Desert Rogue by ERIN YORKE Page B

the skin of her thigh cringing at the cool caress of the indecent pantaloons as she stepped into them. Still, how much could any British subject be expected to endure? Victoria wondered, garbing herself in the scant jeweled jacket that barely covered her breasts.
    The sound of Zobeir’s return echoed in the hall a few brief moments later. Present danger was what she had to concentrate upon now, the young socialite reminded herself as she stood awaiting the slave peddler’s entrance.
    â€œDisobedient slave!” came his outraged cry when he beheld her. “Do you still think to defy me?”
    â€œI have kept my part of the bargain,” Victoria said smugly.
    â€œYou are a liar, like all your race,” Zobeir bellowed, hard put not to throttle this troublemaker. It was only his vision of the profit she could bring that stopped him.
    â€œEnglish honor is revered the world round,” Victoria replied coolly. “I am as honorable as any of my countrymen.” With that she lifted the hem of her skirt to reveal the harem garb beneath her own clothing. “You told me to put these things on. I have done as you asked, and I expect you to keep your promise.”
    â€œDo you think to outwit me?” Zobeir asked in rage. He should have had his men kill the girl as he had been ordered to do. “Time in the slave pen will do you good. And if you are not truly humbled by tomorrow, I will come up with something that will amuse me more than you have angered me at this moment. Perhaps you are not the virgin I suppose you to be. A physician’s certificate attesting to your purity might be in order.”
    â€œIf you or anyone else comes near me, I will kill him and then myself,” Victoria stated with deadly coldness.
    â€œTake the woman out,” Zobeir ordered in exasperation. “Place her in the pens!”
    Though Victoria held her head high as she walked away, her heart cried out, Oh, Hayden! Where are you?

Chapter Four
    T he great walls of Khartoum loomed ahead. Their dusty surface, awash with the light of morning, projected a foreboding aura that unsettled Ali Sharouk’s stomach and his throbbing head.
    Last night he had thought to ease his plight by partaking of some more zabeeb at El Naharal, a village situated between Khartoum and the quarries to the north, where Jed Kincaid had freely spent a great deal of the ransom money for supplies in pursuit of his wild and improbable rescue scheme.
    Though alcohol and Ali had not been acquainted before his encounter with the American, the shopkeeper had embraced it quite willingly yesterday evening, attempting to blot out the presence of the irritating foreigner to whom fate had bound him. Surely Allah would not withhold his forgiveness for such a small transgression, Ali had told himself, especially when the Almighty considered the reason for his humble servant’s uncharacteristic fall from grace. But this morning found Ali less than sharp, and that was a thing that worried him greatly.
    â€œThis is not going to work,” he muttered in exasperation. Nevertheless, he plodded along beside Jed as he had for the past few hours, ever since the horses and provisions the American had purchased had been left concealed within a narrow niche in the cliffs to the north.
    â€œQuit your complaining,” Jed replied absently, his sharp green eyes already assessing Khartoum’s walls and the faluccas bobbing in the Blue Nile’s currents before the city’s main gate.
    Looking at his fellow traveler, Ali could almost see Jed Kincaid’s silent calculations taking place, his rejection or acceptance of the various options he discerned. The cold, perilous gleam in Kincaid’s eyes made Ali shudder. Surely only a madman could be capable of such intense, single-minded concentration.
    To conceal his uneasiness, the tall Egyptian shifted the saddlebag containing explosives that Kincaid had procured from a Frenchman running the