Chapter Three
Istanbul, Turkey, 1925
Sean watched the vivacious young chit as she wound her way through the throngs of people. From his balcony vantage point on the sixth floor of the hotel, his eyes easily found her, clad in a conspicuous red dress and looking for all the world like she was the focal point of one of those paintings where everything else was brown. He had trailed her all the way from Ravenna, where she’d gone with her friends. At first, he had thought she’d finally decided to behave herself and was genuinely holidaying with girls she used to go to school with. But then, she had parted company with them and hopped onto a boat to Greece, from where she had journeyed to her current position, in Istanbul.
He didn’t think she was safe here; he’d heard so many tales of women disappearing around the border without a trace, and while he was sure it wasn’t the Turks doing the kidnapping, there was certainly something amiss. He didn’t want Bobbie to go through the terror of being taken by someone against her will, and possibly being sold to some rich warlord from a neighbouring country, so he had to keep her in his sights at all costs.
More to the point, he wanted to know what she was doing here. He hadn’t glimpsed her travel plans, and it seemed that this time, she was holding her cards very closely to her chest, because she hadn’t informed any of the ticket clerks, car drivers, or hotel assistants of her intended destination. There were plenty of safer places for a young woman to rebel against her parents. And she was rebelling, regardless of how she denied it. While he didn’t really think she should get married if she disliked the idea, she did need to stop fighting her station in life, which was eventually to administer the huge tracts of land her father owned, when he died, and to take care of the five villages that depended on her family’s large and productive estate.
Sean could trace his family back centuries, to a small village near Dunfermline, north of Edinburgh, on the other side of the Firth of Forth. His ancestors had moved to Edinburgh a hundred years earlier because the local laird hadn’t been able to manage his lands, and had ultimately lost them.
Sean had heard the story from his grandfather a thousand times: his family had arrived in Edinburgh with one almost empty suitcase containing all their worldly goods. They had worked all the hours of the day to get out of the poverty trap, and had passed down that relentless work ethic, until a hundred years later, Sean had been left with a comfortable existence, if not an especially wealthy one.
He had a bit of income from other ventures, and enough money that he didn’t really need this job, but his sense of honour dictated that he needed to do his best to protect Bobbie, and his hardworking nature wouldn’t allow him to let her get away from him when she was only going to put herself in more danger.
He watched Bobbie through his field glasses, as she went into a particular shop. When she didn’t come out after ten minutes, he cursed and went indoors, before clattering down six flights of stairs to the entrance hall, where he dashed out of the front door and straight into a tarry sea of people, whose only purpose in life seemed to be to amble, ensuring Sean was moving at the speed of treacle pouring out of a jar. The more energy he put into trying to get down the road, the more resistance the crowd gave him. He retraced Bobbie’s steps and stopped dead when he saw where she’d gone: It was a hairdresser’s shop, and she was getting a cut, by the looks of it.
Was this a good time to make it known that he was here? Probably not. She could escape in any number of ways between the hairdresser’s shop and where her hotel was, to which he was sure she would insist on returning to collect her belongings, giving her the perfect chance to get away. No, this time, he would lure her into a trap.
He breathed, then tried to return to his hotel, but going in the opposite direction to the stodgy crowd was even more difficult, and he found himself jostled, bumped, and shouted at in what he assumed was Turkish before he finally got back to the cool marble hallway, from which it was a quick job to ascend to the correct floor once more.
He settled down to read a book. He’d started The Thirty-Nine Steps recently, which was an exciting adventure set in the Highlands of Scotland, and Sean wanted to know how Richard Hannay was going to get out of his current predicament.
It was unsettling, though, reading about all the intrigue and espionage that the author thought had been going on before the Great War. The trades and deals that took place beneath the surface of the outbreak of war were fascinating, but Sean didn’t want to think about it too deeply, because he didn’t want to know whether he had been fighting on the right side or not. At the end of the day, he’d gone to war because it was the right thing to do and he wanted to keep his country safe. Anything else, any other information, wasn’t important.
He hoped that the Germans were able to make their peace with their role in the fighting, too. He remembered Christmas 1914, the football match, where everyone had gotten out of the trenches, and for a brief moment, there was the distinct sense that everyone involved were people; real people. They all shared humanity and the same adverse situation. They had all signed up to defend their countries, but what were they defending them from? If both sides had just stopped, what would have happened? The conflict had originally been between Austria and Serbia, and yet, in a field in France, school leavers too young to shave from Germany and Britain were stuck in an unmovable standoff, killing one another slowly for no real gain.
So on Christmas Day, they had stopped. Carefully emerged from the trenches. Kicked about an old tin that young Corporal Jenkins had found, because nobody had brought a real football. The offside rule wasn’t even considered. But it was footie. And they hadn’t been able to stretch their legs in weeks. As a lieutenant at the time, Sean knew he shouldn’t have allowed it. He knew there was a good chance he’d get court-martialled for allowing the men to fraternize with the enemy. But for that one shining moment, they had needed to glimpse the fact that the Germans were people, too.
And then they’d all returned to their own sides and the next day they’d picked up their guns and started shooting each other again. Sean got away with letting the football happen because dozens of other lieutenants had made the same decision on Christmas Day, and the British and German armies would have swiftly run out of officers if everyone had been held accountable. It was the politest and least confrontational mutiny in military history.
Sean tried not to remember the fact that young Corporal Jenkins had been killed the very next day by a trench mortar, but now, the young man’s face haunted him again. The lad had been a fantastic footballer. Under other circumstances, he would have played for England. Instead, he lay dead in a field in Flanders.
Sean didn’t like to think about any of it, because it was hard to reconcile the side of him that had shot other men, whose only crime was to be on the other side of No-Man’s Land, with the side of him that only wanted to be protective. He knew he hadn’t survived due to any kind of military prowess; it had been sheer luck that kept him from getting killed for four years. Most of the men who had been deployed in 1914 hadn’t lasted two years out there. It was bad fortune, and nothing more. Sean had hated living in a world where he could be talking to someone one minute, then moving their dead body a moment later. Bobbie, despite her travels and desire for adventure, would never truly understand what that was like, and he hoped for her sake that she never experienced it first-hand.
Being a bodyguard for an heiress was frustrating, but better, somehow. He wouldn’t trade his team’s camaraderie for anything in the world, and if he’d had his time again, he’d join up without hesitation, but… he was still very glad the war was over.
Following Bobbie was a full-time job, but Sean knew he had to take good care of her. She was precious, to her parents if nobody else, and he was determined to ensure she didn’t get herself killed while she was out gallivanting around the world looking for old things. He’d seen too many people he cared about meet untimely deaths, some of them younger than her, and he wanted to make sur
e she was safe.
If only he could convince her to settle down at home, perhaps he’d get a chance to find a girl of his own, instead of constantly chasing after something he couldn’t have. Memories of tying Bobbie up in Sweden came to the fore again, and Sean put his book down to find a cold bath. He wanted nothing more than to bind her with rope like that while she was completely naked, then take her, hard, until she screamed her release and begged him for more.
Chapter Four
Bangkok, Siam, 1925
When he had popped up in Istanbul and attempted to bung her onto the next train back to the land of hope and glory, Bobbie played along until the train reached an out-of-the-way stop, then she had evaded the irritating Scotsman by jumping off the train. After losing him in the crowd, she had hopped back onto the train as it was about to depart the platform once more. She paid him no more thought as she sipped a gin and tonic at the hotel bar in Bangkok.
Now, she stared thoughtfully into a rectangular pool of water into which a stone creature was spitting a trickle of water with a pleasantly soothing sound. Bobbie’s research at the British School at Bangkok—the place where seasoned overseas scholars converged and stored information about their studies of the area—had thrown up a curious account from one thousand years ago and it warranted further investigation.
As far as she understood it, the provenance was a Chinese diplomat who had observed first-hand a great natural disaster in 925AD; precisely one thousand years ago. Bobbie had cross-referenced his story, and while no one else had written about the same series of events, there were other historical accounts that the diplomat had been in the area at the time, and that there was a great earthquake felt all the way to Singapore, where local astrologers had decided Mars was responsible and sacrificed a lot of goats to try to appease him.
The diplomat, however, told it differently. According to him, it had begun with locals disappearing, then there had been rumours of a snake cult, at first tolerated by the mostly Hindu population, because Nagi the seven-headed snake was thought to be a force of protection. Then, however, they had done some sort of ritual. A virgin had been sacrificed, of course.
The details got difficult to understand after that, as the original source was in Chinese, and the British scholar who had translated it clearly thought the whole thing preposterous superstition. Since Bobbie’s Chinese was poor, she couldn’t easily translate it herself, so she had to rely on the English version, which claimed a giant seven-headed snake had been unleashed on the world, and that it had destroyed an area of about one thousand miles with earthquakes, so only the most well-built temples survived. Bobbie had trouble believing a giant seven-headed snake had really appeared, and wished there was another source to explain what had really happened.
However, imaginary snakes aside, she was here to find evidence for the snake cult, so she could write an account about one of the more unique subcultures of the area’s past, and regardless of any embellishments, this first-hand account was good evidence that there had been a snake cult in 925AD, when the Chinese diplomat had visited the area.
It was particularly relevant in the present because Bobbie had found suggestions that another snake cult was emerging, now. She was very excited to find out if it was a continuous thousand-year tradition with well-preserved rituals. So far, she had made discreet enquiries and heard many rumours of a cult in the mountains. Entire families had disappeared, although it was more usual for husbands to go missing. At first, people had thought it was the French, exercising their control in the usual way of western men. But then the green-clad acolytes had appeared. Bobbie still wasn’t sure what the connection was, but she knew she needed to get into the neighbouring country to find out.
What made that difficult was civil unrest had just broken out; a French official had gone to talk to some peasants about a corn shortage, and like oppressed people with sharp agricultural tools the world over, they had responded by bludgeoning him to death.
Colonialism certainly had its advantages, and Bobbie knew she benefited from it, but all the same, it was clear to anyone with half a brain that the barely begun era of westerners showing up around the world and claiming it as their own was drawing to a close. The empire was at the beginning of a decline. She had studied ancient cultures and the rise and fall of so many empires that she didn’t know how Europe could be so arrogant and stubborn as to believe they had the situation in hand around the world. When Britain lost America, it was a turning point as far as Bobbie was concerned.
“Nee-haan, madame. A drink for you.” A waiter placed a gin and tonic beside Bobbie’s almost full glass.
She frowned. “Sorry, but I didn’t order another drink,” she replied.
“It is a gift from the gentleman at table four, madame.” The waiter pressed his hands together as though he were about to pray, then bowed his head in the traditional Siamese greeting. Bobbie bowed her head in return, lifted her glass then looked around for the culprit.
When her eyes settled on the dark-haired man, she raised her chin in a back-to-front nod, raising the glass at the same time, then took a deep draught of liquid. Hopefully he would think she didn’t recognise him. Externally calm, her mind ran through all the escape routes from the building. There was the wooden screen window in the ladies’ toilets. The hotel’s kitchen would have at least two doors, one for deliveries and one for airing the stove. Then there was the main entrance, of course, although it was a long walk across an exposed space and he would easily follow her. The service stairs would end at a door, to ensure any laundry was removed quickly.
She had paid for the room in advance, but she had plenty of funds to keep her going; there had been a ten percent finder’s fee on a hoard she had found two years ago in Egypt, and since she had a title, she had been easily able to get it placed safely in a bank account of her own, rather than one belonging to her father. The greatest nuisances would be having to find another hotel that could whip up a gin and tonic worth a damn, and hiring a trustworthy man to retrieve her things.
It wasn’t the first time she’d made a quick exit from someone who was trying their damnedest to bend her to their will, although this chap was rather dogged. She took off her cardigan and draped it over the back of her chair. She needed to play this slow. Sipping at her drink, she began counting. Exactly one hundred and twenty seconds after removing the cardigan, she stood up, intentionally wobbling a little as she did, so he would think she was drunk. Careful not to overact, she picked her way to the toilet and locked it behind her, then climbed onto the wash basin and pulled out the wooden panel that blocked the window. It made a loud cracking noise as the dry, thin wood splintered, then she cast it to the floor. A few seconds later, there was a hammering at the door.
“I ken you’re in there, lass,” a Scottish voice rang out.
Bobbie rolled her eyes and hoisted herself up to the window ledge, then looked out. There was a ten-foot drop into a river. She sighed.
“Looks like I’m getting wet, then,” she grumbled to herself, as the banging on the door got louder. Mostly, water was a damned nuisance. The best way to draw attention to herself in a city would be to walk around dripping wet. It would attract more notice than her fair skin, which after all could be covered up for the most part with scarves. She slung her handbag diagonally across her body with its long strap, glad that she always kept her passport in a waterproof oilskin pouch, and got ready to jump. The door burst open, banging against the wall as it betrayed her, and she threw herself at the water.
Landing with a splash, Bobbie pressed her lips together against the urge to gasp at the cool water. Even in a city that was this hot, the water was quite nippy. Attempting to move through the water was strongly hampered by her clothing, which seemed to catch all the water and pull her down. She kicked off her shoes and slid out of her heavy skirt, leaving it to float down the river at a leisurely pace. Unfettered by her attire now, she kicked her feet more easily, and quickly swam in her blouse and slip to the side o
f the water.
The Scotsman would be hot on her trail, she knew, so she dodged into a busy market. Silks from China competed for customers’ attention with beautiful lapis-lazuli brooches from India, although the most striking thing was the heady aroma of kaffir lime and lemongrass from the spice stalls. It was enough to make Bobbie’s mouth water, and she remembered with a pang of regret that she’d been about to order lunch when the silly man had interfered.
There wasn’t time to eat, now, regardless of the fact she seemed to have stumbled into an area comprised entirely of exotic street foods, many of which were being cooked on the spot. Bobbie wondered what her parents, who paid an exorbitant salary to their Michelin-recommended chef (her mother insisted that Xavier was a household necessity), would say if they saw her salivating over fried squid tentacles and green eggs.
Dragging herself away from the food and trying to remember the task at hand, she wandered deeper into the bazaar looking for the cheap, ready-made clothing stalls she knew were somewhere around here. Every market had them, and she usually passed them by in favour of real tailoring, but today they would be very useful for a disguise.
Hurriedly, she bought some new off-the-rail clothing while she made her way through the huge thoroughfare, not even bothering to haggle. When she emerged at one of the many ways out of the row of colourful stalls, she was dressed in a thin skirt and headscarf of light green cotton, along with her blouse.
Bobbie’s handbag had survived the river, and she easily checked into another hotel, where she went straight to her room and locked the door. She hoped that was the end of the Scotsman, but something told her he was going to continue being a nuisance for a while. If only there were some way to make him think she had gone back to England, perhaps he would stop bothering her.
Protected by the Scotsman (Stern Scotsmen Book 2) Page 4
