Since Oliphant’s voice had trailed off, Lucien completed the thought. “Witch? Beldam? Harridan? Hag? You English have so many names for such a creature. Do you have so many of them, then?”
Oliphant managed a laugh, but it sounded more bitter than amused. “We Arabs have even more names for them. Do you have so few of them in France?”
“Ah, no, we have our own surfeit. And some might say that our old men are even worse.”
“And so you hide among the Turks and the Arabs?”
“Hide? No. I have no need to hide, and no more do you. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Why pay attention to silly old fools like Sir Henry and his even more stupid wife? They are nothing. You are far superior to them and should treat them with the disdain they deserve.”
“You can perhaps ignore them. I cannot. I must make my life among people like them.” Oliphant turned around to face him. “I never attempt to make a secret of my birth. It is just that…” His voice trailed off again.
“It is just that you prefer to speak of it yourself, and not make it sound as if it is something shameful.”
Oliphant said nothing.
Exasperated, Lucien wanted to shake his friend. “And you think Lord Penworth and his family think as Lady Bulwer does? If so, you are a fool. You ran off, but me, I saw them when she spoke. They despise her, not the people she speaks of. Not you.”
“Fine. They are not the sort to kick the filthy Arab out of their path. They may even tolerate him at their table, and go out of their way to treat him kindly. Do you really think that sort of condescension is better than contempt?” Oliphant swung away and slammed his hand against the wall.
Lucien regarded him silently for a long moment. Finally he said, “I think it is you who treat them with contempt. I see them all. Lord and Lady Penworth look coldly on Lady Bulwer. And their daughter? What she felt was anger. Her hand clenched around her cup, and I thought for a moment that she would throw it at the old beldam.”
Oliphant looked at him uncertainly.
Lucien smiled. “Yes. Lady Penworth had to put a hand on her to restrain her. I think you should not judge them too quickly.”
“I judge them?”
“Is that not what you are doing? And on the basis of what? You assume that they will judge you, despise you, and so you judge them first so you can despise them. Is that not what you are doing?”
Oliphant turned away again. “You do not know what it is like. You have not spent your life among people who feel nothing but contempt for one half of your family or the other.”
Lucien shrugged. “No, I have not that experience. But even if you know how the worst behave, why assume that these people are like the worst? Let us give them a chance.”
“Ah, but she is so beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” Ah, that might explain the depth of Oliphant’s distress. It was not the reactions of the parents that concerned him, but the reaction of the daughter. He was surprised to discover that he felt a twinge of annoyance, almost as if Oliphant were poaching. That was nonsense, of course. Lady Emily was nothing to him. A mere acquaintance. Still, he would not have called her beautiful. She was something much better than that. She was attractive, full of life, full of interest. Beautiful was too boring a word for her.
“And the perfection of her demeanor, pale and beautiful as an alabaster carving.”
Lucien wondered if there was something wrong with his friend’s eyesight. Pale? Lady Emily? She was full of light and color, with hair like dark honey, trying to escape the pins of her coiffure, and eyes of a blue so brilliant he could not find words to describe it.
Oliphant continued softly, “She sits there in utter stillness, as if she is not touched by this world.”
That was too much. Oliphant could not be serious. “Are you mad? She is never still, that one. Even when she is sitting there being polite with Lady Bulwer, you can see her toes fidgeting as if she cannot wait to run off on the next adventure.”
Oliphant now looked at Lucien as if he had lost his mind. “Fidget? Lady Julia would never fidget.”
“Lady Julia?” Lucien stared and then burst into laughter. Of course it was the very proper Lady Julia who would appeal to Oliphant. “Eh bien, now I understand. And it is well that it is so, is it not? You have eyes for only one lady, and I see only the other.”
Oliphant slumped into dejection once more. “That is all very well and good, but it does not change the fact that Lady Julia is far above me.”
“How so? She is a lady and you are a gentleman, is that not so?”
“That is not all, and you must know it. She is the daughter of an earl. Her brother married Lady Emily’s sister, the daughter of one of England’s most important noblemen. And me? I am the son of an English gentleman who was a minor diplomat, betrayed his family by marrying an Arab girl, and now is forced to live in exile in Cairo.”
“And I am a Frenchman, wandering the globe like an adventurer, no? What does it matter? Friends do not concern themselves with each other’s ancestors. We all come together for a few weeks, or perhaps months, and then we will part. Let us enjoy the voyage while it lasts.”
“That is easy enough for you to say,” said Oliphant with a bitter smile. “No one sneers at your parentage.”
“No?” The side of Lucien’s mouth lifted in a cynical smile. “Perhaps not. But no one ever knows what problems there are with families, do they?”
That stopped Oliphant, and he took a long look at the other man. “That message that came for you from the French embassy. Was that concerning your family?”
Lucien shrugged. “It was from the notaire, the attorney. He is being importuned by some of my relatives, who say I must return and be a good little boy. I write to assure him that he can continue to ignore them.”
“A good little boy?”
“That means someone who will obey my grandpère’s every order, cater to his every whim. Me, I cannot live that way. I will not.” He shook off the thought and grinned at Oliphant. “Instead, we will have an adventure, no? We will cross the mountains in the company of two lovely ladies, and who knows what will happen?”
The next day, after leaving his letter to the notaire at the French embassy, Lucien strode through the streets, barely slowing his pace as he wound his way through the crowds. Amazing, the crowds in this part of the world, at least in the cities. Beyond the cities were vast empty spaces. He slowed his pace suddenly and laughed at himself. Did he think to escape the memory of France and his relatives by walking quickly? He had tried that years before. It did not work.
Enough. That was the past. He would think about what lay ahead, not what lay behind. This trip over the mountains, it promised to be amusing. Lady Emily thought herself prepared for the trip, did she? Her talk of carrying a revolver—he found himself smiling at the memory. If she could actually hold it and shoot it, he would be amazed.
She was not prepared, of course. None of them were, because ladies were never prepared for encounters with the real world. They would screech and squawk and have to be helped over every little bump in the road. It would slow them down immeasurably. But he had no reason to hurry back to Mosul, so he did not mind.
After all, Lady Emily was pretty and cheerful. It would be no hardship to help her over a few bumps. She even seemed reasonably intelligent. If her parents had brought her on this trip, perhaps she was not as ignorant as most of her kind. It might be amusing to talk with a woman whose conversation was not limited to fashion and gossip.
But thinking of fashion, he must speak to them about their clothes. David would be embarrassed to do so, and Lord Penworth would have no way to know—not when his guide to the region was Sir Henry, who knew nothing of this part of the world outside the court.
But those charming gowns the ladies wore would be impossible on the journey. Their skirts were wider than some of the trails they would travel.
They were going to need Turkish garments. He smiled to himself. He would have to make clear he w
as not talking about the flimsy harem costumes that were the stuff of European fantasies. In reality, the Turks were far more prudish than Europeans in terms of what the women wore. But they were going to need the kind of clothing that would make it possible for them to ride donkeys and horses and go on foot when necessary.
He would have to take them shopping himself. There was no one else to do it, and someone needed to be practical. The maman seemed to be a sensible sort of woman. Unlike that foolish Lady Bulwer, Lady Penworth was not affronted by the fact that she was in a foreign country. Lady Julia, however… He made a face. She was a beauty, sans doute, but one of those cold, very proper ladies. More beautiful than Lady Emily, perhaps, but it was Lady Emily who intrigued him. She had a bit of a devil in her.
He wondered how long they would manage before they turned back. Three days? A week? He hoped it would be at least a week. It would indeed be amusing to travel in Lady Emily’s company.
Three
The mare she had been given picked her way carefully around the boulder that protruded into the trail, never putting a hoof wrong. And wasn’t that a mercy, thought Emily. She was exceedingly grateful to find herself on a horse who knew what she was doing. At least today she was sitting on the horse. Yesterday they had been higher up in the mountains on a trail that was barely wide enough for someone on foot, and they had all had to walk, leading the horses and mules.
Here they were, a week from Samsun, and, according to Mr. Oliphant, they had covered barely a hundred miles of the five hundred miles to Diyarbakir. Perhaps she should not have been quite so scornful when he spoke of the difficulties of the trip. The road was rising again, and mist shrouded the top of the mountain, making it impossible to even guess how much higher they had to climb.
And, she thought ruefully, perhaps she should not have been quite so scornful of Lady Bulwer’s menu choices. For the past two days, they had dined on nothing but yogurt and eggs, with very chewy bread and hard cheese for lunch. She pulled her dark cloak closer around her and shifted slightly to try to find a more comfortable seat on the unfamiliar Turkish saddle. As usual, she failed.
“Cold?” M. Chambertin guided his horse beside hers, smiling with his eyes, the only part of his face she could see. Like all of their party, he had a scarf wrapped over the lower part of his face, protecting against the bitter chill of the cloudy day.
“Not at all,” she lied. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone could change the temperature, so there was no use complaining about it.
Irmak, the Ottoman kavass who was in charge of this expedition, turned around and gave her a disbelieving look. It was also a disapproving look, but she was growing accustomed to that. Irmak seemed to be censuring everything about her all the time. She had found it intimidating at first, but she was growing accustomed to his enormous curving mustache and heavy brows, so she smiled back at him. He gave a snort of something that might have been laughter as he turned away. Perhaps he was not really so disapproving. It might be those eyebrows that made him look so fierce. That and the mustache.
Making an effort to be positive, she turned to M. Chambertin. “These garments are remarkably comfortable. It was sensible of you to insist that we acquire them.” Indeed, the layers of garments that the Turkish women wore actually were comfortable, probably the most comfortable clothes she had ever worn, at least in public. However, she couldn’t help feeling as if she had simply wrapped herself in the contents of the laundry basket. There seemed to be no effort made to ensure that the different parts of the outfit—she had no idea what they were called—matched or even harmonized. She doubted they were at all becoming. They might even look dowdy.
Except, of course, on Mama and Julia. They managed to look stylish, even elegant, in second-hand garments that made no pretense of fitting. But while her collection of whatever these things were called just hung about her like clothes on a line, theirs made them look as if they were swathed in exotic raiment. How did they do it?
The scarf across her face, though—she did like that. It was called a yashmak, she had learned, and left only her eyes uncovered, so it should make her look mysterious. She hoped it did. Mysterious would certainly be better than dowdy. She cast a sidelong glance at M. Chambertin.
He was laughing, drat him. And he managed to look quite dashing in his voluminous cape.
“Insist? You cannot be serious. You think I insisted to Lady Penworth? I doubt anyone ever does that. Fortunately, your mother is a woman of great good sense and can see reason.”
“Yes. Mama is not one of those silly creatures who put propriety before safety and comfort. We could hardly travel over these mountains wearing corsets and riding sidesaddle.”
“And her daughter is also a woman of good sense.” His eyes suddenly looked serious. “It is not simply a matter of comfort as we ride. Robed as we all are, it is not immediately obvious that we are Europeans. Anyone observing us cannot be certain that we are infidels. They must approach nearer, and by the time they can identify us, we can identify them. There are those in these mountains who would seize on any reason to attack strangers, but they prefer to attack those who will not fight back.”
“But we have not seen a soul in all the time we’ve been riding except when we come to villages.”
“That does not mean no one has seen us.” He pulled down his scarf a bit to smile at her, unnecessarily. She could easily see his smile in his eyes. “I do not mean to frighten you, just to make you careful. Accompanied as we are by the kavass and his soldiers, there is little danger that anyone would attack us. But you must never wander off on your own.”
She gave a snort of laughter and looked around. “I am in a wilderness of rocks and trees in a strange country where, I am told, wolves, bears, and wild boar abound. I have no idea where I am, and aside from the bitter cold, the sky looks as if there may be a storm at any time. Do you really think me the sort of fool to leave the protection of this company?”
“No, I do not think you a fool at all. But the warning is not only for this mountainside. Throughout this journey, whether we are in mountains or in villages or in cities, nowhere must you go alone.”
“Nowhere?” She raised her brows skeptically.
“Nowhere,” he said firmly. “Irmak is already distressed that I am speaking to you. Since you are the daughter of an important man, a bey if not a pasha, you and the other women should be guarded and kept from the sight of men. He is inclined to think that he should cut off my head for my impertinence in riding beside you, but your father does not seem to object. It confuses him.”
She started to laugh, but the laughter faded when he did not join in. “You cannot be serious. You expect me to shut myself up in the women’s quarters? The hareem?”
“No, no.” He did smile now. “I would never suggest anything so foolish. I only ask that you be prudent. This world is very different from England.” He smiled more broadly at the irritated noise she made. “Yes, I know. That is why you have come here, because it is different. But it is not always easy to recognize the ways in which it is different. One must step carefully to not give offense without intending it. And it is even harder for women. I do not ask you to shut yourself away. I only ask that you take care.”
She felt irritated, more irritated than she should. It was sensible advice, no different, really, than the advice her mother had given her before her first diplomatic dinner. Did he think she was an idiot? She kept her eyes turned straight ahead and concentrated on the trail as it proceeded on its zigzag course through spruce trees and patches of snow. Snow in April. Well, that was different. “Are you giving the same advice to my mother and to Julia?”
“I would not presume. Lord Penworth is a wise man, and a well-traveled one, I think. He will know how to give your maman advice without ruffling her feathers as I have ruffled yours. Lady Julia seems to be possessed of a decent sense of caution, and in any case, Oliphant will watch out for her.”
She nodded.
“You are not angry?”<
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She considered briefly, then made a face. “No. It’s sensible advice. I was only annoyed that you thought I needed it.”
“Ah, for that I apologize. I was not certain. You understand?”
That made sense, she supposed. He did not know her well enough to trust her common sense, so she said, “Fair enough.”
“Bon. Good. We are friends then? Copains?” He offered a smile with the question.
“Copains. That means comrades, doesn’t it? I like that. We’re comrades.” She put out a hand, and they shook on it. “And since we are copains, you may call me Emily.”
His smile broadened. “I am honored. And my name is Lucien.”
Copains. She liked that idea. She had never had a young man want to be her friend, not since she had been a child and she and her sisters had run free with their brothers’ friends. Now that she was a young lady, she no longer had friends, at least not male friends. She had suitors, boring young men who flattered her in hopes of receiving her father’s patronage. Foolish young men who patronized her, thinking she was as stupid as they seemed to think all women were. One day she would have to marry one of them, she supposed. What else was there for her to do?
But M. Chambertin—Lucien—was offering to be her friend. Friends were equals. Friendship was something truly special, something of extraordinary value. And she would value it. Oh yes, she would value it.
Besides, there was the fact that he was a very attractive young man. Not handsome, no. But definitely attractive, especially when he smiled. His smile was really quite dashing. It held the promise of excitement—of danger, even.
Best of all, she liked the idea of being friends with an adventurer. Someone who was not at all like the young men she had known all her life.
Ahead of them, Irmak and three of his men led the way. She glanced back. Julia was riding with Mr. Oliphant, both of them silent as usual. It was amazing how straight they both sat on their horses, no matter how long they had been riding. Straight and silent and unsmiling. She wanted to poke them.
Lady Emily's Exotic Journey Page 3