Chapter 17
ALEX REGARDED HERSELF in the mirror.
Standing just behind her, Murad made no comment, although he was grave.
Jebal had instructed Murad as to how she should dress for the evening. He had gone so far as to even send clothing to her.
Alex was wearing three layers of silk, which was very little for a Moslem woman.
The first layer was a knee-length tunic with sleeves that reached her hips.
The gauze fabric was the color of warm ivory.
The high neckline and cuffs were beautifully embroidered with multicolored threads.
Alex’s trousers were the same pale, transparent ivory silk, the hem embroidered in an identical fashion.
Although both garments were generously cut, they reminded Alex of a pair of Victoria’s Secret “pajamas,” the fabric was so sensuous and so sheer.
On top of her pajamas she wore a floor-length, side-slit crimson gilet with sleeves.
It was the finest softest silk, also paper-thin, yet dyed in such a manner that it appeared iridescent.
This garment was also embroidered at the neckline, cuffs, and hem, and along both edges of the slit.
Sparkling in the woven strands of silver, black, and gold thread were thousands of tiny, shimmering diamantés.
That is, Alex assumed they were glass. They could not possibly be real.
Finally she wore a short, hip-length sleeveless gold vest. It was made of a heavier damask fabric, but fit Alex as if it had been designed for her alone; that is, it fit her like a second skin.
Eight coral and pearl buttons closed the vest. Alex wore a huge rope of eighteen-karat gold cinched tightly around her waist. It was studded with jade.
After being so heavily clothed in Jebal’s presence, Alex felt naked.
Worse, he had ordered her to wear her hair down, and it flowed in thick, rich strands past her shoulders. Using red henna, Alex had managed to recover her original hair color. How pleased Jebal would be.
She had refused to wear rouge and kohl or any other cosmetic.
Alex was sick.
“How can I do this?” she asked Murad tersely. Their gazes met in the mirror. “I love another man, and he has been consigned to a terrible, cruel fate, perhaps even death. I cannot even imagine what is happening to him right now. And I am supposed to calmly allow another man to use my body?”
“He is not another man. He is your husband, Alex.”
“Thanks. I think I am going to be sick.”
Murad was alarmed. He rushed for a chamber pot. Feeling very close to tears, Alex walked over to the bed and sat down at its foot. Time was running out.
“If it is any consolation, you have never been more beautiful,” Murad said.
Something in his tone caused her gaze to widen. His silver eyes were intensely bright. Alex was taken aback. And surely she was mistaken?
Murad walked away. Alex took a deep, fortifying breath.
Murad had not been admiring her in a very male manner.
He was her friend, her brother. He was a eunuch, incapable of normal relations.
She must focus on the evening ahead. But how to survive?
And why did she have to deal with this now?
When all she wanted to do was plot and plan in order to aid Blackwell?
“There must be a way to get myself out of this mess. If I am horrible in bed, if I do not react, if I am as stiff as a board, maybe he will never want me again.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” Murad said. “You will only infuriate him.”
“Maybe I should accept the inevitable,” Alex said miserably. “I’m not a virgin. Jebal has been kind to me. If I could play the devoted bride, then he would never guess at what is being planned under his very nose. It would be a wonderful smoke screen.”
“What’s a smoke screen?”
“Something that diverts attention away from what you are doing.” Alex realized that Murad held a porcelain teacup in his hand. “I am not in the mood for a soothing cup of tea, not unless it is full of the Tripolitan equivalent of Valium.”
Murad’s eyes met hers. “I don’t know what Valium is.
But this is not plain tea. This contains herbs that will calm you and make you sleepy.
This will help you accept Jebal, Alex. You will not mind anything that he wishes to do.
” Murad’s eyes were filled with regret, compassion, and deep, abiding concern.
Alex stared at the cup of green liquid. Murad’s words filled her mind. And with them, a startling idea. “I want something stronger. I want something that will make me pass out.”
“Pass out?”
Alex stood impatiently, hands on her hips. “I want something that will make me fall asleep, heavily, quickly, so that when Jebal starts up, I won’t be awake. I am quite certain he will not rape me while I’m unconscious.”
“He will be angry,” Murad said.
Alex shrugged. “I’m going to take this one day at a time.”
“I can get you what you want. Alex, are you sure?”
Alex heard women’s laughter coming from the gardens outside. She stared through the open windows into the twilight, then whirled. “Oh, I am sure. And guess what? We can blame Zoe, Murad, and Jebal will never know.” She smiled. “We will say I was poisoned! Zoe is clearly the most likely culprit.”
Murad’s gaze was admiring. He grinned. “Alex, you have finally, truly, become one of us. Zoe could not have done better herself.”
Alex laughed. But her laughter ceased abruptly when someone rapped on her door. Instantly she and Murad locked gazes. “Zoe?” Alex mouthed.
Murad, grim now, marched to the door. Alex watched him breathlessly. One of Jebal’s slaves stood in the corridor. She only relaxed slightly.
Murad returned. “This is for you.”
Alex looked at the small inlaid box. She did not have to be very clever to suspect that it contained a gift for her—a gift of jewelry. “Damn it,” she said.
“I hate it when you curse.”
Alex took the box reluctantly.
“He wants you to wear it. Whatever’s inside,” Murad remarked.
Alex opened the lid and gasped.
Inside the box lay a thick gold collar. From the choker eight large, pear-shaped rubies dangled, a large diamond winking at the tip of each bloodred stone.
“Ohmygod.” She had never seen such a magnificent piece of jewelry before, except in magazine advertisements.
She had never held such a fortune before, much less worn it.
“I’m not sure you should take the sleeping potion,” Murad said grimly. “I have a bad feeling, Alex.”
“No. I am going to pass out on Jebal, I am going to buy myself more time, even if it is a single day.” She hardly heard herself. Something was clicking in her mind. A wonderful dawning realization. She began to smile, slowly lifting up the necklace.
Even in the chamber’s candlelight, the rubies gleamed, the diamonds shined. “Murad!”
“Oh God,” Murad said.
“This will give us the gold we need to get inside the bagnio.”
Murad closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were filled with apprehension. “If Jebal ever finds out, he will kill you himself.”
Alex did not listen. Now she had the means to bribe her way into the bagnio, and maybe even to bribe Blackwell’s way out.
“Perhaps we should get rid of her.”
Paulina lounged naked in the large sunken bath that was at one end of the garden, shaded by huge palm trees. It was a beautiful, star-clad evening. “Who?”
Zoe, also nude, sat on the stone steps beside her, eating figs. “Whom do you think? Her.”
Paulina followed Zoe’s glance. The two women watched Alex walking, head down, along a graveled path. The iridescent red gilet shimmered in the lights cast by the moon and the garden’s torches. “What is she wearing?” Paulina cried with obvious jealousy.
“Jebal spent a fortune clothing her for this night,” Zoe said, her gaze narrowed.
“I don’t understand,” the fifteen-year-old Italian concubine said. “What is so special about tonight?”
Zoe felt like killing Paulina, as she usually did.
But she knew that she was lucky that Jebal’s current favorite was so stupid.
“Tonight Jebal and Zohara celebrate their first wedding anniversary. Jebal is finally going to take the American to bed.” The entire palace knew, and was giggling over the fact.
Bets were being waged as well, discreetly, of course, and almost exclusively amongst the captives, as to what the outcome would be this night. The Koran forbade gambling.
Zoe had placed a wager with her lover. If she lost, she would still win. And if she won … She smiled, licking her lips, her sex already swelling.
“Oh.” Paulina scowled, lazily pawing the water with one hand.
“Don’t you care?”
Paulina tossed her damp head. “Why should I? She is old. And skinny. Jebal will soon lose interest in her.”
“Paulina, little sister, dear. Zohara is his wife.”
“I know that,” Paulina said with impatience. “But when he tires of her he will divorce her.”
“How confident you are,” Zoe murmured. And how dumb.
Zohara was very clever. She was up to no good.
Zoe had yet to learn why she was in Tripoli, or how she had, precisely, come to be a captive there.
Zoe doubted she was a spy. She thought that Zohara had a past she wished to hide.
Her intuition told her that. Revealing Zohara’s past would be very interesting, Zoe was sure.
Interesting and fun. She had no doubt that it would hurt, dismay, or infuriate Jebal.
Zohara might be clever, but she was not as clever as Zoe, and Zoe was quite sure of it.
“Jebal is too kind to divorce her, Paulina,” Zoe said with remarkable patience. “He would only do so under the most extreme circumstances.”
Paulina ducked under the water and came up shaking her head, water flying. “Well, I hardly care. He is allowed two more wives.”
Zoe stared. The hairs on her nape actually rose. She swallowed the growl that filled her throat. “I beg your pardon, dear,” she said sweedy. “But what does that have to do with Jebal and Zohara?”
Paulina smiled. “The reason I have reminded you of that is because that means he can marry me.”
Zoe almost burst out laughing. She absolutely knew that Jebal would never, ever marry the stupid Italian girl. In fact, she gave him three more months at the most before he cast her aside in favor of someone newer, younger, fresher. It was the way of men, the way of the world.
“Do you think she sleeps with her slave?” Paulina suddenly asked.
Zoe jerked, swiveled, and followed Paulina’s gaze. Murad was hurrying after Zohara, who was almost out of sight. Zoe stared. “Whatever made you say that?” But it was a fact of life in the harem. Many ladies took their eunuchs as lovers. Some, like Masa, Zoe’s slave, were truly formidable lovers.
“Murad is the handsomest slave I have ever seen,” Paulina remarked, sighing. “Have you ever looked into his eyes? They are not even gray, but silver. It is such a shame that he was castrated.”
They were so close. The entire palace knew them to be inseparable. Zoe stared across the gardens, but Zohara and Murad were now gone. And she smiled.
“Perhaps it is true,” she murmured. “We must find out. And if it is true, I do not think Jebal will be very pleased, do you?”
“Of course, he would be furious,” Paulina replied, shrugging.
She stood. Water cascaded down her narrow shoulders, between her full breasts, and down her long, coltish legs.
“I am hungry,” she announced. Her slave came forward, a young, ugly German girl.
Paulina stood still while the chunky girl toweled her dry and wrapped her in a robe. “Are you coming?”
“No,” Zoe replied. She popped half of a fig into her mouth and sucked on it.
Zoe watched as Paulina walked away, attended by her slave. Then, beyond Paulina, she saw her own slave returning to her—and he was not alone. Zoe was so excited that she stood, her eyes bright. “Masa! What has taken you so long?” she cried, indifferent to her nudity.
Masa hung his head. “I apologize, my lady. The old woman refused to be rushed.” His dark body gleamed with sweat. He was clad in nothing but a pair of trousers and a slave collar. He was a huge African man.
A very old bedouin woman stepped forward, staring closely at Zoe’s face. Her black eyes were piercing in their intensity.
Zoe was repulsed. She was not just ancient, she was also fat, and her face hung in tiers of flesh.
Worse, the old woman’s eyes appeared to be black holes.
But not empty black holes, rather, they were like black holes of fire and knowledge.
Zoe took a step backward as Masa placed a robe around her.
Zoe tied the sash, her gaze locked with the bedouin’s, aware of the rapid beating of her heart.
“Is it true?” she finally demanded. “That you know the past—and can see the future?”
“Danger. Blood. Fire. Death,” the woman said.
Zoe flinched. “What are you rambling about? I will pay you well. Tell me all about this woman who calls herself Alexandra Thornton.”
The old woman stared at Zoe out of burning eyes. “You must beware,” she said.
Zoe frowned, stamping her foot. “I want to know about Jebal’s other wife!”
The old woman’s expression did not change. “I have warned you, then. So be it.”
Zoe scowled. Danger? Blood? Fire? Death? That was life in Tripoli. The old crone made no sense.
“She is Alexandra Thornton. She is like no woman—or man—you have ever known. She is not from this time. She is from a place far away, a big country, across many oceans. She has come to Tripoli to find a man.”
Zoe’s pulse raced. She stared, filled with questions and swept with excitement. “She is from America,” she murmured. “I do not understand. Why is she different? What do you mean—that she is from another time?”
The old bedouin squinted. “She is from another time. She is not one of us. She will never be one of us. She will not remain in Tripoli.”
Zoe quickly absorbed that last fact. “How can she be from another time? There is no other time!”
“She is from the future. From many years ahead of us.”
Zoe gaped. “You are not making sense,” she cried, growing angry. The future? That was ridiculous! Then, “What man has she come here to find?”
The crone did not hesitate. “The ship captain from this land called America. The man now consigned to the bagnio. The man calling himself Xavier Blackwell.”