Desert Doorway
Page 15
� and the palm trees rustling on either side of them. And then the car picked up speed, still without making any more noise than that of a cat contentedly purring, and they shot away over the broad face of the desert, with the nose of the car turned in the direction of Marrakesh.
Jenny settled down in a kind of bewildered bliss beside the white figure at the wheel, huddling the rug about her shoulders because the night air was very keen. When they had been travelling for about ten minutes, and the Arab village was well behind them, Max asked softly;
- "Are you all right, Jenny?" "Yes, thank you�perfectly all right!'9 She felt his hand feeling for h'ers, and their fingers locked closely for about half a minute. He said in a voice so filled with tenderness that only
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a few days ago she would not have connected it with him.
"When we've got just a little farther on our way I'll stop and tuck you up more warmly, my darling. You mustn't be cold, and you've had such a nightmarish time. That hut was��!" She saw him bite his lip�tear at it as if anger was coursing through him in an almost ungovernable fashion, and his face looked white and set in the moonlight. "How were you looked after? Were you fed all right?"
"Oh, yes�but I wasn't very hungry," she admit
ted, in a voice that sounded small and pathetic. He swore, and then apologized. "Were you very frightened?" "I was beginning to feel frightened just before
you came." "And when I came��" She sent him a sideways look. "I'd have endured the whole thing over again
just for the absolute joy of having you come in the way you did!" "Darling," he said, and then they were silent while the car covered several miles. Presently Jenny realized they were nearing the foothills of the Atlas, and all at once the car came
to rest, and the engine died into silence. Max reached for a rug on the seat behind him and tucked it in carefully over her knees, and then he
found a cushion and stuffed it behind the soft gold-bronze of her hair. He touched the hair gently with his fingers.
"I said you had red hair, didn't I?" he whispered. "And so you have�just a touch of red. And that's why, although you look cool and sweet as a flower, you're my own beloved woman when you're in my arms!"
He resisted the temptation to draw her fiercely back into them, because her small face looked white and tired, and the large eyes were heavily underlined by shadows. He leant forward and kissed them gently, lingeringly.
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"Jenny, sweetheart, have you formed any
theories at all about this kidnapping of you?"
"Was it�Si Mohammed?" she asked.
"It was," frowning at the wheel, "but even he
wouldn't have thought up the thing entirely alone.
He's young, and rather primitive, and you were a
tantalizing prize, and I've no doubt he thought
himself very much in love with you. But Celestine
�Celestine devised the whole thing!" His fingers
gripped hard at the wheel, and he stared away
over the desert. "I don't suppose it's easy for you
to understand the type of woman Celestine is_
possessive, hard, determined never to be frus
trated if she can help it! She�I�I've known her
since her teens, and I've few illusions where she
is concerned. But although I'm not a saint. Jenny �perhaps very far from it!�I've never made love to her. Do you believe that?" Jenny whispered back weakly that she dido He looked at her yearningly. "You've got to believe it, because it's true. And
there must be no more doubts between us two.
Celestine would have had it otherwise, I know�
and I think she hated you so much that she jumped
at the opportunity to get you out of her way. She thought if Si Mohammed married you I would
never be able to have you, and so she did her
utmost to throw the two of you together. And
before we left the kasbah she had persuaded him
to try force. That was why it was her car that
took you. all the way to that Arab village. And
but for the fact that the old Caid was taken seri
ously ill on the morning we left, Si Mohammed
would have been after you to pick up his prize
before ever I could have reached your side!"
She could tell by the way a quiver invaded his voice, and by the faint whitening of his knuckles as his hand gripped the wheel, how such a thought upset him, and her hand reached out and slipped inside his arm. He looked down at it and crushed it against him convulsively,
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"Darling, I'm taking you to Lady Berringer now_you'll be safe there until I can make other arrangements for you." He looked at her quickly, and she wondered what those arrangements would be, but the exhaustion in her face prevented him from telling her there and then. Instead he kissed her hand, tucked it inside the rug, and started up the car once more. "Until we're through thesemountains I won't be really happy. This is still very much Si Mohammed's country. But don't get the wrong ideas, darling�now that I know you're really mine no man will ever take you awayfrom me! No man, under any circumstances'."
The car moved gently forward, and she asked because she simply had to know;
"How did you find out where I was?"
Max did not look round at her as he answered:
"Shall we say I forced the truth, and nothing
but the truth, out of Celestine! I might even have
frightened her a little! o . ."
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE next evening at dusk a big red car drew up outside the Mamounia, and Max Daintry, very trim and immaculate in evening things, alighted and went into the hotel. When he emerged Jenny was with him, wearing her white evening frock with the rhinestones patterning the bodice, and a stole about her shoulders. She looked as if she had enjoyed a very long and refreshing sleep,
and her eyes were bright.
Max handed her into the car, and then got into the driving-seat, and the car moved away. He said to her softly:
"I'm taking you to a Moorish restaurant, which I think you'll like. You've never been there before."
"I've never been out to dinner with you before," she answered, and even as she did so every pulse in her body leapt, for she was dining alone with him tonight.
"But you have had lunch with me in my own house." "Yes." She looked sideways at him with adorable shyness. "I liked it � your house, I mean."
"That's just as well," he told her, "because unless you've changed your mind about me it will be your own house soon �^very soon, I hope!"
She felt as if her breath was temporarily suspended in her throat. Her voice trembled as she answered:
"I couldn't change my mind about you � ever!" "And fortunately ever's a very long time," the man returned quietly.
The car slid silently down the long, palm-treebordered Avenue du Marechal Lyautey, and then, while the night closed down and the huge Moroccan stars appeared, wound in and out of the labyrinth of cobbled lanes and narrow streets that made up the medina. After a while it plunged into
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an even deeper wilderness of palms called the palmeraie, and in this jungle world of silence , which was yet so close to all the activity of the French city, it slid suddenly to a halt.
Jenny looked at her companion in the dim light and reminded him that he had said they were going to a Moorish restaurant,
"We are my beloved, when I've had an oppor
tunity to kiss you," he answered dryly, "and to convince nnyself that our journey back to Marrakesh last night was not a dream!"
He switched off his engine and turned and looked at her. Jenny felt as if a flame rose up in her and quivered along every nerve centre of her body, and at the same time her bones turned to water. She seemed to melt into his arms when they came out to claim her, and when his lips touched he
rs she shut her eyes and felt waves of
ecstasy break over her. .
The minutes passed, and the night wind soughedsoftly through the palms, a dog barked, and slippered footfalls passed near to them. Starlight pierced the palm leaves and painted a silver web
on the roof of the car. Max held Jenny possessively close. With one hand he stroked her bright hair. "Darling," he said softly, at last. "Jenny!"
She looked up at him with bemused eyes, and when he looked into them all the depth and extent of her love gleamed at him from under her white
eyelids. "Yes?" she whispered. "Jenny! You'll marry me at once, won't you?
There can't be any waiting. For one thing, I couldn't wait, and for another there's no reason why we should. I want you in my care � in my
house, where I can keep an eye on you all the time, and where I know you'll be safe! And perhaps one day we'll go home to England and 111 show you the house I told you about, where you 11 fit in so perfectly. We may even go quite soon�
But, in the meantime, do you think you can put up with Marrakesh?" "I could put up with anywhere so long as I was
with you," she answered. He kissed her lingeringly, "But you don't dislike Marrakesh so very much,
do you � in spite of your experiences over the past few days?"
"I shall forget all about them," Jenny told himbut she wondered what had happened when he went to the St. Alais house in the medina to fetch all her things and tell Celestine that she would never be returning to look after the children. Celestine must have felt that she had gambled recklessly and lost � although she had been gambling- on something that would never be hersin any case. So she had really lost nothing at ail I
Max read her thoughts, and he s'aid quietly;
"Celestine even appeared surprised that I wasn't taking you back to her. She put quite a good face on it! Sent her maid to pack up your things and asked me to let you know that if there is anythingshe can do for you at any time she will always be
g^ta ^ it." He smiled strangely when he added;
When I told her I was marrying you soon she even offered to give a party for you if you'd like one! What a woman! � and very, very French'"
"What about the Comte?" Jenny asked. "Hashe returned yet?"
"No, but he is expected back quite soon Poor Kaou � why he married a woman like Celestine 1 shall never know. It was a mixture of fire and water. I honestly believe that Lady Berringer had it in mind that he might one day divorce Celestine �� probably citing me! � and marry you! I'm sure she thought you'd make a much better
Jenny felt her face coloring, brilliantly. How � how can you say a thing like that?" she demanded. "It's no use bringing a divorce
action unless you're sure of unfaithfulness � and Celestine is fond of her children in her ,way. Apart from you I don't think anyone could* evercause her to risk losing her present security, and so far as you're concerned the Comte couldnt
Dossiblv""�'�f9
"No darling, he couldn't," he half laughed against her ear. "But you wouldn't have been socertain of that � say � three weeks ago, would
you?"
She looked up at him with distressed eyes.
"Will you ever forget that I was so stupid?" And then, with a spurt of spirit: "But all the same � Celestine is beautiful, and you did kiss me believing I was her! You must have kissed her
before that!" . ,,, . , ,,
"Must I?" His eyes were twinkling wickedly, and deliberately confusing her. "Perhaps just once or twice � on the hair! I like red hair!"
He buried his lips in her hair. She thrust away from him. ,-.�,,
' "Would you like it if I had allowed Si Mohammed to kiss me that night?" She saw his face darken until it was almost frightening.
"If he had, I think � I think I would have been sorely tempted to kill him! As it is he'll keep out of my way in future." Then his arms drew her close again, and his voice was all tender urgency. "Jenny, sweetheart, you're the only woman 1 veever loved � the only woman I've ever asked
to marry me! And I'm going to marry you soon
� so ,soon that I feel light-headed at the thought. Oh, Jenny, how much do you love me?" "Enough to feel light-headed at the thought of marrying you, too," Jenny answered, with a funny wavery note in her voice which proved that she really was a little light-headed.
THE END