The oasis extended for about two miles, a settlement consisting of five villages made up of small houses linked by narrow thoroughfares and twisting lanes. Watchers stared curiously as they passed, following with their eyes until they stopped outside the courtyard of the largest house on the outskirts of the village.
In silence, Marc produced a key that unlocked a huge oaken door leading into an open courtyard with, standing in one corner, a well of brackish water, and in the other an old sycamore tree. Curiously, Dove studied the front of the house whose windows were screened by fine lattice work before, giving her no time to linger, he ushered her through the door into a room floored with marble mosaic, holding a cool, tinkling fountain in its centre.
‘Wait here,’ he instructed. ‘This house has been loaned to us by a friend of Hamil’s who is at present spending a few weeks in the desert. A servant has been left in charge, I believe, I’ll see if I can rout him out.’
‘Why not ring for him? ’ she suggested.
He almost smiled. ‘There is no bell. According to the Prophet, a bell is an instrument of the devil, so angels can never reside in any house where one exists.’
‘How ... interesting,’ she replied, feeling a sudden shyness at the thought of being alone with him except for one unobtrusive servant.
As his steps receded down the passageway she began to explore. The few rooms were simply furnished, floors spaced with rugs and low divans running along most of the walls, some of which were panelled and some tiled. Ceilings were crossed by massive beams painted dark red. Upstairs, she was surprised to discover, there were no bedrooms—or rather, no rooms furnished as such. Just bare walls and a scattering of rugs.
She started when Marc spoke from across her shoulder. ‘The only fittings an Arab asks for the night consist of a mattress and pillow, perhaps a blanket in the winter and a mosquito net in summer, the whole of which is rolled up each morning and deposited in some nearby cupboard.’ Nervously, she twirled to face him. ‘Did you find the servant?’
‘Yes, he is preparing us a meal. However, anticipating your request for a wash, I have instructed him to heat some water first.’
‘Thank you,’ she smiled her gratitude. Then on impulse, ‘How I wish there were shops—there are so many things I need.’
‘There are shops,’ he surprised her, ‘of a kind. No settlement is complete without its bazaar. After we’ve eaten I’ll take you there.’
‘But I have no money!’ she protested.
‘You have your dowry,’ he reminded her coolly. ‘It is packed in the saddlebag.’
She flushed. ‘Now you’re making fun of me. You know as well as I do that the Arab marriage ceremony is invalid, you owe me nothing.’
‘I disagree,’ he gritted. She quivered, sensing a return of the anger she dreaded. ‘Were it not that money is so important to you, you would not be here in the desert with a man you profess to hate, a man who, whether you like it or not, is your husband in the eyes of the people of the land in which you are now living. You will take the money and spend it as you wish. Believe me, it is no gift; I never pay for bread that I don’t intend to eat.’
A meal was served to them in a small sitting-room, empty except for a low, brass-topped table and floor cushions on which to squat—an exercise, Dove thought as every now and again she shifted position to ease the onset of cramp, that called for considerable practice. She ate without appetite, toying with the inevitable stewed lamb and vegetables, refusing rice, then being forced at his insistence to accept a slice of watermelon which she had to pretend to enjoy even though tears were squeezing past her eyelids and threatening to mingle with the juice.
She had washed as best she could in water emptied from a pitcher into a wide-rimmed basin and had come downstairs feeling, if not exactly refreshed, then certainly a little less jaded, a little more prepared to withstand his brooding looks and cutting tongue. But his mood, when she joined him, was as impenetrable as the forts it had been his duty to protect. He had spoken little all day, and his silence continued throughout the meal—a brooding quiet, a simmering of inner anger that made her so nervous she found it almost impossible to force food past the lump in her throat.
‘Diable!’ He startled her by jumping to his feet and venting his frustration upon a cushion which he kicked into a far corner of the room. ‘Must you sit there trembling in the manner of a fawn waiting to be sacrificed? Why do you fear me? I am no ogre, no different from any other men you have known!’ He swung round, pinning her with a vicious look. ‘Or am I being stupidly obtuse? Is it perhaps my scarred face that causes you to drop your eyes and cringe out of my way?’
‘Of course not!’ she denied indignantly, feeling compassion as a pain. He was an arrogant brute who would not hesitate to take advantage if she were to try to explain that it was her own unruly emotions that caused her most fear. She had no intention of being his bride for a night and then left abandoned to her fate. Yet her heart was too tender to allow her to use his blemished face as an excuse for her timidity. Using asperity as a shield, she asked:
‘Why must you always credit women with the worst possible motives? If, in the past, you had been more selective in your choice of companion you might not today have such a poor opinion of my sex!’
She tried not to cower because it angered him so, but it was difficult to suppress a flinch when she looked up and found dark, intimidating features mere inches from her face.
‘Are you implying that you embody all the supposed virtues of womanhood?’ Her stricken eyes fastened upon the ragged scar that drew his angry mouth into a sneer. ‘Do you dare to declare yourself innocent of committing the two most common feminine sins? I challenge you,’ he menaced, ‘to put your hand on your heart and swear that you have never cheated or lied to me!’
He knew! In that moment of clarity it became easy to understand why his contempt of herself had never been far from the surface, why he had found it easy to believe that she had encouraged Zaid’s attention, why he had never trusted her word.
‘How long have you known?’ she whispered.
‘So!’ He flung away as if barely able to control an impulse to shake her. ‘At least you are wise enough to recognise defeat, to admit that the time has come to be honest!’
She stood up, tilting her chin in a brave attempt at dignity. ‘It was never my intention to deceive you—’
‘Mon dieu!’ he spat savagely. ‘Try to be original, spare me the impassioned cliches, the classical lines of dialogue!’
In spite of his obvious contempt, Dove carried on, determined not to be bludgeoned into silence. ‘When you are angry you do not care who knows it—which is how I became an unwilling eavesdropper on your conversation with Mrs. Todd. I was in her office that day because I badly needed a job—you were there because you badly needed a nanny. When she refused to help either of us it seemed logical to conclude that we should help each other. But when I came to your hotel I had every intention of being honest; it was you who jumped to the conclusion that I had been sent by Mrs. Todd. In your usual arrogant fashion you took charge of the interview, refused to listen when I attempted to explain, so that finally,’ she drew a shaky breath, ‘I was made so angry by your remarks and by the method of their delivery I decided it was a waste of time trying to reason with your insufferable arrogance. If that’s a sin,’ she tossed him a cool grey look, ‘then you’re right, I must plead guilty.’
He was standing half turned towards the window so that the latticed cover cast shadows upon his face, intensifying sombre hollows beneath high cheekbones, adding sardonic depths to eyes totally lacking in repentance.
‘One thing I will allow,’ he bit coldly, ‘your methods were not those of a professional deceiver. Only a novice would be fool enough to believe I would employ you in a position of trust without thoroughly checking your credentials. Mrs. Todd, when I approached her, was appalled at the very thought of your being employed by me, though I suspect,’ his lips twisted into a wry grimace, ‘
that she was concerned more on your account than she was on mine. Which left just one other problem to be dealt with—the lengths to which you were prepared to go in order to obtain money betrayed the fact that you were in debt which, in turn, indicated a weakness of character that could be exploited to the full in a land where bribery and corruption are rife. After giving the matter much thought, I reluctantly concluded that the advantages to be gained by employing you miminally outweighed the disadvantages, provided I kept you under close surveillance. A case of, as the Arabs say: trusting in God, yet tying up my camel. My opinion did not alter as my knowledge of you grew.’
‘Your knowledge of me!’ Dove drew herself up to her full, insignificant height. ‘You have no knowledge of me, I doubt if you have knowledge of anyone! One learns about people, not with the eyes or the mind, but through the heart. You, monsieur, have no heart!’
His retaliation was swift. In two strides he was beside her, twisting one hand behind her head to grip a bunch of hair in his clenched fist. He tugged, viciously jerking her head so that he could look straight into her terrified eyes. ‘Again you lie!’ he rasped. ‘Without a heart I could not feel, and I do feel—a vital, hungry desire that eats deep into my soul, a craving that cries out to my mind asking why it is not satisfied, a cry that goes unanswered because the essential truth remains hidden from consciousness. If, last night,’ he tugged so hard she almost cried out with pain, ‘I had ignored my heart and followed my instincts I would not this morning have felt ashamed to meet the eyes of my intuitive friends!’
She closed her eyes to shut out the sight of a face dark with aggression, an aggression born of frustration, terrified to speak lest she should unwittingly press the trigger that would release destruction. He hovered as a hawk over his prey, then, incensed by her silence, he twisted her hair around his fist, forcing a gasped response.
‘Beast!’ she choked. ‘You follow the habits of your primitive friends by behaving like an animal!
‘Force is sometimes necessary when hunting prey,’ he threatened, bending his head to stamp a branding kiss upon her trembling mouth. ‘In herds, as in human society, the female expects the male to fight for her. Losers are spurned because they are incapable of providing the basic necessities for survival—an outlook common to all females, both human and animal. Which is why the human mating game is as fiercely competitive as any observed in the animal kingdom.’
When he released his grasp upon her hair Dove jerked away from a mouth bent on plunder, feeling herself weakening in her struggle to fight a magnetism determined to dominate her will, only to be jerked back again. ‘Stop it!’ she gasped, pounding her fists against a chest of steel, hating being treated as a houriyeh. She thought of the only other man in her life, her proud, honourable father whose conscience would never have allowed him to act with such lack of chivalry, and the thought of him brought tears to her eyes. They coursed down her cheeks, adding the taste of salt to his kisses.
Marc’s dark head lifted. Curiously, he traced a tear along the curve of her cheek, then seemed to gain great satisfaction from annihilating it with his thumb.
‘Are these tears an attempt to move me with proof of a tender heart?’ he mocked hatefully.
‘I wouldn’t be so foolish,’ she choked. ‘Knowing you as I do, I’ve no doubt that the sight of tears is gratifying to your savage nature. I’m no longer surprised that you chose to spend the best part of your life in the Legion, sharing the company of men in search of an enemy upon whom to vent their aggression. Any enemy,’ she stressed recklessly, ‘real or imaginary, but preferably female, upon whom they can inflict physical punishment in an attempt to compensate for their inability to love!’
He released her so suddenly she staggered. He had been flicked on the raw! By some blessed stroke of fortune she had managed to find a chink in the armour of hide that served as his skin.
‘What do you know of love?’ he grated harshly, ‘you who worship money as a god!’
‘It was love that brought me here,’ she told him simply, ‘love for my parents who, through no fault of their own, were threatened with eviction from their home. I would have done anything to save them that agony—one year of my life didn’t seem too much.’
The utter sincerity with which she spoke, the fact that she was beyond caring whether he believed her or not, was her salvation. He stared, the jagged scar throbbing white against his cheek, then without further words wheeled on his heel and strode out of the room.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Carefully Dove folded the last of her dresses, laid it on top of a pile already packed, closed her suitcase, and snapped shut the lock. Sadly she gazed around the room, stripped bare of her possessions, which was supposedly to have been her home for a year. Had she been in this land of Adam for only a few weeks? So much had happened that the day of her arrival seemed a lifetime away. Today she was leaving, being flown home in the Sheikh’s private plane at her own request and with the full co-operation of Marc Blais.
Her packing finished, she wandered across to the window to take a last look at shaved lawns whose incredible greenness had reminded her of home, at flowers, trees and shrubs, planted and maintained at fabulous cost within the desert’s arid heart.
Which was how her own heart felt—arid, lifeless, squeezed dry of emotion at the thought that never again, after the customary final goodbye, would she look upon a proud face made outstanding by a scar, would no longer tilt at an aggravatingly authoritative manner, or have to fight to retain a grip on sanity when being made the recipient of dynamic charm. Often, since their arrival back at the palace, she had wondered at the speed with which he had had them transported from the oasis back to comparative civilisation. The duration of their mock honeymoon had been one night only, a night she had spent curled up in a sleeping bag on the floor of an empty room, left forlorn and in strict isolation.
Marc had been in radio contact with the palace, he had told her the following morning, instructing them to send a helicopter which was to arrive within a few hours. That had been yesterday. She had not set eyes upon him since— when the helicopter was preparing to land—he had broken
his silence with the grim question:
‘I take it you wish to be allowed to return home?’
He had seemed to flinch from the small, broken reply which was all she had been able to manage. ‘Please, if it can be arranged ... ’
It had been arranged, so swiftly and with such lack of fuss she had to keep reminding herself that in less than an hour she would be leaving the palace for good.
Alya tapped upon the door and sidled into the room. ‘Mistress Mariam wishes to speak to you.’ Then timidly, ‘She awaits you now.’
‘Thank you, Alya, I’ll be along in a minute.’
When the maid withdrew Dove took a last glimpse in the mirror before answering the summons she had been expecting. No doubt there would be recriminations, anger, and downright probing from Mariam—the last hurdle but one before her race for freedom could be won. Nevertheless, the eyes she saw reflected in the mirror were full of apprehension. She had chosen to wear a dress of fine cotton, a slender sheath of green crowned by a bright head drooping with weariness on an incredibly slender neck. She jerked upright. In less than an hour she would be gone; the impression she left behind must be one of dignity.
Understandably, Mariam’s mood was petulant. ‘Sit down, Miss Grey,’ she waved an impatient hand towards a stool, ‘and explain why you have decided to abandon my children’s education.’
Praying for patience, Dove obeyed, knowing the children’s education to be Mariam’s last consideration, the inconvenience to herself being paramount. ‘The children are rather young to suffer from a lack of formal education,’ she sought refuge in diplomacy. ‘I was instructed to concentrate upon training them to behave politely in the presence of their elders, and in this respect they cannot be faulted. Your own attitude is mainly responsible, of course, for the awe in which the head of a household is held by his w
ife breeds a fine sense of respect in his children.’
Mariam fell for the discreet flattery. Preening, she murmured, ‘God’s pleasure is in a father’s pleasure, and God’s displeasure is a father’s displeasure.’ Then, suspecting that in some way she might have been sidetracked, her glance sharpened. ‘Now, let us get to the bottom of this nonsense about your leaving us. I am amazed at Marc! I just cannot understand why he is allowing you to go.’
‘The decision was mine—not his.’
Mariam’s eyebrows soared. ‘Have you not yet accepted that a husband’s word is law?’ she scolded. ‘He has made no objection, which would seem to indicate some degree of disenchantment, but if he should change his mind and insist upon your behaving like a dutiful wife then you will be forced to remain.’
Dove stood up, clasping her hands behind her back to conceal their shaking. ‘I have no husband!’ she stressed coldly. ‘I am not of your race, neither do I follow your faith, therefore both ceremonies were meaningless to me.’
‘You lie.’ Mariam’s soft whisper speared her to the heart. ‘I who truly love, and am truly loved in return, cannot be deceived by empty words. Your denials ring hollow, Miss Grey! Be a coward, if you wish, but bear in mind that however many miles you put between yourself and Marc you will never outrun your destiny. You and he are bound by a bond that will not break, a bond which, legal or not, will prevent you from marrying anyone else ever, for if you did you would feel like an adulteress. Other men will serve only to remind you of him—you are his wife, you belong to him!’
Angered by the suspicion that she might be right, Dove scoffed, ‘You may be satisfied with crumbs, but I could never be! An Arab’s most prized possessions are his mare, his sword, and his wife—in that order! I refuse to allow a horse to take precedence. Nor will I submit to being regarded as an ornament, a pretty toy to be played with until it is broken and then cast aside. I want a husband who will treat me as an equal,’ to her horror her voice began to shake, yet doggedly she persisted, ‘a man who will allow me to share his troubles and his hopes, who will let me console him when he is sad and who will consult me if ever he is in need of advice!’
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