Veils of Silk

by Mary Jo Putney

  Her hands knotted into fists and dug into the mattress at her sides. "There were other incidents. The worst was several years later, when... when my father died." Her throat closed, and she couldn't continue.

  When the silence grew too long, Ian said, "You told me that your father committed suicide. Wasn't that what happened?"

  "What I told you was the truth, but not the whole truth." For a moment she hid her face in her hands as she searched for the strength to reveal what she had never before spoken of. Raising her head, she said, "The day that he died, they had a ghastly row. They were in the drawing room, and I was reading in the library that opened off of it. The door was open so I could hear every word, but they didn't know I was there."

  "You seem to have been unlucky in your eavesdropping."

  Laura grimaced. "It was more that my parents were profligate with their emotions. Growing up in that house, it was impossible not to know how matters stood between them. If I'd been upstairs in my room, I'd probably still have heard every word of what they said, None of the servants were home that afternoon, so they saw no reason to be moderate.

  "The fight was about the fact that my mother had just learned that Papa had been unfaithful to her. Not a real affair, just a quick tumble with a married woman in their circle. I think the woman must have wanted to make trouble, because she immediately came to my mother and tearfully confessed her sin.

  "My mother became insanely jealous and confronted my father when she found out. She threatened to carve him up with a knife so he could never betray her again. Instead of denying her accusation or admitting it and asking her forgiveness, he stupidly tried to brazen it out, saying that the act had been meaningless and Tatyana was a fool to carry on so. After all, it was she whom he loved, so she should stop acting like a shrew.

  "I couldn't see what was happening, but judging by the sounds, she threw the poker at him," Laura continued. "Then she said that if sex was so meaningless, she'd go and spread her legs for Count Vyotov, who'd been trying to seduce her for years. My father exploded, shouting that a man had the right to bed other women, but no decent woman could do the same. My mother laughed and said why should she be decent when her husband wasn't?"

  Laura's voice cracked as the scene replayed in her mind, as vivid as the day it happened. "Papa called her a whore and hit her—I heard her scream and crash into a piece of furniture, then fall to the floor. Her voice dropped into a hiss, the most terrifying sound I've ever heard. She said she was going to leave the house that minute and go straight to Count Vyotov. Papa threatened to kill her if she tried to leave. She told him he'd better get a gun, because nothing but death would stop her."

  Once again Laura choked to a halt. His voice deep with compassion, Ian said, "Did they get into a struggle where she accidentally shot him, and you've been concealing the truth all these years?"

  "No, that would have been horrible but would have made a certain ghastly kind of sense," Laura whispered. "Instead, Papa said that he couldn't kill the woman he loved, but he would kill himself if she betrayed him. Cold as ice, my mother said it was a pity that he had valued love so little, for his infidelity had destroyed her love and he had no one to blame but himself. Then she stormed out of the house.

  "I thought of going to my father, but he was in such a rage that I didn't dare. Instead, I slipped out the other door of the library and hid in my room, trembling."

  Forcing herself to continue, she said, "The rest is as I told you. I had almost convinced myself that this was only another fight, like the others, and the next day everything would be fine again. Then... then I heard the shot and went downstairs to the library. When I found my father's body, my first thought was that if I had gone to him, he would not have done such a thing."

  "You mustn't think that!" Ian said sharply. "No child has that kind of responsibility for a parent!"

  "How could I not think it?" she cried in anguish. Wrapping her arms around the pain in her midriff, she tried to speak evenly. "But I didn't waste time on guilt then. When Papa fell across the desk, he had knocked his suicide note on the floor. It was in front of me when I walked in. I picked the note up and read it, and it was almost the worst part of all. He said that he couldn't bear Tatyana's unfaithfulness, and that he had killed himself to prove how much he loved her."

  Laura's voice took on the brittle edge of hysteria. "Can you believe that is what he said? He destroyed all of our lives and said it was for love!"

  "Your father was suffering from a spell of madness," Ian said, his calm voice pitched to bring her back to earth. "He was a melancholic, prone to despondency, and what happened that day pushed him over the edge into suicidal despair."

  "I don't doubt that he was mad that day," Laura said bitterly. "But my mother was sane except when she was in the grip of passion. Then she became as wildly unbalanced as my father. Though she didn't shoot him, it wouldn't have surprised me if she had. She was capable of it."

  "But she didn't, and you are more like her than like him.''

  Ignoring his interjection, Laura said, "When I saw the note, I knew instinctively that it mustn't become public, so I hid it in my room. The official verdict was that my father had accidentally shot himself while cleaning his pistol, so that he could be buried in holy ground.

  "Several days after the funeral, I gave my mother the note. It seemed she should know—certainly the knowledge was more than I could bear alone. I think she had guessed why my father killed himself, but when she saw the proof, complete with dried bloodstains, she broke down, crying that it was all her fault.

  "She hadn't gone to Count Vyotov that day, but to the house of a female friend. After she had calmed down, she came home prepared to forgive my father if he was suitably chastened. Instead, he was dead. She told me that passion was the culprit, that it was a viper that destroyed all that was good and true. That she would never let herself be ruled by passion again, because it was a form of madness."

  "You are not your parents," Ian said firmly. "Your mother married again, but there was no disaster the second time around."

  "Tatyana had learned from what had happened. Also, my stepfather was too steady—too sane—to allow another tragedy. But that doesn't mean that I am a safe person." Laura shivered. "The blood of both parents runs in my veins, and I carry the seeds of violence in me."

  "That would be a heavy burden to bear, if true." He shook his head. "Why are you so sure that passion will turn you into a madwoman? You have a temper, but I've seen nothing that suggests that you could be a danger to yourself or others. Pushing me off a dock was hardly a homicidal act."

  She gave a twisted smile. "The proof is in the last of my nightmares. I've never told anyone this, but when I was sixteen, I became infatuated with a student at Haileybury College. Edward said that because my stepfather was one of his teachers, we must keep our feelings secret until he finished the course. I was stupid enough to think the situation was wonderfully romantic. Edward was the younger son of a viscount. Later I learned that his family had sent him to Haileybury in the hopes that India would cure his wildness. Or if not that, at least he wouldn't be causing scandals in England."

  "He tried to seduce you?" Ian said, his face like granite.

  "Yes, and very nearly succeeded." She stopped, hot color flooding her face as she remembered what easy prey she had been for a handsome face and sweet, lying words. She had melted like wax at his touch, bewitched by her discovery of desire.

  In a torrent of words, she continued, "I fancied myself in love with him, and with the arrogance of a sixteen-year-old, I was sure that I knew exactly what I was doing. I was different from my parents—wiser, my love more true." She shuddered. "Even though I knew it was wrong, I finally agreed to meet Edward in the woods one afternoon, because I trusted him. That was when I discovered how powerful, how dangerous desire can be. All my judgment, all of my knowledge of right and wrong, dissolved when he kissed me. I very nearly ... let him have his way with me.

  "Fortunately, b
efore it was too late, I made some idiotic remark about how we really should wait until we were married. He was so startled that he blurted out that foreign-born dollymops like me were for play, not marriage."

  Her voice failed again as the humiliation of that moment came back to her. "I realized immediately what a fool I had been. I don't know what he saw in my face, but he drew away as if I'd turned into a cobra. Then he stood and ran off. I never saw him again. I found out several days later that he had dropped out of Haileybury. Not long after, I heard that he was killed in a brawl in London."

  "Which the swine obviously deserved," Ian said grimly. "It was a horrible thing to happen to a young girl who gave her trust and her love. But the fact that you made a youthful misjudgement doesn't mean that passion will doom you."

  "No. It was my response that did that." Her hands clenched, the nails biting into her palms. "At first I was numb. My main desire was to conceal what had happened from my parents, because I was afraid of what they might do. I had a horrible vision of my stepfather challenging Edward to a duel. Or, more likely, the possibility that they might insist that he marry me.

  "The next day, I was doing some embroidery in my room, pretending everything was normal. But I couldn't help thinking about what he had done to me—and how much I had enjoyed it...! A kind of madness came over me, like a furious scarlet fog. The next thing I knew, I was kneeling on the floor with my sewing scissors in my hand. In my rage, I had slashed the upholstery of a wing chair into ribbons."

  She closed her eyes for a bitter moment. "I wanted to kill Edward. If he had been there, I would have. That's when I realized that I was truly my parents' child. I swore then never to allow myself to get into such a situation again. Then I met you, and it seemed like it might be possible to have a marriage that would be safe." Raising her gaze to her husband, she said, "But it hasn't worked out that way. Once, briefly, I considered telling you that you should seek physical satisfaction elsewhere. The very thought of it made me murderous. I'm dangerous enough now. If I surrendered to the wild, Russian side of my nature, God only knows what I would be capable of."

  Ian leaned against the wall, looking as drained as she felt. Choosing his words carefully, he said, "Everyone has the capacity to be violent in the right—or wrong—circumstances. That doesn't mean you're incapable of a normal married life. Though you are your parents' child, you are also yourself. At sixteen, passion burns like wildfire in almost everyone—it's part of being young. I did things at that age that I'd rather not think about, and would certainly never do again. You can't predict the rest of your life based on how you behaved then."

  "Perhaps, with another man for whom I had milder feelings, it would be possible," she said bleakly. "But not with you, Ian, for I care too much. And you aren't an entirely safe person, either. Remember how furious you were when you thought I was too flirtatious at the ball? The night ended in farce, but it could as easily have been tragedy."

  "I'll admit that the thought of wringing your neck has crossed my mind more than once. A woman like you could unbalance a stone saint," he said with a trace of acid humor. "But that's exasperation, which is a long way from real violence. Though I acted like an idiot in Cambay, I didn't hurt you. I don't think I could, no matter what you did."

  "Perhaps you couldn't. Unfortunately, I'm not at all sure that I would never hurt you, or myself. I fear that the two of us together would create a folie à deux, a mutual madness that would destroy us both, as happened to my parents." Her voice broke. "I can't allow that. I can't."

  He rubbed his temple, his face gray. "Never having seen my father's brains sprayed across the wall, I'm not in a position to refute that. Very well, so be it. At least now I understand your reasons."

  "I'm sorry, Ian," she said wretchedly. "You don't deserve to suffer because of my weaknesses."

  "We are what we are, Laura. Don't apologize. I was the one who changed the rules of our marriage by recovering." He smiled humorlessly. "I was overjoyed when I realized I wasn't permanently incapacitated. I thought that any other differences could be solved and that very soon we would have a real marriage. But I was wrong. It would have been far better if I had remained as I was.

  "As for whether or not I deserve to suffer..." His expression closed. "If my stern Calvinist ancestors are right, this is just punishment for my sins. To have remained a eunuch would have been too easy."

  Laura bit her lip. "Perhaps, when I have had time to become more accustomed to the idea, I will be able to accept your having a mistress." The mere thought caused stabs of pain and fury, but she continued doggedly, "Other women learn to live with such arrangements, so I should be able to also. Particularly if I don't know the details."

  "I don't see adultery as the answer," he said dryly. "There are worse things than celibacy, Larishka. Falkirk is a spacious place and we should be able to rub along tolerably well. But you'll have to do your part. I can, barely, manage to control my own appetites, but it's too damned much to expect me to control yours as well. While I acquit you of deliberate teasing, your vacillation is making it very difficult for me." His face became harsh. "Not difficult—impossible."

  "I think that part of me did want to be overpowered so that I wouldn't be responsible for what happened. Now that I've faced that, I'll do better in the future." She hesitated, then said painfully, "I love you, Ian. That makes it hard to be moderate."

  She hoped that he would be gratified by her declaration, perhaps even say that he loved her. Instead his face became even more remote. "If you love me, you will learn to control yourself. Otherwise we will be unable to live together."

  He pushed himself away from the wall. "Rajiv Singh has asked me to go with him tomorrow on a tour of his defenses. By the time I return, we should both have cooled to a manageable level."

  As Laura studied her husband, she saw that there was a new kind of blackness in him—not the hopelessness that she had felt when they first met, but a grim determination that separated them as effectively as a granite wall. If this was what was necessary for them to survive together, the solution might be as painful as the problem.

  She drew a shaky breath. She must hope that in time they would recapture the relaxed friendship that had grown between them. "I'll work on my discipline while you're gone."

  "Excellent idea." He turned to go into his own bedroom, then paused on the threshold of the connecting door. "I know the possibility is remote, but is there any chance that you might have conceived that night at Habibur's?"

  With all her heart, she wished she could say yes, but she couldn't. "No," she said sadly. "I didn't."

  "A pity. A child would have... made up for a great deal. Good night." He stepped into his own room and the curtain fell in place behind him.

  Shaking with tension, Laura dowsed the lamp and crawled under her blankets. She knew that it was good that the situation between them had been clarified. But she felt empty and miserable, and her body pulsed an angry beat of frustration from their uncompleted lovemaking.

  She must learn to live with that, for Ian was right; they couldn't survive unless the lines of separation were clearly drawn. She must learn to control desire for her husband.

  Impossible, yet she must do it. Either that, or she must accomplish the even more impossible task of freeing herself from the prison of her fears.

  Chapter 26

  Laura entered the maharani's private reception room and curtsied. "Good day, Kamala," she said as she rose. "Your message said you have a surprise for me?"

  The maharani smiled mischievously. "Indeed I do, Laura. The priest has completed the horoscopes for you and your husband." She gestured to a small, wizened Brahmin, who wore plain white robes and a face of imperturbable calm. As he bowed, she added, "Now Srinivasa will interpret them for you."

  Laura had almost forgotten that she had given Kamala the birth data needed for the horoscopes, but she felt a spark of interest at the prospect. Heaven knew she needed guidance.

  After the introduction
s, Kamala said, "Would you prefer for me to withdraw so you can hear Srinivasa in private?"

  "Please stay," Laura said as she sat on a cushion on the opposite side of a low ebony table from the Brahmin. "I don't even know the right questions to ask."

  He indicated two sheets of paper in front of him, each showing a square diagram marked with unintelligible symbols. "A horoscope is a map of the sky at the time and place you were born, Lady Falkirk," he explained. "Each moment in time is unique. A person born in it is imprinted by the special quality of that moment, at least for the length of the current life."

  Laura was a little bemused by such matter-of-factness about reincarnation, but nodded obediently. "You can really tell about a person's life from reading that chart?"

  "Oh, yes, and not merely about the life." He looked up at her, his dark eyes mildly inquiring. "Shall I tell you the day and hour of your death?"

  She thought the Brahmin must be joking. When she realized that he was serious, she exclaimed, "Good heavens, no! I wouldn't want to know." She thought of her stepfather, who had been told of his own impending death. If he had not believed in it, might he have fought harder against the disease that killed him? She repressed a shudder; these were matters too deep to contemplate now, or perhaps ever. "For a European, such knowledge would be unbearable."

  He nodded understandingly. "It must be difficult to believe that one has only a single chance to learn all the lessons of existence. Still, while Christians do not believe in reincarnation, all men are subject to the same universal laws."

  "Srinivasa," Kamala said warmingly from the nearby sofa where she reclined.

  The Brahmin inclined his head. "My apologies, Lady Falkirk. The maharani said I must not speak of spiritual beliefs, but I forgot. For me, mind, body, and spirit are so intertwined that it is difficult to think of them separately." He flicked a finger toward one of the charts. "I assume that you will not be sorry to know that you will have many happy, prosperous years before you leave this body behind."