by Anne Gracie
Young Ali might be an incompetent pickpocket, but he would have made a fine soldier. He’d admitted nothing except his name, even though Rafe, through an interpreter, had grilled him rather hard. In a shaking voice he’d claimed to have no family, no home, and no master. And he’d insisted—repeatedly—that nobody had asked him to steal the folder with the drawings. Insisted rather too much, Rafe thought. Brave little beggar.
Would the master come for the boy? The coward, sending a child to risk his hand for the sake of a worthless drawing.
Though clearly it wasn’t worthless to someone.
Rafe was very glad he’d come to Egypt. He felt more alive than he had in ages. And all day the sun had beat down on him, soaking into his bones. He couldn’t get enough of it. He’d felt so cold for so long . . .
He settled down to wait. Such a long time since he’d been on watch . . .
The moon was riding low in the western sky. Rafe drifted in a blue reverie, contemplating with grim outrage the future his older brother had mapped out for him. Driven by his obsession to ensure the succession of the Earls of Axebridge . . .
The scrape of something against the bricks outside brought Rafe to full alertness.
He moved silently into position by the window. The room was open to the night, the carved wooden shutters fastened back. He stood in the shadows and waited.
A shadow slid noiselessly over the balcony. Small and slight. Another boy, dammit. Older than the first one, a youth rather than a boy, but still, not a man. Not the master who Rafe was coming to despise.
Rafe had left a lamp burning low in Ali’s room. The boy’s shape in the bed was visible through a door deliberately left ajar. Like a wraith the intruder stepped through the open window and glided across the floor toward the boy.
Rafe caught a glint of light on steel. A knife! An assassin? He leapt forward and chopped at the hand holding the knife. A soft exclamation and the knife clattered across the floor. The boy whirled and kicked—straight for Rafe’s balls.
Rafe dodged and a hard foot collided only with his upper thigh. It would have crippled him had it connected with its target. The lad had a kick like a mule!
The boy lashed out with a fist and at the same time kicked again for the same target. Rafe might not care about the succession, but he did care about his balls. Rafe, swearing, kicked the lad’s feet out from under him and knocked him to the floor.
The boy spotted the knife and made a grab for it. Rafe kicked it under the sofa. He turned and saw the boy making for the window. He dived, knocking him to the floor, landing on top of him.
The boy was still for a moment. Rafe could hear him fighting hoarsely for breath. He’d knocked the wind out of him. Good. He flipped the boy over, but even though he was still gasping like a landed fish, the youth fought back, punching and kicking, and all the time writhing like a damned eel, trying to get a foot free to go for Rafe’s family jewels once and for all.
He was small—half starved no doubt—and though he fought like a little demon, his strength was pitiful by comparison with Rafe’s. Enough to be a damned nuisance, all the same, Rafe thought, dodging another punch, trying to grab the flailing fists to subdue the boy. He needed to question him, but first he had to tame him.
“I won’t hurt you if you surrender,” he said in English, then realizing it, repeated it in French.
The boy bared his teeth in what Rafe thought could be a smile. He relaxed slightly and the boy lunged.
“Ow!” The little bugger had bitten him. Enough was enough. A quick scientific punch to the boy’s jaw knocked him cold. His head fell back and he didn’t move.
Rafe grimaced. He must have hit harder than he intended. He’d meant to subdue the little devil, not knock him out.
He sat back on his haunches, kneeling astride the youth’s supine body and regarded his young assailant. In the soft light from the other room all he could see was an urchin face smeared with dirt. He looked about fifteen, thin and as raggedly dressed as Ali. His turban had come off in the struggle and his hair was very short, chopped jaggedly in a cut that Rafe decided the boy had done without benefit of mirror or scissors. It wasn’t unattractive, he decided. Might even take off—the Urchin Cut. He favored the Windswept, himself.
The youth’s features, under all that dirt, were quite delicate . . .
Good God. If he didn’t know better . . .
He thought of the lad’s lack of muscle. The way he’d succumbed to the merest tap on the jaw.
He stared at the youth’s chest. Flat as a pancake.
He shifted his position back, till he was sitting on the lad’s legs. He peered at the place where the legs joined the torso. The pants were very baggy, but . . .
There was only one way to tell. He brushed down over the base of his prisoner’s stomach and between his legs . . . Nothing. Or rather not nothing, but nothing that would have been there if his youth had been a boy.
He was a girl. And, he thought, staring at the girl’s features in the dim light, not just any girl.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Filthy pervert!” she snapped in French and in the same moment that Rafe recalled just where his hand was resting—and removed it—she exploded under him.
If he’d thought she was angry before, it was nothing to the desperation with which she fought him now—bucking and writhing, kicking and biting, punching and scratching.
“Calm down,” he panted in English, trying to hold her down without injuring her any further. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve come to help you.”
She kept fighting.
He repeated it in French, in case she’d forgotten her English.
She spat in his face.
He swore and grabbed at her hands, keeping her hips jammed between his thighs. His thighs imprisoned her effortlessly, but she continued to squirm and buck against him.
“Stop it, you little fool,” he said. “Your grandmother sent me.”
In French she cast aspersions on his mother’s virtue and told him to put that grandmother in an anatomically impossible place. And then she bit his arm. Again.
“You little shrew! Do you want me to punch you again?” He couldn’t. He’d never hit a woman in his life—until tonight. And it made him angry.
She bucked and, getting a hand free, tried to scratch his eyes out. He dodged and caught her hand again, but not before he felt blood trickling down his neck.
“This is becoming excessively tedious,” he grated. He could easily throttle the little she-cat—and enjoy doing it. But they both knew he had the upper hand in every respect.
She wasn’t going to give up. There was only one way to subdue her without hurting her any more than he had. Rafe knew exactly what to do.
In one swift movement he pinned her whole body to the floor, pressed under his; his powerful thighs pressing down her slender, smaller thighs. His big body covered her small one, intimately, not a breath of air between them.
She struggled frantically, but Rafe was bigger, stronger, and heavier; he overlapped her in every way.
He lay on top of her, unmoving, letting his weight do the job, sending a silent message: she was his prisoner.
Her head flailed madly. He caught her face between his hands and held it still. He didn’t trust those pearly white teeth anywhere near his skin.
He kept her arms pinned down by his elbows. She struggled vainly and, realizing she was utterly helpless, let fly with a stream of what he imagined was the finest gutter Arabic.
He waited until she ran out of breath and said, “Well, that was a waste, wasn’t it? I don’t speak Arabic.”
She instantly switched to French.
“How delightful,” he said conversationally. “So you do understand English.” He wished he could see her eyes. The curve of her cheek was quite lovely, and he could see enough to know her skin was streaked with dirt. It felt like silk, though.
She tried to buck him off but all that happened was that his body, already aware of a slender female
body in extremely close proximity, responded.
She felt it, too, he could tell. She went instantly still, then called him a filthy pervert, again in French.
He chuckled.
She stiffened. “Have you no shame?” she hissed in French.
“Not really. Frankly I’m just pleased that everything down there seems to be in fine working order after your very determined assault on my masculinity.”
“Assault?” she snapped. “You’re a fine one to talk.” She said it in English.
It was the moment he’d been waiting for. He shifted, moving both their bodies so that they were face-to-face. “Miss Alicia Cleeve, I presume.”
Three
She lay in rigid silence for a long moment. He wished he could see her face properly, but the moon had slipped behind the clouds again and though he could make out shapes and angles there was not enough light for any detail.
Rafe simply lay on top of her and waited. The silence stretched. His body throbbed and strained toward the object of its desire. Bizarre. It had no idea what was good for it.
Give her half a chance and she’d cut it off.
Rafe might know nothing about love, but he knew women. Especially physically. They were—usually—all softness and smooth curves.
This one seemed entirely made of elbows. Sharp, jabbing, uncomfortable elbows. And claws. And teeth.
And yet his body was as hard and wanting as he’d ever experienced. It must be all the sun he’d experienced in the last few weeks. All that heat pouring into him. The heat had to go somewhere. And it had.
His body was burning—burning for a dirty little savage who’d just tried to disembowel him.
It was most unlike him. He was famous for his elegance and discrimination. Particularly in women.
Could a certain part of his anatomy be suffering from sunstroke?
“Get off me,” she snarled at last. “You’re like an elephant, squashing me.”
“And you’re like a bagful of cats.”
Her mouth twitched. Could she possibly have a sense of humor?
“I can’t breathe,” she insisted. “You’re smothering me.”
“I imagine that’s from spitting out that torrent of abuse. Quite remarkable, abuse in three languages. Did it take a lot of practice?”
That time he was sure she was trying not to smile. She did have a sense of humor. He felt her body soften under his. Rafe relaxed. The skirmish was over. Miss Cleeve had decided to be sensible.
“Having exchanged compliments, I suppose I should introduce myself. Rafe Ramsey, at your service.” He released her and started to sit up.
A mistake. The moment she felt him shift off her, she exploded into action. He wrestled her back down beneath him. In three seconds he had her pinned under him again, only not quite so neatly this time. Lord, but the girl was all bones. And piss and vinegar.
“This is extremely tiresome of you, you know. I mean you no harm.”
“You’ll break my arm,” she growled.
“Probably,” he agreed. “If you keep struggling like that. It won’t be intentional on my part—”
At that moment a ray of moonlight lit her face. Rafe stared at his prisoner. She was . . . lovely. Her eyes were rather fine—blue, or green, or somewhere in between—fringed with dark lashes and set at an intriguing angle. Her nose was small and straight, her lips full and lush. And her skin, under the truly amazing amount of dirt, felt soft and smooth.
“My God,” he whispered. “What a rare little beauty.”
She jerked her head back and biffed him on the nose, hard.
“Ooof!” It hurt like the very devil. He had to hand it to the little demon. She didn’t give up easily. Without letting go of her wrists, he managed to plant an arm over her head and held it pressed to the floor. His nose ached. His eyes watered.
She gave him a smug look.
“Whoever brought Cleopatra to Rome wrapped in a rug knew his business,” he told her with feeling.
The rather fine green eyes narrowed to furious cat slits.
Her turban lay near his right hand. He transferred both her wrists to his left hand, shook out the coils of the turban, and used it to bind her hands together. He sat up, caught her kicking feet, and tied them together with the other end.
“Ah,” he said as he discovered the knife strapped to her calf. “What a devious young lady you are, Miss Cleeve. But what a useful weapon.” He removed it.
“Don’t call me that!”
“Call you what? A young lady? It does stretch the point, I agree.”
“Miss Cleeve,” she said crossly. “I’m not her.”
“No? The grubbiest thief in Cairo just happens to speak perfect English?” He used her knife to cut off the leftover turban fabric, and helped her to sit up.
She glowered at him. “I speak many languages.”
“So I heard. Most of them from the gutter, I’m guessing, but your English—”
“I picked it up from English sailors in Alexandria.”
He laughed. “Frightfully genteel sailors they have in Alexandria, then. Your accent is perfect—”
“So? My French accent is perfect, as is my Russian and my—”
“Undoubtedly, but every syllable of your English reeks of the upper class and not the sort you pick up on the docks of Alexandria, so stop the nonsense. I wasn’t born yesterday and I don’t like liars.”
“Good, I don’t like you, either, so let me go and I won’t bother you again.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” He hauled her upright. “You’re Alicia Cleeve, the only daughter of Sir Henry and Lady Cleeve, and I’m here to take you home to your grandmother.”
She glared at him and repeated. “For the last time, Englishman—”
“Ramsey, Rafe Ramsey.”
“Englishman,” she repeated stubbornly. “I am not Alicia Cleeve, I don’t have a grandmother, and I’m already home—or I will be if you will just let me go.”
He shrugged. “It’s no use, you know. I have a picture of Alicia Cleeve at thirteen and there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s you. You’re older, thinner, and dirtier, and your company manners have probably taken a distinct downhill turn, but other than that, you haven’t changed much at all.”
She glowered at him in silence. Her gaze roamed around the room. “What have you done to Ali?”
“He’s in the next room.” Rafe jerked his head. “Sleeping.”
“Sleeping?” She snorted and fought against her bonds. “Through all this noise? You’ve hurt him, haven’t you? Or drugged him. If you’ve hurt him, I’ll—”
“I don’t hurt children,” he snapped. “Or drug them. Now stop that or you’ll hurt yourself.” In her struggles her head missed the leg of the table by a scant quarter inch. He bent and scooped her up. Lord, but this little spitfire weighed nothing.
“Let me loose. I need to see him,” she demanded. She pretended to be unaware of her helpless position, but her body was tense and stiff with fear. Her sharp little chin jutted belligerently.
“You’ll stay tied up until I say so.” The spark of anger deep within him grew. What the devil had people been about to allow a gently born young English girl—a baronet’s daughter, for God’s sake—to starve in a foreign land? Whatever she’d experienced had turned her into a wildcat.
“I won’t say a word until you prove to me that Ali’s all right.” Her soft, full lips clamped together in a thin line. She glared at him through slits of green suspicion.
“Fair enough.” Rafe carried her into Ali’s room. He’d carried women often enough before, and when you held them against your chest they were usually a soft, satisfyingly solid armful. Not one of them had felt like a skinny little alley cat, trapped and ready to explode with fear and rage.
Yet his body was still—despite all that had happened—aroused.
He set her carefully on the bed and retreated a few steps out of the glow of the lamp he’d left burning for the boy, and willed his body to
behave itself.
Ali sat up in bed. He gave her a silent, speaking look.
“He’s gagged!” she said indignantly. “He can’t breathe.”
“He can breathe,” Rafe said calmly and untied the strip of cloth. “He just can’t warn any associates. Not that it matters now.”
There was a torrent of angry-sounding Arabic then as she rapped questions at the boy. He mumbled answers with hanged head and guilty grimaces.
“A bath?” she said to Rafe with a scowl. “You made him take a bath?”
Rafe shrugged. “He was dirty.” Did she think he’d tuck a dirty, verminous street boy into a bed made up with clean sheets? He was very tempted to offer her one as well.
He’d instructed his valet, Higgins, to draw a bath for the boy, make him scrub himself well, and ensure there were no lice in his hair. But Higgins had reported the interesting fact that the boy’s dirt was limited to his face, hands, and feet. Underneath, he seemed surprisingly clean. Though he still made him bathe.
Someone had looked after him quite well. Rafe, looking at the way Miss Cleeve smoothed back Ali’s short, spiky hair as she continued her interrogation, was almost certain who. No doubt her dirt-streaked appearance was mainly superficial also. She hadn’t smelled the least bit dirty when he was rolling around on the floor with her.
Of course, he realized. The dirt was a disguise.
She smelled . . . he thought back . . . like a dusty little cat. She was clean beneath the dusty exterior. He wondered whether beneath the furious spitting and snarling she might be . . . softer. Sweeter.
It would be fun teaching this little she-cat to purr, he thought. His body ached to try.
But she was his charge, he reminded himself sternly. Lady Cleeve’s granddaughter, not a potential mistress. Lady Cleeve’s little wildcat. Not his.
Her head whipped around accusingly. “Ali said you fed him something.”
“No drugs, and I don’t starve children, either,” he told her coolly. “He ate what I ate.”
With those looks and that spirit she’d take London by storm.
She turned back to Ali and the boy obviously confirmed it, for after a small humph—annoyance that she hadn’t caught him out in any dastardly act, he presumed—the exchange continued.
