The Harem Bride

by Blair Bancroft

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jason leaned against the gray marble mantel in a salon adjacent to the dining room and examined his wife from beneath lowered lashes as she entered the room, sweeping toward him as if she had no other care but procuring a glass of sherry for herself. Her gown was one of her more cheerful ones, he noted sourly, made of some shade of green that did not look as if it were the darkest hue she could find. And she was actually wearing a bit of jewelry, an emerald of fine cut and color dangling from a chain of gold. For once, she looked a step above the drab creature any member of the ton would dismiss as a governess, companion, or poor relation upon first glance. In addition, her trip to the village must have improved her temper as well as her looks, for her cheeks were pink, her step more lively, her eyes more aglow than he had seen since . . . since that first wedding night, which he had so disastrously failed to re-create on the occasion of his second.

  Abruptly, Jason stopped fingering his glass of aperitif and moved to pour some sherry for his wife. “Your drive to the village was a success, my lady?” he inquired.

  “Indeed,” she confirmed, with what appeared to be a genuine smile, “I have met the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, wives, children, and cousins. I have encountered a formidable dame, who, I am told, is wife to the squire, and her exceedingly meek daughter—”

  “Ah, yes, Mrs. Matthew Houghton and Miss Mary.”

  “Poor child. On occasion, I thought Aunt Cass domineering, but she could not hold a candle to Mrs. Houghton. Neither Miss Mary nor I could get a word in edgeways.”

  Jason chuckled, finding himself more in charity with his wife than he had been since the night he had demonstrated his idiocy by fleeing his marriage bed as if he were the veriest greenling. How could a man marry the same woman twice and make a fool of himself on two different wedding nights? On the first occasion, by enjoying himself too well and, on the second, by running like the hounds of hell were on his heels, and all because reality had been so much less than his eager anticipation?

  Like a small boy denied a treat, he had thrown a tantrum and, quite literally, slammed the door on what should have been a new beginning for them both. In a trice, his failure to consummate his marriage, compounded by the previous years of neglect, assumed the proportions of an insurmountable object. Now, he could only stand back and hope that time would erode their differences, but at the moment—

  “And then there was a quite delightful young woman I met at the linen draper’s,” his wife was saying. “A Miss Helen Seagrave. An impoverished gentlewoman, Mr. Stanmore tells me. She teaches harp and the pianoforte. Do you know her?”

  “Stanmore?” Jason echoed, dismissing his shadowy recollection of Miss Seagrave in an odd surge of alarm that his wife had spent time with Cranmere’s overly handsome vicar. “You spoke with the vicar?”

  “Yes, of course. I spoke with him about Blossom’s and Ned’s wedding, and then he was kind enough to escort me about the village, introducing me to absolutely everyone.”

  A task he should have undertaken himself—as he very well should have known. Inwardly, Jason groaned. He and his wife were finally living under the same roof, and still he could not adapt his ways to being married. He did not feel married.

  And whose fault was that? Who had taken a snit because matters had not gone as he had expected? Who had filled his head full of dreams of a golden child in nearly transparent silk garments mincing across their bedchamber and burrowing beneath the covers? Who had let his bitter disappointment send him scurrying off like a whipped cur instead of asserting his rights as a proper husband should?

  Little wonder he did not feel married. What gentleman would under such inauspicious circumstances? Indeed, what man would?

  And what man would be inspired by the lackluster spinster before him? Oh, she might be a bit more spirited tonight, her gown a trifle finer, but with the exception of occasional bursts of shrewish temper, he could see little life in her at all. This was not the glorious girl he had hoped would share his life. She had vanished, as if by black magic, to be replaced by this dull, proper pattern card of womanhood, sunk so low as to be nearly drowned in the middle-class morality propounded by the ever-growing clamor of the Evangelists.

  He had made a dreadful mistake. If he had told his father about his little escapade in Constantinople, Rocksley would have managed to find a way to an annulment with few repercussions for either Penelope or himself. And yet he had clung to the vision of his night in the seraglio . . . to memories so gloriously erotic they would never go away . . .

  Hutton announced dinner in a tone designed to carry above the clamor of a crowd of fifty. (For since his lapse the night of the countess’s arrival, he had striven mightily to repair his tarnished image as a man fit to be butler in a nobleman’s country home.)

  Jason, startled from his reverie, proffered an arm to his countess.

  This was the same girl, he told himself as they walked toward the dining room. Gulbeyaz, the White Rose, was in there somewhere, and he would find her. Although his own behavior, to be perfectly truthful, had caused him to lose so much ground, that he did not know how many times he would have to chance the course before he crossed the finish line in triumph.

  But he would. He most certainly would—though the track he was on might have devious turns and twists . . . even pits where a man might lose himself, trodden down by his wife’s cold bed and cold heart. The news he had received from Brawley in today’s post was certainly a complication he could have done without. Perhaps, however . . . yes, perhaps he could make this new complication work for him. If he made his wife angry enough to strike sparks . . . If he could but goad her out of her icy indifference . . .

  Jason sighed. He had taken his life in his hands when he went into the Topkapi Palace to rescue young Penelope Blayne. No risk he might take now could equal that.

  The earl pared a slice of apple for his wife, then cut a square of cheese. The covers had been removed, and he had poured port for both of them. His wife had not demurred. Ah, yes, the spirited child still lurked inside there somewhere.

  “I am leaving for London tomorrow,” he announced.

  “You might have given me some notice!” Penelope gasped.

  “I am,” Jason returned calmly.

  “Surely you must realize I do not like to ask Noreen to scramble around so. It is many years since we spent our time travel—”

  “I believe,” Jason interjected, “I said I was going to London. “I do not expect you to accompany me.”

  Alas, his wife’s reaction was far from the expected. She simply froze, the wedge of Stilton dangling from her cheese fork. The pink faded from her cheeks. She lowered the fork to her plate, folded her hands in her lap. The only sound from her was a faint, “Oh.”

  “It is Lord Elgin,” he heard himself say. “In spite of astronomical debts, he continues to refuse an offer of thirty thousand pounds for the marbles, a situation not at all aided by that idiot Richard Payne Knight, who maintains the marbles are Roman copies. And now Brawley informs me, some young Scottish whelp with literary pretensions has turned Elgin into a monster.”

  “But how—”

  “It seems the lad inherited an English baronetcy, made a grand tour, and now considers himself the God-given authority on antiquities. He has written an epic which has made him the lion of London. And in it, he has excoriated Elgin as despoiler and thief of the marbles.”

  “Childe Harold!” his wife exclaimed. “That must be what Mrs. Houghton was nattering on about, asking me if I had yet seen a copy, though, truthfully, I felt forced to let her stream of words go in one ear, then out the other, or else I would have been quite swept off my feet.”

  “Childe Harold,” the earl confirmed glumly. “That’s the scurrilous tale. I fear the blasted boy will do more harm than all of Knight’s ignorant posturings. And since we are both indebted to Elgin, I feel I must support him, both in society and in Parliament, even though that may mean advising him to settle
for what he can get before Byron’s rants force the price lower yet.”

  “But Aunt Cass and I saw them cutting the metopes from the Parthenon,” Penny cried. “And, surely, Lord Elgin has paid out twice that sum—”

  “At the very least,” Jason agreed, pleased the mention of Lord Elgin had diverted his wife’s fury from himself. “And, yes, the work has cost Elgin a fortune, one he did not possess. At this point it would seem he owes half the world back wages and outstanding loans. But, believe me, he would be wise to settle.”

  “I can sympathize with Byron’s horror,” his wife said after some deliberation, “since Aunt Cass and I felt the same when we watched the destruction. But calm reason states that if Elgin had not taken them, the French would have.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Evidently, from what Mrs. Houghton has told me,” Penelope said, “Childe Harold is a phenomenon, a success difficult to counter. But Knight is dog-in-the-manger, claiming the marbles are Roman copies. I can only think he is jealous that he, the so-called expert, did not procure the marbles himself. All the more reason,” she added shrewdly, “why I should go to London with you, for although I may not be able to argue convincingly on Elgin’s right to take the marbles, I can most certainly attest to their authenticity.”

  “As can I, and all Elgin’s staff who accomplished the deed, “Jason said, “but they were never paid, you know, and I fear their endorsements of Elgin are less than ringing. Nor,” he added gently, “do I think Parliament would be impressed by the recollections of a young lady barely turned sixteen.”

  A flash of anger lit his wife’s eyes, and then she sighed. “It is all so sad,” she said. “Lord Elgin has spent his fortune acquiring the marbles, yet he cannot get another diplomatic post because of his poor face. Knight has cast grave doubts about the marbles’ authenticity, while Byron rants on about their theft. And to crown his sorrows, Lady Elgin disgraced herself with another man. It seems most frightfully unfair. I do not believe Elgin deserves such calumny heaped upon him. Without his help, I fear I should still be in the seraglio. Not that your actions were not heroic, my lord, but—”

  “You are quite right,” Jason agreed. “Without Lord Elgin, I never would have had access to the sultan. You know,” he added on a suddenly whimsical note, “until this moment I had almost begun to wonder if you were truly the girl I once knew, the Gulbeyaz of the seraglio.”

  His countess gasped. “My lord, I have done my best to forget those days—”

  “A pity,” the earl murmured provocatively. “I rather thought she was enchanting.”

  And because he feared he might take his stiffly correct wife in his arms, thus spoiling his devious plans by putting the cart before the horse, the Earl of Rocksley rose and, after helping his wife to her feet, bid her an abrupt goodnight.

  Penny, her mind in a whirl, stood perfectly still, gazing blindly at the doorway through which Jason had disappeared. He could not possibly have meant . . . She must have misheard.

  Gulbeyaz? Enchanting?

  The Countess of Rocksley did not play the piano that evening. She did not read a book or search out her embroidery. She went straight to her bedchamber, where she threw herself on her bed and burst into tears. She was not Gulbeyaz. She had never been Gulbeyaz. The White Rose of the seraglio was a long-ago dream, a fantasy. That alluring, knowledgeable girl could not be resurrected.

  Even if she wished to.

  Which, of course, she did not.

  Enchanting. Jason did not mean it, of course. It was all a hum. Her husband’s way of torturing her for the scandal of her past. He was seizing the excuse of Lord Elgin to run off to London without her, because he was ashamed of her. She was a woman who had covered a scandalous past by becoming as dull as the wife of an Evangelical parson. She was neither fish, nor fowl, nor rare roast beef. A lost soul masquerading as a proper lady.

  No wonder, after a scant month of marriage, Jason was bored. Running off to the company of his friends, to the cynical humor of Lord Brawley and the voluptuous charms of Mrs. Daphne Coleraine. Penny uttered a few highly satisfying words she had picked up from sailors on board the many ships on which she had traveled. Yes, she could quite understand why men used such awful terms. There were times when ordinary English simply would not do.

  So . . . how was she to manage?

  Lady Rocksley sat up, found a handkerchief large enough to accommodate her dripping face. When she could breathe again, she sat on the edge of her bed and considered her husband’s enigmatic remark. Was that a challenge she had heard? Had he truly found Gulbeyaz enchanting? Did he actually remember the skills of the White Rose with fondness, perhaps eagerness, instead of disgust?

  But even if he did, there was no way to go back. She could not be that girl again. She was overcome by mortification at the very thought of what she had done that night. She could never . . .

  Could she?

  Impossible! She was nearly six and twenty. So far past her prime it was a wonder Jason had allowed her back into his life.

  Undoubtedly, a gesture he now regretted.

  But if he did not regret Gulbeyaz . . .

  Penny stood and, holding a candelabrum high, walked to the tall cheval glass in one corner of her room. Carefully keeping the light away from her red and tear-bloated eyes, she examined her image. From her simply dressed hair to her emerald pendant, from her finely fringed and embroidered kashmir shawl to the soft green silk of her gown and matching slippers, her appearance was acceptable, suitable for dinner at home in any nobleman’s household in the land.

  Suitable. Which translated to dull, uninteresting, drab, lackluster, lifeless, colorless, prosaic, lacking in imagination or spirit of any kind. She had had nearly ten years in which to develop her disguise, and she had done it very well. So well she had almost fooled herself.

  In short, Penelope Blayne, Countess of Rocksley, needed to reinvent herself.

  It was just as well Jason was going to London. She was sorely in need of time to think. To plan. And discover if there were any modicum left, not of Gulbeyaz, but of the young and sometimes willful Penelope Blayne, who had wavered between eager child and charmingly independent young woman, the true-blue product of her Aunt Cass’s upbringing. Yes, it was the beautiful young girl, fresh from the schoolroom, who had first caused Jason’s eyes to glow with interest the night they met in Lord Elgin’s courtyard.

  She would need new clothes, head to toe! For whose purchase she had not so much as a ha’penny, Penny amended, her spirits plummeting.

  Yet the finest garments in all the world would not, she reminded herself sternly, do the trick alone. The woman she could be was not in her clothes, but inside her head. In her attitude, in the way she walked, the tilt of her head, the tone of her voice, the confidence that shone from her eyes, the certainty that she was worthy.

  Ah, but was she?

  And when had she started to question her purity? Penny wondered. Was it on board ship when Aunt Cass looked at her in shock, then clamped her teeth over questions to which she obviously had not wished to learn the answers? Was it Jason’s indifference, his almost . . . embarrassed indifference? Or was it the oddly assessing, and sometimes overly bold, looks from Jason’s traveling companions, Mr. Yardley and Mr. Timmons, during the long days of their voyage back to Lisbon? Or perhaps it was Aunt Cass’s determined effort to travel incessantly, keeping her out of England until, at long last, the threat of Marshal Junot’s troops had sent the Portuguese court scurrying all the way to Brazil and forced a mass exodus of foreigners from Lisbon?

  Was it possible she had been laboring under a misapprehension all these years? Had she spent nearly ten years erasing a personality her husband found enchanting?

  He was leaving her.

  He was leaving the dull stick she had become. Nor could she blame him. She, too, was heartily bored with this shadow creature. Yet what could she do to mend the matter when Jason was in London and she was in Shropshire?

  She could think o
n it, Penny realized. She could renovate her mindset, if not her wardrobe. She could rest and recover from three years of caring for an invalid. She could learn to smile more readily, perhaps to laugh. She could unbend her spine far enough to be something a bit more lively than a pattern card of propriety.

  In the early summer she would be six and twenty. Most women her age had given their husbands an heir, a spare, and one or more fine girls as well. Yet here she was, twice-married to the same man, yet still at virgin. An intolerable situation!

  Yes, she must think on it. There had to be some way to solve this ridiculous imbroglio.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Fourteen

  London

  Gant Deveny settled back into a brown leather wingchair, stretched his long legs onto a matching footstool, and eyed his friend and host, the Earl of Rocksley, over the rim of his brandy glass. “Word’s come Old Boney’s invested Badajoz. Surely that’s enough to oust your own small contretemps from everyone’s tongues.”

  The earl, seated across from his friend, did not even lift his well-sculpted chin from his chest. “As we all know, a scandal is of far more interest to the ton than Wellington’s campaign in the Peninsula. Therefore, I doubt Badajoz will cause so much as a ripple in the tale of how I have married a cast-off from the sultan’s harem.”

  “If only Yardley . . .” Deciding that even the mention of the earl’s former traveling companion was painful, Lord Brawley clamped his jaws shut.

  “Yardley!” Jason snorted. “Ten years he held his tongue. Yet no sooner does he hear the tales brought back to town by my dear departed guests, than he must begin with, Oh, if only I might tell . . . if only you knew what I know . . . ah, what I could tell if I would.” The earl’s mimicry had a lethal cutting edge. It was a wonder, Lord Brawley thought, that Rock had not called Yardley out.

  “It was inevitable someone would contrive to ply him with wine,” the earl continued through bared teeth. “Inevitable the idiot would babble the whole sordid tale. And make it sound as if I pried the child from the sultan’s bed.” Jason downed the last of his brandy and flung the fine crystal onto the hearth, where it shattered in a satisfying crash of flying glass.