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But I think he mistook my annoyance for an attempt to play coy, and shook a finger at me. “Come, come, Lady Rowena—or may I call you Rowena? Surely—yes, we cannot stand on formality now! I respect your shyness and your modesty, but after all, since we are to be engaged, a little kiss at least will not be out of order, would it?”
At any other time I might have found some humor in the situation I now found myself in, but the expression on Tom Wilkinson’s face as he followed me around the room made me almost apprehensive.
I retreated. He followed, still grinning, as if we were playing some kind of game.
“Mr. Wilkinson,” I said firmly, “I hardly think it proper for us to be here alone. I’ve no desire to give rise to belowstairs gossip, and I’ve nothing to say to you. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.”
“Ah, but I’m not ready to leave yet, and I’m sure you don’t want me to—not till I’ve said what I came here to say! Come, what’s the harm in a little kiss, eh? After all, we are to become engaged.”
“I would not marry you, Mr. Wilkinson, if you were the last man on earth!” I said forcibly.
“Want to play hard to get, don’t you? There’s no need for all that. I’ve made up my mind, you see!”
Without warning he made a grab for me, and I found myself clutched in a man’s arms for the first time in my life, while he planted wet, repulsive kisses on my averted face and neck.
“Give us a kiss, then, lass! Eh, will you stop struggling? I’ll be wanting more than just kisses when we’re wed, you know!”
“Will you stop it?”
Forgetting all my coolness I pushed violently against his chest with my hands, and when he still wouldn’t let me go, but kept muttering how pretty I was with my hair coming loose and my eyes not shielded by those ugly spectacles, I slapped his face as hard as I could.
He released me and stumbled backward with an expression of shock and bewilderment on his face. I seized this respite to escape to the doorway. I was panting. I hadn’t realized until this moment how disgusted and how afraid I had been.
With an effort, I managed to force some semblance of coldness into my voice as I told him I hoped he would manage to find his way out.
His mouth twisted in an ugly fashion. “You bitch! By God, you’ll be sorry for what you just did!”
I walked out of the room, and left him standing there, still mouthing threats at me. I heard his voice call after me as I began to ascend the staircase, forcing myself to walk slowly, and not to run from the sound of his words.
“Think you’ll ever get yourself a husband, an ugly creature like you?” he shouted thickly. “Why, I’d never have offered for you in a thousand years if Sir Edgar and my da’ hadn’t cooked it all up between them! Offered to pay off all my gambling debts, they did. No wonder they’re anxious to get rid of you!”
I found myself wondering where the servants were—hiding in doorways and broom closets, no doubt, the better to enjoy such a juicy little scene! I wanted to flee from that ugly, sneering voice, but I would not let myself; I was a Dangerfield, and the likes of Tom Wilkinson with his loud, vulgar voice, were beneath my attention.
At last I had reached the head of the stairs, with my hands wet and sweaty, and my back stiff—and at last I heard the distant slam of a door somewhere below me.
When I reached the safety of my room I was shaking. That ugly, vulgar, repulsive little man! How dare they send him to me, deeming him good enough for me? And even he had had to be bribed to make an offer for me!
Ugly—dowdy—frumpish—a born spinster—was there really something wrong with me? Was I some kind of freak, set apart from other females?
For the first time in my life, as I leaned against the door of my room and fought to control my emotions, I was conscious of a feeling of rebellion, of almost overpowering rage and humiliation. I had been brought up to believe that birth and education were enough, that I needed nothing else to make a success of my life. But—and the thought came insidiously, cracking the foundations of all my beliefs—had my grandfather been wrong? Had he deliberately turned me into an introverted bluestocking to protect me from the devil that was said to taint the Dangerfield blood?
“I’m a woman—a woman!” I raged inwardly, and my fingers began to tear viciously at my ugly, constricting clothes. Perspiration had begun to pour from my body, trickling down the back of my neck, down my thighs and between my breasts.
Still panting, hardly conscious of what I was doing, I found myself standing unashamedly naked before my mirror, my clothes strewn haphazardly around the room. My hair hung down about my shoulders and tickled the back of my waist, and my eyes looked enormous in the whiteness of my face. Was this the real Rowena? What had happened to the laughing girl who had worn a sari and an exotic black caste mark between her brows? The same girl who might have married a prince? “Do you think you’re living in a fairy tale?” I had chided myself then, proud of my own good sense and practical turn of mind. But I should have married Shiv. I should have stayed in India! I was a stranger among strangers here.
Suddenly, I saw myself as I had been then, viewing my reflection in a polished silver mirror. Perhaps if I wished hard enough Shiv would appear behind me, as he had on that day, striding in with his high, polished boots and fawn jodhpurs, the white silk turban he wore giving him an air of barbaric splendor. Dear Shiv—my brightest memory!
The sari, carefully packed away in layers of tissue paper, emerged like a jeweled treasure from the bottom of my small, battered trunk. It was made of gossamer sheer silk that shimmered when the light caught it—a deep blue-violet shade that Shiv had told me matched my eyes. A design worked in gold covered the material like an intricate spider web, and the pallau—the section that was meant to be draped around its wearer’s head—was even more resplendent with gold than the rest of the sari.
A garment fit for a queen—the gift of an Indian prince. What was I thinking of as I slowly wound it around my body as the women had taught me? Did I imagine that I would be magically transformed into a princess? I cannot remember what thoughts went through my head, but when I put it on I shook my hair loose so that its straight, fine strands hung about my face, giving it a shadowed, mysterious look.
Beneath the thin material my pale flesh seemed to take on an amber glow as I saw myself outlined against the fire—all subtle shadings of hollows and curves. Seized by a strange, trancelike feeling, I stared at myself, and it was like looking at the shadowy portrait of a stranger. Was that exotic creature in the mirror really me? All the features I had so despised in my face seemed to take on a new, softer look. I felt like Narcissus discovering his own beauty in a pool of water, and could not stop staring at myself.
I think I was a little mad that afternoon. Not only did I look like a stranger, but even my thoughts were not my own. I remember putting my hand up to touch my face, as if I could not believe it was mine, and the gesture had a strangely sensuous grace I had never possessed before. I was a woman, discovering her own beauty before a mirror—an Indian princess, carefully cloistered from men, and yet born to please them… and then, with a shattering force, the spell was broken.
I had
n’t heard the door open until it slammed shut behind him, and I whirled around with an involuntary, gasping cry of fear.
