Indiscreet (17 page)
"Of course, but Miss Godard is not in your harem. She is a British citizen."
"A small detail. Marquis." Nazim Pasha slowly stroked his beard. "It means nothing to me and is, in any case, easily remedied."
But Foye had learned at least something of the art of bargaining from watching Sabine. "If not five horses, then perhaps a hundred pounds?"
"A hundred pounds?" The pasha laughed, hands on his belly. "You insult me. A hundred pounds. Five thousand pounds sterling would be a pittance for what you ask me to give up. A woman such as her?"
"It's wartime. Pasha. I doubt very much I could get my hands on any significant amount of specie. I might be able to manage two hundred pounds."
"I have many expenses, Marquis, and you are a nobleman in your own country. Can five thousand be beyond your ability to gather?"
Their negotiations carried on for the next hour, punctuated by coffee and the nearly constant use of the narghile. Eventually, they settled on the sum of nine hundred fifty pounds. A ruinous sum Foye agreed to deliver in specie and any other combination of coin or gems that Foye could amass in Aleppo or Constantinople.
He returned to his room before eleven that night, having politely declined the company of one of the pasha's dancing girls. He spent an hour with Barton and Nabil relating a less than complete version of his bargain and what he intended to do about it At this point, Foye did not trust anyone. He barely trusted Barton, and he was an Englishman. When he'd sent them away, each with his own set of instructions to follow, all he could do was wait for them to be carried out and count the minutes ticking away.
When Nabil returned, Foye gathered what he needed and left his room.
In the courtyard that shared a wall with the wing in which he'd learned the Godards had been housed, Foye stood motionless, a light but bulging satchel slung across his body as he listened for sounds that indicated he should continue to wait. He listened to the noises of the palace. Distant conversation. The sound of night birds. The faint scent of smoke in the air. Nothing out of place or unsettling. Well, then. It was time to act
He adjusted the satchel so that the bag hung from his back. With his height and strength, he had no difficulty pulling himself up and through an open window. He'd been prepared to break one open if need be, but that proved unnecessary. His heart nearly hammered out of his chest at the noise from him opening the window wide enough to admit him. He pushed through and landed hard.
Foye crouched until he was certain the guards Nabil had warned him of had heard nothing. From his satchel, he removed a small lamp and the implements required to light it In the ensuing faint light, he could see the Godards' trunks stacked in the center of the room awaiting removal to Aleppo in a few short hours. That, at least, was not something the pasha had seen fit to prevent
At the interior door that connected Sir Henry's room to Sabine's, he paused and steeled himself against the thud of his pulse. Beyond a preference that he not die, he didn't care so much for his fate. If this was the night when the Marrack line came to an end, it would at least end in an honorable cause. But it wouldn't be only his life that ended. Any mistake or misfortune now would consign Sabine to whatever fate the pasha had in mind for her. Nothing very pleasant he was sure, whether it was confinement to Nazim Pasha's harem or the Seraglio in Constantinople.
If he was overheard, and provided he wasn't shot dead soon after, he wasn't sure if he could subdue both the guards on her door. On a purely physical level, yes, he didn't doubt he could eliminate the men if it came to that Whether he could do so without rousing more of the pasha's men was a question he preferred he not be forced to answer. The fact was, he was prepared to die or commit murder on Sabine's behalf. In either case, he would stand at the gates of heaven sure that he had done what honor required.
He kept the lamp shielded behind his hand and opened the door to Sabine's room. The native custom was to sleep on mattresses laid on the floor at night and put away during the day. Thus, he could make out Sabine's sleeping form at the far side of the room. Her mattress had been laid out next to the carved cabinets that held the bedding during the day. He moved as silently as he could through the darkened room. Thick rugs covered the marble floor and muffled the sound of his shoes. A few feet from the mattress, he stopped. She slept soundly, unaware of his presence in her private chamber.
The quilt that covered her was a thin, striped gold silk. One bare foot poked out, as did one of her slender, pale arms. He felt like some vile seducer who, having obtained the key to an innocent's bedchamber, had now crept in to have his wicked way with her person. He was aware that awakening her was likely to frighten her, and he could not afford to have her make any noise that would inadvertently alert the guards.
In her sleep, she turned over so that she ended up facing him, a slender, feminine shape under the covering quilt One hand disappeared under her covers. In the flickering light of his lamp, her golden hair gleamed softly.
She looked so very young and innocent
And here he was, in a way, as intent on her seduction as the pasha himself.
Chapter Sixteen
July 1, 1811
Three fifteen in the morning. The palace of Nazim Pasha in Kilis, Turkey. A chamber in which Sabine Godard had so far contrived to stay since her uncle's death. She had in fact not left the room since her uncle died. She was aware there were now armed guards at her door. She was also aware that strangulation was the preferred method of disposing of inconvenient women, and was therefore relatively confident the men were not there to murder her at some agreeable moment in time.
Sabine lay on her mattress unable to sleep. Her body and heart were heavy with grief and disbelief. She hadn't slept much since before Godard had died, and when she had managed to close her eyes, she kept waking up in tears or in the grip of fear. Twice now, she'd tried to leave the palace, but each time her instructions were countermanded or simply never carried out. Nazim Pasha had a charming, infuriating habit of agreeing that she must return home, and yet nothing ever happened. His promises were always for a tomorrow that never came.
She'd known for days that Foye had been right Nazim Pasha's interest in her was indeed personal. Sexual in nature. From the very beginning of their arrival in Kilis, overtures had been made and carefully misunderstood. The pasha wished to be—intended to be?—intimate with her. The thought of him touching her like that turned her cold and hollow.
She could not help but consider the fate of Aimee du Buck de River, Empress Josephine's cousin who was rumored to have ended up in the Seraglio sometime after 1788 when the ship she was sailing on was attacked by pirates. That Sabine might share such a destination could not be discounted. The pasha himself had a harem. She'd passed by the cloistered quarters several times, and once, just once, in the first days of her stay at the palace in Kilis, she had been given a tour of the women's quarters.
They lived quite well, if one did not mind that these women's lives were confined to this single area of the palace. The pasha's wives had a freer existence, but his concubines were not so lucky. She was sorely afraid she would end up in the harem.
In the middle of these myriad thoughts, typically unpleasant for her of late, she heard the door between her room and Godard's creak. But that room was empty of life now. The door had been firmly closed for days. Sabine lay motionless, convinced, hoping, praying that her thoughts about the Empress Josephine's cousin had led her to hear things, to mistake the sound of a servant outside her door for the sound of an intruder in her room.
Someone was here. The soft pad of footsteps on the carpet wasn't her imagination. Nor was the flicker of light from a lamp. Terror slid like ice down Sabine's spine. This could not be happening. Surely not. Not to her. And yet, someone was in her room. Creeping from the interior door toward her bed. She had a fascinating and paradoxical desire to cover her head with her blanket in the hope that whoever it was would realize he'd made a mistake and leave her alone, a bit shaken, but none the worse for her fright
Sabine willed herself not to move or change her breathing while she processed what she was hearing. The choice of doing nothing, which still exerted considerable pull over her, was unthinkable and illogical.
Whoever was in the room was being very quiet Stealthy. She forced her limbs to relax as she turned to face the door and slide a hand beneath her covers. She palmed the pistol she kept with her at all times since shortly after Godard had died. She clenched her hand around the butt of the weapon and prayed she would not shake when the time came to pull the trigger. No one, not even the pasha himself, would take her anywhere without first learning that she was going to fight for herself.
The intruder stopped walking. She peeked from beneath her lashes. If she was going to shoot a man, she intended to get a look at him first. He was large. Far too tall and too slender to be Nazim Pasha.
Had he sent someone to strangle her after all?
Underneath the covers, her fingers searched for and found the safety on her little pistol. My God, the man was a giant; at least as tall as Foye. With her heart pounding and with her trying to maintain an even breathing that simulated sleep, she registered the impossible fact that, from what she could see, her interloper was wearing English clothes.
Foye was not here. There was no reason on earth to think he would be. They had parted quite finally in Buyukdere. By now, he must be hundreds of miles away in Palmyra or Damascus or even further south, if not, in fact, entirely gone from the continent He might already be on his way to England, to the lovely city of St Ives.
She steeled herself against the fear ripping through her. There was no ignoring the terror, but she would not meekly accept whatever the pasha intended for her. She turned onto her back, heart racing, and brought up her pistol. She pointed the weapon at the man's heart when he knelt at her bed. "Get away," she said in Arabic. "Or I will shoot you like a dog."
In the darkness, she could see her attacker was an Englishman.
Before she could react, she was pinned to the mattress by a large and heavy male body. English clothes or not, he squeezed her wrist in a painful grip that prevented her from firing the gun. In the same motion, he covered her mouth with his bare palm.
He held her completely immobile. There was nothing she could do to combat the truth that she did not have the physical strength to free herself. His lower body lay on top of her, heavy and immovable. Panic tore through her again, and she exploded against the restraint She squeezed her fingers around her pistol. If she got the chance, so help her, she would shoot him dead before she let him touch her.
He put his mouth by her ear and whispered in a low, desperate voice, "Sabine. It's Foye." English. He was speaking English to her. He tightened his grip on her. "Be still or all is lost."
She went quiet even though it occurred to her she might be dreaming. Maybe none of this was happening. Foye, or whoever he was, did not remove his hand from her mouth nor ease the weight of his body pinning her to the bedding. Each lungful of air she sucked in brought her in closer contact with his torso. He raised up enough that she could see his face in the light of his tiny lamp.
Without releasing his hold on her, he leaned over her enough for her to confirm that it was, indeed, Foye. Her breath caught in her lungs. She recognized the uneven features, the hooked nose and his light eyes. She didn't understand how or why he was here, but he was. Emotion choked her. She wanted to cry with relief, but she couldn't even do that much.
In the same low, low voice as before, Foye said, "Nod your head if you understand I am Foye and not here to do you harm." She nodded, and slowly, he removed his hand from her mouth, ready to stop a cry if he'd misjudged her or the situation. "I presume," he said in the same whisper, "that you no longer intend to shoot me."
When she shook her head, her lips brushed his palm. He lifted his hand from her mouth.
"Nor that you are averse to leaving this place."
"I am not," she murmured back. Foye's eyes were fixed on her, looking into her. He seemed unaware that he remained lying across her, his body trapping her against the mattress. Despite everything, from the moment she'd recognized Foye, her panic eased.
"Excellent."
"Is it really you?" she whispered. "Foye?"
"Yes." He lay a finger cross his lips. He torqued his upper body to reach for something that he dropped beside them. A battered satchel. He did not release her wrist from his viselike grip until he'd reached in and taken her pistol. He set the trigger lock and slipped the gun into his coat pocket From the satchel, he brought out a bundle of something, clothing, she thought He continued in a voice so low she had to strain to hear him. "Put these on."
She took a breath and pulled aside the covers. Her body felt too light and her heart fluttered in her chest, a sparrow trying to find a way out. Her thick cotton shift, quite English in its hideousness, hid her from the top of her throat to all but an inch or two above her ankles. She was quite safe from him seeing much that was indiscreet. Foye watched her as she unrolled what proved to be clothes and a pair of shoes. She separated the various pieces.
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