The Harem Bride (13 page)

The White Rose caught her breath. Her husband
was as beautiful as she had imagined. She was the most fortunate of
women.

Rising to her feet with nimble grace, she put
aside her diaphanous azure silk robe. She removed her waistcoat of
blue brocade and her gem-studded gold girdle. Then, ever conscious
of the multitude of eyes applied to peepholes in the walls, perhaps
even the ceiling, she moved toward the foot of the bed, still clad
in her wide-sleeved white gauze tunic and the transparent azure
silk trousers, tightly gathered to her ankles. For a moment, Miss
Penelope Blayne of Pemberton Priory, Kent, came to the fore.
Merciful heavens, she was parading in transparent garments before
what could be half the Sultan’s court!

She was doing what she must to go home.

And then she was at the foot of the great
bed, and she saw her husband’s eyes upon her and knew that he had
watched her every step of the way, just as she had watched him.
Inwardly, Gulbeyaz smiled. Then she lifted the duvet and climbed
into the bed at her husband’s feet, sending the plump sea-green
cover into a series of undulations like that of the rolling
sea.

“
Penelope . . . Penny!” Jason choked.
“What do you think you’re doing?”

“
Only what I have been taught, my
lord,” came the muffled reply from Gulbeyaz, the White Rose, former
odalisque of his Magnificence, Sultan Selim the Third, ruler of the
Ottoman Empire. “Only what I have been taught.”

~ * ~

Morning came, as mornings inevitably do.
Jason could scarcely look at his child bride. That she was still a
virgin was a miracle. No one would ever know what it had cost him,
just as he was quite determined no one would ever know he had
failed to maintain his much-vaunted English fortitude, spilling his
seed like a puling boy with his first woman. Thoroughly mortified,
he was unprepared for his bride’s good humor as she playfully
slapped his fingers when, after delivery of a breakfast tray of
fruit and cheese, he reached for a cluster of grapes with his left
hand. Evidently, the little minx was well pleased with the night
they had spent together. Truthfully, why should she not be pleased?
There had been enough activity under the covers to satisfy the most
lascivious peeping Tom. And there would be blood on the sheets, of
that he had made certain, though Penelope’s eyes had widened when
she saw it, and he had been further embarrassed by being forced to
whisper an explanation in her ear.

Jason looked up, to discover his wife’s
eyes fixed on his face. Huge blue eyes, solemn, questioning, no
longer playful. “Time to get dressed,” the viscount said, feigning
a confidence he did not feel. Wordlessly, she nodded, adjusting her
golden girdle before donning her
kalpock
, her veil, and the all-encompassing
pink
feradge
. The viscount
called a guard to help him with his boots.

This was it, then. The moment when they would
discover if they would exit the Topkapi Palace via the gate or,
having provided an evening’s entertainment for the court, would
they exit the grounds through the gardens, fastened into sacks,
unwanted flotsam to be tossed into the waiting Bosphorus?

Jason took Penny’s arm. Together, they
stepped forward, following the two guards who had spent the night
outside their room. The walk seemed endless. Neither saw a thing
around them.
Eyes forward, keep walking.
Pray.

At the moment the cone-shaped towers and
crenellated archway of the Gate of Salutations came in sight, both
thought them the most wonderful sight they had ever seen. The
guards stood back, salaamed. Lord and Lady Lyndon passed
through.

And before them was an open carriage, with
Faik beside the driver and Miss Cassandra Pemberton sitting,
regally straight-backed and shaded by her utilitarian tan
parasol.

They drove straight to the docks, where Lord
Elgin had arranged passage on a Portuguese vessel bound for Lisbon.
The sooner the young couple were out of reach of the Ottoman
Empire, the better. Theoretically, this invisible line of empire
began in the waters off Italy. More realistically, the Ottoman
influence extended the length of the Mediterranean, a very long
distance indeed. No one, from Lord Lyndon to the stalwart ship’s
captain, would feel completely safe until they passed through the
straits of Gibraltar.

Miss Penelope Blayne, totally oblivious
to the nuances flying around her, was enveloped in a cloak of
euphoria. Within minutes of their ship hoisting sail and getting
underway, she had slipped out of the cabin she was to share with
her Aunt Cass and raced to the deck, looking back at the receding
skyline of Constantinople, most particularly on the domes and
turrets of the Topkapi Palace, as if she could scarce believe the
miracle of her escape. She was
free
. She was back with Aunt Cass and Noreen.
She was married to dearest Jason. Wonderful, darling Jason who had
risked his life to save her. Surely theirs was a romance worthy of
an epic poem, to be recounted by troubadours in feast halls
throughout the western world . . .

Penny, leaning on the ship’s rail, turned her
face into the wind and heaved a great sigh. There might still be
feast halls in the Ottoman Empire, but in the world to which she
was returning those days were long gone. For the first time it
occurred to her that the story of her captivity, the tale of her
marriage and wedding night with Jason Lisbourne would not be
considered an epic love story in London. Far from it. Her
experiences in Constantinople were enough to ruin her forever, no
matter how finely the tale might be tuned.

And where was he? she wondered. Jason,
accompanied by his two companions and their servants, had
disappeared as soon as they boarded, as if he were a chance-met
acquaintance who simply happened to be traveling on the same ship.
By the time Noreen came to tell Penny her presence was required by
Miss Pemberton, the high spirits of the former Gulbeyaz had
plummeted considerably. Only a few minutes earlier, she had
expected her private reunion with Aunt Cass to be filled with pure
joy. Now, she was not so sure. It was possible—nay, likely—there
would be some very awkward questions.

Oh, dear God, was she well and truly
ruined?

While on deck Penny remained shrouded
in the pink
feradge
, well
aware that the brilliant sunlight sparkling off the Sea of Mamara
would turn her azure silk robe and
shalwar
almost wholly transparent. Now, as she
entered her cabin, she realized how very strange she must appear to
an aunt whose eccentricities had never extended to anything more
daring than a split skirt for riding on a camel. Penny threw off
the
feradge
, tossed
her
kalpock
and veil onto the
bed, and fell to her knees, burying her face in her aunt’s lap.
Tears burst from both ladies, and it was some time before any
coherent words could be distinguished.

First came Penny’s apology, over and over,
“I’m sorry, so very sorry, Aunt Cass. Forgive me for wandering off,
for causing you so much grief.” To this, Miss Pemberton made the
expected denials of any guilt on Penny’s part. A strong woman who
seldom displayed emotion of any kind, Cassandra Pemberton was on
shaky ground, wandering in a slough of sentiment to which she was
totally unaccustomed. The child was safely returned. She should be
content. But she was Penny’s guardian, as well as her aunt. She had
a responsibility . . .

Miss Pemberton forced herself to the
inevitable question. “You are married to Lyndon, my dear?”

Penny raised her huge blue eyes, shimmering
with tears, yet glowing with love. “Oh, yes, Aunt. He was quite,
quite wonderful. Like a knight rescuing a maiden in a fairy
tale.”

Miss Pemberton paused, flicking a glance out
the porthole, as if she might find there a solution to this
uncomfortable moment. “And you spent the night with him?” she
inquired carefully.

“
Yes, of course.” Frowning, Penny
searched her aunt’s face.

Miss Pemberton made a small sound that
sounded suspiciously as if she were strangling. “And may I assume
that young devil had sense enough not to touch you?”

“
He is my husband!” Penny protested,
reverting quite suddenly to the White Rose of the
seraglio.

“
Penelope!” cried Miss Pemberton, much
shocked. “Never say—”

“
They were all watching, you see,”
Penny burbled. “We were actors on a stage. Our performance had to
be perfect. Even the blood—”

“
Blood! What blood?” Cassandra
Pemberton cried.

“
The blood on the sheets. Jason laid
the coverlet back so they would be certain to see—”

“
Oh, dear God,” Miss Pemberton groaned,
hugging Penny tight. “Say no more. Men are an untrustworthy lot. We
are far better off without them.”

Penny, who had suffered through far too much
in the past few weeks, did not attempt to analyze what had just
happened. She was simply glad to be back where she belonged. Later,
she would wonder if Aunt Cass had misinterpreted her remarks. Did
her aunt believe she had lost her virginity? And what if she had?
She was, after all, married to dearest Jason. And there would be
time enough to mend matters when they were all back in England. At
the moment, Penny wished only to put the days in Constantinople
behind her. Except, of course, for the moments with Jason, which
she would treasure forever and ever. And ever.

While she looked forward to the many more to
come.

But in Lisbon, Penny, her Aunt Cass, and the
ever-faithful Noreen O’Donnell, transferred to a ship bound for the
fledgling United States of America. The young Viscount Lyndon,
reviled by Miss Cassandra Pemberton and shattered by what he felt
to be his personal failure on his wedding night, returned to
England a changed man. He had tried so hard. He had, in fact,
risked his life, and look at the result. He had tied himself to a
schoolgirl, who had caused him to make a great ass of himself. Miss
Pemberton was accusing him of rape . . . and what else could one
call it when an experienced man of one and twenty allowed himself
to be seduced by . . .

By Gulbeyaz, the White Rose.

Never, never again, he vowed, would he be so
vulnerable. If he lived to be a hundred, no woman would ever again
be allowed to touch his soul, as had the silver-haired, blue-eyed
girl with whom he had spent one night in the seraglio.

~ * ~

Shropshire, 1812

Miss Penelope Blayne threw the book she
had been attempting to read halfway across the room, where it fell
to the carpet with a most unsatisfactory thud. “How dare he?” she
fumed. “I might as well be back in the seraglio. A guard, Noreen. A
guard at our door.
Infamous!
I cannot credit it.”

“
Mr. Deveny says it’s for your
protection, Miss. Until his lordship’s guests have all
departed.”

“
And what does that say to the nature
of his guests?” Penny sniffed. “More like he does not care for me
to see his array of Cyprians.”

“
Nor would you wish to, Miss,” the
Irish maid reminded her, a bit tartly.

With an indeterminate noise that sounded
suspiciously like a snort, Penny leaned back into the blue-brocaded
chaise longue and glowered. “Do you think I will be allowed out for
supper?” she mocked, “or is it to be another tray in my room? I
swear to you, Noreen, if I had had any idea what awaited me here, I
would rather have starved in the street—”

“
You would not, Miss,” declared the
Irishwoman who had, through the years, become far more than Penny’s
maid. “Indeed you would not. I’ve known you since your aunt found
me teetering on the edge of being cast into the streets of
Florence. Thirteen you were, and already a wily old lady who’d seen
more of the world than a poor girl from Dingle ever thought on. And
one thing I know is the grand stiffness of your backbone. Like
m’self, Miss, y’r a survivor. You’ll manage his lordship as you
have all else, whether it be traipsin’ round the world, a month in
a harem, or the long days of poor Miss Pemberton’s last illness.
You’ve no cause to be discouraged, child. If his lordship cared not
what you thought, he’d parade his doxies before you instead of make
sure your eyes were not sullied by their presence.”

“
He knew I was coming. He needn’t have
had them here at all.”

For a moment Noreen O’Donnell looked out the
window where darkness was already settling over the winter
landscape, though the hour was little past four o’clock. “I think,
Miss,” she said slowly, “that your aunt hurt the boy’s feelings
when she was so harsh with him. Hurt him enough that her
accusations were not forgotten when the boy grew into a man. She
herself was sorry, was she not, when you finally spoke of the
matter?”

Dumbly, Penny nodded. “So many years of
misunderstanding,” she murmured at last. “By silent agreement we
tucked the matter away, never to be spoken of. With each mile our
ship sailed from the Levant, I became more and more aware of just
how far I had strayed from what was expected of a young
Englishwoman. I had been . . .
ecstatic
about being Jason’s wife. And,
gradually—oh-so-gradually, as he clung to his friends and made
nothing but polite conversation when we dined with the other
passengers—I realized I was a mere incident to him, nothing
more.