Seductive Wager

by Leigh Greenwood

  “I do not think it will be necessary to do that again.”

  “I’ll have to wait to find out,” Brett replied.

  “The other woman is quite tall,” the dey remarked, changing the subject. “Were you anticipating trouble, or can you not protect your own wife?”

  Brett ignored the slur. “The woman is a Scot. They make excellent servants, but they grow too big sometimes. I’ll keep her here if you’re afraid she might overpower your guards.”

  “I have no such worry,” the dey responded angrily. “One of my guards could handle a dozen such women.” He rapped out an order in Arabic and the two Nubians summoned the guards outside the door.

  “Tell your women to take their time. I want them to make sure your wife is properly prepared to receive her husband. We have many things to discuss before their return.”

  Brett breathed an inward sigh of relief. He had accomplished the first and most crucial part of the plan, getting Kate out of the harem and the guards away from the door. Now if Ibrahin’s people could draw the others away, even if it were only for a few minutes, and Ibrahin and Charles could eliminate the two guards before they returned, they would be able to bring it off.

  “Now to business,” the dey said.

  “I want my wife to leave the palace with me,” Brett announced.

  “I think we should talk about el-Kader before we make any arrangements for your wife’s departure,” the dey objected. “After all, that is why we are here. Otherwise, I could just have sent your wife to the British consulate the moment she was found.”

  “That would have been the best thing to do,” Wiggins said, intervening. “My government would have thought well of you.”

  “But I’m not interested in what your government thinks of me,” the dey replied. “I am only interested in my position.”

  “Then you’d be well advised to listen to my government,” Brett said sharply, “before your miscalculations cost you your throne.”

  The dey’s eyes hardened. “I do not need the eyes of an Englishman to see what happens in my country,” he stated curtly. “I would rather seek the advice of my wives.”

  “They couldn’t do any worse than you have,” Brett said, speaking before Wiggins could offer a more temperate reply. “You insulted the French ambassador and taunted their government. That was the action of a fool.”

  “It is never wise to offend one stronger than you,” Wiggins explained.

  “Your next mistake was to think the French weren’t interested in Africa. They are, and they’d like nothing better than to use your behavior as an excuse to bring an army in here. Your third miscalculation was to think you could use a victory over the French to gain ascendancy over the rest of the North African countries. You won’t get a victory, and not one of the rulers, from Mohammed Ali to the Sultan of Morocco, wants to have you as an overlord instead of Turkey.”

  “You think the sultan and el-Kader will help you, but the sultan is too weak and too interested in his harem, and el-Kader is only interested in taking your throne for himself,” Wiggins explained. “There is still time to apologize to the French and defuse the incident.”

  The dey’s olive skin had turned nearly white with rage, but he curbed his fury and replied in a low voice, “And how do the desires of your government contribute toward my well-being?”

  “We do not want the French in Africa,” Wiggins replied. “They have a regrettable tendency to want to settle in for a long stay, and they tend to make rather a mess of things. Too, whenever they overcome a foe, regardless of how small or ineffectual"—the dey swelled with fury at the aspersion against his country—"they start thinking all over again they ought to be the rulers of Europe as well. Convincing them otherwise has been a tiresome necessity for England off and on for some five or six hundred years. So much better for everyone if we could destroy their delusions before they flower.”

  “I have convinced el-Kader it’s better for both of you if he takes his troops and retires to Mascara,” Brett added. “That way he’s no threat to you.”

  “But suppose I want his support?’

  “As long as it is not against the French, we have no objection. We would prefer you remain on your throne.”

  “You have no idea how grateful I am to you and your country.”

  “We know exactly how you feel,” Brett said with brutal frankness, “but you should be thankful to us. We saved your neck.”

  “And you expect me to hand over your wife, along with my most profound thanks, for this?” he demanded angrily.

  “You said you didn’t want el-Kader’s troops in Algiers. I even got him to move them farther away.”

  “I did not want you to interfere at all,” the dey rasped. “I do not want you making plans for my country.” The faint sound of raised voices could be heard in the distance, but it was too soft and too indistinct for Brett to know whether it was coming from the harem or elsewhere in the city.

  “Give me my wife, and I promise never to set foot in Algeria again.”

  “I shall send her to you, but not now,” the dey replied. “I do not trust you not to turn around and talk el-Kader into changing his mind. I will not send her to you until you are on a ship headed for your country.”

  “And I don’t trust you, either. I won’t leave this palace without her.” Though the disturbance was growing louder, it did not seem to have attracted the attention of the dey.

  “Maybe we can look at this a little more calmly,” Wiggins intervened. “It is possible I may be able to offer some assurances that would allow one or the other of you to moderate your position.”

  “I do not see any reason to alter my stance,” the dey stated unyieldingly. “Mr. Westbrook has come to my country and interfered in my affairs. It is therefore necessary for him, not myself, to demonstrate his good intentions by making the first move to conciliate.”

  “I have already done that by—” The door burst open and Kate catapulted into the room.

  “Brett!” she cried, and covering the distance between them, she threw herself into his arms, laughing with tears running down her face. Brett had barely made it to his feet before Kate’s body struck him full force, but he enfolded her in his arms, kissing her feverishly.

  For the moment the dey and their precarious plan of escape were forgotten, and he gloried in the feel of her warm, supple body in his arms. For nearly a week he had gone to bed each night dreaming of her, feeling as though he could reach out and touch her, teased and tantalized by the memory of nights when they lost themselves in each other only to emerge at dawn more deeply in love than before. Heretofore he had never been denied anything he wanted, and knowing she was beyond his reach was agony to his soul as well as his pride. It had taken all his restraint to keep to the plans he and Ibrahin had worked out. Now, with the sounds of the growing disturbance in his ears, it was necessary to restrain himself one last time from doing the one thing he most wanted to do.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, holding Kate at arm’s length so he could look at her. “Did they treat you well?”

  “Everything has been wonderful since they took me from the pirates. I’ve been here so long I have become friends with half the women in the harem.”

  Brett threw the dey a menacing look, but he merely shrugged.

  “I even had my own room and servants to wait on me.”

  There was a sudden surge in the noise that made it clear the disturbance was coming from within the palace. The dey looked to the door for the two guards who had escorted Charles and Ibrahin to the harem, but they had not returned with Kate.

  “Kamil, what is this disturbance?”

  The guard spoken to stepped out into the passage. “It comes from the harem, my lord.”

  The dey’s eyes cut to Kate. “What do you know of this?” he demanded suspiciously.

  “Nothing. There was no one about when I left. In fact, now that you mention it, I haven’t seen the women for quite some time.”

  “Wh
ere are the guards who accompanied your servants?”

  “They left us when they heard the first scream.”

  “What scream? Why did you not tell me of this?”

  “I couldn’t think of anything but reaching my husband. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if they’d all screamed at once.” Right then it seemed that they did.

  “Kamil,” the dey ordered, “summon the guards and find out what is happening. If this is el-Kader’s doing,” he said, returning his furious gaze to Brett, “neither of you will leave this palace alive.”

  In a few seconds of inattention, the dey had allowed himself to approach within arm’s length of Brett. At the very second when Kamil left and the second guard was occupied with closing the door behind him, Brett leaped upon the dey, forced one arm behind him, and pointed a dagger at his throat. In the same instant, Ibrahin threw up his robe and struck the Nubian a near-crippling blow from behind without ever lifting the veil from his face.

  The dey didn’t struggle or even seem surprised at the sudden turn of events, but his eyes were ablaze with rage. “You have some remarkably accomplished women in your service,” he remarked with admirable fortitude. “What do you mean to do with me now?”

  “Merely invite you to dinner at the consulate,” Wiggins answered while helping Kate cover her face with her veil. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  “Do you really expect to escape from the palace alive?”

  “If we don’t, you won’t, either,” Brett answered.

  Chapter 25

  “There are still many guards.”

  “Then you’ll have to tell them to let us pass,” Brett said, forcing the dey toward the door. “Your dinner grows cold, so let’s hurry.”

  “And if I do not?”

  “You have two alternatives. You can choose to lead us out of here and enjoy an excellent dinner as Wiggins’s guest or we can leave your body in the streets to become dinner for the wild dogs.”

  “You have an extremely unpleasant way of putting things,” the dey replied, but he moved toward the door without further resistance.

  There were no guards outside the dey’s apartments and Brett hurried him along the way they had come. Wiggins walked on the dey’s other side—his steps were surprisingly quick this time—and Kate followed, flanked on either side by Charles and Ibrahin, all three with their veils securely in place.

  “I assume the disturbance in my harem was no accident.”

  “Any man who surrounds himself with two hundred jealous women instead of one loyal wife must expect such outbreaks from time to time,” Brett said with a humorless smile. “Women are not as fond of sharing their favors as men.”

  They entered a colonnaded courtyard and could see two guards straight ahead. Brett moved closer to the dey and increased the pressure of the knife point in his side. “Tell them what you will,” he hissed in a fierce undertone, “but get us out of here without raising any suspicions.”

  The dey appeared to be having some difficulty keeping his temper under control, but he had no desire to embarrass himself before his own men. He also had no doubt Brett would kill him the instant a wrong word came out of his mouth.

  “I have been invited to dine with the English consul,” the dey stated as he paused before the guards. “See if you can help quell that disturbance.” He nodded his head in the direction of the noise still coming from inside. “I do not wish to hear it when I return.”

  They passed three more guards, but the dey directed the attention of all of them to the noise from within and walked quietly between Brett and Wiggins until they reached the street.

  “Surely this is far enough,” he said when they were safely outside. “Let us make an end of this extremely foolish game.”

  “But I do wish to invite you to dinner,” Wiggins said, pausing to allow the dey to climb into the waiting carriage before him. “There is a great deal more to the situation than we have yet had an opportunity to discuss.”

  It took some time and considerable jostling before all six people could squeeze into the carriage, but they were in at last and the driver hurried them on their way. The short trip was made in virtual silence.

  “I want to introduce you to my wife’s attendants,” Brett said with a grin as they gathered in the hall of the consulate. “The tall, thin Scot is my valet, and I think you already know the one with the almond eyes.” Charles disappeared immediately, but Ibrahin removed his veil and head covering.

  “I should have known you were in this somehow,” the dey exploded at Ibrahin, intense hatred flaming in his eyes. “I should have known the English could never penetrate my palace guard, but I did not think you would join with foreign devils to destroy one of your own brothers.”

  “Someday you will be pleased—obviously this is not the day!—that I have interfered,” Ibrahin predicted, not the least annoyed by the dey’s violent animosity. “Our goals may not be precisely the same, but at least we agree you should remain on your own throne.”

  “I do not need your help to keep what is mine,” the dey snapped furiously.

  “That is what you say now, but I wonder would your story be the same if you were to find yourself deposed?”

  “We dine in an hour,” Wiggins intervened smoothly. “Allow me to suggest that everyone retire to his room to change. I was sure you would wish to join us, Mr. Ibrahin, so I have had a room prepared. I also have a room and attendants ready to serve you,” Wiggins said, turning back to the dey. “Additionally, I have caused a message to be sent to the palace requesting your guard to come for you at midnight. Until then you are my guest. You have only to ask, and my staff and I will do everything we can to see that your every wish is gratified.”

  The dey gave Wiggins a look almost as hate-filled as the one he directed to Ibrahin before turning to follow the servant waiting to take him to his chamber.

  “You must not delay any longer,” Wiggins said, turning to Brett. “I am not at all sure the message I sent will prevent the dey’s personal guard from coming here as soon as they realize he is not in the palace. If you are gone, he will have nothing to gain by exposing the ruse which brought him here. Mr. Ibrahin’s presence is a kind of guarantee that he will pretend this was his idea. However, your presence, and that of your wife, would probably be too much of a temptation, and he might decide that embarrassment would be a small price to pay for your capture.”

  “Where can we go?” Kate asked, fear of recapture doubly bitter after the brief moments of freedom.

  “We’re leaving Algeria tonight,” Brett told her. “There’s a ship waiting for us in the harbor right now. If we leave immediately, we can be on board before the dey comes down to dinner. Thank you for your help,” Brett said, turning to Ibrahin. “I wasn’t very nice to you at first, but I admit I might never have found my wife without your help.”

  “It is a pleasure to serve one of such supreme loveliness,” Ibrahin said, shifting his gaze to Kate. “To have an opportunity to gaze on such beauty is not a thing which happens often in a man’s lifetime. In my country, we would keep such a treasure far from the sight of other men’s eyes. Her beauty would cause great jealousy.”

  “It has already been the source of quite enough difficulties,” Wiggins observed as he herded Brett and Kate toward the door. “Be gone before you cause any more.”

  “Thank you both,” Kate said. “Please come visit us when you’re in London, Mr. Wiggins. And Mr. Ibrahin, if you ever decide to come to England, we would love for you to be our guest.”

  “I would be honored,” Ibrahin said, “but now I feel I should add my pleas to those of Wiggins and urge you to make haste. The time is shorter than you think.”

  Brett and Kate ran from the building and climbed into the waiting carriage. It started forward without waiting for a command from Brett. It was the time of evening when everyone was home eating; the streets were empty, and the carriage made the trip in only a few minutes.

  They sat in silence, their arms around eac
h other, their hearts so full neither knew how to put their feelings into words. No beginning would have been able to tell what it meant to be together again, and no conclusion could have more than hinted at the joy with which they faced the future. So they sat quietly, Kate within the circle of Brett’s arms, and let the concreteness of their physical touching speak for them in those all-too-brief minutes before they reached the bay.

  Brett and Kate climbed down and hurried to where Charles was already waiting with a boat to take them out to the ship.

  “Which one is ours?” Kate asked, looking around at the harbor full of vessels.

  “That one, the one with its sails up,” Brett pointed out. “It’s already moving. We’re going to have to row like hell to catch it.”

  The four rowers dipped their oars into the water and the boat leapt forward. The breeze was coming in from the sea, and Kate turned her face full into it. A bubble of laughter escaped her and she self-consciously clamped down on it. But it would not be quieted. The bubble grew and grew until it erupted from her in a cascade of mirth.

  “What are you laughing about?” Brett asked, smiling in spite of himself. “We’ve had a very close escape. In fact, we’re not entirely clear yet, and you’re laughing like it was all a game.”

  “How can you not laugh at this absurd situation?” Kate said, struggling to control her hilarity sufficiently to be able to talk. “Do you realize if I were to go about regaling people with the story of these last incredible days, there probably isn’t a single person in England who would believe a word of it? I’d either be locked up for a madwoman or accused of being queer in the head and avoided by everyone except very small children and mental deficients for the rest of my life.” Another peal of laughter soared into the night. “And to think I used to sit at Ryehill longing for adventure, complaining that nothing ever happened to me. After this, I’ll be more than content to manage the house, look after my babies, and never set foot beyond my own front gate. And the first person to mention ships, harems, deys, or Algeria will be treated to a good bout of hysterics.”