“Where are they?” he demanded.
She blinked innocently at him through her spectacles. “Who?”
He lowered his head to give her a baleful look.
“Oh! You must mean Clarinda and Captain Burke. If I’m not mistaken, I do believe they’re on their way back to England.”
Although she wouldn’t have thought it possible, her confession only enraged him further. He spat out a stream of guttural Arabic before remembering to switch to English. “Then what in the name of Allah are you still doing here? Why did the fools not take you with them?”
Poppy lifted her chin. Did no one in this world believe she was capable of deciding her own fate? “Because I didn’t wish to go. I like it here. I can read as much as I like and I never have to wear a corset or slippers that pinch my toes.” Her courage faltered as his heavy-lidded gaze danced down the front of her satin dressing gown, almost as if he could see the unrestrained softness beneath. “And besides, I’ve become very fond of
ktefa
. I sincerely doubt you could get a decent
ktefa
in any coffeehouse or bakery in London.”
Farouk gave her a little shake, his bared teeth looking incredibly white against the darkness of his beard. “Did it not occur to you that you were taking a terrible risk? What if I had decided to take my revenge on them by throwing you in my dungeons or turning you over to my guard so they could use you for sport?”
Poppy knew she was supposed to quail with maidenly horror before such vile threats. But before she could stop it, a bubble of laughter welled up in her throat. “I was more worried about you jabbing hot spikes beneath my fingernails or cutting me up into tasty little morsels with one of your very large swords and feeding me to your crocodiles.” She was laughing so hard now that his hands on her shoulders were all that was keeping her from doubling over. “You do have crocodiles, don’t you? If you don’t, you could always feed me to your tiger cubs, although I daresay it would take them a very long time to finish me off since I’m a rather hearty girl and they really are only overgrown kittens.”
Farouk glowered down at her, looking as if he were on the verge of wolfing her down himself. Instead, he seized her by the hand and started for the door.
“Where are we going?” she gasped, wondering if she had spoken too soon and he was going to fetch his sword and personally cut her up and feed her to his crocodiles.
“To find your treacherous little friend and her lover.”
“But Captain Burke isn’t—”
“And when I do, I am going to give them a piece of my mind for being so foolish as to leave a woman like you with a man like me.” Farouk dragged her right over the top of the bed with him, making it clear that any more protests would fall on deaf ears.
As he strode through the hall of the harem, giving her no choice but to stumble after him, the women ceased their whispering and gaped at the two of them in slack-jawed astonishment.
Amused by their disbelieving faces, which reminded her so much of the faces of the girls at Miss Throckmorton’s, Poppy could not resist dragging her feet just long enough to give them a smug smile and a cheery wag of her fingers before Farouk jerked her out the door.
The stallion went plunging down the rocky path that led to the sea, leaving the shadow of Farouk’s fortress behind them. Clarinda knew she should have been terrified, but all she felt was exhilaration. She would gladly have raced through the night forever, her arms wrapped around Ash’s waist, the fullness of her breasts pressed to the warmth of his back.
She felt liberated at last. This freedom had nothing to do with escaping the gilded bars of Farouk’s cage. She had always felt free when Ash was in her arms. He had never expected her to be anything more than what she was. She could be mischievous, charming, or as ill-tempered as a wet cat and still trust that he would adore her. At least that’s what she had believed up until the moment he had walked out of her life.
She linked her hands together over the shifting muscles of his abdomen and turned her face to the wind, finally ready to leave that moment behind forever, just like Farouk’s fortress, and embrace this one. She had lived long enough now to know it might be the only one they would ever share. The wind whipped away the hood of her robe, setting her hair free to stream behind them in silvery ribbons.
As they ran out of road, Ash guided the stallion in a wide arc and sent them racing along the shoreline. Moonlight frosted the curl of the waves spilling onto the sandy shore. The stallion thundered down the beach, his flashing hooves sending up a fine mist of sand and spray. The scent of the sea filled Clarinda’s lungs, its clean, salty tang washing away every lingering trace of sandalwood and jasmine.
They were going to make it. They were going to be free.
At least that’s what she allowed herself to believe until the first shot rang out. Her heart leapt into her throat. She twisted around in the saddle. All she could see behind them were Luca and Yasmin, their camel making a valiant effort to keep pace with the stallion.
A second pistol ball whizzed past her ear, sending up a plume of sand a few feet in front of them.
To Clarinda’s shock, Ash began to tug on the reins, slowing the stallion from a gallop to a canter.
“They’re shooting at us!” she shouted. “You need to go faster, not slower!”
“Those were only warning shots,” he called back to her. “If they had meant to hit us, we’d be dead right now.”
“So what’s your plan? Making it easier for them to hit us when they decide to stop firing warning shots?”
As they slowed even further, Luca pulled the camel abreast of them, a disgruntled Yasmin hanging on to him for dear life. “What in the bloody hell are you doing, Cap?” he yelled. They could hear the thunder of hoofbeats behind them now, growing louder with every second they squandered. “We’ll never be able to outrun them at this pace.”
Ash twisted around to face his friend, his profile as grim as Clarinda had ever seen it. “I can’t risk them firing on her. I won’t risk it. Even if they take us, at least she’ll be alive.”
“For how long?” Luca’s panicked shout echoed Clarinda’s own bleak thoughts.
Plainly in no mood for argument, Ash sawed on the reins, wheeling the stallion around so they could face their pursuers. The spirited beast reared up on its hind legs and pawed at the air, forcing Clarinda to cling even more tightly to Ash or risk being dumped on her bottom. Ash easily brought the creature under control, using little more than a masterful squeeze of his thighs.
Swearing in both Italian and Romany, Luca followed Ash’s example, guiding the camel in a clumsy circle that nearly unseated Yasmin, who proved she needed only one language in which to swear.
Then all they could do was sit and wait for Farouk and his riders to descend upon them.
F
arouk had brought only a dozen soldiers of his guard with him. Clarinda couldn’t decide if that was a measure of his confidence in himself or of his contempt for his adversaries.
As the riders approached, Ash surprised her once again by dismounting and then reaching up to lift her to her feet. “I’d rather be on my feet to face an enemy than have my horse shot out from under me,” he murmured, his hands lingering against her waist. “Although I have a feeling Farouk would shoot me before he’d shoot this particular horse.”
Ash was right, Clarinda thought. There was something bracing about standing on one’s feet to face an adversary. At least there was until Ash firmly tucked her behind him, forcing her to crane her neck to see around one of his broad shoulders.
The riders swooped down upon them like vultures, their black robes rippling behind them. Beneath the kaffiyehs wound around their brows, their faces were dark and forbidding. When Clarinda saw that Farouk’s uncle Tarik was among them, her heart plunged all the way to her toes.
Farouk was riding a towering chestnut that could have held its own during any race at Newmarket. It wasn’t until he reined in the horse that Clarinda saw the cloak-wrapped bundle in his arms. A pale hand appeared to push back the hood of the cloak, and a pair of spectacles emerged, moonlight winking off their wire frames.
“Poppy?” Clarinda whispered disbelievingly. She started forward instinctively, thinking only to make sure her friend was unharmed. Ash’s arm shot out to block her path.
Before anyone else could speak, Yasmin heaved a dramatic sigh from atop the camel. “I was a fool to run away. I should have known he would never let me go.”
Farouk squinted at her. “Yasmin, is that you? What are you doing here?”
Yasmin gaped at him, her tragic resignation turning to outrage. “You did not even notice I was missing?”
“Forgive me,” Farouk said, sarcasm ripening in his tone, “but I did not have time to count my concubines before riding out. My stable had just been robbed and I was too busy counting my horses!”
“Pshaw! This is why I can no longer be this man’s concubine. He cares more for his horses than his women!” Yasmin twined her arms around Luca’s waist, rubbing against him like a hungry cat. “Today is a good day for you, Gypsy. I have decided I will marry you after all.”
“That’s odd,” Luca said, “since I don’t recall asking you. But if you keep doing what you’re doing, I just might.”
Farouk slid off his mount, putting himself on equal footing with Ash and leaving Poppy sitting astride the horse. His contemptuous gaze encompassed both Clarinda and the stallion before shifting to Ash. “I finally recognized you for the scoundrel you are, Burke, but I did not take you for a thief as well.”
“Didn’t you once tell me if I desired anything that belonged to you, I had only to ask?”
Farouk’s eyes narrowed, the gleam in them reminding them all just how dangerous he could be. “You did not ask.”
Tarik flung himself off his own horse and strode forward. “You are wasting your breath arguing with these infidels. Why do you not just kill them all and have done with it?”
“Silence!” Farouk roared. “If I require your counsel, I will seek it! Until I do, it would be wise for you to stop wasting
your
breath.”
Although he was still visibly seething, Tarik was not so foolish as to ignore his nephew’s warning.
Farouk nodded toward Clarinda. “You have risked everything for this woman. Do you believe she is worth it?”
Ash lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “She’s worth far more to me than you know. If I don’t return her to the man who hired me to retrieve her, I don’t get paid the rest of what he owes me.”
Even though Clarinda suspected Ash was bluffing, the words still stung.
“So now you are a scoundrel, a thief,
and
a liar,” Farouk said.
“Captain Burke is telling the truth.” Clarinda stepped out from behind Ash. “He is not my lover. I am betrothed to his brother—Maximillian Burke, the Earl of Dravenwood.”
“She was on her way to marry him when those nasty Corsairs attacked our ship,” Poppy added helpfully.
With Poppy’s words adding weight to their own, Farouk appeared to be on the verge of believing them. Unfortunately, it did nothing to improve his temper. “You might have mentioned you belonged to another when I asked you to be my bride,” he told Clarinda.
“As I recall,” she replied with withering scorn, “you did not ask me. You
told
me. And since I knew the only other path open to me was to become one of your concubines, I decided it was safer to play along. If I had told you I was already betrothed, would you have let me go?”
Farouk pondered the question for a moment, but in the end his silence was answer enough. He studied them both, the calculating gleam in his eye deepening.
“Very well, Burke,” he finally said. “If the woman is nothing to you, then it shouldn’t trouble you if I take her back to my palace. I will pay you double the gold her fiancé owes you and you will be free to go on your way. Since I am in a generous mood, I will even let you keep the horse.”
“What about the camel?” Luca asked. “Can I keep the camel?” Yasmin grabbed a fold of his flesh just below his ribs and gave it a vicious pinch, prompting him to wheeze out, “And the concubine.”
Ignoring him, Farouk turned to his guards. “Seize her.”
Two of the guards dismounted, but before they could take more than a step toward Clarinda, Ash wrapped an arm around her waist and snatched her against him. A pistol magically appeared in his hand, pointed straight at Farouk’s heart. “If they lay so much as one finger on her, you’re a dead man.”
An array of weapons materialized with equal ease in the hands of Farouk’s guards, including pistols, scimitars, and even a short-handled ax. The two men coolly surveyed each other. They both knew Ash was badly outnumbered. If he fired on Farouk, Clarinda would die anyway.
“Take me,” Ash said grimly. “If it’s a pound of flesh you want, then you can lash it from my back. Or even get it by relieving my head from my body. I don’t care what you do to me. But let her go.”
“No!”
Clarinda shouted, trying to wrench herself from Ash’s arms. “I’ll go back with you! I’ll do whatever you want! Just don’t hurt him!”
The last response either of them expected from Farouk was for him to throw back his head with a booming laugh. “I cannot decide which one of you is the greater fool. She is willing to sacrifice her body for you even as you offer your life for her. What a touching—and somewhat stomach-churning—display.” He shook his head scornfully at Clarinda. “May your God help this poor fiancé of yours if he loves you as I did.”
“You never loved me!” No longer willing to hide behind any man, Clarinda finally managed to jerk herself free of Ash’s arms. “Oh, you wanted me and you may even have been fond of me. But you never loved me.”
Farouk nostrils flared with outrage, much like his stallion’s. “How can you—a mere woman—presume to know how I—the Exalted Sultan of El Jadida—feel?”
“How do you feel right now, Farouk?” Clarinda took a step toward him, forcing Ash to lower the pistol. “Do you feel as if someone has taken one of those big daggers of yours and jammed it right through your heart? Do you weep into your pillow until you finally fall asleep from exhaustion only to wake the next morning and start weeping all over again?” She took another step, keenly aware that Ash was listening to her every word as she described the darkest hours of her life. “Do you dream of a day when you’ll be able to draw breath again without feeling as if you’ve swallowed a bag of ground glass?” She came to a halt directly in front of Farouk, stabbing a finger at his massive chest. “Because
that’s
what love is. And
that’s
how it feels when everything you love the most is torn from your arms.” She shook her head with genuine regret as she gazed up at him, remembering all of the kindnesses he had shown her. “I didn’t break your heart, Farouk. I simply bruised your pride.”