by Belinda Grey
‘Of me?’ he enquired.
‘Yes—no, of course not!’ Indignation came to her aid. ‘Why should I fear you?’
‘Why indeed?’ he countered. ‘I’ve given you no reason.’
‘You’ve not given me any reason to trust you either,’ she retorted sharply.
‘Yet you wander about alone with no means of protection.’ He gave her a long, level stare and said, ‘You really are foolish in many ways.’
‘Don’t dare criticise me,’ she said, but her voice came out more weakly than she had intended and humiliatingly her lower lip quivered.
‘Poor green dove!’ He came swiftly to her side, putting a comforting arm about her. Leaning against him, she admitted to herself that it was comforting to have him there, even though none of her questions had been resolved.
‘I thought they were going to kill me,’ she said shiveringly.
‘It wasn’t likely.’ he answered, the calmness of his tone settling her own nerves. ‘They were drifters, probably petty criminals out to get what they could.’
‘Did you kill them?’ she asked eagerly.
‘I scared them off. They probably won’t stop running until they reach Cairo.’ His arm tightened as he looked down into her face but his voice was lightly teasing. ‘You have a bloodthirsty side to you for a respectable young lady!’
‘I was afraid they were going to—’
‘Rape you? Oh, they might have done,’ he said consideringly, ‘but it’s more likely they intended to hit you over the head and take whatever money or jewels they could find. Are you disappointed?’
‘Disapp—! No, indeed I’m not!’ She pulled away from him indignantly, but he held her firmly.
‘Some women dread what they most desire,’ he said softly.
‘That is a terrible thing to say, and shows you know nothing about women!’ she snapped.
‘Oh, I know every female has her fantasy.’ He pulled her to face him, his dark eyes burning into hers as the light around them grew paler, silvering the sand. Her own eyes searched his dark face, looking for something, anything, in his expression that would enable her to trust him completely. Then he bent his head and kissed her mouth lightly, almost insultingly, and let her go so abruptly that she staggered for an instant.
‘My apologies,’ he said curtly. ‘I had no intention of doing that.’
‘Then why did you?’ she asked shakily.
‘Because when I am with you I step into my own fantasy,’ he said wryly. ‘So prim on top and underneath—a leopardess to be tamed?’
‘If that’s true you’ll not have the taming of me.’
‘The leopardess has claws, I see.’
‘Not long since you called me a green dove,’ Ellen said crossly. ‘I cannot be both at the same time.’
‘To her lover a woman can be all things.’
‘And you are not my lover. We are not even friends, so perhaps you would kindly escort me back to the river now. I can find my way back to Tel-El-Aton by myself.’
She spoke haughtily, pulling the hood of her cloak further over her head, refusing to meet the challenge of his dark eyes. If she allowed herself to weaken she would find herself hopelessly compromised and, in this situation where she found it hard to distinguish friend from foe, she needed to keep her wits about her.
‘Surely an independent young lady like yourself doesn’t require an escort?’ he said, raising his winged brows in a way that made his mockery clear.
‘Of course not. I merely thought,’ she said bitingly, ‘that it would fill an idle hour, since you seem to have nothing better to do than ride about the desert all day.’ She had half-turned to leave him, but he made no reply to her provoking remark. He had raised a hand to silence her and there was a frown on his face.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Hush!’ His voice was sharp. ‘Cannot you hear it?’
‘I hear nothing,’ Ellen began and stopped, listening intently.
She could hear now a faint whistling sound, far off but becoming louder and clearer. There was a change, too, in the quality of the light around them, as if someone had drawn a dark veil across the rising sun.
‘What is it?’ She had instinctively lowered her voice and his own answer was equally quiet.
‘Sandstorm.’
‘Sandstorm? Is that—is it bad?’
‘Depends on the strength of it. They come without warning. They can last for an hour or a day.’
‘A day! If I am missing for a day there’ll be a search party out for me!’ she exclaimed.
‘We can outride the storm if we’re fortunate,’ he said. ‘Come!’
There was no time to argue even if she had wanted to. He had seized her by the waist and lifted her to the saddle, mounting up himself with easy, unselfconscious grace. Ellen, twisting her head around, saw what looked like a solid wall of dark cloud and then they were galloping across the ridges of sand and scrub. The wind caught her hood, tugging it from her head and fine sand blew up into her face. Choking, she pressed her face against his broad shoulder, feeling the heaviness of his cloak as he flung it over her head.
There was the whistling again, grown to a roaring now, beating against her ears. It was hard to breathe and she gasped out wordlessly as she was dragged down and pulled tightly against him. She had no idea how long she remained, huddled within the darkness of the cloak and the shelter of his arms, but gradually the whistling and the roaring died away, and the pounding of her heart slowed and steadied.
He was freeing her from the cloak and wiping her face with a corner of his burnous. Her eyelids and lips felt stiff and sore, but she seemed to be unhurt. Blinking away the last grains of sand, Ellen sat up straighter, pushing back her disordered hair. They were under the lee of a high rock with the dustcloud already moving away from them, veering in a new direction as if it possessed a mind and will of its own.
‘The wind changed,’ Rami said. He was on his feet again, shaking sand from his robes, pulling down the scarf wound over his nose and mouth. His black lashes were thick with sand and he blinked rapidly, his teeth gleaming against the bronze of his skin as he smiled at her.
‘You saved my life,’ she said.
‘I doubt it. That was a very mild storm,’ he returned. ‘But you might have been lost for several hours. Even a brief sandstorm can change the landscape, make it easy even for natives to lose their sense of direction. The desert is as fascinating and unpredictable as a woman.’
‘On which you, naturally, are an authority!’ Ellen flashed.
‘You are evidently recovered from your ordeal,’ he observed, ‘for you have begun scolding again!’
‘I beg your pardon.’ Scrambling to her feet she said, slightly ashamed of what Aunt Kate Evans would have called ‘nasty, bad manners’. ‘I am truly grateful for your help.’
‘And in return you will tell me what you were doing wandering about at dawn all by yourself?’
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said frankly, ‘so I came out for a walk.’
‘All by yourself in the middle of nowhere?’ He slanted her a look in which amusement and exasperation were oddly mingled.
‘At home I was accustomed to taking long walks.’
‘But this is not home and it is not safe, especially for you, to go out alone.’
‘Especially for me?’
‘Because of who your father was. Ellen, why do you stay on here when you’ve had so many warnings to leave? Can’t you see the danger in which you stand?’
‘I see only that you always seem to be there whenever I turn round,’ she said. ‘I know that I am followed, watched, spied upon! How does it happen that you were here again this morning? Were you watching the doctor’s house?’
‘I try to stay within reach of you lest you need my help.’
‘Against Selina and her father?’
‘Against any who might wish to harm you.’ His voice was sombre and his expression free from mockery. ‘Green dove, you hold something t
hat others want and once they have it then I’d not give a fig for your chances of survival.’
‘So I’m to give it to you?’
‘Or go back to the land where you can walk alone in safety.’
‘And so leave you free to continue with your own concerns?’
‘You are my concern,’ he said.
The temptation to confide in him was almost overwhelming. She could tell him of the heart and the mysterious poem she had received and be free of the burden that weighed upon her. Biting her lip, she stared at him in an agony of indecision. He had rescued her, kissed her, roused in her feelings of the utmost indelicacy, and it would be so easy to throw her last doubts into the desert wind.
Even as she hesitated there were shouts from across the narrow ribbon of river. She started forward, waving her hand towards the figures running down the shallow, reed-fringed bank. When she turned her head again, horse and rider had melted into the hills of shifting sand.
She brushed the last of the sand from her skirt and hurried towards the flat stepping stones that spanned the water. The people from the cliff houses were waving and shouting and further off she glimpsed Selina and her father running in her direction.
‘Ellen, are you all right?’ Selina, who was first to reach her, spoke in breathless anxiety. ‘We found your room empty and one of the servants gave warning of a dust storm approaching! We were terribly worried!’
‘It was such a beautiful dawn,’ Ellen said, ‘that I decided to take a walk. I only went a little way beyond the river and I sheltered under the bank when the storm came so I was in no danger.’
‘My dear, you cannot believe how treacherous this climate can be.’ Dr. Ford said, panting slightly as he reached them. ‘One moment Egypt displays a smiling face and the next she will sulk and rage like a spoilt child. Selina and I would never have forgiven ourselves had anything happened to you.’
‘I’m sorry. It was thoughtless of me,’ Ellen apologised, ‘but at home I am so accustomed to regular walks that I didn’t stop to think.’
‘Ah, well, no harm done!’ He gave her a mollified smile.
‘And you are all over sand!’ Selina exclaimed. ‘You must be longing for a bath and a change of clothes, not to mention a long, cool drink. Sand grains parch the throat.’
‘And kisses sting the lips,’ Ellen thought, and feared for a moment that she had spoken the words aloud.
She had glanced back once across the river but there was no trace of horse or rider. He came and went at will, blending into the landscape when it suited him. He had told her nothing, yet he stayed near to guard her. Ellen, walking sedately between her host and hostess, wondered, with a leap of the heart, if he stayed close by because of the knowledge he believed her to hold or because, like her, he could not crush down his feelings.
If there had been more time she would have asked him about his connection with Farida, but the sandstorm had checked her questions. Next time, she decided, and knew without a shadow of doubt that there would be another time of meeting.
CHAPTER
TEN
The remaining few days of Ellen’s visit to Tel-El-Aton passed without incident. Rather to her own surprise, she found herself becoming interested in the work of the clinic. There was no doubt there was a great need for such a place and equally no doubt that the doctor was both admired and trusted by his patients. Watching him as he dressed an abscess on a woman’s arm or soothed a fretful, stick-limbed child, Ellen recognised dedication. Money was all that he lacked in order to continue his research into the diseases that were endemic among the fellahin, and how far he was prepared to go in order to obtain that money was a question to which she had no answer,
‘I shall miss you,’ Selina said on the morning of her departure. ‘It’s been pleasant having an English girl for company this past week.’
‘But we’ll see you before you leave Egypt,’ her father added. ‘We are coming to Wadi Amarna for the festival of Amentisis, you know. Farida has invited us to stay for a day or two.’
Tequet, one of the porters attached to the clinic, was to escort Ellen back to Silver Moon. A dignified figure in his striped robe and red fez, he compensated for his lack of English by bowing with hand on heart at every possible opportunity, as if to assure her of his entire devotion.
They rode in leisurely fashion away from the long, low building and Ellen, turning to wave to the two figures on the verandah, was struck once more by the isolation of the place. It was a lonely existence for a young woman, but one that evidently contented Selina.
They would rest at the oasis where the picnic had been held and she felt a tremor of excitement at the possibility of seeing the man called Rami again, the man who seemed to be following her even if his intentions were not entirely clear.
The journey, however, passed without a meeting of any kind and it was near sunset when she and her escort rode up to the great doors of Silver Moon.
‘Ellen, my dear!’ Henry Bligh, urbane as ever, strolled across the wide lobby to meet her. ‘Did you have an agreeable visit?’
‘Most agreeable. The Fords are very hospitable.’ She allowed him to help her down and waited while he issued brisk instruction to Tequet who bowed, hand on heart, and led the horses towards the stables.
‘Devoted to their calling!’ Henry took her arm, ushering her through the courtyard. ‘The good doctor could earn a comfortable living treating neurotic European ladies in Cairo, but he prefers to remain at his clinic. We have had a dull time of it here since you went. Farida has been quite out of sorts.’
They had reached the central fountain where water splashed from the mouths of the dolphins into the stone basin. Farida and Christopher Tyrrell were sat together, he in his wheelchair, she in a shell-shaped affair of gilded cane in which she resembled a plump pearl, her hair and arms covered by a filmy veil.
‘Ellen, you are come back to us! I feared you would fall in love with the austerities of Tel-El-Aton,’ she said, raising a hand in lazy greeting.
‘Did you do anything exciting?’ Christopher enquired.
‘Not really. We did visit the local market place,’ Ellen said. She glanced at Henry but he had turned away and it was impossible to read the expression on his face.
‘We have been vastly dull here,’ Farida said, yawning. ‘Henry had to go away for a day or two on business, so Christopher and I have been left to our own devices.’
‘I will take a wager that the pair of you made shift to amuse yourselves,’ Henry said. There was a slight edge of mockery in his voice, and Farida’s olive complexion flushed a dusky rose.
‘I’ll go up and change. Egypt is one of the dustiest places I’ve ever been in,’ Ellen commented, looking ruefully at her skirt.
‘I’ll tell cook you’re back, though I’ve no doubt everybody knows about it already,’ Farida said. ‘The gossip of servants is all-embracing!’
Her room had been cleaned in her absence. There was the scent of beeswax, and the mirror had been polished to shining perfection, but it was impossible to tell if it had also been searched. Ellen took a leisurely bath and put on a high-necked gown of pale green silk, its ruffled bodice concealing the outline of the pendant heart beneath.
She was brushing her hair when a tap at the door announced Farida.
‘Dinner will be a little later this evening, so there’s no need to hurry,’ she said, drifting gracefully across the room and sinking on to the couch at the foot of the bed. ‘You must be so exhausted after your journey! Selina is a dear girl, but she can be a trifle brisk. I tell her she will never catch a husband unless she stays still long enough to be caught!’
‘Selina is not interested in marriage,’ Ellen said.
‘And what of you, my dear?’ Farida’s dark eyes were half-closed, but the gleam in them was speculative.
‘I’ve told you before that I’ve not yet considered it,’ Ellen replied.
‘Yet you have the look about you of a woman who is in love,’ Farida murmured. ‘
It was not there when you came but I sense it now. It troubles me.’
‘Why should it trouble you?’ Ellen asked in faint surprise.
‘Because Christopher would be a burden, and Henry—shall we say a difficult husband?’
‘You don’t seriously think I’d consider marrying either of them!’ Ellen exclaimed.
‘It would be a foolish notion,’ Farida said gently. ‘Christopher was not strong even when he first came to Egypt and since his accident, of course, he has been confined to his wheelchair. And Henry Bligh is not the right husband for a young girl. I mean my advice kindly.’
‘What of widows?’ Raising her chin, Ellen met her stepmother’s gaze in the mirror.
‘I don’t understand you,’ Farida said.
‘Henry Bligh manages the estate. Wouldn’t it be suitable for him to marry you eventually?’
‘Oh, no!’ Farida’s hands fluttered up like two plump white doves. ‘I would never dream of marrying Henry Bligh! I do beg you not to mention such a thing even in jest. Why, he is much older than I am.’
‘So was my father,’ Ellen reminded her.
‘It was my own father’s wish that I should marry Hywel Parry,’ Farida said. ‘In this country marriages are usually arranged, and Hywel was very good to me always, very kind.’
‘And what of Rami?’ Ellen asked.
In the mirror her stepmother’s reflected figure jerked convulsively and all the colour drained out of the olive face. In a small, tightly controlled voice Farida said, ‘I beg you not to mention the matter of Rami. Dr. Ford ought not to have told you. I trusted him.’
‘Dr. Ford said nothing,’ Ellen said. ‘I found a photograph.’
‘I thought it had been destroyed,’ Farida whispered. ‘It was so long ago, before Hywel came here. My father would have been furious if he ever discovered that photograph. He believed the camera was the evil eye and would never allow one in the house. You’ll not speak of it?’