The Lady and the Desert Scoundrel

by Lisa Torquay

  “I can imagine it. You’re in contact with them on a daily basis.”

  “This and the fact that I know many of them since I was a toddler.” He smiled at the memory.

  “How cosy!” She tried to visualise him as an active boy, a shock of dark hair over his fascinating eyes. And failed. The man at her side took every space in her head.

  They browsed for a little longer and walked to the villa. The sky in deep blue, a pleasant breeze from the sea and the palm trees swinging at it accompanied them. A beautiful day, she concluded. In many ways.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  She’d made a decision. And she devised a plan.

  She’d have to act early in the morning, soon after Tariq went about his business, because he wouldn’t be back until evening and she’d have a long head start.

  Imperative that she go, she’d concluded. She must leave, the realisation turning her heart into a pulp of pain. Their situation too complicated and she stood a lot to lose. Others depended on her choices as well.

  A peep through the latticed window signalled Tariq on his way out through the yard gate, his men working on carts. Rushing to a chest, she took a canvas sac she’d prepared the previous evening. From another chest, she grabbed one of Tariq’s kaftans and sirwaal, the pantaloons, putting them on in quick moves. The cut of the clothing being one-size-fits-all, she had no problem, as the soft cloth fell on her tightly wrapped breasts. The ghoutra on her head, held by the igaal circle, covered her long hair in a low bun, while she enfolded her face in it. Dressed as a man, she held more chances.

  Her heart pounded in her chest, while she descended the stairs as silent as possible, not to draw the servants’ attention. For sure Tariq instructed them to watch her. Nobody detected her when she stepped in the yard. She’d mingle with the helpers up to the market and make her way to the port from there. How she’d look for and board a ship to Sicily, she didn’t know yet, but she’d find a manner.

  Unnoticed, she joined the men by the carts and started loading it, as they did. Fortunately neither Aziz, nor Mustafa were there, or she might have problems. Nobody seemed to acknowledge that there was one ‘man’ too many in the group. Carts loaded, they left the yard. Each pace farther the villa gave her a sense of victory, mixed with a sharp sense of loss, coming she didn’t know from where.

  Not long before they reached the market. She tested the efficacy of her disguise then. No one looked curiously at her and she merged in the crowd, distancing herself from Tariq’s helpers, hoping he was nowhere around the place. She took the direction of the docks. As she got to the street that led to it, a man shouted in the middle of it. The little Arabic she’d learned aided her understand they were looking for seamen for a ship departing with the evening’s tide. As far as she apprehended, the route touched Sicily, Greece and the Middle East.

  An insane idea to work as a seaman to cross the Mediterranean, but it appeared worth a try. She stopped and asked for information. The man looked at her up and down as if uncovering her, and she froze. He said something about her being healthy enough and gave her instructions to reach the vessel.

  By midday, she found herself on deck, carrying Goliath-sized boxes with herculean effort and pulling sail ropes. She hoped she survived the crossing. The trip from Syracuse to Gabes, took more than a night. Now, they were nearer as Tunis lay farther north. She calculated a night or so. She worked counting the minutes. If Tariq came home and found her missing, he’d waste no time to go chasing after her. She had loads of work to do and she busied herself with it. Night tide came at last and they set sail. During all the crossing, she took extreme care not to give a single sign she was not a man. If discovered, she’d be in utter danger.

  A breath of relief escaped her when the ship started moving. She was going home. Home? She remembered the talk she and Tariq had the first time she tried to steal a camel and go back to Gabes. He’d asked where home was. She didn’t have the answer then. Even less now after everything. But she was excited with her present adventure. She’d surely make it, she predicted optimistic.

  Tariq stormed in his home in a rush. He wanted her, needed her. He climbed the steps to the upper floor two by two, purposefully. Impatience and urgency tearing at him. “Lucinda.” He called. The bedroom, nothing. ”Lucinda.” The library, empty. He strode to the bath. Nobody. “Lucinda!” He shouted with a bad premonition.

  He flew to the servants quarters, downstairs, at the back, to ask them. No one had seen her; they believed she had been reading in the library all day as she usually did. He ran up again, to the bedroom, checked her things. Gone. How? Nobody saw her! He opened his chest; one of his kaftans missing. Damn. Damn. Damn! He raked his long-fingered hand in his obsidian hair. She’d left. Where? When? He paced the room impatiently, thinking. Fear for her safety, laced with rage for her escape and admiration for her determination, overtook him.

  As far as he was concerned, she might be anywhere. The market closed hours ago. The city, deserted and in the dark. Only brothels would be open at this hour. Little he to do now. He’d have to wait till morning and put one of his men on her track. He hoped, wherever she went, she’d be safe. The idea of losing her forever was…unbearable. Dressed as a man she was less in danger, he tried to soothe himself.

  He looked at his bed. Sleep would be impossible. He wanted her in it, in his arms, safe, warm. Receptive. Always. It was as though someone had torn his guts away. Inside, he became hollow and lost. No food or drink would go down his tightened throat. The lonely cold bed didn’t appeal either. He had to find her, whatever it took. Soon!

  Abduction, for pity’s sake! That’s what she had taken form him. Did he really expect someone in her predicament not to seek freedom? He himself would have. Long ago, by the way! And she had so much to lose, he understood it. Why the blast did he not do something about this situation?

  He wished he’d been less commanding and talked to her about what she wanted, after they’d arrived in Tunis. Perhaps they would have found a compromise together. He would have taken her to England to see her family and maybe, she’d accept to come back with him. For the first time in his life, he put himself in a woman’s shoes and understood her dilemmas, her needs. Blast him for his pig-headed notions, he regretted.

  Her arrival at the Graziani’s villa late next morning had been full of noisy, tearful welcomes. Exhaustion dominated her sore muscles after having worked heavily all night. But the crossing itself had happened uneventful. She’d left the ship surreptitiously and walked up the hills to the villa. Seeing Adriana’s and Mrs Croft’s dear faces had convinced her she’d done the right thing.

  Then she’d gone up for a bath and a well-deserved sleep. Presently, at tea time, she’d come down to join everybody.

  Having to wear one of her French-fashioned dresses made her annoyed. Those tight layers of cloth seemed utterly inappropriate now, squeezing her flesh into stiffness and submission. She longed to wear one of her tunic sets, and sleep in a lattice-windowed room, in a silk-curtained bed with…

  Stop it, Lucinda! Stop it! You made your choice. Live with it!

  In the end, she sat in the drawing room without a corset, a china-cup elegantly held. Mrs Croft, Adriana and Pietro around her curious to hear her story. She’d tell everything, except the very personal events.

  “I was abducted by mistake, in Adriana’s stead.” She revealed to a gaped audience. “Mr Tariq Al-Fadih said you, Mr Graziani, had a kind of…debt with him.” She’d considered having this conversation with Adriana’s father in private. But decided her friend had the right to learn the facts, since she’d been the real target.

  A regretful look passed over Pietro’s expression, soon wiped away.

  Lucinda perceived it and remembered what Tariq had told her. What if Adriana’s father decided to retaliate? “Nothing happened to me, though.” She assured them, wishing to even things out. “I was treated with courtesy from the first to the last day.” Not a lie, of course, but she blushed when her memory took
her to the molten-lava nights with him.

  Adriana’s father seemed less angry as Lucinda proceeded to tell what happened; the desert crossing, the villages, Tunis and her escape. She tried to erase any emotion from her voice, appearing balanced and unaffected, but each remembrance tugged on her insides. As if she hadn’t come back yet.

  The Italian girl snatched Lucinda’s hands in that dramatic way of hers. “Oh, Lucinda. I wish I had gone in your stead!” A frown in her beautiful Latin face. “I would have done anything to spare you from this.

  “Never mind, Adriana.” She consoled her dear friend. “I only regret not having the opportunity to visit the ruins of Cartage, which lies not far from Tunis.” She tried to lighten the mood with a faint smile. Which her friend reciprocated, fully aware of Lucinda’s taste for travel.

  Mrs Croft came into a state of anxiety to hear her story, but Lucinda assured her all ended well.

  “I’m going to my room to write a letter to my parents explaining that I am back and fine.” She excused herself, with a wrenching need for solitude. “Let’s find out when the next ship to England sails, shall we, Mrs Croft? So we can buy passages for it.” The three of them told her of Mr Graziani’s attempt to find her and the letter sent to her parents.

  “Certainly, Lady Lucinda!” The older woman acquiesced somewhat queerly, amazed at Lady Lucinda. Little more than a girl, she’d been abducted, crossed the desert, learned the rudiments of a foreign, not to say barbarian, language, worked her way into escape. And she was here, level-headed, down to earth, telling her tale and planning her return. Harriet had never seen such resilience in a daughter of the ton before this lady.

  Lucinda leaned on the rail watching as the ship knifed the foamy water. They’d be disembarking in one of London’s wharves in a few hours. After a week in the ship, her usual routine awaited her. She’d return to her old life, she acknowledged, as her longing eyes sought south time and again. As they had done the whole trip. Grey, passionless, frivolous life she came back to in her country. The desert vastness, the crowded market, the spicy smells would linger in the past. As would a certain pair of cognac-against-fire eyes. She looked the other way, so Mrs Croft, at her side, wouldn’t see her watered eyes. Every time she thought of him, this sadness dominated her heart. And the sodden mas popped a lot in her mind. The farther she got from the Mediterranean, the sadder she became. The time for frivolous reality approached fast. Travelling carried its enchantments, but it had to finish one way or the other.

  When London came into view, she filled her lungs and lifted her chin, tamping down the sobs which threatened to find freedom from her throat.

  When she finally found a breach to call it a day, Lucinda lay in her bed propped on fluffy pillows in Lancefield London House. Her family would stay in town until summer, when they’d retire to Lancefield Manor. Her father, mother and siblings received her cheerfully. She’d retold the tale of her adventures, leaving aside the thieves episode and her personal memories. Everyone was agape with her story and she assured everybody all ended well.

  A soft knock on the door, she invited the knocker in her room. Her mother, Alice, the Countess of Lancefield, put her head through the door. “May I come in, Lucinda?”

  “Sure, mama.” Lucinda sat on the bed. She craved privacy and solitude, but she couldn’t possibly turn her mother away,

  Alice sat on the bed, facing Lucinda. “My dear, your travels were positively an unheard-of adventure.” She smoothed an unseen wrinkle on the coverlet.

  “Yes, mama, but I’m finally back.” Her eyes fell to her hands folded on her lap. She knew this conversation was coming.

  “Lucinda,” Alice started, “as your mother, I became very worried when I received Mrs Croft letter. We all were.” Her mother’s equally green eyes searched hers. “Are you certain you came home as…unharmed as you left?”

  It fell to a mother to verify such things, Lucinda understood it. For a moment, she was in great doubt whether she should tell her mother about how…different she’d returned. Not because she’d given herself to…well to him. But because the crossing had unravelled a vaster horizon in her experience. In every possible sense. It revealed new ways of life, new options, other than the restricted ones offered to her in England. It provoked a feeling of limitation she did not perceive before departing.

  In case she decided to open up to her mother, she’d undertake full responsibility for her choices. Together, they could find a way around the circumstances. But Lucinda regretted worrying her mother so much. When the time came, she would tell everything and explain. Right now, she wasn’t ready for that.

  “I’m perfectly fine, mama.” The reaffirmation brought a glint of relief to her mother’s mien.

  “Naturally, we paid Mrs Croft handsomely for her discretion.”

  “I see.” This way, the ton wouldn’t be abuzz with suspicions.

  Lady Lancefield patted her arm and made to leave.

  “Mama,” Lucinda stopped her, “I miss Lancefield Manor. I wonder if I could go and spend a few weeks in it before Easter.” Lucinda needed desperately to be on her own for a while, at least.

  “You’re not…?”

  “No, I’m not.” She interrupted. It’d been established she was not with child during her sail to England. Alice shouldn’t have asked since Lucinda assured her mother of her…unharmed condition. Mother’s hunch, no doubt.

  Alice observed her daughter attentively for the first time that evening. She acquiesced with a curt nod. “I can imagine it might have been a rather straining trip. Take your maid with you. I’ll instruct the carriage and the footmen to be ready in the morning.”

  Lucinda thanked her mother. She’d have done it all over again. The straining trip, she meant. The desert. The sandstorm. The caravan. The man. And again, she reasserted, as her mother excused herself.

  Her head touched the pillow as a sharp loneliness abated her. She closed her eyes, and the images stored in her memory replayed and replayed in her head. Especially the steaming nights in his arms. The tears came then as if a dam had burst open. Excruciating longing shook her body. She’d left something there, she sobbed. Something important, irretrievable. Her heart. And she hadn’t even noticed it. Goodness gracious! She’d fallen in love with Tariq. Irreversibly, inexorably. Completely. His protectiveness, his strength of character, his temper, his hot-blooded passion, everything. She loved everything in him. It ran so deep and warm; she doubted she’d be able to forget him. Ever. The abundant flow of tears didn’t stop as she fell asleep.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lucinda circled her father’s enormous desk in the library and kissed his rather round cheek. “Thank you, papa, for everything you taught me.” He would never imagine how useful those skills had turned out to her.

  The early morning spring sun came by the huge window. “Oh, Lucinda, my child! You’re most welcome.” Alfred Lancefield had passed his golden years and kept a proud swollen belly and wined rosy cheeks these days.

  She had come to bid him goodbye before she left for the manor. “I’m so happy you allowed me to go to Lancefield Manor!” A two-hour’s ride from London, it wasn’t too far for a young lady to travel.

  “Yes, yes.” Her good-natured father dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Mr and Mrs Burns will take good care of you, I’m sure.” He referred to the butler and his wife, the housekeeper.

  Lucinda rode her white Arab mare through the fields, astride, as she liked most. This week in Lancefield Manor had been peaceful and quiet. She had entertained neighbours, read new travelling accounts, strolled in the village and paid calls. She made it a point to engage in social appearances so there’d be no rumours to stain her reputation. Sudden retirements in the country usually raised suspicion.

  But Tariq stuck to her mind, day and night. She fretted it’d take more than a few days to leave these memories be. She feared it’d not happen even in years. Or even in decades, who knew? Every time she remembered their intimate moments, her body respond
ed as if they happened at that minute, lighting the familiar fire again and again.

  The lake came into view. The Lancefield Lake stood as one of her favourite spots in the property. She dismounted and tied her mare to a tree, sitting on a fallen tree trunk the game-keeper let be there at her request. It had been her refuge since her early teenage years. The woods surrounding it kept it apart from the world.

  The weather hadn’t helped so much. A lot of rain fell for days and today the grey sky threw a melancholy light on the water. She’d promised her mother she’d go back to London at Easter, in a week’s time. She wished she did not need to be back in town for a long time. London was not for her. The frivolity, the gossiping, the exacerbated vanity didn’t attract her in the least. A promise was a promise, and she’d have to make good on her word.

  And after Easter, she’d probably have to choose a suitor. Dreadfully soon, if someone asked her. By then she’d not be able to postpone the private conversation with her mother and come clean about the subject of her virginity, a serious matter. A husband might call for an annulment of the marriage if the bride proved not to be a virgin. The scandal and the shame would destroy her family. There must be a way out and her mother would help for fear of the consequences. It was not as if she would bring a bastard to her marriage. She wasn’t. And that remained the crux of the question.

  She regretted nothing. Absolutely nothing. Given the chance, she’d do it all over again. She imagined those married ladies of the ton, taking lovers out of boredom. Hollow liaisons, meaningless for the people involved. She didn’t want that life. Nevertheless, the life she envisioned stretching before her would be arid, insipid. The idea despaired her. That who her heart yearned for would never be with her again. She had the memories though. And she’d treasure them. She’d feed on them so her heart wouldn’t dry out. Better to have known love and suffered than otherwise.