"How interesting that there is a positive benefit," she said, intrigued. "What are the other effects of losing an eye?"
"Well, people stare more." He touched the eyepatch. "Asiatics have an almost mystical respect for vision—to lose an eye is to be incomplete and quite possibly wicked. Some of the natives make signs against the evil eye behind my back."
"I didn't know that," she said in a small voice. "I'm sorry, it was rude of me to ask."
"I'd rather be asked outright than have people try to avoid looking me in the face," he said, "I lost the eye as a result of a beating in prison and it was painful and a nuisance, to say the least. However, I was so grateful not to lose the other eye that I didn't spend much time cursing fate."
He fingered the eyepatch again. "I'm still adjusting to the differences. Oddly enough, though I haven't as wide a field of vision, the range has increased from what it was at first." He thought a moment more. "I had constant headaches at first, but they're decreasing. It is hard to judge depth and distance—sometimes I find myself pawing the ground like a pony because I can't tell if there's a step in front of me. And don't ask me to pour a drink unless you're feeling adventurous about the results. Still, it's getting easier all the time."
"There's at least one other benefit that you might not appreciate," Laura said lightly. "You look very dashing with an eyepatch. When you go into society, you'll have to fight off romantic young ladies."
His lighter mood vanished as if it had never existed. "I sincerely hope not.'' He got to his feet and lifted the shotgun and rifle. "Where do you want me to put these? Now that they're yours, you should probably keep them in your tent."
Though Laura accepted his change of topic, his dismissal of her comment didn't change her opinion: like it or not, the former major was fated to attract female admiration. How fortunate that Laura knew that marriage was not for her, or she might have been tempted to throw out some lures.
* * *
Ian spent a productive day acquainting himself with the water hole and the surrounding forest under the direction of Punwa, a taciturn woodsman from the village. It wasn't until they separated and Ian began walking from Nanda to the camp that it occurred to him that he felt better than he had in a long, long time. The demanding events of the last day and a half seemed to have temporarily freed him from the dark wheel of his own misery. He was still not his old self, for the shadows of melancholy had merely retreated a short distance, not vanished. Nonetheless, for the first time he could believe that a day would come when life would again be more pleasure than pain.
The hours he had spent in the forest had been healing. He had always loved nature, whether it was the desert, the jungle, or the beloved hills and coast of Scotland. Though not in most ways a patient man, he was capable of spending hours waiting for birds and animals to reveal themselves. But there had been little time to enjoy the natural world since his escape from Bokhara. He had spent the previous months in convalescence and travel, and there had been no opportunity to simply be still.
No, that wasn't true. There had been opportunity, but he had been incapable of enjoying anything.
Ian was skirting a pond outside Nanda when a dozen wild peafowl fluttered up. The metallic blues and greens of the males shimmered with impossible beauty. No wonder they occupied an important place in Hindu myth and legend; if India had a national bird, it was the peacock.
But dignity vanished when the creatures began to drink. Tails tilted whimsically to the sky when they bobbed forward to dip their beaks in the water, then dropped when the birds straightened up to swallow. The flock teetered back and forth like a collection of feathered seesaws. As Ian continued on his way, he found himself smiling. There hadn't been many smiles in his life lately.
Laura made him smile. As he resumed walking to the camp, he realized that she was the principal reason for his improved mood. He had talked more freely to her in the last day than to anyone since Pyotr had died. Perhaps it was because she was Pyotr's niece; Ian was intrigued by occasional gestures and turns of phrase that reminded him of her uncle. She also had some of Pyotr's character, for even in the depths of grief she was capable of humor and compassion.
Yet he suspected that the underlying reason he felt comfortable with Laura was because she, too, was suffering. Since his escape from Bokhara, Ian had learned the harsh truth behind the old proverb that misery loved company.
The only occasion when he had felt close to another person had been the night when his sister had wept on his shoulder, convinced that her marriage was over. Juliet's pain had drawn him out of himself to try to comfort her. He had even given some advice that, Juliet later informed him, had made it possible for her to heal the breach with her husband.