ChapterSix
Three days had passed, but Priya could still feel the heat of Francis’s kiss on her lips. Francis! It was outlandishly wrong for her to even think of the man by his given name. She would never openly address him as such, despite the permission he’d given her. To do so would be beyond the pale.
But that didn’t stop her from drifting off into the daydream of that fateful carriage ride as Professor Throckmorton droned on about the significance of King Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in the effort to establish Protestantism in England. She couldn’t have cared less about Henry VIII or monasteries—or Protestantism, for that matter, as she was Hindu. All she cared about was the way Francis had made her heart stop in her chest as his lips parted hers and his tongue teased her.
She’d never dreamed such a thing was possible. In her entire life so far, she had never been kissed. At least, not like that. Not by a suitor who had amorous intentions. It had been explosive and world-changing. It had been so much more than she’d imagined a kiss could be. In the moment, she’d wanted more. Francis could have taken her entirely, and she wouldn’t have lifted a finger to protect her virtue. It was as though Priya finally understood how so many women had been led astray by a man.
Beside her, Charlotte cleared her throat and tapped her pencil on the table they shared in warning.
“Miss Narayan?” Professor Throckmorton asked. He looked at her through his thick spectacles as if waiting for an answer.
Priya was already heated from her imagination, but the sting of embarrassment raised her temperature even more. “I am sorry, could you repeat the question, sir?”
Professor Throckmorton smiled at her with a look of barely concealed impatience. “What was the fate of Anne Boleyn, Miss Narayan?”
Priya drew in a breath and thanked the heavens that she knew the answer, whether she’d been paying attention or not. “She was unjustly murdered by her cruel tyrant of a husband for imagined sins so that the king could marry his mistress,” she answered, perhaps a bit too forcefully.
Charlotte snorted and clapped a hand to her mouth. Several of their fellow students gasped or murmured at the audacity of her answer.
Professor Throckmorton’s indulgent smile turned to a flat look of disappointment. “A great many scholars would disagree with you in regards to King Henry’s motivations,” he said, “but as the primary topic of this lecture is the establishment of Anglicanism, we will move on.”
As the man continued his lecture, Priya murmured, “A great many scholars are male,” to Charlotte.
Charlotte giggled again before making a show of taking notes on the lecture when Professor Throckmorton glanced their way.
A great many men had made the world the way it was, but Francis was not like them. Priya slipped easily back into her daydreams as she considered the conversation the two of them had had for the dozenth time. Even at his mother’s house, and after the lectures in St. James’s Park, Francis had spoken out in support of a woman’s independence and importance. Did he truly mean those things or was he merely trying to impress her so that she would fawn all over him?
Truth be told, she had been swayed by his unusually progressive opinions. So much so that she’d allowed everything that had happened in the carriage to take place. But she was so desperately uncertain about whether Francis was genuine or whether he was leading her on a merry chase that it scrambled her thoughts and emotions. So much so that she’d given in to his kiss. And that single kiss had proven to be louder than any argument that could be made on the subject of the rights of women.
Priya hated herself for being swayed by lust. She detested that sort of weakness in her own character. But it wasn’t as though it mattered one way or another. There was simply no way she could pursue any sort of romance with Francis whatsoever.
“You seem to be firmly away with the fairies,” Charlotte observed once the lecture was over and they walked across Bedford Square on their way to lunch. “It’s very unlike you.”
Priya thought about making some sort of excuse. She thought about pretending it was her monthly courses, or that she’d had an argument with Jeetan that had her out of sorts. Both would have been lies, of course. Charlotte was her nearest and dearest friend, and she deserved the truth.
Priya stopped when they were halfway across the park and took Charlotte’s hand to move her off the path. When they were far enough onto the grass that no one was close enough to hear their conversation, she faced Charlotte and whispered, “I had an encounter with Lord Cathraiche the other day.”
“At tea with his mother?” Charlotte asked, lighting up like the dawn.
Priya’s head had been so turned by everything that had happened that she’d forgotten Charlotte had been standing by when Lady Vegas had invited her to tea. She nodded, then bit her lip.
“Tea started out well,” she said in a near whisper, darting a glance around to make certain no one was eavesdropping, “but Lord Cathraiche was in attendance, which I did not expect.”
“How exciting,” Charlotte said, hugging her schoolbooks to her chest. “And how daring. He must have had his mother arrange the whole thing so that he could become better acquainted with you.”
Priya winced. “I believe that was exactly the case,” she said. “Especially as he made overtures of a particular nature.”
Charlotte gasped, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Does he intend to court you?”
Priya hesitated. There was so much more to the story, but Charlotte had skipped straight to the heart of the matter. Priya nodded tightly, then blurted, “He kissed me. It’s a very long story, but…he kissed me.”
Charlotte squealed, and for a moment, Priya thought her friend would drop her books and throw her arms around her in a joyful hug. “This is wonderful,” she said. “Lord Cathraiche was obviously taken with you in the park the other evening. He is an enormous catch. Why, I would give my eye teeth to have a gentleman as distinguished as Lord Cathraiche set his heart on me.”
“It is impossible,” Priya said in a lamenting voice. “He cannot court or woo or win me in any way.”
“I think he will prove otherwise,” Charlotte said, misunderstanding the intention of Priya’s words. “By the sound of things, he is already courting and wooing and winning you. You kissed him!” she added in an excited whisper, jumping up and down a bit.
Priya made a sound of frustration and longing and pressed her free hand to her forehead.
“It was a horrendous mistake,” she said. “When I say that it is impossible for him to woo me—”
“Which we have just established it is not,” Charlotte interrupted with a wide smile.