City of Jasmine. Deanna Raybourn

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ out of the suite to find Rashid. To my astonishment, he was nowhere to be found, and in his place Halliday waited, hat in hand, and a broad smile lighting his face.

      “Surprised? I took the day, told the office to go hang because I was going to show a lady the city,” he said, offering me his arm. I wondered what had become of Rashid, but I had often been told the Easterner had a more flexible sense of time and I made up my mind to adopt the habit myself as long as I was in Damascus. I took Halliday’s arm, and together we wandered the souks, each devoted to a different trade—silversmith, bookseller, tailor, mercer, tobacconist. There were coppersmiths and birdsellers, dealers in antique furniture and Persian rugs all calling their wares and bantering, and over it all hung the scent from the perfumers and spice merchants whose fragrant wares brought buyers from across the East. Halliday showed me the souk el-Jamal, the odiferous camel market, and afterwards we braved the din of the souk el-Arwam, where armourers and weapon-makers cried their wares next to the sellers of shawls and water pipes. Through it all wove the beggars pleading for alms, and the public scribes selling their skills for a few coppers. Vendors offered roasted peas and sweet pastries while others carried steaming urns of tea to provide refreshment on the street.

      It was a glorious riot of colour and noise and scent and Halliday kept up a commentary straight out of Murray’s guide book. I felt a little wistful for Rashid’s much more colourful delivery. The boy had shown me the great bazaar that stretched all the way to the walls of the Umayyad mosque and explained how the roof had been torn off when the Turks left, opening the arcaded shops up to the sunlight for the first time in half a millennium. He had described the scene the day the city fell to the conquerors, Arab and Westerner marching together to drive out the Turks, how the women of the city showered them with flower petals and sprinkled them with attar of roses until the cloud of perfume wafted over the desert sands all the way to Baghdad. Rashid could paint a picture with just his words, and although Halliday tried, he didn’t have the knack for it. We stopped at a quiet coffee house just outside the souk, and he ordered a pot of coffee and some pastries.

      When the refreshments came, the coffee was nearly thick enough to stand a spoon in and terribly gritty. I pulled a face and he laughed.

      “You must strain the grounds between your teeth. Like this.” He demonstrated, and after a few attempts, I got the hang of it. The pastries were crispy and stuffed with nuts and bathed in warm honey. Those were much more to my taste and I stuck a finger in my mouth, licking off the succulent stickiness.

      “I know. I’ve appalling manners. Pay no attention,” I instructed him.

      He smiled, his slight dimples in evidence. “I think you’re everything that is charming and unfettered. You’re like a breath of fresh air, so different to the girls I knew back in England, Mrs. Starke.”

      “You were supposed to call me Evie.”

      He shook his head slowly. “I want to. It just seems like such a dashed impertinence. I mean, you’re Evangeline Starke. You’re becoming something of a legend in certain circles.” He hesitated. “And I have looked into your husband. A man of many talents. That sort of thing could put a man off of wooing,” he added lightly.

      “Some men,” I corrected. “I ought to feel sorry for them.”

      “Do you feel sorry for me?”

      I tipped my head, taking him in from firm jaw to broad, innocent brow under a silken fall of dark blond hair. It was a good face, a decidedly English face. I shook my head. “No. I think you like me for me.”

      “I do. More than I ought,” he said, a certain bleakness coming into his eyes.

      “Oh, dear,” I said. I smiled, but didn’t dare laugh. “Is it as bad as all that?”

      “It is,” he returned, matching my light tone. “Appearances to the contrary, I’m rather desperately poor. Haven’t a bean of my own to offer a woman.”

      “If it’s any consolation, you make a good showing for a fellow who’s up against it.”

      He shrugged. “Splendid genes and nothing to show for them. My grandfather is the Duke of Winchester.”

      I gave him my best po-faced expression, and he burst out laughing. “Bless you for that. I should have known tossing out his title wouldn’t impress you. I’ve seen the cuttings from places like Monte Carlo and Biarritz. I know you’ve met your share of Russian grand dukes and American millionaires. A plain English duke must seem like rather small change in comparison.”

      “The Russian grand dukes are all poor as church mice and just looking to get their names into the newspapers so they can make a few quid themselves. And the Americans are after publicity for whatever they’re selling—rubber tyres or bath soap or cough medicine. They’ll be gone as soon as my headlines are. At least being the Duke of Winchester is something to hang your hat on. It still means something in England.”

      “Not for me,” he said. His expression didn’t turn pitying and I liked him better for it. “My cousin will inherit. I’m the second son of the third son. No title of my own, and twelve relations between me and the strawberry-leaf coronet. I’m left to make my way in the world with a good name and a few decent suits.”

      “And some good connections,” I pointed out. “Surely your grandfather knows people in the diplomatic corps who might help you along.”

      He smiled. “You don’t know Grandfather. He has been locked in his study writing a treatise on the subject of Tudor tax laws since 1893. Oh, he creeps out for Christmas, but the rest of the time he’s content to stay in his study. I think the housemaid occasionally dusts him and turns him to face the sunlight like an aspidistra.”

      I laughed and he carried on, still lightly, although I suspected it was an effort.

      “So, that’s me. Educated and tailored beyond my means, but with great hopes. What of you, Evie? See, there, I managed it. Next time I promise it will sound almost natural.”

      “I’m like you, making my own way as best I can.”

      “But there is a double-barrelled surname in your family tree, as well,” he prompted.

      “Ah, the Finch-Pomeroys. My grandfather wasn’t as grand as yours—only an earl and on my mother’s side, so it doesn’t much count. When Grandfather died the whole caboodle went to a cousin who kicked it in ’07 and then onto his nephew. Everything has passed so far away that the current earl is a perfect stranger. I’ve never even seen the estate myself, although Aunt Dove grew up there with my mother.”

      “And where is your mother now?”

      “Dead,” I replied succinctly. “She married badly.”

      “A footman?” he asked with a bit of a twinkle in his eye.

      “Worse. A writer, and a dead broke one at that. But they were very much in love. There was a good deal of laughter in that house, although neither of them had the sense God gave a goose. If Papa sold a story, he’d spend every penny in a day. I remember when he sold a book of poetry and he went straight from the bank to the furrier. He bought Mama a silver fox stole she had to pawn a week later to pay the butcher’s bill. It was always furs for Mama or pearls. And for me, it was books, beautiful books with silk ribbons to hold my place. It was always Christmas when Papa sold something—the trouble was he didn’t sell much.”

      “He sounds a remarkable man,” Halliday said softly.

СКАЧАТЬ