Scandal's Daughter (4 page)

As Ibrahim handed over the basket to Amina, and Cordelia unwound the shawl from her head, James Preston descended the stairs. There was a spring in his step, last night’s fatigue forgotten.

His vigour, unmistakably masculine despite the female dress, alarmed her anew. How she wished she had not agreed to let him stay!

Chapter 4

James paused near the bottom of the stairs as four pairs of eyes turned to stare at him. The two maids, caught without their veils, squealed and fled. His gaze fixed on Miss Courtenay.

By daylight she appeared younger than he had supposed, twenty perhaps, not more than two-and-twenty. The close-fitting bodice of her blue kaftan moulded a generous figure—on the plump side if one were not feeling generous. She had fine eyes, brown, with long lashes darker than the lustrous fair hair pulled back in a thick plait. Her face was too round for beauty, though she might be pretty if she ever smiled. As it was, the uncompromising set of her lips put him on his mettle. Admittedly he had rather thrust himself upon the poor girl, but she didn’t have to regard him as if he were a particularly revolting cockroach.

Wishing he was decently clad in proper English breeches, he descended the last step and bowed. “
Selaam aleykum
,” he said, “peace be upon you.”

“Aleykum selaam,” she responded, “but non-believers are not meant to use that greeting.”

“Good morning, then, Miss Courtenay. I have been used this while to pass as a Turk, or at least, since my command of Turkish is far from perfect, as a good Moslem citizen of the Ottoman Empire.”

“Why?”

“One can come to know the people,” he said airily, “which makes travel much more interesting. May I beg a crust of bread to break my fast? I confess I am sharp-set, though Uncle Aaron fed me well last night.” It had been the first decent meal he’d eaten in a week on the run.

She clapped her hands. The two little maidservants scurried in, properly veiled now and wide-eyed above their veils.

“Bring breakfast for the Englishman,” Miss Courtenay ordered. Her Turkish accent was good, better than his. “Will you take tea or coffee, sir?”

“Tea, please. Turkish coffee is more like a sweetmeat.”

“Amina knows how to make it in the Viennese style. My mother prefers...preferred it that way.”

“Then coffee, by all means. Allow me to express my condolences on your recent loss, ma’am. A street accident, I understand. It must have been a terrible shock.”

“Did Aaron tell you what happened?” she asked, giving him a suspicious look.

Curiosity aroused, he said on a questioning tone, “No, not the details.”

Her mouth tightened and she turned to the maid. “Viennese coffee for the gentleman, Amina.”

She drank tea and nibbled on a piece of Turkish delight while he consumed a substantial breakfast. Since she obviously, and naturally, did not wish to describe her mother’s accident, he tried the subject of Vienna, but on this too she refused to be drawn. All she would say was that she and her mother had lived there for several years. His curiosity now running rampant, he wondered just what had brought the late Lady Courtenay from Austria to Istanbul as the mistress of a high official of the Ottoman Empire.

He found it difficult to believe the girl did not take after her mother. However, all he had seen of her so far went to confirm what Aaron had told him: though not innocent in the sense of ignorant, Cordelia Courtenay was uncorrupted. In fact she was as prim and prudish as any well-bred young miss newly emancipated from schoolroom to ballroom.

What was more, to judge by the way she looked down her nose at him, she strongly disapproved of the tatterdemalion James Preston, Esquire.

“Have you changed your mind about taking me with you?”

“I never consented. However,” she went on grudgingly, “I don’t want your death upon my conscience. If you promise to behave with propriety, you may travel as my servant.”

“I’ve no intention of robbing or ravishing you,” he assured her, biting back a grin as she pursed her lips. “And I’ll try to watch my tongue. I’ve been away from decent society for rather a long time, I fear.”

She gave a long-suffering sigh. “Very well, then. Everything is prepared to make you look the part.” She indicated a bundle in a corner. “Ibrahim will help you dress and shave. Aisha, the hot water, please.”

The eunuch picked up the bundle and one of the maids dashed out.

“No hurry,” said James, reaching for the coffee-pot.

“Yes, there is,” she said impatiently. “The clothes may have to be altered, or a different sort of padding devised. Please go up with him now.”

He had to admit the practicality of her concern, but he could not resist teasing her. “No need to go upstairs. I’ll change here.”

Drawing herself up, she said in an icy voice, “I fail to see why the maids and I should be forced to leave the room for your convenience. Thank you, Aisha, give the jug to Ibrahim.”

Meekly James preceded the eunuch up the stairs to the luxurious bedchamber where the pasha had once disported himself with his English mistress.

The bundle contained clothing suitable for a male slave or servant, strips of quilted cloth of various lengths and widths, and a razor with a gleaming blade of Sheffield steel. This last a grim-faced Ibrahim proceeded to strop vigorously on a leather strap.

“I’ll shave myself,” James said firmly.

“I am an excellent barber. Even Mehmed Pasha says so. This is his razor.”

“I prefer to use it on myself.” He started to lather his chin at the wash-basin.

The eunuch bowed. “As you will,
bay
.” Handing over the well honed instrument, he waited till James had set the sharp steel to his skin, then continued, “But if you harm a hair of the Bayan’s head, be sure I shall find out and come after you with such a blade, even to England if God permits.”

With an effort of will, James contrived not to nick his cheek. He could not take the threat seriously, but the fervour with which it was pronounced impressed him. However priggish, Miss Courtenay had won the servant’s devotion. He recalled Aaron telling him of the arrangements she had made for the two maids’ welfare.

“Your mistress will be safer with me than without me, I expect,” he said soothingly.

He shaved with extreme thoroughness, and then felt his chin. Not quite satin-smooth, but as he turned his head before the mirror he saw no sign of beard. The trouble was, he must keep it that way for several days.

“I’ll have to pinch the pasha’s razor,” he mused aloud in English.

“Bay?”

“I shall need to take this razor with me,” James said in Turkish.

“No! The Bayan has given it to me. It is a most superior blade and—inshallah—I am going to set up as a barber.”

“You’ll be better off without it. Suppose the pasha caught you with it? You’d be taken as a thief.”

“It is true.” Ibrahim was woefully dismayed. “My thanks, bay. But how shall I find another such?”

“I’ll give you a letter to my uncle, Aaron the Jeweller. He will help you. Now, let us see about the clothes. They are yours?”

“Yes, bay. The Bayan will give me money for more.”

With relief, James doffed his female garments. Ibrahim, quivering with ill-suppressed laughter, helped him pad his lean frame with strips of quilt, stabbing him with pins several times in the process. In no good humour, James climbed into trousers, shirt, and dolman, and tied the sash around his expanded waist.

The wide trousers, calf-length on the eunuch, reached only to the knee, but many men wore them thus. The too-short sleeves were more of a problem. Otherwise, regarding himself in the glass, he was quite satisfied, until he glanced at his face. Smooth enough, it was far too thin, in startling contrast to his now pudgy figure. He puffed out his cheeks.

“Bay.” Ibrahim held out a small bowl. “To fill out the face.”

Dried apricots! James tucked a couple behind his teeth on either side. The vision in the mirror of himself stuffing his cheeks like a squirrel struck him as exquisitely funny. He burst out laughing, only to half-choke on one of the apricots. Coughing and spluttering, he warded off Ibrahim’s efforts to thump him on the back.

Miss Courtenay’s anxious voice came from below. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Speech was not easy, either. “Just a little trouble with apricots. They’ll work very well as long as I speak softly and remember not to laugh.”

“Our situation will hardly be conducive to laughter. Are you ready?”

“Just the turban.”

A few minutes later he waddled down the stairs. At the sight of him, Miss Courtenay was herself surprised into laughter. As he had surmised, she was really quite pretty when she forgot to look disapproving. He grinned.

Or tried to. “Dash it, I can’t even smile properly—”

“Your voice is too deep.”

“...and I’ll never be able to eat,” he went on falsetto. “I think I shall be horribly seasick on board and have to stay in seclusion.”

“If you claim seasickness, you will not be expected to want meals. We had best take a basket of supplies.”

“Put in plenty of dried apricots. Will I pass?”

“Walk about a bit.” She watched him critically, while the maids giggled. “Aisha will have to sew wider cuffs on your sleeves. And you are moving like a hobbled horse. Try taking smaller steps. Yes, that’s better. Good enough for the Greek sailors, anyway, and we’ll be going down to the quay at night.”

“Most unwise,” said James at once. “I’ve spent enough time in Istanbul to know women never go out after dark.”

“No one will see.”

“They will if we carry a torch, and if we’re caught without one we’ll be stopped, which is the last thing we want. No, we must reach the ship before nightfall.”

“But if I’m seen, someone may tell Mehmed Pasha.”

“I assume you’re not planning to go unveiled? No one will know who you are.”

She blushed and said crossly, “Your uncle says I don’t walk like a Turkish woman.”

“Aha, then what’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. If I can change my walk, so can you. Let me see.”

Scarlet-cheeked, she crossed the room under his judicious gaze, then turned, glared at him, and demanded, “Well?”

“You move far too purposefully. Aisha, Amina, show your mistress how you walk. There, you see, they take three or four tiny steps to your one and it makes them seem to glide along. Try it.”

“I don’t need to try it, I can see what to do,” she snapped. “If we are to leave at twilight, you had best go and take off that shirt at once so that Aisha can alter the sleeves.”

“All right, but I hope you will practise.” He gave the exasperating young woman an austere look. “Just remember this, Miss Courtenay. If something goes wrong, you may lose your virtue, but I shall lose my life.”

Chapter 5

Cordelia and her vexatious escort set out for the harbour just after the sunset prayer, leaving the house by the back door into a little used alley. She wore a proper yashmak instead of her usual shawl, and she pattered along with the smallest steps she could take without falling over. It was very tiring.

James Preston carried the bulky bundle containing her clothes, as well as the napkin-covered basket of food. He had been most sympathetic with her despondency over abandoning most of her books. She was quite in charity with him, until he complained at being nonetheless overladen.

“A hired porter might tell tales,” she pointed out.

“You could take the basket.”

“It would draw attention,” Cordelia said stiffly. “A wealthy lady with a eunuch slave never carries a burden.”

“Nor does an English gentleman.”

“You are not a gentleman. You’re a criminal fleeing the law.”

The anger in his face made her quail internally, but he dropped a properly subservient pace behind and said no more. Glancing back, she realized that the awkward way he carried the unaccustomed load was quite likely to draw unwelcome attention anyway, but she was not about to back down. In any case, few people were about and they in a hurry to get home. The authorities discouraged movement in the streets after dark.

Descending the street towards the Golden Horn, Cordelia saw that the harbour was likewise tranquil. A forest of tall masts showed where the Turkish fleet was moored. The smaller ships were merchantmen from the Black Sea, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean. Then there were the local craft, clumsy barges and swift, light caiques. These plied the Golden Horn, the Bosporus, the shores of the Sea of Marmara, linking the European and Asian quarters of the great city. A few of the caiques were still out on the choppy waters, their oarsmen hastening homeward with belated passengers.

If Captain Vasiliadis had not drawn for Aaron a map of the quays with the
Amphitrite
’s berth marked, they would never have found it.

Under the stocky captain’s vigilant eye, the last of a stack of sweet-smelling, resinous planks was being loaded as Cordelia and Preston arrived. A cargo of timber from Russia, he informed her in broken Turkish, ignoring her supposed servant.

“In Greece, not much forest left one thousand years, maybe two thousand.” He shrugged expressive shoulders. “Much olive tree. My ship bring olive oil to Istanbul. I expect you later,
Kyria
, but is better now. Please, come aboard.”

They followed him across the gangway as the day’s last call to prayer sounded from countless minarets. A sailor handed him a pair of lanterns and he showed them to two tiny, adjacent cabins at the stern, beneath the poop deck.

“Kyria,” he said in a low voice, handing each of them a lantern, “my friend Aaron tell me you English, but my crew think you Turkish lady. So is best you stay like in harem. Your servant will bring food, or what else you need, and poop deck is for only you use. Is good?”

“Yes, thank you, Captain,” Cordelia agreed. If the crew discovered the truth, their gossip might endanger the captain, she realized as he went off to supervise the closing of the cargo hatch.

Then she recalled Preston’s plan to feign seasickness as an excuse to keep to his cabin. He would not be able to fetch her meals. She turned to consult him, only to find he had deposited her bundle in her cabin and disappeared into his with the basket of food.