Dangerous Weakness

by Warfield, Caroline

  In spite of the ache, Richard felt elated. When his friends went to war, he served from a desk at Horse Guards. Will told him he saved more lives than the lot of them put together, but Richard never saw it, never had the heat of battle. When he dispatched Andrew to France, Richard had the worry but not the elation of actual danger. When his agents took the field, he sat at a desk, sifting and sorting and finding truths other men missed, protecting England with a machine-like mind and cool judgment.

  Physical exertion is damned liberating. He thought of the months he spent buried in Britain’s paperwork. He thought of the months he faced his parents to be spoon-fed his father’s goals for the estate. He thought of the months he sleepwalked through the boring rituals of London society.

  Better than good. I haven’t been this energized since the Congress of Vienna.

  Richard helped Spiru heft a final box onto a lorry, straightened, and rubbed his shoulder.

  “Now there’s a fierce one,” Gorg said.

  “Fierce?” Richard asked.

  “Always come with the big guards. That ‘un’s a Berber,” Gorg answered. He pointed to a tall dark man in a turban glowering down on them. His charge, a cluster of heavily veiled women, stood by the railing.

  “Do you ever seen one travel alone?” Richard asked.

  “Not often. Had one a month ago. Little thing in English dress with a bodyguard as big as that. But the woman was small. Somewhat stout. Brown hair all piled up like it might give her neck an ache,” Gorg said.

  Stout. Not Lily. All this way and it wasn’t Lily.

  “Not like the other one.”

  “What other one?”

  Chapter 22

  The Seraglio, Lily discovered, teemed with babies, small children, and their mothers. One pregnant woman provided no distraction. A newly arrived widow, and an English one at that, did.

  Her lecture on the Russian court overflowed with eager young women, most of them more curious about Lily than the topic. “Lecture” may have been too formal a word for a talk given in a room with blue tiled walls and lined with cushions where giggling students reclined. Some of them nursed their babies.

  “You have been to Russia, Zambak?” one wide-eyed girl asked. She looked to be no more than sixteen.

  Lily inclined her head to acknowledge the truth. “My father served in Saint Petersburg.”

  “Did you meet your husband there?” the girl asked.

  The husband. Lies pile on lies. I have none and probably never will. She struggled to formulate an answer. She and Valide Sultan agreed their story needed to be simple. She married a man in the British Foreign Service. He died en route to Constantinople, leaving Lily without protection. The women of the Seraglio understood what it was to be without protection.

  “No, I met him in England,” she said.

  “Do not tease Zambak about it,” an older girl scolded. “It makes her sad to talk about such things.”

  “I’m sorry, Zambak, for your sorrow,” the girl apologized. She brightened abruptly. “But soon you will have your baby. If it is a boy, it will be a reminder of him.”

  A sudden sharp memory of Richard, fierce concern for her in his eyes, stabbed her. The arrogant fool cares for everyone as if they were his own. She knew she admired that even as she wished more from him.

  “See, foolish one, you make her even sadder,” the older girl chided. “Her son will never know his father.”

  Boy or girl will never know. Never. Even if we return to England, it can’t happen.

  Hushing quieted even the most curious of the girls. Sympathy looked back at Lily from around the room.

  “Tell us again about Russia’s policy in Poland,” one of them asked, diverting the conversation back to their studies. Most of them had proved more astute than Lily would have expected. She tried to picture Lady Sarah Wharton curious about Russian intentions in Poland and could not.

  They streamed out into the sunlight when Lily finished. She gathered up notes, wrapped the still unfamiliar shawls around her shoulders, and followed them. She thought she might seek a fountain she had discovered near the women’s quarters. Fountains here did not dance; scarcity of water made that foolish. They were, however, beautifully decorated. She thought to sit for a moment and bask in the coolness before she filled her water skin.

  A messenger intercepted her halfway there. The young eunuch made obeisance and gave her the message.

  Sahin Pasha wishes to speak with you. It is not permitted that you meet alone. Come to the audience chamber by the old gate at sunset.

  Valide Sultan

  Sahin? She had been there a month with no word from him. What now? Perhaps he has word from Papa. Her heart began to race.

  The head on the pole looked down at Richard with empty eye sockets, long since pecked empty by crows. From the look of the thing, it hung there several weeks before he reached Thessaloniki. If its location in front of the gate meant to squelch the rebels, the grumbling in the streets indicated that it had failed.

  The decaying horror told Richard even less than it had the day he arrived, still puffed up with the excitement of disguises and assumed identities four days before. A coup had been thwarted. This man, most likely Volkov’s agent, paid dearly. Whether Volkov skulked nearby, whether he came to Thessaloniki and departed, or even whether even came at all, the sunken face could not say.

  Richard passed the sight, pulled his tattered hat down across his eyes, and elbowed his way through the crowd in the square. In twenty paces, he heard a half dozen miserable grumbles and at least one outright treasonous threat. He ignored them.

  A message led him to a tavern that was seedy even by port standards. It lay streets off the main square. A quick scan of the place showed him his contact had not arrived. He took a seat where he could watch the door and called for ouzo.

  Richard paid the barkeeper, drank deep, and slunk back in morose silence. The distraction he had enjoyed in his disguise on Malta faded in this third rate Greek port of call where the identity he assumed required him to stay in a bug-ridden inn like any good merchant would. The novelty had worn thin to the point of fraying.

  What the hell am I doing here? In one month I’ve abandoned everything I worked for, the life I planned, and everything I thought I held dear in pursuit of a woman who made it clear she does not wish my protection. What is this madness?

  A stocky man with full beard and hair around his shoulders entered, bringing Richard to attention. The furtive little man behind him put him on his guard. The knife in Richard’s belt under his loose jacket felt comforting against his back. The one in his boot felt even more so.

  The bearded one saw him and gestured to the other with his head. The two sat in front of him, glancing around all the while as if watching for the sultan’s agents.

  “You, merchant, are trouble. I want paid now,” the bearded one said.

  “Who is your friend?” Richard asked.

  “No one I want to know. Pay me now, and he may talk.”

  Richard pulled a leather pouch from under his jacket, weighed it in his hand, and held it up. “What we agreed on, not a cent more. I should take coins out for—” He meant to say “being late,” but the bearded one grabbed the coins and bolted for the door.

  “You better be worth it,” Richard told the man left behind.

  “Do you value your life?”

  Richard nodded as much to keep the man talking as to agree.

  “I am your one warning. You ask too many questions.”

  “Too many for whom? Russia or the Ottomans.”

  “Both.”

  So there are Russian agents on the ground. That answered one question.

  “I leave them to their conflict. My interest is in a woman.”

  The furtive little man looked back, h
is face a mask of indifference. “Women come and go.”

  “One passed through here. Maria Dalco. I’ve been told she met her ‘aunt’ and sailed on.” The statement got no reaction. “Another woman, possibly English, sailed with an Ottoman party. She may or may not have disembarked.” The man sat stone-faced.

  “Do you know of either?” Richard demanded.

  The man shook his head. “What do we care about women?”

  “Volkov cared for the one I seek.”

  Fear, clear and unmistakable, flashed across the man’s eyes.

  “What is that to me?”

  “Do you know which of these two he may have followed?” Or coerced, or led, or— Richard shuddered to think what else.

  “I know nothing of this,” the man said. “You may not care about the works of Russia and the Sublime Porte, but they may not be so indifferent about you. Have a care. Your questions poke at a viper pit.” He rose to leave, but he leaned on the table first. “I would depart Thessaloniki. Quickly.” He left before Richard could stop him.

  He walked back past the seat of Ottoman power with its grizzly decoration hanging on the pole in front. He couldn’t tell what Russia planned, not officially, and he couldn’t be sure whether or not the unrest was as dispersed and leaderless as it seemed.

  Richard was out of patience, out of ideas, and out of questions. He only knew one thing for certain, Volkov’s man died an ugly death. Volkov had threatened the same fate for Lily’s father, if not Lily herself once, if that happened.

  I have to find her.

  He had no idea if she had really gone to Constantinople or why. He could go back to London with nothing and admit his stupidity or push on to Constantinople.

  Gathering his belongings took moments. An hour later he walked toward the docks to look for transport on a coastal vessel. His cash dwindled, but he could get more in Constantinople. No more disguises.

  A new thought occurred to him. Witnesses in Malta said the English woman with the Ottoman party appeared to be surrounded by eunuch guards. If Lily had put herself in Ottoman company, she went with Sahin Pasha—voluntarily or unwillingly. The crazy old man may have some notion of responsibility for her. It would be like him to stash her in the sultan’s Seraglio itself.

  He stepped onto a brightly painted boat with a smile on his face.

  Chapter 23

  A vast complex of buildings made up the Seraglio, the sultan’s walled “household.” Covered fountains, fabulously ornate meeting rooms, offices, storerooms, bathing facilities, nurseries, and dormitories for high-ranking wives lined its tiled lanes. Sunshine and flowers wrapped themselves around beautiful, often brightly painted, buildings but failed to lighten Lily’s burdens.

  The Valide Sultan greeted Lily in the Courtyard of the Concubines as she indicated in her message. “You look rested, Zambak. Life here suits you.” The older woman gave her a gentle smile. She moved with grace as well as purpose, pulling Lily along by the force of her personality.

  “It does, Valide Sultan,” Lily said. Perhaps.

  The Seraglio suited many women. Lily found their company stimulating, as if she lived in the middle of one of Georgiana Mallet’s salons filled with intelligent conversation and good food. If only I weren’t so achingly lonely. For Papa. For English conversation. For— She squashed the thought.

  “You do well. Your teaching has been a blessing to many. Your description of the palace of the czar sent Guldem into raptures,” she said without breaking stride.

  “It is not so splendid as this, Highness,” Lily said with an expansive gesture.

  The older woman’s approval glowed from her smile.

  They entered the same audience room where she had interviewed Lily four weeks before. Ahmet followed discreetly. When he would have entered, the Valide Sultan indicated with the graceful wave of her hand that he was to stay outside. “She will be safe with me,” the woman said. He frowned, but obeyed.

  Sahin Pasha waited for them across the room, seated cross-legged on cushions covered in fabric the same color as the geometric designs that covered the walls.

  “Greeting, honored uncle,” Lily said, making obeisance.

  “Come, sit, little one, and we will talk.”

  Lily made herself comfortable on a divan near Sahin. The Valide Sultan settled herself at a discreet distance, near enough to hear but far enough away to demonstrate that she would not participate in conversation.

  Figs and dates were offered and shared; a long moment passed. Lily waited for him to speak as manners dictated.

  “You look well, little one,” he began.

  Lily shared a smile with the Valide Sultan across the room. They are at pains to compliment. I must have looked a horror when I arrived.

  “I am well fed and safe, honored uncle. I am grateful to you.”

  “Is it as you hoped, Lily?”

  “It is as I expected . . . more than I expected,” she said.

  What does he want from me? He can inquire after my well-being without coming here.

  “You are curious about this meeting,” he said, concern pushing good humor aside. “I will not make you wait. Messengers have come.” Concern gave way to a worried frown.

  Every fiber in her body went on alert.

  “My father?” Not Richard. Please not Richard. The vehemence of her concern for the marquess stunned Lily. Why should he be in danger and why should it shake me so?

  “Our agent in London tells us he has not yet arrived there. We hope he is safe in Copenhagen.”

  Lily prayed that was true.

  “I came with a warning, however.”

  She sat straighter, alert, and calmed herself.

  “We have lost track of Volkov.”

  “You had him watched, honored uncle?” Of course they did. Don’t be an idiot.

  “After we confirmed his treachery in Thessaloniki and dealt with the traitor—”

  Lily shuddered, all too aware of what “dealt with” meant. I unleashed it on him; I hope it was swift. She feared not.

  “—we intended to make Volkov aware his actions would not go unpunished. He evaded our people in Naples when they got close.”

  They intended swift death for him also. He would run like a scared rabbit.

  “Evaded, honored uncle?” she asked out loud.

  “He ran from Portsmouth. We tracked him to Naples, but he escaped.”

  “North or south?”

  “If he is after your father as he threatened, we or your marquess will catch him. He is well guarded.” The old man shrugged. “We sent someone to Copenhagen also.”

  Lily nodded, relieved. “He threatened to kill me, too,” she murmured. Both hands went instinctively to her belly and the precious burden she carried. Pregnancy had filled her with more fears than she had ever before imagined. She felt her skin go clammy.

  “If he finds out where you are, which is unlikely, he might come here, but that is even more unlikely.”

  Of course it is unlikely, Lily. Don’t be a ninny.

  “I am safe here,” she said.

  “Inside the Seraglio, yes. It is the safest possible place. My warning is this: obey the Valide Sultan. Stay within these walls. Keep Ahmet or another eunuch near you at all times. Never put yourself in the reach of strangers.”

  “Of course, honored uncle!”

  The old man seemed pleased. “No more foolish adventures, Lily,” he admonished.

  Walking back, the Valide Sultan praised her answer. “I know you will do this, Zambak. Your intelligence drives your actions, not impulse like some silly girl.”

  “Thank you for your confidence, Highness.”

  “I have hopes for you here.”

  “Hopes, Highness?”

  “You ha
ve witnessed the complexity of my household. Administration requires skills—motivating people and seeing to their needs, managing finances, planning, and, of course, politics.”

  “Politics?” Lily couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.

  “This is the sultan’s household. The affairs of empire are discussed in his offices, at his dinner table, in his chambers. I need women with a head for such affairs who are able to listen and influence. I have hope for you.”

  A vision of long years in this place stretched out in front of Lily. A few years only, I beg. Papa will come for me, and I’ll go back. She bid the Valide Sultan good day and turned toward her quarters.

  Go back to what? Life alone with my baby in a remote English village, near people who cannot add months? The Seraglio offers a sort of power and autonomy once you accept the basic structure. Would it be so bad to stay here?

  Lily’s hopes for a husband had faded with the marquess’s offensive proposal. Richard’s face, intense, determined, and arrogant, while he demanded—not asked, but demanded—marriage haunted her. She forgave him class snobbery. His assumption of male superiority stung, however. What man wants a partner for a wife? What man will offer for a “widow” with a child anything other than a place as his brood mare or nursemaid?

  She turned into the bathing facility. Women and their young children clustered around a pool laughing and playing.