Free Lady Of Fire by Tamara Leigh Page A

she exercise caution lest a guard caught sight of her. Though it could not have taken more than a handful of minutes to cautiously traverse the garden, it felt tenfold that.
    Upon reaching the gate, she eased it open and winced when its hinges creaked. Lest she needed to make a hasty retreat, she left it ajar.
    Staying low, she hastened toward the low-lying building that housed the eunuchs. As she neared, excitement rippled through her. It was a long time since she had undertaken such an adventure, and the opportunity would have been denied her had Jabbar not dismissed Sabine’s accusations against Leila. After speaking with those present in the garden that day, he had pardoned his first wife of wrongdoing. Thus, Lucien had been excused from the duty of guarding Alessandra’s apartment and now slept in the eunuchs’ quarters where he would not be required to clothe himself head to toe.
    Thankful she was slender, Alessandra squeezed behind the bushes that lined the back of the building and picked her way along the wall. At each window, she peered inside to determine which of the eunuchs slept there. Aided by the slant of moonlight, she eliminated one after another of those who most often passed the night unclothed, shoulders and backs bare above light coverings.
    Beginning to wonder if Lucien had been given quarters elsewhere, she felt a rush of relief when she peered into the last room. Though he faced away from her on a pallet against the far wall, she knew it was him from the width of a bare back crossed with shadows. Only Khalid was as large.
    She considered the first obstacle—the covering down around Lucien’s waist. As children, Rashid and she had stolen into the eunuchs’ quarters one night and found the first—and last—of the men they had happened upon completely bared. Alessandra had hoped to find Lucien in a similar state, but she would have to venture within to have her answer. More disconcerting, his covering must be drawn back. Could she do it without awakening him?
    She eyed his tapered hips, the wide expanse of back and shoulders that swelled with muscle, told herself she did not feel any of the sensations that warmed her, reminded herself to whom she was betrothed.
    I do this only to gain the answer denied me, she reminded herself. Naught else.
    Naught else? a voice derided, questioning her restlessness that had grown since Lucien’s arrival. Before, she had been able to stifle it sufficiently to bring it under control. Now, his glance that seemed to see into her soul, his touch that made her lose her breath, his kiss—
    Naught else! she rebuked and raised her gaze to Lucien’s uncovered head that was mostly in shadow. What color was his hair? It looked somewhere between yellow and brown. Having only been exposed to dark and red hair, she longed to see it better. And she would if she could finish what she had begun.
    Returning her gaze to his back, it struck her that the shadows upon it were not uniform as they should be were they thrown by what she had assumed were the lattice coverings. A glance left and right confirming this window, unlike her own, was not fit with lattices, she wondered how his back came to be criss-crossed with dark lines.
    The answer struck, though surely not as fiercely as the whip that had scarred him.
    As if her own back burned with the cruel punishment, she imagined the pain of such torture and better understood the anger she had glimpsed when she had asked how he had become a slave.
    It nearly made her abandon her quest to know if he was a eunuch, but she had not come this far to leave the question unanswered.
    She placed her hands on the windowsill and carefully hoisted herself onto the ledge. Crouching there, she watched Lucien to ensure she had not disturbed his sleep. When the breath moving his shoulders remained constant, she lowered to the floor and crept forward.
    Squatting at his feet, she peered up his body into his shadowed face. He continued to sleep.
    She eyed