Her Every Pleasure Part 32

With the men distracted, she had quickly opened Alexa's valise and taken out a long, brightly colored scarf, along with Alexa's tiny pot of rouge. Dabbing the red cosmetic onto her finger, Sophia had written a coded message on the scarf. Her men would know what it meant.

Peeking out the carriage window, she had waited for her opportunity. Moving quickly, she had laid the scarf out flat atop the carriage roof.

When the men returned from their prayers, they got back into the carriage and drove on. The breeze from their quickening pace blew the scarf silently off the carriage roof so it flew out behind them and landed, unnoticed, in the road.

That, however, had been hours and many miles ago. With the day waning, her captors turned off the sleepy country highway and headed up into the stark, gray mountains to find shelter for the night.

The already tired horses labored to climb the steep switchback road. For her part, Sophia was exhausted merely from riding all day in the bone-jarring vehicle. Its poor springs rattling over rough country roads had left her whole body sore.

She was glad they were stopping for the night, even if it was only to shelter in one of the large hollow caves so common in the Dordogne Valley, with all of its bizarre, sculpted rock formations in the ancient limestone.

She could certainly use the rest, but more important, any halt on their part gave Gabriel and her men a better chance of catching up.

This turn off the main road up into the mountains worried her, however. How were her friends to know they had changed course?

If she did not find some way to leave another clue for them, Gabriel might never realize that Kemal and his men had veered off the main highway. They could go riding right past the turn and end up ahead of them.

She racked her brain all the way up the long, slow drive through thick pine forest to the mountain's crest and the cave that the men finally chose for their shelter.

How on earth was Gabriel to find her up here?

Her captors seemed very familiar with their wilderness hiding place and she realized that they'd used it before. Sophia could have despaired-except that Gabriel had spent most of his career fighting on rugged Indian frontiers full of mountains and forests. He might not know this ground, but he knew how to operate in this type of setting.

She kept both hope and fear under wraps as she slid out of the carriage and looked around, stretching her back with a wince of pain.

Alexa was staring dazedly at nothing, but the men had begun carrying their supplies into the wide, yawning mouth of the cave where they had stopped. When she told her captors in haughty tones that she had to use the necessary, the Tunisian gestured at one of his underlings.

"Take her into the woods."

The woods? Sophia curled her lip, but in this wilderness, even a royal princess had little choice.

Her armed, swarthy captor made her walk ahead of him across the dirt road from the caves into the pine forest.

"You'd better not look."

"If you try to escape, I will shoot you."

"I'm not stupid," she retorted.

"Be quick about it."

Still stewing with anger to find herself in the power of these fiends, she walked farther into the woods, her footfalls m.u.f.fled by the deep bed of soft pine needles. Lord, it was much too cold for this. She kept looking for some way to signal Gabriel. All she saw was barren branches, sharp evergreen underbrush with red berries, probably poisonous.

"Hurry up!" her warden called.

"I'm trying!" she belted back. As she walked on deeper into the woods, she saw a sharp drop-off a few yards ahead.

"That's far enough!"

"I'm still here, don't look!"

She tiptoed toward the high ledge to try to gain a better sense of her location from atop that vantage point. When she reached the edge, she looked down and saw the winding, switchback road below.

Escape would have been nice, but it was too high to jump. On the other hand, if Gabriel was being watchful, he should be able to look up from the main road below and spot another clue from down there. What could she leave for him this time to signal where she was? She had nothing but the clothes on her back at this point. Well...

With a quick glance over her shoulder at her captor, who was pacing as he waited for her to return, she quickly slipped off her bright white petticoat from underneath her walking dress, and threw the whole white fluffy ma.s.s of fabric over the rocky ledge, holding her breath until it landed on the mountain road below.

There.

Hopefully he'd see it when he came along.

She was going to be very cold tonight without the extra layer of clothing, but any clues she could send her rescuers was of greater value to her now. She just hoped they managed to spot it before it got much darker out.

"You must be done! Get back here or I'm coming after you now!"

"I'm coming!" When she strode back to her captor, he glared at her for making him wait.

Holding his rifle diagonally across his body, he gestured at her to go ahead of him again.

Sophia did so, measuring out a small exhalation of relief once her back was to him. She crossed the road again, but as they neared the cave, she heard a commotion from inside.

Then Alexa screamed.

Immediately, Sophia rushed toward the cave. She could not see her friend-the laughing men had Alexa on the ground and were cl.u.s.tered around her-but she could hear her and she could feel her terror.

"Stop it! Leave me alone! Help!"

Sophia did not know what came over her in that instant. Pure, blind rage.

The man who had escorted her into the woods was right behind her. Sensing trouble, his hand clamped down on her shoulder. Without warning, Sophia spun around and smashed the heel of her fist upward into his nose, jamming his head back and throwing him off balance.

She yanked the rifle out of his hands and ran into the cave to her fellow female's rescue.

"Leave her alone!"

The cretins cursed and scattered; she knew not how she put herself between them and her sobbing childhood playmate, but the next thing she knew, she was in a standoff with herself and one rifle against six heavily armed Janissary warriors.

Why she was not dead in the next instant, she did not know. But for reasons known only to them, they left her alive. They all just looked at her, an ugly light gleaming in their eyes.

They exchanged uneasy glances.

"You will not touch her," she ground out, her teeth clenched. "Stay behind me, Alexa."

Their leader, Kemal the Tunisian, walked into the cave just then with a map in his hand. Sophia supposed he had been taking the lay of the land, but he cursed when he saw their standoff and stalked over into their midst.

"What is going on here?"

His men glanced at him sheepishly and then at each other.

"Your men were considering breaking their Janissary vows, monsieur. Or are you all mere hypocrites? This wrong you would do my friend offends Islam, does it not?"

The Tunisian pushed one of his men roughly out of the way and rebuked him in his native tongue. Then he turned to her and put out his hand. "Give me the gun, Your Highness. You cannot win here."

"Back up unless you want a hole in your s.h.i.+rt!"

"It is not wise of you to threaten me. Why would you protect her when she betrayed you, anyway?"

"You wouldn't understand. You aren't human."

"Threats and insults, too? Are you brave, or mad, or merely foolish, Princess?" Their onyx-eyed leader stepped forward. "I have a threat for you. No-a promise," he corrected himself. "You pull that trigger, and by Allah, you will both regret it. We do not need you alive; we merely prefer it that way. But if you provoke us, what happens to you will be your own fault."

Sophia looked him in the eyes. "I am not afraid of you," she whispered with her finger on the trigger.

"Give me the gun."

"Give me your oath that you will not let your men lay a hand on us. Swear it on your Book."

Alexa was crying behind her. They were either both going to die very soon or they would get through this together. But neither of them would be raped.

The Tunisian stared at Sophia for a long moment. "Very well, little lioness. I will not permit my men to touch you or your stupid friend. They need me to remind them of their Janissary oath." He cast an angry glance around at his men. "Besides, I'm sure Ali Pasha would prefer you intact, anyway."

"Ali Pasha?" she breathed.

"Now give me the rifle. Come. Do we have a deal?"

Sophia stared at him, at a loss. Promises to infidels didn't count, but she realized if she did not give up the weapon, they would kill her and Alexa in a trice.

Ali Pasha?

Good G.o.d, was that where they were taking her? Delivering her to the Terrible Turk himself? How she wished in that moment that her suspicions about him had been wrong all along.

"The rifle, Your Highness," Kemal urged her. "What's it going to be? You've got one bullet. Squeeze the trigger, and you're the one who'll end up full of holes. Or you can live."

Though it took all of her strength and self-control, she turned the rifle sideways and handed it over.

He gave her a polite smirk as he accepted it. "Stay over there. Both of you." He jerked a nod toward the cave wall. "I will remind my men of their manners." With that, he walked away and unleashed a rapid, incomprehensible tirade on his men. They looked ashamed.

And so did Alexa. "Thank you. Oh, thank you, Sophia," the girl whispered, trembling.

"We'll see if he keeps his word," she replied as both women huddled by the cave wall.

Having heard the news about their destination, Sophia was now quite as terrified as Alexa was. But she did her best to hide it.

"Sophia-I'm so sorry!" The sob from her traitorous lady-in-waiting tore at her heart.

She looked over at her traumatized companion, feeling reluctantly merciful. It was a little late for apologies, but she did not have the heart to say so.

Instead, she touched Alexa's shoulder in a token of forgiveness. "It'll be all right," she murmured. "Don't worry. Colonel Knight and the others will find us."

"They'll save you, maybe. But they're going to leave me to die. I know they will-after that!"

"They will not leave you to die," she answered wearily. "You know them better than that."

Alexa kept crying while Sophia inhaled a shaky breath and braced herself upright against the rough stone wall behind her. Hurry, Gabriel.

She sent out the very whisper of her heart to him to save them. In this, her hour of greatest need, it was not in her bodyguards that she placed her faith, nor in the prince of Denmark. She knew her true mate was coming to find her.

Her guardian angel.

Her knight.

Her message on the silk scarf, written in ladies' cosmetics, had given them several pieces of valuable information. It read: + + 11 E.

As Timo had explained, it meant that both she and Alexa were there, that they were both all right, they were not hurt. There were eleven enemy fighters, and they were heading due east.

The news that Sophia was still unharmed came as a blessing to all of them and buoyed up their strength for what was sure to be another long night. Pounding doggedly down the main road through the beautiful French countryside, they kept their eyes open for any fresh sign from Sophia.

In the fading light of evening, they almost missed the distant bit of white fluff lying in the middle of a steep road that wound up into the mountains. But Gabriel spotted it through his telescope as he rode on, constantly scanning the landscape through his lens. At once, he held up his gloved fist to signal the men to a halt.

"What is it, Colonel?"

"Did you see something?"

"There. Some white object in the road." Reining in his blowing mount, he looked again through the telescope and found the object once more through the lens.

It had been hard to make out while his horse had been in motion, and even now, as they came to a stop, he still could not tell for certain what it was. The distance was too great.

"Markos, what do you make of it?"

The eagle-eyed sharpshooter urged his horse up beside Gabriel's and stared for a moment through his own spygla.s.s.

"Can you tell what it is?"

Markos lowered the telescope slowly from his eye and turned to him with a grim expression. "I think it might be a body."

"A body?" Demetrius echoed.

Markos eyed them uneasily. "It looks like something in a gown."

"They wouldn't," Timo whispered. "He must be wrong. Why would they kill her?"

"They tried before."

"But it could be nothing!"

"We have to make sure," Gabriel said.

Niko was shaking his head. "It doesn't look like anything to me, and riding up there to investigate is going to cost us precious time. We've got to stay on their tails!"