Veils of Silk(42)

"Perhaps." She gave a delicate yawn, covering her mouth with one hand. "Or it could be English patience. I'm not sure there is any such thing as national character."

"Perhaps not." He smiled a little as she dozed off, trusting as a kitten. Though it was not how he would once have imagined spending his wedding night, it was more than he had dreamed possible just a fortnight before.

But it wasn't enough. Dear God, it wasn't enough.

His contentment vanished as he studied his wife's elegant profile. For the first time, he realized just how much of passion was mental. Though he was incapable of physical desire, his mind and emotions ached to possess her, to penetrate her, body and spirit, to make her his own in the most primal of ways. In doing so, he would also be opening himself so that her healing warmth could flow into the darkest corners of his soul.

But he was trapped by the limitations of his body. There was no solace in the knowledge that he and Laura would not be together if he were unimpaired. The bitter rage that rolled over him had nothing to do with reason.

In the wake of fury came black, suffocating despair, a melancholy so profound that he feared it would scald the woman lying in his arms. He disengaged from her embrace with trembling hands, praying that she wouldn't wake.

Desperate for fresh air, he made his way to the window again. His entire being was saturated with agony, a pain so different from physical suffering that it defied description.

Outside the dark waters beckoned, a drowning pool of peace and surcease. And yet, he thought with a trace of bitter humor, even if he had the strength to will his own destruction, he was too damned good a swimmer to drown in a pint-sized pond. He would fail, just as he had failed at everything that gave life meaning.

Shivering with anguish, he folded his arms around his midriff and leaned against the window frame, too drained to support his own weight. He had wanted Laura to be his salvation. Instead, in his selfishness, he would drag her down into the depths of his own mortal despair.

And that was the most agonizing thought of all.

* * *

Laura awoke and reached sleepily across the smooth sheets, wanting to touch her new husband, but Ian was not there. Suddenly alert, she sat up and looked about. By the light of the bedside lamp, she saw that he was at the window. He might only have wanted a breath of fresh air, but she didn't believe that, for his bowed figure radiated unimaginable bleakness.

He had warned her of his dark moods, and she sensed that now he was in a more desolate place than any she could imagine. She stared helplessly at his back, unsure whether it would be better to go to him, or to leave him alone. If he rejected her comfort, it would not only be horribly painful, but it would make it harder for her to reach out to him in the future.

Her indecision was brief. Quite simply, Laura was incapable of watching someone suffer without trying to help.

Silently she slipped from the bed and crossed the cool floor. Ian didn't hear her footsteps. When she drew near, she saw that he was in a trancelike state, his face rigid and his fixed gaze unseeing.

She slipped her arm around his waist and leaned against him. At first his chilled body was stiff as a statue. Then his taut muscles flexed. For a brief, ghastly moment, Laura thought he was going to break away from her.

Instead his arms circled her with rib-bruising force and he buried his face in her hair. He was shuddering like a man who had been running for his life and had finally reached the end of his endurance.

Acting from instinct, she caressed him, rubbing his back, smoothing his auburn hair. "Ah, doushenka, my soul," she murmured, using the tenderest of Russian endearments. "It's always darkest before the dawn, isn't it? The demons of despair don't want to lose you to the light, so they are fighting for your spirit. But they won't win, for I want you more."

Her words shattered his last threads of control and he began shaking with the dark, rasping sobs of a man who had never learned to cry. Perilously near weeping herself, Laura rocked him in her arms, praying that his tears would be healing, like the lancing of an infected wound.

After the storm had passed and he was still again, she whispered, "Come, my dear. You need rest," and led him back to the bed. His movements were brittle, as if a misstep would cause him to break, but he came without protest.

When they were back under the light blanket, she pulled him into her arms so that his head was pillowed on her breast. At first he clung to her like a drowning man clutching a branch, but slowly his terrible tension ebbed and his body softened.

For Laura, it was enough to know that the worst of his misery was past. But to her surprise, in time his breathing took on the slow, steady rhythm of sleep. Perhaps tonight his frayed spirit would finally begin to rest.