Chapter Twenty-Seven

The moon hung full and large in the dark sky, bathing the world below in a muted glow. Was it a good omen or a harbinger of doom? Riya mulled the possibilities, and then gave a resolved toss of her shoulders. One couldn’t predict the future, after all.

She hooked a leg over the windowsill, reached for the outstretched tree limb, and down she went. She landed with a soft thump next to her bag, which she had stowed there earlier that afternoon, hidden by the thick trunk of the oak tree.

She paused for a moment to catch her breath and admire the perfection of her plan. She had, upon the discovery of Eliza kissing the duke in the library, panicked. What husband and wife, newly wed, would want a permanent houseguest? The future she had planned with Eliza—a quiet, independent life at Hyacinth Cottage—had crumbled around her. Ram would insist on returning her home immediately.

Despite the fact that she’d had less than a day to plot her escape, it was going off without a hitch. And now the moon would light her way to the coaching inn, a scant two miles hence.

How fortuitous.

“Śubha sandhyā,” came a deep, serious voice.

She spun around.

He stepped from the shadows. She waited, breath bated, for his censure. But he seemed in no hurry, and instead looked thoughtfully at the tree that had safely delivered her from her bedroom to the ground.

“Three times,” he said. “Three times you have run away, and each time you have used a window to escape. I have often wondered about that. Would it not be easier to simply walk out the door? Everyone is asleep, and you are quiet as a mouse. Yet, out the window you go. Why is that?”

The question surprised her into an honest answer. “I cannot lock the door behind me. Very likely no harm would have come to those I left behind, but nonetheless I would have worried that in leaving I had let some danger in.”

“Ah.”

He did not seem inclined to say more, only stood there smiling in an odd way, and she gave an impatient tap of her foot. “How did you know I would run away tonight?”

“I did not know, until a quarter hour ago. My mind was restless, and I thought to cure it with walking. As the moon is so full and bright tonight, I didn’t even need a lantern. When I saw the bag, I thought it likely that its owner would come to claim it, so I decided to wait. And now here we are.”

Riya sent a mutinous glare to the smiling moon. When she turned back to Ram, he was regarding her with an odd expression, half amused, half pained.

“Do you mean to tell me that you discovered me by accident, and it was only happenstance that the window by which you walked was mine?” she demanded. Of all the bad luck.

“No,” he said. “I did not accidentally walk by your window. I walked by this window because it is yours. Since you are what prevents me from sleep, it seemed only fitting.”

She sighed. That was so very like him, to lie awake and worry for her. Duty was his lodestar; it underscored everything he did. She ought to have known he would be the one to follow her here, for in his mind she had become yet another responsibility the moment their families agreed they would marry.

“I am not your responsibility, Ram. However foolish you believe me to be, the consequences are mine to bear. You are neither my father nor my brother.”

He gave her a startled look. “Your father or brother? No, indeed I am not.” With this firm pronouncement he took up her bag, then raised his brows quizzically. “It does not weigh very much. Have you no more possessions?”

“This is all I could carry. I left a note to Eliza instructing her that I would write when I found myself settled, and she could send the rest.”

“Very practical of you. Well, shall we be off, then?”

She blinked. “To…where?” she asked cautiously. She did not wish to be alone, and there was no better company in the world than Ram when one did not wish to be alone, but neither would she allow him to force her to return to India.

“You tell me. This is your adventure.”

“An adventure!” She huffed. “This is not an adventure, Ram. I am not hying off in the middle of the night on a whim to see the temples of Greece or the shops of Paris. I am running because I must. Eliza and I had planned to live the rest of our lives at her cottage in Hampshire. Now that she is to marry, what am I to do? Where am I to go?”

He paused, shook his head, smiled. “Such a liar you are, Riya.”

Her spine snapped straight. “I beg your pardon.”

“Your friends would not have cast you out at any time, much less alone in the middle of the night. I have known them for but a day, but even I can see that much. No. You are not running from Miss Benton or even the duke. You are running from me. Again. I am beginning to take it personally.” He turned his face to the shadows, his expression inscrutable. “You never answered my question—the one I asked when I first arrived. Answer it now. Why do you run from me?”

The question made her want to howl. “Why do you follow me?” she cried, impassioned. “That is the question I have for you. Do you not see how impossible it is for me to marry you? You, who have witnessed all my flaws and failings. It will shame you to have such a wife. I will be a stone around your neck, pulling you under the sea. You care for me now, but that will fade with the constant scorn of your friends. And I will have to watch as my husband, who was once my dearest friend, grows to loathe me more day by day. Can you really wish such a misery for either of us? Surely not.”

He took a rapid step toward her, hands outstretched, before he seemed to remember himself and came to an abrupt halt. He looked about in apparent bemusement. “Is it possible?” he asked the moon. “Riya, do you love me?”

“Of course I love you! Why else would I run away? Do you think I could ever allow you to lower yourself so terribly?”

This time when he reached for her he didn’t stop himself. He snatched her up, held her close against his rapidly beating heart, and his mouth crashed hungrily on hers. She gasped in surprise and pleasure.

It did not feel like duty when his clever tongue stroked hers.

It did not feel like obligation when she raked her fingernails against his scalp and he clutched her tighter in response.

This was desire. This was need.

“Amara shona,” he murmured, his breath hot against her cheek. “Amara atma.”

This was love.

No! She had not crossed an ocean only to weaken now. Slowly, she eased free of his embrace.

“Ram,” she said gently.

He shook his head in adamant denial. “No. You will not refuse us our happiness because of him. Abesh made you promises. You did nothing wrong.”

When she raised her eyebrows in disbelief, he smiled wryly. “Oh, very well. You should not have disobeyed your brother. You should not have left me without saying goodbye. Such mistakes can be fixed. It is not wrong to trust those we love. It is not wrong to have faith, and to expect the best in others. Abesh betrayed and abandoned you. The shame is his, not yours.”

She stared at Ram wonderingly and found nothing but sincerity and trust shining in his eyes. He truly meant it. She lowered her chin to rest her forehead against his strong chest.

“I thought the worst moment of my life was when I realized Abesh had abandoned me, but I was wrong. I thought I would die from shame and my brother’s disappointment. But when my brother told me we were to be married, my heart broke. I knew it was you who had arranged it, that you had done it to save me. I knew what it must have cost you to convince your mother and father. You are such a good man, Ram. I knew in that moment that I loved you, and that was why I could not marry you. I couldn’t let you be ashamed of me.” She breathed in his scent, of spice and home, and gathered her strength. “Nothing has changed. I cannot marry you.”

He went very still. “You crossed an ocean, made a home in a foreign land. There is nothing you cannot do. You are so brave, Riya. Be brave for me, too. We will not live in the village of our families, although we will not be very far away. If the stories follow us, we will bear it together, and if it becomes unbearable, then we will flee back to England. Or would you prefer to make our home here now? We can do that. There is always a solution. Always.”

She lifted her eyes to meet his gaze. “Truly?”

“Darling friend. There is nothing bigger in this world than the ocean, and I, too, conquered it for the one I love. We do not know the future. What of it? I will love you always. That is enough.”

Happiness flowed through her like a cresting wave.

“Make your choice, Riya. The world is ours. Where shall we live?”

Happy heart beat against happy heart.

“Take me home, Ram.”