The Harem Bride (18 page)

Like a small boy denied a treat, he had
thrown a tantrum and, quite literally, slammed the door on what
should have been a new beginning for them both. In a trice, his
failure to consummate his marriage, compounded by the previous
years of neglect, assumed the proportions of an insurmountable
object. Now, he could only stand back and hope that time would
erode their differences, but at the moment—

“
And then there was a quite delightful
young woman I met at the linen draper’s,” his wife was saying. “A
Miss Helen Seagrave. An impoverished gentlewoman, Mr. Stanmore
tells me. She teaches harp and the pianoforte. Do you know
her?”

“
Stanmore?” Jason echoed, dismissing
his shadowy recollection of Miss Seagrave in an odd surge of alarm
that his wife had spent time with Cranmere’s overly handsome vicar.
“You spoke with the vicar?”

“
Yes, of course. I spoke with him about
Blossom’s and Ned’s wedding, and then he was kind enough to escort
me about the village, introducing me to absolutely
everyone.”

A task he should have undertaken
himself—as he very well should have known. Inwardly, Jason groaned.
He and his wife were finally living under the same roof, and still
he could not adapt his ways to being married. He did not
feel
married.

And whose fault was that? Who had taken a
snit because matters had not gone as he had expected? Who had
filled his head full of dreams of a golden child in nearly
transparent silk garments mincing across their bedchamber and
burrowing beneath the covers? Who had let his bitter disappointment
send him scurrying off like a whipped cur instead of asserting his
rights as a proper husband should?

Little wonder he did not feel married.
What gentleman would under such inauspicious circumstances? Indeed,
what
man
would?

And what man would be inspired by the
lackluster spinster before him? Oh, she might be a bit more
spirited tonight, her gown a trifle finer, but with the exception
of occasional bursts of shrewish temper, he could see little life
in her at all. This was not the glorious girl he had hoped would
share his life. She had vanished, as if by black magic, to be
replaced by this dull, proper pattern card of womanhood, sunk so
low as to be nearly drowned in the middle-class morality propounded
by the ever-growing clamor of the Evangelists.

He had made a dreadful mistake. If he had
told his father about his little escapade in Constantinople,
Rocksley would have managed to find a way to an annulment with few
repercussions for either Penelope or himself. And yet he had clung
to the vision of his night in the seraglio . . . to memories so
gloriously erotic they would never go away . . .

Hutton announced dinner in a tone designed to
carry above the clamor of a crowd of fifty. (For since his lapse
the night of the countess’s arrival, he had striven mightily to
repair his tarnished image as a man fit to be butler in a
nobleman’s country home.)

Jason, startled from his reverie, proffered
an arm to his countess.

This
was
the same girl, he told himself as they
walked toward the dining room. Gulbeyaz, the White Rose, was in
there somewhere, and he would find her. Although his own behavior,
to be perfectly truthful, had caused him to lose so much ground,
that he did not know how many times he would have to chance the
course before he crossed the finish line in triumph.

But he would. He most certainly would—though
the track he was on might have devious turns and twists . . . even
pits where a man might lose himself, trodden down by his wife’s
cold bed and cold heart. The news he had received from Brawley in
today’s post was certainly a complication he could have done
without. Perhaps, however . . . yes, perhaps he could make this new
complication work for him. If he made his wife angry enough to
strike sparks . . . If he could but goad her out of her icy
indifference . . .

Jason sighed. He had taken his life in his
hands when he went into the Topkapi Palace to rescue young Penelope
Blayne. No risk he might take now could equal that.

The earl pared a slice of apple for his wife,
then cut a square of cheese. The covers had been removed, and he
had poured port for both of them. His wife had not demurred. Ah,
yes, the spirited child still lurked inside there somewhere.

“
I am leaving for London tomorrow,” he
announced.

“
You might have given me some notice!”
Penelope gasped.

“
I am,” Jason returned
calmly.

“
Surely you must realize I do not like
to ask Noreen to scramble around so. It is many years since we
spent our time travel—”

“
I believe,” Jason interjected, “I
said
I
was going to London.
“I do not expect you to accompany me.”

Alas, his wife’s reaction was far from the
expected. She simply froze, the wedge of Stilton dangling from her
cheese fork. The pink faded from her cheeks. She lowered the fork
to her plate, folded her hands in her lap. The only sound from her
was a faint, “Oh.”

“
It is Lord Elgin,” he heard himself
say. “In spite of astronomical debts, he continues to refuse an
offer of thirty thousand pounds for the marbles, a situation not at
all aided by that idiot Richard Payne Knight, who maintains the
marbles are Roman copies. And now Brawley informs me, some young
Scottish whelp with literary pretensions has turned Elgin into a
monster.”

“
But how—”

“
It seems the lad inherited an English
baronetcy, made a grand tour, and now considers himself the
God-given authority on antiquities. He has written an epic which
has made him the lion of London. And in it, he has excoriated Elgin
as despoiler and thief of the marbles.”

“
Childe
Harold!
” his wife exclaimed. “That must be what Mrs.
Houghton was nattering on about, asking me if I had yet seen a
copy, though, truthfully, I felt forced to let her stream of words
go in one ear, then out the other, or else I would have been quite
swept off my feet.”

“
Childe
Harold
,” the earl confirmed glumly. “That’s the
scurrilous tale. I fear the blasted boy will do more harm than all
of Knight’s ignorant posturings. And since we are both indebted to
Elgin, I feel I must support him, both in society and in
Parliament, even though that may mean advising him to settle for
what he can get before Byron’s rants force the price lower
yet.”

“
But Aunt Cass and I saw them cutting
the metopes from the Parthenon,” Penny cried. “And, surely, Lord
Elgin has paid out twice that sum—”

“
At the very least,” Jason agreed,
pleased the mention of Lord Elgin had diverted his wife’s fury from
himself. “And, yes, the work has cost Elgin a fortune, one he did
not possess. At this point it would seem he owes half the world
back wages and outstanding loans. But, believe me, he would be wise
to settle.”

“
I can sympathize with Byron’s horror,”
his wife said after some deliberation, “since Aunt Cass and I felt
the same when we watched the destruction. But calm reason states
that if Elgin had not taken them, the French would
have.”

“
Precisely.”

“
Evidently, from what Mrs. Houghton has
told me,” Penelope said, “
Childe
Harold
is a phenomenon, a success difficult to
counter. But Knight is dog-in-the-manger, claiming the marbles are
Roman copies. I can only think he is jealous that he, the so-called
expert, did not procure the marbles himself. All the more reason,”
she added shrewdly, “why I should go to London with you, for
although I may not be able to argue convincingly on Elgin’s right
to take the marbles, I can most certainly attest to their
authenticity.”

“
As can I, and all Elgin’s staff who
accomplished the deed, “Jason said, “but they were never paid, you
know, and I fear their endorsements of Elgin are less than ringing.
Nor,” he added gently, “do I think Parliament would be impressed by
the recollections of a young lady barely turned
sixteen.”

A flash of anger lit his wife’s eyes, and
then she sighed. “It is all so sad,” she said. “Lord Elgin has
spent his fortune acquiring the marbles, yet he cannot get another
diplomatic post because of his poor face. Knight has cast grave
doubts about the marbles’ authenticity, while Byron rants on about
their theft. And to crown his sorrows, Lady Elgin disgraced herself
with another man. It seems most frightfully unfair. I do not
believe Elgin deserves such calumny heaped upon him. Without his
help, I fear I should still be in the seraglio. Not that your
actions were not heroic, my lord, but—”

“
You are quite right,” Jason agreed.
“Without Lord Elgin, I never would have had access to the sultan.
You know,” he added on a suddenly whimsical note, “until this
moment I had almost begun to wonder if you were truly the girl I
once knew, the Gulbeyaz of the seraglio.”

His countess gasped. “My lord, I have done my
best to forget those days—”

“
A pity,” the earl murmured
provocatively. “I rather thought she was enchanting.”

And because he feared he might take his
stiffly correct wife in his arms, thus spoiling his devious plans
by putting the cart before the horse, the Earl of Rocksley rose
and, after helping his wife to her feet, bid her an abrupt
goodnight.

Penny, her mind in a whirl, stood perfectly
still, gazing blindly at the doorway through which Jason had
disappeared. He could not possibly have meant . . . She must have
misheard.

Gulbeyaz?
Enchanting?

The Countess of Rocksley did not play
the piano that evening. She did not read a book or search out her
embroidery. She went straight to her bedchamber, where she threw
herself on her bed and burst into tears. She was
not
Gulbeyaz. She had never been
Gulbeyaz. The White Rose of the seraglio was a long-ago dream, a
fantasy. That alluring, knowledgeable girl could not be
resurrected.

Even if she wished to.

Which, of course, she did not.

Enchanting
.
Jason did not mean it, of course. It was all a hum. Her husband’s
way of torturing her for the scandal of her past. He was seizing
the excuse of Lord Elgin to run off to London without her, because
he was ashamed of her. She was a woman who had covered a scandalous
past by becoming as dull as the wife of an Evangelical parson. She
was neither fish, nor fowl, nor rare roast beef. A lost soul
masquerading as a proper lady.

No wonder, after a scant month of marriage,
Jason was bored. Running off to the company of his friends, to the
cynical humor of Lord Brawley and the voluptuous charms of Mrs.
Daphne Coleraine. Penny uttered a few highly satisfying words she
had picked up from sailors on board the many ships on which she had
traveled. Yes, she could quite understand why men used such awful
terms. There were times when ordinary English simply would not
do.

So . . . how was she to manage?

Lady Rocksley sat up, found a handkerchief
large enough to accommodate her dripping face. When she could
breathe again, she sat on the edge of her bed and considered her
husband’s enigmatic remark. Was that a challenge she had heard? Had
he truly found Gulbeyaz enchanting? Did he actually remember the
skills of the White Rose with fondness, perhaps eagerness, instead
of disgust?

But even if he did, there was no way to
go back. She could not be that girl again. She was overcome by
mortification at the very thought of what she had done that night.
She could
never
. .
.

Could she?

Impossible! She was nearly six and twenty. So
far past her prime it was a wonder Jason had allowed her back into
his life.

Undoubtedly, a gesture he now regretted.

But if he did not regret Gulbeyaz . . .

Penny stood and, holding a candelabrum
high, walked to the tall cheval glass in one corner of her room.
Carefully keeping the light away from her red and tear-bloated
eyes, she examined her image. From her simply dressed hair to her
emerald pendant, from her finely fringed and embroidered
kashmir
shawl to the soft green silk
of her gown and matching slippers, her appearance was acceptable,
suitable for dinner at home in any nobleman’s household in the
land.

Suitable. Which translated to dull,
uninteresting, drab, lackluster, lifeless, colorless, prosaic,
lacking in imagination or spirit of any kind. She had had nearly
ten years in which to develop her disguise, and she had done it
very well. So well she had almost fooled herself.

In short, Penelope Blayne, Countess of
Rocksley, needed to reinvent herself.

It was just as well Jason was going to
London. She was sorely in need of time to think. To plan. And
discover if there were any modicum left, not of Gulbeyaz, but of
the young and sometimes willful Penelope Blayne, who had wavered
between eager child and charmingly independent young woman, the
true-blue product of her Aunt Cass’s upbringing. Yes, it was the
beautiful young girl, fresh from the schoolroom, who had first
caused Jason’s eyes to glow with interest the night they met in
Lord Elgin’s courtyard.

She would need new clothes, head to toe! For
whose purchase she had not so much as a ha’penny, Penny amended,
her spirits plummeting.