Martin frowned and stopped pacing. "Impertinence will not change what I have to say, Miss."
"No, of course not." Glee struggled to contain her anger, but her voice was clipped. "Pray go on."
"I told him that grief over your father would be lessened by a return to the bosom of your family. I implied that there were many loose ends to address. Although he was reluctant, Abdülmecid agreed to allow you to leave the harem on the condition that you return in February when Akmed takes his degree from Oxford."
"Oxford!" Esther and Ulalie expounded at once.
Martin scowled.
Glee took a deep breath and tried to speak unemotionally. "And when I return in February I presume I am to be Akmed's graduation gift. Precisely the kind of situation I thought I was escaping. Is that correct?"
Ulalie brought her salts to her nose again, and Esther gasped.
"It was the best I could do, Glee. I had no other options. Had I not agreed, you would be there now, awaiting Akmed's return, or perhaps given to Hammud as a birthday gift as they'd originally intended."
Glee's attention dropped to her lap where she twisted the ugly plaid linen, and then returned to pierce her uncle with righteous indignation. "How very upsetting this must have been for you, Uncle. Tell me, how did you ever convince Abdülmecid to agree to let me out at all? After all, what guarantee has he that I will return?"
Martin cleared his throat and turned back toward the fire. "He sent the eunuchs to insure both your safety and continued, er, chastity."
Glee laughed lightly, and the older man jerked around to look at her.
"Oh, the irony of this situation is not lost on you, is it? For seven years I have been hiding myself behind shapeless dresses, covering my hair with mobcaps and scarves and now turbans, burying myself in my father's notebooks and scribbling because he didn't want to be bothered fending off the legitimate offers of men of importance wherever we went. And now, because I caught the attention of the fifteen-year-old Prince Hammud, all my careful concealments and subterfuge are for naught." Her laughter was bitter, sharp. "Do you know anything about Akmed, Uncle? Anything at all?"
"Well, I know he's the Sultan's second son."
His wife sighed in a near-swoon and he turned to her. "Now, now my dear, it's not so bad as all that. I assure you that this isn't disreputable in the Ottoman Empire. Why they consider it an honor for a woman to join the harem of a prince!"
Glee rose and faced her uncle eye-to-eye. "Let' s not sugar-coat this for the ladies, shall we Uncle Martin? I'd much rather be blunt." She turned toward Ulalie. "You see, Aunt Ulalie, I know a bit about Prince Akmed. For example, I know that he is married, a young man, perhaps twenty-five." She watched the older woman gasp and glare at her husband. "I also know that I will not be lonely in his harem. He already has six concubines, and has been collecting them, albeit slowly, since he was fifteen."
Ulalie paled and fairly shrieked at Martin. "Martin, how could you do this? How could you trade away your niece? To promise her in marriage to this prince would have been one thing, but Martin! This, this arrangement makes her no better than a kept mistress!"
"A mistress!" Esther's eyes were round. She scowled at Glee with unconcealed distaste.
"A very accurate assessment, Aunt." She turned to a Martin, whose lips were thinned, his ears red with anger. "Tell me, Uncle, what happens if I am able to lose my erstwhile guards and do not keep to your agreement?"
"I was assured that Abdülmecid would send someone to Boston to retrieve his property - er, you - and he would accept an offer from a Charleston shipping company and cancel our contracts entirely."
Glee shook her head and smiled, though a tear coursed down her cheek. "You know, Uncle Martin, the Sultan told me that you would have your price. I insisted that you would never succumb to his sordid intent. 'Every man has his price,' he said; I did not believe him at the time."
Martin's face reddened and his hands shook. "Glee, please try to understand. I've worked hard for everything you see here. Your father was the eldest, but had no interest in the shipping business, spending all his time with books and making up crazy stories. When our father stipulated in his will that despite Eric being the older son I should have 50% of the profits from Montrose Shipping if I ran the business, I was happy to accept the responsibility. I loved Eric and was glad to share the fruits of my labors with him in return for a portion I would have otherwise never seen. I've made this business more profitable than even our father could have imagined. But, I had to earn it. This arrangement with Abdülmecid was business, pure and simple. Those contracts are nearly 30% of Montrose Shipping's income." He spread his hands out toward his niece. "I'll have my lawyers begin work on it in the morning. There must be something that can be done to break the oral contract."
Glee nodded. "I wonder what my father would say to you, Uncle Martin." She grimaced at a weeping Ulalie and a flushed Esther and moved to the door. "Good day."
Glee tried not to run up the graceful, curving mahogany staircase, but she couldn't help herself. The door to her room was ajar and she burst in and slammed it closed, twisting the key in the lock.
Amina looked up from her unpacking and her eyes widened when she saw tears coursing down Glee's smooth cheeks.
Glee's vision swam, her eyes glistening with moisture as she pressed her back against the door. The cheerful yellow gingham and white eyelet counterpane and curtains were lost to her. Even the comfort of her favorite white cane rocking chair, near the big window, did not draw her interest.
Amina clapped her hands once. The signal for Glee's attention dragged her from her inward struggle. "There is bad news. Tell me," the tongueless maid signed.
Glee wiped the wetness from her face and stomped to her father's valise. "Do you remember Papa saying something about land speculations in California?" She rifled through the black leather valise with her father's initials, looking through odd bits of paper, scraps of receipts, notes and lists.
"When we were in Australia he met a British officer who was adamant about the vast ranches for sale in the California Territory. Papa was so excited at the prospect, he had his attorney, Mister Burton, look into it. I remember how his face lit up when Mister Burton obtained a deed." She plucked out a sheaf of papers, and sifted through them. "I know the deed must be in here somewhere. Papa wasn't much of a businessman, but I trust Mister Burton. The parcel may be small, but I'm sure it'll do for us, Amina. Papa was planning to retire to California to this little rancho, someday."
Amina came around to face Glee and touched her arm. She signed, "Why do you need the deed? Will we not stay in Boston?"
Glee shook her gray-turbaned head. "No. We can't stay. Uncle Martin sold me to the Sultan in Constantinople. He just told me. I don't know what he was waiting for, the coward. He agreed to take me back to the Ottoman Empire by the end of February, when Akmed will be back from Oxford."
Amina's eyes widened to chocolate-brown saucers, the horizontal, decorative scars on her left cheek whitened with her agitation. She gestured frantically. "What will we do? Martin will not let us leave!"
Glee's teeth ground together. "He has no choice. I'm an adult, and though he may technically be my financial guardian, he cannot stop me if I chose to leave. Especially, if he does not suspect our plans." She bent toward the papers again. "We'll go to California and live on this rancho. My trust fund will be plenty for us to live on, and no one will know where we've gone for months and months. Surely by the time Papa's book is completed and published, and our whereabouts are known, Abdülmecid will have lost interest in one runaway concubine. Akmed will just have to be satisfied with some other gift. Uncle Martin can tell him that his two eunuch guards were obviously not enough; that I've run off to parts unknown."
The deed was sandwiched between a character profile from one of her father's novels and a list of sundry travel items for a journey up the Congo. Glee held it reverently, studying it for a moment and then the little map drawn on the back. "Monterey,
" she said softly. "We're going to Monterey, Amina."
Chapter 3
I t was difficult keeping her plans secret, but determination to escape brought necessary lies and half-truths to Glee's lips. She couldn't talk Erdogan and Hakki into staying in Boston or returning to Constantinople. It seemed prudent to take them along rather than have her two eunuchs fumbling along behind her on some hare-brained chase.
Keeping them silent was not difficult. Erdogan was disdainful and haughty around the other servants, declining any offer of friendship with a sniff and airy gesture of dismissal.
Hakki, tall and intimidating as he was, was friendlier, but felt it was his duty was to protect Glee and accede to her whims until February, even if those whims took them 3,000 miles further from Constantinople.
Glee seriously considered booking passage on a ship, which would take them to San Francisco, around the horn, in about three months time. The cost was exorbitant, owing to recent gold and silver strikes in California and Nevada. Staying untraceable was the urgent factor. A ship was too easily tracked, its people too easily found and questioned, which effectively eliminated that option.
The only other way to cross the continent was by wagon train. Apparently, large numbers of people were doing it. It took longer, about five months, but it was much easier to become just another face, another traveler seeking greener pastures to the west.
Arranging for cross-continental travel was very complicated, and necessitated taking someone into Glee's confidence. Raymond, Martin and Ulalie's oldest child, seemed the most likely choice. At twenty-six, he was something of a rake, spending only the hours absolutely necessary at the shipping office. The balance of his time was given to gambling or myriad parties and social gatherings where young ladies of quality might be found. He and Glee had an easy camaraderie, an understanding of similar natures. She was hemmed into proprieties by her gender, he by his familial responsibilities as the only son.
During Glee's first week in Boston, Raymond escorted her to the opera and to a small soiree and musicale given by family friends. He was clever, urbane, and a pleasant companion, if cynical at times. Glee had the impression that he enjoyed the stir caused by her eccentric appearance. Gossip and stares followed them from room to room like a buzzing shadow. She was an oddity, an interesting new mystery to amuse him and his friends.
It was all very silly to Glee. Women looked at her with a mixture of pity and condemnation, which quickly turned to irritation and jealousy when it became obvious that young men found her witty and interesting. Those young men at first dismissed her as a blue-stocking, but were soon drawn into her circle, unable to control their curiosity when they discovered who her father was and where she had been adventuring with him. That curiosity frequently led to sparks of admiration and teasing jests, challenging her to tell them the color of her hair, commenting on the unusual beauty of her eyes and the translucence of her skin. These personal questions always led her admirers to grief, however, as she would give them no answer but a brilliant smile and turn to Raymond requesting to be taken home.
* * * *
After Sunday mass, the entire Montrose family, including Glee's cousin Sophia and her husband and two children, packed themselves into coaches and went for a picnic in the weak fall sunshine. Glee squeezed into a seat with Amina on one side and Esther on the other, facing Raymond and Esther's favorite escort—for this week—Hamilton Cage. Mister Cage couldn't seem to keep his eyes off Glee, their hazel light following every movement of her body as though studying her for a portrait.
Esther's eyes narrowed on her escort, and Glee tensed at the tightness of her cousin’s mouth—a look she often had before deriding someone. "You aren't still mad at Papa, are you Glee?" Esther asked as she brushed out her voluminous peach taffeta skirts.
Glee's hold on her reticule tightened as she stared past Amina at the multi-colored fall foliage. "Should I be?"
Raymond snorted and fixed his little sister with a decidedly irked look. Glee had explained her circumstances to him earlier in the week, received a great deal of sympathy and, "Tut tut, isn't life a rotter, little cuz?"
Esther batted long dark eyelashes and widened her turquoise eyes as she brushed a thick chestnut curl from her shoulder with a practiced, graceful gesture. Hamilton Cage's blond brows were cocked, his attention given over to Esther as he listened to the exchange. "He was only doing what he thought best, Glee. How can you blame him for that?"
"Indeed, how can I?" Glee tried to moderate her voice carefully, but it came out flat and toneless.
Hamilton Cage watched the graceful shift of Glee's long throat as she turned further away from Esther, and Esther's eyes followed his gaze. She flushed and jerked her focus back to Glee. "It was your own fault for being in that heathen country anyway. Why, any respectable woman would have died before setting foot in that place!"
Glee didn't blink. "A great many respectable women reside there, Esther: European women whose families cannot afford to ransom them from the Sultan, and eastern women who feel it an honor to be part of his harem; quite a few women travel there as tourists, in fact. Until you've been there and seen the beauty, the luxury, the way the Sultan's women are pampered and fawned over, the power of the Sultan's wives, the way they are guarded day and night, you cannot understand what keeps them there. I was only there to observe and chronicle their day-to-day existence."
"It must have been fascinating, Miss Montrose," Hamilton said. His voice held a smile and a note of admiration.
Glee nodded her agreement.
Esther's pink mouth twisted. "If you were only there observing, then why were you bathing with the Sultan's sons? What exactly were you learning, Glee, when they took interest in you?"
Both Raymond and Hamilton Cage gasped, but Raymond recovered quickly. Glee's eyes closed in a flicker of hurt and he slapped his knee with a crack. "What devil has whispered that nonsense in your ear, sister? How dare you even suggest-"
Glee leaned over to put her hand on Raymond's forearm gently. "It's ignorance talking, Raymond. If she understood how the palace household is set up, she would never draw such absurd conclusions."
Hamilton Cage was embarrassed but fascinated. "I, for one, would like to be enlightened, Miss Montrose. Of course, we know that the Sultan and his peers keep a harem of women, but I admit to being deucedly uninformed of the reasons and logistics."
"Oh, really, Hamilton," Esther snapped. "Isn't it obvious why that perverted man would keep a houseful of women slaves?" She blushed. "A lady doesn't discuss such things." She worked her fan with staccato precision.
Hamilton stiffened against the padded gray leather cushions. "I meant no offense, of course."
"None taken, Mister Cage. I'll explain what I learned. You see the household is divided into two sections: the harem or women's quarters, and the selamlik or men's quarters. There are specific areas where men and women might come in distant contact with each other, but that is rare. The Sultan is allowed four wives."
Esther gasped. "Heathens!"
Glee went on as though her cousin hadn't spoken. "According to their religion he is limited in that sense. He may, however, have as many concubines as he can afford to keep."
"A good reason to be very, very rich," Raymond murmured with a wicked smile.
Glee caught his gaze and grinned back. "Oh, but consider the responsibility, cuz. The Sultan, due to his lofty position, is often given women as gifts. When I left, he had over two hundred to care for. He must have an even greater number of eunuchs to maintain order among all these women, all their children, all their servants, all the petty jealousies and rivalries."
"What is a eunuch, anyway? Those two Turks you brought home don't seem so special," Esther whined.
Raymond chuckled and looked toward Glee with a shrug. "Mother would have our heads on a platter, don't you think?"
"I'm not sure this discussion is entirely proper, Raymond," Hamilton Cage began, his ears red.
"Oh, but that's what m
akes it so very amusing, Hamilton, my boy!" A lock of Raymond's light brown hair fell onto his forehead as he turned quickly back to Glee. "Will you tell her, or shall I?"
Glee's brow twisted and she worked at keeping an impish grin off her face. It was just too much fun to sting Esther with her own foolishness. "The problem is, Raymond, that I don't quite remember how it was explained to me. My Turkish wasn't very good at the time, and I think they finally had to show me a picture."
Raymond roared with laughter, and Hamilton sputtered, finally giving way to a nervous chuckle.
"What is so funny?" Esther demanded. She turned to Glee and frowned. "They showed you a picture of what?"
Raymond roared again.
"What?" she shrieked.
Raymond recovered enough to cut Glee off as she opened her mouth to reply. "No, don't, cuz. Let me try."
Glee nodded, an auburn eyebrow quirked with curiosity.
"Ahem," he started in all seriousness. "Perhaps I might illustrate it, pardon the pun, cuz," he said with a smirk toward his smiling cousin, "with horses."
Under Wraps Page 2
