She came back into the flower-infested room. A shield crossed with swords from some war the Raje ancestors had fought hung on the wall in front of her. There was an entire armory in the north tower, but it was all useless. Most of the guns and weapons were behind glass cases and as antique as the patriarchy that was holding her inside these walls.
She could find one of those guns, or throw herself off the balcony. There were a million ways to humiliate them by presenting them with her corpse on her wedding day. What would that get her? It would be the same as accepting Bram, accepting this new life. It would be accepting defeat.
Her father had done this so he could forge a relationship with the Rajes, to attach himself to the place in society they afforded. Bram had done this to prove that he could. The reason why Bram did everything. How had she thought him harmless? Men like him were never harmless. Men like him, those gods of apathy, were worse in some ways than men like her father, the keepers of control, the true believers, who knew their way of life would be lost if their daughters rose to stand beside their sons.
No.
Shoban was going to stay Shoban.
One by one she started to remove the metal chains, the gemstone balls. She unhooked the nose ring, a cluster of pearls formed into a paisley around a ruby that her mother had worn at her wedding. Uncut diamonds formed into layered jhumkas hung from her ears all the way to her shoulders—earrings Bram’s mother had worn to her wedding. More chains wound around her ears and hooked into her hair to hold it all in place. Everything tied up and tangled and secured.
Bangles from her wrists halfway up to her elbow, cuffs of gold interspersed with green and red glass. The breakable and the unbreakable clinking against one another. Amulets and anklets that had rubbed her skin raw. She cast it all off. One heavy weight after another.
An ungodly calm settled into her bones.
Next came the flowers in her hair. Enough of them that an entire garden had to have been massacred. Tuberoses and roses and five varieties of jasmine. The only other time she would be this covered in flowers would be when she lay on her pyre.
The two times they covered women in flowers—their wedding day and the day they died. Who could have imagined those two would feel so remarkably alike?
Omar’s favorite song had been filmed on the wedding bed. One much like this with curtains of flowers turning it into a cage . . .
Kabhie Kabhie mere dil mein khayal aata hai
ke jaise tujhko banaaya gaya hai mere liye.
Sometimes a thought whispers in my heart
that your very existence was formed for me and me alone.
During the scene, the groom—also undesired—undresses his bride as she sings the poetry composed by the lover she had hoped would be her husband.
When Shoban had watched the song on the screen, her skin had crawled at the groom touching the bride. He has no right to her body, something inside her had always screamed.
That voice inside her was screaming now. The idea of anyone but Omar touching her made her sick.
“Give this a chance,” her father had said after the wedding ceremony was over. “It’s for your own good.”
“No, it’s for your good, actually,” she had said to him with the same self-congratulatory smirk he and Bram had pasted on their faces through the ceremony. “You are not welcome in this house anymore.”
Like the rest of the guests—not too many, because the wedding had taken place fast once Bram and her father had realized that giving her time might help her escape—her father had rushed to congratulate her. But she had stepped away. “You made sure this was my home, and I am asking you to leave it. Get out.”
He had leaned in to her. “Don’t do all this tamasha right now and humiliate your family.”
“You are no longer my family. I asked you to get out of my house, and if you don’t, there will be a tamasha like you’ve never seen. You will drop the charges against Omar and send me proof that he is safe. If I find out that you harmed Omar or his family in any way, I will make sure I use all the power the Rajes wield to do to you what you threatened to do to Omar.”
She had made sure Flora had her father’s bags packed and in his car. That man would never set foot in Sagar Mahal again.
Shoban locked the door. She had no idea where Bram was. Probably being lectured by his brother, who had hurriedly flown out for the wedding from California, or saying goodbye to the guests, or handing celebratory mithai to the loyal subjects of Sripore. She didn’t care. She undid the safety pins and removed her sari. Blood-red hand-woven Paithani silk embellished with twenty-four-carat gold thread. Bram’s mother had asked if she needed one of the maids to help her undress. She didn’t. Not that it had been an unkind offer.
Maya Devi had tried to talk to her before the wedding, but Shoban’s father hadn’t left them alone and after her experience with Bram, she wasn’t sure if she could trust anyone. The bruises he’d left on her arms still stung.
She rummaged through the trousseau her father had probably paid someone an obscene amount of money to put together at such short notice. All these bright colors and silks. Clothes chosen for her by someone who had no idea who she was.
She looked through the duffel bag she had brought with her when she’d thought she was coming for a visit. She picked out a white cotton kurta appliquéd with white thread.
Widow’s white. It calmed some of her rage, focused it. Until she was in Omar’s arms again, she would only wear white.
When she stepped out of the room, Flora jumped off her stool. “Tai-saheb, you need something?” She looked confused by Shoban’s suddenly and starkly unbridal clothes.
Shoban shook her head. “Just need to get some air.”
Flora started to follow her, but Shoban raised her hand. The action much more imperious than she was feeling. “I’ll be back in a bit. I just need to be alone.”
Flora looked up and down the long corridor. Was she supposed to be spying on Shoban? Guarding her? Finally, she sat back down on her stool. “If you go straight down and make a left, the door at the end leads to a terrace that’s unlocked and private.”
Shoban thanked her and followed her directions. If she didn’t get some fresh air, she was going to suffocate.
The huge terrace overlooked the ocean. Shoban stumbled out and sucked in a lungful of air, then coughed it out. Because someone was smoking behind her.
“Shit,” a female voice said, fanning her hand in front of her face.
Mala, or was it Mona? Shoban couldn’t remember her name, but she was Bram’s older brother Shree’s wife. She used to be some sort of Bollywood film star, but now they lived in America.
“I’m sorry,” Shoban said, heading back to the door, “I just needed some air. I didn’t know there was anyone here. And please, it’s okay.” She pointed at the hand her sister-in-law—what on earth was her name?—was holding behind her back. “I won’t tell anyone.”
The woman, who was ridiculously beautiful and still in the bright blue-and-gold sari she had worn to the wedding, smiled, and moved her hand from behind her, exposing the slim cigarette between her fingers.
“I’m Mina,” she said kindly, holding up the cigarette before taking a deep puff. “I do it only occasionally.” She waved the cigarette with the elegance of a . . . well . . . a film star. “The palace stresses me out. It’s a lot, isn’t it?”