Jaishree Misra - A Scandalous Secret

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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A SCANDALOUS SECRET. Copyright © Jaishree Misra 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Jaishree Misra asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Source ISBN: 9781847561862

Ebook Edition © APRIL 2011 ISBN: 9780007443208

Version: 2018-07-19

For AM

Title Page Jaishree Misra A Scandalous Secret

Copyright

Chapter One

Neha stood at the door to her spacious living room…

Chapter Two

Sonya lay under her duvet and looked around the bedroom…

Chapter Three

By midnight, Neha was so exhausted by her hostess duties…

Chapter Four

The eighteenth birthday party was to be held in the…

Chapter Five

Sharat walked towards the breakfast room, humming a jaunty tune.

Chapter Six

Waking up the day after her party, Sonya studiously avoided…

Chapter Seven

On the evening after her dinner party, Neha mustered the…

Chapter Eight

In the kitchen of the Shaw household, Laura gave her…

Chapter Nine

It was only when she was two hundred kilometres outside…

Chapter Ten

Sonya glowered at Tim from her cross-legged perch on the…

Chapter Eleven

When the floor was icy cold, and Neha’s body had…

Chapter Twelve

Laura watched Sonya throw a handful of cotton bras into…

Chapter Thirteen

Neha sat up, unsure of how many hours had passed…

Chapter Fourteen

Sonya looked down at the massive city that her plane…

Chapter Fifteen

At Delhi’s domestic terminal, Sharat walked past baggage collection and…

Chapter Sixteen

Sonya managed to hold on until they had exited the…

Chapter Seventeen

The therapist indicated that the massage had ended by gently…

Chapter Eighteen

By the time Sonya and Estella had made their way…

Chapter Nineteen

By her third day in Ananda, Neha felt as though…

Chapter Twenty

Later that evening, back in her room at Ananda, Neha…

Chapter Twenty-One

It was 1992, my eighteenth birthday party – the last…

Chapter Twenty-Two

Neha’s voice hung in the air as she finally looked…

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sonya looked up at the towering Qutb Minar, the tip…

Chapter Twenty-Four

Neha watched the landscape change as the car she was…

Chapter Twenty-Five

After Keshav had deposited Sonya and Estella back at the…

Chapter Twenty-Six

Neha replaced the phone receiver with trembling hands. Her heart…

Chapter Twenty-Seven

There were no more tears from Sonya that afternoon, but…

Chapter Twenty-Eight

After her ghastly meeting with Sonya in Lodhi Gardens, Neha…

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Sonya was starting to get uncomfortable lying on the lumpy…

Chapter Thirty

Sharat shot a look at Neha sitting next to him…

Chapter Thirty-One

The Coffee Bean Café at the entrance to Select City…

Chapter Thirty-Two

In the dentist’s waiting room, Neha sat surrounded by dwarf…

Chapter Thirty-Three

Whenever Sharat looked back at that moment, it felt as…

Chapter Thirty-Four

Hours after she had left the Chaturvedi house in such…

Chapter Thirty-Five

Sharat walked into the elegant lobby of the Windsor Manor…

Chapter Thirty-Six

As their taxi pulled into Fatehpur Sikri, Sonya and Estella…

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Back in Delhi, Keshav was sprawled on Gopal’s mattress, sharing…

Chapter Thirty-Eight

After checking in at Delhi Airport on their return from…

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Neha sat by herself in the breakfast room, her mobile…

Chapter Forty

A day after leaving Delhi, Sonya looked at the scene…

Chapter Forty-One

Sharat spent over a week in Bangalore, going on long…

Chapter Forty-Two

Sonya quickened her footsteps as she and Estella pushed their…

Chapter Forty-Three

Sharat sat restlessly in the living room, listening to a…

Chapter Forty-Four

Hello, Neha,

Chapter Forty-Five

It was a dark English morning that threatened snow, and…

Reading Group Questions

About the Author

Other Books by Jaishree Misra

About the Publisher

Neha stood at the door to her spacious living room in Delhi, surveying the party that was now in full flow. It hadn’t yet reached that freewheeling stage when people, mellowed by the fine wines and Scotches on offer, would start drifting around unreservedly, chatting without embarrassment or restraint to relative strangers. At the moment, most of her guests were gathered in small knots around the room, sticking to the people they knew, but loud bursts of laughter indicated that a good time was already being had. Waiters hired for the night were working the room with trays of drinks and canapés, and some kind of nondescript piano music was tinkling through the eight-speaker Bose system, Sharat’s proud new acquisition. It would need to be turned off for the Divakar Brothers’ live performance that would take place a little later on in the garden, but experience had taught Neha to keep things subtle at the start.

Virtually everyone invited had already come, even the customary stragglers who made it a point to arrive close to midnight, complaining about receiving three party invites for the same night. Whatever they said, Neha knew with quiet confidence that people did not usually turn down invitations to her famously lavish and elegant soirées but, given the status of many of her guests, she was nevertheless touched when she saw such busy and eminent people turn up at her place so unfailingly.

Although smaller, more intimate dinner parties were a regular feature of the Chaturvedi household, Sharat and Neha held two large parties every year; one sometime before Diwali and the other a lunch in the garden at the start of spring. The hundred-odd invitations issued were carefully considered affairs, sent – everyone knew – only to the very influential or very well connected. The very point of them, Sharat sometimes said, was to allow people to relax and meet each other without the fear of journalists or paparazzi lurking around the corner. Yellow journalism had been the bane of many of their famous friends’ lives and, horrifyingly, Neha had recently been hearing of parties where – without any warning – the press pack would descend, secretly invited by publicity-hungry hosts who wanted to be mentioned on the party pages of The Times of India.