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“Ma, that was a bespoke belt with Dadi Sa’s emeralds set in the eyes of the tiger,” I wailed, as my assistant rushed to pick it up.
My grandmother had left me her huge collection of precious stones and I liked having them set in bespoke pieces of accessories. I was planning to have her collection of polki and meenakari pendants stitched into my wedding outfit as the perfect blend of the old and the new.
“I don’t care! Dheer can shower you with emeralds as soon as you’re married. If he’d only get on with it,” she muttered as she walked around me in a circle to inspect my outfit.
“He will! He has something planned for today,” I confessed.
She looked up with a pleased smile.
“Did he say what it was?”
I shook my head and closed my eyes as my stylist spritzed me with my favourite perfume. J’adore by Dior. Ma had pitched a fit when Dheer had gifted me a bottle of the perfume for my eighteenth birthday because she thought it was too mature a fragrance for a young girl. But one sniff, and I’d known it was going to be my signature scent.
“All he said is that he has a surprise for me.”
Ma pursed her lips unhappily.
“I don’t like the way he’s ghosted you for the past year,” she grumbled.
“He didn’t ghost me, Ma! He was grieving for his father. We were all shocked when Uncle passed away in his sleep so suddenly. Dheer needed some space to process his grief, that’s all.”
Still, I couldn’t ignore the worry that niggled at me when I thought of the months of radio silence that had followed his father’s funeral ten months ago. He hadn’t even returned to New Delhi to complete his training for the Indian Foreign Service. Instead, Dheer had locked himself in the desert citadel of Trikhera to sort out his father’s immense estates. I didn’t know how long such things took, but surely he could find some time to talk to me.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t called me, but we’d lost our ease of conversation for some reason. All our phone calls were stilted, one-sided conversations with me being determinedly cheerful and trying to fill the uncomfortable silence.
But that was about to change.
Dheer had called me this morning to wish me on my birthday, and when he said that he had a huge surprise for me, I just knew he was going to make everything alright again. And if a little voice in my head wondered why he didn’t sound like my Dheer at all, I put it down to the effects of grief over losing his father.
There was a knock at the door and someone said that my father wanted Ma downstairs immediately.
“Sit here until I send for you. Don’t mess up your outfit, and don’t you dare even look at that stupid belt,” she warned, as she strode out of the room.
I rolled my eyes and pulled out my phone. It was past seven pm, and Dheer still wasn’t here. I didn’t want to go down until he arrived, but Baba would never forgive me if I insulted his guests by ignoring them. I took a few deep breaths and remembered all the princess training I had received at the very exclusive finishing school in Switzerland when I was eighteen.
A princess is always in control of her emotions.
A princess never gives in to a cheap display of anger.
I didn’t know why they had to use such big words when all they meant was that I wasn’t allowed to have a temper tantrum in public.
My assistant, Bina, smiled at me reassuringly.
“Why isn’t he here, yet?” I asked her.
“He’ll be here, Your Highness. He won’t let you down.”
That was true. His Highness Randheer Singh Shekhawat was just not capable of letting me down.
The double doors to my bedroom flew open and someone shouted excitedly.
“He’s here! Your Rana Sa is here, Your Highness.”
I wanted to run down the stairs and jump into his arms, but I knew my mother would flay me alive if I disgraced her like that. Instead, I forced myself to await her summons.
But something was wrong.
The excited cries turned to hushed whispers, and if there was one thing I had learned, it was that hushed whispers that spread through the palace like snakes could only mean disaster.
