Panther's Prey (24 page)

Amy groaned deeply and closed her eyes. When she opened them again she pointed to the floor and mouthed, “Get under the bed,” to Malik.

He dropped to the rug immediately and rolled under the four poster. Amy ran over to the bed and dragged the coverlet to the floor to block the space where he lay from view.

“Coming,” she said loudly, glancing in the cheval mirror as she passed it, then stopping short at her startling image. Her hair was wild, her mouth swollen and red, and there were dark smudges under her eyes as well as two passion marks on the side of her neck.

She looked like what she was, a woman who had spent an active night in bed.

Amy pulled her hair over her shoulder to cover her neck and twisted the key in the lock, then yanked open the door.

“Good morning, Listak,” she said, her smile feeling stuck on her face.

“Good morning, miss,” Listak replied, taking a step past Amy to go into the room.

“Let me take that,” Amy said hastily, removing the tray from the servant’s hands as she blocked Listak’s path.

“Do you need anything else, miss?” Listak asked.

“No, no, I’m fine. I just slept quite late and I don’t feel much like breakfast. Would you tell my aunt that I won’t be in the dining room this morning?”
 

Listak bowed.

“Thank you.” Amy barely restrained herself from shoving the door closed in Listak’s face with her foot. Instead she stood smiling, with the tray in her hands, until the servant had walked away. Then she carried the tray to the bed, running back to secure the door before lifting the coverlet.

“She’s gone,” Amy said breathlessly.

Malik crawled out from under the bed, dusting his sleeves and brushing lint from his hair.

“The Sultan should see me now,” he said dryly. “He’d be sure he had nothing to fear.”

Amy giggled.

“May I have some of that?” he asked, indicating the tray on the bed.

Amy poured him a cup of coffee, which he downed black.
 

“Too weak,” he pronounced. “European coffee is always too weak.”

“That’s American coffee, but we’ll all try to do better in the future,” Amy replied. “Now will you please apply yourself to the problem at hand, namely how to get you out of this house? It’s almost eight o’clock, everyone is running around downstairs.”

He was silent, thinking. “I could make a rope from some of your clothes–silk would be best, stockings maybe–and then let myself down over the side of the house.”

Amy shook her head. “Beatrice always does her gardening after breakfast when it’s still cool, she’ll be out there by the time we’ve fashioned anything strong enough to hold your weight. She’ll see you.”

“She’ll see the rope I left hanging from the maple tree, too,” he said, his expression grim.

Amy struck her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I forgot all about that! I have to go out there and get it!”

“You’d better hurry, before she finishes her coddled eggs and gets out her shears,” Malik said. He went to the double doors and drew one of the drapes back slightly, looking out at the grounds.
 

Amy dressed quickly, throwing on a shirtwaist and skirt, not bothering to comb her hair. She went to her dressing table and took out her jar of alum paste, rubbing the covering mixture on the purpling bruises on her neck.

“Did I do that?” he asked, glancing back at her.

“Nobody else,” Amy replied, applying petroleum jelly to her abraded lips with a pinky.

“I guess I got carried away,” he said, looking abashed.

“We both did, or you wouldn’t still be here,” Amy replied softly, smiling at him.

“Go,” he said, nodding at the door.

“Listak won’t come up to make the beds until she’s finished in the kitchen, so we have some time,” Amy said. “Lock the door after I’ve left.”

He nodded.

She blew him a kiss and slipped through the door.

Amy stood still and listened. She heard the clinking of china in the dining room and the murmur of voices, feeling a surge of relief that James and Bea were exactly where they should be. She crept down the stairs, peeking into the dining room. She waited for a moment when her aunt and uncle were both looking down at their plates before skulking past the glass doors and exiting through the front hall.

The grass outside was wet from the night’s rain, soaking the hem of her skirt as she ran around the side of the house and into the maple grove. She glanced up at her room and saw Malik just behind the drapes as she dashed past. She couldn’t remove the peg from the crotch of the big tree, it was too high, but she looped the rope on a lower limb, then shoved it into the dense growth of damp leaves. It wasn’t perfectly hidden, but it was disguised. Satisfied that she had done her best, Amy scurried back into the house breathlessly, only to encounter Beatrice in the front hall.

“My dear, what were you doing outside in the wet?” Bea greeted her. “Your shoes are covered with mud.”

“Oh, I just felt like taking a walk,” Amy said, laughing gaily, hoping that Bea didn’t notice the tinge of hysteria in her voice. “Everything is so fresh after the rain.”

“It’s been raining on and off for three weeks,” Bea said, looking at her strangely.

“Yes, I like wet weather,” Amy babbled, edging toward the stairs.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Bea asked. “Listak said you didn’t want any breakfast.”

“Yes, I’m fine, just not very hungry. I’ll take some fruit up to my room.” She changed direction and went into the dining room, grabbing two oranges and a pear from the silver bowl in the center of the table. Then she waited until Bea had gone into the morning room to write her letters before she bolted up the stairs.

Malik was waiting for her tap and let her into the bedroom. She handed him the fruit and said, “Put this with the leftover food, you can take it with you.”

“Did you get the rope?”

“I couldn’t retrieve it, but I hid it pretty well. Unless you were looking for it I don’t think you would see it.”

“Have you got a plan?”

“I think so,” Amy said, unlacing her wet shoes. “The carriage will come to take James to his office in a few minutes, and Bea should be occupied with her correspondence for a while.”

“I thought you said she’d be in the garden.”

“She must have decided it was too wet for pruning, but the morning room where she’s working looks out on the garden, so you still can’t leave the way you came. But once the coast is clear I can take you out through the flower room, we shouldn’t encounter any of the servants there.”

“What’s the flower room?”

“It’s a sort of gardening shed attached to the house, you enter it from the back hall and it exits to the alley where trash is stored for collection.” She stepped into her slippers, shoving her muddied shoes aside.

“That sounds good.”

Amy looked up at him. “I don’t know how you’re getting back. I don’t even know how you got here.”

“I left Mehmet with Yuri’s brother, he lives in the lower market district. He’s keeping the horse for me. I’ll pick Mehmet up and ride back.”

“And how will you get to Yuri’s brother’s house?”

He pointed to his feet.

Amy ran across the room and flung herself on him. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I have to go,” he said, his arms tight around her, his cheek against her hair. “But I’ll return.”

She tilted her head to look into his face. “When? When will you return?”

“I can’t say, I don’t know. But soon. As soon as I can I’ll come to you.”

“I won’t be able to stand not knowing,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
 

“You’ll stand it,” he said reassuringly. “We both will.”
 

“I’ll look for you every day.”

“And one day I’ll be here,” he said.

Amy put her head back on his shoulder.

She felt him take a deep breath and then he added, “But just in case I’m not...” he began.

Amy clutched him. “Don’t say it,” she whispered.

“I have to say it. If something happens to me, I want you to know that after last night I could go through the rest of my life and never ask for more. The memory of what you gave me will sustain me through anything.”

“Don’t talk that way,” Amy said, putting her hand over his mouth. “We’ll make other memories, we’ll have more time together.”

She started to cry.

“Shh, I don’t want to upset you.”

“You
are
upsetting me,” she replied, sniffling childishly.

“Amelia, we can’t be blind to our circumstances. I don’t want to leave here regretting that I didn’t tell you how I felt when I had the chance.”
 

Amy was silent.

“I love you and I want you to carry that knowledge in your heart always, no matter what happens,” he said.

“I will,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. He kissed her back, but refused to be drawn into a further embrace when she clung to him. He held her off gently and said, “Let’s go. Your aunt can’t have that many correspondents, she won’t be writing forever.” He picked up the leftover food he had wrapped in a pillowcase and walked to the door.

Amy followed him reluctantly, wiping her eyes. She opened the door and went into the hall, looking over the stairwell and down into the entry foyer. Through the glass panels on either side of the front door she could see carriage wheels and the forelegs of horses.

She turned and waved Malik back. “James’ carriage is outside,” she whispered.

Malik went back behind the door.
 

Amy waited until she saw James walk out of the house, putting his fedora on his head, his cane in hand. Then she signaled for Malik to follow her.

They went down the stairs and through the house as quickly as possible, Amy crooking her finger to indicate the narrow passage which led to the shed. She opened the flower room door and the odor of humus and fertilizer overwhelmed them. Amy picked her way through the piles of clay pots, rubber boots and racks of tools littering the cement floor to lead Malik to the outer door.

“Here it is,” she said, her face mirroring her feelings at the prospect of his departure.

He sank his hand into the mass of hair at the back of her neck and wrapped the golden strands around his fist.
 

“
Allaha ismarladik
,” he said. “God protect you.”

Amy touched his cheek. “And you.”

He lifted her hand to his lips. “I’ll be back,” he said, and went through the door.

Chapter 10

In the days that followed Malik’s departure Amy became a model citizen, eager to do everything Bea requested and loath to call attention to herself. Aside from a few minor escapades, like a midnight excursion with a ladder to dispose of Malik’s rope and another nocturnal jaunt to wash her bloodstained sheet in the bathtub, Amy’s behavior was impeccable. She replaced the sheet and missing pillowcase with duplicate items from Bea’s favorite shop in Pera, and if Listak found Amy’s linen suddenly fresher than it had been, she made no mention of it.
 

Beatrice, obviously relieved by Amy’s increased appetite and newly relaxed appearance, threw herself into the social whirl with renewed vigor. She attributed Amy’s resurgence to a finally complete, if delayed, recovery from her unfortunate experience with the rebels. She included Amy in her activities even more than before, seemingly proud of her niece’s youth and beauty and finishing school polish. And Amy tried hard to please, sincerely grateful for Beatrice’s innocent efforts on her behalf and feeling slightly guilty that she was deluding her aunt.

But Amy knew that misleading her relatives was not a choice, it was a necessity. They could never understand the way she felt about Malik; they regarded him as a criminal who preyed on Western travelers, on their friends and acquaintances. While they had no respect for the Sultan, they felt that the tactics of his enemies placed them also beyond the pale of civilized behavior. Amy accepted this and worked around it. They didn’t know Malik, his background or experiences. They couldn’t possibly grasp the strength of his motivation or the extent of his desperation. Amy’s love for him was the most important thing in her life, and if she had to deceive her family in order to be with him, she would.

One afternoon, about three weeks after she had last seen Malik, Amy was dressing for one of Bea’s charity teas and wondering how long it would be before she saw her lover again. She trusted Malik and believed that he planned to return. But when? She missed him almost beyond bearing. She got through the days, since she was busy, but the nights were endless. She kept waiting for his tap on her balcony doors, but it never came.

Was he all right? Had he been hurt or killed in one of his frequent skirmishes, betrayed by a comrade or captured by the Sultan’s men? It was hell to be in love with a man who faced such an uncertain existence, but he had chosen it and she had chosen him, so she endured the situation.

Amy dragged her thoughts away from Malik and examined herself in the pier glass in her room, studying the outfit she had purchased in Paris before boarding the train to Constantinople. It was an afternoon dress of navy watered silk, with a high collared bodice featuring a short, flared peplum and empire puff sleeves. Its fitted waist flowed into a plain, bias cut
fin de siècle
skirt. She had forgotten the dress until she unpacked one of the trunks Mrs. Spaulding had brought to the house in her absence. There she found it, still wrapped in Worth’s pink tissue paper and resting in the signature box. It was a little too big when she tried it on again; she had put darts in the waist and made a few other alterations before donning it today. She was happy to see that the sewing skills she had learned at Miss Pickard’s still served her well; she was the very picture of a fashion plate, sure to make Beatrice proud. She piled her hair on top of her head in the current upswept style and added her mother’s favorite earrings, triple pearl clusters with pink jade drops.