The Sheik Retold Page 22

  "Ahmed, what have you done to me?" Even as the words issued from my mouth, I found myself on my back, caged between his arms with his mouth hovering inches from mine.

  "The better question might be what I still wish to do." His soft smile grew to iniquitous proportions and his quiescent verge stirred back to life against my belly. "My mind has awakened to myriad new possibilities."

  I had no answer to that. I was as shocked by his sudden gentleness as I was by my own earlier brazenness. His gaze softened, and he kissed me with a depth of tenderness that stole the retort from my lips and the air from my lungs. I kissed him back, passionately, but he recoiled with a hiss at the contact of my hands on his back.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "Nothing!" he snapped.

  In my passion, I had forgotten the flogging. "Please, Ahmed. Let me see your back."

  When he turned away from me, I gasped at the devastation wrought by the camel flogger. I winced at the remembrance of my single lash. My own flesh still stung as though I'd rolled in fiery nettles, but my skin was unbroken. I knew then that he had held himself back when he wielded the flogger. The severity of the damage to himself was proof enough of the mercy he had shown to me—the mercy I had denied he possessed.

  "The jar, is it medicine?" I asked.

  He gave a curt nod. "Gaston brought some salve to me. The poor diable could not even look me in the face."

  I experienced another sharp pang of guilt. I sat up in the bed and grabbed my robe. "Please. Let me apply it for you."

  He shrugged his acquiescence and handed me the jar. He then sat on the edge of the bed with his back to me. I opened the container, gave it a wary sniff, and found it vaguely reminiscent of lavender and rosemary. I scooped some of the cool, gelatinous substance onto my fingertips but then bit my lip at where to begin. His back was a roadmap of angry red welts with jagged intersections of torn and bloody flesh. He winced at the initial contact of my fingers on his right shoulder, but he made no further reaction as I gently smoothed the ointment over the raw and exposed places.

  "I don't understand you, Ahmed. Why did you do it?"

  He stiffened under my touch. I thought for a moment that he would not answer, but then his low voice broke the silence. "I had no choice."

  "What do you mean no choice?" I continued to minister to his lacerated back.

  He spoke again after another long pause, "You asked if it made me happy to torture you… Perhaps it did once…but does no longer. Since it is my responsibility to uphold justice, I perceived no alternative."

  I could not see his expression, but he relaxed infinitesimally under my touch. I heaved a sigh of mixed relief and regret. "Then it is best for both of us that this is finally over."

  His entire body tensed, a reaction that filled me with a sudden unease.

  "This is over now, isn't it, Ahmed?"

  The seconds stretched out, and his insinuation of silence slowly sank in.

  "B-but you promised to let me go."

  His shoulders drooped. "You know I cannot."

  "You will not," I corrected.

  He raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. "It is the same, is it not?"

  "But I did not fight you," I insisted. "I gave you what you wanted. Willingly."

  "And in return I offered you a choice, ma belle—your release or your freedom. You chose the pleasure."

  "Don't toy with me, Ahmed! I did nothing of the sort! I gave you what you wanted, and you promised to let me go."

  "I promised nothing, my dove. I merely said that if you pleased me well, I might be disposed to consider it. Perhaps you should not have pleased me quite so well."

  "You gave me your word, you black-hearted bastard!"

  He laughed softly. "What good is the word of a devil?"

  "You have to let me go!" I cried.

  He turned around to face me. His expression was once more hard and merciless. "Do not press me, cherie. I have to do nothing!"

  "Will you let me go? Yes or no."

  "No…I will never let you go."

  I will never let you go. He had tricked me into capitulation and then compounded it all with a lie. I was suddenly numb with desolation, despair, and disbelief. I mechanically replaced the lid on the jar and glanced to the bedside table. I rose, knowing what I must do.

  My emotions raged as I struggled to feign a convincing surrender—a reluctant but credible acceptance of defeat. I turned my back to him with a genuine sob and advanced to the table, gripping the edge as if for support. "I cannot bear this anymore, Ahmed. If I must stay, will you at least be kind to me no?" I whispered my emotive appeal with downcast eyes while pulling the drawer open with quiet stealth. My hands closed around the jambiya I had secreted in the drawer so long ago. It slid easily from its sheath. I inhaled a sobbing breath. "I'll do whatever you want, if you will only desist with your cruelty." I slipped the dagger down to my side, concealing it in the folds of my robe. My mind raced, and my pulse pounded a frantic beat at the notion of plunging it into his back.

  "Never hesitate once you have the weapon in hand. You have lost the advantage of surprise."

  I spun around with a gasp. He still faced away from me, but he had tracked my every move in the dressing table mirror. He stood slowly and came toward me with quiet deliberation.

  "Stabbing a man in the back takes considerable strength. You must be able to penetrate through thick muscle and a considerable barrier of bone. Are you sure it is the approach you wish to take? It is rarely fatal. I have already survived it once, after all."

  He stood directly in front of me now. I still held the knife in my clenched fist. He closed his hand over mine. I thought he would twist it from my grasp.

  "You would do better to plunge it into my heart." He raised it to a position just below his left breast. "But you must thrust from below and between the ribs thusly." He angled my wrist upward and traced the area in question with the knife tip, drawing a tiny red line. "You see? But it is also very difficult…for a woman." He then raised the knife to trace a line across his throat. "I would advise it best to simply slice me here as I sleep, but when you do, be sure to cut below the Adam's apple. It is much cleaner that way."

  He released my hand and turned away.

  "Please!" I whispered. "You mock me, but I swear blood will be shed if you do not release me. If not yours…it will be my own."

  His spun back to me and waved his hand with a scoffing sound. "You are not such a coward to take your own life."

  "Do you truly wish to test me?"

  His expression remained impassive, but his pupils flared.

  I shut my eyes and raised the knife to my own breast, inhaling deeply, steeling myself for a single thrust, a death stroke. Could I have done it? I will never know. He wrenched the knife from my grasp before I could decide. His mouth compressed as his gaze met mine. "I believe this is mine."

  "But there are many other means by which a life can be taken if one is so determined," I argued. While the survival instinct was strong in me, so was my obstinacy, and I was resolute that this intolerable situation would end now—one way or another.

  "And you are so determined?" he asked. His attitude and tone were careless, but there was a peculiar look of unease in his eyes. "You would choose death over life with me?"

  "It is not my wish," I replied. "But we cannot go on like this any longer. I cannot live like this! I will never give you the blind submission you want. I will never lie as a dog at your feet! I refuse to be a mindless slave to you. You can no more command my obedience than I can command your love. I will never give you one without the other, and you will never admit that you care for me," I broke off in a whisper.

  With a pang, I noted a telltale twitch in his jaw, but it remained clamped shut. Nevertheless, for the first time, I saw self-doubt in his eyes and something else I didn't recognize. After a protracted silence, he gripped both of my shoulders and backed me slowly toward the bed. I gazed up into his eyes. "No, Ahmed. It is finished for m
e. Never again will I—"

  To my surprise, he pressed a finger to my mouth…and then his lips met my forehead.

  "Sleep, ma belle." He stroked the backs of his fingers gently over my cheek. "All will be different in the morning."

  Hours later I drifted off to sleep to the final verse of the Kashmiri Love Song in a familiar and haunting baritone, "Pale hands, pink tipped, like lotus buds on those cool waters where we used to dwell… I would rather have felt you round my throat, crushing out life, than waving me farewell."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When I awoke I was stunned to see my riding clothes laid out in preparation for me with my bags neatly lined up beside them. I could hardly believe my eyes. I dressed in extreme haste, feeling as if it were all some magical mirage that would suddenly evaporate. I fumbled with my last buttons and raked trembling fingers through my unruly hair before slipping noiselessly through the curtains.

  I entered the outer room with a stifled gasp at the sight of a stranger, a figure in a silk shirt, riding breeches, and high brown boots leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his hands. I gazed in incredulity as my eyes ranged over the long length of him to linger on his bent head. Divested of the flowing robes that had seemed essentially a part of him, I almost didn't recognize him. "Ahmed?" I whispered.

  When he lifted his head to me, it was indeed the face of a stranger. Clean-shaven and devoid of his native headdress, only the bronze of the sun betrayed his desert origins.

  "All is in preparation," he said. "We shall start for Bou Saâda as soon as you have broken your fast."

  I gaped. Even his voice sounded different to me. "Bou Saâda?" I repeated dumbly.

  "It is a market town one hundred miles to the north. When Raoul and I passed through, there was an English officer making inquiries after you—the same one who so ineffectually begged your hand in the hotel gardens."

  "Lieutenant Arbuthnot?" I clasped my hand to my mouth. "Jim is looking for me?"

  "Yes. It was Arbuthnot." The signature black scowl that so often darkened his brow had returned. "It has only been a few days. He is likely still there or at least nearby." His voice was strangely flat and dull. With a little start, I realized he was speaking English. I swayed dizzily in disbelief. "You are really letting me go?"

  There was a long pause before he shut his eyes and exhaled. "Yes."

  "But just last night—"

  "You will take Zilah with you as far as Oran, and Gaston will accompany you from there as far as you wish him to go. In the event your Englishman cannot be found, he will personally escort you to Marseilles as you originally planned. If you still need him, he will go with you to Paris, Cherbourg, or London—wherever you wish. Gaston can make all the arrangements for you. You know you can trust him absolutely. When you no longer need him, he will come back to me."

  He rose and took up his restless pacing, speaking in the same strange, toneless voice. "For your own sake, I must not be seen with you north of Bou Saâda. If you should by any chance be recognized or your identity should leak out, you can say that for reasons of your own you extended your trip, that your messages miscarried, anything that occurs to you. But it is not at all likely to happen.

  "You need not fear for your…reputation. Things are forgotten in the silence of the desert. Mustafa Ali is many hundreds of miles away, but not so far that he would dare to talk. My own men speak or are silent as I wish. There is only Raoul, and there is no question of him. You are free to go back to your own country, to your own people, to your own life, in which I have no place or part. Soon all this will seem only like an ugly dream."

  Only last night I had lost all hope of ever leaving, but now in an unexpected volte-face, he had conceded to set me free. I should have been jubilant, elated. So why did I feel this lead weight in my heart, not to mention the sudden surge of irrational jealousy that nearly choked me? "Answer me one thing, Ahmed. How many times a year does Gaston take your discarded mistresses away?"

  "Merciful Allah!" He squeezed his eyes shut with a curse. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his hands clenched by his sides. "You have your wish to go. Is that not enough? Why do you make this more difficult than it already is?"

  He turned from me with a little gesture of weariness and went to the tent flap where he gazed out upon the camp. "I will not trouble you anymore. You need never fear I will come into your life again. In time you will forget these months in the desert and the savage Arab who crossed your path."

  Gaston entered that moment with a breakfast tray, and with a nod, the sheik went out.

  I stared after him, wondering numbly what would become of me. Quite suddenly my mind was filled with thoughts of my own people and the rambling ancient estate of cold stone. My old life seemed suddenly so very far away, in another world that I was no longer part of. This simple desert camp had become the home that the old castle in England had never been.

  The past weeks rose up, rushed and uncontrolled, through my brain. Incidents crowded into my recollection of headlong gallops across the desert riding beside the man who I had hated as much as I was compelled to admire; memories of him schooling the horses he loved and sitting them like a centaur; his varying moods; his swift changes from savage cruelty to amazing gentleness, from brutal intolerance to sudden consideration.

  I recalled when I had struggled against his caresses and how he mocked my helplessness against his great strength. I shivered as I recollected lying in his arms panting and spent from his fierce lovemaking. At one time I had feared him as I had never believed it possible to fear, but now that he would set me free, I wondered how I would ever go on without him.

  Perversely, as the moment approached that I would gain the freedom I had so desperately craved, when liberty that seemed more essential to me than life itself was finally within my grasp, I found I no longer had much taste for it.

  ***

  Once he'd determined to be rid of me, Ahmed spared neither me nor his horses in his haste. Traveling at a breakneck pace, we set out for the centuries-old oasis town of Bou Saâda. He, Gaston, and I rode together, along with Zilah, who fulfilled a dubious role of chaperone, while a company of Ahmed's men followed us at a discreet distance but close enough to provide safety.

  On the long journey northward, I experienced a protracted misery that we would soon be parting. For the stretches that I rode beside Ahmed, he remained distant and taciturn, as if my company was an ordeal to bear. Our only conversation was the fabrication of a suitably credible story that I would recount to the authorities to explain my lengthy absence from civilization.

  On the nights we made camp, he slept by the fire, leaving me alone in the little traveling tent. With a deep longing in my heart, I sat within the doorway watching the interplay of light and shadow cast over his face by the campfire.

  Ahmed had taken me solely for his pleasure and had never led me to expect anything else, yet I knew I would never give myself to another man. I would never meet his match. I had loved and loathed him in equal measure. Our pride and passion had continually clashed in a relentless rivalry, but now that my pride had prevailed, I felt only loss in my victory.

  We arrived early on the third day. Under normal circumstances I would have been entranced by the seemingly endless miles of date groves that shaded the dusty caravan route within a canopy of palm fronds. I would have been enthralled by the town square with its loud and colorful bazaar that predated the Romans, but our arrival marked the beginning of the end for me—the end of something I would never experience again in my life.

  Once we entered the town, Ahmed deposited me at the home of a merchant with whom he was acquainted, while he and Gaston made inquiries about the Englishman who had sought me. The merchant, Abdullah, had two marriageable daughters, Adara and Afifah, who both appeared to have eyes for a certain sheik, eyes that tracked his every move. After Ahmed departed, they did little to make me feel welcome, aside from pressing upon me countless cups of the sickly sweet
native coffee I despised. Once more, I found myself perceived as a rival and scrutinized with unconcealed jealousy and scorn.

  After what seemed interminable hours, Ahmed and Gaston returned with Jim in tow. The moment he saw me, Jim leaped from his horse, making no effort to contain his elation upon seeing me alive.

  "Good God! It is you! Darling Diana. I'd all but given up hope!"

  He swept me up into his arms and spun me around until I was dizzy. I feared he might try to kiss me and was even more alarmed at what would happen if he did. Despite his aloof air, Ahmed looked on with a murderous gleam.

  I immediately stiffened in Jim's arms. "Please, Lieutenant Arbuthnot! You forget yourself."

  "I-I'm sorry." Jim flushed crimson and nearly dropped me in his sudden release. "You just cannot imagine what it is to have found you at last."

  "Found me?" I laughed. "I wasn't aware I was lost."

  He gazed at me in befuddlement. "But there has been no word from you these two months! You all but disappeared. Dozens of inquiries have been made. Your poor brother had nearly given you up for dead!"

  "Had he?" Poor brother indeed, I silently fumed. "That's curious, given the messages I sent."

  "Messages?" Jim repeated. "No one was aware of any messages."

  I feigned a look of puzzlement and then turned to Ahmed. "Monsieur le Vicomte?"

  Ahmed stepped forward with a bow. "Assuredly there were half a dozen dispatches during your stay at my camp, mademoiselle."

  "Lieutenant Arbuthnot," I addressed Jim, "you have of course met the Vicomte St. Hubert?"

  "Yes." He gave Ahmed a long assessing look. "We are newly acquainted."

  "He has done me an invaluable service, you know," I explained. "One I fear I can never repay. My brother's concerns were partially founded in that my guide Mustafa Ali did indeed steal my caravan and leave me for dead. Were it not for Vicomte Saint Hubert's intervention…who knows what might have become of me."