The Panther and The Pearl (24 page)

Sarah wrapped her arms around his waist and closed her eyes, not thinking, not caring about anything but this man and this moment. When he bent his head to kiss her she looked up and met his mouth with hers.

Sarah gripped his hard shoulders, fitting her body to his, tilting her head back as his mouth traveled from her lips to the shell of her ear, the base of her throat. He ran his hands up her bare arms and across her back, crushing her breasts to his chest. She tugged his shirt loose from the waistband of his pants, seeking the satiny texture of his warm skin with her hands.
 

Kalid found her mouth again with his, aware that he was kissing her too hungrily, but unable to restrain himself. He tugged at the slender belt of her gown and the silken material parted; his hands sought her flesh, caressing, his fingers hot, moving everywhere as Sarah swayed in his embrace, her eyes half closed. When he released her she would have fallen but for the arm he slipped under her knees as he carried her to his couch.

He set her on it and then ripped off his shirt; buttons flew everywhere as Sarah held out her arms, eager for the renewed sensation of his skin against hers. When he joined her she clung to him, running her lips over the smooth line of his shoulder. He groaned and pulled her into his lap as she sank her hands into his lush hair, sighing luxuriously. Her touch drove all reason from his mind as she strained against him. Sarah felt the tension in his powerful body as the panther he was named for readied itself to spring. She shifted her weight, making a small sound of satisfaction as she felt him full and ready against her.

“I can’t wait any longer,” he gasped, lifting her into position, his hands on either side of her slender waist. “I will try to be gentle, kourista.”

“Gentle?” she said, opening her eyes.

“When I take you,” he muttered, pushing her down on the couch, reaching for the top button of his trousers.

Suddenly she was looking up at him with a clarity that belied her previous ardor. “I know what you’re doing,” she said.

“What?” he panted, bewildered.

“You want to get into me just once before you pack me off to Boston. Then you can still feel that you’ve won.”

He let her go and stood abruptly, walking to the other side of the room to put some distance between them. When he could talk again he said tightly, “
I
pack you off to Boston?
Me?
You are deranged, do you know that? That’s your problem, not virginal reticence, not some drivel about being a captive or coming to Bursa against your will. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, I must have been blinded by desire. The real difficulty here is that you are completely and totally insane.” As always when he was angry or excited, his British accent intensified, making the last word sound like “insign.”

“And you, I suppose, are the picture of stability, paying a king’s ransom for a woman you’d seen once and then resorting to the basest tactics to have your way with her,” Sarah retorted.

“What base tactics? What? Were you tricked or misled in any way tonight? If you were I must have missed it.”

“Getting that book for me...” she said, sitting up and pulling her gown around her, tightening the sash.

“That’s a base tactic?” he demanded, staring at her. “Thoughtfulness is now a crime?”

“It wasn’t thoughtfulness,” Sarah said, standing.

“Then what the hell was it?” he inquired furiously.

“Duping me. You know just what to do in order to soften me up, make me susceptible to your charms. You’re a past master at it with all women and you’re particularly effective with me. I have no idea why, but it’s true. I’ve read that there is one man in the world that each individual woman will be helpless before, and for me that person is you.”

“You are not helpless, Sarah, never less so than at this moment,” he replied darkly.

“I’d like to leave,” Sarah said primly.

“You may go. You have my promise that I won’t try again. There will be no more interviews, presents, or tormented embraces. Your business with me is concluded. You won’t see me until you are ready to be taken to the American embassy.”
 

Sarah strode out of the pasha’s suite and walked back to the harem, her eunuch escort nipping at her heels.

Kalid downed another slug of raki and stared down at his hands, the hands that had so recently caressed Sarah until she was at the point of submission.
 

But she had not submitted, and he was now getting drunk to forget that.

Nothing was going as he had planned.

He had thought that telling Sarah she was free to leave him would make her realize that she did not want to go. He had thought that expressing concern about her after Fatma’s attempt on her life would make her realize that she meant more to him than just another woman to take to bed. He had thought that she felt more for him than just the passion two beautiful people would naturally stir in each other.
 

He had thought that freeing the caged bird would make it fly happily back to its perch.

He had thought wrong.

She was actually going to leave, and he had no one but himself to blame for it.

Why did he always misjudge the situation where she was concerned? Was she really so different from the other women he had known? She never reacted in the anticipated way, leaving him baffled and frustrated.

And alone.

He finished the liquor in his glass and poured another two fingers into it from the jug.

She would go back to America. She would marry some clerk or salesman or teacher, a faceless nobody who wouldn’t know the first thing about making her moan with pleasure, who would never see the slow flush creep up her neck as she gave herself over to passion.

The very thought of it made him want to reduce every stick of furniture in the palace to splinters.

Instead he threw his glass against the wall, where the liquid splashed and the glass shattered into a crystalline profusion of tiny pieces.

“Thank you for agreeing to accompany me on this little farewell trip,” Kosem said to Sarah. “My grandson told me how much you enjoyed the Sweet Waters and I thought you might like to see it again before you left us.”

Sarah pulled her feradge back from her face and studied the old woman sitting next to her. They were traveling in Kosem’s luxurious carriage, the cushions so soft that sitting on them was like sinking into a cloud. Two halberdiers rode on either side of them and the khislar trotted on his palomino behind the coach.
 

“Why do you look at me so?” Kosem asked.

“When you are about to spring a trap, you resemble Kalid very much,” Sarah replied.

“He resembles me, no? I came first.”

“So you don’t deny that this little excursion has an ulterior motive?” Kosem’s invitations always did.

“What is an interior motive?” Kosem asked.

“Ulterior. It means a secret motive, other than the one expressed.”

“You think I’m tricky?”

“It runs in the family.”

“Since you have made an observation, may I make one?” Kosem said, enjoying the parrying.

“Certainly.”

“For a woman who’s about to get her heart’s desire, you don’t seem very happy.”

Sarah turned away from her and looked out the window of the coach.

“Sarah, if you leave us and go back to the United States you will never see my grandson again as long as you live. Is that what you really want?”

“I have to go.”

“Why?”

“Kalid doesn’t love me.” If she weren’t certain of that she could never leave.

“You stupid girl, of course he loves you. Love sometimes finds expression in self sacrifice,” Kosem said urgently. “He loves you enough to let you go, and that’s more love than I have ever seen him show for anybody.”

“He has never told me so,” Sarah said.

“Deeds mean more than words, or isn’t that true in the U.S. of America?”

“That’s true anywhere.”

“So? Has he behaved as if he loves you?”

“He has behaved as if he
wants
me, which is an entirely different matter.”

The coach hit a rut, and both women jounced on the seat. Kosem leaned forward and pounded on the roof of the carriage with her jeweled walking stick.

“This driver is an idiot,” she grumbled. “He finds all the holes in the road as if he were searching for them.” She looked at Sarah. “You can’t tell the difference between affection and desire?”

“Kalid can’t. Any time I think he feels something real for me, it turns out that he just wants to get me into bed.”

“Is there something wrong with that? Did you think that his interest in you was...” Kosem searched for a word.

“Platonic?” Sarah supplied.

“What is that?”

“Just friendly.”

“Yes,” Kosem nodded vigorously.

“You don’t understand. Of course I know that he has always desired me.” She hesitated. “I feel the same.”

“So exactly where is the problem?”

“He has desired Fatma and I don’t know how many others. It has to be more than that for me.”

“You want to be special.”

“Yes. And I’m afraid his only interest in me is the challenge I represent.”

“You think you will be discarded once he has achieved his goal?” Kosem said.

“Kalid is accustomed to getting what he wants,” Sarah said. “Since I resisted him, chasing me was a novel experience. What will happen when he no longer has to chase me? If there is no real love between us I’ll be cast aside like a toy which no longer interests him because it has become too familiar.”

“And if there is love?”

“If there is love I’ve seen no evidence of it.”

“How can you say that? He drove Dr. Shakoz day and night when you were ill, he tore apart the palace to find those responsible for your poisoning.”

“To keep me alive so I could warm his bed in the future,” Sarah said flatly.

Kosem examined her soberly as the coach slowed to a stop. “You cast a very cold eye on my grandson’s behavior.”

“He bought me, valide pashana, and then kept me here, locked me up like a convicted criminal. As much as I react to his physical presence, I’ve never been able to forget the cynical, calculated way in which he selected me as if I were a piece of fruit that looked particularly appetizing, paying the price to obtain me like a customer in a bazaar.”

“It is the way things are done here in the Empire,” Kosem said simply.

“Kalid knows better. He spent time in the west.”

“Never believe that. In his soul, he is an Eastern man, Turkish to the core. It is why he wants to possess you. For him, there is no other way.”

The driver opened the door of the coach and let down the steps. Kosem alighted and turned to wait as Sarah followed her.
 

“It’s a lovely day,” she observed, as they started down the path to the beach. “Will you miss our balmy weather?”

“I’m sure I will, it can get very cold in the winter in Boston. Though I confess there have been days when the heat here has been too much for me.”

The khislar and the two halberdiers took up their positions on the road as Kosem led the way to the gazebo built for the Sultan’s kadin, Nakshedil.

“Did you know her?” Sarah asked, sitting on one of the stone benches inside and looking out to sea.

“Who?” Kosem replied, sitting across from her.

“Roxalena’s mother.”

“Yes, she was a very powerful woman. Willful, beautiful. She exerted a great influence on the Sultan.”

“Roxalena sounds a lot like her.”

“The Princess Roxalena is a spoiled child. She refused to marry my grandson.”

“I don’t think either one of them was really interested,” Sarah said, smiling.

“
I
was interested,” Kosem said, and Sarah laughed.

“I’m going to miss you,” Sarah said.

“And Kalid? Will you miss him?”

Sarah looked down at her hands. “Yes,” she said.

“You will never meet another like him.”

“I know that,” Sarah said quietly.

“Nor anyone who stirs your blood in the same way.”

Sarah was silent.

“Are you prepared to make this sacrifice?”

“I must.”

Kosem shook her head. “I don’t understand you.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You could live out your life here in comfort, even if Kalid did give you up in later years.”

“I could never stand that.”
 

“To be discarded?”

“To be unloved.”

“I think you are too proud, Miss Sarah of Boston.”

“Maybe.”

“It is why you anger Kalid.”

“I’m too much like him?”

Kosem smiled. “He would never say so.”

“He’ll have another favorite before my ship docks in Boston,” Sarah said tersely.