Veils of Silk

by Mary Jo Putney

  She would have been blissfully happy, if it hadn't been for Ian's chilling rejection of her declaration of love. Though he had expertly tried to cover that brief, devastating remark, she knew in her bones that it had been profoundly significant.

  For a moment, as his words echoed in her mind, she hovered on the verge of tears. Then her face hardened. She must not surrender to the pain of his rejection. This was simply one more problem, one more veil of the past, that must be removed before they could be fully happy. Clearly there was still darkness inside him. It was not the despair he had been suffering from when they first met, nor was it anger. This was more like the stark withdrawal of the week before, when she had revealed the reasons for her fear of passion.

  She found it ironic that her fear was gone, but not his bleakness. Thinking back, she remembered his occasional oblique references to shame and unworthiness. Perhaps he had always felt that way about himself, but she doubted it. From the way people who had known Ian before his imprisonment spoke of him, he had once had confidence in abundance.

  What had Srinivasa said about him? That he had a warrior's weakness, which was the inability to accept that his strength had limits. That he tormented himself because of his own perceived failings.

  Yes, that fit. It must have been prison that had changed him. She wondered if there had been one specific incident, or whether the cause was simply the cumulative effects of months of degradation, abuse, and helplessness. For someone like Ian, being helpless must be the cruelest torture of all.

  But even if her analysis was true, she had no idea what she could do about it. He had walled part of himself off from her, and she guessed that as long as that wall was in place, he would be unable to love her as she loved him.

  The thought filled her with aching grief. She loved him with every part of her being, and she wanted, most desperately, for him to love her the same way. Yet what right had she to complain? In his proposal, he had offered friendship and support. She had those things, and now physical delight as well. To demand love was far beyond the limits of their bargain.

  For one brief, raging instant, Laura experienced the passion that destroyed her parents' marriage. She wanted to possess her husband's heart as well as his body, and her failure filled her with the same kind of fury that Tatyana had shown when she discovered her husband's betrayal.

  The surge of anger left Laura shaken by the power of her own emotions. It was a sharp reminder that her past fears had not been wholly unfounded, for she was indeed her parents' child. Thank heaven she had avoided the worst of their folly. No, thank her stepfather and Ian and Kamala, who had helped her steer through the stony rapids where she might have come to grief.

  But her surmise that Ian couldn't love her was acutely painful. She had read books where proud ladies renounced the men they loved because the love was not returned. Though Laura had never understood that in the past, now she did in an utterly visceral way.

  There was anguish in knowing that she and Ian might never be as close as she wanted. She wondered if the imbalance in loving would prove unendurable, if someday frustration would drive her to leave Ian rather than stay and yearn for what she would never have.

  As soon as the thought surfaced, she almost laughed aloud at the absurdity. Perhaps a proud English beauty would refuse to stay where she was unloved, but Laura was Russian, with all the stubbornness of her race. The endless sky and harsh climate had tempered her ancestors, giving them vast patience, tenacity, and a refusal to surrender what was theirs.

  That fierce determination had been in Pyotr, who had burned Moscow to keep it from enemy hands. It had been in Tatyana, who survived emotional devastation to build a new life for herself and her daughter in a distant land. It had even, in a tragic form, been in her father, who had taken his own life in a savage testimonial to the strength of his love and his regret.

  Determination was in Laura's very marrow. Ian was her husband—hers—and she would never leave him. To hell with pride. Rather than walk away, she would spend the rest of her life trying to win the depth of love she craved.

  Perhaps she would fail, but if so, by God, she would fail like a Russian—without surrender.

  * * *

  The next morning, Laura woke when Ian shifted his arm from under her head. She opened her eyes to find him regarding her gravely. She thought she glimpsed darkness there as well, but he veiled it instantly. "Sorry to have woken you," he said, "but my shoulder is numb."

  She began massaging the afflicted area, enjoying the feel of his hard muscles. "You do make a lovely pillow, though."

  "You're good at that." He smiled lazily. "In fact, you're getting all of my blood stirring."

  His expression made it clear what he meant, and for a moment Laura was willing to begin her next lesson in the pursuit of karma. But her reflections of the previous night were still vivid and before she had time to evaluate the wisdom of her question, she asked, "What happened to you in Bokhara that haunts you so, Ian?"

  His eye color shifted from its usual warm blue-gray to a cool, steely shade like winter water. Impassively he said, "Between what I've said and Pyotr's journal, you should have a general idea of what the Black Well was like."

  "Yes, but the details elude me." Remembering what Srinivasa had said, she continued, "I keep thinking that something happened that you can't forgive yourself for— something that made you feel like such a failure that it's like a river of ice in your soul."

  Remembering the part of her uncle's journal that had raised the most questions, she said hesitantly, "Perhaps it was during that time when you were taken from the Well for days and beaten so badly?"

  Her words struck home, triggering a reaction that he couldn't conceal, though he tried. For a moment Laura thought that he was going get up and walk out. Then his expression solidified into a mask of ironic detachment. "Whatever happened to that demure, well-behaved young female whom I proposed to, whose greatest goal was to be a ladylike nonentity?"

  "She married a man who encouraged her to give her Russian nature free rein," Laura said, unrepentant.

  "You took my advice with a vengeance," he said dryly.

  "So I did, and I find that I'm much better at being emotional than I ever was at being stoic." She propped the pillows behind her and sat up against them. "I'm not asking from idle curiosity, doushenka. One by one, I've admitted my dark secrets, and the results have been all to the good. But I am still missing some vital key to what made you what you are. If you can bear to talk about it, perhaps some of the darkness might dissipate."

  He pushed up the pillows as she had and leaned against them. Then he lifted his eye patch from where he had dropped it on the bedside table the night before. Laura suspected it was no accident that he was putting the eye patch on again, like a knight donning armor.

  "What happened was in some ways so trivial it hardly seems worth mentioning," he said slowly. "Nor is speaking of it isn't likely to help. Some things can't be mended after they're broken, Larishka."

  "Perhaps, but how can you be sure if this is one of them?"

  He folded his hands behind his head and stared at the opposite wall. Laura began to think that she shouldn't have raised the subject, at least not when they had just reached a new level of understanding.

  She had given up expecting an answer when he said, "Bokhara is considered a holy city, and there's a strong vein of religious fanaticism there. Several times I was told that if I would turn Muslim, I would be released and given a position in the amir's army." Ian's sardonic gaze went to Laura. "The offer usually included a plump, rosy wife or two. Don't know how I managed to resist. Pure Scots bloody-mindedness, I suppose.

  "The first few times, the subject was dropped after I declined, but on this particular occasion, they decided not to take no for an answer. When I again refused to convert, three guards began beating me under the direction of one of the Bokharan ministers, a weasly fellow called Rahmin who was the amir's chief hatchet man. I kept saying no, and they kep
t beating."

  He pulled his hands from behind his head and laid them on the counterpane, his fingers moving restlessly. "I was rather flattered that they thought three guards were needed— with my hands tied behind my back I really wasn't much of a challenge. My right eye was destroyed, my left damaged to the point that I could barely see at all, some ribs were cracked. They took special pleasure in kicking me in the genitals. That's why it was easy to believe later that the damage was permanent."

  Ian's flat delivery was harrowing. Laura felt tears stinging her eyes, but when he glanced over and said, "Do you really want to hear more?" she nodded for him to proceed.

  "I knew that I was going to die. Not thought, knew. The pain was so great that mostly I hoped they would hurry up and finish the job. I knew the end was near when they dragged me outside—I couldn't walk—to a patch of land between the royal palace and the city jail.

  "Rahmin gave me the a shovel and told me to dig my own grave. The sadistic little bastard was having a wonderful time. The guards had to do the digging since by then I wasn't good for much. When there was a decent-sized hole, they asked me once more if I would reconsider and join the brotherhood of the faithful."

  Ian still spoke in a voice of unnatural calm, but his nails were digging into the counterpane. "As you can imagine, my enthusiasm for becoming a Bokharan was low at this point, so I said no, adding a couple of juvenile insults involving the probability that their mothers had mated with wild hogs.

  "Rahmin shoved me into the grave and I thought, 'Finally it's over. I haven't disgraced myself, and soon I'll know whose ideas about heaven and hell are the most accurate.' I was ready to die. Damned eager, in fact."

  He stopped speaking, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Laura bit her lip so hard that the metallic taste of blood was in her mouth. Then she laid her hand over his.

  He caught it, squeezing her fingers so tightly that they hurt, though he seemed unaware of the gesture. "One of the guards had a jezzail, one of those long-barreled Asiatic rifles. He raised it, held it about six inches from my head, and cocked the hammer. I was glad. A bullet would be quicker and a little neater than being hacked up by swords, which I assumed was the alternative.

  "But Rahmin had a better idea. He told the guard not to shoot. Instead, at his order..." Ian stopped again, the pulse in his throat beating like a triphammer. "The guard used the jezzail to club me into the hole. Then they... they began to bury me alive. The soil was loose and sandy, easy to shovel in. That's when I broke."

  He swallowed convulsively. "I've been afraid many times, but this was beyond fear. It was panic so profound that it squeezed out everything else. There was no room for pain or pride or anger—only terror. Not because I was going to die, but because of how it would happen. The thought of being buried alive—of suffocating under the earth, of feeling the weight and the blackness crushing down, but still being alive...."

  He stopped speaking for a long time, and when he resumed, his voice was once more utterly flat. "I was completely shattered. Ian Cameron died in that moment. The pity of it is that his body wasn't killed at the same time."

  Chilled by his inhuman detachment, Laura said softly, "But you didn't die."

  "No, I didn't," he agreed. "Which is how I learned that some prices are too high. I screamed, I wept, I begged, I groveled. I said that I'd do anything they wanted. If they had brought out Pyotr and told me to shoot him, I would have. Instead, they simply repeated the request that I convert. And this time I agreed. It's very easy. All one has to do is say the Kulna, the Muslim profession of faith: 'There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet.' So I did."

  His grip on Laura's hand was so tight that her fingers were numb, but she didn't pull away. "If you converted, how did you end up back in the Well so soon?"

  He shrugged. "I didn't even have the courage of my cowardice. As soon as I said the Kulna, I was taken into the palace and a doctor was sent for. I was cleaned up, fed, and treated better than I had been in a year, though I was in so much pain that I hardly noticed even when they circumcised me.

  "I spent three days wallowing in self-loathing that was as bad as the fear of being buried alive. So bad that I knew that only death could wipe out my failure.

  "Then Rahmin called and said the amir was looking forward to putting me in charge of his artillery. I knew I could never do that, so I said that it would be a cold day in hell before I would work for the amir—that I recanted my conversion and they would have to finish killing me.

  "Rahmin was so furious that I thought he would order me to be cut down on the spot, for Muslims hate a heretic or lapsed convert far more than they do infidels. But he managed to control himself. I assumed he would revert to his original plan and have me buried alive, since he'd seen how I reacted to the prospect of that.

  "It was a surprise when they dumped me back in the Black Well. Probably the amir needed time to decide the most effective way of finishing me off. Ultimately they decided on a public execution." There was a long lapse before Ian added the final, anguished sentence. "Which is how a couple of months later Pyotr Andreyovich had the privilege of dying for my sins."

  Through she doubted that any words of hers would reduce his guilt for that death, Laura said, "Pyotr was already dying, and the chance that you would be spared gave his death meaning."

  "Perhaps, but his courage doesn't diminish my cowardice, or my culpability," Ian said, his voice dead. "Though I had never been a very deep thinker, I did believe that when the time came I would be able to die like a man. Not necessarily unafraid, but at least with honor. But I couldn't do it. The one, rather simple thing that I had to do in order to be the man I thought I was—and I couldn't do it."

  On one level Laura could almost understand, but at the same time, the way he was torturing himself made her want to shake him. "So now you can't forgive yourself because pain and horror briefly overcame you—even though within a few days, you were willing to face the same death that had terrified you before? I have trouble believing that God will blame you for such a lapse."

  He let go of her hand and rolled from the bed, then walked across the room. In the early morning sun, the wilted rose petals were turning brown around the edges.

  He halted by the window, rubbing his temple as he stared out blindly. "I told you it sounded trivial. Admittedly it's hard to imagine that a God powerful enough to create the universe is very interested in my lapses—He's probably too busy keeping track of all the sparrows that fell. But while it might not matter to God, it matters to me."

  He drummed his fingers on the windowsill. "I never paid much attention to religion. It was simply there, a duty to be performed when necessary and avoided when possible. But I denied the faith of my fathers as well as betraying myself, and by doing so, I destroyed a vital part of my spirit. Now the broken pieces won't go back together."

  His voice cracked, and he drew a long, shuddering breath. "Pyotr died in my place. My sister and her husband risked their lives to save mine. So much effort on behalf of a man who should have died. Who did die, but didn't get it quite right."

  What had Srinivasa said? He torments himself because of his own perceived failings, not seeing them as necessary steps on the path. Unable to bear Ian's grief, Laura slipped from the bed and went over to join him by the window. "It's true that after all you've endured, you can't go back to being the man you were, but you have the capacity to be better and stronger."

  "Have you ever seen a piece of pottery that was better after it broke?" He scooped up a handful of rose petals, then let them trickle through his fingers and drift crookedly to the floor. "Doesn't matter how good a job of patching you do, it will never be the same again."

  "A man is not a piece of crockery," she said sharply.

  "No," he agreed, not looking at her. "A broken plate is fortunate enough to be thrown out. A broken man is supposed to go on living."

  With sudden, searing fear, Laura said, "You will, won't you? Keep on living?"

 
He turned to face her, his face stark. "Don't worry, Larishka. I haven't done myself in by now and I won't in the future. I promised that to David, and I'll extend that promise to you. Duty has kept me alive. Duty to those who risked their lives for mine, duty to my family, which has suffered enough on my behalf. I'm a lucky man. I have much more now than seemed possible two months ago."

  He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, then clasped it to his chest, above his heart. With self-mocking humor, he said, "Since getting out of prison, my life has been one obsession after another. The first was to get back to India, to Georgina, so that everything would be all right. That didn't work, so I latched on to the idea of Falkirk. I was needed there, and it would give me a chance to expiate my sins. And then I met you." His clasp tightened. "The last and best obsession. You're not only a reason to go on living, Laura. You've made it possible to enjoy the process more than I dreamed possible."

  Laura had wanted to know what haunted him, yet now that she knew, she had no idea what to say. Or no, perhaps she did. Softly she said, "I don't care if you think you're broken and badly mended. I love you as you are, far better than I could have loved you as you were."

  He drew her into his arms, resting his cheek against her temple. "In Cambay, I told Georgina that she and I would no longer suit because I had looked into the abyss and it had changed me," he said quietly. "She asked if you had also looked into the abyss. I said yes. I was right, wasn't I?"

  She nodded, her face pressed against his shoulder.

  He stroked her hair with gentle fingers. "I, too, am glad that our lives have come together. I'm sorry, Laura, that I can't give you all that you want from me."

  At that, the tears that had been hovering began to flow. Fiercely she repeated, "I love you as you are, Ian." She raised her face and kissed him, hard.