The court flunkey’s voice rose slightly from beside the window, answering a question.
“The procession is about to start,” Gareth translated. His cool tone could be interpreted as anything from anticipation of a social event to sorrow that a prospective fight had been postponed.
St. Arles’ faint snarl promised that the battle would occur.
“Bring the trunk here tomorrow.” He shoved a small card toward Portia.
It somehow looked and smelled like a cobra, ready to spit poison at anyone who touched it.
“No.” Her fingers dug slightly into Gareth. “I can’t deliver it to the people here.”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“Giving it to you would be like opening Pandora’s box—and Constantinople’s people have done nothing to deserve that.”
Gareth’s strong arm tightened under her hand, providing silent agreement with her decision.
“You crazy slut!” St. Arles took a step toward her and Gareth blocked him immediately.
“Do you realize what you’re doing? By God, I will destroy those sniveling servants.”
“You can try—and you will fail,” Gareth snarled.
“We have the trunk—” Portia tried for a civilized conversation, given their audience.
“All I have to do is reach out my hand to take it back from you,” St. Arles snapped, the muscles in his neck standing out like ropes ready to fling themselves at his enemies.
“Gentlemen, lady,” the court flunkey reproved, sleek and dignified in his uniform. “May I ask you to join us at the window? Prayers are about to begin.”
“Prayers? I’ll show you what that nonsense is worth.” St. Arles shoved past him and elbowed aside a high-ranking Moslem priest in his haste to depart.
The courtier’s alarmed gasp made more than one head turn to see the cause. Only the British ambassador’s quick gesture of apology stopped a guard from arresting St. Arles for insulting the priest.
For two cents, Portia would have stolen the guard’s rifle and used it herself.
The door’s violent slam marked a boor’s exit and a rattlesnake’s return to its lair, ready to build poison for another strike.
Chapter Twenty-five
St. Arles strode warily down the narrow alley, alert for the promised glimpse of a mosque. In this world of rolling roofs, arched lintels, and slender windows, stray cats were more confident than mere humans. Foul brown liquid dripped onto green vines from ancient bricks. Wooden buildings jostled each other like drunkards and crackled at every corner like hags good only for one last bit of gossip.
For some good rum, he’d have brought all of his old shipmates along with him to ward off the prying eyes watching every step.
The excuse for a road jogged right and then left again immediately, bringing the nearest hovel’s eaves over the pavement.
A small gray tabby drowsed on a windowsill, the lone observer. He rolled and stretched a paw high in the air, as if to raise the all clear sign.
Amused, St. Arles returned the salute, grateful for the good luck token.
A single minaret rose directly ahead, like a candle on a banquet table.
At least something still behaved according to plan.
St. Arles took a quick step to the right, spun, and ducked through an open doorway into the meager excuse for a room behind it.
Here an ancient oil lamp spluttered and fought the shadows to reveal broken stools scattered amidst furniture makers’ clamps. The attics at St. Arles Castle were cleaner and more welcoming. But he’d wager a year’s rents that if he returned in an hour—or if the Sultan’s spies appeared—only impoverished, ignorant upholsterers would be discovered.
Four men spanned the wall facing him, clearly blocking the best escape route from this rat hole. They were undoubtedly natives and possibly kinsmen, given their dark hair and stocky build. Everything about them, from their suspicious expressions to their hands only millimeters away from their weapons, suited this district. Except for their well-fed air.
“Greetings,” he said shortly. The sooner he finished with them, the sooner he could have a decent meal at the ambassador’s home.
“Sir,” the eldest returned in a tone which implied the title was only a formality.
“When can you fetch me the chest?” St. Arles went straight to business. At least these foreigners had enough education to speak French.
“That’s not part of the bargain,” the appointed speaker retorted. “You were to bring us the trunk, then we would secretly deliver it to the palace.”
“That problem is your fault. If you hadn’t gone against my orders and tried to steal it from the hotel, the stupid female wouldn’t be frightened enough to hide behind that American.”
“At a state secretary’s heavily guarded yali,” his so-called ally added. “I thought she had brought it here at your command.”
St. Arles sincerely wished a single glance would make them all choke on their own cleverness.
“How many men will you have to proclaim the revolution after we deliver the chest?” he asked and moved in, close enough to split them. “I’m sure you’ll want to proclaim your reformist decrees in as many places as possible.”
“Enough.” His opponents didn’t quite look at each other.
“Are you certain?” he prodded, pleased with their response. Poor bastards couldn’t even attack him, since it would be months before the embassy would send out a replacement. He was their only hope for a speedy revolution.
“If we hold Constantinople, we hold the empire,” answered the slender one in the rear. He brushed past the others to come forward into the light, bright as a freshly sharpened knife.
“We guarantee we’ll control Rumeli Hisar, plus the other forts here and along the Dardanelles, sailor boy,” their foremost speaker added far too quietly. A blade spun casually between his fingers. “You may want to sail your fleet through here to attack Russia—”
Damn their eyes, they knew all too well exactly how to block him, while he could only bargain with gold or a new Sultan. Bullets in their obstinate backs would be far more satisfying.
Was there nothing the Turks held dear, other than their damnable pastel palaces which they’d built by selling their revenues to foreigners?
By God, he’d demand nothing less than a marquisate for pulling this off.
He stretched his lapels and tried to pretend they were proper Europeans.
“Two years ago, Russia nearly swept into India through Afghanistan. When we tried to protect her by all means necessary, your Sultan stopped us.”
“You mean he would not let you start your war from our territory,” the other youth stepped forward into the light, betraying fashionable French attire. Entirely too much intelligence sharpened his gaze.
“Taking our fleet through the Dardanelles and past Constantinople to attack Russia’s only warm water port,” St. Arles spun to face each of them in turn, his fingertips only millimeters from his gun. “Your lives and land would never have been at issue.”
“But our honor and national pride would have been. We would have become a British satrapy,” the younger man added bluntly and stepped back to assume his guard post again.
Damn the fellow for plain speaking on a matter of foreign affairs. St. Arles shook out his coat, wishing it was a naval uniform.
“Your ships will have safe passage, Mr. Englishman.” The elder’s broad shoulders almost blocked out the room’s few rays of sunshine. “But it will be done by treaty after we have our revolution. We will have reforms, as in the days of the Tanzimat.”
“You can’t turn back the clock to fifty years ago.” Damn, but it was enjoyable to turn the knife in their pride even a small bit. He eyed each one of their outfits in turn then curled his lip at their pitiful attempts at fashion.
Somebody stiffened and metal snicked against leather.
St. Arles allowed himself a small, contented smile and returned to the main door. Unfortunately, the superiorit
y of British styles and customs was recognized for all too short a time.
“Will the revolution still occur next Friday?” The leader’s voice boomed through the house, stately as a minister reading the Sunday lesson from the pulpit. “Even though you don’t have the chest?”
Damn, damn, damn. St. Arles caught himself an instant before he would have killed the filthy heathen for implying an Englishman could fail.
He should have strangled the bitch instead of letting her off with a divorce. A more obstinate, uncooperative guarantee for trouble he’d never encountered.
He could not show weakness, especially not there and now. He needed time—to win this game, then kill the slut.
He made his turn into an excuse for lounging against the door. Would any of these idiots break ranks? No, they were all back in their mulish circle, eyeing him like the jailer come to lock them up again. Dolts.
“Yes, of course, the revolution will still go forward exactly as planned,” he answered, his bonhomie smooth enough to please even Whitehall.
Because no matter how much he loathed dealing with these idealistic donkeys, they were still his only chance of blocking the Ottoman garrisons. Without them, there’d be no revolution—and no British warships in the Dardanelles or at Russia’s throat.
Chapter Twenty-six
The evening sunlight drifted over the Bosporus, turning it into a fools’ highway paved with gold. Dozens of steamers huddled at its crossroads, as if hoping for a prurient glimpse into the Topkapi Palace’s harem. None of them were warships, only merchants.
The Moslem call to prayer echoed faintly from dozens of minarets, then silence. The perfect peace of prayer and meditation. Even thieves didn’t tend to disturb sunset prayer.
Gareth enjoyed Moslem countries for that accomplishment. Only they could guarantee him at least one hour every day when no fighting made ghosts erupt out of his past.
Portia was triggering rustling noises from the dressing room. She’d been doing much of that for the past day, ever since they’d come back from seeing the Sultan visit the mosque—and talking to that filthy British earl.
As long as Gareth heard her like this, he knew she was well. She spooked a little too easily if he tried to help her dress or watched her too blatantly.
As soon as he got her out of here, he was going to grant himself the pleasure of hunting down her bastard of an ex-husband and destroying him like a cockroach. He’d already discarded at least five methods as being too gentle.
Lovely ladies like her should be cherished. Anybody who did differently should be destroyed.
She pushed open the door. The shutters’ filtered light framed her brighter than any rainbow and just as unlikely to fulfill a man’s dream.
“Plums?” she asked, holding up a bowl of the tart green fruit.
He had to clear his throat before he could speak.
“Not now, thank you. It’s too close to dinner.”
She sat down on the divan to watch the Bosporus with him, clad in yet another of those frilly tea gowns. His blood promptly remembered the pleasures that lay underneath the silken confection and the barriers which did not, such as a corset, and surged into motion.
He cursed under his breath, not in English or French, then settled a little more against the yali’s bedroom window and stretched his shoulders. Adjusting his trousers would be better but there was no easy cure for their tight fit. Leaping upon his wife—God help him, what was he doing with one of those?—to satisfy his own lust would be a sure route to hell for both of them.
Perhaps he’d borrow some horses tomorrow and take Portia riding, with grooms in attendance, of course. Or maybe he’d try to take her a little farther north to one of the summer resorts; that should be safe enough for both of them.
Somewhere she could relax and become a hoyden again, as she’d been before that damned ride across Arizona. Somewhere she could laugh and yell her objections to idiocy and hurl herself into life.
She’d never been the same since she headed back East after that trip. She’d been a high-strung filly who warranted gentle handling, and his clumsiness, when he knocked her cold, had hurt her badly. Now it was his duty to heal her.
Nothing else mattered. Certainly nothing he wanted for himself did, even if he had any right to those desires.
POP! POP! The small explosions burst through the room, almost rolling over each other.
Gareth whirled toward the source, his knife automatically sliding into his hand.
Portia looked up, ready to throw another plum pit through the window into the water. Her blue eyes were as large and round as her mouth. They were also far guiltier than any time her stepmother had caught her throwing rocks as well as any boy.
Gareth rubbed his forehead then sheathed his big bowie knife. He’d never previously seen much need to carry a smaller blade.
At least she didn’t look frightened of him.
“Sorry,” she said in a very small voice.
He waved off the problem, wishing he could escape what she looked like as easily. The blond curls so loosely pinned up and meant to caress that slender white neck—or wrap around his hand while she pleasured his cock…
“It’s not important,” he assured her quickly. “I should have warned you I had one.”
She leaned forward and ran her hands down the front of her thighs, stretching the fine silk over her waist and hips.
“It’s just that I can’t stop thinking about our meeting with St. Arles,” she confessed.
“Are you worried that he’ll hurt you?” Gareth dropped his knife and its scabbard onto the table beside the bed then knelt beside her. “Honey, he can’t touch you.”
“He was furious. What will he do to—”
“Your friends?”
“Or the people here in Constantinople? He’s already gone back on his word to me and started destroying his own servants, the cur.” Angry and desperate, her goddess’s face would inspire men to take up arms. Then it crumpled into desperation.
“But what if he’s so angry at my refusal to help him that he becomes nastier to Constantinople’s inhabitants? He could shatter any deals he’d made with them. Perhaps start a revolution and turn this country into an empty husk, even kill his current allies lest they prattle about him.”
“Portia.” He grabbed her hands before they crushed a plum into oblivion.
“Gareth, it would be my fault,” she whispered. A single tear swam onto her eyelash.
“For the love of God, Portia, do not blame yourself for another man’s deeds. Any evil St. Arles does is because he himself chooses to.”
“But I can’t stop wondering—”
“If you don’t stop thinking about it, you will go mad. God help me, I know that all too well.”
Because I spent that entire monsoon season in Indochina, trying not to let the rain remind me of Kentucky mountains and make me escape into a bullet.
“Gareth, it would be my fault if—” she persisted.
He gave her the only escape he’d ever found which worked for any time.
He snatched her into his arms and kissed her with a man’s hunger, heedless of any shyness she might still have. She stilled, her hands fluttering on his arms like butterflies, before she tentatively held on.
He kissed her again, stroking her with his mouth, sharing his need, drowning her in hunger and desperation, where nothing existed but passion. Thought had no place here, only the body’s demands—and somehow an instinctive recognition of the other person with him.
She made an indistinct noise deep in her throat. Her lips opened under his and her tongue matched his. She softened to match his angle, surged to meet him.
His skin heated, blood rocking through as if it could leap across to her veins.
Her slender fingers lightly caressed his head, like angel’s wings.
“Portia.” By God, he wanted more. He pushed her back onto the divan and undid her tea gown, his fingers fumbling at the tiny buttons like a boy. Him, who�
�d undressed dozens of concubines and bored matrons.
Silk ripped, short and sharp and rough, like the sound of their breathing above the seagulls’ sibilant cries.
His cock thrust against his pants like a wild beast, desperate to find sanctuary between her white limbs.
She wrapped her leg around him and lifted her hips, needy little sounds breaking from her throat. She smelled of sweet cream and salty musk, woman and spring and homecoming.
And absolutely not his future.
With his last remnant of sanity, he forced himself to find a condom and rolled it onto his now-free cock.
He pushed her skirts aside and tested her with his hand. Wet, more than wet enough, yet he lingered to pleasure her and tease her.
“Gareth, please!”
He rolled her onto her back and knelt between her legs. God help him, she threw one leg over his hip.
He lifted her hips and plunged into her, tormenting himself with possessing her utterly, as if he owned her, as if she’d always belong to himself alone, as if she was his past, his present, and his future. As if the sweet sheath clamping down on his cock was meant to welcome him.
And he rode her like a madman, seeking only wild pleasure for them both.
She gave it back to him, hurling herself up at him, sinking her fingers into his shoulders and rubbing her legs over him.
It was too much—and he came far too soon, shouting her name like a teenage boy. His seed bolted out of his loins as if the only safe haven was her body, wrenching him apart in a series of long paroxysms. He hung suspended, somewhere in midair, ecstatic—and appalled that Portia Townsend could tear his world apart.
He barely had wits enough to fondle her pearl and ensure she too would find rapture.
Holding onto her afterward felt like grasping the greatest risk of his life.
He panted, sweat congealing on his skin like glue to bind them together. He began to count the seconds until he could speak soberly again.
Her slender fingers slipped up his chest in a trail of fire to unbutton his shirt.
The Devil She Knows Page 17
