The Unventured Passions

Deep Dark Secrets

One can't be saved from their destiny, something for what they are made of, something that are made for them, yet how futile is that attempt to keep trying and trying...
Lady Marietta Candice McKenzie had once loved Barrister Anirudh Roy Chowdhury, with all her heart, mind and soul. He ofcourse wasn't a famous barrister then, but his strong sense of right and wrong was still there.
Anirudh could never come in terms of the deception which Candice had tried him with. On that camping night, inside the tent, although it may have seemed to Candice that she had won him over as hers, but in reality that night Anirudh felt repulsive of her in every way that there could be. Still it was the righteousness in him, the strong undeniable desire to right every wrong that had made him quietly offer his apologies to her, and his life as an offering in return.
And, poor Candice counted it as love!

Many seasons had passed since then, and now Candice knew what love feels like, real love, the unforced one, yet she had no mean to relax and relish it.
She was on a mission... Marrying the old officer, her trip to India, everything was such a meticulous part of her selfish plan. And, Anirudh Roy Chowdhury was no where in the picture for atleast sometime.
But fate always has her cruel way of smiling back when you try to defy her, and it did the same to Candice too.
The first month of her stay in Calcutta was a secret mad hunt, and Candice did all she could to protect the real reason of her mood swings and delirium.
She won't let any doctor come near her, let alone treat her of her strange ailment, and in secrecy she'd continue her search. But, by the end of the first month, all seemed bleak, meaningless, like a mad goose chase, and fearing the bloody reveal of all her deception and ploy, she had decided to take her life instead.

That's when she had met Batakrishna Roy Chowdhury, the lookalike sibling of her long lost love. A medical student, a youthful, impulsive one, and a perfect one who could be her one was ticket to life!

Sitting at the backseat of the tinted carriage with a British flag flying on the Bonet, Marietta Candice Mckenzie wiped the single drop of guilty tear from her black gloved hand.

"Great Eastern Hotel My lady."
The old English coachman had pulled the door open for her and was bowing down, as very slowly Candice offered him her hand to guide her down.

"Careful my Lady." The old man cleared his throat, and Candice glanced at him with an awkward smile.

"Shall I wait here?" He asked, and Candice nodded her head to show her approval, the black hat and the netted veil had covered most of the gloss in her icey blue eyes.

The lobby was well lit and well known to her, as the month old memories of her romantic rendezvous started haunting her back with ghosts of the near past... Yet, the demons from her far past were far too demanding to let her ponder over the sense of justice and fairness.

Poor Batakrishna! That poor poor lad!

Her heart sank, but she took a deep breath to calm her wrenching heart down.

"How many I help you Madam?"
A Indian manager had bowed down till his knees as he offered her help in the most Indian way possible.

Madam Marietta Candice Mckenzie just smiled.

"Barrister Anirudh Roy Chowdhury, could you please guide me to his room. I'm Lady Mckenzie, your Governor General's wife." She demanded politely.

"Umm... But Madam, he's, he's not..."

"It's alright, I'll wait."
Marietta Candice Mckenzie just smiled.

********

How can his Bondita question his intentions towards her?

The same question kept on ringing inside Anirudh Roy Chowdhury's head in every permutation and combination that there could be as he drove out of the sprawling campus of the Hindu College.
No, he didn't wait for Bondita to come to him, he didn't wait for her apologies either.
Why would he?
For, if he had rushed in dealing with her accusations the night before, she too had accused him of robbing her of her individualism.
He, of all people in the world, would rob her individualism? Her sense of identity? Hers?