To Catch a Bride (17 page)

“And I could still run my business.”

“Yes. And there is a wage.” He named a sum that made her eyebrows disappear under her veil.

“You will pay me, as well?”

“Of course.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and braced her hands on her hips. “What else do you expect? I tell you now, I am a respectable woman.”

Baxter smiled. “I know, and I admire that. The wage and conditions are exactly the same as I paid my previous cook. So, will you take the job?”

There was a long silence. “I want it,” she said. “But I must ask my brother. He is the head of my family.”

Baxter grinned. “Excellent. I will talk to your brother, but I believe we will come to an arrangement. So you and I have a deal.” He held out his hand in the European manner, and though it was not her custom, Laila held out her hand to shake it.

He surprised her then by taking her hand in both of his. He lifted it slowly toward his mouth. She stared, fascinated, unsure of what to do. He pressed his firm, warm lips against the back of her hand in a slow kiss.

Laila shivered, feeling the heat of him against her skin. Flustered, she snatched her hand back.

He smiled. “You taste good, like fresh bread.”

“Because I made bread this morning,” she said in a brusque voice. “Do not do that again. It is not respectable.” She straightened her veil with hands that shook a little.

He bowed, but said nothing. His smile didn’t change.

She touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Go now,” she said crossly. “We have wasted enough time. The others will be waiting.”

Baxter’s smile intensified. If she’d been truly angry, she would not have touched him at all.

 

 

 

 

F
or several moments after Baxter and Laila had left and Ali had run off, Rafe and Ayisha sat side by side on the low cushioned divan, saying nothing.

Finally Rafe said, “You’re very fond of Laila, aren’t you?”

“Of course, she is my friend. More, she has been like a mother to me.”

“She told me how you two first met,” Rafe said. “How she gave you some food and you repaid her with fuel for her fire.”

For a moment there was silence, then Ayisha said, “It was more than simply giving me food. I had been fed before. Stall holders at the market will sometimes toss a street child a piece of damaged fruit, or stale or broken bread. They toss it in the dust, and watch as the hungry ones pick it up and cram it in their mouths. Like rats.”

He looked sharply at her. “I hope you were never so desperate.”

“I was. Often. The day I met Laila, I had not eaten for four days,” she said in a flat voice.

His hand tightened, his knuckles whitening.

Ayisha looked at him. He still thought to make an English lady of her. He needed to know this about her.

“I was nearly fourteen. I’d lived nine months on the streets,” she said. “Mainly by stealing. But four days before, I saw a thief punished. I heard him howl like an animal as they sliced off his hand.”

She’d stared in horror at the man’s stump, spurting with blood; at the hand lying in the dust, the fingers twitching, as if still alive.

Someone scooped the hand up—she didn’t know if it had been given back to the moaning thief or thrown to the dogs to eat. She was frozen, unable to think past the horror that it could have been her hand lying in the dust, twitching.

Each bright droplet of blood had collected dust and sat on the earth before slowly seeping in. “They say blood is thicker than water,” she said. “It’s true.”

“I know,” Rafe said grimly, and a note in his voice made her look at him and remember he had spent eight years at war.

She stared at him, appalled. She’d only seen this happen to one man and had never forgotten it. But he—he must have seen horrors like that over and over. He’d probably even chopped hands off and killed men. “If you were a soldier, you must have seen it happen many time—”

“Yes,” he cut her off abruptly. “But it’s your story I want to hear.”

What did it do to a young man, she wondered, to live that over and over, to spend years of his life, fighting, living a hard, rough life, trying to kill, hoping not to be killed.

Until yesterday, no sign of it showed; he was always clean and elegant and self-possessed. Too self-possessed, maybe, she thought. His cleanliness, his shiny boots and immaculate linen—was it a kind of armor, like her rags and her dirt?

At the river she’d seen a different side of him, a raw, rough, gritty side: the warrior. The fighter. The protector.

She would never forget the sight of those blue eyes blazing, the strange smile he wore as he attacked those men with his bare hands. His fists were bloodied, his knuckles scraped raw, but after it was over, his big calloused hand, when he’d cupped her cheek so briefly, had carried a tenderness that was almost shocking in such a scene of violence.

“So you saw a thief punished and after that you were afraid to steal,” he prompted her.

“Yes, and after four days I was very hungry.” Her empty belly had been gnawing at her for days. She was living like a rat, picking up scraps wherever she could.

“Then I smelled the most glorious smell.” She smiled. “You have never eaten one of Laila’s pies, but believe me, if you ever had . . .” She sighed. “Laila, though I did not know her name then, was carrying a covered tray through the streets, selling them, hot from the oven. I followed, inhaling the scent as if it were food. I hoped maybe she would toss me a piece of broken pie or a crust. But she didn’t.”

He nodded her to go on.

“I followed her home, but still nothing. She opened the gate and waved to me to come in.”

“And you followed—”

She snorted. “No. After nine months on the streets I trusted no one. So she went inside and closed the door.” She gave a rueful smile. “But still I couldn’t leave that smell.”

“Go on.” His expression was grim.

“A moment later she came out again. She put a pie on the step; a whole, untouched—” Her voice broke, and she pressed her lips together, remembering, trying to gather her composure.

He touched her hand, and she drew it away. Sympathy at this point would make her cry. Lord, why was she so emotional? She’d told Ali this story a dozen times.

She swallowed and forced herself to continue. “She put a pie on the step; a whole, perfect pie sitting on a beautiful, clean plate. A
plate
.”

The scent of the pie had made her mouth water, but the plate had brought tears to her eyes—as it did, even now, just remembering. She looked at him through swimming eyes and could see he hadn’t understood.

In a shaking voice she explained, “I hadn’t eaten off a plate in months, you see. The pie was wonderful, but the plate—the plate said I was—I was human, not a—not a—”

“Not a rat,” he finished quietly, and drew her against him. She nodded and let herself lean against his big, solid shoulder, smelling the clean, masculine scent of him, wiping her eyes as she remembered.

Her belly had screamed at her to cram the pie in as fast as she could and run; instead, she’d taken the plate to a safe place and eaten the pie slowly, with relish, like a person, not a rat. Because the plate had reminded her of who she was.

He handed her a handkerchief. His knuckles were scabbed and ugly, his handkerchief pristine. She wiped her eyes.

“The pie was still warm and delicious. It was the best meal I ever had,” she finished and she blew into the handkerchief, feeling a little foolish. All that fuss over a plate.

“Laila told me that afterward, you collected fuel for her oven.”

“Of course,” Ayisha said, sitting up straight, and handing his handkerchief back. “She gave me something priceless. I had to give something back, even if it was nothing special.” She had washed the plate and dried it as best she could, then collected a bundle of sticks and dry grass and dried camel dung.

She added, “Laila didn’t just give me a pie, that night, she gave me back myself.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

“I still owe her,” Ayisha said with meaning.

He gave her a straight look. “I know. And I will see her right, I promise you. Baxter’s men are even now negotiating to buy a house in Alexandria. It will be in Laila and Ali’s names. No one can take it from them, ever.”

She said nothing for a long time. She picked up the cushion again and fiddled with the fringe. Her fingers shook.

“Very well,” she said in a voice that caught a little. “When Laila has a safe home to live in and Ali has a job, I will go with you to England.” Her chin was firm and resolute, but her wonderful eyes betrayed how torn she was.

It was a huge step. He saw now that he’d been arrogant being so sure her life was so dreadful. It was, but he hadn’t looked past the obvious. In the past few days he’d learned that beyond the poverty and hardship of her life, there was love, strong love.

He knew the power of that. He would never use the word love to describe how he felt about his friends—not out loud— but that’s what it was, he acknowledged. Gabe and Harry and Luke were closer to him than his own brother. Their friendship and unquestioning support had got them through the worst times of the war.

He wouldn’t give up that friendship for anything.

He looked at Ayisha. She was giving up everything she knew for the sake of her friends. And she was going to . . . what?

To a society that could pick her to bits if it got a chance. Politely, viciously, bloodlessly.

Could he protect her from that? Could he be enough?

“I know it’s hard to think of leaving your friends,” he said awkwardly. “But you’ll have your grandmother, and you’ll make new friends. You will like England, I promise you.”

She said nothing, just hugged the cushion to her.

Rafe clenched his fists. Triumph was always a mixed blessing, but it had never left such a sour taste in his mouth.

She would be happy, he swore it. He would make it so.

 

 

 

 

A
s Baxter and Laila reentered the sitting room, the curtains parted and Ali appeared with a wrapped parcel, grinning in triumph. “Open sesameeee,” he said in English and unwrapped a dozen sesame and honey cakes.

“I’ve offered Laila a job,” Baxter said.

Ali looked surprised and then crestfallen.

“And you, too, Ali. I want you both living here. Laila will cook, and you will work for me and learn.”

Ali managed to bow, salute, and thank Baxter effusively, while at the same time bouncing up and down on excited toes.

“I have to see what Omar says first,” Laila said in a dampening voice. “He might say no.”

“He will,” Ali said with certainty. “But I can still come. Omar cares nothing for me.”

Ayisha silently agreed. If Laila left, Omar would have to support himself, as well as cook and clean for himself, and she couldn’t see him doing that. That’s why they’d planned to run away; they knew Omar would never let Laila go.

“We’ll cross the Omar bridge when we come to it,” Baxter said firmly. “In the meantime, Ali, I will expect you tomorrow morning, first thing.”

Ali’s face split in a grin. “Yes, sir,” he said in English, and saluted smartly.

Baxter looked slightly taken aback.

“I perceive the hand of my valet, Higgins,” Rafe said dryly. “He was a batman in the army and seems to have taken it on himself to begin training young Ali in what Higgins calls ‘civilized ways.’ ”

“Well, don’t salute me again,” Baxter told Ali. “I left all that behind me years ago.”

“No, sir,” Ali said, and bowed in an uncanny imitation of Baxter’s earlier bow to Laila.

Rafe chuckled. “You’ve got your hands full there, Baxter. Send him to England when you get sick of him.”

As they were walking home later, Ayisha said to Rafe, “If Omar will not allow Laila to work for Baxter, will you still buy the house in Alexandria?”

“Yes. She can use it or rent it out. I promised you that house, and I don’t break my word.”

She nodded. “And you truly would send Ali to England?”

“Why not, when he’s older? Only if he wants to, of course, but travel will do him good. I’ll send him the fare.”

She walked on, trying to keep her steps in time with his, but his stride was so much longer it was impossible. “You act as if it is not the other side of the world.”

“It isn’t,” he said. “It’s a fair trip, I admit, but travel is getting easier all the time.” He glanced down at her. “I can see you’ve been fretting about going to a strange country with strange people—I do understand how you would be anxious about that—so I’ll make you this promise. If after a year in England, you really hate it and want to come back here, I will give you the money to return. In fact I’ll escort you.”

She gasped and stopped dead in the street to stare up at him. “You would do that for me?”

“If you were desperately unhappy, yes,” he assured her. He took her hand in his. “I know you resent the way I’ve left you no option, but believe me, Ayisha, my only desire is for your welfare and happiness.”

His voice was deep and sincere. This time she knew what was coming when he took her hand in his, and she made no attempt to stop him. She couldn’t. She knew exactly what to expect when he lifted her hand and pressed his lips against the back of her fingers.

Only this time Ayisha felt the imprint of his mouth clear through to the soles of her feet. She shivered, and without quite knowing why, pulled her hand free. She could feel her cheeks burning. They resumed walking.

“Why did you do that?” she muttered after a moment.

“I couldn’t help myself. It’s what a man does when he wants . . .”

“Wants what?”

“To . . . take care of a woman,” he finished.

“Oh.” He’d promised her grandmother he’d take care of her, she remembered. She was a responsibility.