Captive by Brenda Joyce

Jebal are closeted with Farouk and Rais Jovar.”
    It was a council of war. It had to be. Farouk was the bashaw’s prime minister, Jovar the admiral of the navy. Alex had never been introduced to either man, obviously, but like the other Moslem women in the royal family, confined to the harem, she frequently spied upon the men from special rooms reserved just for that purpose. The life of a Moslem woman really was hell. They were allowed to observe—but not participate—in most of what life had to offer.
    “Let’s go,” Alex said, rushing for the stairs.
    “Now what?” Murad complained. “I don’t like it when you get this expression upon your face.”
    Alex grinned at him. “I know. We are going to spy on the bashaw, Jebal, Farouk, and that creepy Jovar.”
    Murad’s eyes widened. “Alex, are you insane! If you are discovered, you will be bastinadoed!”
    Alex and Murad raced down the steps side by side. Alex knew well what the bastinado was. But not from experience, thank God. It was a long plank of wood with two holes at either end. A man’s feet were inserted in the holes and then he was hung upside down. The soles of his feet were then whipped mercilessly. It was a fact that most men died from anything over a hundred lashes of the bastinado.
    Murad pushed open a door and they entered a narrow, dark tunnel. Alex spoke while he lit a torch. “Jebal will never hurt me. He is in love with me.”
    Murad’s gaze flickered. “Your telling him that your first husband is dead and that you needed time to grieve was very clever, Alex.”
    Alex stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”
    “I know. I know the truth. That you have never been married. That there is no dead first husband. That it is a lie to keep him out of your bed.”
    Alex could not move. Murad was her best friend, but she had not told him the truth—that she was a time traveler from the twentieth century. She stared, unable to speak.
    “It doesn’t matter. I will die before I will betray you,” Murad said simply.
    Alex took a deep breath. “How did you find out?”
    He shrugged. “I just knew. But it has been a useful ploy, Alex, in more ways than one. Keeping Jebal out of your bedkeeps him wildly in love with you. But you already know that, don’t you?”
    “The thought has occurred to me,” she admitted. “But that was secondary. I can’t sleep with someone I don’t love, Murad.”
    His silver eyes were soft and tender. “I understand. You are a very different kind of woman, Alex. I’ve never met a woman like you before.”
    Alex hesitated. Then she moved to him and wrapped her arms around him. She had never hugged him before. But it felt natural and right.
    For an instant Murad did not move. Then he closed one arm around her, too, briefly. And he stepped back. In the glow of the torch he held with his other hand. Alex saw that he was blushing. “I would have never made it through the past year without you, Murad. Thank you,” she said softly.
    His gaze was steady. “Yes, you would have, Alex. Even without me.”
    They continued down the tunnel, taking a left fork. At one end was a trapdoor just above their heads, Murad pushed it open, then using toeholds in the wall, climbed up to peer outside. He looked down at Alex and nodded. A moment later he was up and aboveground and Alex was climbing out. They crouched in the garden in the harem, completely concealed by thick shrubbery.
    Murad parted some branches and gazed around, then snapped the branches back into place. “Zoe,” he mouthed.
    Alex’s heart sank. Zoe was Jebal’s first wife. She was plump, dark, and sultry—and she hated Alex passionately.
    Murad put his mouth against Alex’s ear. Even so, his tone was hardly audible when he spoke. “Earlier, Masa was following me.”
    Alex’s pulse jumped. Masa was a huge African slave, a eunuch like Murad—but he served Zoe. “Zoe?”
    “Of course. She is trying to catch you in an act of mischief or worse, Alex.”
    Alex already