Chapter 1
MEHER
EIGHT YEARS LATER
I raised my eyebrows at the cavalcade that drew up in the driveway of our ancestral palace in Matta.
Armed guards got out of the first and fifth cars, and surveyed our cobbled driveway as I stared at the row of armored Defenders between them in bemusement.
Each carried the flag of a different royal family on its bonnet.
I recognised them as the flags of the Jadhwal, Trikhera, and Mirpur families.
“You’re overreacting as usual, Bhai Sa,” complained a very familiar voice, as I stepped forward to greet my guests. “Nobody’s going to shoot at us in Matta. Tell your men to stand down. Now!”
Her Highness Isha Sisodiya, the Yuvarani of Jadhwal, ended her phone call and stepped out of the first Defender.
“What’s with the Z+ security?” I asked, as I leaned forward to give her a warm hug.
She rolled her eyes in disgust.
“You get shot at a couple of times, and suddenly you can’t move without tripping over armed guards,” she grumbled. “Stupid Veer, and stupid Dheer, and even more stupid Ranvijay!”
A woman alighted from the car behind her and rolled her eyes at Isha.
“Ohmigod! Are you ever going to stop whining?” demanded Her Highness Diya Shekhawat, the Maharani of Trikhera, before she hugged me tightly.
“We were on a group call throughout the journey, and this one has been complaining since she got into her car. And I’ll thank you not to insult my husband.
Poor Dheer is still traumatised by the time we almost got blown up the day Kuhu was born. ”
“Your husband happens to be my stupid brother, and I’ll insult him all I like,” retorted Isha.
“The two of you haven’t changed at all,” I said with a laugh that sounded rusty.
At the sound of it, Isha and Diya stopped squabbling and turned to inspect me critically.
“Finally! I thought you’d forgotten how to laugh,” said Isha softly.
“I know! I miss that rakshas laugh of yours,” added Diya.
I squinted a little as I tried to remember my rakshas laugh - a carefree sound that was filled with the sheer joy of being alive and privileged. I hadn’t laughed like that in eight years.
“Yeah, well… I guess times change,” I said awkwardly.
“Some things don’t need to change, Meher,” said Diya. “I’m going to get that laugh back this weekend. See if I don’t!”
“Challenge accepted,” declared Isha, and I shook my head.
My oldest friends were still the same. Kind, non-judgmental, and accepting. It was I who had changed, and I didn’t think I could ever go back to being the girl I used to be. That Meher was dead.
But it was okay. Because the new Meher was strong and fierce. And she didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought about her.
“Good luck with that,” I said dryly before I turned to welcome my third guest.
“Meher, meet Shivina Singh Rathore, the Maharani of Mirpur,” said Diya, and the newcomer smiled at me warmly.
“Welcome to Matta Palace, Shivina. Isha and Diya have been here many times since we were at school together, so I’m sure they’ve told you a lot about it. I hope you enjoy your stay with us.”
“Oh, I’ve heard so much about your palace, Meher. Especially about the leopard reserve behind it.”
I laughed lightly, and the sound struck me as completely fake for some reason.
What was wrong with me? Everything I was now was hard-won, forged through years of pain and heartbreak.
Why did it seem hollow all of a sudden? As if I were roleplaying the persona of a textbook Rajput princess.
The polite, quiet, and dignified woman that my mother had always wanted me to be.
For a crazy second, I wanted to throw off that awful persona and go back to being mad Meher, who used to race up the stairs of Matta Palace with her best friends in tow, slide down banisters, and make enough noise to dislodge the spirits of all her ancestors from their resting places in the royal cenotaph.
Then I remembered that I was not a child anymore.
Or a naive, twenty-two-year-old girl with stars in my eyes.
Those stars had turned to dust long ago, and now, I was a cynical, bad-tempered woman who knew exactly what she wanted from life.
I was a woman on a mission. Too bad my mission had brought me back into the world I was so desperate to escape eight years ago.
“I’ve heard so much about your plans to turn Matta Palace into a heritage hotel,” Shivina went on, and my shoulders relaxed at her words.
I had been dreading my first public outing in eight years. But my old friends and their new friend had put me at ease. A chubby toddler ran out of Diya’s car with a nanny hot on her heels and jumped into her mother’s waiting arms.
“Kuhu, say hello to Aunty Meher,” said Diya, and the little darling gave me a shy smile before she buried her face in her mother’s shoulder.
“She’s adorable,” I cried, as I stroked her gorgeous curls.
“And this is Jiya,” said Isha, reaching for the baby another nanny carried out of her car. “She’s just woken up from her nap, so Her Highness might be a little grumpy.”
“She is not! Don’t listen to your Mommy, princess. You’re not grumpy at all, are you?” I cooed as I held the cuddliest baby I had ever met.
Jiya shot me a happy, toothless grin and babbled something in reply.
My heart clenched as I realised I wanted one of these more than anything in the world.
But - in our world, at least - you couldn’t have a baby out of wedlock.
And there was no way I was going to let a man into my life ever again. Once was bad enough.
Jiya snuggled into my shoulder as the staff gave my friends a traditional welcome with dhol, nagadas, and the puja thali. Kuhu looked delighted at the welcome as I led them all up the stairs into the palace.
“I’ll leave you to get settled into your rooms and see you in an hour on the third-floor terrace for lunch,” I said, reluctantly handing Jiya back to her mother.
“Is that the terrace with the killer view of the Aravalli mountains?” asked Isha.
“Yes, the same one that you tried to rappel off using nothing but bedsheets when your Dadi Sa showed up for a surprise visit,” I reminded her.
“Can you blame me? She was here for my monthly weigh-in, and your chef had been fattening me up for the two weeks I’d been here with his famous ghevar and boondi laddoos.
If the scale had shown any more weight gain, my grandmother would have banned me from eating carbs for the rest of my life,” said Isha with a shudder.
“Ugh! What a beastly woman! I’m so glad she’s dead and can’t hurt you anymore,” I exclaimed.
“Well, she did try to hurt me from beyond the grave, but I foiled her efforts, thanks to Veer,” she replied with a wink.
I had heard all about the twisted clause in Isha’s grandmother’s will, where she had tried to cheat my friend out of inheriting her dream house, Gulab Mahal, and how Isha and Veer had entered into a fake marriage to circumvent the will.
I was so glad their fake marriage finally turned real and that they got their happy-ever-after.
“When do we see the leopards?” asked Shivina. “I’ve never been on a safari before!”
“Aww! I look forward to being your first, babe,” I said, and she batted her eyes at me.
“Look at you with your sweet words! I’m glad I held off doing it until I met the right person,” she shot back, and I grinned widely. It was easy to see why Isha and Diya liked her so much.
“Are we doing the evening wilderness drive?” asked Diya excitedly. “I loved it the last time we were here.”
“We sure are,” I replied. “Followed by a sundowner on the roof of the palace. The city lights look gorgeous from up there.”
An hour later, I supervised the table settings for an alfresco lunch, wondering why I was so nervous.
These were my friends. They weren’t going to inspect the monogrammed silver thalis, bowls, and cutlery for scratches.
But I couldn’t quell the restlessness that plagued me as I adjusted the decorative floral table frame to just the right height.
“Seema, get me the fabric with the roses and berries,” I said thoughtfully. “These peonies hanging from the frame are overpowering the table. Let’s get rid of all of them and keep it simple.”
I wound the gauzy white fabric with the pink roses and berries all around the frame and smiled in satisfaction.
“There! That makes it look much more cheerful. And lower the height of every alternate flower arrangement so that we can see each other’s faces.”
My assistant scurried around replacing the tall vases with smaller ones as I tied the perfect bow on the rolled-up handwritten menus.
“Baisa, where do I put the place cards?” she asked worriedly. “We haven’t discussed the seating arrangements.”
I smiled as I realised that she was worth her weight in gold. Seema might not have a fancy hotel management degree, but the decision to hire all my staff entirely from the local community had paid off in spades. They were loyal to a fault, and it had been a breeze to train them.
“We don’t need place cards for this meal because we’re very old friends. But thank you for pointing it out. Now, make sure there’s plenty of lemonade and chocolate milk for the little princess, and champagne for the rest of us.”
Ten minutes later, my guests walked out onto the terrace, ooh-ing and aah-ing over the gorgeous tablescape.
“You have to teach me how to do this,” said Shivina. “The most difficult part of my journey so far has been the entertaining. I always feel the royal aunties are looking down their noses at me whenever I host an event.”
“Your mother-in-law was the one who taught me how to set a table,” I exclaimed. “When I got back from college, my mom sent me to a tablescaping workshop Nandini Aunty had held at Mirpur Palace for all the princesses debuting in society that year.”
“I remember that workshop. I spent most of my time sampling the delicious vol-au-vents on display,” said Isha, while Diya sighed.
“I snuck out early to go for a long drive with Dheer,” she said, with a sigh. “You were the only one amongst us who actually paid attention.
“Yeah, she was always the teacher’s pet,” teased Isha. “Even at school.”
“Much good that did me,” I said without thinking, and cursed my tongue when their expressions changed.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Diya said fiercely.
I forced a smile to my lips and tried to change the subject.
“Anyway…” But Isha interrupted me.
“You should have stayed and fought, Meher. You should have dragged that bastard to court. What happened was completely unacceptable.”
I shot her a cynical smile.
“Right. As if any court would believe me when my own mother did not. Everyone I counted on turned their backs on me that day, Isha. There was nothing else that I could have done.”
“Speaking of people who turned their backs on you,” began Diya delicately. “Have you ever met Samrat after that?”
My stomach clenched at the mere mention of his name, and I swallowed over a painfully dry throat. I couldn’t bring myself even to say his name, so I just shook my head.
“Samrat?” asked Shivina, and she sounded intrigued. “Do you mean our Samrat? His Highness Maj. Samrat Singh Deora, the Maharaja of Deorangir? Decorated Special Forces officer and stubborn-as-a-mule Samrat?”
“Also known to me as coldhearted, cruel, fickle, lying sonofabitch Samrat,” I said coldly.