Panther's Prey by Doreen Owens Malek

Author:Doreen Owens Malek [Malek, Doreen Owens]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Gypsy Autumn Publications
Published: 2012-05-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

When Amy woke the next morning beneath a satin coverlet on a brocade sleeping couch at Orchid Palace, she could hardly remember the previous evening. It was all a blur: her arrival at the pink sandstone palace, her walk through corridors floored with marble and lit by flaring gas lamps, the forbidding halberdiers and scurrying servants, the dinner she could not eat served on a silver tray in a room draped with tapestries and carpeted with tasseled rugs. As she sat up and looked around, she realized that she was now occupying the inner chamber of a suite: the salon where she had dined was directly in front of her. The bedroom was just as ornate, with a wool rug worked with a green and silver trellis pattern underfoot and Afghan kilims on the walls. A small bedside table held a golden bell ornamented with blue enamel. Amy picked it up and rang it experimentally.

The outer door of the suite opened immediately and a tiny woman with waist length black hair, wearing shalwar and an embroidered surcoat, came in from the hall. She walked gracefully through the anteroom and stopped at Amy’s bedside, bowing deeply from the waist.

“Good morning, miss,” she said in slightly accented English. “I am called Memtaz, and I have been assigned by the pashana to wait upon you during your stay at Orchid Palace. May I bring you some breakfast?”

“Just coffee, I think. Where is the pashana, please?”

“She is in the schoolroom, miss. She has instructed me to tell you that she can take lunch with you here in your suite if you would like that. But if you are too tired and would prefer to rest, she will see you at dinner.”

“No, no, please tell her to come and see me at lunch. I’m afraid I wasn’t very sociable yesterday and I would like to thank her for her hospitality.”

Memtaz bowed again. “As you wish, miss. I will return with your coffee.”

The servant slipped from the room and Amy rose from the bed, examining the elaborate furnishings and the stack of books in English which had been left on a shelf near the door. Everything had obviously been prepared with her comfort in mind, and she felt a surge of gratitude to her uncle’s cousin, who had taken so much trouble to welcome a kinswoman she had never met.

Amy spent the morning bathing and dressing in the outfit Sarah sent in with Memtaz, then reading while stretched out across the bed, trying to occupy her mind so she would not think about Malik. And at twelve-fifteen Sarah arrived, carrying a tea tray and wearing a peach and white silk bengaline dress.

“How are you feeling?” Sarah asked, placing the tray on a low table. “From what Memtaz told me I gathered you were doing somewhat better this morning.”

“Yes, thank you,” Amy said, studying the woman and her clothing carefully. Sarah’s ensemble with its fitted bodice and striped, paneled skirt flattered her tall, slim figure. Her

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