Chantelle said this as Mara started to approach her. She backed away. There was a good fifteen feet between them, and if she could just get around to the other side of the pool, she could use it as a barrier. If Mara tried following her around it, then Chantelle would have a clear path to the door. But she couldn't take her eyes off that dagger long enough to turn around and run.
She had never been in a situation like this before. It wasn't quite like the night she had looked over Jamil's shoulder to see a dagger about to descend on them both. She hadn't been alone then. She was completely alone now and had no skills to draw on to use against this threat. That the threat came from another woman wasn't exactly reassuring. Mara might not be as tall as she was, but the woman was much heftier, stronger, and her life was in the balance. If she couldn't kill
Chantelle, she knew she would have to face Jamil's justice, so Mara had to be extremely desperate, which would give her added strength. That she was so calm about it was what was so frightening.
Chantelle wiped her sweaty palms on her hips. Mara had already closed the distance to only ten feet. "You—" She paused to clear the squeakiness from her throat and swallow. "You don't have to do this, you know. You could escape. Ali could help you, couldn't he?"
"After you give the alarm? Hah!"
"I am only looking at all the options you have!" Chantelle snapped.
She couldn't believe she had actually said that. Mara couldn't either, for she shook her head, snorting, "You talk too much, Englishwoman."
Chantelle tried a different tack. "Have you ever done this before, killed someone with your own hands? It's not like having someone else do it—"
"Shut up!" Mara shouted, making Chantelle's heart slam even harder against her chest.
Why hadn't she screamed already? She was a coward after all, wasn't she? But she was afraid if she did, it would bring Mara leaping at her all the sooner. She would be dead before anyone came, if anyone heard her. If she could just talk Mara out of it instead. . . .
The distance was down to eight feet. "I've never done anything to harm you, Mara. You know that. Can you live with my death on your—"
Chantelle finally shrieked as she backed into a bench and lost her balance. She had forgotten about the damn thing, which was set so near the edge of the pool. She fell back on it, and before she could rise, Mara was standing over her and it was too late to
scream or do anything else. She was paralyzed with heart-stopping terror, unable to move or breathe as she watched the dagger rise up for its descent. It was a repeat of that other night, only without Jamil's body lying between her and death. Jamil would have known what to do. He would have . . .
At the last instant, Chantelle remembered what Jamil had done and rolled to the side, right into Mara's knees. And just as it happened before, knife and attacker went tumbling forward. As Chantelle hit the hard floor, she heard a thud and then a splash on the other side of the bench. But she didn't bother to see how quickly Mara could climb out of die pool. She leaped to her feet and ran out of the room.
"Kadar!" she shouted as she ran down the hall, only to have him appear right in her path, so that she crashed into him. She pushed away the hands that came up to steady her, demanding shrilly, "Where the devil were you?"
"Here, lalla," he replied in an offended tone. "Where else would I be?"
"Then she lied? God, I should have—no, it doesn't matter now." Chantelle gripped his arm tightly, her fear not quite diminished yet. "It was Mara all along, not Noura, and she just tried to kill me, too, or again. She admitted she had me poisoned because of what I had heard." When he just stood there staring at her, she snapped, "Do something! She's still in the pool room, and she has a knife!"
He set her aside then and moved toward the door she had left wide open. When he slipped inside, she should have taken off in the opposite direction, the only wise and safe thing to do. She followed Kadar instead, the silence drawing her partly, but also a need to see Mara apprehended so the last of her fear would go away.
But she went no farther than the doorway. Kadar was bent over Mara, who lay by the side of the pool. She wasn't moving, and pink-tinged water ran down her forehead onto her face and the tile beneath her head.
Kadar glanced up and said in a quiet voice. "She is dead, lalla."
Chantelle looked back at the pink water and finally saw it for what it was. Bile rose in her throat and she bent over, unable to stop its exit. After a moment, hands lifted her and she turned her head against Radar's shoulder.
"Oh, God," she cried. "If I hadn't been so cowardly, I would have looked to see that she didn't surface from the water. I could have pulled her out before—"
"It would not have made any difference, lalla. She cracked her head on the side of the pool. She was already dead when she slipped into the water."
"But that doesn't matter. I made her fall."
"Why?"
"Why?" She looked up, startled. "It was either that or let her stab me."
"Then why are you searching to place blame on yourself when there is none?"
"It's just not fair. She was a victim, Kadar, from the very start. She was abused, defiled, and then abused again by . . . She should have had help, care, understanding. Instead—" Chantelle fell silent a long moment before she said in a tiny voice, "I tried to justify to her the way Jamil treated her, but it can't be justified, can it? He is sensitive, perceptive—at
least I thought he was. Why couldn't he see that she hated her weakness, and hated him for exploiting it?"
"Is that why she tried to kill him?"
Chantelle could only nod at this point. She was crying in earnest now, and barely aware when Kadar led her away.
Chapter Forty-five
"Now that the money source is gone, the informants are lining up at the gates," Jamil told Derek. "It will not be long before we have every last man who has been involved."
He had returned to the palace late last night, but learned in the harbor that his trip had been for nothing. It was his longing for Sheelah that had brought him back. He had intended staying just the one night, then going on to Tripoli, where an informant had suggested Selim might have gone after leaving Istanbul. He knew now how false that idea was.
But Jamil had put off everything until he had straightened things out with his beloved Sheelah, and that had taken all night. Not telling her his plans in the first place had been a mistake. He understood that now, and his only excuse was that he hadn't been himself when he left.
He had had a long conference with Omar this morning, and then he had joined Derek in the secret room, which he had returned to last night.
"Then it really is over?" Derek said.
"Did you think it was not? Ali gave his cutthroats a paltry sum to risk their necks, with the big prize promised only for the men who succeeded. Of course, there never was a fortune waiting for the culprits to collect. I paid Mara extremely well for her services, but the whole thing went on too long, draining everything she had. There were men to be paid for their constant vigil outside the palace. There were all the men to be paid who intercepted my couriers, and that was just to throw us off the scent. It was why Mara had to resort to stealing jewels from the other women. If someone had actually succeeded in getting to me, Ali planned to kill him when he showed up for the prize."
"And now that it has been made known that the instigators are dead and the money gone ..."
"No one is going to risk his life without reward. I am as safe outside the palace as I am within," Jamil finished.
"And I can go home."
Jamil laughed at Derek's sigh. "And here Omar assured me you had been having a wonderful time."
"Only at certain times of the day," Derek grunted. "I have learned firsthand how quickly boredom can set in for the balance."
"And how is the skinny little blonde who relieved that boredom?"
"Not talking to me, actually, ever since she had that confrontation with Mara. She seems to think the whole thing
was my—your—fault, for not sensing that Mara was seriously troubled by her abnormality."
Jamil frowned. "I suppose I might have sensed it under normal circumstances, but the fact remains that the woman did everything possible to ensure that she was punished, by deliberately insulting me or disobeying me, and when that didn't work, by attacking me. However, she was never whipped for long, nor even very hard, but when it was over, she was savage in her lovemaking. You saw this for yourself. And I suppose I came to expect it, and so summoned her whenever I had need for such violence, which was more and more often after the weeks of self-imposed confinement turned to months."
"Your own frustration was abetting your assassination. A vicious little circle—ironic, to say the least."
"It was ingenious. Suspicion would never have fallen on Mara. We had overlooked the harem entirely until Shahar overheard that conversation. Even then Mara didn't come under suspicion."
"I'm glad you're putting credit where it's due," Derek replied. "You owe her a lot."
"I am not denying that, Kasim. But I thought you would want to name the reward, considering she has been 'our' exclusive favorite all these weeks." At Derek's grimace, Jamil chuckled. "All the time I was gone, I thought you would be giving me the excuse I needed to weed out my harem."
"Don't give me that, brother. You were worried sick about it."
"A little, perhaps. But I did hear that you found one of my favorites to your liking. Strange that it was only the Englishwoman who should attract you, and Jamila being the source of so much inquiry from the English consul."
Derek grinned. Jamil had seen right through that one, so there was no point in delaying his request.
"You won't mind letting her return to England with me, then, since you will be wanting to get rid of her anyway?"
"Your people would be pleased, I suppose?"
"They wouldn't take it amiss."
"Very well," Jamil replied. "And your Shahar? Will you make the same request for her?"
"Actually, I don't know what the hell I want for her." At Jamil's raised brow, he admitted, "I thought taking her to my bed would assure her a husband of her own when you returned. Englishwomen are particular about that, you know, having a man all to themselves."
Jamil was surprised. "You mean you never intended asking for her freedom?"
"I think I deliberately didn't consider it because I needed an excuse—"
Derek didn't finish and Jamil smiled knowingly. That she was a virgin was a problem, was it?"
Derek sighed. "A bloody big problem."
"I was afraid her first meeting with me would have made things more difficult for you."
"Oh, it did, but nothing I couldn't get around. It just took longer. And ... oh, who the hell am I kidding? Of course I want to take her out of here with me. It's what she would want, and she deserves that for solving your little problem." He didn't add that the more he thought of it, the more he didn't want to see her married to some other man.
"Then should I tell her, or do you want that privilege? Perhaps she will talk to you again after you give her the good news."
Derek scowled, watching Jamil trying to hold back his amusement. "Actually, the longer I can get away without telling her the truth, the better. She can think she is sailing with you. She doesn't have to know where."
"But why?"
"For a few extra weeks of peace. The lady is going to raise holy hell when she learns I'm as English as she is, believe me. And it's not going to be pleasant being confined with her on a ship once she realizes that I could have obtained her freedom without taking her to bed."
"You are much too indulgent where women are concerned. You should be—"
"More like you?"
They both laughed, and Jamil admitted, "I do have quite a few women to placate after your single-minded pursuit of the new favorite left them all neglected. It will take me at least a month to bring contentment back to my harem."
"I hear you started last night."
"Sheelah is and always will be my main concern. And, Allah be thanked, she understood. She also begs your forgiveness if she made things more difficult for you. She said she sensed your guilt in not being able to tell her the truth."
Derek shrugged that off. "It's over and everything can get back to normal, including my own life."
"Yes, you have that fiancee waiting for you, do you not? And Shahar? Will you keep her, too?"
Derek's lips turned up at the corners. "Now that you mention it, that's not a bad idea."
Jamil snorted. "As if you had not already thought of it. But will she agree?"
"I got around her aversion to you. I can get around her aversion to being my mistress. After all, she will see herself as ruined and unsuitable for a decent marriage now."
"Is she?"
"As beautiful as she is? Are you kidding?"
Jamil grunted. They might be twins, but their tastes in women just weren't the same. "I wish you luck, then. But as you say, you will have to get around her anger first."
Derek made a face. "Yes, there is that."
Chapter Forty-six
"Shahar, you are to pack your things. You are sailing on the evening tide with Jamil—you and Jamila." Chantelle stared at Rahine as if she had lost her mind. "Did you hear me, child? You are going on a trip."
"Where?"
"Where?" Rahine repeated. "What does that matter? This is an honor—"
"Where, Rahine?"
"Actually, I don't know. Not even Haji could find out. But it really doesn't make any difference. Jamil wants you to accompany him, and so you will."
"And so will Jamila. If he's taking her, he doesn't need me along."
"Are you jealous?"
"Certainly not!"
"Then you must be pouting because Jamil visited Sheelah last night."
"Rahine—" Chantelle began warningly, only to have the older woman chide her.
"Then don't sound like it. It's you he's taking with him, not Sheelah."
"And Jamila."
"You are jealous!"
"No . . . I'm . . . not! She can have him. They can all have him. He's everything I first thought he was and more. I hate him!"
Rahine pursed her lips. "So you're still upset about Mara? I tried to tell you there was more to it than just what she had told you."
"You deny what he did to her every single time he summoned her?"
"No."
"Then what more can you tell me? So he needed an outlet for his temper. Other men punch walls." Rahine nearly choked trying to hold back a chuckle. Chantelle saw this and scowled. "Go ahead and laugh. It's very funny that that woman was victimized to the bitter end."
Rahine sobered. "No, it's not funny. It's tragic. But Jamil isn't to blame."
"He-"
"Shahar!" Rahine cut in sharply. "You're going to listen to me this time whether you want to or not. Jamil was provoked. Mara deliberately forced him to punish her each time she was summoned. Did she tell I you that?"
"No, but I don't see how that leaves him blameless. He should have realized something was wrong I with her and left her alone. Instead he called for her more often, using her as his whipping post. Do you know how disgusting that is?"
"I can see there is no getting through to you." Rahine sighed. "It makes no difference that she gave every impression of wanting to be abused? There are women who enjoy that sort of thing, you know."
"She hated it afterward."
"Then she should have said something."
Chantelle couldn't disagree with that. She had told Mara the same thing. But she didn't want to see Jamil's side of it, especially now. For five days after Mara's death he had summoned her, and she had turned away from him. He could have told her what Rahine just did, but he hadn't bothered. He'd simply got angry when she wouldn't talk to him. And then he had gone to Sheelah. Well, fine. Wonderful. He would continue going to Sheelah. Chantelle wanted nothing more to do with him.
She turned away, mumbling, "Why doesn
't he take Sheelah with him on this trip instead?"
"He usually does take her whenever he leaves Barikah, but this time he wants you. It is your chance to make up with him, Shahar," Rahine pointed out hesitantly.
"And if I don't want to?"
"I imagine that's why Jamila is going along, too," Rahine said deliberately.
Chantelle swung back around, eyes narrowed and flittering violet. "He can just—"
"Enough, Shahar! I really don't have time to argue with you anymore. Jamil has sent for me, and I'm late now. Pack your things. Be ready to leave by his evening. And if I don't see you again before you leave ..." Rahine stepped forward to embrace her. Allah go with you, and hopefully, he will help you come to your senses."
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