by Anne Gracie
“And what would you do with this sum?”
“Buy a house in Alexandria,” she said without hesitation.
He steepled his fingers and eyed her over them. “I see. And who would live in this house?” His tone was noticeably cooler.
“Ali and me and Laila,” she told him. His expression made her hesitate, but she should make a push for the money, she decided. It was the least Papa could do for her. “So will you give me the money for that?”
“No.”
She scowled. He hadn’t even bothered to consider it. “Why not?”
“Because Lady Cleeve didn’t ask me to come all this way to set you up in a house with other people. She asked me to find you because she’s damned well fretting herself to flinders worrying about you. She’s an old lady who’s all alone in the world, and her heart’s desire is to bring you home so she can love you and ensure your future.”
Ayisha looked away, trying to hide the way his words made her feel. He painted a very appealing picture, but those kind, warm, loving feelings were for another girl, a dead girl, not Ayisha.
She tried to harden her heart against the unknown old lady. She wouldn’t want to love and care for her son’s by-blow, his illegitimate daughter by a foreign woman. Ayisha would probably be a huge embarrassment for her. The old lady would want her gone. Out of sight.
“But if I had a house in Alexandria—”
“I made a promise,” the Englishman told her. “And I keep my promises.”
“I don’t care, you cannot make a promise for me,” she said fiercely. “And you can’t make me go.”
The Englishman tilted his head and gazed at her thoughtfully. It wasn’t a challenging sort of look, she decided, it was as if he’d just noticed a smut on her nose. Which was ridiculous. There was more than a smut. She’d been lavish with the dirt today. Apart from it being her usual disguise, it was a message to him: she was not—and never would be—an English lady.
Still that cool blue regard continued.
“What?” she said defensively. “What is it?”
“I won’t give you money for a house in Alexandria, but I will buy one for Laila and I’ll find a job for Ali, too.”
Relief filled her. “You would—”
“But only if you come with me to England,” he finished.
She fell silent. He’d put her in an impossible position.
Without Ayisha, Laila would never have the courage to escape her brother. Not without help. And Ayisha had to get out of Cairo now that Gadi’s uncle was sniffing around. A house in Alexandria was the solution to all their problems.
This cool, uncaring Englishman could idly offer her their dream on a plate—and all it would cost was her freedom.
He was as bad as Gadi and his uncle. Almost.
Ayisha wished she could just fling his offer back in his even white teeth, but it was too tempting. Far too tempting. And he knew it, the smug swine.
“I will consider it.” She needed time, time to see if she could think her way around this, time to see if she could have what she wanted and still stay free.
“When will you give me your answer?”
She put her nose in the air and responded in his own cool, care-for-nobody manner. “Soon.”
Baxter, I need a house in Alexandria,” Rafe said when he was ushered into the cool, dark inner room of Baxter’s establishment. “Do you have connections there?”
“I have connections everywhere. What sort of house?” Baxter was seated cross-legged on a pile of cushions, smoking tobacco from a hookah, the very picture of an Oriental potentate.
“Small, just for two people, and with a yard big enough to build an oven. The woman bakes bread.”
Baxter put the mouthpiece of the hookah aside. “You’ve decided to stay?”
“It’s not for me, but a woman and a boy—Miss Cleeve has been living with them.”
Baxter sat up at that. “You’ve found her then? The Cleeve girl?”
“I have.”
“Where? How?”
“She, er, dropped in on me at her father’s house.” The fewer people who knew Miss Cleeve had been living on the streets of Cairo disguised as a street boy, the better.
“Just like that? From out of nowhere?”
“Mmm. More or less.”
Baxter sat back. “Second cousin to an oyster, as the saying goes. I can arrange a house, five percent commission, and you can take possession by the end of the week.” Baxter scribbled on a piece of paper, rang for a servant, explained in Arabic, and sat back as the man hurried off. He gave a faint grin. “I heard you caught a young street thief. Don’t suppose that was Miss Cleeve?”
“Close,” Rafe said. Baxter was not the sort of man to gossip. “The boy is her young foster brother. He tried to steal the picture, and she came to free him from my clutches.”
“I see . . .” Baxter gave him a hooded glance.
“She was disguised as a boy,” Rafe clarified. “And apparently not in anyone’s evil clutches. This house is for the woman who has taken her in, and the boy, Ali, who she seems to have adopted as well.”
“This house is to be their reward?”
Rafe nodded. “And because Miss Cleeve won’t go with me unless they are well provided for.”
Baxter raised his brows.
“Loyal to the backbone,” Rafe confirmed.
A servant brought coffee and tiny sticky pastries. Rafe took a ginger sip of the coffee. It was as appalling as ever.
“That brings me to the next matter,” Rafe said. “I have a proposition for you. You have a considerable business empire, do you not?”
Baxter gave a noncommittal shrug.
“Would you have a place in Alexandria to train up an intelligent young boy?”
Baxter sipped his coffee thoughtfully, then grimaced. “Burned again. My cook had to return to his village, and ever since . . .” He set down the tiny cup on a brass tray. “A boy, you say? Your little thief? Her foster brother?”
“Yes, he’s a thief, but a damned inept one. Unpracticed is my guess.” He gave Baxter a direct look and said, “I would prefer he gets no further practice. After eight years in the army, I know men and young boys. He’s a promising lad.”
“How old?”
“Ten or thereabouts, I’d guess.”
Baxter gave him a shrewd look. “You want to rid her of her encumbrances and allow her to leave with a clear conscience.”
“Bluntly put, yes. I’ll pay for his education—I presume there is a decent school in Alexandria—if you’ll train him to be part of your business and keep an eye on him.”
Baxter thought for a moment, then leaned forward and held out his hand. “Very well. Bring me this boy and if I like him, I’ll give him a trial.”
What am I to do, Laila?” Ayisha paced the tiny yard restlessly. “He has made it impossible for me to refuse.”
Laila swept the cobbles. “There is always a choice,” she said placidly. “A house, a job for Ali—these things do not matter. What matters is you.”
Ayisha stared. “What do you mean, they don’t matter? It’s everything we wanted.”
Laila stopped sweeping for a moment. “This is not about what we wanted. This is about what you will do with your life. Will you take your life in your own hands and try to make something of it, or will you go on hiding from the world as you have since you were a child?”
Ayisha blinked. “But you know why I hide.”
“I know it,” Laila agreed. “And there has been good reason for it, it is true. But you cannot live your whole life like this. It is time to stop, to face what you are, to risk yourself for the possibility of happiness.”
Ayisha frowned. “Are you saying I have been a coward? But I take risks every day.”
Laila patted her cheek. “I know you do, and nobody would call you a coward. But you guard your heart; you are afraid to love.”
“That’s not true. I love you and Ali—”
“I know you do, but you
are a woman now, and it is time you let yourself love a man. I know, you want to hide, to pretend you do not care, but this is me, who has known you since you were a child. I do not know this man who stirs your anger and your fear; I do not know if he is a good man or not, if he is the one for you or just a messenger. That is up to you. But you must leave this place, Ayisha, though it grieves my heart to say so. This country is not for you. You cannot be whole here. And you know it in your heart.”
Ayisha felt her face crumple. “This is my home.”
Laila shook her head, sadly. “It has been so for your life until now, but look inside yourself, my dear, and tell me you did not know, in your heart of hearts, that one day you must go to your father’s country.”
It was true, Ayisha knew, but she did not want it to be. “One day I will go to England, but not . . . not like this. I don’t want to go with him.” He scared her . . . no, not scared . . . He intimidated . . . That was not right, either. But he was a threat to her, she felt it every time he looked at her and she shivered inside.
Laila smiled. “So you know, but you fight it. Decide, child, decide now; do you live your life in fear, or do you take it like an orange and wring every last sweet drop from it? That is your choice.”
She patted Ayisha’s cheek. “Now, while you decide what to do, the old spice seller wants some more labels written. He was very pleased with those others you did. And after that, why not go down to the river and pick me some nice sweet greens? The river is a good place for thinking.”
Miss Cleeve had demanded a pathetically small sum, but she obviously didn’t know it. It would barely keep a society beauty in knickknacks for a quarter. Rafe followed the interpreter through the streets, heading for Laila’s house.
He was leading a horse. The streets in this part of town were too narrow and the upper stories of the houses too close together for a man to ride. He hadn’t realized that when he hired the horse.
He needed exercise and had hired a horse with the intention of riding every inch of pent-up frustration out of himself. After he called on Laila, he planned a good, hard ride up along the river.
Laila lived in a cramped and dirty part of town. As they approached Ali came racing up, a brilliant grin splitting his thin brown face. He admired the horse extravagantly, so Rafe swung him up on its back, to the boy’s huge delight. He rode proudly, grinning and calling out to all who saw him.
He pointed out Laila’s house. It was small and mean but the street out the front was well swept and clean. Ali slipped down and, taking Rafe’s arm, led him exuberantly down an even narrower alley and banged on a high wooden door set into the wall.
“The boy says Laila will be at the back of the house,” the interpreter murmured, just as the door in the wall opened.
A small, plump woman looked up at Rafe and the horse in surprise and quickly pulled her veil over her face. Her eyes were beautiful: large, liquid, and dark, but they scrutinized him in an unflinchingly critical manner that put him forcibly in mind of his first officer’s inspection, when he was a green recruit.
He bore the small woman’s stringent examination with cool amusement. With her cooperation or without it, he would take Alicia Cleeve back to England.
Ali performed the introductions, and Rafe bowed to Laila, who gestured to them to tie the horse to the gate and then enter the tiny courtyard. The yard was neatly cobbled and swept clean, with herbs growing in pots and a bright red geranium spilling from a high place next to the roof. There was a dome-shaped fireplace, piles of wooden trays, and a lingering aroma of fresh baked bread.
An elderly, ragged tabby cat sat on top of the dome and glared balefully at Rafe, its tail flicking a warning.
“So,” Laila said, “you are the one.”
“Apparently,” Rafe responded through the interpreter.
She gave a little nod, as if he’d passed muster. “Peace be with you. Please to come inside?” She gestured toward the back door, where several pairs of shabby shoes sat neatly, side by side.
Rafe, whose boots were designed to have a valet pull them off, sighed at this local custom and bent to pull them off. Ali ran to help, tugging at them with gusto.
Laila ushered them into the tiny house; two rooms, one with several low divans, the second room a tiny curtained-off alcove. Their poverty was obvious.
“Coffee?” she said.
“Thank you,” he responded. The bitter, burned taste of Baxter’s coffee was still in his mouth, but he’d learned that Egyptians were intensely hospitable, and he didn’t want to cause offense. He didn’t need this woman’s cooperation, but it would be easier on Alicia if he had it. Laila wasn’t going to make it easy on him, he could tell.
Her actions were hospitable, but those dark eyes snapped with suspicion.
She brought back a tray containing two tiny cups filled with an ominously dark brew and a plate of tiny round sticky balls. She presented them to Rafe and the interpreter, then knelt gracefully on folded knees and waited for them to drink. She did not drink herself, Rafe noted.
Rafe braced himself and took a cautious sip of the thick, dark coffee. “This is good,” he said in surprise. He took another sip, then another. He could get used to this style of coffee.
“You know why I’m here,” he said. There was no reason to beat about the bush.
Laila cast a glance at Ali, sitting cross-legged by Rafe’s knees, and said something in Arabic.
“Sending him outside to sweep the yard,” the interpreter explained. Ali started to go, with drooping shoulders and lagging feet, the very picture of a martyr.
“Here, lad, look after my horse, will you? Give it some water,” Rafe told him. He’d watered his horse at Baxter’s, but it would keep the boy occupied and make sure nobody bothered his horse.
Ali’s face lit up when he understood, and he ran out happily.
“You can go, too,” Laila said in English to the interpreter, surprising them both. She added, “My English not good, but enough.”
Rafe nodded to the interpreter, who, looking slightly annoyed, left.
Laila explained. “This between you, me, and Ayisha. I not know her English name—Alissya Cli—?”
“Alicia Cleeve,” Rafe explained. He ate one of the sticky dumplings. “This is delicious.”
She gave a terse nod, uninterested in his compliments. “You come to take my Ayisha to England.”
“Yes—”
“But yesterday you go to Zamil’s slave market,” she said. “Why?” She fixed him with a clear look.
It was a bold frontal attack, unexpected from a woman. Laila rose slightly in Rafe’s estimation.
“To see if he had ever sold this girl. You will, I think, recognize her.” He pulled out the picture of Alicia Cleeve. “It was suggested to me that she might have been kidnapped and sold as a slave. And that Zamil might know.”
“Such evil has happened before,” Laila admitted. She held out her hand for the picture.
“Ahh,” she smiled at it. “So, this is how Ayisha look before she came to the streets.” She gazed at the portrait. “So young and sweet, so innocent. Finish your coffee?”
“Yes, thank you, it was very good.”
“Turn the cup.”
Rafe frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Turn the cup. Like this.” She demonstrated, upending her own cup on the saucer, letting the thick grounds at the bottom drain.
Bemused, Rafe did so. It was a custom he hadn’t come across before. It seemed rather messy.
Laila handed him back the picture of Ayisha. “You married?”
“No,” he said, surprised at the abrupt change of subject.
“Why not?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to blast her impudence, but he said stiffly, “I’ve been a soldier and away at the war for the last eight years.”
“You hurt bad?” She glanced at his crotch.
His lips twitched. Nobody could accuse this woman of subtlety. “Nothing vital.”
; “How many years you have?”
“Eight and twenty.” He folded his arms and sat back.
She gave a brisk nod. “Time you get marry.”
“You and my brother, two voices with but one tune,” he said blandly.
She gave him a thoughtful look, picked up his coffee cup, and stared into it a long moment. Various expressions flitted across her face. She murmured something in Arabic, glanced at him, looked back into the cup, and nodded again. Slowly her body relaxed. She sighed and put the coffee cup down.
There was a short silence, then Laila said, “You will take my Ayisha from me. Soon, I think?”
Capitulation? So soon? But he wasn’t going to question it. “She will have a better life than anything you can give her.”
Laila nodded. “I know, and it is good,” she said, surprising him. “But she not want to go.”
Was she going to try to touch him for money? “She will go,” Rafe said in a grim voice, “whether she wants to or not. Whether you want her to or not. She does not know what is good for her.”
“You force her to go to England?” Laila said.
“Kicking and screaming if necessary,” he confirmed. “And neither you nor anyone else is going to stop me.”
“Good.” She pressed her hands together. “You must make her go. She is stubborn, you understand. I tell her this life is not right for her, that it is a prison for her to live as she does—but will she listen? She needs a man. I see in her cup.”
Rafe blinked at the abrupt about-face. He’d expected opposition, a further grilling on his morals and character, or an attempt to solicit a bribe, not this almost motherly approval. And the suggestion Ayisha needed a man . . .
“You are under a misapprehension, madam,” he told her crisply. “I have not come in search of a bride. I am simply here to escort Miss Cleeve to her grandmother.”
Laila’s brown eyes twinkled. “So you say.”
Rafe said nothing. The matchmaking mamas of Almack’s had a sister in spirit here.
“She is a woman, my Ayisha, not a young girl,” Laila continued with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. “Almost twenty summers. Beautiful. Time she marry, too.”
