Chapter 18 Savi
Savi
It had been so long since she’d been surrounded by family on her birthday that Savi had forgotten what it felt like.
But here she was, sitting in Silverburn’s family dining room, tucking into the most delicious lemon cupcake she’d ever eaten, listening to Lily explain how her and Ben had managed to get her hands on the recipe—which came, as Savi was learning, directly from the Ritz Hotel’s kitchens, by way of Ben’s friend Pru and her half-brother Peter, who worked as a sous-chef there.
“Cook added this lemon glaze and the decorations, of course,” Lily added, brushing her blonde hair behind her ear lest it dangle onto her cupcake. “She did a trial run a few days ago, which Ben and I tested out. But Peter and Pru did the majority of the sneaking.”
“I thought I smelled lemon near the kitchens at one point.” Alex leant forward, his elbows resting on his table in a very ungentlemanly manner. His plate was empty but for the crumbs of his devoured cupcake.
“Thank you both so much,” Savi glanced at Lily and Ben. A strange fragility rested within her, knowing the two of them had taken such trouble to make her birthday lunch special. “I shall write a letter to Pru and Peter to thank them as well.”
A smile touched the edge of Ben’s lips. “I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.”
Savi took the final bite of her cupcake, thinking that they definitely needed to incorporate the recipe into their everyday menu list. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, hoping there was nothing smeared anywhere.
The moment her napkin hit the table, Alex broke in. “Finished?” His dark eyes shone with excitement.
“Yes?” Her voice hiked up at the end of the word. Was he talking to the whole table? She looked towards Lily and Ben, only to find them wearing identically crooked, almost expectant grins.
Alex stood, holding his hand out to her. “Come. I have a present to give you.”
Utterly befuddled, Savi took it, allowing him to guide her to whatever destination he had in mind.
Ben’s head shifted slightly, following their footsteps thudding across the rug towards the door. “Good luck.” Was he talking to her or Alex?
“Have fun!” Lily beamed.
“Bye, I suppose.” Savi waved, just as Alex put his arm around her waist. He turned right down the corridor—one of the sections of the castle she’d learnt her way around since their marriage, given it was between her bedroom and the dining room.
She’d explored the other sections, of course, picking up bits and pieces here and there, but she couldn’t always say she knew exactly where she was.
Thankfully, they remained on a path she knew. There was the porcelain mirror, the oil painting of a prized sow, and the marble bust with a chip out of the ear.
The foyer that led up to the bedroom corridor was swathed in a carpet of deep emerald. Alex didn’t hesitate, escorting her up the stairs, his large hand resting on the small of her back.
“I think I’ve already seen whatever you’re about to show me.” Savi narrowed her eyes with faux suspicion, her lips curving in amusement. “Or are you about to drag me into the forest and make good on your promise to hunt me down and have your way with me?”
“Behave.” Alex’s eyes glinted with humour.
She gestured back down the stairs. “If it’s not that, then why is it upstairs in the bedrooms?”
“Both because it’s quite large—I said behave—and because, in all honesty, I don’t know how you’re going to react to it. I thought it best to give it to you alone.”
That threw a wrench into her gutter-minded humour. “Do Lily and Ben know what it is?”
“Not precisely.” He paused outside his bedroom, a room she’d only seen hints of on the morning after their wedding. “But they know it’s something I’ve been worrying about.”
“Worrying about?” Savi was taken aback, watching him place his hand on the doorknob, tension creeping into the crevices in which dirty humour had resided.
The lines on his face creased into a mask of tension. “I don’t want it to upset you. If it does, then you don’t have to see it again, all right?”
She nodded, biting her bottom lip. “All right.”
With a stiff nod, he opened the door.
Where sunlight had once streamed in across Alex’s dressing area now stood a wide vitrine cabinet, its gleaming calamander wood gloriously contrasting with the mirrored back panel.
How had he known to choose calamander? Wood varieties had never mattered to her, but calamander was the exception purely because it reminded her of her mother’s beloved vanity.
Three glass doors divided each section, interior lights illuminating the—
For an achingly slow heartbeat, Savi forgot to breathe.
The Australian trumpet snail shell was the first thing that caught her eye, the thing that prompted her to look inside the cabinet rather than at its exterior.
Surely it was a coincidence, but no. There was the blue-and-yellow macaw, the common blue morpho butterfly, the fallow deer skull.
Everything her mother had bought for her was here. Memories she’d thought buried resurfaced, coming to a nostalgic boil as a lump grew in her throat the size of the bloody ostrich egg. Her vision blurred as tears balanced on her eyelid, falling in a great cascade as she blinked.
“Savi, love.” Arms came around her, sure and strong. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to see it again.”
“No.” She sniffed. Her gaze raked across the cabinet once again. “I’m not crying because I’m sad. I’m overjoyed. I thought for sure my father had thrown them away.”
“I—” Alex’s expression morphed into a tight grimace.
The lump in her throat lessened tremendously. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “He threw them away, didn’t he?”
“He…had them removed from the house.”
She rolled her eyes with a rogue sniff. “Cunt.”
Alex’s surprised laugh was interspersed by a ripping snort. “You are so very unladylike, and I love it.”
“Thank god for that.” She sent him a soft glance. “It would have been exhausting to pretend to be someone else for the rest of my days.”
“You never have to pretend with me,” he vowed, before his attention slid back to the cabinet—the lower half of which was filled with three drawers, two wide, topped by a thinner drawer.
His nerves returned in full force, practically blaring in her face like a foghorn.
“This is only half of the gift, however. The other half is in the drawer.”
Savi approached it tentatively, gliding her hand along the smooth calamander before hooking her fingers into the thin topmost drawer and pulling. Its motion was as smooth as silk. Emerald velvet coated the interior—
And then she saw them.
A strangled cry burst from her lips. Ma’s jewellery collection lay within.
The tikli Ma wore on her wedding day back in Calcutta.
The festoon necklace dripping with opalescent moonstones, one that Savi had chosen during a secret outing with Raj as a girl.
The diamond-and-ruby Sarpech necklace that Ma favoured during balls.
All lovingly cradled in calamander and emerald velvet, just like Ma’s old perfume box.
Savi sucked in a perilous breath, pressing her lips together in an attempt to stop their downward turn. There were two slots at the centre of the drawer, filled with the pieces of jewellery that mattered most to her.
The peacock bangles were in the upper slot, a masterpiece of diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires.
They caught the sun as she gathered them in her hands, holding them against her heart like they were tiny pieces of her mother.
The Jhumka earrings were in the bottom slot, tiny pearls and rubies hanging from a golden bell, swaying as she lifted them.
Savi lifted her gaze to Alex’s. “How—how did you…?”
“I may have engaged in a bit of light thievery,” he whispered.
She huffed out a wet laugh, clutching the jewellery ever tighter. “From my father?”
He nodded. “Although I did have some help from George. And by some help, I mean I meandered about outside whilst he successfully stole the box of jewellery from one of the old servants’ bedrooms.”
Her heart stopped. “The box?”
Alex bent down to one of the larger drawers, pulling out a painfully familiar calamander perfume box.
Savi’s heartbeat floundered as her chest tore asunder. She no longer cared about her tears, not then. They flowed freely from her eyes in a flood of emotion. A flash of fear struck her as she heard the faint tinkle of glass bottles inside.
Was it too much to hope that they were Ma’s old perfume bottles?
Her fingers trembled as she opened the box. Calamander and emerald velvet, just like she remembered. But then all her nerves subsided at once, crumbling away as a waft of perfume hit her.
The scent was just like she remembered, a powdery combination of woodsy and floral, tied up into a neat little bow on top of her grief.
Three little bottles were lined up on a small shelf at the back of the box, two unopened and one not.
“L’Origan,” she whispered, not caring how sorrow had strangled her voice. She held the open perfume bottle in her fist, pressing it against her chest. Her mother had been the last person to use it, never knowing what was to come. “By Coty.”
A sudden, bone-deep exhaustion rolled over her, weighing down her limbs.
Savi placed the treasured perfume box back in the drawer before taking refuge in Alex’s arms. She exhaled a sigh of relief as his touch engulfed her, his scent wrapping around her like it could shield her from the outside world.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “Was it too much?”
Her head shook in an emphatic denial, still clutching the square perfume bottle in her palm. “It was perfect.”
“I do have a confession to make.”
She lifted her gaze. “You do?”
“There is an item missing from your collection.” Alex sent her an apologetic look. “A small scorpion in amber.”
“Oh.” There was a tinge of disappointment there, despite all the gifts he’d given her today. “That one was George’s favourite.”