Chapter Twenty
July 2, 1811
About one o’clock in the morning. A caravansary in the oldest section of Aleppo, Syria. A room shared by Lord Foye and Sabine. The room was unnaturally quiet. Foye lay on a mattress too short for the length of his body; Sabine lay on another, curled into a ball.
Sabine awoke to darkness, momentarily disoriented. Everything around her was unfamiliar, the room, the scent of dust, the pallet on which she lay, the air and the weight of everything that had happened to her. She wasn’t certain of the time, except that it was still dark out. She’d been dreaming, nothing pleasant, unfortunately. Though the specifics faded before she opened her eyes, a residue of fear and grief clung to her so resolutely she could hardly hold back a sob.
Her life wasn’t going to come right. How could it? She was thousands of miles from home. The world she’d known no longer existed. Godard was dead, and her safety was no longer a given. She would never mend things with her uncle and never have the chance to tell him she loved him. And this thing with Foye. My God, she was one moment relieved that he’d turned his back to her and the next near tears with the conviction that he no longer wanted her. As for her feelings? When Foye looked at her, she wanted him, her body ached for him, longed for him to touch her or kiss her.
She held her breath and willed herself not to move, but she couldn’t stop her tears. They continued to slide down her cheeks. Eventually, she had to sniff. She did so slowly, trying to make it sound as if she were merely taking a long, deep breath in her sleep.
“Sabine?” Foye said in a voice just above a whisper.
Oh hell. He was awake.
She used her sleeve to wipe her eyes. “Forgive me,” she said when she could speak without risk of betraying her emotion. “I’m sorry if I woke you. I didn’t mean to.”
“Are you all right?” He spoke slowly, as if he might be about to fall asleep again.
She doubted he wanted to know the answer. Why would he? His mattress rustled as he moved, resettling himself under his blanket. She didn’t dare move. The slightest motion might break her apart. She wasn’t a weak-willed woman, or so she liked to think. All she needed was a moment to gather herself. Just a moment, and she would have herself in hand.
“All is well, Foye. Go back to sleep. I did not mean to disturb you.”
“Are you certain?”
“I could not sleep. That’s all.” She had to speak in one breath lest her voice tremble and betray her. By the final word every last atom in her lungs had been expelled, and she couldn’t get a decent breath of air afterward. Foye moved closer to her. She shifted too late to avoid him. But all he did was press a handkerchief, or some bit of silk anyway, to her cheek.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“It’s nothing, Sabine.”
“Have I told you thank you for coming after me?”
“I should have come sooner. I wish I’d come before your uncle died.”
“Thank you, Foye.”
“I am very sorry for your loss,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too.” The backs of his fingers brushed over her cheek, an incidental contact that, nevertheless, sent a shiver through her, and, inexplicably, made her feel even more alone than ever. “I miss him,” she said. “I miss him terribly.”
“I know you do, my love.”
“You’re probably wiping off my color,” she said. Her stomach fluttered, and that so disconcerting heat settled between her thighs.
“I’ll inspect you in the morning,” he said with a low laugh.
She did so love the sound of his voice. “That would be wise, I think.”
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could make out the shape that was Lord Foye, but not much more. The features of his face were lost in shadow. She took his handkerchief from him. She expected him to move away from her, but he didn’t. His hand remained on her cheek, his fingers moving over her, along her temples, beneath her eyes. He meant only to comfort her, of course, but the slow motion of his touch set off shivers that pulled deep in her belly.
“I was shocked when my elder brother died,” Foye said. “I hadn’t even heard he was ill. I expected he would continue on living and before long produce an heir or two and the Marrack line would go on as it always had.”
“I’m sorry he died,” Sabine said.
He let out a short breath. “One day I came home—I had a modest home then, in Hampstead Heath, which I still have—to find the family solicitor waiting for me in the parlor. He stood up when I came in, I remember that particularly, and before I could say good day, he addressed me as “my lord.” That was enough for me to know what had happened. Two terrible words and I knew. Even so, I didn’t believe it at first. My brother ought to have lived many, many more years. I’d assumed he would. His son had died the year before, and his wife conceived right away. The week before he died, she delivered a girl. Without warning, there was but one Marrack left to carry on the family name and traditions.”
“Didn’t you want the title?” she asked.
“God, no.” His voice fell like velvet on her ears. “When it meant my brother had died? No. But what choice had I? It made no difference that I was happy with my life as it was or that I would have preferred to have my brother alive.”
“I often wished I’d had a brother or sister.”
“It’s not as though we didn’t have our differences. We did. But I miss him still,” he said. He removed his hand from her cheek. She was disappointed.
“You shall miss him for the rest of your life,” she said. “As I will miss Godard.”
“Yes, I think so. And now I am the last Marrack. There are no more of us.”
Silence fell between them. At least this time the quiet was not an uncomfortable one. “If I’d known you then,” she said, “I would have told you how sorry I was.”
“Thank you.” His voice was a gravelly, sleepy rumble. “The words do help.”
She caught his hand in hers and held tight. “Why did you come after me, Foye?”
“For you,” he whispered. She kissed his fingers, and he drew in a breath. “Why else? To convince Godard…of whatever he needed convincing of.”
“What’s to become of us?” She tightened her fingers around his. “What will happen now, Foye? The truth. No lies between us. Tell me the truth now. I’d rather know now. Before it’s too late for me.”
Foye levered himself up and leaned over her. “Do you doubt me?”
“No,” she cried out softly, just managing to choke back a sob. “No, Foye. I love you. But I doubt my future. Mr. Lucey said you don’t want to be married. He said he thought you still loved Rosaline.” In the dark, she pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I don’t know what I think, Foye. Sometimes I think you can’t possibly want to marry me, or that you only say so because you feel you must. Sometimes I think I’ll die if you don’t love me, and other times I’m sure you still love Rosaline.”
“I don’t love Rosaline.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “It’s true you are completely unsuitable.” He laughed softly. “You read my fate in my tea leaves, Sabine. Don’t you remember? So, let me tell you what’s to become of us so that you are sure of your future with me. We’ll return to England and be married in St. Paul’s. You’ll carry orange blossoms and scarlet roses in your bridal bouquet, and everyone will marvel at my good fortune.”
“I’ve always liked peonies,” she said. Her heart clenched hard. Such happiness didn’t seem possible for her. “Can’t I have peonies in my bouquet?”
“Whatever you like, dear heart. We’ll honeymoon in Cornwall, and if you like, I’ll help you finish Sir Henry’s book.”
“Yes, that sounds lovely, Foye.”
“And now, my love, close your eyes and sleep.”
“Yes, Foye.” Quiet descended again, and that was as unfamiliar as everything else. Somewhere in the khan, men were laughing in the rhythm of a language other than English. Sabine was once again overwhelmed by how alone she was. What if Foye had not come? The thought shook her deeply. Scenes replayed in her head, unpleasant ones that she could never make come out right. The pasha’s advances to her. Godard’s final illness. The weeks after Crosshaven’s lies when she’d hardly spoken to anyone, even her uncle.
Quietly she sat up and hugged her arms around her upraised knees. She missed the familiar weight of her hair. Her clothes were unfamiliar, she was not used to having a garment covering the whole of her lower body and legs. The very fact of her being dressed in men’s clothes was wicked and improper and sinful. Foye was here, but she still felt alone.
“Sabine,” Foye said in the dark. He reached over and found her hand.
“Go back to sleep, Foye.”
He sat up. His voice came from low in his chest, gravelly still. “I can’t. Not when you’re awake.”
She turned her head toward him, her chin resting on her knees. He’d gone to bed in shirt and breeches. No waistcoat. No coat. No cravat. The breadth of his chest beneath that white linen was impossible to miss. “Usually when I can’t sleep I read,” she said because she didn’t want the quiet again. Horrible things filled her head in the silence. Her chest tightened with repressed tears. “Something dull if the case is desperate.” She shrugged. “I’ve no books, dull or otherwise.”
“Nor I.” His shoulders were terribly broad. “What about drawing? Do you ever sketch when you cannot sleep?”
She rested her chin atop her knees again, her arms still wrapped around her shins. “Yes,” she said. “I do. But I’ve no pencil and no sketchbook.”
“If you had supplies, would you sketch?”
Sabine faced him in the darkened room, grateful for his willingness to distract her. “Tonight? Yes. I’d sketch you if I could. I’m determined to do you justice one day. Don’t laugh,” she said. “I am determined.”
“I am not laughing.”
She saw the edge of his mouth twitch. “Liar.”
“Damn it all—” His eyes widened. “I beg your pardon.”
“If I could,” she said, “I would draw you from the nude.”
Foye blinked rapidly.
Sabine closed her eyes. Had she really just said that? Apparently, her capacity for humiliating herself was boundless. Well. It was true, wasn’t it? If she could, she would draw Foye like that.
“What a thought,” he said.
“Male artists draw women from life.” There wasn’t much chance of recovering her dignity now, so she just blundered on. “It’s considered a requirement for an artist’s proper training.”
“That,” he said, “is because the female form lends itself to artistic expression.”
“The Greeks did not omit the male nude,” she replied. Talking to Foye distracted her from the residue of her nightmares. “And lest you attempt to distinguish between sculpture and a two-dimensional representation of the human form, let me say first that art is art no matter the medium and second that I have seen the relevant amphorae.”
“Your uncle did not shelter you nearly enough.”
“Probably not,” she replied.
He reached for one of his saddlebags, left on the floor by his bed. “Have you drawn from the nude before?” he asked while he opened one and rummaged inside.
“If I tell you I haven’t, that does not mean I shouldn’t.”
“Do you think I implied that?” Foye turned back to her with a pencil and a small notebook, soft bound and covered with oil paper. He held them out, but she didn’t take them. He put them on the mattress beside her.
“It is too dark for me to draw.”
He rose and relit the lamp he’d put out and brought up the level of light in the other. Not much but enough that if she wanted to, she could, in fact, sketch.
“Fiat lux,” he said. He held out both hands, palms up. Let there be light. Back on his mattress, he lay on his side, facing her with a hand propping up his head.
“You should go back to sleep,” she said.
“I’m not the least tired.” He reached for the sketchbook at her feet and opened it. “I’m not much of an artist.”
She glanced down and put a finger on one of the pages. The drawing there was of a ruined building. “What castle is this?” she asked.
He leaned closer to look. “Maraat Al-Numan. And all I did while I was there was think of you.”
“Godard and I went to Serjillo with Nazim Pasha. On our way to Kilis. I kept imagining some Roman elder was going to return home and demand to know what we were doing in his house.” She traced the outline of a door in a crumbling castle wall. He’d captured the desolation in the landscape quite well. Architectural details he’d rendered particularly well. She turned a page. “These are very good, Foye.”
“I haven’t your talent, but I like to draw a scene when I can.” He sat up, knees drawn up under his blankets and his arms wrapped loosely around the outside. His hair curled willy-nilly over one side of his forehead, and the tilt of his head made the awkward angle of his cheek all the more apparent. “Draw something,” he said.
She turned another page or two. He’d captured a view of the bazaar in Constantinople. On another page was the Great Mosque. Very competently done. She picked up his pencil “You?”
His eyes stayed on her. “If you like. Or fix one of those things I tried to put down.”
She chose a blank page and started to sketch as she spoke. She knew the lines of his face so much better now. “I began to hate him,” she said softly. “My uncle, not Crosshaven, for taking me away even though I’d done nothing wrong. And yet,” she said, “I was glad to be gone from London. From England. Word had reached even Oxford. Some of Godard’s friends cut us dead. Even after we left England, we sometimes went days without speaking to each other except for, ‘Please pass the sugar,’ or ‘Yes. That is a magnificent example of an Ionic column.’”
“Are you drawing me?” he asked.
She glanced at him, then returned her attention to her page. “Do you mind?”
“I’m no Adonis, Sabine.”
“You have a noble face.” His reply to that was a laugh, and she fixed him with a stare. His gaze met hers, one of those accidental exchanges that seemed to happen between them from time to time. Her stomach went shivery again. “Must I be stern with you, Foye? I warn you, you will not find that pleasant.”
“No. Please no.” His mouth curved into a smile.
“Then stay just as you are.” She worked on the line of his cheek and started on his eyes. “You have very pretty eyes,” she said.
“You tread upon dangerous ground, Sabine,” Foye said. “You might turn my head with such talk.”
She laughed. “I doubt that very much.”
This time she was succeeding in capturing the strength in his face, but her pencil was losing its edge. “Have you a pen knife? Or a pencil that’s less dull?”
He reached into his saddlebag again and pulled out a wooden case that held a supply of pencils. None were as sharp as she liked, but she found one that would do and began on the details of his mouth. His lower lip was fuller than his upper, and there was a tenderness there, lurking in the masculinity of his jaw and chin.
“You are very busy there,” he said.
She held out the book and showed him the page. “If I had my own materials I would have done better, but it’s a tolerable likeness, I think. Better than what I managed before.”
Foye looked at it for quite a while before he said anything. “My God,” he whispered. “Me to the very hook in my nose. You are an artist, Sabine.” He touched the page. “Did Godard know this about you? I know he discouraged you, but did he understand the extent of your talent?”
She reached over and took the sketchbook back. “He knew a great deal, Foye. But not everything. Now, since you will not let me draw you from life, I think we are done. Surely, now we may sleep.”
But Foye stared at her, his eyes intent. “I’ve lost my soul to you,” he said. “My heart.”
She stretched out a hand and pressed her fingertips to his chest until she felt the beating of his heart. “Your heart beats here, Foye. In your chest. You carry it with you wherever you go.”
“And yet you are its owner.”
She thought of Rosaline and how badly Foye had been hurt. She was glad Rosaline had jilted him. Sorry he’d been hurt yet glad that it had happened. “I’ll keep it safe for you,” she said. “Will you do the same with mine?”
He reached up and over his shoulders to grab the back of his shirt and pull the linen over his head. While she watched, his hands disappeared underneath his blanket.
“What you are doing?” she asked, though it was clear he was removing his breeches. In an instant, all the tension from before roared back. She was too aware of him. And aware of him not as Lord Foye but as a male animal to her female. Yes, she far was too aware of herself and her body’s reaction to him.
He used his foot to pull away the blanket. “There,” he said. He lay back and threw one arm above his head. The other he left at his side, relaxed, his long fingers loose.
The Marquess of Foye was naked.