As You Desire (37 page)

Fifteen feet away, Harry stood in the ancient street. Facing him, his lips folded back over his teeth, Maurice crouched.

Blake scanned the area for Maurice’s other men. One lay near the corner of the building, his body crumpled in an awkward angle. Another slouched next to the door. If the woman had taken off with
her lover, that left two others unaccounted for. And Maurice.

“I’ll ask you one more time, where is she?” Blake had never heard so deadly a tone.

Maurice sidled forward a few steps, his head bobbing above his body, the motion sinuous and predatory, like a cobra before a snake charmer. “You bring this on yourself, Harry!” Maurice shouted. “It did not have to be so. We could have both profited. Now I have no choice but to kill you!”

Harry did not answer. If Maurice swayed like a cobra, Harry quivered with the suppressed anticipation of a coursing hound. He gauged Maurice’s movements, his lean body tightening and relaxing, articulating a response to Maurice’s position with each small adjustment.

Blake’s skin prickled. For the first time he realized just how deadly an opponent Harry would prove.

Maurice needed no such instruction. Fear stamped his features. “You are the one who made this personal. Why? Why did you frame me?” Maurice demanded indignation somehow surfacing above his fear. “Because I beat you?”

“No,” Harry said, his eyes marking Maurice’s semicircular progress. “Because as long as you’re free, your very existence implies a threat to Desdemona. You said so yourself.”

“Implies?
You would have me rot in jail because of what I
might
do?” Maurice stopped, grinning with feverish humor. “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

“No. Any threat,” Harry said softly, “implied,
perceived, real, or imaginary, is too much where Desdemona is concerned.”

Then Blake understood.

He’d never stood a chance to win Desdemona’s heart because Harry would fight with weapons Blake could never match. Harry would never be afraid for his own sake. He would do anything to protect her from whatever threatened her happiness, her well-being, or her future.

A surge of dark hurt slipped into his thoughts, invidious and familiar, twisting them with envy. He fought the impulse. Desdemona’s reaction to his words regarding Harry’s disability had hit its mark. She’d made him feel like a little boy who’d found in Harry an excuse to indulge his own jealous nature.

He slipped the dagger from his waistband, determined to aid his cousin as Maurice shuffled laterally, circling, forcing Harry beneath the ruined rooftop where—

“Harry! Watch out!” Blake yelled. Too late. With a horrifying sense of déjà vu Blake saw the man land, swinging his short, heavy club. Harry, alerted to danger, twisted and ducked, raising his arms just in time to deflect most of the club’s impact. He grabbed the man’s robes at the neck and jerked the Arab’s head down as he drove his knee up into the attacker’s face. The Arab grunted, pitching forward into Harry, catching him off guard. Harry staggered back from the man’s impetus. His feet tangled in the man’s robes and he toppled over, the unconscious Arab falling heavily atop him.

Maurice gave a short, eager laugh of triumph and
ran forward, scooping up the stout cudgel. In a white-knuckled grip, he raised it over his head even as Blake raised the dagger by its point. Fifteen feet and it might as well be fifty. He couldn’t possibly hope to—

“We could have been such a team, Harry! We are two of a kind!” Maurice screeched, raising the cudgel higher. Harry stopped trying to fight free and gazed silently up at Maurice. Even from a distance, Blake could see the disdain in Harry’s light eyes. He had no fear. None at all.

“But you betrayed me! And now—”

With a sickening sense of impotence, Blake hurled the dagger. Maurice gasped as the blade struck his exposed flank. An expression of astonishment filled his face. Harry heaved the unconscious Arab from him and surged upward, his fist battering twice into Maurice’s shocked face. And that was all. Maurice crumpled to his knees and then pitched facefirst into the sand.

Blake slumped in the open doorway. His gaze met Harry’s. “I didn’t run away.”

“No,” Harry allowed gravely. “Thank you.” He bent down and ripped a thick strip of material from the hem of Maurice’s robe. Efficiently, he tied Maurice’s hands and feet. “There’s another man tied and gagged out back,” he muttered. He straightened. “Now, where is she? I looked in all the ruins and she’s not there.”

“She left last night,” Blake explained, startled at the singleness of purpose that drove his cousin. “An Arab woman helped her escape.”

Harry moved quickly to tie up the other Arab in the same manner. His face was horribly haggard, his eyes appeared preternaturally pale and intense. It was as if all the joy had been taken from him, which, Blake allowed with this new, painful perceptiveness, it had.

That was the difference he noted upon his arrival in Egypt and been at a loss to explain. The difference between the young Harry who’d fled England and this man. The boy who’d been sent down from Oxford had had humor and wit but little joy. Harry had found joy here in Egypt. Only its yawning absence fully relayed how much had been taken from him. Blake knew what had called into existence that joy. Or rather who.

Blake felt in his shirt pocket for the scrap of paper Desdemona had scribbled on. “She told me to give you this if I should see you before she did.”

Harry raked his hair back from his face. “Read it. You know I can’t.”

Blake bent over the papyrus and unfolded it. He lifted his head. “I’m afraid I can’t read it, either.”

“What?” Harry’s brows snapped together in a fierce scowl as if he suspected Blake mocked him.

“It’s Egyptian.” He offered it to Harry.

With something akin to uncertainty Harry took the scrap. He lowered his gaze, astonishment crossed over his lean features before he turned the scrap over.

Blake would have wagered all of Darkmoor Manor that whatever his cousin saw on that paper caused his breath, perhaps even his heart, to pause.
An expression of wonderment and joy—no, something far fiercer and more wild than mere joy—appeared on his face. His eyes glowed with inner triumph and his features set with savage determination.

“When did she go and which direction?” he asked.

“A few hours.” Blake pointed east. “She went that way.”

“Damn it to hell! There’s a
khamsin
brewing out there.”

“Khamsin
. That’s the word the Egyptian woman used. What is it?”

“Sandstorm. It can peel the hide off a rhinoceros if it gets whipped up enough,” Harry muttered. He glanced down at Blake, apparently for the first time noting the angle of his leg. “You’re hurt.”

“What an astute observation.” Blake might fight the jealousy that had marked him, but he would never like Harry. They were far too different to ever understand each other.

Harry ignored the sarcasm, turning and disappearing into one of the better preserved outbuildings.

“What are you doing?” Blake called.

Harry emerged carrying a sack. Unceremoniously he heaved it into Blake’s shelter. “I have to find Dizzy before this storm arrives,” he said. “Chesterton was behind me. If he doesn’t make it before the storm hits, keep inside the hut. There’s food and water in here. Keep your eyes closed and your
mouth and nostrils covered with a wet cloth for as long as the storm lasts.”

“And how long might that be?” Blake asked.

For the first time Harry smiled. It held no humor.
“Khasmin
is the Arabic word for fifty. And I don’t think they were referring to hours.”

Desdemona unhaltered the horse and swatted its rump, sending it out over the dunes. She’d little choice. It couldn’t seek shelter with her in the gorge, and hobbling it would be its death sentence. She watched it until it had disappeared then picked up the leather cylinder and the horse’s blanket and turned into the narrow, rocky defile.

It was the entrance to a gorge, the faint beginnings of what would become at some later point a
wadi
, or canyon, opening on to the Nile’s wide flood plain. She glanced at the sulfur-violent sky to her west.

The
khamsin
was out there, gathering strength, sucking mountains of sand thousands of feet into the air. Eventually it would mask the sun itself. She had no idea how long it would be before it arrived, or, once it had come, how long it would last. Just as she had no idea where she was.

She’d ridden in the direction the Egyptian woman had pointed, but within a few miles of the camp the road had vanished beneath the billowing sand. With little knowledge of astronomy and no sun to mark the east or west, she’d ridden through the night searching for a familiar landmark. She’d not found any but with morning she’d spied a light mist. Only
the flat surface of rocks held enough moisture to create a morning mist. Rocks could mean an oasis, or in this case the defile.

She picked her way down the incline, moving cautiously, scanning for a cave to take shelter in. The sides of the ravine grew steeper and the footing more difficult the farther in she went. She came to a rocky shelf above a narrow gash in the earth. She could try picking her way around it, but a glance to the west showed her that the storm was moving fast now. She took a deep breath. She would have to jump.

She hitched her skirts high and, grinding her teeth in concentration, leapt. She stumbled on the far side and fell, scrambling and clawing the broken shale as she slipped into the cut. She came to rest twisted on her side. Pain stabbed her knees. Sobbing, she rolled upright and lifted her skirts. She stared at her torn and bloody knees. She linked her arms around her leg and rocked forward, tears stinging sharp and bright as they flooded her wound.

The pain was tonic. Harry would be appalled at such monumental self-indulgence. She blinked her eyes clear and found herself staring into a low black aperture hidden beneath the overhanging rock she’d jumped from. She hobbled to her feet and cautiously ducked her head to look inside. It was a small, rubble-strewn corridor, dry and—luckily—free of snakes.

She thrust the blanket inside, her movements causing a small cloud of fine, choking dust to erupt from underfoot. She flapped her hand, coughing.
There was no sense in going in farther. She huddled near the entrance. She was safe there.

For the time being.

The wind beat fiercely. For hours now it seemed to have been picking up strength, lashing the stone outside, pouring through the window and between the door planks, drifting into mounds in the corner of the room.

Lord Blake Ravenscroft grimaced. He’d probably die in this infernal country, smothered in sand. And Darkmoor would become Harry’s—if Harry survived. He probably wouldn’t. Harry would die searching this trackless hell for his “Dizzy.”

“Anyone here?” a voice hollered above the roar of wind.
“Sitt
, are you there?”

Blake raised himself up on his arms. It wasn’t Chesterton. Another of Maurice’s cohorts? What did it matter who it was? If he didn’t get out of here he’d die anyway.

“In here!” he shouted. A moment later the door swung open, revealing a group of heavily veiled men.

“Where is the
Sitt
?” the one near the front demanded. “I am Abdul Hakim. I am a friend of the
Sitt
Carlisle. Where is she?”

“You
are a friend of Miss Carlisle’s?” It shouldn’t surprise him. Desdemona seemed to have little sense of class distinction. “You have to help look for her.”

Abdul nodded, unlinking the veil that covered his face. His turban was slipping from his head. With an
impatient gesture he righted it. “I
am
looking for her. My worthless offspring here”—he shot a venomous look toward the rear of the group—“said she’d been taken to this place.”

“She was. But she escaped. She’s in the desert.”

Abdul gave a gusty sigh of vexation.

“You don’t understand. It is imperative you go now. A
khamsin
is coming—”

“No, no.” The man shook his head. “Maybe farther north. Not here. Here it is just a little windy. No
khamsin
. Do you think we would be out here in a
khamsin?”

The men behind him snickered.

“Don’t worry. We’ll look for the
Sitt
. Might take a little time but she has taken water with her, right?”

Blake nodded. “Yes, she filled her satchel with what provisions she could.”

“Then she will be all ri—” Abdul’s gaze found the papyrus scroll Desdemona had abandoned. His eyes widened. “This was left by
Sitt?”

“Yes.”

The man lifted the scroll and carefully unwrapped the papyrus. “It has been torn.”

“Des—
Sitt
wrote a message to Harry, Harry Braxton, on it.”

The men went quite still. The only sound heard was the relentless howl of the sand storm outside.

“Harry has this missing piece?”

“Yes. He read it and took out after her.”

Abdul swung around toward the still-silent group crowding the doorway and spoke several hurried sentences. He then turned back to Blake, his expression
baffled. “Make clear to me that I have the right of this,” he said, squatting down in front of Blake and meeting his gaze with a level one of his own. “Harry was here. He saw this worthless scroll. He held it in his own hand. He read from it.”

“Yes.” The fellow must be daft.

“And he left the scroll here, with you, taking with him only this scrap you say the
Sitt
wrote upon?”

“Yes.”

“And he went after the
Sitt?”
His consternation had slowly given way to what appealed to be glee. Indeed, the native seemed inordinately amused.

“Yes, but—”

“Ah. Love.” He gave a melodramatic sigh and turned to the group.
“Mashallah!
Braxton
murram Sitt!”
The men broke out in loud guffaws of laughter.

“You have to—”

“Listen now,” the man said. “Listen well. I have come here to make a trade with Sitt. This—” He beckoned a man forward. He deposited a melon-size, silk-wrapped object at Blake’s feet. “—for this. The papyrus was given to the
Sitt
without my consent by my worthless offspring. So you see, I do more than I need to in offering something in exchange for it.”