by Anne Gracie
“It was nothing. Anyone would have done the same,” he said gruffly.
She smiled and patted his chest. “Not anyone. Only a warrior.”
They hurried through a maze of backstreets, Ayisha leading the way, until they reached Baxter’s.
“I see you’ve brought a delegation,” Baxter said with a wry expression as his servant ushered them all in. Rafe performed the introductions, introducing Ayisha in English as Miss Alicia Cleeve.
Baxter’s eyes widened. “He said he had found you. Pleased to meet you, Miss Cleeve.” He bowed.
“Please call me Ayisha,” she said, adding with a glance at Rafe, “I prefer it.”
Baxter bowed. “Miss Ayisha. And this is Ali.”
Ali bowed and gazed around the room with bright-eyed curiosity.
“And this must be Laila.” Baxter gave Laila a searching look, then bowed.
Laila murmured something to Ayisha in Arabic, but before Ayisha could respond, Baxter, with a mischievous look, responded in the same language.
Her eyes widened in surprise; she looked flustered and said something that made Baxter laugh.
“She is shocked to hear a foreigner speak such good Arabic,” Baxter explained, adding to Rafe, “She told Miss Cleeve that although my blue eyes are pretty enough for a girl, I am nevertheless a fine figure of a man.”
He winked at Ayisha and added, “I, however, prefer brown eyes, and you can tell Laila hers are the prettiest I’ve seen in a long time.” The very small amount of Laila that was visible grew noticeably pink.
“She not need to tell me nothing,” Laila retorted in English. With dignity she seated herself on the farthest cushion, not meeting anyone’s gaze.
Baxter watched her with an amused expression, then he ordered coffee to be brought while he interviewed Ali.
Baxter took Ali into his office and they began to talk. The office was separated from the room the others were in by a heavy woven curtain, which was only partly drawn, so the sound of their voices was faint but perceptible.
The coffee was brought in along with a plate of small cakes. The servant poured the coffee and handed it around, then left.
Rafe eyed the coffee and decided not to risk it. From the corner of his eye he saw Laila sip, then put the cup down with a grimace. She glanced at Rafe.
“These fellows make the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted,” he said quietly.
She leaned forward and peered closely at the cakes. “The cakes are stale. See? There is mold on this one.” She glanced at the office where Baxter and Ali were in close conversation. “You say the coffee is always bad?”
Rafe nodded.
Laila hesitated and glanced from the office, where Baxter and Ali talked, to the doorway where the servants had gone. “They shame their master,” she said softly, then rose and slipped from the room.
Ayisha, seated next to Rafe, had no interest in coffee. She watched Ali’s interview like a hawk, craning forward to hear. The servants returned and collected the barely touched coffee and stale cakes.
Ayisha, not taking her eyes off Ali, muttered something under her breath and clenched her fists.
“What’s the matter?” Rafe asked.
“I’m going to strangle that boy!”
Rafe glanced through the gap at Baxter, who didn’t seem displeased with Ali. If anything he looked amused. “Why?”
She rolled her eyes. “Baxter asked him, ‘If a stall holder sold oranges for five paras a dozen, how many oranges would you get for half a piastre?’ And what does the little monkey say? He says—” She mimicked his voice. “‘Five paras a dozen is too much, I would go to Ahmed Four-toes, who has the stall behind the mosque, and he would sell them to me for four paras a dozen—maybe less!’ “She clenched her fists. “He has this big chance and he is ruining it!”
Rafe put a hand over her fist. “No, he’s not. Look at Baxter’s face. He looks more amused than anything. What’s he saying?”
She translated for him. “Who is Ahmed Four-toes and why would he have them cheaper? And Ali is saying, ‘He lives near the mosque with the blue minaret, and he has two brothers and four cousins who work the docks at Alexandria and they can always get things cheaper. Ahmed can always get you the best price.’ ”
Baxter laughed.
“Stop worrying,” Rafe murmured. “I venture to suggest the boy is doing well. Is there such a person as Ahmed Four-toes?”
“Oh yes. He can get you anything you want, but although he is always the cheapest, he is not always the best. It pays to inspect the merchandise carefully with Ahmed Four-toes,” she said absently.
Baxter continued presenting Ali with knotty problems, and Ali answered all without hesitation, adding in his own opinion quite often.
Ayisha watched and listened, oblivious of Rafe’s proximity, forgetful of her hand resting in his. He made no move to draw her attention to it. It felt exactly right sitting tucked into his.
After about fifteen minutes, she turned to Rafe, puzzled. “What are they doing now? Backgammon? Why? Ali is here to work.”
“You can judge a person from the way they play games. Is Ali any good at this?” He settled back against the cushions as Baxter and the small boy began a game of backgammon.
“Yes, but he’s better at chess. I wish Baxter had asked him to play chess.” She nodded toward a chess set sitting on a low table. “He beats me every time. He really is clever, you know.”
“I suppose your father taught you chess,” Rafe said quietly.
She nodded. “I was never very good. I do not plan ahead—” She stopped and looked at Rafe, looked down at their joined hands, and snatched her hand back, quite as if he’d stolen it.
They were sitting very close on the low divan. She glanced up at him and shifted to put more distance between them.
“Don’t you think it’s time you stopped pretending?”
“Pretending?” She eyed him warily.
“That you’re not the daughter of Sir Henry Cleeve.”
She looked down and bit her lip. Lord, but she was beautiful. He wanted to kiss her, and he would, he vowed, but not here, not in this room, with Baxter and the boy and whoever else watching.
“It’s not that. I just don’t feel comfortable being called Alicia Cleeve,” she said finally.
“Then what am I to call you?”
“Ayisha,” she said. “Just Ayisha.”
“I will call you Ayisha in private,” he agreed. “And you will call me Rafe. But in public I’m afraid it must still be Miss Cleeve.”
“What public? We’ve hardly ever spoken in public.”
“Yes, but on the ship, for instance, I must refer to you as Miss Cleeve.”
“Ship?”
“Higgins is going ahead to book passage for us on a ship leaving Alexandria next week.”
She gave him a trapped look. “I haven’t agreed yet. You haven’t got a house in Alexandria.”
“The arrangements are being made. It should be available by the end of this week.”
“So soon,” she whispered.
“Yes, we can all go to Alexandria together and you can see them settled in and then we’ll disembark.”
She looked anything but happy. He hardened his heart. She would be happier in England than she’d ever been here, he vowed. He would make it so.
As the game of backgammon drew to a close, Laila returned to her original seat and a moment later the servant entered again with coffee and a dish of small pancakes.
“This boy almost beat me at backgammon,” said Baxter emerging from the office. He seated himself among them again. He stared at the steam rising from the small cups, frowned, and then sniffed. His frown deepened, and he picked up a cup and tasted it.
“Hallelujah!” he said and drained the cup blissfully. “Nobody in my employ made this, I’ll swear. This is better than the coffeehouses make.” His gaze shot across to Laila. She looked away.
Baxter picked up a small pancake. “Still warm,” he said and ate
it.
Laila leaned forward and poured him a fresh cup of coffee.
“Are you responsible for this?” Baxter demanded. “The coffee?”
“Yes,” Laila said in a low voice. “I am sorry, I know it was not my place to interfere—I meant no disrespect, sir.”
Baxter waved away her apologies, but Laila continued. “I hate to see good coffee wasted and the other was not fit to serve,” she said. “I showed your servants how to make it.”
“Did you now?” Baxter looked amused. “You made the pancakes, too?”
She nodded. “Yes, they are quick and easy to make. I showed the boys how.”
“Let’s hope they don’t forget.” Baxter gave her a thoughtful look. “I recently lost my cook, and he and his family provided all my needs. These lads are new. They’re honest and willing enough, but they haven’t exactly got the hang of coffee yet.”
He ate another pancake, eyeing her thoughtfully. “You are widowed, I think. And Ali is your son?”
Laila raised her head and said with dignity. “Divorced. I have no children, but Ali is the son of my heart.”
Baxter inclined his head. “Lucky boy.” He turned to Ali. “Now, here are three paras. Go and buy me the best cakes you can find.” The boy took the money and ran off eagerly.
Baxter said to Rafe and Ayisha. “Would you mind if I left you here for a few minutes? I need to speak to Laila about the boy, of course, agree on terms of employment, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to her in the kitchen. I would ask the advice of a knowledgeable woman.”
Rafe nodded an assent and Baxter turned back to Laila. “Laila?”
She met his eyes, and for a long moment they just looked at each other. Then she gave a little nod.
Baxter held his hand out to assist her to rise. After twenty years in Egypt, it was a mistake he shouldn’t have made, thought Ayisha.
Laila hesitated and regarded him a moment, her head tilted to one side. Then, to Ayisha’s amazement, she placed her hand in Baxter’s and rose gracefully from the cushions.
He smiled, then gestured for her to precede him.
Laila went, with something of a swish. Ayisha gaped. If she didn’t know better she would think Laila was . . . flirting.
Eight
So, what do you think of my kitchen?” Baxter asked Laila when they reached the kitchen. It was a mix of European and traditional styles, and since Baxter was a wealthy man, it was very well equipped.
“My cook and his family had to return to his village to take up an inheritance,” Baxter told her. “He was a married man, with a wife and two children. They lived in special quarters at the back of the house. May I show you these quarters?”
Laila gave him a searching look, then inclined her head in acquiescence. He took her out to the rear courtyard. It was quite spacious and contained a small patch of neglected herbs.
Laila cast a critical eye over it. “No oven?”
“My cook purchased all his bread from the local baker.
Laila sniffed. He showed her the cook’s quarters: four rooms, minimally furnished. “The cook took his belongings with him, but if the right person applied for the job, I would, of course, supply anything that was needed,” Baxter finished.
Laila turned and gave him a searching look.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Baxter hesitated, searching for the right words. “Ramsey asked me to buy a house in Alexandria on his behalf.”
Laila frowned. “But I told him—she must go to Engl—”
Baxter interrupted. “A small house, he said, for one woman and one boy.”
Laila gasped and her hand stole to her breast. “One woman and one boy? You mean . . . me and Ali?”
Baxter smiled. “I believe so. He said a house with a yard in which they could build an oven, for the woman is an excellent baker of bread and pies and wishes to start a business there.”
“A house . . . In Alexandria . . . for Ali and me?” she repeated in a whisper.
“Yes. But I have another suggestion: become my cook, Laila. Become my cook, live here in these quarters with Ali, and I will build you an oven for your business.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You would let me sell my bread and pies?”
“Yes, as long as it did not interfere with cooking for me and running my house. As you say, my servants take advantage. To be honest, the domestic side of things is something I have no interest in.”
She gave him a long, searching look. “You mean this? You want me to work for you?”
“I do.”
She examined the cook’s quarters then, with a more critical eye, and then the courtyard and the kitchen. Finally she turned back to him. “And what will this cost me?”
Baxter’s eyes twinkled. “The quarters come with the position—rent free.”
“And for this, I must cook and clean—”
“Supervise the cleaning, supervise the servants. You wouldn’t have to do it yourself.”
“And I could still run my business.”
“Yes. And there is a wage.” He named a sum that made her eyebrows disappear under her veil.
“You will pay me, as well?”
“Of course.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and braced her hands on her hips. “What else do you expect? I tell you now, I am a respectable woman.”
Baxter smiled. “I know, and I admire that. The wage and conditions are exactly the same as I paid my previous cook. So, will you take the job?”
There was a long silence. “I want it,” she said. “But I must ask my brother. He is the head of my family.”
Baxter grinned. “Excellent. I will talk to your brother, but I believe we will come to an arrangement. So you and I have a deal.” He held out his hand in the European manner, and though it was not her custom, Laila held out her hand to shake it.
He surprised her then by taking her hand in both of his. He lifted it slowly toward his mouth. She stared, fascinated, unsure of what to do. He pressed his firm, warm lips against the back of her hand in a slow kiss.
Laila shivered, feeling the heat of him against her skin. Flustered, she snatched her hand back.
He smiled. “You taste good, like fresh bread.”
“Because I made bread this morning,” she said in a brusque voice. “Do not do that again. It is not respectable.” She straightened her veil with hands that shook a little.
He bowed, but said nothing. His smile didn’t change.
She touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Go now,” she said crossly. “We have wasted enough time. The others will be waiting.”
Baxter’s smile intensified. If she’d been truly angry, she would not have touched him at all.
For several moments after Baxter and Laila had left and Ali had run off, Rafe and Ayisha sat side by side on the low cushioned divan, saying nothing.
Finally Rafe said, “You’re very fond of Laila, aren’t you?”
“Of course, she is my friend. More, she has been like a mother to me.”
“She told me how you two first met,” Rafe said. “How she gave you some food and you repaid her with fuel for her fire.”
For a moment there was silence, then Ayisha said, “It was more than simply giving me food. I had been fed before. Stall holders at the market will sometimes toss a street child a piece of damaged fruit, or stale or broken bread. They toss it in the dust, and watch as the hungry ones pick it up and cram it in their mouths. Like rats.”
He looked sharply at her. “I hope you were never so desperate.”
“I was. Often. The day I met Laila, I had not eaten for four days,” she said in a flat voice.
His hand tightened, his knuckles whitening.
Ayisha looked at him. He still thought to make an English lady of her. He needed to know this about her.
“I was nearly fourteen. I’d lived nine months on the streets,” she said. “Mainly by stealing. But four days before, I saw a thief punished. I heard him howl like an animal
as they sliced off his hand.”
She’d stared in horror at the man’s stump, spurting with blood; at the hand lying in the dust, the fingers twitching, as if still alive.
Someone scooped the hand up—she didn’t know if it had been given back to the moaning thief or thrown to the dogs to eat. She was frozen, unable to think past the horror that it could have been her hand lying in the dust, twitching.
Each bright droplet of blood had collected dust and sat on the earth before slowly seeping in. “They say blood is thicker than water,” she said. “It’s true.”
“I know,” Rafe said grimly, and a note in his voice made her look at him and remember he had spent eight years at war.
She stared at him, appalled. She’d only seen this happen to one man and had never forgotten it. But he—he must have seen horrors like that over and over. He’d probably even chopped hands off and killed men. “If you were a soldier, you must have seen it happen many time—”
“Yes,” he cut her off abruptly. “But it’s your story I want to hear.”
What did it do to a young man, she wondered, to live that over and over, to spend years of his life, fighting, living a hard, rough life, trying to kill, hoping not to be killed.
Until yesterday, no sign of it showed; he was always clean and elegant and self-possessed. Too self-possessed, maybe, she thought. His cleanliness, his shiny boots and immaculate linen—was it a kind of armor, like her rags and her dirt?
At the river she’d seen a different side of him, a raw, rough, gritty side: the warrior. The fighter. The protector.
She would never forget the sight of those blue eyes blazing, the strange smile he wore as he attacked those men with his bare hands. His fists were bloodied, his knuckles scraped raw, but after it was over, his big calloused hand, when he’d cupped her cheek so briefly, had carried a tenderness that was almost shocking in such a scene of violence.
“So you saw a thief punished and after that you were afraid to steal,” he prompted her.
“Yes, and after four days I was very hungry.” Her empty belly had been gnawing at her for days. She was living like a rat, picking up scraps wherever she could.
“Then I smelled the most glorious smell.” She smiled. “You have never eaten one of Laila’s pies, but believe me, if you ever had . . .” She sighed. “Laila, though I did not know her name then, was carrying a covered tray through the streets, selling them, hot from the oven. I followed, inhaling the scent as if it were food. I hoped maybe she would toss me a piece of broken pie or a crust. But she didn’t.”