by Erin Satie
“Your Grace.” Ware bowed shallowly. “It would be an honor.”
“Have you heard the news about the Grand Vizier?” Gagg asked. “Khusrow Pasha has been dismissed.”
“Good riddance,” said Ware, shortly. “Khusrow Pasha lived in Russia’s pocket.”
“Ah, yes. You used to be well-known for your radical views. You believed the Ottoman Empire would collapse if Russia were not held at bay.” Her father rocked back on his heels appraisingly. “I believe at one time your convictions extended to inciting revolution.”
Ware dropped his chin sharply—not quite a nod, but acknowledging the point.
“And yet you’ve been working tirelessly, these last weeks, to encourage an alliance that would dramatically increase Russia’s influence over the Ottoman Empire. I wonder what changed in the intervening years?”
Gagg had the decency to look shocked, but her father maintained his chilly hauteur.
“Mehmet Ali,” Ware answered, a half smile playing about his mouth. “If we’d acted earlier we could have avoided this situation. That would have been my preference, as is well-known. But here we are, and Mehmet Ali poses a more immediate threat.”
“Tell me, Mr. Ware. Do you really think the Ottoman Empire can be saved?” Gagg asked. “It seems that is the question at the heart of it all.”
“Lady Lily, you’ve visited the region more recently than I,” said Ware. “What do you think?”
“I was hoping to hear your opinion, Mr. Ware,” interjected Gagg.
Ware raised his eyebrows at the man.
“When discussing events that are so distant, so difficult for a native Englishman to fathom, it’s important to consult a trustworthy source,” Gagg added.
Ware nodded. “Just so.”
“You needn’t argue, because I can’t answer the question,” said Lily. “As far as I can tell, no one who’s gathered here in London to negotiate a treaty has any intention of saving the Ottoman Empire. Only to circle round like vultures, eager to gorge on the corpse—” She saw her father’s eyes narrow and cut herself off. “Pardon me. Perhaps I should take a bit of fresh air.”
She excused herself, looking for a door that would lead her to the gardens. Old as Holland House was, many of the rooms—no matter how large, how high the ceilings—struck her as dark and confining. Wood paneling, parquet floors, marble busts lined up at regular intervals along the walls.
She passed beneath a rounded arch into a wide hall and, from there, spotted a set of doors propped open to the night air. Beyond, guests milled about on a wide terrace.
Ware caught up to her as she crossed the threshold. “I hope you weren’t trying to escape my company.”
“No. Just to escape. I didn’t expect to see you here, in the enemy’s camp.”
He wound her arm around his, solid with muscle, and leaned close. His voice rumbled at her ear, shot through with humor. “But I expected to see you.”
Lily laughed. “Flatterer. I could almost believe you’ve come for the sole purpose of finding me.”
He smiled his toothy pirate’s smile. “I’m glad you figured it out so quickly.”
She made the most ridiculous, breathy noise at that. Terrible. On the other hand, she had stopped short of actually gasping with delight. Better not to squander all her dignity at once.
They started down a central path and then, moving as one, veered onto a narrow path. It meandered through beautifully laid flowerbeds and alongside a tall boxwood hedge.
“I’ve never heard you express a strong opinion about the conflict before.”
“I shouldn’t have spoken so freely,” said Lily. “I’m not here to advance an agenda.”
“That’s not true. Every time you stand at your father’s side, you support his.”
“As though my experiences accrue to him, simply through proximity.” Lily nodded. “You must be familiar with the phenomenon.”
“You’re changing the subject.” He frowned. “You make a habit of that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“But why? You have knowledge, passion, a position of some influence. Put your abilities to use.”
They reached an opening in the hedge, an archway of trimmed greenery that opened onto a secluded night garden. The noise of the other guests faded into silence as they stepped from flagstone to flagstone, surrounded by a profusion of delicate, star-shaped flowers that glowed white in the moonlight.
At the end of the trail lay a small man-made pond. Tall stalks of deep-throated gladiolus ringed the rippling black water, their spicy perfume cutting through the prevailing odor of stagnant water and algae.
“Mr. Ware, this crisis will end badly for the Turks. No matter the terms, they will be hard. I have made a few difficult decisions in my life. Even when I knew what was coming, I found it hard to live with the results.” The past decade of her life, in its entirety, could fit this description. “My only comfort has been that I’ve had no one to blame but myself.”
“And if someone you knew—” He pinched the swag of gauze that passed for a sleeve on her gown. “Your husband, perhaps? If he asked you for help, wouldn’t you offer it?”
Lily dropped her eyes. She would have tried, if Rustem had asked. He never had. In any case, it had never been in her power to do the one thing that would have saved his life: travel back in time and prevent him from ever meeting her.
“The Sultan has asked for our help,” Ware pressed. “We made promises.”
“It is the memory of my husband, more than anything, that has convinced me that no good will come from my interference.”
His hand slipped down from her sleeve to skim along her bare arm, raising goose bumps in its wake. He folded his hand around hers and pressed his thumb firmly into the center of her palm. “I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn.”
“I imagine that once you’ve staggered down a mountain with a full grown man on your back, anything seems possible. But I am no hero. I saw my husband cut down in front of me. Slaughtered.” He had been fighting, defending their home even as it burned to the ground. She had kept out of sight, because she was a useless coward. A useless, selfish, helpless coward. “I did not even go to his side to hold his hand as he died.”
“You needn’t speak of such things—”
“I did not attend his funeral.” Her voice cracked. Rustem had found her in her moment of need, a reckless young woman running away from home, and he had saved her. She had found him at his moment of need, and she had done nothing. “I never watered his grave with my tears. I fled before he was buried; before he was cold.”
Ware wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Hush,” he whispered. “Hush.”
She leaned into him. If only she could absorb his strength the way she absorbed his heat. She wouldn’t feel so brittle all the time, always one tap away from shattering.
She had survived so many trials, but she never looked back and thought: next time, it will be easier. Only: next time, my luck will run out.
“Truce, then.” He pulled back, tucking a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. “We’ll talk of other things tonight.”
“What about, oh…” She searched for a neutral subject. There had to be something they could talk about that wouldn’t point, like a divining rod, toward Mehmet Ali. “The flowers? They’re very pretty, aren’t they?”
“Not half as pretty as you,” said Ware.
Lily snorted. “That old chestnut.”
“I couldn’t help myself.” He touched the pearls at her throat, eyes skimming along the strand. “These, on the other hand, are truly exquisite. Did you know that in the Orient, it was once commonly held that that pearls were made when lightning struck the sea?”
“I know,” Lily said. “You wrote about it.”
“In In the Footsteps of the Crusaders.” He tipped his head to the side, a pleased, almost embarrassed smile flitting across his face. “You remember that?”
“Of course.” She added, laconically, “It made a strong impressi
on.”
“The only jewel to marry heaven and earth together. And in a necklace like this, all matched pearls of the same size, they’d be called sisters. Because they’re so alike, they must be family. While the really famous ones always have names that emphasize how lonely it is to be extraordinary: the unique—al-Farida—the orphan…”
The blood drained out of her head so fast she lost her balance. The hand she’d laid lightly, decoratively, on his arm tightened—and, just as quickly, the muscle beneath the soft wool firmed to stone. She forced herself to look up, inch by inch, dread pooling in her chest.
The avid light in his eyes made her stomach twist.
“The orphan girl,” said Ware flatly. “If it’s translated literally. Al-Yatima.”
“The most famous pearl of all.” Lily licked her lips. “So perfect it could have no sister. It could only be an orphan.”
“Has it been found? Is that—it’s not possible.”
Her heart beat so fast and hard that her pulse shuddered through her brain like a battering ram. She needed a lie, but couldn’t think of one—couldn’t think at all—and her hesitation was answer enough.
The serious, world-weary man she had come to know vanished. Something else cracked through, lighting him up like the dawn. How had she failed to see the sadness in his smiles? How could she have thought his gaze so attentive when, all along, it had been half-dead?
But now that his goal was in sight, he transformed. All along, he’d been after her secrets. All along, she’d been an obstacle in his way. She’d told herself as much so many times, but it hadn’t been enough. She had known, but she had not believed.
“My God, to see it! The real thing, not just a sentence in an old manuscript—can you imagine?”
“Mr. Ware—”
“You have seen it, haven’t you?” he interrupted. “Where? Was it in Constantinople? How?”
“You owe me a secret,” she finished, pulling away. Her own voice frightened her, it was so deep and firm. She sounded as though she were speaking from the bottom of a well.
“I—what?”
“You will not speak of al-Yatima,” she said. “You will keep it a secret.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He still sparked and crackled, ablaze with eagerness. “This changes everything. What it would mean to have al-Yatima back—heaven and earth together.”
“You made a wager, and you lost.” The words came to her like lines on a script. Prepared in advance—perhaps the very minute he’d led her into that cave—and held in reserve for this moment. “You gave your word.”
“Lady Lily.” A little furrow appeared between his brows. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t choose to explain.”
“Do you”—Ware picked his words carefully now, as though each one were a stepping stone he wasn’t sure he could reach—”have the pearl?”
Lily didn’t reply.
“Bloody—” Ware cut himself short and stepped closer, lowering his voice to an urgent whisper. “Al-Yatima? You brought it here? You must have, if—”
“If what?”
“If nobody knows where to find it yet.”
“Mr. Ware.” Lily swallowed. Crickets, hidden in the greenery surrounding the pond, chirped into the quiet. What a lovely evening this could have been. Tender, mild, romantic. But she had courted disaster—and, really, hadn’t she learned? It was never hard to find. “Why did you just say ‘yet’?”
“The Cabinet needs to know,” argued Ware. “I don’t just mean Palmerston, either. This isn’t about taking sides. We can’t handicap our own country at a time like this, with so much at stake.”
“Are you a man of your word, Mr. Ware?”
He flinched.
Because the words had had an effect, she repeated them. Lashed him with them, more like, because it killed that other person she’d glimpsed. The passionate, vividly alive man who would doom her without a second thought.
“Are you a man of your word?” Her legs shook so badly she had to lock her knees to stay upright, but she sounded certain of herself, and thank God for that. “Or are you a liar and a cheat? Craven and unworthy, making rules you can’t abide—”
“Stop.” Ware’s expression hardened into granite. “You win. Is that what you wanted to hear? The rest of the world will hang, because you tied me in the rope I made for you. Well done.”
She welcomed his bitterness. It could not hurt her. Some of the tightness in her chest eased. “I am surprised, Mr. Ware, to discover that you are such a poor loser.”
“No more than I am, to learn that you should be so selfish,” he snarled.
“But I am. Selfish, and cruel, too.” Lily smoothed her skirts. From the moment this had started, she had known how it would end. Accept the inevitable, she instructed herself. Finish it neatly. “If you break faith with me, I’ll make you regret it.”
Chapter Thirteen
John caught a glimpse of her in profile as she swished away, silk rustling and pearls clicking. The topiary archway framed the artful tumble of hair piled atop her head and the high proud jut of her breasts perfectly.
Good God, the Orphan Pearl. He wasn’t sure he believed it. Oh, Lady Lily might think she had the pearl—and the French might believe it, too, or they might be cynical enough to take the jewel from Lady Lily and call it good enough.
But good enough could do real damage. A jewel loaded down with so much symbolic power, in the hand of Mehmet Ali? On the one hand, it was nothing. No substitute for an army, not half as useful as the iron grip he had on Egypt’s agriculture… But on the other hand? It could be everything, and precisely because Mehmet Ali already had the army, and the iron grip on agriculture, and now what he needed was legitimacy. A relic of the last golden age, to usher in the next—under his leadership.
When John judged that he’d dawdled long enough for Lady Lily to return inside, he followed slowly behind. Several acquaintances hailed him as he passed through Holland House, but he didn’t stop to talk. He’d come to see Lady Lily; now that they’d parted ways, he had no desire to stay.
Despite himself, he looked for her in every room he passed on his way to the front hall—and found her, finally, standing at her father’s side in a small wood-paneled salon. Frosted lamps blazing to either side made her look like she’d been dipped in gold. Gold-dusted skin, gold-plated hair. Even her lips had a bronze shine.
It was a beautiful, fantastical illusion—and it made him burn with embarrassment. A hot prickle that started at the back of his neck and spread out to his whole body, squeezing him like a vise.
She had made a fool of him.
He’d taken her for an open book, revealing all despite herself. The woman he’d presumed her to be would have babbled out the truth ten times by now, utterly incapable of hiding such a staggering, momentous discovery.
And so he’d tried to be fair with her. As though he were making a concession, evening the odds against a weaker opponent. How she must have laughed, the moment his back was turned.
He should have started asking questions the second she asked for a secret at Chislehurst. But she was beautiful, so instead he’d made excuses. He’d wanted to believe in her cleverness but not her duplicity. Her passion but not her lewdness. Her principles but not her obligations. He was lucky to have discovered the truth. It had been chance, a happy coincidence—she hadn’t expected to see him at Holland House, among her father’s people.
While he watched, Lady Lily made a joke. Smiles broke out in the small group assembled around Hastings, a few chuckles. The duke watched his daughter with helpless pride. Not doting, exactly, but there was something warm and fierce in the old man’s expression.
Like father, like daughter. He should have known. Right from the beginning, he should have known.
§
He called for his carriage, ambled down the gravel drive a ways to smoke while he waited for his driver to arrive. A night chorus of chirping insects and croaking frogs kept him company. Country
sounds, though Holland House lay only a few miles from the center of London.
His cigar had burned half to ashes in his hand before his carriage heaved into view. John started for the door, then thought better of it. “Go on,” he said to the driver. “I’ll walk.”
The driver knew him well enough to obey without protest. John walked aimlessly, without paying any attention to where he was going. Or trying not to. When he could no longer recognize the streets or the neighborhood, he set about trying to find his way home.
He took stock, and he did not flinch away from the truth. He had to understand his failures before he’d have any chance of moving past them.
He had promised to commit murder in hope that he would receive, in return—what? A pat on the head? Like a dog who dropped a rat at the feet of its master. Wilsey was a friend and a mentor. John ought not wish for more.
He had tried to win back his place at the Foreign Office. Before completing the task he’d been set, he’d alienated his superior and proven himself unworthy of the position. What’s more, he now had information everyone in the Cabinet desperately needed—but he couldn’t share it.
He had tried to court a lady. He had instead placed himself at the mercy of a heartless temptress.
He was sick unto death of being outflanked, outranked, and then knocked out of the game.
He had not stumbled blindly into these tangles. Balking only made him a hypocrite, trying to excuse his own failure. He had lost a battle. But if he fought harder—if he were honest with himself: fought dirtier—he could still win the war.
He arrived at Belgrave Square. Not a difficult route. He stood across the street from his door for a moment. Bright lanterns hung from hooks on either side of the doorway in anticipation of his arrival. More light leaked from underneath the door, spilling across the granite steps leading down to the pavement.
A sleepy footman let him inside and he climbed the stairs to his room. The late night was catching up with him. His eyes were sore, his skin grimy and oversensitive. He stripped and left his clothes in a wrinkled heap on the carpet by his bed before crawling between the sheets.