The Jewelled Caftan

by Margaret Pargeter

  Armel's attention. Ross was very aware that he stared at this lone dancer until the dance was finished. She was strangely fascinated herself by the sinuous contortions of the girl's lissom body, but, woman-like, she saw no reason why he should be. Ross couldn't have explained herself why, after this, she stopped fretting against the restriction of Armel's hand and was content to rest lightly against him in the darkness until it was all over.

  It was long past midnight before the campfires burnt low and he suggested she returned to her tent. The dancing and festivities had drawn to a harmonious close and people were drifting slowly away. In a few hours it would be dawn, the beginning of another day, and the dancing teams had a long journey in front of them. Armel's own people would also be up early to make them coffee and some simple meal for them before they set out.

  'I don't feel terribly sleepy,' Ross protested, as Armel led her away. 'I could have watched longer.'

  'A little of that goes a long way,' he murmured enigmatically, 'if one isn't used to it. It can be like strong drink.'

  'I think you liked one of the dancers especially,' she couldn't help retorting, resentful that he appeared to think she was not mature enough to watch the more sophisticated dances.

  Through the darkness she caught the glint of his white, self-satisfied panther smile. 'Could it be, my little flower of the desert, you are jealous?'

  Ross wanted to deny this fiercely, yet before she was able to he went on, as if his remark could not really be questioned. 'I have long appreciated Yasmin's skill. Her talent is rare and inimitable. But then you, my small, enraged prisoner, have your own attractions. You have no need to envy anyone.'

  Oddly disturbed, Ross would like to have declared she was neither jealous nor enraged, yet not sure she could do this with absolute truth, she retreated into a dignified silence. But her heart jerked when he called her his prisoner and she did not feel nearly so calm and collected underneath.

  'You did appear to like our visitors,' Armel commented as

  he strolled by her side, and her silence lengthened.

  'They seem very nice,' she answered, adding primly, 'I liked the dancing, but otherwise how can I say? I had no chance to form a real opinion, seeing that you never let me get very near them.'

  'I thought you would agree it was wiser you kept your distance.'

  'If you should happen to be referring to my reputation, monsieur, I can't really believe you can be concerned. Not when you keep me here !'

  'The women would not have insulted you with curious questions, if that is what you are thinking,' he said shortly, 'but it is better that they leave with the impression that you and your brother are simply two young people who have lost their way. This is not so unusual in the wilder parts of the desert to which you have rather foolishly strayed..'

  Ross might have acknowledged the sense of this if she had not felt so strung up. Apart from anything else there was Freddy's own position to be considered. If he was in trouble, as Armel had hinted he could be, with the authorities, even by inadvertently crossing a frontier without the necessary authorisation, then the less attention drawn to him the better, she supposed.

  'You think of everything,' she said bitterly.

  'I try to,' he retorted calmly, 'and I should advise you not to worry. There will be enough opportunity to get to know the people, if you so wish.'

  If she wished 1 Uncertainly Ross's feet stumbled on the fine sand and the soft south wind blew gently on her face. Sometimes she wondered how much longer she would have any will left of her own to make demands of any kind. She should be begging Armel to let her go with the dancers, but somehow she could not force such a request past her reluctant lips. Yet if she did not say anything wouldn't he immediately reach the conclusions she ought to avoid? 'Don't you believe it would be wiser if I went with them in the morning?' she whispered at last, her eyes, shadowed in the moonlight, fixed on some point far beyond his head.

  Smiling slightly, he lifted the flap of her tent, thrusting her none too gently inside. 'When a girl asks a man for advice it usually means she will be willing to follow it. It also points to some indecision. You are not sure? You long to stay, but you feel you must fight the dictates of your too impulsive heart?'

  Ross trembled as she turned away from his dangerous astuteness. Fervently, as her pulse suddenly raced, she wished he would go. It had been foolish enough to walk back with him through the silent darkness, but the tent confined them too intimately. She had learnt, however, on previous occasions, that he would not go until he was ready. He was not a man to be ordered by a mere girl! Even so, she must make some sort of stand. 'My heart,' she told him defiantly, 'would never be allowed to dictate to me. I have too much common sense !'

  Armel laughed outright as he caught her back against him before she had gone more than two steps. 'If you can rely on common sense, ma chere, after the wine we have drunk, the dancing we have seen, then you must indeed be a very cool creature.'

  And clearly he wasn't convinced of it! Desperately nervous of her own similar doubts, she attempted to assure him, 'But I am, I always have been, and I can't think why you are here with me when more than one charming girl among your visitors seemed much attracted to you!'

  Armel's air of amusement deepened as his eyes mocked her. 'I don't deny,' he said shamelessly, 'that there are times when I enjoy a woman's company, especially when I know my feelings are reciprocated. But you, my little moonbeam, my witch with the silvery hair, you really interest me! You resist me as if I were the devil himself, yet with others, with even less creditable qualities, you have not hesitated to respond very freely.'

  Angrily Ross gasped, as he derided her openly. She hated him when he mixed amusement with cynicism and cared nothing for her feelings. He drew her closer and she seemed powerless to stop him. She wanted to turn and run but she was rooted to where she stood. Around them the night closed silently, and it was still warm in the tent and his arm

  was like a band of steel around the narrowness of her waist.

  'Please,' she whispered, 'let me go. Don't touch me 1'

  But his hand was already at her nape, with a quick twist removing the bow that confined her hair, brushing it back from her face when it fell like a thick curtain about her slender shoulders. Then his fingers were under her averted chin, his eyes calculating on her soft mouth. 'Don't you think you owe me a few kisses, girl?' he murmured, as she resisted him apprehensively.

  Slowly he lowered his dark head, as if he realised she could not stop him taking what he so derisively asked for. With all her heart she wished she could, for he talked as if he were purchasing some trinkets in a market place. Trinkets he considered cheap!

  'You know I can't stop you,' she said huskily, feeling her lips moving against his as she spoke, as his mouth caressed hers lighdy before travelling gently to her ear.

  'How badly do you want to stop me?' he whispered, his hands hard against the buttons of her caftan, undoing them defdy. He was expert at many things, she was discovering.

  Helplessly her head moved as his breath came warm on her cheek, releasing something primitive inside her until, of their own accord, her lips searched yearningly for his.

  His laughter had gone now, there was only a strange glitter in his eyes. 'Your hair is like a golden cloud with the sun shining through it, your eyes like the sapphires owned by the Queens of Ancient Egypt. Don't you wish to know how they loved, little one?' He held her to him, his words acting like a powerful drug as her caftan slid to the floor. 'You're like a small, lovely statue, cherie, a sleeping beauty waiting to be brought alive. What couldn't I teach you !'

  'Armel,' she whispered, as his words went exquisitely through her, like pain! 'Please,' she entreated, 'you shouldn't say such things.'

  He kissed her then, again lightly, his mouth tormenting, 'Why not, ma cheret Don't you care to know what I am thinking? Your own thoughts might interest me gready.'

  Her heart was beating so hard against him that she couldn't have sai
d anything logical even had she tried. Even her lashes felt heavy, only seeking to rest on her flushed cheeks.

  'So,' he drawled, 'you are unable to speak. You can only tremble in my arms, yet you declare you don't like me?'

  'I'm not used to someone—to anyone like you,' she stammered, his mockery extracting a response while she scarcely realised what she was saying.

  His voice was perfectly hard. 'You mean you have only known boys, like those you were with when I found you? It is a long time since I was a boy, ma chere, but let us see how you will manage a man. A girl like you has need of one.'

  The ruthless smile was back on his face again, and before she could protest his hold tightened and he took her mouth almost before he had finished speaking, sweeping her close into the cruel hardness of his embrace. Her skin burned like fire, the sweep of it going right through her 'as his lips crushed down into hers. With a faint moan her slight body collapsed against him and, almost before it had started, his battle seemed won.

  His white burnous joined her caftan on the floor as he picked her up and without taking his mouth from hers he strode with her through into the inner room.

  Ross felt the softness of her bed beneath her and his strong limbs entangled in her own, but suddenly, as he aroused her expertly to ecstasy, she knew faindy that she didn't care. His lips were no longer cruel but unbelievably gentle as he pushed her thin silken tunic aside and explored her trembling body.

  Her fingers touched his shoulders, then went around his powerful neck and clung as his passion began rapidly to consume her. She heard herself moan again and whisper his name, not once but several times as a wave of longing caught her and she melted into his embrace.

  His hands went over her, their gentleness becoming something else again as he heard her entreating him not to let her go, and if he realised she didn't quite know what she was saying he gave no indication. She could hardly breathe, was unable to think for herself as she obeyed his every command. She seemed only to be swept towards inevitable sur- render as they exchanged kiss for kiss, touch for touch, and he whispered tender endearments against her parted lips and soft neck.

  Her senses reeling, Ross's fingers curled tensely into the hard muscles of his shoulders as he lay over her. Never had she known anything like this existed. Drawn almost to insensibility by the hardness of his utterly masculine body, she only strove unconsciously to get closer. 'I will stay with you, darling,' she whispered wildly, 'I won't ever leave you.'

  'You would belong to me?' he muttered, his mouth taking hers passionately. 'You would be willing to spend the rest of your life here—with a desert man who scarcely has a penny?'

  'I don't care,' she rejoined fiercely, her smooth young arms clinging to him. 'I wouldn't care what you had, or who you are!'

  For a long moment he was suddenly very still, as if something in what she said had pricked him like a sword. He still held her, but Ross felt his instant aversion, and while she still—shamelessly, she realised—tried to hold him, it was as if he had withdrawn mental miles from her. There came a kind of ruthless coldness to him which she viewed frantically.

  'Little brat!' he ejaculated curtly, pulling her arms from about his neck, throwing her almost cruelly away from him. His face contemptuous he looked at her, 'So I was right about you after all!'

  Stricken almost to shock, Ross drew herself stumbling to her feet, her hands helplessly groping to cover her semi- nakedness as she did so. There was nothing here she understood, unless it was the shame which, was swiftly replacing the passion that had nearly overtaken her. 'You know that's not true,' she said, staring at him dully.

  'I know now it is.'

  Suddenly, as she stood swaying before him, a sense of outrage stiffened her, saving her, as it did, from the utter humiliation of going down on her knees. 'You beast!' she cried widly. 'All right, I didn't behave discreedy, but I couldn't help myself. I know I should be ashamed, but I'm not! I've never felt like this in my life, nor been in such—in such a situation before. I know you don't believe me, but you can take that look from off your face! You knew what you were doing. I don't know what you had in mind, but now you can find an even greater satisfaction in laughing at me. And believe if you like that I'm no better than I should be!'

  'Are you?'

  'Oh!' Ross's face was white and mere words could never ease the churning fury inside her. It had to be something more physical. As if on reflex her hand flew out, making swift contact with his hatefully leering face.

  Without uttering a word himself he lifted his own hand and slapped her back, his temper, on this occasion, rising as swiftly as her own. 'Now,' he snapped coldly, 'try to convince me you are any better than an alley-cat. You certainly are no more reticent. Like all women you're only too ready to rake over a man's past, to assume he has one, and you would run like the devil if you found it wasn't to your liking!'

  Biting back a sob with the greatest difficulty, Ross stared at him, a tremor going visibly through her as she recalled how she had clung to him. Bred into him was obviously every restrictive influence of the East. He came from ancestors who only approved of women kept in the absolute seclusion of the harem. He pretended to be emancipated, but, when put to the test, he scornfully rejected it. He was convinced no decent Moroccan woman would have conducted herself as she had done.

  Her cheek stinging, but not nearly so painful as her thoughts, she cried, 'You are obsessed with the past—mine, I mean. You force me to be indiscreet, then hate me for it! Well, you will find I can hate as thoroughly as you!' Her mind rebelled against such outright fiction,, and it was a lie, so far as Armel was concerned, but she refused to be ground beneath his lordly heel, prideless into the dust.

  His eyes narrowed, the glittering, mocking coldness deepening as they rested on the spreading red marks on her cheek. 'Maybe the next few days will prove the exact state of your emotions, girl, but I do not intend to be slapped each time you lose your regrettable temper. Until you learn to conduct yourself more modestly I should advise you to keep to your tent.'

  Ross didn't see the sunshine against the side of her tent next morning. Everything about her ached, including her eyes which she righdy supposed were sore from crying. They had not been easy tears she had wept, but once started she had not seemed able to stop the painful flow of them, and they had done nothing to ease the hard restriction around her heart.

  Now, as Jamila stood over her, softly calling her name, she buried her head deeper into her pillow, not willing that the girl should see her face which must surely bear too many traces of her last stormy quarrel with Armel. 'Don't worry, Jamila,' she muttered faintly, 'I'll get up later. I'd just like to be left alone.'

  'Yes, mademoiselle,' Jamila's voice was still soft but a little firmer, 'I would do as you ask, but I'm afraid you must get up at once. Sidi Armel has visitors.'

  'But they are going away !'

  'There are others!' Jamila was clearly excited. Even without looking at her, Ross sensed it.

  'Others?' she almost moaned aloud. She didn't even feel like facing herself this morning, let alone more visitors. 'How on earth have they managed to arrive so early?' she mumbled sullenly. 'Why didn't they come last night, as they must have been very near?'

  Jamila's next words shook her. 'It is almost midday, mademoiselle. Sidi Armel said not to disturb you as you were tired. These people are his people and have been travelling since dawn.'

  'His people!' Dismay sweeping through her, Ross jerked upright, forgetting her dishevelled appearance. She had not thought of Armel as having anyone of his own at all. 'You mean those of his particular tribe?' she asked, bewildered.

  If she had been puzzled before she was even more so when Jamila smiled mysteriously. 'Sidi Armel belongs to none of our tribes, mademoiselle,' she said quietly, her eyes suddenly curious on Ross's tear-streaked face.

  'And you can't explain? Or, more likely, you've been ordered not to!' Ross's voice was a mixture of weary indignation.

  Jamila composed he
rself with dignity. 'My master will tell you all you wish to know, I am sure. He merely said I was to help you dress for a journey.'

  'A journey?' As her pulse missed a beat, Ross felt herself go taut. By some devious twist of fate, in spite of what Jamila had told her, could it possibly be Freddy? When Armel had announced the arrival of their first visitors she had secretly hoped it would not be Freddy. To her terrible shame she had not wanted to leave Armel. This time she hoped fervently it was Freddy at last. After last night she only wanted to escape from Armel as soon as possible! 'Could it be my brother?' she breathed.

  'No,' her spirits sank as Jamila shook her dark head, 'it is not he, that I do know.'

  Sighing softly, she turned to search for something practical for Ross to travel in, and Ross knew that further questions would be futile. She would get nothing more out of her.

  It was scarcely her fault, Ross decided, a little later, that she could do nothing much about her appearance. Her eyes, though not swollen, looked heavy and her skin was so pale that against it her mouth seemed both bruised and red. Jamila had found her a thick white burnous to go over the top of the thin cotton trousers which were the best they could find. Ross longed for a pair of serviceable jeans, but her only ones had been torn beyond mending. Ready at last, she drew a quick breath and, after thanking Jamila quietly for all she had done, walked out into the sunshine.

  Feeling oddly shaken at the thought of yet another step into the unknown, Ross halted a short way from her tent hoping for a few moments alone to compose herself. But this, it seemed, was not to be granted.

  Seeing her stop, Armel ben Yussef left the man with whom he was talking and strode swiftly towards her, the sight of him, so tall and proud in his flowing burnous, as always affecting her disconcertingly.

  'You are ready?' His level glance went over her and she was left in no doubt he referred to her dress, not her inclinations.

  He stood close to her and owing to a distracted trembling in her limbs it took a great effort to lift her chin, but manage it she did even if she could not quite meet his eyes. 'Your message seemed to leave me no choice.'