by Penny Jordan
'What ceremony? There will not be one,' Danielle announced when Zanaide had gone. 'Have you gone mad, Jourdan?'
'Do I look as though I have?' He had moved so silently that Danielle hadn't heard him, and now he was standing by the bed, planting assessingly through the flimsy bed hangings to where Danielle sat defiantly on the silken cushions. She had forgotten until that moment that Zanaide had removed her silk suit and that she was wearing merely her briefs and bra. Shyness made her long to cover her exposed body, but pride burned fiercely inside her, forcing her to remain still beneath the probing look.
'I am making it easy for you, mignonne,' Jourdan said softly. 'I could make it so that you would be glad to marry me.'
'By taking my virginity?' Danielle said scorn-fully. 'You are behind the times, monsieur. Such things are of no importance these days . . .'
She heard the angry hiss as he expelled his breath and wrenched aside the semi-transparent draperies to stare down at her with eyes which seemed to strip the remaining clothes from her body and survey it with an insolence that drove the colour from her skin.
'And another man's child? Is this too of no importance?'
'You wouldn't,' Danielle breathed painfully. His face grim, Jourdan assured her briefly, 'I would do anything to secure my position in this country—my country—mignonne. Anything, Now, do we understand one another?'
'My stepfather will never forgive you for this!' Danielle stormed. 'I don't know how you've managed to persuade the Sheikha to be a party to this . . . this atrocity, but when my stepfather . . .'
'The Sheikha agreed because, like me, she has the good of this country very close to her heart, and as for your stepfather—my uncle,' he leaned forward all of a sudden, forcing Danielle to bend backwards to avoid contact with his body, 'am I not giving him what he wanted all along?'
He smiled cruelly when he saw the acknowledgement flaring betrayingly in Danielle's eyes,
'You see, mignonne,' he said softly, 'you yourself acknowledge the truth. My uncle may not be pleased with the way in which our marriage is accomplished, but the fact of its accomplishment will please him mightily . . .'
'But I don't love you,' Danielle stormed bitterly, 'and you don't love me All you want is to gain control of the oil company.'
'This I acknowledge,' Jourdan agreed, his face slowly hardening. 'You must have thought me a fool indeed, daughter of Hassan, if you imagined I would stand passively by while all I had worked for was given elsewhere, to a boy such as Saud.'
'Saud!' Danielle stared fearfully up at him. Was this the reason for her abduction and enforced marriage? Because Jourdan thought she might have fallen in love with Saud?
'Strange as it may seem to you,' she said coldly, 'I do not run after men who are betrothed to others . . .'
'Saud, or some other, it makes little difference,' Jourdan remarked with a cool shrug. 'You are ripe for marriage, Danielle, and I shall not have the fruit I have tended so long plucked by others, rather I will pluck it myself, even though it still be a little unripe and green.'
'I hate you!' Danielle burst out, unable to bear either his mockery or hard intent any longer. 'I suppose the only reason you've finally given your magnanimous approval" to my parents' marriage is because you realised it was the only way you were going to get the oil company. Tell me something,' she demanded sarcastically. 'Has any decision in your life ever been governed by anything but self-interest?'
'Once,' Jourdan replied coolly. 'When I thought a person of whom I was very fond was making a bad mistake. We quarrelled bitterly about it, and I lost the man who had been father, uncle and friend to me all my young life.'
Danielle let out her breath on a faint hiss, knowing he was referring to her stepfather. 'But once you realised that the marriage was working, that the only way you could get control of the oil company was by accepting the marriage, your scruples disappeared? Very commendable,' Danielle sneered.
'You speak without knowledge, daughter of Hassan,' Jourdan said abruptly. 'I shall leave you to your maid. The marriage takes place within the hour.' He paused by the door. 'And be very sure it is legal and watertight. We shall be married according to the laws of Qu'Har and those of my church. There will be no annulment; no divorce.'
The words rang on in Danielle's ears, long after Jourdan had left her. Beyond the perimeter of the bed she could hear Zanaide moving about softly.
'I have prepared the Sitt's bath,' Zanaide said coaxingly. 'I have perfumed it with oils to ensure fertility and . . .'
'I don't want a bath, Zanaide,' Danielle told her abruptly. She wasn't going to allow herself to be perfumed and prepared for this marriage like a sacrifice for the altar!
Marriage! Her fists clenched in helplessly impotent rage. This couldn't be happening. Fate couldn't be condemning her to this travesty of a marriage—but it was.
The only thing that got her off the bed and into the billowing crimson and gold chiffon caftan was Jourdan's parting threat that he would come and dress her himself, and even then it was with dis-tasteful reluctance, refusing to even glance at her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors which lined one wall of the room.
'The Sitt does not like the caftan?' Zanaide asked reproachfully. 'The Sheikha herself ordered its design and execution. The pearl buttons are her gift to you.'
The Sheikha who had deliberately gone behind her back and conspired with Jourdan, as though she were nothing more than a slave girl sold to the highest bidder, Danielle thought bitterly. And why? Because her stepfather was in control of Qu' Har's oil. Jourdan had married her for that sole purpose. Well, if she could not prevent the marriage, she could at least make sure that not a single day passed without her iterating to Jourdan how much she hated it—and him!
'And now the girdle,' Zanaide murmured reverently, breaking into Danielle's thoughts, and coming towards her carefully carrying a heavy, intricately chased belt of silver studded with emeralds and diamonds.
'This girdle belongs to the family of Sheikh Jourdan,' Zanaide explained. 'It is the custom for the women of the house to dress the bride and fasten the girdle.' As she spoke she slid the heavy weight round Danielle's slender waist, where it lay like iron hands, imprisoning her, Danielle thought, shivering under its ice-cold embrace, the myriad flashing points of colour from the precious stones hypnotising her into a strange state of leth-argy where nothing seemed to matter any longer. Too late she remembered the mint tea Zanaide had coaxed her into drinking and the sense of re-laxatition which had followed almost immediately. 'Zanaide.' Was that whisper of sound really her own voice?
The Sitt wishes for something?' What was in that tea you gave me?' Danielle demanded urgently, wishing she could escape from the increasing sense of lethargy pervading her body and clouding her mind.
'Nothing harmful. It was just a little of the poppy drug,' Zanaide soothed. 'The Sheikh ordered it so. It is quite common for girls to drink thus before their marriage. It soothes the mind and relaxes the body.'
Too concerned as she was with the coming ceremony, it was to be some time before Danielle realised the import of Zanaide's last words. As the drug coaxed her stiffening muscles into unwilling relaxation she allowed Zanaide to rub perfumed oils into her wrists and throat and to add a touch of kohl beneath her eyes, imparting depth and lustre.
'You are ready,' Zanaide said at last, touching the intricate fastenings of the silver girdle. 'Now none but your husband may unfasten your girdle, and then the pearls of chastity which conceal from him the secret gardens of your body, where only he may venture.'
Danielle wanted to cover her ears, so that she wouldn't be forced to listen to what Zanaide was saying, but even as she started to protest the door opened and her heart started to pound with heavy uneven strokes, her mouth dry as Zanaide led her forward to the man waiting imperiously for her.
In his ceremonial robes Jourdan was an imposing, distant stranger, a man whose eyes rested remotely on her trembling frame as white-clad servants escorted them to
a chamber overlooking the now darkened courtyard which lay beyond Danielle's own room.
The first service, in Arabic, was totally in-comprehensible to Danielle, who made her responses in a voice as listless as an obedient child, without truly comprehending their meaning.
For one brief moment as they stood before the priest ten minutes later, Danielle contemplated pleading with him to help her, but as though he had read her mind, Jourdan's fingers bit cruelly into her arm, his eyes totally pitiless as he murmured dulcetly, 'I wouldn't if I were you, daughter of Hassan. According to the Muslim law you are already my wife, my possession, and I shall be entitled to punish you as I think fit if you anger me . . .'
With that threat ringing in her ears, Danielle stumbled through her responses, the words sticking in her aching throat as she acknowledged their import and finality. 'And now, mon fils, you may kiss the bride,' the old priest announced with a smile, closing his bible, and Danielle's body clenched in panicky rejection as she felt Jourdan turn towards her, his hands on her shoulders. She could feel his eyes upon her, but refused to look at him, holding her breath tensely, expecting with every passing second to feel the hateful possession of his mouth on hers.
When it didn't come she glanced upwards, surprised by the smile curling his mouth, until she realised that it didn't extend to his eyes, which remained as cold and alert as a falcon's sighting its prey.
'I think in view of my bride's very evident shyness that that is a pleasure I must reserve for later, Father,' Jourdan drawled easily. 'Mahmoud will show you to your room, and thank you once again for your good services.
'Father Pierre came out here before the Second World War and has remained ever since,' Jourdan explained when he had gone and they were alone. 'Through him my uncle made good his vow to my mother that I should be brought up in her religion.'
It was the first time he had told her anything without either mockery or anger, but Danielle stubbornly refused to respond.
'If you will just summon Zanaide to escort me back to my room,' she said coldly, 'I'm tired and I should like to go to bed.'
Something smouldered smokily inthe dark eyes, instantly doused, and Jourdan's voice was completely expressionless as he said silkily.
'So should I, mignonne, but you have no need of Zanaide to escort you to your room. I shall do so myself . . . I had not realised my new bride would be so anxious to consummate the vows we have just made. A little old-fashioned of me, per-haps,' he added cruelly, 'but I had thought I would be the one to suggest that we retire. I find your eagerness refreshing.'
He was openly smiling now, laughter lighting the dark depths of his eyes, but Danielle was white and rigid with shock, her eyes enormous in her small pale face.
'You can't mean it.' she stammered wildly, for getting caution in her anxiety to be assured that she had misunderstood. 'You don't want me . . It was just to get the oil company . . .'
'Which I have to keep,' Jourdan said coldly, his laughter banished. 'You are my wife, Danielle, and by the time dawn pearls the morning sky you will be in deed as well as word.'
'No!'
The word was ripped from Danielle's throat, panic flaring hotly through tensed limbs as she turned frantically towards the door, but once again Jourdan had anticipated her, his finger tightening painfully around her wrist as she tried to pull away.
'You will behave from now on as befits my wife,' he gritted against her ear, 'and not as the foolish child you undoubtedly are. A room has been prepared for us. Come . . .'
A tiny whimper of protest broke past Danielle's compressed lips as Jourdan's grip tightened, but she remained steadfastly glued to the floor, determination giving way to fear as he turned, and with one swift, lithe movement swung her up into his, arms.
Your bones are as fragile as those of the gazelle who graze by the oasis,' he murmured mockingly as he carried her out of the room and up a flight of narrow stairs into a chamber whose magnificence would, in other circumstances, have completely taken Danielle's breath away. As it was, the rich draperies in crimson and gold embroidered brocades; the brilliant Persian rugs and the overall masculinity of the apartment, combined with the heady fragrances of sandalwood and incense, completely overwhelmed her.
She was placed on a low divan, amongst a nest of silken cushions, Jourdan's lithe frame between her and the imposing bed to which her eyes were unwillingly drawn.
'So very apprehensive,' Jourdan mocked, following her glance, 'Never mind, mignonne, before morrning streaks the sky you will have learned to look upon the place where you entered the door way of womanhood with different eyes.'
'Those of hatred,' Danielle confirmed bitterly.
'If you had the slightest scrap of compassion or civilisation you would never even dream of doing this ...'
'You think not? How very naive you are, mignonne,' Jourdan mocked softly. 'There cannot be many men who have looked upon you and not dreamed of enjoying exactly what I shall be enjoying tonight.'
The room whirled dizzily about her as Danielle tried to moan another anguished protest. She saw Jourdan coming towards her and flinched beneath both his presence and the icy lash of his tongue as he swore vehemently.
'Drink this.'
The command could not be ignored, but even as she took the first mouthful of hot sweet mint tea, warning bells flashed through Danielle's mind. She tried to pull back, but the pressure of Jourdan's fingers on her neck prevented her, just as his steely determination prevented her from refusing to drink the hot tea, which she was sure was drugged, just as her earlier cup had been, Now with hideous clarity she remembered Zanaide telling her that it relaxed the mind and the body. She shivered violently, her over-active imagination conjuring up pictures of what she was going to be called upon to endure, her will weakened by the drug she had been given. She longed to sob and plead to be set free, but pride would not let her.
'So much fear and trepidation,' Jourdan murmured softly, his fingers closing on her throat. 'Will it help you, I wonder, daughter of Hassan, if I tell you that not so many days from now you will welcome with open arms that which you now fear?'
'Impossible!' Danielle choked out fiercely.
The anguished thudding of her heart was blotted out by Jourdan's spontaneous laughter, as his hands slid from the warm flesh of her throat to the cold girdle encircling her waist.
'All things are possible, Danielle,' he drawled laconically. 'And if you are honest with yourself, you will admit that this is so.'
Danielle's head dropped back against his shoulder as he lifted her in his arms and carried her over to the enormous bed. Her eyes squeezed lightly closed, her body tensed against his touch, Danielle lay there hardly daring to breathe. One by one she heard Jourdan extinguish the lights which had illuminated the room, and then he was beside her on the bed, his hands making short work of the intricate girdle, his breath against her cheek as he reached for the first of the pearl buttons.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As Danielle froze beneath the questing fingers, she squeezed her eyes closed, unable to bear the sight of the lean brown fingers against the paleness of her flesh.
The night air lay like silk against her skin. Her heart seemed to be pounding with a heavy insistence outside all her previous experience. She felt the warmth of Jourdan's breath against her check and purposefully turned away, her lips tightening, only to part on a shocked gasp as she felt the cool brush of his mouth not against her own trembling lips but in the pale vee of flesh exposed by the unfastened buttons at the neck of her caftan.
As the deft fingers slid more pearls from their looped fastenings, Jourdan's mouth moved downwards, until it rested in the valley between her breasts, her heart racing beneath the male hand covering it.
As though the wild urgency of her thudding heart conveyed a secret to Jourdan she could not share, Danielle saw him raise his head and watch her through the darkness, his eyes glinting like a cat's and silvered by the moon.
'There is nothing to fear, daugh
ter of Hassan,' he told her in a voice as soft and sweet as honey, 'Come, give me your hand and together we shall walk the paths of the Garden of Eden.'
Like someone in a trance Danielle found herself responding, even though it was against her will.
Her trembling fingers were taken and spread against the heated warmth of Jourdan's chest, beneath the robe he had worn for the marriage ceremony.
'Your fingers flutter like the wings of a trapped bird,' he said softly. 'I am only as other men, mignonne, my flesh much as theirs . . .'
But he wasn't like any other man she knew, Danielle thought wildly. They did not demand that she touch them so intimately, so that her fingers could not help responding to the vibrant male life beneath them. Nor did they hold her so close that her soft breasts were crushed against hard muscles and scraped by crisp, dark body hair, whose touch was doing strange things to her tensed stomach muscles, causing them to relax into a melting weakness which made it impossible for her to do anything but murmur a small protest as her caftan was removed completely, along with the dubious protection of Jourdan's arms as he turned her sideways so that the full moon silvered the slender length of her body, revealing how it trembled nervously beneath his lazy scrutiny.
Confused and disturbed by the hitherto unknown sensations awakening within her, Danielle moved, gasping faintly as she realised that Jourdan was as naked as she was herself, the same moon which had silvered her tender flesh highlighting the broad shoulders and tautly muscled male outline, her eyes lifting fearfully to those of the man watching her so impassively, mutely begging for a stay of sentence.
'It is too late, Danielle,' Jourdan muttered in a voice alien to his normal laconic tone. 'Even if my mind did not urge me to this course, my flesh does. You are beautiful beyond belief; as slender as the young gazelle who flees the hunter, and just as provocative. One lean finger touched her cheek, turning her towards him, where he surveyed the silver streaks of tears dispassionately. 'You weep like a child, frightened of the unknown, but already womanhood beckons you, although you will not admit it. I will not leave the fruit which is rightfully mine ripening on the tree for other hands to pluck.'