Taming Charlotte Read online

  She groped beneath her couch until she found a pair of flat sandals the eunuch had given her and put them on. Then, rising, she carefully lifted the lid of the chest that held her belongings and took out the plainest robe and veil she had. When she was dressed, she crept into the courtyard, where the elm tree rustled in the night breeze, its leaves ruffled in silvery starlight.

  Charlotte made herself sit down on the bench and think, though her every impulse bade her to scramble over the wall and flee. She would need water and food to survive the journey.

  As much as she wanted to, she knew she couldn’t make her escape that night.

  So it was that Charlotte began hiding bits of dried fruit in her clothing chest. She took hard black bread, too, and small cheeses with rinds to protect them from the air. She squirreled away dates and a variety of nuts, but water was still a problem.

  Finally she stole a silver flask from one of the other women—Charlotte didn’t dare even think what the penalty for thievery might be—and filled it with water the first chance she got. The fancy bottle didn’t hold much, but it was better than nothing, and she couldn’t wait around hoping a wine flask or a canteen would turn up.

  One night, when Alev’s babies were seven days old, Charlotte waited until she was sure everyone was asleep, then got up from her couch, dressed, took the flask and the bundle of food she’d gathered, and slipped out to the courtyard. It was bathed in the light of a million stars, though there was no moon.

  Standing on the bench under the elm tree, Charlotte put the flask in a pocket of her robe, rolled the garment up around her waist, and held the bundle of food in her teeth. Then she shinnied up the rough trunk, nimble as a monkey.

  She didn’t let herself think about the things that would happen if she was caught; no, Charlotte kept her mind firmly focused on success. She could not fail, she refused even to entertain the prospect.

  She crawled along a branch, selected for its sturdiness, until she reached the wall. Then, after a deep breath and a whispered prayer, she leaped over it and landed with a thump in the white sand.

  Charlotte huddled in the shadows for a few moments, catching her breath, waiting for her heart to stop its wild palpitations. When she had herself under some control, she ran for the desert, as hard as she could go, promising God she would never indulge her penchant for mischief again if only He’d let her escape.

  She ran until she was out of breath, until she was stumbling and falling in the sand, then forced herself to moderate her pace. Once or twice she looked back to see the palace receding grandly into the distance, but there seemed to be no one in pursuit.

  Charlotte walked, hoarding her small supply of water, letting the stars guide her. Surely she would come upon a village or even a city soon, and someone would help her get back to the Continent, where she could find a British or American embassy.

  Gradually the stars faded and the sun rose.

  At first Charlotte was wonder-struck by the beauty of a crimson sunrise spilling over snow white sand, but as the splendor of dawn gave way to the bright heat of morning, she was forced to take a sip of her precious water. She stopped once, and nearly decided to go back, but the palace was no longer visible and the hot desert wind had wiped away her footprints.

  An hour passed, and then another, and the sun was relentless.

  Charlotte kept walking. The air shimmered and undulated, like an ocean, and for a while it seemed that Lydia, her strong, sensible stepmother, walked beside her. “You’re never defeated unless you quit,” Lydia said. She was wearing a sprigged cotton dress and carrying a parasol that cast cool shadows over her soft blond hair and beautiful face.

  “You’re only a mirage,” Charlotte pointed out, opening the flask and taking her second drink since her departure. “But you’re right.”

  Lydia faded, but after a while, Charlotte’s father, Brigham Quade, took her stepmother’s place. “You’ve gotten yourself into a hell of a mess this time, Charlie,” he said good-naturedly.

  “I know that,” Charlotte said, somewhat shortly. Sun-addled as she was, she knew this vision wasn’t really her father, and therefore she didn’t have to be polite. “If you’re going to talk to me, at least give me some sensible advice.”

  “Go easy on the water,” Brigham complied. “You’re a long way from the pump house.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes and trudged on. She was in desperate trouble, and she knew it, but she still didn’t truly regret leaving the palace. To her way of thinking, it was better to risk everything for freedom and die in the attempt than to spend the rest of her life in the harem.

  Finally, just when she thought she would surely fall to the hot sand and fry like a sausage on a griddle, she spotted a series of dunes off to her right. Some of the higher ones were casting shadows—cool, dark ponds of twilight.

  Charlotte stumbled into one of them, praying the shade wasn’t a figment of her imagination, like Lydia and her papa had been. She sank to her knees, her fingers digging deep into the fine sand, and let the shadows hide her from the sun. As her consciousness slipped away, she knew for a fact that she was going to die.

  When she awakened—because of the heat, she quite expected to find herself in someplace other than heaven—she was looking up into a familiar face. Khalif stared down at her, his dark eyes grim.

  “Foolish one,” he scolded gruffly, lifting Charlotte into his arms. She blinked, saw that there were half a dozen riders around them.

  “Patrick?” she asked, but the name only trembled on her lips. There was no breath behind it.

  Khalif set Charlotte on the back of an impatient sorrel gelding and swung deftly up behind her. When she was settled, he opened a canteen and held it to her lips.

  “Slowly,” he warned. “Drink very slowly.”

  Charlotte’s craving for water was all-pervasive, but she managed to obey the sultan’s command because she knew he spoke from experience. She drank as much as Khalif would allow, then sagged against his chest. She was barely conscious of the powerful horse carrying them back to the palace beside the sea.

  She drifted in and out of awareness during the ride, and awakened briefly to find herself in the harem again. Alev and Rashad were stripping away her clothes, which seemed bonded to her skin, but she could not find the strength to protest. If she came too close to the surface, she knew, she would feel the pain, and she wasn’t ready for that.

  Later, a cool, soothing cream was applied to her flesh. The pain drew nearer, snarling at her like a beast in the darkness.

  Then her head was lifted, and some potion was poured onto her tongue. It was vile-tasting stuff, but it drove the dragon away, and soon she floated on a cloud woven of a thousand dawns and sunsets.

  She heard Alev’s voice. “Will she live?”

  “I’m certain of it,” Rashad responded. “Though I daresay the sultana valide will make her wish she hadn’t.”

  Inwardly Charlotte flinched, not from fear, but anger. She hadn’t escaped, she was still a prisoner in the palace, but that didn’t mean she would let one mean old woman bully her. She was determined to recover, if only to spite the sultana.

  Charlotte was awake a few minutes, then asleep for several hours. When the pain was bad, someone would always give her a dose of medicine and make it stop. Once, she opened her eyes and saw Alev standing over her.

  “Your babies?” Charlotte whispered, filled with dread because she sensed that her friend had seldom left her side since Khalif and the others had brought her back to the palace.

  But Alev smiled and touched Charlotte’s forehead gently. “My sons are safe and strong,” she said. “Rest now. You will be well soon.”

  Charlotte rested, but one day she rallied. She was weak but fully conscious, and when she lifted her arms she saw that they were spotted with new skin.

  “My face,” she cried, raising both hands to her cheeks. She was certain the desert sun had baked and melted her into some hideous creature fit only for sideshows and circuses.<
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  Alev was sitting beside her couch, nursing one of the new babies while Pakize tried to placate the other one with a finger. “Your face will be fine in a few weeks, thanks to our almond cream,” Alev said.

  Pakize handed Charlotte a small hand mirror with an engraved silver back, and she looked warily into the glass. Her skin had peeled badly, but it was clearly renewing itself.

  After moving the greedy baby to her other breast and then modestly covering herself again, Alev arched her eyebrows and asked, “Whyever did you do such a foolish thing, Charlotte? You’re in very serious trouble, you know.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to will herself into oblivion again, but it was too late. She was definitely on the mend. “What kind of trouble?” she asked.

  Alev leaned forward on her stool and whispered, “You ran away and endangered yourself and others. That is a cardinal sin. And you stole the little flask.”

  Charlotte swallowed. Wondering where Patrick was, feeling more certain than ever that he truly had abandoned her. “What will happen to me?”

  “You will be punished,” Pakize said, in halting, eager English, and the servant girl seemed to relish the prospect.

  “How?” Charlotte demanded, looking at Alev instead of Pakize.

  Alev sighed and looked away for a moment. “That will depend,” she finally replied, “on what the sultana valide decides is fitting.”

  Charlotte decided not to ask any more questions for the time being, because her imagination was already running wild. Maybe she would be boiled in oil, or roasted inside a suit of armor, like some English knights were during the Crusades…

  She was still imagining horrible fates when a stir of excitement swept through the harem like a fresh breeze and Khalif himself appeared at her bedside. He did not offer her a smile, but instead glared down at her with as much fury as if he’d had to ride into hell itself to perform the rescue.

  “So,” he said briskly, “you are recovering.”

  Charlotte managed a faltering smile. “Yes, thanks to you.”

  He narrowed his dark eyes at her. “You could have perished,” he said. “What would I have told my friend, Captain Trevarren, if you had not survived?”

  She felt a little spindrift of hope swirl up in her middle, even though she was fairly certain she didn’t matter at all to Patrick. After all, he’d left her in a harem without a second thought, and if he’d been planning to return, he would surely have been back by then.

  “I don’t think he would even have troubled to ask where I was,” she said.

  Khalif glowered. “It is suicide to wander alone in the desert! Did you wish to die?”

  “No,” Charlotte replied. “I wanted to be free, and I was willing to die trying to get away.”

  Khalif shook his head, looking genuinely baffled. “These strange American ideas are not good,” he reflected. “Especially in a woman.”

  Charlotte hadn’t the strength to argue, so she just smiled, hoping somehow to charm the sultan into showing mercy.

  He did not look beguiled. “You have set a bad example for the others,” he said. “When you are well, you will be disciplined.”

  Charlotte swallowed the rebellious words that leaped to the tip of her tongue. She was in no position to irritate the sultan, and besides, he’d saved her life. “In that case, I think it will be some considerable time before I’m myself again,” she said sweetly.

  Khalif’s mouth twitched, and a light flickered in his eyes for a fraction of a moment, but then he hardened his jaw again and fixed her with an imperial look. “I can wait,” he assured her coolly.

  Charlotte squirmed. “It’s cruel, the way you’re all being so mysterious about this. Why, a person would think you meant to feed me to the sharks in one-inch cubes.”

  The sultan’s white teeth showed in a smile that quickly disappeared. “The sharks have done nothing to deserve such a fate,” he replied, and then he turned and swept grandly out of the harem, leaving Charlotte to stare up at the ornately decorated ceiling and go right on wondering what was to become of her.

  “The rules cannot be suspended for one woman, Patrick,” Khalif told his newly arrived friend, who was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, enjoying a cool drink. “If I allow such a departure, the others will be in revolt before I know what is hitting me. It would be chaos.”

  Patrick smiled at his friend’s convoluted phrasing, but he was worried about Charlotte. Discipline could be harsh in Riz, and it was true that Khalif would lose face if he allowed the error to pass. “I don’t want her hurt.”

  “I warned you,” Khalif replied, “that Charlotte would have to abide by our ways. She did not. She endangered herself, my men, and a number of good horses in her silly attempt to escape!”

  Patrick lifted one hand, palm out, in an effort to establish peace. “I know what she did was foolish, Khalif, but she was raised in a place where there’s plenty of fresh water as well as an inland sea, and trees stay green the year around. She knew nothing of the desert.”

  “There is only one way I can give the responsibility of this woman over to you,” the sultan said seriously, after a long, pensive interval. “Do you know what that way is?”

  Patrick gave a heavy sigh, full of long-suffering resignation. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll have to marry the little fool myself, God help me.”

  6

  BY THE TIME THE SUMMONS TO KHALIF’S APARTMENTS FInally came, Charlotte had mentally rehearsed her fate so many times that the reality seemed almost anticlimactic. She submitted to the usual bathing and anointment, buffing and brushing, with stoicism.

  Alev and Pakize dressed her in white robes—symbolic, Charlotte decided, of a lamb being prepared for the slaughter. Her hair fell loose around her breasts and down her back, but flowers and strands of tiny golden pearls were woven through the tresses.

  Finally Rashad signaled that it was time to go, and Alev solemnly kissed Charlotte on both cheeks. Unlike the other women, she wore no veil.

  Shoulders straight, head high, Charlotte followed Rashad out of the harem with a tragic dignity reminiscent of Mary Queen of Scots on her way to the gallows.

  When she and the eunuch had woven their way through the complicated system of hallways to finally reach Khalif’s apartments, however, her heart began to pound. Would she be publicly beaten? Thrown into a rat-infested dungeon and forgotten? Turned out into the desert to wander until she died in an agony of thirst?

  Khalif, resplendent as always in silks and jewels, greeted her with a curt nod of resignation. She was a problem to be dealt with, his manner said, like a stubborn mare refusing to take the bit, or a dog that wouldn’t come to heel.

  Despite her fear, which was suddenly profound again, Charlotte felt the sting of fury, too. She was about to tell Khalif what she thought of his pompous tyranny, but a quick look from Rashad made her bite her lip instead.

  The sultan dismissed the eunuch with a gesture, and Rashad left the apartments.

  It was all Charlotte could do not to run after him, pleading for protection. Instead, she looked Khalif straight in the eye and said, “Well, let’s get on with it. I’m tired of dreading my punishment.”

  Khalif smiled, but Charlotte was not reassured by this small indication of goodwill. “Perhaps this day will not be remembered for bringing your punishment,” he said mysteriously, “but someone else’s.”

  Charlotte frowned and looked around, but the great, opulently decorated room was empty except for the two of them. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  The sultan chuckled, but without humor. “That is true of many things, I think,” he replied. He grasped a golden cord near the place where he stood and pulled. “For your own sake as well as that of others, my dear, I hope you will make an effort to overcome some of your more obvious shortcomings—like following your every impulse and speaking when you would be better advised to remain silent.”

  Charlotte’s cheeks burned, and her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She knew Kha
lif had summoned someone by tugging on the bellpull—a servant bearing a whip or club? A swordsman to whisk off her head? A slave-master to drag her off to market?

  She closed her eyes tightly, struggling to retain her composure, and when she opened them again, she saw Patrick stride through one of the great doorways. He wore his usual breeches, high boots, and pirate’s shirt, and his dark hair was tied back, as always, with a narrow black ribbon.

  Charlotte’s knees went weak with relief and confusion when he smiled at her.

  He approached, gripped her shoulders in his hands, and gave her an indulgent kiss on the forehead. “I hear you’ve been misbehaving, Charlotte. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  Her throat had closed; she forgot to breathe. How she loved this man, and how she despised him at the very same time!

  Patrick let go of her—she barely kept herself from crumpling to the floor out of sheer shock—and turned to grin at his friend the sultan. Then he met Charlotte’s bewildered gaze again.

  “Here’s your choice, goddess,” he said. “You can either marry me or take a beating.”

  By some miracle, Charlotte found her voice. She was overjoyed at the prospect of spending her life with Patrick, but his nonchalant, take-it-or-leave-it manner was hardly the reaction she would have wanted. “This is a difficult decision,” she replied. “After all, the beating would be over in a few minutes, but a wedding might be only the beginning of my grief.”

  Patrick narrowed his eyes at her. “Mind your tongue, darling,” he said, with acid affection, “or you’ll get both the wedding and the beating.”

  Charlotte swallowed, glanced warily toward Khalif. Then she took a subtle step nearer to Patrick. “Why do you want to marry me at all if you feel that way?” she demanded in a whisper.

  He let his gaze travel over her, lingering at her breasts, then her narrow waist, then her softly curving hips. “I am something of an optimist,” he said, looking into her eyes again, filling her with a delicious sense of softness. “I believe there is still hope that you can be salvaged, though it will take work and a lot of determination.”