Taming Charlotte (26 page)

Full of frustration as well as compassion, Charlotte lingered in the cell block. The din of battle arose outside as Rashad and the freed soldiers confronted their captors.

Someone moaned.

Charlotte sighed and went to the opposite end of the passageway. Beneath the hook where the keys had been stood a bucket of water with a ladle inside.

She squatted, dipped a finger into the pail, and touched it to her tongue. The water was tepid, but fresh enough.

Charlotte picked up the bucket and carried it into the first cell.

Sleep eluded Patrick, and his cabin aboard the
Enchantress
was too small for adequate pacing, so he left it and went up on deck. The night sky was star-washed, and the ink black waters reflected its silvery glow.

Patrick gripped the railing and silently castigated himself, yet another time, for leaving Charlotte behind in Riz. Traversing the desert a second time would have been a trial for her, to be sure. Then there was the crossing to Spain, and the ever-present possibility of a pirate attack.

Being parted from Charlotte had been pure anguish this time, perhaps because he knew she was carrying his child under her heart. To make matters worse, during their separation he had developed a mysterious sixth sense, and that faculty was telling him that she was in far worse danger for staying in the palace.

Cochran appeared beside him, and Patrick was startled.

The first mate chuckled. “There now, Captain, it’s only me. Since this isn’t your watch, would you mind telling me what you’re doing up here on deck?”

Patrick scowled at his friend. “I don’t have to explain my actions to you,” he snapped tersely.

Cochran sighed and leaned against the railing, seeming to breathe the sight of the sea into his soul just as he breathed air into his lungs. “That you don’t,” he answered good-naturedly. “Don’t fret yourself, Patrick. We’ll reach Khalif’s
harbor before sunrise, and you’ll find the Mistress Trevarren as well and sassy as ever.”

An involuntary shudder moved up Patrick’s spine. “Something is wrong,” he said gruffly, watching the starlight shimmer on the water. “I should never have let her out of my sight for a moment!”

“That last part is probably true,” Cochran conceded. “Your lady does tend to get herself into dutch when she’s left unsupervised. But she’s as strong-minded and wily as any man, and my guess would be that she can take care of herself and half the palace without working up a sweat.”

“I hope so,” Patrick whispered. “God in heaven, I hope so.” He was still uneasy, though, and his unborn son or daughter was so small, so vulnerable…

Cochran slapped Patrick on the shoulder and then walked away without another word.

There wasn’t much Charlotte could do for the men who had been wounded in the uprising against Khalif. She gave water to those who could sip from the ladle and whispered soothing words she knew the patients could not comprehend. She held their hands and told the lost ones it was all right to die.

She had probably been in the cells for two hours or so when she heard the door opening at the far end of the passageway.

It never occurred to Charlotte that the visitor might not be Rashad, coming to tell her that the palace had been taken back again. She stepped out of the cell, feeling weary to the core of her spirit, and encountered a shadowy figure in Arab dress.

She would have sworn her heart stopped beating.

The man lifted a lantern, and Charlotte saw the too handsome face, with all its marks of debauchery and weakness. Ahmed laughed.

“I will not live to see nightfall,” he said, and his madness shone as plain as the lantern light in his ebony eyes. “For all of that, Allah has seen fit to make my last day a pleasurable
Charlotte retreated a step. “Stay away from me,” she warned.

Ahmed reached out, closed one hand around her wrist before she could escape. “What a pity it is,” he breathed, “that I won’t have time to train you properly. Still, your spirited nature should offer a delectable challenge. Come with me, and I will show you what a woman is made for.”

She struggled, clasped one of the cell bars with one hand, but Ahmed was stronger. He wrenched her free and propelled her ahead of him, toward the outer door.

A
HMED HAD GRASPED CHARLOTTE BY HER HAIR, AND HE
propelled her along in front of him with cruel force. Since they moved along rarely used passageways, they did not encounter Khalif’s men, and from that quarter, rescue seemed impossible.

Charlotte was far from despairing, however, for she still had the pistol Rashad had given her, secreted in the pocket of her robe. If matters came to such a dire point, she would shoot Ahmed without hesitation, just as her father and uncle had shot mad dogs and infected rats during an outbreak of rabies several years before.

Finally, after traversing a maze of passages and dusty, long-unused rooms, Ahmed thrust Charlotte through the high arched doorway of a large chamber.

The room was clean, and scented smoke wafted from several brass braziers. A male slave played softly on an instrument resembling a lyre, his eyes downcast, his brown body fairly quivering with tension. In the center of the space was a great couch, piled high with pillows of all colors, and the walls were hung with fading tapestries that must have been centuries old.

If she hadn’t been in such untoward circumstances, Charlotte would have taken pleasure in exploring the place. As it was, she felt compelled to keep her wits gathered solidly about her.

“No one will think to look for us here,” Ahmed told her, with a smarmy smile, giving her hair a vicious little wrench before flinging her into the heart of the chamber. “At least, not for some time.” He ran dark, insolent eyes over Charlotte’s dirt-smudged person,. “You look like a street urchin,” he scolded. “You must be bathed before our time of love.”

“ ‘Time of love’?” Charlotte scoffed, sounding braver than she felt. “If I had anything in my stomach, I would surely vomit.”

Ahmed laughed. “Ah, Charlotte, sweet Charlotte. You are indeed a spitfire, as the westerners say. This heartens me.” Having said this, he clapped. his hands together and spoke to the slave in rapid Arabic.

“I hope that doesn’t mean we’re married or something,” Charlotte said stiffly, referring to the hand-clapping gesture. “I already have a husband—not that such a fact would trouble a polecat like yourself.”

“A polecat,” Ahmed echoed thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. He was gaunt from his time in prison, and his eyes gleamed, as if from some fever of the soul. “This is an insult, I am sure.”

“You’re damn right it’s an insult,” Charlotte replied, caught up in the flow of her own bravado. “A polecat is a skunk.”

Ahmed glared at her, letting all his hatred show. “Your insolence is wearing on me, Mrs. Trevarren. I would suggest you stop talking before you earn yourself a taste of the lash.”

Charlotte would not willingly have shown trepidation for anything, but she felt the color drain from her face and knew from Ahmed’s expression that he saw and savored her fear. “Let me go,” she said, with dignity, after a long silence. “I have done nothing to you.”

The sultan’s treacherous half brother rolled his eyes in an apparent bid for patience. “It is not a matter for revenge,” he replied. “I want you and therefore I am entitled to you.”

The slave had quietly filled an ornate brass hip bath from tall urns of sun-warmed water while they were talking. At a nod from Ahmed, he went back to playing his lyre.

“And my feelings have no bearing whatsoever?” Charlotte inquired saucily, needing to challenge Ahmed’s complacent barbarism and prejudice even though she knew it would do no good at all.

“None,” Ahmed confirmed flatly. “Now, undress yourself, and wash, and make certain that your hair is clean as well.”

Charlotte folded her arms. “You can go straight to hell,” she said.

Ahmed gave a raspy sigh of exasperation; then, his movement as quick as mercury set free from a vial, he reached out and slapped Charlotte so hard that she staggered backwards. Her hand went automatically to the pistol in her pocket; an instant after she’d made the gesture, she regretted it.

Before she could draw the weapon to defend herself, Ahmed had guessed at its presence, wrested it from her, and backhanded her a second time. Again she glimpsed a madman looking out of the ebony-dark eyes.

“This is not America,” he told her, his voice drawing tighter as he spoke, like a string on an instrument that has been wound too far. “Nor is it England. Here, women do not speak impudently to their superiors.”

Charlotte refrained from comment, since the things she wanted to say were sure to get her another slap at best and a painful death at worst. But she did not move toward the hip bath, nor did she avert her gaze from Ahmed’s.

The would-be sultan raised one eyebrow. “Why do you hesitate?” he asked, his voice lethal in its very softness.

“I don’t want you—” she paused, gestured toward the slave, who was still quivering with fear “—or him…to watch me as I remove my clothing.”

Ahmed laughed, then shrugged. His indulgence came as a definite surprise. He spoke to the slave, and the poor man left the room, For his own part, Ahmed simply turned his back, the pistol still clasped casually in one hand.

“Do not even consider trying to escape,” he said, with acid cordiality. “If you make a move toward either door, I will hear you and I will kill you for your disobedience—but not before punishing you thoroughly, of course.”

Charlotte had no doubt that he was serious. She slowly stripped off her ruined robe, then the chemise beneath, and stepped naked into the hip bath. Her mind raced as she washed herself clean of tunnel dirt, cobwebs, perspiration, and the rank smell of the dungeon itself. She had still not come up with a solution when Ahmed turned and handed her a musty cloth to dry her hair and body.

She glared at him, ferociously proud even in her nakedness. In the privacy of her heart, however, she was uttering frantic, wordless prayers for help. The unthinkable was about to happen; a cruel man meant to lay hands on her in violence, to rape and probably kill her. If she’d had only herself to defend, she might have given up at that point, but she was carrying a child. She could not bear the thought that their son or daughter would never get a chance to live and grow, to feel sunlight and rain on his or her skin.

“Wouldn’t you like me to dance for you?” she asked, crooning the words. Charlotte had no idea where the question had come from; she hadn’t the wits for cunning because her fear was so great. “Just as the harem women dance for Khalif?”

A tense interval passed while Ahmed considered. He was certain to die this day himself, which meant he had little or nothing to lose. Perhaps, too, in some corner of his wasted mind, he wanted to savor this final triumph over his brother, to make it last.

“Very well,” he said hoarsely. Then he went to a chest beside the wall, beneath a tapestry showing an ancient battle against English crusaders, and brought out a gossamer garment of pale lavender, along with a beautifully beaded vestlike top. “You will dance.”

Charlotte took the garments, amazed that her hand didn’t shake when she reached out for them. She had never been more terrified, not even during the battle on Patrick’s ship, when the pirate had cornered her outside the storeroom.

She turned her back to put on the full, see-through
trousers, with their girdle of embroidered brocade, and the vest, which laced in front and barely covered her bosom.

Her hair, freshly washed and unbrushed, hung down her back in twisting tendrils.

Ahmed took a moment to admire her before summoning the slave back with a shouted order and a clap of his hands.

Soon the slave was making music again, and Charlotte danced to it, slowly, like a creature under a night spell. She realized that sunrise had arrived when trails of crimson flowed in through high palace windows and glittered in the gold and silver threads of her clothing.

Ahmed watched her as if transfixed, seeming to lose track of time, but Charlotte was not so naive as to think she could forestall the inevitable forever. Now that her captor had taken her pistol away, she was depending upon Rashad to find her, or perhaps Khalif. Both were familiar with the palace, with all its hiding places and cubbyholes, and this out-of-the-way chamber would not be unknown to them.

“Again,” Ahmed said shortly, when the slave stopped playing out of what was probably sheer weariness.

Charlotte’s heart was beating fast, and she was perspiring slightly, but she kept dancing. Indeed, she would whirl and twist until she dropped, if that would save her.

After a while, however, Ahmed’s eyes began to harden as he watched her. Finally he raised both hands, palms out, and said, “Enough.” He turned to the terrified slave. “Leave us!”

Charlotte stood still, catching her breath. She braced herself to fight, with all the wildness of a cat that has grown up on its own, living on field mice and garden snakes.

Before Ahmed reached her, however, her prayers were answered. Khalif and—dear God, was she hallucinating?—
Patrick
burst into the room, both carrying swords.