by Diana Quincy
“What can I say?” He grinned. “You make me as randy as a fifteen-year-old boy.” He leaped out of bed. “I’m thirsty. I’ll need some water if I am expected to perform to your satisfaction.”
She sat up and plumped the pillows behind her before reclining back against their softness. “Satisfaction has never been a problem between us.”
He poured some water. “Truer words were never spoken.” He held out the glass. “Would you like some?”
“No, thank you.”
He gulped the water down, taking in the delightful view of her bare body lounging against the pillows. Shifting his weight, he almost tripped over an old faded tapestry valise on the floor. “What’s this?”
“One of my travel bags.” She yawned, extending her arms high up in the air. “It has some of the practical items I like to carry with me when I travel.”
“What is it doing here?”
“I am going through it to see what I’ll need when I leave for Morocco.”
He almost choked on the water. “You’re leaving?”
She smiled. “Not right at this minute, no.” She opened her arms wide, beckoning him. “Come back to bed. You’ve had your water.”
“When are you leaving?” he asked tersely.
“I’m not certain.”
The muscles in his neck tensed. “Surely you have an idea.”
“I’d like to stay until the second volume of Travels in Arabia is released. I was traveling when the first volume came out and I am rather curious to witness the reception it receives.”
He set the glass down with a thunk. “That’s in three weeks. Volume two will be published in three weeks, and after that you intend to leave for Morocco? For how long?”
“I imagine I shall be gone several months. I’ll sail to Gibraltar and then on to Tangier.”
He tried to lighten his voice even though all of the air had left his lungs. “You’re leaving me so soon?”
“You could always come with me.”
“To Morocco?” He scoffed. “You comprehend full well that I cannot be away from the duchy for months at a time. I have responsibilities.”
“And yet you expect me to put my life on hold while your life continues as before.”
He stiffened. “I wasn’t aware that you consider these past few weeks together to be wasted time.” He’d characterize this glorious interlude with Leela as the best period of his life.
“You know I didn’t mean it like that.” She kept her watchful gaze on him. “Do not ask me to stay here until you tire of me.”
“Is that what this is about?” He stepped toward her, kicking the worn valise out of his way, his foot coming into contact with something hard inside the bag. Pain shot through his big toe. “I will never tire of you. Never.”
“Even if our intimate association does continue for the next decade, you will eventually have to take a wife and produce an heir.”
“But that’s many years away. We don’t need to think of it now.”
“Yet the day will eventually come.”
“Is that what is happening here? You seek to punish me for wanting to do my duty? Surely you know I would stay with you forever if I could.”
“But you cannot. And so I must look to my future, to a time when you will be occupied with the dukedom, a wife and your children.”
“But why must you travel now?” He tried to hide his devastation. “We were supposed to have years together. You agreed to a long liaison. What has changed?”
“Me, I suppose,” she said softly. “Being with you has changed me.”
“In what way?” What had he done to drive her away? “How have I offended you?”
“You have done nothing wrong. You have been lovely.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“Since I was young, I’ve dreamed of traveling the world and documenting my experiences. I am finally in a position to do so. I have the means to fund my travels and a way to get my books out in the world. It’s not as though it’s forever. I’ll be back within the year.”
“It might as well be an eternity,” he said sharply. “Tell me the truth. Why do you feel you must go so soon?”
“Because I cannot bear to stay. I think of you constantly. I miss you when we are apart, which is rather ridiculous because we’re together every evening. You’re like a fever that never breaks.”
“I feel the same. But, like a rational person, I view those feelings as a reason to stay together for as long as possible.”
“I am becoming far too attached to you. You’ve shown me what it means to have a true romantic partner.”
“All the more reason to stay with me.”
“I am tempted,” she said shakily, “but I cannot build my life around you. It is so enticing to just concentrate on the present and forget about the future, but I cannot. When you marry—”
He cut her off. “I will never care for anyone as I care for you. Even if she is my wife.”
“But you will find some sort of contentment with her, if you choose wisely. And she will give you children. Your life will be full, even if it isn’t exactly the ideal you would have chosen.”
“Leela,” he pleaded. She already felt so far away. How long had she been planning her escape? “Please don’t do this.”
“While you have your duties and your family, I, on the other hand, will be a woman of a certain age, without a husband or children and with very few prospects in the world—”
“But you always say that you don’t wish to remarry.”
“I have said that. And I believed it then. But the time we’ve spent together has changed my perspective. You’ve shown me how a loving marriage might look. You’ve made me want to seek a life companion.”
“So you are intent on replacing me”—bitterness burned from his chest into his throat—“before you’ve even given us a chance.”
She smiled softly, sadly. “As if anyone could replace you. But it’s possible I might find a loving friend, someone to move through life with. A man who accepts my writing. Who might even travel with me. I must open myself to that possibility. Surely, you would not wish to condemn me to a lonely life once we are done with each other.”
“But why must you start now?”
“Because if I stay much longer, I will not have the strength to leave you. I must continue my work. I must get back to traveling, to enjoying the things that delight and inspire me, before I completely lose myself in you and this wonderful dream that I sometimes forget can never be real.”
He wanted to shake her. To talk some sense into her. She was throwing everything away. They’d just managed to find their way to each other and here she was already tossing him out like yesterday’s spoiled supper. His insides felt like they were shattering into a million sharp pieces. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel so much pain. “I see.” He blindly reached for his trousers and slipped them on.
She sat up. “Wait. You are leaving? Now?”
“I believe you just ended our affair.” He couldn’t stay. If he remained with her for another moment, he would fall apart in front of her. “Which makes this an opportune time for me to make my exit.”
“But not yet.” She rose, reaching for her dressing gown. “We have another month or so to enjoy each other.”
He pulled his shirt over his head. Another month with her, knowing it would all soon be over, would be agony. Like waiting for the executioner’s ax to fall. No, it was for the best to end their affair once and for all. While he could still manage to walk away. “I think a clean break is for the best, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t. Don’t go. It’s too soon.”
He registered the panic in her voice as he gathered his things. “Good night, Leela.” He barely managed to get the words out due to the smothering ache in his throat. “I wish you the best of luck.”
“You’re walking out on me yet again after we’ve made love,” she retorted. “You promised never to do so again.”
“D
on’t even try.” Anger surged in his blood. He rounded on her. “You are abandoning me and we both know it. Do not try to pretend otherwise. You’re the one who’s leaving. And I am the one left to pick up the pieces of my life while you run away yet again.”
“I am not running away. I am reclaiming my life, my work.” Her nostrils flared. “You are angry because I refuse to do your bidding. You want me to wait around like that mistress of yours, another plaything to amuse yourself with whenever the desire strikes. Maybe you should inquire as to whether your old mistress is still available.”
If only Leela were a mistress he could casually cast aside. Instead, he felt like he was losing a vital part of himself. He could barely breathe through the pain. She might as well tear his arm off. “Perhaps I shall see if Georgina is available. After all, she does still live in a house that I own.”
“How convenient for you,” she said bitterly from behind him.
He opened the door and quietly slipped out, treading carefully through the dark corridor, his big toe throbbing with pain, pretending his world had not just fallen apart.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“It’s a good thing you married ajnabi,” Citi told Leela. “An Arab man needs a wife who can cook.”
“I didn’t marry a foreigner,” Leela corrected. “Douglas was an Englishman.”
“Citi thinks anyone who isn’t an Arab is a foreigner,” explained Reema, one of Leela’s newly discovered cousins.
“Delilah has servants,” said Hanna, another cousin Leela had met for the first time a few days ago after coming to Manchester to visit Citi. She had so many cousins that it was difficult to keep track of them all. “She is lucky that she does not have to cook.”
“It must be nice to just show up at the table and have a meal prepared for you,” Reema said wistfully.
They were sitting around Auntie Hajar’s round kitchen table rolling grape leaves. At least, Leela was attempting to master the skill. She carefully lined up the rice and minced lamb mixture on the open grape leaf. Tucking in both ends, she proceeded to roll it up.
“Mish hake.” Citi shook her head in a way that made Leela feel like a complete failure. “Not like that,” the old woman rattled in a raspy voice seasoned by years of smoking.
A sour expression was permanently etched on Citi’s lined face. Her mouth seemed frozen into a pucker from decades of hookah smoking. “You filled it too much,” she admonished Leela in Arabic. “Now it will burst once the rice expands when you cook it.” She took Leela’s overstuffed warak enab, unrolled it, dumped out half of the stuffing and rerolled the grape leaf in what seemed like record time to Leela.
“Imagine never having to wash dishes.” Fiona Kate, Hanna’s younger sister, had a wistful expression on her face. “That would be a dream come true.”
“Stop dreaming,” said Auntie Hagar, Hanna and Fiona Kate’s mother. She was Mama’s younger sister. “Because you’ll be washing dishes soon. Right after we eat.”
Good humor sparkled in Fiona Kate’s eyes. “It’s worth marrying ajnabi if it means never washing dishes.”
Hanna studied Leela with striking kohl-rimmed eyes that matched her shiny sable hair. “Leela, have you ever scrubbed a pot?”
Leela blushed. “Not exactly.”
The other girls around the table burst out laughing. Leela smiled, enjoying their gentle teasing. She felt a genuine sense of warmth and camaraderie in the presence of these young women. She felt like she belonged, which had never really happened before. Of course, she could blend into the aristocracy that she’d been born into, especially when dressed in her finery and using her countess manners. But deep down, she’d always known that she didn’t quite belong.
But being here, at Auntie Hager’s table, felt different. It was the first time she’d met people who were almost like her. Although her cousins were mostly solidly middle class, a sizable economic difference from Leela’s circumstances, she still had much in common with them.
They, too, were a mix of both Arab and English. Of course, she’d felt an affinity for the relatives she’d met in Palestine, but nothing like this. The younger women, although of Arab stock, were born and raised in England—just like Leela. They shared many experiences and points of reference. She felt strangely at home among this loud, laughing and oftentimes bickering group of women.
And they helped take her mind off of Hunt. She missed him so desperately that the loss was a physical pain in her belly. She escaped London almost immediately after their parting. Seeing Citi again, and meeting the family she’d never known, helped distract Leela from the mammoth hole in her heart where Hunt used to be.
Hanna reached for another grape leaf to roll. “Delilah must pity us because we also have to wash our own clothes.”
“Actually, there is something you have that I envy,” Leela said to her.
The arch in her beautiful cousin’s dark brows became even more pronounced. “And what is that?”
“How in the world is your hair so straight?”
“I know!” Aliya, another cousin, with large doe eyes and sharp cheekbones, shared a look with Leela. “It is not fair that she has straight hair. It looks like it’s ironed.”
Hanna shrugged. “What can I say?” She spoke with exaggerated loftiness. “Min Allah. It’s from God.”
“You have your mother’s hair,” Fiona Kate said to Leela. “Auntie Maryam had curly hair.”
Leela stared at her. “You knew my mother?”
“Of course.” Hanna stood to arrange her handful of rolled grape leaves in the huge shared pot near the center of the table. “We all did.”
“When did you meet her?” Leela asked.
“She used to visit twice a year,” Auntie Hager said. “She would come down from London and stay two or three weeks at a time.”
“She did?” Aside from Citi, who’d visited every summer, Mama’s family had been a complete mystery to Leela until now. She believed Mama had abandoned the rest of her relatives in order to fit into Papa’s aristocratic world.
Fiona Kate’s eyes twinkled. “Auntie Maryam used to tell such funny stories about the aristocrats she’d met.”
Hanna registered Leela’s surprise. “You didn’t know? Where did you think she was going when she’d leave for weeks at a time?”
“I had no idea.” It felt as though the floor had dropped beneath Leela’s feet. Why had Mama kept her visits a secret? “I know there were times when she and Papa left us in the country while they went to London. I suppose that could be when she came to Manchester for her visits. But why didn’t she bring me and Alexander with her?”
Auntie Hager’s fingers moved rapidly as she rolled grape leaf after grape leaf. “She thought it was best not to confuse you.”
“Khalas. Enough.” Citi rose from her chair. She was heavy-set, carrying most of her weight in her upper body, and waddled over to a low straw stool set up by the omnipresent hookah pipe Fiona Kate prepared for her.
“Why would knowing Mama’s family confuse us?” Leela asked.
Everyone stood, following Citi’s lead. They were out of grape leaves and the pot of rolled warak enab was full. As her aunt and cousins washed up and cleared the table, Leela wandered over to sit with Citi.
“Why didn’t she let us know everyone?” Leela asked. “Why did Mama think we’d be confused?”
Citi sucked on the water pipe, inhaling long and deep. “Your father was ajnabi. You are the daughter of a marquess. We are just merchants.”
“But you are all my family.”
“You and Alexander are kubar. Your brother is a marquess. You had to fit in among your father’s people.”
“Just because we are aristocrats, that doesn’t mean I should not know all of you,” Leela insisted.
Citi shook her head. “Maryam was right. She knew her children were from another world. You can never belong here with us.”
“But where then do I belong? The nobility does not fully accept me. Not really. What you are sa
ying is that I don’t have a place in either world.”
Citi took a long low inhale on the water pipe. “You must carve out your own place.”
“What does that mean?” She felt a bit frantic, a bit lost. “I don’t understand.”
Citi patted her hand. “You will one day.”
Hunt’s secretary poked his head through the study door. “Beg pardon, Your Grace?”
“Yes, what is it, Banks?” Hunt strived to maintain a patient tone. His new secretary was capable enough, but the duchy was large and complicated. It would take months to train the young man. Again, he silently cursed Foster for his defection.
On top of everything, his head throbbed and his chest felt like it was in a permanent vise. He’d felt this way since his break with Leela a sennight ago. As much as Hunt tried to bury himself in his work, he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
Banks stepped farther inside. “It’s the question of the house on Half Moon Street.”
His former mistress lived in the property. “What about it? I’ve directed you to sell it.”
Banks cleared his throat. “It appears as if, Mrs. Redding, the current tenant, is reluctant to vacate the house.”
“She is?” That didn’t sound like Georgina. She of all people understood their liaison was a straight business arrangement. And now it was over. He hadn’t called upon her in months, since before visiting Lambert Hall. He just hadn’t gotten around to officially ending their agreement until now. “Did you not send Mrs. Redding a parting gift as I directed?”
“Indeed I did, Your Grace. A diamond-and-emerald necklace with matching earrings. You were very generous.”
“What then is the matter? Did you not tell her that I’ve granted her one additional month to continue to reside at the property until she secures another protector?”
“I did, Your Grace, exactly as you directed.”
“And?” He wished the damned man would just get to the point.
“It seems that Mrs. Redding desires to speak with you.”