The Harem Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  With sad smiles and soft kisses on her cheek, the two young odalisques bade farewell. Tears fell. The girls replaced their veils, picked up the tray and the ewer that had contained fruit juice, and departed, leaving only the inevitable eunuchs standing guard outside the curtained archway. Once again, Penny was alone. Carefully avoiding so much as a glance at the huge divan-style bed set against one wall, she slumped against the bank of cushions and indulged in dire thoughts. She acquitted Ayshe and Leyla of being part of any conspiracy. Undoubtedly, they were as deluded as she herself. At the end of the wedding feast, attended only by men, with dancing girls for entertainment, the Sultan’s Chief Executioner would step forward and lop off Jason’s head.

  And that unsatisfactory odalisque, Gulbeyaz, would be next.

  Penny shivered, crossed her arms over her royal blue brocaded waistcoat, and waited for her fate.

  Jason thought himself a man of the world, though, truthfully, his experience with women was not great. In the environs around Rockbourne Crest he had learned a thing or two from a willing tavern wench and had expanded on these interludes of exploration during his years at Oxford. Yet, although his rank kept all but his best friends from mentioning it, Lord Lyndon tended toward the bookish. Indeed, his friends frequently groaned as they struggled to learn what Jason absorbed not only easily, but with relish. The two who accompanied him on the Grand Tour had had private, and somewhat crusty, instructions from the Earl of Rocksley to make sure that his son enjoyed foreign attractions other than all that demmed art and architecture. And they had gleefully complied, until the young viscount’s attention was wholly caught up in the rescue of Miss Penelope Blayne. If anyone had thought to ask, each of Jason’s friends would have said the viscount was the last man on earth to become a rake. That his interest in women was appreciative, but bordered on the academic. A fine piece of sculpture or an illuminated manuscript brought a far greater gleam of interest than the most enticing female. His friends shook their heads. Odd, very odd indeed.

  So on the night the Sultan, the Grand Vizier, and selected members of the court finally rose from their cushions and indicated that the newly married man might go, Jason was inclined to fancy he knew how Mary, Queen of Scots, felt while walking toward the axeman. He had married a schoolgirl, a perfect stranger. A hundred lascivious eyes would be watching, yet he could not touch her. Bedding Penelope Blayne was not only against his own inclinations but against every code of honor he had ever been taught. She was little more than a child. A family connection under his protection.

  Yet they were married. The marriage lines were tucked inside his jacket. The efficient Mr. Hunt had even provided a register for them to sign.

  Married. A life sentence.

  Jason’s guide pushed velvet draperies aside, motioned for him to enter. She was there, his schoolgirl bride, kohl-rimmed blue eyes wide above her veil. She straightened abruptly, then going to her knees, bowed low. Hell and damnation, what was this nonsense? They were alone . . .

  But, of course, they were not. He had never thought they would be. Faik, the bundle woman, even Lord Elgin, had warned him that a palace, particularly an Ottoman palace, had a thousand eyes.

  “A salaam is not necessary. We are alone,” Jason said carelessly, as if he truly believed it. He folded himself down beside her, staring, tongue-tied, as he realized even more fully that neither his knowledge of the classics, his limited knowledge of women, nor his total lack of knowledge about schoolroom misses was going to come to his aid. They were trapped in a final bumblebroth, from which there might be no escape.

  She knew. She knew about the watching eyes and ears. Otherwise he was quite certain she would have thrown herself into his arms and wept for joy. Or did she, perhaps, know something he did not? Would neither of them leave the palace alive?

  Jason leaned forward, unfastened his bride’s veil. And swore—a sharp exclamation he managed to swallow before it left his lips. The female before him was not a child. From her high forehead, plucked brows and kohl-enhanced eyes to her softly painted cheeks and lips, she was a woman of infinite beauty. About her clung the scent of roses, possibly cloves, and other mysterious odors that enticed his senses and dizzied his mind.

  Heaven help him!

  “They are watching,” he whispered, “I am certain of it. The mosaic over the bed, the intricate designs on the walls—all could hide peepholes.”

  Gulbeyaz, the well-trained odalisque, merely nodded, her eyes properly lowered to her lap.

  “The lanterns are deliberately placed too high for me to reach,” Jason continued. “There will be no darkness. Do you understand? We will have to pretend.” He paused, silently cursing all Ottomans and foolish Englishwomen who dragged innocent virgins into danger. “Penelope,” he sighed, “do you have any idea what I’m talking about? Can you possibly know what it is we must pretend?”

  Penny’s chin came up and her eyes flashed in a most un-odalisque temper. “You are so English,” she hissed. “So blind. I have been in a harem for more than a month, and you think I might not know! Do not be absurd.”

  He’d married a shrew, by God! All he had sacrificed for this little chit, and she was mocking him.

  “There is no need to pretend,” she told him grandly, if still very softly. “I have been well trained. I am ready to do what is expected of me.”

  Jason ducked his head, fist to his mouth, finally remembering to cover his shock by a fit of coughing. Good God, what was she saying?

  Gulbeyaz removed her jeweled kalpock and long trailing veil, tossing them aside. She ran her hands through her long silver blonde hair, which shimmered like a waterfall in the torchlight. Jason drew in his breath, even as his arousal, already quickened, strengthened very much against his will. “You must go to the divan,” she said. “I may not come to you until after you are settled.”

  “Wha-at?” Lord Lyndon murmured, all too aware the situation was slipping out of his control.

  “The woman enters the bed after the man,” Penny stated patiently. “They will be watching to see that I remember my training. Do you not understand? It is not only that they wish to be sure we are together as man and wife. I fear if I do not do everything in the manner in which I have been taught, they may not let us go.”

  Jason swallowed his protest. She might well be right. Yet he must not touch her.

  But he had never seen a woman so beautiful, a woman with skin so soft, so sweetly smelling that he wanted only to lose himself in her. And her eyes . . . he had seen many practiced looks of enticement, but never anything like those of his bride. Penelope’s eyes glowed with lustrous and inviting warmth. Was it possible she cared for him, or was she merely grateful for her rescue? Whatever the cause, there was no doubting her sincerity. She was magnificently beautiful, warm, willing.

  She was his wife.

  And he was bloody well old enough to know better! He was the elder by five years and would have to keep his head, even if little Penny could not.

  Penny, ha! This was not Penelope Blayne. The Ottomans were right. This was—what did they call her—Gulbeyaz? This was an odalisque bent on making a blithering idiot of him. He would show the blasted little chit that he was a man of the world. Somehow they would get through this night with Penny still a virgin, yet with the Sultan and his court convinced that he had properly consummated his marriage. Whether or not he could do this and still have his wife’s eyes glow with adoration was another matter entirely.

  Abruptly, Jason stood and found his way to a corner of the room, sheltered by an intricately carved wooden screen. There he washed and relieved himself and abandoned his English clothing, putting on the thin white linen robe that was waiting for him and concealing in his hand the tiny vial of blood Faik had procured for him at the bazaar. Lord Lyndon had not asked what kind of blood; he did not wish to know.

  Gulbeyaz, the White Rose, torn between the knowledge she had become an actress on an Ottoman stage and the thrill of thinking how surprised her new husband would
be when he discovered all she had learned in the art of pleasing a man, could barely contain her excitement. While Jason, her dearest rescuer Jason, her dream lover, was occupied behind the screen, the White Rose sat in the welter of cushions with her legs crossed, eyes cast down, hands folded demurely in her lap—all for the benefit of watching eyes. But she could not help peeping from under her lashes, waiting for the grand moment when Jason Lisbourne, her husband, the most wonderful sight in all the world, would reappear. When he did, golden head high and proud, her eyes followed him as he crossed to the divan, clutching the beltless white linen robe, turned nearly transparent beneath the flickering lantern light. He whipped back the top of the sea-green duvet, dropped the linen robe in a puddle at his feet, and settled himself on one side of the great divan.

  The White Rose caught her breath. Her husband was as beautiful as she had imagined. She was the most fortunate of women.

  Rising to her feet with nimble grace, she put aside her diaphanous azure silk robe. She removed her waistcoat of blue brocade and her gem-studded gold girdle. Then, ever conscious of the multitude of eyes applied to peepholes in the walls, perhaps even the ceiling, she moved toward the foot of the bed, still clad in her wide-sleeved white gauze tunic and the transparent azure silk trousers, tightly gathered to her ankles. For a moment, Miss Penelope Blayne of Pemberton Priory, Kent, came to the fore. Merciful heavens, she was parading in transparent garments before what could be half the Sultan’s court!

  She was doing what she must to go home.

  And then she was at the foot of the great bed, and she saw her husband’s eyes upon her and knew that he had watched her every step of the way, just as she had watched him. Inwardly, Gulbeyaz smiled. Then she lifted the duvet and climbed into the bed at her husband’s feet, sending the plump sea-green cover into a series of undulations like that of the rolling sea.

  “Penelope . . . Penny!” Jason choked. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Only what I have been taught, my lord,” came the muffled reply from Gulbeyaz, the White Rose, former odalisque of his Magnificence, Sultan Selim the Third, ruler of the Ottoman Empire. “Only what I have been taught.”

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Nine

  Morning came, as mornings inevitably do. Jason could scarcely look at his child bride. That she was still a virgin was a miracle. No one would ever know what it had cost him, just as he was quite determined no one would ever know he had failed to maintain his much-vaunted English fortitude, spilling his seed like a puling boy with his first woman. Thoroughly mortified, he was unprepared for his bride’s good humor as she playfully slapped his fingers when, after delivery of a breakfast tray of fruit and cheese, he reached for a cluster of grapes with his left hand. Evidently, the little minx was well pleased with the night they had spent together. Truthfully, why should she not be pleased? There had been enough activity under the covers to satisfy the most lascivious peeping Tom. And there would be blood on the sheets, of that he had made certain, though Penelope’s eyes had widened when she saw it, and he had been further embarrassed by being forced to whisper an explanation in her ear.

  Jason looked up, to discover his wife’s eyes fixed on his face. Huge blue eyes, solemn, questioning, no longer playful. “Time to get dressed,” the viscount said, feigning a confidence he did not feel. Wordlessly, she nodded, adjusting her golden girdle before donning her kalpock, her veil, and the all-encompassing pink feradge. The viscount called a guard to help him with his boots.

  This was it, then. The moment when they would discover if they would exit the Topkapi Palace via the gate or, having provided an evening’s entertainment for the court, would they exit the grounds through the gardens, fastened into sacks, unwanted flotsam to be tossed into the waiting Bosphorus?

  Jason took Penny’s arm. Together, they stepped forward, following the two guards who had spent the night outside their room. The walk seemed endless. Neither saw a thing around them. Eyes forward, keep walking. Pray.

  At the moment the cone-shaped towers and crenellated archway of the Gate of Salutations came in sight, both thought them the most wonderful sight they had ever seen. The guards stood back, salaamed. Lord and Lady Lyndon passed through.

  And before them was an open carriage, with Faik beside the driver and Miss Cassandra Pemberton sitting, regally straight-backed and shaded by her utilitarian tan parasol.

  They drove straight to the docks, where Lord Elgin had arranged passage on a Portuguese vessel bound for Lisbon. The sooner the young couple were out of reach of the Ottoman Empire, the better. Theoretically, this invisible line of empire began in the waters off Italy. More realistically, the Ottoman influence extended the length of the Mediterranean, a very long distance indeed. No one, from Lord Lyndon to the stalwart ship’s captain, would feel completely safe until they passed through the straits of Gibraltar.

  Miss Penelope Blayne, totally oblivious to the nuances flying around her, was enveloped in a cloak of euphoria. Within minutes of their ship hoisting sail and getting underway, she had slipped out of the cabin she was to share with her Aunt Cass and raced to the deck, looking back at the receding skyline of Constantinople, most particularly on the domes and turrets of the Topkapi Palace, as if she could scarce believe the miracle of her escape. She was free. She was back with Aunt Cass and Noreen. She was married to dearest Jason. Wonderful, darling Jason who had risked his life to save her. Surely theirs was a romance worthy of an epic poem, to be recounted by troubadours in feast halls throughout the western world . . .

  Penny, leaning on the ship’s rail, turned her face into the wind and heaved a great sigh. There might still be feast halls in the Ottoman Empire, but in the world to which she was returning those days were long gone. For the first time it occurred to her that the story of her captivity, the tale of her marriage and wedding night with Jason Lisbourne would not be considered an epic love story in London. Far from it. Her experiences in Constantinople were enough to ruin her forever, no matter how finely the tale might be tuned.

  And where was he? she wondered. Jason, accompanied by his two companions and their servants, had disappeared as soon as they boarded, as if he were a chance-met acquaintance who simply happened to be traveling on the same ship. By the time Noreen came to tell Penny her presence was required by Miss Pemberton, the high spirits of the former Gulbeyaz had plummeted considerably. Only a few minutes earlier, she had expected her private reunion with Aunt Cass to be filled with pure joy. Now, she was not so sure. It was possible—nay, likely—there would be some very awkward questions.

  Oh, dear God, was she well and truly ruined?

  While on deck Penny remained shrouded in the pink feradge, well aware that the brilliant sunlight sparkling off the Sea of Mamara would turn her azure silk robe and shalwar almost wholly transparent. Now, as she entered her cabin, she realized how very strange she must appear to an aunt whose eccentricities had never extended to anything more daring than a split skirt for riding on a camel. Penny threw off the feradge, tossed her kalpock and veil onto the bed, and fell to her knees, burying her face in her aunt’s lap. Tears burst from both ladies, and it was some time before any coherent words could be distinguished.

  First came Penny’s apology, over and over, “I’m sorry, so very sorry, Aunt Cass. Forgive me for wandering off, for causing you so much grief.” To this, Miss Pemberton made the expected denials of any guilt on Penny’s part. A strong woman who seldom displayed emotion of any kind, Cassandra Pemberton was on shaky ground, wandering in a slough of sentiment to which she was totally unaccustomed. The child was safely returned. She should be content. But she was Penny’s guardian, as well as her aunt. She had a responsibility . . .

  Miss Pemberton forced herself to the inevitable question. “You are married to Lyndon, my dear?”

  Penny raised her huge blue eyes, shimmering with tears, yet glowing with love. “Oh, yes, Aunt. He was quite, quite wonderful. Like a knight rescuing a maiden in a fairy tale.”

  Miss
Pemberton paused, flicking a glance out the porthole, as if she might find there a solution to this uncomfortable moment. “And you spent the night with him?” she inquired carefully.

  “Yes, of course.” Frowning, Penny searched her aunt’s face.

  Miss Pemberton made a small sound that sounded suspiciously as if she were strangling. “And may I assume that young devil had sense enough not to touch you?”

  “He is my husband!” Penny protested, reverting quite suddenly to the White Rose of the seraglio.

  “Penelope!” cried Miss Pemberton, much shocked. “Never say—”

  “They were all watching, you see,” Penny burbled. “We were actors on a stage. Our performance had to be perfect. Even the blood—”

  “Blood! What blood?” Cassandra Pemberton cried.

  “The blood on the sheets. Jason laid the coverlet back so they would be certain to see—”

  “Oh, dear God,” Miss Pemberton groaned, hugging Penny tight. “Say no more. Men are an untrustworthy lot. We are far better off without them.”

  Penny, who had suffered through far too much in the past few weeks, did not attempt to analyze what had just happened. She was simply glad to be back where she belonged. Later, she would wonder if Aunt Cass had misinterpreted her remarks. Did her aunt believe she had lost her virginity? And what if she had? She was, after all, married to dearest Jason. And there would be time enough to mend matters when they were all back in England. At the moment, Penny wished only to put the days in Constantinople behind her. Except, of course, for the moments with Jason, which she would treasure forever and ever. And ever.