The Surrender of a Lady

by Tiffany Clare

  “I hope to retain this innocence as long as possible,” she mumbled. The declaration was lost on Laila since the woman had started up the steps of the pool, calling out orders to the slaves.

  Laila turned to look at her when she made no move to leave the water. “Come. There is nothing about your person we haven’t all seen. Modesty is lost among your sisters.”

  “It’s much easier for you to say, having grown up in such a place. We don’t go about London in this unclothed fashion, not even in our bath.”

  “Oh, but they do in the bawdy houses. I once asked a patron.”

  Elena knew it to be the truth. Wasn’t that one of the many things that she thought separated genteel ladies from harlots? It didn’t matter; the two were one and the same for her now. Never in all her days had she thought to become the kind of woman to spread her legs for any man’s pleasure.

  One did not wake up in the morning and wonder: Will my husband lose me in a hand of cards today?

  She shook her head in disgust. It did no good to think about what her life should have been. As Laila suggested, it was better to forget the past and embrace this new life. Not that she could truly embrace it. But she didn’t want to be miserable—that would reflect over time on her son. She needed to take Laila’s advice and forget about being a prude.

  “Can we see Jonathan when we’ve finished here?” It had bothered her all morning that she hadn’t seen her son before going to the bath. She wanted to snatch every moment possible with him. The weeks they had spent apart had made her realize how precious spending time with her son was.

  “Of course. He is too young to come to the baths. That is, until he has his legs under him. I thought it best to show you our days without your son between us. He would be too much of a distraction.”

  “You are likely right.”

  Before stepping out of the pool, Elena looked around the bathing area. There were about twenty women. They didn’t seem to care about their lack of attire. Some brushed each other’s hair, others lounged together at the edge of the room on wooden benches, laughing at whatever topic they found amusing, and smoking long strange pipes. No one looked at her. They all fairly ignored her as they went about whatever it was they did.

  Elena took a deep breath; she could do this. She could rise from the water and bare herself, naked as the day she was born. What did it matter? They were all women, and she’d often stripped down to her chemise for her maids to help her bathe.

  She rose from the water, and a passing slave gave her a small hand towel. How was she to dry with this? She looked at Laila, who paid her no mind as she spoke to another slave carrying a ewer of water. She couldn’t understand the words exchanged. The language barrier was a handicap she’d have to fix soon.

  “Reema will rinse your hair with rose water. It will help with the knots. Then we’ll go back to the living quarters.”

  “Can you teach me how to speak this language with more confidence, Laila?”

  “Of course. I can teach you many if it pleases you. I pick them up without difficulty. A talent that has made me well liked by some of the foreigners who frequent the Pleasure Gardens,” she said with another wink. “I speak Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian—my own language. You know I speak your tongue. I can teach you French if you like and some Russian, even German if you are so bold.”

  “Goodness. What a mix. One thing at a time if it pleases you.”

  They each sat on one of those wooden crates. Rather uncomfortable, but better than sitting on the damp tiled floor.

  “It is easy to master a new one, when you’ve been surrounded by different languages most of your life. I’ve been with Amir for fifteen years now. It’s all part and parcel.”

  “I speak conversational French. It has been difficult for me to grasp Persian and Turkish though I understand some rudimentary words. I think I have had such a difficult time because I was in seclusion shortly after we arrived in Constantinople. We English women don’t go out while enceinte.”

  The slave’s fingers were relaxing as Reema massaged her scalp, tipping her head back to pour the sweet-smelling water through it. The water was surprisingly cool as it sluiced through her hair. The rose scent was lovely and muted the sulphuric smell that clung in the humid air.

  “Why do we spend so much time in here?”

  “You do not like to be clean?”

  Elena cracked one eye open, and raised her brow at Laila. “I believe you are teasing me. I don’t understand why we have to spend hours in here.”

  “It is not about spending time bathing. We are here to bond. This is the only place we can express ourselves freely. Amir does not come in here. He has his own private bath. We can be women here without interference.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize.” Elena looked around her again. Really looked. She spotted Maram on the opposite side of the room, a thread wrapped about her fingers and through her teeth. “What is Maram doing?”

  Laila sat up to see what Elena was curious about. “Ah, this is the threading I told you of yesterday. We remove hair as soon as we see it growing back. That is another reason we spend so much time in here. It wouldn’t be right to see a man with hairs on our body.”

  “But it’s almost childlike to be so . . .” Elena looked down to her nether region. It was smooth and didn’t feel as sore today. “Bare. Do you not want to be defined as a woman? I always thought it a rite of passage. From girl to woman.”

  “Not here. It is unsightly. Only men have hair. It is easier to clean ourselves, after men have taken their pleasure and we have had our own. Amir does not allow disease into the Pleasure Gardens. I have no idea how he learns the sexual proclivities of various lords, but none of the girls have ever become ill. The only strangeness is from Europe and your homeland. Men have a strange look to their penis.”

  Elena’s brows furrowed in sudden curiosity. She sat up straighter on her crate. “Why are they strange?”

  “They have a neck around them of loose skin. They call it a cap. Here, it is taken off when a boy comes into manhood.”

  “They take it off?” How grotesquely shocking.

  “It is only loose skin. Useless, really. They cut it off.”

  What would a penis with its skin cut off look like? She couldn’t begin to imagine. Would it be smaller? Did it not hurt to do that to a boy? She decided she didn’t want to be enlightened.

  They chatted about nonsensical things for another hour before they left the bathing area. Elena took a deep breath of the cool air when they exited the room. Would she ever get used to the heat in the public bath? It was something dreadful. How could one really be clean when one sweated while bathing?

  This was how her days went for a week. Bathing every day, then sitting in their living quarters with her son and some of the other girls who weren’t occupying lords in the other part of the palace. Eunuchs would come in at all times of the day and escort some of the girls to the Pleasure Gardens.

  Elena went into the courtyard gardens daily. There were so many types of truly beautiful flowers. She couldn’t imagine how many years it had taken to build the gardens to get it just right.

  It reminded her of the Duchess of Glenmoore’s gardens. She’d only ever set foot in them during the evenings, with her beau, Griffin, tugging her through the mazes, stealing her away to kiss her in secret. How those days seemed a millennia ago. So far away that she wondered if it was all a dream of what she had wanted with her life, to marry a man who professed great feelings for her. A man who made her heart speed the moment he entered a room.

  She shook her head and took a deep breath. Silly nostalgic thoughts.

  The sun beat down bright and hot today, so she sat under the shade of a cherry tree with the flowers blooming down on her. It was situated at the center of the court next to a great pond with orange and black fish swimming just beneath the surface. They were imported from China. White lilies floated atop the water and great tall grass reeds sprouted from the pond surface here and th
ere. A stone ledge wrapped right around it so one could sit at the water’s edge. She’d taken her son with her every day.

  Whenever she threw in a pomegranate seed, fish swarmed to the surface trying to grab the tidbit into their big gaping, round mouths. Jonathan liked to grab at the wriggling fish and chortled whenever they came to the surface to feed.

  A gentle breeze swept through the gardens, lifting her hair in its embrace before the warmth of midafternoon enveloped her again. She looked around her and took a deep breath of the sea air. It was refreshing and invigorating.

  Tall flagstone walls covered with ivy climbed to the sky all around her, creating shade in the garden. Most of the shutters that covered the windows were open during the day. She could see into the bedchambers, mostly empty, and the main sitting area where many of the harem girls lounged, talked, smoked their hookah, and ate.

  It was her very own paradise this afternoon.

  Not all the flowers and plants could be identified in this little heaven. She’d always had a love for flowers and hadn’t realized how lacking her knowledge was until her first day in this garden. It was peaceful sitting under this wide blooming tree, her son on her lap. She liked it when it was just her and Jonathan. It reminded her of days long in the past.

  This wasn’t so difficult a life to live. Not when such beauty surrounded you. But although she might find this peaceful for the moment, she knew it would only be a matter of time before she was expected to live up to her duties as Amir’s personal slave.

  Amir hadn’t once called for her since that first night they met. She was thankful for that.

  She turned at the shuffling of feet over the flagstone, surprised to see Amir strolling out into the garden, headed straight toward her as though her thoughts had called out to him.

  He wore white linen trousers and a loose open shirt. Yellow and gold pointed slippers covered his feet. She kept her eyes plastered to the ground, not ready to meet his gaze.

  “Laila told me I’d find you out here in the gardens,” he said softly.

  She couldn’t find it in herself to look up, so she looked over to the slave, expecting the woman to take her son back inside. Elena was surprised when the woman nodded, not to her but Amir, and then turned on her heel. Leaving her quite alone with Amir and Jonathan.

  She took a deep breath and raised her gaze as far as the top of her son’s head.

  Would Amir ask for her tonight?

  She’d thought herself lucky to have so much solitude. This time of reprieve and bonding with her son had been healing for her soul.

  Gathering what courage she had left, she raised her eyes to Amir’s.

  He hiked up his trousers at the knee and sat next to her on the bench. Balling up bits of bread between his fingers, he tossed them in the water. The fish raced to the surface, gluttons for crumbs to fill their bellies. It was like watching the slaves scramble for the bug-infested sludge at the slave market.

  So focused on the past, she felt more than saw Amir lift Jonathan from her lap. She turned her head and watched him perch the child in his own lap. In awe of such a small act on his part, she watched Amir roll up more bits of bread, helping Jonathan toss them in the water. Amir laughed when half the crumbs went into Jonathan’s mouth.

  An endearing sight to be sure. Didn’t every woman wish to see a doting father and son bond? Not that Amir played at being father. Her son was a means to an end for Amir, to win over her cooperation. But she still didn’t know how she could surrender herself to this man.

  “You have nothing to fear from me.”

  Is that what he saw? A frightened woman? There was a long pause of silence from both of them. Her son laughed at the rise and fall of fish from the top of the water.

  “I only find my circumstances awkward.”

  Amir nodded his understanding, but his focus was on her son. “You will like my attentions in time.”

  “You seem rather confident. If I might say so,” she added quickly so as not to seem ungrateful to what he’d already done for her. She must learn to temper her tongue.

  “You will shed this cold exterior in time. It is a defense you use to guard your English pride.”

  “Who is to say it’s pride that keeps me a gently bred woman? I’m not meant for what you have in mind.” She bowed her head. “But I agreed to the arrangement for my son’s future. I will stand by the promise I made.”

  Amir mulled this for a moment, his lips twisting as though he bit into something sour and not to his liking. “You did agree to this, otherwise Harry would not have gone to the trouble of purchasing you.”

  He turned away from the water and set her son on the ground, giving Jonathan the bracelet from his own wrist to play with.

  “I won’t let you leave here. We can come to many arrangements to make it more comfortable, but you will still be expected to warm my bed. If you find it reprehensible to have relations with a man beneath your station, there’s nothing that can be done about it. But you will learn to like it. I can be very convincing in acts of a more indulgent nature.” His voice was soft and even, but there was no mistaking the edge of anger lancing his words.

  “Please. Let me apologize for my behavior,” she said. “I’ve said too much. I will do whatever you bid me. You are not a man beneath me. I never meant—”

  He raised a hand to silence her protestations. “I’m glad for that, but your docile nature cannot cocoon you any longer. You need to come out of your shell. No one wants you to disgrace yourself. Everyone will help to support and strengthen your fledging wings as you learn your way around.” He faced her and gave her a small smile, his anger no longer evident. “Only then will you find your missing spirit, little bird.”

  Such a strange way to word it.

  She hated that everyone read her so well. But he was right. She hadn’t been abused. In fact, she’d been treated graciously, thoughtfully; everyone wanted to help her learn this way of life. Amir reached his hand out to her son, who bashed the bracelet around in excitement.

  He tickled under Jonathan’s chin, and her son released the bauble and laughed at the man who played with him. How could a man who lived such an amoral way of life, owning slaves and whoring women, be this tender?

  It wasn’t a question she wanted the answer to.

  Taking the delicate filigree between his long slender fingers, Amir bent the pretty band so the circle was smaller. Then he slipped it over her son’s chubby hand, fitting it snugly around his baby-plump wrist.

  Jonathan’s eyes seemed to widen, and the bracelet went immediately to his mouth. Amir chucked Jonathan under the chin again until her boy laughed and chortled in his baby way. He seemed torn between sucking on the bracelet and grappling Amir’s fingers.

  Amir turned to her suddenly. “I want you in my bedchamber tonight. Laila will prepare you.”

  There was no response to that. She lowered her head, not wanting to meet his gaze. The only sound was her son’s laughter and the fountain that drained into the fishpond.

  She would not argue. He could take away everything he’d given her and that might include her son. She must tread carefully so as not to ruin her last chance for survival. At least until she better understood this man.

  His hand came down to rest on the top of her head, his fingers lifting a hank of hair, then releasing it just as quickly. He left her there, tears running down her cheeks.

  Why was she crying? No use denying that she was grateful for all he’d done.

  Maybe she cried because she was afraid to open up to him. Afraid of what she’d learn about herself when with him. She thought about that a moment longer. Her fear dissipated. She wasn’t afraid of lying with a man who was not her husband.

  It wasn’t that the actual act of congress was terribly horrible; she had enjoyed it upon occasion. What bothered her was this strange intuition that she wouldn’t find this a hardship in the least. Where had Elena disappeared to in the last week? She’d been so adamant and sure of herself before arriv
ing at the palace. Now there was this new person taking over her body, her mind, telling her this was not a terrible fate at all, but a good second chance.

  She slumped on the ground next to Jonathan and set him on her lap so that his wobbly legs stood on her thighs.

  “Promise not to hate me when you learn that your mama has sold herself into this life.”

  One pudgy hand reached out to grasp her loose hair. She pressed her lips to his forehead, giving him a quick kiss.

  “I will do everything in my power to give us both a life we can love. I pray to God you don’t hate me when you understand what I truly am. But I tell you this now as a promise to us both; I will make this a life worth having. I will make this the best I can. For both of us. This looks to be our last stop before we’re dancing in Elysium’s fields.”

  Giving her son a raspberry kiss on his cheek and a hug that had him squirming as she tickled his sides, she picked him up and strolled toward Laila’s room.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Surrender of Reservation

  A eunuch stood on either side of the double-door entry. Each pushed one massive wooden door inward and gave her a little push inside. She tripped a few steps forward and spun around to see the doors closing in her wake. She smoothed her hands over her arms as if warding off a chill.

  So this was it. She’d known it was coming all day, so why couldn’t she turn around?

  Taking a deep breath, she lowered her hands to her sides and turned where she stood.

  The room was empty. Amir was not waiting for her. She released the air she held tight in her lungs.

  How long was she expected to wait? The longer she was here alone, the more nervous she grew. Her stomach was in knots and not all of it stemmed from fear. There was a note of anticipation that made her sick to her stomach. It was like her wedding night all over again.

  Instead of worrying about his arrival, she focused on the opulence of the room. Lush carpets cushioned her feet, inviting her to curl her toes into them, but she wouldn’t take her slippers off. She’d keep every last transparent thread on her person until she was forced to reveal more. There was no bed in the room, only a wide comfortable divan and cushions that could substitute as seating on the floors.