Lost Love Found (65 page)

As she finished, there came a tremendous knocking at the door and the other women in the room began to scream.

“Be silent!” Esther Kira shouted over their shrieks in a surprisingly strong voice. “Answer the door, you fools! Mobs do not knock politely!”

With an amused look at his great-grandmother, Simon Kira hurried out to answer the knocking, and then Padraic Burke was striding into Esther Kira’s salon, followed by Murrough O’Flaherty and the Earl of Kempe.

“Padraic!” Valentina flew across the room and into his arms, which closed tightly around her. Their lips fused in a torrid kiss, then they broke apart, acutely aware that a passionate reunion was unseemly at that moment.

Lord Burke looked Valentina over carefully. She appeared unharmed. “Your costume, madam, is most revealing,” he murmured.

“In the harem of Cicalazade Pasha,” Valentina replied, her amythest eyes twinkling, “my costume is considered sedate, my lord.”

“What a world we find ourselves in,” said Tom Ashburne, his gaze admiring. “Divinity, you have once more devastated me. Alas! I believed myself reconciled to your decision.”

“We have no time for chatter,” Murrough O’Flaherty said grimly after he kissed Valentina in greeting. “The mob is hard on our heels and there is murder in their hearts. Why have you not blockaded your doors and windows, Eli Kira? Do you welcome violent death?”

“There is no escape, Captain O’Flaherty,” Eli Kira said softly.

“We can but await our fate.”

“A man’s fate is what he himself makes of it, Eli Kira,” came the sharp reply. “If you sit meekly by waiting for death, then you shall surely find death. But if you fight, man, there is a chance you may outwit death!”

“Captain O’Flaherty, you do not understand,” Eli Kira said quietly. “We may fight, but we are outnumbered. If one or two of us should manage to survive, how do you suggest we live with the memories of the others who were slaughtered? My sons, their wives, and children are all in this house. If they are gone, what is left? It is better we all die together.”

“We are trapped in this monument to our pride,” Esther Kira said sadly. “We could run, but there is only one way out, and that is through the mob itself.”

“Could you not escape through the gardens?” Murrough asked her.

“The gardens end in a sheer drop over the cliff,” Valentina told her cousin. “Esther is right. There is but one way out.”

“There is a chance that you and Lady Barrows may be spared our fate,” Esther Kira said, “if only we had her English clothes. If we could but hold off the mobs until the janissaries arrive—and they will arrive, I assure you—then perhaps we might convince them that you three men and Lady Barrows were in the house on business and were accidentally caught in the disturbance. There is a chance.”

“We brought Valentina’s clothing with us,” Murrough said. “Nelda packed what she thought her mistress would need.”

“God’s foot, Murrough!” Valentina snatched the package from her cousin. “Give it to me at once. I will not feel right until I am in my own clothing again.”

“A pity,” said the earl.

“If you are very good I shall wear these garments for you once we have returned to England, Tom,” she teased him.

“You will burn them at once, madame!” ordered Lord Burke darkly.

“Secret the jewelry upon your person, child,” Esther Kira said.

“No! I want nothing to remind me of the vizier,” Lady Barrows replied.

“You have earned your bounty,” Esther Kira said wisely. “Do not leave them for the mob. When you return to England, give the vizier’s gems to the poor if you will, but take them with you!”

Valentina hurried away to change into her own clothing. She felt immediately better at seeing herself familiar once again, in a midnight-blue silk gown with lace cuffs and a starched neck ruff. She pulled her hair free of its exotic trappings and brushed Shakir’s work away, parting it in the center and twisting the thick hair into a French knot at the nape of her neck. The silk stockings felt comfortable, but her elegantly heeled shoes felt a bit tight. Her face scrubbed free of kohl and red lip balm, her own natural color glowed softly.

“I will need something in which to place these jewels,” she told Sabra when her friend came to ask if she needed help.

“Give me the gems,” Sabra said. “I will find a bag for them.” Then she began to weep. “I do not want to die, Valentina!” she sobbed piteously. “What of the child I carry? He will die, too! It is not fair!
It is not fair!
”

Valentina could only hug the girl. She had never felt more helpless. There was a very good chance that they were all going to die. At least Sabra knew what it was like to carry a child inside her. Valentina did not. She knew that more than anything she wanted Padraic’s children.

The two young women returned to Esther Kira’s salon to find that the men of the house had finally, under Murrough’s stern direction, marshaled themselves to barricade the doors and the other entries to the house. Outside they heard a dull roaring as the mob drew nearer, working its way to the top of Balata and leaving destruction and death in its wake.

“The garden is your weak spot,” Lord Burke said. “You must station manservants there to prevent the mob from climbing your walls. Tom, can you oversee that?”

“Immediately!” the earl called enthusiastically. Tom had always loved a good battle.

“My lord earl!”

The earl turned toward Esther Kira. “Yes, madam?”

“My servant, Yakob, will take you to the cellars. There you will find several excellent rifles and the gunpowder necessary for them. If you do not know how to use a gun, my servants do.”

“I’m a better shot with a pistol, madam,” said Tom, grinning at her. What a resourceful old woman she was!

“There are pistols, too, my lord,” she replied calmly.

“Madam”—the earl bowed to Esther Kira—“you should have been a warrior queen.”

“It seems that, in my old age, I am, my lord,” Esther answered with a rueful smile.

The great wooden gates to the inner courtyard of the house had already been barricaded, a heavy oak beam set across the usually-open entry. Behind the gates were arranged all of the carts and vehicles belonging to the Kira family. It would take the mob some time to break through. When they did, they would find the iron-bound double doors to the house locked, barred, and equally formidable.

On the two sides of the gardens, which were surrounded by a high wall, Kira servants stood at the ready with guns. Having been so successfully marshaled to defend themselves, the family was beginning to believe that they just might survive until the janissaries arrived to rescue them. That the sultan would protect them they had no doubt.

Behind the walls and doors they could hear the heavy, rhythmic thud of feet and the drone of angry voices, hundreds of voices that became an eerie howling sound as the raging mob approached the Kira house. A great pounding began as the mob struggled to beat down the gates. The gates held. From the gardens came the occasional sound of shots as those foolish enough to attempt to scale the walls met with failure.

“Take me to the main entry hall of our house,” Esther Kira suddenly ordered her family.

“Grandmother!” Eli Kira exclaimed, horrified. “Has fear addled your wits?”

“Do I look fearful, Eli?” she demanded.

He shook his head, sighing.

“Listen to me, my ever-cautious grandson. If the mob breaks through, I do not wish to be found cowering in my apartment. I would meet my death head-on, without fear. Now do as I bid you. Take me into the main entrance of the house where I may await my persecutors with dignity and honor.”

Even as his father began to protest, Simon Kira stepped forward and picked up the frail old woman, carefully wrapping her in her delicate gossamer shawls.

He carried her from her salon to the main entry. Padraic and Valentina and two servants followed, bringing Esther’s divan and pillows so that she might be comfortable.

Esther’s three eldest great-grandsons, Simon, Asher, and Cain, and their wives, Sarai, Ruth, and Shohannah, gathered protectively about the matriarch.

David and Lev Kira patrolled the gardens with Tom Ashburne. David’s wife, Haghar, had chosen this moment to go into labor with her first child. Sabra was sent to oversee the little children in the nursery, in the hope that in calming their fears, she would be able to control her own, for Sabra was the most visibly terrified of them all.

“You realize, Esther Kira, that by placing yourself here,” Murrough O’Flaherty told her, “you make it impossible for us to defend your house and family once the mob breaks through the front door.”

“If, Captain, the mob breaks through before the sultan’s men arrive to rescue us, then we are doomed no matter where we are,” she answered him. “I would not give those beasts the pleasure of chasing us through our own home in order to kill us. If they mean to kill us, then let them do it here—immediately. Perhaps with some of their bloodlust satisfied, they will spare the children. It is the best I can hope for. But you and your people would be wise to remain in my salon. By the time the mob reaches there, their first passion to kill will be assuaged. You may be able to explain who you are and save yourselves.”

“It is not our way, Esther Kira, either to flee danger or to leave our friends to face danger alone,” Valentina said before her cousin could reply.

“You face death by being available to the first assault,” the old lady fretted.

“We English are not afraid to face death, Esther Kira. Our history is filled with instances of valor. Never have we fled before the face of the Dark Angel,” Valentina answered. She took the old woman’s hand in hers while Padraic placed a gentle hand on Esther’s shoulder.

“You have your mother’s sense of what is right, daughter of Marjallah,” came the matriarch’s voice, and she squeezed the young hand in hers. “May Yahweh protect us all and have mercy on us in this hour of danger.”

A serving woman came into the room, crying loudly and wringing her hands, and knelt before Esther Kira. “Forgive me, gracious mistress, for the evil news I bring this family,” she sobbed.

“You are forgiven,” said Esther Kira solemnly.

“Haghar has perished in her travail, and her child, a boy, was born dead, the cord wrapped about his little neck.”

Sarai, Ruth, and Shohannah wept, clinging to their husbands. They had all led such charmed lives. It seemed impossible that one of them should die this way.

Sighing, Esther Kira shook her head. “This is a very bad omen,” she said softly. “Yahweh has spoken most clearly. We are surely doomed.”

There came the awful sound of splintering wood as the great gates began to give way before the fury of the attackers. And then the mob poured into the courtyard, pushing aside everything in its way, clambering over the carts and litters placed to deter them, howling murderous intent with one shrieking voice as they began to pound on the thick double doors at the front of the house. In the gardens, the guns fired again and again, and Tom Ashburne ran into the entry, saying, “It’s hopeless! They’re almost out of gunpowder now. When it’s gone, there’ll be nothing to keep the bastards from coming over the walls.”

“They’ve broken through into the courtyard,” Murrough said grimly. “Where the
hell
are the sultan’s men, I should like to know!”

Lord Burke put his arm around Valentina as she stood holding Esther’s frail hand. “Whatever happens, Val, remember that I love you,” he said quietly. “I have always loved you, and I will regret to my dying day that I was not man enough to say it when I should have.”

“This may very well
be
our dying day, Padraic,” she whispered to him with gallows humor.

“What a woman you are, Val, that you can laugh in the very face of death!” he said admiringly.

“We are not going to die, Padraic!” Valentina said insistently. “I did not escape from the vizier’s harem only to die at the hands of a mob! We will survive this, as we have survived so much else. But I would have you know something before anything else happens here. I had intended to tell you when we were safely aboard
Archangel
.

“I resisted Cicalazade Pasha’s advances for most of my captivity, but in the end, he forced his will on me. I hate and detest him. I swear to you that though he forced himself on my body, he had nothing else of me. Not my heart, which I gave to you long ago, or my soul, which is mine alone. I love you, Padraic, and I know that I always have. Would that I had been woman enough to admit it to myself and tell you before giving my hand in marriage to poor Ned Barrows. How different our lives would have been!”

“But not half as exciting, Val,” he said wryly. “There is much O’Malley in you. You will never bore me, sweetheart!”

“Then you still want me to wife despite what has happened?” she asked him plainly.

Lord Burke laughed. “Like my mother, you are sometimes very foolish! Aye, I want you to wife! ’Tis true that you have a most delicious and provocative form that I much enjoy, but your heart means even more to me. Do I care that Cicalazade Pasha used you? Aye, I care. Would that I could kill the man, for the pain he inflicted upon you, but ’twas not your fault, Val, and I do not blame you.”

“I am so fearful that he may have impregnated me, Padraic,” she whispered.

“He cannot, my child,” Esther Kira’s reedy voice stated clearly. “Cicalazade Pasha has not impregnated a woman in over ten years. The last children born to him were a daughter by Esmahan and a little son by Hatijeh. It was that son’s birth that caused Lateefa Sultan to resort to an old remedy used by the great valide Cyra Hafise and her three sister kadins to prevent Sultan Selim from having additional sons.

“Hatijeh attempted to use her little boy to gain supremacy over Lateefa Sultan. The infant was not strong, however, and died before his first birthday. Lateefa Sultan had resolved by then that such a threat could not occur again as long as her husband no longer fathered children. Consequently, any woman who enjoys the vizier’s passions is given the old valide’s potion in her food or drink. None has ever conceived a child.”