Blue Jasmine

by Violet Winspear

  Lorna bent her fair head and poured the coffee into the cups. It was dark, aromatic, and with a set face she handed him his cup.

  `Do you like our desert cuisine?' he asked her. `It's quite surprising.'

  To drink coffee with him among the cushions of the divan was a disturbing intimacy. Night had fallen like a cloak over the encampment, muffling the sounds from outside the tent. Moths clustered around the lamps, drawn to the flames to find a painful ecstasy.

  Lorna finished her coffee and rose nervously to her feet. She wandered about the tent, touching ornaments, feeling and seeing nothing but the lounging figure of the Prince. Her nerves tightened when he leaned forward casually to take and light a cigarette.

  `Won't you join me?' he said. 'A cigarette will help to steady your nerves.'

  `My nerves are fine, thank you.' She went to the doorway of the tent and held open the flap, wishing she could escape from the intimate atmosphere if only for a short while.

  She tensed as the Prince came and stood behind her. 'You are restless,' he said. 'Would you like to take a walk to the edge of the oasis?'

  `Oh . . . more than anything !' She went to slip outside and he held her back a moment.

  `The night air is cold. You must wear my cloak.' He fetched it from across the tent and clasped it about her. 'You will have to drape some of it over your arm —there, now you are a charming boy again.'

  They went outside, where tribesmen sat cloaked around their coffee fires, listening to the music of a stringed instrument, a soft wailing in the night that blended with the mysterious shapes of tents and camels, their long necks stretched along the sand as they slept.

  The men inclined their heads as the couple passed by, but they did not look openly at the slim, cloaked figure of Lorna. This was their way of being polite to their master's guest.

  The strange music died away behind Lorna and her escort. The palm trees stood tall and faintly rustling in the oasis, and when they came to the moonlit sands it was like walking through milk. Silvery-violet shadows lay in the laps of the dunes. Each star above was like a small golden flame, and the air that Lorna breathed was wild and cool.

  Shadow and mystery, an infinity of space that quietened her nerves and made her almost grateful to Prince Kasim for allowing her to witness the magic of the desert by moonlight.

  `The desert is like a woman,' he murmured. 'Seductive and challenging, with depths in which a man might get lost forever. I have known it in all moods, yet each day its sweeping spaces offer something new. A fresh challenge, a certain torment, and then at night it’s cool caress, or its crescent moon—the claw of the lover.'

  The wind whispered across the illimitable spaces, and Lorna glanced at the man beside her and saw his profile moulded firm against the glow of the moon. He was a part of all this, as the falcons were, and the golden sand cats who lurked among the sandstone rocks.

  `Do you hear the call of the desert?' His eyes flashed to meet hers and she saw how they glinted in the moonlight.

  `I am fascinated,' she admitted. But I am also frightened by the vastness, the sense of its eternity while we are so mortal.'

  `Yes,' he smiled, 'already the desert has touched you. We must ride l'aube you and I. When you have been in the desert at dawn, you will then be completely captivated.'

  `Is not my captivation already an accomplished fact, m'sieu?' She drew his cloak around her as the wind touched her throat and ruffled her hair.

  He gazed down at her, at her silvered hair and her pale heart of a face in which the blue-violet eyes were set like flowers. He reached for her and her fingertips pressed against his chest as he gathered her close to him. `Le desert de l'amour,' he softly mocked, as she struggled with him and was defeated by his strength. `Come, you know there is a devil in me, chérie. Rouse him at your peril.'

  `When will you let me go?' she implored.

  `Don't talk of going when it is but a night and a day since I brought you here.' As he spoke he took her lips. He seemed to want to crush her, to be cruel and caressing at the same time.

  `Theldja—snow—I should let the desert have you and be rid of such a flake of ice,' he murmured against her mouth.

  `Better the desert than you!' She fought to turn her head away, but he caught her by the chin and made her submit to his demanding gaze there in the desert moonlight. Across the sweeping hillocks of sand came the howl of a jackal as it hunted its prey.

  `You look at me with the eyes of a trapped gazelle.' He bent his head and closed her eyes with kisses, and then he lifted her in his arms and carried her beneath the palm trees, past the tents and the smoking fires, across the compound that separated his tent from all the rest.

  His arms were strong and possessive around her as he carried her inside. But again that night he left her alone in the harem.

  Time in the desert had a timeless quality. It passed without the ticking of clocks, or the many signs and signals of city life. The men of the desert told the time by the sun, and their life was unhurried but continually active.

  In the beginning Lorna had counted the days, but soon she ceased to do so and lost track, almost, of how long she had been at the desert camp. It was an immense one, and Lorna soon learned that the Shaikh's control over his people was absolute; a leadership based on firmness of character, magnetic personality, and an untiring interest in their rugged way of life.

  Sometimes there were family quarrels and he swiftly intervened before a feud could develop. Upon one occasion a tribesman came to ask the master's advice about his daughter, who was disobedient and flighty. The Shaikh interviewed the girl and promptly found for her a young and good-looking husband.

  Lorna was astounded. 'He's almost a stranger to her,' she protested.

  `She needs a husband,' he said calmly. 'Soon she will forget her foolishness and be a model wife.'

  `What a despot you are !' Lorna flicked her palmetto fan at a hovering wasp. 'You seem to regard women as creatures without minds or hearts of their own.'

  `A woman has to be handled as one handles a spirited filly, so that she feels the tension of the rein and won't lose her head.' He lounged on the divan and stretched a booted leg; his cigarette smoke half-veiled the expression in his eyes.

  `Apart from the rein there is the whip,' Lorna murmured.

  She felt the flick of tawny eyes. 'Have these weeks as my guest taught you so little?' he asked. 'A real woman likes to feel that she is mastered. She enjoys her fear of the man who is unafraid of her. Women are mysterious creatures, ma fille, and there are men who go in awe of your sex. I am sure you must have known some of these namby-pamby boys to have become so haughty.'

  `Haughty—me?' she exclaimed. 'You have room to talk ! You lord it over hundreds of tribesmen, run their lives for them, rush girls into marriage with men they hardly know, and accuse me of pride!'

  `I should like you less if you were not proud.' His eyes smiled through a gust of cigarette smoke. 'You must admit that in my handling of such a high-strung filly as yourself, I never break your spirit or your pride.'

  Lorna turned away from him and gazed from the doorway of the tent at the activity about the camp, always more in evidence when the Shaikh was in residence. Filly indeed ! He had his nerve . . . more nerve and gall than any other man alive !

  Her fingers clenched on the pinned back flap of the tent as she thought of the things she had learned about him during these enforced weeks in the desert. He

  was utterly fearless, and strangely gentle with small children and all animals. His temper when roused was a frightening one, and now and again he lost it with a disobedient follower. He confused her as no one else had ever done . . . sometimes she almost admired him, and was intrigued by his many Latin ways.

  Absorbed in her thoughts she didn't hear him cross the tent, but suddenly his arm was locked about her slender waist. 'Do you still find me hateful?' he murmured, his warm breath against her temple.

  `Surely you have no need to ask?' When he held her there was
no getting away from him, but she could still fight him with words. She could still let him know that his touch was hateful to her.

  `What would you have me do?' He laughed and kissed the nape of her neck. 'Pile my sins on the back of a goat and send it into the desert to atone for me?'

  `You would need more than one goat,' she retorted.

  He laughed and swung her to face him and she saw the admiration gleaming in his eyes as they swept her hair, her face, her mouth that was a curve of soft scarlet against her sun-honeyed skin. 'Sticks and stones, but never words,' he mocked. 'Words I can silence with a kiss.'

  Holding her in the circle of his arm he bent over her and put his threat into action. His kiss was smoky from his cigarette, his nearness was like a flame through her body, his arm felt like steel about her.

  `I intend to visit the encampment of a friend tomorrow,' he said. 'You may ride part of the way with me, but Ahmed will escort you back to camp. Come, your promise that you will behave yourself while I am away.'

  `Ahmed is too keen a watchdog to be fooled by any of my tricks,' she re-joined. 'He fears too much the displeasure of his Shaikh to give me the pleasure of escaping him.'

  `My men are certainly aware that I would be— annoyed.' Kasim released her and strode to his desk. He switched on the lamp and sat down to write in the big ledger that was bound in leather and unreadable as far as Lorna was concerned. She watched, fascinated, as his pen inscribed the beautiful script that made each page in the ledger a work of art. He was also clever at sketching his sleek Arabian horses, but she would not permit herself to dislike him any the less for having something in common with the father she had dearly loved and lost.

  She never talked of her father to her captor. She refused stubbornly to share with him the memories that were so precious and painful to her.

  When in a while he glanced up, she looked away from him and went to the bookcase, from which she took a copy of The Silver Cup, a history of Cadiz, where his mother had been born and where she had spent her girlhood. Her signature was in the book. Her name had been Elena.

  Lorna curled down on a rug and tried to lose herself in the book, but all the time, with her every nerve, she was aware of the Shaikh. From the corner of her eye she watched the smoke curling from his cigarette; she saw the outline of his muscles beneath the silk kibr.

  When would he let her go?

  She feared to ask him ... she feared his answer. She had learned that in lots of ways the life of a powerful Prince was a solitary one. He could not completely unbend with his people and risk his authority. In the privacy of his tent he could relax and toss aside his cares and duties, and though at times he treated Lorna with indifference, he seemed to get pleasure out of their conversations and their rides.

  Then as if reading her thoughts, he said sardonically : 'You should count yourself fortunate that you are not in the harem of a conventional Shaikh, with four wives and a batch of concubines.'

  `Conventional?' she exclaimed.

  `Yes. I am the unconventional one, ma fide. I have but you in my harem, much to the astonishment of my men.'

  `That's here in camp,' she said, a flame on each cheekbone. 'What of your harem at the palace?' `Empty, alas.'

  `Do you grow tired of your women, so quickly?'

  `If you are asking in a subtle way if I grow tired of you, then the answer is no.' His teeth glimmered in a smile. 'Just think how much less of my company you would have if you shared me with a harem of Eastern beauties.'

  `I'm surprised you haven't a large harem,' she said, as casually as she could, her eyes averted from his wide shoulders, his striking profile, his black hair that gleamed in the lamplight with little hints of blue.

  `I am away in the desert so much of the time that it would be unfair of me to collect women only to neglect them,' he drawled.

  `You flatter yourself they would miss you!'

  `Once a woman has enjoyed the companionship of a man, she misses him when he leaves her.'

  `I should welcome the day!'

  He laughed lazily. 'I should miss the barbs on your tongue, my girl.' He bent his head and resumed his work on the ledgers, leaving Lorna free to study him. From the black point of hair stabbing the nape of his neck, to the riding boots he still wore, he was a fine looking man and there were facets to his personality that she liked despite herself. She wondered if he rejected some of the customs of the desert out of deference to the memory of his Spanish mother?

  As Lorna sat pondering the complex nature of her captor, there came the sound of a voice outside the tent. 'See who wants me, Lorna.' He always shook her when he spoke English, and her hand trembled slightly as she opened the flap and found herself confronted by Ahmed. Upon seeing his master at the desk, he broke into voluble speech. At once Kasim rose from his writing and there was an eager glint in his eyes.

  `Come!' he caught at Lorna's hand. 'The Kaid whom I visit tomorrow has sent me a gift. Let us go and take a look !'

  His followers had grown used to Lorna by now and she went among them without any of her former shyness. Several of the women greeted her and children ran to take sweets from the pocket of her breeches. She smiled and spoke to them, startlingly fair and fragile among the throng of sun-dark desert dwellers.

  The chattering crowd gave passage to the Shaikh, and to the lella who was so often with him, and there in the open space in the centre of the camp a couple of men held the halter of the most superb horse Lorna had ever seen ... and since being brought to the encampment she had seen many fine horses and rode several of them, to the delight of the tribesmen, who admired spirit and good horsemanship.

  Her eyes dwelt admiringly on the horse that had been sent to please the Prince Kasim. It had a gleaming golden coat and a sweeping mane and tail the colour of sunlight. It had also a temper and lashed out continually at the two men who held it, its hooves glittering as wickedly as its eyes and teeth.

  `Mon Dieu!' The Shaikh strode towards the horse and a hush fell over the crowd. Lorna found she was clenching her hands together, half in excitement, half in apprehension. She knew that Kasim would mount that beautiful, unbroken horse. Dare those slashing hooves, those wicked teeth, the rippling muscles beneath the satiny golden coat.

  He took hold of the halter and the two Arabs backed away and left him alone with the golden stallion. He spoke coaxing, deep-throated words and forced it to turn and face the sun, so it wouldn't make any shadow. The horse reared up, neighing and lashing out, and was brought down with a firm tug on the rope. The next instant the Shaikh leapt upon the stallion's back and sat there grimly as it reared up again, pawing the air and causing such a clamour that horses in the nearby stockades became restless.

  Lorna watched breathlessly as the rider matched his skill and mastery against the raw nerve of the horse.

  He sat the stallion and held him facing the sun, his knees locked high against the gleaming sides, his silk kibr clinging to his strong body as the fierce young stallion fought to unseat him.

  There were no spurs on the rider's boots, no saddle on the horse. It was a battle of wills, and the Shaikh's white teeth locked in a smile of devilry each time he dealt with a trick that would have sent a less determined horseman flying to the dust. He would be the master and the stallion would know it if the battle continued all night.

  There was sweat and foam on man and mount when with a loud snort the golden stallion swept his mane in the dust he had kicked up. With a sudden laugh the Shaikh leapt to the ground and did one of the most daring things Lorna had ever seen . . . he took the stallion's proud head in his hands and stared straight into the wickedly gleaming eyes. The animal could have bitten him, gashed his face wide open, but instead it twitched its ears, flicked the corn-silk tail, and then with a thrust of its muzzle nearly put its master's collarbone out of place.

  A cheer arose from the crowd who had watched the battle of wills with a fierce intensity. Their fierce dark faces broke into smiles. Prince Kasim had made friends with the golden
one!

  As the horse was led away and the tribesmen clustered around the victor, Lorna slipped away unnoticed to the oasis, where she leaned against a palm tree in order to catch her breath after the excitement.

  She was fully aware that Kasim had not been showing off. Nor had it been mere bravado that had made him put his face so close to the stallion. He had been mesmerizing the animal, and the wild, proud creature had responded ... it had succumbed to the strange magic and power that made the Prince the man that he was.

  Lorna stood alone among the palm trees, dappled by the apricot light of the dying sun. Suddenly a tremor shook her from head to foot. She had not felt so unnerved since the night he had brought her to his encampment. He had the power, the strength, the physical beauty to make people love him ... Lorna wanted only to hate him!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IN the grande tente after dinner that night Lorna found herself acutely aware of the lithe good looks of the Prince. Pleasure in the golden stallion gleamed in his eyes and there was a note of indulgence in his voice when he addressed her.

  `I have a present for you,' he said. 'Come over here and let me give you these.'

  She glanced up from the French magazine she was idly reading. He was holding a long chain of pearls in his fingers, milkily agleam against the tanned skin of his hands.

  `Come ! Leave your book and let me see how you look in pearls.'

  This was the first time -he had wooed her with jewellery, though there had been times when he had caressed the lobes of her ears and touched her slender neck as if he wished to see them adorned.

  `I ... I never wear necklaces,' she said nervously. `They give me the fidgets.'

  She felt his eyes upon her, taking in deliberately the velvet tunic and silk trousers that made her more appealing than she wished to be in his company. She found the babouches difficult to keep on and her feet were bare and white in the deep pile of the carpet on which she lay with her magazine.