the marking for an ancient surprise fountain that had been designed to startle the ladies as they walked past by drenching them.
For a split second, Jai froze on the threshold. Willow and Sher were on a rug on the floor laughing uproariously, one of his friend’s hands on her slim shoulder to steady her as she almost overbalanced in her mirth into the welter of papers that surrounded them.
‘Lunch,’ Jai announced coolly.
‘Oh, my goodness, is it that time already?’ Willow carolled in astonishment, almost as if she hadn’t been camping out in the library for a solid four hours with his best friend, Jai thought in disbelief. Evidently when in Sher’s company time had wings for his wife.
Sher’s entire attention was pinned to Willow’s face. His friend was attracted to her. Jai had already guessed that, for Willow was a classic beauty, but then Sher was attracted to a lot of women and, as a former Bollywood star, he flirted with all of them, be they grandmothers or teenagers, because he was accustomed to playing to admiring crowds. Even so, Jai trusted Sher with his wife, totally trusted him. He was fully aware that his friend would never ever cross a line with a married woman because that same scenario had destroyed Sher’s parents’ marriage.
No, Jai didn’t blame Sher for the intimate scene he had interrupted, he blamed Willow for getting too friendly, for curling up on the floor and making herself recklessly, dangerously approachable, his Maharani, acting like a giggly, frisky schoolgirl, he thought furiously. A man less sophisticated than Sher might have read her signals wrong and taken advantage, might have made a move on her, the concept of which sent such a current of lancing rage shooting through Jai that he clenched his lean hands into angry fists of restraint by his sides.
He wouldn’t lose his temper when he spoke to Willow later, but he would give her useful advice on how to keep other men at a safe distance, advice she certainly needed if what he was seeing was likely to be typical of her behaviour in male company.
‘You’ve been very quiet,’ Willow commented over dinner, hours after Sher had departed, leaving her free to spend a contented afternoon pondering the old photos while trying to visualise the lush and colourful garden that Sher would most enjoy.
That was the moment that Jai became aware that what he had planned to say to his wife didn’t sound quite the same as when he had first thought the matter over. He breathed in deep and decided that tact was all very well, but it might not get across the exact message he wanted to impart and that message was too important to hold back.
‘You flirt with Sher and I dislike it,’ Jai delivered bluntly, pushing back his chair and rising from his seat with his wine glass elegantly cupped in one lean brown hand.
For the count of ten seconds, Willow simply gaped at him in disbelief. He did not just say that, he could not have accused me of that, she was thinking, and then she looked at him, really looked at his lean, darkly handsome face, and realised by the glitter of his ice-blue eyes and the taut line of his sensual mouth that, no, sadly, he hadn’t been joking. She was stunned, incredulous that he could have misunderstood her banter with Sher to that extent, and then just as quickly angry at the speed with which he had misjudged her. In turn, she too rose from her chair and left the table.
‘For goodness’ sake, I don’t flirt with Sher,’ she said defensively. ‘It’s only a friendly thing, nothing the slightest bit suspect about it. I don’t know how you could possibly think otherwise.’
Jai’s cool appraisal didn’t waver. ‘But I do. You need to learn how to keep a certain distance in your manner with other men.’
‘And you need to learn how not to be irrationally jealous!’ Willow slammed back at him without warning, her patience tested beyond its limits and flaming into throbbing resentment.
Those two words, ‘irrational’ and ‘jealous,’ struck Jai like bricks. He didn’t do either emotion. Unfortunately, those same words also hooked into a phrase his aunt had, many years earlier, once used to describe his father. Later, when challenged by Jai, Jivika had withdrawn the comment and, unfortunately, Willow’s use of those offensive words sent a wave of antipathy travelling through him. ‘I’m not jealous, Willow. I’m merely asking you to monitor your behaviour in male company.’
‘But you’d really prefer me not to have male friends?’ Willow darted back at him.
Disconcerted by that surprising question, Jai frowned. ‘Well, yes, that may be the wisest approach.’
‘So, quite obviously, you are the jealous, possessive, irrational type you think you aren’t…or possibly a throwback to the dinosaurs when men and women didn’t make friends with the opposite sex?’ Willow shot back at him wrathfully. ‘Obviously you have about as much self-awareness as a stone in the wall! Sher’s like the brother I never had!’
‘You don’t have a brother!’ Jai fired back at her.
‘Didn’t I just say that?’ Willow exclaimed furiously. ‘There was no flirting between us, nothing anyone could criticise. I like him and that’s it! I certainly don’t fancy him.’
Marginally mollified by that admission and aware that Ranjit was loitering in the dining room beyond the doors opening out onto the terrace, Jai murmured in an effort to lower the volume of their dispute, ‘I’m not even saying that you knew that you were flirting. It may have been quite unconscious on your part.’
‘Well, it must have been unconscious because I don’t think I even know how to flirt, with my lack of experience in that field!’ Willow slung back at him even louder. ‘Whatever you think you saw between Sher and me, you got it wrong, Jai.’
The doors eased shut with diplomatic quietness and colour edged Jai’s spectacular cheekbones. She was being unreasonable, and he didn’t know how what he had said had escalated into a full-blown acrimonious scene. He was not the jealous type and he was never, ever irrational and, had he been possessive, he would have stopped Sher from offering her the project in the first instance. And now, he wished he had done that, he conceded grimly.
‘I didn’t get it wrong,’ he insisted, refusing to yield an inch.
Willow lifted