Taming Charlotte by Linda Lael Miller

fitfully and ran when Patrick released him.
    If the insults he’d already offered didn’t bring Raheem out from under some maggot-covered rock, Patrick could think of plenty more.
    In the first days after Patrick’s departure, Charlotte kept to herself as much as possible and did as she was told. The other women in the harem didn’t exactly snub her, but they didn’t pursue her acquaintance, either. Only Alev spoke to her; to her extreme gratitude, the
sultana valide
left her strictly alone.
    A full week had passed and twilight found Charlotte sitting in the courtyard, her back to the trunk of the elm tree, which had come to symbolize all things familiar to her. Rashad had given her drawing paper and pencils, and she was making a sketch of the house she’d grown up in when Alev joined her.
    “That’s very good,” the other woman said, shifting uncomfortably as she took a seat beside Charlotte on the bench. “Is it your home?”
    Charlotte swallowed the knot that had filled her throat at the word “home” and nodded. “They’ll be so worried when they hear about the kidnapping.”
    Alev laid both hands on her distended stomach and grimaced before giving Charlotte a sympathetic look. “You could write them, you know, and tell them you’ve run off to be married. Then they might be angry, but they wouldn’t suffer so much.”
    “Who would mail the letter?” Charlotte asked, her heart beating faster.
    “Rashad could arrange that easily enough,” Alev said, her belly moving visibly beneath her robe.
    “But if my father knew I was here—”
    “You cannot tell him that,” Alev broke in quickly, “and I will have to read the letter, of course, to make sure you do not say anything…improper. Rashad would then have it sent from somewhere in Spain or Morocco.”
    Charlotte imagined her father and Lydia reading the suggested missive. Papa would be angry that she’d married so far from home, but Lydia would quiet him soon enough. Millie would say she’d always expected her elder sister to do something reckless and romantic like eloping in a foreign country, and the boys would be too busy running in and out of the house to care one way or another.
    The marriage would be a lie, of course, and Charlotte had never been untruthful with her father and stepmother. Even now, it wasn’t an easy prospect to consider, but she couldn’t let them fret and agonize over her if there was a way to comfort them.
    “Write your letter,” Alev said. “Rashad and I will take care of the rest.”
    Charlotte nodded with sad resignation.
    Alev drew in a sharp, sudden breath and clutched her belly. Because her stepmother was a midwife, Charlotte knew the look of impending motherhood.
    “Are you having pain? Shall I bring someone?”
    Alev bit her lower lip for a long time before she was able to speak again. “Fetch Rashad, please. Tell him the time has come.”
    Charlotte hurried across the shady courtyard and into the harem, where she found the eunuch standing with his back to a wall, watching as he always watched.
    “Alev’s ready to give birth,” she blurted. “She’s in the courtyard, on the bench beneath the elm tree.”
    Rashad strode out of the harem without a word, and Charlotte followed on his heels. She had no idea how to assist with the delivery of a baby, but she wanted to be of help if she could.
    The eunuch lifted Alev into his arms and carried her inside, where an immediate flurry began.
    Most of the women of the harem scattered, chattering like brightly colored birds, but the
sultana valide
silenced them just by entering the room. She gestured to Rashad to follow her, and the eunuch, the old lady, and the pregnant woman disappeared.
    Charlotte kept a vigil for a while, with the others, thendrifted back outside and climbed the elm tree to study the horizon. There was no sign of Patrick’s ship, so she turned her gaze to the sugar white desert, bright as snow under the fierce sun, and wondered what was on the