Captive (54 page)

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, very concerned.

“I’m fine. I’m just jet-lagged.”

It was clear that he didn’t believe her. “Want me to walk you somewhere?”

“No. Give me a call later,” Alex said.

Joseph nodded, his gaze riveted on her face. “Okay. I’ll call you this evening.”

“That would be nice,” Alex said very hoarsely.

He waved and walked away.

Alex sagged against the stacks, watching him until he was gone. Then she ripped open the book, going to the index. She intended to read every single reference there was to Xavier Blackwell.

It was as Joseph had said. History had been rewritten. For all time.

And then Alex began to shake violently as the author described Blackwell’s rescue of an anonymous American woman held in captivity in Tripoli for three years. Tears fell. Her heart seemed to be breaking all over again.

But the author hadn’t gotten it right. According to Roberts, Blackwell had found the woman inside of the palace, not outside the front gates. Alex didn’t care. Roberts’s version made Xavier seem more heroic, although God knew, that was hardly possible.

It was hard to see. She paused to wipe her eyes before reading the last sentences on the subject. And Alex cried out.

A
LEX STUMBLED HOME
.

The moment she unlocked her apartment door, she was violently ill. She rushed to the bathroom where she vomited her meager breakfast.

Alex clung to the toilet, gasping for air. She had not just rewritten history, dear God, she had become a part of it. Tears filled her eyes.

And apparently her sudden disappearance from the
Constitution
had been explained in the only possible manner—someone had suggested that she had fallen overboard and drowned. The captain and crew would have believed that. But surely Blackwell had not. He had, after all, witnessed her vanishing act. Alex sank down on her buttocks on the floor, rubbing her swollen, red-rimmed eyes.

She was so goddamned tired.

And it was over. It was truly over. Xavier had died more than a century ago, assuming he had lived until a ripe old age. He and his wife had had children; Blackwell Shipping was a major international company now, not a small, struggling dinosaur. There was a Blackwell heir.

It was over. She had found him, only to lose him. Alex did not know if she could bear it. She did not know if she could let go. She did not want to even try to let go. Instead, she wanted to cling to each and every precious memory.

“Alex?”

Alex heard Beth but did not answer her.

Beth came to the bathroom. “Alex! What—have you been sick again?”

Alex had vomited last night, too. “It’s only from the time-traveling. It’s a helluvalot worse than jet lag.” She could not summon up a smile.

“Alex, maybe you have a virus. You were in Tripoli. You should go to the doctor. You don’t look well.”

Alex got to her feet and ran the water in order to wash her face. “I’m not well. I’m exhausted and heartbroken. Nothing more.” She turned off the tap and faced her friend grimly. “I went to the library. We did change history, Beth. Blackwell is now a hero. They even teach about him in elementary school.” She got so choked up that she could not continue.

Beth regarded her soberly, with concern.

Alex wandered out of the bathroom. “God, I am so depressed.”

“You have to forget him,” Beth said firmly.

“Never. Not in a million years.” Alex shivered. She was romantic enough to believe in reincarnation. Maybe she and Blackwell would find each other in another lifetime. Surely a love so strong would endure through all the ages.

“Alex, go see Dr. Goldman. I use him; he’s really good. He’s kind, too. He’ll give you something for your depression. At least you’ll be able to go back to work on your thesis.”

Alex shook her head. Her spirits had just sunk impossibly lower. Fresh grief was rising up in her. She sat down hard on her bed. “I can’t work on my thesis now.”

“Alex, don’t be a fool! You can be depressed, remain incapacitated, or you can see Goldman and get a mild prescription to lift your spirits and help you get over this.”

“But I don’t care,” Alex said thickly.

“But I do,” Beth said flatly.

Beth took her to see Goldman that afternoon. The cab ride made Alex queasy, but she said nothing to her friend, resolving not to become ill for the second time that day. But the moment they entered the doctor’s office, Alex gasped, her tone strangled, “I have to use the rest room!”

The receptionist eyed her over the rim of her tortoiseshell glasses. “First door on your left.”

Alex barely made it to the bathroom before giving in to another vicious bout of nausea. Maybe Beth was right, she thought when she could finally stand, a good five minutes later. Maybe she was truly ill, perhaps even with some foreign virus.

Goldman was in his seventies if he was a day. He smiled cheerfully at Alex, regarding her through thick horn-rimmed spectacles, while asking her what was wrong. Alex hesitated, then told him that someone had died, someone very close to her, and she was incapable of functioning. She started to cry as she spoke. He listened very sympathetically. She finally mentioned that she also had a stomach flu.

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that,” he said kindly.

He asked her many questions while he examined her. “I’ll run some blood tests. Considering you just got back from Libya.” He smiled again. “When was your last period?”

Alex blinked. “I …” She stopped, trying to think. Time had become scrambled up in her head. “Why?” Surely he didn’t think what she was thinking he thought!

“Could you be pregnant?”

Alex stared at him, stunned. “No! That’s impossible!”

“All right.”

But her mind raced as he listened to her lungs and chest. She’d had sex. Last night, which didn’t count, and a few weeks ago. Without using any contraception. Her last cycle had been, she decided, six weeks ago—she was late. But she could not be pregnant. Absolutely not. Very faintly, Alex said, “I’m two weeks late. I did have sex about three weeks ago. We”—she turned red—“didn’t use a thing.”

His eyes widened. “Not even condoms? Dear girl, this is the age of AIDS.” He immediately shoved three pamphlets into her hands.

Alex stared down, her eyes tearing. Not in the nineteenth century, it’s not, she thought.

“You’ll have to give me some urine.”

Alex nodded. Not wanting to tell him that, come to think
of it, about a day or two ago her breasts had begun to feel strange—both heavy and sore.

She called Goldman’s office at 10:00
A.M.
the following morning just as she had been told to do. The test results, the nurse told her cheerfully, were positive.

Alex hung up in shock.

She was pregnant. Yet it didn’t seem possible. And with whose child? Xavier’s? Or Jebal’s? She remained motionless and stunned. How could this be happening? How could she be pregnant with the child of either man, both of whom were dead for over a century?

Alex could not move.
Dear God, the child had to be Xavier’s.
And suddenly she knew,
she knew,
with absolute certainty, that the child was Blackwell’s. That it was their love child, that it was Destiny’s child. No other outcome was possible, not when her love had been so strong to send her to Blackwell in the first place.

And it hit her then with brutal clarity that she did not want to remain in the twentieth century. She wanted to go back to him, even if they couldn’t be together. She wanted to live in the same century with him, in the same town. To be able to see him, even from a distance, even if infrequently.

Alex began to cry. At least now she knew why she was so overwrought and emotional. But crying would not do her any good. Crying and self-pity were not going to take her back through time.

Alex tried to think. She had assumed that the oil lamp had sent her to the nineteenth century in the first place. But she had returned to the future without that lamp, which had been left somewhere in the palace by Zoe, either that or destroyed. How had she returned that second time? What common denominator was there?

It took Alex an instant to decide. She had traveled to Tripoli in search of Xavier, desperately in love with him, obsessively in love with him. On board the
Constitution,
his confession had filled her with a rage the likes of which she had never before experienced. Had her love sent her to him in the first place? Had her rage returned her to the twentieth century?

She knew what she had to do. Alex stood and picked up
the phone, booking herself a seat on the next commuter plane to Boston. Excitement flooded her. Her depression was gone.

She stood in front of Blackwell House trying to recover her wits. Blackwell House was not a museum. The Blackwells still lived there, and tonight they were having a party.

The house was magnificent, freshly painted, carefully maintained, right down to the shingles on the roof and the dark green shutters and the redbrick chimneys. At some point, someone had had the house moved back on the lot, so that it now sat in the middle of the property. The landscaping had changed as well. Stately elms and oaks were everywhere, pines lined the property’s perimeter, as did a high brick wall topped with a dangerous-looking iron fence. Blooming red roses rioted against the sides of the house. There was a graceful circular drive in front of the house that hadn’t been there before, and it was filled to overflowing with Mercedeses, Jaguars, Ferraris, and limousines.

But it was Blackwell House. The structure of the house itself hadn’t changed.

Alex hesitated. The wrought-iron front gates were wide open. No security guards stood there. And even from this distance, she could hear laughter and conversation and the strains of a band drifting across the groomed green lawns and the island in the center of the drive. Her pulse was pounding. She made up her mind and walked up the drive.

If only she had known, she thought dryly, she would have worn a cocktail dress. She was clad in a denim shirt, a big brown belt, her Levi’s, and lug-soled ankle boots. There was no way she could crash the party without being noticed immediately. Except, of course, as the help.

She ignored the chauffeurs who eyed her as she passed their limos. How she had changed. She knew they were looking at her not because she was inappropriately dressed, but because she was a beautiful woman. Blackwell had given her that.

Alex slowly walked up the front steps.

She wondered if his ghost would come to her as he had the last time she was at Blackwell House. She stood very still, her heart fluttering, waiting, filled with anticipation. She felt nothing around her. Nothing—no one. A vast disappointment settled upon her.

Alex wasn’t sure how long she stood on the front porch as the party continued inside, hoping desperately for a visit from Blackwell, but when a male voice sounded directly in her ear, she started, whirling.

“Hey, I asked you if you were lost,” a young man said.

Alex could not move. The boy was perhaps nineteen or twenty. But he looked so much like Xavier that she was frozen. He could have been Xavier’s son.

His eyes also widened. Then traveled over her appreciatively. “Can I help?” He smiled then. His smile was different, wider and dimpled, not Xavier’s at all, and Alex relaxed somewhat.

He was holding out his hand. “I’m Black. At least, that’s what I’ve been called ever since junior high. My real name’s Xavier. But it’s sort of a mouthful.” His eyes danced.

Alex managed to nod. Telling herself that she would not cry. How beautiful he was, this descendant of Xavier’s.

“I was named after an ancestor of mine,” he continued, his eyes curious.

“I know,” she managed thickly.

“Are you going to cry? Have I upset you?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Maybe you had better come inside. How about a drink?” He was holding her arm.

Alex nodded again, breathing shallowly, her heart racing. Black took her hand now. He was young, but his grip was possessive and firm.

They entered the foyer. How it had changed.

The oak floors were dark brown now, unscratched, polished and gleaming. A huge chandelier was overhead. The runners on the staircase Just ahead of Alex were crimson and new, with running lines of gold and blue. An iron banister replaced what had once been wood. Beautiful, expensive furniture, most of it European antiques, was everywhere.

“Come on in,” Black said, regarding her with dark probing eyes.

“Maybe I’ll wait here,” Alex said, hating herself for what she intended to do—for using this young man. But how he would understand if he knew the truth.

“Okay. But my dad wouldn’t mind, really. He has a shark-like reputation in business, which is crucial today if you’re
gonna survive and thrive, but socially he’s a great guy.”

“I’ll wait,” Alex murmured.

“White wine?”

Alex thought of the new life growing inside of her. “A Perrier, please.”

He grinned and sauntered toward the grand salon.

The moment he was gone, Alex glanced around, saw that she was alone, and dashed up the stairs.

She took them two at a time, panting, her heart pounding. Upstairs she headed directly for his room. Not even pausing, she swung his door open wide.

Alex cried out.

She had, for some stupid reason, expected to see an ancient four-poster bed, a small pine desk, an armoire and chest. But this lushly appointed room was as different as possible, opulent in its appointments, from the red and white floral fabric on the walls to the gold silk canopy on the bed. Clearly the Blackwell patriarch had a wife. Her touch was evident everywhere.

Nevertheless, this had been his room, and Alex closed the bedroom door and leaned against it, out of breath and trembling. “Where are you?” she whispered, agonized. “I miss you so much. I need you so much. I don’t really want your ghost, but if that is all I can have, I’ll settle. Xavier?”