The Dardanelles Conspiracy by Alan Bardos (best ereader for pc TXT) 📗

'It was my pleasure, Abraham.'

He smiled and directed her towards a set of corner settees. Abraham always made this imposing temple feel like a sanctuary.

‘You don’t seem happy, my dear Esther. Your reunion did not go well?’

‘No, no it didn’t. It was nice to see Laszlo, but he felt it was beneath his honour to do as I asked.’

‘The honourable thing is always to be with the woman you love. Such a fool is clearly not worthy of you.’

Esther laughed, then grimaced, remembering the look of anguish on Laszlo’s face when she’d suggested that their engagement be reinstated.

‘My dearest Edelweiss, how can I marry you now? You must undo this terrible thing that you have done to me.’

‘I want you to be my husband, why is that so terrible?’ Esther had reached out and taken his hand.

‘I’m sorry, I cannot bear to be in Constantinople when my duty is so clearly elsewhere.’ Laszlo squeezed her hand back.

‘I know it is selfish to want you to be safe, when so many others are fighting. I cannot save them, but I can save you, Laszlo.’ Esther’s voice had shaken. The conversation hadn't taken the course she had planned.

‘You have turned me into a court jester, a eunuch.' He'd pointed in the direction of her footman.

‘He isn’t a eunuch. I could never afford one of those. Besides, you would not be much use as a husband, if you were a eunuch,’ Esther said teasingly. Once Laszlo would have been shocked to hear her talk in such a fashion, now he just shrugged. ‘Laszlo, I need a husband and we were once so much in love.’

‘Why do you want to get married Esther, is your father trying to sell you off to some fat sultan for his harem?’

Esther looked away shamefaced. Laszlo was always so perceptive. ‘Why does there have to be a reason?’

He squeezed her hand. ‘I haven’t forgotten the way you try to conceal secrets from me.’

‘It's not a fat sultan and I have no intention of becoming part of a harem.’ She hadn't wanted to tell him this much.

‘Come, out with it, Esther. You might as well tell me the whole sordid story, now you've got me here,’ Laszlo said, adopting the persona of the intelligence officer he’d once been.

‘It’s not sordid, it’s all very proper and correct. Enver Pasha, one of the three rulers of the Ottoman Empire…’

‘Yes, I know of him. He wants you for his wife, does he, and you’d rather have poor old obedient Breitner?’ Laszlo gently put her hand down.

‘No, I wouldn’t have minded that so much. He's quite charming and terribly good looking.’ She felt some pleasure as a flicker of jealousy burnt across Laszlo’s face. ‘Besides, Ismail’s already married, to a princess. No, he wants me as a trophy for one of his aides.’

‘Well, if you don’t want to marry this man, why don’t you simply tell Enver that?’ Laszlo asked.

‘I haven’t been able to see Enver Pasha since the war started, he’s been away.’

‘Yes, leading some foolhardy campaign against Russia in the Caucasus and producing yet more defeat.’

‘Now Enver’s back in Constantinople he’s shunned appearing in public. My only contact with the government is through the aide he wants me to marry, a Major Toprak. Who seems to think that I keep pestering him because I want to marry him… or become his mistress. You see, I am hoping that Papa’s company will receive a loan from the government to speed up the building of a new railway line, or at least an extension to the contract to get the thing finished. There have been a number of unforeseen problems in the Levant, which is where Papa is now.’

‘And I suppose that if you refuse to marry this Major Toprak, you will not be granted a loan or extension?’ Laszlo said with a slight sneer, he had always found matters of business distasteful.

‘Obviously no one has said as such, Laszlo, but it’s likely. The company would be ruined, Papa’s life work. Don’t you see it’s not about the money?’

‘And what does your father have to say about you selling yourself off like a prize milk cow, to keep his dreams alive?’

‘Please don’t talk like that, I haven’t told Papa. He’s working himself to death, this would finish him.’

Laszlo stood up and took both her hands in his. ‘I will do what I can to help, but I cannot marry you for such reasons. It would be dishonourable.’

‘How very correct. Is it not dishonourable to throw me on the mercy of a man I don’t love?’

‘I can tell him that his affections are not returned, but I will not marry you for the sake of business.’

‘Can I at least say that we are still engaged?’ Esther asked.

Laszlo’s face clouded over. ‘Officially we were never engaged, your father refused me.’

‘Not officially, no, Laszlo, but our engagement was never ended, not in my heart anyway.’

Laszlo smiled, his face deformed by the grotesque scar on his face. ‘You may tell people that I asked for your hand in marriage and you accepted my proposal, but your father has not given his consent. That much is true.’

His precise, pedantic nature had always amused Esther and complemented her own sense of order. Now it just infuriated her.

‘Maybe it is for the best,’ she said to Abraham, bringing herself back to the present.

‘An unofficial engagement won’t hold off Toprak. He could insist on your breaking it,’ Abraham said sadly.

‘Are you able to send Laszlo to the front?’ Esther’s practical mind had moved onto the next problem.

Abraham shook his head. ‘I doubt that I can arrange a transfer to a frontline unit, so soon after he arrived here. I will make enquiries in a few months.’

‘Well, that would