Her silence on this topic both intrigued and irritated him. Over a period of time, he was sure about one thing; that his wife was a strange creature. She was quick to learn and slow to speak – truly a lethal combination. Her beautiful face looked at him through the dressing mirror. She was a wintry snow princess, with a lustrous pale skin, peaches and cream complexion. The media loved her poise, her hesitant fame as she posed with those strong features, a hooked nose and drooping baby eyes. They were a shade of brown, soft and vulnerable. If you saw her cross the street, her natural rose-coloured lips and angelic soft cocoa eyes arrested you.

The first time he met her, he wanted to protect the porcelain beauty, a helpless waif braving a storm. His attraction to her vulnerability was like a moth to a flame.

But with time he realized, this beautiful dove with the air of a tragic broken wing had mysteries woven around her that he still unravelled. Buried in a corner was an astuteness she chose not to wear. The helpless demeanour served her well to further her end. An heiress to a huge empire, the only daughter to one of the biggest political parties, she was groomed to find a good useful husband and strengthen the father’s empire and political ambition. She moulded herself to play that part beautifully. Or maybe he looked for pathetic reasons to run away from her into Rajjo’s arms, he was not sure. He stoked these conspiracy theories against his angelic wife to feed his guilt.

He took in her beautiful scented body and a sudden rush of long passionate nights spent with her blinded him. It cleared away shortly leaving a sad wilted fragrance, for although the initial year of lust brought them together, it never moved towards love. Many other things filled his time and soul but a part of him was still stuck under his wife’s pillow. It slept under the curve of her cheek. He felt her vulnerability, he wanted to protect her, he wanted to punish himself, or then he wanted to blame her. In seven years of marriage he was still unable to understand her smile. He’d seldom seen her break out into a spontaneous laughter. Her face was always a mask of pleasantness with her smile pasted on. She braved every situation, issue, turmoil, rumours and celebration with the same smile. The winter she lost her mother, the summer her sister delivered a baby girl, the autumn she ran a cat under her Mercedes while she was reveresing the car out of the driveway or the spring when the first paper published a hush-hush rumour hinting that the stunning Godwoman was in an illicit relationship with the political heir – she had braved it all.