Subtle signs of deference within the band implied that the Targui was the leader, so Ross said in Tamahak, the Tuareg language, "For saving a humble traveler from the Turkomans, you have the deepest gratitude of my heart."
The Targui's sudden stillness implied that he was startled to hear his own language, but with face covered and eyes shadowed, it was impossible to read his expression. After a moment he replied in fluent French, "Your Tamahak is good, monsieur, but I prefer to converse in French, if you know it."
The veiled man spoke scarcely above a whisper, and it was impossible to tell from the light, husky sound if he was young or old. With cool deliberation he reloaded his rifle, a very modern British breechloader, then rested it casually across his saddlebow. Though the weapon was not pointing at Ross, there was a distinct sense that it could be aimed and fired quickly if necessary. "There were two other men with you. Where are they?"
Unable to think of any purpose that would be served by silence, Ross replied, "They continued on when my horse fell."
The Targui made a quick gesture and two of his men turned and cantered off in the direction of Ross's vanished servants. With noticeable dryness he said, "You should choose your men more carefully, monsieur. Their loyalty leaves much to be desired."
"A horse carrying a double load could not have outrun the Turkomans. There is no wisdom in a meaningless sacrifice."
"You are rational to a fault, monsieur." Losing interest in the subject, the Targui dismounted and crossed to Ross's injured horse, which was sprawled on its side, chest heaving and eyes glazed with pain. After a moment's study of the beast's fractured foreleg, he raised his rifle, set it against the horse's skull, and pulled the trigger. As the gun boomed, the horse jerked spasmodically, then lay still.
It took all of Ross's control not to recoil. It was necessary to destroy the injured animal, and Ross would have done so himself if he had had the opportunity, but there was something profoundly chilling about the Targui's dispassionate efficiency.
Swiftly the veiled man reloaded once more, then swung around to face Ross. He was about five-foot-nine, an average height for his people, which made him tall for an Arab, though several inches shorter than Ross. His slight built and lithe movements implied that he was young, but his air of menace was ageless and timeless. "You are bleeding. Are you injured?"
Ross realized that he had been rubbing his aching shoulder and immediately dropped his hand. "Nothing to signify."
"You will come with us to Serevan." It was not a request.
Ross said, "As your guest or your captive?"
The way the Targui ignored the comment was answer enough. In Persian he gave an order to the smallest of his companions, a boy in his teens.
The boy replied, "Aye, Gul-i Sarahi." After dismounting, he offered the reins of his horse to the ferengi.
Ross nodded thanks, then glanced at the Targui. "Please allow me a moment to collect my saddle and bridle."
After the veiled man gave an impatient nod, Ross stripped the harness from his dead horse. The saddle would probably be useful in the future. More to the point, a substantial amount of gold was concealed inside, which was why Ross preferred to lift it himself. He fastened the saddle to his pack animal, then mounted the loan horse while the boy climbed behind Gul-i Sarahi.
Briefly Ross wondered at his captor's name, which wasn't Tuareg. But there were so many better things to worry about. It appeared that he was not going to be killed out of hand, but he suspected that regaining his freedom would be expensive. Worse, arranging a ransom would take time, which was a far more precious commodity.
As they rode east toward the frontier, the Persians surrounded Ross, eliminating any possibility of escape. He considered starting a conversation with the nearest men, but decided against it, for there might be some advantage in concealing his knowledge of the Persian language. Besides, when in doubt, he had always found it best to keep his mouth shut.
The journey took about an hour, the track growing narrower and steeper until they were winding single file up a mountain. Near the top, the track swung around a tight turn, and suddenly a sprawling walled fortress loomed above them. Someone behind him announced, "Serevan."
Ross was impressed. This was no shabby village but an enormous compound reminiscent of a feudal castle. Sophisticated irrigation created lush fields and orchards in every bit of arable soil on the hillside and the valley below. The laborers working in the spring-green fields looked strong and prosperous, unlike most of the villagers who lived in this hazardous, much-plundered border country.
Like most construction in Central Asia, the massive walls and buildings of the fortress were made of plaster- coated mud bricks, and they glowed pale gold in the afternoon sun. As the party rode through the gate into the compound, Ross noted that the buildings seemed quite old, but they had been repaired within the last few years. There were many abandoned ancient strongholds in this part of the world, and probably Serevan had been one until recently.
Gul-i Sarahi raised a hand and the troop pulled to a halt in front of the palace that was the heart of the compound. As the Targui dismounted, boys skipped over from the stables to collect the horses, and a gray-bearded man came out of the palace. For a moment Gul-i Sarahi conferred with the newcomer, who appeared to be an Uzbek. Then the Targui turned and ordered, "Come."
Ross obeyed, the rest of the riders trailing inside after him. The palace had a feeling of great age but was well- kept, with whitewashed walls and handsome tile floors. Gul-i Sarahi led the group into a large reception room furnished with traditional Eastern simplicity. Cushioned divans lined the white walls, and rich bright carpets lay on the floor.
As the men formed a loose circle around the stranger, the Targui studied Ross. He had brought his riding whip in, and he drew the leather thong through narrow, long-fingered hands. In his husky, whispering voice he said, "The Turkomans are mansellers. Did they wish to make a slave of you?"
"They were divided between that and killing me out of hand. A wasteful lot," Ross drawled in his best cool English style. There was a volatile atmosphere in the room. Being unsure what he was up against, Ross followed the basic rule of not showing fear, much as if his captors were a pack of dogs that would turn vicious if they sensed terror. "I carry letters of introduction from the shah and several honored mullahs, and am worth more alive than dead."
"I should think you would be worth a great deal, monsieur." Gul-i Sarahi began pacing around Ross with catlike grace. Abruptly he said, "Take off your coat and shirt."
There could be several possible reasons for such a request, and all of them made Ross uneasy. He considered refusing, but decided that would be foolish. While he was the largest man in the room, he was outnumbered six to one.
Feeling like a slave being forced to strip in front of a potential buyer, he peeled off his battered garments and dropped them on the floor. There was a murmur of interest from the watchers as Ross bared his torso. He was unsure whether they were impressed by the pallor of his English skin, the flamboyant bruises and lacerations he had acquired earlier, or the vicious scars left by a bullet that had almost killed him a year and a half earlier.
Gul-i Sarahi stopped in front of Ross, posture intent. Once again Ross cursed the tagelmoust, which made it impossible to interpret his captor's expression.
With delicate precision the Targui used the handle of his riding whip to trace around the ugly, puckered scar left where the bullet exited. That mark and the entrance wound on Ross's back had faded over time, but they were still dramatic.
Gul-i Sarahi skimmed the handle over the bruised and abraded areas on his captive's chest and arms. There was an odd gentleness about the gesture that Ross found more disquieting than brutality would have been.
Softly the veiled man circled behind Ross and touched the other scar. As the swinging leather thong brushed Ross's ribs, he felt his skin crawl with distaste. Given the strange undercurrents of the situation, he did not know whether to expect a caress
or a sudden slash of the whip. They seemed equally possible, and equally distasteful.
Lightly he said, "Sorry about the scars—they'll lower my value if you decide to sell me."
Sharply Gul-i Sarahi said, "To the right buyer you would still be worth a pretty penny, ferengi."
Ross went rigid with shock. In his irritation, the Targui had abandoned whispering for a normal speaking level, and the husky voice was hauntingly familiar.
Familiar, and more stunning that anything else that had happened today.
Telling himself that what he imagined was impossible, Ross spun around and stared at his captor. The height was about right, as were the light build and supple, gliding movements. He tried to see the shadowed eyes through the slit in the tagelmoust. Were they black, like the eyes of most Tuareg, or a changeable gray that could shift from clear quartz to smoke?
Mockingly Gul-i Sarahi said, "What is wrong, ferengi—have you seen a ghost?"
This time the voice was unmistakable. With a surge of the greatest fury he had known in a dozen years, Ross seized the edge of the veil and ripped downward, exposing Gul-i Sarahi's face.
The impossible was true. His captor was no Targui, but his long-lost betraying wife, Juliet.
Chapter 3
Juliet did not flinch, merely regarded him with cool, guarded eyes. Her blazing red hair had been pulled casually into a heavy knot at the nape of her neck and she looked as sleek and lovely as a finely tempered blade. Raising her brows, she said in English, "Since you are in my fortress, surrounded by my men, don't you think that showing a little more caution might be the better part of wisdom, Ross?"
He was too furious to care what happened to him. Dropping his hand from the tagelmoust, he snapped, "Go ahead and do your damnedest, Juliet. You always did."
Raising her gaze to her men, she made a quick gesture and they left the room. The older Uzbek went with obvious reluctance, until Juliet said in Persian, "Do not concern yourself, Saleh. The ferengi and I are well-acquainted. Please send in warm water, bandages, and ointment, and perhaps tea as well."
Still seething, Ross said, "Your friend Saleh is quite right to fear that I might wring your neck."
Juliet brought her gaze back to him as she unwound the veil, which was easily six yards long. "Nonsense," she said calmly as she tossed the length of dark fabric on the divan. "You might be tempted to commit mayhem, but you are too much of a gentleman to do so, no matter how richly I might deserve such treatment."
It did not improve Ross's temper to acknowledge that she was right. Even on that devastating night a dozen years ago, he hadn't laid a hand on her, and his anger now was a pale shadow of what he had felt then. "What was the purpose of that little charade?" Yanking his shirt on again, he glowered at his wife. "Are you intending to hold me to ransom? That would be redundant, considering the size of the allowance I've been giving you for the last twelve years."
Sharply Juliet said, "I never asked for money. You were the one who insisted on giving it."
"As my wife, you are my financial responsibility." Ross's gaze traveled over her. It was impossible to tell that the body beneath the layered robes was female. If she'd continued to disguise her voice and wear the tagelmoust, he would never have guessed her identity. "Besides, I was worried about just how you might choose to earn a living if I did not support you."
She caught his insulting implication and colored. "Ross, I apologize for indulging my warped sense of humor."
"Is that what that little scene was—a joke?" he said, unmollified. "Your sense of humor is more than warped. It has become downright malicious."
"Were you frightened?" she asked, a note of surprise in her voice. "You did not appear to be."
"Only a fool would not be frightened when surrounded by men who are armed and probably hostile," he said dryly, "but I didn't think that groveling would improve my situation."
She bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I behaved very badly."
"I seem to bring that out in you."
Juliet looked as if she wanted to snap an angry reply, but the entry of a small servant girl caused her to hold her tongue. The girl carried a tray with medical supplies and tea, which she set on a low circular table before bowing and leaving the room.
The interruption gave Juliet time to regain her temper. "It is true that you bring out the worst in me," she said as she poured a cup of steaming tea, then stirred in a spoonful of sugar. Handing Ross the cup, she continued, straight-faced, "I was a model of demure, maidenly propriety before I met you."
That was such a blatant falsehood that Ross choked on his first sip of tea, torn between fury and reluctant amusement. "Your memory is deficient, Juliet," he said when he could speak again. "You were the devil's daughter even then, you just lacked the experience to fully express your natural outrageousness."
"You are less of an English gentleman than I thought, or you wouldn't mention that." She offered a fleeting, hesitant smile.
The smile made Ross's heart lurch oddly. How typical of Juliet to be simultaneously infuriating and disarming. After treating him like a slave being graded for value, she had turned around and remembered exactly how he liked his tea.
His anger began to fade, which was fortunate, for he would need all his wits about him to deal with the impossible female. Suddenly weary, he sat down on the divan.
Juliet brought over the tray of medications, then perched next to him. "Take your shirt off again," she said, her voice matter-of-fact.
Ross flinched when she made a move to help him. Her touch had disturbed him earlier, when he had not known who she was. Now it would disturb him even more. Showing his skin to a doctor would have been one thing; doing the same with his estranged wife, with whom he had had a passionate, obsessive relationship, was quite another.
But his injuries did need tending, and under the circumstances, modesty would be ridiculous. Mastering his disquiet, he pulled off the shirt. "You arrived in the proverbial nick of time today. How did that happen?"
"I learned that a European with only two servants was in the area, and that a band of Turkomans had also been sighted," she explained. Moistening a pad of fabric, she started gently cleaning grit and dried blood from his lacerated left wrist, which had sustained the worst damage. "I decided to intervene before the idiots ended up in the Bokhara slave market."
The warmth and sweetness of the tea having steadied Ross's nerves, he leaned back against the velvet cushions and willed himself to relax. This was possibly the strangest day of his life. To be sitting here next to Juliet after so many years, with her patching him up like a coat that needed darning—it was too unreal to believe.
Yet her presence was also too vivid to deny. He was intensely, physically aware of the warmth of her fingers, her faint spicy scent. She, on the other hand, seemed quite unaffected by their closeness.
Needing to break the silence, he said, "Do you often play guardian angel for foolish travelers?"
"If I hear of potential trouble, I do what I can."
Juliet began spreading ointment over his abraded upper arm, but though her fingers were deft and gentle, the effect was not soothing. Ross felt edgy, ready to jump out of his skin.
She went to sit on his right side and began working on the cuts and grazes there. "Needless to say, it was a considerable shock to find that you were the ferengi in question."
"I don't doubt that, but why didn't you identify yourself right away? I found your little games unamusing."
She hesitated. "I wasn't going to identify myself. I intended to send you on your way without revealing who I was."
"Then you shouldn't have succumbed to the urge to humiliate me in front of your men." His voice was edged. "Up until then, I had no suspicion."
Color rose in her face again and she became very busy with cleaning a deep, still-oozing scrape on the side of his hand. "I wasn't trying to humiliate you. Believe it or not, the main reason I asked you to take your shirt off was that I was concerned. When we arrived on the scene, i
t appeared that you had been seriously injured. In fact, at first I thought you were dead, for I saw that Turkoman shoot you at point-blank range."
"It isn't easy to hit a moving target from horseback." He chuckled. "I hope Dil Assa is now berating himself for his bad aim."
"He's probably too busy fleeing my men to have time for that." Juliet's tone was light, but her first horrified recognition of the man lying on the ground still burned in her mind. She had never thought to see her husband again. Certainly she had not expected to see him killed before her very eyes. "While it was obvious that you weren't dead, you'd been roughed up thoroughly and you moved as if you were in pain. When we arrived back here, I wasn't sure whether you were being stoic or were injured worse than you knew. So I decided to see for myself."
Ross's eyes glinted. "Perhaps concern was your main reason, but that implies other reasons. What were they?"
Juliet felt herself flushing again and cursed the clear, pale redhead's complexion that too often signaled her emotions. "You were so... so damned imperturbable. I succumbed to the unworthy desire to see if I could make you show some reaction." Finished with her task, she set her medical supplies back on the tray.
"If a reaction is what you wanted, you were certainly successful." Drawing on his shirt again, Ross said reflectively, "Interesting that you thought my calmness was so irritating. The same thing almost got me killed once before. Does that mean the British stiff upper lip is dangerous?"
"So it would seem." Juliet had found his stoic detachment infuriating. When they were married, she had seen him withdraw behind that barrier of remoteness with others, but never with her. "Was the bullet through your chest a result of excessive calmness?"