Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (21 page)

      
Ignoring the arrogance of Beth's returning glare, the stranger studied the younger woman's high,firm breasts, slim waist and long, perfectly sculpted legs. “My son will enjoy her...once we break her cursed infidel pride,” she said in flawless French to one of the eunuchs.

      
A retort to the hag's nasty remark sprung to her lips, but she suppressed it. If they believed she spoke nothing but English it might work to her advantage. She stood still, waiting to see what would come next, bracing herself.

      
“You will learn to obey,” the old woman said in thickly accented English.

      
“I am not an animal to be poked and examined for defects,” Beth replied evenly.

      
A thin smirk animated the old woman's lower face for a moment. “Fortunate for you that you have none—physically. As for your behavior...you will learn the way of Islam for women…or be sold in the
bagnos
to some Berber camel driver.” Motioning to the eunuchs to seize Beth, she turned and walked imperiously away.

      
The thought of their plump, asexual hands on her body made Beth shiver. She shook them off and followed the old woman into an immense vaulted room filled with the miasmic vapor of sulfur, wet and dense as Neapolitan fog. High windows ringed the domed ceiling, their light barely penetrating through the gloom. Small wonder, for the entire blue-tiled floor was under an inch or more of water, which splashed from huge brass spigots. The water spilled over the edges of the big porcelain tubs around which clustered naked women of all races.

      
While still standing in the doorway, Beth was given a pair of pattens, much like those worn by European women in inclement weather to protect their shoes and the hems of their skirts, wooden platforms fitted in this case to the bare feet of the bathers and their servants. Not knowing what ichor might lie in the bubbling water sluicing across the floor of the chamber, she put them on willingly while glancing nervously around the crowded room.

      
Nubians with skin like glowing ebony chattered with gold-haired Circassians and exotic-looking Orientals. The rankings were readily discernible when Beth observed that those seated on bamboo stools were being bathed by the others, who scrubbed vigorously with pumice stones and huge loofahs. At a glance she could see that the most comely of the females were being waited upon by those less favored. The only exceptions were a few older women, probably the wives of the dey and his ministers who lived at the palace.

      
From her position at the entry, the black-robed harridan who was the dey's chief wife directed the eunuch to take Beth to the closest tub of running water. She dismissed the women nearby, who were curiously gawking at the newcomer. One of the bamboo seats was produced and the eunuch indicated that Beth should sit upon it. Never in her life had she taken a bath while a crowd of people watched her. Still, she was filthy and desperate for some clothing. If cleansing was a prerequisite, so be it.

      
She reached for the loofah and a bar of the scented soap the eunuch held. He began chattering in Arabic, pointing to the chair. Beth shook her head. “Don't be ridiculous. I can wash myself quite adequately,” she said, again trying to take the soap.

      
“You will be seated. My personal slaves will bathe you,” the chief wife commanded in English as the eunuch handed over the soap and loofah to a thin sallow-complected slave woman whose eyes were sullenly downcast. A second one took the big sponge while a third stood back, holding a bowl filled with some vile-smelling paste.

      
Beth stifled her angry retort. Sitting passively while two women lathered and scrubbed every inch of her skin,even the most intimate places, was mortifying. They applied pumice and loofah with puritanical zeal, as if dirt and sweat were tantamount to original sin itself. Taking particular time with her hair,they sudsed the long curly mane with floral-scented shampoo, then beaten egg yolks.

      
“For shine,” the girl called Naime explained in French.

      
Beth pretended not to understand as they applied the golden foam. Once satisfied that the job had been completed satisfactorily,they filled big clay urns with the clean mineral waters from the spigot and poured them over her head and entire body until she was fair drowned in the deluge.

      
The dey's chief wife had assembled a “work crew” of slaves while this process went on. She issued crisp orders to them in Arabic, then departed with a swish of her shroudlike skirts, the eunuchs all following except for one hapless soul left to see that her commands were carried out.

      
The oldest of the three slaves, whom the others called Zehra, a gnarled dark-skinned woman with oddly pale eyes and large brown teeth, issued instructions to her young charges. She approached with the vile-smelling bowl and dipped a brush into the paste.

      
“Rusma,” was all she said, indicating that Beth should stand up. When she did so, the two younger women each raised one of her arms. Zehra applied the paste to her armpits.

      
At first it tickled, then it began to burn like Hades. Beth broke away and almost dived into the tub in her haste to remove the evil stuff. To her horror, faint bits of reddish underarm hair floated away with it. Well, that was not too bad, she supposed, although best gotten over with quickly. Then they applied it to her legs, where it did not burn as fiercely on the less sensitive skin, but when they indicated that she was to allow them to do the same thing to the red triangle at the juncture of her thighs, she balked.

      
“Good God, what kind of barbarians are you! You'll ruin me!” she shrieked, kicking the bowl from Zehra's hands.

      
“Sit quiet. Will not harm you,” Zehra said in crude English as the other two quickly gathered up the broken clay and scooped up most of the glop around it, then scurried away to procure more, casting exceedingly hateful looks at the new captive.

      
“I'll break your scrawny neck if you try to burn away my woman's parts—do you understand me?” Beth gritted out, red-faced with fear and fury.

      
Zehra shook her head, as if dealing with a child. “Hair on woman body...ugly. Kasseim not like.” As if that was all that mattered!

      
“Good! Already I do not like him one whit and I've yet to meet him!” To these poor benighted creatures, doing what men found pleasing might have been all they lived for, but she would be damned if she abided by their rules.

      
After three more tries and a truly awful mess of rusma around the bathing tub—Beth was certain it must have been enough to eat the pattens off their feet by the time they cleaned it up—Zehra abandoned her attempts to “beautify” the wild American savage in the proscribed manner. Shaking her head in frustration, she led Beth to an adjacent room, where a vast pool of clear aqua water was populated by yet more women, a few swimming, others playing and splashing each other like children. And there were children, too. Girls of all ages and boys, although none of the males were much past weaning age. “Swim?” she asked.

      
Unable to believe the beneficence of Zehra’s offer, Beth kicked off her pattens and dived into the cool water. After her days of confinement on Quinn's brig, then sitting through the ministrations of the slave girls, any activity other than fighting was pure heaven. She swam until she was exhausted, then crawled to the edge of the pool and fell asleep on the cool tiles.

      
There was method to Zehra's madness. When Beth awakened, she was being carried by two of the eunuchs to a private chamber where the chief wife awaited her, seated on a luxurious pile of cushions, smoking from a hookah. Vittoria had some Magyar friends who were addicted to the Turkish water pipe,which could be used for tobacco or a combination of narcotics, usually hashish and opium.

      
As she was deposited on the floor, Beth observed the old woman's heavy-lidded eyes and slack mouth and decided that the faint sweetish aroma of the pipe was certainly owing to opiates of some sort. The chief wife pointed to a loose caftan of sheer white linen, indicating that Beth was to don it. Relieved to finally be clothed, she complied.

      
As she was slipping it over her head, the old crone said, “Now, we begin your instruction in pleasing a man.”

* * * *

      
Derrick learned through sources carefully cultivated in the palace that the fire haired American female was destined to become the slave of the dey's son. Right now Kasseim was scouring the hills with his Janissaries in search of raiding nomadic tribesmen who had attacked one of the dey's outposts. He was expected back within a few days. Derrick wracked his brain for some way to get the prince to give up his new concubine.

      
If you were given Elizabeth Blackthorne to do with as you wished, would you relinquish her to please an English diplomat?

      
A ridiculous question. But then, Kasseim had dozens of beautiful women in his harem, and Derrick knew he preferred them sweet-tempered, meek and obedient. He smiled grimly. After Beth's demonstration in front of the Janissaries, it must be abundantly clear to everyone in the palace that those were qualities she would never possess.

      
If only he could find a way to reach her and secure her cooperation. Such an undertaking was not only personally risky but would endanger his mission and British relations with the dey if he were caught. Still, he knew he could never leave Beth to spend the rest of her life as a harem slave. A free-spirited American such as she would whither and die in a gilded cage.

      
Nola, a lovely Circassian woman with bright yellow hair and exotic high cheekbones, had been provided by the dey to amuse Derrick during his sojourn in Algiers. She had been raised as a slave and would unquestioningly do anything asked by her master...who at this point in time happened to be the Englishman. He formulated his plan.

Chapter Twelve

      
Beth sat alone in the small garden alcove, shaded by an acacia tree, her heart beating wildly as she looked around surreptitiously to be certain no one was watching her. She slipped the note from the pocket of her caftan and read it.

Beth,

      
Do everything you can without endangering your life to infuriate old Fatima, the dey's chief wife. Refuse all instruction and show that splendid American temper. It will work toward winning you your freedom. No time to explain. Keep hope alive. Destroy this message as soon as you read it. If we are discovered, the dey
      
will have both of our heads.

      
      
Derrick

      
The message had been slipped to her with the greatest secrecy as the harem women were allowed the respite of fresh air in the seraglio gardens. Beth did not recognize the striking blonde who had delivered it but knew that any communication from the outside was strictly forbidden. She had hidden the tiny scrap of paper until she was able to find a place where she could read it without anyone seeing.

      
Derrick! Alive! Here in Algiers! But why—and how had he learned that she was a prisoner? Foolish questions, she berated herself. He was an agent of the English king, a spy. Lord only knew what intrigue had brought him to North Africa, but whatever kind fate had intervened, she would not question it. This could mean swift deliverance...or a slow, horrible death.

      
Trembling, she tore the note into tiny scraps of confetti, hiding the evidence beneath the richly tilled soil with her hands. Beth considered the stories she had overheard regarding punishments for harem women who were caught communicating with men who were not their masters. The kindest fate was to be tied alive in a heavy sack weighted down with rocks, then cast into the harbor to drown.

      
Shuddering, she pushed the thought aside and dreamed of her English lover. Not a day had passed since he'd left Naples without her thinking of him, missing him, desiring him. What would he expect of her when they were reunited? That she would fall into his arms in gratitude, once more becoming his mistress? Or, worse yet, might he simply be doing his duty as an English gentleman in rescuing her—would she be of no further interest to him after she was free?

      
That is a bridge to be crossed when this nightmare ends. If it ever ends.

      
Pushing her disquieting thoughts aside, Beth began to plot her strategy for becoming the worst pupil old Fatima had ever attempted to train in the arts of pleasing the almighty Kasseim. A slow smile spread across her face as she contemplated it.

* * * *

      
“Ah, my friend, your barb is splendid, but there is nothing like sitting an English Thoroughbred,” Derrick said, patting his big bay's neck as he watched the light in Kasseim's eyes dance. They rode side by side through a fertile river valley, a few miles outside the city.

      
“I do not think so. We must race them when they are fresh to see who is right,” the prince replied.

      
His coal-black Arabian stallion was small and fine-boned compared to the Thoroughbred, but Derrick knew the breed to possess tremendous strength and stamina. Kasseim was a handsome man, slim and swarthy with liquid black eyes and a wide sensuous mouth.