Tears of Pearl lem-4

by Tasha Alexander

  “But you stumble upon the jewelry—”

  I cleared my throat. “I did not stumble, my dear. I analyzed the situation and determined the best course of action.”

  “Mais oui,” he said.

  “En français?”

  “There are times, Emily, when you so capture my imagination that I can only speak in French.”

  I reached for his hand, brought it to my lips, and kissed his thumb. “Once Perestu saw that I was close to discovering too much, she notified the sultan and we were summarily denied all further access to the harem.”

  “This is the part, my dear, where things begin to fall apart. Perestu’s countenance changed when she realized a piece of her own jewelry was in Ceyden’s cache. If your speculations are correct, shouldn’t that reaction have come the instant you found anything sewn into the gown?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “There must be something about that particular piece. Perhaps it’s a clue of even more significance than we’d previously thought.”

  “How so?”

  “It may be the object that links Perestu directly to the murder.”

  “Or to Murat’s discontented vizier,” he said. “Perhaps she’s the link between his discontented associates and the harem.”

  “So you believe there is a link?” I asked.

  “I cannot deny it. Where did Benjamin tell you he was the night of the murder?” I recounted for him our conversation, and Colin shook his head. “I’d hoped he’d have a firm alibi.”

  “Do you think he needs it?”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  A distinguished-looking man stepped out of the shop in front of us. He bowed.

  “Mr. Hargreaves, the ambassador told me to expect you. I am Hasan. Welcome. Please, come in. You will have tea?”

  Six hours later, we emerged. Colin was wrong about my finding ten carpets. I was not able to narrow my selections below thirteen.

  11 April 1892

  Darnley House, Kent

  My darling Emily,

  I must confess that your letter left me full of melancholy. I do so wish you and Colin might have had at least a few weeks to yourself without any work. I know how you adore it, but I’ve found myself looking back on my own wedding trip with such fond memories of perfect bliss that I want you to have it as well, my dear. Things change so much as a marriage progresses, and although I’ve more happiness than I deserve, I still can’t help wishing, sometimes, to go back to those early days.

  These sentiments are no doubt brought on by my current condition. The doctor has confined me to my bed—I’m told it’s a mere precaution because of some pains I’ve suffered in the past week and that I ought not be alarmed. It is not as if I’d been accustomed to gallivanting about—your mother would never allow that. But even under her strict regimens I was able to sit outside every day, and I find I miss the fresh air keenly.

  To be quite honest, I’m terrified. The doctor says almost nothing to me, but I can hear the whispers in the hall. Your mother is more worried than I’ve ever seen her, and I feel as if everyone knows some dreadful secret about my condition but won’t tell me. Darling Robert is on his way here, news that at once delights and distresses me. I can think of nothing better than having him beside me, but he can only be coming because he is aware of how serious things have become. Do you think he will warn me of the horrors I’m to face? If I’m truly ill, I’d rather know than be left in ignorance.

  They’re all being so kind and indulgent, it’s as if they hope to make my last days pleasant ones. I’m not supposed to know, but I overheard talk of own dear parents being sent for. Can you fathom the gravity of the situation if they’re being summoned from India?

  Do please send me more letters—reassure me, Emily. Because although everyone tells me not to worry, I know you of all my friends can best understand the fear I’m hiding. I miss you very much and wish desperately you weren’t so far away.

  I am, your most devoted friend,

  Ivy

  Chapter 13

  “I wish we weren’t so far from her,” I said, pacing in front of Colin, waving Ivy’s letter as I walked the terrace where we’d been having breakfast, having to force myself to breathe, fear creeping through my skin. “She needs me.”

  “I will contact Robert,” Colin said. “Find out what he knows. If things are serious enough, we can, of course, return home at once.”

  I pressed my hands to my temples. “But what of Ceyden?”

  “The dead can wait,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “We can come back after the child is born.” He rested his cheek against mine. “I’ve never seen you upset like this. You’re trembling. Try to put your mind at ease. The most likely scenario is that Robert’s response shall relieve all your worries.”

  “I want more than anything to believe that,” I said, having little faith it would happen. Ivy was the least alarmist person I’d ever known. Writing such a letter—one that so directly addressed both her condition and her fears—would have mortified her. If anything, she would let me believe things were not so dire as they truly were. “I don’t think I could survive if anything happened to her. She’s been beside me my whole life.”

  “You would. I’d make you.”

  “I’m not sure I’d thank you for it.”

  “You forget how persuasive I can be.” He put his arms around me, but I stiffened instead of relaxing against him. “We must distract you. Worry accomplishes nothing.”

  “I don’t want idle distraction,” I said. “Let’s focus on our work.”

  He pulled back from me, searched my face, his lips closed but pulled in a firm smile. “You’re quite certain?”

  “Beyond doubt. I don’t know any other way.”

  “Come with me to the embassy, then. The ambassador has asked to see me.”

  Even before we’d reached the entrance to the British embassy in Pera, it was evident that we’d stumbled onto a scene. The door swung open as we approached, and Sir Richard stalked out, a feverish glint in his eyes.

  “This is an outrage!” Sir Richard turned to face Sir William, the ambassador, staggering as if he might keel over. “I’ve done nothing but serve my country and will not tolerate being treated like a common criminal.”

  “Richard, you know that shall never happen,” Sir William said. “No one is suggesting such a thing. But you must understand that given the circumstances, I cannot allow you to remain in your position. Now, when you are exonerated—”

  “Outrageous,” Sir Richard said, slurring the word and interrupting the ambassador. “And I have nothing further to say.” He continued his unsteady march in the direction of the gates, barely pausing to raise his hat to me.

  “What on earth?” I asked, grabbing his arm and stopping him. “More missing papers?”

  “Yes, but it’s gone beyond that,” Sir Richard said.

  “What happened?” Colin asked, his firm voice the sort that would always elicit a reply.

  “I’m sure William would be all too happy to fill you in. My opinion seems to have been rendered irrelevant.”

  “I want to hear your side, not his,” Colin said.

  Sir Richard sighed and pressed his hands together. “When I arrived for work this morning, he was waiting in my office. Two of my colleagues’ desks were ransacked overnight, and I was the last person to leave. There were six files stolen. One of them was found in my safe.”

  “And the other five?” I asked.

  “Were sitting on a table in the library at my house,” Sir Richard said.

  “How were they discovered?” Colin frowned.

  “I had already looked in the safe,” Sir William said. “And asked to be allowed to search Richard’s home.”

  “As I knew I’d taken nothing, I of course gave him permission.”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Richard.” Bags hung heavy under the ambassador’s eyes. “But you must understand that I cannot allow you to continue in your position until we’
ve sorted all this out. I’ve a responsibility—”

  “I have spent nearly all my life in the Consular and Colonial Service. To be forced out now, under such circumstances, is unconscionable.”

  “It’s only temporary,” the ambassador said. “You’ll be back in no time.”

  “If you were confident of that, you wouldn’t be pushing me out at all.” He looked at me. “Will you excuse me, Lady Emily? I’d like very much to go home.” He staggered off the embassy grounds, nearly tripping over his own feet.

  “What more is there to this, William?” Colin.

  “I spoke to his son, who confirmed there was a stack of files on his desk last night. I don’t suspect Richard’s being intentionally deceitful—but he’s been so careless of late. Not paying attention to the details of his job. I’ve had to rebuke him several times, and I’m afraid this was simply a botched effort to make everyone else around him look incompetent—to prove he’s not the only one misplacing things.”

  “So his position is in peril?” I asked.

  “Honestly, Lady Emily, I think he’s coming unhinged with grief. He hardly acts like himself anymore. I’m trying to give him time to recover. If he does, and regains his competence, I’d happily have him back. Until then, however, I can’t have on my staff a gentleman in his condition. It appears he’s even begun drinking in excess. Sutcliffe found him asleep at his desk earlier in the week. Too much Scotch.”

  I’d been looking through the gate as he spoke and was distracted by the sight of Jemal striding along the street outside, his posture more impossibly erect than usual. Stunned to see him outside of the palace, I turned to Colin and murmured to him what I’d seen. He looked at me with serious eyes.

  “Follow him,” he said. “I’ll take care of things here and meet you back at the yalı.”

  I excused myself at once and set off after him, barely able even to keep him in view. He was moving quickly and had a considerable head start. He passed through the streets of Pera, in front of fashionable shops and beautifully appointed homes, gradually making his way down a steep hill to the waters of the Golden Horn and the Galata Bridge. As I crossed in front of the train station, I remembered arriving with Colin, full of newlywed bliss and a different plan for these weeks than reality was prepared to offer us. Going uphill again, Jemal climbed towards Topkapı but did not enter the palace grounds, instead continuing in the direction of the spires in the distance.

  I’d now closed enough ground between us that I could have called for his attention, and considered doing exactly that until I watched as he turned into the park between Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque, headed directly for a bench on which sat Benjamin St. Clare. I stepped behind a palm tree (a pathetic hiding place, but my options were beyond limited) to observe them. Jemal did not sit, nor did Benjamin stand. I could not hear anything they said, but saw more than enough. The eunuch pulled out from his jacket a velvet bag that looked familiar, all the more so when he removed from it a bowstring.

  I took in every detail I could. The velvet was similar to but not an exact match for that containing Bezime’s bowstring. Hers had been a deep blue, this was black. Benjamin blanched as he looked at it and threw up his hands. Jemal bent over, pointing in the Englishman’s face, his arm shaking. Shaking his head, Benjamin pushed away the bowstring and rose from the bench before running in the direction of the Bosphorus.

  Jemal remained standing, stationary. I debated only for an instant before walking towards him. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  He did not look surprised to see me, did not miss a beat. “Nothing, Lady Emily.”

  “Why aren’t you at the palace?”

  “You think I’m a prisoner? You think I cannot leave?”

  “No, of course, but I saw—forgive me, I saw your exchange with Mr. St. Clare. You have a bowstring. Why were you showing it to him?”

  “Bezime showed it to you. Why should you care with whom I decide to share it?”

  “Surely it’s not the same one,” I said.

  “Of course it is.” His sharp voice snapped.

  “But why has the velvet changed?”

  He leaned close to me. “Not everything is pertinent to your inquiries.”

  “But—”

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a funeral. A friend of my sister’s died in childbirth. A sad story, as I’m sure you can well imagine. They’d been inseparable since they were girls. A terrible tragedy.”

  His eyes danced too much to lend any hint of veracity to his statement, and my stomach turned as I wondered why he would say such a thing to me. He might have overheard us speaking, or Bezime must have told him about my condition—alleged condition—but that he’d managed to hit upon my one real fear stunned me. Could he know something about Ivy? Did Bezime know something? It couldn’t be possible, but the coincidence was too much to bear.

  I claimed to put no stake in anything magical or psychic, but all at once I was gripped with terror. Jemal took his leave from me before I could speak again, and I found myself standing alone in the park, wrestling with unsettling emotions and trying to forget the hideous sound of my aunt’s dying cries. Tears pooled in my eyes, and I looked to the sky, brilliant azure, hoping they would disappear. Instead, inevitably, they streamed down my face, stinging. Desperate to find some sort of comfort, I looked at the two magnificent buildings within my sight and headed for the Blue Mosque.

  Aya Sofya might have proven a more reasonable choice. It had, after all, once been a Christian church. But so out of my element was I that I knew, absent of conscious thought, listening only to instinct, that solace would come only from something removed from all that I’d previously known. When I reached the courtyard of the imposing seventeenth-century building, constructed on the foundations of what had been the city’s Byzantine palace, I pulled a scarf over my hat, draping the soft cloth around my neck, covering the bottom of my face and all of my hair.

  Signs pointed me to the visitors’ entrance, and I sat on a bench to slip off my shoes. My breath caught in my throat as I entered the building, my eyes drawn to the high, domed ceiling, a space that seemed to pull you up to heaven. I stood next to a thick column, bracing myself against it with a shaking arm before sinking to my knees and starting to pray.

  First I turned to the words I’d known all my life. The prayers I had learned as a child, in whose familiarity I had always found comfort. But I knew it was not enough, so I leaned back on my heels and started again. I pleaded. Pleaded that she would be safe, that her child would bring her years of joy, that it would be the first of many, that she would know the pleasure of grandchildren. And then I began to bargain. I would never step beyond the careful bounds Colin placed on our work. I would better respect my mother. I would reach out to those less fortunate than I and give them whatever they needed. I would welcome eighteen children of my own. This thought stopped me, but only for a moment. My eyes closed, and I held my breath, trying to feel every bit of my body, searching for some sign of another life inside me, but feeling nothing. And that gave me the courage to offer my final bargain. Me instead. If one of us had to be taken, it couldn’t be Ivy.

  No sooner had the thought formed than I knew my offer was tainted, as it had been made only after finding no sign that I was with child, and I struggled at once for some way to prove my sincerity, to convince God or Allah or whoever was listening in this tiled sanctuary, watching me in the light filtering through stained glass, that my prayers were worthy of consideration. I was too numb and terrified for tears to form, and my mouth was dry, my lips beginning to chap. But I stayed on my knees, determined to stop what felt like inevitable tragedy.

  When at last I rose, I felt no better than when I’d begun. The low-hanging iron chandeliers swam in front of me, their votive candles throwing scattered light over the soft carpet under my stocking feet. I watched the men on the other side of a wooden barrier designed to separate the tourists from the faithful. A few knelt, prostrating themselves, heads touching the
ground, pointing in the direction of Mecca, across the Bosphorus, which was visible out tall windows that lined the far wall. Had they found peace here?

  I turned away from them and faced a wooden screen blocking off a small area in the back of the mosque. A sign was pinned next to the entrance, identifying it as the section where women might pray. No view of the water here, no spectacular stained glass to inspire them, not even a location as good as that given to visitors. Without even momentary consideration, I went inside.

  As it was not a designated prayer time, there were only a handful of women present, and I knelt next to them, not looking at their veiled faces, and began again my supplication. The sound of the murmured voices surrounding me, sweet and soft, isolated in this tiny space, stirred the tears that before would not come, and soon I, too, had my forehead on the carpet, my body shaking with sobs. Almost at once, I felt a hand on my back, and I pulled myself up as the woman, not removing her hand, began to speak to me in Turkish.

  “English,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  She tried a language I did not recognize, and I shook my head. The other women around us had gathered close, whispering to one another, until one voice rose above the rest.

  “I speak a very little English. Why you so sad?”

  A figure in black pushed her way to the front of the group, motioning for us to be silent, then taking my hands in hers. “We go outside,” she said. I followed her—as did the other five ladies—to the park behind the mosque, where she sat on a bench and patted the seat next to her, gesturing for me to take it.

  “You are scared,” she said. “You have a lover or husband who is in danger?”

  “No.” My voice was little more than a whisper.

  “A sick parent?”

  “No.”

  She studied me, her eyes lingering on every part of me. “You are with child and you fear for your safety.” It was not a question.

  “I—I don’t know,” I said. One of the women around us was speaking quietly in Turkish, the words too rapid for ordinary conversation. She was translating for the others.