Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,40
is not growing up without a father.” He grabbed the carton of coconut water and it dented in his grip. “Aren’t you going to tell me how it isn’t my fault?”
“Excuse me?”
“Everyone keeps telling me Abdul getting shot isn’t my fault. That I shouldn’t blame myself.”
“Don’t you think it’s natural that you would blame yourself?”
“It is, isn’t it?” The strength of his relief at having her give him permission to feel how he felt melted something in his eyes.
She scraped the carrot pieces from the chopping board into the saucepan and added ghee. “Yes, it is.”
“But?” he asked.
“But nothing. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t the one who pulled the trigger.”
“It does feel like that.”
She started on the cabbage and waited. There was obviously more. He was stretched at the seams with how much more there was.
“It does feel like I pulled that trigger,” he said finally.
“Have you ever?”
“Have I ever what?”
“Pulled a trigger. Shot a gun.”
“When I was little. My uncle—Ashna’s father—took me hunting once.”
“How did that go?”
“Other than the nightmares it gave me for days? Not well. My uncle called me a girl. Actually, I believe the word he used was girlish. I suspect he meant it as an insult.” He leaned his hip into the countertop, obviously more at ease talking about something other than his bodyguard. “His exact words were, ‘I’m glad our monarchy was abolished, because God help a country with a girlish boy like you for a king.’”
Her slicing took on force and she controlled it. “How did you respond?”
“I didn’t.” He shrugged. Obviously he thought a statement like that didn’t deserve a response. “My uncle wasn’t a person you won arguments with.”
“But you never went hunting with him again,” she said, causing him to study her.
“Not even when he offered to make a man out of me. It wasn’t hard, because doing all I could to avoid my uncle was something I was always good at. And I . . .” The rat-a-tat of her knife filled the long silence that followed. She wondered if he would win the battle to not say what he wanted to say. “And I swore I was going to be king someday.”
Her hand stopped, and the sound of his words rang in the silence.
He shifted his weight. “But not the kind of king he meant.”
“Then what kind?”
“The kind who didn’t have to kill animals so he could feel powerful. The kind who didn’t think it was his due because he was born into it.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight.”
“So you’ve always known what you wanted.”
His expression said, Doesn’t everyone? and she wanted to laugh. “It wasn’t like that. Back then I think all I wanted was to stick it to my uncle. Not that I said anything to him. I never stood up to the things he said.” She couldn’t quite tell if that was regret she heard in his voice.
“Why is that?”
“Because he was the kind of person who never listened. Actually, I don’t think I was afraid. It just felt like a waste of my time.”
She smiled. “An eight-year-old who was aware of time management.”
“I’m told I was precocious.” He returned her smile. “Time is our most finite resource. We can replenish or increase almost everything other than time.”
“I can’t argue with your brilliant eight-year-old self about that.” She slid the cabbage into the pan and reached for a basket of green peas, immensely grateful for the number of steps involved in vegetable soup. “Is that the only reason?”
“The only reason to not argue with my uncle and try to change his mind? Yes. Because my time was better served proving him wrong.”
“And you didn’t tell your parents or anyone.”
“No. I didn’t want anyone else getting in the middle of it.” If loneliness were a tone, this was it.
She started shelling the peas, although what her hands really wanted to do was reach out and comfort him, stroke his tight shoulders, ease them.
He stepped closer and picked up a peapod. “Aren’t you going to ask?” The plump glossy peas slid from the pod into his hands. They were as strong and capable as she remembered, fingers long and graceful, palms etched starkly with just a few lines.
“Ask what?”
“Why is that?” He mirrored her tone. Another smile. Everything about that smile reminded her of a warm summer night with wedding lights strung by trees and flower garlands strung from gazebos.
“Why is that?” she asked, mirroring his mirroring of her tone.