“My mistress is ill,” Murad told the slave. “As you can see, her head aches and causes her great anguish—she weeps from pain. Please ask her master if he might delay their interview until tomorrow morning. I am certain Ulli Zohara will feel better by then.”
Jebal’s slave left with the message. Alex shared a glance with Murad. “Do you think Jebal saw me? Or that someone else saw me and told him?”
“I hope not,” Murad said tersely. “Alex, you must stay away from Blackwell, and you must not leave the palace in disguise again.”
Alex’s jaw tightened and she did not reply. She would not even consider listening to Murad.
“What is going on, Alex?” Murad whispered, sitting beside her again. He groped for her hand.
Alex looked into his caring, long-lashed silver eyes. “I am in love with him. I have never felt this way before.” Alex stared pleadingly at Murad. “You have to help me. Murad!”
Murad rose and walked to the door, cracking it. Closing it, he went to all the windows, peering through the latticework shutters. Finally he stepped out onto the gallery outside of Alex’s apartments, which ran parallel to the interior courtyard. He faced her grimly, and spoke in a hushed tone. “How do you know him?”
“Are you worried about spies?” Alex asked.
“Yes. I am especially worried about Zoe. So? How do you know him?”
Alex stared at him, debating telling him the truth. She had an ally, but she desperately needed a real confidant. Yet he would never believe her. He would laugh when she told him that she was a time traveler—and that she had first met Blackwell in history books when he had been dead for 192 years. He would laugh even harder when she told him that she had stumbled across Blackwell’s ghost. Wouldn’t he? Alex wet her lips, flushing slightly. “We met in Boston once, just before I came to Tripoli.” Even though it was a half lie, she hated deceiving Murad.
Murad regarded her with penetrating eyes, skepticism, and undisguised disappointment. “Why do you lie to me, Alex?”
“It’s not really a lie.”
“You’ve lied to me before. Telling me that rubbish about traveling to meet your dead husband, the British diplomat in Gibraltar, and being seized en route by corsairs.”
Alex was stiff. “You wouldn’t believe me,” she said softly.
“You don’t trust me,” he said.
“I do. I trust you with my life,” Alex said, and it was the truth. “But one day, the truth could put you in danger, Murad.”
“I don’t like this,” Murad said. “What is going on?”
Alex shook her head. “You have to help me, Murad. I must meet Blackwell.”
He sat beside her and took her hands in his, gripping them tightly. “There is no possible way that you can meet with him. Not privately and not publicly. You have lived here long enough to understand that. It is forbidden.”
“I am not a Moslem woman. I will not obey your laws. I have to meet with him.”
Murad inhaled. “You swore to uphold the Islamic faith, to obey the Koran—and Jebal.”
Alex was on her feet, her eyes flashing. “I lied!”
Murad also stood. “I am well aware of that. But that is something you had better keep to yourself, Alex.”
She paced.
He sighed. “Right now he is under a heavy guard, either at Jovar’s home or in a special chamber here in the palace. Meeting with him under these circumstances is an impossibility, Alex.”
Alex frowned. Meeting Xavier Blackwell was going to be far more difficult than she had ever assumed. And if meeting him, even once, was so difficult, how would they ever have a love affair? The logistics alone were suddenly overwhelming.
“Nothing is impossible,” Alex finally said.
“What, exactly, do you want from this man?” Murad asked. “If you really love him, then seeing him once, if you could somehow manage it, will be far more painful than forgetting his very existence. And that is what you should do.”
Alex was not going to reveal her agenda to Murad—that she would become Blackwell’s lover and that they would escape Tripoli together. No matter how loyal he was, he would never help her if he knew her plans. Indeed, he would be horrified. She ignored what he had said. “What will happen to him now?” Alex asked.
“I do not know. He is an important captive. Perhaps he will be ransomed. Perhaps he will be sold. Perhaps he will turn Turk.”
