Chapter 39 #2
These were the words Alex had been waiting a lifetime to hear—if not many lifetimes—but now they did not bring joy and exhilaration. She remained sick, terrified. “Then return to America with me!”
“I cannot. I have my duty to perform.”
“You have done your duty to your country,” Alex snapped, enraged. “You spent two years in captivity, for godsakes; let someone else die now fighting the bashaw!”
“I am avenging my brother,” Xavier said in a whisper. “Whom the bashaw’s corsairs killed.”
Alex stared.
His expression changed. “I am avenging you.”
Stunned, Alex did not speak.
“I have no choice, Alexandra,” he said. His eyes were hard. “Not in this.”
Trapped. He was trapped, she was trapped, by his sense of honor, his sense of justice, by circumstance, by Fate. Everything and everyone, it seemed, conspired against them, to keep them apart. “I don’t want to be avenged,” she said thickly. “I only want to be with you.”
“I must do what I must do,” he said. His tone was unyielding.
“Are you going back to kill Jebal?” The notion terrified her.
“I will not risk my life, if that is what you are asking. But if I am fortunate enough to be given the opportunity, then yes, I shall kill Jebal.”
“Please stay,” Alex heard herself say.
He did not answer her. It was answer enough.
Why was this happening? It struck Alex that it was not their destiny to be together after all.
That it was merely her destiny to be his guardian angel, goddamn it, to have traveled back in time only to rescue him from an unjust and untimely death.
“I will wait for you in Tunis,” she said again.
Her voice was hollow and filled with tears.
“No, I shall not allow it. I want you stateside.”
The words popped out before she even thought through what she was saying. “You cannot order me around. Not unless you make me your wife.”
His jaw flexed.
Alex began to perspire. How could she have said such a thing? “Xavier?” She clawed her own hands. Wishing there were more air circulating in the small, dark cabin. “You said you loved me.”
He hesitated. “I do.”
“Then … don’t you wish to marry me?”
“I cannot.”
Alex could not believe her ears.
“I am sorry, Alexandra. Very, very sorry.” And his eyes held a sadness she had never seen before, a weariness, a resignation … and defeat.
He would marry her if he could. But he could not. He was a married man.
Xavier paced alone by the portside railing.
The acrid scent of gunpowder still clung to the cannons mounted there, but everywhere around him the world was serene, at peace.
The sea shimmered softly in streaming silver moonlight, the Constitution rocked gently as she sailed northwest, and overhead the night was clear, starry, and bright.
The only demons raging were inside Xavier, and there they felt fierce and unclean and infinitely menacing, infinitely bright.
Somehow she had changed his entire life.
Having known her these past two years, even having spent so little time together, had marked him eternally.
Her image remained with him always, engraved upon his mind, sometimes comforting him, sometimes disturbing him, as did the knowledge that she existed, waiting for him, almost like a beacon light shining on him, for him, beckoning him home.
His attraction to her was fierce, an attraction he had never felt before, as emotional as it was physical—and he could barely understand it.
But there was no point in trying to fathom it, or himself, or even her. There was no goddamn point.
But God, he would marry her if he were free to do so, right then and there, on board Preble’s ship, even though she had been a spy. Xavier wouldn’t think twice about forgiving her for anything she had done in the past.
His heart seemed to be trying to pound its way out of his chest. She was the most glorious woman he had ever met, and it saddened him to the point of grief to think of their parting. Yet part, they must. She had a life to return to, and so did he.
He cursed.
Tomorrow she would disembark in Tunis. He might never see her again. But he would never be able to dismiss her from his mind, his life. To know her once, even so briefly, was to yearn for her forever.
He was oddly breathless. He had become weak.
Longing for what was out of the realm of possibility.
He belonged to another woman. Nothing could change that.
He had promised Robert that he would always take care of Sarah.
And divorce was unheard-of for someone like himself.
Besides, Sarah needed him desperately. He could not have Alexandra Thornton, no matter how he might wish otherwise.
And he would not even consider another arrangement.
But he owed her the truth. No matter how painful it would be for the both of them. Yet he was loath to tell her, at least not until they reached Tunis on the morrow. That way he could hold her, cherish her, one more time. Until the advent of another Mediterranean dawn.
But he was not that weak, and resolutely he retraced his footsteps to the captain’s cabin.
She had been crying. This time, when he entered the cabin, he lit a candle. She sat up, wearing a man’s shirt and breeches, facing him squarely, but her eyes and nose were red. The last thing he meant to do was hurt her. But now he would hurt her even more. He felt stricken, helpless, agonized.
“Don’t cry, please,” he said.
Her small nostrils flared. “You don’t really love me, do you?”
He stiffened. She always said the surprising, did the unpredictable. “I love you very much.”
She shook her head. Her long red hair streamed about her. “If you really loved me, you would marry me.”
He swallowed, hesitating. But there was no easy, kind way to tell her what he had come to say. He set the candle down on Preble’s cluttered desk. “God.” He rubbed his forehead. “Alexandra. I want to marry you.”
Her eyes lit up.
“You don’t understand!” He lifted a hand. “I cannot.”
She stared at him, and slowly he saw the comprehension filling her eyes. And the sick, sick look accompanying it.
He wet his lips. “I am already married.”
She did not speak. Her breasts, too large for the man’s shirt, heaved against the linen material. Two bright spots of pink colored her cheeks.
“Alexandra? I am sorry.”
Her chest rose and fell harder now. Her eyes were wide, wild; her jaw tensed hard. She was panting, clutching the bedcovers, as if she might actually shred them apart.
He felt guilty for not having ever mentioned this to her before. Yet he had been afraid to—afraid of just this reaction. “You need a glass of water,” he decided, moving to the small table beside the bed. He poured water from the pitcher and handed it to her.
“No!” she screamed. She struck the glass from his hand; water spilled across his shirt, the glass breaking on the floor. Her face was a mask of rage. “You lied!”
Instinctively he shrank away from her.
She stood before him, fists clenched, her entire body shaking, in the throes of a fury the likes of which he had never witnessed before. He was afraid. “It is not what you think,” he began in a whisper.
She shook her head wildly. Her red hair flew about her. And continued to fly about her, whirling, as if whipped by the wind. She shook and shook her head—and Xavier became very still, frightened now.
“Stop it,” he cried. “You will hurt yourself.”
But her head continued to shake and her hair continued to swirl as if she were in the midst of a gale. Her expression remained one of murderous rage. Watching her, Xavier was frozen—because her love had turned into hatred.
And as he stared, he suddenly realized that something was terribly wrong, because her body seemed to be shaking too, no, not shaking, but spinning.
Around and around. He cried out.
Alex’s face, mostly hidden by the flying strands of her hair, abruptly changed expression, and he saw the fear in her eyes.
“Alexandra!”
Her hands lifted. Her fists unclenched. “Xavier!” she cried, but his name was whisper-soft and seemed to come from far away. She started to float backward, away from him.
Vibrating like a spinning top.
Xavier did not understand, but panic filled him. “Alexandra!” he shouted, rushing toward her.
But when he reached her she seemed to be fading before his very eyes, like an apparition, and she seemed to be calling his name again—but this time no sound at all came from her open lips.
Her hands were outstretched. Her face, her hair, her body, seemed to be turning into shadows and air.
Screaming her name, Xavier reached for her left hand.
And gripped nothing but air.
Alexandra was gone.