by Anne Gracie
He nodded her to go on.
“I followed her home, but still nothing. She opened the gate and waved to me to come in.”
“And you followed—”
She snorted. “No. After nine months on the streets I trusted no one. So she went inside and closed the door.” She gave a rueful smile. “But still I couldn’t leave that smell.”
“Go on.” His expression was grim.
“A moment later she came out again. She put a pie on the step; a whole, untouched—” Her voice broke, and she pressed her lips together, remembering, trying to gather her composure.
He touched her hand, and she drew it away. Sympathy at this point would make her cry. Lord, why was she so emotional? She’d told Ali this story a dozen times.
She swallowed and forced herself to continue. “She put a pie on the step; a whole, perfect pie sitting on a beautiful, clean plate. A plate.”
The scent of the pie had made her mouth water, but the plate had brought tears to her eyes—as it did, even now, just remembering. She looked at him through swimming eyes and could see he hadn’t understood.
In a shaking voice she explained, “I hadn’t eaten off a plate in months, you see. The pie was wonderful, but the plate—the plate said I was—I was human, not a—not a—”
“Not a rat,” he finished quietly, and drew her against him. She nodded and let herself lean against his big, solid shoulder, smelling the clean, masculine scent of him, wiping her eyes as she remembered.
Her belly had screamed at her to cram the pie in as fast as she could and run; instead, she’d taken the plate to a safe place and eaten the pie slowly, with relish, like a person, not a rat. Because the plate had reminded her of who she was.
He handed her a handkerchief. His knuckles were scabbed and ugly, his handkerchief pristine. She wiped her eyes.
“The pie was still warm and delicious. It was the best meal I ever had,” she finished and she blew into the handkerchief, feeling a little foolish. All that fuss over a plate.
“Laila told me that afterward, you collected fuel for her oven.”
“Of course,” Ayisha said, sitting up straight, and handing his handkerchief back. “She gave me something priceless. I had to give something back, even if it was nothing special.” She had washed the plate and dried it as best she could, then collected a bundle of sticks and dry grass and dried camel dung.
She added, “Laila didn’t just give me a pie, that night, she gave me back myself.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
“I still owe her,” Ayisha said with meaning.
He gave her a straight look. “I know. And I will see her right, I promise you. Baxter’s men are even now negotiating to buy a house in Alexandria. It will be in Laila and Ali’s names. No one can take it from them, ever.”
She said nothing for a long time. She picked up the cushion again and fiddled with the fringe. Her fingers shook.
“Very well,” she said in a voice that caught a little. “When Laila has a safe home to live in and Ali has a job, I will go with you to England.” Her chin was firm and resolute, but her wonderful eyes betrayed how torn she was.
It was a huge step. He saw now that he’d been arrogant being so sure her life was so dreadful. It was, but he hadn’t looked past the obvious. In the past few days he’d learned that beyond the poverty and hardship of her life, there was love, strong love.
He knew the power of that. He would never use the word love to describe how he felt about his friends—not out loud— but that’s what it was, he acknowledged. Gabe and Harry and Luke were closer to him than his own brother. Their friendship and unquestioning support had got them through the worst times of the war.
He wouldn’t give up that friendship for anything.
He looked at Ayisha. She was giving up everything she knew for the sake of her friends. And she was going to . . . what?
To a society that could pick her to bits if it got a chance. Politely, viciously, bloodlessly.
Could he protect her from that? Could he be enough?
“I know it’s hard to think of leaving your friends,” he said awkwardly. “But you’ll have your grandmother, and you’ll make new friends. You will like England, I promise you.”
She said nothing, just hugged the cushion to her.
Rafe clenched his fists. Triumph was always a mixed blessing, but it had never left such a sour taste in his mouth.
She would be happy, he swore it. He would make it so.
As Baxter and Laila reentered the sitting room, the curtains parted and Ali appeared with a wrapped parcel, grinning in triumph. “Open sesameeee,” he said in English and unwrapped a dozen sesame and honey cakes.
“I’ve offered Laila a job,” Baxter said.
Ali looked surprised and then crestfallen.
“And you, too, Ali. I want you both living here. Laila will cook, and you will work for me and learn.”
Ali managed to bow, salute, and thank Baxter effusively, while at the same time bouncing up and down on excited toes.
“I have to see what Omar says first,” Laila said in a dampening voice. “He might say no.”
“He will,” Ali said with certainty. “But I can still come. Omar cares nothing for me.”
Ayisha silently agreed. If Laila left, Omar would have to support himself, as well as cook and clean for himself, and she couldn’t see him doing that. That’s why they’d planned to run away; they knew Omar would never let Laila go.
“We’ll cross the Omar bridge when we come to it,” Baxter said firmly. “In the meantime, Ali, I will expect you tomorrow morning, first thing.”
Ali’s face split in a grin. “Yes, sir,” he said in English, and saluted smartly.
Baxter looked slightly taken aback.
“I perceive the hand of my valet, Higgins,” Rafe said dryly. “He was a batman in the army and seems to have taken it on himself to begin training young Ali in what Higgins calls ‘civilized ways.’ ”
“Well, don’t salute me again,” Baxter told Ali. “I left all that behind me years ago.”
“No, sir,” Ali said, and bowed in an uncanny imitation of Baxter’s earlier bow to Laila.
Rafe chuckled. “You’ve got your hands full there, Baxter. Send him to England when you get sick of him.”
As they were walking home later, Ayisha said to Rafe, “If Omar will not allow Laila to work for Baxter, will you still buy the house in Alexandria?”
“Yes. She can use it or rent it out. I promised you that house, and I don’t break my word.”
She nodded. “And you truly would send Ali to England?”
“Why not, when he’s older? Only if he wants to, of course, but travel will do him good. I’ll send him the fare.”
She walked on, trying to keep her steps in time with his, but his stride was so much longer it was impossible. “You act as if it is not the other side of the world.”
“It isn’t,” he said. “It’s a fair trip, I admit, but travel is getting easier all the time.” He glanced down at her. “I can see you’ve been fretting about going to a strange country with strange people—I do understand how you would be anxious about that—so I’ll make you this promise. If after a year in England, you really hate it and want to come back here, I will give you the money to return. In fact I’ll escort you.”
She gasped and stopped dead in the street to stare up at him. “You would do that for me?”
“If you were desperately unhappy, yes,” he assured her. He took her hand in his. “I know you resent the way I’ve left you no option, but believe me, Ayisha, my only desire is for your welfare and happiness.”
His voice was deep and sincere. This time she knew what was coming when he took her hand in his, and she made no attempt to stop him. She couldn’t. She knew exactly what to expect when he lifted her hand and pressed his lips against the back of her fingers.
Only this time Ayisha felt the imprint of his mouth clear through to the soles of her feet. She shivered,
and without quite knowing why, pulled her hand free. She could feel her cheeks burning. They resumed walking.
“Why did you do that?” she muttered after a moment.
“I couldn’t help myself. It’s what a man does when he wants . . .”
“Wants what?”
“To . . . take care of a woman,” he finished.
“Oh.” He’d promised her grandmother he’d take care of her, she remembered. She was a responsibility.
She looked down at the hand he had kissed. She’d never had her hand kissed before, except for him. And now, twice, he’d kissed her hand. It didn’t feel like a responsibility. It made her feel . . . strange, special.
As if she were a . . . a princess, and not . . . what she was. She closed her eyes briefly and wished she was that princess, wished she could be . . . how he made her feel.
But all that was for a dead girl. Not Ayisha.
Still . . . She recalled Laila’s words. She might not be a princess, but a poor girl could eat an orange as well. She could still partake of that sweet orange of life, and she would, she decided. She would suck it dry.
She would make her own happiness.
They reached the corner next to Laila’s house, where Laila and Ali were waiting. Rafe said a crisp good-bye—he was looking a little hot, from the sun, no doubt—and marched up the narrow street.
Ayisha watched him striding away up the lane. My only desire is for your welfare and happiness. His long black boots gleamed in the bright sun.
“English clothes are very . . . revealing,” Laila commented, watching him go. “A fine figure of a man, that Englishman.”
Ayisha jumped and realized that she had, indeed, been staring at the smooth flex and pull of his powerful muscles as he walked, and at his firm masculine backside in the tight buff pants.
Her cheeks warmed. She turned to Laila and noticed her cupping one hand in the other. “What’s the matter with your hand? Did you burn it?”
Laila flushed and looked down to where her hand was cradled just under her breasts. She gave Ayisha a rueful look. “No, and I think maybe you have the same problem as me.”
Ayisha looked down and saw she was holding her own hand similarly. She dropped it immediately. “There’s nothing wrong. It was just—” She broke off, flushing.
“I know; these Englishmen,” Laila supplied. She gestured with her chin. “It is a very unsettling custom, this kissing of hands.”
“Yes,” Ayisha agreed fervently.
“And maybe,” Laila added thoughtfully, “it is something to do with their blue eyes. They make women think of rumpled beds and long, hot nights . . .”
She caught Ayisha staring at her and added hastily, “Other women, not respectable ones like you and me . . .”
Ayisha lay on her bed mat in the courtyard, wrapped in a rug, her cat curled against her, kneading her arm, purring like a rusty coffee grinder. The night was cool, a breeze, moist from the river, stirred the air. Far above her the stars glittered cold and bright.
Were they the same stars that looked down on England, she wondered? She couldn’t be sure. But the moon . . . the moon was the same all over the world.
On his pallet under the bench, Ali stirred in his sleep.
When she was in England she’d be able to come out and look at the moon and think of this place, these people.
When she was in England . . . No longer if.
Laila was secure: she would either work for Baxter and live there in the cook’s house with Ali, or she would have a house in Alexandria. Either way she would be safe.
And so would Ali. Already he was beginning each sentence with “Baxter says . . .”
The cost was worth it, even though Ayisha’s future was less secure. No future was secure, she reminded herself. Illness could strike at any moment, accidents happened; all she could do was try.
England was a green land, Papa had told her, and very beautiful. A cold land, where it rained nearly every day, and whole days where you could see only a few yards ahead because of mist. Mist was beautiful, Papa said, but it made him cough. Papa’s lungs were bad. Born in the heat of India, he could not take the cold.
Could she take the cold? She wasn’t sure. She’d never been really cold, not for long. In winter she and Ali slept bundled up in thick rugs, and on clear, cold nights they slept beside the oven.
In England it snowed. Snow was wonderful according to Papa: you built snowmen and rode on sleds and threw snowballs.
But Mama told stories of long snowbound winters in the mountains of Georgia. Snow could freeze your fingers and toes so that they fell right off, Mama said. Ayisha wasn’t sure if that was true or not. You never could tell, with Mama.
Soon, maybe, she would see snow for herself.
Tom butted her hand, a gentle reminder that she’d stopped patting him. She smiled and cuddled him to her. “You won’t like the snow in England, Tom,” she whispered to the cat. “But we will keep each other warm.” With her cat, she would not feel so alone in cold, green England.
No matter what, she was sure there would be no long, hot nights.
Omar says no,” Ali announced as a servant admitted him to
Baxter’s presence. He’d knocked so hard on the door, he’d woken the entire household.
Ali continued, “He said, ‘No sister of mine will work for a foreigner.’ But really it’s because without Laila he will need to work himself, or starve. He is a lazy slug, that Omar.”
Baxter, yawning, waved him to sit down. “Good God, boy, who told you to come at such a ridiculous hour?”
“You said first thing,” said Ali indignantly. “This is first thing.”
Baxter peered at the early morning sky. The sun was barely up. He shuddered. “From now on first thing means eight o’clock.” He yawned again. “Do you know how to make coffee?” Ali nodded. “Then make me some coffee while I get dressed. I will have a coffee and then I will talk to Omar.”
“No, you must not,” Ali said immediately. He grasped Baxter’s sleeve earnestly. “If you go there, it will be . . . trouble.”
For Laila, was the implication.
“The only way to deal with bullies is to confront them,” Baxter told him.
Ali snorted. “This I learned on the streets. But if I stand up to Omar, it will not be me who suffers. When I am older, it will be different.” He clenched his fists. “And when I am a man I will take Laila away from that place.”
Baxter looked at Laila’s ten-year-old champion and rubbed a hand over his bristly jaw. Did he want to talk to Omar or not? He didn’t take on a fight unnecessarily. And when he did, he liked to win.
He’d taken a shine to Laila right off, but was that reason enough to take her brother on? After one meeting? These things had implications . . . especially in the Orient. Especially when a woman was involved.
“I need a shave and a coffee, in that order,” he told Ali. “Then I will think about it.”
The tension drained out of Ali’s skinny frame. “So you’re not going to talk to Omar?” He looked relieved but sounded disappointed.
Baxter looked at the boy and thought about the woman he’d met only the day before. He’d liked her on the spot. He’d made an instant decision to employ her. His instincts had never let him down. He made a decision. “Did I not ask you to make coffee?”
“But—” Ali began.
Baxter pointed at the kitchen. “Go! And wake Jamil and tell him to come here to me.”
But when Jamil came, it was not to shave Baxter, but to deliver a message to a woman in the poorest part of town . . .
A few hours later, Jamil murmured something in Baxter’s ear, and Baxter sent Ali on an errand to buy some fruit at the market. The moment Ali had run off, Jamil brought a woman through the back entrance, her identity swathed and hidden.
“So, Laila, your brother says no,” Baxter said when she had seated herself. “You now have a choice—if you still wish to come and work for me.”
“A choice?�
�� She dropped her veil. Her liquid dark eyes examined him.
Baxter caught his breath. She was lovely. Her skin was smooth and creamy. Her full, rosy lips were a little puffy at one corner. Not a young woman and, he thought, eyeing that bruised and swollen lip, not one to whom trust would come easily.
But there was a certainty about her steady gaze, as if she’d come to terms with who she was. He liked that in a woman.
“There is a way, but you will have to trust me,” he said.
She gave him a clear look. “I have had few reasons to trust men in my life. But tell me your plan.”
He told her and her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do this? You do not even know me.”
He shrugged. “Simple. I like my comforts, and I like you. And I trust my instincts about people. But it’s up to you. Think about it and let me know your decision.”
Take this and go shopping,” Rafe told Ayisha when he called on her next morning. He handed her a purse. “Buy whatever you will need for the journey.” He glanced at her clothing. “It might be easier if you wore those clothes on the journey to Alexandria—we will go by horse and then take a boat down the river. But you will need to board the ship as a woman.”
Her eyes flashed—he’d been pushing her hard, he knew—but all she said was, “Is there anything special I should buy?”
“I don’t know—dresses, stockings, underwear, shoes, shawls, hats—that sort of thing.” What did he know of what women needed? “Don’t pinch pennies, buy whatever you think you might need. Take Laila with you.”
“Laila is busy,” she told him.
“You’d better get going,” Rafe told her. “There is much to do. We leave for Alexandria in a few days.”
She took the purse. For a woman who’d been given carte blanche to purchase whatever she wanted, she looked downright miserable, but he couldn’t help that.