Captive (53 page)

Beth, pale, was silent.

“Want to look for little knots?” Alex asked with some bitterness.

Beth hesitated, wet her lips. “I believe you. About the hair, that is.”

“When I arrived in Tripoli I began to explore immediately. I went to the palace, which is now a museum. Just outside of it there was this little antiquities shop. Inside, I met this man.” Tears seeped from Alex’s eyes as she recalled Murad. She would always miss him. “A young man named Joseph. And I wound up buying a small blue oil lamp that was at least two hundred years old.”

Beth remained still.

“When I left the store, I began to feel dizzy and strange. The lamp was growing hotter and hotter in my hands. My legs were becoming numb. And the next thing I knew, I was being sucked down into what felt like a cyclone. And then I was waking up. I was flat on my back on this small dirt street. I was disoriented, confused. Everything seemed strange and out of place; the houses seemed old-fashioned, but I figured I was in a ghetto neighborhood in northern Africa. But the people were strange too.” Alex paused, taking a sip of Diet Coke. “Beth, I was chased by these Turks wielding scimitars. They’re called janissaries. The soldiers of the bashaw—not twentieth-century soldiers—nineteenth-century soldiers.”

Beth stared, her eyes wide. “Alex,” she whispered, a protest.

“They carried pistols and muskets, too. Of course, I thought they were in costume. But they chased me through the city, Beth, and it wasn’t for fun. I was terrified. I ran into an old man’s house. He seemed kind, and I didn’t understand a word he said—but he drugged me. When I woke up this time, I was being guarded by two African slaves—and I was being held against my will by a French slave trader.”

Beth was speechless, unmoving.

Alex stood. “He sold me to the bashaw, Beth. But the bashaw’s son liked me—I married the bashaw’s son, Jebal. It wasn’t 1996, Beth—it was 1802—and I had no choice! I have been gone for three goddamn years, I have lived in a harem as a second wife, lived through war … I have been through hell!” Alex began to weep uncontrollably.

Beth rushed to her and held her. “Alex, shh. You are distraught, overtired.”

Alex jerked away. “You don’t believe me!” she accused. “Look at me! Look at my hair! You saw the clothing I was wearing! And these cuts? I just lived through Preble’s first attack on Tripoli, Beth. Jebal locked me inside my room because I wasn’t faithful to him; I had become a prisoner, not a wife. Preble attacked, not just the city, but the palace—with cannons and mortars and firebombs. God!” Alex was shouting. “I lived through a war! I have never been so frightened in my life! I thought I would die!”

Beth slowly nodded. She was grim.

Alex knew that she did not believe her. Even she herself was aware of how ludicrous and incredible her tale seemed. She gripped her own hair and pulled viciously on it. “This isn’t a wig. These aren’t extensions. This is my hair!”

“I’m”—Beth swallowed—“beginning to see that.”

Alex covered her face with her hands.

“Why are you crying? If what you’re saying is true, you should be thrilled to have come home.”

Alex dropped her hands. “Blackwell came. He was captured, with his ship and crew, in the summer of 1803. We met briefly that year, but he was sent away to labor as a slave in the mines. We all thought he’d died. But he returned. Beth, he rescued me. From the palace, from my prison, from Jebal, while Preble was destroying Tripoli. He risked his life to rescue me,” Alex cried.

Beth’s eyes were impossibly wide. She reached out and gripped Alex’s hand. “It’s all right, Alex.”

“I spent last night with Blackwell. Last night we made love in Preble’s cabin on board the USS
Constitution.
Finally, after two long, endless years, years in which we were apart far more than we were together, he made love to me—he told me that he loved me.” Tears streamed down her face.

“Oh God,” Beth whispered, ashen.

“And then he told me he had a wife,” Alex said.

“Alex …”

“No.” Alex shook her head, inhaling hard, a knifelike pain piercing her heart. “Now I’m here. Back where I belong. And he … he is somewhere in the Mediterranean, on board the
Constitution,
fighting a goddamn war Preble would win anyway,
without him. Dammit!” Alex shouted. “This isn’t fair!” Alex hugged herself, rocking on her heels. “Please, God, keep him safe,” she prayed aloud.

Beth coughed. “Alex, you are not thinking clearly.”

Alex turned.

“He is not in the Mediterranean fighting the bashaw.”

“Of course he is. That is where I left him.”

“Alex—that war ended a hundred and ninety-two years ago. Preble is dead, the bashaw is dead, that Jebal is dead—Alex, Xavier Blackwell is dead, too.”

Alex woke up the next morning exhausted and incapable of functioning. She didn’t give a damn about her thesis, about her real life. She didn’t want to get up, to shower, to dress. She didn’t want to eat or work out. She didn’t want to do anything.

She was obsessed. Obsessed with a dead man, in love, once again, with a ghost.

He could not be dead.

But Beth was right. It was 1996. Alex had never known such grief.

Beth came by at noon and insisted Alex get up. “Look, I brought bagels and salmon from Barney Greengrass.” She set a paper bag down on the kitchen table while opening the shades.

“Go away,” Alex said, lying curled up in bed.

Beth faced her, hands on her hips. “You’re going to get up, Alex. You’re going to get up and get dressed and go out and do something—anything. You had an adventure. A great adventure. The memory will last forever, I am sure. But you have your entire life to live—you are only twenty-three years old. He’s a ghost.”

“I’m sick. I’ve never been so sick. I feel like I’ve lost my soul.”

“Nonsense!” Beth snapped. “Hey, he didn’t suit you, Alex. For godsakes, he was a nineteenth-century macho man. A buccaneer. How long do you think the two of you could have lived together without killing one another?”

“Forever,” Alex murmured, sitting up while Beth opened two containers of freshly ground coffee.

“Hah! I’d give you both two months. Lots of hot sex and
then you’d both realize you had nothing in common except sex, and, Alex, you’d be bored.” Beth smiled knowingly.

Alex accepted one of the containers of coffee. Beth was wrong. If only she were right.

“Listen, why don’t you focus on the fact that he’s a liar and a cheat? He betrayed you, Alex. Royally. He was a typical male shit.”

Alex sipped the coffee.
I love you.
She could hear his deep, resonant voice as if he spoke to her now. Why hadn’t she been more understanding? He had been married when they met, and yes, he should have told her, but what would it have changed? She wouldn’t have been able to stop loving him, and in time, he would have fallen in love with her. They’d had a destiny to share. They might have fought that destiny for different reasons, but it would have overwhelmed them eventually anyway—just as it had done.

“Alex? Try this,” Beth said, handing her a bagel smothered in cream cheese and smoked salmon.

Alex shook her head. The coffee was perking her up. Would the memories be enough? It had been a grand adventure. Maybe she should write a novel about it. About a woman traveling through time to meet her destiny, a woman bold enough to rewrite history.

Alex sipped her coffee. “Beth, did I tell you that we changed history?”

Beth squinted, sitting by Alex’s feet. “What are you taking about?”

Alex sat up straighter. “Ohmygod. I just had a thought! While I was in the past, things happened differently than what I’d read. If I went to those books now—what would they say? Did we actually change history?” Alex began to tremble.

“Alex, what are you doing?” Beth cried.

Alex, a whirlwind, was dashing across the room. “I’m hopping in the shower,” she yelled. “I have to go to the library!”

Beth stared at the bathroom door as it slammed closed. Worry was etched all over her face.

Alex new exactly where to go in the stacks, which, as a graduate student, she had permission to use. Clad in faded Levi’s and a white T-shirt, she raced down one long row of bookshelves heading for the section that was devoted to the
history of the United States and Tripoli. She skidded to a halt. Another student was standing in front of that exact section. She fought down her irritation and annoyance.

Alex paused and waited for him to find what he was looking for, barely restraining herself from stamping her foot. It was an incredible coincidence to find another student examining the same books she wished to look through. The topic of relations between the United States and Tripoli in the early nineteenth century was not a popular one.

He must have sensed her presence because he suddenly glanced at her. “Am I in your way?” he said with a friendly smile—and then he stared, wide-eyed.

Alex froze. Staring back in shock. Into amazingly familiar silver eyes. “Murad?” Her pulse raced.

His brow furrowed. “No, Joseph. Have we met before?”

Alex didn’t know why she had made such a mistake; of course it was Joseph. Nevertheless, she felt dazed. “I meant, Joseph. Of course. We met a few days ago, three to be exact.”

His gaze remained narrowed. “No, that’s impossible—I could never forget you.”

She licked her suddenly dry lips. “Three days ago—in Tripoli. At your father’s shop. I bought the oil lamp and we made a date for you to give me a tour of the palace. But … I had to return home.”

He was silent. “I didn’t go home this summer,” he finally said. “I’m a student at Harvard, and I usually go home, but not this summer. So you met someone else.” His expression was strained now. “My dad does have a small antiquities shop just outside the museum, though.”

Alex’s heart pounded. Did this make sense? He was Joseph—but he hadn’t been in Tripoli three days ago—he was insisting that they had never met. Intuition made her glance at the book in his hand. It was her very favorite source book by Roberts. The work she was looking for. “That’s a great reference book.”

He seemed startled, but he smiled. “Yeah, it is. Did you want this? I don’t need it. I’ve read it before, several times, in fact.”

Alex was breathless, sweating now in spite of the library’s excellent air-conditioning. “You’re a scholar of United States-Tripolitan relations, aren’t you?” It was hard to remember
what he had said, but she seemed to recall that they had shared an avid interest in the same subject.

“Actually, I’m a poli sci major. But the U.S.-Tripolitan war of 1804 has always fascinated me, though I’ve never been able to figure out why. It’s kind of a hobby of mine.”

Alex nodded. She knew why the war fascinated him so. “Have you ever heard of an American sea captain who was secretly commissioned by Jefferson but who became a captive in Tripoli?”

“Xavier Blackwell?” He was grinning. “Who hasn’t? He’s such a dashing figure that they teach sixth graders about him in most public schools.”

She froze in disbelief. “Yes,” she managed. “That’s him.”

“What a hero. Betrayed and set up, spending two incredible years in captivity, only to escape just in the nick of time. They were going to execute him as a spy,” Joseph told her eagerly. “It was a very daring rescue raid. Mercenaries performed it, but the Danes participated.”

Ohmygod They had rewritten history.
Goose bumps covered every inch of Alex’s body.

“But that rescue was nothing compared to the rescue Blackwell led two weeks later.”

Alex squeaked, “He led a rescue himself?”

Joseph nodded, his silvery eyes intent. “During Preble’s first assault. There was an American woman being held in captivity inside of the palace, it seemed. No one knows much about her; it’s a shame. Not even her name. But Blackwell must have met her during his own years spent in Tripoli, and he led a small group of commandos in and brought her out while the city was under attack. It was a dangerous and daring operation.” Joseph stared. “She must have been an incredible woman for him to have risked his own life like that.”

Alex was faint. She leaned against the stacks for support. “I see.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. What … whatever happened to Blackwell?”

“The usual. He went home, got a few decorations, had a few kids. Blackwell Shipping still exists, you know. It’s one of the largest shipping companies in the world. Oil, mostly. I believe his great-great-great-grandson runs the company, which, by the way, finally went public a few years ago.”

Alex laid a hand on her heart. He’d gone home to his wife, had children. Joy changed suddenly, abruptly, to grief. She closed her eyes. Wanting desperately to be happy for him.

Because it had become so clear. Her destiny hadn’t been to find Xavier Blackwell and share a lifetime with him. Her destiny had been to intervene in history gone askew, to prevent a terrible injustice, to rescue him from a wrongful execution, so he could take his rightful place in history as the hero he truly was.

“Did I say something to upset you?” Joseph asked.

Alex forced the tears down. She gulped a lungful of air. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look well, you’re green,” he said, sliding his hand under her elbow.

Alex turned to gaze at him. How many times had Murad supported her just the same way?

Their gazes locked.

Silence fell between them.

He wet his lips. “Hey.” He managed a smile. “I know you’re going to think I’m way off base here, I know we only just met, but could we get together for coffee sometime? I …” He hesitated. “I don’t want to lose you, Alex.”

Alex nodded, then stiffened. She had never introduced herself.

He smiled, sliding his arm around her. It was the most casual gesture—and the most familiar. “Great.” He dropped his arm. “Do you want this?” he asked. “I don’t need it.”

Alex nodded, taking the book and clutching it to her breast.

He pulled a pen out of the breast pocket of his denim shirt and scribbled on a piece of paper. “Here’s my phone number. I’m in town for the month. I’m staying with friends.”

Alex took his phone number, still in shock, and gave him hers.