Veils of Silk (37 page)

He had wondered what she wore under her unorthodox riding costume. It proved to be a pair of lightweight, knee-length drawers and a sleeveless chemise that came to the top of her hips. Both garments were trimmed with dainty white embroidery. Before removing them, she bent over and rolled off her stockings, revealing her shapely ankles and calves. She was moving with brisk efficiency, and he had to suppress an outrageous urge to tell her to slow down so he would have more time to savor the sight of her graceful, scantily clad figure.

His mouth dried as she lithely swept the chemise up over her head, revealing creamy skin and the long, lovely arc of her spine. For an instant he caught a glimpse of a round breast as she folded the chemise, then laid it on her other garments. His fingers clenched the mirror so hard that the edges scored ridges on his fingers.

Finally she untied the ribbon that secured her drawers and slipped them off, revealing the beautiful curves of her hips. Round, womanly hips, perfectly designed by nature to incite male desire. Ian felt himself hardening and knew that he would pay for this with a night's torment. Yet even so, he could not make himself set the mirror on the table, or even move his hand a fraction to tilt the glass to a different, safer angle.

When she stepped to one side to pick up her nightgown, he tracked her with the mirror, shifting it to keep her in his sight until she dropped the gown over her head. For a moment he stayed absolutely still, fighting the impulse to cross the room and remove the damned gown. The impulse vanished when Laura finished fastening the small buttons that closed the garment, then turned back to the center of the room. Hastily he set the mirror on the table, then bent over and blindly searched for his comb.

Innocent of the fact that Ian had been watching her as if she were the holy grail, Laura sat down on her charpoy and began brushing out her tawny hair. As she untangled a knot, she said, "Can Zafir be trusted around Meera?"

His thoughts entirely elsewhere, Ian said unintelligently, "What do you mean?"

"Meera's a widow and not of his race and religion," Laura said patiently. "Under the circumstances, he might consider her fair game for seduction.
I've noticed how he looks at her. It isn't hard to tell what's on his mind."

Ian had to smile. "Male minds are often easy to read when there's an attractive female in the vicinity. I gather that you're appointing yourself Meera's chaperone?"

"I'm less interested in morality than in the fact that she is very vulnerable now," Laura said tartly. "Meera has been separated from the only life she's ever known, and she faces an uncertain future. Though she's bearing up remarkably well, the last thing she needs is to have a man take advantage of her loneliness and confusion."

Ian sobered. "As I did with you after your father's death?"

Laura raised her head and regarded him with cool cat eyes. "The circumstances are nothing alike." Resuming her brushing, she said, "No doubt Zafir's honor is impeccable where his own womenfolk are concerned, but Meera is a different matter. I don't want to see her hurt again. In particular, a pregnancy would make her life much more difficult."

Ian gave serious thought to her concern. "I really can't predict what Zafir might do. You're right that in Pathan terms Meera is fair game, but
I've never known Zafir to be callous or cruel to a woman." An alarming thought occurred to him. "I sincerely hope that you're not going to ask me to talk to him about reining in his manly lusts."

She smiled a little. "I can see where that wouldn't be appropriate, but I might have a word with Meera. Fortunately, the opportunities for seduction are limited the way we've been traveling."

"Very true." Ian did his best to keep regret from his voice.

Laura gave him a slanting glance, then slid under her quilt. "Good night."

More slowly, Ian did the same. He had been wise to avoid being alone with Laura over the past week. A mere half hour in her company was almost enough to convince him that this was the perfect time to try to woo her into his bed. But that was desire speaking, not logic; his mind still said that it was too soon. When the time came to try to change her mind, he wanted to do it with champagne and roses in Bombay, not on a narrow cot in a mud-brick cubicle.

It wasn't easy to relax when his delicious wife was just a few feet away. If he had any sense at all, he would go outside and sleep in the tamarind grove in spite of the rain. Sense, however, was something he conspicuously lacked at the moment.

After the intoxication of Ian's embrace, Laura had not thought she would fall asleep, for her whole body pulsed with the longing to be closer to him. She wanted so much to sleep in his arms that she seriously considered joining him in his charpoy, but caution prevailed. Somehow she didn't think he would welcome an invasion of his bed as much as he had welcomed her kiss. Having him kick her out, even politely, would be unbearable.

But after a long day's travel, sleep would not be denied. Soon she drifted off, though her dreams were not peaceful ones. In her imagination she and Ian continued to kiss, and her clothing mysteriously dissolved under his caressing hands. Together, still kissing, they fell gracefully to the bed, like drifting leaves. His robe had also magically evaporated and his warm, hard flesh was pressed against her. Something was going to happen, was happening, only she didn't quite understand what…

A shattering crash jolted Laura into wakefulness. The air was close and pitch black, and for a moment she had no idea where she was. Memory returned when she heard Ian mutter a string of muffled oaths. Hearing a note in his voice that frightened her, she scrambled out of bed and crossed the narrow space that separated them. "Ian, what's wrong?"

Misjudging the distance in the darkness, she stumbled against his charpoy and half-fell onto it. As she sprawled across Ian, his arms came around her, hard. His body was rigid with tension, and she felt the pounding of his heart against her breasts. Laura shifted to a more comfortable position so that they lay face to face on their sides. After pulling the quilt up, she put her arms around him, holding him so that this breath warmed her throat and shoulder. "What's wrong?" she asked again.

"Nothing really. It's just… just the damned, suffocating darkness," he said in a frayed voice. "Sorry I disturbed you. That crash was the lamp breaking. I forgot to check the wick before going to bed, and it burned out. I woke up when the light went out. Then I knocked the lamp to the floor while trying to find the matches on the table. Stupid clumsiness on my part."

For someone who hated the dark, this windowless room must be a nightmare, for it was black and close as a cavern. With the night sky covered with rain clouds, there were not even cracks of dim light around the doors. "Easy to make a mistake in such darkness," she murmured. "Is there another lamp in the room?"

"There's one in my baggage. In a minute I'll get up and look for it." He made a palpable effort to regain control of himself. "It's ridiculous—in my head I know I have nothing to fear from what is only a lightless bedchamber, but my insides are churning like a desert sandstorm."

"Yet the storm has not overpowered your reason."

"Not quite." His embrace eased and he ran his hand down her back, as if reassuring himself of her presence. "It helps having you here. It helps a great deal."

"I'm glad." Hoping that talking might relieve his distress, she asked, "Was the Black Well entirely without light? I've wondered how Uncle Pyotr could see to write in his journal."

"The Well was a pit twenty feet deep, with no windows and a hatch over the top," Ian explained. "For the first year or so, the hatch was an iron grid that let in a little daylight from the room above, which had a small window. It wasn't much, but eyes become incredibly sensitive to any light that's available. It was enough for Pyotr Andreyovich to read and write in his Bible. Even more important, it kept us in harmony with the natural cycle of day and night."

He was still trembling, but less so than he had been at first. "You said that for the first year there was a grid," Laura said. "Did something happen later?"

"Not long after Pyotr's execution the hatch was changed to a solid slab of wood. After that, the only light I ever saw was when food was lowered down."

"I can't imagine what it is like to live in constant darkness," she said softly. "Tell me about it."

He gave a bitter laugh. "Why would you possibly want to know a thing like that?"

She brushed a light kiss on his cheek. "To understand you better,
doushenka
. To know why your paw is sore."

"You're a glutton for punishment, Larishka," he said wearily. "If you really want to know, living in endless night is a special kind of hell that completely severs all connection with reality. Without light, there is nothing."

"Like Genesis, where it says 'The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep'?"

"Something like that. I now understand why God decided to create a world to fill all that empty space," Ian said with a shadow of humor. After a long pause, he went on, "Time was distorted until it vanished. It was impossible to know whether minutes, hours, or days had passed. The result was a form of madness, a disintegration of mind and spirit that words can't describe. Even filth, cold, and hunger hardly seemed to exist."

Again there was a long pause before he said painfully, "Sometimes I fell apart and cried for hours."

Laura knew intuitively that he could never have admitted such a thing in the light, but the darkness created a profound heart-to-heart intimacy that made his bleak honesty possible. "If Pyotr had still been with you," she asked, "would it have been easier to maintain your emotional balance?"

"Yes, I would have managed much better. God knows I was already in poor shape when Pyotr died. With him gone, the combination of isolation and darkness wreaked havoc. Later I was surprised to learn that I'd been alone only about six months. It seemed like much longer—years."

"Given the condition you were in, how did you endure an exhausting escape across the desert that would have been difficult for a man in perfect health?"

"I had no choice," he said simply. "It was a matter of pull myself together or die. Worse, weakness would have endangered my companions by holding them back. As it was, Ross had to tie me to a horse for the first stretch. But the longer I was free, the stronger I became. At least, physically. Unfortunately, the mental damage is harder to repair. At times like this, it seems impossible."

"Surely your strength and honesty and courage are more than just an illusion."

"Those things
are
an illusion," Ian said harshly. "I feel as if I'm hollow—an actor playing at being what others expect me to be. Pretending to be brave, pretending to be strong."

His words were so at odds with how Laura saw him that at first she didn't know how to respond. At length she said hesitantly, "I'm only a feeble female, so perhaps I can't understand, but what is the difference between
acting
as if one has courage and really having it? You seemed brave enough yesterday when you were facing that mob."

"That sort of thing is easy. Real bravery is mastering the darkness within one's own soul." He gave a shuddering sigh. "And that I cannot do."

His stark words were wrenched from some bleak, solitary depth far beyond Laura's understanding. Sadly she accepted that she would never truly understand what Ian had endured. But she could reassure him that he was not alone now—that he need never be alone again as long as she lived. She turned her head and touched her lips to his.

He caught his breath and his body went taut. Then his hand slid around her, coming to rest, warm and wide, on the small of her back. As he pulled her pliant body against himself, her mouth opened under the pressure of his, and he teased her lips apart with his tongue. The resulting kiss was beyond anything Laura had imagined—sweet ravishment and wildfire, both end and beginning—and she welcomed it with surprised wonder.

As she responded, he made a rough sound deep in his throat and rolled her onto her back, surrounding her with his strength. Yielding utterly, she accepted all that he gave, then returned the gift to the best of her ability. Though dimly she recognized that such behavior might not be wise, she didn't care. Here in the intimacy of absolute darkness was freedom and safety. She could pretend that this madness was not quite real—that this was a moment out of time where they could do things that would be unthinkable in the light.

And darkness had an unexpected benefit, for all her senses were sharper. She was acutely aware of the rough sounds of his breathing, the faint brushing contacts of flesh and fabric as his warm hand caressed her arm. His scent was a dusky masculine essence uniquely his, laced with accents of night rain and wood smoke. It intoxicated her. And his taste, ah, his taste, sensual beyond belief. Darkness enhanced the kiss with dimensions she would never forget.

Best of all, without the distractions of sight, touch expanded into a mesmerizing universe of sensation. Body heat was tangible, a physical guide to location and closeness. As his lips moved to the sensitive flesh beneath her ear, she raised one hand and buried her fingers in the crisp waves of his hair. Did auburn feel different from blond or brown? She didn't know, did not ever want to touch another man's hair to find out. Her fingertips glided over his jaw and corded throat, the prickle of whiskers provocative, silently etching the difference between male and female.

His linen robe had a nubby grain. Sliding her hands beneath the fabric, she skimmed across the width of his formidable shoulders, feeling the contoured hollows and the straight, strong length of his collarbones with the heels of her hands.

Enchanted, she drew her open hands down the broad expanse of his chest. Springy hair, the flex of hard muscles beneath taut skin, all a thousand times more vivid to her palms and fingertips than they would have been to her eyes. She discovered a thin ridged scar, and traced it along his ribs toward his left hip, pushing his robe back so that she could follow the arc until it ended in a hard knot.