Christopher had been distraught at the start of his story, shaken to the core by how close they had come to making love. So very close. Tahira shivered, appalled by her own utter abandon, appalled to discover that she was not as relieved as she should be that he had had the willpower to stop before it was too late. The desire to be one with him, to unite with him in the way only a husband and wife should be united, had been so instinctive that she hadn’t questioned her actions, driven only by that fierce need—no, it was not a need, it was a certainty. There was nothing more right than making love to him.
And nothing so wrong. Christopher knew that, even if she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. But his mood had changed during his confession, he had become angry. He still was. She could see it, a repressed fury, evident in the tense way he held himself, the rigidity of his shoulders, the tightly clasped hands, his set expression. Only his eyes were bleak, with hatred for the English aristocrat who had fathered him, and for the two people who had raised him. He was wrong, surely he was wrong, to think that they did so simply because they were paid? Those childhood memories, not just of the Roman coin but of the snow, the sledding—they had been happy times. It tugged on her heartstrings to see him so tortured, for it was clear that he had not permitted himself to mourn either his lost history or the loss of his putative father, the kind surveyor.
Christopher thought it was all buried and forgotten with his amulet. Did he truly believe that? He desperately wanted to, and they had so little time, a matter of hours, before they parted for ever. Though he resisted when she tried to take his hand, she determinedly twined her fingers with his, pressing a lingering kiss to his knuckles.
‘I don’t want your pity, Tahira.’
‘I am shocked, and I am angry on your behalf, and very sorry indeed for your poor mother, but what I feel for you is not pity. Why would I pity a man who has for the last six months faced untold dangers, taken breathtaking risks, to do what he thought was right? A man who could easily have taken advantage of the connections which the likes of this Lord Armstrong could have given him? A man with such courage, such integrity, such honour, who has taken so much trouble to make our nights together so perfect. I don’t pity you, I feel...’
Overwhelmed she blinked furiously, bending her head to press another, more passionate kiss on Christopher’s hand. What she felt for him made her heart lurch. What she felt—no, she couldn’t let herself feel that. The ultimate taboo. The intensity of this night had whipped her emotions into a shape she mistook for something utterly inappropriate, which would unravel in the cold light of day. ‘I don’t pity you, Christopher Fordyce,’ Tahira said.
‘I don’t have the right to that name,’ he retorted curtly, though his expression had softened, and he no longer tried to escape her touch. ‘And as a bastard, I have no right to that other—nor any desire to claim it.’
‘What about your mother’s name? You chose not to ask it, Christopher, but...’
‘I already know more than enough of my mother to torture myself. She was sixteen,’ he said. ‘The same age as our princess. And he, Lord Henry Armstrong, was four years older, a man of experience, a man who should have known better. If you could see him, Tahira, so full of himself, so utterly callous, so completely untainted by his sin.’
‘But didn’t you say that it was he who arranged for these kind people to raise you as their own?’
‘And buy their silence. If my mother had not died, how different might things have been!’
‘What can you mean?’
‘You understand now why I compare you with her, surely? Her father and mine, arranging her life for her, forcing her to comply. Would she have surrendered me, had she lived? Are not the feelings of a mother so powerful, the duty of a mother to a child more vital than her duty to her family?’
‘As an unmarried mother,’ Tahira said gently, ‘she would have been cast out of the society in which she had been raised, and her shame visited on you.’
‘The shame was not hers. It was her seducer who should have been shamed,’ Christopher said tightly. ‘The man who bequeathed me my bastard blood.’
‘You must know that whatever blood flows in your veins, it does not change the man you are.’
He jumped to his feet, his face set. ‘I thought that knowing how I came into this world would ensure that I would never, ever act as my father did.’
‘You did not seduce me!’ Tahira exclaimed despairingly. ‘Despite every encouragement from me, you did not seduce me!’ She too got to her feet. Though she wanted to weep, to throw her arms around him, she dared not touch him. His logic was skewed by his misplaced anger, his interpretation of his history so tangled—but how to help him untangle it now, when the sands of their time together were down to the last few grains? If Christopher wished to imagine a better life, a different life with his mother, who was she to disillusion him? Hadn’t she fallen into the very same trap herself? And didn’t she know how painful it was, to realise that even a mother would not put her child’s wishes over her duty?
‘This is the last time we will be together, my last night free in the desert, your last night here in Nessarah,’ Tahira said helplessly. ‘I am afraid that whatever I say to you now will be the wrong thing, Christopher, but I can’t allow you to carry the burden of guilt for what happened between us—what so nearly happened, but did not.’
His arms were crossed across his chest. A light breeze ruffled his hair, blowing the soft, worn cotton of his tunic against the muscled contours of his body. His gaze was averted, fixed on the undulating contours of the desert sands as they formed and re-formed in an endless, shifting pattern of dunes. A dangerous man, she had thought him, from the first moment they met, and a wildly attractive man too. But she knew now that he was also a vulnerable man, a man who felt betrayed, rejected, and lost. A man desperate to wipe the slate of his history clean, yet a man who was set on dedicating his life to uncovering the history of others. Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed, watching him. She felt—she felt far too much. It was not safe to feel so much for a man she was about to say goodbye to, but from the moment she met him, Christopher had made her want to cast caution to the winds. Right now, safe was the last thing she wanted to feel.
‘Over there is where you took me sledding,’ Tahira said, stumbling over the English word, slipping her arm through his. ‘And over there, in the other direction, the oasis where we went swimming—though I never did swim.’
‘You floated very beautifully though. I won’t forget that image of you, with your hair streaming out behind you, the moonlight on the water, and you...’
Christopher pulled her into his arms, holding her breathlessly tight. ‘I have never wanted anyone so much as I wanted you tonight. The other times, the dune, the oasis, though you were temptation personified, I was always—I never once lost control of my desire for you. I was so sure, Tahira, so very much aware of that line my father crossed in begetting me, so certain that I never would allow history to repeat itself. Yet tonight—it was the fact that I didn’t think at all which frightened me.’
‘But it was the same for me, Christopher.’
‘No,’ he said gently but firmly, ‘it is not the same. The consequences are so completely, unfairly disproportionate. My loss of control would have been your downfall, just as my father’s was my mother’s.’ He shuddered, his hold on her tightening painfully. ‘If we had made love, what would have become of us, do you think? All very well for me to tell myself that I would do what they call the honourable thing, in England—marry you—but I will not tell myself that pathetic lie. We are from different worlds. I am a bastard with no name to call my own, certainly none to give to a wife or a child, while you, Tahira, whatever your name, it is obviously a good one. Your brother would never accept me, and you cannot marry a man unacceptable to your family.’
He let her go, only to clench his fists
, his mouth curled into a self-deprecating sneer. ‘The parallels are painfully obvious. When that man explained the circumstances of my mother’s downfall, I thought he too easily dismissed the option of marriage, but though it makes my bile rise to admit it, by understanding how intractable your own family are in the matter of making a good match for you—which brings me back to my point. My act of selfishness would be paid for by you. What would you do, Tahira? What could you possibly do, save proceed with the marriage arranged for you, make a cuckold of your husband before you have even said your vows, and live for ever with the lie, or bring dishonour to your family with the truth?’
His words cut her to the quick, for they were the stark, brutal truth. It terrified her to see how close she had come to the precipice he depicted. ‘You are right,’ Tahira whispered, shamed. Her future husband was not her choice, but everything she had heard implied he was a good man. He did not deserve a marriage based on lies, a wife who deceived him about the one commodity she brought to the alliance. Yet she still could not bring herself to regret a moment spent with Christopher. ‘You are quite right,’ she repeated, in an effort to persuade herself it was so.
‘Thankfully, it is not a choice you will have to make.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Tonight I proved that I can be every bit as selfish, as vile, as the man whose blood runs in my veins—because that’s the point, you see. I did not ultimately lose control, but I wanted to. The moral high ground I have claimed is no longer mine.’
‘Nor mine.’
‘I won’t have you say that. You are sacrificing your freedom to do your duty.’
‘And am therefore granted the moral leeway you will not grant yourself?’ Tahira exclaimed bitterly. ‘You deride my brother for imposing his will on me, but aren’t you doing the same, by denying me the right to claim some responsibility for my own actions?’ Too late, she realised how inflammatory her words were. Too late she remembered that they were amongst her last words to Christopher. But they were said now, and part of her could not regret them.
‘I am, as you have pointed out, quite powerless to dictate the course of my life,’ Tahira continued, thinking fatalistically that she might as well finish what she started. ‘When I’m with you, you allow me to be myself. Can’t you see that’s the most important thing to me in all of this? You have given me a taste of true freedom, and I used that freedom to choose, tonight, to make love to you. A foolish—far beyond foolish—choice, but my choice all the same. You did not coerce me. And as to the consequences—they are my responsibility as much as yours.’
He did not speak for some moments, but she could see from the way his throat worked that he was struggling with some strong emotion. Anger?
But when he did speak, he sounded shaken. ‘Forgive me, I have been thinking only of myself.’
‘Christopher, it has been—what you have told me tonight—I cannot imagine what you must have suffered, these last nine months. I am honoured that you have chosen to confide in me, that you trusted me.’ Guilt swooped down on her, reminding her that she had not reciprocated that trust. But it was too late for that too.
‘I doubt I would, had not we—but enough of my guilty conscience.’ Christopher held out his arms, and she stepped gratefully into the comfort of them. ‘We have a little time left,’ he said, looking anxiously up at the stars. ‘Let us sit here together, on our magic carpet, and waste no more time fighting to prove which of us is more culpable.’
Tahira reached up to smooth his hair back from his furrowed brow. ‘We are equal,’ she said. ‘Equally right, equally wrong, equally reckless, and I hope, during the time we have been together, equally happy.’
His fingers warm and gentle on the back of her neck. ‘I hope that you will find happiness in the future. You deserve to.’
She put her finger over his mouth. ‘No past, no future. Just the present. That’s all I’m interested in. Here and now. You and I. Just us.’
With a groan, he kissed her, and with a soft sigh, she melted into his kiss. Lips clinging, hands smoothing and stroking, they sank on to the carpet together. There was an aching sweetness in this kiss that had not been there before, a tenderness in their touch, as if they were made of glass and might shatter.
When it ended they did not break apart but curled into each other, lying on their backs, gazing up at the stars spread across the night sky just for them. More kisses, equally tender, but as the sky turned from indigo to violet and the stars began to fade, their lips and hands became desperate. Passion not spent, but forever suspended, the sense of an ending finally forced them apart.
In silence, Tahira pulled on her cloak and fixed her headdress. Her throat was clogged, her heart heavy, but she was beyond tears. One final kiss before she clicked her tongue for her camel to drop to his knees. Tearing herself from Christopher’s embrace was the hardest thing she had ever had to do. ‘I will think of you tomorrow, flying back to Egypt on our carpet,’ she said.
‘Tahira...’ His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you. For everything.’
‘And you, Christopher. For everything.’ She could not bear it any longer. Throwing herself on to the saddle, she kicked the camel into motion. For once the beast heeded her, turning and charging into a fast trot in a jerky movement that almost threw her on to the sands. By the time she had control again, she was so far from Christopher’s camp that there was no point in looking back, but she did all the same. He was still there, standing quite motionless.
‘Goodbye, my love,’ Tahira whispered, unable to deny her heart any longer. ‘Goodbye, my own true love.’
She loved him. Now that she would never see him again, she was forced to admit it. She loved him, and it was quite hopeless. Sand flew into her eyes as she made her way back to the palace. She had forgotten to fasten her headdress over her face, but Tahira relished the sting of it on her skin, for it gave credence to her pain. She was in love with Christopher, whatever his name was, and tomorrow her beloved would leave Arabia for Egypt, and two days after that, she would be betrothed to a complete stranger.
As she crossed the desert away from him, every single step her camel took made her heart ache more. Tahira slumped in the saddle, trusting to the animal’s instinct for home to guide them back to the stables. Oblivious of the beauty of the fading stars, the changing palette of the sky on this, her last night of freedom, she saw only Christopher. The reckless adventurer she had first encountered. Those eyes, ardent and passionate, tortured and haunted, laughing, serious, furious, sated. Christopher in his shabby desert garb armed to the teeth. Christopher naked. Christopher laughing. Christopher’s kisses. Christopher’s arms around her, holding her so tightly she could feel his heart beating, delude herself that he would never let her go.
And tonight he had, for the very last time. Misery made her slump further in the saddle. She would have given everything, anything, to be able to turn back, to spend one more night with him.
But there were no more nights, no more hours, not even another minute. It was over, and instead of wishing for more, she should be thanking the stars that it ended before they surrendered to the ultimate temptation. No wonder making love felt so right. No wonder her conscience had not intervened.
The outskirts of Nessarah were coming into view. What was he doing? Was he asleep? Was he thinking of her? He wanted her to be happy, he had said. His self-control had ensured that her marriage would not be predicated on a lie. She could not imagine being happy with any man other than Christopher, but there had never been any question of her having any sort of life with Christopher. Did he care for her? She knew in her bones that he did. Did he love her? No. And even if he did, what difference would it make?
But she loved him and she could not regret it. As she neared Farah’s stables and the camel slowed to a walk, Tahira smiled tenderly to herself. ‘I love you, Christopher,’ she whispered. Her last night of freedom was not yet over. Alo
ne in her divan, she would hold her secret safe, devote herself to thinking only of her love. Time enough tomorrow to try to come to terms with what the future would hold.
Chapter Eleven
Indecisive was one of the last words Christopher would have used to describe himself, but for the last two days, since saying goodbye to Tahira for ever, he’d been unable to make a single decision. No, that wasn’t strictly true. He had decided to leave Nessarah any number of times, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to act on it.
He couldn’t understand it. His quest was over, his amulet buried, his dark and shameful past put firmly behind him, but the long-anticipated sense of relief continued to elude him. He felt unsettled, unprepared for the future he had been longing for, more haunted than ever by thoughts of the past.
Dredging it all up, reliving it in order to make Tahira understand, that’s what had brought it so vividly back. He had been so very clear in his mind that ridding himself of the amulet was the key to wiping the slate clean. He’d expected her to agree, but instead she had questioned him. And her questions, infuriatingly, would not go away.
Why hadn’t Andrew Fordyce sold the amulet? Had the man Christopher had always called father simply been too guilty to profit from blood money? Looking back—and Christopher had done a lot of that over the last two sleepless nights—he could conjure only happy memories, not only of his childhood, but of the close working relationship he’d had with his fa—with Fordyce. What’s more, despite the fact that they hadn’t sold the bloody amulet, Christopher had wanted for nothing. What sacrifices had the Fordyces made? Christopher’s schooling, now he thought about it—wasn’t hindsight a wonderful thing!—had been far superior to the children of the Fordyce’s friends and relations. He’d always believed himself loved, had always loved the people he thought his parents deeply in return. Which is why it had been so painful to discover the damning evidence that he had been duped. Though Tahira didn’t believe he had.
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