Lord of Desire

"No." He shook his head abruptly. "Your servant is unharmed. The right herb sprinkled in his food merely made him ill. In a few days he will recover completely. But it will be too late for him to find you."

Absorbing the import of her captor's revelation, Alysson stared at him with mingled dismay and contempt. He had planned her abduction down to the last detail. "You bastard," she said with soft loathing.

His hard mouth twisted in the semblance of a smile. "Such language is not becoming to a young lady, ma belle."

Her fingers clenched into fists. "I should have killed you when I had the chance," she muttered.

"Yes, you should have."

The amiableness of his answer made her glare at him. "Next time I won't miss!"

Those were brave words, a threat made in a fit of defiancé, and he gave them the respect they deserved: he merely shrugged. "Instead of cursing me, you should be thanking me. I did you a service, taking you away from Bourmont. I assure you, you do not want to wed him. I warned you of it the other night."

"The other night you were speaking nonsense, raving about murderers."

"I never rave." His hard gaze found hers. "And it was not nonsense."

The sudden lethal note in his low voice made Alysson

want to shudder. "Why do you call Gervase a murderer? What has he ever done to you?"

Her Berber captor made no reply.

"You will never succeed with this! Gervase will rescue me—and he'll bring the entire French army with him!"

He regarded her with a chilling smile. "I sincerely hope the French army does come for you, the good colonel most of all. I will be pleased to welcome him."

Whatever courage Alysson had left quailed before that smile. She lapsed into brooding silence, becoming lost in thought as she pondered his words and contemplated her fate.

Beside her, Jafar watched his lovely captive with reluctant admiration. She had not treated him to the display of tears or pleas for mercy he had expected. Instead she had fought him, challenged him, demanded answers to her questions.

And in spite of her silence now, he knew she had not given up. She would defy him at every turn. And she would interrogate him again about his plans, his motives.

He had not yet decided how much he would tell her. She would never understand the cause that drove him. Killing for revenge was not civilized by her standards. But he was no longer the civilized Englishman she had met that day seven years ago. Nicholas Sterling was someone of his past.

Upon his return to the Kingdom of Algiers, he had joined the resistance against French domination as he'd intended. And in the years since, hed regained the leadership of his father's tribe through tenacity and sheer ironhearted determination. He'd had to fight for his birthright and prove his abilities. Now he was caid—chief administrator of his province, a position he had earned. As such, he had sworn allegiance to the Sultan of the Arabs, Abdel Kader.

But his second major goal had been thwarted. Until now he had been denied the opportunity to avenge his parents' deaths. By the time he'd left England and returned home to Barbary, General Louis Auguste de Bourmont, the man he had sworn to kill, was already dead. But his vow of vengeance remained foremost in Jafar's mind. The bitter memories that haunted his dreams would not let him forget.

The details of that terrible day he still remembered vividly. Even now, seventeen years later, he could still recall

his helpless rage at seeing his parents taken from him so brutally, still feel his fierce hatred for the general who had ordered their senseless slaughter.

No, never would he forget the name of Bourmont.

Only now, though, had the chance to avenge his parents' murders presented itself. The general's son had come to Barbary.

The moment Colonel Gervase de Bourmont had set foot on African soil, his life was forfeit; the son would pay for the father's sins.

The notion was not at all uncivilized in the Berber culture. To Jafar's people blood vengeance was a duty, the only honorable course for a Berber chieftain to take.

The only question had been deciding how he would carry out his vow. He could, of course, have killed the colonel on the streets of Algiers, or in his offices. It would have been simple to send an assassin to accomplish the task. Yet this job was one he was obligated to perform himself.

He had few qualms at plunging a knife into the heart of his longtime enemy's son, or firing a bullet into the colonel's skull. But there would have been no justice in allowing the Frenchman a swift death. No justice, and no satisfaction, either. He wanted the French jackal to suffer the way his mother had suffered, to know the agony of the blade, to contemplate death as his lifeblood drained away.

And how much more satisfying it would be to draw the French army into an engagement, to strike a blow for the failing Arab cause. To lure Gervase de Bourmont and his soldiers into the desert, where loyal Arab troops would engage them in battle.

He could have taken the colonel prisoner, of course, instead of Miss Vickery; the same end would have been accomplished. But how much more profound the distress for the colonel to know that the woman he loved was in danger, in the power of his mortal enemy.