Edward Ashford x Roshni Thakur
#1st book of the forbidden series.
A marriage of convenience, A deal , A game, well that's what it was until it wasn't.
In the heart of colonial India, Edward Ashford, a British officer overseeing the railway expansio...
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The lines and marks on the map should have felt like progess—another step toward order, toward the legacy I was determined to leave behind.
But tonight, I couldn’t concentrate.
Dinner had been quieter than usual, a silence I couldn’t quite place. Roshni hadn’t spoken much, her words few and clipped, though not sharp enough to be confrontational. Still, something about her silence lingered with me.
I poured another glass of whiskey, the amber liquid catching the light as I leaned back in the chair. She was an enigma, my wife—a woman I had married not for love but out of necessity. When we’d made our arrangement, I’d thought she would fade into the background of my life, a silent partner in this farce of a union.
But Roshni was anything but silent.
She moved through this house like she belonged to it, even when the glances from the servants spoke otherwise. She carried herself with a dignity that seemed unshakable, even in the face of a marriage neither of us had wanted. And though we rarely exchanged more than a few words at a time, I found myself watching her more than I cared to admit.
The candle on my desk flickered, and I glanced at the railway map again, tracing the routes with my finger. Progress. Order. Stability. These were the things that mattered, the things I could control.
Roshni was not one of those things.
I sighed, setting the glass down as I rubbed the bridge of my nose. My work demanded my focus, but tonight, my thoughts wandered back to her—her sharp eyes, the quiet defiance in her voice at dinner.
“Sometimes, what seems necessary is just a way to avoid facing the consequences.”
She had said it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, as if the statement wasn’t a direct challenge to the way I lived my life. And yet, I hadn’t felt anger. I’d felt... unsettled.
I shook my head, trying to dismiss the thought. Roshni had a way of speaking that made me think more than I wanted to, but that didn’t mean anything. She was my wife, yes, but we were hardly confidants. She didn’t understand my work, my responsibilities. How could she?
Still, her presence lingered like the scent of roses that drifted in from the garden.
Rising from the chair, I stepped to the window, looking out at the darkened grounds. The house was quiet, save for the distant creak of wooden beams settling in the cold. The faint glow of lanterns in the garden cast soft light on the roses she tended with such care.
I envied her simplicity, the way she seemed to find purpose in something as transient as flowers. My world was one of blueprints and reports, of meetings with men who measured progress in miles and dollars. Hers was one of roots and blossoms, of quiet persistence in the face of a world that often overlooked her entirely.
And yet, I found myself drawn to her in a way I hadn’t anticipated.
I poured myself another glass, the whiskey warming my chest as I tried to push her from my thoughts. She was my wife, yes, but our marriage was nothing more than an arrangement, a bridge between two worlds that were never meant to meet.
