Releasing Henry Read online

  Cover Copy

  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, Alya 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 Alya—and together will they find a common ground on which to build a future?

  Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Books by Sarah Hegger

  Sir Arthur’s Legacy Series

  Sweet Bea

  My Lady Faye

  Conquering William

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Releasing Henry

  A Sir Arthur’s Legacy Novel

  Sarah Hegger

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Copyright

  Lyrical Press books are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by Sarah Hegger

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund- raising, and educational or institutional use.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager:

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Attn. Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  Lyrical Press and the L logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  First Electronic Edition: August 2017

  eISBN-13: 978-1-60183-915-2

  eISBN-10: 1-60183-915-4

  First Print Edition: August 2017

  ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-918-3

  ISBN-10: 1-60183-918-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To Penny. What a long way we’ve come together.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, I owe this book to so many people. Thanks to Martin Biro and all the people at Lyrical and their faith in this series. Thanks to my awesome author support network—you know who you are, and you know how much you mean to me. This books marks the end of the Sir Arthur’s Legacy series, and I want to send my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who read the series and took this journey with me. Without you, we wouldn’t have made it through to book 5.

  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.”

  Chapter 2

  Bahir had it in his head to be a whoreson this evening. At the completion of prayers, he had English fill the water barrels beside the house. Not a duty English minded because it meant a trip outside the walls to the well at the end of the street. After that Bahir had him sweep the courtyard within and then bring his broom and follow him to the master’s private courtyard.

  Night had fallen over Cairo. Above him the velvet black sky threw out a glorious mantle of stars. Countless needle pricks in the vast fabric of the night. With night came the sudden cold, but English did not mind the cold. At times, when he lay on his bare pallet in the slaves’ quarters the chill on the air took his mind to a white blanket of snow, and blurred faces huddling around great hearths.

  “Bahir.” The master greeted the giant eunuch.

  “Sahib.” Bahir bowed low. With skin as dark as night, Bahir’s oiled scalp shone in the flickering oil lamps.

  “We must speak.” Master gestured to him. “We should send him away.”

  Both gazes swung his way and English went about his business of sweeping.

  “That one.” Bahir snorted like a giant bull. “The English does not speak our tongue. One too many blows to the head with steel.”

  Except English did speak their tongue. He kept his head over his broom. The gentle whisk whisk over the mosaics broke the silence. Bahir used the French tongue with him and, in a small rebellion from which he drew a measure of satisfaction, English guarded his secret understanding of Arabic.

  “You heard the news from the suq?” With a groan, Master sank into the cushions. For a man not accustomed to resting his ass on the floor, the Arabic custom of cushions before low tables played havoc with the knees.

  Bahir poured the fragrant jasmine tea into cups so fine they caught the light behind them. “Amadore was not well liked, but his reputation was unblemished.”

  “They grow bolder.” The master sighed and broke off a piece of basbousa. Once over Ramadan, English had been given the sweet treat. “But there is more.”

  Bahir folded his hands in front of him and waited.

  “The news has not yet reached the streets, but they killed Amadore’s family as well.”

  Bahir bowed his head. “Enna lillah wa enna elaihe Rajioun.”

  “God save us all.” Master chewed his basbousa and stared into the night. “It was brutal they say.”

  When amongst those he trusted, Master dropped his piety and reverted to his former religion.

  “The Sultan does nothing.” Master drank his tea. “He cannot risk being seen to take sides in this conflict.”

  Bahir refilled his tea and stood back again, huge hands folded before him. “Your mind is troubled, Sahib.”

  “They will come for me.” Standing, Master brushed crumbs from his tunic. “Someone will remember me as the Genovese merchant Pietro D’Onofrio. We can no longer pretend it is not so.”

  “You cannot be sure of this,” Bahir said. “Cairo has known you as Alif Al-Rasheed for longer than twenty years.”

  “People have long memories. Amadore lived here before I even arrived. He showed me how to go on in those first days.” Hands clasped behind his back, Master strolled to the pond. “It is not for myself that I worry and I cannot take the chance I may be right.”

  “Alya.” Bahir nodded.

  Alya. English moved closer, his broom stirring the dust beneath the arbor that provided shade in the midday heat. Moonlight through the vines cast ghostly shadows on the mosaicked floors.

  “She is different,” Master said. “We both know this. God forgive me, but I raised her that way.”

  “What is it you wish from me, Sahib?” Whispers spoke of the master having purchased Bahir from a harem in Acre and bringing him to Cairo. Stronger than an ox and able to swing his curved blade with deadly precision, his lack of ballocks had not tamed Bahir any.

  “Take her away, Bahir.”

  English stopped sweeping. Aware Bahir’s gaze had swung his way, he bent as if to pick something up from the ground.

  “Sahib?” Bahir strode closer to the master. “Take her where? To Damietta?”

  “Further.” Master raised his head and met Bahir’s hard look.

  “Acre? Damascus?”

  “Further.” Dropping his head, Master slumped. “Take her back to my kind, my old friend. Take her where her strangeness will not stand out so much.” />
  “Will they welcome her?” Bahir ran his hand over his face. “She has not been raised one of them.”

  English worked his broom into the corners so he could stay and hear the rest of their conversation.

  “I am aware.” Master shrugged. “But at least I give her this chance at life.”

  “But she is your daughter. The moon in your night.”

  “She is my everything.” Master cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “I will remain here. I have not in me the strength to begin my life a third time.” When Bahir would speak, he held up his hand. “Nay. I am decided in this. I will remain here. At the least it will take them time to realize she is gone.”

  Bahir stood, staring at the master.

  “You are decided in this?” Bahir said.

  “I am.” Master nodded. “I have a ship waiting for you at Alexandria. It will take you wherever you need to go. I have loaded it with everything you will need. Most of my wealth goes with you.”

  * * * *

  His girl on the wall was leaving. Bahir was commanded to take his light away. English laughed at his own idiocy. A slave had no place in his life for bright dreams.

  “Hssst!”

  English stopped. Huge protruding eyes holding his gaze as she chewed her cud, a she-camel stared back at him. The master’s fears must be affecting his mind. Next, he would see haunts in the deep shadows around the beast pens.

  Louder this time, more insistent. “Hssst!”

  The habits of a lifetime had him reaching for a weapon that had not ridden his hip for three years. He bent and picked up a rock. “Who is there?”

  “Henry?”