Lord of Desire (60 page)

The silence lengthened.

"Well . . ."she said helplessly. After another long moment she added, "I should go. Forgive me, please, for interrupting you."

Alysson got slowly to her feet. At the door, however, she paused and looked back. "Jafar?" she said, her voice echoing softly across the empty hall. "What will happen afterward . . . after the prisoners are exchanged?"

Jafar did not want to face that question, or the others it raised. What would be Alysson's response when her fiancé was freed? Would she demand her own freedom? A freedom Jafar did not want to grant?

And yet hearing the troubled note in her voice, he knew he had to give her some kind of answer. "I told you, your precious Gervase will not be harmed," Jafar said grimly, forcing
himself
to look at her.

Oddly, she didn't seem entirely relieved. Instead, she regarded him searchingly. "Do you still mean to seek revenge for what his father did to yours?"

Her persistent fear for his blood enemy infuriated Jafar, but he forced himself to let out a breath. "No . . . I no longer seek revenge."

"But you will never stop fighting, will you?"

Jafar shook his head. As long as he breathed the war would never be over for him. Even if he was stripped of power, he would never give up his quest to rid his country of the foreign oppressors. This interlude, here in his mountain fortress with Alysson, was only a brief respite. Someday soon he would return to the struggle.

"A traitor would not be so dedicated to a cause," she said softly before turning away, leaving him alone.

Her quiet words whispered though his mind, grasping with seductive fingers at his conscience. He couldn't accept her reasoning, but truthfully, he wished he could.

Alysson wished she could convince his tribal council to reconsider their absurd allegations. What Jafar had done was not traitorous; it was right and good. He had not betrayed his countrymen by letting an enemy live. He was still totally committed to his beliefs. He was still determined to fight against the French, in a war he could never win. That should have been proof enough to vindicate him, she thought.

Alysson was still dwelling on the unfairness of it two days later when she was confronted with a discovery that sent her reeling.

Jafar had been gone all morning long, hunting for boar with his men—an invitation which had not been extended to her, even though she would have liked to participate. Women did not hunt in Barbary, it seemed.

After her recent long ride, however, Alysson wasn't overly distressed at being left out. Not only was she still recovering her health, but the day had turned wet and wretchedly cold, with rain clouds hovering over the mountains much like in the Scottish Highlands—a reminder that the snows would soon come.

Instead, she spent the morning reading aloud to her uncle. After finishing the French text, she wandered disconsolately over to the other second-floor wing that held Jafar's private apartments, intending to search his library for another book.

The library was furnished even more comfortably than the rest of the magnificent house, with dozens of leather- bound volumes filling the wooden shelves and recesses in the walls. Much to Alysson's surprise, she found among the writings of Arabic and French a book of English poetry penned by Lord Byron, the brooding romantic British aristocrat who some twenty-odd years ago had fought alongside Greek freedom-fighters against the bloody Turks.

Curious, Alysson sat down on one of the divans to thumb through the slim volume. When she opened the front cover, though, her hand froze. There on the front leaf, written in a bold flowing hand, the name
Nicholas Sterling
had been inscribed. The words seemed to leap up at her, while her heartbeat surged erratically.

Sterling was the family name of the dukes of Moreland.

Seven years ago she had visited the duke's estate and had been comforted by a fair-haired stranger.

During her terrible illness she had dreamed about that stranger—a comforting image that had somehow become entangled with Jafar's.

Dazed, confused, Alysson stared at the name, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Just then, she heard a soft, familiar footfall. When she looked up, it was to find Jafar standing in the doorway, his golden eyes focused intently on her, his features shrouded in a look that was both wary and shuttered.

Chapter 20

"It was
you
that day," she accused, her voice barely a whisper.

"Yes," Jafar replied, meeting her questioning gaze.

"I don't understand . . ."

"My mother was British. Her father—my grandfather- is Robert Sterling, Duke of Moreland."

Alysson simply stared. Jafar had spoken in English. Impeccable, clipped, cultured English that could not have been learned with only casual study.

"Then . . . however did you come to be
here . . .
in this position . . . your tribe?" she said in confusion.

Jafar sighed. After a moment, he moved to sit beside her on the divan. "It is not so strange a story. Years ago, when my mother was young, she disagreed with the marriage her father had arranged for her. In defiance, she took passage on a ship bound for Sicily, where she planned to remain until her father capitulated. But she never reached her destination. The ship was captured by Barbary pirates. My mother was taken to Algiers, where she was sold as a slave."

Enslaved,
Alysson thought with a shudder. "How horrible," she said aloud, thinking of the terrible tales she'd heard about Western women imprisoned in Eastern harems.

"Actually she was quite fortunate. She was young and beautiful and brought a great price," Jafar responded. "She was purchased by a Berber warlord, who carried her to his home in the mountains. There he fell in love and married her, even though she was a Christian. Later she bore him a son."

"You?"

Jafar nodded, but his gaze seemed distant, as if he were sifting through old memories. "I was given the name Jafar, after the pirate who had captured her."

"You were named after a
pirate?"

His lips curved in a faint smile. "Jafar is what my father called me. My mother called me Nicholas. I was raised to be a Berber warrior, but my mother never allowed me to forget my English heritage."

Jafar was silent for a moment before he added softly, "She was happy here, I know, though she always hoped to return home one day to visit her father
. '
When we return to England,' was one of her favorite phrases." Jafar smiled again, this time sadly. "But she wouldn't go without me, and my father would not allow me to leave. I think he feared I would be seduced by the English life of wealth and privilege that had been denied me."

"Did you ever go?"

"Yes." His reply was terse. "After my parents' deaths, when it was learned that I was half English, I was sent home to my noble grandfather. I remained there for ten years."

Ten years that had been an eternity, Alysson suspected, hearing the echo of the young boy's anguish in the man's bleak tone.

"Perhaps you can understand," Jafar said, regarding her intently, surprising her with his direct appeal. "The money and titles my grandfather offered meant nothing to me. I had been raised here, in a different world. I was my father's heir. Here I lacked for nothing—I had only to say 'Do this' and it was done. Here I was among family, friends,
familiar
customs. In contrast, England was a foreign land, filled with cold, contemptuous strangers."

Alysson returned his intent gaze, her own filled with sympathy. She was not akin to him by class or race, but she had endured similar experiences. She understood very well the kind of prejudice and contempt he would have been subjected to by the haughty British nobility because of his mixed blood. She'd suffered much the same way for her own common origins. "You never fit in."

Jafar shook his head. "No, I never fit in. I could never become the civilized young gentleman my grandfather wanted me to become. One doesn't forget his heritage simply because he finds himself in a different country. Being half English does not make him an Englishman."

No, Alysson thought silently, Jafar could never be an Englishman. Not when the blood of Berber warriors ran so fiercely in his veins. And yet he was not all Berber, either. Had she known to look, she would have seen the signs of his European upbringing in his mannerisms, in his care of her. He'd kept his past hidden from her, but his rare lapses into speaking English should have warned her, if nothing else.

"And later?
You gave up your English life to return here?"

"There was a war being fought here. This is my country, my home. I had to return. I had just taken leave of my grandfather the day I came across you up in that tree, throwing acorns at me."

She thought back, remembering. Now she knew why the bay stallion in his stables seemed familiar to her. She had seen it before. It was the same savage-looking beast he had ridden in England, the same one she had seen in her dreams. And Jafar—he was the stranger who had comforted her that long-ago day, the stranger who had made her grief more bearable.

He was the man who had affected her life so profoundly seven years ago. Much of her happiness during her awkward progression from girlhood to womanhood she owed to him.

It would take her a moment to grow accustomed to the idea.

Her gaze searching, she scrutinized Jafar with new eyes. The lamp glowed, giving intriguing play to the lean hollows and planes of his face. It took no effort to see in those hard features the authority of one born to
rule . . .
or the determination of a man unflinching in love and hate. But now that she knew who he was, she understood things that had always puzzled her, things that his conflicting heredity and disparate upbringing might explain. Why, for instance, his conduct and manner of address sometimes seemed European. Why she'd thought he always seemed alone, even among his own people. He was a man caught between two cultures, Berber and English.
Half of this world, half of a foreign one, perhaps a true part of neither.
Within him warred the sensual soul of the East and the cool pragmatism of the British
aristocrat.
And no doubt he had inherited a measure of both pride and arrogance from each side. He might have disavowed his English heritage, but it was still a vital part of him.

"Did you ever see your grandfather again?" she asked finally.

"I visited him once more," Jafar said with a sigh. "In '43, the tide of the war had turned. Abdel Kader's army was facing defeat, and the French government was intent on crushing any final opposition. Not only were they determined to limit the authority of our sheiks and administrators, but they attempted to destroy our very culture. I led an envoy to England on behalf of Abdel Kader, where I petitioned Queen Victoria to enter the war against France on the side of the
Arabs . . .
to no avail."

Silently Alysson studied him. Thinking back, she remembered the harsh, bitter words Jafar had once flung at her about the sufferings his country had endured at the hands of the French. She'd realized then how powerless he felt about his ability to save his people or prevent them from being ground under the heel of French oppression. Jafar was struggling with his own kind of grief over the French conquest of his country. She could sense his anguish, his silent rage over his helplessness, and it wrung her heart. She longed to comfort him, though she could find no consolation to offer.