It would be a strange gift of love, but it was the greatest one within Juliet's power. It was also the ultimate test of her courage. Opening her eyes, she said unevenly, "Very well, Ian, once more you've shamed me into pretending that I'm braver than I really am. I'll do what I should have done long since."
"Good girl. I always knew you could do anything."
"Fooled you again," she said with a watery chuckle. "I'm so glad you're alive, Ian!"
"So am I." He hugged her shoulders. "Amidst all the high drama of escaping from Bokhara, I never said a proper thank-you, but believe me, I am intensely grateful for what you and Ross did, and Mother too. I'm lucky to have such a family."
More words were not needed, for the silence was warm with the closeness Juliet had feared was gone forever. For that, if for nothing else on this dreadful night, she was profoundly glad.
* * *
Knowing that her resolution would not last long, Juliet went to her bedroom only long enough to comb her hair, splash cold water on her face, and fortify herself with several handkerchiefs—large businesslike ones, not the frilly decorative kind. Then she took an oil lamp and made her way through the dark passages to Ross's room.
The door was unlocked, so she entered and hung the lamp on a hook, then went to the bed and looked down on her husband. Even in sleep, his face looked strained.
When she touched his shoulder, his eyes opened instantly and his whole body went rigid, but he did not move. After a long moment of mutual study he said, "I sincerely hope this is not a misguided attempt to seduce me into temporary compliance."
Ross wasn't going to make this easy for her. "No such thing. I'm here because I decided that you were right. I do owe you the truth, no matter how painful it is." Her voice wavered. "Just don't say later that I didn't warn you."
"Then what happens?" He pushed himself up in the bed, the rumpled sheet falling about his bare waist. The honey-toned lamplight delineated him with heart-stopping clarity: the broad shoulders, the hard muscles, the gilded hair where a narrow bandage covered the wound he had received the day before. That and the ugly blue-black bruises he had suffered in his fall were all that kept him from appearing inhumanly perfect.
Wrenching her gaze away, she said, "That's up to you." She began to pace fretfully across the room, keeping to the shadowed end. "I'd better say this quickly, before I lose my courage."
"Go ahead." His voice was very low, as if he feared that a hard word would make her take flight.
Hands clenching and unclenching, she said, "What I said about being afraid of losing myself if I stayed in England was true. Sometimes I feared that I would be engulfed by you, would vanish entirely—not because of anything you did but because of my own weakness.
"Growing up, I had to struggle constantly against my father to be myself. I managed, but nothing prepared me for marrying you—for being so much in love that, if you'd asked for my soul, I would have given it to you in an instant. Still, in time I think I would have become strong enough to be both your wife and myself.
"Then something happened that made my fear so overwhelming that I felt I had to run away. I discovered..." She stopped walking and swallowed hard, finding it almost impossible to say what she had never before spoken aloud. "I discovered that I was pregnant."
She risked a glance at Ross and saw that he was staring at her as if she was a stranger, his face like stone. In a spurt of words she continued, "I didn't feel old enough to be a wife, but I married you because I was too much in love not to. The knowledge that I was soon to become a mother terrified me.
"Much later, I came to understand that part of the problem was fear that I would become like my own mother. I think she had spirit once, but having four children and being utterly dependent on her husband crushed it. Her life revolved around placating a difficult bully. I swore I would never be like her."
"Did you think I was a bully like your father?" he asked, his voice dangerously controlled.
She made a sharp gesture of negation with one hand. "No, of course not, but you would have gone in the other direction and become too considerate, too protective. If you'd known I was pregnant, you would have wrapped me in cotton wool. Would you have taken me on the adventurous trip to the Middle East we had been planning?"
"I don't know. Certainly I would have been concerned for your welfare." The hand resting on his knee clenched. "You were right. I would not have wanted you to take unnecessary risks."
She felt distant satisfaction when he confirmed what she had suspected, but hastened to add, "That was only part of the problem. Most of my fear was blindly irrational."