her
niece’s disappearance approached one month. Assaulted by guilt, her
confidence shattered, she was reduced to taking out her frustration
on the two gentlemen who were making the greatest effort to help,
Lord Elgin and Viscount Lyndon.
“ Your reliance on something called
“bundle women” is absurd,” she cried, brandishing her plain tan
parasol as she paced the exquisitely knotted carpet in the
ambassador’s reception room. “You must send another petition to the
Grand Vizier, demand an audience with the Sultan. If you will not,
then I must go myself!”
“ No!” “That you will not!” Both men
spoke at once.
“ Miss Pemberton,” the viscount said,
containing his youthful anger with some difficulty, “you will only
succeed in doing more harm than good. We are trying to conciliate
the Grand Vizier, not incite his fury. We must wait until one of
the bundle women reports that she has actually seen Miss Blayne in
the Sultan’s harem. Only then do we dare challenge the
Vizier.”
“ Believe me, Miss Pemberton,” Lord
Elgin added, “we are very much on sufferance in this empire so much
larger than our own. The Sultan may have welcomed our help in
driving Bonaparte out of Egypt, but, partly thanks to the dratted
Aimée de Rivery, he is, at the moment, more inclined to favor the
French than the English.”
“ But you tell me women have no power,”
Miss Pemberton shot back, glaring.
The ambassador, wearied by Miss Pemberton’s
constant nagging, minced no words. “Aimée de Rivery gained her
power in a manner I doubt you would wish to emulate, ma’am.”
Cassandra Pemberton gasped. Viscount Lyndon
turned sharply away to hide his face. And then, because he had
grown considerably older and wiser during the anguish of the past
month, Lord Lyndon mastered his emotions and managed to address
Miss Blayne’s aunt with both sympathy and sincerity. “I promise
you, ma’am, the moment we hear Miss Blayne is definitely inside the
Sultan’s seraglio, Lord Elgin and I will be on our way to the
palace.” Though how they would pry young Penny loose from her
imprisonment the viscount could not yet imagine.
Hastily, Lord Elgin rang the bell for his
majordomo. Miss Pemberton found herself ushered to her carriage
with the ambassador’s assurances—undoubtedly insincere, she
grumbled to herself—still ringing in her ears. But Lyndon was
showing far more bottom than she had expected in a gentleman so
young. Yes, if anyone could rescue her dear Penny, it was Jason
Lisbourne.
A tear coursed down Miss Pemberton’s
cheek. She, who had vowed never to cry like a silly girl, was once
again on the verge of being awash in saltwater. Oh, Penny, dearest child, is there any hope left? For I fear
the men do not think so.
For Gulbeyaz, the White Rose, newest
odalisque in the seraglio of Sultan Selim—ruler of an empire that
stretched from Russia through Arabia to North Africa, and from
Greece to the Caspian Sea—there were more lessons. She learned to
walk more daintily, with steps that seemed to float above the
tiles. She prepared coffee over and over again until she earned a
nod of approval from the Kislar Agha himself. She continued her
lessons in the other skills necessary to an odalisque, not all of
them to do with lotions, potions, and scenting her clothes. In
short, Miss Penelope Blayne studied humility and the acceptance
that women are placed on earth solely for the pleasure of men.
Blessed with intelligence and the resiliency
of youth, Penny conquered her shock, and as one day passed into the
next, she raised her eyes and attempted to make sense of this
exotic, indolent life, as walled off from the Ottoman Empire as it
was from her beautiful countryside so far away in England. She even
acquired two new friends, Ayshe and Leyla, dark-haired, dark-eyed
beauties of about her own age, who took her in hand and introduced
her, by way of gestures, giggles, grimaces, and groans, to the ways
of the seraglio outside the
niece’s disappearance approached one month. Assaulted by guilt, her
confidence shattered, she was reduced to taking out her frustration
on the two gentlemen who were making the greatest effort to help,
Lord Elgin and Viscount Lyndon.
“ Your reliance on something called
“bundle women” is absurd,” she cried, brandishing her plain tan
parasol as she paced the exquisitely knotted carpet in the
ambassador’s reception room. “You must send another petition to the
Grand Vizier, demand an audience with the Sultan. If you will not,
then I must go myself!”
“ No!” “That you will not!” Both men
spoke at once.
“ Miss Pemberton,” the viscount said,
containing his youthful anger with some difficulty, “you will only
succeed in doing more harm than good. We are trying to conciliate
the Grand Vizier, not incite his fury. We must wait until one of
the bundle women reports that she has actually seen Miss Blayne in
the Sultan’s harem. Only then do we dare challenge the
Vizier.”
“ Believe me, Miss Pemberton,” Lord
Elgin added, “we are very much on sufferance in this empire so much
larger than our own. The Sultan may have welcomed our help in
driving Bonaparte out of Egypt, but, partly thanks to the dratted
Aimée de Rivery, he is, at the moment, more inclined to favor the
French than the English.”
“ But you tell me women have no power,”
Miss Pemberton shot back, glaring.
The ambassador, wearied by Miss Pemberton’s
constant nagging, minced no words. “Aimée de Rivery gained her
power in a manner I doubt you would wish to emulate, ma’am.”
Cassandra Pemberton gasped. Viscount Lyndon
turned sharply away to hide his face. And then, because he had
grown considerably older and wiser during the anguish of the past
month, Lord Lyndon mastered his emotions and managed to address
Miss Blayne’s aunt with both sympathy and sincerity. “I promise
you, ma’am, the moment we hear Miss Blayne is definitely inside the
Sultan’s seraglio, Lord Elgin and I will be on our way to the
palace.” Though how they would pry young Penny loose from her
imprisonment the viscount could not yet imagine.
Hastily, Lord Elgin rang the bell for his
majordomo. Miss Pemberton found herself ushered to her carriage
with the ambassador’s assurances—undoubtedly insincere, she
grumbled to herself—still ringing in her ears. But Lyndon was
showing far more bottom than she had expected in a gentleman so
young. Yes, if anyone could rescue her dear Penny, it was Jason
Lisbourne.
A tear coursed down Miss Pemberton’s
cheek. She, who had vowed never to cry like a silly girl, was once
again on the verge of being awash in saltwater. Oh, Penny, dearest child, is there any hope left? For I fear
the men do not think so.
For Gulbeyaz, the White Rose, newest
odalisque in the seraglio of Sultan Selim—ruler of an empire that
stretched from Russia through Arabia to North Africa, and from
Greece to the Caspian Sea—there were more lessons. She learned to
walk more daintily, with steps that seemed to float above the
tiles. She prepared coffee over and over again until she earned a
nod of approval from the Kislar Agha himself. She continued her
lessons in the other skills necessary to an odalisque, not all of
them to do with lotions, potions, and scenting her clothes. In
short, Miss Penelope Blayne studied humility and the acceptance
that women are placed on earth solely for the pleasure of men.
Blessed with intelligence and the resiliency
of youth, Penny conquered her shock, and as one day passed into the
next, she raised her eyes and attempted to make sense of this
exotic, indolent life, as walled off from the Ottoman Empire as it
was from her beautiful countryside so far away in England. She even
acquired two new friends, Ayshe and Leyla, dark-haired, dark-eyed
beauties of about her own age, who took her in hand and introduced
her, by way of gestures, giggles, grimaces, and groans, to the ways
of the seraglio outside the
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