CHAPTER ONE

1890

Above the vast Egyptian desert the midnight sky reflected its own eternal emptiness. This was the High Desert. Its uncharted surface offered convenient oblivion for those who sought to hide in it.

Squatting sullenly at the base of a sand dune, the slave traders’ encampment was peopled by such fugitives. It was a small compound: a string of camels, a half-dozen tents set around a fire, a score of lidless crates piled within reach of the campfire’s illumination.

Inspecting the contents of these crates were several dozen men. Some were obviously merchants who, having come into the desert from towns miles away, were here to acquire the black market goods being offered. The merchants were Arabs, relative newcomers to Egypt—fourteen centuries being relative in this ancient land. The others—heavily veiled even now, at night—were Tuareks, of Coptic origin, the true descendants of the ancient Egyptians. They were the sellers. And, sitting just beyond the reach of the firelight, was the rarest and most precious offering among merchandise rife with the unique and invaluable: a young, blond Englishwoman.

A slave.

The pale and proud girl faced her captors, making no effort to hide her disdainful glare. When first snatched from the Cairo market four days before, fear had paralyzed her usually agile intelligence, terror had crippled her spirit with the certainty that soon she would become the plaything of some cruel desert sheik.

But now four days had passed and no desert prince had come for her. Indeed, no one came near her at all, and the sweet, tender flower of womanhood found that terror, numbed by the potent drink her captors forced upon her, had given way to … to …

Boredom?

Desdemona Carlisle slouched tipsily against a pile of Persian rugs, gravely considering the word. It seemed too cavalier for her situation, but she couldn’t claim she felt exactly terrorized anymore. She stuck a finger under the wretched chadar, the face veil her captors insisted she wear at all times, and scratched.

Impatient? Yes!

The young lady, courageous and valiant, was impatient to confront her fate.

But first, thought Desdemona, the young lady would have another swig of the unique, and not altogether unpalatable, milky beverage that the sullen-looking boy, Rabi, spent most of his free time encouraging her to imbibe.

Indeed, other than sitting about being bored—impatient, penning entries in an imaginary diary, and sipping this stuff—there wasn’t much to do. The fake papyrus scroll Rabi had given her as a means of keeping her occupied was fascinating, yes, but a bit too … absorbing … to be studied properly here and now. It was more suitable reading for a private setting.

She was sure she could have found other interesting things in the crates heaped around camp. She had glimpsed glints of shining metal, colored stone, shapes and figurines. But every time she ventured near the crates, her guards barked at her; every time she tried to run away, they fetched her back—with increasing ill grace—and every time she tried to hold a civil conversation, they stared at her in mute contempt.

The most obvious explanation for their aloofness, she concluded, was that her purity was being safeguarded to ensure she would command a greater price on the auction block. She shivered and groped around in the sand for her tin cup.

She found it and looked up. Rabi was staring at her. As soon as he noted the direction of her gaze, he turned and slunk away like a cadaverous Anubis puppy. Wise lad, she thought darkly.

It had been Rabi who’d kidnapped her. One minute she’d been examining a nice, authentic-looking canopic jar and the next she was being gagged with some hideous cloth, her head stuffed in an equally vile sack, and she’d been flung over a bony shoulder. A moment later he’d thrown her atop what—judging from the smell and lumps—could only be a camel.

She’d spent an entire day jolting about in front of him, sweating beneath the heavy sack covering her. Once they’d arrived, he had plopped her on her feet for her unveiling and, his young voice flush with the pride of conquest, hailed the camp. Then, with a spectacular flourish, he’d snapped the sack—and her headdress—off.

Confused, frightened, and seasick from the rocking camel ride, she had squinted into the sudden blinding light, peering at the silent, shadowy faces crowding around her. Someone said something that sounded suspiciously like the Arabic equivalent of “Uh-oh.” In a flurry of motion, the men had snatched their burkos in front of their faces. She’d not seen an unveiled man since.

Soon after, they’d taken Rabi aside and given him the thrashing of his young life. She assumed it was because he had attempted to assert his masculine rights of ownership over her. Her mouth twined at the thought. A fifteen-year-old boy-child was not her idea of—What ever was she thinking about?

She lifted her tin cup to her lips and sipped nothing. Drat. It was empty.

“Hey, Rabi!” she called. “I say, I could do with a spot more of that what-have-you!” As if by magic, the sound of her voice cut off all conversation in the camp. Every man, especially the town merchants, turned and stared at her. Within five minutes the Arabs had fled, leaving her alone with her veiled captors. They glared at her, looking decidedly unhappy.

“Well? I’m sorry but they certainly weren’t going to buy me. They couldn’t even afford your fake faience. Not a sheik in the lot, I’d wager,” she said with alcohol-imbued logic. Indeed, the departed men had looked more like middle-age—and none too prosperous—businessmen than proper white slavers. She glanced about, trying to determine where they’d gone and if she could go with. Maybe she had this white slave thing all wrong. Maybe she …

It was then that she saw him.

Wind and darkness coalesced in the distance. A rider so much a part of his steed that he seemed more centaur than man crested the moon-silvered edge of a dune. His cape billowed in the wind like great black wings. Closer he sped, myth embodied, galloping across the midnight-shrouded sands, racing toward her.

Her destiny.

She stood up, swaying. Rabi dropped the goat bladder he’d been filling her cup from and caught her elbow, steadying her.

“Who is he?” she breathed, her gaze riveted on the figure now almost to the camp.

“He came for you,” Rabi said.

Her head snapped around in surprise. She’d thought “drink, you drink” the extent of Rabi’s English vocabulary. He looked positively jubilant.

“You mean … he’s taking me … tonight?”

“Yes, yes,” Rabi said, pulling her forward. “Tonight you go with him. Everyone will be happy.” He dragged her toward the campfire and she stumbled to her knees.

“Hup, hup, you hup,” one of the veiled men grumbled, coming and standing over her.

She tilted her chin haughtily. “Why should I?”

He made a grab for her and she scooted to her feet. She would not give him the satisfaction of swinging her over his shoulder like a sack of grain and dumping her back in that hot, smelly tent—the way most of her previous acts of defiance had been met.

She was an Englishwoman; she had her pride. With a brave toss of her hair, she swept into the bright circle of light.

“Here is Sitt,” the man ahead of her mumbled, flicking his hand in her direction and snatching up Rabi’s goat bladder as if he needed it. He took a deep swig.

She looked around and found the one unfamiliar figure in the camp. Her heart started racing. Her breath caught in her throat. Without doubt, without reason, unequivocally and absolutely, she knew this man would own her.

He hovered on the periphery of the darkness, licked by shadows, studying her. When he came forward, it was with the soft-sure footfall of the panther. He approached at an oblique angle, his head cocked as he considered her. Somehow she contrived to remain erect beneath that keen and heartless perusal.

He flung back the inky cape suspended from a jeweled clasp on his shoulder and set his gloved fist on his hip. Only his eyes were visible; his expression was obscured by an indigo burkos tucked beneath the edge of his khafiya.

Another Tuarek tribesman, Desdemona thought breathlessly. The most savage of the lawless desert nomads.

Above his veil his eyes narrowed and glittered in the uncertain firelight. Dangerous, sleek, and arrogant, he stalked toward her. She swallowed hard and, her self-possession breaking with his predatory approach, scuttled back from his advance.

He laughed, a cruel, barbaric sound. It stopped her retreat. Generations of British pride steeled her backbone, and she met his gaze defiantly, even courageously. His hand shot out with the deadly speed of a striking cobra and he grabbed her wrist, dragging her to him. She fought fiercely, knowing the slavers would do nothing to intercede, fear replacing her former defiance.

He held her easily, her strength a negligible thing, and called over her head to the muttering slavers in hoarse, guttural Arabic. Why, oh why, she asked herself, could she never learn to speak the dratted language, only read it?

One of the men, a dirty individual in a lopsided turban, flapped his hand toward the tent where she slept. With another low laugh, the stranger snatched her forward and hauled her into its dim interior.

The sudden severity of her situation exploded in upon her, erasing some of the torpor from her drink-befuddled mind. This was no romantic prince of the desert, this was a hard savage, a man who would use her body as casually as an Englishman would soil a napkin and just as casually discard her when he was done.

She screamed. His big hand clamped over her mouth and he spun her about, dragging her against the unyielding wall of his chest. He hissed something in her ear but she couldn’t make out the words, her stifled screams reverberated too loudly in her skull. She struggled, kicking and flailing.

“Would you bloody well stop it?” he thundered in her ear.

She froze, her surprise at hearing not only an English accent but that English accent so great she couldn’t have moved. He unclamped his hand from her mouth and wheeled her about. In their struggle his burkos had fallen, uncovering his face.

She stared at him, disbelief turning to amazement turning to fury. “Harry Braxton, if you bought me, I’ll kill you.”