The Devil She Knows (18 page)

T
he evening sunlight drifted over the Bosporus, turning it into a fools' highway paved with gold. Dozens of steamers huddled at its crossroads, as if hoping for a prurient glimpse into the Topkapi Palace's harem. None of them were warships, only merchants.

The Moslem call to prayer echoed faintly from dozens of minarets, then silence. The perfect peace of prayer and meditation. Even thieves didn't tend to disturb sunset prayer.

Gareth enjoyed Moslem countries for that accomplishment. Only they could guarantee him at least one hour every day when no fighting made ghosts erupt out of his past.

Portia was triggering rustling noises from the dressing room. She'd been doing much of that for the past day, ever since they'd come back from seeing the Sultan visit the mosque—and talking to that filthy British earl.

As long as Gareth heard her like this, he knew she was well. She spooked a little too easily if he tried to help her dress or watched her too blatantly.

As soon as he got her out of here, he was going to grant himself the pleasure of hunting down her bastard of an ex-husband and destroying him like a cockroach. He'd already discarded at least five methods as being too gentle.

Lovely ladies like her should be cherished. Anybody who did differently should be destroyed.

She pushed open the door. The shutters' filtered light framed her brighter than any rainbow and just as unlikely to fulfill a man's dream.

“Plums?” she asked, holding up a bowl of the tart green fruit.

He had to clear his throat before he could speak.

“Not now, thank you. It's too close to dinner.”

She sat down on the divan to watch the Bosporus with him, clad in yet another of those frilly tea gowns. His blood promptly remembered the pleasures that lay underneath the silken confection and the barriers which did not, such as a corset, and surged into motion.

He cursed under his breath, not in English or French, then settled a little more against the yali's bedroom window and stretched his shoulders. Adjusting his trousers would be better but there was no easy cure for their tight fit. Leaping upon his wife—God help him, what was he doing with one of those?—to satisfy his own lust would be a sure route to hell for both of them.

Perhaps he'd borrow some horses tomorrow and take Portia riding, with grooms in attendance, of course. Or maybe he'd try to take her a little farther north to one of the summer resorts; that should be safe enough for both of them.

Somewhere she could relax and become a hoyden again, as she'd been before that damned ride across Arizona. Somewhere she could laugh and yell her objections to idiocy and hurl herself into life.

She'd never been the same since she headed back East after that trip. She'd been a high-strung filly who warranted gentle handling, and his clumsiness, when he knocked her cold, had hurt her badly. Now it was his duty to heal her.

Nothing else mattered. Certainly nothing he wanted for himself did, even if he had any right to those desires.

POP! POP! The small explosions burst through the room, almost rolling over each other.

Gareth whirled toward the source, his knife automatically sliding into his hand.

Portia looked up, ready to throw another plum pit through the window into the water. Her blue eyes were as large and round as her mouth. They were also far guiltier than any time her stepmother had caught her throwing rocks as well as any boy.

Gareth rubbed his forehead then sheathed his big bowie knife. He'd never previously seen much need to carry a smaller blade.

At least she didn't look frightened of him.

“Sorry,” she said in a very small voice.

He waved off the problem, wishing he could escape what she looked like as easily. The blond curls so loosely pinned up and meant to caress that slender white neck—or wrap around his hand while she pleasured his cock…

“It's not important,” he assured her quickly. “I should have warned you I had one.”

She leaned forward and ran her hands down the front of her thighs, stretching the fine silk over her waist and hips.

“It's just that I can't stop thinking about our meeting with St. Arles,” she confessed.

“Are you worried that he'll hurt you?” Gareth dropped his knife and its scabbard onto the table beside the bed then knelt beside her. “Honey, he can't touch you.”

“He was furious. What will he do to—”

“Your friends?”

“Or the people here in Constantinople? He's already gone back on his word to me and started destroying his own servants, the cur.” Angry and desperate, her goddess's face would inspire men to take up arms. Then it crumpled into desperation.

“But what if he's so angry at my refusal to help him that he becomes nastier to Constantinople's inhabitants? He could shatter any deals he'd made with them. Perhaps start a revolution and turn this country into an empty husk, even kill his current allies lest they prattle about him.”

“Portia.” He grabbed her hands before they crushed a plum into oblivion.

“Gareth, it would be my fault,” she whispered. A single tear swam onto her eyelash.

“For the love of God, Portia, do not blame yourself for another man's deeds. Any evil St. Arles does is because he himself chooses to.”

“But I can't stop wondering—”

“If you don't stop thinking about it, you will go mad. God help me, I know that all too well.”

Because I spent that entire monsoon season in Indochina, trying not to let the rain remind me of Kentucky mountains and make me escape into a bullet.

“Gareth, it would be my fault if—” she persisted.

He gave her the only escape he'd ever found which worked for any time.

He snatched her into his arms and kissed her with a man's hunger, heedless of any shyness she might still have. She stilled, her hands fluttering on his arms like butterflies, before she tentatively held on.

He kissed her again, stroking her with his mouth, sharing his need, drowning her in hunger and desperation, where nothing existed but passion. Thought had no place here, only the body's demands—and somehow an instinctive recognition of the other person with him.

She made an indistinct noise deep in her throat. Her lips opened under his and her tongue matched his. She softened to match his angle, surged to meet him.

His skin heated, blood rocking through as if it could leap across to her veins.

Her slender fingers lightly caressed his head, like angel's wings.

“Portia.” By God, he wanted more. He pushed her back onto the divan and undid her tea gown, his fingers fumbling at the tiny buttons like a boy. Him, who'd undressed dozens of concubines and bored matrons.

Silk ripped, short and sharp and rough, like the sound of their breathing above the seagulls' sibilant cries.

His cock thrust against his pants like a wild beast, desperate to find sanctuary between her white limbs.

She wrapped her leg around him and lifted her hips, needy little sounds breaking from her throat. She smelled of sweet cream and salty musk, woman and spring and homecoming.

And absolutely not his future.

With his last remnant of sanity, he forced himself to find a condom and rolled it onto his now-free cock.

He pushed her skirts aside and tested her with his hand. Wet, more than wet enough, yet he lingered to pleasure her and tease her.

“Gareth, please!”

He rolled her onto her back and knelt between her legs. God help him, she threw one leg over his hip.

He lifted her hips and plunged into her, tormenting himself with possessing her utterly, as if he owned her, as if she'd always belong to himself alone, as if she was his past, his present, and his future. As if the sweet sheath clamping down on his cock was meant to welcome him.

And he rode her like a madman, seeking only wild pleasure for them both.

She gave it back to him, hurling herself up at him, sinking her fingers into his shoulders and rubbing her legs over him.

It was too much—and he came far too soon, shouting her name like a teenage boy. His seed bolted out of his loins as if the only safe haven was her body, wrenching him apart in a series of long paroxysms. He hung suspended, somewhere in midair, ecstatic—and appalled that Portia Townsend could tear his world apart.

He barely had wits enough to fondle her pearl and ensure she too would find rapture.

Holding onto her afterward felt like grasping the greatest risk of his life.

He panted, sweat congealing on his skin like glue to bind them together. He began to count the seconds until he could speak soberly again.

Her slender fingers slipped up his chest in a trail of fire to unbutton his shirt.

And his mindless cock promptly swelled against her thigh, as if it hadn't shattered every tenet he'd laid for conducting his life.

But why the hell not? They'd only be married for a week or two at the most.

He tilted her chin up and refused to consider the starved hunger which went into his kiss.

“T
hank you, Gareth.” Portia sat down in the carriage and tried to keep her words polite. Years of striving to achieve perfection as an always disciplined British countess was no help at all when faced with the man who'd made her body ache in so many wonderful ways. She'd never realized she could be stiff and want to become even more so.

Or look at the cause—and hunger to touch more of the man under the fine clothing. Such as his big hands, which had so easily lifted her for his thrusts last night and eased her onto the quay this morning.

Gareth sat down beside her and sent the high-strung vehicle rocking. She flung her hand out for balance and it landed on his leg—his big, muscular thigh which had so wonderfully propelled her into ecstasy only a few hours earlier.

She hastily snatched her hand back and silently cursed her fingers' lamentable tendency to linger. A quick tug on both of her short kid gloves hopefully discouraged any further tendencies toward impetuosity.

Fondling Gareth in any manner whatsoever would be dreadfully embarrassing, since Kerem Ali Pasha's son Adem now sat directly opposite them, ready to assume his duties as guide.

He'd leaped at the opportunity to escape his mother's fond clucking. He undoubtedly saw this simple bit of sightseeing as an opportunity to show his superior officers he was ready to return to duty. He could have served as an artist's model for a dangerous young commander, even if their destination was the royal palace.

The clear blue sky hung lazy and welcoming overhead, as if nobody could ever wish ill to this country or want to attack stealthily. The Bosporus flowed steadily south, its waves shifting quietly as desert sand dunes. The Old City glowed under the great mosques' minarets and domes, like a set of treasure boxes—or scorpion nests. Gareth had flatly refused to take her there, calling it too dangerous.

Their carriage stood on the eastern side, on the great road running north beside the ocean. Forests of Judas trees, vibrant with pink flowers, flowed up the hillsides behind them.

Portia leaned to see where Kerem Ali Pasha's yali lay to the west, on the Asian side. Her breast brushed against Gareth's arm like an arpeggio's completion.

Even through her severe, dark blue dress, a jolt ran through her, stronger and sweeter than a lightning strike.

She shivered and tried to pull away. But Gareth captured her hand, trapping her against him.

“Do you see the yali?” he asked, in that deep, infinitely seductive drawl.

“Yes, of course,” she answered and tried to yank her fingers free. “It's the pink one, a little northeast of us.”

“It was a gift to my grandfather from the old Sultan,” Adem volunteered. “He was the Chief Secretary, in the days when Topkapi was still the Sultan's palace.”

“If you look south, toward Hagia Sophia and the harbor, Topkapi Palace is on the promontory.” Gareth was watching her face more than the sights.

Portia eagerly swiveled in her seat, trying to overlook the warm hand holding onto her.

“It's spectacular.” She turned a little farther, her attention caught by the ships riding at anchor. Dozens of rowboats filled the waters like iridescent beetles, while their larger brethren, the caiques, paddled steadily onward like swans. Small merchant ships swarmed close to Hagia Sophia's hill, like grubby workmen resting from a hard day's work.

All of which made the great, white ship in their midst look like an eagle amid a gaggle of pigeons and sparrows.

“What on earth is the
Phidaleia
doing here?”

“Which ship?” Gareth swung around to follow her gaze.

“HMS
Phidaleia.
She's Britain's newest armored cruiser.”

Speaking the blatant truth sent ice diving from her lips into her gut. Had the warship come to help St. Arles?

She sank back into her seat and tried to chase her skittering thoughts. If the Royal Navy thought highly enough of his plots to back him with one of their best ships…

“Armored cruiser?” Gareth queried, his tone far too soft.

“Ten six inch guns plus six torpedo tubes. She's fully armored but can make seventeen knots, with a crew of almost five hundred.” She gripped his hand hard, desperate for comfort.

He turned his palm up and locked their grasps, silently uniting them.

The carriage was trotting past an enormous palace, built of glittering white marble. Surely even the most extravagant sultan would not have inlaid his walls with gold or carved them in fantastical shapes like a cross between Versailles and the Arabian Nights.

“You're very familiar with her and her type,” Gareth observed. His voice was all Kentucky drawl now, which meshed oddly with French words. He must be thinking hard.

“St. Arles is a former naval officer. He only left Britain's senior service to take up the title when his brother died.” How little he disguised his homesickness for those days, too. “We spent considerable time with his naval friends.”

“On board their ships?”

“Yes, but not the
Phidaleia
,” she answered Gareth's unspoken question. “She was only launched a few months ago and is the Admiralty's pride.”

“She's here to pay Great Britain's respects to the Sultan,” Adem announced cheerily, deliberately ignoring their tension. “Next Friday is the Night of Absolution, when Almighty Allah forgives all his creation. Except for a very few of the lowest scum, who we will not soil your ears with, gracious lady.”

His manicured fingers dismissed those vermin like an executioner flinging aside decapitated skulls.

“Is it a festival?”

“It's one of the five nights, or
kandili
, when the mosques are lit with candles,” Gareth said brusquely, his mind clearly elsewhere.

“We will pray and lament in the cemeteries for our departed friends and relations,” Adem contributed. “Then we return home, where the elders receive the younger people. There are special foods served, especially desserts to celebrate the dead who walk among us that night.”

“Ah yes, it reminds me of how my grandmother's relatives decorate the family graves outside Louisville.” Her shoulders eased and she started to relax, pleased she understood at least a little of this unusual country.

“The Sultan always lights the first candle. It's one of the very few occasions on which he does not attend the mosque next to the palace.” Gareth rapidly drummed his fingers on the carriage's rim.

Portia's heart slammed into her throat.

St. Arles had five chances every year to attack the Sultan—and one occurred next Friday? When a top British warship just happened to be in town to support him?

May God have mercy on the Turks, they didn't know what was about to happen. But how could she tell them? She had no proof; a trunk full of gold was not a sin.

The great marble palace gave way to verdant gardens bordered by the blue ribbon of the Bosporus. Another white palace rose on the opposite shore, as if transported from Renaissance Italy. Two fantastical tents rose beside the water, almost as if fairies had recreated a genie's pavilions into stone.

A ferry steamed past, promiscuously scattering cinders and fragments of conversation. Two fishermen struggled with a heavy net and a small boat, pulled ever closer to shore by the strong current.

A new palace appeared ahead, standing tall and proud beside the water. White marble like the others, it was carved into narrow, vertical blocks. From a distance, they could have been filled with windows or giant steel bars, despite their fanciful carved frames. A great marble terrace surrounded it, edged by dozens of armed guards.

“What is that building?” Portia raised herself up to get a better view.

“Don't look at it!” Gareth wrapped his arms around her, heedless of Moslem prohibitions on displaying affection in public, and pulled her face against him. “For God's sake, Portia, they'll arrest you if you so much as glance at the windows.”

“Gareth, don't be silly.” She tried to pull away from him but manacles would have been more flexible. “You're crushing the feathers in my hat.”

“Mrs. Lowell, the previous sultan, Murad V, is imprisoned in Chiragan Palace,” hissed Adem from barely a foot away.

Portia's fingers dug into Gareth's arms, this time for stability in a spinning world.

“If Murad is still alive,” she fumbled for phrases to express her horror.

“He must be,” Gareth said with an experienced street fighter's brutal assurance, “else Abdul Hamid would never waste so much effort to guard him.”

“And he still has a stronger claim to the throne than his successor.” Years of curtsying and biting her tongue under diplomatic protocol had taught her how to read the nuances of court politics.

“Any revolutionary could use him as a puppet to bless their radical ideas—or sign treaties with a foreign government, if they held him,” Adem added. Passionate entreaty to understand his country's pain wracked his voice. “He could even invite foreign warships to use his harbor to attack another country.”

Dear God in heaven. Or rather, may Allah have mercy upon the Turkish people.

Portia's head fell back and she stared into Gareth's glacier gray eyes.

“Do you understand now?” His thumbs rubbed her shoulders lightly, offering a smidgen of comfort.

“Of course.” She patted his lapels back into place, careful to look nowhere else. He released her and she returned to her previous seat. This time, she sat straight and proud, haughty as any dowager duchess who'd ever snubbed an American heiress.

“If we're not supposed to cast our eyes upon it,” she remarked and flickered a single glance sideways, “what happens to anybody who sets foot on it?”

“Immediate arrest,” Gareth said simply.

“That's not too dreadful, is it?”

“And interrogation.” Adem seemed to be deeply involved in counting Judas trees far away from the palace. “There's a dungeon below stairs, so matters can begin immediately. The Superintendent is the best in the Empire.”

“Dear God,” Gareth whispered. His Adam's apple plunged up and down in his strong throat, like a prisoner tearing at close-set bars.

One of the fishermen cursed and cut his net free with an immense knife. Silvery fish flashed out of the water then dived into the Bosporus's blue depths. His fellow dropped onto the bench and began to row rapidly, the muscles of his back bunching and pulling against his thin shirt. Steering did not seem to be important, only speed.

The first man turned his back to the palace, now only a few boat lengths away. He dropped onto the other seat and, soon, he too was rowing hard.

“How much money did they lose?” Portia wondered, her heart aching. “All those fish and their net, too.”

“The seas will offer more mackerel and bass tomorrow.” Adem's mouth was a thin line, despite his words' insouciance.

“They also have their lives.” Gareth shoved his long legs hard against the carriage's frame. “Unlike Murad, who still had music left to write.”

Portia closed her eyes. She might have refused to help St. Arles—but that didn't mean he couldn't find another way to cause trouble.