“It does shock me, a little.”
“Aha!”
“Not the woman”—Yashim, you liar!—“but the intimacy. It…it’s so public. It makes a show of something that should be private, between the man and the woman.”
“So you do not believe in the representation of the human form? Or you would set other limits?”
Even her voice, he thought, was scandalous. Her curiosity was more like a slow caress, as if he were being explored, limb by limb.
“I’m not sure how to answer. When I read a novel I find, there, a representation of form. Also the same intimacy— and other states of emotion, too. In the novel they delight me. They seem shocking to me in some of these paintings. You will accuse me of being inconsistent.”
“I’ll accuse you of nothing, monsieur. When you read—perhaps you possess the characters yourself? What passes between you and them remains private. But the paintings are very public, as you say.”
She looked at him shyly from the corner of her eye.
“You Turks, I think, understand a great deal about private matters.”
Yashim gazed wildly at the painting on the wall.
“Harem—it is forbidden, is it not?”
“But not to you, madame,” Yashim replied.
Eugenia stifled a little gasp of surprise. “Oh? As a woman, you mean?”
“Of course. And by virtue of your rank, I have no doubt you could visit the sultan’s own apartments, if you wished.” He saw the eagerness on her face, and half-regretted his remark.
“By invitation, surely?” Her voice was coaxing now.
“But I am sure that an invitation could be arranged,” Yashim answered thickly, wondering at his own behaviour. What was he doing?
“I had never thought of it,” she said quietly. “By you?”
Yashim was about to reply when the door to the ambassador’s office swung open and the prince appeared, followed by Potemkin.
“What the devil—” The oath froze on the ambassador’s lips.
Eugenia gave him a small, cold smile.
“Monsieur Yashim and I were having a most interesting conversation. About art,” she added. “Am I right?”
Yashim bowed slightly. “Certainly, princess.”
The prince looked heavily from Yashim to his wife.
“The gentleman was on his way out,” he snapped. “I am sure he is very busy. As are we all. Good day, monsieur.”
Yashim put a hand to his chest and inclined his head. Once again he kissed Eugenia’s slender hand. She said: “Forgive me for detaining you. I do hope we can continue our conversation another time.”
Her tone was impeccably ambassadorial. Cool. Disinterested.
But Yashim’s fingers were hot where she had squeezed them lightly with her own.
[ 40 ]
At the baths he wanted heat, and more heat. When his head seemed banded with flaming hoops he let the masseur pummel him like dough and then plunged himself into the icy water of the
