Tasha Alexander - Tears of Pearl

“Justice, Lady Emily, is not always so clear.”

“Did you know Ceyden?”

“To a degree.”

“Will you not tell me more?” I watched his face, searching for evidence that he was withholding something, but his countenance was calm, focused.

“You question the sultan?” He placed his palms flat against the board in front of him, and I expected anger to cloud his eyes. Instead, I saw laughter.

“Bad form?” I smiled at him.

“Terribly.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” I said. “I’m merely trying to form as accurate a summation of the girl’s life as I can.”

“You’ll find all you need to know in the harem.”

“Your concubines have been less than forthcoming. It’s almost as if their words are chosen for them.”

“And this surprises you?”

“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.

6 April 1892

Emily, Emily, Emily:

I am writing this letter without giving you a single clue as to where I am. This is due entirely to the fact that I’m a dreadful and unredeemable human being who likes to torment her friends. You’ll forgive me, though, in the end. I’ve embarked on a magnificent trip—one funded by my parents in exchange for letting them plan for me a wedding of the sort you so wisely avoided. Can you imagine what it would take to persuade me to accept such a thing? I need hardly tell you that I insist you and Colin come to New York for the hideous extravaganza.

My poor Mr. Michaels has no idea what he’s in for. He’s agreeable—as a fiancé ought to be—to anything so long as it doesn’t interfere with his responsibilities at Oxford. The nuptials will be between terms, so we’ll have only a brief honeymoon before he has to return to his academic duties. I confess to rather obscene excitement at the thought of watching him lecture and knowing that afterwards we’ll return home together. Every nerve is full of the greatest anticipation. Can you imagine the breadth of our conversation? The perfect joining of mind and body? But of course I need not explain this to you—for at the moment you’ve a greater volume of experience than I and know well the pleasures of an intellectual marriage. How lucky we both are!

Not surprisingly, my dear parents insisted that I travel with a suitable companion, and she has already proven an incredible nuisance. Remember my mother’s friend Mrs. Taylor? She recommended her daughters’ former governess, and my mother snapped her up at once. I call her Medusa, as she’s turned me to stone at least a dozen times since we left England.

Other than that, I’ve little of interest to report. Mr. Michaels has been sending me the most supremely ridiculous love letters every day. I’m sorry to say they’re rather badly written—too scholarly—but the sentiments are heartily appreciated nonetheless.

I am, your most awful and debauched friend,

Margaret Seward

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.