The Harem Bride (5 page)

“
You are not an
object
!” the earl roared. “Nor were you when we
met. You were a sweet and charming child of barely sixteen, all
silver gilt curls and innocent eyes. The epitome of the English
schoolgirl.”

“
Not for long.” Unable to continue the
battle, Penny sagged back against the rich tan leather of the
bergère chair and closed her eyes.

“
Penelope. Penny.” The earl’s fingers
closed over hers. His voice was unaccustomedly soft and gentle.
“Please remember that this abominable situation was not of our
choice. There simply was nothing else to be done at the time. That
we are still alive is the miracle. Perhaps we—
I
—might have handled matters in a more proper
manner over the past few years since you are grown, but that
cannot, now, be rectified. So may we not make the best of the years
we have before us?”

“
Please . . . I should like to leave
now,” Penny whispered, head down. She did not see the earl recoil
at her words.

“
I thought you had more courage,” he
taunted, thoroughly stung.

“
I do. I have . . . but I must go now.
Truly I must,” Penny murmured, pushing herself to her feet. “I
must
go
!” And she fled the
room before hot tears could scald her eyes and run down her cheeks,
revealing to all the world what a bubbleheaded fool she was.
Because the thought of being Penelope Lisbourne, Countess of
Rocksley, the pinnacle of all her foolish girlhood dreams, was
quite too much for that sad resigned spinster, Miss Penelope
Blayne, to handle.

“
Hovering, were you?” the earl growled,
as, after a single knock, the door inched opened and, with
exaggerated caution, Gant Deveny peered round the edge.

“
Dear chap, the entire household was
hovering. Including Mrs. Coleraine, who, I might add, shows no sign
of packing her bags and fading quietly into obscurity.” Lord
Brawley favored his friend with a mocking, yet sympathetic grin,
then sauntered across the room, neatly flipping up the tails of his
jacket before sitting in the chair just vacated by the Countess of
Rocksley.

“
Daphne?” The pixies returned on a roar
of arrhythmic noise, sounding like the triumphant heralding of yet
another soul descending into hell.

“
The glorious Daphne,” Lord Brawley
confirmed in sepulcher tones. “Not the best plan to have her here,
Rock, if you were expecting your wife.”

“
I was not expecting Penelope until—
Oh, to the devil with it!” Jason groaned. “I’ve made a rare mull of
it, my friend. Nothing to do but brazen it out. Ring for Hutton,
will you? I daresay your legs are less like a blancmange than
mine.”

When the butler appeared, still looking a bit
green and bleary-eyed, Jason told him, “Send Mrs. Wilton and two
maids to aid Mrs. Coleraine with her packing. And see that Miss
Blayne remains in her room until after Mrs. Coleraine’s
departure.”

“
Yes, your lordship.” Hutton swayed
slightly to the left. “Ah, my lord,” he inquired, “was you
expecting me to put a footman outside her door? And what should he
say if Miss wishes to leave her bedchamber?”

“
Hell and the devil!” the earl
bellowed. “Tell Mrs. Wilton to lock the door, if you
must.”

“
Rock!” Gant Deveny hissed. “If you
truly wish to be married—of course, it’s more likely you do
not—then it’s best to turn the key on La Coleraine!”

Jason’s head dropped into his hands. “Go!” He
waved Hutton out of the room.

“
Do
you wish
to be married?” Lord Brawley inquired, taking no pity on his
suffering friend.

“
I am obliged to have heirs,” the earl
muttered from behind his hands.

“
So you married a child, then abandoned
her for what—ten years? A fascinating way to set up your nursery,
Rock. Don’t doubt some academic will wish to write a paper about
it.”

“
You may take your overly long nose and
your demmed academic paper and put them both where—”

“
Tut-tut, dear boy. I am your friend,
if you will recall. Mayhap, if you are particularly kind to me, I
might be willing to supervise the lovely Daphne’s
departure—”

The heavy oak door banged back against
the wall hard enough to knock over a brace of candles and send a
sheaf of papers on a side table flying onto the carpet.
“
Daphne’s departure
, is it?”
Mrs. Montagu Coleraine paused halfway across the study, her
voluptuous body literally quivering with outrage. Waves of mahogany
hair framed her remarkably patrician face. Her rich chocolate brown
eyes hinted of Italian, or perhaps Spanish, ancestry. As did the
generous curves of a figure which could never be called classically
English. And yet, the earl would have been the first to state, from
his intimate knowledge of the lady, that there was not an ounce of
fat on her. Only a year older than Miss Penelope Blayne, Daphne
Coleraine had already outlived one husband and was on the catch for
another. She was bright, witty, and usually good-tempered. She was
also the great-granddaughter of an earl and considered herself
quite eligible to be Countess of Rocksley.

“
Is it true then?” the lady demanded.
“You are
married
?”

Without looking up, the earl nodded.

“
I have given you a full year of my
life, and you are married?” Mrs. Coleraine declared most
awfully.

Belatedly, Jason rose to his feet. “Believe
me, Daphne, my dear, my wife is as angry with me as you are. It
would seem I have managed things quite badly all round. I would ask
you—indeed, beg you—to return to London. When I myself know what is
happening, I will certainly apprise you of the facts.”

“
How could you not know
now
?” the lady demanded.

“
Believe me when I say I am nearly as
confused as you. Until I was named Penelope’s Trustee, I had nearly
forgotten our ancient contract—”

Mrs. Coleraine seized eagerly on his words.
“Then you are merely betrothed?”

“
No,” the earl sighed. “We are well and
truly married.”

“
And you
forgot
?”

Frantically, the earl glanced at Lord
Brawley, who was studying the carpet in an obvious effort to hide
his thorough enjoyment of the moment. If his friend chose, Jason
knew, he could dine out on this tale for the next year or two.

But Gant Deveny was a true friend. He had, of
course, risen upon Mrs. Coleraine’s grand entrance. He now stepped
forward and slipped his arm through hers. “Come, my dear Daphne,
you do not wish to remain in a house so much at sixes and sevens.
Fly this place, and give the two of them room to tear each other
apart. Mayhap you will win out in the end,” he added quite
mendaciously. “I am certain Rock will not wish to give you up.”
That sentiment, he felt certain, was not a lie. But it was not as a
wife the Earl of Rocksley would keep Mrs. Daphne Coleraine. The
lady could, however, take his remark any way she wished.

Fortunately, she seemed somewhat
mollified, allowing Lord Brawley to guide her steps from the earl’s
study. As the oak door swung closed behind them, Jason groaned, a
loud, tearing growl of frustration and pent-up anger. Why,
why,
why
had Fate seen fit to
visit him with this disaster? How could one small shopping trip in
a far-away land have brought them all to such a pass?

It was, he reasoned, no more his fault
than it was Penelope’s. They had weathered a true crisis, in which
he had shown himself a hero. It was only afterward that he had
behaved badly. Filled with a young man’s longing for freedom, he
had allowed himself to be manipulated by Cassandra Pemberton. And
then there was the
other
. He
had been mortified by his inadvertent display of lust for a
sixteen-year-old girl under his protection as representative of her
family. When the crisis was past, instead of shouldering his
newfound responsibilities, he had been so overcome by guilt he had
allowed Miss Pemberton’s wrath to scare him off. Indeed, he had
stood by and let her sail into the sunset with his child bride and
felt only a profound sense of relief. The incident in
Constantinople was over, with nothing left but to sweep it under
the carpet and pretend it had never happened.

Little had he expected to spend the next ten
years in the arms of other women, trying to forget the wedding
night he had spent in a seraglio under the watchful eyes of Sultan
Selim the Third, the Grand Vizier, the Chief Black Eunuch, and
Allah alone knew how many others as well. And yet, in spite of the
audience, he had barely left his child bride a virgin.

Jason groaned, as the whole ghastly scene
came flooding back.

Above stairs, the thoughts of the Countess of
Rocksley matched those of her anguished husband. How, from such a
simple, quite innocent, mistake, had things gone so wrong? They
were each offspring of a noble family; each intelligent,
well-educated, and accustomed to the vagaries of traveling in
foreign lands. Nothing dire should have befallen them. They were
English, were they not? They could travel, inviolate, anywhere, any
time.

That day in the Grand Bazaar haunted her.
What had she done to bring such disaster upon them all? Was it
naivety, random accident, or was it simply because she had been
born blond and ravishingly beautiful? A golden child in a land of
dark skins, dark eyes, and dark hair?

A tear rolled down Penny’s alabaster cheek as
she remembered, yet again, how it had been.

~ * ~

Constantinople, August 1802

“
Turn about, my dear. Slowly now!” Miss
Cassandra Pemberton examined her niece with undisguised
satisfaction. The child would do, do very well indeed. Only those
far too high in the instep for their own good would question her
decision to allow a girl of sixteen to attend an evening reception
at the British Embassy. Their many years of travel had fashioned a
cloak of elegance and sophistication about Miss Penelope Blayne’s
slim figure that would be envied by young matrons in their
twenties. Miss Pemberton sighed, a bit embarrassed to realize the
emotions she was experiencing were suspiciously
maternal.

Briskly, she tweaked one of the tiny white
rosebuds woven into Penelope’s upswept hair. “You’ll do,” she
decreed aloud, then paused, unable to resist making one last
inspection. No, she was not wrong. Dear Penny was a vision of
loveliness. She wore the white rosebuds nestled in her shimmering
blonde hair like a proclamation of virginal innocence. Curls,
carefully arranged, framed a delicate porcelain face with softly
rounded cheeks and small nose. The only flaw was, perhaps, a chin
that showed signs of jutting out into what, at best, might be
called overconfidence; at worst, stubbornness. This minor
imperfection was, however, offset by the stunning beauty of eyes
the color of a clear summer sky. Wide and heavily lashed—and
surely, Cassandra Pemberton thought, she might be forgiven for
allowing the child to darken them so their full beauty might be
seen and appreciated.

Because of the peculiar nature of foreign
travel, this was not, of course, the first time Miss Pemberton had
taken her niece into society. But it was the first formal evening
party in the highest circles of society—albeit in a land far from
home—she had deemed Penelope old enough to attend without censure.
Not that Cassandra Pemberton had ever cared a fig for what others
thought of her, but Penelope was another matter entirely. Miss
Pemberton had plans for her niece that did not include becoming an
eccentric spinster forever traveling the globe in search of the
Lord alone knew what.

Therefore, she had taken great care in
ordering Penelope’s dress for the evening. A white muslin of the
finest weave, embroidered solely with white rosebuds (with not so
much as a pale green leaf allowed to intrude upon the purity). A
modest flounce at the hem, with equally modest flounces beneath
each puffed sleeve. White satin ribbon, cinched less modestly
beneath the bust, emphasized how rapidly the girl was becoming a
woman. Penelope’s only adornment, other than the white rosebuds in
her hair, was a single strand of exceptionally fine pearls, even
whiter than the youthful skin on which they rested.

Breathtaking
,
Miss Pemberton decided. How fortunate Viscount Lyndon had arrived
in Constantinople at this particular moment. Fortuitous, that’s
what it was.

Miss Pemberton turned away to hide her smile.
Travel conditions being what they were, even in this new century,
it was close to a miracle she had managed to time their arrival in
the Levant to such a nicety. As long ago as the previous year, she
had begun to make discreet queries about which young gentlemen were
to make a Grand Tour to whatever parts of the world Bonaparte’s
visions of conquest had left open to foreign visitors. How it
rankled that they had not dared go to the Egypt. All those
marvelous pyramids and other wonders of the Nile, lost to them
because that monster Bonaparte had the outrageous notion he could
bring Western civilization to a heathen land whose days of glory
were thousands of years in the past. And yet, as reluctant as she
was to admit it, when British troops helped force the French out,
the country had fallen into anarchy and become no fit place for two
Englishwomen of gentle birth.