28

 

Kell slept for no more than an hour. At dawn, he became aware of Rachel creeping out of bed and gathering up her clothes from the ottoman. His eyes closed, his head turned toward the window, he heard her going into the bathroom, emerging a few minutes later wearing the hourglass black dress and the wedge heels of the previous evening. She approached the bed and leaned over to kiss him.

“Walk of shame,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

“You should stay.”

“No. Got to go home.”

They kissed again, and he held her close to him, but the heat between them had gone. She stood up, smoothed down the dress, waved at him with rippling fingers, and walked out of the room.

Kell immediately sat up. Istanbul was muffled by the shuttered windows, by curtains that closed out the dawn light, but he could still hear the city awakening, traffic and the lone cry of the muezzin. Rachel would easily find a taxi outside the Londres and, within half an hour, be back at home, creeping upstairs in the yali, past the sleeping Josephine, to snooze for the rest of the morning. He only hoped that she would not encounter Amelia downstairs, back from a dawn run or en route to an early breakfast. Walk of shame indeed.

He opened the curtains and the shutters, went to the bathroom and took a shower, then ordered breakfast to his room. Just after six thirty, too soon for the coffee and eggs to have been prepared, there was a knock at the door. Rachel? Had she forgotten something?

Wearing just a towel around his waist, Kell opened the door.

“Thomas! I am a married woman now. Cover yourself!”

It was Elsa, grinning.

“Thanks for the warning,” he said. “What are you doing up so early?”

“This,” she said, thrusting a file in his direction. “I have been working on it since I saw you. It is a long night. Amelia ask me to make some background on Cecilia Sandor. This is what I find out. It is all so very sad, Tom. How I hate wasted love.”