The Indian Prince Ch. 02

It was some sort of reception room—handsomely appointed—with French doors leading out to a graveled motor court. Standing in front of me, his back to me, was Bhadur Khan, the prince. He was wearing an emerald green sherwani and a nasty-looking handgun.

At the other side of the room stood the woman, not jabbering now, her mouth covered with the back of her hand, and her bugged-out eyes plastered at the handgun, the barrel of which was pointed at her.

It wasn't Aruna. After my earlier faux pass on the secret airbase tarmac where I'd assumed she was the prince's Rawalina, Roger Allard made quite sure that I would know what Vimala, the Rawalina of Balrampur, looked like. She looked just like the woman on the other side of the room—even though the woman in the photograph looked regal and this one looked some crazy combination of frazzled, terrified, and angry.

The real problem was that Roger told me that he certainly hoped I never saw Bhadur Khan and his wife in the same room together, because the prince had said if he ever laid eyes on her again he'd shoot her. Visions of him already trying to and killing her secretary instead raced through my head—nonsensically with me as the secretary standing between the Rawalina and the line of that gun barrel.