“One doesn’t have to like a father. One only has to obey him.”

“And did you always obey him?” Quill asked, making an educated guess.

There was silence. “No,” Gabby admitted. “I was a thorn in his side.” She was clearly quoting.

“Why didn’t you obey?”

Gabby didn’t seem to notice that she had relaxed her spine and was leaning against Quill’s chest. Quill was aware of every soft breath she took. Carefully, he drew on self-control learned from years of pain. “Why not, Gabby?” he repeated.

“Father is sometimes too strict,” she said, so softly he could hardly hear her voice. “He can be cruel.”

Quill’s calm tone applauded. “It sounds that way to me. How is he cruel?”

“We live in a small village,” she explained. “Father arrived as a missionary. He built a house and a church.”

“And?”

“That couple,” Gabby said. “He said they couldn’t live in the village anymore, or Sarita might contaminate the other women. He made Sarita and her husband do penance all night, and then they had to leave the village with nothing. I don’t know where they went.” Her voice trailed off miserably. “It wasn’t right. Sarita was a friend of mine, and she wasn’t a…whore. He called her a whore.”

“How did you disobey, then?”

“I sent a servant to gather Sarita’s things—to throw them away, Father thought. But actually I sent all their belongings to her family.”

“Did your father find out?”

“It happened just before I left for Calcutta to travel to England.”

“I’m surprised he allowed you to be friends with village women,” Quill remarked.

“Oh, he didn’t. And I wasn’t really a friend of Sarita’s. I was allowed two servants, and they told me about the village every day. I felt as if I were friends with some women, because I heard about them my whole life. Sarita was my age, and she would smile when she saw me.”

“Didn’t you have any friends at all? What about the woman you told me about, the one who couldn’t eat papaya?” Quill was quite proud of how steady he had kept his voice.

“Her name was Leela. And, no…I didn’t have friends to speak to, not after Johore died.”

Quill searched his mind. “Who?”

“Remember? I told you that I had a friend who died of a fever. Johore was Sudhakar’s son, and since Sudhakar was from the highest Brahman class, my father let me play with him as a child. After Johore died, there was no one appropriate left in the village to play with. But my nurse would tell me what the children were doing, and I felt as if Sarita and Leela were my friends, even though we couldn’t speak to one another. I wasn’t lonely. I had Kasi Rao to take care of.”