Panther's Prey (21 page)

But once his friend looked away Malik’s expression became thoughtful.
 

* * *

It was a gloomy afternoon, threatening more rain, when Kalid knocked on the door of Sarah’s schoolroom and then stood back to let her come into the hall.

“What is it?” Sarah asked.

“We have a visitor, and he wants to see you.”

Sarah looked at him inquiringly.

“Malik Bey. I’ve just been with him for the last hour in the
selamlik
.”

The selamlik was a restricted area of the palace reserved just for men. Sarah put her hand on her husband’s arm, alarmed.

“Kalid, he’s a wanted man, what if someone saw him come here?” Sarah said.

“No one saw him, he came to the kitchens disguised as a beggar. He knows one of the skivvies, she’s an old flame of Osman’s. She smuggled him inside and then went to Achmed to say that Malik was here.”

“And Achmed brought him to see you?” Sarah asked incredulously, wondering if her husband’s aging
khislar
was getting sloppy.

“Achmed asked me first if I wanted to admit Malik for an interview,” Kalid replied, smiling.

“And you, of course, couldn’t resist the idea of having the Sultan’s most notorious criminal under your roof,” Sarah observed dryly.

“I was curious to find out what he wanted,” Kalid said, his smile widening.

“All right, my darling husband, I’ll bite. What exactly does he want?”

“Well, he
said
he wanted to ask me if I had accomplished anything at my district meeting with the Sultan, but I suspect he really came to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“He knows I got nowhere with the Sultan, Bey reads the newspapers avidly. All the English language dailies reported that the Sultan refused any concessions to the rebels, that he won’t consider a parliament or a shared government with elected representatives. So it’s my guess that Bey came here on that pretext to get news of Amelia Ryder from you.”

“Did he mention her?”

“Of course not. But I don’t think he wants to see you to get the latest fashion news, do you?”

Sarah considered that in silence for a few moments and then said, “Did you tell him I would see him?”

“I told him I’d ask you if you would grant him an audience,” Kalid replied.

Sarah nodded. “Give me ten minutes to get the children settled with Memtaz, and then have Achmed bring him to the audience room,” Sarah said.

“Are you sure? It’s your decision.”

“I’m sure.”

Kalid turned to go. “I’ll have Achmed post guards outside the door,” he said.

“I’m certain I’ll be quite safe. Bey would be an idiot to try anything here, and I think we both know he’s not an idiot.”

Kalid looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ll post the guards anyway.”

Sarah went back inside and got the children organized with their tasks, then hurried along the corridor and through an outside courtyard, glad of the freedom to move about alone. Kosem still thought it unseemly that Sarah ran around the palace without an escort, though Sarah was happy she was now able to find her way through its labyrinthine passages on her own. It was a feat of navigation which had seemed beyond the talents of Dr. Livingstone when she first came to Bursa.

Achmed was waiting for her when she arrived at the audience room, wearing the sour look he always assumed when he disapproved of something. Sarah ignored it, and gestured for him to bring in the visitor. He went to a side door and admitted Bey, who came into the chamber flanked by two halberdiers, each of whom had a Bey arm clamped in a huge fist.

“You may release him,” Sarah said.

The guards let Malik go and stepped back.
 

“You may go,” Sarah said to the guards.

They looked at Achmed.

“My husband said you would remain outside the door,” Sarah said to him firmly.

Achmed bowed. “But certainly my master has no wish to endanger his wife...” Achmed began.

“Out,” Sarah said. “I’ll call if I need you.”

The three men marched from the room and Sarah turned to her guest.

“It seems my husband’s khislar thinks you are a dangerous character, Mr. Bey,” Sarah said.

Malik said nothing.

“Is this your latest disguise?” she asked, gesturing to his rags, as well as the enveloping cloak he wore, its hood hanging part way down his back.

“I find that these days I must employ a variety of disguises,” he replied.

His voice was low and resonant, his English almost as good as Kalid’s. Sarah thought that he was about as tall as her husband, but slimmer of build, with duskier skin and eyes as black as Jerusalem olives. Even with the wild hair and three day stubble of the mendicant he was pretending to be, he was a romantic enough figure for Sarah to imagine his intoxicating effect on an inexperienced, seventeen year old girl.

“Why did you want to see me, Mr. Bey?” Sarah asked, sitting in Kalid’s chair.

“I want to know if Amelia is all right,” he said stiffly.

“Why should you ask about her? She was your victim and glad to escape you.”
 

Malik’s mouth tightened but he made no reply.

“Was she not?” Sarah asked innocently.

“You know she was crying when she left me,” he said darkly, gazing at the floor.

“And why was that?”

“You’d have to ask Amelia.”

“She isn’t here, so I’m asking you.”

He looked up then, and turned on her a gaze so blazingly defiant, yet so full of pain, that Sarah could no longer maintain her schoolmarm pose.

“Look here,” she said briskly, rising, “I don’t know you, although I knew your brother Osman and can only hope that you have some of his fine qualities. I do know that you have habitually engaged in criminal behavior.”

“That’s easy for you to say, living surrounded by luxury in a palace full of servants,” he snapped, his eyes narrowing. “You’d resort to criminal behavior too if you had to exist the way most of your husband’s subjects do.”
 

“Mr. Bey, my husband has done more for his subjects than any pasha in the last three hundred years, and if you want me to help you I would advise you not to take that tone with me,” Sarah fired back at him.

“All right,” he said quickly, holding up his hand, obviously afraid that she was about to have him removed. Or arrested. “It’s true that I have broken the law for my cause, but so have many others like me throughout history, including the founding fathers of your own country.”

“You don’t have to make a speech, Mr. Bey, as a Bostonian I am well aware of the anti-government activities of the colonists who established the United States,” Sarah said crisply. “That doesn’t mean I want to discuss my cousin’s ward, or her state of mind, with a wanted man.”

“I was just trying to find out if she is happy,” he said dully.

“Are you? Are you happy with your doings?”

He glared at her. “What does that mean?”

“If you have a shred of Osman’s decency in you I don’t know how you could seduce that child and then send her back to us as if nothing had happened!” Sarah burst out, losing her temper.

Malik stared at her stonily as the back of his neck flushed brick red, then he said carefully, as if trying to maintain his own control, “I did not seduce her. She made the first move, if you must know, and I stopped it before...” He broke off abruptly.

“Before the result could be pregnancy?” Sarah said dryly, realizing that she had misunderstood Amelia.

He nodded curtly.

Sarah waited, sensing that he wished to say more.

“And now I’ve lost the chance to be with her forever,” he blurted.

Whatever doubts Sarah may have harbored about his character were dispelled by the look of anguished frustration on his face. She could only guess what it had cost him to come to her and ask about Amelia, to admit that he felt the girl’s loss as deeply as he obviously did. What a great leveler love was, Sarah thought. The hero of the Ottoman revolution had been reduced to this abject state by his passion for a slip of a girl.

“You want to see her again, don’t you? That’s why you really came here,” Sarah said quietly.

He hesitated, then nodded. “I told myself she would be better off if I just let her go, but...”

“But you’re miserable. I can tell you for a fact so is she,” Sarah said.

He looked at her sharply, hope dawning in his eyes.

“I’ve had four letters from her in the month since she left us here in Bursa, and her heart has not changed. She’s observing the routine her aunt has scheduled for her, but all she thinks about is you,” Sarah said.

“Truly?” he said softly.

“Yes.”

“But you know my situation, my life. Do I have the right?” he asked.

“You have any rights she gives you. Don’t make the decision for her. If you go to her and she doesn’t want to see you, she has a tongue to say so.”

He smiled slightly. “Yes, she does.” He thought a long moment and then said, “Where is she?”

“It will be dangerous for you to go there.”

“It’s dangerous for me to go anywhere,” he said simply.

Sarah told him where the Woolcott home was in Pera, giving him the address. She described the street and the house, then said, “The rest is up to you.”

He came forward and knelt at her feet, taking her hand and kissing it. Sarah, always a little startled by the dramatic gestures of the Turks, withdrew her fingers from his and watched him as he stood up again.

“
Mashallah, haseki pashana,
” he said, and backed away from her until he was at the door.

Sarah called for the guards and the door opened.

She hoped that God would protect her, as Bey had said. She hoped that God would protect all of them.

Seconds after Bey had disappeared between the two halberdiers Kalid came into the room.

“Well?” he said.

“He’s handsome, he has the requisite mixture of arrogance and charm, he’s dedicated to a noble cause. I can easily see why Amy fell for him.”

“I wasn’t asking for a commentary on his allure, Sarah. What did he want?”

“He wanted to know where Amy was, just as you said.”

“And?”

“I told him.”

“Was that wise?”

“He would have found out anyway, James is a prominent businessman who’s easy to locate and Malik is persistent. I just saved him the trouble of tracking Amy down and assured him that he would be welcome.”

“How do you know that?”

“Kalid, I showed you Amy’s last letter. What do you think her feelings are about Malik?”
 

“But considering his situation, shouldn’t you have tried to dissuade him?”

“Would you have been dissuaded ten years ago?” Sarah asked rhetorically.

“Malik is not the type for half measures,” Kalid said warningly. “He’ll carry her off, you know.”

“If she wants to be carried off, so be it,” Sarah replied.

“Spoken like a true American, for whom all things are resolved by love,” Kalid said.

“Don’t give me your ‘American’ speech again, Kalid, if we’re such a bunch of fools why did you marry me?”

He put his arms around her from behind and kissed the side of her neck. “I just love to tease you about your nationality, you always rise to the bait. But you are well aware of the perilous situation Amelia will be facing. The consort of Malik Bey will have a dangerous career.”

“And Beatrice will have the vapors again,” Sarah sighed. “Guaranteed.”

He grinned. “Beatrice has the vapors if the temperature rises five degrees. Did you see the way she was looking at me when she was with us? As if I were some headhunter out of the jungle, about to strip off and attack her.”

“Maybe she was just hoping you would,” Sarah said, and he chuckled.

“Speaking of stripping off...” he said, undoing the buttons at the back of her shirtwaist.

“Here?” Sarah said, looking around the room.

“Why not? I’ll tell the guards we’re not to be disturbed.” He went to the door and Sarah’s mind wandered back to what she had just done.

She wasn’t as confident about telling Malik where Amy was as she tried to appear.

Had she done the right thing?

Malik wasn’t the type to delay using the information.

She would know very soon.

* * *

Malik crouched on the branch of the tree and watched the gaslight dim and then disappear in the Woolcott master bedroom. Amy’s aunt was going to sleep. But there was still a light in the first floor den, which meant that her uncle was working there, and in Amy’s room, where he could see her reading in bed.

He would have to wait.

The desire to just rush into her room and take his chances was overwhelming; it seemed a century since he had touched her, but he knew it was much wiser to bide his time until the uncle retired. Malik had been watching the house for several nights and knew the routine. The servants, who rose early, also retired early. The aunt went to bed next, and the uncle usually worked until about eleven-thirty in his office. By midnight Amy’s light was the only one left burning, and that’s exactly the way Malik wanted it.