Deanna Raybourn - City of Jasmine

“Really? Curious. One of the best kissers I ever knew was a poof—but he was royal. Perhaps it makes a difference,” she said consolingly. “But that doesn’t change anything, child. You need a proper seeing-to.”

“A ‘seeing-to’? What on earth—” I held up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

She pursed her lips. “Sex, dear. I’m talking about sex. You need some. And badly, I should think.”

“Aunt Dove, we are not having this conversation. Not now, not ever.”

She pretended not to hear me. “It isn’t your fault, my dear. I imagine after a man like Gabriel Starke, I’d be a bit choosy about my male companions, as well. But just because you won’t find someone to...er, fill his rather large shoes, so to speak, doesn’t mean you can’t have a perfectly pleasant time of it.”

“How do you know he had large shoes to fill?” I demanded. The fact that she was entirely correct was beside the point.

She smiled. “Because for the duration of your brief marriage you looked like the cat that ate the canary. Now, you fought like tigers and he was a crashing failure as a husband. That leaves the bedroom. Clearly, things were satisfactory there. More than satisfactory, if I’m any judge of these things, and I think I am. But just because you are still pining for Gabriel, that’s no reason not to have an interesting time of it. In fact, I think you should. A woman’s insides need lubrication, you know. They’ll go all dry and stick together otherwise.”

I ignored her vague grasp of biology and seized on something else. “I’m not pining for Gabriel. I can’t imagine why you’d think so.”

She rose and kissed the top of my head. “Child, you’re transparent as glass.” She went to the door. “I seem to remember the last thing Gabriel Starke ever gave you was a copy of Peter and Wendy. Interesting that you named your aeroplane the Jolly Roger.”

She closed the door before my shoe hit it, neatly marking the glossy wood.

The brooding over my failed marriage had taken its toll by the time we reached Constantinople. I was snappish and tired, with dark circles under my eyes, but the photographers were waiting. I powdered my face and painted my lips with the brightest crimson lipstick in my box and posed for photographs with a smiling Aunt Dove and a moulting Arthur. He shed bright green feathers all down the train platform, but by the time we had settled in for the last leg of the journey to Damascus he had perked up. Aunt Dove flirted her way through Customs outrageously and as a result, our bags weren’t so much as opened, much less searched. She plied me with pistachios—which I was darkly afraid had once been intended for Arthur—and in due course we arrived in Damascus. The approach to the city was not the finest. For that we ought to have come from Baghdad, crossing the desert to find Damascus shimmering in its oasis with the snowy bulk of Mount Hermon looming up behind. But rolling through the orchards of olive and lemon, pomegranate and orange, we saw Damascus standing on the plain, a gleaming, jewelled city of white in a lush green setting. It smelled, as all ancient cities do, of stone and smoke and donkey and spices, but over it all hung the perfume of the flowers that spilled from private courtyards and public gardens. Sewage ran in the streets, yet to me it would always be the city of jasmine, the air thick with the fragrance of crushed blossoms.

We collected a taxi at the station and after a harrowing ride through narrow streets, the driver deposited us neatly on the walk in front of the Hotel Zenobia, a new establishment in a very old structure. Once a pasha’s palace, it had been only recently converted to a private hotel. It was decorated in the traditional Eastern style with courts fitting together like so many puzzle boxes, each with its own staircases and tinkling fountains where gilded fins darted through the pale blue petals of the lilies. Outside, the manager—a tall, elegant Belgian—was waiting. He bowed and kissed Aunt Dove’s hand, murmuring something into her ear. She dropped her eyes and gave him a doelike look from under her lashes, and before I knew what was happening, he snapped his fingers for porters and in a very short time we were ensconced in the largest suite in the hotel. It was a delicious mixture of Damascene luxury and European sensibility with a wide veranda and comfortable sitting room linking our bedrooms. The bedrooms had modern furniture, but the sitting room was fitted with traditional Eastern divans, long and low and thick with tasselled silk cushions.

The maids bustled, unpacking and hissing at one another in French and Arabic, occasionally breaking into giggles when they discovered something unexpected like my leather aviatrix suit or Aunt Dove’s French underwear. But I merely stood and surveyed the surroundings while Aunt Dove flipped through the post that had been waiting for us.

I gave her a suspicious look. “Do you know the manager? From before I mean?”

Her expression was determinedly innocent. “Who? Étienne? Oh, our paths have crossed from time to time.” Before I could ask more, she took me in hand. “We’re travel-fatigued,” Aunt Dove pronounced. “It happens when one passes too quickly from one culture into another. I’ve always said trains were uncivilized. One ought only ever to travel by steamship or camel.”

“So sayeth the woman who has learned to fly my aeroplane,” I remarked. A large bowl of orchids had been placed upon a low table between the cushion-strewn divans and I bent to sniff it.

Aunt Dove waved off my remark. “That is entirely different. Aeroplanes are novelties, not real travel. No one would ever want to use them for anything other than publicity. Now, I want a beefsteak and a cigarette and a stiff whisky, not necessarily in that order. Go and wash for dinner, child. It’s time to see Damascus.”

* * *

Thanks to a broken strap, I was ten minutes later than Aunt Dove in getting ready and found her in the crowded lobby. She was wearing a gold turban with her great paste emerald brooch and an armful of enamelled bangles that clattered and clinked as she gestured. The lobby was one of the many courtyards of the hotel, this one furnished with the usual divans and endless pots of flowering plants and palms. Soft-footed servants trotted back and forth with trays of cocktails and little dishes of nuts while a discreet orchestra played in the corner. The place was thronged with international visitors, most of whom were craning to get a look at Aunt Dove. She was chatting animatedly with the handsomest man in the room. There was nothing unusual about either of those things. She often dressed with originality, and one of her greatest skills was finding the most attractive and charming men to do her bidding. She caught sight of me just as I descended the stairs and waved an elegant hand.

“Evie, darling, come and meet Mr. Halliday. He’s a British diplomat posted here to keep an eye on those wily French.”

I extended my hand and he took it, staring at me intently with a pair of delightfully intelligent grey eyes. “How do you do, Mr. Halliday? Evangeline Starke.”

“Miss Starke,” he said, shaking my hand slowly and holding it for an instant longer than he ought.

“Mrs.,” I corrected gently. “I am a widow.”

A fleeting expression of sympathy touched his features. “Of course. The war took a lot of good men.”

I didn’t bother to correct him. Gabriel had died during the war—just not doing anything useful like actually fighting.

He glanced to Aunt Dove. “Lady Lavinia was just telling me about your Seven Seas Tour, but she needn’t have. I’ve been following your exploits in the newspapers. It’s dashed thrilling. Will you be doing any flying here?”