by Abby Green
Iseult caught up with Nadim. ‘What is this place? Where are we?’
He cast her a quick glance. ‘This is al Sahar, the tribal home of my ancestors. These are my people…literally. The al Saqrs are descended from the Bedouin warrior people who roamed this land for hundreds of years. It’s a mountain oasis, fed from the springs that are abundant after the monsoons.’
Iseult could see that they were approaching some lavish-looking tents, and saw too that Lina was entering a small tent with Iseult’s things. Nadim stopped and Iseult nearly ran into his back. She stepped back hurriedly, her face flushing.
He gestured to the small tent Lina had just disappeared into. ‘That is your lodgings. I have business to discuss with village leaders and Bedouin visitors. Someone will bring you to the horse enclosure where the sales and races are going on. I’ll meet you there later.’
And with that, and a flick of his robes, he was gone, taking his whole retinue with him, leaving Iseult standing there stupidly.
Lina popped her head out of the heavily draped velvet curtains. ‘Miss Iseult…’
Iseult went in, and her eyes had to adjust to the dim light after the bright sunlight. And then her eyes widened. She’d walked into a scene straight out of One Thousand and One Nights. Richly embroidered carpets littered the floor in a haphazard clash of luxurious colour, and dominating the small space was a bed which seemed to be made entirely out of sumptuous velvet and silk cushions. Beautifully intricate chairs and a table were in another corner, and Lina was showing her where a softly draped curtain hid a changing and washing area.
Once again she felt like asking if they were in the right place, but Lina was already busy unpacking Iseult’s things. Iseult couldn’t have felt more out of place in her dusty jeans, T-shirt and scuffed riding boots.
Lina hurried to the opening of the tent and said to Iseult, ‘Jamal is here now. He will take you to the horses…’
Almost glad to get away from the slightly oppressive feeling of being hemmed in by such opulence, Iseult hurried out to where a shy young man waited. He led her towards where the crowds were milling. She could see that it was mainly men, and they turned to look at her curiously as she came through. Many more tents had been erected nearby, although none as lavish as hers and what she assumed to be Nadim’s. In clusters around the tents she saw women, busy preparing food and washing.
There were many enclosures. Some with horses, some with camels. In the distance she could see that a camel race was taking place. Jamal, her guide, seemed to be happy for her to wander around, so she did so for a couple of hours. Interspersed with the horses and camels were some women selling colourful pottery and jewellery. Iseult smiled apologetically, because she had no money, and vowed to come back and buy some things later or the following day.
Moving away, she came to a few enclosures that held just one or two horses with serious-looking men discussing them. She could see instantly that these were a superior breed to the other horses and her heart quickened. All the modern thoroughbred horses around the world were supposedly descended from three Arabian stallions, and looking at these particular horses now Iseult could see why.
There was one in particular which caught her eye, on its own. She could sense that it was a little wild. She’d seen some of the men trot horses bareback around the enclosures, so Iseult didn’t think much before she was about to climb over the fence and have a closer look at this stallion.
Just as she was about to lift her leg over she felt herself being pulled back. Knowing it couldn’t be the shy Jamal, and knowing full well who it was just by the way his touch seemed to sear right through her, she swung back down to see Nadim glaring down at her.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Iseult squared up to him. ‘I was just going to take a closer look at a horse—that’s why you brought me here, isn’t it?’
He seemed to look at her for a long time, and then a muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘He’s not saddled.’
‘I was riding horses bareback before I learnt how to ride in a saddle.’
Another long moment passed, and then he said, ‘Very well. But you don’t go in there without a hat.’
Iseult all but rolled her eyes. None of the men trying out the other horses was wearing a hat. But remembering his wife’s accident kept her quiet and suddenly subdued. In an instant Jamal returned and handed Iseult a hard hat. She slapped it on her head and tied it securely, and gave Nadim a look that had his eyes flashing dangerously.
Iseult took a box over to where the horse stood and, using it to gain height, vaulted easily onto its back. He was skittish, but soon calmed down, and she could feel the sleek power of his muscles move beneath her as she made him go into a light trot.
Nadim watched Iseult ride the stallion, and was aware of every other man watching her too. A hush had fallen over the crowd. He’d never seen someone ride a horse with such ease and effortless grace. Her long hair trailed down her back from under the hat like a living flame of colour. And the line of her back was as straight as a dancer’s. Her whole carriage was that of a regal queen, and he was reminded of that first moment he’d seen her on Devil’s Kiss in Ireland. One hand rested nonchalantly on her thigh, the other on the horses’s reins.
She was his. The assertion ran through him, stunning him with its force. He could see that she was about to come to a halt, and had a moment of premonition before he realised that a horse race was about to start in the distance. Suddenly the loud crack of a starter pistol rent the air.
All Iseult knew was that she was about to dismount when a huge burst of sound made the horse rear into the air. With nothing but flimsy reins to hold onto she was thrown off like a rag doll. Landing on her back, she felt the wind knocked out of her, and she struggled to regain breath. Just in that instant a huge dark shape appeared, and she felt the hat being gently pulled off her head. Then hands were everywhere—probing her head, neck, shoulders and ribs with an expert touch.
She wanted to smack the hands away, but she was too weak and they were too insistent. Finally she managed to take in a big sucking breath of air. She struggled to sit up, but big hands kept her down. Suddenly the aches and pains she could feel starting to register were nothing compared to the fact that Nadim loomed above her, with his hands all over her.
Finally she managed to knock away his hands, protesting breathlessly, ‘I’m fine. I’ve been thrown a million times before.’
Nadim was livid. Iseult could see that. ‘Yes, but not on ground like this. It could break your back.’
She struggled to sit up, and Nadim helped her. Iseult looked into his grim face. His hands were still on her arms. Guilt flooded her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said immediately, thinking of his wife.
Her expressive face must have given her away, because Nadim said grimly, ‘This is completely different.’
Remorse flooded Iseult as she tried to stand awkwardly. Of course it was. Even if he hadn’t loved his wife, he must have had great affection for her. Not to mention his unborn child. And she…she was nothing to this man but an irritation he couldn’t seem to help himself from kissing when the mood took him.
This view was compounded when he lifted Iseult up into his arms before she knew what was happening, and strode out of the enclosure saying caustically, ‘I swear your middle name is trouble.’
Ridiculously, tears threatened, and Iseult had to blink rapidly to ease the burn. Her throat was clogged. She couldn’t even protest and ask to be put down, and it felt all too devastating to be held like this against Nadim’s broad and hard chest as he cut a swathe through the gawping crowd. The material of his thobe was silk and felt ridiculously flimsy. The heat from his body was making her skin tingle all over.
He brought her to his Jeep, which was nearby, and placed her in the back. Closing her door, he went around and got in the other side. Iseult tried to say something, and hated the way her voice sounded so thready. ‘You don’t have to do this. I can walk back. It’s not far from
here.’
She even put her hand on the handle of the door, and Nadim barked out, ‘Woman, will you just stay put!’ He put an arm across her belly, stopping her from getting out, and Iseult could feel emotion welling again.
She was barely breathing, begging silently for Nadim to take his arm away as the Jeep started to move. Clenching her jaw to keep the emotion down, she resolutely looked out of the window to avoid more censure.
She heard a deep sigh and his arm was gone—but only for a hand to come to her chin and turn her face to his. Iseult heard him mutter something that sounded guttural and foreign. To her utter horror and chagrin, tears flooded her eyes. Nadim cursed again and took out a handkerchief, handing it to Iseult.
She took it warily and blew her nose.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry…are you hurt?’
Iseult shook her head and blinked back the tears, swallowing. ‘No…just a bit bruised, I think. On my back.’
‘Show me…’ His voice was more gentle than she’d ever heard it, nearly undoing her again.
Iseult didn’t know what was happening until Nadim had nudged her forward on the seat so that he could pull up her T-shirt to look. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. But he paid no heed, and his muttered words told her that she must have a few glorious bruises already blooming. Her bottom felt as if it had taken most of the impact, but the thought of him looking down there made her go hot all over.
Nadim set her back, and to her surprise he couldn’t meet her eyes. He said stiffly, ‘I should never have brought you here or let you get on that horse. I thought he looked too skittish.’
‘I’m fine—honestly. I bruise easily, so it probably looks worse than it is. It’s nothing a hot bath won’t cure. And you wouldn’t have known how skittish he was unless someone had got on his back.’
Nadim cast her a grim look. ‘Yes, but it didn’t have to be you. That’s what those boys are there for. They’re hardy and well able to handle horses like that.’
Iseult bit her tongue, knowing Nadim wouldn’t welcome a heated defence right now. The Jeep came to a stop and Iseult could see Lina hovering anxiously. Had word reached her already? She opened the Jeep door and winced when she felt her back protest. Nadim was there, and she saw his face darken ominously. He rapped out instructions to Lina and helped Iseult from the Jeep.
When she was out, he said, ‘Lina will take care of you and see to those bruises. You should rest this evening.’
And then he was handing her to Lina and stepping away abruptly. Iseult felt bereft, and wanted to protest that she’d be fine, not wanting to miss out on anything. There was an air of suppressed excitement around the camp as a group of black-clad giggling women went past, but she knew better now than to push Nadim, so just said meekly, ‘All right.’
Lina wouldn’t leave even when Iseult protested that she’d be fine. She drew her a bath, and when Iseult sank her aching body into it, it was like slipping into warm silk. Lina had added all sorts of oils, and even rose blossoms floated on the fragrant water. With her hair piled high onto her head she sank back, and had to admit that she’d never experienced something so decadently sensual.
Suddenly at the thought of that word sensual she felt ridiculous, and sat up as if to get out. Immediately a stern-eyed Lina was there. ‘You stay in the bath, Miss Iseult. You need to let the healing oils work.’
Iseult sank back down hurriedly—as much because she’d never been naked before someone else as any thing else. ‘Okay,’ she said sheepishly, but then added, ‘But only if you stop calling me Miss Iseult…it’s Iseult.’
Iseult could see from Lina’s dark eyes that she was smiling, and wondered what she looked like. ‘Okay, Miss Iseult.’
She left her alone again, and when Iseult was starting to feel like a prune, she reappeared, holding a large towel. Iseult got out and Lina wrapped her in the towel. After she’d dried herself Lina appeared again with a pot of ointment, and smoothed the cream into her tender back and buttocks. Then she draped a robe of some sort over a nearby chair and bade Iseult goodnight.
Iseult dropped the towel and drew on the robe. It was made of brushed silk, and felt far too delicate for someone like her. An edging of gold thread went around its whole perimeter. There was a long golden ribbon-like tie which ran just under her breasts, and she looked up from tying it to see herself reflected in a mirror in the washing area.
She was caught unawares, and stood transfixed by the unfamiliar person reflected back at her. In the mirror was a woman with a long graceful neck, highlighted by the hair piled high on her head. Her eyes were huge, her mouth full and pink. She looked pale, her skin almost luminous in the low lights. She looked very nearly…beautiful.
With a shaking hand Iseult reached up and undid her hair, so that it fell down her back and over her shoulders. With one hand on the tie under her breasts, and the other falling limply to her side, she couldn’t stop looking. She’d been transformed into someone else. The person she felt stirring within her when Nadim kissed her.
The material fell in a diaphanous swirl of cream and gold to her feet, skimming over curves she’d never thought she had, making them look fuller, more alluring. The generous shape of her breasts she’d always fought to hide was accentuated by the deep V and empire line of the robe, with her cleavage a shadowy line between them.
She looked…she looked like— She heard a sound then, and the breath left her throat. Her skin tingled and the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Hoping against hope it was just Lina, but knowing exactly who it was, she turned to see that Nadim had come to the entrance of the tent.
He was dressed in dark gold robes now, and Iseult could see that the sun was setting outside, just beyond his turbaned head and broad shoulders. Every cell in her body reacted violently at seeing him there, and she was caught in such a vulnerable moment she could only look at him helplessly.
Nadim fought to remember why he’d come to Iseult’s tent; perhaps it had been some bid to assure himself that he could resist her, and that he should keep trying to resist her—because she was an employee, and because he knew that beneath that spiky exterior she was vulnerable and had shouldered a heavy burden for a long time. She wasn’t worldly, like the mistresses he was careful to take now—women who knew the score. No emotional involvement. He could end up hurting Iseult, just as he’d hurt his own wife…
Despite all those very good reasons he fought to try and say something, anything coherent, and not just stand there like a teenager transfixed by the first naked woman he’d ever seen.
And she wasn’t even naked! But the delicate robe might as well have been see-through. The line of her cleavage still looked damp, the skin pale and silky-looking next to the material. And through the fall of the robe he could see those long long legs, and in between them the shadowy promise of a carnal satisfaction he’d never craved this badly before… It made his blood thrum and his body harden in rampant response.
‘How is your back?’ It was a miracle he’d found his voice. Nadim didn’t dare even move one inch towards Iseult, knowing that if he did he wouldn’t re-emerge from that tent until he’d had her. And the gut-clenching panic he’d felt when he’d seen that horse throw her like a rag-doll still made him feel very vulnerable. Too vulnerable.
Iseult blinked and suddenly felt cold. For a moment there— She mentally shook her head and was instantly self-conscious. She was practically naked! She crossed her arms to cover her breasts, unaware of how it pushed them forward, or of how the robe gaped slightly, showing a long length of leg. She was also unaware of how Nadim tensed, because he was cast in shadow.
‘Fine… Lina gave me some ointment…’
Nadim just inclined his head. ‘Good. Lina comes from a family of healers, so you’re in good hands. But you’ll probably be sore tomorrow.’
Iseult shook her head. ‘Really. I’m fine. I’m sure you have to be somewhere…?’
He nodded once abruptly. ‘Goodnight, then, Iseult.
’
‘Goodnight.’
Of course he had somewhere else to be, a voice mocked her. He left, and seemed to suck the energy of the space out with him. Iseult sagged, literally, against the chair, and a wave of humiliation washed through her to think of how she’d been mooning at herself in the mirror, believing that she was looking at someone different. Believing she might be beautiful. Feminine. Believing that perhaps he’d brought her here because of something elemental that had passed between them that morning on the terrace.
She was no different from the girl who had never been feminine—the girl her classmates had found it so easy to send up. And she would never be anything else. She would never be the kind of woman to have a man like Nadim. They were worlds and leagues apart, and clearly he just felt some misguided sense of responsibility towards her.
With an inarticulate sound of rage at herself, she tore off the robe, hearing it tear.
Tears pricked her eyes as she found and pulled on the pants and T-shirt she normally slept in. Castigating herself bitterly for her weakness, she crawled into the sumptuous bed, suddenly wishing she were back at home in Kildare and sliding between plain flannel sheets—not these silky decadent sheets that made her think of Nadim and want hot, forbidden things.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE following day Iseult was up and dressed in her usual uniform of jeans and a shirt and riding boots. Ready and waiting to take on the day and ignore her disturbing growing feelings for Nadim. Without waiting for instruction she went back to the horse enclosure, to the same horse that had thrown her off the day before.
Determined to prove something to herself as much as anyone else, she put on a hat and got onto his back to conquer the fleeting fear that such a fall always engendered.
Nadim watched Iseult from a distance and shook his head ruefully. He knew she hadn’t seen him yet as that telltale tension in her body whenever he came near hadn’t come into her. At that moment he knew that any hope of control over this attraction was futile. He’d thought somewhat misguidedly that he might be able to wait until the Sultan of Al-Omar’s birthday party next week, but even the prospect of looking at another woman was anathema to him now.