Chapter Two
The spectacular beauty of the desert sunset never failed to take her breath away. Julia watched, fascinated, as the vivid orange and gold-streaked sky gave way to a pale, soft night-blue, as if the sun, on its rapid descent to the horizon, dragged a stage backdrop behind it. The sparse puffy clouds segued from dark grey to pewter then white as the sky darkened to indigo and the stars made their appearance, a blanket of silvery jewels hung so low in the sky that she felt she could almost touch them. The moon was butter-yellow. The desert landscape was dark and moody, the dunes clearly outlined, softly rolling, sharply falling. The air changed, from dry and dusty to soft and salty. She breathed it in, lifting her face to the sky where the biggest stars were now surrounded by pinpoints of light, relishing the soft breeze which made the palm trees around the oasis quiver.
She saw the hawk first, the bird of prey she had learnt from Hanif to be an essential companion for any desert traveller. It dropped out of the sky, seemingly from nowhere, to perch on the wooden camel saddle. A moment later, Azhar emerged from the gathering gloom, his sleek Saluki hound prancing at his heels. She was struck anew by the air of authority that she’d noted when she’d first spotted him on the camel. It was more than simply being perfectly at ease in his surroundings, but it was not quite arrogance. She could quite easily find him intimidating. She could also, all too easily, find him rather devastatingly attractive.
Devastating? Was that the right word? She wasn’t sure there was a word for it, that ability of his to be both captivating and challenging at the same time. No, not challenging, perhaps imperious was a more appropriate description. Someone capable of being irresistible but not susceptible in return. Inviolate? But now she was being fanciful in the extreme. Though Azhar really did have a face that would stop any woman in her tracks. Julia longed to draw those sharp planes, the sensual curve of his mouth. Yes, it was the mouth, even more than the hard, graceful body, that made one think of searing kisses. Or it would, if one had any idea what searing kisses were. She had no doubt that Azhar knew. Odd, that she could be so certain the experience would be exquisitely pleasurable, when exquisite pleasure was as unfamiliar a concept to her as searing kisses. Indeed, she herself was getting rather hot under the collar, looking at him and thinking such unaccustomed thoughts.
It must be the desert, the sweltering heat and the savage beauty of it wielding its exotic magic. Watching Azhar as he collected various items from the mule packs, Julia felt they could be the only people here on earth under this vast canopy of stars, so far away from Cornwall, so different from the life she had known in every possible way. She could be anyone or no one. She could think wild, strange thoughts, she could even choose to act on them, and no one would ever know.
Not that she would dare. She’d felt this way once before, she remembered, in South America. Daniel had been shocked to the core when she’d kissed him passionately, had been appalled at the idea of making love under the stars, even though they were married and quite alone. As Azhar approached, the memory made her blush with mortification, eradicating any traces of her other, fanciful thoughts.
‘So you have decided to join me after all,’ he said.
Julia forced a bright smile. ‘If there is enough food to share, then yes please.’
‘Can you light a fire? The food I have foraged won’t cook itself.’
Her smile slipped. It was true, she should have been tending to practical matters instead of daydreaming, but she would rather not have that fact pointed out. ‘I can light a fire,’ Julia said tightly. ‘I can skin that rabbit you have there, and I can even cook it. Give me it.’
The request unintentionally sounded more like a demand. Azhar’s expression became haughty. How did he do that? A raising of the brows. A flinty glint in his eyes. The way his mouth set. ‘It is not a rabbit, it’s a hare.’
And, yes, once more he was correct. ‘If it is, it’s a very small hare,’ Julia declared. ‘In England they are twice that size.’
He took a dagger from his belt and set about expertly skinning their dinner. ‘We are in Arabia, not England. This hare is a product of its harsh desert environment.’
His hawk, perched motionless on the camel seat, watched with what Julia was convinced was a hopeful look in its beady eyes. ‘You know, I am not one of those arrogant people who travel the world in an effort to prove that England is a superior nation to all others, if that is what you are thinking.’
Azhar smiled faintly—very faintly—but it was a smile none the less. Julia considered that progress. ‘I have never been to England,’ he said, ‘which I understand is green and verdant, so I am willing to believe that the hares are bigger than they are here in the desert. Now, will you light the fire, if you please? I would prefer to eat some time before dawn.’
She set the fire quickly, coaxing it to life with what she hoped was a satisfying display of expertise, conscious all the time of Azhar’s eyes on her. It was most unsettling. ‘There, you see I am quite capable.’
‘Indeed.’ The hare lay neatly jointed in the cooking pot. The hawk and the hound were picking delicately through their share of the trimmings. From the folds of his tunic, he produced a handful of fragrant wild herbs. Pouring water over the hare to make a simple stew, he set the pot on the fire.
‘You know, it is not my fault that the men I hired proved to be scoundrels,’ Julia said, for his ‘indeed’ had rankled. Was it her fault? she wondered. Would Daniel have chosen better, more reliable guides? Certainly, if he was here he would not hesitate to make such a claim. No, what Daniel would do, was find a way to make it her fault. She recalled now, that he had blamed her for the loss of their barge. She had distracted him at a vital moment, he had said as they lay sodden, shivering, on the muddy bank of the river. Simply relieved to be alive, Julia hadn’t argued with him at the time, and later—oh, later, she had done as she always did, and tried to banish the memory. She’d thought she had succeeded, too. Odd, how so many of these incidents had popped into her head lately. Which reminded her of something else.
‘Azhar, may I ask you a question which has been baffling me? Why do you think Hanif waited so long to rob me?’
What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been travelling in the desert for over a month. Why wait until now, when they could just as easily have drugged me on the first night, or within the first week.’
‘A month!’ Azhar’s eyes flashed fury. ‘That suggests that they deliberately waited until you had crossed over the border from Petrisa.’
‘Why would they do that?’
His mouth thinned. ‘The only reason I can think of is that they considered it safer to act here. Which would imply that the enforcement of law and order is much more lax in Qaryma,’ he said grimly. ‘If that is true, then things have changed radically.’
‘Changed? It has been some time since you have been here, then?’
‘Ten years,’ Azhar said. ‘I have not been home for ten years.’
* * *
‘Home? Qaryma is your home?’
Julia Trevelyan was looking at him inquisitively. Azhar cursed inwardly. He had no idea how the word had slipped out. He had houses, but he had no home. ‘Was, not is,’ he said. ‘Explain to me if you will, what is it that has occupied you for so many weeks here in the desert?’
The words sounded more like a command than a request, but they had the required effect. Though she hesitated for a moment, Julia accepted the deliberate change of subject. ‘Specimens,’ she said. ‘I’ve been collecting plant specimens. I’m a botanist.’
He was surprised into a snort of laughter. ‘Plants! You are here to collect plants?’
‘Not so much plants as roots and seeds,’ Julia Trevelyan replied haughtily. ‘And what I mostly collect are drawings and notes, of the plants themselves, their habitat, companion plants, that sort of thing.’
‘You are an artist, Madam Trevelyan?’
‘Julia. If you are Azhar, then I ought to be Julia. I have
some draughtsmanship skills.’
‘And your drawings, where are they?’ he asked, though he had guessed the answer.
‘Gone,’ she confirmed. ‘Along with my paints and my notebooks and all my specimens. They were in a special trunk. It had lots of little drawers, and—and trays and—and the like.’
She was frowning heavily, clutching her fingers tightly together. Her determination not to cry was much more affecting than the sight of tears. ‘It is this trunk you wished so desperately to recover, even more than your husband’s watch?’ Azhar asked, recalling with regret the harsh dose of reality he had administered earlier.
Julia nodded and forced a shaky smile. ‘As you so emphatically pointed out, they will be long gone. I am hoping—that is I would very much appreciate if, when we arrive in Al-Qaryma, you might help me procure another guide.’ Another smile. ‘With your assistance, I’m sure I’ll find someone more trustworthy than Hanif.’
Now she truly had astonished him. Another woman—even another man—would have been too affected by their recent experience to wish to do anything other than to count their blessings and return to the safety of their home. ‘You cannot wish to remain in the desert after what has happened?’
‘It is my only wish. I have to start again. Please, Azhar,’ she said, gazing at him across the fire, her big green eyes wide, her expression earnest, ‘please say you’ll help me.’
‘What did you intend to do with the specimens you collected? Sell them? As an international trader, I am aware there is a lucrative market for exotic plants, especially in light of the recent fashion for establishing botanical gardens.’
‘Yes, yes, my husband and I have supplied plants to several such gardens with specimens garnered on our trips to South America, though Daniel, ever the purist, refused to sully his scientific research with commercial gain and so would not accept payment for them. I personally would have been more than happy, given our straitened circumstances—but that is beside the point.’
A husband who chose to subject his wife to poverty, whatever his scientific principles seemed a most relevant point to Azhar, but he refrained from saying so. ‘What, then, is the point?’ he asked.
‘A book. My husband’s book. His magnum opus. His life’s work.’ Julia gazed down at her lap, deep in thought for several minutes, before giving her head a little shake, as if to clear it. ‘It is a treatise. A comprehensive illustrated guide to rare and exotic species of the plant kingdom. But it is not yet complete, and it was his dearest wish—his dying wish—his only wish—that I complete it for him.’
Her tone confused him. Brittle. Perhaps she was simply trying not to become upset. ‘A compliment indeed,’ Azhar said, ‘to entrust the completion to you.’
Julia shrugged. ‘My father is a renowned naturalist, a specialist in the flora and fauna of Cornwall. The illustrations for his book on the subject were mine. I first met Daniel when Papa took him on as an assistant. Even before we were betrothed, I worked on specimen drawings for him, and for almost all of the seven years of our married life I have travelled with him, taking notes, drawing and painting. So you see, Daniel did not mean it as a compliment. There is no one more suited.’
Her explanation, the toneless voice in which she spoke, confused him even further. Emotionless, or too filled with emotion? Azhar had no idea. ‘This trip you have made, halfway across the world and all alone, it is then a pilgrimage of sorts?’
‘It is, in the sense that it is a journey I must complete. But only so that I may then start my own journey, free from encumbrance. My husband’s life’s work has perforce been my life’s work, and always will be until I complete this one final marital duty. But I grow weary of doing my duty. There, I have said it now. Finally, I have said it.’
She glared at him, daring him to speak, but Azhar was so taken aback at the change in her, he said nothing.
Julia appeared to take his silence for condemnation. ‘You think I’m callous, don’t you?’ she demanded. ‘You most likely think I’m selfish and unfeeling, but you don’t know the facts.’
She obviously wanted to tell him, however, and Azhar’s curiosity was now well and truly piqued. ‘What is it I don’t know?’
She hesitated only fractionally. He could see the point where she cast caution to the winds, and wondered if she was aware of how her face mirrored her emotions in a most transparent fashion. He suspected not.
‘Daniel made me promise him on his deathbed that I’d complete his masterpiece,’ Julia said. ‘On his deathbed, that was all he could think about—his book. So of course I promised, because how could I refuse a dying man’s last wish?’
What could he reply to such a question? The parallels with his own situation struck Azhar with some force. Was the universe playing a trick on him?
Fortunately, Julia did not seem to expect him to speak. ‘But that still wasn’t enough for Daniel,’ she continued. ‘I had to promise that I’d keep it a secret, even from my father, that he had not completed the treatise himself. I had to promise that I’d come here to Arabia alone to complete the missing chapters. I had to promise that I’d finish all the colour plates, make a fair copy of everything, and have it bound into two editions, folio and quarto. Daniel was most specific about the binding for each. And the named recipients. I had to promise that I’d obtain permission from Mr Joseph Banks, the president of the Royal Society, for a dedication, and I had to promise that I’d petition Mr Banks on Daniel’s behalf to sponsor him for posthumous fellowship.’ She broke off, frowning down at her fingers, which she had been using to count off each promise, and then her brow cleared. ‘Oh, yes, and I had to promise that I’d persuade Mr Banks to grant Daniel membership of the Horticultural Society of London.’
‘Your husband had great confidence in your powers of persuasion,’ Azhar observed.
‘No, Daniel had great confidence in the results of his years of exhaustive research,’ Julia replied. ‘To be fair, his book is an excellent work, and his categorisation is innovative too. It is his legacy to the scientific world, and does deserve to be recognised. I don’t expect to have any trouble persuading Mr Banks to grant his wishes.’
Julia pushed her hair back from her face, adjusting her position to face him more squarely. ‘You know, I always thought that it was a love of science that drove Daniel, wanting his work to be recognised in the rarefied echelons of the scientific and academic communities as one of the definitive reference guides in its field. I respected him for that, but I wonder now if it was fame he actually coveted, his name he wished to be remembered.’
Azhar was forming his own, extremely uncomplimentary opinion of Julia’s dead husband, but he wisely chose not to share it. ‘Does it make any material difference?’ he asked.
Julia pursed her lips, and then smiled. ‘You know, I don’t think it does. Whatever his reasons, my task remains the same.’
‘You have taken on a very heavy burden.’
‘I thought so at first, and indeed there are aspects of it which—but actually, I have found the experience of travel most liberating. I have not been at all lonely you know. In fact I’ve very much enjoyed my own company. And last night’s events aside, I have been quite captivated by the beauty of Arabia. Besides,’ she added, her smile becoming wry, ‘I had no option. One cannot refuse a dying man’s wishes.’
Azhar winced. Her words were so very nearly his exact thoughts on the summons that brought him here. Tomorrow—but he suddenly, desperately did not want to think of tomorrow. Not yet. ‘So it is at your husband’s command that you are here, alone?’
‘You’ll understand now why I found it somewhat ironic when you asked if I had his permission to travel,’ Julia replied. ‘Daniel is dictating my actions from beyond the grave just as effectively as he did before he passed away.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘But not for much longer. I’ll finish his book, I’ll make good on all those promises, and that will be an end of it. My whole life I have been doing another’s bidding, drawing and painting to order
. First for my father, then for Daniel. I have earned my right to freedom, and by heavens, I am going to enjoy it.’
Freedom. These last ten years Azhar had believed himself free, but from the moment he’d opened that summons he knew he’d been fooling himself. Freedom required the severing of all ties, all burdens, the honourable discharge of duty, just as Julia said. The last ten years had changed him for ever, shaped him into the man he was now, living the life he wanted to live. It was not the summons itself, with the unwelcome and completely unexpected news it contained, nor was it the command from beyond the grave that drove him here. It was this need for an absolute ending, for true freedom, which had driven him so many miles across the desert sands.
He and Julia sought the same thing. ‘You crave your freedom. It would be churlish of me,’ Azhar said, ‘not to assist you in achieving that most desirable state of affairs.’
She beamed at him. ‘You’ll help me to find a guide, camels—and paints—will I be able to purchase paints?’
So little, she asked of him. She cared not for the dangers she had faced nor those to come, with her goal in sight. He, of all people, could understand that. He was forced to admire her. Her tenacity. Her fortitude. Her determination to make the best of an appalling lot. Not a tear had she shed. She had not theatrically thrown herself on his mercy, nor had she played the damsel in distress, though her situation would have been ample excuse to do so. She did not expect him to save her, she merely wished him to assist with providing her the means to save herself. She really was a most unusual female. ‘I will help you,’ Azhar said. ‘I will take you to Al-Qaryma, and there you will find all you require.’
Her face lit up. ‘Thank you, Azhar. Thank you so much.’
To his surprise, she grabbed his hand, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. Her mouth was warm on his skin. His body reacted instantly, sending blood coursing to his groin. Horrified, he snatched his hand away.
The Widow And The Sheikh (Hot Arabian Nights, Book 1) Page 3