by Abby Green
She stood from the bed, and wobbled a little precariously before striding purposefully to the bathroom to dry her hair. This was ridiculous. She was twenty-three, she’d never been kissed properly until Nadim had kissed her for the first time, and she was a virgin. She was also hurtling headlong into a crush of monumental proportions on a man so out of her league at every possible level that it was ludicrous.
She winced as she ran the brush through her hair before drying it, and ignored the too-bright glitter of her eyes in the mirror. From now on she was here to work, and not to dream or moon or have hallucinations. Work—that would be her salvation, and in time she would request that she be sent home so that a few oceans and thousands of miles would be put between her and this dark nemesis of her vulnerable imaginings.
After a broken night of sleep, gritty-eyed, Iseult heaved a deep sigh when she saw delicate lines of pink usher in the dawn in the sky outside. Just then she heard the sound of a solitary voice calling people to prayer. She’d grown used to it since she’d arrived, coming at regular points in the day, but here in the castle it was much clearer.
Obeying an instinct to follow the sound, Iseult got out of bed and pulled on a short silk robe over her T-shirt and knickers, and on bare feet went out of her bedroom. Everything was still and hushed, and the slightly cool morning air made goosebumps pop up on her skin.
Still half asleep, she wandered down the long corridor, following the sound of the chant which was getting louder and clearer. She passed ornately decorated doors and other corridors which led down to mysterious passages, and then one in particular caught her eye. She investigated, and spotted old stone steps leading up to a higher level.
Climbing up, she went through a tiny door and emerged outside with a little gasp of delighted surprise. She could see that she was on one of the castle’s open rooftop terraces, with a stunning view over Merkazad. She went over and stood by the wall, letting her hands rest on it.
Lights were winking off as the sun rose, and the small city glowed pearlescent against the blush stained sky. The distinctive minarets of the main mosque pierced the skyline, and that evocative and melodic chant against the stark silence of the morning made something deep within Iseult tug in a very primal way.
‘It’s the Muezzin, issuing the adhan.’
Iseult whirled around so fast she felt dizzy, and even dizzier to see Nadim leaning nonchalantly against a wall behind her in faded jeans and a crumpled T-shirt, as if he too had just stumbled out of bed and thrown them on. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw, making it look even harder. He looked as if he hadn’t slept either, and liquid heat invaded Iseult’s veins.
‘I…didn’t think anyone would be up.’
Hands in pockets, Nadim hitched his chin towards the city and pushed off from the wall to come and stand closer to Iseult. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He looked like a devilish angel, not the supreme ruler of a country. ‘The whole city will be stirring now, and getting up to face another day.’
He wasn’t looking at her, just facing out to the city, and Iseult followed his gaze, suddenly feeling very undressed and very vulnerable as she remembered last night. She longed to blurt it out—Were you in my room last night or was I dreaming?—but right now she felt certain that it had to have been a dream, a treacherous fantasy.
‘Why did you come up here?’
Nadim’s voice sounded harsh, and she sensed he was angry with her for disturbing his peace. Iseult could feel his eyes rake over her, and one of her hands gripped the robe tight at her breasts. Imposing a huge strength of will, she avoided looking at him, certain that his proximity would show him how affected she was by him.
Her voice was unbearably husky. ‘I heard the chant and…I don’t know…it seemed to call to me. It’s beautiful.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Nadim’s voice had softened perceptibly. ‘And it is a call. It’s meant to make you want to follow it, to express your devotion.’
Unable not to, Iseult snuck a glance up at Nadim, and the breath stalled in her throat when his dark gaze caught hers. He was looking at her so intently. She felt as if he was issuing some silent call, because right now if he’d taken her hand and asked her to follow him anywhere she would have said yes.
Iseult was in serious danger of drowning in those dark dark eyes, but from deep within her some self-preserving instinct kicked in: the memory of how he’d kissed her came back, and the obvious self-recrimination he’d shown. Both times. She heard herself saying, ‘You must miss your wife…’
Immediately there was a reaction. Nadim’s jaw tightened and those eyes flashed. But her question had had the desired effect; in that mere second she could feel the distance yawn between them, even though physically he hadn’t moved an inch. And, conversely, Iseult regretted saying anything.
‘I shouldn’t be surprised you’ve heard.’
‘I’m sorry… I can’t imagine what it must have been like to lose her.’
‘You’re forgetting it wasn’t just her…it was our baby too.’ Nadim’s face was tight with anger, his voice as harsh as she’d ever heard it.
Now Iseult felt about as low as it was possible to feel. Why on earth had she opened her big mouth? She flushed and moved back. ‘I’m sorry, Nadim, I didn’t mean…I didn’t want to make you think of this…’
He laughed, and it sounded bitter. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t need you to remind me of something that’s seared into my brain.’
Finally he looked away for a moment, and Iseult felt the breath whoosh through her as if he’d held her suspended. Her heart squeezed at the bleak look crossing his face, even as a pain seemed to pierce right through it at the same time.
The assertion reverberating in her head tumbled out. ‘You must have loved her a great deal.’
He slanted a look down at her, his face closed and stark. But then his mouth turned up in a cynical smile, and it sent a shot of trepidation through Iseult.
‘That’s just the thing. I didn’t love my wife. It was an arranged marriage. But she loved me…she expected more from me than I could give.’ He smiled mockingly, obviously seeing something on her face that she wasn’t even aware of. ‘Does that shock you, Iseult? Do you think we’re barbarians here for arranging marriages like that? For not falling in love only to divorce two years later, like the Western world?’
Iseult shook her head. Her brain throbbed. He sounded so hard, and in that moment she felt a surge of sympathy for his wife having entered such a cold marriage. To have loved this cold, implacable man.
Nadim’s mouth was a grim line now. ‘This is normal here, Iseult. I am the Sheikh. I above anyone else am expected to make a good match, a practical match. It’s not about falling in love.’ He nearly sneered when he said those words. ‘People get married every day, and it’s for many reasons. Love rarely, if ever enters into it. To expect love is to expect too much.’
‘But your wife did… Perhaps she just couldn’t help herself.’ Iseult had intended it to come out with a sarcastic edge, but she just sounded sad.
Nadim’s eyes bored down into hers, and bitterness rang in his voice. ‘She should have known better. Like I said, she expected too much. And don’t think a day goes by when I’m not aware of what I couldn’t give her—what I can’t give any woman.’
It was almost as if he’d resigned himself to some kind of fate, and that bleakness reached out and touched Iseult like a cold hand. She shivered, and saw Nadim’s eyes drop and take in her bare legs. When his eyes rose again her body temperature had risen with them.
Had he moved closer? Iseult felt as if he had, even though the same space was still between them. He didn’t move to touch her, but in that moment their eyes locked. Iseult felt as if Nadim was making some decision, staking some silent claim. As if he’d sent her some telepathic communication to say the subject of his wife was closed and the focus was back on her.
Something almost tangibly primal moved between them, and Iseult would have to have been made of ice not to notice i
t. The skin all over her body tingled, and she felt in great danger even as a treacherous lick of excitement kicked through her. She told herself fiercely that it had to be just her rampant imaginings—had to be.
The Muezzin’s last chant was fading away on the morning air. And Nadim just said, ‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?’
Iseult’s hand still gripped her robe, and with a strangled reply of something inarticulate she forced her legs to move and fled. Nadim hadn’t even touched her, but as she half stumbled back down the stairs and to her room she felt as though she’d been branded in some way…and, worse, as if she’d given him some tacit signal of acquiescence.
‘I think you should take Iseult with you to the horse festival this weekend.’
Nadim looked at Pierre and bit back the urge to flatly refuse the suggestion, trying to block out the image of how she’d looked that morning, when she’d appeared like an apparition in front of him on the terrace.
‘Why do you think that?’
The older Frenchman looked at Nadim. ‘I’ve never seen anything like her talent, Nadim. She’s truly extraordinary—light years ahead of some of the guys I’ve had working with me for years. I will admit that her technique is a little rudimentary and rough around the edges, but that’s only from being largely self-taught. She told me her grandfather was her biggest influence, and I remember him well. He too had the same gift that put him above and beyond other trainers. Unfortunately he died when she was young, so she missed out on a lot of his teaching. But she has an expert eye—I think she could be very valuable to you if you see any pure-breeds in the mix up there.’
Pierre was referring to the annual Bedouin horse fair—the biggest gathering of native Arabian horses in Merkazad and Al-Omar each year. It was held high on a plateau in the northern mountains that bordered the two countries, and comprised buying and selling horses, and races and other social events.
It was also a chance for him to get out to the further reaches of his country and see his people.
Nadim made a non-committal response and welcomed the interruption of one of Pierre’s staff asking a question. He was still reeling from his encounter with Iseult that morning. And still reeling from the fact that she’d managed to somehow get him to reveal far more than he ever would have intended about his wife and his marriage. Not many knew the bald facts, and he had to concede now that, despite coming from a culture of arranged marriages, most of his people would have harboured the fantasy that he had loved his wife.
Iseult had caught him off guard. How had she known to come to the one place in the whole castle that was his private space? When he was much younger he used to go up there and look out onto the view, contemplating the terrifying fact of his fate and the prospect of one day taking responsibility for an entire country.
No one had ever disturbed him there. It had been the one place he could escape from his brother, parents, obligations…his wife and the love he couldn’t return, the awful guilt of that… But now something, someone, had superseded all of that.
He’d gone back to his room last night and hadn’t been able to sleep a wink, with frustration coursing through his body. Eventually he’d gone out there to try and clear his head, get some perspective…and then she’d appeared in front of him like a taunt, in that flimsy half-robe, long legs bare, hair in a tousled tangle down her back. The seductive shape of her body had been more than clear, her face fresh and clear of any make-up, and those eyes— He cursed as his body tightened with annoying predictability.
As he’d looked in her eyes that morning a sense of inevitability had washed through him. He either sent Iseult home and forgot about her, moved on with a new mistress, or else he slaked this desire and got her out of his system once and for all. And he already knew what his only choice was…
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE following day Iseult was sitting in the back seat of one of the Jeeps which was following Nadim out of Merkazad and up into the mountains. Two of his bodyguards sat in front, and a veritable retinue of vehicles snaked behind them, including a couple of empty horseboxes. Nadim was in the vehicle just ahead of them, and he’d barely glanced at Iseult before they’d set off from the main courtyard of the castle. He’d been dressed in traditional dress again—a long cream thobe, with a gold-trimmed robe over it.
She was still getting her head around the fact that Nadim had asked her to accompany him on this trip. Iseult had been in too much shock early that morning as in her half-sleep she’d let Lina chatter and manoeuvre her around and pack her a bag. And then before she’d had time to draw breath they’d been getting into the vehicles and were on their way. She had no idea why Nadim would want her to go along on such an expedition.
They were driving through the rockiest terrain Iseult had ever seen. Every now and then she caught a tantalising flash of abundant green and colour, and was reminded of when Nadim had told her that they’d just had a monsoon. It was hard to believe, driving through such an inherently arid land.
They drove ever upwards, and finally came to a halt. One of the bodyguards stepped out and opened Iseult’s door, and when she got out into the bright sunlight and searing heat she could see Nadim waiting just a few feet away. He was looking at her, but then looked away.
Instantly her body reacted with a disturbing rush of desire. She stiffened her shoulders and walked over to him, seeing that some of the vehicles had kept going and the rest of the convoy had stopped in a kind of lay-by.
Hesitant, she stood beside him and followed his gaze, gasping when she did so. The whole of Merkazad was laid out before them from this vantage point. She could see the city shimmer in the far distance, and way beyond that the craggy crests of more mountains. Amidst the aridity were huge pockets of oases, in green and colours so beautiful that Iseult wanted to rub her eyes. In the near distance a magnificent waterfall cascaded down a mountainside.
It was like a vision of that mythical place Shangri-La. She finally managed to tear her gaze away and looked up to the man beside her, who stood tall and proud. ‘It’s…spectacular. I had no idea.’
He looked down to the ground and gestured for her to look too. She saw a clump of the most beautiful flowers she’d ever seen. They were vibrant pink with four large pointy-tipped petals.
Nadim said, ‘That’s the desert rose—native to here. The land blooms with them for months after the rains, and then they fade away just before the rains come again next summer.’ He looked at her then. ‘This is one of the best vantage points to see Merkazad.’
Overcome with some nameless emotion, Iseult looked at the view again and said huskily, ‘Thank you for showing me this.’
She’d always thought of herself as a home bird, but she had to admit that she hadn’t felt homesick here at all. It was as if her heart had skipped a beat and gone on at a different rhythm, and she knew how easy it would be to be seduced by this land.
She felt a light yet burning touch on her bare elbow. She looked up to see Nadim’s dark eyes staring down into hers, and in that moment everyone and all the vehicles around them disappeared. She knew it wasn’t just the land she was in danger of being seduced by; it was this man. And she was quite sure he wasn’t trying to seduce her!
‘Come—you will travel the rest of the journey with me.’
And with just the slightest inclination of his head the man who had been sharing the back seat of his chauffeur-driven Jeep got out and took Iseult’s place where she had been. She was guided into the back of Nadim’s Jeep. She doubted very much that even if she had protested she would have been listened to.
She sat tensely in the plush confines of Nadim’s Jeep, with his big body far too close for comfort, and blurted out, ‘Why are you bringing me with you?’
He turned his head to look at her, and the breath shrivelled up in her throat. In his turban and traditional robes he looked so…exotic and other-worldly.
He quirked a small mocking smile. ‘I’m bringing you along because I value your opinion, of
course.’
Iseult all but snorted inelegantly, and partly to escape his dark penetrating gaze said, ‘I doubt that. You probably just don’t trust that I can be left to my own devices for a weekend.’
‘You’re right about that.’
Iseult turned to look at him again, full of chagrin and fire, but before she could speak he was saying, ‘But I also do happen to wonder what you’ll make of the horses we’ll see here. Most are not worth bothering about, but sometimes there are some fine pure-blood Arabians.’
Slightly mollified, but still feeling very confused and out of her comfort zone, Iseult nevertheless felt a spark of interest pique her. She asked him about the Arabian horses, and before she knew it she had twisted fully in the seat to face him. They were talking so intensely that she didn’t even notice when they’d come to a halt.
The driver opened Iseult’s door, and she got out to see the most magical sight laid out before her. They were high in the mountains in an ancient-looking village—a cluster of buildings nestled around them. They all seemed to be made out of hard-packed red clay. Men, women and children had come to a standstill to see the Sheikh—their Sheikh—arrive.
One of the men, with a white skullcap on his head, darted forward to greet Nadim, who had come around to Iseult’s side of the Jeep. Nadim gestured autocratically for Iseult to follow him, and with the bodyguards crowding around her and Nadim she had no choice.
With wide eyes she took in the scene: tall palm trees swayed in the light breeze, and beyond the village she could see that there was a flat lush greenness all around them, surrounded by craggy mountains. In the distance she could see a large area which had huge crowds milling around and tents erected.