Captive (10 page)

“Tell him he must give me the laudanum when I ask for it,” she said, suddenly strident. “Tell him, Xavier, tell him that!”

He hesitated. “He and Father will decide together about the laudanum, Sarah. If they decide you truly need it, then you will have it.”

“No!” She punched the bed weakly. “You are leaving me—you told me you would never leave me, Xavier, you lied!”

He did not know what to say. He had insinuated that he would never leave her; perhaps he had even said such a thing, but he had meant that he would always be there for her. That he would always take care of her. “I am leaving, Sarah, because Duty calls, but even though I am gone, I shall see that you are as well cared for as if I were here, personally attending you.” He stood up.

She met his gaze for a fraction of a second, saw that he was resolved, and she stared at her knees, sobbing. But she nodded.

“Come down for tea,” Xavier said. She was a tiny woman, and when he stood he towered over her, especially now, when she reclined in bed. He felt like a giant. She seemed like a dwarf.

Sarah made no response.

“I shall expect you downstairs in thirty minutes,” Xavier said softly. But it was a command and they both knew it.

She looked up, not resentful, merely pitifully resigned.

“It is not healthy for you to stay abed all day,” Xavier added gently.

She stared at him unhappily, and after a long moment, she nodded again.

Her acquiescence made him feel somewhat better. He turned, and when he was at the door she called out to him. “Xavier?”

He froze. He comprehended her question before it came, and he dreaded having to answer it.

“Where are you going?”

He did not want to tell her. He wanted to lie. The lie was
there, on the tip of his tongue—the Indies, he would say. And he would promise her presents and pretty baubles. But as he hesitated, she guessed. For Sarah was as astute as children sometimes are. “No!” she gasped.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“No!” she cried again, rising up to her knees. “Not to Barbary!”

“Yes.”

She screamed.

“Sarah!” He had expected a violent reaction, but not this.

“You will never come back!”

When Dr. Carraday left, Sarah had been doused heavily with laudanum. Teatime was long since gone. Xavier checked to make sure that his wife was sleeping soundly. Bettina sitting by the bed, holding her hand, her big brown eyes sad, before striding downstairs. His father was in the formal salon, standing by the grand piano that Sarah played so well—when she could be motivated to do so.

William looked at his face and moved to the sideboard. There he poured them both oversized snifters of brandy. “This has been a long day.”

It was not even suppertime. Xavier nodded, drinking, and soon a warmth began to unfurl the constriction in his abdomen, even lightening the heaviness in his chest. “Yes, a very long and trying day.”

“How is she?” William asked with concern.

“She is asleep.” Xavier’s face tightened. “I should not have admitted the truth.”

“Do not blame yourself. You always blame yourself. The world does not rest upon your shoulders, Xavier.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Xavier said, as lightly as he could. But he looked away from his father’s eyes. Because these days it felt like the entire world did rest upon his shoulders. And though he was young and strong, he was not that strong, no one was that strong, by God.

“You can’t treat her like a child for the rest of your lives.”

“But she is a child.”

“She is a woman of twenty-five. An invalid, perhaps, but a woman—not a child. I believe that she can and will get better—with time.”

Xavier wanted to believe that too. But he didn’t, not for a moment. He had known Sarah since she was born, but he remembered her better as a toddler and a young girl. Then she had been filled with laughter, but she had always been as fragile as the finest handblown glass. Her laughter could vanish in an instant, chased away by black clouds no one else could see.

“I am worried about you now, not her,” William said.

Xavier’s jaw tensed. “I shall be careful. Very careful. And no one knows the sea better than I. The corsairs have no training, no discipline, and few good captains. I can outsail them, outfight them, and I shall.” His eyes blazed. “That is another promise I make to you, Father.”

“To me, or to Robert?” William asked.

Xavier turned away, his heart leaping. He set his drink down. Aware of a savage determination rising up in him, consuming him, now that the crisis with Sarah had passed. Now that the decision had been made. “To you both,” he said.

William bowed his head. Xavier knew that he prayed. But Xavier did not want prayers. He wanted blood. Moslem blood—the blood of the Barbary pirates.

And by God, he would have it—or die trying.

Tripoli

May 22, 1803

W
HERE WAS
M
URAD?

Alex stood by an embrasure in one of the palace walls, staring out to sea. Earlier that day three American naval ships had been spotted cruising the coast off of Tripoli. She had sent Murad to find out what the sudden appearance of the American navy signified.

In the past year there had been numerous skirmishes between both countries, but nothing decisive or significant. The bashaw remained adamant—he would not sign a peace treaty with the United States, not without receiving vast sums of money and numerous valuable gifts. He felt slighted and insulted because the other Barbary states either had received such tribute and bribes or had been promised them. He was savagely determined to plunder American shipping until he got his “fair” share.

This was no longer such an easy task. When Alex had first arrived in Tripoli, a little more than a year ago, the city had been under an American blockade. The bashaw was uneasy, although not terribly frightened. The main effect was that the corsairs could no longer pick off their prey so easily—they first had to slip through the blockade.

Then Commodore Dale had been recalled, being replaced
by Richard Valentine Morris. Morris had spent this past year with the entire naval fleet dispersed throughout the Mediterranean. It had been, Alex thought bitterly, a leisurely cruise for him, his wife, and his young child, Not once had a single American warship been spotted in Tripoli’s waters. Nowadays, the bashaw and Jebal and all his high officers made rude, crude jokes about the Americans. If you were an American, you were considered a coward, all talk, nothing more.

Meanwhile, there had been no word or sign of the
Pearl
or her captain, Xavier Blackwell, But Alex was acutely aware of the passing of each and every day. Within two months, the
Pearl
would be seized at sea, and Blackwell would arrive a captive in Tripoli.

Had the past year not been such a cataclysmic culture shock, had it not been a test of her courage, determination, and skills for survival, Alex would be pulling out her hair by now, braid by braid, anticipating his arrival.

For surely he would come, as the history books had said he would. Otherwise Alex had spent an entire year fending off Jebal and accepting the intolerable lifestyle forced upon Moslem women for nothing.

Alex was both excited and worried. Stress made it difficult for her to sleep. She wanted to be with him so badly. Sometimes she imagined finally being in his embrace and she was moved to tears. Her emotions were so intense that she could hardly bear them.

However, she never lost sight of the fact that a year from now Blackwell’s execution would be pending—unless they were clever enough to escape Tripoli together before being discovered.

Alex forced her thoughts away from Blackwell and the future with difficulty, as she had done each and every day for the past fourteen months.
Where was Murad?

Alex paced by the embrasure impatiently. Three American ships had appeared off of the coast, and she was hot-wired. Something was going to happen. She was sure of it. Something momentuous. And what if one of those ships was the
Pearl?

Just because the
Pearl
was seized in July did not mean she could not appear in the area sooner.

Alex heard footsteps racing up the stone steps and she whirled. In the past year she had not grown accustomed to the numerous garments and jewelry that she was required to wear.

She shoved impatiently at the multicolored layers of clothing she wore, vests and gowns and robes that hindered her movement and were incredibly heavy because of the beading and embroidery and real gems used as decoration. Bracelets tinkled on her wrists as she moved, and around both of her ankles she wore a thick band of silver at least an inch and a half wide—only the ladies with royal blood were allowed to wear ankle bracelets of gold. Alex’s eyes were kohled. She wore hanging earrings, too, of gold and turquoise. Wrapped around her body and draped over one shoulder was a barcan of the finest transparent gold fabric. A solid gold belt completed the ensemble.

But she was unveiled. Alex despised the clothing she had to wear, but she despised the veil most of all. She was not allowed out of the harem without it.

Alex moved away from the embrasure. Jebal would be furious if he spotted her outside of the harem with her head uncovered, with her face bared for the world to view, even though she remained inside of the palace. Alex did not care. There were limits to her tolerance. Besides, Murad knew the palace like the back of his hand. It was filled with secret passageways. No one had seen her pass through Jebal’s apartments and into the public domain. Jebal would never know that she had wandered outside of the harem without her veil.

“Alex, they have been cruising the coast since dawn,” Murad said, coming to stand beside her. “The bashaw is angry. As is your husband.”

Alex turned away from the sight of the three ships. The closest one appeared to be a frigate with at least thirty guns. She trembled with excitement. Wishing she could remember details about the war
before
Preble’s advent, which was not for another year. “What are they planning. Murad?”

He eyed her. “What are you planning, Alex?”

Alex licked her lips. Murad was far more than her slave. In the past year, he had become her dearest friend and her most loyal ally and confidant. She lowered her voice. “If they are planning an action, we should rush to Neilsen and try to get word to the Americans.”

Murad blanched. “You are speaking of treason, Alex!”

“I know exactly what I am talking about,” Alex said firmly.

“I do not know what they are planning. Even now, the bashaw and Jebal are closeted with Farouk and Rais Jovar.”

It was a council of war. It had to be. Farouk was the bashaw’s prime minister, Jovar the admiral of the navy. Alex had never been introduced to either man, obviously, but like the other Moslem women in the royal family, confined to the harem, she frequently spied upon the men from special rooms reserved just for that purpose. The life of a Moslem woman really was hell. They were allowed to observe—but not participate—in most of what life had to offer.

“Let’s go,” Alex said, rushing for the stairs.

“Now what?” Murad complained. “I don’t like it when you get this expression upon your face.”

Alex grinned at him. “I know. We are going to spy on the bashaw, Jebal, Farouk, and that creepy Jovar.”

Murad’s eyes widened. “Alex, are you insane! If you are discovered, you will be bastinadoed!”

Alex and Murad raced down the steps side by side. Alex knew well what the bastinado was. But not from experience, thank God. It was a long plank of wood with two holes at either end. A man’s feet were inserted in the holes and then he was hung upside down. The soles of his feet were then whipped mercilessly. It was a fact that most men died from anything over a hundred lashes of the bastinado.

Murad pushed open a door and they entered a narrow, dark tunnel. Alex spoke while he lit a torch. “Jebal will never hurt me. He is in love with me.”

Murad’s gaze flickered. “Your telling him that your first husband is dead and that you needed time to grieve was very clever, Alex.”

Alex stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know. I know the truth. That you have never been married. That there is no dead first husband. That it is a lie to keep him out of your bed.”

Alex could not move. Murad was her best friend, but she had not told him the truth—that she was a time traveler from the twentieth century. She stared, unable to speak.

“It doesn’t matter. I will die before I will betray you,” Murad said simply.

Alex took a deep breath. “How did you find out?”

He shrugged. “I just knew. But it has been a useful ploy, Alex, in more ways than one. Keeping Jebal out of your bed
keeps him wildly in love with you. But you already know that, don’t you?”

“The thought has occurred to me,” she admitted. “But that was secondary. I can’t sleep with someone I don’t love, Murad.”

His silver eyes were soft and tender. “I understand. You are a very different kind of woman, Alex. I’ve never met a woman like you before.”

Alex hesitated. Then she moved to him and wrapped her arms around him. She had never hugged him before. But it felt natural and right.

For an instant Murad did not move. Then he closed one arm around her, too, briefly. And he stepped back. In the glow of the torch he held with his other hand. Alex saw that he was blushing. “I would have never made it through the past year without you, Murad. Thank you,” she said softly.

His gaze was steady. “Yes, you would have, Alex. Even without me.”

They continued down the tunnel, taking a left fork. At one end was a trapdoor just above their heads, Murad pushed it open, then using toeholds in the wall, climbed up to peer outside. He looked down at Alex and nodded. A moment later he was up and aboveground and Alex was climbing out. They crouched in the garden in the harem, completely concealed by thick shrubbery.

Murad parted some branches and gazed around, then snapped the branches back into place. “Zoe,” he mouthed.