She was kneeling at the side of the pool, soap at the ready, when temptation struck. Why bother to wash piecemeal? Giving herself no time to dwell upon the memory of the thin film of scum covering the pool, she slid into the water and spent a blissful five minutes getting rid of sand and grime.
She felt a new woman, tingling, alert, and incredibly refreshed, when she rejoined Marc, who was sitting brooding morosely over the fire. His eyebrows rose, but he made no comment about damp tendrils of hair clinging to her forehead and grey eyes gleaming with inner satisfaction.
‘Er ...’ Her glance towards the one empty tent was a giveaway. ‘Where am I to sleep?’
With a jerk of his head he indicated the tent. ‘In there, of course, where else ...?’
‘But where will you sleep?’
‘I don’t intend to sleep,’ he drawled. ‘I’ll be remaining on guard all during the night. ’
‘But you can’t!’ she began an appalled protest. ‘After such a tiring day you’re bound to be feeling exhausted, and what about tomorrow? If you don’t sleep tonight how will you get through another day?’
‘Mademoiselle!’ he leant forward to chide. ‘Don’t worry on my account Over the years I have managed to train half my mind to rest while the other half stays alert. As for having had a tiring day,’ he sounded almost amused, ‘I was initiated at a very tender age into the rigours of marching thirty miles across the desert in full uniform and with a full pack upon my back. By comparison, today’s trip has made as much impact upon me as fleabite would make upon a camel!’
Silently, Dove revised her opinion. He was in no need of sympathy—not with a hide as tough as leather and emotions to match!
‘Very well, then I’ll get off to bed.’ Reluctantly she stood up. Before her dip sleep had been the only thing on her mind, but she now felt so wide awake she knew that if she retired to the tent it would merely be to toss and turn. ‘Stay and talk to me for a while, if you wish.’
The invitation was so brusquely given she was tempted to ignore it, but she hesitated and was lost. ‘All right.’ She resumed her seat, eyeing the dark features made satanic by flickering firelight. ‘What shall we talk about?’
‘You,’ he confounded her. ‘First of all, tell me why you were so desperate to acquire a large sum of money.’ Her mouth opened and closed, but she could not manage to speak. She was wishing she had retired to her tent instead of allowing herself to be pinned down by flint-grey eyes that were demanding an answer.
‘The ... the money was owing,’ she floundered. ‘I needed it to repay an outstanding debt.’
‘And was the debt paid?’
‘Yes, in its entirety. I no longer owe a penny to anyone.’
‘Come now!’ His laughter had an unpleasant ring. ‘What about your debt to me!’
‘To Sheikh Rahma,’ she stressed with dignity, ‘whom I shall pay in kind, as was agreed.’
Idly, he leant forward to select a burning twig from the fire. He pressed it against the tip of a cheroot, taking plenty of time as he inhaled, then examined the tip to ensure that it was properly aglow, before tossing the casual bombshell.
‘Did you really imagine Rahma would allow himself to be pressured into advancing a large sum of money to a servant?’
Alarm squeezed her throat. ‘Are you implying that it was not he who advanced my salary? If he didn’t, then who did?’
The complacent curl of his lips, the sadistic glint, were all the reply she needed. ‘You?’ she questioned, horribly startled. ‘But why?’
‘For a combination of reasons,’ he replied lazily. ‘Expediency—because I was in need of a nurse; curiosity—discovering how an innocent such as yourself would fare in the East appealed as intriguing and finally, an urge to satisfy a sudden whim, a masculine vanity, if you like.’ He paused, keeping her on tender-hooks while he inhaled smoke from his cheroot, then knocked ash from its tip. ‘Many times I have been urged, but not until recently was I tempted,’ he continued, smiling as if at a friend, ‘to acquire for myself a willing slave.’
A heavy silence fell. As a night bird flew past, screeching in the dark, Dove flinched, reminded of Alya’s superstitious fear of such birds whose appearance, she swore, presaged evil.
Through a throat so tight it felt gritted with sand, she forced the shaky question, ‘Don’t you think the joke you have been enjoying at my expense has gone on long enough?’
His shadow, cast tall by firelight, remained still and menacing, ‘I know of no joke. Explain yourself.’
Remembering that from the very beginning he had enjoyed baiting her, had tried in every way he could to scare her into flight, she gulped hard to steady her voice. ‘I refer to the feud between Zaid and yourself which was the main reason behind our ridiculous betrothal. Zaid decided he wanted me, therefore you just had to thwart him. It may be that I’m misjudging you, that in spite of your assertion that you are all Arab you still retain sufficient civilised instincts to render you incapable of indifference to the plight of a fellow European being pestered by a man of an alien society. But again, your actions could have been motivated by jealousy, by an urge to discover once and for all whose side Sheikh Rahma would take if a showdown erupted between yourself and his brother. Whatever the reason, it’s irrelevant to the fact that a certain aura of intimacy was forced upon us. However, monsieur, you and I are both aware of the truth, which is that for ninety per cent of the time we spend in each other’s company you see me as an irritating nuisance, whereas I ...”
‘Don’t stop, mademoiselle,’ he urged softly. ‘Whereas you see me as ... what?’
‘As a taunting devil!’ she jerked recklessly. ‘A man completely without compassion and with utter disregard for the hurt he inflicts upon others!’
He moved so swiftly and silently it was as if his shadow had been tranposed by witchcraft from his side of the fire to hers. He was so unnervingly close the folds of his cloak brushed against her arms, making her feel enveloped by two huge black wings.
‘Wherever is the dove, the hawk will be close behind. Who, I wonder, was misguided enough to bestow the name of the symbol of peace upon an artful little cheat such as yourself?’
She flinched as if struck. The aura he emanated was one of barely controlled savagery, a mood she recognised with quickening heartbeats and a chill of dread. There had been times when he had seemed almost human, but mostly he had been as he was now—as if his inner anger could be appeased only by making her suffer. A moan was strangled in her throat as she guessed at the method he intended to use—kisses that seared her mouth into pulsating life; caresses she loathed but which sent her traitorous senses soaring, his sensuous, magnetic touch which once before had reduced her to a state of helplessness, clinging like a wraith to his rock-hard body.
She stepped backward in a feeble effort to escape and felt a dull ache of misery when his hand closed around her arm.
‘Do not desert me, mademoiselle. In the Legion the penalty for desertion is death.’
‘I should prefer death,’ her voice rose high with hysteria, ‘to a life spent in your tormenting company!’
‘Death!’ He straightened suddenly, the glitter of his eyes showing that for some reason he was incensed. ‘What does a simpleton such as yourself know of death that takes men by surprise when vitality is running high?’
She stiffened, fearful of an anger unjustly directed against herself, then was able to relax, sensing his thoughts were very far away, when in morose undertone he questioned, ‘Why, when no man knows what death is, do we all fear it so?’
Relief washed over her, not so much because of his words but because of the lack of heat with which they had been delivered. For the moment the hawk’s talons were sheathed as memory softened his mood from malevolent to mellow. She seized her chance, using the glimpse of unguessed-at humanity as a weapon of defence. As calmly as she was able she resumed her seat within the firelit circle, patting the sand with her palm as an invitation to Marc to join her. To her surpri
se he accepted the mute invitation, flexing his muscles in the manner of an animal weary of chasing prey before propping himself on one elbow, positioned so that his eyes could read every nervous tremor disturbing her tense features.
‘You lost many friends?’ she questioned softly, not really caring, simply anxious to encourage a mood which would enable her, if she were lucky, to slip inside the children’s tent where she felt sure he would not follow. ‘Tell me about them—about the Legion— it might help.’ She thought, from his forbidding expression, that her request would be ignored. His eyes were fixed upon the fire, their grey depths reflecting the flames at its heart. She expected words of praise, a soldier’s joy in his regiment, so was startled when his voice took on a bitter, cutting edge.
‘The Legion has gained renown throughout the world because of a unique specialty—it is expendable. In the beginning, its recruits were drawn from the slums of the world and sometimes from its prisons and they fought, not because they wanted to, but because they knew that if they did not do as they were commanded they would be shot. Today, however, it recruits the cream of the world’s manhood, eager youths in search of action and adventure, yet the old ruthless traditions still remain. Legionnaires are sent where no other troops will go, to fight against odds which no other army would be asked to face. And if the losses are horrific there are no angry relatives to question the deaths of men who sever all ties the moment they enlist.’
Suddenly his head jerked upwards and all the heat of the fire blazed from his eyes when he derided, ‘I suppose if you thought of the Legion at all it was to imagine a desert fort being defended by a handful of film-star Legionnaires against a horde of Arab cutthroats? That is a Hollywood myth. Reality is hundreds of miles of forced marches, of menial labour with pick and shovel while building roads. It is sweating, cursing, knuckling down to discipline with not the least reward other than having your throat cut by some marauding Arab, if you are lucky, and if not,’ he hesitated, the jagged scar outlined white against his tan, then sprang to his feet, jerking her up beside him ‘If not,’ he stared morosely, ‘you are left, as I have been, wondering if there was anything more I could have done to save the lives of youths who enlisted upon sudden impulse, perhaps because of some trifling betise, sans doute—a petticoat, of all things! Killed in their prime simply because your cheating, faithless sex let them down!’ He shook her hard. ‘Mon dieu! If only they had thought of the thousands of others who would have been eager to console them! The Legion is for men—men who are hunters, with women as their game.’
Sensing the rage within him, Dove tried to escape, but left her bid too late. Roughly she was crushed against a body leathered and lean as a whip, with a tip of steel to raise weals of pain. At first she struggled, then ceased to fight when it became apparent she was only adding spice to the game. He wanted prey with the courage to resist, a victim that would draw blood so that he could exercise his superior will, then finally his mastery. So she willed her flesh to the coldness of stone, willed her lips to respond with the sting of ice as his passionately angry mouth devoured hers.
Yet inwardly she was crying for the man whose hatred of women overruled his capacity to love. If such dynamic feeling could be channelled away from hatred and towards love she knew she could find Marc irresistible, for quite unintentionally, he had taught her to distinguish from merely having a body and being a body. For years she had existed feeling the hardness of paving stones beneath her feet, the warmth of mittens on her hands, the softness of a cushion beneath her head, but such sensations had been experienced by a body subconsciously numb, deprived of the basic human need of touch—of intimate physical contact. Yet, naive though she was, she sensed that behind the arousal she was fighting, the havoc created by his uninhibited hands, something important was missing—a bond of attachment, a sense of commitment, the great emotional exultation that comes only with love.
‘Damn you!’ His hoarse whisper penetrated a mist of pain. ‘You appeal to all that is worst in me, discover foolishness in a man who prides himself on his wisdom! Stop fighting me, admit to temptation—the fact that our attraction is purely physical need cause you no concern, for it is my experience that a woman can be anything her lover wants her to be.’
Appalled by such cynicism, Dove tore out of his arms, made to feel tramp-cheap by his opinion, not just of herself but of every one of her sex.
‘Why did you bring me here?’ she sobbed. ‘To taunt me, to torture me? I’m sorry about your friends whose deaths he so heavily upon your conscience, but I am just one woman amongst many, I can’t be held responsible for all the faults of Eve!’
Her words had no effect upon the man advancing with vengeance in his heart. She closed her eyes when he reached for her, knowing further protests would be useless, and shuddered her revulsion as his breath fanned warm against her cheek, wishing instead that she was feeling the stare of the basilisk that turned into stone.
In spite of herself, as his hot, demanding lips explored pale, delicate contours an exquisite curve of cheek, downcast lids, the place at the corner of her mouth where lurked the dimple that never appeared for him, a trembling mouth breathing broken protests, she felt resistance crumbling and knew, as passion raced through her body, that here, beneath a desert sky ablaze with thousands of twinkling stars, in this land that secreted the Garden of Eden, the first-known paradise, that could name amongst its brethren Adam, the first man, and Eve, his wife, she was about to be initiated into the art of satisfying a man’s violent passions.
Skilfully, as her lips warmed beneath his and her tense body ceased to shrink from his touch, Marc played his advantage to the full, instilling gentleness into his touch, drawing fire from her soul with throatily-whispered lies of love.
She had been transported far beyond the bounds of reason when, through the clear night air, piped a voice, small childish, but insistent enough to penetrate her daze.
‘Miss Grey!’ Bibi was standing in the doorway of her tent, rubbing her eyes. ‘I’m thirsty, please may I have a drink of water? ’
CHAPTER TEN
The children were awakened soon after dawn by the sound of other children’s voices. Dove, who had spent a sleepless night in their company, gave listless permission when they scrambled out of their sleeping bags and begged to be excused so that they might go outside and discover the owners of the unknown voices.
Shrinking from the thought of meeting once more the eyes of the man she had decided, during the long, wakeful night, that she hated more than ever before, she took her time in following the children outside. When reluctantly, drawn by the sound of excited laughter, she edged her way out of the tent it was a relief to discover that there was no sign of the incensed man who last night had whispered furious imprecations under his breath when she had torn out of his arms and fled.
Bibi and Salim were chatting to three other children who had brought a donkey laden with two empty guerbas to be filled with water from the pool. The taller of the three, a boy of about ten, carried a stick and was obviously copying his elders as he used it to marshal the donkey nearer the edge of the pool and stood supervising while the two smaller girls filled the goatskins almost to the brim. All three were dressed in loose gowns which were no more than strips of cloth with a hole in the centre through which they put their heads so that the cloth hung down loosely to their feet. Curly black hair, solemn brown eyes and almost identical features identified them as being members of one family a supposition that was borne out when Bibi introduced them.
‘This boy is called Shamir and these are his two sisters,
Jazi and Dina. They have walked from their camp which is two miles away to fetch water. Marc has gone to speak to their chief.’
‘Good!’ Dove had no idea how relieved she sounded. ‘Then I’d better see to breakfast. Perhaps,’ she glanced towards the three Arab children who were staring wideeyed, fascinated by the halo of sunshine ringing her bright hair, ‘these children would like to join us? I heard you spea
king with them in French, Bibi, so as I don’t speak the language, perhaps you would like to ask them?’ Nothing loath, Bibi obliged, but her rapidly tendered invitation was met with doubtful stares. A constraint had fallen upon them. Up until her own appearance they had been chatting happily with Salim and Bibi, strangers, yet two of their own kind, but the apparition with milk-white skin and hair the colour of sunshine was alien to them and consequently a little frightening.
Dove put her knowledge of the working of children’s minds to good use. Turning her back upon the gaping trio, she set about reviving the embers of the campfire, but in a fumbling, amateurish way she felt sure would appeal to the children’s sense of superiority, especially the boy’s. After a few moments of watching her bending over lifeless embers, puffing and blowing in an abortive attempt to rekindle a flame, he mumbled a few words to his sisters, then shyly approached, shaking his head to indicate that she was wasting her time.
The two girls, who had scattered to carry out his instructions, returned and laid at his feet the items he had demanded. Suppressing a smile, Dove stepped aside as he laid half a dozen thorn branches end to end and lit the kindling of dried grass he had placed underneath.
Immediately, the branches flared and when they had burned a little he coaxed them beneath the cinders, then blew on them until they were glowing red. He then stood up and with a grin conveyed the message that the fire was now ready to be used.
Breakfast time was hilarious. As befitted their station, Bibi and Salim had been taught to use spoons to convey porridge from plate to mouth, but these were quickly abandoned as they tried to compete with the Arab children’s dexterity in transporting the porridge in scooped fingers. They were laughing at Shamir’s mimicry of Dove’s attempt to relight the fire when Marc Blais returned.
Son of Adam Page 11