ChapterThirteen
Francis could tell in an instant that the information he’d uncovered about the legality of a proxy marriage performed in India had affected Priya. He had nearly shouted for joy when he’d consulted with his solicitor and learned the truth himself. While yes, it was true that proxy marriages were performed when one—or, alarmingly, both—parties were not present and that they were considered legal to a degree, if one party did not agree to the marriage, under British law, the marriage was null and void.
“So you see,” he whispered to Priya, keeping an eye on the others as they walked forward, “all you need to do is declare that you’ve no wish to be married and that the marriage was entered into without your knowledge or consent.”
Francis thought he’d staged a coup of the highest order, but Priya’s expression only pinched into a deeper sort of misery.
“But I did have knowledge of the entire matter,” she told Francis, glancing down guiltily. “I entered into the arrangement willingly. My father has intended for me to marry Jogendra Raikut from the time I was a girl.”
“That is even more outlandish and preposterous, if you ask me,” Francis growled. He would never understand the barbaric idea of arranging marriages for children, before they could understand or agree to the way their future was being taken from them.
Although, he grudgingly had to admit that he had at least one friend whose mother had promised him to her best friend’s daughter, and who grew up knowing who their wife would be someday. It would have been hypocritical in the extreme to assume that only the colonies were guilty of such arrangements. But to bind Priya into a marriage with an older man, then to seal the deal when she was away and could not speak for herself was beyond the pale, as far as Francis was concerned.
“You may have been aware at the time,” Francis continued in a low voice, glancing around to see if they were drawing attention, “but circumstances have changed. You have another offer on the table now.”
“Do I?” Priya glanced up at him, her eyes swimming with uncertainty, but with underpinnings of the same fire of challenge that had made him fall in love with her in the first place.
“Yes, darling, you do,” he said, taking her hands. He raised them so that he could kiss her gloved knuckles. “You most certainly do.”
“Priya!” The sharp shout of Narayan had Priya jumping back from Francis with a strangled whimper. Ahead of them, Narayan and Aunt Josephine had stopped to look for them. Perhaps blessedly, Raikut and Francis’s mother had walked on, and Raikut seemed to be explaining something to her with wild gestures and an open expression of joy.
“You do not know what sort of danger you are putting me in,” Priya hissed to Francis as she picked up her skirts and strode quickly forward to rejoin her father.
“Will he hurt you if you try to break the deal he’s made with his friend?” Francis asked, his voice dark with rage at the possibility. He’d heard every manner of story coming out of the colonies, and while they had all seemed a bit farfetched and morbid to him, enough to disbelieve them, he wondered now if Narayan would throw his daughter on some sort of pyre to satisfy his sense of duty.
Priya put an end to those ridiculous thoughts immediately by hissing, “No. Do not be ridiculous. My father would never hurt me.” She paused and swallowed hard. They were swiftly drawing too close to Narayan for her to say much, but she managed to squeeze out, “He would merely disown me and cut me off from my family forever.”
It wasn’t death or dismemberment, but Francis winced all the same. He believed her. He believed Narayan would do something like that. And he was well aware of what that might feel like. Had his father decided to cut him off from the rest of his brothers in a fit of pique when he did not play along with his mad games, Francis would have felt it acutely. He could not flippantly suggest to Priya that she didn’t need her family as long as she loved him.
They reached Narayan and Aunt Josephine, and Priya fell into step with her father as they moved to catch up to Raikut and Francis’s mother.
“You should not have fallen behind, beti,” Narayan said, frowning at Priya. “You should be walking with your husband, not Lord Cathraiche.” He glanced over his shoulder to Francis as he took up a place walking by Aunt Josephine’s side. It was clear from his glare that Narayan was not fooled, and that he disapproved of what Francis was doing.
There were signs of hope, despite the frustration of the situation. Narayan was still referring to his daughter by some sort of pet name. That meant he loved her rather than just seeing her as a commodity he could trade for an alliance with his neighbor. He didn’t confront Francis outright or tell him to leave immediately. The hesitant way he studied Francis as they caught up to Raikut and Francis’s mother said that Narayan was still assessing the situation.
Perhaps, if he hadn’t already come to a conclusion, Francis could tip the scales in his favor. Narayan must have known that the marriage between Priya and Raikut stood on shaky ground. If he was given a better alternative, an English earl with property and prospects, perhaps he would change his mind.
They reached the small café that sat along the Serpentine, and Francis hurried forward to secure a table large enough for all six of them.
“What a delightful vista,” Raikut commented, his smile as jolly as ever, as he held one of the chairs for Francis’s mother. “I’ve read so much about the magnificent Serpentine, so many stories of young lovers strolling by its banks. I’ve always dreamed of accidentally falling in, as I’ve heard so many people do.”
“Falling in?” Francis’s mother commented. Her expression was aghast, but her eyes danced with humor. Francis saw in an instant that his mother liked Raikut, and that felt like a damnable complication to the problem of the marriage.
“I can’t remember hearing a story of someone falling in,” Francis said, moving to hold out a chair for Aunt Josephine. “But I can tell you that quite a few working-class men come to bathe in its waters early in the morning, before heading on to their work. It’s become a bit of a public nuisance.” He thought fast, searching for a way to turn the conversation to his favor. “I have often thought of establishing public baths nearby for the benefit of working men.”
“You have?” his mother asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Yes,” Francis said. He stared firmly at her for a moment, communicating that she should go along with whatever he said, then turned to Narayan. “It is of great importance that a man of title and property give his all to the people who depend on him, is it not?”
His attempt to impress the man was a little clumsy, but as Narayan finished helping Priya into her chair, then sat himself, Narayan narrowed his eyes and said, “It is.”
Francis was the last to sit. He used the moment to gesture to one of the café’s waiters, and when the young man came over, he said, “High tea for myself and my friends. Spare no expense, I am paying.”
“How very generous of you, Francis,” his mother said, her voice flat. She knew as well as Francis that his financial state at present couldn’t precisely support the extravagance of tea for six in Hyde Park.
“What a grand and generous man you are, Lord Cathraiche,” Raikut complimented him with a smile. “I am deeply impressed by the amiability and generosity of spirit of the friends little Priya has made here in London.”
Francis cringed inwardly at the diminutive way Raikut referred to Priya. As much as it galled him to actually like Priya’s so-called husband, he couldn’t countenance the way the man obviously didn’t think of her as an equal.
“It is a gesture that is entirely unnecessary,” Narayan said, settling into his chair and staring across the table when Francis took a seat opposite him. “In fact, I worry that the gesture is reckless. I have heard a great deal about how English gentlemen are paupers parading in the robes of kings these days, about how they have been forced to marry Americans and other foreign ladies to shore up their crumbling estates.”
It took everything Francis had not to cringe. Even more so when his mother and Aunt Josephine stared at him as though they were watching a tennis match and Narayan had just lobbed the ball to him. Priya kept her eyes downcast, which wounded Francis’s heart.
“Financial solvency is only one aspect of what makes the English nobility great,” he said, scrambling for a way to turn the argument in his favor without looking like a fortune-hunting cad…which, arguably, he was. But he loved Priya, and that was all that mattered now. “Even with the challenges of converting a once agrarian estate to use more modern means of production and cultivation, the aristocracy holds an important place in the social fabric of the empire,” he said. “Our reputation for might and influence is second to none.”
“As we have witnessed as subjects in your colonies,” Narayan said in the flattest voice possible.
Once again, Francis fought the urge to wince. He needed to be mindful that not every colonial enjoyed British rule.