Alex swallowed hard. “Last night wasn’t my fault,” she said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Someone slipped some potion into my tea. A sleeping potion. Murad recalls that there was an odor in the cup, which seemed odd. I was poisoned, Jebal. Poisoned! Someone hates me and doesn’t wish for me to be with you!”
Jebal regarded her searchingly. His mouth seemed to have eased very slightly. “And I assume that you have a good idea of who this enemy might be?”
Jebal was no fool, Alex thought quickly. She had, until now, mistaken his superficial gentility and his almost effeminate looks for a weak character. “Zoe hates me. She has hated me from the moment you announced your intention to marry me.”
Jebal eyed her, then walked forward. Alex did not move. She hoped that he would not notice that she was breathless, perspiring, and trembling with nervous tension and fear. He cupped her chin. “If you are telling me the truth, then you are forgiven, Zohara.”
Alex nodded anxiously.
“And if you are lying, I will discover the truth,” he added harshly.
“I’m telling the truth,” Alex lied, praying she would not flush.
“Let us hope so,” Jebal said, releasing her chin.
Alex breathed easier.
“And if Zoe is the culprit here, than she shall be severely punished.” Jebal paced the room. “I am tired of her harem intrigues in general. Perhaps I even tire of her,”
Ohmygod, Alex thought. What can of worms had she now opened?
He confronted her. “In the interim, you have fallen into my disfavor.”
Alex stared. “What does this mean?”
“It means,” he said slowly, ennunciating his every word with care, “that you had better conduct yourself with the utmost propriety and the utmost caution.”
Alex was breathless. She nodded.He knew.
“Now go,” Jebal said.
21
XAVIER STOOD SLOWLY.His body no longer hurt as badly as it had the first week he had labored in the quarries. Somehow his muscles had adjusted to the grueling labor he had to perform and the minimal rations the slaves received and were expected to subsist upon. And every evening he was given extra food, arranged, he knew now, by Alexandra, but Xavier refused to partake of it in spite of Pierre Quixande’s advice and warning. He had Tubbs distribute it to the most needy.
Xavier had been resting with the scribe just outside of the scribe’s cubbyhole room. Both men had seen Kadar enter the courtyard on the far side with a European man. Xavier tensed. “Do you know who that is?” he asked the Frenchman.
The blond European was overdressed in a frock coat, waistcoat, breeches and stockings, and a tricorn hat because it was still very hot out in spite of the twilight hour. He was starting to make his way through the sleeping slaves.
“That is the Danish consul,” Quixande returned. “Sven Neilsen.”
Xavier’s heart leapt. He was disbelieving. How had Neilsen managed to gain admission to see him? In the past week, Xavier had lost hope.
Xavier smiled as Neilsen extended his hand. The two men shook. “Thank you for coming.”
“I would have come sooner if I could have,” the Dane said seriously, “but I was denied permission to visit you and your men repeatedly. You have Mrs. Thornton to thank for bribing the guards so thoroughly that I was allowed admittance here. However, this is dangerous and I cannot linger.”
Mrs. Thornton had bribed the guards so Neilsen could get in. Briefly Xavier was frozen. He agreed with Quixande, she was a spy, planted here in Tripoli, but by whom? His stomach curdled whenever he thought of her, which was often. She had to be damnably brave and damnably clever, to marry Jebal and carry out her mission from behind enemy lines. It was almost incredible.
But there was no other explanation for the fact that she did not have a husband who had died on Gibraltar, and that no one had ever discovered which ship had brought her to Tripoli. It made further sense when he thought of how she had secretly come to him the moment he had arrived in Tripoli. But whom was she working for? Only one thing was clear: She was not working for the Americans.
Unfortunately, his conviction of her treacherous nature did little to abate the disturbing dreams that visited him each and every night. In his dreams they were racing together on foot through Tripoli, which was ablaze. Xavier was determined to protect them both, determined that they would reach freedom. But janissaries were on their heels. They were not going to make it.
And then the dream would change. Suddenly she lay beneath him restlessly, her lush body naked and hot. Her green eyes, holding his, smoldered. And he would start to move over her, to take her … and then she began to drift away. Fading before his very eyes. Slipping, physically, from his grasp.
