Monsoon Mists by Christina Courtenay Page A

won’t have to sully your hands.’ She was so angry now, she forgot to be afraid of him.
    ‘Needs must, as they say. Beggars can’t be choosers.’
    ‘I thought as much. It’s always about the money, isn’t it? Well, you can’t have it. I’m not marrying you and that’s final. In fact, I think you’d be the last man on earth I would wed.’
    She twisted and turned and succeeded in dislodging one hand, but he brought it up and put it under her chin, squeezing her windpipe instead. Zar cried out and tried to retreat backwards, but only succeeded in half lying down with Richardson virtually on top of her. With one hand, she tried to fight him off, while the other groped around for something to defend herself with. At first she felt nothing, but then her hand reached a small table which happened to be right next to the settee. On it was a plant in a pot and she tore off a small branch and quickly jabbed it into his eye.
    Richardson howled and recoiled, clutching his eye with one hand. Zar didn’t wait to see what he’d do next. Instead she struggled into a sitting position, yanked her skirts out from underneath him, and fled towards the door.
    ‘You bitch!’ he shouted. ‘I will have you! Just you wait.’
    ‘Not if I can help it,’ she muttered, as she lifted her petticoat and ran up the stairs to her room two at a time. Priya, who must have been waiting for her return, came rushing forward.
    ‘ Sahiba !Are you all right? What happened?’
    ‘That odious, odious man,’ Zar hissed through gritted teeth. ‘From now on, you are sleeping in here with me, and I want one of the male servants outside my door to guard it. I’ll pay him myself and tell him if he lets anyone in, anyone at all, I will have him castrated, understand?’
    Priya blinked, obviously startled to see her mistress so vehement, but she nodded. ‘I will see to it at once.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    Zar threw herself on top of her bed and flung an arm across her eyes. To think she wasn’t even safe in her own home – it was the outside of enough and she refused to put up with it.
    She intended to make sure this could never happen again. And if William thought he could force her into marriage, he had another thing coming.

Chapter Eight
    The Millers lived in a house not unlike the one Jamie himself was renting, only slightly bigger. Like almost all the more affluent ones, it was laid out around a large courtyard, with the rooms on the ground floor a couple of steps up and surrounded by terraces. The courtyard had little paths to divide it, and was planted with flowers, shrubs and small trees, with a pond in the middle. The upper floors – and this particular house had two of them – led off a central walkway, with windows and little holes on both sides to give the rooms a cooling draught. Most houses also had a flat roof with railings around it, where people often slept when the weather was too sultry.
    At the front of the building was the main room, the salon or divan as they called it here. It was used for conducting business, as now, and for socialising. Jamie was ushered towards it by a grumpy servant.
    ‘This way, sahib .’
    Once there, Jamie looked around with interest. The room had no fireplace, as heating was never needed here, and it was sparsely furnished. The natives always sat on the floor on beautiful rugs with a latticework frame for guests to lean their backs on, but Jamie noticed that the Millers had stuck to European style furniture. A couple of tables and chairs, a large desk which seemed incongruous in such surroundings, and a low settee against one wall was all the room contained. The floors were made of a hard, shiny material called puckah , which looked a little like marble but was usually made out of crushed bricks, some type of glue, chalk and cow hair. This, together with a selection of colourful rugs and wall hangings, added warmth to the decor.
    ‘Come in, Kinross. Have a seat, please.’
    Jamie followed his host