Panther's Prey

by Doreen Owens Malek

  “Yes, you just wanted to drag me into bed like a huzzy,” he said.

  She sat up to look at him directly. “A what?”

  “A shameless woman,” he said. “A huzzy.”

  “That’s ‘hussy’, my friend. Do you speak English?”

  “My English is far superior to your Turkish,” he said, insulted.

  “Anyone’s English is far superior to my Turkish, and don’t change the subject. We can’t spend the rest of our lives in this bed. How are we going to see each other?”

  “We’ll see each other. I’ll find a way.”

  “You took such a risk in coming here. Why did you wait so long?”

  “I wasn’t sure you would want to see me until I talked to Kalid Shah’s wife.”

  “You went to Orchid Palace?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t know where you were.”

  “Of course not, when I left the camp you didn’t exactly ask for a forwarding address.”

  “I tried to cut if off between us then, Amelia. I thought it would be best.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes, for you. Certainly not for me, I felt as if I had amputated my arm when you left.”

  “But why? Why did you let me go in that cruel, impersonal way? I thought I would die of unhappiness.”

  “Amelia, I’m a criminal in this country, a fugitive. I have nothing and I’m likely to have nothing for some time in the future. My cause is just, but I don’t even know if I’ll live to see it triumph. In the meantime I have to live from hand to mouth, from day to day. You saw that for yourself, you experienced it. I have no resources to provide for a wife.”

  “A wife?” she said breathlessly.

  “Don’t you want to marry me?” he said, watching her face.

  She threw her arms around his neck. “Yes, yes!”

  “You understand what marrying me would mean. You’d become a criminal too, just for sheltering me. Your life would be in danger, just like mine. You’d be on the move all the time, with no settled home.”

  “I don’t care. I’d live in a tent with you.” She started to laugh. “ I have lived in a tent with you.”

  He smiled. “And you survived it pretty well.” He pulled her back down on the bed and as she wrestled with him playfully she heard a slight growling sound.

  “What’s that?” she said, drawing back from him.

  “What?”

  “That noise. Was that your stomach?”

  He shrugged. “Probably.”

  “When was the last time you had something to eat?”

  He thought about it. “Yesterday?”

  “Malik, for heaven’s sake. You must be starving!”

  “Not for food,” he said, leaning forward to nibble the side of her neck.

  “I’m going down to the kitchen to get you something,” Amy said, eluding his grasp.

  “You can’t run around the house in the middle of the night,” he said.

  Amy got up and took a dressing gown from the armoire, pulling it on, tying it at the neck as she stepped into her slippers. “Why not? I couldn’t sleep, I wanted a snack. In the unlikely event anyone else is awake at this hour that’s a reasonable excuse for a trip downstairs. Just stay in here and after I leave secure the door, the key is in the lock.”

  He stood and grabbed her as she walked past him, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and hugging her to him.

  “Hurry back,” he said.

  She turned and kissed him quickly. “Malik, let me go. Listak will be stirring in a couple of hours and you have to get away before then.”

  He must have been really hungry, because he released her. She ran to the door, turning to hold her finger to her lips as he pulled on his pants. She pointed to the lock. After she went through the door she waited until she heard the key turn from inside the room before running along the gallery and then down the carpeted steps in her slippered feet.

  James had turned the gas jets to their lowest setting, but there was still enough light to see as Amy made her way through the first floor to the kitchen at the back of the house. The servants’ rooms were just behind it, so she was careful to be very quiet as she went to the cold larder and quickly selected a leftover breast of chicken, a wedge of cheese and two apples, pushing aside a block of ice to reach a bottle of James’ lager as an afterthought. On her way out she grabbed three hardening biscuits Listak had set aside for bread pudding, wrapping the hoard in the skirt of her gown. She moved swiftly back through the silent house, tiptoeing as she passed the Woolcotts’ room and then gathering speed as she approached her own. She tapped lightly on the six paneled door and it opened instantly.

  “Yes?” Malik said inquiringly, as if she were one of the Turkish bundle women who went from door to door selling their wares.

  “Stop clowning!” she hissed, shoving him aside and barreling into the room, sure that James was going to walk into the hall at any moment.

  “What’s clowning?” he said, watching with interest as she dumped her purloined goodies on the bed. He selected an apple and crunched into it vigorously.

  “You know, acting silly, like a clown in a Barnum circus,” she replied, going back to the door and locking it.

  His blank look conveyed the cultural gap which separated them; he didn’t know what a circus was. His English was so good and their mutual desire so intense that Amy sometimes forgot they were the products of two different worlds.

  “Never mind,” she said, going to the French doors and pulling aside the drapes as he picked up the piece of chicken and attacked it, stripping it in seconds.

  “It’s still raining,” she observed glumly. “You’re going to get wet.”

  “I’ve been wet before,” he said, chewing industriously as he came to stand behind her. “Thanks for the food.”

  “Consider it payment for services rendered,” Amy said, looking back at him mischievously.

  He laughed, putting down the chicken skeleton to pop the cork from the lager. He took a swallow of it and then said, “Gah,” looking at the bottle as if it had bitten him.

  “I’m sorry, that’s all James had in the larder. I thought it was English beer.”

  “I’ve had English beer, and this is not it,” he replied, setting the bottle on her nightstand.

  “Do you want me to get you some water?”

  He picked up a biscuit and disposed of it in three bites. “No. I want you to come over here and talk to me.” He extended his hand and as she took it he led her to the bed.

  “Talk?” Amy said. “We’re not going to talk here.”

  “Yes, we are,” he said, settling back against the pillows and pulling her down with him. “I want to know what you have been doing with yourself this last month.”

  “I have been following Beatrice’s plan for me, which is to attend boring parties in order to meet boring suitors.”

  “Suitors?” he said, his eyes narrowing as he bit into the piece of cheese. “Men?”

  “Of course, men. My aunt is determined to marry me off at her earliest convenience.”

  He was silent, watching her, the food in his hand forgotten.

  Amy sat up and stared at him, astonished. “Malik, you can’t seriously be jealous.”

  “Do you think I enjoy the idea of you being pursued by a horde of very proper and very suitable men?” he said.

  “As opposed to unsuitable you?” Amy suggested.

  He said nothing.

  Amy took the cheese from his hand and put it on the table. “Malik, don’t be ridiculous,” she said, amazed that he could even be worried about it. “I have been crying myself to sleep every night over you!”

  “You never considered forgetting me and doing what your relatives want?”

  “I tried. I really tried to put you out of my mind and move on, but it didn’t work. Some part of me was waiting, always waiting for you.”

  “You knew I’d come?” he said softly, reaching up to touch her hair.

  “I hoped and
prayed you would.”

  He pulled her back into his arms, looking around him at the well appointed bedroom. “This beautiful house, this comfortable life–how can I ask you to leave all of it for me?” he said. His worried tone indicated that her earlier dismissal of this concern had not entirely convinced him.

  “Don’t start that again. Ask me. Just ask me.” She kissed him, then kissed him again, hoping that her ardor would convince him that his fears were groundless.

  He responded avidly, rolling her under him and untying the bow at her neck.

  “Malik, we can’t,” Amy protested weakly, wishing they could. “There’s no time.”

  “We’ll make the time,” he said.

  * * *

  When Amy awoke again the sound of the rain was gone and a thin strip of sunlight slanted through the opening between the drapes. As she rolled over drowsily she heard the distant sound of carriages clopping past in the street and smelled the faint, but distinct, odor of bacon frying.

  She sat bolt upright, looking at the ship’s clock ticking away on her fireplace mantel.

  It was seven-forty in the morning. She would be expected downstairs at breakfast in twenty minutes. James and Beatrice were sure to be up and about, and Malik was still in the house.

  She sprang into action, shaking his shoulder violently as she scrambled in the bed for her dressing gown.

  “Wake up, wake up, we overslept!” she whispered, thrusting her arms into her robe and climbing out of the bed. She picked up his clothes and shoved them into his arms as he struggled to sit upright, blinking.

  “Look at the clock!” she hissed.

  He did so and then glanced back at her, fully awake. He jumped up and began to dress immediately. He had pulled on his pants and was yanking his shirt over his head when there was a knock at the door.

  They both froze.

  Amy recovered first. She looked at Malik, holding her finger to her lips, then called out, “Yes, what is it?”

  “Miss Beatrice sent me to see if you were awake, miss,” Listak said.

  “I’m awake,” Amy replied cheerfully.

  “I have your coffee, miss,” Listak said.

  Amy groaned deeply and closed her eyes. When she opened them again she pointed to the floor and mouthed, “Get under the bed,” to Malik.

  He dropped to the rug immediately and rolled under the four poster. Amy ran over to the bed and dragged the coverlet to the floor to block the space where he lay from view.

  “Coming,” she said loudly, glancing in the cheval mirror as she passed it, then stopping short at her startling image. Her hair was wild, her mouth swollen and red, and there were dark smudges under her eyes as well as two passion marks on the side of her neck.

  She looked like what she was, a woman who had spent an active night in bed.

  Amy pulled her hair over her shoulder to cover her neck and twisted the key in the lock, then yanked open the door.

  “Good morning, Listak,” she said, her smile feeling stuck on her face.

  “Good morning, miss,” Listak replied, taking a step past Amy to go into the room.

  “Let me take that,” Amy said hastily, removing the tray from the servant’s hands as she blocked Listak’s path.

  “Do you need anything else, miss?” Listak asked.

  “No, no, I’m fine. I just slept quite late and I don’t feel much like breakfast. Would you tell my aunt that I won’t be in the dining room this morning?”

  Listak bowed.

  “Thank you.” Amy barely restrained herself from shoving the door closed in Listak’s face with her foot. Instead she stood smiling, with the tray in her hands, until the servant had walked away. Then she carried the tray to the bed, running back to secure the door before lifting the coverlet.

  “She’s gone,” Amy said breathlessly.

  Malik crawled out from under the bed, dusting his sleeves and brushing lint from his hair.

  “The Sultan should see me now,” he said dryly. “He’d be sure he had nothing to fear.”

  Amy giggled.

  “May I have some of that?” he asked, indicating the tray on the bed.

  Amy poured him a cup of coffee, which he downed black.

  “Too weak,” he pronounced. “European coffee is always too weak.”

  “That’s American coffee, but we’ll all try to do better in the future,” Amy replied. “Now will you please apply yourself to the problem at hand, namely how to get you out of this house? It’s almost eight o’clock, everyone is running around downstairs.”

  He was silent, thinking. “I could make a rope from some of your clothes–silk would be best, stockings maybe–and then let myself down over the side of the house.”

  Amy shook her head. “Beatrice always does her gardening after breakfast when it’s still cool, she’ll be out there by the time we’ve fashioned anything strong enough to hold your weight. She’ll see you.”

  “She’ll see the rope I left hanging from the maple tree, too,” he said, his expression grim.

  Amy struck her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I forgot all about that! I have to go out there and get it!”

  “You’d better hurry, before she finishes her coddled eggs and gets out her shears,” Malik said. He went to the double doors and drew one of the drapes back slightly, looking out at the grounds.

  Amy dressed quickly, throwing on a shirtwaist and skirt, not bothering to comb her hair. She went to her dressing table and took out her jar of alum paste, rubbing the covering mixture on the purpling bruises on her neck.

  “Did I do that?” he asked, glancing back at her.

  “Nobody else,” Amy replied, applying petroleum jelly to her abraded lips with a pinky.

  “I guess I got carried away,” he said, looking abashed.

  “We both did, or you wouldn’t still be here,” Amy replied softly, smiling at him.

  “Go,” he said, nodding at the door.

  “Listak won’t come up to make the beds until she’s finished in the kitchen, so we have some time,” Amy said. “Lock the door after I’ve left.”

  He nodded.

  She blew him a kiss and slipped through the door.

  Amy stood still and listened. She heard the clinking of china in the dining room and the murmur of voices, feeling a surge of relief that James and Bea were exactly where they should be. She crept down the stairs, peeking into the dining room. She waited for a moment when her aunt and uncle were both looking down at their plates before skulking past the glass doors and exiting through the front hall.

  The grass outside was wet from the night’s rain, soaking the hem of her skirt as she ran around the side of the house and into the maple grove. She glanced up at her room and saw Malik just behind the drapes as she dashed past. She couldn’t remove the peg from the crotch of the big tree, it was too high, but she looped the rope on a lower limb, then shoved it into the dense growth of damp leaves. It wasn’t perfectly hidden, but it was disguised. Satisfied that she had done her best, Amy scurried back into the house breathlessly, only to encounter Beatrice in the front hall.

  “My dear, what were you doing outside in the wet?” Bea greeted her. “Your shoes are covered with mud.”

  “Oh, I just felt like taking a walk,” Amy said, laughing gaily, hoping that Bea didn’t notice the tinge of hysteria in her voice. “Everything is so fresh after the rain.”

  “It’s been raining on and off for three weeks,” Bea said, looking at her strangely.

  “Yes, I like wet weather,” Amy babbled, edging toward the stairs.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Bea asked. “Listak said you didn’t want any breakfast.”

  “Yes, I’m fine, just not very hungry. I’ll take some fruit up to my room.” She changed direction and went into the dining room, grabbing two oranges and a pear from the silver bowl in the center of the table. Then she waited until Bea had gone into the morning room to write her letters before she bolted up the stairs.

  Malik
was waiting for her tap and let her into the bedroom. She handed him the fruit and said, “Put this with the leftover food, you can take it with you.”

  “Did you get the rope?”

  “I couldn’t retrieve it, but I hid it pretty well. Unless you were looking for it I don’t think you would see it.”

  “Have you got a plan?”

  “I think so,” Amy said, unlacing her wet shoes. “The carriage will come to take James to his office in a few minutes, and Bea should be occupied with her correspondence for a while.”

  “I thought you said she’d be in the garden.”

  “She must have decided it was too wet for pruning, but the morning room where she’s working looks out on the garden, so you still can’t leave the way you came. But once the coast is clear I can take you out through the flower room, we shouldn’t encounter any of the servants there.”

  “What’s the flower room?”

  “It’s a sort of gardening shed attached to the house, you enter it from the back hall and it exits to the alley where trash is stored for collection.” She stepped into her slippers, shoving her muddied shoes aside.

  “That sounds good.”

  Amy looked up at him. “I don’t know how you’re getting back. I don’t even know how you got here.”

  “I left Mehmet with Yuri’s brother, he lives in the lower market district. He’s keeping the horse for me. I’ll pick Mehmet up and ride back.”

  “And how will you get to Yuri’s brother’s house?”

  He pointed to his feet.

  Amy ran across the room and flung herself on him. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I have to go,” he said, his arms tight around her, his cheek against her hair. “But I’ll return.”

  She tilted her head to look into his face. “When? When will you return?”

  “I can’t say, I don’t know. But soon. As soon as I can I’ll come to you.”

  “I won’t be able to stand not knowing,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

  “You’ll stand it,” he said reassuringly. “We both will.”

  “I’ll look for you every day.”

  “And one day I’ll be here,” he said.

  Amy put her head back on his shoulder.

  She felt him take a deep breath and then he added, “But just in case I’m not...” he began.