by Penny Jordan
‘It’s nothing,’ Felicia protested unsteadily as lean fingers probed the wound with surprising gentleness.
‘It’s bleeding. It must be washed and cleaned,’ Raschid replied curtly.
There were some moistened tissues in her bag which she used to keep her hands and face fresh and she opened it, removing them.
‘I’ll do that.’
The authoritative tone could not be ignored, and in silence she handed Raschid the moistened pad, flinching a little at its coolness against her throbbing flesh.
‘How one admires the British in adversity,’ Raschid mocked as he straightened up. ‘So cool, so controlled…so prepared for every contingency.’
The light in his eyes reminded her that a few nights ago there had been a contingency for which she had not been prepared, but Felicia ignored it, murmuring lightly, ‘One tries….’
‘Indeed one does. But sometimes we must fail, for the good of our souls.’
Was he warning her that she would fail to convince him to allow her marriage to Faisal? She moved away, wincing afresh as she put her full weight on her ankle. Raschid’s hand on her wrist steadied her; a momentary contact—no more—but in that moment the air between them seemed fraught with some intangible emotion and then she was free, the clean male scent of him fading from her nostrils as quickly as the imprint of his fingers was fading from her wrist.
‘What’s the matter?’
Her eyelashes flicked down, but not in time to prevent him from reading the expression in her eyes. He laughed softly.
‘Ah yes, I see! You thought perhaps I might repeat our romantic scene of the other night. I’m afraid I must disappoint you, Miss Gordon.’
‘Romantic? Is that what you call it?’ Felicia retorted bitterly. ‘Then you have very strange ideas of romance, Sheikh.’ She turned away, anger and resentment flaring simultaneously to heated life, possessed by an urge to escape from this man and his tormenting mockery; a desire to put as much distance between them as possible, heedless of the dangers.
In the empty souk her heartbeat thundered in her ears, steadily increasing as she hurried past shuttered shop fronts, like so many unseeing eyes, disdainful of the folly of the pale foreigner who ran unveiled along the shadowed alley. Pain throbbed through her ankle, but she disregarded it. The thudding of her heart drowned out every other sound bar one—the relentless footsteps behind her, firm and tireless, driving her like a terrified gazelle before the beaters.
He caught her, as she had known he must, his fingers biting into her waist as he swung her back against him, shaking her until she thought her neck must break.
‘You little fool! Don’t you know any better than to run in this heat? Do you really want me to give you a reason to run from me?’
Felicia looked up at the thin line of his mouth, harshly forbidding, and a tremor of something so alien and unwanted shot through her that at first she did not recognise it. When she did the shock was so great that she could barely comprehend that she, a girl who had never deliberately set out to arouse any man, and indeed shrank from physical contact, had felt a thrill of surging satisfaction at the blazing anger in Raschid’s eyes, and a desire to push him over the limits of his control, her own fury fuelled by his.
Common sense warned her that the ensuing conflagration could destroy her totally, but she no longer cared. She wanted Raschid to experience anger as consuming as her own; to endure the lash of her contempt against his pride, as she had been forced to endure his.
‘Well, Miss Gordon?’
‘You have already given me sufficient reason, but in your arrogance you will not admit it.’
His fingers curled round the soft flesh of her upper arms, frightening in their intensity. He smiled without pity when she winced at their crushing pressure.
‘This is the East,’ he reminded her. ‘I could punish you here and now for what you have just said and no man would raise his hand against me, not even if I beat you publicly in the streets. Beware! In every man there lurks the falcon; a streak of ruthlessness and thirst for power.’
His fingers lifted to her throat, trapping the wildly beating pulse she could no longer control. All at once the fight had gone out of her, and where there had been momentary elation there now was dread. He laughed mirthlessly when she shivered under his touch, nervous as the silky-maned Arab mares of the Badu.
‘You see?’ he taunted. ‘At last you realise that a man is not an equal, but an alien force, bent on destruction when he is aroused to anger.’
‘Stop it! Stop it at once,’ Felicia begged him. ‘I won’t listen to you!’ Her voice trembled, caught somewhere between indignation and fear. ‘You don’t deceive me at all. You’re hoping to drive me away; to frighten me into giving up Faisal. You think I’ll be overpowered by that potent masculinity you’re so proud of, like a timid, shrinking Victorian heroine, caught in the trap of her own senses. Well, you’re going to be disappointed! I’m well aware of the difference between my senses and my heart.’
‘Are you indeed?’ he challenged softly, the sensuous movement of his thumb against the silkiness of her neck making her aware too late of her danger. She trembled under the deliberate provocation of the caress and he laughed, deep in his throat.
‘And what do your senses tell you now, Miss Gordon?’
It was too late to pretend that his touch left her unaffected, too late by far to wish she had never allowed fury to betray her into this hopelessly untenable position. She closed her eyes and gritted bitterly:
‘They tell me that sex without love is like the desert without water—an arid wasteland where nothing can flourish.’
‘But that arid wasteland, as you call it, possesses a magic of its own.’
His thumb was stroking along her jaw now, the steel fingers forcing her chin to tilt upwards no matter how much she fought against their pressure. She opened her eyes. His were barely inches away, darkly grey, the sensuously curving mouth smiling thinly.
He bent his head towards her, and she was like the falcon’s prey, transfixed, accepting her fate. His faint breath stirred her hair.
‘Have you experienced the potency of the desert, Miss Gordon?’
Dear God, what was happening to her? With an anguished cry she tore herself free. What was he trying to do to her? Seduce her away from Faisal? Faisal! Why had she not thought of him before now? Why had the memory of his lovemaking not protected her from responding to Raschid?
Gathering the tattered remnants of her pride about her, she stared coldly at the man towering over her.
‘The desert holds no attraction for me, Sheikh Raschid—and neither do you.’
CHAPTER SIX
TALK about the best laid plans of mice and men! Felicia thought ruefully as she dressed for dinner. A cowardly corner of her heart prayed that Raschid would be absent from the meal. She stared critically in the mirror at her too-pale face. She had known from the start that her self-imposed task was hopeless, but after this afternoon she could never hope to convince Raschid that she would make Faisal a good wife. She shrugged bravely. What did it matter, after all? He could hardly swear on the Bible that there had been no provocation! Provocation! Colour washed over her skin as she remembered the sensuous movement of his thumb against her flesh, and the peculiar weakness that had made her legs feel as though they had turned to an unset jelly.
All sheer magnetism, of course. She wielded her hair-brush fiercely for a few seconds until the auburn curls framed her small face in a silky cloud. Raschid had done it deliberately—there could be no doubt about that! Playing on her fears and uncertainties, unleashing the powerful aura of his masculinity. And how near she had come to succumbing!
Slowly she put the brush down, staring at her trembling mouth and wary eyes. There was the crux of the matter. She had been dangerously affected by Raschid’s caresses; so much so that shame scorched her as she made herself relive those seconds in her arms. She had deliberately encouraged him to unleash his anger against her, but she
had never dreamed it would take such a damagingly sensuous course, or that she herself would be swept away in its fierce tide. In vain she told herself that it was merely an automatically feminine reaction, trying desperately to drive away the tormenting image of Raschid’s taunting smile by replacing it with Faisal’s loving smile. But for some reason she found it impossible to reconstruct his boyish features; the memory eluded her, as though overpowered by Raschid’s stronger personality. The harder she tried to cling to the memory of Faisal, the more difficult she found it to superimpose his features over Raschid’s. Honesty had always been one of her strong points, and now she was forced to question the strength of her feelings.
Could there be a grain of truth in Raschid’s accusation that her love for Faisal was founded on what he could give her— Oh, not wealth, that mattered little—but security, warmth, the affection and companionship of a family. The more she contemplated this point, the more plausible it became. Faisal had surrounded her in warmth and love, and she had sunk into its security without deeply questioning her own feelings. It had been enough merely to be loved. But would it always be enough? And wasn’t she cheating Faisal as surely as though she had merely wanted him for his money?
She was glad when the dinner gong put an end to these useless speculations. She was bound to have doubts, second thoughts, but once she and Faisal were together again….. Not even in the tiniest corner of her heart was she willing to admit that her real doubts sprang from the untenable discovery that while Faisal’s lovemaking affected her hardly at all physically, Raschid had merely to touch her to send her pulses racing, her body flooded with sexual awareness.
Dislike could be as powerful an emotion as love, she reminded herself, as she zipped up her dress and added a quick touch of lipstick to the soft curves of her mouth. It toned with the pink in her dress, swirls of pink and pale green chiffon, an unusual combination for a redhead, but one that brought an indefinable touch of the exotic to her appearance, darkening the colour of her eyes and highlighting the richness of her hair. A lacy white stole covered her shoulders, although the dress had small cap sleeves and a neckline that was discretion itself. Untouched on the dressing table was the perfume Raschid had given her. She refused to open it; for a moment tempted to dispose of it in the same way as she had disposed of the glass paperweight, but acknowledging that the perfume had come from the perfume-maker and not Raschid. Even so she was reluctant to discover what sort of woman he had thought her, and she pushed the small package to the back of her drawer, unwilling for Zahra’s curious eyes to alight on it.
She was the first downstairs, and on impulse she hurried into the gardens, to where she had thrown the blue leather box. It had been stupid to try to destroy a thing of so much beauty out of momentary pique, but although she searched diligently among the rose bushes she could find no trace of the package and surmised that the gardener must have disposed of it.
Tonight the delicious spicy aromas coming from the dining room did nothing to tempt her appetite. Her stomach muscles knotting with tension at the thought of having to face Raschid, she felt as though the merest morsel of food would choke her.
Zahra greeted her in her normal ebullient fashion, smiling approvingly at the cool picture Felicia made; the fresh green colours of an English spring flowering in the desert.
‘Uncle Raschid will not be joining us tonight—he is entertaining business acquaintances,’ Zahra explained as they sat down.
Felicia relaxed with relief. So at least one of her wishes had been granted. Now all she needed was for her good fairy to wave her wand twice more—once to bring Faisal home and a second time to dissipate Raschid’s dislike—but such wishes were hardly likely to be granted, not if Raschid had anything to do with it.
‘Did your sightseeing tire you?’ Zahra asked solicitously. ‘You look very pale.’
‘A little.’ But it wasn’t her tour of the shops and town that had left her feeling so drained, it was her clash with Raschid and the disturbing thoughts it had aroused. Now wasn’t the time to question the strength of her feelings for Faisal, but for some reason she was finding it increasingly difficult not to compare Faisal to his uncle. Raschid would never allow anyone to dictate his way of life! She was being unfair, she reminded herself. Faisal had very little choice in the matter. Raschid had the whip hand!
‘Has Zahra told you that my elder daughter and her family are to pay us a visit shortly?’ Umm Faisal asked, as Selina heaped Felicia’s plate with savoury saffron rice.
Felicia shook her head and looked enquiringly at Zahra.
‘Yes, it is true,’ the younger girl acknowledged. ‘Nadia is to join us at the oasis. You will like her, Felicia, she looks very much like Faisal.’ She smiled understandingly when Felicia flushed; which only increased her own feelings of guilt, for it had been of Raschid’s darkly sardonic features of which she had been thinking and not Faisal’s.
She toyed listlessly with her food while Umm Faisal and Zahra discussed the arrangements which had to be made for the trip to the oasis. Was the memory of this afternoon’s unpleasantness destroying Raschid’s appetite? Did a mental image of her face torment him? Somehow she doubted it.
Refusing coffee, Felicia excused herself. Her small white lie that she had a headache was not entirely untrue. The beginnings of tension in the back of her neck had spread to her temples and she was glad to lie down on her bed and let her mind wander at will, relaxing under the hypnotic hum of the air-conditioning and the perfumed velvet of the Eastern night.
A tap on the door roused her, and she sat up and smiled reassuringly at Selina when she poked her head round the door.
‘The Sitt is wanted downstairs in Sheikh Raschid’s study.’
At first Felicia thought the girl had made a mistake, and knowing that her English could not always be relied upon, she shook her head kindly. ‘Sheikh Raschid is entertaining some friends, Selina, I do not think he would want me to join him.’
‘Friends all gone,’ Selina replied firmly. ‘Sheikh alone now. Everything quite proper. If the Sitt will come.’
It was obvious that she intended to wait and escort her downstairs, Felicia realised in exasperation. Her dress was slightly creased where she had been lying on it, but there was no time to worry about that now, nor to drag a comb through her unruly curls and wish that tiredness did not give her face such a look of soft vulnerability.
What could Raschid want? A further reiteration of his disapproval? She hesitated, and Selina paused enquiringly at the bottom of the stairs. Giving herself a mental shake, Felicia followed. After all, what could Raschid do? Eat her?
Raschid’s apartments were reached by a corridor linking them with the harem quarters of the house. They had their own private entrance and a large square hall furnished with soft Persian carpets and an intricately carved brassbound chest, plainly of great antiquity. Old-fashioned oil lamps threw a soft glow across the well polished floor.
There was richness here, and simplicity too, the one harmoniously blending with the other to give a feeling of timeless serenity which had the immediate effect of soothing her ragged nerves. The tall, narrow windows were open to the night, and the sharp scent of the lime trees stole in with the dusk.
‘This is the Sheikh’s study, sitt,’ Selina said respectfully, motioning her towards an iron-studded wooden door. Felicia gave her a wan smile, uncertain as to whether she should go straight in or knock. The decision was made for her when the door opened abruptly.
In the half light Raschid seemed to tower above her, and Felicia bit back a gasp. She would never have recognised him. He was wearing a dishdasha—the traditional white flowing robe of the Kuwaitis—his headdress hiding the night-black hair, a dark cloak lavishly embroidered with gold thread worn casually across his broad shoulders.
‘What is the matter, Miss Gordon?’ he asked urbanely as he ushered her into the room.
‘N-nothing,’ Felicia stammered, but her eyes remained glued to the undeniably impressive figure he ma
de, outlined against the starkness of the white walls.
‘When dealing with my compatriots I find it better to wear the traditional garb of our country. In point of fact the dishdasha is more comfortable by far than Western-style suits.’
‘And far more impressive.’ She could have bitten her tongue out, when he turned and stared coolly at her. A frisson of awareness tingled across her skin, and she shivered slightly, despite the warmth of the night.
‘And what, I wonder, does that remark imply? That you think me a posturing fool, practising for a part in The Desert Song?’
Anger underwrote the cold words. Horrified, Felicia stammered a denial. No European could ever have worn the flowing garment with the grace of his Arab counterpart, and her surprise had sprung merely from the fact that this was the first time she had seen Raschid dressed in the traditional manner. Although she would not have admitted it to a soul, when he opened the door to her, for a moment he had embodied every single one of her romantic teenage dreams.
And now to crown all her other follies she had offended Raschid’s pride, touching the most sensitive spot of his personality. She bit her lip, wishing they were on good enough terms for her to explain that he had misunderstood.
‘What? Nothing to say for yourself?’ he asked harshly, surprising her with the raw anger she sensed beneath the words. He moved with the stealth of the desert fox and the sureness of an Arab stallion, coming to stand at her side and spinning her round to face him.
Felicia moistened her lips, wetting them with a nervous tongue, the movement instantly stilled as Raschid’s gaze pounced on the betraying gesture.
‘Why did you send for me?’
He released her, and she could feel her nerve ends quivering with relief as the tension eased.
‘Merely to give you this,’ he replied, handing her an envelope bearing an airmail stamp.
Her heart lurched. It was from Faisal; it must be! With eager fingers she reached for the envelope, and her hand brushed against Raschid’s as she did so. It was like receiving an electric shock. She shrank back, recoiling from the contact, her face pale as she gripped her letter.