Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Avast complex of buildings made up the Seraglio, the sultan’s walled “household.” Covered fountains, fabulously ornate meeting rooms, offices, storerooms, bathing facilities, nurseries, and dormitories for high-ranking wives lined its tiled lanes.
Sunshine and flowers wrapped themselves around beautiful, often brightly painted, buildings but failed to lighten Lily’s burdens.
The Valide Sultan greeted Lily in the Courtyard of the Concubines as she indicated in her message. “You look rested, Zambak. Life here suits you.” The older woman gave her a gentle smile. She moved with grace as well as purpose, pulling Lily along by the force of her personality.
“It does, Valide Sultan,” Lily said. Perhaps.
The Seraglio suited many women. Lily found their company stimulating, as if she lived in the middle of one of Georgiana Mallet’s salons filled with intelligent conversation and good food.
If only I weren’t so achingly lonely. For Papa. For English conversation. For— She squashed the thought.
“You do well. Your teaching has been a blessing to many. Your description of the palace of the czar sent Guldem into raptures,” she said without breaking stride.
“It is not so splendid as this, Highness,” Lily said with an expansive gesture.
The older woman’s approval glowed from her smile.
They entered the same audience room where she had interviewed Lily four weeks before.
Ahmet followed discreetly. When he would have entered, the Valide Sultan indicated with the graceful wave of her hand that he was to stay outside.
“She will be safe with me,” the woman said. He frowned, but obeyed.
Sahin Pasha waited for them across the room, seated cross-legged on cushions covered in fabric the same color as the geometric designs that covered the walls.
“Greeting, honored uncle,” Lily said, making obeisance.
“Come, sit, little one, and we will talk.”
Lily made herself comfortable on a divan near Sahin. The Valide Sultan settled herself at a discreet distance, near enough to hear but far enough away to demonstrate that she would not participate in conversation.
Figs and dates were offered and shared; a long moment passed. Lily waited for him to speak as manners dictated.
“You look well, little one,” he began.
Lily shared a smile with the Valide Sultan across the room. They are at pains to compliment. I must have looked a horror when I arrived.
“I am well fed and safe, honored uncle. I am grateful to you.”
“Is it as you hoped, Lily?”
“It is as I expected…more than I expected,” she said.
What does he want from me? He can inquire after my well-being without coming here.
“You are curious about this meeting,” he said, concern pushing good humor aside. “I will not make you wait. Messengers have come.” Concern gave way to a worried frown.
Every fiber in her body went on alert.
“My father?” Not Richard. Please not Richard. The vehemence of her concern for the marquess stunned Lily. Why should he be in danger and why should it shake me so?
“Our agent in London tells us he has not yet arrived there. We hope he is safe in Copenhagen.”
Lily prayed that was true.
“I came with a warning, however.”
She sat straighter, alert, and calmed herself.
“We have lost track of Volkov.”
“You had him watched, honored uncle?” Of course they did. Don’t be an idiot.
“After we confirmed his treachery in Thessaloniki and dealt with the traitor—”
Lily shuddered, all too aware of what “dealt with” meant. She had unleashed it on him; she hoped it was swift. She feared not.
“—we intended to make Volkov aware his actions would not go unpunished. He evaded our people in Naples when they got close.”
They intended swift death for him also. He would run like a scared rabbit.
“Evaded, honored uncle?” she asked out loud.
“He ran from Portsmouth. We tracked him to Naples, but he escaped.”
“North or south?”
“If he is after your father as he threatened, we or your marquess will catch him. He is well guarded.” The old man shrugged. “We sent someone to Copenhagen also.”
Lily nodded, relieved. “He threatened to kill me, too,” she murmured. Both hands went instinctively to her belly and the precious burden she carried. Pregnancy had filled her with more fears than she had ever before imagined. She felt her skin go clammy.
“If he finds out where you are, which is unlikely, he might come here, but that is even more unlikely.”
Of course it is unlikely, Lily. Don’t be a ninny.
“I am safe here,” she said.
“Inside the Seraglio, yes. It is the safest possible place. My warning is this: obey the Valide Sultan. Stay within these walls. Keep Ahmet or another eunuch near you at all times. Never put yourself in the reach of strangers.”
“Of course, honored uncle!”
The old man seemed pleased. “No more foolish adventures, Lily,” he admonished.
Walking back, the Valide Sultan praised her answer. “I know you will do this, Zambak. Your intelligence drives your actions, not impulse like some silly girl.”
“Thank you for your confidence, Highness.”
“I have hopes for you here.”
“Hopes, Highness?”
“You have witnessed the complexity of my household. Administration requires skills—motivating people and seeing to their needs, managing finances, planning, and, of course, politics.”
“Politics?” Lily couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
“This is the sultan’s household. The affairs of empire are discussed in his offices, at his dinner table, in his chambers. I need women with a head for such affairs who are able to listen and influence. I have hope for you.”
She bid the Valide Sultan good day and turned toward her quarters.A vision of long years in this place stretched out in front of Lily.
A few years only, I beg. Papa will come for me, and I’ll go back. Go back to what? Life alone with my baby in a remote English village, near people who cannot add months? The Seraglio offers a sort of power and autonomy once you accept the basic structure. Would it be so bad to stay here?
Lily’s hopes for a husband had faded with the marquess’s offensive proposal.
Richard’s face, intense, determined, and arrogant, while he demanded—not asked, but demanded—marriage haunted her.
She forgave him class snobbery. His assumption of male superiority stung, however.
What man wants a partner for a wife? What man will offer for a “widow” with a child anything other than a place as his brood mare or nursemaid?
She turned into the bathing facility. Women and their young children clustered around a pool laughing and playing.
You have it better than many women. Here at least you and your baby are safe. No one will find you here.
The coastal boat smelled better than a fishing boat, but its company proved less savory. The boat stopped frequently, in and out of small coves, picking up packages and people.
Richard acquired a black eye before he arrived in Constantinople. He lost a shirt, a flagon of rum, and all of his money. He found freedom. For the first time in his life, the burden of responsibility and expectations lifted, leaving him with no cares but his own desires.
Lying on his back one night, he studied the endless stars and wondered if Lily watched them, too. It came to him then that he might love her. What else would explain this madness?
He began to laugh. You always said love belonged to fools, and you’ve become one. He laughed out loud until a fellow traveler threatened to blacken his other eye.
But love? he wondered, suddenly sober. I never believed in it. I want her. I want her so badly that I offered marriage twice, even after she threw it in my face. That ought to be an end to it.
He closed his eyes and tried to let the rocking of the boat lull him to sleep. Why can’t she accept that I care what happens to her? Isn’t that enough? He drifted to sleep knowing he would never understand women.
The boat put in to the foreign section of Constantinople, a blessing but a minor one.
Crowds of peddlers thronged new arrivals in front of the colorful walls of old fountains and new mansions.
The place seethed with humanity. A half dozen languages assaulted his ears at the same time; odors new and painfully familiar assaulted his nose; a confusing knot of narrow lanes, fanned out in several directions, assaulted his vision.
Did Lily pass through here? Proper ladies would put handkerchief to nose and demand immediate transport to a “good” (by which they meant European) house immediately.
Lily would revel in this; she would refuse to hurry until she absorbed her fill.
A wide grin stretched his dry lips. When we’re married, I’ll bring her here.
For now he had business. He asked directions to the British embassy. After two false starts and a long detour, compliments of a fig vendor with a particularly nasty sense of humor, he walked up to the British embassy.
A rail-thin boy in soft cotton trousers and hemp sandals stopped his systematic sweep of the steps to look at Richard with narrowed eyes.
“No beggars,” the boy said firmly. He returned to his work.
“I’m not a beggar!” Richard bit back the impulse to announce his name and title. This savvy little laborer had taken in his appearance; he would laugh at some shabby beggar claiming to be a marquess.
“You Englishman?” the boy asked.
“I am.”
“Office by side. His m’jesty’s subjects get help there.”
Well. A marquess is certainly a subject of the king. The boy’s exercise of pompous authority amused him.
“Do you think I could get help?” he asked.
The boy appeared to think it over. “Possible,” he said at last. “No beggars though.”
The warning had teeth. When he tried his luck at the office, the clerks were equally unimpressed. Richard finally insisted that he knew Sir Robert Liston emphatically enough that a skeptical young man agreed to send a message to the ambassador.
Thirty minutes later the man himself arrived, hurried and annoyed. “Who the devil claims—Glenaire!” He stared at Richard in open-mouthed astonishment.
Richard rose, chin high, with as much aristocratic presence as he could muster in a stained shirt and undersized trousers.
“Sir Robert,” he said, “I need your assistance.”
Liston’s eyes roamed over Richard. His wrinkled nose and pained expression left no doubt about his opinion of the marquess’s appearance.
“Come then. We’ll see if we can find you a tailor,” he said, glancing back to see if Richard followed. “And then we’re at your service. This must be a tale worth hearing.”
“With all due respect, my errand is urgent,” Richard said, coming up beside him. “I need access to the Seraglio.”
Liston turned on his heels. “The Seraglio? All due respect to you,” he retorted, “but no foreigner has access to the Seraglio. No one. Ever. Under any circumstances.”
“There is a woman there, and Englishwoman,” Richard told him.
“An Englishwoman?” Liston asked, astonished. “Who on earth?”
“It’s a long story,” Richard said, continuing up the stairs. He was increasingly sure she was there. Nothing else made sense.
I’ll see her if I have to batter down the walls of the damned Seraglio myself.