ready to assist Gareth.
“Well done, my dear, well done.” Her beloved nodded to her above a very grubby, infuriated villain. Gareth had painfully twisted the fellow’s arm behind his back, thereby winning the bout.
“And you, my love.” Her heartbeat slipped slowly back into normalcy. He was alive, with her, for a little longer.
Barnesworth stirred and she stooped to check him.
Together they awaited the forces of the law, who’d perform the cleanup—and make sure none of St. Arles’ packages entered Chiragan Palace.
At least on this Friday night.
Chapter Thirty-six
Constantinople, night of 7/8 May 1887
The moon glowed golden and ripe with mystery, just above the horizon, as if the rippling waters were a road leading to undreamt-of delights within its portals. Dark woodsy scents and sweet flower aromas sifted into the air to tease the nose from the quiet western shoreline.
But the Old City, on the eastern shoreline, was very different. All of the great mosques which dominated the city’s backbone were bedecked in light, from ancient Hagia Sophia to the immense Blue Mosque. Gareth could even see Mihrimah Sultan Mosque far to the east like a beacon of hope, where Abdul Hamid had warned Portia and him about St. Arles’ plans.
Horses’ hooves, plus the heavy metallic clank and rattle told how thousands of soldiers returned to their barracks, after lining the streets while the Sultan lighted the first candle.
The Sultan was safe and Portia had finally consented to depart for England.
He should be glad. He could leave her now and let her have a quiet annulment. Nobody need know about a marriage contracted in a foreign land, which had only lasted for a few days.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” she asked again. Her face was very white in the moonlight. No lights showed where Kerem Ali Pasha’s yali slept within its sheltering gardens on the Bosporus’s eastern edge.
“St. Arles will have to lie low here until the furor dies down. That should give you more than enough time to return to London and look after your friends, no matter how cautious they are.” His cheeks were too stiff for an encouraging smile. Stupid idea, anyway.
Her family’s men started to lower her last trunk into the Naiad’s launch and they both turned to watch. He, at least, was grateful for the distraction.
The northern wind, a harsh counterpoint to the evening’s festival, shoved the small boat sideways, away from the pier. A sailor’s foot slipped and the fellow lost his grasp on the damn chest.
Gareth lunged forward to help prevent the rifles and ammunition from crashing through the boat or, worse, into the man’s leg. His fingers closed on the padded handle just as two other sailors caught the damn heavy thing, and their helmsman brought the recalcitrant vessel well under control.
Portia let out a long, almost inaudible sigh.
Gareth flashed them a quick thumbs up and stepped back.
“Sorry, sir,” the helmsman said. “Very choppy seas running tonight and I wasn’t quite prepared. We’ll do better when the lady comes aboard, I promise.”
His heart, which had dropped back into its normal rhythm, rocketed into something far closer to a bullet’s hungry search for mayhem.
They’d damn well better look after her or he’d tear their eyes out for frightening her. If anything happened to Portia, he’d…he’d…he’d be better off dead. He’d found a way to keep on living after his parents died. But he didn’t think he could do that if she wasn’t in the world.
He didn’t have to see her every day because he didn’t deserve that. He only needed to know she was happy.
He loved her.
The truth hit him like a stampeding longhorn bull, closing his lungs and taking the strength from his knees.
He swayed slightly, unable for the first time in years to find his knife against his wrist.
Portia tugged on his sleeve and he looked down at her. Dear God in heaven, she was beautiful. She’d been a damn smart fighter when she’d tripped up that fellow with her parasol, too.
“So you do think St. Arles is still a threat?” she hissed, a distinct note of triumph in her voice.
He tried to remember what she’d just been saying to him, after she’d dragged him away from the sailors. “Could be.”
“He’ll certainly be furious when we dump the rifles at sea.”
Was she having second thoughts now?
“There’s no other sure way to destroy them, unless we sail them all the way back to London. A ship’s the only way to keep them far from St. Arles and his hirelings.”
“But I have to catch the