The Devil She Knows (21 page)

‘A
bd al-Hamid pounded his fists against the plaster wall, trying to make the cacophony stop before the Italians next door decided to see why Turks were massacring the French language.

Yet still his cousins continued to argue. One would think the sons of donkeys were penned with the beasts, from the way they shouted, instead of merely descended from them.

No wonder his wise uncle—may Allah bless him with many more years—had banished them to the European City to finish their education. Surely it could not have been for any other reason, such as the matters which had driven Abdul's French mother to flee with him to Paris.

He shouted again but could not make his voice heard above the racket.

Finally he gathered his crutches and hobbled into the other room. “Enough! Enough of this, I tell you!”

They fell silent, staring at him as if he were a ghost. As well they should: his visit to the Customs House guards had depleted a bit too much of his vital humors.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves.” He waggled his finger at them sternly. The effect was unfortunately marred when his torso started to sway sympathetically on his crutches.

“You should behave with dignity and propriety, as befits members of our honorable clan.”

He touched his free foot onto the floor to steady himself. Pain, blinding hot, ricocheted through his leg and into his teeth faster than any festival fireworks. He yelped and wavered.

His giant cousin Areef grabbed his arms and lowered him tenderly into a chair. “You fool, you should not have risen so soon. Tabib, brew more of Grandmother's cordial for him.”

Abdul closed his eyes and willed the dizziness to depart faster than their solicitude.

Finally he could turn the warm glass of tea around in his hand without wanting to heave his guts every time he sniffed it. His ankle was carefully propped on pillows, lifting it to a comfortable height above his chair.

Best—or worst—of all, his cousins were clustered around him like stray cats waiting for the farmer's offering to disappear so they could resume their true identities as unlicensed predators.

He rubbed his thumb over the glass's rim.

“Remind me what the trunk's owners look like,” he ordered very softly in French.

His cousins stared at each other and not their food.

“I am not entirely stupid and I am certainly not deaf.” He assembled them remorselessly with his eyes. “You are determined to obtain a European-made steamer trunk from an American man and woman.”

“A British noblewoman!” Tabib corrected before falling silent under Areef's glare.

“Ah.” Abdul allowed his teeth to show. “How many women can name themselves both a British noblewoman and American? Does this lady have golden hair like the sun, blue eyes brighter than the Bosporus, and a smile to make the birds sing?”

“What if she does?” Areef slapped his chest. “Foreign women mean nothing to our country's future.”

“Only your father was present so you would not know.” Abdul slipped into the deadliest legal examiner's voice, used just before final judgment came down. “This one and her man saved me from the guards at the Customs House.”

Hideous realization swept over their faces and destroyed their appetites for bread and cheese.

Areef thumped the table, jostling Abdul's leg. But this time, it felt like a call to unity.

“We must set matters aright with her,” he declared. “Even so, we cannot go back on the revolution.”

Abdul closed his eyes and reminded himself that prayer had many benefits, especially to protect the great-hearted.

“But we will do what we can to protect the woman and her husband,” Areef finished.

May Allah grant enough angels to protect all of them from danger.

 

Still watching Gareth, Portia shoved another button through a loop on her jacket's front—and cursed silently. It too was out of sequence.

Sleeping with the man might have granted her a good night's rest and a delicious rising in the morning. But it also seemed to have freed him from any previous constraints regarding her business affairs.

He was circling St. Arles' trunk, over which they'd draped an embroidered tablecloth. Despite its now innocent appearance, she'd never been able to entirely relax around it. Gareth stalking it like a panther eyeing a wolf's den made her long for her old rifle, rather than more trousseau linens.

She undid every button she'd fastened, considered starting from the beginning, and instead went to her problem's root.

“Why don't you sit down? Or take a walk in the gardens instead? I'll need a few more minutes to finish dressing.”

“I thought you trusted me, honey.” His left eyebrow lifted a tad.

“Oh, I do but—” She stopped an instant before going too far.

“If you can trust your body to the murderer,” he mused, silky as a rifle's polishing cloth, “surely you can at least consider my questions for this item.”

“It's very heavy. What else could it contain except gold for bribes?”

“Are you certain? If so, then it's easily replaced. But if not—”

Her mouth went very dry. “It's certainly big and heavy to hold enough sovereigns to buy a new sultan.”

“True. But bribes are a dime a dozen in this town. What if St. Arles has something else in mind, something that can't be argued with?”

“Like what?”

“Let's look.” He whipped the cloth off and flung it carelessly over the divan. The solid oak trunk stared stolidly back at them, its ink-black straps as remorseless as a rattlesnake's stripes.

“He'll know in an instant if you force the lock.” Her voice came out in a wail from the heart. “The metalwork is very freshly painted.”

“You already told him you won't assist him. Given that, what does it matter if we pick this lock—or do you worry that he'll hurt your friends even more?”

She hung her head, unable to answer.

“We can't help your friends, honey, until we know what we're fighting against.”

“Go ahead,” she whispered. “If it's worse than gold, we can't let innocent people get hurt in a revolution, like Kerem Ali Pasha's family.”

Gareth lifted each end by the padded strap to test its balance, while Portia pretended nonchalance. Afterward, he squatted down on his heels before it.

“What do you think?” she asked, too unsettled to stay quiet.

“I don't think it's gold. At least, it's not how I'd pack gold.” He reached inside his coat and came up with a small roll of silk, unlike any she'd ever seen.

“What is that?” She dropped onto her knees beside him.

“Burglars' tools. Please don't remind your uncle how many I have, okay?”

“Thanks to your misspent youth?” It felt good to smile, however flickering.

“Yup, although I've added to the collection since.” He studied the lock and she held her breath, unsure how much success she wanted. Muttering to himself, he finally chose a single iron key and slid it into the lock. He turned it very delicately, there was a loud
click!,
and the trunk seemed to settle back onto its rollers.

Bile touched the back of Portia's throat.

Gareth glanced over his shoulder at her and gripped her hand. She squeezed it back, as ferociously as she could, to tell him that she was in this with him.

He lifted the lid and they looked inside.

“Hell and damnation.”

Portia could hardly argue with her husband.

A half dozen Winchester '73 rifles rested comfortably on the tray, custom-made appointments an obscene counterpoint to the cartridges loaded neatly into the tray's center compartment.

The yali's sea-washed murmurings suddenly sounded like souls diving into hell.

Portia dropped her head and tried to recover her wits. “How many men do you think St. Arles plans to equip?” she croaked.

“A dozen rifles plus fifty rounds each.” Gareth finished emptying the chest. “Put these lever-action beauties up against the muzzle-loaders the guards are carrying, and you've made a massacre.”

She measured one against her arm. “They're all carbines, too. They could be hidden inside a man's coat or robes.”

“And still provide the same firepower as a rifle, at least from close range.” He shook out a few cartridges into his hand and his face darkened still more.

“We can't tell the Sultan.”

“No, even if he believed we were innocent”—Gareth's voice almost snickered at that possibility—“he'd still leave us dead before he was sure we'd told him everything we knew.”

Portia shuddered but didn't argue the point.

“We must get rid of them.”

“How? That bastard St. Arles chose very well when he put all the guns in a single trunk. It's damn awkward to move and even harder to conceal. Plus, we don't know when he'll want them back.”

“This Friday for the festival?” she suggested.

“Or two weeks later when Ramadan starts. Then he'd have an entire month to overthrow the government, during a time when people are becoming weaker and weaker from fasting.”

“Even the guards?”

“The guards are more often Moslem than Christian.”

She closed her lips against a protest based on the city's cosmopolitan atmosphere and returned to basics. “Where do you think he plans to use it?”

“An inside attacker somewhere, or perhaps two. These rifles would be lethal at close range.”

“Where? How?”

“Mow down the Sultan himself? Inside the Sublime Porte and take over the Grand Vizier's offices? Kill key generals at the barracks before they can stop a revolution?”

“We can't let anything like that occur.”

“No.”

The rifles sneered.

T
he wind dived and tore Gareth's clothes, fast as a hawk striking at a dove. Sunshine might make the day warm and bright, but it also gave predators far too many advantages.

“It's a beautiful mosque,” Portia commented.

“Even more so, on the inside,” Gareth agreed absently.

Perhaps if he craned his head a little more, he might spot something which would reveal St. Arles' intentions, here at Constantinople's highest point. Or was he on a fool's errand, looking for clues amid the chaos of an old bazaar quarter?

“To have an ancient Greek church next to it, plus the ruins of another, is grand,” Portia cooed in a splendid impersonation of sightseeing awe. “Where else could I see such wonders in one place?”

He grunted an acknowledgement, far more interested in that British warship. Had she moved out into the harbor a little more?

“And this Roman wall.” Portia clucked her tongue. “Did it truly stop invaders for more than a thousand years?”

Gareth pulled his attention back from the distant Golden Horn's waters to his very close wife and the pile of rubble beside her.

Portia. His beautiful, courageous, stubborn friend, who insisted on calling him her husband. Even though she knew what he'd done in the past and that he planned to walk away from her in the future. Somebody to ride the river with, as his father would have said.

Portia, a woman he didn't deserve.

“Do you believe this wall could stop invaders again?” she asked, her cheeks nicely flushed by the wind.

If he bent his head a little more, he could pretend the single cypress tree concealed them from passersby and kiss her.

“Yes, it's Roman,” he said softly, his lips very close to her ear.

Most importantly, he could pretend they had a future together.

“Yes, it did stand for more than a thousand years, including through multiple earthquakes.”

Her lips trembled in a large, round
O
.

Movement beyond her shoulder caught his eye.

Gareth lifted his head—and reluctantly thanked God for the interruption. Kissing Portia rattled his wits far more than gunplay ever had and he couldn't afford to lose any edge now.

“But our Ottoman overlords let it fall into decline two centuries ago, Lady St. Arles,” said a French accented voice. Familiar but not extremely so.

“In the same manner as they themselves forsook all manly pastimes and sank into the pits of degradation,” growled another, far too well-known voice. The revolutionaries' leader at the palace, dammit.

The intruders stopped several paces away and well within sight, holding out their hands. At least they weren't trying to sneak up on him and Portia.

“What a pleasure to see you again, ‘Abd al-Hamid,” Portia exclaimed. “But, please, you must call me Mrs. Lowell now. I married this gentleman several days ago.”

“Congratulations, monsieur, madame!” ‘Abd al-Hamid looked genuinely pleased, rather than green from puppy love gone awry. “May Allah bless you with many years and children together.”

Gareth hoped his smile seemed genuine.

“We have come to apologize for disturbing you yesterday,” said the large revolutionary.

Why the devil would he want to do that?

“Indeed?” Gareth inclined his head, indicating willingness to listen, and strolled closer to the church. They'd be less likely to find an audience there who'd understand French, unlike the Francophile Turks.

“Both of you have done much good for my young cousin,” the big man said, lowering his voice to a remarkably soft bass rumble. “We owe you much in recompense.”

“Therefore we have come to warn you what St. Arles' chest contains.” Abdul suddenly sounded very decisive and Portia stared at him.

Gareth frowned slightly, old nerves firing up for battle.

“Yes, that is why I found you—or allowed you to think you discovered me, gracious lady. It has always been necessary for us to keep a close eye on that trunk and its contents.”

“Go on,” Gareth said curtly, unafraid to be blunt. After all, nobody could reach the priceless object without his and Portia's help.

The two men glanced at each other.

“There are at least two separate groups of revolutionaries,” Abdul began. “One does what you might call typical tasks—demonstrations in the public squares, control of the newspapers…”

“Not to mention the army and navy?” Gareth suggested.

“Those, too,” Abdul agreed, with a far too-practiced smile.

“Unless you're proclaiming a republic, you'll need a sultan to become a puppet. You'll also need to get rid of the current ruler,” Gareth pointed out. “How do you plan to do it?”

“The chest will be smuggled,” the big man's voice dropped even further, “into Chiragan Palace as a special festival gift.”

“Where the former sultan is held?” Alarm strangled Portia's voice. Gareth patted her arm, trying to give her a reassurance he didn't truly feel.

Good God, nobody would ever expect that kind of firepower inside the stronghold. It was designed to keep attacks out, not to shut down one coming from within. The villains would be able to escape within a few minutes, at most an hour.

He had to admire St. Arles for conceiving of such a bold stroke. He'd only have one opportunity to pull it off—but if it succeeded, he'd gain everything he wanted.

“At the same time, British Marines will land—”

“At Chiragan Palace and key points throughout the city,” Gareth finished the scenario for the would-be rebuilder of his country.

“We will rescue Murad from him, as soon as possible,” Abdul inserted.

“Do you realize that St. Arles doesn't give a damn if Murad is mad or not? In fact, it's probably easier for the British if their puppet sultan is mad.” Damn, but even saying things like that made Gareth want to wash his mouth out.

Portia's sweet scent drifted past him and she brushed her fingertip over his hand.

Clarity returned and with it the hope of springtime and flowers.

The two Turks drew themselves up, dark eyes flashing like cannon muzzles. Then they seemed to collapse into a single being.

“We are aware of that,” Areef agreed. “Murad was—is—a great musician. He will receive better care from friends than in a stone cage like Chiragan Palace.”

“You haven't told us when the attack will occur,” Portia prodded.

“We don't know. In fact, you're likely to discover it sooner than we do,” Abdul said, his voice sugar sweet but his eyes ageless cold.

“When St. Arles summons the chest,” Gareth supplied, his skin cold with the awareness of coming battle. His brain was searching, assessing, rejecting every tactic as too risky without any backup.

Dammit, if he only had one other member of Donovan & Sons here, he could do so much more. Temporary hirelings were all well and good but they weren't the same. They weren't men he'd already gone into battle with and could already trust to watch his back.

“Exactly. Peace be upon you.” Areef bowed, his expression troubled.

“And upon you be peace,” Gareth returned.

It would only happen if they stopped St. Arles.

 

Forests of white marble rose out of the floor and upheld the ceiling as far as the eye could see. Long dead faces swam amid curled hair and tendrils of moss, their vacant eyes always searching for an escape. Black water rippled knee deep over the floor, offering early warning of any intruders.

St. Arles studied the last remaining piece of the puzzle from a small ledge overlooking the ancient cistern.

Whitehall had promised competent help to take the chest into Chiragan. Having dealt with those London chaps before, he'd hardly dared hope to find tolerable assistance.

But these blokes promised to be quite efficient indeed.

A half dozen cold, calculating men looked back at him, with their arms crossed over their chests as if he mattered little more than their next meal.

“Gentlemen, the time has come to begin our attack's next phase.”

Nobody moved, even though they were supposed to speak the Genoan dialect of Italian.

“Two of you must pose as porters in the European City to pick up a chest.”

Tension swirled suddenly, more vibrant than the moss.

“Why should we care about a chest?” the eldest one asked in excellent Italian.

Ah good, they did speak the language.

“After you pick it up—and
discreetly
kill its current owners—you will deliver it to Chiragan Palace.”

“For a bonus,” the elder pressed.

Excellent: he hadn't hesitated at the mention of murder.

“A very large reward,” St. Arles agreed. Whitehall wanted no witnesses left alive, of course.

But this bounty came out of his private purse: He wanted the slut dead.

 

“Mail,” Gareth announced and dropped the damning little note onto the table. The embroidered cloth quivered but the chest underneath, containing all the rifles and ammunition, didn't move a hairsbreadth.

Dynamite would totally eliminate it—and Adem's home.

Beautiful Portia stopped brushing her hair, the golden strands gleaming brighter than fairy dust. Terror tightened her mouth before she started to draw the brush far more slowly over a single golden strand, again and again. “Did you open it?”

He propped his foot on the iron-bound beast.

“It's unsigned,” he warned.

“Gareth, do either of us need trumpets and banners to recognize St. Arles' work?” she retorted acidly.

He grinned privately, pleased with her return to normalcy.

“Probably not,” he agreed. “We're to bring the trunk tomorrow afternoon to a quay in the European City. Once there, we prop it on end and wheel it through the crowd. Another porter will bump into ours and—”

“Exchange chests in the confusion, since they're identical.”

“Except for the monogram,” he reminded her, very proud of her quickness.

She shrugged that objection off. “St. Arles had this trunk made; he probably has a duplicate waiting.” She let her brush fall into her lap. “What should we do?”

“I'll deliver it.”

“No!” Fear, more potent than liquid mercury, ran through his veins.

“Portia, I've delivered far more hazardous freight a thousand times and he won't be looking for me.”
Plus, I'm expendable and you're not.

“He asked for me, not you. If he doesn't see me, what if he calls everything off? What if he increases his attacks on my friends?”

“We've already asked your solicitor and Donovan's to help them. We must believe we've done everything possible and leave them in God's hands.” He stopped to watch her expression, wishing he knew some magical words to ease her fear, wishing he could destroy St. Arles to remove its cause, wishing…

She wiped her hands over her face.

“We'll both do it.”

“Portia!” How the hell could he stop her? By knocking her out again?

She stood up, her hips swaying underneath that frothy bit of clothing called a tea gown. All the lace and most of a gown's buttons, but no corset was how he'd sum it up.

His idiotic cock promptly sat up and saluted, abducting most of his brain cells.

“Portia.” He tried to think of another way to dissuade her. “I, we…” His tongue was uncommonly thick in his suddenly dry mouth. He fumbled for words and stumbled upon the truth. “It's probably a trap, meant to kill both of us.”

“Gareth.” Somehow she scratched his chest when she gripped his shirt with her slender little hands.

He shuddered and closed his eyes. He would not pick her up and tumble her upon that big bed. He was not a heathen, so help him, God.

She ran her hands up and down his front until the starched linen rubbed his back and shoulders like a thousand little fingers, igniting every previously indefinable urge. Heat danced into his bones, pricking him with his lust that throbbed with every beat of his heart. His eyelids sank until she became a golden blur, as evocative of joy as the dreams he'd once known in the Kentucky mountains.

“Portia, my darling.” Did he say those words? He caught her by her slender waist and let his fingers span her womanly hips.

“Gareth, my love, my life.” She softened and swayed toward him, ageless and ripe as the ancient waters lapping the house they rested in.

Love? The two of them, united in heart? That was a prospect more terrifying than facing a desert sandstorm without shelter.

And yet his heart yearned for her as much or more than his blood did.

“Portia.” He pushed back her gown to expose her white shoulders. “Sweetheart.” He bent his head to her lips and thrust his leg between her soft thighs.

She answered him eagerly, her little tongue seeking his. Her taste filled his mouth, spicy and warm like the breath of life.

Somehow his fingers fumbled well enough to undo her buttons but he'd never know how. He only cared that Portia moved against him, her curves teasing him until his recalcitrant barriers of vest buttons and suspenders and trouser fly disappeared.

Portia. Her sweet breast filled his hand, her plump nipple swelled eagerly to meet his thumb's caresses, her pulse trembled in her throat when he nibbled it, over and over again until needy cries rose from her mouth. His darling.

Her hands swept over his bare skin as if every muscle, every scar was precious and beautiful to her. Lingered and coaxed until his bones turned to fire and liquid lust cascaded through his veins.

“Gareth.” A single word yet it meant everything, since she spoke it.

He lowered her to the bed and knelt over her. Her eyes were wild and desperate, yet they saw
him
. They had always seen him, as nobody else ever did.

He lifted her hips and entered her, welcomed by her womanly cream.

His woman, nobody else's.