Page 59 of Inconvenient Honor
Lily’s brows rose. “Mrs.?”
“Honesty is well enough between us, but it is better if I do not know,” the Valide Sultan said, suddenly all business. “Unmarried pregnancy is a great disgrace. If I am known to condone it, it will reflect badly on me. Among the others, you will be an unfortunate widow.”
Lily nodded numbly in the face of the woman’s grim pronouncement.
“The consequences could be grave. You might be put out on the street.”
Lily swallowed. She could only nod again.
“Good. Now, women enter this place in many ways from many places. Once here, they become Turk. They are given Turkish names. Your name shall be Zambak.”
“Zambak?” Lily mused, “Lily?”
“Exactly. We will hide you in plain sight until your father comes to claim you. He will come, no?”
“May God hear your words, Highness.”
She thought of England then and her home in London. She thought of Richard. She opened a space in her heart and locked England, her father, and Richard Hayden away. She prayed silently for the baby she carried.
Lily turned to leave, but the Valide Sultan had one more thing to say.
“Know this, Zambak. If you are found to not be a widow, I will deny any knowledge of the deceit. You will face the consequences alone.”
Four daysof inspecting the vaunted towers that ringed Malta taught Richard two things. First, Malta’s historic fortifications, built by the Knights of Malta during the seventeenth century, were numerous, massive, and crumbling. Few looked suitable for modern gun emplacements, and the sheer number required a larger force than the crown had seen fit to assign. He also learned that, however brilliant Maitland might have been as a land soldier in Ceylon and Spain, naval strategy escaped him.
About “Maria Dalco,” he learned nothing. Maitland met her only the once, found her “plain as a post,” and ignored her ever after. Richard doubted Lily could ever make herself “plain,” but he couldn’t dismiss the possibility.
Maitland’s aide responded to Richard’s discreet questions with, “We saw nothing unusual. Why is she of interest to the Foreign Service?”Shrewd observer, that one. Avoid him now but make note for the future.
None of the troops, even those around the harbor itself, laid eyes on the woman. It had been foolish to ask, particularly the day Maitland overheard him and raised a questioning brow. I need freedom to poke around on my own.
It took him three more days to arrange a meeting between Maitland, one British admiral, and a group of captains that included a captain of an American merchantman. Richard arranged the effort to accomplish two things: allow the naval forces to explain their view of Malta’s defenses and to distract the governor for a day so as to make himself free to investigate something other than stone and cannon.
As soon as the discussion between colonels and captains came to its predictable boil, Richard took his leave, climbed the long granite staircase to the guest wing, and rummaged through his things.
The clothing he had arrived in lay under citrus-scented linen. He couldn’t easily scour the docks looking like a London beau. His impulse to order the excitable Maltese footman assigned to him to not burn the clothes proved correct. Though aired, his suit still smelled offish. He discarded the coat. That will be burned. The stained shirt needed only a tear and some garden dirt to give him an adequate disguise; the trousers looked unspeakable without assistance.
He took the servant stairs and avoided being seen by anyone but a startled parlor maid. He slipped out through the French doors of the governor’s private breakfast room without notice. The docks lay a quarter mile downhill.
Taverns lined the lanes around Malta’s port. Like seaport taverns anywhere, they teemed with seamen and dockworkers deep in their cups. The latter were his quarry. His disguise may have passed, but his upper class accents would give him away in English. He tried his imperfect French. It seemed to work.
“Lots o’fancy folk come through here,” he said to a burly dockworker. “Bring trunks with ‘em, do they?”
“Great fancy pieces. Scurry about like ants shouting at a body not to drop ‘em,” the man answered. He gave his name as Spiru.
“Did you hear about that puffed up marquess, though?” another broke in. “Let some fisherman cheat him into sailing two days in the hole with stinking fish. Mario at the big house says his clothes stunk all the way to the attic.”
The entire tavern rocked with laughter. Richard looked down at his shirt and joined them. The damned thing cost more than this man makes in a year. The absurdity of it tickled him, and he laughed harder.
As he hoped, a raucous discussion about the foibles of the rich and favored broke out, with tales of eccentrics, bullies, and dandies in abundance, but no single woman.
“Your Mussulmen travel just heavy as your Englishman,” Spiru said at last.
“Yes, but they keep their women quiet,” another retorted. Richard remembered his name as Gorg. “English women fairly flay a man’s skin off his back if he’s rough with their precious trunks.”
Richard saw his opening to ask about women travelers, but beforehe could push his luck, a booming voice echoed through the tavern. “Work to be had, lads,” he shouted, and the tavern emptied out.
Spiru slapped Richard on the back and led him toward the disembarking ship. Before he had time to think, the Marquess of Glenaire found himself unloading cargo from an Egyptian vessel. Pride in his own fitness, honed in hours at Jackson’s Pugilistic Club, faded quickly when his shoulders began to ache. He saw Gorg and Spiru exchange an amused glance and redoubled his efforts.
