Historical Jewels

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Historical Jewels Page 69

by Jewel, Carolyn


  Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. She nodded. “Yes, all right.”

  “I’ll be returning to England before long,” he said. “After Damascus, I expect. By the new year, I should be home. Write to me at Maralee House in St. Ives, Cornwall, after that. If I’m not in London, I’ll be there.”

  “Maralee House, St. Ives, Cornwall.” She nodded.

  “If you’re not sure where to direct your letters, direct them there.”

  “I shall, then. Thank you.”

  “You’ll see the house one day and love it as I do.”

  She swiped a hand over her eye. “Yes, I’m sure I shall, Foye.”

  Foye took a folded slip of paper from his coat pocket. “In the meantime, if anything should happen, if you should find yourself in need of any assistance, whether you are in England or here, and the Luceys cannot help you, write to my solicitor, Mr. George Brook.” He gave her the paper on which he had written his lawyer’s address. “I’ve already sent him instructions on your behalf. If you do write him, my letter is likely to have arrived beforehand.”

  “That’s very generous of you.” She took the paper and scanned the address before she put the sheet in her pocket. “Thank you.” The corner of her mouth pulled down.

  Foye stepped forward. But, damn, he didn’t dare touch her. “My love, don’t cry.”

  “I shan’t.” She gave a tight shake of her head.

  “Will you draw me a likeness of you, Sabine?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “Will you?” He took a step toward her. “Or do you intend to send me away with nothing by which to remember you?”

  She raised her face to his and smiled. He thought his heart would break at the sight. “No lock of hair, my lord?”

  He locked gazes with her. “A self-portrait, Sabine, so I may remember you and know with each stroke of your pencil that you thought of me.”

  She didn’t answer, and in the silence, Foye could guess nothing of her thoughts. She nodded. “Very well.”

  He squeezed the brim of his hat and brought himself to the mark. “I love you, Sabine. You’ve become my heart and soul since we met. I will wait for you.”

  She reached for his hand and curled her fingers around his. “And I you, Foye.”

  “When you are able, we’ll be married, if you’ll do me the honor.”

  She gently squeezed his hand. “If you say you love me still, I shall, Foye.”

  They stood like that, hand in hand, each silent and knowing they must part. “Convince your uncle not to visit Kilis,” he said. “Have nothing to do with Nazim Pasha.”

  “Do you think I haven’t tried?” she asked.

  He stared at her, keeping the contact between them even when it went beyond polite. “His hands are nearly useless,” he said. “He can barely walk. Try as he might, he cannot hide his frailty from anyone. Tell him he mustn’t make the journey. Nor should you trust Nazim Pasha.” He tightened his hand around hers. “This is madness. He admires you too much. His reputation is not a pleasant one, Sabine.”

  Her forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. “The pasha, you mean?”

  “Yes, the pasha. He admires you too much. Everyone saw it. I am not the only man to have noticed his attentions to you.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then didn’t. The edge of her mouth twitched. “But I love you,” she said. “Not the pasha.”

  He took a step toward her and then stopped. “Sabine, you will not be safe.” He tipped his chin in the direction of the upper portion of the house. “Ask your uncle’s servant. Ask him if Nazim Pasha isn’t making a fortune buying and selling women. Ask him.”

  She nodded. “I will try. But I can’t promise you I’ll succeed.”

  Foye dug his fingers into the brim of his hat. He wanted to tear the damn thing apart. “With all due respect to your uncle, you should not have to convince him of anything. He should be concerned for your safety. He should know it is his duty to protect you at all costs. I fail to understand why he puts you at risk.” He threw a hand in the air. “He treats you as if you are a man. No matter how clever you are, no matter that you can run rings around anyone ever to graduate Oxford, you are not a man.”

  “He wants to finish his book. The north is one of the last places we have to visit. I think if we go there, I can persuade him it’s time to go home. To England.”

  “And if his doing so puts you in danger, what then?”

  She shrugged. “Finishing his book is his dream. The only one left to him. And you know I am the reason this is all he has left. Oh, Foye. Please. I won’t take that from him, too.”

  His anger, always slow to boil over, flashed hot. Enough. This was enough. He closed the distance between them, dropping his hat to grab her by the shoulders. “If it were me I’d give my life before I put you in danger. Your uncle doesn’t feel about you the way I do, Sabine. He doesn’t love you.”

  “But he does love me.” She smiled, a sad, heartbreaking curve of her mouth, and Foye caught his breath because that so sad smile tipped him the rest of the way. The very last of his resistance to her ripped away.

  He mastered himself, and it was not easy. “I know,” he said. “I know he loves you, as a father would. We love you differently. And God help me, I hope you love me differently!”

  She laughed softly. “Yes, Foye.”

  “If you cannot persuade him, Sabine, then at least promise you will let me send some of my men with you. I will be in Buyukdere long enough for that. If you cannot convince him, I’ll arrange to send additional armed men with you on your journey.” He met her gaze. “They will be loyal to you, not Nazim Pasha.”

  Her mind was more than quick enough to grasp the importance of that. “Thank you,” she said. “That is an excellent precaution.”

  Foye nodded. Inside he was wound up tight. He was a man of varied experience. He’d had lovers and mistresses in his life, and when he fell in love, he had been faithful. And yet, he stood before Sabine Godard feeling like an absolute tyro.

  “Perhaps it would be wise for you to gather your extra men now. There might not be time later. Nazim Pasha promised we were to leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Consider it done.” He glanced behind him, saw a shadowed corner beneath the interior courtyard stairs to the upper floor, and pulled her into the niche formed there. He wrapped his arms around her waist and brought her close up against him. “Promise me you’ll be careful,” he said.

  “Foye,” she said, “someone will see us.”

  “I don’t care.” He cupped her chin and tilted her face to his. “Promise me, Sabine.”

  “I promise.”

  He kissed her, and he didn’t hold much back at all. She stretched up to him, opening her mouth under his, and he swept his tongue inside. He felt her momentary hesitation, and then she relaxed against him and, well. Yes. She was a quick study.

  Eventually, he had to let her go. The servants were busy packing for the Godards’ removal tomorrow. The house would be closed up but remain a base of operations while the Godards were in the north. If he kept Sabine here much longer, someone really would see them, and the last thing he wanted was for her to be the subject of gossip again or find that Godard was allied against him before he’d even had a chance.

  “Write to me every day,” he said. “And send me your portrait.”

  “I shall.”

  This was it, then. The last time they would see each other for who knew how long. Sabine brushed her hand through his hair, tangling her fingers in his curls. “Foye,” she said, “promise me you’ll be careful?”

  “I will,” he said.

  “Good-bye,” she said.

  “Not good-bye.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “We’ll see each other again.”

  From upstairs, a male voice called for her in heavily accented English.

  She stepped away, brushing at her skirts and wiping at her cheeks with the sides of her fingers. “Good-bye,
Foye.”

  “Adieu, Sabine,” he whispered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Northern Syria, Aleppo, Kilis, and the pashalik of Nazim Pasha, June 29, 1811

  Kilis lay roughly eighty miles northeast of Maraat Al-Numan, where Foye had briefly gone, through Syria with its factions and tribes all looking to establish independence from the sultan or from Ibrahim Pasha in Egypt now that he’d massacred the Egyptian Mameluks out of existence. Nazim Pasha, it was believed, aspired to control the entire province without the nuisance of allegiance to any higher authority. With or without the assistance of France or Russia. Or Britain.

  Foye was five days reaching Kilis because he stopped in Aleppo for supplies and to check whether any of his letters to Sabine had arrived at the consulate, and if any had, whether she and Sir Henry had been by to collect them. Three of his letters were there, uncollected. He did learn, however, that the pasha had been through the city on this way to Kilis, and that the Godards had been with him. Both in good health.

  As for why he was on his way to Aleppo? The hell with Damascus, and the hell with being separated from Sabine when it wasn’t yet necessary. When it was madness to allow Sabine and her uncle to travel alone with the pasha, into an area known to be politically unstable, then he ought to put a stop to it. Let Godard think what he would of Foye’s joining them. He could at least have Lieutenant Russell’s courage in facing the man on behalf of the woman he loved. He intended to do whatever it took to convince Sir Henry that he loved Sabine and deserved his blessing for a courtship.

  In addition to replenishing the supplies necessary to get his men and himself to Kilis and back, he had with him a set of English dueling pistols to present to the pasha when he arrived at his palace, as it seemed that was where he must go to join the Godards. The pistols were a common gift made to princes, pashas, and various warlords who were in de facto control of the remote provinces of the sultanate.

  He also hired more men while he was there—mercenaries and former Janissaries—to accompany him to Kilis. If there was trouble, he wanted to be prepared, and that meant men and weapons, neither of which were in short supply here. There were a good many retired fighting men in Aleppo, as well as ferocious-looking men from any number of the tribes indigenous to the area.

  He chose men who looked like they’d be bastards in a fight and paid them enough to secure their loyalty with a promise of half as much money again when he discharged them. In the end, Foye outfitted and armed twenty men in addition to his personal guard. His valet, Barton, knew his way around a pistol, and his young dragoman, Nabil, though still a boy, kept a pistol tucked into his sash and a sword over his back. Including those two, his retinue numbered nearly thirty. More than enough, he hoped, to deter any bandits or Bedouins they might meet on the road.

  Well provisioned and armed, Foye left for Kilis two days after arriving in Aleppo and a month since leaving Buyukdere. The journey between Kilis and Aleppo was just long enough to require an overnight stop. A man on a fine horse might make the trip in a day, but with a small army and the pack animals carrying their supplies? If there was trouble on the way, he wanted his men fresh, not hungry and exhausted from hard riding.

  Their stop came at just past the halfway point, at a village where the people stared at him with wide eyes, likely having never seen a European man as tall as he was. They were followed by children begging for food and money. Emaciated dogs nipped at the heels of their horses. Nabil secured them lodgings in an inn that served surprisingly good food.

  After they ate, Foye took Barton and Nabil with him for a walk. With Nabil interpreting, he was able to discover that the pasha had stopped here, too, when he came through on his way to Kilis. Not surprising, given that Sir Henry was unable to travel quickly.

  With full dark at least an hour or two away, they continued their tour of the village. There was a public fountain erected at the side of the road that continued on to Kilis, and several more in the village proper. As they walked, a dozen children followed after him, begging for coins, which he handed out amid laughter and shrieks of joy. He spent some time at the village bazaar, where he found some exceptionally fine embroidered silk and another merchant who had a superb selection of emeralds. Foye sat with the vendor, and again with Nabil interpreting, they smoked and drank coffee and haggled over a price for the emeralds.

  His lack of Arabic or Turkish was no barrier to commerce. Where money was involved, all one really required was an expressive face and the will to walk away. Nabil translated when necessary, but for the most part, Foye conducted the matter on his own and came away with the gems he wanted at a more than agreeable price. Barton tucked his purchases into a satchel, and they continued their walk.

  The farther north they went, the fewer Turks there were, and this was as true of Aleppo as it was of this village. The population was more and more tribal: Arabs, Bedouin, Druze, Turkmen, Syrians, and even Christians. At the end of one street they reached a spot where an Arab had erected a small rug-covered dais. Ten youths sat on the rug with one blackamoor woman, hugely pregnant, and two paler-skinned women, both of whom were quite young and very pretty. The Arab was, Foye realized with a start, a slaver, and he was even now displaying his female merchandise to a man who looked disinterested in what he saw. Foye saw no blondes, no other women of any color but the two Caucasian girls. His heart misgave him at this evidence that, indeed, the trading of women was a practice that survived in the north.

  Thank God he already knew the pasha and the Godards had passed safely through here.

  They reached Kilis about eleven the following morning. Nazim Pasha’s palace was on a rise on the northern outskirts of the city, well situated to withstand an assault should anyone be foolish enough to attack the pasha. Foye ordered the bulk of his men to make camp out of sight of the palace. He saw no reason to alarm the pasha by approaching with what was, in effect, a small fighting force.

  With just Barton and Nabil, Foye rode to the pasha’s palace. Planted in the dirt inside the entrance were two wooden spears, each with a cow’s tail affixed to it. They were the literal symbol of the pasha’s standing; Nazim Pasha was a two-tail pasha, a man of significant rank in the eyes of the Ottoman Porte. Three tails, and he would be sitting in the High Porte, Sultan Mahmud’s private court, with the title of vizier or something equally lofty.

  A white-bearded man greeted them at the courtyard entrance, which was wide with a gate high enough to admit an entire caravan of camels and donkeys. Foye relayed via Nabil that he was most anxious to meet the pasha and present him with a gift as a token of his esteem. They were admitted, and Foye let out a breath of relief. He would see Sabine again, within the hour he hoped.

  The Godards had been staying in opulent quarters indeed. The interior of the palace was a grand affair, with marble floors and columns, mosaicked walls, and windows and doorways with inverted teardrop-shaped tops. From what he saw, the general layout adhered to the traditional courtyard-based constructions he’d seen in Buyukdere and elsewhere in the provinces of Turkey. There were two minarets and, so Foye assumed, at least one mosque.

  With frequent bows and salaams, the white-bearded servant escorted him to an interior courtyard with a marble floor laid out in a pattern of dark and light tiles. Barton and Nabil followed him. Covered walkways lined the perimeter of the rectangular courtyard, with marble columns supporting the arched openings. Fruit trees and flowering bushes offered shade, and two fountains, one at each end of the enclosure, cooled the air.

  The irwan to which the servant escorted him was as magnificent as the rest of the palace. This high-ceilinged, domed room was entirely open to the courtyard. The marble-lined floor-to-ceiling walls were decorated with tiles inlaid in the pattern of black and white so common in the north. Bright rugs covered the floor, and a divan glittered with pillows in jeweled tones of silk. The massive fountain at the near side of the courtyard was surrounded by palm, orange, and lemon trees. Finches flitted from branch to branch. It was here,
the servant told him, that he would meet Nazim Pasha. First, of course, he must freshen himself after his journey.

  Half an hour later Foye returned to the irwan with Nabil at his side. Foye looked for the Godards but did not see them yet. Servants had brought food and drink to the irwan, arranging the selection on what looked like upside-down chairs with platters laid over the legs. Soft music of flutes and stringed instruments came from an enclosed structure on one side of the irwan. He adjusted his grip on the, dueling pistols, wrapped in a velvet bag, that he intended to present to the pasha and crossed the remainder of the courtyard.

  The infamous Nazim Pasha reclined on the divan, a narghile at his feet, his robes as extravagantly embroidered as before. Gold and silver thread embellished his heavy silk kaftan, and a teardrop pearl adorned the front of his turban. As was the custom, Foye and Nabil removed their outer shoes before they entered the irwan, Foye retained the thin slippers he’d worn inside his shoes, a convenient custom he was happy to have adopted. Without a word, Nabil installed himself on the floor, legs crossed and hands resting on his thighs.

  As expected, the pasha was established in the rightmost corner of the divan. He wore a large ruby on his left hand. A long-limbed Moor in a striped kaftan served fresh coffee, hot and strong and almost unbearably sweet, and then retreated to the lower portion of the floor to sit with Nabil until he was needed again.

  Foye presented the dueling pistols, which were graciously received and exclaimed over.

  “Excellency,” Foye said in French once the pasha had set the pistols aside. He sat on the left corner of the divan, cradling his coffee in his hand. After a clap from the pasha, the Moorish servant moved a tray of nuts and sherbet within his reach. “I hope my arrival here is not inconvenient.”

  Nazim Pasha waved a desultory hand. “It is delightful to see you, my lord. I do enjoy my European visitors.”

 

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