The Panther and The Pearl (37 page)

The purser looked at the two bobbies dragging Kalid away. They were now being assisted by a British sailor as Kalid kicked and twisted, trying to break their hold.

“Hold on a minute,” the purser said, and the policemen stopped. The purser led Sarah to Kalid, signaling with his eyes for the bobbies to continue holding their prisoner.

“Kalid, what on earth are you doing here?” Sarah asked, taking in his disheveled appearance and heavy beard.

“I followed you from Paris. I had a hotel suite for us there, but when you didn’t show up I found out that you were going to Calais and then to Dover. I spoke with your aunt.”
 

“Is she all right?” Sarah asked, imagining Emily’s reaction to Kalid’s visit.Sarah knew what he was like when he wanted something.

“I think I startled her,” Kalid said.

“She probably had apoplexy.”

“Look here, can we do this down at the station?” one of the bobbies said in a Cockney accent.

The purser looked at Sarah, who nodded.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be traveling with us, then, miss?” he asked, smiling.

“Not today. Will you be so kind as to remove my luggage from cabin 12B?”

“Yes, madam. It will be held for you at the Greenhouse Station, and you can redeem your ticket at the bursar’s office.”

“Will you be accompanying the prisoner to the lockup?” the second bobby said.

“I suppose so,” Sarah said resignedly.

The little procession, Kalid, Sarah, and several policemen, wended its way across the dock, as the crowd cleared a path for them, applauding wildly. Sarah could feel her face flaming as Kalid was handed into a black mariah and she followed with another bobby in a paddy wagon. The clopping of the horses’ hooves punctuated her musings as they traveled the several cobbled city blocks to the police station.
 

Once there, Kalid was kept away from her and she waited for several hours as a series of telegrams established Kalid’s identity. A few minutes later Scotland Yard warned the local constabulary that it would have an international incident on its hands if it proceeded against him. Kalid was released in short order, and Sarah rose slowly as he came into the waiting room, his eyes fixed on hers.

“Will you stay with me?” he said to her, as if the arrest had never taken place.

“Kalid, we can’t talk about this here.”

“Why the hell not? I’ve just traveled the globe to track you down, and I want an answer.”

“Don’t order me about, Kalid, or you’ll find that your trip was wasted.”
 

“All right, all right, I’m sorry. I’m trying to change, it takes time. You don’t really want to go back to America and never see me again, do you?”

Sarah said nothing.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“I love you, Sarah. I’ll do anything, be anything you want. Just don’t leave me.”
 

He touched her face and she put her hand over his, her eyes filling with tears.

“No more making decisions for me, treating me like a child?” she said.

“No more.”

“And if I disagree with you I can say so and you won’t have a conniption?”

“No conniptions,” he said solemnly.

“And I won’t have to lead an idle life in the harem?” she said, searching his face.

“No. You can run the palace school, I was going to talk to you about it anyway. I never had the chance.”

“And my relatives can see me any time they want? James can come and visit?”

“Any time. Anything else?”

“I want you to free Memtaz.”

“Done.”

“She’ll probably want to continue at the palace, she doesn’t know anything else, but you have to pay her a salary.”

“Fine.”

They were beginning to attract attention, standing in the middle of the tiled entry area of the police station, negotiating like two barristers.

“Let’s go to a hotel,” Kalid said, putting his arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “I haven’t any money at present but Achmed can wire me some by the time I have to pay the bill.”

They went outside and Kalid hailed a cab. Sarah sat with her head on his shoulder during the ride, and Kalid booked them a room at the best hostelry in Kent, the Southington Arms. His piratical appearance attracted some glances but his upper crust accent convinced the clerk that he was an acceptable guest, especially when he sent a telegram to Turkey and received a prompt, and fulsome, reply.

The second they entered the room he turned to her and took her in his arms.

“I missed you so much,” he said, kissing her, his beard scraping her cheek. “The thought that I might not be able to stop you was driving me wild.”

“I wanted you to stop me,” Sarah replied. “I was devastated when I calmed down and realized that you weren’t coming after me.”

“But I was! I did! I was just one half step too late all along the way.”

“It doesn’t matter now. We’re together, and I’ll never leave you again.”

Kalid began taking off her clothes, tossing them on the floor, and when he got down to her whalebone corset he stared at it in pure amazement.

“How can you Western women wear these things?” he asked. “It looks like an instrument of torture.”

“It is.”

“Then why bother?” he asked, unlacing her.
 

“To have a tiny waist.”

“You have a tiny waist without it,” he said, spanning hers with his hands. He bent to take a nipple in his mouth.

“You don’t understand women,” she sighed, sinking her fingers into his hair.

“That’s certainly true,” he replied, raising his head and scooping her up in his arms. He deposited her on the bed and flung himself down next to her, embracing her immediately.

“I ached for you,” Sarah whispered, clutching him to her and closing her eyes.

“Never again,” he replied, and made exquisite love to her to prove it.

“Why do they call this Yorkshire pudding?” Sarah said to Kalid, around a mouthful of it. “It isn’t pudding, it’s a biscuit.”
 

“Why do the British do anything?” Kalid countered, topping off her glass of wine from the carafe. “Why is Cholmondeley pronounced ‘Chumley’? Why is Magdalen College called ‘Maudlin’? They ruin their own language.”
 

“You must have had quite a time with English when you first came here.”
 

He shrugged and bit into a room service carrot. “I knew some English from my mother, it was the local expressions that threw me. I sounded very much the foreigner until I got acclimated.”

“But you did pick up your useful Oxford accent. I’ve noticed that the natives find it very impressive.”

“It’s a class distinction the British revere. Here, your station in life is determined by the way you speak. In my country we are more open about it.”

“Yes, slavery is pretty hard to mistake,” Sarah said dryly.

“Are we going to have that discussion again?”

“Would you really have whipped Memtaz when I wouldn’t obey you that time you wanted to go riding?” Sarah countered.

He grinned. “You’ll never know.”

“I don’t think you would have. You were just manipulating me, weren’t you?”

He went on smiling mysteriously.

She threw her napkin at him, and he laughed.

“I have something to tell you,” she said.

“You want me to convert Bursa to a democracy and turn Orchid Palace into a hospital for the indigent.”

“That would be nice, but that’s not it.”

“Well?”

“You remember that discussion were having about the size of my waist?”

“Mmh?” He was buttering a slice of bread.

“It’s going to be expanding.”

“What is?”

“My waist.”

He dropped the knife and looked up at her.

“Sarah,” he said soberly.

“Yes?”

“You’re...?”

“Pregnant. Yes, I am.”

He shoved his tray aside and came to kneel at her feet. He put his head in her lap and she stroked his hair.

“I didn’t think I could be any happier, but now I am,” he said, his voice muted by the folds of the hotel’s dressing gown. “How long have you known?”

“Since before I left Turkey.”

“And you were just going to go home to Boston and say nothing about it to me?”

“I thought you didn’t want me.”

“My son would have grown up in America,” he said.

“Or daughter.”

“It will be a boy.”

“How do you know?”

“Kosem’s fortune teller said that my firstborn would be a male,” Kalid replied seriously.

“Kosem’s fortune teller? Well, with that reliable source on our side we should start picking out names for boys right now.”

“Whatever we call him, he will be the next Pasha of Bursa,” Kalid said.

“He will be yours and mine, and that’s more important.”

“I love you, Sarah,” Kalid said.

“I waited a long time to hear that.”

“I will say it every day from now on, for the rest of our lives,” he replied.

“For the rest of our lives,” Sarah repeated contentedly, and smiled.

– THE END –

I am Doreen Owens Malek, author of over forty books and lifelong fan of romantic fiction. I live in PA with my husband and college student daughter, a mini dachshund and a sun conyer parrot. I would like to tell you a little about myself.

I came to writing by a circuitous route, starting out as an avid reader of
Jane Eyre
and
Wuthering Heights
and
Gone With the Wind
and
Rebecca
, and any other similarly themed books I could find. I first worked as a teacher and then graduated from law school when I desired a more lucrative and independent career. I had always been discouraged from pursuing a writing career by the volatile nature of the business and the relatively poor chance for success. But the realization that I needed a focus for the future encouraged me to do what I had always wanted to do. I sold my fledgling novel to the first editor who read it, and I have been writing ever since. I have written all types of books for all types of people, but my favorite literary pursuit is and always has been romance. Nothing is as rewarding as hearing from my readers, so please use my website to communicate your thoughts and criticisms, as I am always eager to learn from you. 

A romance novel rarely disappoints me: in an uncertain world filled with tragedy and sadness, reading about an appealing woman finding a strong man to love her and share her life is the perfect escape. I like to read and write stories in which the main characters overcome obstacles to get together, and then stay together because their mutual devotion cannot be denied no matter what else is happening around them. They always HELP each other and reinforce the quaint but enduring notion that love conquers all—at least in the fictional universe of my imagination. So pull up a chair and take down a book—or pick up a Kindle—and join me in a world where the heroes are tough and headstrong but never boorish and the heroines are feminine and sympathetic but never helpless.

Happy reading!
— Doreen Owens Malek

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LOOK FOR

Panther’s Prey

(the sequel to
The Panther and the Pearl
,

available for digital download in May 2012

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