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it was the slave girl Morgiana who saved the day again and again, and who was, in the end, rewarded for her cleverness and her resolve.
    And that hint of understanding on the Persian’s part was an enchantment far more powerful than that of any mere story, no matter how fantastical.
    Even after he lay down in his bedroll, she kept studying him. Amah had warned her, when she turned fourteen, to beware of mindless attachment to a man. She had not given the advice much credence then: Just because Amah had lost her head over some wastrel didn’t mean Ying-ying would.
    Now she was beginning to understand what Amah had meant: It was not something one could ignore. When she made herself look elsewhere, a few seconds later her eyes were again fastened to him, as if the very sight of him offered sustenance. Worse, she wanted to touch his turban, and thefabric of his robe—perhaps even his beard, a quick graze with the back of her hand, for an idea of its texture.
    Amah would counsel her to leave now, slip away in the night. Ying-ying ought to. But she only wrapped her arms about her knees, listened to the tranquil rhythm of his breaths, and gazed upon him until the fire sputtered and turned to ashes.

CHAPTER 3
The Window
     
    England
    1891
    M ost of the time, Leighton Atwood could hike for fifteen miles and not feel a twinge of discomfort, his limbs as fresh and nimble as those of an adolescent. This state of health and well-being would go on for weeks, sometimes months. And then, without warning, without rhyme or reason, the agony would return, like a hook piercing through his flesh.
    In much the same way, the girl from Chinese Turkestan would fade from mind, long enough for him to almost believe that she no longer mattered to him. To almost cease turning sharply in the street when a dark-haired woman of similar figure and gait passed by. But the memories always came back: her face in the firelight, her laughter, the dirty overcoat she had worn as part of her disguise, the embroidery on the lapels hopelessly soiled.
    He preferred the physical torment. Pain as a matter of seared nerves cleared the mind beautifully. He took no laudanum and forced himself to never curtail his activitiesduring those attacks, to walk, ride, and even run, launching himself headlong at the pain.
    Against the pain of
her
, however, there was little he could do. He would jerk awake at night, unable to breathe for the weight on his heart. There were others he missed as ferociously, but they were dead, whereas she was presumably still alive, still somewhere in this world.
    He had not recognized the woman who came with Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Chase. She was different—that much he had sensed instantly. But he had not connected the subdued, almost fragile-looking woman in the old-fashioned brown traveling dress to the girl who had stolen his heart with her swagger and vitality.
    Until he looked into her eyes, the color of the Atlantic in winter, and understood the joke fate had chosen to play.
    The chaos inside him had been such that he forgot the pain in his leg, which, until that moment, had demanded nearly all his attention, so that he would not lose his balance to the next spike of agony.
    He could only hope he appeared normal at luncheon: It was all he could do to not stare at her. It was her, of that much there could be no doubt. But to experience her speaking the Queen’s English almost without accent and in general conducting herself with ladylike modesty—his disorientation, fierce to begin with, turned dizzying.
    Who was this woman, all her sharp edges sheared off and scrubbed smooth?
    He was grateful for the conclusion of luncheon—he wasn’t sure how much more of it he could have taken. They had risen from the table and were saying their good-byes when Annabel turned to her and asked, “Won’t you join us for dinner, Miss Blade?”
    Of everything disconcerting about her reappearance in his life, that she had a name probably ranked near the