Captive (52 page)

“No, I shall not allow it. I want you stateside.”

The words popped out before she even thought through what she was saying. “You cannot order me around. Not unless you make me your wife.”

His jaw flexed.

Alex began to perspire. How could she have said such a thing? “Xavier?” She clawed her own hands. Wishing there were more air circulating in the small, dark cabin. “You said you loved me.”

He hesitated. “I do.”

“Then … don’t you wish to marry me?”

“I cannot.”

Alex could not believe her ears.

“I am sorry, Alexandra. Very, very sorry.” And his eyes held a sadness she had never seen before, a weariness, a resignation … and defeat.

He would marry her if he could. But he could not. He was a married man.

Xavier paced alone by the portside railing. The acrid scent of gunpowder still clung to the cannons mounted there, but everywhere around him the world was serene, at peace. The sea shimmered softly in streaming silver moonlight, the
Constitution
rocked gently as she sailed northwest, and overhead the night was clear, starry, and bright. The only demons raging were inside Xavier, and there they felt fierce and unclean and infinitely menacing, infinitely bright.

Somehow she had changed his entire life. Having known
her these past two years, even having spent so little time together, had marked him eternally. Her image remained with him always, engraved upon his mind, sometimes comforting him, sometimes disturbing him, as did the knowledge that she existed, waiting for him, almost like a beacon light shining on him, for him, beckoning him home. His attraction to her was fierce, an attraction he had never felt before, as emotional as it was physical—and he could barely understand it. But there was no point in trying to fathom it, or himself, or even her. There was no goddamn point.

But God, he would marry her if he were free to do so, right then and there, on board Preble’s ship, even though she had been a spy. Xavier wouldn’t think twice about forgiving her for anything she had done in the past.

His heart seemed to be trying to pound its way out of his chest. She was the most glorious woman he had ever met, and it saddened him to the point of grief to think of their parting. Yet part, they must. She had a life to return to, and so did he.

He cursed.

Tomorrow she would disembark in Tunis. He might never see her again. But he would never be able to dismiss her from his mind, his life. To know her once, even so briefly, was to yearn for her forever.

He was oddly breathless. He had become weak. Longing for what was out of the realm of possibility. He belonged to another woman. Nothing could change that. He had promised Robert that he would always take care of Sarah. And divorce was unheard-of for someone like himself. Besides, Sarah needed him desperately. He could not have Alexandra Thornton, no matter how he might wish otherwise.

And he would not even consider another arrangement.

But he owed her the truth. No matter how painful it would be for the both of them. Yet he was loath to tell her, at least not until they reached Tunis on the morrow. That way he could hold her, cherish her, one more time. Until the advent of another Mediterranean dawn.

But he was not that weak, and resolutely he retraced his footsteps to the captain’s cabin.

She had been crying. This time, when he entered the cabin, he lit a candle. She sat up, wearing a man’s shirt and breeches,
facing him squarely, but her eyes and nose were red. The last thing he meant to do was hurt her. But now he would hurt her even more. He felt stricken, helpless, agonized.

“Don’t cry, please,” he said.

Her small nostrils flared. “You don’t really love me, do you?”

He stiffened. She always said the surprising, did the unpredictable. “I love you very much.”

She shook her head. Her long red hair streamed about her. “If you really loved me, you would marry me.”

He swallowed, hesitating. But there was no easy, kind way to tell her what he had come to say. He set the candle down on Preble’s cluttered desk. “God.” He rubbed his forehead. “Alexandra. I want to marry you.”

Her eyes lit up.

“You don’t understand!” He lifted a hand. “I cannot.”

She stared at him, and slowly he saw the comprehension filling her eyes. And the sick, sick look accompanying it.

He wet his lips. “I am already married.”

She did not speak. Her breasts, too large for the man’s shirt, heaved against the linen material. Two bright spots of pink colored her cheeks.

“Alexandra? I am sorry.”

Her chest rose and fell harder now. Her eyes were wide, wild; her jaw tensed hard. She was panting, clutching the bedcovers, as if she might actually shred them apart.

He felt guilty for not having ever mentioned this to her before. Yet he had been afraid to—afraid of just this reaction. “You need a glass of water,” he decided, moving to the small table beside the bed. He poured water from the pitcher and handed it to her.

“No!” she screamed. She struck the glass from his hand; water spilled across his shirt, the glass breaking on the floor. Her face was a mask of rage.
“You lied!”

Instinctively he shrank away from her.

She stood before him, fists clenched, her entire body shaking, in the throes of a fury the likes of which he had never witnessed before. He was afraid. “It is not what you think,” he began in a whisper.

She shook her head wildly. Her red hair flew about her. And continued to fly about her, whirling, as if whipped by the
wind. She shook and shook her head—and Xavier became very still, frightened now.

“Stop it,” he cried. “You will hurt yourself.”

But her head continued to shake and her hair continued to swirl as if she were in the midst of a gale. Her expression remained one of murderous rage. Watching her, Xavier was frozen—because her love had turned into hatred.

And as he stared, he suddenly realized that something was terribly wrong, because her body seemed to be shaking too, no, not shaking, but spinning.

Around and around. He cried out.

Alex’s face, mostly hidden by the flying strands of her hair, abruptly changed expression, and he saw the fear in her eyes.

“Alexandra!”

Her hands lifted. Her fists unclenched. “Xavier!” she cried, but his name was whisper-soft and seemed to come from far away. She started to float backward, away from him.

Vibrating like a spinning top.

Xavier did not understand, but panic filled him. “Alexandra!” he shouted, rushing toward her.

But when he reached her she seemed to be fading before his very eyes, like an apparition, and she seemed to be calling his name again—but this time no sound at all came from her open lips.

Her hands were outstretched. Her face, her hair, her body, seemed to be turning into shadows and air.

Screaming her name, Xavier reached for her left hand.

And gripped nothing but air.

Alexandra was gone.

New York City, 1996

F
EELING VIOLENTLY ILL
, her head about to explode, Alex began to wake up.

Slowly, in excruciatingly painful stages.

Alex finally opened her eyes and was met by the glare of a blazingly hot sun. She was disoriented, confused, and flat on her back on the hard ground. Was she still in Tripoli? Somehow that seemed wrong. Then her heart constricted. Hadn’t she escaped?

Alex realized that she was staring up through the branches of a leafy green tree—not a palm tree or a date tree, but some kind of continental species, a beech or an elm, perhaps. Her heart raced.

And as her world slowed in its spinning, as the tree and the puffy white clouds overhead came increasingly into focus, images flooded her. Of finding Xavier outside of the palace’s front gates, of Murad standing there, refusing to escape with them, of being picked up on the beach by a small rowboat and taken to the USS
Constitution.
Ohmygod! In a blinding flash she recalled the night that had just passed, and Xavier’s fierce yet tender lovemaking.

Her head pounded harder now, and she had to close her eyes.

“I cannot,” he had whispered.
I cannot.

He was married.

Alex’s eyes flew open and she stared up at the tree. Slowly, filled with dread, other bits and pieces of that evening coming back to her now, she turned her head. And stared at the Riverside Drive brownstone where she lived.

Alex levered herself upright.

Pedestrians in jeans and shorts were hurrying by her and studiously ignoring her. Alex did not care. She brushed chunks of red hair out of her eyes, beginning to cry.

How was this possible? How had she traveled back to the present? Hadn’t she been on board the
Constitution
just moments ago? She found it terribly difficult to breathe, panic overtaking her. The intensity of her headache increased, the pain nearly blinding.

Xavier was married. He had betrayed her.

Alex covered her face with her hands, fighting the urge to vomit. How could he have deceived her this way? In the two years since she had first met him in Tripoli, he had never said a word, never even hinted, that he had a wife.

Alex clutched her chest. She did not think she could survive her grief.

A passerby hesitated, and stopped. “Are you all right, young lady?”

Alex blinked at the elderly gentleman through tear-filled eyes. She was incapable of formulating a reply.

He hurried on.

She bent over her knees, choking on a sob. Xavier was on board the USS
Constitution,
just north of Tripoli, married to another woman, and Alex was here, in the twentieth century. Oh God! If anguish could kill, then she would be dead.

She rocked herself back and forth, moaning.

“Alex!” Beth cried.

Alex froze, looking up at her best friend. Beth was white with shock. Then she dropped to her knees and gripped Alex’s shoulders. “Good God! What has happened to you? And what are you doing back—and here—on the street?!”

Alex had never needed anyone more than she needed Beth. She rose with Beth’s help, a wave of nausea sweeping over her again. “I am going to be sick,” she gritted.

“Alex?” Beth asked with concern.

Alex allowed the violently ill feeling to pass, and then she embraced her friend.

Beth held her, stroking her hair. “Good Lord, what happened to your hair?” she said thickly.

Alex did not understand. She broke away, wiping her eyes. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

“It’s long. And your face—how did you get those cuts? Are you hurt? And what are those strange clothes? Alex—I thought you left for Tripoli!”

Alex glanced down at her genuine nineteenth-century breeches and her old-fashioned linen shirt—items she had freely borrowed from a chest in Preble’s cabin. At least she hadn’t been dreaming. The clothes were proof that she had been in the past, as were the scratches on her face and arms. Alex clutched herself, overwhelmed by another cresting tide of heartbreak.

How could she live without him? Yet he belonged to another woman, another place, another time.

“Alex? Please, what’s going on?”

Alex shook her head, and allowed Beth to lead her up the front steps of the brownstone. Beth unlocked the door and they walked up the three flights to Alex’s apartment. The moment the door was open Alex slid to the floor, hugging her knees. She began to weep.

Behind her, she heard Beth close and lock the door.

Alex cried until she had no tears left.

She looked up, wiping her eyes with her shirtsleeve. “I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely.

“Do you want to tell me what’s happened? You never went to Tripoli, did you?”

Alex inhaled, hard. “I went to Tripoli, Beth. How can you even ask? I’ve been gone for three years.”

Beth’s eyes widened. “Alex, you’ve been gone for three days.”

Alex stared, speechless. “I beg your pardon?” she finally said.

Beth hesitated. “Why would you tell me that you’ve been gone for three years? And why are you wearing a wig?”

Alex stood. There was a rolled-up newspaper on the kitchen table, and she walked over to it. She slipped off the rubber band and unfolded the
New York Times.
That day’s date was July 15, 1996.

She had embarked for Tripoli via Paris July 13, 1996.

Beth was right. She had been gone for three days, but in the past, she had lived through three entire years.

Alex walked into the bathroom and looked at herself.

Her hair was six inches past her shoulders now, wild and disheveled from Blackwell’s lovemaking. There were small cuts on her face from the shards of marble and stone that had fallen on her from Preble’s incessant bombardment of the palace. And she was wearing clothes that must appear incredibly comic to a twentieth-century observer.

But there was no question about it. She had traveled back in time. She had been living in the past. And now she had returned to the present. She had traveled through time again, without the magic lamp.

Alex didn’t understand it, would never understand it.

And as she stood there looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, she recalled again the exact moment when Blackwell had told her that he had a wife—the moment when she had begun to time-travel. An unholy rage had possessed her. Had the force of her emotions sent her back to the future? In any case, the rage was gone. There was only shock and grief.

“Alex? Are you going to tell me what has happened?” Beth asked, having come to stand in the bathroom’s doorway behind her.

Alex turned. “Yes, Beth, I am going to tell you everything.”

But first Alex showered. Her body was bruised and battered from the bombing, and as she soaped herself, she found Blackwell’s semen between her legs. She was not imagining anything.

Hardly refreshed, she put on her oldest, most faded and worn Levi’s, with a big sweatshirt, as tattered and as soft. Beth eyed the shirt dubiously. It had to be ninety-five degrees outside, and Alex’s air-conditioning had never worked well.

Alex curled up in her bed, hugging her knees to her chest. “I have been gone for three years, Beth,” Alex started. Beth appeared about to interrupt, but Alex cut her off. “I am not wearing a wig. These are not hair extensions. My hair has grown for three goddamn years.”