And his mindless cock promptly swelled against her thigh, as if it hadn’t shattered every tenet he’d laid for conducting his life.
But why the hell not? They’d only be married for a week or two at the most.
He tilted her chin up and refused to consider the starved hunger which went into his kiss.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Thank you, Gareth.” Portia sat down in the carriage and tried to keep her words polite. Years of striving to achieve perfection as an always disciplined British countess was no help at all when faced with the man who’d made her body ache in so many wonderful ways. She’d never realized she could be stiff and want to become even more so.
Or look at the cause—and hunger to touch more of the man under the fine clothing. Such as his big hands, which had so easily lifted her for his thrusts last night and eased her onto the quay this morning.
Gareth sat down beside her and sent the high-strung vehicle rocking. She flung her hand out for balance and it landed on his leg—his big, muscular thigh which had so wonderfully propelled her into ecstasy only a few hours earlier.
She hastily snatched her hand back and silently cursed her fingers’ lamentable tendency to linger. A quick tug on both of her short kid gloves hopefully discouraged any further tendencies toward impetuosity.
Fondling Gareth in any manner whatsoever would be dreadfully embarrassing, since Kerem Ali Pasha’s son Adem now sat directly opposite them, ready to assume his duties as guide.
He’d leaped at the opportunity to escape his mother’s fond clucking. He undoubtedly saw this simple bit of sightseeing as an opportunity to show his superior officers he was ready to return to duty. He could have served as an artist’s model for a dangerous young commander, even if their destination was the royal palace.
The clear blue sky hung lazy and welcoming overhead, as if nobody could ever wish ill to this country or want to attack stealthily. The Bosporus flowed steadily south, its waves shifting quietly as desert sand dunes. The Old City glowed under the great mosques’ minarets and domes, like a set of treasure boxes—or scorpion nests. Gareth had flatly refused to take her there, calling it too dangerous.
Their carriage stood on the eastern side, on the great road running north beside the ocean. Forests of Judas trees, vibrant with pink flowers, flowed up the hillsides behind them.
Portia leaned to see where Kerem Ali Pasha’s yali lay to the west, on the Asian side. Her breast brushed against Gareth’s arm like an arpeggio’s completion.
Even through her severe, dark blue dress, a jolt ran through her, stronger and sweeter than a lightning strike.
She shivered and tried to pull away. But Gareth captured her hand, trapping her against him.
“Do you see the yali?” he asked, in that deep, infinitely seductive drawl.
“Yes, of course,” she answered and tried to yank her fingers free. “It’s the pink one, a little northeast of us.”
“It was a gift to my grandfather from the old Sultan,” Adem volunteered. “He was the Chief Secretary, in the days when Topkapi was still the Sultan’s palace.”
“If you look south, toward Hagia Sophia and the harbor, Topkapi Palace is on the promontory.” Gareth was watching her face more than the sights.
Portia eagerly swiveled in her seat, trying to overlook the warm hand holding onto her.
“It’s spectacular.” She turned a little farther, her attention caught by the ships riding at anchor. Dozens of rowboats filled the waters like iridescent beetles, while their larger brethren, the caiques, paddled steadily onward like swans. Small merchant ships swarmed close to Hagia Sophia’s hill, like grubby workmen resting from a hard day’s work.
All of which made the great, white ship in their midst look like an eagle amid a gaggle of pigeons and sparrows.
“What on earth is the Phidaleia doing here?”
“Which ship?” Gareth swung around to follow her gaze.
“HMS Phidaleia. She’s Britain’s newest armored cruiser.”
Speaking the blatant truth sent ice diving from her lips into her gut. Had the warship come to help St. Arles?
She sank back into her seat and tried to chase her skittering thoughts. If the Royal Navy thought highly enough of his plots to back him with one of their best ships…
“Armored cruiser?” Gareth queried, his tone far too soft.
“Ten six inch guns plus six torpedo tubes. She’s fully armored but can make seventeen knots, with a crew of almost five hundred.” She gripped his hand hard, desperate for comfort.
He turned his palm up and locked their grasps, silently uniting them.
The carriage was trotting past an enormous palace, built of glittering white marble. Surely even the most extravagant sultan would not have inlaid his walls with gold or carved them in fantastical shapes like a cross between Versailles and the Arabian Nights.
“You’re very familiar with her and her type,” Gareth observed. His voice was all Kentucky drawl now, which meshed oddly with French words. He must be thinking hard.
“St. Arles is a former naval officer. He only left Britain’s senior service to take up the title when his brother died.” How little he disguised his homesickness for those days, too. “We spent considerable time with his naval friends.”
“On board their ships?”
“Yes, but not the Phidaleia,” she answered Gareth’s unspoken question. “She was only launched a few months ago and is the Admiralty’s pride.”
“She’s here to pay Great Britain’s respects to the Sultan,” Adem announced cheerily, deliberately ignoring their tension. “Next Friday is the Night of Absolution, when Almighty Allah forgives all his creation. Except for a very few of the lowest scum, who we will not soil your ears with, gracious lady.”
His manicured fingers dismissed those vermin like an executioner flinging aside decapitated skulls.
“Is it a festival?”
“It’s one of the five nights, or kandili, when the mosques are lit with candles,” Gareth said brusquely, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“We will pray and lament in the cemeteries for our departed friends and relations,” Adem contributed. “Then we return home, where the elders receive the younger people. There are special foods served, especially desserts to celebrate the dead who walk among us that night.”
“Ah yes, it reminds me of how my grandmother’s relatives decorate the family graves outside Louisville.” Her shoulders eased and she started to relax, pleased she understood at least a little of this unusual country.
“The Sultan always lights the first candle. It’s one of the very few occasions on which he does not attend the mosque next to the palace.” Gareth rapidly drummed his fingers on the carriage’s rim.
Portia’s heart slammed into her throat.
St. Arles had five chances every year to attack the Sultan—and one occurred next Friday? When a top British warship just happened to be in town to support him?
May God have mercy on the Turks, they didn’t know what was about to happen. But how could she tell them? She had no proof; a trunk full of gold was not a sin.
The great marble palace gave way to verdant gardens bordered by the blue ribbon of the Bosporus. Another white palace rose on the opposite shore, as if transported from Renaissance Italy. Two fantastical tents rose beside the water, almost as if fairies had recreated a genie’s pavilions into stone.
A ferry steamed past, promiscuously scattering cinders and fragments of conversation. Two fishermen struggled with a heavy net and a small boat, pulled ever closer to shore by the strong current.
A new palace appeared ahead, standing tall and proud beside the water. White marble like the others, it was carved into narrow, vertical blocks. From a distance, they could have been filled with windows or giant steel bars, despite their fanciful carved frames. A great marble terrace surrounded it, edged by dozens of armed guards.
“What is that building?” Portia raised herself up to get a better view.
“Don’t look at it!” Gareth wrapped his arms around her, heedless of Moslem prohibitions on displaying affection in public, and pulled her face against him. “For God’s sake, Portia, they’ll arrest you if you so much as glance at the windows.”
“Gareth, don’t be silly.” She tried to pull away from him but manacles would have been more flexible. “You’re crushing the feathers in my hat.”
“Mrs. Lowell, the previous sultan, Murad V, is imprisoned in Chiragan Palace,” hissed Adem from barely a foot away.
Portia’s fingers dug into Gareth’s arms, this time for stability in a spinning world.
“If Murad is still alive,” she fumbled for phrases to express her horror.
“He must be,” Gareth said with an experienced street fighter’s brutal assurance, “else Abdul Hamid would never waste so much effort to guard him.”
“And he still has a stronger claim to the throne than his successor.” Years of curtsying and biting her tongue under diplomatic protocol had taught her how to read the nuances of court politics.
“Any revolutionary could use him as a puppet to bless their radical ideas—or sign treaties with a foreign government, if they held him,” Adem added. Passionate entreaty to understand his country’s pain wracked his voice. “He could even invite foreign warships to use his harbor to attack another country.”
Dear God in heaven. Or rather, may Allah have mercy upon the Turkish people.
Portia’s head fell back and she stared into Gareth’s glacier gray eyes.
“Do you understand now?” His thumbs rubbed her shoulders lightly, offering a smidgen of comfort.
“Of course.” She patted his lapels back into place, careful to look nowhere else. He released her and she returned to her previous seat. This time, she sat straight and proud, haughty as any dowager duchess who’d ever snubbed an American heiress.
“If we’re not supposed to cast our eyes upon it,” she remarked and flickered a single glance sideways, “what happens to anybody who sets foot on it?”
“Immediate arrest,” Gareth said simply.
“That’s not too dreadful, is it?”
“And interrogation.” Adem seemed to be deeply involved in counting Judas trees far away from the palace. “There’s a dungeon below stairs, so matters can begin immediately. The Superintendent is the best in the Empire.”
“Dear God,” Gareth whispered. His Adam’s apple plunged up and down in his strong throat, like a prisoner tearing at close-set bars.
One of the fishermen cursed and cut his net free with an immense knife. Silvery fish flashed out of the water then dived into the Bosporus’s blue depths. His fellow dropped onto the bench and began to row rapidly, the muscles of his back bunching and pulling against his thin shirt. Steering did not seem to be important, only speed.
The first man turned his back to the palace, now only a few boat lengths away. He dropped onto the other seat and, soon, he too was rowing hard.
“How much money did they lose?” Portia wondered, her heart aching. “All those fish and their net, too.”
“The seas will offer more mackerel and bass tomorrow.” Adem’s mouth was a thin line, despite his words’ insouciance.
“They also have their lives.” Gareth shoved his long legs hard against the carriage’s frame. “Unlike Murad, who still had music left to write.”
Portia closed her eyes. She might have refused to help St. Arles—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find another way to cause trouble.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“What beautiful tulips!” Portia exclaimed, more than willing to feast her eyes and soul on innocent delights. “Hyacinths and daffodils, too! You never mentioned them to me.”
She tried to glare accusingly at Gareth. It was difficult when all she wanted to do was turn around and stare out the window again at Yildiz Palace’s glorious gardens. So many tall panes of glass allowed the midday sunlight to pour in, until the garden seemed only a breath away.
“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” Adem agreed smugly. “My father says our Sultan kept the best of the old hunting park when he built only a small palace—”
“Small?” muttered Gareth.
“Plus scattered pavilions for himself and key government functions,” Adem finished, and made only the smallest of rude gestures at Gareth.
“It’s truly, truly lovely.” Portia sighed happily. “Thank you for bringing us to this isolated corner. After traveling in Egypt’s deserts, these gardens are especially wonderful.”
“Anything to make a lady happy.” Adem bowed, adding a flourish he must have learned in France.
She strongly suspected he’d actually brought them there to show off the room’s martial decorations. But she nodded back to him and returned to happily eyeing the spectacular blooms. Even this wilder section must be tended by an army of gardeners, to achieve such perfection.
This pavilion at Yildiz Palace was part of the administrative offices, not the Sultan’s personal quarters. The second floor room was apparently designed as a minor functionary’s office but dusty and unused at the moment. Even so, the walls were elegantly paneled and the doors so beautifully made that it was hard to see where one began and the other ended.
The room’s biggest distinction was the knives and daggers spiraling around the corner pillar like scorpions on the alert. Centuries and continents had combined to build the collection into spikes and curves, a rippling river of potential murder from Asia to Africa, Europe to America.
Gareth walked his fingers up to another sharp-edged toy and slid sideways, wiping his reflection from the window in front of her.
Portia rolled her eyes. Gareth would probably still be playing with knives in his coffin.
“What do you think of them?” Having satisfied his excuse for being here, Adem headed toward his friend. “Have you seen all of these before?”
The door slammed open, banging against the wall like a drum. Almost simultaneously, another door slid open in the paneled wall like a glimpse into hell.
A half dozen, masked young men poured into the room. They had the thick muscular bodies of men willing and able to use their strength, not cheapened by wealth or alcohol.
Adem whirled to face them. Before he could even shout, two of them charged him and brutally, efficiently, knocked him out with small wooden clubs.
Her skin froze onto her bones.
“Portia! To me!” Gareth was free of the pillar, a weapon flashing in each hand.
Her feet took her to him, not her mind. Safely behind his back, her heart slamming against her chest, she tried to think.
She could help. She had to help. But how? Attack somebody—but with what? Call for help—but who would hear?
“What do you want?” Gareth was speaking French, his tone as rigidly precise as an executioner’s blade.
She had to watch so she slowly turned around, grateful her walking dress didn’t drag on the floor to kick up much noise.
“Give us the trunk and we’ll let you live,” ordered the one wearing a red mask.
“If I do not?” Gareth sounded calmer than when he was cutting cheese.
“We will kill you then seize the woman and the trunk.”
“Oh no, you won’t, my friends.” Gareth shook his head slowly. His expression hadn’t changed at all.
“You are only a puny westerner and we outnumber you six to one. You have no hope of defeating us.”
“What do you know of me?” Gareth countered—and spun the knife and tomahawk in his hands. Her bowie knife, which she’d given him so many years ago, and a tomahawk snatched from the wall. Bright blades flashed in front of his fingers then came to rest once again, ready to kill.
Only long familiarity would permit that move. He’d marked his turf and announced how nastily he could defend it.
Their attacker stared at the tomahawk’s broad head, good for both crushing and cutting. Several of his followers backed up a step.
“The chest is our path to the fut
ure.” Their chief attacker snapped his shoulders back and popped a knife out of his sleeve. “We will do whatever is needed to obtain it.”
“Blood feud?” Gareth inquired. Icy shadows lurked in his eyes.
Portia’s knees were shaking. He didn’t sound or look as if he cared, at least not for himself.
One attacker crept closer to him and Gareth whirled his tomahawk over his finger toward the fool.
The young man froze, his eyes very wide. Then he slid back into place, tidy as a sardine tin being returned to the cupboard.
“Blood feud,” the leader asserted and sneered at Gareth. “You westerners know nothing of the fighting which comes from the heart, not the mind. If it takes every man in my clan, we will win.”
“You can try.” Gareth’s lips curved into something a shark would have admired. “When you do, be sure to remember I come from two centuries of war between tribes. When I was twelve, I saw my mother and sisters burned alive—yet I alone survived.”
Portia’s heart wrenched in two. She started to reach toward him to comfort him then yanked her hand back.
Oh, my poor darling, no wonder you never talked about your parents.
“I killed every murderous bastard in the other family and became my clan’s only survivor.” For the first time, Gareth’s expression turned lambent with the need to fight. “I was adopted by a far greater clan of warriors, to which this lady belongs.”
Appalled realization swept through their enemies’ eyes and made more than a few feet shuffle.
Gareth’s chuckle held more anticipation than mirth.
Dear God, she couldn’t allow him to be hurt.
Portia frantically looked around once again.
“You are welcome to try to kill me.”
Surely Gareth didn’t want them to, no matter how careless his shrug.
“Even if you do, I will take many of you with me to my grave—then laugh when her family tramples on your remnants.”
Portia snatched a massive bronze lamp off the desk next to her and hurled it through the window, which exploded into a glittering cascade.
The Devil She Knows Page 18
