Veils of Silk by Mary Jo Putney Read Free Book Online

cat roared in the forest. Laura paused to listen, wondering if it was a tiger or a lion. A lion, she decided.
    The cat roared again as Laura ducked under her tent flap. She shivered, feeling a vague sense of foreboding. In India, danger was never far away, and she sensed that tonight it was drawing close. Determinedly she shook the feeling away. Tonight was just a night like any other.
     
    Laura had dressed and was about to have her maid pin up her hair when the bearer, Padam, summoned her. His voice agitated, he called through the canvas, "Miss Laura, come quickly. Stephenson Sahib is ill."
    Her earlier foreboding returned. Ignoring her loose hair, Laura brushed by her maid and ducked out the door of the tent. The sun had set and it was full dark as she hastened across the clearing, Padam right behind her.
    A lamp was lit inside the tent, and the canvas glowed with mellow light, but as soon as Laura stepped inside she was struck by the stench of illness. Her stepfather was sprawled on his bed, and even through the mosquito netting Laura saw that his face was grayish white and his breathing rapid and shallow.
    Laura's heart accelerated with terror. India had diseases that could kill in a matter of hours; one could lunch with a healthy man, then learn that he had died before dinner. Struggling to control her fear, she went to her stepfather's bedside. As she laid a hand on his forehead, his lids flickered open. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on her, but when they did, he murmured in a voice of eerie calmness, "You'll have to be strong, Laura. My time… has come."
    "Papa, no!" she cried out, reverting to her childhood name for him. Alarmed by thchysteria she heard in her own voice, she swept aside the mosquito netting and perched on the edge of the bed, then lifted his wrist to feel for his pulse. The beat was fast and thready, as fragile as a songbird's.
    He managed a faint smile. "Try not to be… too upset, Laura. I always said… that I wanted to die in India."
    Fiercely she said, "You'll die here someday, but not yet."
    His feeble headshake denied her words. "I think it's cholera, my dear." He drew a long, shuddering breath. "Remember that you promised… not to choose aloneness. And… don't mourn for too long." His eyes closed again.
    Cholera was a messy, undignified disease, and the variety that Kenneth had contracted progressed with unbelievable swiftness. The only treatment Laura could offer was laudanum for the pain, and fluids to counter the dehydration caused by vomiting and diarrhea. Padam and her stepfather's valet, Mahendar, helped with the nursing, but their stricken expressions showed that they had already given up on their master.
    In spite of Laura's furious attempt to save her stepfather through sheer will, his life inexorably ebbed away. She felt a curious duality; in one sense the moments dragged with agonizing slowness, yet at the same time they raced past, spilling away like the sands of an hourglass.
    Kenneth spoke only once more. As his stepdaughter sponged his forehead, he whispered, "Laura."
    "Yes, Papa?" She bent over to hear his words.
    Her unbound hair tumbled across his wrist, and he touched the tawny strands with shaking fingers. "You and Tatyana… were the best thing that ever happened to me." He drew a labored breath, and then his expression brightened, the marks of pain disappearing. Once again his lips formed the syllables, "Tatyana," as if in greeting. Then his eyes closed.
    Laura sank to her knees beside the cot, clenching his hand between hers. Bending her head, she wept uncontrollably for the man who had been loving father, kind teacher, and beloved friend.
    When she lifted her head again, he was gone.
     
    It was nearly midnight when Ian finally reached the village of Nanda. There he was given instructions and a village youth to guide him to Kenneth Stephenson's camp. After passing through a series of moonlit fields, they came to the edge of a dense forest that spread as far