Secrets Hidden In Time (Time #1)

52 | The Formidable King & His Heroic General

She nodded. "I get your point." She lifted her right hand to rub his shoulder. "It's okay."

"Gosh! We are both messed up." She chuckled and added. "We both need therapy."

He laughed with a nod. "We do." Then he turned his head around to look at the bed, finding it empty. "Where is that brat?"

"Oh, I just bathed him." She responded. "Geeta Didi took him along with herself to the dining hall." Scratching her forehead, she continued. "That reminds me, I received his reports yesterday evening."

Saying so, she fished out her phone from the inner pocket of her black blazer. "Everything is pretty normal, but yeah as suspected by Dr. Pradhan, he does have a low tolerance towards legumes." She swiftly opened the PDF on her phone to show him. "It's better we keep him away from consuming legumes as much as possible."

He nodded, going through the reports. "That's good." He remarked and glanced back at her. "Let's go to the dining hall then."

"Yeah."

And in one go, he started marching out of their bedroom while she matched her steps with him.

As they both walked out of the long Colonial era corridor and inched closer to the staircase, Hinduja noticed some of the staff members, including Manoramaa, Niranjan, and Gurung, standing on the ground floor in the great hall.

"There are people downstairs." She alerted him.

He glanced at her. "I find it absurd and regressive. You know that we don't need to follow that rule all the time, right?"

"I know but it is the protocol." She remarked. "And we have always followed it, even the generations before us."

He sighed.

"Come on." She assured him. "Honestly, I like that rule."

He looked at her with amusement. "Why?"

"Because it makes you look like a king and me as your general." She chuckled. "A formidable king and his heroic general."

"Turns out I am married to a weird woman." He commented, shaking his head.

"Great that your aware of it now." She shot back, deadpan.

The moment they reached the edge, where the first step of the staircase was beginning, she methodically took two steps back with practiced ease. And then he started descending down the stairs, with her matching his footfall two steps behind him. Their hands didn't touch, but the sole of her pumps did click with the sole of his oxfords in sync.

Manoramaa, Gurung, Niranjan, and the rest of the attending staff bowed all at once.

Descending the last step of the staircase, he looked at Niranjan. "Assemble all the guards on duty last night in the central dining hall in five minutes. No other housing staff member should be allowed inside."

"Yes, sir." Niranjan bowed again, took a swift turn, and retraced his steps back out of the manor.

Meanwhile, Mahadevan strode in the direction of the dining hall with Hinduja walking two steps behind him, while Manoramaa and Gurung followed them both, quick on their toes.

Roughly ten minutes later, settled in the head dining chair, he roamed his gaze across the faces of the eighty-five security men, all erect on their toes. All the attendants, meanwhile, were restricted from entering the dining hall as per his directions, including the butler, Geeta, and Poorna. Geeta had specifically requested to take Anirudh along since he was still feeling sleepy.

With the matriarch sitting to his left, the patriarch began, "With eighty-five of you on guard yesterday night, how did those five even dare to trespass inside?"