“Yes, because I’d been led to believe you support my investigation. A word from you would surely—”
“It is not I you must convince, but my mother,” he said.
“Does she not listen to you?”
“Does your mother listen to you?”
Laughter escaped my lips, and I felt my cheeks flushing hot. “Never.”
“We are of one mind, then, at least in this regard. And if your mother is like mine”—he leaned closer to me —“the less said about it the better. Her spies are everywhere.”
“But surely your own spies hold them at bay?”
“One can only hope.”
He was warming to me. I felt we were on a course to getting along famously, and this brought me no small measure of pride. To have so quickly made an ally of the sultan himself! A slight tug of conscience made me almost wish Colin were standing behind me, reminding me of what, exactly, goes before a fall, but I dismissed the notion and beamed, ready to forward the rest of my agenda.
“There is something else I would like to discuss with you,” I said. “I spoke with the young woman who found Ceyden’s body. She’s terribly upset.”
“Understandable. Roxelana is a sensitive girl.”
“I have heard that, on occasion, concubines are released from the harem and allowed to marry. Would you consider allowing her to do that?” It was not a perfectly satisfactory solution to Roxelana’s plight, but better, I hoped, than nothing. I would much prefer to find a way to fully free her of her bonds, to let her rejoice in independence as I did, but fear of Colin’s disapproval—particularly if my scheme was revealed to the British government—kept me from taking a more creative approach to her predicament. And this was something of which I was not proud in the least.
“There are times when such arrangements are made. Not, however, at the whim of the concubines. These marriages are careful political alliances, gestures of good faith to valued advisers from their sultan. It is a mark of the highest trust to be selected for a role like that.”
“How so?”
“Wives can sometimes be in a position to observe much.”
“They spy for you?”
“They ensure that I have staunch supporters in their husbands.”
“I’ve no doubt Roxelana would serve you well.” As I said the words, my throat clenched, and a chill of horror rippled through me. I hated negotiating as if the girl were some sort of chattel, hated even more the thought of marrying her off to some random and, undoubtedly, unsympathetic man. But so far as I could tell, there was no other way out of the harem.
He put down the pencil and flashed me a look full of power and disdain, his brow lined, his eyes narrow and strong. “No.”
“No?”
“No. Is there anything else?”
“Could we not—”
“There will be no further discussion on this topic.” He nodded sharply towards a dark corner of the room, and a tall eunuch appeared from the shadows. “He will escort you out. I did, Lady Emily, very much enjoy components of our conversation.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the eunuch’s firm grip on my arm stopped the words. He all but dragged me, not easing the pressure of his fingers until he’d deposited me outside the palace gates, leaving me standing, dumbfounded, already feeling the beginnings of bruises.
Chapter 7
I’d refused to get out of bed that morning, insisting Meg bring my mail upstairs, where I burst out laughing more than once while reading Margaret’s letter. My American friend, daughter of a fantastically wealthy railroad baron, was a kindred spirit whose love of the study of classics had brought us together while I was in mourning for my first husband. Although she was a Latinist (formally trained at Bryn Mawr) and I preferred Greek, our interests overlapped enough to provide for an intellectually stimulating friendship unlike any I’d known before. She’d become, in the span of a few years, as close to me as Ivy, though the two of them couldn’t be more different. Margaret challenged me while Ivy offered comfort, and I couldn’t imagine doing without either of them.
Margaret’s modern thinking and passionate belief in the rights of women inspired me, and the way she managed to convince her parents to support her studies was impressive. She was an expert at negotiating trade- offs with them. A mere year ago, she’d agreed to a Season in London (with the theoretical goal of catching a titled husband) in exchange for a term at Oxford. In the process, she convinced everyone a duke (my dear friend Jeremy Sheffield) had mercilessly broken her heart and so completely won her parents’ sympathies that they hardly balked when a few months later she’d accepted the proposal of a don at Oxford. She had admitted to being rather astonished at having agreed to marry anyone but said that some charms could not be resisted, and Mr. Michaels had them in abundance. It had all turned out brilliantly.
“I don’t like it at all,” Colin said, turning over and rubbing a gentle hand over the now blooming purple marks on my arm when I’d finished reading the letter. “How on earth did this happen?”
“It was entirely inadvertent,” I said, not wanting to confess that I’d angered the sultan. “A guard was leading me out of the palace, and you know how steep the paths are at Yıldız. His grip was firm and I bruise easily.”
“No one’s grip is that fierce by accident.”
“I’d never before considered the possibility of deliberately violent eunuchs.” I folded the letter and tossed it
