It started as playful, if barbed, banter before
rising to a fateful wager with a most notorious rake—the Captain of the Guard,
Jalal al-Khoury—who may have finally met his match in a lovely, if haughty,
handmaiden, Despina. But she, too, seems to have met her match in the handsome
Jalal. What begins as a tempestuous battle of will and wit in short order
becomes a passionate affair spurred on by tragedy of the worst kind.
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