Taming Charlotte (9 page)

Within three days, the
Enchantress
dropped anchor off the coast of Spain. Patrick was in the worst mood he could remember. Under other circumstances, he would have gone straight to his favorite brothel and satisfied all the yearnings Charlotte had so innocently aroused in him, but for some reason, his conscience wouldn’t allow that.

Thus, he suffered, and so did everyone else who came within the broad range of his temper.

He sold the spices and silks he’d brought from Riz, and bought shipments of lace and wine to carry to Turkey. He could think of nothing and no one but Charlotte, and how badly he needed to bury himself in her and end the terrible tension of wanting her so much. Because of his preoccupation with a young woman who refused him her last name and yet rode his mouth in ecstasy, Patrick was not as careful as he should have been.

He’d had words with Cochran, the first mate, when his friend told him his nature had turned foul and he ought to take himself upstairs and let a whore work it out of him. Patrick had been furious, and he’d sent the others, Cochran included, summarily back to the ship.

He was jumped from behind as he left the shoddy waterfront tavern at a late hour, his loins still aching, his
mind distracted by frustration. He felt the blade of a knife brush against his throat and turned sober between that moment and the one that followed.

Patrick brought one bootheel down hard on the instep of his attacker, making the other man scream in pain, but there were others, and they seemed to come at him from every direction. He had clutched one by the shirt collar and drawn his fist back for the kind of punch that loosens a man’s teeth when he recognized his own cook.

“Damnation, Cap’n!” the man bellowed. “It’s them you’re supposed to fight! We’re on your side!”

His friends had disobeyed his orders and stayed, then, he thought, turning his full attention to the battle at hand. He sensed Cochran and the others around him, saw only strangers through the red haze of fury that shifted and shimmered in front of his eyes.

Patrick had no way of knowing how long the fight raged; it might have been fifteen minutes, or two hours. When it was over, he crouched beside a supine body and wrenched the man upright.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The man’s eyes rounded, then drifted shut in a swoon. Patrick threw him roughly back to the ground and found another wayward soul to question.

This one babbled in rapid dialect, but Patrick deciphered enough of it to know that these were Raheem’s men, and he said as much to Billy Bates, one of his sailors.

“Filthy lot they are, too,” Billy said, dusting his hands off on his own none-too-clean garments.

Patrick hauled the frightened Arab to his feet and slammed his hard against the tavern wall. “Take me to Raheem,” he said, in the dialect. “Now!”

The other man shook his head, his dark eyes full of fear and defiance. “He’ll kill me,” he said. “I would rather die here in the street than suffer Raheem’s punishment.”

Tightening his grip on the man’s shirtfront, Patrick lifted him to his tiptoes and bounced him off the wall again. “Tell him I said he’s a coward,” he rasped. “You tell him that
Patrick Trevarren, captain of the
Enchantress,
called him a yellow-gutted sewer rat.”

The Arab nodded fitfully and ran when Patrick released him.

If the insults he’d already offered didn’t bring Raheem out from under some maggot-covered rock, Patrick could think of plenty more.

In the first days after Patrick’s departure, Charlotte kept to herself as much as possible and did as she was told. The other women in the harem didn’t exactly snub her, but they didn’t pursue her acquaintance, either. Only Alev spoke to her; to her extreme gratitude, the
sultana valide
left her strictly alone.

A full week had passed and twilight found Charlotte sitting in the courtyard, her back to the trunk of the elm tree, which had come to symbolize all things familiar to her. Rashad had given her drawing paper and pencils, and she was making a sketch of the house she’d grown up in when Alev joined her.

“That’s very good,” the other woman said, shifting uncomfortably as she took a seat beside Charlotte on the bench. “Is it your home?”

Charlotte swallowed the knot that had filled her throat at the word “home” and nodded. “They’ll be so worried when they hear about the kidnapping.”

Alev laid both hands on her distended stomach and grimaced before giving Charlotte a sympathetic look. “You could write them, you know, and tell them you’ve run off to be married. Then they might be angry, but they wouldn’t suffer so much.”

“Who would mail the letter?” Charlotte asked, her heart beating faster.

“Rashad could arrange that easily enough,” Alev said, her belly moving visibly beneath her robe.

“But if my father knew I was here—”

“You cannot tell him that,” Alev broke in quickly, “and I will have to read the letter, of course, to make sure you do not say anything…improper. Rashad would then have it sent from somewhere in Spain or Morocco.”

Charlotte imagined her father and Lydia reading the suggested missive. Papa would be angry that she’d married so far from home, but Lydia would quiet him soon enough. Millie would say she’d always expected her elder sister to do something reckless and romantic like eloping in a foreign country, and the boys would be too busy running in and out of the house to care one way or another.

The marriage would be a lie, of course, and Charlotte had never been untruthful with her father and stepmother. Even now, it wasn’t an easy prospect to consider, but she couldn’t let them fret and agonize over her if there was a way to comfort them.

“Write your letter,” Alev said. “Rashad and I will take care of the rest.”

Charlotte nodded with sad resignation.

Alev drew in a sharp, sudden breath and clutched her belly. Because her stepmother was a midwife, Charlotte knew the look of impending motherhood.

“Are you having pain? Shall I bring someone?”

Alev bit her lower lip for a long time before she was able to speak again. “Fetch Rashad, please. Tell him the time has come.”

Charlotte hurried across the shady courtyard and into the harem, where she found the eunuch standing with his back to a wall, watching as he always watched.

“Alev’s ready to give birth,” she blurted. “She’s in the courtyard, on the bench beneath the elm tree.”

Rashad strode out of the harem without a word, and Charlotte followed on his heels. She had no idea how to assist with the delivery of a baby, but she wanted to be of help if she could.

The eunuch lifted Alev into his arms and carried her inside, where an immediate flurry began.

Most of the women of the harem scattered, chattering like brightly colored birds, but the
sultana valide
silenced them just by entering the room. She gestured to Rashad to follow her, and the eunuch, the old lady, and the pregnant woman disappeared.

Charlotte kept a vigil for a while, with the others, then
drifted back outside and climbed the elm tree to study the horizon. There was no sign of Patrick’s ship, so she turned her gaze to the sugar white desert, bright as snow under the fierce sun, and wondered what was on the other side.

Later, in a quiet corner of the
hamam,
she wrote a long letter, full of lies, and addressed it to her family.

C
HARLOTTE SENSED A DISTURBING UNDERCURRENT OF TEN
sion in the harem, even though the other women seemed unconcerned that Alev was about to give birth. They went on laughing and bathing and reading and eating chocolates and sweetmeats, just as if it were an ordinary day.

When Rashad came out of the
sultana valide’s
apartments, Charlotte was waiting for him. “How is Alev?” she asked.

The eunuch sighed. “This will be a difficult day for her,” he said, in his formal way. “But if she gives the sultan a son, she will surely become a
kadin. “

Charlotte gnawed at her lower lip, a quiet anger bubbling within her—an anger toward a system that reduced women to the status of pretty dolls, or brood mares. “And if she gives the sultan a daughter?”

Rashad’s dark eyes reflected understanding as well as a gentle warning. “Female children stay with their mothers while they’re small, and if they’re bright, they often go away to school. A sultan’s daughters are princesses, after all.”

A loud cry sounded from within the
sultana valide’s
quarters, and Charlotte shuddered to think what it would be
like to be at that old woman’s mercy, particularly during childbirth. “I want to go to Alev,” she said, starting to go around Rashad. “I could help—”

The eunuch stopped her by gripping her arm. While his grasp wasn’t painful, she could not have escaped it by her own strength. “The sultana will not tolerate your interference,” he said. “It is dangerous to flout her wishes.”

Charlotte felt both desperation and fury as she heard Alev scream again. “I don’t care!” she spat, trying to pull away.

Rashad would not release her. Indeed, his round, mahogany face set, he double-stepped Charlotte through the
hamam
and then past the baths. Beyond the marble and tile pools was a line of doors, and it was to one of those chambers that the eunuch took his captive.

He turned a latch and thrust Charlotte into a sumptuously furnished cell, containing a pallet covered in red velvet, an unlighted brazier, a large bowl of tropical fruit, and a carafe of water. Overhead, a huge window let in the light of day.

Charlotte was too frightened to take in more than the most cursory details, however. She stared at Rashad, overwhelmed.

“I will not hurt you,” he said, in his authoritative voice. She found her tongue. “Then let me out of this—this fancy jail!”

The eunuch executed a slight bow. “Of course,” he agreed. “As soon as Alev has given birth, and you have calmed yourself, you will be free to join the others.”

“Free,” Charlotte mocked, folding her arms and beginning to pace. “I’m a prisoner in this place—a bird in a fancy cage—and I don’t know why no one will admit it!”

Rashad surprised her with a deep, resonate chuckle. “You are a very rebellious bird,” he observed, “and you’d better learn to behave before the
sultana valide
has your feathers plucked.”

Heat pooled in Charlotte’s cheeks. “That old woman has no authority over me!”

“This is not America,” Rashad pointed out, his expression serious now. “You have no rights here. And the
sultana valide
has every authority!”

Charlotte swallowed. If she ever wished for an adventure
again, she thought miserably, she hoped she’d be struck by lightning. Assuming she survived this particular exploit, of course. “I want to go home,” she said, after a long moment, her voice small and tremulous.

An expression of sadness moved in Rashad’s features. “So do I,” he replied hopelessly. “But I will never see my own country again, and neither will you.”

With that, he went out, closing and locking the door behind him.

Charlotte rushed about the small chamber in a burst of panic, then forced herself to calm down and sank to her knees on the pallet. She thought with longing of the tall elm tree in the courtyard, and the liberty, however hazardous it was, that lay beyond the palace walls.

She had eaten a banana, taken a nap on the pallet, recited every poem and sung every song she knew, before Rashad came back at sunset and released her.

“The sultan celebrates the birth of twin sons,” the eunuch announced. “He wishes you bathed and dressed and sent to his chambers to dance for him.”

Charlotte gulped. “D-Dance for him? I’m afraid I don’t know any steps…”

Rashad smiled. “Then I would suggest that you make some up,” he replied, ushering her out of her luxurious prison cell. “The sultan will have his amusements.”

She glared up at her companion, wanting to gall him because he was so arrogant, so officious, and because he’d held her captive so many hours. “You speak well for a slave,” she said.

Rashad’s dark eyes sparked, but Charlotte couldn’t tell whether he was feeling anger or amusement. “I should. I accompanied the sultan to England when he took his schooling, and before that, I served his father.”

They reached the baths, and once again a bevy of chattering women surrounded Charlotte, stripping away her robe, escorting her into the water. A thorough washing followed, and her hair was carefully shampooed. After that, she was dried and stretched out on a marble table, where a warm paste that smelled of sugar and lemon was spread on the skin of her legs, allowed to harden slightly, and then pulled
off. The soft, fair fuzz covering Charlotte’s lower extremities was being removed.

The process was almost painless, but its implications worried Charlotte right out of her fog of decadent pleasure. “What are you doing?” she demanded straightaway, trying to sit up.

She was immediately pushed back onto the table, and the spreading and pulling continued. Even Bettina Richardson, the eternal innocent, could have figured out that she was being prepared for the sacrifice, like a helpless lamb, and the realization filled Charlotte with panic.