Page 51 of Silver Angel

Chapter Twenty-five

Across the corridor from Jamil’s rooms, a eunuch was waiting for Chantelle, sitting there Turkish fashion on the floor. He scrambled to his feet when she burst through the door, putting out an arm to detain her. It was Kadar.

He made no comment on her haste. “I will take you to my master.”

She nodded. At least he didn’t ask what had happened. Haji probably would, though, and so she was dragging her feet before she reached the harem.

Kadar led her to Safiye’s apartment, where Haji was having a good gossip while he waited for her. But he wasn’t expecting to see Chantelle this soon.

“So he truly was impatient, was he?”

Chantelle stood in the doorway, cringing to hear Safiye laugh at this observation. Her fingers worried at the pearls around her throat, and she seized on them as an excuse to avoid giving a reply.

“Will you return these to Lalla Rahine with my thanks for the use of them?”

Haji Agha took the pearls from her, but his expression turned thoughtful at such an obvious evasion. “Did all go well, Shahar?”

She bowed her head to avoid those searching eyes of his. “I would rather not talk about it.”

He accepted that, thinking she was merely upset over the loss of her virginity. “Very well, you may go to your room and rest. Perhaps we will talk later.”

God, she hoped not, but she hurried away before he changed his mind and decided to interrogate her now. Before she reached her room, she was trembling. She dismissed Adamma with a sharp word and curled onto her narrow pallet. The trembling increased.

Oh, God, what had she done? Would the next person to appear at her door be the executioner? Was her stupid virginity worth her life? God, no! She had already discovered that she could survive its loss. She had thought herself raped on board ship. She had felt miserable and shamed, but it hadn’t been the end of the world.

But this just might be. He had been so angry!If she angers Jamil by resisting him…other women have died for less. Other of Jamil’s women, or had Rahine been speaking in generalities? As if it mattered now. She had done the one thing she had been told she could not do. She had refused the lord and master the use of her body.If she angers Jamil by resisting him…She had done both.

Stupid, so stupid! If only she could go back and do it over. So she despised him. So he was a ruthless, coldhearted barbarian. What did that count next to her life? But she couldn’t go back. She could only leave the harem by his summons, and that was unlikely to ever come again. After all, what use did he have for women who found him detestable, when so many adored him?

At this very moment another woman was probably in his bed; Chantelle hadn’t mistaken that rigid bulge she had been sitting on for what it was. Jamil wouldn’t wait long to relieve it, for his rampant desire had been the very reason he had been furious with her resistance.

Even if he didn’t order her death, even if she were only punished for today’s defiance, it was doubtful she would ever see him again after she had told him plainly that it was he she objected to. She was going to perish in this horrid place, forgotten, forsaken, wretched.

The self-pitying tears had dried a half hour later when Rahine stormed into her room. In fact, Chantelle had cried herself to sleep, so she was understandably disoriented on being awakened so abruptly, and so loudly.

“You foolish child! In all my years here I’ve never seen anyone with such a total lack of self-preservation!” When Chantelle paled at those words, Rahine added tightly, “No, you are not to die yet, though I wonder if that isn’t the answer. Jamil could be told you had succumbed to sickness, and then he would no longer be infuriated by you, as if he doesn’t have enough to inflame his temper already.”

“I—I couldn’t help it.”

“Don’t give me nonsense, Shahar. You may be stupid, but I am not. You were warned, yet still you refused my son what is rightfully his. And he is in such a temper now that he has ignored his councillors and left the palace to go riding. Riding! Putting his very life in danger! And all because you think you are too good for the Dey of Barikah.”

“That isn’t why,” Chantelle insisted.

“Isn’t it? Or is it that you think you are better than every other woman here? They all came to my son as virgins. Is your virginity more prized than theirs?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then what did you think you were saving it for?” Rahine demanded, her fury rising again, mixed with the anxiety she was feeling for Jamil’s safety. “Did you forget so soon that you are here to stay? The only man whocantake it is Jamil, and if you think he will still want it after today, you are mistaken.”

“I realize that,” Chantelle said in a whisper.

“Do you? Then you will agree that you are no longer fit to grace this court, let alone the court of the favorites, which you could so easily have aspired to. Let us see if you find the kitchens more to your liking.”

“Is that to be my punishment?”

“It will be your life’s sentence, if Jamil is wise enough to forget about you. But that is assuming he returns to the palace unharmed tonight. If not, then you may be sure your lifewillbe forfeit for causing his recklessness.”

Derek rode hell-bent over the plain, at last able to give the Thoroughbred his head to gallop full speed. He hadn’t bothered to dress for the excursion other than to strap on his own boots for riding. He had been too impatient to get out of the palace, away, anywhere. He didn’t care about the panic he left behind. His impersonation of his brother was on temporary hold. It was Derek who needed space, who needed the wind in his hair, the surge of a powerful animal beneath him—the distance to keep him from doing something he would regret, for he had beenthatclose to having Shahar brought back to him and forcing her to his will.