After a time, though, my feet ached from dancing and my cheeks from smiling, both real smiles and the ones I knew I should give. I was nearly too tired to stand, anyway, and Jack and I had somewhere to be, so I caught Lydia’s eye and ran my pinky across my eyebrow.
She nodded, and minutes later, my father was next to me, thanking Dev and his parents for the evening, begging off the rest of the party because of jet lag.
They looked disappointed—it was still early—but Dev kissed my hand, I smiled and waved from the top of the steps, and we finally emerged into the quiet of the hallway.
My father walked me back to my room. The silk of my sari swishing was the only sound in the residential wing of the mansion, but my head still echoed with the drums and flutes and cheers of the ballroom. I pulled off the top few flower garlands until my shoulders felt lighter.
My father cleared his throat. I hadn’t spoken with him much since dinner last night, and even though Lydia seemed to accept and even understand my grudging compliance with their terms, I wasn’t sure he did. I was expecting a lecture on following the customs of these families, and how I couldn’t just leave when I was tired, so I was surprised when he said, “You’re doing a good job.”
I looked up. My father was wearing a tunic similar to Mr. Rajesh’s, and it was charmingly askew after a night of dancing.
“I know this isn’t easy for you,” he said. “Your mother—Claire always hated Circle politics.”
Claire. I kept forgetting that Carol wasn’t my mother’s real name. Neither was West. She must have made both up after she found out she was pregnant with me and ran away from the Circle.
My father—I still couldn’t think of him as Dad, a word that conjured up images of plaid shirts and summer barbecues—must have taken my silence as agreement, because he said, “It means a lot to us, and to the Circle, that you’re willing to work with us on this. They adored you tonight.”
Guilt flashed through me again. I wasn’t cooperating quite as much as he thought.
A heavy velvet curtain led to the hall of bedrooms, and my father held it aside for me to walk through. “I’m not sure if it would help you to know this, but what you’re doing here—being courted by these young men and their families—is very traditional. All our marriages are arranged.”
I studied my hands, covered in bracelets and rings, delicate chains connecting them. “Lydia told me.”
I felt my father watching me. “You can learn to love someone.”
I couldn’t stop myself. “So you and my mother—”
“Could never have had a future.” It was gentle, but final. “Now it’s obvious. But we were young then. Idealistic.”
We passed beneath a gilded archway, where two lanterns flickered against the gold-threaded tapestries on the walls. Yes, tonight had been fine—more than fine—and all the dinners and parties and traveling to come might be fun in their own way. And I was glad I could help my family—it made me feel like I was actually one of them, for however long it lasted. But how was any of this different from that almost-wedding to Luc Dauphin? Different families, different countries, different cages.
At least the door to this cage was still propped open.
“Have your people made any headway with the clues or my mom?” I asked, my voice squeaking. My throat was parched and raw from talking over the music all night.
My father shook his head. “We’re working on it.”
We stopped at an ornately carved door off the long tile hallway. Overhead, a ceiling fan spun lazily, stirring my curls.
“I’ll see you in the morning, then,” my father said. “We have a farewell tea with the Rajesh family at ten, and we leave for Germany at noon.”
“I’ll be ready,” I said. There was an awkward pause where I thought he might hug me, but he just patted me on the shoulder and headed back down the hall.
I pushed into the bedroom and slumped against the door. Alone in the dark, I wanted nothing more than to curl up and close my eyes and decompress.
I didn’t have time to rest, though. We were supposed to be out of here by nine, and it was already ten. I undid my sari and folded it on a dressing table. I replaced it with my jeans and a flowing top from the closet, and draped a scarf around my head.
There was a set of double doors leading from my room to a wide balcony, and while I was downstairs, someone had opened them and turned on low flute music that blended with the sound of the tinkling fountain in the courtyard below. The courtyard was lush and overgrown and perfect for hiding, and luckily, as much security as there was outside the palace, there weren’t many guards patrolling inside. I switched off the overhead light and peered over the balcony’s edge, hoping to catch a glimpse of the one guard I knew was there.
The air in India, at least as I’d experienced it so far, was heavy and oppressively hot and fragrant. Right now it still smelled like dinner—butter and spices and meat cooking. The streetlights in the distance were hazy.
I heard a crunch of gravel below me. The guard was passing beneath my room. He moved at a slow stroll—nothing here seemed to move faster than that. I wiped a bead of sweat that trickled down my neck. It had topped a hundred degrees today, and even after sunset, the air had barely cooled. I had to wear this scarf, though—Western faces attracted attention here, and attention was something we didn’t need.
The guard was humming to himself as he rounded a corner. I hesitated for only a second before climbing over the carved marble balcony.
CHAPTER 5
I had mostly gotten rid of my fear of heights—maybe too many other fears had crowded it out. Still, I held my breath as I inched along the balcony to a trellis that ran down into the courtyard. Jack had scouted earlier and told me this was the best way to get out of my room. The trellis was splintered but sturdy, and I was on the ground and ducking behind a fern as the flute music from above changed to string instruments.