Lady Of Fire (17 page)

The street she emerged upon was not as busy as that of the marketplace. Had it been, its advantage would still have been limited, for her red hair had come uncovered. No longer was she one of hundreds.

Men stared as she ran past and women scurried away as if death had come into their presence.

Alessandra spared a glance over her shoulder and gasped at the sight of Lucien who thrust aside all in his path.

Hoping to lose him among the buildings, she turned right, left, and left again. Still he came.

Why did he not let her go? Did he not realize the danger of pursuing her?

She made another sharp turn, sprinted between two crudely constructed buildings, and turned again. Though the deepening stench, poverty and coarseness of the people, and lascivious stares evidenced she had entered a less desirable part of the city, she did not turn back.

Rounding a corner, she came upon a half-open door and, without thought, leapt inside and closed it. Back pressed to it, she listened for the sound of Lucien’s passing. There it was, preceded by curses.

Would he retrace his steps? Likely, but by then she would be gone.

Feeling the sting of tears, she whispered, “Farewell, Lucien de Gautier,” then forced her attention upon the room in which she found herself.

It appeared to be a storehouse. Its shelves were lined with encrusted bottles, open barrels wafted alcohol fumes, and sacks strewn about the floor spilled grain upon which rats leisurely fed.

She shuddered. Only from a great distance had she ever seen the vile creatures.

Hugging her arms to her, she looked to where light shone beneath a door opposite. Beyond it were the sounds of merrymaking.

She could not stay long, must find an authority to aid her return to Algiers. Blessedly, she was not without coin. That much she had planned for by raiding one of Lucien’s pouches. But would it be enough? Providing the name of Abd al-Jabbar was known in this westernmost country as it was known throughout the central Maghrib, she need not worry.

Determining enough time had passed, Alessandra straightened her cloak and envisioned the bath she would have once she secured passage to Algiers. Unfortunately, fresh water had been too precious these past weeks, and the accumulation of dirt upon her was distasteful.

After arranging the hood over her hair, she reached for the excess material of her cloak that would have to serve in place of her lost veil.

As she drew it up, the door opposite opened and light rushed in.

Her first thought was that Lucien had discovered her. But the man at whom she stared wide-eyed was nowhere near his size.

“Thief!” he cried.

She spun around, but as she pulled open the door she had come through, it was thrust closed and she was hurled across the room.

Landing among the scattered grain and the screech of disturbed rats, fear flooded her. The man thought her a thief, and thieves were treated harshly in the Muslim world.

The hand she might well lose was grabbed at the wrist and wrenched so forcibly that she was propelled upright.

“Cease!” she cried in Arabic. “I have stolen nothing.”

The man’s brow furrowed as he looked from her red hair to her eyes, nose, and mouth, then he dragged her from the storeroom and into a room packed with tables and chairs. The handful of men seated there looked up from their drinks.

Kicking and scratching, Alessandra did not cease until the man holding her grabbed her hair and forced her head back.

Desperate, she looked about what was surely a tavern in hopes of discovering one sympathetic face among the leers. There were none.

“Master, a thief!” her captor cried.

A heavy man, darker than most Arabs, likely of mixed race, rose from a nearby table. “A prostitute,” he said, raking his black eyes over her. “Perhaps she can pay for what she has taken.”

Alessandra was slow to comprehend his meaning, but when he halted before her, pushed her cloak aside, and ran a hand over her chest, she understood. “Do not!” she cried.

He smacked her across the face.

Cheek burning, she said in rapid Arabic, “My father is Abd al-Jabbar. I was stolen from him a fortnight past. He will richly reward you for my safe return.”

Silence fell as the men digested her claim, then the room burst with laughter that breathed the foul scent of alcohol upon her.

Of course they did not believe her. Not only was she of obvious European descent, but she was disheveled.

“A whore and a liar,” the dark man said and reached for her again. “Come, let us see your wares.”

“I have coin,” she said, knowing it was only a matter of time before it was taken from her. “I will pay—”

Hands fell upon her body, and she cried out with fear for what this man meant to do, anger that there was nothing she could to do to prevent it, and despair over what she had lost in fleeing Lucien. Despite his deception and that he had refused to return her to Algiers, he had been safe.

Heavenly Father,
she silently beseeched,
forgive me for being so foolish to believe it possible to escape without mishap—to venture alone into a mans’ world and remain unscathed. Pray, deliver Lucien unto me!

Other hands touched and pinched her. Vile words were spoken that nauseated and terrified her.

Withdraw,
she silently urged.
If you cannot remove yourself in body, remove yourself in mind.

But her mind would not be parted from its companion, and so caught up was she in the heinous act to come that she was only vaguely aware when the pouch containing her coins was taken.

“Lucien,” she gasped amid tears. “Lucien!”

As if in response, a man rose from a table in the back of the room, but it was no bronze-headed giant. As he advanced on her, surely intending to violate her, two others followed.

“Enough!” he spoke in the lingua franca recognized by the Arab-speaking people, his heavy accent evidencing he was of French descent.

Alessandra’s assailants pulled back, allowing her to look nearer upon the handsome, dark-headed man. In European dress, he and his men stood out among the many draped in shapeless robes. Hope surged through her. Might he aid her?

He stopped several feet distant and considered her with an appreciative gleam in his eyes. “What price for this woman?” he asked.

She was to be sold?

The tavern owner waved the others back. “You would pay to have her first, Monsieur LeBrec?”

The Frenchman shook his head. “I will pay to have her to myself. I share with no man.”

Though his words offered little comfort, compared with the others, he seemed respectable. Perhaps she could convince him of her relation to Abd al-Jabbar.

The tavern owner grinned. “You are a selfish man. And when you are finished with her?”

“You know my business, Asim.”

“Indeed,” Asim murmured, then named an exorbitant price.

“Too much,” LeBrec said. “Look at her. She is no prize. And smell…” He sniffed the air. “It will take much purging before she is of use to me.” He offered a quarter of Asim’s asking price.

Asim thrust Alessandra in front of LeBrec. “Look, friend, she is of fine frame and slender of limb.” He swept a hand down over her. “Much pleasure she will bring you.”

“She smells worse than thought,” LeBrec said dryly.

Alessandra nearly spouted indignant words, but she could not afford to anger the Frenchman.

Asim leaned near Alessandra, breathed in her scent, and lowered his price.

LeBrec argued it, and shortly an agreement was reached at less than half the original figure.

Asim took the money, pushed Alessandra at LeBrec, and lumbered off. The other men also dispersed.

LeBrec pulled Alessandra’s cloak closed. “You need not fear me. You are safe now.”

Attempting to see beyond his wonderful smile, she said in a voice flushed with relief, “
Merci, monsieur
.” He did not seem an animal, but would he aid in her return to Algiers? If so, at what price?

“So you know my language, eh?” he asked.

“And English.” Sabine had neglected no area of her daughter’s education, endowing her with the fluency of three languages and the fundamentals of several others.

Grasping her elbow, LeBrec guided her to the tavern’s entrance, his companions following. “Yet you speak Arabic as if it were your native language,” he mused.

She halted. “It is. I am no liar, monsieur. I was born and raised in Algiers. My father is Abd al-Jabbar.”

He smiled wider, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “What is your name,
cherie
?”

“Alessandra.”

“Well, Alessandra, when this grime is removed”—he drew a thumb down her cheek and came away with a smudge—“we shall know for certain, eh?”

She would have to tell him all of it, she realized. She only hoped the price of his assistance would not be her virtue.
 

“Come,” he urged, “I will take you to my home where you can have a long bath. Then we will talk.”

A bath. The dirt no longer concerned Alessandra, but the cleansing away of the feel of those hands that had sought to violate her. Warily optimistic, she placed herself in LeBrec’s hands.

Pity
, Jacques LeBrec thought as he leaned over Alessandra’s sleeping figure and lifted a lock of her lustrous red hair.

He was taken with the beautiful, impetuous young woman who had emerged from the filth to grace his table hours earlier. She was refreshing, her manners impeccable and testimony to her incredible story, and of which he now had written proof.

He let the tress fall, then straightened and looked at the letter he had found among her scant belongings. It was from her mother, and its poignancy had gripped him when he had read it minutes earlier. He retrieved it, folded it, and tucked it inside his overtunic.

When he looked again at Alessandra, he stirred in remembrance of the shapely figure he had glimpsed beneath the diaphanous material she had been clothed in following her bath, and that was now hidden beneath the blanket pulled over her. But only a stir.

Having long ago accepted his impotence, he was not surprised. Still, he continued to hope he would find a woman capable of bringing him to life. Though it seemed Alessandra was not to be the one, she had moved him more than any other.

Just as well,
he consoled himself as he turned away.
Otherwise, I might not be able to part with her. Which I must do. And soon.

It was not like him to become emotionally attached to one of his investments, but this woman was an exception. Had he time to send a messenger to Algiers to discover the reward for her return, he would keep the promise she had extracted to return her to Abd al-Jabbar. Unfortunately, he had a sizable debt coming due.

At the door, he looked over his shoulder. In sleep, she was even more exquisite. The light sprinkling of freckles enhanced, rather than detracted, from her beauty. Her long lashes, pert nose, and bowed mouth were an artist’s dream. And her spirit, that transcended slumber, was irresistible. It was no wonder this Lucien she pretended to hate was so determined to take her to England. No doubt he knew how to pleasure a woman. And himself.

The bitterness that Jacques had long ago come to terms with crept back in. It tore at him, hardening him against feelings that were determined to interfere with what he must do.

No matter, he tried to convince himself. If Alessandra could not satisfy the elusive passion of his body, she would satisfy the one passion in which he could easily indulge—gambling.

“There is an auction today,” Jacques said as he assisted Alessandra from the carriage that had delivered them to the marketplace.

She assured herself her veil was in place, then peered up at the man who had generously made himself her guardian three days past. During that time, he had proven himself a gentleman—unlike Lucien, she reminded herself as she was assailed by longing.

“Auction?” she said.

Jacques set a hand to her back and guided her forward. “
Oui,
a slave auction.”

She tensed. It was at such an event her mother had purchased Lucien, and she found the thought of attending one unappealing. “I have never seen one,” she murmured as he led her toward a stall brimming with cosmetics.

“But today you shall,
cherie.”

Alessandra wanted to object, but held her tongue for fear of offending this man who had been kind to her. If not for him, a terrible fate would have befallen her. Now she had only to wait for Jabbar. As Jacques had sent a messenger two days ago, she would soon be restored to all that was familiar.

Telling herself it was what she wanted—wishing she did not have to remind herself of it—she looked to the vendor who pressed pots of kohl and rouge upon her.

She shook her head, but Jacques tossed a coin to the man who scooped up the cosmetics and handed them to her.

She thanked him and placed them in the pouch beneath her cloak.

Next, Jacques led her to a small stall where trinkets blinked in the sunlight.

“This would look lovely with your hair.” He dangled an intricate silver necklace before her.

“It is beautiful.”

“Then you must have it.”

“I have no coin,” she reminded him.

He smiled. “It would please me to buy it for you.”

Although she had agreed to allow him to purchase caftans—the reason for the outing—she was uncomfortable with his offer. The garments were a matter of comfort and modesty that the silken trousers, chemise, and vest he had loaned her did not permit. And though she had been given no choice with the cosmetics, the necklace was even more of a luxury.

“You have already shown me more kindness than I deserve. Thus, I cannot accept it.”

He reached for his purse. “Consider it repayment for your companionship these past days.”

“It is you who should be thanked. If not—”

“You will wear it for me tonight. I insist,
cherie
.”

“And
I
insist otherwise.”

His face darkened so suddenly she nearly stepped back. “You think I expect payment in flesh?” he snapped, causing the merchant to quiet.