Panther's Prey (19 page)

Malik’s horse gathered speed as they left the camp, and Amy leaned back into Malik’s shoulder as they headed downward toward the plain. She wished she did not have to spend this final hour in his arms, but at the same time she savored the contact she was about to lose forever. The trek through the foothills that Amy remembered as long and tortuous seemed to pass like a flash of lightning this time. When they reached the valley and emerged onto the sandy mesa she could see a lone horse approaching them from the distance. As they came closer she could see the rider, a tall dark man attired in an ivory tunic trimmed with gold. When they finally met he dismounted immediately and so did Malik.

“Is this the little lady from America?” Kalid Shah said, smiling as Malik lifted Amy down from Mehmet.

Malik stood by as Amy turned and faced Sarah’s husband. He was handsome in the European way, older than Malik, whose features were bolder and whose skin was browner. Amy could see immediately what had caused James Woolcott’s cousin to turn her back on Boston for this man.

“I am Kalid Shah,” he said, extending his hand as if meeting her at an embassy party. “I didn’t bring a horse for you because I have a coach waiting about a mile away.”

“Did you want to make sure I came alone, Kalid?” Malik said to him in Turkish.

“She is lovely, Malik,” Kalid responded in the same language, ignoring the question. “Quite a test of your self control.”

“Can we go, please?” Amy said, afraid that she might break down if they prolonged the farewell.

“By all means,” Kalid replied in his British accent, more pronounced than Malik’s.

Amy moved to Kalid’s horse, but Malik put a restraining hand on her arm. When she turned to look at him his dark eyes were full of feeling. It was as if now that he knew it was over he could reveal what he had been holding back before; a muscle twitched spasmodically along his jaw.

“It is written on my forehead that I will not forget you,” he said softly, quoting a Turkish proverb.

Amy swallowed hard but couldn’t speak.

Kalid vaulted into his saddle and then held his hand down to Amy, who mounted behind him. When Amy looked back at Malik he was mounted also, watching them.
 

Kalid kicked his horse and they rode away.

Amy turned back once to look at Malik, seeing him through a screen of tears.

He was still in the same position, but when he saw her turn her head he pulled on Mehmet’s reins to bring the horse around, then took off at a gallop, sending up a cloud of dust.

Kalid rode briskly across the open plain as Amy hung on to him, the wind whipping her hair as tears streamed down her cheeks. When Kalid slowed the horse she didn’t even look up until he jumped to the ground and extended his hand upward.

Amy took Kalid’s hand and descended from the horse, noticing that they were in a green oasis. An elaborate coach drawn by two geldings stood a few feet away, the liveried driver perched atop the high seat looking straight ahead.
 

“There’s your transportation,” Kalid said gently. “My wife is waiting for you.”

Amy walked over to the coach and Kalid opened the door and handed her inside. A beautiful blonde woman with hair a few shades darker than Amy’s was ensconced on one of the facing seats. She was wearing a navy traveling suit of tissue wool and a pert navy straw boater with an orchid ribbon tied around its brim. “Hello, my dear,” she said warmly. “I am your cousin Sarah. I understand you’ve been through a very difficult experience and I would like to help you.”

Amy tried to answer, then shook her head, wiping her eyes with her fingers.

Sarah took a linen handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to Amy.

“Are you all right?” Sarah asked.

Amy nodded, unconvincingly, dabbing at her nose with the lace trimmed square.

“Should I go ahead?” Kalid asked Sarah.

Sarah waved him away; he shut the door. Once he had mounted his horse the coach lurched into motion and he followed behind it at a trot.

Sarah leaned forward and patted Amy’s knee. “I’ve arranged with Beatrice and James for you to stay with me for a few days at Orchid Palace. The respite will give you a chance to recover a little from this ordeal and enable us to get to know one another. Is that agreeable to you?”

“Yes,” Amy said in a small voice.

“I think you’ll find that we have a few things in common,” Sarah added quietly.

Amy put her head back against the plush upholstery of the pasha’s coach and closed her eyes.

“Would you like a lap robe?” Sarah asked. “You could take a nap on the way to Bursa.”

“I know I shouldn’t be tired, but somehow I am,” Amy replied wearily.

“Emotional turmoil takes its own toll,” Sarah replied, opening a compartment beneath her neatly booted feet and taking out a cashmere throw. She leaned forward to spread it over Amy’s legs and added, “There. Just go to sleep. When we arrive you can have a bath and a change of clothes, a nice meal and a comfortable bed.”
 

“Thank you,” Amy whispered, her eyes flooding once more. She squeezed them shut
 
tightly to contain the tears.

Why couldn’t she do anything but cry?

Sarah looked across the leather seats at the pretty, miserable, exhausted girl, and realized that she could have been gazing at her herself ten years earlier, during her battles with Kalid.
 

Could this story possibly end as happily?

Chapter 8

When Amy woke the next morning beneath a satin coverlet on a brocade sleeping couch at Orchid Palace, she could hardly remember the previous evening. It was all a blur: her arrival at the pink sandstone palace, her walk through corridors floored with marble and lit by flaring gas lamps, the forbidding halberdiers and scurrying servants, the dinner she could not eat served on a silver tray in a room draped with tapestries and carpeted with tasseled rugs. As she sat up and looked around, she realized that she was now occupying the inner chamber of a suite: the salon where she had dined was directly in front of her. The bedroom was just as ornate, with a wool rug worked with a green and silver trellis pattern underfoot and Afghan kilims on the walls. A small bedside table held a golden bell ornamented with blue enamel. Amy picked it up and rang it experimentally.

The outer door of the suite opened immediately and a tiny woman with waist length black hair, wearing shalwar and an embroidered surcoat, came in from the hall. She walked gracefully through the anteroom and stopped at Amy’s bedside, bowing deeply from the waist.

“Good morning, miss,” she said in slightly accented English. “I am called Memtaz, and I have been assigned by the pashana to wait upon you during your stay at Orchid Palace. May I bring you some breakfast?”

“Just coffee, I think. Where is the pashana, please?”

“She is in the schoolroom, miss. She has instructed me to tell you that she can take lunch with you here in your suite if you would like that. But if you are too tired and would prefer to rest, she will see you at dinner.”

“No, no, please tell her to come and see me at lunch. I’m afraid I wasn’t very sociable yesterday and I would like to thank her for her hospitality.”

Memtaz bowed again. “As you wish, miss. I will return with your coffee.”

The servant slipped from the room and Amy rose from the bed, examining the elaborate furnishings and the stack of books in English which had been left on a shelf near the door. Everything had obviously been prepared with her comfort in mind, and she felt a surge of gratitude to her uncle’s cousin, who had taken so much trouble to welcome a kinswoman she had never met.

Amy spent the morning bathing and dressing in the outfit Sarah sent in with Memtaz, then reading while stretched out across the bed, trying to occupy her mind so she would not think about Malik. And at twelve-fifteen Sarah arrived, carrying a tea tray and wearing a peach and white silk bengaline dress.

“How are you feeling?” Sarah asked, placing the tray on a low table. “From what Memtaz told me I gathered you were doing somewhat better this morning.”

“Yes, thank you,” Amy said, studying the woman and her clothing carefully. Sarah’s ensemble with its fitted bodice and striped, paneled skirt flattered her tall, slim figure. Her hair, the color of ripe wheat, was twisted into a chignon and she wore an exquisite cameo in the lace fichu at her throat. Her stylish Western dress struck an odd note in the atmosphere of Oriental excess which surrounded them, but Sarah seemed to carry off the effect with serene good humor. Amy wondered if clinging to the habits and dress of her past helped Sarah to maintain her sense of identity in the palace, where her husband’s power and personality must dominate the inhabitants.

Sarah bent to kiss Amy’s cheek. “I wasn’t sure you would be up to seeing me so soon.”

“I’m glad of the company. It was kind of you to send...Memtaz, is that her name?”

“Yes.”

“Did you teach her to speak English?”

“No, she learned English from my husband’s mother, who was British. Memtaz was given to me when I came here because she was one of the few servants in the palace who would be able to converse with me.” Sarah sat in a silk covered chair across from Amy and arranged her skirt across her knees, then poured the tea into two china cups. “I’ve ordered lunch for about one o’clock, but we can have this tea first and talk.”

“Thank you for the clothes,” Amy said, gesturing to the dress she wore.

“You’re welcome. I had ordered that one for myself, but it was a little too small in the waist.” She smiled. “I see it fits you very well.”

“How do you keep up with the Western fashions?” Amy asked. “It must be a chore to have them sent here.”

“I’m afraid that I take advantage of my husband’s position,” Sarah said wryly. “I get
Harper’s Weekly
and
Godey’s Lady’s Book
in the mail from the boat train and then order what I want through a shop in Constantinople which caters to Western tourists. They’re very happy to accommodate the Pashana of Bursa.”

“Do you ever wear Turkish dress?”

“Sometimes, usually on holidays. I did all the time when I was in the harem.”

Amy stared at her, amazed. “So it’s true that the pasha bought you?”

“Oh, yes. He bought me from the Sultan. I tried to tell them I wasn’t for sale, but they weren’t listening.”

“No, Ottoman men don’t listen very well, do they?” Amy said sadly. “I’ve discovered that for myself.”

There was a long silence, then Sarah said gently, “Do you want to talk about it?”
 

“Yes, I guess so. Yesterday, I didn’t think I ever could but now I see...” She stopped.

“What?” Sarah said, handing her a cup and indicating the tray, which held cream and sugar and a small fluted dish containing moist slices of lemon.
 

“That it might help me to talk with someone who knows this country and its people,” Amy replied simply, adding cream to her cup and stirring her drink.
 

“People like Malik Bey?” Sarah asked.

“Yes.” Amy took a sip of the tea, which was strong and hot and scented with cinnamon.

“Are you in love with him?” Sarah asked bluntly, watching the girl’s face.

Amy looked away in consternation. “Is it that obvious?” she asked unhappily.

“Well, let’s just say that I noticed you weren’t overcome with joy to be escaping from the man who had kidnapped you,” Sarah observed with an understanding smile.

“I’m sorry I was in such a state,” Amy said.

“You haven’t answered the question.”

“I must be in love with him,” Amy said. “I only know that the thought of never seeing him again is breaking my heart.”
 

“Is he in love with you?” Sarah asked.

“How could he be?” Amy lamented. “He let me go without a word!” Her mouth turned down and she looked like she was about to cry again.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Sarah said. She sighed, getting up and moving next to Amy, putting her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “He could be dying of love for you and still stay silent. They are all proud and willful and independent, these Turks. Panthers, every one of them.”

“Panthers?” Amy said.

“Yes. The panther is the symbol of my husband’s family but its traits apply to all of his countrymen. They are all fierce, silent stalkers. To show emotion is considered a sign of weakness.” She sighed again. “They are difficult men to love, it’s a pity they’re so damned attractive.” She picked up her cup and sipped.

“Your husband is difficult?” Amy said in surprise. “He seems so nice!”

Sarah choked on her tea and put down her cup. “Oh, my dear, you are seeing him after a decade of marriage and fatherhood have mellowed him. When I first met him he was just as arrogant and overbearing as your Malik.”

“Really? I never knew how much to believe of the stories I heard in the family. Gossip distorts everything so much.”

“What you heard was probably a heavily filtered version of the truth. I never told James a lot of it. I was afraid he’d get a wild notion to challenge Kalid to a duel or something.” Sarah rolled her eyes and Amy giggled.