"A pity. A child would have... made up for a great deal. Good night." He stepped into his own room and the curtain fell in place behind him.
Shaking with tension, Laura dowsed the lamp and crawled under her blankets. She knew that it was good that the situation between them had been clarified. But she felt empty and miserable, and her body pulsed an angry beat of frustration from their uncompleted lovemaking.
She must learn to live with that, for Ian was right; they couldn't survive unless the lines of separation were clearly drawn. She must learn to control desire for her husband.
Impossible, yet she must do it. Either that, or she must accomplish the even more impossible task of freeing herself from the prison of her fears.
Chapter 26
Laura entered the maharani's private reception room and curtsied. "Good day, Kamala," she said as she rose. "Your message said you have a surprise for me?"
The maharani smiled mischievously. "Indeed I do, Laura. The priest has completed the horoscopes for you and your husband." She gestured to a small, wizened Brahmin, who wore plain white robes and a face of imperturbable calm. As he bowed, she added, "Now Srinivasa will interpret them for you."
Laura had almost forgotten that she had given Kamala the birth data needed for the horoscopes, but she felt a spark of interest at the prospect. Heaven knew she needed guidance.
After the introductions, Kamala said, "Would you prefer for me to withdraw so you can hear Srinivasa in private?"
"Please stay," Laura said as she sat on a cushion on the opposite side of a low ebony table from the Brahmin. "I don't even know the right questions to ask."
He indicated two sheets of paper in front of him, each showing a square diagram marked with unintelligible symbols. "A horoscope is a map of the sky at the time and place you were born, Lady Falkirk," he explained. "Each moment in time is unique. A person born in it is imprinted by the special quality of that moment, at least for the length of the current life."
Laura was a little bemused by such matter-of-factness about reincarnation, but nodded obediently. "You can really tell about a person's life from reading that chart?"
"Oh, yes, and not merely about the life." He looked up at her, his dark eyes mildly inquiring. "Shall I tell you the day and hour of your death?"
She thought the Brahmin must be joking. When she realized that he was serious, she exclaimed, "Good heavens, no! I wouldn't want to know." She thought of her stepfather, who had been told of his own impending death. If he had not believed in it, might he have fought harder against the disease that killed him? She repressed a shudder; these were matters too deep to contemplate now, or perhaps ever. "For a European, such knowledge would be unbearable."
He nodded understandingly. "It must be difficult to believe that one has only a single chance to learn all the lessons of existence. Still, while Christians do not believe in reincarnation, all men are subject to the same universal laws."
"Srinivasa," Kamala said warmingly from the nearby sofa where she reclined.
The Brahmin inclined his head. "My apologies, Lady Falkirk. The maharani said I must not speak of spiritual beliefs, but I forgot. For me, mind, body, and spirit are so intertwined that it is difficult to think of them separately." He flicked a finger toward one of the charts. "I assume that you will not be sorry to know that you will have many happy, prosperous years before you leave this body behind."
"That's good to hear," Laura agreed, "but what do the horoscopes say about my marriage?"
"The aspects between you and your husband are very powerful," he replied. "You were born to be together, memsahib."
She thought back to the circumstances of her first meeting with Ian. "I have trouble believing that. It was the merest accident that our paths crossed."
"There are no accidents," the priest said firmly. "From the moment of your births, you were both caught in a river of events that would bring your paths together, even though you were born in different lands." He looked back at the chart. "The most important link was an older man whose death drew you together—a man whom you both loved. You met your husband soon after you experienced a great loss."
Laura's eyes widened. "You can tell that from a horoscope?"
"That and much more," he replied. "This is not the first lifetime you have shared with your husband, nor will it be the last. Though the rewards will be great, there is much difficult karma that must first be overcome. You are each other's debtors from the past, and you each have power to hurt or heal the other. It will not be easy to separate those two things."