Veils of Silk

  But he could, and he did. The slow, inexorable pressure abruptly ended in a quick rip of pain, and suddenly he was inside her. They were joined as intimately as the figures in the cave temple, and for a shocked instant she went rigid.

  Then he kissed her again, his open mouth familiar and silently soothing. Slowly she relaxed, first accepting the invasion, then finding surprising pleasure when he began to move deeper.

  Curious, she raised her hips against him, intrigued by the way her slick heated flesh adjusted around his. He sucked his breath in and went still as a statue, so she pressed again, harder. He gasped, his control disintegrating, and his weight came down on her as his hips began moving convulsively, thrusting over and over in a rough, compelling tempo. His breathing lost all semblance of rhythm, and after a handful of moments she felt a potent throbbing deep inside her.

  At the point of deepest penetration all motion stopped. He groaned, a visceral, drawn-out sound that filled her with profound satisfaction.

  His crushing weight lifted as he sagged to his side on the thin mattress. Then he pulled her close, kissed her on the forehead and cradled her against him, murmuring her name worshipfully, his palm cupping the nape of her neck.

  At first, Laura lay content and almost mindless as his heartbeat slowed from tumult to normal, and then to the relaxed rhythm of sleep. They had consummated their marriage and were truly wed in the eyes of God and man. But how? She would swear that Ian had spoken the truth when he said he was incapable of marital relations. Certainly during the first weeks of their marriage there had been no sign that he had lied. Perhaps the lifting of his melancholy had restored him.

  As she considered his situation, she felt rueful sympathy. Having married her on the premise that their marriage would be nonsexual, recovery must have put Ian in the devil of a quandary. In fact, that must be why he had stopped sharing her bed.

  In the past Laura had always been able to sense desire from other men, so why had she completely missed the changes in Ian? She must have been blinded by her belief that he was incapable of intercourse. Looking back, she realized that she had felt differences in him, but had interpreted his feelings as anger or distress.

  Strangely, though other men's yearning had always made her uncomfortable, Ian's desire had not bothered her at all. Was that because she did not fear him? Yes, and also because she wanted him, as she had never allowed herself to want any other man.

  The thought gave her a sudden chill as she abruptly realized the implications of the night's events. She, who had forsworn passion, had broken her vow. Dear God, the fact that she had completely forgotten what was at stake was conclusive proof of her weakness. What had seemed like wonder and discovery was in fact the prelude to disaster.

  In spite of the warmth of Ian's embrace, she began shivering. Tonight she had succumbed to her own worst nature, and in doing so had opened Pandora's box. Her mind flooded with nightmare images, but this time she was wide awake, unprotected by the blurred unreality of dreaming.

  Her parents clawing at each other, passion making them savage as animals. The vicious threats, screamed in furious Russian. "If you do, I'll kill you, or I'll kill myself." Her own hysterical, dangerous reaction to the betrayal of the young man she had loved and trusted.

  Though Laura tried to deny it, she was much—too much—like her parents. In Cambay she had felt the first ugly stirrings of jealousy, and she knew she was capable of much worse.

  And Ian. At first she had thought him like Kenneth, always calm and rational. But with a deep stab of fear, she admitted that there was also much of her first father in Ian— the passion, the intensity, the lethal capacity for violence. Like Laura, Ian had also succumbed to jealousy at the ball, and his irrational anger had been even worse than hers. If they were lovers, how long would it be until they consumed each other?

  How long would it be before she drove Ian to his death?

  Desperately she fought to prevent madness from overwhelming her. Yet though she told herself that the future needn't be the same as the past, her frantic mind was no longer capable of logic. Reason was drowned by the tortured voices of her memory, a frenzied chorus that promised catastrophe.

  As panic disintegrated her control, she slipped from his arms and stood, the rough planks cold beneath her bare feet. She had doomed herself; infinitely worse, she had also doomed Ian. What should she do? Dear God, what could she do?

  Frantic for air, she fumbled her way to the outside wall, stubbing her toes on a saddlebag, then scraping her fingers over the coarse plaster until she found the door. Her shaking hands could barely work the latch, but finally she managed it. Outside, rain drummed steadily from the lightless heavens.

  Yet the air was fresh and pure after the dark, suffocating room where she had betrayed her hard-won wisdom. She turned her face upward, and cool raindrops mingled with her hot tears. Would rain wash away her fatal weakness? Would fire purify her flaws?

  "Die, damn you, die!'' Harsh, uncontrollable sobs began racking her body. In her mind's eye, she saw the hideous brilliance of blood on the walls, but this time it wasn't her father's, it was Ian's. And it was her fault. May God have mercy on her soul, it was her fault.

  Blindly, tears streaming down her face, she tugged the door shut behind her and fled into the sheltering night.

  * * *

  Ian had drifted into sleep in a state of awed happiness, sure that everything was miraculously working out in spite of his failures. But joy lasted for only a handful of sleeping moments.

  He awoke abruptly with a gut-wrenching sense of foreboding. The obvious cause was the outside door, which had swung open with a bang and was now admitting a blast of wet, frigid air. He was also alone in bed, but neither of those facts was the source of his anxiety.

  Propelled by the instinct that had saved his life many times over, he swung from the bed. "Laura?"

  There was no answer.

  Aided by the dim light that came through the open door, he fumbled on the floor until he located the matches he had dropped earlier. He struck one and the flare of light confirmed what he already knew.Laura was nowhere in the small room.

  Swearing under his breath, he found the spare lamp in his luggage and lit it. Alarmingly, Laura's clothing was still folded on top of her luggage. The only garment that seemed to be missing was the nightgown she had worn to bed. Even her boots were neatly set against the wall.

  He pulled on trousers, shirt, and boots with violent haste and plunged into the stormy night while he was still tugging on his coat. Rivulets of water streamed across the muddy soil and the biting cold was a sharp reminder that winter was closing in.

  Except for his last months in prison, Ian had always had a reliable mental clock. Now it told him that not much time had passed since he had fallen asleep. Laura couldn't have gone far. Ferociously clamping down on his fear, he quartered the tamarind grove as fast as he dared, thinking that if she wasn't there, he would make his way to the stables.

  He found her at the far end of the grove, her white nightgown so soaked and muddy that she was almost invisible among the shadows. It was her faint, despairing whimper that first drew his attention. He found her huddled against a tree trunk, one bare, vulnerable foot protruding from below her sodden hem.

  He stopped stock-still when he saw her, a wrenching pain constricting his heart. This was far worse than anything he had imagined. Merciful heaven, what had he done?

  The answer was simple: he had broken his word. And, in the mindless urgency of passion, it appeared that he had also broken his marriage and his wife.

  There was no time to think of that. He dropped to his knees beside his wife and said softly, "Laura—Laura, can you hear me?"

  When she didn't respond, he brushed the heavy, soaked hair from her throat and searched for a pulse. For a moment he couldn't find it, and his heart spasmed with fear. Then he found a thready beat. Grimly he slipped his arms under his wife. As he straightened and lifted her from the ground, she came alive and
began thrashing feebly. "Don't touch me," she gasped. "Don't touch me!"

  "I must, unless you can walk, and it doesn't look like you can," he said, trying to sound calm. "I certainty can't leave you out here."

  She quieted, but as he carried her across the soggy ground, silent sobs shook her slender frame. After entering the guest room, he kicked the door shut behind him and laid her on top of her charpoy. Then he searched her baggage until he found a dry shift. She cringed away when he stripped off her saturated, blood-marked nightgown, but didn't struggle against him.

  Ian vigorously rubbed her with a coarse towel, his guilt burning through him like poisoned fire. When she was dry, he pulled the dry shift over her head, added a pair of his own woolen socks to warm her feet, and wrapped her in his own robe.

  After tucking her under her quilt, he went to his baggage and retrieved the small flask of brandy that he carried. Laura pulled away again when he sat on the edge of the charpoy. His mouth tightened to a thin, hard line. He yearned to hold her, to shelter her from all harm with his own body, but it must have been his unruly body that had brought her to such dire straits.

  He lifted her with an arm behind her back, then held the flask to her lips. "Drink some," he commanded. "Slowly."

  She did, choking a little at first, but it helped revive her. When she had had enough and waved the flask away, he took a deep swig himself. As the brandy scorched its way down his throat, he numbly realized that, like Laura, he was cold to the bone, and the soul. He permitted himself another mouthful of spirits before asking quietly, "Can you tell me what's wrong?"

  She lifted her head and gave him one quick, haunted glance from her slanted eyes. Then she dropped her gaze to her clenched hands and shook her head.

  "If you can't say it, I suppose that I must," he said in a voice harsh with self-loathing. "I broke my word to you. In my selfish lust, I misunderstood what you meant and raped you. Violation both moral and physical."

  Very gently he lowered her back against the stacked pillows. Then he turned, made a fist, and slammed his left hand into the wall as hard as he could. The brittle plaster crushed under his knuckles and pain exploded through his hand, yet, surprisingly, no bones broke. For a moment of mad lucidity he studied the blood that flowed across his hand.

  He was drawing his fist back to smash it into the wall again when Laura cried, "Stop it, Ian!"

  Earlier tonight it had been "Don't stop," and her words still rang in his mind. He halted, his breathing ragged, caught between past joy and present anguish.

  He heard Laura scramble from the bed, then she caught his arm and turned him toward her. She looked like a lost child in the voluminous folds of his robe, but she faced him with determination. "What happened wasn't your fault, Ian, it was mine," she said intensely. "It's true that I didn't realize that you had recovered, so I didn't quite understand what was going to happen. But you did nothing that I didn't want you to do."

  He stared down at her, trying to read the distraught amber depths of her eyes. In a voice that wasn't quite a question, he said, "You did seem to enjoy what we were doing."

  "I did, even though I knew it was a mistake." She closed her eyes, her face tight with misery. "In the darkness it was easy to pretend that I was dreaming—that I was safe because what we were doing wasn't real."

  "But it was real," he said bleakly, "and it can't be undone." Then, because he had to know, he asked, "Was making love as hateful as you thought it would be?"

  She shuddered, then said haltingly, "That wasn't the problem. You guessed that I feared the physical side of marriage, and I didn't say otherwise." She gave a bitter laugh. "What I really feared was not that I would hate it—but that I would like it too much."

  He shook his head helplessly. "I don't understand."

  She tried to speak again but failed. He drew her into his arms and folded her close against his chest. This time she didn't pull away. Her head fell wearily against his shoulder, damp wavy locks of hair spilling to his waist. She smelled of jasmine and pain.

  "For me, passion brings madness," she said in the voice of a desolate child. "If I succumb, I risk bringing disaster on both of us."

  He still didn't understand. "You really think that the joy of sexual fulfillment would cause worse problems than we have already?"

  She began sobbing again. Every word sounding as if it were wrenched from the depths of her soul, she whispered, "Forgive me, Ian, but I dare not allow this to happen again."

  Outside the rain continued to fall, splashing against the flat roof and wooden doors. The low bawl of a bullock sounded from the courtyard. How could the world sound so normal when Ian's life had shattered again?

  Aching with regret, he held his wife close, fearing that he would never be able to do so again. Even now, in the midst of emotional chaos, desire hovered in the shadows. Under less drastic circumstances, he would not be able to trust himself to touch her.

  In spite of Laura's generous attempt to absolve him, guilt settled into a lethal, indissoluble lump in his midriff. She might not have understood what she was doing, but he had. Yet, caught in the iron grip of passion, he had made no attempt to talk to her, to be sure that she understood, even though he had known that she feared physical intimacy. In his male arrogance, he had believed that his irresistible charm had magically eliminated her deep-seated fears.

  Now he must live with the consequences of his mistake. His mouth twisted bitterly. Though he might deserve what he was getting, why did his punishment have to be at Laura's expense?

  The basic facts could not be denied. Quite simply, he had broken his word and betrayed the woman he had pledged to protect. And what he had thought was a new beginning was in truth the end, for where in the name of heaven could they go from here?

  Chapter 22

  Lady Falkirk accepted her topi from Meera, then gazed at it blankly, as if unable to remember what to do with it. Then she donned the hat, gave her maid a vague, gentle smile, and crossed to her horse, where Zafir was waiting to help her mount. Meera frowned as she watched her mistress, then clucked her tongue and went to her own placid pony.

  Zafir came to help her also, but instead of linking his hands together to make a step, as he had done with Lady Falkirk, he grasped Meera's waist and lifted her directly to the broad back of the pony. His gray eyes danced when Meera gave him a quelling look, but she smiled when he turned away to his own horse.

  Though he was an arrogant Pathan who was all too aware of his own handsomeness, she had to admit that she rather enjoyed his playful attentions. Not that she would ever ruin herself with such a man, but his teasing was pleasant after the unremitting hostility of Mohan's sons.

  Meera's amusement faded as they began the day's journey. Lord Falkirk was riding beside his wife, but they didn't speak. They didn't even look at each other, yet emotions pulsed between them with such strength as to be almost visible. It was as if the lord and his lady were holding a gigantic, fragile glass ball between them, and both were terrified because the least slip would shatter it.

  The sahib and memsahib had been like this for a day and a half, ever since the party had left Habibur's compound. Each was achingly polite and they watched each other with haunted eyes when it could be done discreetly. Meera sighed and shook her head in disapproval. It was not at all like the anger or sulking that would have resulted from a normal argument between spouses.

  After they made camp that evening, she voiced her disquiet to Zafir. It was still light and the memsahib had decided to walk to the top of a nearby hill to investigate the ruins of an old fortress. Saying that it was not safe for her to go alone in this wild country, her husband had accompanied her since Zafir was not available as escort.

  A few minutes after they disappeared from sight, the Pathan returned from watering the horses. Chores finished, he sat by the fire and lounged back against his saddle so he could watch Meera prepare the evening meal. Meera picked up an onion and began chopping it for the goat stew. With a gesture in the dir
ection their employers had gone, she said, "Things are not going well with those two."

  "Aye," Zafir agreed. "Women always bring a man trouble."

  After dumping a handful of chopped onions into the stew-pot, Meera scowled at her companion. "If women are such trouble, why do men always pursue them?"

  He grinned. "A real man likes trouble, and a woman is the next best thing to a good battle."

  She snorted to hide her smile. "Then may the gods preserve women from men. Certainly the memsahib should have kept away from Falkirk Sahib. Yesterday when she was brushing her hair I heard her say to herself that she should never have married."

  For a moment the Pathan's usual cheerful manner slipped, revealing concern, but he quickly masked an emotion that could be considered weak. "Don't forget that the man you are insulting saved your valueless hide, woman."

  "So he did." She began slicing a carrot. "I'm not denying that the sahib is brave, but he's making the memsahib miserable."

  "She is equally making him miserable. I served Cameron Sahib for years, in battle and out, and never saw him evil-tempered until he met his cat-eyed lady," Zafir commented. "Mind you, as a man I can see why he thinks her worth the trouble, but the English make things difficult for themselves. The women have too much freedom."

  "Women need more freedom, not less," Meera retorted as she scooped up the sliced carrots and dropped them in the stew. "I suppose yon think we should all be penned up like goats in a cage, the way Pathan women are."

  "Our women have freedom and influence within the home, where it matters," Zafir said reasonably. "And outside, the veil protects them from the advances of strangers."

  Meera knew that what she was doing was hazardous, like teasing a tiger, but she couldn't resist saying, "Women wouldn't need protection if men weren't such beasts."