Lord of Desire (31 page)

Alysson might have mentioned that to Jafar, but she saw no point in debating the issue of which side had been more vicious. The humane conventions of war had been ignored on both sides. And, thankfully, at least now the war had ended. If only her Berber captor would come to accept it.

"The war is over," Alysson said finally. "Don't you realize that? You can never win."

Jafar's fingers fisted around the cloth in his hand.
"Perhaps.
But we will never cease trying to drive back the invaders who conquered our shores."

"But more killing won't solve a thing. Don't you see? It is so pointless!"

Hearing the note of anguish in her voice, he turned and met her troubled gray eyes. "Fighting tyranny is never pointless, mademoiselle.''

She stared at him, her expression one of frustrated incomprehension. Seeing her despair, Jafar suddenly wanted her to understand. He wanted her to know what drove him to defy the conquering French against impossible odds, what made him hate this particular enemy so much that it was a festering wound within him.

"Consider for a moment, if you will," he said in a rough whisper, "why we have such a hatred of the French. They swarmed over our country, burning with a love of conquest, and wrought destruction on everything they touched. They polluted our wells, burned our crops, raped and killed our women, orphaned our children, profaned our mosques and graves . . . They surpassed in barbarity the
barbarians
they came to civilize."

He paused, his burning gaze holding hers. "Not satisfied with the pace of acquisition, then, they violated their own treaties of peace and seized private properties without compensation. Then they taxed and exploited our impoverished population to the point of starvation, and forced the weakest of us into servitude. The despoilment is unending. The French are filled with an insatiable greed. They want our

plains
, our mountains, our inland cities. They covet our horses, tents, camels,
women
. At the same time they hold in disdain our laws and customs, our religion, and expect us to endure the contempt of their white race, their arrogant sentiments of racial superiority."

Jafar muttered a word in his language that Alysson knew was a curse, but his gaze never left her. "Do you honestly expect me and my people to bow our necks to a foreign yoke without a struggle?
To surrender to French domination without a fight?"

The question, soft and savage, echoed in the silence.

"You say the war is over," Jafar declared softly. "I say it will never be over. Not as long there is a single Frenchman residing on African soil. The French will be our enemy, always and forever."

Alysson slowly shook her head, understanding his bitter hostility for the French, but not his particular hatred for Gervase. The French might be his enemy, but it was Gervase he had singled out. "But . . . you don't just plan to make war on the French army, do you? There is more to it. You've planned some sort of revenge against Gervase. That's why you've abducted me."

His golden eyes locked with hers without flinching. "Yes."

The single word was curt, adamant, unrelenting.

The sick dread in Alysson stomach intensified. "And when Gervase does come for me?" Her voice was a hoarse whisper. "What do you intend to do to him then?"

Abruptly Jafar's features became impassive, his gaze unfathomable. Breaking the contact of their gazes, he turned away. "The colonel will get precisely what he deserves."

Alysson felt herself shaking. He meant to kill Gervase, she was certain. And that thought frightened her more than anything that had happened to her since her capture.

Trembling, she rose to her feet. "I hope you burn in hell."

Jafar's tone, when he replied, was cold. "The prospect of your Christian hell holds no terror for me, mademoiselle."

Alysson clenched her fists. She hated him at that mo-

ment
, with a fierceness she hadn't thought possible. Yet she hated her helplessness even more.
         
,

With a sound that was nearly a sob, she turned and fled into the relative safety of the tent.

Watching her go, Jafar gritted his teeth, while the knuckles of his hand turned white from gripping the cloth. Within him, the cold rage of vengeance faded, to be replaced by hollow fury at her despair. It galled him that she cared so deeply for that French jackal, Gervase de Bourmont. Galled and sickened him. Yet even in his fury, Jafar found himself struggling against the urge to follow her and comfort her.

What solace could he offer her, though, when he intended to kill the man she planned to marry?

With a violent curse, Jafar set his jaw and forced himself to return to the task of grooming the Barb.

Chapter 9

T
he noonday dust swirled ripe and hot as Alysson watched the mounted Berber warriors at play. Their activities looked like sport, yet knowing now what she did about their lord's
plans,
their games took on an ominous significance.

They were practicing for war and death.

From the shelter of Jafar's tent, she watched numbly, with a kind of horrified fascination, unable to look away. The moment Jafar directed his prancing steed toward his tent, though, Alysson retreated inside. She hadn't spoken a word to him for two
days,
not since the evening he had told her of his plan to lure Gervase and the French army into battle.

For two days the turmoil had eaten away at her. She couldn't sleep and had little appetite; the churning in her stomach wouldn't go away. Her tension, her fear, her feeling of helplessness, had increased tenfold. For now she
knew it wasn't only her life at stake. She had heard it said that the Berbers were unconquerable in war. If Jafar succeeded in carrying out his plan, then scores of French soldiers might perish.
And Gervase as well, the man who loved her.
And her Uncle Honoré.

With brutal clarity she'd suddenly realized what would happen when her uncle learned where she was being held. Honoré would never allow Gervase to search for her alone. Though ill-suited to withstand the rigors of a desert campaign, he would accompany Gervase into the desert to find her. And he might very well die.

"I won't let it happen!" Alysson murmured defiantly, yet the tight ache in her throat belied her determination.

It would be her fault if they were killed; their blood would be on her hands. She was responsible for this situation. If she'd never insisted on accompanying her uncle, she never would have been taken captive, to be used as bait in Jafar's snare.

If only she could send Honoré a message that she was unharmed, that she was relatively safe and well, that he wasn't to come for her, she might rest more easily. At least Gervase was a soldier, a brave and skilled officer who stood a fighting chance against a warlord of Barbary. Just possibly he could avoid whatever terrible fate her demon captor had planned for him.

Exactly what that fate might be she had lain awake contemplating for two nights now. What manner of revenge did Jafar mean to exact? And what had Gervase done to deserve such enmity? Why had Jafar called him "a man with the tainted blood of a murderer in his veins"?

Revenge implied prior acquaintance, so the two men must know each other; indeed, Jafar had implied as much. And he'd done more than imply that her abduction was only a means to an end. He had told her so.

She was his means for revenge.

She should have suspected as much, given the fact that Jafar had yet to harm her. He hadn't raped her, and that in
itself
should have been portentous.

She could almost wish he had. If Jafar had simply ruined her in order to shame her fiancé, she could have dealt with that. Her reputation had never concerned her overmuch, for
she refused to allow society to dictate her actions. She would gladly have sacrificed her good name if it meant sparing Gervase's life. She would even have surrendered her body to her barbaric captor, as he seemed to want. But she realized now that her surrender alone would not satisfy him.

He wanted Gervase's death. That was crystal clear to her now. And she knew instinctively that nothing she could do or say would change his mind. Jafar was not a man who would be swayed by pleas or tears. Nor could she appeal to his moral conscience or his sense of honor. This was not England. This was the desert, where civilized rules didn't apply, where standards of honor were far different than in her country. Here in Barbary, women were possessions to be bought and sold and used. Here men took what they wanted. Here men like Jafar el-Saleh made their own laws.

"Good afternoon,
ma belle."

Alysson tensed at Jafar's greeting as he entered the tent. Deliberately, she turned and gave him her back.

Behind her, Jafar swore silently. For the past two days, his lovely young prisoner had treated him as if he were a viper she had found hidden under a rock. Her disdain annoyed him fiercely. Her smoldering silence, too, irritated him. And this from a woman! Only to his English grandfather had he ever owed deference; only to his sultan did he owe allegiance now—and that only because he chose to. And yet he believed Alysson Vickery deserved an explanation for why he'd involved her in his personal vendettas. He had tried to make her understand his reasons for opposing the French invaders, but she was obviously too stubborn to try and comprehend.

Worse than annoyance, though, was the way his heart wrenched every time he saw the torment in her expressive eyes. Her distress at his revelations was palpable.

It was all he could do to remain unaffected. He hadn't expected to be this moved by her anguish. He wanted to go to her and take her in his arms. He wanted to kiss away the misery on her face. He wanted to drive away her hatred and fill her with passion . . . passion for himself and not his blood enemy.

Determined to ignore such weakness in
himself
, Jafar crossed his arms over his chest. He could not allow his

resolve
to be softened by her despair. There was far too much at stake.