But who?
And why?
9
Tripoli
July 7, 1803
“ALEX!” MURAD CHARGEDinto Alex’s chamber, slamming the door closed behind him. “ThePearl!It has been captured. Rais Jovar attacked and seized her off Cape Bon.”
Alex sat up slowly, staring at Murad.
“Did you hear me?” Murad said impatiently.
“Ohmygod,” Alex managed to whisper as her heart resumed beating.“Ohmygod!”
It had happened. She had been waiting for this day for fourteen months—if not an entire adult, twentieth-century lifetime. He was here, here in Tripoli; they would finally meet. She would finally see him. In the flesh.
“What is going on, Alex? What is it about thePearlthat interests you so?” Murad asked, his gaze deep and probing. “What is it about her, captain, that interests you so?”
Slowly Alex stood up. “You would not believe me if I told you.”
“I would probably believe just about anything you told me, Alex, having served you for one year, two months, and three and a half days.”
Alex was removing her bedouin clothing from the chest and she paused, aware of the unnaturally rapid beating of her heart and her strange light-headedness. Tension. It was overwhelming. She glanced at Murad. “You’re keeping track of the time you’ve been with me?”
He forced a brief smile. “I am counting the days only because of the ways you insist upon straining my patience and testing my very good will.”
Alex turned, holding her bedouin robes to her chest. She could not dwell on Murad’s behavior and what it signified now. Blackwell had arrived.
Murad’s smile disappeared. “Alex, we cannot go out of the palace now, and you know it. The entire town turns out for the return of a rais with his prize, and that includes the royal family.”
Alex began to strip, ignoring Murad.
“Jebal will be there. Oh, holy Allah, please convince her otherwise! And the bashaw and Farouk and only Allah knows who else! You are too easily remarked with that brilliant red hair!”
“My hair is not visible beneath this headdress, and you know it,” Alex said, suddenly very calm. She would see Blackwell within moments.Ohmygod.
“Your eyebrows are red,” Murad snapped.
“I am going. If you are a coward, so be it—you stay.”
Murad’s eyes flashed. He murmured in Arabic, another plea to Mohammed, then, “I am not a coward for myself. Although, of course, if we are ever caught together outside of the palace, I shall be executed instantly. Will you watch me die for you, Alex?”
“Stop it. Don’t even speak that way in jest!”
“I’m sorry.” He moved to her, taking the tunic from her hands and sliding it over her head. “You’re right. I am your loyal servant.”
Alex did not reply, stepping into trousers. She sat to put on thick, plain leather sandals.
“Alex, why must we do this?” Murad whispered. Nevertheless, he handed her the kaffiyeh. He also stripped, turning his back to her as he did so.
Alex made sure not to look at him, for he was sensitive about having been castrated, putting the headdress on and wrapping the ends about her face. She waited until Murad had faced her in his bedouin garb. “Do you really want to know?”
He nodded, his gaze on hers.
“Because,” she said harshly, “I am in love with the captain of thePearl—I am in love with Xavier Blackwell.”
