Chapter 18 Savi #2
For whatever reason, his lips spread into a smile. “I gave it to him. He searched through the box to show it to me, and…and he just looked so fond of it, I didn’t have the heart to take it from him.”
Pride swelled in her chest until she was ready to burst with it. She bit her lip to hide her smile, looking at him with affectionate warmth. “You really are the finest of men.” She reached up to brush his cheek, drowning in those dark eyes. The kind of man it had been easy to fall in love with.
There was a thump in her chest as the thought crossed her mind.
A rosy flush crept onto his cheeks. He lifted his touch to her hand, leaning in to press a kiss against the delicate skin of her inner wrist. “All I want is to make you happy, Savi.”
She swallowed, slowly looking down at the half-used perfume bottle clasped in her other hand. A hesitant lump took residence in her throat, blocking the words that a part of her wanted to set free—to finally stop keeping her secrets hidden away.
Alex had given her everything—everything—she’d wanted, even if she’d never spoken the words aloud. Didn’t he deserve to know the truth?
But he’d known her father for far longer than he’d known her. Wouldn’t his loyalty be to Raj?
No, her heart argued. Alex had been continually frustrated with Raj at every opportunity.
Didn’t today alone prove how decent her husband was?
How kind? How honourable? And if today didn’t, then his behaviour throughout their marriage ought to.
From her refusal to eat meat to her preference for saris and lehengas, he’d happily accepted what other men would not.
Nibbling on her lower lip, she pressed Ma’s perfume bottle against her heart. Apprehension trickled onto her expression, lining her brows and pinching her lips together. “There’s something I should have told you.”
His head shifted almost infinitesimally.
But how to tell him, especially when she’d hesitated for so long, preferring to keep Pandora’s box locked in case her mother really was dead, and she’d been chasing after a ghost. “Come with me.”
She led him out of his bedroom, crossing the corridor into her room—their room, in truth.
Gently placing the bottle of L’Origan onto her bedside table, she opened the top drawer, digging through the haphazard papers she’d accumulated since their marriage, preliminary sketches, letters from George, and invitations to events she was never going to.
Finally, she laid her hands on the now-familiar invoice and offered it to Alex.
“This is from the sanatorium,” Alex remarked, his brows rising in surprise. His eyes moved across the page, reading the typewritten text. “You’ve been paying for a patient there?”
“Not me. Raj. I stayed with him in Belgrave Square this summer.” There had been an art exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and she hadn’t wanted to fork out for a hotel.
Savi had been halfway through writing a letter when her inkwell had run dry, prompting her to sneak into Raj’s office and pinch one—but it hadn’t been the only thing she’d taken.
“It was sitting on his desk. He’s been paying for an inpatient since July 1921. Room EC1.”
“That can’t be right,” Alex rubbed at the letter with his thumb, as though trying to clear a piece of debris. “Quite apart from the fact that Raj or the medical superintendent would have mentioned it to me, there’s only 135 rooms.”
Blood rushed in her ears. She hadn’t known that—and it made her all the more suspicious. “I went there,” Savi confessed.
“To the sanatorium?”
She nodded. “When I stayed at Belgrave Square, Raj blethered on about marrying me off, but I had no interest in it, and then I found the invoice. I went there to meet with the director, to find out more about the identity of the patient in Room EC1, but I was turned away at the gates.” Her throat tightened, but she managed to keep her voice even.
“When I was walking back down the lane, a dark green Rolls-Royce passed me.”
Alex tensed, his eyes widening, despite the confusion embedded in his gaze. “That was the day I visited.”
Another nod. “And so on my journey home, I wrote a letter to my father saying I would marry.”
“That’s why you married me?” His voice brimmed with bewilderment. “But, Savi, I don’t understand the purpose of all this secrecy. I know it’s somewhat out of character for Raj to be charitable, but why not just ask your father about this?”
Her voice was slow, the final toll of the bell. “June 1921 is when my mother died.”
Alex’s shoulders went rigid, his focus darted to the letter and back. “Fucking hell.” He raked his hand through his hair as he digested her words. “I’m sorry to ask, but did…did you see her body?”
She shook her head in silent denial. “I was sailing across the Mediterranean. It took me weeks to get home, by which time there was nothing but a headstone. Then six months later—”
“Raj married Katherine.” Pain glimmered in his eyes. “You’ve known this for months?”
“I’ve suspected,” she corrected, wringing her hands together in her sari as her voice wavered. “I wanted to tell you, but it’s so…outlandish. Not to mention that you’ve had a relationship with him far longer than you have with me. I was afraid that your loyalties would lie with him.”
“Savi, love.” He extinguished the space between them to wrap his arms around her, engulfing her in strength and comfort in equal measure. He brushed kisses on the crown of her head. “Don’t be afraid. You’re my wife; my loyalties are and always will be with you.”
His words eased the heavy weights from her shoulders, and she almost sagged with exhaustion.
“We’re going down there. Today.”
She shot him a swift glance. “We are?”
Alex reached over to yank on the bell pull next to her bed—the one she’d never used. “Too bloody right. If your suspicions are correct, Savi, we have to get her out.”
A wave of emotions almost felled her, warring factions of relief and panic.
Her breaths became choppy, the eternal lump in her throat swelling to volcanic proportions.
Tears blurred her vision, but she couldn’t say whether it was from terror or solace.
“What…what if it’s not her?” A blink sent them scattering over her cheeks. “What if she’s really dead?”
Alex was gentle as he took her face in his hands, wiping her tears away. “Is it not better to know than to live in this perpetual state of agony? And if she’s really dead, love, then I will be there to hold you through every stage of your grief.”
Slowly, she nodded, stepping into his arms once more, desperate for their comfort. “Okay.” The word was muffled into his shirt.
The sound of footsteps walking up the corridor reached her ears, just as Alex turned his back to the open door, hiding her and her grief from view.
“My la—my lord,” MacDonald’s voice came.
“Her Ladyship and I need to be on the next train down to London, MacDonald.”
There was a pause. “That would be just before midnight, my lord. Given the length of the journey, all the London trains leave either in the morning or midnight.”
Alex’s chest swelled against her in a frustrated huff. “Then the midnight train it is. For now, I need to make a call.”
“To who?” she asked.
“I have an old friend who works for the police. I have a feeling we’re going to need all the help we can get.”