“I think I startled her,” Kalid said.
“She probably had apoplexy.”
“Look here, can we do this down at the station?” one of the bobbies said in a Cockney accent.
The purser looked at Sarah, who nodded.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be traveling with us, then, miss?” he asked, smiling.
“Not today. Will you be so kind as to remove my luggage from cabin 12B?”
“Yes, madam. It will be held for you at the Greenhouse Station, and you can redeem your ticket at the bursar’s office.”
“Will you be accompanying the prisoner to the lockup?” the second bobby said.
“I suppose so,” Sarah said resignedly.
The little procession, Kalid, Sarah, and several policemen, wended its way across the dock, as the crowd cleared a path for them, applauding wildly. Sarah could feel her face flaming as Kalid was handed into a black mariah and she followed with another bobby in a paddy wagon. The clopping of the horses’ hooves punctuated her musings as they traveled the several cobbled city blocks to the police station.
Once there, Kalid was kept away from her and she waited for several hours as a series of telegrams established Kalid’s identity. A few minutes later Scotland Yard warned the local constabulary that it would have an international incident on its hands if it proceeded against him. Kalid was released in short order, and Sarah rose slowly as he came into the waiting room, his eyes fixed on hers.
“Will you stay with me?” he said to her, as if the arrest had never taken place.
“Kalid, we can’t talk about this here.”
“Why the hell not? I’ve just traveled the globe to track you down, and I want an answer.”
“Don’t order me about, Kalid, or you’ll find that your trip was wasted.”
“All right, all right, I’m sorry. I’m trying to change, it takes time. You don’t really want to go back to America and never see me again, do you?”
Sarah said nothing.
“Do you?”
“No.”
“I love you, Sarah. I’ll do anything, be anything you want. Just don’t leave me.”
He touched her face and she put her hand over his, her eyes filling with tears.
“No more making decisions for me, treating me like a child?” she said.
“No more.”
“And if I disagree with you I can say so and you won’t have a conniption?”
“No conniptions,” he said solemnly.
“And I won’t have to lead an idle life in the harem?” she said, searching his face.
“No. You can run the palace school, I was going to talk to you about it anyway. I never had the chance.”
“And my relatives can see me any time they want? James can come and visit?”
“Any time. Anything else?”
“I want you to free Memtaz.”
“Done.”
“She’ll probably want to continue at the palace, she doesn’t know anything else, but you have to pay her a salary.”
“Fine.”
They were beginning to attract attention, standing in the middle of the tiled entry area of the police station, negotiating like two barristers.
“Let’s go to a hotel,” Kalid said, putting his arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “I haven’t any money at present but Achmed can wire me some by the time I have to pay the bill.”
They went outside and Kalid hailed a cab. Sarah sat with her head on his shoulder during the ride, and Kalid booked them a room at the best hostelry in Kent, the Southington Arms. His piratical appearance attracted some glances but his upper crust accent convinced the clerk that he was an acceptable guest, especially when he sent a telegram to Turkey and received a prompt, and fulsome, reply.
The second they entered the room he turned to her and took her in his arms.
“I missed you so much,” he said, kissing her, his beard scraping her cheek. “The thought that I might not be able to stop you was driving me wild.”
“I wanted you to stop me,” Sarah replied. “I was devastated when I calmed down and realized that you weren’t coming after me.”
“But I was! I did! I was just one half step too late all along the way.”
“It doesn’t matter now. We’re together, and I’ll never leave you again.”
Kalid began taking off her clothes, tossing them on the floor, and when he got down to her whalebone corset he stared at it in pure amazement.
“How can you Western women wear these things?” he asked. “It looks like an instrument of torture.”
“It is.”
“Then why bother?” he asked, unlacing her.
“To have a tiny waist.”
“You have a tiny waist without it,” he said, spanning hers with his hands. He bent to take a nipple in his mouth.
“You don’t understand women,” she sighed, sinking her fingers into his hair.
“That’s certainly true,” he replied, raising his head and scooping her up in his arms. He deposited her on the bed and flung himself down next to her, embracing her immediately.
“I ached for you,” Sarah whispered, clutching him to her and closing her eyes.
“Never again,” he replied, and made exquisite love to her to prove it.
“Why do they call this Yorkshire pudding?” Sarah said to Kalid, around a mouthful of it. “It isn’t pudding, it’s a biscuit.”
“Why do the British do anything?” Kalid countered, topping off her glass of wine from the carafe. “Why is Cholmondeley pronounced ‘Chumley’? Why is Magdalen College called ‘Maudlin’? They ruin their own language.”
“You must have had quite a time with English when you first came here.”
He shrugged and bit into a room service carrot. “I knew some English from my mother, it was the local expressions that threw me. I sounded very much the foreigner until I got acclimated.”
“But you did pick up your useful Oxford accent. I’ve noticed that the natives find it very impressive.”
“It’s a class distinction the British revere. Here, your station in life is determined by the way you speak. In my country we are more open about it.”
“Yes, slavery is pretty hard to mistake,” Sarah said dryly.
“Are we going to have that discussion again?”
“Would you really have whipped Memtaz when I wouldn’t obey you that time you wanted to go riding?” Sarah countered.
He grinned. “You’ll never know.”
“I don’t think you would have. You were just manipulating me, weren’t you?”
He went on smiling mysteriously.
She threw her napkin at him, and he laughed.
“I have something to tell you,” she said.
“You want me to convert Bursa to a democracy and turn Orchid Palace into a hospital for the indigent.”
“That would be nice, but that’s not it.”
“Well?”
“You remember that discussion were having about the size of my waist?”
“Mmh?” He was buttering a slice of bread.
“It’s going to be expanding.”
“What is?”
“My waist.”
He dropped the knife and looked up at her.
“Sarah,” he said soberly.
“Yes?”
“You’re...?”
“Pregnant. Yes, I am.”
He shoved his tray aside and came to kneel at her feet. He put his head in her lap and she stroked his hair.
“I didn’t think I could be any happier, but now I am,” he said, his voice muted by the folds of the hotel’s dressing gown. “How long have you known?”
“Since before I left Turkey.”
“And you were just going to go home to Boston and say nothing about it to me?”
“I thought you didn’t want me.”
“My son would have grown up in America,” he said.
“Or daughter.”
“It will be a boy.”
“How do you know?”
“Kosem’s fortune teller said that my firstborn would be a male,” Kalid replied seriously.
“Kosem’s fortune teller? Well, with that reliable source on our side we should start picking out names for boys right now.”
“Whatever we call him, he will be the next Pasha of Bursa,” Kalid said.
“He will be yours and mine, and that’s more important.”
“I love you, Sarah,” Kalid said.
“I waited a long time to hear that.”
“I will say it every day from now on, for the rest of our lives,” he replied.
“For the rest of our lives,” Sarah repeated contentedly, and smiled.
– THE END –
I am Doreen Owens Malek, author of over forty books and lifelong fan of romantic fiction. I live in PA with my husband and college student daughter, a mini dachshund and a sun conyer parrot. I would like to tell you a little about myself.
I came to writing by a circuitous route, starting out as an avid reader of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and Gone With the Wind and Rebecca, and any other similarly themed books I could find. I first worked as a teacher and then graduated from law school when I desired a more lucrative and independent career. I had always been discouraged from pursuing a writing career by the volatile nature of the business and the relatively poor chance for success. But the realization that I needed a focus for the future encouraged me to do what I had always wanted to do. I sold my fledgling novel to the first editor who read it, and I have been writing ever since. I have written all types of books for all types of people, but my favorite literary pursuit is and always has been romance. Nothing is as rewarding as hearing from my readers, so please use my website to communicate your thoughts and criticisms, as I am always eager to learn from you.
A romance novel rarely disappoints me: in an uncertain world filled with tragedy and sadness, reading about an appealing woman finding a strong man to love her and share her life is the perfect escape. I like to read and write stories in which the main characters overcome obstacles to get together, and then stay together because their mutual devotion cannot be denied no matter what else is happening around them. They always HELP each other and reinforce the quaint but enduring notion that love conquers all—at least in the fictional universe of my imagination. So pull up a chair and take down a book—or pick up a Kindle—and join me in a world where the heroes are tough and headstrong but never boorish and the heroines are feminine and sympathetic but never helpless.
Happy reading! — Doreen Owens Malek
See all of
Doreen Owens Malek’s
Kindle eBooks on
Amazon.com
LOOK FOR
Panther’s Prey
(the sequel to The Panther and the Pearl,
available for digital download in May 2012
OTHER HISTORICAL ROMANCES
by Doreen Owens Malek
The Highwayman
A tempestuous story of love and
betrayal in Elizabethan Ireland
The Lion and the Lark
A Roman officer and his Celtic captive transcend
the barriers of war to find an undying passion
The Raven and the Rose
A Roman centurion and a Vestal Virgin
forge a forbidden liaison, while a noblewoman
falls in love with her Celtic slave
Torchlight
A mine owner’s daughter in post Civil War
Pennsylvania is irresistibly drawn to the union
organizer working to destroy her father’s company
RECENT CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
Releases by Doreen Owens Malek
www.doreenowensmalek.com
Brand new, never before published
Contemporary Romance
Amanda’s Blue Marine
Available for digital download
at Amazon.com, and in print at
www.doreenowensmalek.com
Look for the reissue of the enormously popular
A Marriage of Convenience (1989),
available for digital download at Amazon.com
Marriage in Name Only
Best seller from 1995
NEW DIGITAL RELEASES
APRIL 2012
Montega’s Mistress
(Contemporary Romance)
The fires of revolution
fanned the fire of their love…
Winter Affair
(Contemporary Romance)
Can the passion of unlikely lovers
overcome a tragedy from the past?
An Indecent Marriage
(Contemporary Romance)
Revenge is a dish
best served…HOT
DIGITAL RELEASES
(MARCH 2012)
Men of Intrigue - A Trilogy
750 Pages of Romance Reading Entertainment!
The Harder They Fall
(Western Romance)
The bigger they come in life,
the harder they fall in love
HISTORICAL ROMANCES
by Doreen Owens Malek
Panther’s Prey
Turkish Delight: He rode from out of the Turkish wilderness atop a magnificent charger. Dark and mysterious, Malik Bey swept Boston-bred Ameba Ryder into an exotic world of sultans and revolutionaries, magnificent palaces and desert camps. Amy wanted to hate her virile abductor, to escape his heated glances forever. But with his suave manners and seductive charm, the hard-bodied rebel was no mere thief out to steal the proper young beauty’s virtue. And as hot days melted into sultry nights, Amy grew ever closer to surrendering to unending bliss in Malik’s fiery embrace.
The Highwayman
The Noblewoman and the Irish Patriot: It was a bold and perilous plan—disguising herself as a boy and stealing aboard a ship bound for the far-off shores of Ireland. But from the moment orphaned Lady Alexandra Cummings arrived at besieged Inverary Castle, her life and heart were no longer her own. Captured by rugged Irish rebel Kevin Burke, the daring English noblewoman became a pawn in a dangerous game of treachery and betrayal.
For she lost her heart to the one man she dared not trust, and her passion could not be swayed by reason. But cruel fate tragically plunged Kevin into exile and Alexandra into a loveless marriage. Enemies and lovers, their forbidden desires swept them across a divided realm. A man and a woman bound together pledged their lives toward liberty and love.
The Lion and the Lark
The Year is 44 B. C. Julius Caesar is dead. And as rebellion divides Italy and Britain, a Roman centurion and a Celtic princess forge a bond no woman or man can rend asunder…
To ensure peace between her tribe and their savage conquerors, the exquisite Bronwen has been promised in wedlock to a high-born Roman tribune. But the British beauty is also a secret spy ready to risk her life to free her people.
Dispatched to Britain by Mark Antony, Claudius is irresistibly drawn to the flaxen-haired, cobalt-eyed Bronwen. Yet he knows he dare not trust the woman who is bound to him by law––not love.
The Raven and the Rose
Set against the tempestuous backdrop of Ancient Rome in the final days of Caesar...comes the stunning love story of a man and a woman who defy destiny to follow their hearts—only to be swept up in a forbidden and all-consuming passion.
She is Julia Casca, a young noblewoman pledged against her will to the sacred order of Vestal Virgins...dedicated to a life of eternal chastity. He is Marcus Demeter, the powerful centurion and war hero sworn to protect Julius Caesar...betrayed by his own desperate desires.
As a land seething with intrigue and treachery erupts in murder—turning honorable allies into deadly enemies—Julia and Marcus become lovers in an explosive liaison that rocks Rome and could destroy them both...
Torchlight
Forbidden Desire: One look into the fires of Sean Jameson’s rebel eyes and Elizabeth Langdon knew she would forsake everything for the shattering pleasures of hi
s forbidden embrace. Sean was bent on the destruction of all her family stood for, but Elizabeth vowed her love would triumph over the society that tore them apart.
Sean tried to keep away from the woman who represented all he could never have–but one illicit moment with Elizabeth, and his hunger for her rivaled his commitment to the rebellion he led. How could he resist the daughter of his sworn enemy, when her heart spoke the language of his soul?
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES
by Doreen Owens Malek
Amanda’s Blue Marine (Contemporary Romance): Doreen Owens Malek. The Harder They Fall (Kindle Location 2703). Gypsy Autumn Publications. When Amanda Redfield, an assistant district attorney from a wealthy Philadelphia family, is harassed by a mysterious stalker, she meets Brendan Kelly, the detective assigned to her case. Smart and capable but deeply troubled, Kelly protects Amanda while he works to find her tormentor, but his disturbing presence and rogue behavior disrupt Amanda’s settled life. She is helplessly drawn to the sexy and charming but barely controlled cop. As their passion grows she must choose between her privileged past and an uncertain future with a man who is spiraling out of control. How she draws on her wits and resources to rescue Kelly as surely as he once rescued her makes for a powerful and satisfying love story.
A Marriage of Convenience (Contemporary Romance). Taylor Braddock. His name brought back memories of a man so handsome that a young girl had fallen in love - and made a fool of herself. A man so unique he’d spoiled Sharon Philips for any other love.
But now her father’s will had joined their lives once again. In a final attempt at matchmaking, Dad left half his California horse ranch to Sharon, the other half to Braddock - provided they were husband and wife.
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