RELEASING
HENRY
Sir
Arthur's Legacy #5
by
Sarah Hegger
Genre: Historical Romance
Pub
Date: 8/29/2017
A light
in the darkness . . .
The
youngest son of Anglesea, the once idealistic Henry has survived the
Holy Pilgrimage, but lost all his deeply held beliefs in honor and
nobility. Captured in battle, he is sold as a slave into the home of
Alif Al-Rasheed, a wealthy Genovese merchant who has converted to
Islam. Bereft of faith, imprisoned in a foreign land, Henry has lost
hope in his ability to love again—until he lays eyes on his
captor’s beguiling daughter.
A
marriage of opposites . . .
To Henry,
Alya is a beacon of beauty he cannot ignore. But the heart of this
proud daughter of Cairo will not be won so easily. Divided by
religion, language, and culture, Ayla has little in common with the
disillusioned Englishman—and yet he has vowed to protect her life
in exchange for his freedom. As they embark on a perilous journey to
safety, their bond will grow—and be tested—in ways neither can
anticipate. For their greatest challenges will arise where Henry
least expects. With threats conspiring to divide them, will he find
the strength to stand by Ayla—and together will they find a common
ground on which to build a future?
Chapter 1
A mix of dust, goat, and spices of a hundred evening cook
fires infused the air. Cumin, coriander, and cinnamon twined together and made
English’s mouth water. Sunset splashed the sky above Cairo in burnt orange,
growing brighter closer to the fiery ball sinking behind the soaring minaret.
He tried to remember the name of that mosque, but his head didn’t work like it
used to.
After herding a small flock of goats into their pens for
the night, he ended his working day with the soft click of the latch.
From the city beyond the walls came the wail of a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.
“Allah is great; Allah is great.”
The inner
courtyard emptied as people sought their prayer mats. “I bear witness that
there is no divinity but Allah.”
English bore witness
to no divinity, and he did not pray. At one time, in another land and to another god, he
might have.
Drawn to the heat the stones gathered during the day, he
pressed his aching back to the wall and waited.
Like him, she did not pray.
The girl on the wall. He knew her name
as Alya, had heard it called often enough, but to him she remained the
girl on the wall.
Curtains fluttered at the open doorway on the roof
balcony. Here she came. For certain,
she remained unaware of him concealed in the deepening shadows and watching. To be caught with his eyes on her now
would mean Bahir and his whip. Still he waited, would not move from this spot
until he saw her.
There. A slim figure shrouded by
her hijab.
The girl on the wall stopped at
the parapet and faced the street. She
pushed aside the niqab,
which concealed all but her eyes. Then, she lifted her hijab and shook her hair free.
It spilled down her back as she raised her face in a silent blessing to the day
that passed. Dying sunlight rushed to pay tribute to her loveliness. Her hair
dark and lustrous as the wood of the
wild cherry that grew in a thicket he had once walked, her skin like crushed
almonds.
Not that he could see from this
distance, but her eyes above her niqab
were lighter than he would
have expected. A mix of green and brown that he had only glimpsed in passing
before she hastily lowered her head. He wouldn’t call her beautiful
in the way of other women now hazy in his
mind. Her chin held too firm a jut, her nose slightly
hawk-like. The strong
slash of her cheekbones bore testament to her mixed blood. She had a strong
face, fascinating, and in her private moment
on the rooftop her
elemental fire drew him like a starving
man to a feast. Her very essence called to that barely
living part of him that remembered life in abundance. In her evening ritual,
she discarded the modesty she showed during the
day.
She believed the rest of the household
to be at prayer and in these forbidden moments before she would
be called in, or admonished by the
older woman who always accompanied her, English
became a man again.
* * *
“Come in, Alya.” Nasira beckoned from beyond the
curtains. The old woman knew Alya
well enough to end her prayers early
and drag her back
inside before anyone else saw her. Creases
on Nasira’s craggy features meant
another lecture on the way.
As Alya reached the point on the rooftop garden where her
hoarse whisper could be heard Nasira started. “You
show your face like a street woman.” Nasira shook her head. “What will
people think when they see you like so?”
“Nobody sees me.” Alya pushed the gauzy curtains aside. A stiffening evening breeze sent them
dancing around her. “I only do it
when nobody else is about.”
“Somebody is always about.” Grabbing a brush, Nasira
motioned for Alya to sit. “Especially now.”
“Why especially now?” Nasira’s tone gave Alya pause. She
tried to turn and look at her.
Nasira rapped her on the head with her brush. “Stay
still. Your father has called for you to attend him after prayers.”
“He did?” They always ate the
evening meal together.
Huge frown creasing her brows, Nasira nodded. “There has
been trouble, habibti. In the suq today.”
Trouble in the suq hardly deserved the look of doom
Nasira’s face. Trouble blew perpetually through the suq. One merchant squabbled
with another, buyers quibbled over prices, and the constant thieves threaded
through the place like snakes, always looking for the chance to strike. “What
happened?”
“I will let your father tell you, but it is
bad. Bad.” Nasira lowered her head in obeisance. “Enna lillah wa enna elaihe Rajioun.”
“Did someone die?” Alya swung about on the stool, wincing as Nasira’s hold on her hair tugged at the
roots.
“You ask too many questions.” Nasira grabbed her
shoulders and turned her about again. “Your father will tell you all you need
to know.”
Her nurse should know better than to think she would
leave it there. “But someone did die?”
“Come.” Nasira bustled to her clothing and grabbed a
fresh tunic. “I sent the boy for water, you must wash and attend your father.”
A new tunic meant the news her father bore was weighty. She washed and dressed quickly,
flinging her veil over her shoulder as she trotted out of her chamber and down the stairs to the small, inner
courtyard shaded on one end, where her father and she shared their evening
meals. The table lay set for their meal but her father sat beside a small pond,
staring into the water.
His skin was so darkened by the
sun, a stranger could never tell he had not been born in this land, but had
come from somewhere beyond the sea. “Alya.” Holding his hands out, he smiled
and drew her forward for a
kiss on both
cheeks. “Nasira tells me you have been on the roof again.” “The sunset was
particularly beautiful today.” She could always get
around him with a
bit of teasing. He smelled as he always did of silk and spices, and fruit
tobacco from his hookah.
Tonight, he turned from her and went back to his study of
the pool. “You need to be careful, Alya.”
“What happened in the suq?” Father dressed, ate, spoke,
acted and even prayed as a son of this land, but he had raised her differently. Nasira warned his indulgence of her would come to no good, but Alya had always been encouraged to speak openly
with her father.
“A merchant was killed.” Father trailed his fingers
through the water. Flashes of light glimmered beneath the surface as fish
darted away from him. “A foreign merchant. He was murdered.”
“Why?” Alya sank to the low stone lip of the pond. Her father acted
not
as himself
this evening. Dread prickled across her skin and sunk deep into her belly.
“What are you not telling me?”
“The tension between the local merchants and the
foreigners grows worse.” With a sigh, he sat beside her and rubbed the back of
his neck. “And the Sultan does nothing to aid the foreigners. What, with the
same battle taking place in his palace, his hands are tied.”
“But why?”
“You know why?”
Father looked up at her. She had her eyes from him,
a mix of green and brown that marked them clearly as not from here.
Alya nodded, she did know why.
“The army of unbelievers.”
Even now, years after the Nile had risen
and forced the invaders to flee,
the distrust lingered.
“You must be more careful than ever.” Father captured her
hand and squeezed. “Eyes are everywhere and looking for a way to discredit us.”
When dripped with venom from the wrong tongue, her simple
act of freedom on the walls at sunset could take on the worst of connotations.
She nodded. “I will be more careful.”
“Let us enjoy our dinner.” Father smiled but the worry
lingered. “And then I must see Bahir.”
Born
British and raised in South Africa, Sarah Hegger suffers from an
incurable case of wanderlust. Her match? A Canadian engineer, whose
marriage proposal she accepted six short weeks after they first met.
Together they’ve made homes in seven different cities across three
different continents (and back again once or twice). If only it made
her multilingual, but the best she can manage is idiosyncratic
English, fluent Afrikaans, conversant Russian, pigeon Portuguese,
even worse Zulu and enough French to get herself into trouble.
Mimicking her globetrotting adventures, Sarah’s career path began
as a gainfully employed actress, drifted into public relations,
settled a moment in advertising, and eventually took root in the
fertile soil of her first love, writing. She also moonlights as a
wife and mother. She currently lives in Colorado with her teenage
daughters, two Golden Retrievers and aforementioned husband. Part
footloose buccaneer, part quixotic observer of life, Sarah’s
restless heart is most content when reading or writing books.
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2 comments:
This series is new to me but the synopsis and chapter excerpt are intriguing. Sounds like another must read to me. Thanks so much for posting.
Thank you for hosting
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