The Harem Bride (7 page)

Since Cassandra Pemberton’s agile brain could
not have devised a better scheme for throwing the two young people
together, even if she had sat up half the night attempting to do
so, she swiftly accepted Viscount Lyndon’s invitation.

“
The light is beginning to fade,” Jason
said as he guided the ladies toward an outside staircase at one end
of the loggia, “so we must be quick. I promise you the panorama
will amaze you.”

“‘
Tis not half so high as the tower at
Pemberton Priory,” Penny scoffed as they shortly found themselves
on a flat roof high above the courtyard. “
O-oh!
” Miss Blayne was silenced.

The soft sibilance of a hundred voluble
guests drifted up on the seabreeze wafting from the great harbor
below. And somehow, even the strains of the orchestra had become
more mellifluous, magic notes for a night in a land so exotic it
seemed almost to be part of a tale in a storybook and not real at
all. Beyond the courtyard and the green of the Embassy’s park-like
setting was a sight even Penny’s lively imagination could not have
conjured. Not only were they on the roof above the British Embassy,
but the entire embassy grounds were on a hill rising steeply above
that magnificent harbor known as the Golden Horn at precisely the
point where it joined the Straits of Bosphorus.

Enchanted, Penny could only stare in
wonder. Everything, as far as the eye could see, was
different
. The shapes of the ships
in the harbor, the cut of their sails, made even the familiar sea
look strange. And the buildings . . . an undulating array of domes
and towers of every size and description spread out before her,
solidly covering both sides of the great harbor of the Golden
Horn.

“
This side of the harbor is the
District of Pera,” the viscount told her. “Back in the thirteenth
century Genoa helped the Byzantine emperors take back the city from
invaders and were given this great hill on the far side of the
river as a place to live.”

“
No foreigners to contaminate the
city,” Miss Pemberton interjected dryly.

“
Precisely,” Jason agreed. “Thank you
very much, we are granting you the right to control our trade, but
please live on the other side of the Golden Horn. Soon the Genoese
were joined by Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and eventually other
Europeans.”

“
If we are in the foreign quarter,”
Penny pronounced thoughtfully, “then where is
Constantinople?”

“
Everything you see on the far side of
the harbor is the city of Constantinople,” Jason told her. “The
capital of Byzantium, the final resting place of what was once the
Roman Empire, and now the capital of the Ottoman
Empire.”

“
Very good, Lyndon,” Miss Pemberton
applauded. “Are you thinking of becoming an Oxford don?”

“
Miss Blayne seemed interested,” Jason
muttered, his youthful pride much stung.

“
Oh, I am!” Penny cried. “But are you
saying we must cross the harbor to see the city?”

“
Vapurs
—ferries—run constantly,” the viscount
told her in the superior tone of one who had been in Constantinople
for all of two weeks. “Look there”—Jason forgot himself long enough
to point—“to the right is the Grand Bazaar. You will, no doubt, be
fascinated by the sights there. Though on no account should you go
without several footmen to bear you company,” he added, turning
toward Miss Pemberton. “Constantinople is not the safest place for
women, particularly those who go unveiled.”

“
What are all those grand buildings
with the tiny towers?” Penny asked. Not hesitating to follow the
viscount’s bad example, she pointed toward an elaborate maze of
buildings, set on a prominent point directly across the Golden
Horn, domes and turrets shining in the red glow of the lowering
sun.

“
On the left is the Sultan’s palace,
called Topkapi,” Jason told her. “The buildings on the right are
the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia, which was the cathedral of
the Byzantine emperors before the Ottomans converted it to a
mosque. And those ‘tiny towers,’ Miss Blayne, are minarets, where
muezzins call the Muslim faithful to prayer.”

“
Oh, Aunt Cass, when may we go?” Penny
burbled. “It is like a fairy tale.” She clapped her hands. “We
cross the water on a
vapur
”—Penny peeped up at the viscount to see if
she had recalled the word correctly—“and,
voilà
, we are in a land of
enchantment!”

As Jason looked down at Penelope, her fragile
porcelain beauty haloed by the brilliant red of the setting sun, he
experienced a moment of dizziness, something so foreign to his
young but hard-headed nature that he dismissed it as the result of
gazing too long at sunlight on the water. Almost, he offered to
escort Miss Pemberton and her charge on their ventures into the
teeming streets of Constantinople, but then he remembered the other
young men with whom he had made plans. Interesting and intriguing
plans.

And Penelope Blayne was so very young. There
would be time, plenty of time, to stand back and wait for her to
grow up. Perhaps when she made her come-out, he would take another
look. Or possibly not. He would be only three and twenty then and
still many years away from wishing to settle down and set up his
nursery. A man must, after all, have delicious years of freedom to
look back on before he could reconcile himself to being
leg-shackled.

He should, of course, suggest that young
Penelope cover up her glorious head of spun gilt and her delicate
beauty as well. But Cassandra Pemberton would not appreciate his
interference, and surely she was tigress enough to protect her
innocent cub. With nothing more than a polite social smile,
Viscount Lyndon escorted the ladies back down the staircase, where
they promptly joined the Ambassador’s other guests and soon were
separated by the inevitable ebb and flow of conversation.

It was a fateful moment, a failure in
communication, a fault of youthful carelessness Jason Lisbourne
would regret for years to come.

~ * ~

Before leaving the British Embassy that
night, Miss Cassandra Pemberton—who had been called many things but
never a fool—asked Lord Elgin to recommend a guide. And so, on the
second morning after the reception, Miss Pemberton and Miss Blayne
began their exploration of the ancient city of Constantinople,
accompanied by their guide, Faik, who spoke passable English, and a
stalwart house servant named Abdul.

As their party approached the array of
boats along the edge of the great harbor, Aunt Cass’s eyes were
sharp, Penny’s shining with excitement. For some reason
Constantinople seemed so much more
foreign
than India, perhaps because there were
fewer European faces, even here in Pera. Perhaps, Penny thought . .
. yes, perhaps it was because in India Britain’s influence was much
greater. Here, it was almost nonexistent. This was the Ottoman
Empire, the Sultan an absolute monarch. Today they were to drive by
the Topkapi Palace, where it was said Selim the Third kept a harem
of thousands. Very likely an exaggeration, of course; nonetheless,
Penny felt a shiver course through her. Part horror at the mere
thought of such a practice; part an almost shameful curiosity, a
delicious wonder about what went on in the hidden recesses of that
great palace situated at the confluence of the Golden Horn, the
Bosphorus, and the Sea of Marmara.

Lately, Penny had begun to wonder with
greater frequency about the secret relations between men and women.
From what little she had gleaned—mostly from the violent mating of
cats, dogs, and farm animals—Penny feared something rather
strenuous might be involved. And the thought of the Sultan doing
whatever it was with so many wives and concubines was perfectly
amazing. She should be ashamed of herself for thinking such
thoughts, of course. But the day was so lovely, life was so good,
Constantinople so exciting. She was on the verge of womanhood . .
.

And she had met Jason Lisbourne. Penny
cast a quick glance toward her Aunt Cass to see she if had noticed
her niece’s abstraction. Thankfully, she had not. Miss Blayne
heaved a sigh of relief. Aunt Cass was so . . . so
contained
. She could not possibly
understand the longings that had insinuated themselves into Penny’s
life. Not that Aunt Cass had not been a wonder of kindness since
her parents had died in a shipwreck on what was to have been a
simple sea voyage to Edinburgh when Penny was nine. And she had
enjoyed seeing the world—truly she had—but how would she ever find
a young man, a suitor . . . a
husband
if Aunt Cass continued to drag her from
pillar to post and back again year after year after
year?

“
You are wool-gathering, Penelope,”
Aunt Cass snapped. “Faik has procured a caïque for us, and you sit
there like a lump, as if rooted to the squabs. Come, come, child.
If, that is,” she added ominously, “you wish to see the city while
the sun still shines.”

Penny had no problem with distraction on the
short trip across the Golden Horn. Surrounded by sails of saffron
and blood red, some jutting out on both sides of a boat like great
angular wings . . . with the waterfront echoing with shouts,
laughter, and other unidentifiable sounds that cast even the great
harbor of Bombay into the shade, Miss Penny Blayne was totally
fascinated.

Their ferry cast off, the sails snapped
up, caught the wind, and they were off, skimming across the harbor
as easily as the birds flying high above.
Oh, oh, o-oh!
She was an addlepated nitwit to
think she wished to give this up and settle down. Be ruled by some
man, who would control both her fortune and her life. Aunt Cass was
right, after all. Freedom was truly marvelous!

If Miss Cassandra Pemberton was surprised to
discover, as they debarked, that their means of transportation was
a light English-style carriage, she did not remark upon it. But
Penny was, in fact, quite disappointed that nothing more exotic was
offered. The vehicle, Faik told her, was the castoff of an
undersecretary at the Embassy, the younger son of a duke who could
well afford to have a spanking new carriage sent out from London.
Their driver had been delighted to acquire the young man’s
breakdown so he could please his many European customers. Ibrahim,
the coachman, clad in a striped caftan and somewhat ragged turban,
offered Penny a gap-toothed grin and gave his padded leather bench
seat a loving pat. Miss Blayne grinned right back. She had long
since discovered there were moments when language was completely
unnecessary.

Obviously, they were not the only
visitors to Constantinople who thought more than one strong male
was necessary when exploring the city, for the platform at the rear
of their carriage had been expanded to accommodate two. Faik and
his near twin, Abdul—both sporting identical black mustaches, as
well as modest caftans of cream cotton, slit high on the sides to
reveal full
shalwar
, gathered
tight to their ankles—climbed up behind, and they were
off.

As they drove through the oldest part
of the city, Penny hissed, “Look, Aunt Cass—
miradors
. Like Spain.” She nodded toward a
series of enclosed balconies that hung out over the street. “Do you
think there are ladies hiding behind the lattices peering down at
us, even now?”

“
Here balconies are called
çikma
, Miss,” Faik told her. “And
the lattices have their own name—
kafesler
.”

Penny thanked him, and continued to peer,
fascinated, at the lattices, wondering how many dark eyes were
eagerly returning her gaze.

“
It was Moorish influence that brought
such a heathen custom to Spain,” Miss Pemberton declared with a
sniff of disdain. “Imagine, enclosing a balcony to keep women from
being seen!”

“
Surely it is better than keeping them
wholly shut inside,” Penny ventured.

“
Humph-h!” Miss Cassandra Pemberton
remained true to her fierce spirit of female
independence.

Alas, the closer they came to the Topkapi
Palace, the less they could see, for a great crenellated wall cut
off their vision, leaving only a view of domes, towers, and an
occasional treetop. “We shall have to be content with the mosques,
I fear,” Aunt Cass pronounced.

At that moment the call of the muezzin echoed
from one of the minarets on the Blue Mosque, just outside the
palace walls. Their coachman, Faik, and Abdul leapt down from the
carriage and bent low to the ground, nearly prostrate, their eyes
turned toward distant Mecca. This was scarcely a surprise, as Penny
and Aunt Cass had witnessed Muslim prayers many times before, but
somehow the ritual took on greater significance as they waited
directly in front of the Blue Mosque in Sultanahmet Square, with
the once great church of Byzantium, the Haghia Sophia, directly
across the park-like setting. To Muslims, Mecca might be the center
of their religion, but Penny felt she would never be closer than
this moment to understanding what this foreign religion meant to
its people.

In the days that followed, Penny and Aunt
Cass drove along the great double city wall, with deep moat, built
by Theodosius in the fifth century. Four miles long, fourteen
hundred years old, most of its walls, eleven gates and nearly two
hundred towers still stood. To Penny, it seemed quite impossible
that Mehmet the Conqueror had managed to breach them, bringing a
final end to the great Roman-Byzantine Empire. The city’s
aqueducts, a product of Roman engineering, were nearly as
fascinating. They had been bringing water into the city since the
fourth century. But after viewing what was left of the Hippodrome,
Constantinople’s re-creation of the Coliseum in Rome, Penny’s
interest in antiquities began to wane. Each time they drove by the
walls of the Grand Bazaar, Penny would lift her eyes to Aunt Cass
in shining hope, and each time be dashed down.