MAROON
YUVAAN
I'm standing outside our room adjusting my cufflinks for what has to be the third time when the door opens behind me.
I turn automatically. And forget, quite completely, what I was doing.
Not the soft cotton kurtas she's been living in lately, not one of the simple dresses she wears to the bookshop, but a saree in a deep, rich shade that seems to gather the warm light from the corridor around her.
The fabric falls neatly around her, the pallu resting over one shoulder, elegant without looking like she's spent hours trying to make it so.
Her hair is loose tonight, dark waves falling past her shoulders, and the small silver daisy she's worn almost every day since she was eighteen rests against her collarbone.
I stare. She takes two steps before she notices. "What?"
I realize I've been silent for far too long.
Her fingers immediately go to her hair, smoothing one side before checking the pallu at her shoulder. "Is something wrong? Amma Saheba chose this saree and I wasn't sure about the colour, but she said maroon would—"
"You look beautiful." The words come out rougher than I intended.
She stops. Then her cheeks begin to turn pink.
I should probably leave it there. I don't. "You look . . . " I glance at her again, and somehow the first compliment feels nowhere near sufficient. "You look like every reason I have to be grateful for tonight."
Her eyes widen slightly. "That was very dramatic."
"It's accurate."
She looks down, fighting a smile. I take a step closer. "You look better than beautiful, Daisy. I'm just trying to find a respectable way to say it without making us late to our own gala."
That gets the laugh I wanted. She swats my arm lightly. "Yuvaan."
"I'm allowed to admire my wife." I reach for the edge of her pallu where it's slipped slightly, straightening it over her shoulder. It takes barely a second. I somehow manage to take several. My fingers brush the fabric, then the warmth of her shoulder beneath it, and I feel her go still.
So do I.
For one quiet second, neither of us says anything. Then I step back before I forget that we actually have somewhere to be, I lean and whisper in her ear, "I think I've earned one evening of being completely distracted by you, my wife."
Her smile turns shy. "You're going to make me ruin my makeup if—"
“If what, Daisy?” I smirk and she swats my chest. "I'll take responsibility." I shrug.
"You always say that." She huffs, “but it’s me who has to fix all that again.”
“I will learn it then.”
She shakes her head, but she's smiling now. More importantly, the nervousness that has followed her around since the invitation arrived isn't sitting quite so heavily in her eyes.
She looks down at herself once more, smoothing the pleats. "All right," she says. "I think I'm ready."
I hold out my hand. "As ready as you're going to be?"
She looks at me. "Probably."
"Good enough."
She slips her hand into mine. The drive to the venue takes hardly any time, but I notice every second of it because I notice her.
She sits beside me in the back seat, looking out of the window as the palace grounds give way to the illuminated entrance of the foundation hall.
Cars are already lined along the drive. Staff move between them.
Somewhere beyond the doors, music carries faintly into the evening.
Her fingers tighten around mine. Only slightly. Someone else might not notice.
I do. I turn toward her. "Anamika. Look at me."
She does. The nervousness is back now. I can see it in the way she presses her lips together, in the tiny movement of her thumb against the side of my hand.
"You're thinking too much."
"I haven't even said anything."
"You don't have to." A tiny smile appears. I bring both her hands between mine. "I'm going to be beside you tonight."
Her eyes search mine. "Not just when we walk in. The entire evening. If you want to leave, we'll leave. If you want to stay, we'll stay. If someone asks you something you don't know how to answer, look at me. If someone makes you uncomfortable, you don't have to handle them yourself."
Her expression softens. "And if someone says something unkind?" I ask.
Her mouth curves faintly. "You told me not to worry about that . . . and that no one would dare to."
"Good girl." I lift her hand and press my mouth to her knuckles. "You don't have to prove anything tonight. Not to the council. Not to the people who grew up in this world. Not to anyone who thinks they have the right to decide whether you belong here."
I hold her gaze. "You already belong beside me." Her breath catches. "And if anyone forgets that," I add, quieter, "I'll remind them."
She looks down for a moment, blinking rapidly. When she looks back up, there's something steadier in her face. "I love you."
The words still do something ridiculous to me. After all these years, they still manage to catch me somewhere underneath the ribs. "I love you too."
She leans across the small space between us and kisses my cheek, careful of her makeup.
I smile. "Shall we?"
She takes one breath. Then another. "Let's go."
I step out first and turn to offer her my hand.
She places hers in it.
When she steps out of the car, the maroon fabric catches the golden light pouring from the entrance, and for a second she looks almost unreal.
Not because she's dressed like a Maharani. Because she looks like herself.
The woman who once stood beside me on these same grounds with scraped knees and grass stains on her clothes. The girl who used to drag me up the ramparts when I was supposed to be studying. The woman who left this place believing she had to become someone else before she could ever return.
She doesn't look like that girl anymore.
Thank God.
She looks stronger. Softer in some places, harder in others. She looks like someone who has lived. And somehow, standing there with her hand in mine, I think that is the most beautiful thing about her.
We start up the steps. I don't pull her forward. I don't need to. She walks beside me. With every step toward the doors, her shoulders settle. Her chin lifts. The hand holding mine stops trembling. By the time we reach the entrance, she's standing straighter than she was when we left the car.
I squeeze her fingers once. She squeezes back. And suddenly I realize something. She never needed me to make her strong. She never needed me to teach her how to stand in a room full of people who thought they were more important than her.
She already knew how. She only needed someone beside her who would never make her stand alone again.
I glance at her one last time before the doors open. "My Maharani," I murmur.
She looks up at me. "Pretty Boy." And then we walk in together.