Christopher was looking decidedly sheepish. ‘I wanted to commemorate our time together here by burying something, a record of our brief history,’ he said. ‘I like the notion that someone like us, with a fascination for the past, might uncover it, in a hundred, a thousand years from now. Only we know what we’ve shared, and when we are gone—it’s a fanciful notion, I know, but I hoped you’d understand.’
‘I do, I don’t want tonight to be the end,’ Tahira said softly, touched to her heart. ‘Even though we will never see each other again—you want us to leave some sort of clue—to bury some sort of artefact, so that a part of us will always be together?’
‘Yes.’ Christopher flushed. ‘I did not think I was the sentimental kind, but...’
‘It’s not sentimental. It’s—it’s the most perfect—it is perfect.’ She kissed his hand. Hot tears dripped on to his knuckles.
‘I didn’t mean to make you cry.’
She shook her head, wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of her tunic, smiling mistily. ‘I’m not. I won’t. What did you have in mind?’
Christopher reached behind him to produce a silver casket, the kind used to contain scrolls, and indeed inside there was a scroll. ‘Look and see,’ he said, taking it out and handing it to her.
There were two sheets rolled together, both drawings. The first was of the rock formation which housed the turquoise mine and the princess’s tomb, the distinctive shape, like the battlements of an ancient castle perfectly depicted, the vertical striations of the rock cross-hatched in pencil. The second drawing was of the inside of the tomb, showing the princess’s sarcophagus, the shelf containing the silver pot and the serpent bangle, and over the heart of the effigy, Christopher’s amulet.
‘The place which brought us together, the site of our princess’s tomb, the beginning and the ending of your quest.’ Her eyes were tearing up again. ‘It is perfect,’ Tahira said.
‘That’s not all. Close your eyes and hold out your hands.’ The object he gave her was heavy, lumpy. ‘Now look.’
Horrified, Tahira stared at the piece of ore which he must have taken from the mine either last night or tonight. In its natural state, the copper streaking the turquoise was more pronounced. Though the mineral was unpolished, it was still a stark contrast with the rough stone which encompassed it.
‘As you can see, it is an exact match for the turquoise in the amulet,’ Christopher said, grinning.
‘If they had discovered you in the mine—if you had told me that you needed further proof, I could have—’ She bit off the remainder of her words, colouring brightly. Shock and alarm had made her indiscreet.
‘Your brother is an investor in the mine, isn’t he?’ Christopher said. ‘Don’t worry, I had deduced as much. It was the only reason I could think of which would explain your inside knowledge.’
‘Yes,’ Tahira agreed gratefully, for it wasn’t exactly a lie. ‘But what possessed you to take such a risk?.’
‘It simply felt right, somehow.’
She had the strangest feeling, breathless and giddy, looking at him. ‘It is right, I do see what you mean, though to have risked so much—but it’s done now.’
She placed the lump of ore carefully inside the silver casket. ‘The clues to our meeting and to our find, but I think...’ Reaching behind her, Tahira undid the clasp of her gold chain. ‘Yes, this feels right too. I would like to leave something of myself with the rest.’
‘No, you can’t bury that. It means so much to you.’
‘That’s exactly why I want to put it in here.’ The little token her mother had given her all those years ago was warm from her skin. ‘The Bedouin star,’ she said, kissing the trinket one last time. ‘My nights of wandering under the stars are over, I don’t need you any more.’
‘Then I too want to leave something precious to me.’ Christopher brought out the pouch which had once contained his amulet, tipping the lonely contents on to his palm. His Roman coin glinted dully in the firelight, the base metal almost black. Like Tahira, he placed it to his lips, before returning it to the pouch. ‘May I?’
When she nodded, he put her necklace in beside it and retied the pouch before placing this last item in the casket and closing the lid.
‘Where should we bury it?’ Tahira asked.
‘Over the centuries this well and its buildings will fall completely into ruin as the desert reclaims it. One day, far in the future, someone like us might carefully sift through the foundations, looking for relics.’
‘And then they will scratch their heads and wonder how it came to be that a Bedouin necklace and a Roman coin were buried together,’ Tahira said, beguiled by the image. ‘But you haven’t answered my question.’
‘Come and see.’ He led her into the well-keeper’s house, where a deep hole had been dug just inside the main wall. Together they placed the casket inside. ‘One last thing,’ Christopher said, producing a neatly carved stone cat in a sentinel pose, just like the ones in the princess’s tomb, setting it at the head of the precious box. ‘To keep the contents safe.’
Tahira watched, quite overcome with emotion as he made light work of filling in the hole. How many years before it was uncovered? Who would find it? What would they make of it? How many times over the years to come would she ask herself those questions? A piece of herself and of Christopher, held safe together. Their secret, waiting to be uncovered long after they themselves had been confined to history.
* * *
‘I don’t want tonight to end,’ Tahira said, as they sat back down on the rug laid out in front of the fire underneath the starry sky. ‘If this really was a magic carpet, that’s what I would wish for, to stay right here always.’
Christopher had not thought beyond this moment. All the effort he had put into the burial of the casket, he’d told himself was for Tahira, but as he pulled her into his arms, he could admit to himself that it was for him too. His own way of preserving these forbidden moments for ever. Stupid thought. Mawkish. But somehow right.
Like their kisses. The most natural thing in the world to kiss her under the desert stars. The taste of her had become so achingly familiar in such a short time. Days. Not even enough weeks for the moon to turn full cycle. He ran his fingers through the heavy silkiness of her hair. She had tied it back loosely tonight, held only with a silk scarf which came easily free, allowing him to spread the rippling waterfall of it over her back. Jasmine. How would he ever smell jasmine again without thinking of her? Her hands fluttered over his shoulders, her fingers tangled in his hair. Her kisses were the heat of the desert, the glitter of the stars, the sultry, heavy air of the desert night.
They sank back together on to the rug and their kisses merged one into the other, drugging and rousing. She whispered his name as no one ever had. Her eyes, heavy-lidded but watching him, reflecting his passion, her skin hot under his touch, the same fire in her blood that heated his. He drank deep of her mouth, then trailed kisses down her throat, to the tempting valley between her breasts. Her fingers plucked at the buttons of her tunic, and when they were open, at the buttons of his. Her hands were on his chest, flattened over his nipples. His mouth on her breasts, and his hands. Soft moans. His own breath, fast and shallow.
Emotion surged with the blood to his groin. Tenderness, wanting, a deep-seated, primal need to be one with her. Her voice urged him onwards, her hands on his back, on his buttocks. And his hands, over her, inside her. The sweet, hot wetness of her desire for him. The hard, driving need of his desire for her. Like nothing before.
Their mouths met again. Such kisses, spinning them to new heights. Her hands on his shaft now as his touch brought her to her climax, as she unravelled beneath him, gloriously naked, unbearably vulnerable, he wanted to gather her to him, to keep her safe, to make her one with him, to complete what they had started, what he so urgently needed.
Completion. He kissed her deeply. She arched under him, her body melding to his, her legs twined around his. Possession. To be hers. He wanted to be hers. He wanted, needed, to be hers. It was the only thing that mattered. The only thing that was right. He could feel her, the tip of his shaft just touching the sleek, hot, wetness of her, the rippling of her climax, the soft, pleading sound of her voice, the heady, deep kisses, her hands on his buttocks, and the primal need to thrust inside her took over. He had never felt anything so perfectly right.
And so irretrievably, unbearably wrong.
His curses rang out into the desert night as Christopher flung himself away, jumping to his feet, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with horror. ‘Dear God in heaven, what am I doing.’ Grabbing his tunic, he pulled it over his head, tugged on his trousers, panting, cursing, heart hammering, threw her clothing at her. ‘Put these on. I cannot—I am—put these on, for the love of God, put them on.’
He couldn’t breathe. Tahira was staring at him uncomprehending, but his Arabic had deserted him. What had he done? What had he done? What had he done?
He pulled at his hair viciously. Tahira sat up, staring at him wide-eyed. Her mouth was opening and closing but he couldn’t hear her for the roaring in his ears. He couldn’t stay here and look at her, so gloriously naked, so painfully naked, the evidence of his shame, the evidence that despite everything, the blood which ran in his veins defined him after all.
Shaking his head, he ran for the well house. The first bucket of icy-cold water over his head made him gasp. Another bucket brought him back from the abyss, but only to the edge. One tiny iota of self-control had prevented him from catastrophe. One tiny last iota. He drank from the third bucket, hands shaking, but his breathing slowing.
Tahira.
‘Oh, God, Tahira.’
Rushing back out, he found her, fully dressed, huge-eyed and frightened. ‘Christopher, what on earth...?’
His grasp of her language returned. ‘I’m sorry. By the stars, I am so sorry. I did not mean—I would never—I thought I would never—did I hurt you?’
‘Hurt me? No! You frightened me. What happened, Christopher?’
‘What I promised I would never do. I am so sorry.’
‘But it didn’t—you didn’t.’
She tried to put her arms around him, but he shrank back. ‘You can’t trust me. I cannot trust myself.’
‘No more can I, it seems.’ Her hair was still loose, a wild tangle of curls that she now tried to tie back but failed, her fingers shaking. And her knees, it seemed. ‘I have to sit down.’
‘I’ve frightened you. The last thing in the world—’
‘Christopher!’ The shock of her sharp reprimand startled them both. ‘I’m sorry, but I cannot—it was not only you. I was every bit—if you had not stopped, I would have—we would have—but we did.’ She laughed, a strange shaky sound. ‘We did stop, I’m still fit for my wedding night, thanks to you.’
‘You give me too much credit. I wanted—I always thought that there was a line I could not cross, but blood will out.’ With a racking, dry sob, he dropped on to the mat and covered his face with his hands. Shame and horror sent his mind lurching into a terrible dark place he had never inhabited before.
‘Christopher, please, there is no need...’
‘There is every need. You don’t understand.’
‘What don’t I understand?’
‘I am my father’s son after all. Base-born, base of blood and equally base of mind. I thought myself better than he. Tonight, I’ve proved myself every bit as vile.’
‘Base-born? No, I don’t think you mean what you say. You are so upset, I think you are using the wrong words. Base-born means...’
‘I am a bastard,’ Christopher said, dropping his hands, using the crudest translation of the word he knew. ‘My father was not married to my mother. I am a bastard, the product of an act such as I so very nearly—you understand now, Tahira?’
But she shook her head, her mouth trembling, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees. ‘You speak in riddles. I don’t understand any of it. I feel as if I don’t know you at all.’ A tear splashed on to her cheek. She shook it away violently. ‘This is our last night together. Don’t let it end like this, Christopher. Whatever it is that has made you—I don’t understand, but I want to. Won’t you tell me? Please?’
He opened his mouth to deny her, but the words would not come. ‘I have never spoken of it.’
‘You think I won’t keep your secret?’
‘I think my secret will make you despise me.’
‘I couldn’t. It is simply not possible.’
‘You can’t be certain of that.’
‘Is there anything I could tell you which would make you despise me?’
He answered without thinking, ‘Nothing.’
Was that relief on her face? Had it been fear? He had no idea. He couldn’t think straight.
‘Then tell me, Christopher. Trust me. Please.’
It was all too much. He had neither the energy nor the will to resist her. For so long he had kept it all pent up inside him. No hope of relief. No hope of understanding. The need to unburden himself was overpowering. Christopher shrugged fatalistically, closed his eyes, let himself fall back to that day, nine months ago, and began his tale in a hoarse whisper.
Chapter Ten
London—October 1814
Christopher had deliberately turned up unannounced at the imposing house which occupied a prime site on London’s Cavendish Square. Though he dreaded the forthcoming interview and fervently wished that he had not come into possession of the document which had led him here, he desperately needed answers. Whatever the truth turned out to be, no matter how earth-shattering, he simply had to know.
‘His lordship is not at home to callers lacking a prior appointment,’ the butler informed him, eyeing Christopher’s plain black coat and simply tied cravat with some disdain. ‘He is an important and extremely busy man.’
‘No doubt, but I think you will find that he will be most eager to receive me when you show him this,’ Christopher said coolly, handing the man his business card.
The butler hesitated, but he was no fool. Perhaps it was the quiet authority in Christopher’s voice, it most certainly wasn’t his unostentatious attire, but for whatever reason the servant acquiesced. ‘Very well, if you will be so good as to wait here a moment, sir, I will ascertain whether your confidence is well placed.’
Less than a minute later, Christopher was shown into a study on the ground floor. The scent of beeswax polish mingled with the slightly musty smell emanating from the myriad tomes and ledgers which filled the serried ranks of bookcases lining the walls. From the empty grate a faint trace of smoke and coal ash added to the range of prosperously genteel odours.
His heart was pounding in his chest as he approached the middle-aged man seated behind the imposing walnut desk. Lord Henry Armstrong was distinguished rather than handsome, dressed with simple but expensive elegance. His grey hair was sparse on top, there were deep grooves running from his nose to the corners of his mouth and a fretwork of lines across his brow, but beneath heavy lids, his eyes were alert and piercing, his gaze assessing. His reputation as one of the most astute diplomats in government ranks was obviously well deserved. Those eyes met Christopher’s for the very first time, making his stomach lurch in a sickening manner. A distinctive deep blue rimmed with grey, they were his lordship’s most striking feature and were now widening in disbelief. ‘Christopher Fordyce,’ he said faintly, getting to his feet. ‘Is it truly you?’
Ignoring the proffered hand, Christopher sat down, while his lordship made for the side table, pouring himself a large brandy from the crystal decanter. ‘Would you care to join me? No? So be it, but you will excuse me if I avail myself. I find I have need of a stiffene
r.’ He took a large gulp before sinking back on his chair behind the desk. ‘Excuse me. If you had given me any prior warning—though I doubt it would have lessened the shock. I confess, I never expected this day to arrive.’
Clearly shaken, Lord Armstrong took another draught of brandy before picking up the business card which the butler had delivered. ‘Christopher. So those worthy people retained the name. It was my father’s, God rest him.’ He stared down at the business card again. ‘“Land Surveyor, Mineral and Ore Specialist”,’ he read. ‘You followed Fordyce’s vocation. I trust he is well?’
‘Not particularly. He died two weeks ago.’
‘Ah. My sincere condolences.’ Lord Armstrong mopped his brow. ‘And Mrs Fordyce?’
‘Passed away twelve years ago.’
‘I am sorry to hear that. They were good people. Your business, sir, does it prosper?’
‘I did not come here to exchange pleasantries, but instead to demand some answers from you.’
Lord Armstrong’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Demand?’
‘You heard me correctly,’ Christopher said, pleased to note that his steady and calm tone did not betray his emotions. ‘For a start, will you confirm that you recognise this document? Is it written in your own hand?’
Christopher pushed the thick parchment across the blotter. The aristocrat’s face tightened momentarily before, with an almost imperceptible exhalation of breath, he snatched it up, tugging at the knot on the faded red ribbon which bound it. Lord Armstrong perused the document, his mouth set, his pale complexion turning slowly ashen. When he finally replaced it on the desk, his hands were shaking.
‘There seems little point in indulging in obfuscation. I did indeed write it, under instruction from a trusted legal adviser, now long dead. May I ask how long you have been aware of its existence?’
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