Lord of Desire

"They have orders to escort you to Algiers, if it should happen that I don't return."

She stared at him in shock, startled more by hearing him voice her unspoken fear than his promise of safe escort. The stark realization that she might never see him again filled her with dread.

If he didn't return . . .

Her throat tightened. She couldn't bear to think of such a possibility. Despairingly, she averted her face, not wanting him to see the fear in her eyes. She had wanted to plead with him to spare Gervase, but the words were overshadowed now by the absurd desire to beg Jafar not to die himself.

For a long moment she felt his gaze on her, searching and intent, while a keen tension filled the silence between them.

Finally Jafar crossed to her side. She stood frozen, immobile, as slowly, hesitantly, he took her hands in his. "Alysson . . ."

She wouldn't look at him.

Again she thought he intended to say something, perhaps to repeat his reasons for seeking vengeance against Gervase. But he couldn't justify his violence to her, any more than she would be able to accept Jafar's death. There was nothing more to be said.

In the end, he gave a sigh and released her hands. Murmuring a brief farewell, Jafar turned slowly on his heel and left the tent.

The ache caught Alysson unaware. Could she bear to let him go away thinking that she hated him, that she didn't care whether he lived or died?

She tried to run after him, but her weak legs wouldn't allow her. Instead, she stumbled to the entrance, where she came to a sudden halt.

It was a sight to behold—nearly two hundred Berber warriors on their prancing steeds, their highly burnished weapons flashing and sparkling in the noonday sun. They looked as fierce and indomitable as the land they lived upon. In the faint breeze fluttered the green banner of the Holy War, alongside Jafar's own standard of red and black.

Jafar was already mounted on his magnificent black charger, his demeanor commanding and as intent as a desert hawk.

Please, she begged silently. Please take care.

He had started to turn the stallion when he caught sight of Alysson standing there, looking up at him with mute wretchedness. Jafar tensed, dreading to hear the words on her lips. She would ask him to spare her fiancé's life, and that he could not do. He waited, while the grit churned up by the horses' hooves swirled around him.

"Please . . ." she whispered, her voice so low that he strained to hear. But the words choked in her throat, and the remainder of her plea was lost as tears welled in her lustrous eyes. Faltering, she pressed a hand to her quivering mouth.

Jafar felt his heart wrench with a bitter emotion more powerful than anything he'd ever felt. He didn't need to hear the words; she was pleading for Bourmont's life, he could see it in her eyes.

Abruptly, he whirled his mount.

He didn't look at her again as he took his place at the head of his troops. With effort, Jafar managed to pretend that he hadn't seen the despair on her pale features, hadn't noticed the heartrending trembling of her mouth. With grim determination, he even attempted to dismiss her from his thoughts as he focused on the battle ahead.

But as he rode out of camp with his army of warriors, he was aware that Alysson's haunted gaze followed him all the while.

Against all inclination, despite his most determined efforts, her gaze continued to haunt him. Even on the eve of battle, Jafar couldn't forget the wrenching pain of leaving her behind.

It tormented his thoughts some twenty hours later, when he was ensconced with his men on a plateau of the Ouled Nail mountains. Jafar lay on his stomach, overlooking the narrow gorge below, a field glass pressed to his eye. His Berber warriors were scattered among the mountain ridges and crevices, waiting eagerly for the engagement to come. Beside him was his chief lieutenant, Farhat il Taib—the same red-bearded Berber who had acted as interpreter when they'd first accosted Alysson Vickery and her party nearly a month ago.

Alysson . . . his vibrant, defiant captive. She would never forgive him for what he was about to do. She would—

"They come, lord?" Farhat questioned softly.

Jafar was grateful for the interruption of his tortured thoughts. "Yes.", A quarter hour more, perhaps, and the enemy would appear blow.

He passed the glass to his lieutenant, then glanced over the heights, searching the shadows made by the glaring sun. The black burnouses of the Berbers blended well with the shadows as they waited under ledges and behind rocks. Like himself, his men were seasoned fighters who had seen several campaigns, but Jafar's strategy now was very different from the first battles Abdel Kader had fought against the French.

In the early years of the war, the Arab forces had proved victorious in driving back the rapacious French. Abdel Kad- er's army had exceeded 40,000 troops, while his cannon foundry and manufactories had supplies his Berbers and Arabs with the munitions of war.

But that was before they'd had to fight the likes of General Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, a marshal of France and commander of the French forces in Barbary. Bugeaud had revolutionized French warfare by mounting his infantry troops. With vastly superior numbers, he'd dealt Abdel Kader several stunning defeats, then set about the ruthless, wholesale destruction of the Kingdom of Algiers and the widespread massacres of her peoples. Abdel Kader's once-powerful army was reduced to partisan resistance, confining themselves to harassing the enemy, cutting off communications, executing sudden and unexpected sallies.

Jafar had developed his current battle plan along these lines. He commanded a smaller force by half than Gervase de Bourmont, but he had the element of surprise on his side, and a keen knowledge of the mountains. He and his men occupied the principle pass of the Nail, a narrow defile through which one could emerge from the High Plateau into the Sahara.

With great care, Jafar had planted the rumors that Alysson was being held captive here in the district of the Ouled Nail tribe. His plan was to oblige the colonel to enter the mountains by the gorge, where the constricted space would preclude the possibility of cavalry movements. Once Bourmont had passed below, Jafar's men would send an avalanche of scree and boulders into the gorge, cutting off the colonel's retreat. When the battle started, the Frenchmen would be entangled among ravines, trapped amidst precipices.