members of Lady Arya’s family. But not her brother; Bartholomew’s observant eye noted that Param Singh was not among the waiting crowd. Nor was the Maharajah, but that was not surprising; Indian royalty did not wait in hallways. The Maharajah would come when he decided it was time to say good-bye to his British son-in-law and he would do so with pomp and ceremony, a visit from a potentate to a representative of the British government.
The marriage between his half-English daughter and Baron Danver had been arranged for political reasons. The Maharajah, mindful of the unrest in his province, and convinced that the only way to forge peace was to strengthen the bonds between the British Raj and his dynasty, had offered his beautiful daughter as a prize. Arya Singh, the obedient daughter of the Maharajah and his second wife, dutifully married the Baron a year ago as she had been told to do.
What she thought of the match, Bartholomew didn’t know. He only knew that he had fallen in love with Arya Henrietta Singh, on the day that she became Baroness Danver, his best friend’s wife.
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