Part 44 (1/2)
”No one else seems to be. No one will talk to me now, not even the servants. Suddenly I don't exist.” Her eyes softened. ”Thank you. Thank you for coming. It means you're not afraid. I'm glad.”
”Why do you care whether I came or not?” He asked almost before realizing what he was saying.
She hesitated, and unconsciously ran her glance down his frame. ”To see you one more time.” He thought he saw something enter her eyes, rising up unbidden. ”Don't you realize you've become very special for me?”
”Tell me.” He studied her eyes in the lamplight, watching them soften even more.
”You're not like anyone I've ever known. You're part of something that's very strange to me. I sometimes find myself dreaming of you.
You're . . . you're very powerful. Something about you.” She caught herself, then laughed. ”But maybe it's not really you I dream about at all. Maybe it's what you are.”
”What do you mean?”
”You're a man, from the West. There's a strength about you I can't fully understand.” He watched her holding herself in check.
”Go on.”
”Maybe it's partly the way you touch and master the things around you.”
She looked at him directly. ”Let me try to explain what I mean. For most people in India, the world that matters most is the world within.
We explore the seas inside our own mind. And so we wait, we wait for the world outside to be brought to us. But for you the inner world seems secondary.” She laughed again, and now her voice was controlled and even. ”Perhaps I'm not explaining it well. Let me try again. Do you remember the first thing you did on your very first morning in the palace?”
”I walked out here, to the observatory.”
”But why did you?”
”Because I'm a seaman, and I thought . . .”
”No, that's only partly the reason.” She smiled. ”I think you came to see it because it belongs to the world of things. Like a good European, you felt you must first and always be the master of things. Of s.h.i.+ps, of guns, even of the stars. Maybe that's why I find you so strong.” She paused, then reached out and touched his hand. The gesture had been impulsive, and when she realized what she'd done, she moved to pull it back, then stopped herself.
He looked at her in the lamplight, then gently placed his other hand over hers and held it firm. ”Then let me tell you something. I find you just as hard to understand. I find myself drawn to something about you, and it troubles me.”
”Why should it trouble you?”
”Because I don't know who you are. What you are. Even what you're doing, or why. You've risked everything for principles that are completely outside me.” He looked into her eyes, trying to find words.
”And regardless of what you say, I think you somehow know everything there is to know about me. I don't even have to tell you.”
”Things pa.s.s between a man and woman that go beyond words. Not everything has to be said.” She s.h.i.+fted her gaze away. ”You've had great sadness in your life. And I think it's killed some part of you.
You no longer allow yourself to trust or to love.”
”I've had some bad experiences with trust.”
”But don't let it die.” Her eyes met his. ”It's the thing most worthwhile.”
He looked at her a long moment, feeling the tenderness beneath her strength, and he knew he wanted her more than anything. Before he thought, he had slipped his arm around her waist and drawn her up to him. He later remembered his amazement at her softness, her warmth as he pulled her body against his own. Before she could speak, he had kissed her, bringing her mouth full to his lips. He had thought for an instant she would resist, and he meant to draw her closer. Only then did he realize it was she who had come to him, pressing her body against his. They clung together in the lamplight, neither wanting the moment to end. At last, with an act of will, she pulled herself away.
”No.” Her breath was coming almost faster than his own. ”It's impossible.”