by Tamara Leigh
He straightened to his overwhelming height. “I would think she is sleeping.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Your mother and Khalid ordered me to sleep outside your apartment until Jabbar’s return. They are concerned for your wellbeing.”
The accident.
Alessandra remembered the sensation of flying through the air. Next, breathing in the water, coughing it out, seeing it stained with blood. Then the arms that had lifted her and held her close.
She drew a hand from beneath the blanket and touched the bandage wound around her head. “How did it happen?”
“Leila’s dog frightened the donkey.”
The warmth that had begun to move through her receded as her mother’s disclosure of days earlier, and Leila’s taunting that had enticed Alessandra into mounting the donkey, melded. Had it been an accident, or had Leila set out to harm her as Sabine had warned?
“Was it an accident, Seif?” she said between teeth that had begun to click.
He removed his robe and also fit it around her. “Your mother does not believe so.”
Alessandra gripped his arm. “What do you think?”
“It may have been an accident. It may have been deliberate.”
“You do not know which?”
He lifted her hand from his arm, slid it back beneath the covers. “As your betrothed told, there is much I have yet to learn of your language.”
Fearful he meant to leave, she said, “Is it late?”
“It is quite early. In two hours, it will be day again. Sleep now, and I will summon your mother at first light.” He turned away.
“Do not go!”
He lifted the lamp he had brought within and looked back. “My place is outside your door, mistress.”
“Can you not stay until dawn? I am cold and…” Unable to believe the shameless thing she was about to say, she lowered her eyes. “…I need your warmth.”
He was silent so long she thought he must have slipped away, but when she looked up, he watched her.
“It would be improper,” he said, “and I would not wish to feel Khalid’s whip across my back.”
Nor would she wish him to feel it. “I should not have asked.” She turned her face opposite. “I am sorry.”
More silence, then she heard his advance. When he halted alongside the divan, she looked around. “What is it?”
He extinguished the lamp and, amid the dark, urged her across the divan.
Alessandra clutched the cover to her chest. “But I thought—”
“It will be our secret.” He seated himself beside her, put his back to the wall, and pulled her up against his side.
It was a mistake to have invited his trespass, and yet she could not bring herself to send him away.
She breathed in his scent that was unlike any she had known. His skin and clothing wafted no hint of spice or perfume, nothing to mask his odor that was so strangely pleasant she could only liken it to Rashid’s prize stallion.
She loved the smell of the high-strung, temperamental beast, and had buried her face in his neck the one time she had been allowed so near him. How she had longed to bend low over the stallion’s neck and feel and hear his labored breathing as he turned still air into wind, but no matter how she begged, Rashid said it was dangerous and would not even take her up before him. Still, she was certain he would eventually yield and the powerful stallion that so reminded her of this man—who was no longer a man—would carry her away.
“If you relax,” Seif said, “sleep will come more easily.”
With a nervous laugh, she eased the stiffness from her spine and settled more deeply against him. “Do you know what I am thinking?” she asked.
“I do not.”
“How like a horse you are—a great stallion who runs with the wind.”
“Is that so?”
“Rashid has such a stallion named Altair. It means flying eagle.”
“Does he fly like an eagle?”
“I am certain he must, though I have not been allowed to ride him.”
“And you would like to.”
She sighed. “Very much. But Rashid says Altair will not tolerate a woman rider.”
“That is true of some stallions.”
“I do not see why. I can sit a horse the same as Rashid.” Seif need not know her experience was limited to donkeys, nor that she had only been astride a gentle horse with Rashid at her back and controlling the reins.
“You think so?” the eunuch asked.
Alessandra yawned, closed her eyes. “I am certain of it.” Relaxing the hand with which she held to the front of his caftan, she lowered it to his lap, and as she began to drift, felt Seif shift as if uncomfortable.
His hand turned around hers, fingers brushed the skin of her palm and wrist that had never before seemed so sensitive. Then his mouth was in her hair, warm breath caressing her scalp. “And I am certain you would find neither a stallion, nor a man like me, as easy to control as you think.”
“Still, I would like to try.”
Something rumbled from the chest beneath her ear, and he said, “Sleep, Alessandra.”
“I thank you for staying. It is kind of you.” She yawned again.
As Alessandra settled into sleep, Lucien breathed in her perfumed hair and acknowledged that what had made him stay was more the desire to know the feel of her than kindness. And, again, he wondered what he was getting into. This was not part of the bargain struck with Sabine. Indeed, he risked emasculation were he discovered abed with her daughter, no matter how innocent it might be. And considering the path his mind kept wandering down, it was nowhere near innocent.
He sighed. A wise man would not place himself in such a situation. But still he could not bring himself to slip away now that she slept. Too much, he liked the feel and scent of her. More, he admired her spirit—refreshing in light of the women with whom he had previously associated.
There had been quite a few, though he could not link names with the blurred faces he called forth. Even the two to whom he had been betrothed were as indistinct as the others.
Absently stroking Alessandra’s hair, he wondered at his failing memory.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sabine refused to believe her daughter’s fall was anything other than a deliberate attempt to harm her. Thus, Alessandra found herself in Seif’s company thereafter.
He followed her everywhere, excepting those places he was not allowed. It would not have been bad had she not shamed herself by pleading with him to stay with her three nights past—and had she not continued to feel the sense of loss with which she had been afflicted upon awakening alone the morning after. Blessedly, he had yet to speak of the incident.
Now, feeling healed after the rest her mother had insisted upon, Alessandra decided it was time for a bath. At the hour of the day when most of the women congregated in the bathhouse, she left her room.
As she walked past Seif, he stepped from the wall, and his shadow fell over her. Only when the sulfurous vapor greeted her near the bathhouse did it occur to her he might follow her inside. Though she had never felt uncomfortable disrobing in the presence of those eunuchs who watched over the women, the thought of doing so in front of this one disturbed her.
At the door, she turned. “You may wait here. I will not be long.”
“The baths are not forbidden me. I tended them my first day here.”
Then he knew the state of the women inside. “You will wait here,” she repeated and gave her back to him.
Seif’s hand fell to the door, preventing her from opening it. “If you go inside, so shall I.”
Alessandra turned back around. “No harm can be done me in the baths.”
“Unless it is forbidden me, I am to go where you go. That includes the baths. Am I any different from other eunuchs?”
She wanted to tell him he was very different, but she had yet to understand what set him apart from the others. After all, it was only a feeling, one that appall
ed and confused her.
“Very well,” she said, “you may accompany me.”
She was pleased by the surprise that flashed across his face. Clearly, he had expected her to forgo her bath.
He pulled open the door and stood back to allow her to precede him.
In the antechamber, a servant girl greeted her. “You are better, mistress?”
“I am. I but require a bath to wash away these past days.”
From a table laden with various items, the girl removed a thick bathrobe, a towel, and high wooden clogs.
“You may go ahead,” Alessandra instructed Seif.
“I will wait for you.”
She would have protested, but he considerately turned and strode to the door that led into the baths. Uncertain as to how much time she had before he looked around, she tossed off her clothes, thrust her arms into the robe the girl held for her, and slipped her feet into clogs that would spare her the heat of the marble floor. Then, taking the proffered towel, she hurried forward.
“You are prompt,” Seif said.
Now closer to his height, though she still had to angle her head to meet his gaze, Alessandra said, “You expected otherwise?”
With a bit of a smile, he reached for the door.
The bathhouse was spacious, a large pool at its center, marble sinks spaced along the walls for bathing.
As expected, most of the harem women were present, their curious gazes falling upon Seif and Alessandra as they entered. While some were being bathed at the sinks, others languished beside the pool, eating sweetmeats and engaging in idle talk, bodies shamelessly exposed. Only two—one of them Nada—had ventured into the pool whose warm water caused a haze to cloak the bathhouse.
Alessandra was thankful for Leila’s absence. As first wife, she had a private bathing chamber, but it was not unusual to find her gossiping here.
“You should have worn pattens as well,” Alessandra whispered to Seif.
“Pattens?”
“Clogs.” She nodded at hers.
He grimaced. “I have not the grace, nor the tolerance, to balance upon such silly footwear.”
“The other eunuchs wear them.”
Peering through the haze, he considered the two who kept watch over the women. “So they do.”
“Alessandra!” Nada called.
Alessandra looked to the girl whose bare shoulders were visible above the water.
“You are well?” Nada asked.
Alessandra inclined her head. “I am healed.”
“Allah is merciful!” Nada turned and swam opposite.
God is merciful, Alessandra silently amended, knowing better than to speak it aloud.
When the servant girl who stood ready to bathe her beckoned, Alessandra said, “Wait here. This I do alone,” and stepped away from Seif.
Though his feet did not follow, his eyes did. She knew it as surely as she knew she would soon be as unclothed as the others. Hoping the haze would dull his vision, she kept her back to him as the servant began to remove the robe the heat caused to cling to her skin.
“Do not!” Alessandra snatched the lapels closed.
“Mistress?” The girl clasped her hands at her waist. “Have I offended?”
Alessandra did not understand the bout of modesty that ought to be reserved for Rashid when she came to their nuptial bed, but she was so overwhelmed by the thought of Seif seeing her bare body that the warm air grew thick, and she felt almost ill.
“Mistress?” The girl’s eyes sparkled as if she might spill tears.
“You have not offended. I am chilled, that is all.” Alessandra touched her head that was yet tender. “I suppose I am not entirely healed, but still you can assist with my ablutions.” She lowered to the stool before the sink.
Immediately, the girl began gathering up Alessandra’s hair and securing it atop her head. When she moved to the sink to retrieve soap and towel, Alessandra looked over her shoulder.
Seif was where she had left him, but he had turned to the side. Arms crossed over his chest, he appeared fascinated by the gleaming fixtures that carried water into the bath house. But as he had surely seen them when last he was here, she wondered if his interest was a means of affording her privacy—unaware she had not shed her robe as was the normal course of bathing.
As if feeling watched, he looked around. His gaze held hers a moment, then he moved it down her robed figure. On the return to her face, he paused upon her nape that was no longer curtained by her hair, and which she had heard was an exquisite place to feel a man’s kiss.
When his eyes once more settled to hers, she could barely breathe, but though she longed to break the contact that stretched between them like a taut, unraveling rope, she could not.
If his eyes could so affect her, what might his hands do if ever she allowed them to touch her as boldly? Those things the wives and concubines spoke of when their conversations turned to lovemaking?
For shame, Alessandra! she silently rebuked. You ought not to have such thoughts—not of Rashid, and certainly not of this eunuch!
As the rational reminder banished sensations she should not feel, an outlandish thought crept in. Or is he a eunuch?
Was it mere coincidence her mother had purchased an Englishman to replace the eunuch who had fallen into disfavor? Eunuchs were not so scarce that Sabine would have had to settle for one so inexperienced. And then for her to force his company upon Alessandra…
The appearance of a concubine at Seif’s side broke their eye contact, and Alessandra turned forward again.
“Is your chill gone, mistress?” the servant girl asked where she knelt at Alessandra’s feet.
It was long gone, but to admit it would be to consent to the removal of her robe. “I fear not.”
With a sympathetic smile, the girl slipped the clogs from Alessandra’s feet. “Then I shall bathe you one limb at a time, and when you are clean, I will henna your hands and feet. Then you will feel yourself again.”
If only she could feel herself again. She did not like the turmoil she had been suffering since Seif’s arrival, nor that she had such sinful feelings for the eunuch when she had none for Rashid.
A half hour later, scrubbed clean, hair washed and hanging damp down her back, Alessandra rose from the stool and tightened the belt of her robe.
“You are leaving?” the girl asked. “What of the henna I promised?”
“Another day. I am still chilled.” It was even more of a lie now considering the perspiration dotting her brow, but she could not stand to sit still any longer.
Avoiding looking toward Seif, she approached the women clustered at the pool’s edge and lowered herself beside Hayfa, second wife to Jabbar. Raising the hem of her robe, she sank her feet in the water.
Hayfa, whose once slender body had grown heavy with overindulgence, scooted near and flicked the robe’s sleeve. “You will faint if you insist on wearing that.”
“I have taken a chill,” Alessandra said, hoping to quell the whisperings about her remaining clothed. “When I am warm again, I will remove it.”
Hayfa leaned close. “Tell me of this new eunuch. What type is he?”
She knew what the woman referred to, but could not keep her cheeks from coloring with embarrassment. “I can tell you nothing.”
“Hmmph,” grunted a concubine who had been listening. “Is it not you with whom he has spent these past days?”
The woman made it sound as if she and Seif were lovers! Though Alessandra knew she should not allow herself to be drawn into this conversation, she felt a need to defend her innocence. “He has been given the task of following me wherever I go and sleeping outside my apartment. That is all.”
From the women’s expressions, it was clear neither believed her, making Alessandra’s palms itch to smack their smirks away.
“If it is true our innocent Alessandra knows nothing of his type,” Hayfa said, “perhaps she should ask him.”
“Ask him yourself,” Alessandra said.
“I think she is frightened of him,” Hayfa submitted. “See how she keeps herself covered in his presence. Perhaps he has warmed her cold English blood, and she knows not what to do.”
It was too near the truth. Though Alessandra wanted to ignore the challenge, she hastened to her feet. “I am not frightened of him,” she said and started toward Seif.
Legs braced apart, hands clasped behind his back, he watched her approach through narrowed lids.
She halted before him and looked up with what she hoped was indifference. “Hayfa”—she nodded at the woman—“wishes to know what type of eunuch you are.”
Puzzlement lined his brow. “Of what do you speak?”
She groaned inwardly. He surely knew to what she referred and but played with her. Knowing she could not return without the information, she said, “She would know if you are the type who can make love to a woman and yet not spoil her with a child the master would deny as his”—how she hated the tremble in her voice!—“or the type who has been…altered such that he can do neither.”
His eyebrows lowered over his amethyst-colored eyes. “How do you know of such things?”
So great was her discomfort that she nearly fled, but as she had come this far, she gestured to the eunuch who stood on the other side of the pool. “As Hayfa often boasts, Yusuf is able to give pleasure without getting her with child. Thus, he is of the first type of eunuch.”
“Has he given you pleasure as well?”
Her knees nearly buckled. That he would suggest—
She tamped down her outrage with the reminder it was the same as Hayfa and the concubine alluded to. That a young woman could reach the age of eight and ten and remain untouched was almost unheard of in a land where girls were often wed by their thirteenth birthday. Alessandra would have been wed as well had her mother not interceded time and again. Thus, she was chaste among women who had long known a man’s touch and pitied her for her lack of experience.
Though the denial had been upon her lips, instead she lied. “I am no maiden.”
His eyes bored into hers as if he might see the truth of her words, but finally, he said, “And I am no Yusuf. You may tell Hayfa and her friends I am the same as Khalid.”