Veils of Silk (24 page)

From her horseback vantage point, she saw that David's reaction was pure shock. "But…" Whatever he started to say was tamped down immediately. With a warm smile, he crossed to Laura's horse and offered his hand to help her down. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Laura. Welcome to Clan Cameron."

As she dismounted, she said, "I know this is rather sudden."

"With attractive females in such short supply, romance is often sudden in India." David scanned her with open approval. "Leave it to an experienced campaigner like Ian to act swiftly when he discovered that you weren't the schoolgirl he expected." He nodded to a groom who had come for the horses, then ushered his guests to the house. "Come inside and have something cool to drink. You must be parched after riding all day in this heat."

As the three of them mounted the steps to the bungalow, David said, "I'd better warn you straight off, Ian. Everyone in the regiment regretted missing you on your earlier visit to Cambay, so the officers' mess decided that when you returned, they would give a grand ball in your honor. This way everyone will have a chance to say hello."

Ian grimaced. "I know the regiment loves an excuse to celebrate, but is a ball really necessary?"

"Yes," David said, sounding more like an older brother than the younger. As he opened the door for Laura, he added, "Having a wife to present makes it doubly necessary."

They entered the main room of the bungalow. As David gave orders for lemonade to be served, Ian asked Laura, "Will you mind having to face a mass of strangers?"

His taut expression made it clear how much he disliked the prospect of being guest of honor at a large gathering. Wanting to remove some of the tenseness from his face, she said reassuringly, "I'm delighted at the chance to meet your friends." She frowned as a thought struck her. "But I really haven't anything suitable to wear to a ball."

"One of the local tailors is said to be a wizard with ladies' clothing, and he could make you a gown in a couple of days," David said. "I'll ask him to call on you tomorrow. "

"Then we should be able to manage." Ian's voice was neutral, but he still looked strained. Laura hoped that the next few days didn't undo the progress he had made.

15th March. Beware the Ides indeed. For the last fortnight, I've been wholly undone by fever. It's so cold and damp in this filthy cell. Would have died, I think, if Ian hadn't held me in his arms when I was shivering, rubbed my hands and feet, and generally acted like a blanket. We are reduced to the most basic kind of animal warmth, like a litter of puppies.

It took time for Laura to decipher the entry, for Pyotr's handwriting was so feeble as to be almost illegible. It was her first morning in Cambay and David had taken Ian off for the day. Ian had wanted to stay with Laura so that she wouldn't have to face the inevitable callers alone. Though she would have liked to have him with her, she thought the brothers should have some time together, so she had shooed her husband off. Now she was taking advantage of the quiet to begin transcribing her uncle's journal into English.

The next entry was clearer, though not much.

22nd March. Ironic that I have come from the vastness of the Russian sky to this evil little cell unfit to lodge a donkey. I would have said once that such confinement would make me mad. Perhaps it has—or perhaps, here, I have found wisdom.

The Great Game
—
that is what Ian calls the silent struggle that Russia and Britain are waging across the steppes of Central Asia, what we call the tournament of shadows. I've always told myself that I was devoting my life to helping the Motherland defend her borders, but perhaps my young friend is right and I have spent my life on a game between two empires who squabble like children
—
a superior kind of chess for the bloodthirsty and power-mad. I loved the suspense, the danger, the knowledge that I was a hidden force whose plans could upset empires, perhaps change the course of history
.

Yet now it sometimes seems that the real purpose of my life has been to bring me to the Black Well, where there are no more games to occupy my childish mind. For the first time I am forced to face my own soul. Not for nothing are prisons associated with growth of the spirit, for the wall between physical and ethereal grows ever thinner. I despise this place, and when death comes to set me free I shall be ready. Yet here I have found a friend closer than any I have known since my older brother died fighting Napoleon. Thirty years it has been since Sergei died—thirty years. In the heady delights of the Game, I had forgotten what it was like to have a friend.

Laura laid down her pen and stared at the words that she had laboriously copied into the blank journal David had supplied. Tears stung her eyes, an ache for both her uncle and her husband. Yet there was also gladness, for in the midst of adversity, Pyotr had found something infinitely precious.

She was about to start on the next entry when David's bearer, Bhawar, entered the sitting room and bowed. "Lady Falkirk, Mrs. Colonel Baskin is calling. Will you see her?"

"Of course. Please show her in." Laura closed the Bible. Though Ian had warned her that regimental wives would come to look her over, she hadn't expected visitors quite so soon. She supposed that it was inevitable that the first would be a colonel's lady. The status of army wives was linked to that of their husbands, so one of the highest-ranking ladies of the station would consider it her duty to inspect any new females.

As Laura rose to her feet, a handsome, chestnut-haired woman in her late thirties swept in. "Good day, Lady Falkirk. I'm Blanche Baskin. Let me be the first to welcome you to Cambay."

Laura glanced at the bearer. "Please bring us tea, Bhawar."

As Mrs. Baskin sat down, she said admiringly, "You speak Urdu very well. An unusual skill for a white woman."

"Among civil service families, it's a point of pride to speak to the natives in their own language." Laura took a seat by her visitor. "Also, there were so few Britons where I lived that not speaking Urdu would have meant a very silent life."

The other woman gave an elaborate shudder. "Thank God army stations are large enough so that one can have at least the semblance of a social life. A woman needn't speak any Urdu at all, though a dozen or so phrases are useful." Her shrewd gaze ran over Laura, openly appraising. "I heard that you're Russian, but you speak like an Englishwoman."

Briefly Laura considered snubbing the woman's curiosity, but she didn't want Ian's friends to pity him for marrying a shrew. "I was born in Russia, but I lived in England from the age of ten," she explained. "My stepfather was in the Indian Civil Service. After teaching at Haileybury for some years, he took another post in India. That's where Ian and I met."

After more scrutiny, Mrs. Baskin gave a nod of satisfaction. "You'll do very nicely for Ian."

"Good of you to approve. I'll be sure to tell my husband," Laura said, unable to repress the acid in her voice. The tea arrived and she poured cups for each of them.

As she accepted her tea, the colonel's wife gave an engaging smile. "You're wishing me to the devil, aren't you, Lady Falkirk? But there is worse to come, for every woman at this station is perishing to meet you. Ian was considered quite a prize even before he inherited the title, and his returning from the dead is such a dramatic tale. Now there are wails of regret that you got him before any of the belles of Cambay had a proper crack. By the way, if you haven't heard yet, the ball will be held at the club two nights from now."

Exasperated that everyone seemed to know more than she did, Laura murmured, "You are well informed."

"Not as well informed as I'd like to be." The other woman leaned forward, head cocked to one side. "Tell me, Lady Falkirk, what is Ian like in bed? I freely admit that I did my best to get him there, but he was quite a stickler about not sleeping with the wives of other officers."

Laura gasped, shocked speechless at the question. She could feel her face turning a hot, mortified red.

Mrs. Baskin sat back in her chair. "Now I've embarrassed you," she said contritely. "You have so much the look of a sensible, worldly woman that for a moment I forgot that you're still a newly wed on your honeymoon."

"I am certainly not worldly enough to be unshocked when married women discuss their affairs," Laura said stiffly.

The other woman's elegant eyebrows rose. "You disapprove. But why should I be a model of wifely virtue when my husband keeps a dear little black mistress in a house less than half a mile from my own?" Bitterness entered her voice. "He brought me to this beastly country where three of my children died before their first birthday, and the two who survived were shipped back to English schools when they were scarcely out of the nursery. I think I'm entitled to what consolations I can find."

In a few words, Mrs. Baskin had laid bare her life, and Laura felt a stab of uncomfortable sympathy. "I'm sorry."

"Don't waste your time feeling sorry for me. Just be grateful that you're on your way home." Having revealed as much as she was going to, Mrs. Baskin got to her feet. "If you can survive me, child, you can survive the rest of the hens. I really do wish you and Ian well. He's one of the more decent men I know, and your blushes have answered my question about his amatory skills." She inclined her head. "I shall see you at the ball." Then she swept from the room, chin high.

Laura was left in a daze. If Mrs. Baskin was an example of Cambay society, no wonder Ian had been reluctant to participate. But other women called during the day, and they all seemed normal enough, though admittedly curious about Ian's wife.

Toward the end of the afternoon, the
derzi
that David had summoned came and measured Laura for her ball gown. Then she thumbed through his motley assortment of fashion plates. Wanting Ian to be proud of her, she selected a gown that was more stylish than her usual conservative garb. It was hard to choose among the derzi's fabric swatches, for he had some gorgeous materials. Eventually she settled on a luscious blue silk that shimmered with subtle peacock highlights.

It had been a full day, but it turned out that there was one last visitor in store. Bhawar came and announced, "There is a female who wishes to speak to Falkirk Sahib. When told he was from home, she asked to speak to the sahib's wife."

"Send her in." To Laura's surprise, the visitor was a young Indian woman with a child in her arms. Dressed in a threadbare but neat crimson sari, she was very lovely.

The young woman set her child down, then pressed her hands together and bowed her head over them in the traditional Indian greeting. "
Namaste
. I am Leela. You are the wife of Major Cameron Sahib?" She spoke English, and spoke it rather well.

Laura returned the greeting. "Namaste, Leela. I am Mrs. Cameron. Is there something I can help you with? If you prefer to speak to my husband, he will be home soon. You may wait, or call again after dinner."

Leela debated for a moment, then shook her head and gestured at the little boy who clung to the skirt of her sari. "My son would be restless waiting. Please, lady, will you ask Cameron Sahib to call on me? It is most important that I speak to him."

Laura glanced at the boy, then froze, her stomach twisting. The child was perhaps a year and a half old, and he was Eurasion, with a complexion several shades lighter than that of his mother. Laura stared at the boy's face, looking for a resemblance to Ian. Well-cut features, a strong jaw— it was quite possible that the boy had a Scottish father.

Lips stiff, Laura said, "I shall give my husband the message. Does he know where you live?"

"Tell him that I am in the same place. He will know. Thank you, lady. Please, do not forget. My need is great." Then Leela bowed, hoisted her son in her arms, and left.

Laura was in the shadowed sitting room, curled up in a chair with her arms folded, when her husband returned a little later.

"It's dark in here." Ian struck a match and lit one of the lamps. "Dinner won't be for a couple of hours. David went to spend some time with his company. Though he got excused from duty for today and tomorrow, he doesn't like to neglect his men."

After hanging his topi by the door, Ian came and kissed Laura on the forehead. "You look tired. Were you overwhelmed by army wives? I should have overruled David and stayed with you."

Laura surveyed her husband. His time with his brother must have been rewarding, for he looked relaxed again. "The parade of visitors started with Mrs. Baskin," she said flatly, "who wanted to know what you were like in bed."

Ian stepped back as if she'd slapped him. "Sorry you had to face that," he said after regaining his composure. "Even for Blanche Baskin, it's an unusually crude remark. Blanche isn't really a bad sort, though shocking people is her greatest pleasure in life. After her, other visitors must have seemed like models of propriety."

"Quite. Especially the Indian woman who was here a few minutes ago. Leela, her name was. I gather that she's an old and dear friend of yours." Laura's eyes narrowed. "She had a little boy with her, perhaps eighteen months old, and half European if I'm any judge. Leela asked that you call on her. I gather that it's a matter of some urgency. She said that she still lives in the same place, and that you would know where."

As Laura spoke, the atmosphere between them solidified, twanging with tension. "I see." Ian's face was as opaque as granite. "I'll call on her now. Her cottage isn't far."

"Very thoughtful of you," Laura said, making no attempt to keep the edge from her tone.

Ian picked up his topi. "Laura…" he said hesitantly, then stopped, as if not sure what to say next.

"Don't waste time here. I'm sure that Leela is anxiously awaiting your visit." Laura got to her feet and stalked to their bedroom, closing the door with elaborate care.

With her husband was safely out of earshot, she lifted a pillow from the chair and hurled it across the room, where it knocked a startled lizard from the wall. Ian might have been a stickler about not committing adultery with army wives, but little Leela was proof that he was a man, with a man's needs. At least, Laura thought savagely, he had been. Given what had happened to him in prison, she didn't have to worry about him bedding his old mistress during his evening's visit.