Disclaimer: This fanfic is an adaptation of the Novel of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham. Neither "Inuyasha" nor "The Painted Veil" belong to me.
Seeing her lover leave from the verandah of her bedroom, Kagome could not help but to feel that mixture of elation, nerves and contentment that displayed itself in that familiar pressure in her chest and a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach. Sipping on her brandy, she could only look at the distance, where the blue sea of the harbor only reminded of the azure gaze of her love.
Since that fateful meeting in the British embassy, she had tempted fate, forsake her beliefs and both of their marriages in an affair that only left her starved for more. What started in small flirtations here and there on expat events, eventually turned into a passionate rendezvous in a small, humid room on top of a Chinese medicine shop, where the suspect mattress placed on a dark, wooden cot did little to dampen the sounds of their lovemaking. She knew it was stupid to agree to meet him at her house, to love him in the same bed where her unsuspecting husband slept placidly every night, but Kagome was a woman in love, and with that, whatever little sense she had went out the window when she thought about Falkas Kouga.
Meeting him was the only good thing that came out of her husband's horrid assignment in Hong Kong. She hated the city: it was humid, unhealthy and full of expats that looked down at her, the wife of a mid-ranking researcher at the Royal Society of Medicine. Of course, during the first months of his assignment, they were invited to parties at a myriad of local societies, only to be politely ignored when the lethal combination of her husband's aloofness and their lack of position or peerage made the invitations trickle to a stop. At home, Kagome had been full of gaiety and energy. But after three years of marriage, homesickness and loneliness had filled her heart with despair.
"I am so bored!" - she remembered complaining - "Back at home we would not lack for invitations for tea, but here, there is no one that bothers talking to you for more than five minutes"
"Don't let that bother you, it is of no consequence" - he muttered from behind his newspaper - "Besides, the man of science is after all, a social pariah. Don't let it vex you".
How wrong he was!. In a society where one was ranked on the prestige of their connections, on the number of servants in their homes, and the quality of the plates in their china set, the home of the Nakamuras, while comfortable and properly appointed, was a drab affair. When the excitement that the arrival of the attractive couple died down in the small, but secluded society, what was left for all to see was a silent recluse of a husband, a beautiful, but too exotic wife, and a home in which one would be lucky to be served a decent cup of tea. For a woman such as Kagome Nakamura, said society was stifling, and she often found nothing better to do than to play bridge with the few older ladies that still sought out her company, women eager to pontificate about her domestic affairs, from how to better discipline the servant boys to how to better care of her saint of a husband, who more often than not, gave his books and his work far more attention than to his own wife. A year into his assignment, even her aloof husband could see that Kagome was a shadow of her old self, silent when not despondent about his hours and the lack of society, and it was then when he brought her to the annual celebration for the Lunar New year at the British embassy.
She remembered like it was yesterday the night in which she became entranced with his blue eyes, so similar to her own. How his gloved hand so delicately touched her own, and how warm his lips felt against her skin when he kissed her hand in greeting. Little did she know that Falkas Kouga, besides his charm and business acumen, had a particular ability to detect the love-starved, the lonely, and the naive, and like the proverbial moth to the flame, Kagome could do little to resist the allure of the man, so assured and confident, that graced her first with his undivided attention, and later with the pleasures of love.
If only both of them were free! It was evident that Falkas was as unhappy in his marriage as she was, even though he was too much of a gentleman to badmouth his wife in front of Kagome. She was a tall and stout woman, with red hair and green eyes than in her youth must have been pretty, but after two boys, and a life in the colonies, little remained of the glow of her maidenhood. After inquiring delicately among her acquaintances about her, it was clear that she was well liked and connected, a woman by all considered an excellent mother and a capable hostess, which for her husband, the commercial attache of the Hungarian embassy, it certainly came in handy. But Kagome did not like her: she felt that even after all the expected pleasantries, Ms. Kouga kept her at a distance, and Kagome felt under that sharp jade gaze, that she was found nothing but an interloper.