Taming Charlotte Page 7

  Patrick had no way of knowing how long the fight raged; it might have been fifteen minutes, or two hours. When it was over, he crouched beside a supine body and wrenched the man upright.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  The man’s eyes rounded, then drifted shut in a swoon. Patrick threw him roughly back to the ground and found another wayward soul to question.

  This one babbled in rapid dialect, but Patrick deciphered enough of it to know that these were Raheem’s men, and he said as much to Billy Bates, one of his sailors.

  “Filthy lot they are, too,” Billy said, dusting his hands off on his own none-too-clean garments.

  Patrick hauled the frightened Arab to his feet and slammed his hard against the tavern wall. “Take me to Raheem,” he said, in the dialect. “Now!”

  The other man shook his head, his dark eyes full of fear and defiance. “He’ll kill me,” he said. “I would rather die here in the street than suffer Raheem’s punishment.”

  Tightening his grip on the man’s shirtfront, Patrick lifted him to his tiptoes and bounced him off the wall again. “Tell him I said he’s a coward,” he rasped. “You tell him that Patrick Trevarren, captain of the Enchantress, called him a yellow-gutted sewer rat.”

  The Arab nodded fitfully and ran when Patrick released him.

  If the insults he’d already offered didn’t bring Raheem out from under some maggot-covered rock, Patrick could think of plenty more.

  In the first days after Patrick’s departure, Charlotte kept to herself as much as possible and did as she was told. The other women in the harem didn’t exactly snub her, but they didn’t pursue her acquaintance, either. Only Alev spoke to her; to her extreme gratitude, the sultana valide left her strictly alone.

  A full week had passed and twilight found Charlotte sitting in the courtyard, her back to the trunk of the elm tree, which had come to symbolize all things familiar to her. Rashad had given her drawing paper and pencils, and she was making a sketch of the house she’d grown up in when Alev joined her.

  “That’s very good,” the other woman said, shifting uncomfortably as she took a seat beside Charlotte on the bench. “Is it your home?”

  Charlotte swallowed the knot that had filled her throat at the word “home” and nodded. “They’ll be so worried when they hear about the kidnapping.”

  Alev laid both hands on her distended stomach and grimaced before giving Charlotte a sympathetic look. “You could write them, you know, and tell them you’ve run off to be married. Then they might be angry, but they wouldn’t suffer so much.”

  “Who would mail the letter?” Charlotte asked, her heart beating faster.

  “Rashad could arrange that easily enough,” Alev said, her belly moving visibly beneath her robe.

  “But if my father knew I was here—”

  “You cannot tell him that,” Alev broke in quickly, “and I will have to read the letter, of course, to make sure you do not say anything…improper. Rashad would then have it sent from somewhere in Spain or Morocco.”

  Charlotte imagined her father and Lydia reading the suggested missive. Papa would be angry that she’d married so far from home, but Lydia would quiet him soon enough. Millie would say she’d always expected her elder sister to do something reckless and romantic like eloping in a foreign country, and the boys would be too busy running in and out of the house to care one way or another.

  The marriage would be a lie, of course, and Charlotte had never been untruthful with her father and stepmother. Even now, it wasn’t an easy prospect to consider, but she couldn’t let them fret and agonize over her if there was a way to comfort them.

  “Write your letter,” Alev said. “Rashad and I will take care of the rest.”

  Charlotte nodded with sad resignation.

  Alev drew in a sharp, sudden breath and clutched her belly. Because her stepmother was a midwife, Charlotte knew the look of impending motherhood.

  “Are you having pain? Shall I bring someone?”

  Alev bit her lower lip for a long time before she was able to speak again. “Fetch Rashad, please. Tell him the time has come.”

  Charlotte hurried across the shady courtyard and into the harem, where she found the eunuch standing with his back to a wall, watching as he always watched.

  “Alev’s ready to give birth,” she blurted. “She’s in the courtyard, on the bench beneath the elm tree.”

  Rashad strode out of the harem without a word, and Charlotte followed on his heels. She had no idea how to assist with the delivery of a baby, but she wanted to be of help if she could.

  The eunuch lifted Alev into his arms and carried her inside, where an immediate flurry began.

  Most of the women of the harem scattered, chattering like brightly colored birds, but the sultana valide silenced them just by entering the room. She gestured to Rashad to follow her, and the eunuch, the old lady, and the pregnant woman disappeared.

  Charlotte kept a vigil for a while, with the others, then drifted back outside and climbed the elm tree to study the horizon. There was no sign of Patrick’s ship, so she turned her gaze to the sugar white desert, bright as snow under the fierce sun, and wondered what was on the other side.

  Later, in a quiet corner of the hamam, she wrote a long letter, full of lies, and addressed it to her family.

  5

  CHARLOTTE SENSED A DISTURBING UNDERCURRENT OF TENsion in the harem, even though the other women seemed unconcerned that Alev was about to give birth. They went on laughing and bathing and reading and eating chocolates and sweetmeats, just as if it were an ordinary day.

  When Rashad came out of the sultana valide’s apartments, Charlotte was waiting for him. “How is Alev?” she asked.

  The eunuch sighed. “This will be a difficult day for her,” he said, in his formal way. “But if she gives the sultan a son, she will surely become a kadin. “

  Charlotte gnawed at her lower lip, a quiet anger bubbling within her—an anger toward a system that reduced women to the status of pretty dolls, or brood mares. “And if she gives the sultan a daughter?”

  Rashad’s dark eyes reflected understanding as well as a gentle warning. “Female children stay with their mothers while they’re small, and if they’re bright, they often go away to school. A sultan’s daughters are princesses, after all.”

  A loud cry sounded from within the sultana valide’s quarters, and Charlotte shuddered to think what it would be like to be at that old woman’s mercy, particularly during childbirth. “I want to go to Alev,” she said, starting to go around Rashad. “I could help—”

  The eunuch stopped her by gripping her arm. While his grasp wasn’t painful, she could not have escaped it by her own strength. “The sultana will not tolerate your interference,” he said. “It is dangerous to flout her wishes.”

  Charlotte felt both desperation and fury as she heard Alev scream again. “I don’t care!” she spat, trying to pull away.

  Rashad would not release her. Indeed, his round, mahogany face set, he double-stepped Charlotte through the hamam and then past the baths. Beyond the marble and tile pools was a line of doors, and it was to one of those chambers that the eunuch took his captive.

  He turned a latch and thrust Charlotte into a sumptuously furnished cell, containing a pallet covered in red velvet, an unlighted brazier, a large bowl of tropical fruit, and a carafe of water. Overhead, a huge window let in the light of day.

  Charlotte was too frightened to take in more than the most cursory details, however. She stared at Rashad, overwhelmed.

  “I will not hurt you,” he said, in his authoritative voice. She found her tongue. “Then let me out of this—this fancy jail!”

  The eunuch executed a slight bow. “Of course,” he agreed. “As soon as Alev has given birth, and you have calmed yourself, you will be free to join the others.”

  “Free,” Charlotte mocked, folding her arms and beginning to pace. “I’m a prisoner in this place—a bird in a fancy cage—and I don’t kn
ow why no one will admit it!”

  Rashad surprised her with a deep, resonate chuckle. “You are a very rebellious bird,” he observed, “and you’d better learn to behave before the sultana valide has your feathers plucked.”

  Heat pooled in Charlotte’s cheeks. “That old woman has no authority over me!”

  “This is not America,” Rashad pointed out, his expression serious now. “You have no rights here. And the sultana valide has every authority!”

  Charlotte swallowed. If she ever wished for an adventure again, she thought miserably, she hoped she’d be struck by lightning. Assuming she survived this particular exploit, of course. “I want to go home,” she said, after a long moment, her voice small and tremulous.

  An expression of sadness moved in Rashad’s features. “So do I,” he replied hopelessly. “But I will never see my own country again, and neither will you.”

  With that, he went out, closing and locking the door behind him.

  Charlotte rushed about the small chamber in a burst of panic, then forced herself to calm down and sank to her knees on the pallet. She thought with longing of the tall elm tree in the courtyard, and the liberty, however hazardous it was, that lay beyond the palace walls.

  She had eaten a banana, taken a nap on the pallet, recited every poem and sung every song she knew, before Rashad came back at sunset and released her.

  “The sultan celebrates the birth of twin sons,” the eunuch announced. “He wishes you bathed and dressed and sent to his chambers to dance for him.”

  Charlotte gulped. “D-Dance for him? I’m afraid I don’t know any steps…”

  Rashad smiled. “Then I would suggest that you make some up,” he replied, ushering her out of her luxurious prison cell. “The sultan will have his amusements.”

  She glared up at her companion, wanting to gall him because he was so arrogant, so officious, and because he’d held her captive so many hours. “You speak well for a slave,” she said.

  Rashad’s dark eyes sparked, but Charlotte couldn’t tell whether he was feeling anger or amusement. “I should. I accompanied the sultan to England when he took his schooling, and before that, I served his father.”

  They reached the baths, and once again a bevy of chattering women surrounded Charlotte, stripping away her robe, escorting her into the water. A thorough washing followed, and her hair was carefully shampooed. After that, she was dried and stretched out on a marble table, where a warm paste that smelled of sugar and lemon was spread on the skin of her legs, allowed to harden slightly, and then pulled off. The soft, fair fuzz covering Charlotte’s lower extremities was being removed.

  The process was almost painless, but its implications worried Charlotte right out of her fog of decadent pleasure. “What are you doing?” she demanded straightaway, trying to sit up.

  She was immediately pushed back onto the table, and the spreading and pulling continued. Even Bettina Richardson, the eternal innocent, could have figured out that she was being prepared for the sacrifice, like a helpless lamb, and the realization filled Charlotte with panic.

  “Let me go!” she cried, struggling.

  “Enough!” Rashad said, appearing at the foot of the table and glowering down at her. “You will be silent!”

  She subsided, but her mind sought a method of escape even as she ceased her struggles and lay glaring up at the women who attended her.

  When Charlotte’s legs and underarms were smooth and bare, she was washed again, then fragrant oils were massaged into her skin. She closed her eyes, willing her body to be tense, ready for battle, but all her muscles went loose with decadent abandon.

  She was dressed in a dancer’s garb: bright yellow harem pants with transparent legs and a tight-fitting bodice, sparkling with topazes, that revealed her stomach. Over these scanty garments went a brown silk robe, embossed with golden thread.

  Charlotte’s hair was carefully toweled, scented, and then brushed. One of the women wove tiny orange flowers through the tresses, and another lined Charlotte’s eyes with kohl and painted her lips with pink rouge. With dignified resignation, she followed Rashad out of the harem and along the winding hallways.

  “If Khalif thinks he’s going to touch me, he’s wrong,” she said, to Rashad’s broad back.

  She thought the eunuch chuckled, but his bearing was stern. He didn’t turn to meet her gaze as he boomed out, “You will do whatever the sultan tells you to do.”

  “In a pig’s eye,” Charlotte responded. She was whistling in the dark and she knew it, but her pride wouldn’t let her accept such a travesty meekly.

  This time Rashad glanced back at her. “You will not last long,” he said, with certainty and regret. “You are much too contentious and unruly.”

  Charlotte sighed, exasperated. “What are you going to do? Feed me to the sharks?”

  The eunuch had resumed his rapid pace. “That fate would be preferable, I assure you, to angering the sultana valide. “

  Charlotte made no response, for she was sure Rashad’s comment was only too true. She followed the eunuch until they came to a huge chamber, where braziers filled the air with the aroma of incense. Here, there was another dais, this one glittering with thousands of tiny mirrors. There were cushions and couches everywhere, and other women, in revealing clothes like Charlotte’s, danced to the music of the tiny bells tied around their ankles.

  Khalif was seated on a cushion in the midst of the dancers, looking very much the sultan in his costly blue robes. A gigantic sapphire decorated the front of his turban, and his bright, dark eyes were speculative as he studied the new arrival.

  “Charlotte,” he said, and she thought she saw one corner of his mouth curl in a smile, though she couldn’t be certain. He gestured with both hands. “Come forward. I would look at you.”

  Charlotte wet her lips nervously with the end of her tongue and took a few steps toward him.

  “Turn around,” the sultan instructed, not unkindly, but with the kind of casual dispatch only a potentate would have the brass to carry off.

  She made a hesitant little circle in front of him.

  “Ah,” he sighed. “Sometimes honor is a great burden.”

  Charlotte frowned, perplexed.

  “Sit,” Khalif said, with another sigh, gesturing toward a nearby cushion. “Enjoy the dancing. Tonight we are joyous before Allah.”

  Relieved and confused, Charlotte took a seat on the indicated pillow without comment. A servant gave her boza in a golden chalice, and she actually began to relax as she watched the dancers whirl past like a flurry of brightly colored birds.

  Charlotte had not been submitted to the training some of the other women in the harem were undergoing, but she had discerned enough about the culture to know she must not speak to Khalif unless he asked her a question. Baiting Rashad was something else—she’d already guessed that the eunuch had the patience of the Almighty—but the sultan held the power of life and death in his hands. Even though he’d been kind to Charlotte, rescuing her from his brother Ahmed that night when she was returning from Patrick’s quarters, she knew he could be ruthless if he chose, even brutal.

  “Have you seen my sons?” Khalif inquired, after clapping his hands and causing the dancers to disband. Talking among themselves, they went to the long, low table next to the dais and began sampling the staggering variety of food displayed there.

  Charlotte was startled for a moment—her mind had been wandering, skipping over the courtyard wall and across the sea in search of one Patrick Trevarren—but then she smiled and shook her head. “I wasn’t allowed into Alev’s apartments, but I heard she’d given birth to twin boys.”

  Khalif nodded, and it seemed that his whole countenance beamed with pleasure. “It is good for a man to have many sons,” he said.

  Swallowing a demand to know what was wrong with daughters, Charlotte tried to look demure. “Are there others?” she asked. “Besides the twins?”

  The sultan looked troubled. “Yes,” he said. “But one
can never be sure they are safe.”

  Charlotte felt a chill, despite the uncomfortable warmth of the room, “Surely your children are protected, here in the palace—”

  “There are always spies,” Khalif mused. “There are enemies, and small intrigues among the women.” His pensive expression faded in the next instant, however; he summoned the dancers back from the refreshment table.

  Once again they whirled around him, this man who was the hub of their world, reflections of their yellow and red and blue and green garments fragmenting in the mirrors on the dais.

  Charlotte began to feel dizzy, and looked away. She immediately spotted Ahmed, leaning against a far wall, his arms folded, staring at her. Like Khalif, he wore a turban and robe, but his clothes weren’t of the same grand quality.

  She bit her lower lip and made herself watch the dancers.

  The evening stretched on interminably. There was more dancing, more eating, more laughter. Finally Khalif made a selection from among the harem women who had attended him so faithfully, and sent the rest away with a perfunctory dismissal.

  Charlotte hurried to join the others, vastly relieved that she had not been selected to remain with Khalif in his quarters. She felt Ahmed watching her when Rashad came to collect the women the sultan had sent away, and stayed close to the eunuch.

  As she lay on her couch that night, tears of loneliness, fear, and frustration brimmed in her eyes. She might as well stop deluding herself; Patrick wasn’t going to come back for her, and she would probably never see Quade’s Harbor again.

  Instead, she would live out her life in Khalif’s harem. Eventually the sultan would send for her, and she’d have no choice but to obey his summons. Maybe she would have children eventually, and a measure of happiness, like Alev.

  She wiped her cheeks with the back of one hand. She didn’t want another man touching her the way Patrick had, planting his seed in her. She’d rather die in the desert…

  Slowly, her heart pounding, Charlotte rose on her couch and sniffled. No one stirred; she knew the sultana valide was snoring in her quarters, exhausted from overseeing Alev’s delivery, and she had not seen Rashad since her return to the harem earlier.