Lady Of Fire (16 page)

His stomach rumbled, kindling his frustration. Thinking of the nourishing meat he could hunt, he looked to Alessandra who sat near the cave opening. Oblivious to his regard, she dragged fingers through her tangled hair.

There is a solution to this dilemma,
he reminded himself. He had considered it before, but had been loath to carry it out. Now, as they would be without food come the morrow, he had no choice.

He retrieved a rope and advanced on Alessandra. Though she had to hear his approach, she did not look around.

So much the better,
he thought and lowered beside her and grasped her wrists together in one hand. Surprise on his side, he began binding her.

Her head shot back, eyes flashed at him. “What are you doing?”

He lifted an eyebrow and returned his attention to the rope.

“Cease!” she cried, her voice echoing around the cave.

Finished with her hands, Lucien pushed her onto her back. Amid her struggling and screeching, he thrust aside her cloak and caftan and drew the excess rope downward. It was no easy task, but he captured her ankles together and bound them.

As he reached to tear a piece of material from his cloak, he realized Alessandra was cursing him in her native tongue. She spoke rapidly, but he followed much of what she said, picking out expletives with which he had become familiar during his time on the galley.

“What a brazen tongue you have, my lady,” he scolded when she paused to replenish her breath.

Spouting more curses, she attempted to propel her body to the side, but he straddled her and secured the gag that ought to quiet her sufficiently should any come near the cave in his absence.

“I wish you had not forced me to do this,” he said and stood.

She stilled, stared up at him.

“Sleep now. When I return, we shall have a real meal.”

Were her eyes daggers, they would have dropped him where he stood. Feeling their bloodletting edges, he strode from the cave.

Alessandra was in need of sleep, but she had no thought other than to use Lucien’s absence for escape. Lest he think to better secure her, she forced down her fury long enough to be certain he was gone, then she resumed her struggles—thrashing, bucking, and rolling around. But all she managed to do was dislodge the gag, sustain scrapes wherever her flesh was exposed to the rock-strewn ground, and exhaust herself.

Breathing hard where she lay in a tangle, she screamed one last time out of a throat that felt bloodied, then squeezed her moist eyes closed. It appeared Lucien no longer underestimated her, she whom he had called
little girl
.

Those words had worn her raw since he had spoken them ten days past, and not because they offended—though they did. Once she had emerged from the shock of learning the details of her mother’s death, she had seen the truth of Lucien’s words. And been struck by the nauseating irony that, no sooner had she determined she would prove herself a grown woman, she had spoken as a child by threatening to stand with her father against him. Though in the days since she had struggled to think well before speaking, still words she often wished back caused him to regard her as if she were, indeed, a child.

“I am a woman,” she whispered. “I must behave as one.” But that did not mean she should hang her head and allow Lucien to lead her where she did not wish to go.

When she finally had her breath back, she lifted her bound wrists and considered the rope. For all her efforts, the knot had not loosened. Indeed, from the painful tingling in her hands, it was tighter.

Clenching and unclenching her fingers to restore circulation, she lifted her hands to her mouth and began biting at the fibrous rope. It was animal-like, but whatever it took to gain her freedom.

So immersed did she become in the task over what could have been hours, so pained were her jaws and teeth, she failed to register she was no longer alone until a shadow swept over her.

“God’s eyes, Alessandra!” Lucien yanked her up to sitting and looked near upon the rope she had chewed partway through.

Her hope of escape trampled, she thrust her face near his. “How dare you—”

He closed a hand over her mouth. “Keep your anger to yourself, else I will leave you bound.”

He would.

Curse him for the power he wields over me!
she silently raged.
Curse him for being the one born a man!
Though never had she desired to be other than that which she had been born, there seemed no advantage to being a female.

“Will you contain yourself?” Lucien asked.

Teeth clenched, she nodded.

He removed his hand from her mouth and began to work the rope’s knot.

Once freed, she hastened to stand with her back to him before the cave opening. “Knave,” she muttered. “Cur. Blackguard.”

A moment later, he pushed her back against the rock wall and pinned her with his body. “Always you push,” he ground out. “What do you hope to gain? You think I will throw my hands up and allow you to return to Algiers?”

She glared at him. “I do not understand why you do not!”

“Certes, I am tempted, but I gave my word I would get you to England, and I shall.”

Mention of Sabine caused Alessandra’s emotions to shift toward sorrow, a place she was constantly sidestepping for how vulnerable it made her. Struggling to return to anger, she put her chin higher. But that small, defiant gesture was not enough to prevent her lower lip from trembling. As she pressed it tight with the upper, the movement drew Lucien’s gaze.

It did not appear to be desire with which he regarded her mouth, but concern. He drew back a space and slid a thumb beneath her lip. “You are quite the fury, Alessandra. See what you have done to your mouth.”

She knew, had felt the abrasions and subsequent swelling inflicted by the rope’s rough fibers as she had tried to gnaw her way free.

“I would not think it would bother you,” she said.

“It should not,” he said and bent near.

She jerked, thinking he intended to kiss her. He did, but not her mouth.

He pressed his lips alongside her ear. “But it does trouble me,” he said softly.

She shuddered, more from his warm breath in her ear than the touch of his lips. It felt too wonderful to allow it to go any further. And yet she could not summon the words to demand her release.

He has made himself your enemy,
she reminded herself.
He tied you up like an animal! Fight him!

“It is more than my word that makes me hold to you, Alessandra,” he murmured, his breath once more shooting sensation through her. “Despite who begot you, despite how you madden and anger me, I want you.”

Rashid wanted her, too, would have wed her to have her. Not Lucien de Gautier. He would bed her, and that was all. No words of love would he speak and, afterward, he would force her onto a ship bound for England, tearing her from all she knew. And revenge.

Catching hold of the anger that had consumed her during her struggle with the ropes, she said, “Why do you not force yourself upon me? Is that not what a De Gautier would do?”

She felt him tense, but he did not release her as she thought her slander might cause him to do.

He lifted his head. “You do not know the De Gautiers, and you certainly do not know me. I have never been and will never be one to force myself on a woman.”

Even his breath fluttering across her stinging, scraped lips made her more aware of her body than she had ever been. “Good. Then you will never have me.” No sooner was it said than a thought struck her, a shameful one of the ilk she strove to think through before speaking. “Were I to give myself to you, would you release me?”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you place such little value on your virtue that you would bargain it away?”

From the heat rising up her neck, she knew her face was destined for a shade of red. However, her embarrassment was as much for what she had not said—she valued her virtue, but were it Lucien to whom she lost it…

“For revenge, then?” he pressed. “Your virtue for a chance to witness Leila’s punishment?”

That was how it sounded. Desperate and crass, hardly befitting a lady.

“In England, a woman’s virtue is everything, Alessandra. Do you not have it, it is unlikely you will capture a worthy husband.”

She caught her breath. “What makes you think I wish a husband?”

“It is what your father will want.”

But would her father acknowledge her as his? Though her mother had said he was good and kind of heart, what of those things Lucien had revealed about the man? Providing he had spoken true.

She drew a deep breath. “It was not an offer I made you. I am curious, that is all.”

“I am glad to hear it, for though I desire you, neither am I a man who pays for a woman’s company, be it in coin, be it in favors.”

She was not surprised. Though at her angriest there was satisfaction in thinking and speaking ill of her family’s enemy, he showed little evidence of being of a perfidious bent. Indeed, though he had trussed and gagged her, it was not without cause. They needed food and, given the chance, she would have tried to escape again.

“Too,” he added, “the virtuous daughter of James Breville will surely be of more value to me once we reach England.”

She gasped. It was such a calculated thing to say, especially considering the place from which he had jerked her thoughts. But then, his hatred of her family went deep. Of a perfidious bent, indeed!

“You are despicable,” she said. “An animal.”

He released her and stepped back. “I am what my captors made me.”

Keeping her back to the wall, she said, “The blame is not theirs. It is the De Gautiers’.
They
made you.”

He seemed to think on her words, then said, “To a point, you are right, but enough of this. There is meat to be fired and sleep to be had ere night falls.”

Unsettled that he so easily yielded, she grappled for further argument, but there was none.

Indisputably, Lucien de Gautier remained in control of her fate—one that would soon deliver her to Tangier.

Despite the danger of being a woman alone, it was a chance Alessandra could not pass up. Thus, as she and Lucien were swallowed by the masses frequenting Tangier’s marketplace, she bided her time.

Why he had brought her so far west was a question that would never be answered if she succeeded in losing herself among the crowd, for each time she had asked, he had only glared. All she knew for certain was that he was looking for something. Or someone.

Holding tight to her horse’s reins as she led the animal forward, she slowed her steps and dropped back into the thickening crowd.

Soon, she told herself, allowing herself a small smile at how easy it would be to lose herself among the hundreds of women who wore the same cloak and veil of Muslim tradition. But Lucien also slowed, so much that she was forced to draw level with him again.

“Stay close,” he growled in the language of his enemies.

Alessandra glanced at him. Earlier that morning, on the outskirts of the city, he had arranged the excessive material of his head cloth to cover the lower half of his face. Garbed as he was, with only a strip of tanned skin visible, he melded with those around him. However, as his amethyst eyes would reveal he was not of Arab descent, he mostly kept them cast down.

A major port bordering on the Atlantic and Mediterranean, Tangier was a place of many faces where trade between countries was rampant. Thus, a disguise would have been unnecessary if not for the possibility Rashid was still in pursuit.

Was he? Or had he given up and taken another for his wife? Long gone were the mass of braids and intricate henna markings she would have worn to her marriage bed. Also firmly in her past were her wide-eyed innocence and the mother who had opposed her marriage to Rashid. She was no man’s bride now.

She sighed, moved her thoughts back to escape. The opportunity presented itself when Lucien paused before a vendor’s stall that was strewn with textiles and woolens of every color.

Keeping an eye on Alessandra, he spoke in a low voice to the little man who had rushed forward to present his wares. The vendor was to be disappointed, for it was obvious Lucien was interested in something other than fabric.

Pressed against her horse by those eager to make a place for themselves in the cramped street, Alessandra prayed for Lucien to look away. When he finally obliged, she ducked and scrambled beneath her horse. Heart pounding furiously, she threw herself into the crowd and was swallowed. One black-clad woman among many, she pushed her way through the suffocating press of bodies.

She heard Lucien call her name, his voice a bellow above the excited buzz. How near he was, she did not know. All that mattered was that she find her way out of his reach.

As she hastened past stalls, merchants, and patrons, she tried to ignore the regret burrowing through her. If she succeeded, she would never again know Lucien’s touch, the masculine scent of him, and the sensations he roused. He would be lost to her—a man for whom she continued to harbor feelings, despite all the discord.

Had the gap between them not widened so terribly when she had told him she was a Breville, she might have cast off her longing to see Leila punished, and even set aside the fear of what awaited her in England. But it was too late. Lucien might desire her, but he disliked her, and she had every reason to feel the same way about him. If only she could…

Tears blurring her vision, she slipped into the shadowed alley between two buildings. Breathing hard, she leaned back against a wall and stared at the patch of daylight whence she had come.

She was just beginning to relax when Lucien’s tall, broad figure blocked the light.

Holding her breath, she tensed for flight lest he draw nearer.

He did. “Alessandra,” he called as he entered the passageway, wide shoulders brushing the walls on either side.

She thrust off the wall and ran opposite. For once, she had the advantage of size, easily negotiating the tight space that hindered Lucien—until her foot caught on something and she fell facedown.

Veil torn away, cloak askew, dirt upon her lips, she scrambled to her feet and lunged toward the light.