She twisted her slender frame until she could look upward and see the sky beginning to show signs of evening, the sun cooling off to trace soft lavenders and blues across the heavens. In the bottom of the boat, protected from sight and any possibility of a cooling breeze, the young Englishwoman knew only suffocating heat and discomfort. This morning, though, just before dawn, the men had drawn the craft into shore in an uninhabited stretch of the Nile, beached it and allowed her a modicum of freedom, if not privacy, to care for her needs before resuming their rapid flight upriver. While they did not pamper her, neither could they afford to have their prisoner die of thirst or malnutrition. As hard as Victoria tried to keep from surrendering to her fear, concentrating instead on Hayden’s inevitable pursuit, every mile they sped from Cairo increased the apprehension she sought to bury. Had her mother recalled the unfamiliar falucca she’d pointed out that night and associated it with her disappearance?
