To Catch a Bride (14 page)

Ayisha felt her face crumple. “This is my home.”

Laila shook her head, sadly. “It has been so for your life until now, but look inside yourself, my dear, and tell me you did not know, in your heart of hearts, that one day you must go to your father’s country.”

It was true, Ayisha knew, but she did not want it to be. “One day I will go to England, but not . . . not like this. I don’t want to go with him.” He scared her . . . no, not scared . . . He intimidated . . . That was not right, either. But he was a threat to her, she felt it every time he looked at her and she shivered inside.

Laila smiled. “So you know, but you fight it. Decide, child, decide now; do you live your life in fear, or do you take it like an orange and wring every last sweet drop from it? That is your choice.”

She patted Ayisha’s cheek. “Now, while you decide what to do, the old spice seller wants some more labels written. He was very pleased with those others you did. And after that, why not go down to the river and pick me some nice sweet greens? The river is a good place for thinking.”

 

 

 

 

M
iss Cleeve had demanded a pathetically small sum, but she obviously didn’t know it. It would barely keep a society beauty in knickknacks for a quarter. Rafe followed the interpreter through the streets, heading for Laila’s house.

He was leading a horse. The streets in this part of town were too narrow and the upper stories of the houses too close together for a man to ride. He hadn’t realized that when he hired the horse.

He needed exercise and had hired a horse with the intention of riding every inch of pent-up frustration out of himself. After he called on Laila, he planned a good, hard ride up along the river.

Laila lived in a cramped and dirty part of town. As they approached Ali came racing up, a brilliant grin splitting his thin brown face. He admired the horse extravagantly, so Rafe swung him up on its back, to the boy’s huge delight. He rode proudly, grinning and calling out to all who saw him.

He pointed out Laila’s house. It was small and mean but the street out the front was well swept and clean. Ali slipped down and, taking Rafe’s arm, led him exuberantly down an even narrower alley and banged on a high wooden door set into the wall.

“The boy says Laila will be at the back of the house,” the interpreter murmured, just as the door in the wall opened.

A small, plump woman looked up at Rafe and the horse in surprise and quickly pulled her veil over her face. Her eyes were beautiful: large, liquid, and dark, but they scrutinized him in an unflinchingly critical manner that put him forcibly in mind of his first officer’s inspection, when he was a green recruit.

He bore the small woman’s stringent examination with cool amusement. With her cooperation or without it, he would take Alicia Cleeve back to England.

Ali performed the introductions, and Rafe bowed to Laila, who gestured to them to tie the horse to the gate and then enter the tiny courtyard. The yard was neatly cobbled and swept clean, with herbs growing in pots and a bright red geranium spilling from a high place next to the roof. There was a dome-shaped fireplace, piles of wooden trays, and a lingering aroma of fresh baked bread.

An elderly, ragged tabby cat sat on top of the dome and glared balefully at Rafe, its tail flicking a warning.

“So,” Laila said, “you are the one.”

“Apparently,” Rafe responded through the interpreter.

She gave a little nod, as if he’d passed muster. “Peace be with you. Please to come inside?” She gestured toward the back door, where several pairs of shabby shoes sat neatly, side by side.

Rafe, whose boots were designed to have a valet pull them off, sighed at this local custom and bent to pull them off. Ali ran to help, tugging at them with gusto.

Laila ushered them into the tiny house; two rooms, one with several low divans, the second room a tiny curtained-off alcove. Their poverty was obvious.

“Coffee?” she said.

“Thank you,” he responded. The bitter, burned taste of Baxter’s coffee was still in his mouth, but he’d learned that Egyptians were intensely hospitable, and he didn’t want to cause offense. He didn’t need this woman’s cooperation, but it would be easier on Alicia if he had it. Laila wasn’t going to make it easy on him, he could tell.

Her actions were hospitable, but those dark eyes snapped with suspicion.

She brought back a tray containing two tiny cups filled with an ominously dark brew and a plate of tiny round sticky balls. She presented them to Rafe and the interpreter, then knelt gracefully on folded knees and waited for them to drink. She did not drink herself, Rafe noted.

Rafe braced himself and took a cautious sip of the thick, dark coffee. “This is good,” he said in surprise. He took another sip, then another. He could get used to this style of coffee.

“You know why I’m here,” he said. There was no reason to beat about the bush.

Laila cast a glance at Ali, sitting cross-legged by Rafe’s knees, and said something in Arabic.

“Sending him outside to sweep the yard,” the interpreter explained. Ali started to go, with drooping shoulders and lagging feet, the very picture of a martyr.

“Here, lad, look after my horse, will you? Give it some water,” Rafe told him. He’d watered his horse at Baxter’s, but it would keep the boy occupied and make sure nobody bothered his horse.

Ali’s face lit up when he understood, and he ran out happily.

“You can go, too,” Laila said in English to the interpreter, surprising them both. She added, “My English not good, but enough.”

Rafe nodded to the interpreter, who, looking slightly annoyed, left.

Laila explained. “This between you, me, and Ayisha. I not know her English name—Alissya Cli—?”

“Alicia Cleeve,” Rafe explained. He ate one of the sticky dumplings. “This is delicious.”

She gave a terse nod, uninterested in his compliments. “You come to take my Ayisha to England.”

“Yes—”

“But yesterday you go to Zamil’s slave market,” she said. “Why?” She fixed him with a clear look.

It was a bold frontal attack, unexpected from a woman. Laila rose slightly in Rafe’s estimation.

“To see if he had ever sold this girl. You will, I think, recognize her.” He pulled out the picture of Alicia Cleeve. “It was suggested to me that she might have been kidnapped and sold as a slave. And that Zamil might know.”

“Such evil has happened before,” Laila admitted. She held out her hand for the picture.

“Ahh,” she smiled at it. “So, this is how Ayisha look before she came to the streets.” She gazed at the portrait. “So young and sweet, so innocent. Finish your coffee?”

“Yes, thank you, it was very good.”

“Turn the cup.”

Rafe frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“Turn the cup. Like this.” She demonstrated, upending her own cup on the saucer, letting the thick grounds at the bottom drain.

Bemused, Rafe did so. It was a custom he hadn’t come across before. It seemed rather messy.

Laila handed him back the picture of Ayisha. “You married?”

“No,” he said, surprised at the abrupt change of subject.

“Why not?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to blast her impudence, but he said stiffly, “I’ve been a soldier and away at the war for the last eight years.”

“You hurt bad?” She glanced at his crotch.

His lips twitched. Nobody could accuse this woman of subtlety. “Nothing vital.”

“How many years you have?”

“Eight and twenty.” He folded his arms and sat back.

She gave a brisk nod. “Time you get marry.”

“You and my brother, two voices with but one tune,” he said blandly.

She gave him a thoughtful look, picked up his coffee cup, and stared into it a long moment. Various expressions flitted across her face. She murmured something in Arabic, glanced at him, looked back into the cup, and nodded again. Slowly her body relaxed. She sighed and put the coffee cup down.

There was a short silence, then Laila said, “You will take my Ayisha from me. Soon, I think?”

Capitulation? So soon? But he wasn’t going to question it. “She will have a better life than anything you can give her.”

Laila nodded. “I know, and it is good,” she said, surprising him. “But she not want to go.”

Was she going to try to touch him for money? “She will go,” Rafe said in a grim voice, “whether she wants to or not. Whether you want her to or not. She does not know what is good for her.”

“You force her to go to England?” Laila said.

“Kicking and screaming if necessary,” he confirmed. “And neither you nor anyone else is going to stop me.”

“Good.” She pressed her hands together. “You must make her go. She is stubborn, you understand. I tell her this life is not right for her, that it is a prison for her to live as she does—but will she listen? She needs a man. I see in her cup.”

Rafe blinked at the abrupt about-face. He’d expected opposition, a further grilling on his morals and character, or an attempt to solicit a bribe, not this almost motherly approval. And the suggestion Ayisha needed a man . . .

“You are under a misapprehension, madam,” he told her crisply. “I have not come in search of a bride. I am simply here to escort Miss Cleeve to her grandmother.”

Laila’s brown eyes twinkled. “So you say.”

Rafe said nothing. The matchmaking mamas of Almack’s had a sister in spirit here.

“She is a woman, my Ayisha, not a young girl,” Laila continued with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. “Almost twenty summers. Beautiful. Time she marry, too.”

Rafe resolutely steered the conversation in a different direction. “I am curious—how did you come to know Alici—Ayisha?”

“It was five, maybe six years ago. She young girl, then, starving—I don’t like see any child be hungry. She follow me, follow the smell of my pies. I watch her from the corner of my eye. I feed her. I feed hungry children before, many times. But Ayisha, she is special. She repay me.”

He frowned. This was the crux of the matter. “How?”

“She collect fuel for my fire.” Laila spread her hands in a gesture of simplicity. “How can I turn away a child like that, starving, yet full of honor?” She gave a gusty sigh, remembering. “And so I let her sleep in the back.” She indicated the backyard.

“In the back? You mean outside? In the open air?” Rafe was appalled.

“You think is bad, but it safer for her outside than in. My brother, he think she is worthless boy, but he tolerate her sleeping in the yard because she good worker and help me with the baking. If he know she is girl . . .” Her eyes dropped and she spread her hands in the fatalistic gesture so common in the east. Rafe was able to fill in the rest.

“She wants me to buy her a house in Alexandria,” he told Laila, interested to see her reaction.

Laila’s eyes widened. “She tell you about that?”

“Yes.”

“But you not give it to her?” Laila asked anxiously. “She must go with you to England.”

“I won’t give her money. And she
will
go to England.”

“Good.”

“You won’t miss her?”

Laila’s eyes widened. “Of course I miss her. She is close to me like a daughter. My heart will ache without her.” She touched her heart. “But I know she must be with her own blood. She must become herself.”

Laila was nothing like he’d expected. He’d expected a conniving creature who would use Miss Cleeve as a bargaining chip. Not one who urged him to take the girl to England for her own good. Even though she clearly depended on her earning capacity.

“How did Ali come into the picture?” he asked.

Laila smiled fondly. “He another one like Ayisha. No family. She bring him home like a hungry puppy one day, and . . .” She shrugged. “It was a very small mouth to feed; there is not much to him, even now.”

The boy ate like a horse. “What if there was a possibility of a job for Ali?”

Her eyes lit up. “An apprenticeship?”

He shook his head. “I can promise nothing, but an acquaintance of mine will consider him for a job.”

“Who?”

“A man called Baxter.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “The Englishman who dresses like an Arab. I have heard of him. He is rich and has many fingers in many pots.” She eyed Rafe shrewdly. “Why you do this for Ali?”

“Ayisha will leave Egypt more easily knowing you are safe and the boy has future prospects.”

She nodded. “Yes, this is true. She worry about everyone, that girl. This Baxter, is he a good man?”

“I believe so, but I’ve only met him twice. I know his cousin well.”

She dismissed Baxter’s cousin with a wave of a hand. “When Ali’s mother died, his neighbor take the boy in, but he beat him too much and Ali run away. I not let Ali go to any man who is cruel.”

Rafe nodded. “Then come with me now, and you and Ali can meet Baxter together.”

She glanced at the door. “Not now, for my brother will soon be home, wanting his dinner,” she said. “But come back tomorrow, mid-morning. He will be gone then and we can go to speak to this Baxter.”

Rafe stood and bowed. He’d developed a real respect for this little woman. He understood now why Ayisha and Ali felt so responsible for her—loved her. She had asked nothing for herself. “Tomorrow, mid-morning then.”

In the doorway he pulled his boots back on, then turned back to Laila, asking casually, “Where did you say Ayisha was again?” She hadn’t actually said.

Laila shrugged. “The river, I think. Collecting greens.”