Chapter 3
Flat on her back, petrified, Cordelia stared up into a veiled face. The eyes above the yashmak stared down. A woman? A Turkish woman who spoke English? An Englishwoman in Turkish clothes? But the hand crushing her lips had a masculine strength, the voice when it came again, though hushed, had a masculine timbre.
“Don’t scream. Promise and I’ll let go.” The pressure eased fractionally.
She nodded. The hand was lifted and the intruder kneeling beside her low bed sat back on his—or her—heels.
“I wasn’t going to scream,” Cordelia whispered indignantly. “I was going to call for help. If I were the sort of female who screams I daresay I’d have swooned by now.”
“I beg your pardon.” The voice, now with an odious laugh in it, was definitely a man’s. An Englishman’s. It reminded her of her mother’s first lover. To Cordelia he had always been kindly but remote. He had not reckoned on the girl he loved bringing her baby with her when she deserted her husband for his sake.
Drusilla Courtenay had not reckoned on losing him so soon. They had promised each other to live happily forever after, she told her little daughter, but after only six years, in a small town in Germany, he took a fever and died. Cordelia could scarcely remember him, confusing him with those who had followed until this Englishman’s voice resurrected his image.
“I should have known from what Aaron told me that you aren’t the screaming, swooning sort,” he went on.
“Aaron?” Horrified, she sat up, hugging the quilt about her. “Who are you? How did you get in?”
“Climbed the wall into your courtyard.”
“Why? What are you doing in my bedchamber? Leave at once!”
“Hush! I can’t leave, I must talk to you.”
“Downstairs.”
“Your servant is sleeping in the room downstairs.”
“I won’t talk to a man in my bedchamber. I don’t know why I should talk to you at all.” Except that she was dying of curiosity. “I’d trust Ibrahim with my life.”
“But can I trust him with mine?”
“If Aaron told you about me, you must be aware I can’t afford a fuss with the authorities. Ibrahim knows it, too.”
The man heaved a weary sigh. “Very well.” In one lithe movement he rose, then stumbled as one foot caught in the hem of his robe. Recovering his balance, he ripped the shawl and yashmak from his head. “To the devil with these draperies! Come on, then.”
“You go down. I have to dress,” said Cordelia primly, clutching the quilt beneath her chin.
“I’ll wait on the stairs.” He was laughing at her again, the brute! Yet much as it annoyed her, for some reason his amusement made her feel quite safe with him. He went on, “I don’t want to be down there without your protection if your Ibrahim wakes.”
Silently he slipped from the room. Flinging back the quilt, she fumbled with the tinder-box and lit a lamp. She hurriedly pulled on her shift and caftan, but as the stranger was an Englishman, she didn’t bother with the loose trousers underneath. Lamp in hand, she went after him.
He sat half way down the stairs, his head leaned against the bannister. His black hair was short, raggedly cropped. From above he no longer looked large and menacing, just unspeakably tired. His eyes must have been closed, for the light of the lamp didn’t make him stir.
“Sir...”
Springing to his feet, he whipped round, his right hand flying to his girdle as if in search of a weapon.
“Oh!” His shoulders slumped and he passed his hand across his thin, fair-stubbled face. “I’m sorry, I forgot where I was. I was half asleep, I think.” Standing aside, he bowed ironically. “Pray precede me, Miss Courtenay. Allow me to carry that lamp for you.”
The light roused Ibrahim. Sitting up on his mat on the floor, he rubbed his eyes, then gaped at the peculiar figure behind his young mistress. He looked at Cordelia in dismay, obviously convinced she was following in her mother’s footsteps—and no doubt wondering why she should choose a lover who dressed in homespun woman’s clothes when she had rejected the rich, influential pasha.
She hastened to disabuse him of this unthinkable notion. “This Englishman has just arrived and wishes to speak to me,” she said sharply. The English had an occasionally useful reputation for eccentricity. “You will stay with us.”
“Yes, Bayan.” He stood up, and bowed, then stayed standing against the wall, arms folded across his chest, hands hidden in his sleeves in the approved fashion.
“I wish you hadn’t told him I’m English,” said the stranger. “Still, no use crying over spilt milk. Do you mind if we sit? I’m a trifle fagged.”
Cordelia waved him to the divan, but he did not seat himself until she subsided cross-legged onto the cushions Ibrahim hurried to pile for her. Despite his outrageous dress, still more outrageous behaviour, and unshaven chin, the Englishman apparently had gentlemanly manners. She studied him as he lounged back against the pillows, very much at his ease.
He was not particularly tall, though taller than Ibrahim. As far as she could tell, given his billowing female garment, his build was lean, his strength wiry rather than brawny. His face was thin, the sun-bronzed features regular, unremarkable, the bristling chin square and determined. It was odd that the sprouting beard was fair when his hair was so very dark, as were his eyebrows. His eyes looked black by the light of the single lamp, but she thought, from the quick glance she had given him as she passed on the stair, that they were dark blue.
She realized he was studying her, too, a slight smile on his face. “Neat ankles,” he observed. “Neat as a new pin.”
Belatedly, she became aware that her caftan was by no means long enough to cover her legs decently. Fiery-cheeked, she reached for the nearest cushion to hide her feet. “Ibrahim, fetch my shawl from my room,” she ordered in Turkish. Glaring at the stranger, she continued in English, “You are no gentleman to notice. Who are you? What do you want?”
The smile became a grin. “I’d not have mentioned it,” he said, “had they been thick. My name is James Preston. As to what I am, let us say a traveller in a foreign land. I can claim acquaintance with Lord Byron, if that is any recommendation.” Far from it. Lord Byron’s besmirched reputation had not been enhanced by his recent sojourn in Istanbul. “And your jeweller is a relative of mine.”
“Aaron!”
“My mother was Jewish, my father English. Since the Jews are matrilineal, they regard me as one of themselves, while to the English it is the paternal lineage which counts. So I belong to both tribes, a happy result, you must agree. And as for what I want: Uncle Aaron—I call him thus though he is more of a distant cousin—tells me you are leaving Istanbul tomorrow morning. I want to go with you.”
Wordless, she took the shawl Ibrahim presented to her, but she was too stunned to remember what she had requested it for. “To go with me?” she said blankly.
“I also wish to leave Istanbul,” he explained, as patient as if he addressed a halfwit, “as soon as possible. It seems to me I might be of assistance to you on the journey.”
“You have come to offer your services? I don’t believe it, Mr. Preston. Besides, I shall have Ibrahim to help me.”
“Well, not exactly.” His ingenuous tone instantly put Cordelia on her guard. “The fact is, I need your help more than you need mine. You see, if you cannot afford a fuss with the authorities, still less can I. They are after me, and I’m not likely to survive a meeting.”
“What do you mean?”
“You must have seen what happens to those who run afoul of the law here in Turkey.”
She had, from a crippling beating on the feet, to the loss of a hand, to death by stoning, or sentencing to the galleys, perhaps worse than death. But if that was what he feared, he was a criminal, scarcely a fit travelling companion.
Yet, looking at him, she knew she could not abandon him to such a fate. “I cannot see how going with me will help you,” she said crossly.
“In the Moslem world, a woman cannot travel alone.”
“That’s why I’m taking Ibrahim.” Only as far as Athens, she reminded herself uneasily. “But you’re not a woman.”
“They are looking for a man travelling alone. As your servant, I’d not be noticed.”
“A woman with a manservant would most certainly be noticed!”
James Preston sighed heavily. “I know,” he said with a wry glance at Ibrahim, “I shall just have to steel myself and pretend I’m a eunuch.”
“You don’t look or sound in the least like a eunuch.”
“Thank you, you relieve my mind. Nor do I feel like one.” Though he rasped his hand across his chin, his dark, considering gaze made Cordelia bridle at the double entendre. His lips twitched. “Don’t you think if I were smoothly shaved I might pass? My beard is very light in colour.”
“They tend to be portly. We’ll have to pad...I mean, you would have to wear padding, and pad out your cheeks as well.”
“Thank you, Miss Courtenay.” His eyelids drooped, his body relaxed, and suddenly he was asleep.
“Well, really!” Cordelia stood up and looked down at him. “We can’t leave him here,” she said in Turkish. “I must explain to Amina and Aisha before they see him. He’ll have to sleep in Mama’s room. Wake him, Ibrahim.”
Half awake, he stumbled up the stairs behind her, Ibrahim bringing up the rear with a second lamp. She opened the door to her mother’s room.
Preston paused on the threshold, glancing around the room, bleary-eyed. “So this is the love nest,” he mumbled.
“Good night,” said Cordelia frostily. To explain her plight, Aaron must have disclosed what he knew of Lady Courtenay, but she wished he had not. “Ibrahim, you will sleep in the passage.”
“Yes, Bayan,” said the eunuch, much relieved.
* * * *
Somewhat to her surprise, Cordelia sank into sleep as her head touched her pillow. Her last wispy thought was that there was something infinitely, if inexplicably comforting about having an Englishman to travel with, however much of a rogue.
Her first thought on waking to the muezzin’s cry was that there was a strange man in the house and she must have been moonstruck to let him stay. Had she really agreed to let Preston travel as her servant? Not in so many words, she decided, but she had implied consent, and he had certainly taken it as such. If she now changed her mind and refused, he might complain to his Uncle Aaron, who had it in his power to ruin her.
Aaron! Cordelia sat bolt upright. Aaron knew all about the wealth she’d be carrying on her. She trusted him, but suppose he, trusting his relative, had mentioned the diamonds. Perhaps James Preston’s tale of fleeing the authorities was nothing more than a ploy to gain her sympathy so as to rob her later.
Yet if he was not in trouble with the law, she had no reason to believe him to be a criminal. And surely if he had been deliberately playing on her sympathies he’d not have made those indelicate remarks about her ankles and the “love-nest” and not feeling like a eunuch.
Unless he thought her as immoral as her mother.
“Oh drat!” said Cordelia. She would have to make sure he understood his mistake.
Not that she cared a farthing for the opinion of a ne’er-do-well wastrel, but one way or another she seemed to have decided to take him with her. If she left him to be crippled or beheaded or whatever the ghastly penalty was for whatever crime he had committed, the horror would haunt her forever.
“Inshallah,” she murmured with a sigh. “As God wills.”
She washed and dressed and went out into the passage. Ibrahim was still there, sitting cross-legged on his bed-mat. He beamed as he saw her, saying as he rose, “I have guarded the Bayan through the night. The Englishman is still asleep.”
“Thank you, Ibrahim. Come down, now, and I shall explain to you and the girls.”
Amina was in a great fuss because Ibrahim had not lit the charcoal fire to heat the water for the Bayan’s tea. “The last breakfast I shall make for the Bayan,” she cried, “and there is no tea prepared!”
“Cease your foolishness,” he said grandly. “I had more important matters to attend to.”
“What can be more important than the Bayan’s breakfast?”
Cordelia soothed her. “Ibrahim shall step out to find a yoghurt-seller and buy some
laban
for my breakfast,” she said. “I can wait for my tea. Our guest will want some, I expect.”
“A guest!” Amina gaped, and Aisha stopped on her way up the stairs. Ibrahim looked still more important. “What guest, Bayan?” Amina demanded.
“Aisha, come back, please. I must talk to all of you. An English gentleman arrived late last night.”
The eunuch nodded smugly. “He sleeps still, in the Lady’s room.”
“He is returning to England,” Cordelia went on, “and he will go with me.”
“And I shall go to make sure all is proper,” said Ibrahim.
Cordelia’s thoughts raced. Only the rich had a eunuch slave or servant, only the very rich more than one. To appear on board the Greek ship with two in her train was bound to lead to gossip which might set Mehmed Pasha on her trail.
“No,” she said gently. Ibrahim’s face fell. “It was generous of you to agree to go with me, when I know you had much rather not. Now I don’t need to ask it of you. You shall have the same money I promised you, enough to set up in business as a barber, as you wish. The Englishman will escort me safely all the way to England.” She could only hope it was true.
“To travel alone with a man who is not a relative!” said Amina, scandalized. Aisha and Ibrahim looked equally shocked.
Although they had been loyal to her mother in spite of her shameful behaviour, Cordelia realized, they had thought better of her. “These matters are regarded differently among the English,” she said hastily. “Everything will be perfectly proper. Besides, he will travel as my servant, as a eunuch, in fact. We must try to make him look like Ibrahim.”
Ibrahim was obviously pleased at the notion of the English gentleman pretending to be him. Aisha was dubious, still dismayed, but Amina at once started planning the transformation. All was in readiness by the time Mr. Preston came down.
Cordelia and Ibrahim had just come in from the market. She thought it best not to change her routine today, and in any case they had to eat—and feed the uninvited guest. Amina, who was a good cook, wanted to make
kadin budu
, a special delicacy, as a farewell dinner, but Cordelia considered the name—meaning “lady’s thighs”—far too indelicate. Instead, she had bought lamb, onions, fresh mint, a lemon, and a large purple aubergine for her favourite stew. Lentils, pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, and garlic were all to be found in the store-cupboard.