Desert Rogue. Erin Yorke
to the gate separating him from the women. Made of stout wood and securely locked, the barrier resisted his efforts to force it open.
With a shrug of his shoulders and a careless smile that proclaimed he hadn’t really expected it to be that simple, Jed slipped the halter from around his neck and fashioned a short lariat. With reckless grace, he lassoed the spike atop the gate post, and easily scaled the wall.
When he reached the top, he momentarily sat astride the sandstone barrier until his keen eyes found the woman he was seeking, the small blonde in European dress huddled with the others.
Bellowing an order in Arabic and English for them to vacate the far corner of the pen before Ali lit the next fuse, he dropped inside and rushed to her side. Wrapping the woman in his arms, he threw himself on top of her, mindless of her protests. They both fell to the ground where he shielded her when the next explosion blew a hole in the facade that imprisoned the women.
“You must be Vicky,” he said with a devilish grin as he loosened his hold on the struggling form beneath him, and smiled into the face of a wildcat.
“It’s Victoria.” She grunted as she worked herself out from under the hard masculine body that had trapped her while her companions streamed out into the marketplace. She struggled for composure. When she found it, she coolly assessed the disheveled, unshaven stranger. Not liking the primitive air of the man returning her inspection so boldly, she added in her most cultured, condescending tones, “However, I suggest you call me Miss Shaw.”
Thoughts of how well suited the haughty Miss Shaw and Hayden Reed were ran through Jed’s mind as he pulled himself and the ungrateful woman upright.
“Listen, honey,” he drawled dangerously as he grabbed Victoria’s hand. “I don’t care if it’s Queen Victoria. We’re getting out of here now.”
“But I can’t leave,” Victoria stated in annoyance, pulling her fingers free from the large masculine ones that had captured them.
“You what?” Jed roared, his green eyes flashing in disbelief.
“Well, it’s simply impossible, of course,” Victoria told him in her most reasonable voice, instinctively taking a step backward from the glowering stranger.
“And just why is that?” Jed demanded. He closed the gap between them and brought his fierce face down close to hers.
“Surely you’ve heard the cannon fire,” Victoria asserted with as much dignity as she could muster under the man’s baleful stare. “The British army and my fiancé have come to rescue me. They’re attacking Khartoum right now. If I step out into the confusion, how will they ever find me? I’ll wait for Hayden right here, thank you. I’m not about to go running off with the likes of you.”
“Now, I’m unsure of how to break this to you,” Jed countered, his mocking voice making it plain that he was ready to throw her over his shoulder in order to leave. “But it’s me or nobody, lady. Hayden’s still in his plush office in Cairo.”
“You mean he sent you?” Victoria asked, aghast, her eyes branding him ruffian as they once more traveled over his rugged, unsavory appearance.
“No, he didn’t send me,” Jed mimicked, his voice colored by extreme exasperation. Catching himself, the American reverted to his natural husky tones and continued with forced civility. “He didn’t even have the courage to do that. I came on my own. Now, if you ever want to see that pompous ass again, Vicky, I suggest you move your sweet little posterior so we can get the devil out of here.”
Ali’s detonation of the final blast drowned out a shocked Victoria Shaw’s acerbic retort. She had no opportunity to repeat herself, however, as Jed’s patience with her was at an end.
“Run,” he ordered, grabbing the woman and pulling her toward the broken wall that promised them both a chance at freedom.
“Damn you, woman! I said run, not dawdle about watching everyone else escape. At this rate, we’ll both be damned to life as slaves, if they don’t shoot us first,” Jed raged over his shoulder as the guards fired into the women’s pen.
Without waiting for her to protest again, he shoved her in front of him, shielding her as they scrambled over the rubble of the wall. Their pace, however, was maddeningly slow as those ahead found it difficult to navigate the mounds of irregular stone blocking their way. Trapped in the smoke-laden air, unable to push forward, Jed found the next few minutes nerve-racking until finally they stood together in the shadows of the slave mart, catching their breath amid the turmoil.
Pandemonium was the order of the hour. Many of the escaping slaves had upended the tables along the perimeter of the square while the shopkeepers bellowed and tried to douse the small fires threatening their livelihood. Busily grabbing what goods they could carry off to start their new lives, fleeing captives shouted obscenities at those who would stop them and shoved their way to freedom. Then another ominous rumble sounded, the ground seemed to vibrate and a dark powdery haze drifted quickly over the slave quarter, providing temporary obscurity.
“This way, woman. Quickly, now, hurry,” Jed urged his companion forward as a blue gallabiya caught his eye and he swept it up in passing. The guards would be searching especially hard for the two European prisoners who would stand out readily in inner Khartoum. He and Victoria would be far safer if he could disguise her.
With a sudden jerk on her elbow, Jed pulled her into a narrow twist of the alley and whispered urgently, “Here, put this on.”
“Make up your mind. Put this on—or go quickly? Which is it?” cried Victoria angrily. Her eyes smarted from the soot in the air, her feet hurt from the stones that pierced her dainty slippers, and she still feared for her life. But, most of all, her heart ached with the possibility, however unlikely, that Hayden had placed her safety in the hands of this uncouth hooligan. How could her fiancé claim to love her and permit this scoundrel to come after her? “I am not moving another inch until you explain yourself.”
“Your hair and pale face will serve as a beacon for anyone searching for us,” he argued impatiently. By all the saints above, he was trying to save the woman’s hide, why was she squawking? “In this outfit, there is a chance you might be overlooked.”
“And you?”
“I’m brown enough from the sun to pass at a glance, and if they look closer than that, the game will be over, anyway.” Refusing to await her cooperation, he bunched up the flowing garment and dropped it over her head, thankfully muffling her complaints for the moment. “It’s rather long, but it’ll hide your skirts and those trim ankles I noticed earlier.”
“As if you haven’t better things to worry about,” muttered the blonde. “Never mind, give me your belt.”
“What?”
“If you expect me to move without tripping over my feet every few inches, I have to secure this somehow.”
Shouts sounded behind them in the alley, and rather than pursue their debate, Jed removed the leather strap and tied it about her waist, hiking the shapeless gown up and pulling the hood over her hair. An instant later he had grabbed her hand and they were running toward the city gates.
Dodging around the rubble in their path, he led Victoria forward, confident their route was the right one, if a little longer than he had remembered. It seemed to him they should have been at the gates by now, then he discarded the notion. It was just nerves that made him question himself.
Another roar sounded behind them somewhere as Jed pulled her along, but soon the voices of pursuit dropped away. Then, when Victoria doubted her ability to run another step, the gates were before them, and at last they were outside the city of Khartoum.
“Now what?” she gasped, leaning against the trunk of a mustard tree to catch her breath. “Where are the British troops?”
“What?” Jed couldn’t believe his ears. She continued to expect the army to rescue her.
“I’ll