Don't Tempt Me (7 page)
Authors: Loretta Chase
“I suppose âvery nearly certain' is the best we can expect in an uncertain world. Is she an American?”
“Decidedly not.”
“Very sensible of her. Well, then. It's out of my hands. I leave it to the Queen.” She waved her hand. “I say no more. It's up to you. I have a great deal on my mind. You can't expect me to explain everything to you.”
He could have stayed longer at Almack's, but he reckoned that (1) his work here was done and (2) his aunt had treated him to as much entertainment as any reasonable man could hope for. He took his leave about the time the words
Zoe Octavia
were making their way into the refreshment room.
Marchmont House
Morning of Thursday, 2 April
The Duke of Marchmont did not even look up when Lord Adderwood burst into the breakfast room. His Grace had been expecting the interruption. Last night, in fact, he'd sent word to the porter to watch for Lord Adderwood in the morning and send him in as soon as he arrived.
Adderwood waved a newspaper under his nose. “Have you seen this?”
Marchmont glanced at it. “It appears to be a newspaper.”
“It's the
Delphian.
Have you read it?”
“Certainly not. I never read the papers before bedtime, as you well know.”
“I should have bet anything you'd read this one.”
“I hope you bet nothing. It pains me to see you lose money, unless it is to me.”
“But it's all about the Harem Girl!”
“Is it, indeed?”
“What an aggravating fellow you are, to be sure,” said Adderwood. “You must know all about it. You were at Lexham House yesterday. I heard you stood on the balcony with a young woman. This”âhe tapped the newspaperâ“appears to be the young woman.”
“Certainly not,” said Marchmont. “That is a newspaper. We settled that a moment ago. Do you not recollect?”
Adderwood threw him an exasperated look, sat down, and opened the paper. “I came straightaway, as soon as I got it. I've only had time to glanceâ” He broke off, his eyes widening. “Why, this is shocking! Did you know of this, Marchmont?”
“Oh, Adderwood, your lamentable memory. How could I know what is there when I haven't read it?”
Adderwood glared at him over the paper, then cast his gaze down again and began to read aloud:
Â
Miss Lexham's Oriental Ordeal by John Beardsley
The following DRAMATIC NARRATIVE Comprises a Full and TRUE Account of Events Having Lately Befallen a LADY OF THE ARISTOCRACY, as Narrated by Her to this Correspondent.
Adderwood looked up from the paper. “A dramatic narrative?” he said. “Strange way to go about it.”
“Everyone knows that Beardsley fancies himself a
writer,” said Marchmont. “As I recall, he once wrote an account of a fire in the form of a Greek epic, in dactylic hexameter.”
Adderwood returned to the paper, and in suitably dramatic tone, continued to read:
Cairo, Egypt
Christmas Eve 1817
She couldn't decide whether getting her head cut off was the worst that could happen.
It was a definite possibility, though.
The sun had already set and the nearly full moon continued to climb in the sky. At nightfall, the gates to the quarter of el-Esbekiya, where Europeans resided, were locked, as were all the other gates of the city's districts.
In Cairo only the police, criminals, demons, and ghosts traveled the streets after dark. Respectable people did not go out, and respectable households did not open their doors.
She knew all this. She continued her mad race to the gate all the same. Turning back was out of the question.
She came to a halt and stared at the closed gate, her mind busily sorting out alternatives.
There weren't any.
In minutes the police or the district watchmen would come, and she'd be taken up. Whatever happened after that would not be good. Return to the household she'd escaped was only one possible doom. She might be given to soldiers for their amusement or flogged or stoned or perhaps all
three. Or, if they had more important things to do, they'd simply cut off her head.
She beat on the gate.
A face appeared at the grated opening. “Go away,” the gatekeeper told her.
“Have mercy,” she said. “I carry an important message for the English effendi.” She raised one hand a little, to let him see the ruby necklace dripping from her fingers. “May God reward your kindness for aiding me.”
And in case God doesn't get around to it straightaway, here's some valuable jewelry.
Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would break out of her chest. She needed all her will-power to keep her hand from trembling as she dangled the rubies before him. They glimmered in the moonlight, easy to identify. In this part of the world no clouds obscured the moon and stars, whose glow was like an eerie form of daylight.
She couldn't remember when last she'd stood in the open, under the moon and stars.
The eyes behind the grate went from the rubies to her veiled countenance. Her cloak's quality would tell him she was not a common prostitute or a beggar. It would not tell him much else. The rubies must do the talking for her. If they weren't persuasive enough, she had other jewels. She'd come from a wealthy household, where even slaves were richly adorned. She'd taken all her portable treasures. She'd earned them.
“Who is it you wish to see, daughter?” The gatekeeper's voice gentled, his mood softened, no doubt, by the sparkling gems in her hand.
Baksheesh oiled all transactions in the Otto
man Empire. If that hadn't been the case, she could never have got this far.
“The Englishman,” she said.
“Which one?”
She wished she could say “Mr. Salt,” because he was the British consul-general. Unfortunately, she knewâas did everyone else in Egyptâthat he was traveling up the Nile with an English nobleman's party.
How many parties of Englishmen had she heard about during her captivity? She wasn't sure who they were. The local women who supplied the harem's gossip had difficulty with European names. All such foreigners were Franks to them, the unpronounceable names unimportant. One must question diligently to ascertain which visitors were English.
She wanted to scream, Help me! This is my one chance. But she had learned to contain herself, to preserve calm while whirlwinds of emotion swirled about her. It was an important survival skill in this world.
She said calmly, “Those Frankish names are impossible to pronounce. It is the man in the great houseânot the house of the English consul but the other one. I beg you to permit me to enter. My message is most important. By tomorrow it will be too late, and others will suffer the consequences.”
I surely will. I'll be dead, or wishing I were.
The gate opened, only a very little: barely enough for her to squeeze through. It shut quickly behind her, catching the hem of her cloak. She pulled, and the cloth ripped.
Her heart beat so hard she could scarcely breathe. She was afraid that all the care she'd taken would be for nothing. She'd be caught once again, and this time the punishment would be drowning, strangulation, poisoning, or beheading.
Yet hope beat within her, too. It had sustained her for all these years and it had propelled her thus far.
She held out the rubies to the gatekeeper. He lifted his lamp and peered into her veiled face. Since the veil covered all but her eyes, he must see the desperation in them. She could only hope he interpreted it as an underling's fear of failing a master. Those doing the bidding of their mastersâand a woman always had mastersâhad reason to be afraid.
The lowliest harem slave quickly became adept at reading facial expressions; survival depended on the skill. But his told her nothing. Still, it was a wonder she could see straight, so wrought up she was. She had no idea whether he hesitated out of pity or suspicion. Perhaps it was simply a case of his greed warring with his fear of getting into trouble with his masters.
“Take them,” she said. “Only show me the way.”
He shrugged and took them. He pointed.
She hurried away in the direction he indicated. The house was not hard to find. She pounded on the door.
This time, not an Egyptian porter's but an English servant's face appeared at the small grate.
“Please,” she said. Her English was stiff from lack of use. She'd struggled not to forget, but the language was dim in her mind, like the memories
of family and home. Now the pounding weight in her chest seemed to press upon her brain as well, and the words, the precious words, eluded her.
“Please. Iâ¦amâ¦Zoe. Zoeâ¦Lez. Ahm. Zoe Lexâ¦ham. Lexham. Please help me.”
Her strength failed her then, as did the courage she'd musteredânot simply to flee the great palace across the Nile but to endure life in that prison for twelve years while she tried to preserve the spirit of the girl she'd been. She had wanted all her courage to survive and to make her way here.
Now it gave out, and she slumped to the ground.
Lord Adderwood swallowed hard and furtively dashed a tear from his eye before he looked up from the newspaper.
Marchmont, who'd heard the account of Zoe's escape firsthand, had his feelings well under command.
Adderwood cleared his throat. “Do you know, I always thought Beardsley a hack of the lowest order,” he said. “Miss Lexham, it appears, inspired him to something like competence.”
Marchmont noted with satisfaction the use of the term
Miss Lexham
rather than
Harem Girl
and the respectful tone employed. “She's the sort of girl who inspires a fellow,” he said.
“It is she, then.”
“Beyond a doubt. You'll recognize her the instant you see her.”
“Not at all sure of that,” Adderwood said. “You knew her a good deal better. To me she was always a blur disappearing into the distance.”
“She's not at all blurry at present,” said Marchmont. “You'll have your thousand pounds before the end of the day.”
In fact, the money would have been delivered to Adderwood's house already. Yesterday, before going upstairs to dress for the evening, Marchmont had notified his secretary. Osgood would have written the bank draft first thing this morning. He knew, as did everyone else, that whatever else the Duke of Marchmont chose to neglect or forget, he never broke his word, and he never overlooked debts of honor.
Everyone knew he'd lost all respect for Brummell when the man had sneaked away in the dead of night, leaving his friends responsible for thousands of pounds in loans and annuities.
Adderwood scanned the remaining columns of newsprint. Half the paper had been given over to Zoe Lexham. The story of her captivity and escape would appear in pamphlet form within hours, no doubt. With illustrations.
“I can hardly take it in,” Adderwood said. “Is this all true? You were present when Beardsley spoke to her.”
“He took it from her almost verbatim,” said Marchmont. “He's even managed to capture herâerâdistinctive manner of expressing herself.”
While listening to the lilting voice, with its shadows and soft edges, the Duke of Marchmont had been more deeply moved than he would ever admit.
He hadn't, until then, heard the true story of her disappearance. Only then had he learned that she hadn't run away from the servants in charge of her.
Well into her captivity, after Zoe had become fluent
in Arabic, she'd learned that one of her parents' servants had sold her for a vast sum, and the matter had been arranged and carefully planned well before the fateful day in the Cairo bazaar.
Readers would learn, as Marchmont had, that the maid who'd sold her had not lived long. Within a week of Zoe's disappearance, the servant was dead, of a “stomach ailment.” But of course she'd been poisoned, Zoe had told her two listeners so matter-of-factly. “She was merely another female, and she'd served her purpose. They wouldn't want to take the chance of her repenting, and telling the truth.”
Zoe had spoken in the same quietly devastating way about her capture. She hadn't really understood what was happening, she'd said. They'd made her drink something that must have contained opiates, to quiet her. Perhaps the drug had dulled her senses.
All the same, Marchmont could imagine what it must have been like when the drug wore off: twelve years old, among strangers who spoke a language she couldn't understandâ¦twelve years old, torn away from her familyâ¦
His imagination started again, but he firmly thrust the images into the special mental cupboard.
“I must wonder where a gently bred English girl would have found the fortitude to endure that long captivity,” Adderwood said, shaking his head.
“I don't know,” said Marchmont. “She didn't dwell on life in the harem. The little she did say dispelled any illusions one might have about a Turkish harem being a sort of earthly paradise. For the man who ruled it, perhaps.”
“Where did she find the courage to escape?”
“Zoe never lacked for courage. All she wanted was an opportunity. You'll see when you read on.”
One opportunity in twelve years. It had come without warning: The master of the household and his favorite son, both dead within hours of each otherâ¦the house in turmoilâ¦She'd had perhaps an hour at most to seize the chance and act. She'd taken the chance. If they'd caught her that time, they would have killed her, and probably not quickly. The men's deaths, so close together, looked suspicious. “They would have said I poisoned them both,” she'd said. Marchmont had learned enough of “justice” in that part of the world to understand what this meant: She would have been tortured until she “confessed.”
Marchmont banished those images, too.
He fixed on the images he'd wanted Beardsley to plant in the public's mind, with all the emphasis on her pluck and daring in the face of impossible odds, and her Englishness.
In the course of the interview, the duke had casually mentioned a print of Princess Charlotteâwas it only two years ago when the poor girl was alive and well?âtitled “Is She Not a Spunky One.” In it the princess ascended a ship sailor style, in the process of running away because her father was trying to force her to marry the Prince of Orange. The image, as Marchmont had intended, stuck in Beardsley's mind and influenced his tone.