Tasha Alexander - Tears of Pearl

Colin frowned. “It may be too dangerous for you. We shall have to see.”

A surge of hot anger flashed through me, and I bit my tongue hard before responding. “We’ll discuss the details later. I find myself in great sympathy with Benjamin and his sudden desire for privacy.”

“I won’t have you turning overprotective,” I said to Colin after a sullen and silent trip back to our yalı.

“Suggesting that you stay away from a location riddled with bullets is hardly overprotective.” Colin poured himself a glass of whiskey and drained it quickly. “Forgive me if I’m less than my usually enlightened self. I must confess I’m beginning to tire of nefarious distractions from what was supposed to be a honeymoon trip.”

“We’re not wholly distracted,” I said, pushing away my anger and crossing the room to kiss him. He kissed me back, but the effort felt halfhearted.

“I’m trying very hard, Emily, to give you the freedom you need. But you know that when it comes to preserving your safety—”

“I know. No unnecessary risks. I’ve not the slightest problem with that. In this case, however, if it’s safe for you to go—”

“I don’t know that it is safe for me to go. There are circumstances in this line of work that are inherently dangerous. This time I ask that you let me act on my own.”

“Will you ever let me do the same?” I asked.

“The time may come when it’s required, and if it is, I shall of course support what you must do.”

“It’s not so simple for me either, you know,” I said. “I don’t like watching you walk—sprint—to danger.”

“I’m well trained by experience to handle this particular situation.”

“Can we compromise?” I asked. “We can both travel to whatever is the nearest town. You can go on to the site alone. If the person firing the shots is fixated on Benjamin, there’s no reason to think anyone else is in danger. I trust you to determine if that’s the case, and if it is, you can send for me.”

“And if it’s not?”

“I shall stay in town and content myself with reading,” I said.

“How can I possibly count on you to stay and wait for my message?”

“I’m reliability itself. I give you my word.”

He nodded. “All right. I’m willing to agree to that.”

I kissed him. “Thank you. You won’t regret it. Just think how tedious the trip would be without me.”

“I do rather like you on trains, although Benjamin said it’s not so far as to require that,” he said. “Regardless, there are several avenues I want to pursue here in town first.”

“Just don’t forget you agreed to take me,” I said, refilling his whiskey. “In the meantime, have you given any thought to taking up a swimming regimen? The Bosphorus is dangerous, and I can’t have you drowning when you lose our bet.”

“You’ve nothing to fear on that account.” His smile made every nerve in my body tingle. “I’m meeting with Abdül Hamit tomorrow afternoon.”

“You think he knows something?”

“We’re to be joined by the members of his palace spy network. He’s a paranoid man, our sultan—I’ve great hopes that at least one of his minions has seen something that can be of use to us.”

“So you’re trying to leap ahead of me?” I asked. “It won’t work, you know.”

“Do you know how to peel grapes, Emily? I’m told it’s hard work.”

“Is that so?” I gave him a quick kiss on each cheek. “Then I’m not sorry in the least I shall never have to learn how to do it.”

5 April 1892

Darnley House, Kent

My dear daughter,

I hope that you and your husband are enjoying fine health and learning to adjust to the many challenges of married life. Your father and I are exceedingly happy for you, despite your unorthodox and, frankly, unacceptable wedding.

What’s done is done, so I will say nothing further on the subject. Do not, however, expect the queen to offer the chapel at Windsor again. Your children will have to be baptized elsewhere.

On that subject, your friend Ivy has continued to prove a most agreeable houseguest, and I will confess to finding more pleasure in taking care of her during this time than I would have expected. I’ll be more than ready to do the same for you when the time arrives—and I hope you are not impeding your husband’s efforts to bring this about. A lady must graciously accept her duty.

Be careful of the food in Constantinople. I hear dreadful stories everywhere about it. Not to be trusted, these foreign locations.

I am, your most devoted mother,

C. Bromley

I woke before the sun, roused by the haunting and spiritually seductive voice coming from the nearest mosque. As the muezzin called the faithful to prayer, I lay, still and silent, absorbing the sound—at once comforting and eerie—as it trembled through my body. When it fell quiet, I stretched and reached for Colin, who was as eager as I to take full advantage of the myriad daily benefits of married life.

The time passed quickly, and too soon we were up and dressed, both of us headed for appointments. I’d applied to Perestu, the valide sultan, asking that I be allowed to come to the harem and begin interviewing Abdül Hamit’s concubines, in particular Roxelana, who had discovered Ceyden’s body. Although I knew well the dangers of assumption—of following baseless instinct—I could not help conjuring up any number of romantic scenarios surrounding the girl, namesake of the most famous—infamous—of harem women. In the sixteenth century, a stunning and intelligent concubine, Roxelana, had seduced, cajoled, and influenced Suleyman the Magnificent, eventually persuading him to take her as his wife. It was the first time a sultan had married; no one before had risen above the rank of favored concubine, and Roxelana wielded no small amount of power over her husband.

My Roxelana was an entirely different beast. She met me, waiting on a bridge made from rough-hewn logs in one of the gardens attached to the harem at Yıldız. Her burgundy gown was the latest Western fashion—high collar, fitted waist, skirts flowing gently over her hips—her dark hair upswept and held in place by a comb encrusted with rubies. Enormous pearls bobbed on her ears, and she parted her full lips, licking them to glistening perfection as she started to speak once I’d introduced myself.

“I don’t see how I can be of any possible use.” Her voice, thinner than her beauty suggested, shook as she spoke.

“I know well how awful what’s happened has been for you,” I said. “I lost a friend last year in Vienna. He was murdered and I found his body. It affects you in unimaginable ways, and I’m so terribly sorry you’re suffering for it.”

While working the previous winter to clear Robert Brandon in the death of Lord Fortescue, the most odious human I’d ever met, I’d become tenuous friends with a man who was both an asset to me and an adversary. Mutual enemies had brought us together, and he’d ended up aiding my investigation. Finding his brutalized body in Vienna’s beautiful Stephansdom cathedral was worse than any nightmare, and I hoped never again to witness such a violent scene.

“Then you do understand,” she said. “Everyone wants me to push the memory aside, but no matter what I do it comes back in my dreams.”

“There are some things that never leave you entirely.”

“I wish this would,” she said. “I can’t bear seeing it over and over.”

I reached for her hand. “I know. There’s no real comfort to be had, but perhaps helping us find Ceyden’s murderer will bring some small measure of relief.”

She pulled her hand away. “Nothing will make this better.”

“I won’t disagree,” I said.

Her eyes were hard. “What do you want from me?”

“Tell me what you saw that night.”

“The courtyard in which Ceyden was... that courtyard is one of my favorites. I like to read there on a comfortable bench near the fountain.”

“Were you reading that night?”

“No. It was already dark. I only meant to say that it wasn’t unusual for me to go there. That’s all.”

“Was Ceyden there when you arrived?” I asked.

“Of course she was.”

“Did you see the attack?”

“No! Wouldn’t I have told the sultan? Or the guards? Why would you ask such a thing?”

“You might have been afraid, Roxelana,” I said. “It would be understandable.”

She stared at me, her eyes still hard, but curves returning to her lips. “I nearly tripped over her.”

“And she was dead?”

“I suppose so. I was scared and ran off screaming at once.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why didn’t you assume she’d fallen or fainted?”

“Everything about her pose looked wrong. Nothing seemed natural, and I could tell at once something terrible had happened.”

“But you didn’t know she was dead?”

“No.” Her pupils were tiny dots. “Instinct told me it was bad—which is why I went for help.”

“Was there anyone else in the courtyard?”

“Not that I saw,” she said.

“But you’re not certain?”

“It was dark. I imagine it’s not impossible that someone was hiding in the shadows. Is that what you’d like me to say?”

“I’d like you to say the truth.” I bit the inside of my cheek, frustration pushing against me. “Do you have a reason not to want to?”

“No one ever wants to tell the truth in the harem,” she said. “But in this case, I’ve nothing to hide. I wish I’d seen something more.”

“Do you have things to hide in other cases?”

“You know nothing about the harem, do you?”