"That sounds like an excellent program." She bent over and gave him a swift kiss, then made her escape. But she knew that the hour of reckoning had only been delayed.
* * *
Ross spent the day almost as lazily as he had threatened; apart from the visit to the bathhouse, the most active thing he did was seek out his two travel companions. Ian still slept as his ravaged body tried to compensate for all of the punishment it had suffered in the past year.
Murad, however, was in high good spirits. Ross found him sitting in the shade of an arbor in the garden, sipping iced melon sherbet and trying to flirt with a giggling young female servant.
On seeing his employer, Murad looked up with a grin. "And so our great adventure ends. Perhaps I will give up the work of a guide and become a storyteller instead, earning my living by spinning tales of the legendary Khilburn."
Ross had to smile. "At least it will be safer work than daring the Turkomans." He sat down and accepted a goblet of the melon sherbet. "I will be leaving for Teheran very soon, I think, perhaps as early as tomorrow. I would be happy to have your guidance there, but it might be better if you stay until your arm has healed."
"I shall return with you," Murad decided. "My arm is not so bad, and I will be glad to see my own home again. But will Lady Khilburn be ready to leave so quickly? Surely she will have much packing to do. At least, my mother would if she were setting off for another land."
Ross sipped his sherbet and watched the garden with unfocused eyes. "I doubt that she'll be going with me. We must... discuss the issue, but I think she will choose to stay in Serevan, which has been her home for so many years."
After a confused silence Murad said, "But you seem so... together. I thought you would want her to stay with you."
"I do, but I don't think the feeling is mutual."
"But she is your wife!" Murad said, scandalized. "A wife's place is with her husband. You must order her to accompany you."
"Orders won't work, for Lady Khilburn has a mind of her own," Ross said dryly. "Surely you noticed. And our customs grant women a fair amount of choice."
After another, even longer silence, the young Persian said flatly, "I do not understand."
"Neither do I, Murad. Neither do I." Perhaps, Ross thought tiredly, if he did understand Juliet, it would make a difference. But probably not.
* * *
The hour of reckoning came that night, after dinner. Juliet had managed to keep busy and out of sight all day. Several times she checked on Ian, but he still slept and she didn't have the heart to wake him.
That evening, she and Ross had dined with Saleh's lively family, which meant there was no private talk between them, but far too soon it was time to retire to bed. She could hardly exile her husband to another bedroom when she wanted his company above all things. Even more than that, she wanted the simplicity they had known in Bokhara, when there was only the present, with no past or future.
Without looking at Ross, Juliet changed into an embroidered green silk caftan. Then she perched on the divan and began brushing her hair while she tried to think of a safe, neutral topic. Perhaps, like Scheherazade, she could postpone disaster indefinitely by talking of other subjects that would fend off the discussion she wanted to avoid.
Unfortunately, Ross had too much Western directness. Instead of changing out of the plain brown chapan he was wearing, he sat down next to her and said simply, "Juliet, come back to England with me. We're a dozen years older and wiser now, and you don't seem to dislike my company. Surely we can solve whatever problems you found in our marriage."
She stiffened, the hand holding the brush dropping to her lap. She had mentally rehearsed what she would say to convince Ross that staying together was impossible, hoping that if she were persuasive enough with superficial truths, he would not probe for the deeper truth that she could never admit.
"I'm afraid that geographical compatibility is one problem that is insoluble," she said with brittle humor. "If you were not your father's heir, you could stay here in Persia. But I know your sense of responsibility too well to believe that you will turn your back on your obligations in England."
Ross leaned back against the cushions and regarded her with eyes that were cool and dangerous. This was not a battle he would yield easily. "You're quite right. My future lies in Britain now. But why is it so unthinkable that you could live there again? You seemed content there once."
Her hands started to clench, and she forced them to relax. "I'm afraid I would suffocate in England. There were so many social rules, so many ways to make mistakes."
"You adjusted to that by mastering the rules that interested you and blithely ignoring the ones that didn't," he observed. "You are a marchioness and in time will become a duchess. To put it baldly, you will be able to do pretty well any damned thing you please. Did I try to censor your behavior that much? You said my criticisms hurt you, and I was surely less sensitive than I should have been, but I really don't think I was a tyrant."