Chapter 3
23, June, 1812
The Day After:
"I do hope you have my book," she said, leaning over his body, her hand stuck out, not out of charity, not to help him to stand, but for her bloody book!
"Madam, do you mind if I wait to see if I live, before you make requests of me?" he asked, as he lifted himself to a seated position.
He sat up against the tree, and looked around for his hat, which had fallen from his head when he fell from the tree. He spied it next to her foot. He reached around her, his hand skimming the material of her pretty, green dress. He placed the hat on his head and said, "Now then, what were you asking of me?"
"I should go in the house, have the men come out here and flog you, and then hand you over to the police, you know," she said, tapping her foot in the dirt, and giving him a look, which rivalled that of his old governess.
"You make false claims, my dear," he said, standing up with some difficulty. "There are no men in the house. You are quite alone, and without chaperone. I would be shocked, but frankly, I'm not sure anything you do would surprise me."
"Says the man behind the mask, who fell from a tree," she said, pointing upward. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Are you not afraid?" he asked.
"Of robbers who climb trees?" she said with a laugh. "Hardly, sir."
Armaan ignored that comment and said," I would think the sight of a masked man would cause any proper lady to quake and quiver".
"Quake and quiver," she repeated. "I have no carriage here for you to burn, so I feel safe at the moment."
He regarded her closely, "Ah," he said slowly. "Then perhaps we should get on to the business at hand."
"Which would be?" she asked.
"An exchange of sorts," he said. He pushed away from the tree and said, "You would like your book returned, is that not correct?"
"That is correct," she agreed.
"I have it here," he said. He pulled it from a pocket that was inside his black cape. She smiled, a smile which made his heart dance, if he indeed had a heart, which some claimed he did not. He tucked the book safely back inside his cloak and her smile turned to the saddest frown he had ever seen. He said, "No worries, my dear heart, the book will be returned, but you recall, I said it would be an exchange."
"Then you mean to ransom my book? Hold it captive?" she asked, annoyed.
"As you hold my heart captive, sweetling," he said. He took a step closer, but with a swift movement Riddhima picked up a wooden stick and placed it under his chin. "Do you mean to scare me off, Miss?"
"I mean to get my book," she said seriously.
His hand, which wore no glove this morning, reached up for her wrist. It was an intimate touch, between strangers, skin on skin, and it caused her breathing to quicken and her knees to shake. His hand travelled from her wrist, up her hand, to hold her stick by the tip. He easily yanked it from her hold. He threw it lightly to the ground.
He reached back for her hand, and she let him hold it willingly, which was improper itself. She did not seem afraid, which he was glad. He did not want her to feel fear. She said, "If your proposition is for another kiss for my book, I feel remiss to tell you that will never occur, Sir."
"You assume too much, Miss," he retorted. "No, a kiss was the price for your book last night. This morning, the book is worth a bit more, so the price has gone up. You see, that is the way of things."
She tugged at her wrist. He released it easily. He continued, "No, what I want is for you to tell me one secret about you, that no one else knows. When I know ten things about you, intimate, endearing, private things, you shall have your book."
She gave him a hard glare, and backed into the tree. "You mean for me to tell you ten intimate, private things about me, right now, in exchange for my book?"
"Let me rephrase," he said. He removed his hat, and banged it against his leg. He even took off his cape. It was a warm morning. He threw both down on the ground. He tugged on his short coat, and said, "I only want one thing this morning. One thing a day. I'll oblige you as well, and tell you one intimate thing about myself."
"You mean to make me wait ten days for my book?" she asked, no longer annoyed, but rather interested.
He smiled. "That is the agreement, and then, being the gentleman that I am, you shall have your book."
"Are these ten intimate things to be in the form of questions posed to the other, or shall we select our own information to share?" she asked.
He walked around the tree. She remained in place. "That is a good question, my dear. I say, we shall only give the information we want to share, for I know your first question to me will probably be for my name, which for obvious reasons, I cannot divulge." He ended up in front of her again.
"Agreed," she said. That surprised him. What also surprised him was that he was originally only going to ask her for one secret. Nonetheless, she agreed to his terms, so she must be anxious to continue to see him, as he was to see her. She said, "Shall we sit in the garden?"
"Will we be discovered?" he asked slyly.
"The others are engaged in town, as you seem to be aware." She walked over the same stone bench where she and Prem had sat before. It was in the middle of a high, rose garden, so they were still hidden from view. He bent down for his things and joined her on the bench. She sat with her knees facing the house. He sat the opposite way. This seemed more intimate to Armaan.
"Ladies first," he said, "For I am nothing if not chivalrous."
She made a sort of snorting sound, which made him smile, but she placed her prim little hands on her lap, and she started to think. While she thought, he examined her.
She really was a radiant beauty. Her eyes were Hazel. Her hair warm, and wavy, which today, she wore long. She had a spattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. He had always admired her freckles, for some odd reason. Her eyes narrowed, and her lips puckered, as she continued to give her secret some thought.
"What say you, Miss? Have you a secret to share, or shall I continue to stare at you all day?" She turned to his question, and blushed. When she blushed, her cheeks turned the colour of a pink rose in the height of summer.
She finally said, "When I was small, before I started school, I was a lonely child. I didn't have any friends, my mother was often ill, so I was made to stay quiet by my father." She was quiet for a moment, as if to illustrate. He wanted to reach for her hand, to give her courage to tell her secret, but he did not want to seem more improper than he was already appearing, so he held his hands tightly together, in his lap.
She cleared her throat, and continued. "My only friends were my cat, TimTim, and my china doll, named Dodo."
"Dodo?" he asked, with a smile.
"I was a precocious child," she said, with a hint of a smile herself. "Anyway, I often had tea parties with my dolly and my kitty, or I read to them, but I had no real friends. The other children thought I was strange."
"On my eighth birthday, my mother told my father she wanted to have a big birthday party for me, and he always gave both of us whatever we wanted, so we had a massive party. Every child, from the Duke's heirs to the lowly vicar's daughters came to my party. I was in awe. I thought, finally, I have friends! Imagine my shock when right before the presents were to be revealed, I heard one of the little boys tell another boy that his father was given a farthing to come to my party, and the other boy laughed and said, "My father held out for a sixpence." I was heartbroken. My father bought all of my friends. If he had not, no one would have come to my party."
She looked pensive for a moment, and then she looked back to the masked man. When he did not say a word to her missive, she said, "Needless to say, the next year, at my insistence, my only guests were my parents, my governess, my grandmother, the upstairs maid, the butler, and my kitty."
"Your dolly was excluded?" he asked lightly.
"Dodo had met with an accident several months before, and her face was quite broken, so she was unable to attend," she said with a smile.
He felt badly for her. It sounded like she had a lonely and isolated childhood, much as he had. He wanted to say something reassuring to her, but the words would not come. Instead, he said, "Poor Dodo."
"Quite," she said in return. "Your turn."
"My secret is that you have captured my heart, my lady." He took her hand in his, raised it to his face, and kissed it with a feathery, soft kiss. His breath was warm on her knuckles, and she lowered her eyes.
At that moment, a woman called from the house, "Riddhima, come see the dress that Anjali bought you for the assembly tonight! It's beautiful!"
Riddhima stood up so suddenly that she swayed slightly. He reached out and touched her arm, and then let it go when she was righted. "Go, Riddhima."
She started to go, but then said, "How did you know my name?"
He smiled again and said, "I just heard someone call you that, from the house, did you not hear them, too?"
She smiled back. "Of course."
"Tomorrow?" he asked.
"Perhaps, or maybe even sooner," she said boldly.
He rather thought it would be sooner. "I shall hold you to that," he said. He rushed out of the garden. She stayed by the bench, and watched as he ran away, and she wondered, what had gotten into her. She had never shared that embarrassing secret to another living soul. It seemed easy to speak to this masked man, this man unknown. She found him affable, and kind, even generous, yet he was a highwayman, who set fire to an expensive carriage, and who stole her book. She even thought that he had set fire to her soul, and had stolen her heart, as well.
She felt a hand on her arm, and she gasped as she turned, thinking the man had returned. It was Niki. "Riddhima, are you alright? Did you not hear me calling you?"
"Yes, I heard. So what colour is my new dress?"
.-.-.-.-. -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Armaan was not planning to attend the assembly tonight, but when he had learned that Riddhima was to be there, he changed his plans, and gladly so. He coerced two friends to attend with him. They were glad to go, but surprised that he wanted to attend. The party had already started when they entered the hall. Soon, all eyes were upon them, because Armaan Malik, now Lord Malik with the death of his father, never attended any local functions, of any kind, much to the chagrin of most of the young ladies, and the young ladies' fathers, who would do anything to snag his ten thousand a year for their offspring.
Riddhima stood with Anjali and Atul by the buffet table. She looked down at her beautiful gown, and although she stood out from the crowd, she was not aware. She felt the gown was beautiful, but feared that she herself paled in comparison. Anjali had wonderful taste. The dress was almost a golden shade, and it complimented both her skin and hair colour. Prem told her it brought out the gold in her eyes.
She was nervous, because she didn't know many people in attendance, and because she knew that she was meant to be on display, since she was supposedly 'on the marriage market' and that whole thought made her feel uneasy.
Several men asked for the first dance, but she lied to them all and said that it was already reserved. When the orchestra started, she would have to hide, not to be caught in her lie.
Anjali and Atul walked away from her, to go speak to his parents. She looked down at her skirt again, and when she looked up, she gasped, for someone entered the assembly hall, whom she had not seen in a long time, and in fact, she had hoped never to see again.
Armaan Malkik had just entered, with a former classmate, Amrit Singh, who brought his friend, Preet Kapoor, an affable Scottish man, who was at one time a rival, but was now his best friend.
Amrit leaned towards Armaan and said, "These are always tidy, if not boring little affairs, Armaan. Why ever did you want to attend tonight?"
Preet answered before Armaan could. "Perhaps he had his eye on some of the bonny lasses, here. I say, there are many pretty gals here, tonight, but none as pretty as the lassie I spy by the buffet table. How about her?" He pointed his head toward Riddhima, and all three men looked her way.
Armaan found it hard to swallow. She looked captivating, beautiful beyond compare, and she was looking right at him.
Amrit said, "Preet, you would single out the prettiest girl here. I say, gents, is that not Prem Juneja's friend? Gupta, Riddhima Gupta?"
"I dare say, it is," Preet said with a laugh. "The last time I saw the lass, she was in petticoats and pigtails." He turned to the other men and said, "Let me see if her dance card is full. If not, for I hope to claim a dance or two."
Armaan walked towards Riddhima before Preet could start his jaunt across. Amrit held Preet's arm, to hold him back, when he saw that determined look in Armaan's eyes.
Before Armaan could cross the room, Muskaan walked over to Riddhima and said, "No one ever sees Armaan Malik at these things. He thinks he is above such mundane entertainment, usually. Oh my, it seems he is coming toward us."
Riddhima could not look away. Armaan could not either. Several people stopped him, and he dismissed them quickly. Riddhima took the chance to break her gaze from his, when another man pulled on Armaan's sleeve for a chat.
She turned toward the refreshment table, and grasped onto the sides. She took a steady breath. Then she felt him behind her, as surely as she knew her own name, she knew he was standing behind her. She had not seen him since the first war, three years ago and they had not parted friends. She shook, like a leaf, and she was ashamed of her pensiveness. She waited for him to speak, because she knew he would.
"Miss Gupta," he said.
She turned to face him. He was so close, that she had to tilt her head upwards to look at him. He was taller than she had remembered. Almost as tall, if not taller, than her new friend, the highwayman. She quickly wondered why she compared the two, for there could not be any two men who were more different.
He wore all black, from his black knee, length boots, to his black breeches, black waistcoat, and black coat with tails. His shirt was a contrast, as it was white as virgin snow. His haircut short, as was the style, almost reminiscent of a Greek style, and when he extended his hand, she looked at it for a good solid minute.
Finally, she placed her hand in his. It was warm and for an odd reason, which Riddhima would never comprehend, it made her feel incredibly safe. "Lord Armaan," she said, with a polite curtsey.
"Has anyone been bold enough to claim the first dance, Miss?" he asked.
She hardly knew what to say. Was Armaan actually asking her to dance? She was shocked. The music started a mere moment later, and without receiving an answer from her, he kept her hand and towed her out to the floor. He did not smile. He did not seem pleased to see her. He did nothing encouraging, yet he held her hand, until the music started and then he said, "If not, then shall I be so bold as to claim it for my own?"
Plz do hit the like button and leave your comments... =D
Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shahad Shahad
