Chapter Seventeen
Chantelle had made a bad mistake, but she didn’t realize it until she was shoved to her knees to pay homage to the Grand Turk, or whatever he was, and she heard Haji Agha address him as “my gracious lord.” It was inconceivable that the man she had thought had bought her for himself would show her off to his own master.
No, she was very much afraid she had been bought for this other fellow, whom she was at this moment being forced to bow down to.
That went against the grain, and she had very nearly resisted being pushed to the floor until she saw what happened to the black girl beside her, who did resist. It was unfair that brute strength could so easily win the argument.
What was the point of going through that when she would only lose in the end and her pride suffer even more?
She had put up with enough indignities lately that one more seemed inconsequential.
It would have been nice, though, if she had been told what was going on instead of being left to draw her own wrong conclusions.
When she had left Hamid Sharif’s, it had been to climb into one of four waiting litters, which had been her first disappointment.
She had hoped that she would be walking through the city as she had done before and that there might somehow be an opportunity to slip away.
But with all the litter bearers, not to mention a small contingent of mounted guards, that hope had become an impossibility.
She tried peeking out of the curtains that enclosed her in the litter, but was shouted at by one of the guards riding alongside her, so she gave up trying to see where they were going.
It was uphill. She could determine that at least. But then the path leveled out, and there was the opening and closing of gate after gate, making her think she was leaving the city, until the litter was set down soon after.
It wasn’t until she stepped out of the litter that she saw another girl in one of the other litters, bringing their count to three.
And she had only the briefest glance of a courtyard with gardens beyond before she was whisked inside a tall building and down several long corridors, past numerous guards standing at attention before tall doors, and finally brought into this large chamber filled with a half-dozen people.
She saw them only in a blur as she was shoved to her knees so fast and forced to lower her head to the floor.
She hadn’t even noticed the “gracious lord” whom Haji Agha addressed, but she heard him chuckle and mention something about his Grand Vizier being wrong.
Who was he to have a minister with that title?
He couldn’t be the Dey of Barikah, for that high personage had declined to buy her.
Some pasha then? Or some high official in the Dey’s court?
Would she even be told? That was salt on the wound, that these arrogant Muslims considered women so inferior they didn’t have to explain anything to them.
Chantelle gasped when she was suddenly yanked to her feet, and she caught the tail end of the lord’s hand gesture that they should rise. What bloody inconsideration! “Don’t bother with “You may stand, ladies.” No, that would be too decent.
Her temper was simmering when her eyes moved from his bejeweled hands to his face, and as instantly as her temper had arisen, it was forgotten.
Dear God, one of her worst fears had come to pass.
He looked like a European. Worse, with that high brow and sculpted cheekbones, that aggressive chin and aquiline nose, he looked like a bloody English aristocrat!
The only thing Turkish about him was his dress—the loose trousers, the long-sleeved tunic of red-and-white printed silk falling just below his hips and sashed tightly to his waist with a large gold clasp.
The sash was wide and white, as was his plumbed turban, centered with an enormous ruby.
His slashing brows indicated black hair, but none was visible, not even a beard.
That had been the one thing she had come to expect on all Muslims, a long, flowing beard, or at least a drooping mustache.
He had neither, revealing a strong neck, a full, sensual mouth.
His eyes were green, dark green, and thickly lashed.
He was not short or fat, but just the opposite, as she saw when he rose gracefully to his feet and stepped down from the raised dais on which he had been sitting.
He gave another gesture of his hand and suddenly her double veils and robe were removed, along with those of the other two women.
She felt self-conscious now in front of so many people.
Besides Haji Agha and the three eunuch guards who stood directly behind each woman, there were three other men and an old woman kneeling near the dais, and two African giants wearing only trousers and short vests, with ugly-looking scimitars hanging from their hips.
They stepped forward when the lord did, staying directly behind him on either side.
Chantelle nervously crossed her arms over her midriff.
The white cotton of her pantaloons was thick enough and baggy enough to be concealing, but they hung indecently low on her hips, leaving nearly a foot of bare skin between the upper line of the pantaloons and the lower edge of her short fringed vest. She began to relax somewhat when she realized no one was actually looking at her.
Everyone’s attention was on the tall African girl on her right whom the lord had stopped in front of.
Haji Agha came closer to inform his master: “She claims to be a princess from the jungles to the far south but refuses to name her tribe. Unlike the other two, she is no virgin, and she still fights her captivity. Hamid Sharif had to keep her chained.”
Jamil’s eyes moved slowly over the girl, revealing nothing, though he found her magnificent.
She was tall, nearly six feet, with large, upthrusting breasts, a thick, hard-muscled waist, and what he imagined would be strong legs, used to running through the bush.
Her eyes were a light brown, fired with hate.
“I trust you can tame her?”
“With certainty,” Haji Agha assured him.
Jamil nodded, turning his head toward the silver-haired blonde. “I suppose this is the English girl?”
“Yes. She has proved docile, but then she is very intelligent, supposedly of the English nobility. Already she has learned the language well enough to understand most of what we say.”
A dark brow shot up. “So soon? From where was she captured?”
“From the English coast, my lord. One of Hamid Sharif’s corsairs was hired several months ago to take a passenger there. They had not intended to raid in those waters, but the girl apparently fell into their hands during the short time it took to drop their passenger off on the beach.”
Jamil glanced sharply back at his Chief Black Eunuch and suddenly laughed. “By Allah, what irony!”
It was not Haji Agha’s place to question his lord’s humor or what he found ironic. “Hamid Sharif had sent out word of her far and wide,” he continued. “Which is why she was still available. Her private sale was scheduled for two days hence, so naturally he was reluctant to let her go.”
“She came expensive, then?”
“Extremely.”
Jamil sighed. Next to the African wench, she did not seem tall, though she was taller than most of the women in his harem.
And she was skinny, to the point where she looked as if she were starving.
Her breasts did not fill out her vest; her stomach was concave, her hips pointy.
If that was not bad enough, she was blond, and personally he did not favor blondes because his mother was one, though this girl’s hair was so light as to be almost white.
But he could see why she would be considered special.
Her features were the most exquisite he had ever seen.
Not even the dark smudges beneath her eyes could detract from that beauty.
Even so, he was not attracted to her. But then he had not bought her for himself. Whether he kept her or returned her to the slave merchant in time for that special auction was up to Kasim.
“And the last one? Did Hamid Sharif make a fortune off me tonight?”
Haji Agha did not dare to grin, even though he sensed Jamil was not annoyed by the expense, which he could well afford.
“No, my lord. One of your own captains brought her in earlier this week, so she cost you nothing. She’s Portuguese, of peasant stock, and so quite accepting of her captivity considering her circumstances improved. ”
Jamil nodded, still revealing nothing of his thoughts.
The last girl wasn’t exceptionally pretty, but there was a lush sensuality about her that was hard to ignore, which was undoubtedly why Haji had picked her out.
And there was the chestnut hair, which the Chief Black Eunuch knew he favored.
But then Haji was not aware these women were not for him.
Three to choose from was more than he could have hoped for under such short notice.
He was pleased. Whether his brother was pleased had yet to be determined.
Jamil was not going to add three more women to his harem if Kasim wouldn’t make use of them.
With that in mind, he turned his attention back to the African beauty.
Chantelle stole glances at him only when she was sure he was not looking at her.
She was too humiliated to meet his eyes directly.
To be talked about as if she weren’t even there, as if she couldn’t understand them, when Haji Agha had explained that she could, just proved further how insensitive were these men.
And the lord sounded so indifferent, as if he couldn’t care less that he had just bought three new slaves.
And he had bought them. His last question to Haji Agha proved that.
But why would he buy women sight unseen?
Or was the sale upon condition of his approval?