Page 57 of Inconvenient Honor
“When your grandpapa comes, he will take us back to England in time, safe and above contempt.” She hoped it would be so. Her hopes lay in her knowledge of Sahin, who failed her only once, and in her loving, though often neglectful, father. She prayed her hopes were not in vain.
Another wave of nausea overtook her. To control it she stared at the ceiling and began listing her qualifications as a teacher:languages, education, and arts. When the interview came with the Valide Sultan, she would be ready.
Richard crawledinto Malta on a small boat with peeling blue paint, filthy sails, and the reek of fish.
The Spanish fisherman he hired in Gibraltar gave him an ironic salute when he disembarked and mockingly patted the purse safely stowed in his pocket.
The grizzled old thief had demanded top coin when he realized how badly Richard wanted immediate transportation. No more formal passage to Malta could be found that departed sooner than a week; Richard agreed to the fisherman’s extortionate terms.
It would take days to get the stink out of his clothes. For once he didn’t regret traveling without a valet. His man in London would die of heart palpitations at the sight.
Thirty minutes later Richard presented himself to Sir Thomas Maitland, governor of Malta on behalf of the British throne. The unannounced appearance of the Marble Marquess, dirty and disheveled on his doorstop, stunned the governor. He gaped for a full minute before he barked orders to his staff for “bath water and plenty of it” and ordered lodging for his distinguished guest.
Richard bit back the one question he came to have answered and let a flurry of excitable Maltese servants carry him off to newly aired rooms.
It took Maitland’s staff an hour and a half to assist the marquess with his bath, locate the correct amount of citrus oil to counteract the effect of fish, and truss him into an ill-fitting, borrowed suit.
They hustled him off to the formal dining room where he sat with disgruntled impatience at the governor’s dinner table with a minor attaché, two colonels, an expatriate baroness, and the Anglican bishop of Malta and his wife, all of them eager to meet the Marquess of Glenaire. If Richard found the company less than sterling, thetable setting and the cuisine matched that at the houses of the highest society in England. As it should for the cost of maintaining this pestilential place.
Most of the company cared little for the reasons behind his arrival, wishing only to bask in the presence of the Marble Marquess, luminary of foreign affairs and of the court. Maitland, however, obviously burned with curiosity.
“To what do we owe the honor of your visit, my lord?” he asked over the soup course.
“We are particularly interested in the safety of our shipping in these waters,” Richard explained, staying as close to the truth as possible.They’ll think me a fool if I tell them I’m pursuing a woman who doesn’t even want my attention.
The governor general looked for a moment as if he might question the need for the foreign secretary’s second to personally research in the field. He did not.
“Were my reports not received?”
“Your reports,” Richard improvised, “were intriguing.”And damned vague.“I became curious to see for myself.”
Maitland looked skeptical, but he let the issue of his reports drop. Richard’s dinner mates plunged into a lively discussion on the topic, each giving a firsthand—although, based on his research, inaccurate—account of the situation.
By the middle of the main course, conversation moved on to much more delicious gossip of amorous intrigue on the island. Over a particularly tasty duckling and beetroot dish, Richard finally saw an opening.
“My men reported a concern recently. Perhaps you can clarify something for me,” he said, drawing all eyes, eager to help their high-ranking guest.
“We had word of a young woman traveling alone this way, a tiny young lady, accompanied only by a bodyguard or servant of Eastern extraction.” He spelled out the dates. The guests looked at one another, puzzled. “With all of the instability, the Foreign Service hasconcerns about a woman alone. She sailed on the Captain James out of Boston.”
Maitland’s face lit up. “Ah, Miss Dalca, Maria Dalca. She is well. You may rest at ease.”
“She arrived here safely?”
“Yes,” the governor beamed. “But we only had her company briefly. She is bound to her home in Maldavia after schooling with her English grandmother.”
“You spoke with her?”
“Briefly. Polite enough chit. Terribly accented English. Shows some polish from her time in England. Small. Lovely girl with volumes of dark brown hair.”
Brown hair. Not Lily.
“Excellent. My men worried for naught,” Richard murmured.
“Brown hair,” the baroness chuckled coyly. “Perhaps.”
What the hell does that mean? Was her hair brown or not?
“She transferred to a Russian vessel and sailed for Thessaloniki where her aunt will meet her. Whether they travel overland or continue by sea to Constantinople and the Black Sea I cannot say,” the governor rambled on, filling in details about how much his majesty’s government had been glad to help her on her way. Richard heard only two words.
