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 fire was out, but the night hadn’t returned to peace.
The stars looked strange above the railway—distant, disapproving. Smoke still hung low over the rooftops, curling through the alleys like something alive. Every creak in the floorboards made me jump.
Arjun was asleep—if you could call it that.
He lay curled on the woven mat behind the stack of grain sacks, his arm hastily bandaged, his breathing shallow. His face was pale under the flickering lantern light, streaked with soot and blood. I had done all I could. Washed the wound. Pressed the cloth. Whispered prayers that felt too small.
Tom had helped carry him here, muttering curses under his breath, looking over his shoulder like the shadows themselves might accuse him. Then he left, saying something about needing to “buy time” and that Ashford would take care of the rest.
That was hours ago.
Now it was just me. Me, Arjun, and the silence that pressed harder with every passing minute.
I sat by the window, wrapped in my shawl, my eyes fixed on the narrow path outside. Every time a leaf rustled, I thought it was him. Every time it wasn’t, the knot in my chest pulled tighter.
Where was Edward Ashford?
He hadn’t returned. Not since the fire. Not since—
Since he saved Arjun.
The thought still felt foreign. Wrong.
Edward Ashford, the man who ran the railway like it was an empire of steel and steam, who ordered our people about like pieces on a chessboard, had knelt down and lifted my brother like he mattered. Like he wasn’t the kind of man British officers spit on in the street.
Why?
I didn’t want to owe him anything. I shouldn’t owe him anything.
And yet here I was, wide awake, watching the road, waiting for a shadow in the dark.
Not Arjun. Not Tom.
Him.
A breeze slipped in through the cracked window, and I pulled my shawl tighter around me. My eyes stung, but I didn’t dare close them.
Because if he came back tonight—covered in soot, dragging guilt behind him like a chain—I needed to know what he’d done.
And if he didn’t come back…
Then maybe none of us were safe anymore.
The door creaked before I heard his footsteps.
No knock. No voice. Just the soft scuff of boots on the packed earth outside, then the reluctant groan of the latch turning.
I stood up too quickly. My knees wobbled, but I held my ground, my fingers clutching the edge of the wooden table.
Edward Ashford stepped inside, and the cold night air came with him.
