Silk and Secrets

by Mary Jo Putney

  Dropping her gruff tone and heavy accent, she said in fluent Persian, "Is there any chance I can persuade you that the Tuareg all have red hair and pale, feminine faces?"

  The evidence of his eyes confirmed, Murad exclaimed, "No God but God! You are a woman—a ferengi woman!"

  "So I am," she agreed. "But on a journey such as this, it seemed wiser to travel as a man."

  His dark eyes narrowed. "Does Khilburn know?"

  "He knows," she said dryly. "I happen to be his wife."

  Murad thought about that for a time. "But you joined us at Serevan. If you are his wife, how did you come to be there?"

  "I am the mistress of Serevan and have lived in Persia for many years, apart from my husband. Saleh is my seneschal there," she explained. "But the amir's prisoner is my brother, so I wished to accompany Khilburn to Bokhara."

  "Ferengi men allow their women to behave in such a fashion?" he asked doubtfully.

  Not wanting to undermine Ross's authority, she said only, "Khilburn is not like other men, nor am I like other women."

  His gaze went to her bright hair again, this time with patent admiration. "Truly you are not."

  Juliet tucked her braid inside the back of her robe, then lifted her tagelmoust and began wrapping it around her head and face. "It seemed safer that you not know about me, but since fate has decreed otherwise, it will simplify matters for us all."

  Murad nodded absently. Then a new thought shocked him. "You defeated Habib!"

  "Of course," she said coolly as she finished the complicated winding of the veil. "I am better with a knife than he, so I won. The fact that I am female was of no importance."

  The young Persian did not look as if he accepted that, but his next question was, "What is your true name?"

  "Juliet."

  Murad blinked. "Like Khilburn's camel Julietta?"

  "They are forms of the same name," she said shortly, thinking that Murad was regrettably quick-witted. Picking up her black mantle, she set off through the rushes. Murad followed, still shaking his head in astonishment.

  When they rejoined the others, Juliet announced in English, "Murad caught me with my veil down, so I confessed all."

  Ross made a rueful face. "I was afraid that might happen when I saw that he had gone off to look for you. Well, we'll just have to make the best of it."

  "You didn't trust me," Murad said accusingly to his master.

  Ross gave the young man his full attention. "It was not so much that I did not trust you, Murad, as that a man should be very careful where his wife's safety is concerned."

  Seeing that the comment had soothed the young man's sense of ill-usage, he continued, "Now that Juliet's identity is no longer a secret, we might as well take advantage of the four of us being private to discuss what to do in Bokhara."

  At Ross's gesture, all four settled down in the shade of a willow. Saleh asked, "Do you have a plan?"

  "Bokhara is a city of spies and suspicion. As a ferengi, I will be very conspicuous," Ross said. "It will be better if the three of you take separate lodgings from me. Besides being able to move about more freely, you will be less likely to attract the amir's wrath."

  Saleh frowned. "There is some truth to that. I have family in Bokhara, and through them I might discover useful information. But someone must stay with you, for your rank requires that you have a servant. Also, if you are alone it will be more difficult and dangerous for me to communicate with you."

  Ross considered. "That makes sense. Juliet will stay with you and Murad with me."

  "No," Juliet said immediately. "Where you go, I go."

  As the three men looked at her, she felt a moment of acute embarrassment. Her protest had been as irrational as it was powerful. Half an hour earlier she had been telling herself that she needed to be apart from Ross, yet the very thought of that now made her insides churn. Fortunately, Murad spoke up while she was still trying to think of a logical reason for her remark.

  "I agree," the young Persian said slowly. "Madmen are considered holy fools in Islam and as such have great liberty."

  He gave a quick smile. "While 'Jalal the Targui' is not mad, the Lady Khilburn plays the role of half-wild desert man most excellently. Knowing that Jalal is unpredictable, our fellow travelers keep their distance and think no more about him. Her. In Bokhara she will be able to come and go scarcely noticed, like a nomad's dog." His smile broadened meaningfully. "Besides, should not husband and wife be together?"

  Ross glanced at Juliet. His brown eyes had darkened to near black and in his face she saw the same ambivalence she felt herself. Both of them might wish the other at the opposite end of the earth, but until this mission was done, they were bound together. They were like two people sharing a bed that was too small for comfort, yet which could not be escaped.

  "Very well," he said at last. "If you want to play Ruth, so be it. Now, what can we expect at the Bokharan customhouse? I want to know if we'll be able to take our guns into the city."

  "There should be no problem with the pistols," Murad said thoughtfully, "but if you try to take those two beautiful rifles into the city, they will be confiscated."

  "Perhaps the rifles could be wrapped and left outside the city," Saleh suggested. "My brother still owns my family's estate, and it lies very near the caravan road. I think your weapons could be safely concealed in one of the outbuildings."

  The men began discussing the possibility in more detail, but Juliet did not join in. She had a bone-deep conviction that staying with Ross was the right thing to do.

  She was equally sure that doing so would be miserably difficult for both of them.

  Chapter 14

  The steep sand dune tilted Juliet's camels to such a treacherous angle that she dismounted and led her two animals down the sharply pitched surface. As their hindquarters lurched awkwardly, the camels bawled with irritation.

  At the bottom of the dune Juliet remounted, then indulged herself in a very small drink of water. She used the fluid to moisten her dry lips, holding it in her mouth as long as possible before swallowing. Though warm and oily from the waterskin, it still felt ambrosial, for the heat was now more like summer than spring.

  After Merv, they had spent three days crossing a stretch of desert with no oases. At Rafitak they were able to refill their waterskins, but only after digging out two wells that marauding Turkomans had filled with sand and stone.

  Wearily Juliet rubbed at her forehead, thinking that it would be pleasant to feel the wind on her face. She was heartily sick of being swaddled from head to toe. However, quite apart from her need to stay disguised, high temperatures in the desert made it essential to wear multiple layers of clothing to prevent the body from losing too much moisture.

  As they wound their way between the dunes, sand spurted into the air from the camels' padded feet, then whirled away on the wind. The Kara Kum would be impassable in summer if it were not for what the poetic residents of Turkestan called "the wind of a hundred days." It blew from the north, sometimes soft, more often fierce, but never ceasing.

  In the distance Juliet saw a dust devil, a whirlwind that spun fine sand high into the air. They were very common here; once she had counted six different dust devils at the same time.

  With a sigh, she put her waterskin away. Less than a week to Bokhara. Then her troubles would really begin.

  * * *

  The caravan reached a water hole nestled next to a stone outcropping by mid-afternoon. Since the next well was two days away, they broke for the night. Because of the early halt, it was still full light when Juliet and her companions finished their sparse meal of bread, saffron-flavored rice, tea, and dates.

  Afterward Ross excused himself and went off somewhere, probably to talk to one of the many friends he had made. Saleh and Murad both settled down for a nap in the shade of a blanket stretched between their panniers, and the camels grazed contentedly on nearby camel thorn. But in spite of Juliet's fatigue, she felt restless. Wanting to be alone for a whil
e, she decided to go for a walk.

  She chose to head east, into the area of towering two-hundred-foot-high dunes that the caravan had been skirting. To her surprise, when she had walked her fill and was about to return to the camp, she rounded a dune and discovered Ross sitting in the sand, gazing absently into the wilderness.

  She was about to turn back when he heard the faint sound of her steps and looked up warily. Recognizing her, he relaxed. "I see that you weren't ready to rest either. Come join me."

  After a brief hesitation, Juliet did so. By her choice, they had scarcely talked since leaving Merv. But over the last few days her rampaging lust had subsided—heat, fatigue, and thirst were amazingly anti-erotic. It should be safe to be in his company for a few minutes.

  As she settled on the sand near him, she remarked, "I thought you were visiting elsewhere in the caravan."

  "Sometimes I like to be alone with the desert. Beautiful, isn't it?" He gestured toward the surrounding dunes. In the late-afternoon sun they formed an elegant, otherworldly scene of sensuously curving surfaces and dramatic shadows.

  "Beautiful, yes, but bleak," she commented. "I can't help thinking of how green Scotland is. All that lovely water."

  He raised his brows. "Do you miss Scotland?"

  "Sometimes. I spent the first five years of my life there. I think that what one loves in childhood stays in the heart forever."

  "True. England, the kingdom by the sea, will always be my home." His gaze went back to the scene before them. "But in spite of the dangers, I'm grateful to have another chance to travel on the Silk Road. It fascinates me to know that men have crossed this wilderness for thousands of years, carrying goods and ideas all the way from Rome to China and back again. We walk in the steps of Marco Polo and countless other merchants and adventurers."

  "A romantic thought." Since he was looking away, she took the opportunity to admire his profile. Because of the shortage of water, he hadn't shaved in several days, and his cheeks and chin were dusted with dark-gold whiskers. Wrenching her gaze away, she said, "Is that why you've traveled so much—for the romance and adventure?"

  "That's part of the reason." Before she could comment, he said thoughtfully, "I think that my next book, if I write another, will be about the Silk Road."

  "Your next book? I didn't know that you had written any," she said, intrigued. "What were the others about?"

  "Just commentary on my travels. One was about the central Sahara, another on the Northwest Frontier of India, the third about the Levant and northern Arabia."

  "Impressive," she said admiringly. "Were they well- received?"

  He shrugged. "Tolerably so. They've all had multiple printings, but part of the attraction is my title. My publisher says that having 'Lord' or 'Lady' on the cover always doubles sales."

  Juliet suspected that he was being modest. "Sales should quadruple when you can put 'the Duke of Windermere' on the cover."

  "I suppose so," he said without enthusiasm. "I hope that doesn't happen for a number of years."

  His gaze drifted back to the horizon. Then his features suddenly tightened. "Damnation. A sandstorm is coming."

  In the few minutes that they had been talking, the sky had darkened and the ever-present wind had stiffened considerably. Juliet looked in the same direction as Ross and saw that ominous blue-and-yellow clouds had formed above the dunes and a gray-tan wall of dust was sweeping down on them.

  "It looks like a bad one." Ross scrambled to his feet. "We'd better get back to the caravan where there's better cover."

  Juliet stood also, but before setting off she spared a moment to study the storm, and what she saw chilled her to the bone. The dust cloud was racing toward them faster than a man could run, its leading edge a seething mass of spiraling columns. As it drew closer, an eerie, moaning sound filled the ears and rasped the nerves.

  In the moments that she watched the sky, her husband had started back toward the watering hole. Shouting above the wind, she called, "Ross, there isn't time! Get down and cover your head!"

  A gust of wind struck with a power that almost knocked her from her feet and staggered even Ross. When he regained his balance, he turned and began moving back toward her, his figure blurred by the haze of blowing sand.

  He'd pulled the tail of his turban across his nose and mouth, but the light fabric was not enough protection for a storm like this one. Even her heavy, layered tagelmoust was not sifting out all the wind-blasted grit.

  They were still twenty feet apart when the full force of the storm slammed into them. It was the worst sandstorm Juliet had ever seen, fierce enough to suffocate anyone who wasn't adequately covered. Visibility dropped to zero, and knife-edged grains of sand scoured her bare hands and stung the narrow wedge of face not covered by her veil. As she bent over to reduce the area she presented to the wind, she screamed, "Ross!"

  She thought she heard him shouting back, but it was impossible to be sure over the banshee wail of the wind. Knowing that she was better equipped to weather the storm than Ross, Juliet tried to keep toward where she'd last seen him, but she lost all sense of direction in the featureless, swirling sand.

  Though she called his name again and again as she fought against the wind pushed her forward, there was no response. Near panic, she told herself that Ross was no fool. He knew enough to lie down and wrap his long coat around his head.

  But the garment he wore was secured by a sash and took more time to remove than her mantle did. If he spent too much time looking for her... if his mouth and lungs filled with sand...

  When she had almost given up hope, she literally tripped over him. He was on his knees, trying to unwind more of his turban to protect his face, but he was coughing so hard he was nearly helpless.

  Juliet yanked off her long, densely woven mantle and folded it in half so they would have a double layer of protection. Then she dropped to the ground and pulled her husband down beside her. The wind dragged viciously at her mantle, threatening to whip it from her grasp.

  Grimly she held on as she tucked the yards of fabric around their bodies from head to knees. The result was a snug cocoon that shielded them from the lacerating sand.

  Ross was shuddering convulsively as he struggled for breath, so she lifted the small water bottle always slung at her waist when she was in the desert. It was difficult to maneuver it up to his mouth without loosening the mantle, but with care she managed to bring it to Ross's lips.

  They were pressed together so closely that she could feel the movement of his muscles when he swallowed, then managed to draw in a lungful of air. He cleared his throat, then sipped a little more water before he could speak. "Thank you," he said hoarsely. "I'm glad you're better prepared than I. I've never seen a sandstorm this bad."

  "Several years ago I was caught in one like this. Two men and several horses died." Juliet had to pitch her voice higher to make it heard above the roaring wind.

  After lowering her veil so that she could drink also, she recorked the bottle and replaced it at her waist. Then she wriggled back and forth, making herself a hollow in the yielding sand. "Since we will be here for anywhere from fifteen minutes to three hours," she explained, "we might as well make ourselves comfortable."

  He laughed a little as he settled his arm around her shoulders. "Actually, this is quite cozy, though by the time the storm blows itself out, we will look like a miniature dune. Quite a bit of sand has already drifted against my back. It's good protection against the wind."

  Since they were lying face-to-face, Juliet found that the most convenient place for her arm was around Ross's chest. His back was to the storm, so she was shielded from the worst of the wind's buffeting. "As long as we stay still, our makeshift tent should remain secure," she said. "I just hope Saleh and Murad are equally well off."

  "They're fine," he said reassuringly. "As perils go, this is nowhere near as dangerous as a flash flood, a dagger duel, or even a bozkashi match. All Saleh and Murad had to do was roll up in the blanket they we
re using for shade. Most of the caravan was resting, so the storm couldn't have hit at a better time."

  "That's true," she admitted. "We were undoubtedly the only two people foolish enough to wander off to admire the scenery."

  "Naturally. Everyone knows that the British are indefatigable tourists."

  Juliet smiled. Then, since she was tired and there was nothing more to say, she decided to take a nap. Outside, nature might be at its most savage, but the two of them shared a secure oasis of touch and warmth and quiet breathing.

  But she found it impossible to doze. Now that she knew they were safe, she found the fury of the storm exhilarating. Its vibrations throbbed through her, making her one with the wind and the earth—and with Ross, for, as always, their bodies fitted together as if designed as a matching set.

  She could not see him in the darkness, but his scent was in her nostrils and the drumming of his heart was under her cheek, blending with the primal sound and rhythm of the tempest. Slowly but inexorably the passion Juliet had thought suppressed came to treacherous life.

  At first it was only a faint stirring deep inside her, but it grew, became a tingling that flowed through her veins until it animated every fiber of her body. If they were lovers, she would respond to that flowing desire without hesitation, skimming her hands over his muscular arms and chest. She would press her lips to his throat and taste the salt of his skin, teasing and inviting at the same time.

  Instead, she lay stone-still, fighting the impulse to touch him. They had been this close in the caravansary at Sarakhs when Juliet had woken and found herself twined around him, but that time he had been asleep and she had been free to pull away. Now they were both awake and aware, and locked together for the duration of the storm.

  Sternly she told herself that she could not possibly be overcome by desire in the midst of a raging sandstorm that battered and bellowed a mere two layers of fabric away, but her body flatly refused to accept that conclusion.