A Secret in Her Kiss (23 page)

Bennett strode past her. “Make sure she eats and gets some sleep.”

He picked up the key. Before Mari knew what was happening, he’d strode out the door and locked it behind him.

She tugged on the handle a few times. “Bennett, get back here, curse you. That is the only key!” When he didn’t return, she kicked the door.

Achilla set the food down. “What happened?”

Mari grimaced and rubbed her sore toes. “He wants me to go to England with him.”

“I thought you didn’t want to return there.”

“I don’t.” She briefly explained their capture and rescue by Esad.

Achilla paled. “Then none of us are safe. Does Nathan know?”

Mari shook her head. “Not yet. And we haven’t yet discovered who knows of my work for the British.”

Achilla poured herself a cup of tea. “Then he’s right. You have to leave. As do I.” She sighed. “It’s not as if Selim will care if I’m gone. Where will we go?”

“I’ll join the rebels in Greece, help the movement from the inside.”

Achilla set down her cup with a clatter. “Are you mad?”

Mari blinked at her. “You’re the one who begged me for an introduction to the rebels.”

“And apparently I never should have. The life of those fighters isn’t a glamorous one. Most of them aren’t the collection of high-minded intellectuals we have here in Constantinople. They are power-hungry bandits not much better than the Ottomans, living only one step ahead of the sultan’s troops.”

“You don’t have to join them with me.”

“Good. I have no intention of doing so.” She wrinkled her nose. “When you refused to go with Bennett, I thought you intended to go to Italy or Spain, perhaps France now that the war is over. Nathan is going to have a fit when you ask him to take you to Greece.” She shook her head. “No wonder Bennett locked us in here. Perhaps you should go with the major to England after all.”

“He wants me to marry him!”

Achilla raised her eyebrow. “The cad?”

“You know I’m never going to marry. It’s too risky.”

“Not if you trust him.”

“I don’t. Bennett already betrayed my trust. He attacked my father. He took the drawing from the book. Now he’s trying to force me to return.”

Achilla shrugged. “Did he fail your trust or did you fail to give it? It seems all the things you listed were attempts to protect you.”

“Because of his orders.”

“Did you free me because of your mother or because you wanted to?”

“I—” Mari couldn’t escape the feeling she was walking into something she’d regret. “Both.”

“So you had more than one motivation?”

Mari grimaced at the comparison. “But which is more important to him?”

“That I cannot answer.” Achilla sipped her tea. “But the question is, did he betray you or are you upset you’ve finally met someone who is worth your trust and you’re afraid to take the risk?”

Mari blinked. First Nathan, now Achilla. “I’m not changing my mind about Greece.”

“Fine. Then I shall start to pack.” She walked toward Mari’s room. “Although why I bother, I do not know. You’ll be dead in a few months.”

Mari sat heavily on the couch. Bennett had betrayed her trust. He’d barely regained it before he’d lost it again. He planned to force her return to England against her will. If that wasn’t betrayal, what was it?

An honorable man trying to protect her
.

She ignored the voice and picked up a slice of bread from the tray. It wasn’t wrong to want control of her life. It was hers alone.

Yes—alone—because she’d rejected the opportunity to share it with someone else. The man she loved.

She set the piece of bread down. Perhaps another plum.

He only wanted to protect her out of duty.

No, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t the only reason. But she needed to matter to him. She needed someone to think she was worth everything.

Like someone who was willing to take her with him to England, even knowing it would drive her away. Like someone who was willing to be tortured to spare her.

Bennett loved her.

She rolled the plum in trembling fingers. Yet he terrified her. Could she risk allowing him control? Could she trust him not to cast her aside when something more interesting came along?

She never doubted his ability to keep her body safe, but what about her heart?

She frowned at a folded green jacket over by the door. She picked it up.

It was Bennett’s. “Achilla?” she called.

Achilla poked her head out the door. “Oh, be sure to return that to him. I found it the night you disappeared.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Not only were you missing but he was missing without his clothes.”

Mari held the coat against her cheek, inhaling the scent of his cologne. Her muscles relaxed and she smiled.

“Remind me why you aren’t going to England?” Achilla asked.

Mari dropped the coat. It crinkled as it landed. With a frown, she lifted the coat again and reached into the pocket. She brushed off any guilt. He’d left it in her home.

She unfolded the page. It was a poem.

As she scanned the lines, her breath caught. It was about a water sprite.

A sprite
. He had called her that when they made love.

She brought the poem over to the sofa. Smoothing it with awkward fingers, she began to read. It was an ode to a sprite but not to her beauty, rather to her untamed independence and inner light.

Her breath caught. He hadn’t written this for her to see, so he’d have no reason to write anything but the truth. Did he truly see her that way?

Suddenly, she knew she couldn’t stand for him to write a poem like this about another woman. And she wanted to read each new poem he wrote until she knew his words as well as he.

“Achilla? There is a slim brown book under my mattress. Will you bring it to me?” She’d put this paper with the rest of his poetry.

Her maid was frowning as she brought out the book, but she smiled when saw the paper in Mari’s hand. “Isn’t it lovely?”

Mari nodded. “You read it?”

Achilla snorted. “Of course. You’re going to marry him, you know.”

Mari clutched the paper to her. “I know.”

Squealing, Achilla hugged her. “When will you tell him?”

Mari returned the embrace. “When he returns.” But there still might be obstacles. She wouldn’t go to Greece, but neither would she return to England. There had to be some sort of compromise.

Achilla eyed her attire. “If you’re finally going to confess your love, you’ll have to change your clothes. Something that makes him forget that you turned him down once.”

Mari’s thoughts were still too disordered to think of things like that. “You pick something.”

Her maid felt Mari’s forehead with mock concern. “I swear I didn’t drug your food.” She returned to Mari’s room. “Perhaps the red—”

Thud
.

“Achilla?”

No response.

Mari hurried to her room. The door adjoining the walled garden stood ajar. Achilla never left that door open. She complained the wind blew dust all over the chamber. Mari grabbed for the heavy brass candlestick by her bed, but then a sweet-smelling cloth clamped over her mouth.

Chapter Thirty

T
he quill in Bennett’s hand hovered over the paper. The shipping office bustled around him. He’d warned Abington, delivered the map to the ambassador, then gone to the harbor to buy two tickets on the next ship bound for England. But even after he’d purchased them, he knew short of kidnapping, he’d never get Mari on that ship. He couldn’t leave until she was safe, but neither could he delay in helping Sophia.

Dear Father,

There’s a situation I must address regarding Sophia.

As he wrote, the words became easier. He should’ve done this as soon as he received his mother’s letter. No, damn it, he should’ve done this as soon as he’d discovered the truth about her husband. Mari was correct. His sense of duty had failed him utterly. He wrote another letter to his older brother, Darton. He’d want to know as well.

He sealed the letters and handed them to the captain of the English ship. Now whether or not he and Mari were aboard that ship when it sailed, Sophia would be taken care of.

He’d handled the argument with Mari badly, but he would make amends. His mission was complete. Now he could prove that he wanted her safe because he loved her. His only duty was to her. As he allowed himself to dwell on the future, he scribbled a few lines of poetry. They actually weren’t bad.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, he no longer felt sure of his own damnation. In fact, perhaps he even had a chance at happiness.

Loud cries echoed down the street. Bennett turned to one of the clerks in the office. “What are they saying?”

The man frowned. “One of the fire towers has sounded an alarm.”

“Fire tower?”

“They watch the city for signs of fire. With as many wooden buildings as this city has, the whole city would burn without them. The older houses are like kindling.”

Bennett hurried out onto the street. He’d lend aid if needed. He’d seen far too many villages burn in the war to take fire lightly. He scanned the rooftops. In the distance, a black plume of smoke billowed in the sky.

His heart hammered in his chest. Mari’s house lay in that direction.

He broke into a run.

The smoke was coming from Mari’s neighborhood.

Sweat streamed down his face. His lungs burned as hotly as the muscles in his legs.

It wasn’t her house. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

Unless someone had attacked her. But he’d locked her rooms, they wouldn’t be able to get in.

Neither could she get out.

He increased his pace until black flecks blurred the edges of his vision and he couldn’t draw air into his chest.

Her house came into view. Smoke billowed from the roof. Soot-blackened servants and neighbors crowded around the ruins, tossing buckets of water onto the ruined half of the house.

He searched the crowd. Where was she?

A man sat in the middle of the street, motionless.

“Sir Reginald, where’s Mari?”

The man glanced up with the large dilated eyes of a man in the throes of the poppy. “I don’t even remember knocking over the lamp.”

“Where is Mari!”

Her father glanced back at the remains of the house. “Selim carried me out, then went back in there for them.”

Selim emerged from the house. Alone.

No
. No, no, no. Bennett had no idea if he spoke aloud or if the scream only resounded in his head.

He grabbed Selim’s shoulders. “Where is she?”

Selim’s face was alabaster under the inky black ashes. “Dead. Both she and Achilla.”

Bennett brushed past him. “Impossible.”

“I found the bodies.”

Bennett shook his head. There was some mistake. “Show me.”

Selim gagged. “You don’t want to see. There isn’t much left.”

He had to know. “Show me.”

Selim nodded.

Greasy ash and soot covered the main hall of the house, which was otherwise unharmed. Perhaps things weren’t as bad as they appeared. Perhaps— The entire roof over the corridor to the harem had given way, allowing the sun to gild the still smoldering rubble. A group of servants tossed water onto the remaining flames. It landed with angry hisses. Selim led him carefully over a blackened beam and into what had once been Mari’s rooms. Two charred corpses rested by the cracked, disfigured fountain.

He’d killed her. He’d killed them both.

No. Please, no.

Selim said nothing as Bennett fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. The acrid smoke went unheeded as he struggled to breathe. Water from the cracked fountain seeped across the tile, soaking his trousers. He plunged his hand into his pocket and grasped the key until it cut into his flesh. But other than the sticky warmth of his blood, he felt nothing. He removed the key and laid it on the tile by the nearest body.

After a moment, the butler pulled him to his feet. “Come away from this.”

Bennett had no recollection of how he ended up back on the street with the other onlookers. He listened, bemused, as his voice gave orders for the bodies to be collected and buried.

He watched as his feet walked him to the graveyard a few hours later. The native custom insisted bodies be buried before nightfall and he saw no reason to delay it. The priest’s mouth moved but none of his words made any sense as he presided over the grave.

Bennett’s head nodded as he accepted condolences from his cousin.

Only when he boarded the ship to England did the numbness fade. With a cry of rage, Bennett tore open his trunk and flung his uniform into the sea. Storming back to his cabin, Bennett hurled his trunk against the wall, then the table, followed by the chair. Finally, exhausted, he collapsed.

Chapter Thirty-one

“B
ennett?” Mari tried to open her eyes but they refused to comply, leaving her in darkness. Only when she blinked did she realize that her eyes were indeed open, but the room was pitch back.

The prison at Vourth. She reached for Bennett, but only a rough stone wall met her search. Had they taken him? Jerking upright, she gasped at the explosion of pain in her head. Her moan couldn’t escape past the sweet, sickly taste in her mouth.

No, not Vourth. She dropped her face into her hands. They had survived that. So where was she? Slowly, as she dug her fingers into her temples, bits and pieces of memories returned.

“Achilla?” Her voice emerged as little more than a whisper. She coughed, then swallowed twice. “Achilla?” The resulting word was only slightly better.

Rising on shaky legs, she traced the perimeter of the room. She winced as she kicked a barrel, then gave it a tentative shake. It thumped heavily against the floor. After several tries, she pried open the lid, then recoiled, head swimming. Salted fish.

At least she wouldn’t starve to death.

She rocked the barrel wildly again, hoping to draw the attention of whoever was keeping her imprisoned. “Bennett!” she called, but her throat was still too parched for much effect. She put all her strength into slamming the barrel against the ground, until her arms gave out.

Resuming her search, she counted ten more barrels and seven bags of what felt like grain.

She would have given anything to have Bennett following along behind her in her search, ensuring she didn’t miss anything. Or just to have his solid strength there comforting her. She grabbed a barrel to remain upright. Did Bennett know she was gone? Was he even looking for her?

She stiffened her spine. Yes. Once he found her gone he would try to find her. How could she have ever believed that she didn’t trust him? His was the body she reached for in the dark. The name she called when awakened.

She’d been so determined to keep from losing control, to keep from being forced into anything, that she hadn’t realized fear had been doing both to her all along.

She cursed as she stumbled over a sack, sprawling on the ground. No, not a sack. Mari tentatively touched the obstacle. A person.

The person moaned.

“Achilla?” Mari asked, finding a limp hand in the darkness.

The woman swore hoarsely in Greek. Mari’s heart leaped.
Achilla
.

“Where are we?” her maid asked.

“Some sort of storage room, I think, but I don’t know where.”

Suddenly, light flickered. Mari whirled around, searching for the source. A feeble orange glow spilled through a crack under a door. Muffled voices spoke outside and Mari lurched toward them, hoping for some clue of where she was.

“Of course my husband gave permission, you fool. This entire plan was my idea.”

Fatima.

A male voice too low for Mari to understand replied.

“What good does it do to keep her a captive if she dies, idiot! Besides, it is vexing not to be able to access the supplies in this room. My slaves are complaining.”

The door opened and Mari flinched back from the light.

“You look disgusting,” Fatima informed her, the candle she held illuminating her pleasure in the fact. As she patted her own intricately plaited hair, her nose wrinkled. “And you smell even worse.”

Mari forced herself to her feet. This woman had taken her from Bennett. And had taken her from Bennett before she’d had a chance to tell him how wrong she’d been. “What have you done?” The woman had always been petty and self-serving, but Mari would never have imagined her behind the threats of the past months.

“I saved your life.” She paused, hands extended gracefully as if expecting thanks.

“You kidnapped us.” Mari stalked closer and Fatima dropped her hands and stepped back.

“To save your lives.” She lifted her nose into the air. “Although perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“Who did you save us from then?” Mari’s hands tightened into fists at her side as she waited. She’d find out who was behind the attempts on her life. Then if she was feeling merciful, she’d hunt them down herself rather than letting Bennett rip them apart a limb at a time.

Mari couldn’t imagine Fatima helping anyone unless she directly benefited. “From your husband?”

Fatima shook her head, her lips wrinkling like prunes. “No, thankfully, he has me to guide him and protect our future plans. Truly, the man is like a baboon in need of a leash.”

“Then who did you save me from? If you did save me at all.”

Fatima’s brows lowered. “I told you I rescued you. You don’t need to know anything more.” She lowered the candle toward Achilla, scowling as it revealed the maid’s filthy, vomit-stained clothes. She pressed her hand over her mouth in disgust. “I don’t know why you freed her. Vermin take better care of themselves.”

Mari stepped between Fatima and her sick maid. “If you saved me, why am I locked in your cellar?” Fatima must know who she was. She always loved dabbling in intrigue.

Achilla retched and Fatima practically leaped away. “Because I will have a use for you eventually.”

Ah, of course. “What use?”

“You will have to wait and see.” Fatima smiled slyly, her eyes gleaming with poorly hidden triumph.

Whatever small amount of patience Mari possessed had long since evaporated. “Let us go.”

Fatima flicked her hand as if to dismiss the ridiculous idea.

“You cannot keep us prisoner,” Mari pointed out. “Bennett will find us. You won’t like the consequences when he does.”

Fatima’s lip curled. “Your major left Constantinople yesterday.”

If Mari had had the strength, she would have clawed Fatima’s perfect face for that lie. Instead, she laughed. It was so contrary to what she knew of the honor and character of the man, it was absurd. He wouldn’t have deserted her. “Why?”

With an uneasy frown at her levity, Fatima motioned a thick-necked slave into the room. “He lost interest apparently,” she said, shrugging, her fingers playing with the silk of her sleeve.

She was lying. She’d never been able to lie without fidgeting.

“He thought you’d run off or some such thing.”

A new fear chilled Mari. Had something happened to him and Fatima was lying to hide the fact? “He wouldn’t have left,” Mari said, the world teetering precariously while she awaited Fatima’s response.

“But he did. On a ship called the
Bella Maria
.”

Mari couldn’t see signs that she was lying now. No fumbling with thread. No playing with her hair. That meant Bennett was alive. Air resumed its flow in Mari’s lungs and she gave thanks to every god she could think of, pagan and Christian.

But if Fatima wasn’t lying, that meant Bennett had truly left. “He wouldn’t leave,” she repeated aloud to herself. He’d promised to protect her.

“He would if—” Fatima tapped her foot, a smile twisting her lips as she enjoyed Mari’s desperation. “I’m not going to discuss this further.”

Mari ran through the possibilities in her head. Either he had been forcibly removed or he thought her gone. But a simple story about her leaving wouldn’t have swayed him. “He thinks I am dead, doesn’t he?”

The surprise on Fatima’s face told her all she needed to know. Mari bolted for the door, desperation giving strength to her steps. She had to find him. Tell him she was all right. He wouldn’t forgive himself for thinking he’d failed her. He’d hide it from everyone, allowing it to eat at him and fester. She wouldn’t let him suffer, not on her account. With an anguished cry, she ducked under the arm of the bulky slave, darting through the door into a narrow corridor.

“Kill the maid,” Fatima called out behind her.

Mari skidded to a halt. Slowly, she turned back toward the open door, loathing temporarily eroding her desperation.

Fatima’s head peered out the door. “Unless you choose to come back. See, without you, your worthless Greek is, well, worthless.” She chuckled at her own wit.

A worthless affront to God
, Aunt Larvinia had called them. “You want me to return?” Mari strode back to the cellar and slapped Fatima as hard as she could across the face.

Fatima screamed in rage as the slave grabbed Mari, lifting her off her feet and restraining her from hitting Fatima again. She should have punched her instead and broken her nose. Mari eyed the red welt on Fatima’s face, wishing she’d had the courage to do the same to her aunt years ago.

Fatima grabbed a piece of Mari’s hair and gave it a vicious yank, ripping it from her head. Mari couldn’t stop tears from blurring her vision.

She then grabbed Mari’s face, her nails digging into Mari’s chin. “He will not come for you. He was only too happy to leave.”

Mari growled, snapping at Fatima’s hand, driving her back a frightened step. Although Fatima couldn’t know it, Mari had learned something about herself—now that she’d given her trust to him she couldn’t be shaken. “He will come for me or I will get to him, and you will regret your decision to keep us apart.”

Fatima blanched and lowered her eyes, refusing to meet Mari’s gaze. “Take her to the harem. If she tries to escape again, the maid dies.”

M
ore than anything in her gilded prison, Mari hated the ugly paintings of fruit that covered the walls. The squat, fat apples. The blotchy pineapples. All lying limp in unimaginative displays. She sighed and refocused her attention on the paper in front of her. Fatima’s taste in decor was as deplorable as her morals.

Achilla collapsed with a huff by her side. “He rebuffed me again.”

Mari wrinkled her nose. “Well, he is a eunuch.”

“I know, but I’d hoped when they changed to this new guard last week, we might have more luck.”

Mari hadn’t held out the same hope. She suspected something dire had happened to their old guard after Talat had caught the man speaking with them. This new guard wouldn’t even look in their direction.

After three weeks and four attempts, she’d run out of ideas for escape. The only exit out of the harem was constantly guarded. The only person allowed to come and go as she pleased was Fatima. Her personal slaves never left, so Mari couldn’t try disguising herself to take their place. Even the courtyard was fully enclosed, so she couldn’t attempt to scale the walls as the men who’d abducted her had done. She’d tried tossing notes out the window in hopes a passerby would find one, but one of the other slaves had told Fatima and that had been stopped.

Bennett truly was gone. Her quill shook in her hand, and she thrust it into the ink pot before anyone else noticed. The fact had finally become real when she’d overheard the fate of two missing female slaves. Only then had she stopped pacing in her room until dawn, not daring to sleep for fear of missing some sign of him when he returned for her.

Not that she’d slept once she’d gone to bed. No, instead she had relived that last argument with Bennett a thousand times in her head and finally been forced to admit that he meant what he said. He had wanted to marry her. And not out of duty and obligation.

He loved her.

She stiffened her spine. She wouldn’t give up until she’d had the chance to say yes.

Achilla slouched inelegantly in her chair. “At least you have your art. This idleness is driving me mad.”

Her art. Mari stared at the drawing, a sketch of Esad’s garden, more intricate than any she’d attempted before.

With sudden determination, Mari picked up her drawings. She stalked to the candle in the middle of the common room and held one of her pictures up to it. The page flickered, then ignited.

Achilla rushed to her side. “I didn’t mean for you to stop.”

Mari smiled, allowing the line of orange flame to creep up the paper. Then she dropped it on the ground and stomped out the fire. Immediately, she took the next one and repeated the process. By the time she’d burned the fifth, a group of Fatima’s slaves had gathered around, whispering and watching her with fascinated wariness.

By the seventh, Fatima pushed her way to the middle of the circle. She hated not being the center of attention. “What’s going on here? Have you finally lost your wits?”

Mari dipped another paper into the flame. “No.”

“Why are you doing that?”

Mari shrugged.

“I saved your life. Talat was supposed to kill you, but I convinced him we might be able to use you against my uncle later.”

Mari shrugged, storing that additional tidbit away. But what would happen when they realized she no longer had any value to Esad? “Whether you saved me or not, I won’t let you profit from my work.”

Fatima scurried closer. “Profit?”

“No one will sell my work but me.” Mari burned another one.

She dodged as Fatima tried to snatch the pile from her hands.

“You drew them on my paper with my ink. Give them to me.”

Mari shook her head.

“Give them to me or Achilla will regret it.” Fatima held out her open hand.

Mari hesitated. That was Fatima’s threat whenever she wanted her way. Mari might serve a purpose, but her maid did not. Achilla had taken ten lashes across the back for Mari’s note attempt, despite Mari’s pleas otherwise. But Achilla had taken the beating and then asked when they’d try to escape again.

Mari waited until Fatima opened her mouth to speak again.

“I said, give them—”

“Fine. Here.” Mari handed her the remaining drawings.

Fatima tucked the papers under her arm. “My generosity has cost me, you know. I pay for your food and lodging with my own funds. It’s not as if I have money to spare. It’s only fair that you repay me. Any drawing you make from now on belongs to me.”

Mari knew she walked a thin wire with Achilla’s safety, but Fatima had to believe she’d won a battle. “Then I’m finished drawing.”

Fatima glanced pointedly at Achilla.

“I am tired of you threats,” Mari said, not needing to feign the hatred in her voice.

“Fifty lashes for the slave,” Fatima ordered.

Achilla glanced at her, eyes wide, begging to know what was happening. The eunuch approached and grabbed her by the arms. Screaming, Achilla struggled wildly.