Husband of Convenience will be available on December 20, 2021.
Kaya escaped famine but not her arranged marriage.
Marriage had never been her plan. Suddenly all her dreams of exploring the world she’s only read about dissipate, as fleeing as the rains that plunged Cairo into famine.
Sergeant Paul Hartley isn’t a saint. When he receives a
letter offering marriage and atonement for his many sins, he flees Bombay, the
army, and a sometimes criminal life. In Cairo he finds famine and a reluctant
bride. The beautiful, proud Kaya stirs more than his greed for the promised
dowry of jewels that assure him a retirement in the south of France.
A trek through the Sahara has them seeking refuge from a
sandstorm. The intimacy of the cave leads to confessions and passion flaring
between them. Kaya doesn’t trust him even as he fights beside her for survival
against slavers and secrets from their past. Trust is only the beginning as
passions ignite into shared intimacies as they both question an uncertain
future.
Chapter One
Cairo, Egypt
September 1784
The deafening quiet echoed around Kaya, and she strained to hear any sound other than her breath. A call or song from Derya, sounds from the kitchens. She closed her eyes, as if that might enhance her hearing, and strived to catch even the faintest whisper. The familiarity of life, the echoes of companionship she’d taken for granted.
Only the pounding of her heart resonated.
Eyes squeezed tight, Kaya tried to remember what not being alone sounded like. She moved her legs just to hear noise. Her linen dress slid across the tile floor, echoing like a hawk’s call.
Throat closed, grief choking her, Kaya pressed her palms to the floor. She needed the reminder—she still lived.
No more tears. Kaya had cried enough since learning of Derya’s death. The empty ache for the woman who raised her burned her throat. Each grain of sand dug into her palms, scratched against her skin with no relief. Her grandfather’s lessons had not prepared her for this emptiness.
None of her fighting skills, her learning, practicing, studying—nothing kept the horrible, stabbing pain at bay.
Kaya sat in silence in the late September heat. The drought dried the winds as well as the rains, leaving the air thick and heavy. The last of the sun’s rays barely peeked through the locked shutters.
Always locked. Hiding her inside this too quiet house.
It closed around her, cutting off her air. Gasping, Kaya tore her gaze from the fading sunlight and the outside world she never knew. Instead, she stared at the gold-encrusted lattice around the door, barely visible but so familiar despite the dimness.
The barrier between her and the world. Derya hadn’t lived with barriers—she enjoyed life outside this house.
Angry heat flushed Kaya’s cheeks and spread down her chest. Mortified, remorseful, she swallowed the rush of bitter resentment.
Derya deserved better.
“You can’t go, my child.”
Kaya’s gaze jerked from the door to her grandfather, sneaky and silent, even in his retirement. General Tahir ibn Zanki ibn al-Nafis stood tall and proud and adamant in the decorated room. Stubborn old man. Her grandfather may have been a brilliant strategist, commanding the Egyptian forces, but when it came to her, his desire to keep her safe blinded him.
“No one will know who I am.” Kaya’s insistence was faint, barely audible over the roaring in her ears. In the stifling antechamber of the main room, she stood and straightened her shoulders, glaring at her grandfather. “No one knows who I am, that I even exist.”
“Kaya—”
“Please, Gidd.” Kaya begged for the first time since childhood.
She’d long stopped asking the impossible; he never yielded to her pleas. Today, however, wasn’t about seeing en-Nīl or sneaking into one of the dinners he hosted for foreign emissaries. She needed this chance, needed to say goodbye.
“Derya meant everything to me. She has no one else in Cairo.” Kaya swallowed and willed the tears away. “She’s my family. Who will cleanse her?”
“She would not want you exposing yourself during her funeral,” Tahir snapped. He took her hand, rough and calloused around hers, and patted her knuckles gently, soft and understanding despite his words. He said nothing of Derya’s funeral rites. “Kaya, my child, I know how you feel about her. But Derya wouldn’t want you endangering yourself simply to see her grave.”
Resentful laughter burned her throat, and her fingers clenched around his. Kaya held back the mocking words that wanted to burst free. Derya died in a riot, trying to buy what little food remained in the drought-stricken city.
Even the great beys of Egypt were not immune to famine. Unlike so many in Cairo, Kaya couldn’t flee to Istanbul or one of the outlying provinces.
“I must leave now, Kaya. Abdul waits for me with the horses.” He kissed her forehead and stepped back. “Please stay inside. I’ll return before supper. Then we’ll talk.”
Gidd guided her down the hall to the rear doors, his progress slow with the pronounced limp in his left leg. Her only solace, the gardens, were nothing more than an extension of her prison. Kaya breathed in deeply the stale, dry air but only found decay, hopelessness, death.
She choked.
She pulled her hand from Tahir’s and sat in a chair by the table where she and Derya used to eat. Used to eat. In a moment of weakness, she rested her forehead in her hand and closed her eyes against the blue and white geometric tiles she knew as intimately as everything else in this house.
Gidd hesitated. “Kaya.”
Kaya’s head jerked up. She dropped her hand and narrowed her eyes. He never hesitated. Not once, not over anything. Gidd planned her life as methodically as he planned a troop engagement on the field of battle.
“Yes?” She stiffened, neck aching from the sudden tension knotting her muscles.
“I wanted to wait, but Derya’s death—” He paused. Kaya frowned. “I know you wish to see Derya one last—” He cut himself off. Kaya’s unease grew, a swell of apprehension tightening her chest. “Please don’t leave the house, Kaya. Not even for Derya. The Ottomans have returned.”
Her stomach dropped, as if the ground had fallen from beneath her. The anger and grief burning in the pit of her stomach froze in terror.
“What?” The question sounded weak and frightened. Rigid with alarm, struggling to breathe past the fear closing in on her, Kaya curled her fingers into the hard tabletop. She refused to be cowed. “When?” She asked, stronger. “It’s been—you said they left Cairo. Hadn’t asked questions in over a decade. Why now?”
“I do not know.” Face lined with weariness, Tahir rested his arms on the table and held her gaze. “Perhaps they suddenly remembered the price on your head. Maybe the famine offered an opportunity. Money, greed, is a powerful motivator, Kaya.”
She nodded, or thought she did, but she didn’t feel her head move. Her fingers numbed in the afternoon heat. “Why—what—” Kaya struggled to find the logic she prided herself on. “The riot in the souk, was that planned by the Ottomans?”
“I don’t believe so.” Gidd took her hands again, but she barely felt the pressure. Still, she was grounded by his touch. “It wasn’t the first riot, and with the crop failures, it won’t be the last, either.”
No, the Ottomans needn’t encourage rioting, not with the ever-depleting stores of grain. Though, considering they wanted a return to power over Egypt, anything was possible.
“Derya.” Kaya licked suddenly dry lips. “Did she know of the Ottomans’ return?”
“Not to my knowledge.” Gidd’s voice softened, and he squeezed her fingers, warming them slightly. “I found out only yesterday morning.”
Derya died just after sunrise. She had ventured to the souk in search of food. Tahir stood—she didn’t remember him sitting—and rested his large hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own, comforted by his touch.
“Gidd.”
“I have already made plans, Kaya.”
“Plans?” Her head jerked up, and she stared at her grandfather in the twilight. “What plans? What—”
He stepped into the shadows of the doorway. “An old friend from India. I’ve arranged your marriage to Sergeant Paul Hartley, who will escort you from Cairo to England.”
Kaya opened her mouth, but no words emerged. She blinked up at Gidd and tried to stand, but she fell back into the chair. Her legs betrayed her, weakening under the absurdity of his declaration. Determined to confront him, Kaya pushed against the chair but stumbled over it.
“Marriage? Friend?” Annoyed with her unusual display of inelegance, she untangled her legs and skirts from the chair. Before she managed to do so, Tahir disappeared into the house. She raced after him. “What do you mean? Gidd—”
“It’s done, Kaya. You leave tonight.”
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