Lady Of Fire (6 page)

“Away!” Nada landed a hand to the animal’s rump.

Immediately, the melon began to slip, forcing Alessandra to angle her head to keep it aloft.

The donkey followed the path at a brisk pace, jostling its rider. As it approached the first curve, it increased its speed and, when that did not unseat Alessandra, leaned hard into it.

Clamping her thighs tighter, Alessandra concentrated on keeping the melon atop her head, blurring her eyes so she would not be distracted.

She could not see the fishpond from her backward-facing position, but she knew when she neared it and the end of her ride. As she silently rejoiced, she nearly lost the melon. Righting it, she smiled in anticipation of her first glimpse of water.

There! She threw her hands up and let the melon fall.

Amid the applause, a yipping dog darted between the donkey’s legs, and Alessandra had only enough time to register the danger before the animal bucked with such force it rid itself of its rider.

Air, of which Alessandra’s desperate hands could not catch hold. Water, that parted to ease her fall but proved too shallow. Pain, for which she had no time. Not yet. First, breath.

She thrust up onto her knees and dropped to all fours when a sharp ache pierced her head. Braced on outstretched arms, she coughed to clear her lungs and, with her first, strangled breath, noted the water’s pink cast.

No sooner did she acknowledge it was blood that tainted the water, than she was plucked from it.

Oblivion beckoned, merging the babble of voices such that there was only one she clearly discerned—Leila’s.

“I do not know how it happened,” the woman cried. “I do not know how he got away from me.”

Alessandra squeezed her eyes against the pounding behind her eyes. “Ah, Khalid,” she breathed, “am I going to die?”

“Nay, little one.” The words were English. “You will not.”

There was no more voiceless laughter, and arms that should not be comforting made her want to stay in them forever. Pressing her face to Seif’s chest, she settled into his warmth and went adrift.

Cold.

Turning onto her side, Alessandra drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, whimpering when the movement sharpened the ache at the back of her head.

She threw out a hand and groped for something to drag over her, but found only pillows. Once more hugging her shivering limbs, she startled when light forced its way through her lids.

“Mother?” she croaked.

As warm hands lifted her legs and tugged at something wrapped around them, she eased her eyes open and squinted against the light that shone in a room otherwise darkened by night.

The large figure bending over the foot of her divan was Seif, though it should not be. Once the stars came out, even eunuchs were forbidden the harem—except Khalid. She was about to ask the reason he was here with her when she remembered this was not the first time she had awakened, and each time he had been beside her mother.

He pulled the blanket free from its entanglement with her feet.

“Where is my mother?” she asked.

He stepped near, draped the blanket over her, and tucked it around her.

“Where?” she pressed, as much to know the answer as to distract herself from his touch.

He straightened to his overwhelming height. “I would think she is sleeping.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Your mother and Khalid ordered me to sleep outside your apartment until Jabbar’s return. They are concerned for your wellbeing.”

The accident.

Alessandra remembered the sensation of flying through the air. Next, breathing in the water, coughing it out, seeing it stained with blood. Then the arms that had lifted her and held her close.

She drew a hand from beneath the blanket and touched the bandage wound around her head. “How did it happen?”

“Leila’s dog frightened the donkey.”

The warmth that had begun to move through her receded as her mother’s disclosure of days earlier, and Leila’s taunting that had enticed Alessandra into mounting the donkey, melded. Had it been an accident, or had Leila set out to harm her as Sabine had warned?

“Was it an accident, Seif?” she said between teeth that had begun to click.

He removed his robe and also fit it around her. “Your mother does not believe so.”

Alessandra gripped his arm. “What do you think?”

“It may have been an accident. It may have been deliberate.”

“You do not know which?”

He lifted her hand from his arm, slid it back beneath the covers. “As your betrothed told, there is much I have yet to learn of your language.”

Fearful he meant to leave, she said, “Is it late?”

“It is quite early. In two hours, it will be day again. Sleep now, and I will summon your mother at first light.” He turned away.

“Do not go!”

He lifted the lamp he had brought within and looked back. “My place is outside your door, mistress.”

“Can you not stay until dawn? I am cold and…” Unable to believe the shameless thing she was about to say, she lowered her eyes. “…I need your warmth.”

 
He was silent so long she thought he must have slipped away, but when she looked up, he watched her.

“It would be improper,” he said, “and I would not wish to feel Khalid’s whip across my back.”

Nor would she wish him to feel it. “I should not have asked.” She turned her face opposite. “I am sorry.”

More silence, then she heard his advance. When he halted alongside the divan, she looked around. “What is it?”

He extinguished the lamp and, amid the dark, urged her across the divan.

Alessandra clutched the cover to her chest. “But I thought—”

“It will be our secret.” He seated himself beside her, put his back to the wall, and pulled her up against his side.

It was a mistake to have invited his trespass, and yet she could not bring herself to send him away.

She breathed in his scent that was unlike any she had known. His skin and clothing wafted no hint of spice or perfume, nothing to mask his odor that was so strangely pleasant she could only liken it to Rashid’s prize stallion.

She loved the smell of the high-strung, temperamental beast, and had buried her face in his neck the one time she had been allowed so near him. How she had longed to bend low over the stallion’s neck and feel and hear his labored breathing as he turned still air into wind, but no matter how she begged, Rashid said it was dangerous and would not even take her up before him. Still, she was certain he would eventually yield and the powerful stallion that so reminded her of this man—who was no longer a man—would carry her away.

“If you relax,” Seif said, “sleep will come more easily.”

With a nervous laugh, she eased the stiffness from her spine and settled more deeply against him. “Do you know what I am thinking?” she asked.

“I do not.”

“How like a horse you are—a great stallion who runs with the wind.”

“Is that so?”

“Rashid has such a stallion named Altair. It means flying eagle.”

“Does he fly like an eagle?”

“I am certain he must, though I have not been allowed to ride him.”

“And you would like to.”

She sighed. “Very much. But Rashid says Altair will not tolerate a woman rider.”

“That is true of some stallions.”

“I do not see why. I can sit a horse the same as Rashid.” Seif need not know her experience was limited to donkeys, nor that she had only been astride a gentle horse with Rashid at her back and controlling the reins.

“You think so?” the eunuch asked.

Alessandra yawned, closed her eyes. “I am certain of it.” Relaxing the hand with which she held to the front of his caftan, she lowered it to his lap, and as she began to drift, felt Seif shift as if uncomfortable.

His hand turned around hers, fingers brushed the skin of her palm and wrist that had never before seemed so sensitive. Then his mouth was in her hair, warm breath caressing her scalp. “And I am certain you would find neither a stallion, nor a man like me, as easy to control as you think.”

“Still, I would like to try.”

Something rumbled from the chest beneath her ear, and he said, “Sleep, Alessandra.”

 
“I thank you for staying. It is kind of you.” She yawned again.

As Alessandra settled into sleep, Lucien breathed in her perfumed hair and acknowledged that what had made him stay was more the desire to know the feel of her than kindness. And, again, he wondered what he was getting into. This was not part of the bargain struck with Sabine. Indeed, he risked emasculation were he discovered abed with her daughter, no matter how innocent it might be. And considering the path his mind kept wandering down, it was nowhere near innocent.

He sighed. A wise man would not place himself in such a situation. But still he could not bring himself to slip away now that she slept. Too much, he liked the feel and scent of her. More, he admired her spirit—refreshing in light of the women with whom he had previously associated.

There had been quite a few, though he could not link names with the blurred faces he called forth. Even the two to whom he had been betrothed were as indistinct as the others.

Absently stroking Alessandra’s hair, he wondered at his failing memory.

Sabine refused to believe her daughter’s fall was anything other than a deliberate attempt to harm her. Thus, Alessandra found herself in Seif’s company thereafter.

He followed her everywhere, excepting those places he was not allowed. It would not have been bad had she not shamed herself by pleading with him to stay with her three nights past—and had she not continued to feel the sense of loss with which she had been afflicted upon awakening alone the morning after. Blessedly, he had yet to speak of the incident.

Now, feeling healed after the rest her mother had insisted upon, Alessandra decided it was time for a bath. At the hour of the day when most of the women congregated in the bathhouse, she left her room.

As she walked past Seif, he stepped from the wall, and his shadow fell over her. Only when the sulfurous vapor greeted her near the bathhouse did it occur to her he might follow her inside. Though she had never felt uncomfortable disrobing in the presence of those eunuchs who watched over the women, the thought of doing so in front of this one disturbed her.

At the door, she turned. “You may wait here. I will not be long.”

“The baths are not forbidden me. I tended them my first day here.”

Then he knew the state of the women inside. “You will wait here,” she repeated and gave her back to him.

Seif’s hand fell to the door, preventing her from opening it. “If you go inside, so shall I.”

Alessandra turned back around. “No harm can be done me in the baths.”

“Unless it is forbidden me, I am to go where you go. That includes the baths. Am I any different from other eunuchs?”

She wanted to tell him he was very different, but she had yet to understand what set him apart from the others. After all, it was only a feeling, one that appalled and confused her.

“Very well,” she said, “you may accompany me.”

She was pleased by the surprise that flashed across his face. Clearly, he had expected her to forgo her bath.

He pulled open the door and stood back to allow her to precede him.

In the antechamber, a servant girl greeted her. “You are better, mistress?”

“I am. I but require a bath to wash away these past days.”

From a table laden with various items, the girl removed a thick bathrobe, a towel, and high wooden clogs.

“You may go ahead,” Alessandra instructed Seif.

“I will wait for you.”

She would have protested, but he considerately turned and strode to the door that led into the baths. Uncertain as to how much time she had before he looked around, she tossed off her clothes, thrust her arms into the robe the girl held for her, and slipped her feet into clogs that would spare her the heat of the marble floor. Then, taking the proffered towel, she hurried forward.

“You are prompt,” Seif said.

Now closer to his height, though she still had to angle her head to meet his gaze, Alessandra said, “You expected otherwise?”

With a bit of a smile, he reached for the door.

The bathhouse was spacious, a large pool at its center, marble sinks spaced along the walls for bathing.

As expected, most of the harem women were present, their curious gazes falling upon Seif and Alessandra as they entered. While some were being bathed at the sinks, others languished beside the pool, eating sweetmeats and engaging in idle talk, bodies shamelessly exposed. Only two—one of them Nada—had ventured into the pool whose warm water caused a haze to cloak the bathhouse.

Alessandra was thankful for Leila’s absence. As first wife, she had a private bathing chamber, but it was not unusual to find her gossiping here.

“You should have worn pattens as well,” Alessandra whispered to Seif.

“Pattens?”

“Clogs.” She nodded at hers.

He grimaced. “I have not the grace, nor the tolerance, to balance upon such silly footwear.”

“The other eunuchs wear them.”

Peering through the haze, he considered the two who kept watch over the women. “So they do.”

“Alessandra!” Nada called.

Alessandra looked to the girl whose bare shoulders were visible above the water.

“You are well?” Nada asked.

Alessandra inclined her head. “I am healed.”

“Allah is merciful!” Nada turned and swam opposite.

God is merciful,
Alessandra silently amended, knowing better than to speak it aloud.

When the servant girl who stood ready to bathe her beckoned, Alessandra said, “Wait here. This I do alone,” and stepped away from Seif.

Though his feet did not follow, his eyes did. She knew it as surely as she knew she would soon be as unclothed as the others. Hoping the haze would dull his vision, she kept her back to him as the servant began to remove the robe the heat caused to cling to her skin.

“Do not!” Alessandra snatched the lapels closed.

“Mistress?” The girl clasped her hands at her waist. “Have I offended?”