Lady Of Fire (12 page)

Not until the one at her side tried to draw her to her feet did she lift her head. She stared at the dark-headed man and, for a moment, was comforted by the familiar face. But that comfort was quickly replaced with fear.

Here was the son of the woman who had murdered her mother. He had Leila’s heavy-lidded eyes, her mouth, and the same high forehead. He was of that one’s blood which ran so hot with jealousy only murder could cool it.

“Come.” Rashid’s eyes were deceptively kind. “I will see you to your apartment.”

She wrenched her arm from his grasp, cried, “Do not touch me!” and began to crawl away.

He gripped her shoulder. “Alessandra, it is Rashid.”

She fell onto her side. Freed from his hold, she wrapped her arms around her head and curled in on herself.

His body brushed hers where he came down beside her, and again he beseeched, “It is Rashid.”

She knew that. How she knew that! “Leave me be!”

When he tried to pull her into his arms, she lashed out, slapping and scratching while some pitiful, keening sound scored her throat and stung her ears.

She did not realize he had moved away until Khalid’s voice warmed her ear. “Mistress, put your arms around my neck. I will carry you to your bed.”

Chest convulsing with shallow breath, she peered up into his dark face. The grooves there were deeper and more numerous, and his eyes…

So much sorrow, so little light.

“My mother,” she whispered.

“She is at rest, little one. No more harm can be done her.”

“Truly?” she said on a sob.

“Is that not what your god promises?”

So He did. Still, it was little solace for one left so far behind. Desperate to be comforted by this man who deeply felt her loss, she slid her arms around his neck.

When he lifted her, she pressed her face into his shoulder so she would not have to look upon that other one—he who was born of a murderess.

Surfacing from a sleep she did wish to awaken from, Alessandra heard her name called and felt warm fingers slide over her arm. She groaned, rolled onto her stomach, and buried her face in a pillow.

“Alessandra!” The voice was more insistent, then she was turned and pulled up onto her knees.

Raising her head, she tried to focus on the shadowed figure who supported her. Though it was too dark to make out his features, she knew who had come to her in the night.

“Lucien! What—?”

“Quiet!”

Gripped by memories of what had happened the last time they had been caught together, she lowered her voice. “I have been terribly afeared for you. Are you in much pain?”

“No more than I am accustomed to.” His voice was gruff, impatient.

She winced. “Can you ever forgive me?”

At his hesitation, her distress trebled. But then he lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her lips. “Now—”

“Ah, Lucien.” She leaned against him and slid her arms around his neck. “I so like the feel of you.” Her mother had guessed right. She did have feelings for him—things she did not feel for Rashid. Smiling, she touched her mouth to the exposed skin above the neck of his caftan.

“Alessandra—”

“I had the most frightening dream,” she said as images filtered into her consciousness—a woman gasping for breath, the evil eyes of another.

Having no desire to dwell on perverse imaginings of the mind, for that was all they were, she shook her head to clear it. And awakened a bit more.

She frowned. “Why are you here? If you are caught—”

“We must hurry.” He pulled her hands from around his neck.

She tried again to make out his features but caught only the glitter of his eyes. “I do not understand.”

He lifted her from the divan and set her feet to the floor. “We are leaving this night.” He turned toward the open window through which he must have entered her apartment. “We have no time to waste.”

Suspicions sprang upon Alessandra. Her mother’s determination to see her taken to England. The long search for a new eunuch. The purchase of an Englishman unsuited to harem life. The possibility he might not be a eunuch at all.

She closed her eyes. Was this her mother’s doing? It had to be, meaning Lucien was not a eunuch in any sense. He was a man paid to play the part and whose true purpose was to steal her from the only life she had known. His touch and kisses had meant nothing to him other than a means of gaining her trust.

“Ah, nay,” she lamented.

He grasped her arm and began pulling her toward the window.

She wrenched free. “I have been tricked!”

“God’s teeth!” Lucien reached for her again.

She evaded him and retreated to the far side of the room beside her dressing table. “It is my mother’s bidding you do,” she said.

He strode toward her. “I will explain it all later.”

“There will be no later.” She fumbled for something with which to strike him and her hand closed over her brush. “Do you come nearer, I will scream!”

Continuing toward her, he said, “And be responsible for my death?”

She waged a battle between preservation and conscience. She could not allow him to take her from here, but neither could she sentence him to death. “Go, Lucien,” she pleaded. “Take your freedom and leave me.”

“I am not going without you. You are leaving this night, even if it is over my shoulder.”

She swept her pitiful excuse of a weapon before her. “Then that is how you must take me.”

He lunged and caught her arm.

Alessandra twisted around, raised her free arm above her head, and brought the handle of the brush down upon his skull.

He grunted and snatched the brush from her.

“I will not go with you!” she cried. “I will not leave my mother!”

His arms crushed her to his chest. “Alessandra.” Though his voice was harsh, she thought she heard a ring of regret. “It was no dream. Your mother is gone. She is dead.”

If not that he held her so near, she would have sworn he had punched her in the chest, for his words stole her breath.

“There is no longer any reason for you to remain here,” he continued.

Memories rushed at her, too vivid to be dreams, but she shook her head. “You lie, Lucien de Gautier. It
was
a dream!”

“Leila poisoned your mother. Do you not remember attacking her?”

Well she remembered it, and though she tried to back her mind away from it, the memory clung like disease. Too real to be a dream.

“How would I know your dream if that is all it was, Alessandra?”

He could not. Still, she asked in a small voice, “My mother is dead?”

“She is. I am sorry.”

Feeling grief tighten her chest, she turned from wrenching sorrow in favor of the less painful emotion of hatred. “I will see Leila dead.”

“Her punishment will be just, Alessandra. Now we must leave.”

“Not until my own eyes have witnessed she suffers the same fate as my mother.”

He growled, swung her into his arms, and strode toward the window.

Alessandra renewed her struggles, punching, kicking, and bucking, holding back only her voice lest he once more bend—quite possibly die—to the bastinado.

Lucien hated what she forced him to do, something he had never done to a woman. He dropped her to her feet, and holding her with one hand, raised the other. “One day you will thank me for this,” he said and landed a fist to her jaw.

She sucked air, fell sideways, and fought him no more.

Unable to sleep for fear of the terrible punishment awaiting her on the morrow, Leila gripped the lattice of the window and stared into the night.

These were her final hours. Although she was the mother of Jabbar’s heir, which had saved her from banishment once, nothing could save her now. There had been a chance Jabbar would have sent her away had it been the daughter, not the mother, but his lust for Sabine was too great. Even without the poisoned date Khalid had produced, the end would likely have been the same.

Leila drew a hand down her face and winced at the scrapes Alessandra’s nails had raked into her skin. Worse were the blows the brat had driven into her sides, making it painful to draw deep breaths.

Hatred that Leila had not believed could grow stronger swelled through her. If only it had been Alessandra’s young body that had shuddered and gasped. Then, even had Leila’s sentence been death, it would have been worth it. But Rashid would still wed Alessandra.

Though Leila had tried to convince her son otherwise, he was determined to have the flame-headed whore for a wife. He shared his father’s same perverse desires.

Head throbbing, she pressed fingers to her temples and reflected on the victory that had nearly been hers four nights past. Hoping to discover what pleasure the English eunuch could give her, despite his rejection of her attempts to seduce him, she had sought him out.

She had gone by way of the garden, as she always did when she desired a tryst. But as she had slipped past the open gate, she had seen Alessandra climbing through the window of the eunuch’s room. At first, Leila had been outraged, jealous that another enjoyed what she was denied, but sanity prevailed.

Realizing here was the way to ensure Rashid did not marry Sabine’s daughter, she had given the two sufficient time to compromise themselves, then gone for her son. Unfortunately, Sabine and Khalid had arrived ahead of them.

Still, Leila had been certain the physician would give testimony to Alessandra’s loss of chastity, and she had nearly gone mad when the old man had refuted it. Then Jabbar had ordered that the wedding go forward.

It would have been so easy had Alessandra lost her virtue. Rashid could not have forgiven that, for he was the same as most Arab men. The purity of his bride was all-important. So much that, had it been any but Sabine’s daughter, merely being alone with another man at night, even a eunuch, would have been sufficient cause to reject Alessandra. But Rashid had been adamant, leaving Leila no choice but to use poison to achieve her end.

A sound in the night, so slight she thought she might have imagined it, had her searching the garden. There—movement. She peered closer. Though there was little moonlight, she picked out the shadowy figure of a large man.

It was not a guard, for none were that size. It had to be Khalid. Or the Englishman. As he slipped through the trees, a sliver of moonlight fell upon something in his arms before he was once more enveloped in shadow.

Red hair.

Leila had thought she would not smile again. But here was the Englishman. And Alessandra. Where would they consummate their desire? His quarters? The stables? There in the garden?

She began to tremble at the realization she was being given another chance to expose the lovers and free her son from wedding the whore.

She sank to her knees and thanked Allah for smiling upon her in her last hours. Perhaps he might even deliver her from Jabbar’s sentence of death.

Though she burned to raise the alarm, she quelled the impulse, telling herself she must be patient. This time she wanted no question as to what transpired between the two. Whether or not Alessandra remained virtuous, her behavior would not be overlooked a second time.

“I have won,” she whispered into the dark, tears rolling down her face. “Won.”

As arranged, horses had been waiting beyond the walls. Though Lucien and Alessandra had only to travel as far as Algiers, where a ship waited to take them up the coast, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and on to England, Khalid had left nothing to chance. Both animals were well provisioned should the plan go awry.

It had been a thin hope Alessandra would remain unconscious throughout the ride, and they were not even halfway into it when she began to rouse.

Pushing his mount harder, the second horse following close behind on a length of rope, Lucien held tight to Alessandra in anticipation of the fight she would give him. Though it would be easier to knock her senseless a second time, there was no immediate danger. Thus, he would not do again that which he found so repugnant.

Before Alessandra opened her eyes, she knew who held her, and his purpose. Worse, she knew wrenching pain as the events that had led to this moment rushed at her.

Lucien had not lied. No dream had stolen away her mother. That honor belonged to the vicious woman who was to have been her mother-in-law.

The desire for vengeance lending her strength to fight the grief threatening to break open her emotions, she promised herself that later she would indulge in the tears burning her eyes, the sobs straining her throat. Now she must focus on escaping her deceitful, unwanted savior.

Swallowing hard, she winced as ache shot through her jaw where Lucien had struck her, then pushed aside the fold of robe that had been drawn over her and peered up at the figure silhouetted against the night sky.

How far had he taken her from her home? Was Algiers his destination?

Not caring that she might tumble from the horse, she thrust her hands against Lucien’s chest, but he merely tightened his arm around her waist until it became so difficult to breathe that she ceased struggling.

He made her wait several moments before easing his hold, and when he did, she cursed him in Arabic, raising her voice to be heard over the air rushing past them and the pounding of hooves. Whether or not he reacted to her obscenities, it was too dark to know, but she hurled insults until her throat was so raw she could issue no more.

It was then she noticed the discomfort of the ride. Cradled against Lucien, her rear end wedged between his thighs, legs dangling over one side, she had no defense against the horse’s jarring movements—unlike Lucien who was able to move with the animal.

Her resentment grew, and she silently vowed he would rue the day he had made a pact with her mother.

On the final approach to the city, when Lucien slowed the horses and proceeded with caution, she spat, “How dare you take me from my home! You are nothing but a—”

“Quiet!” His arm tightened again.

She strained against it. “I will not be quiet. If it will gain me my freedom, I will awaken the entire city.”

He reined the horse in, grasped her shoulders, and pulled her around to face him. “Would you prefer I strike you again?”