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‘You lost your tour and your money and you didn’t cry. You don’t strike me as the kind of person to cry over nothing.’
She couldn’t tell him of her love or of the bracelet hidden away in her belongings that was a double of one here. Couldn’t admit her fears about either. And without a shred of inspiration for what she might make up to account for her tears, instead she licked her lips and said, ‘There was a reason I chose Turkey to visit, something I haven’t told you. Something that didn’t seem important to tell you.’
And she told him of her great-great-great-grandmother setting off a century and a half before from her home in rural England to journey in a far-off land. Of how she’d disappeared in Constantinople with no trace of her to be found, and how she’d somehow miraculously reappeared five years later, when her family must have assumed her lost for ever, to the feared white slave trade, or worse.
Kadar listened as she explained about the diary she’d found, stained and worn in that attic, where she’d read of the exotic places her gran of so many generations ago wanted to visit. He listened when she explained about the missing pages, torn from the diary, as if her ancestor’s story had been so scandalous it had been destroyed.
‘What happened to her?’
‘Eventually she married a local man and had many children and lived a long life, but, as far as I know, she never travelled again.’
‘So why the tears?’
‘I came looking for her when I chose Turkey to visit. Wanting to see the sights that she had, wanting to follow in her footsteps. And, I know it will sound strange, but I feel close to her here, in this place.’
‘Here?’
‘I know,’ she said, swiping her cheeks of the tracks of her tears. ‘Maybe it’s because I’m going home soon, but it’s like I’ve found something of her. A glimpse of where she stepped, or at least what she would have experienced and seen.’
‘You should have told me earlier. We could have gone to see some of the places she was excited about seeing.’
She hadn’t wanted to tell him. ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested. Besides, it wasn’t like we were friends going on holiday together.’ Far from it. She’d been an imposition and she’d been made to feel it. An imposition of convenience, because he’d made no secret of the fact he’d enjoyed their lovemaking.
He pulled her closer into the crook of his shoulder on a sigh. ‘Maybe that is true. But still, I don’t know why you would cry over it now.’
‘I told you it was nothing.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘I thought I had hurt you.’
‘No,’ she assured him as the tiny lights in the constellation above the bed winked down at her knowingly.
That would come later.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE FLIGHT BACK to Istanbul was unremarkable, the turbulence of the thin winter air as they rose over the mountains no match for the turbulence going on inside him.
The days they’d spent at Burguk had been some of his best. He should know. His best days were easy to find.
Days spent in the company of his desert brothers. At the university where the foursome, initially resentful at being thrust together, had forged a bond made of steel. At their occasional adventures since then—with Bahir introducing them to the excitement of the casinos and the games of chance at which he somehow excelled, and with Zoltan racing across the desert sands to save the princess Aisha from the clutches of the warped and power-crazed Mustafa.
Days when the four were together to celebrate first Zoltan’s and then Bahir’s weddings.
Good days.
And now the few nights spent at the Pavilion of the Moon with a woman whose smile could outshine the sun and stars.
Could outshine the sun and stars.
But the last few days... He looked across at her in the business-class seat alongside him. Her eyes were closed and yet still he could see the tension that had been hovering in the background like a dark threatening cloud.
What was it that was troubling her?
What was it lingering behind her smile, dimming the lights he’d become accustomed to seeing?
Because she would still smile when she caught him looking but other times she was nervous. Ever since that night she’d burst into tears.
Because of the story of her ancestor?
Why hadn’t she mentioned it before? They hadn’t been close at the start, but these last few days a bond had grown between them.
