The Art of Inheriting Secrets(33)

“Yes. Worked in London for nearly four years, and then both Sam and I came home when my mother got sick three years ago. I had a lot of ideas for the restaurant, and my dad listened to my proposal—and voila! Here we are.”

As if she’d pressed a button below the table, the two servers arrived with more dishes—meat and fresh green peas topped with chopped mint and served with a bowl of cumin-studded rice.

I bent my head a little to take a deep breath. “This smells fantastic.” As ever, I began a deconstruction, picking out ginger and cardamom in the fragrances rising from the dishes, but not which came from which. “Did your brother come home to help with the restaurant too?”

She snorted. “No way.”

But she didn’t offer anything more. Instead, she began dishing up the food onto our heavy plates. “This is one of my experiments, an adaptation of a lamb kheema with jeera rice.” She smiled. “What could be more Indian and more English than lamb and peas in the springtime?”

“Wonderful.”

Next to me, Harshad nodded almost prayerfully over the dish.

“Is this one of your favorites?”

“Everything she cooks is this good,” he said gruffly, taking a hearty bite. “When she first started telling me what she wanted to do, I thought, ‘Who would want that? People like Indian food to be familiar, curries and the like.’ But she’s right.” He waved his hand to the full dining room. “We never had such crowds before.”

“You must be proud of her.”

“Yes. She always has her own ideas, but she has the intelligence to go with them.”

“I can see that.”

We ate in silence for a time, reverently. The lamb, roasted with spices and garlic, was as tender as butter, the peas only steamed long enough to heat them through. “The timing on the peas must be challenging.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Yes! We steam them quickly, then keep them cold and only heat them and add them to the lamb just before serving.”

“Kheema is usually ground meat, if I recall.”

“Again, right. Fresh-roasted lamb with ginger is much healthier and lighter. The jeera rice, however, is very traditional.”

“I love it,” I said, taking another careful mix of everything. Cumin kissed ginger; ginger embraced the umami depth of lamb; peas and mint and coriander leaves crowned it all with bright spring. “It’s amazing, Pavi. Like, so incredible.” I touched my lips. “Thank you.”

She laughed and reached over to touch my wrist. “The pleasure is mine, Olivia. I’m so pleased.”

When we’d feasted through the lamb and naan and three small vegetable dishes, along with more wine—and laughter, because Harshad liked jokes and told them with a sly eyebrow—we all leaned back. I was slightly tipsy, definitely high on the food and the pleasure of an evening out.

Harshad said, “I knew your mother, you know.”

I blinked the sudden well of tears from eyes. “Sorry,” I said and looked away to take a breath.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “If it is too emotional to speak of her—”

“No, no, no! Please. I’d love to hear.” I swallowed. “I just . . . miss her.”

“As a daughter would,” Pavi said, and it was not my imagination that she moved a little closer, as if to protect me.

“Did you know my grandmother too?”

“‘Know’ is not exactly the word.”

I nodded. “Here’s the thing: I had no idea who my mother was until she died. I didn’t know I had a grandmother. Or an uncle—wherever he is—or that my mother was English nobility. Nothing. I knew nothing of any of this until a few weeks ago. Anything you know is more than I do.”

“My mother and your grandmother were good friends,” he said. A certain heaviness weighted his brow. “They spent their lives together in India, and my mother still looked after her, even after they both married. It used to make my father angry, I think, but he didn’t stop her.” For a moment, he tapped a spot on the table, lost in memories. “We would go to the big house, and my mother would visit with Lady Violet—that’s what I always called her, Lady Violet. And while they drank tea, we children played hide-and-seek or duck, duck, goose. Later, we climbed trees or tried to catch fish in the stream.”

“You and my mother?”

“And Sanvi, my little sister. She was five years younger than me.”

I nodded, aware that I hardly even knew what to ask, where to begin. “Was my mother happy in those days?”

He pushed out his bottom lip, considering. “No. She was never a happy girl. She missed her father.”

“Did he die too?”

“He divorced Lady Violet when Caroline was a small girl. I never saw him.” He took up his fork and ate a little, and I followed suit, aware of Pavi’s alert attention beside me. “Your mother . . . she wasn’t unhappy either. We didn’t think so much about that in those days, you know.” His smile was wry, and I saw Samir in the expression. “We just were.”

“Did she draw and paint then?”

“Always.”

I would have to stop—it was feeling like an inquisition—but a couple more questions. “And my grandmother? What was she like?”