The Sheik Retold Page 8

  In watching his mastery of the horse, I had witnessed my own fate. This entire display had been for my benefit alone. His gaze never left mine until the instant he knew that I understood what he had done and why. I might continue to fight him all I liked, but I had seen the battle and the inevitability of my total submission unfurl before my very eyes. I shut them and averted my head, unable to give him what he wanted— an open acknowledgement of his dominion over me.

  His attention had returned to the animal. When there was no visible sign of fight left in the horse, the sheik slid off its neck and urged it gently back to its feet. The colt now appeared calm and quiet, if perhaps a bit dazed, and although it visibly trembled and its sides heaved, no one could claim any harm had been done to him.

  After a moment, the animal lowered its muzzle to sniff the sheik's hand. He held perfectly still, allowing the animal's olfactory exploration, after which the young horse responded with a quiet nicker. The sheik murmured some more quiet words and caressed the animal's muzzle. He then led the horse a few steps away, as if to test his legs, and vaulted into the saddle. This time when he urged the animal forward, it quietly obeyed.

  Gaston clicked his tongue against his teeth. "See, madam. It is over."

  While the servant went to congratulate his master, I held back, undecided and overcome by what I had seen. I, too, shook all over as I stared at the man who had completely mastered this impossible animal. Unless he deemed it so, I would never leave this place. My heart sank with a new kind of despair. "Yes," I whispered. "It is surely over."

  CHAPTER SIX

  I closed my eyes and stiffened in a sudden agony at the sound of the sheik's approaching voice. There was nowhere I could turn to avoid him. No escape. Although my first impulse was to shrink into the shade of the tent, I refused to cower like some craven creature skulking in the farthest corner of its cage. No, I would make my stand inside the open doorway and meet him face-to-face.

  He came leisurely toward the tent. Although I stood in plain view, he still did not acknowledge me. Instead, he paused to talk to the Frenchman. He moved his hands when he spoke, quick, expressive gestures, speaking in a soft but unmistakably authoritative voice pitched in a deep, musical key. He pointed with an outstretched hand to something beyond my line of vision and laughed softly. At last he came toward me, only to stride right past and across the tent where he lit another cigarette.

  I was astounded. For the first time in my life, I was of no account. It seemed I was to be acknowledged at his whim, to speak only when spoken to. The equal footing I had enjoyed with Aubrey and his friends all these years was suddenly obliterated. The training of years meant nothing. He had taken me only to please himself and he kept me only to please himself. He would force me to yield to whatever he might put upon me, to bear his pleasure and his displeasure—as a chattel, a slave who existed only to do his bidding. My purpose was solely to amuse him.

  My body stiffened, my hands clenched.

  Several more minutes passed before he finally addressed me, "I hope that Gaston took care of you properly and gave you everything that you wanted?" He spoke easily, in a tone that conveyed the perfunctory regret of a host for an unavoidable absence.

  "Everything I want?" My voice gave vent to my rage. "I want to leave this godforsaken place! Damn you!"

  "Such a passionate display, my dove?" He cocked a brow and then one corner of his mouth turned up. "One might even think you missed me." He mocked me. He mocked my resentment, my rage, my helpless despair.

  "Missed you?" I recoiled with a glare. "You are a brute, a beast, a devil!"

  Tears of shame and anger welled in my eyes, but I would not let them fall. I would not give my captor the satisfaction of knowing he could make me weep. I shut my eyes, willing away the burning sensation behind them, fighting back the tears that would only subject me further to his ruthless scorn.

  I sensed him drawing closer and then his arms closed around me. I struggled against him, but my protest had no real teeth. I knew it was futile. He laughed again softly as he kissed my lips, my eyes, my temples. His mouth moved to my ear where he murmured something low and passionate. I didn't understand the words, but the tone alone made me quiver inside.

  And then his mouth was on mine with a fierce and devouring kiss. It was a lover's kiss, the first I'd ever experienced. He was masterful, his tongue taunting. The sensation of his hot mouth searing mine was as potent as a narcotic, drugging me almost into insensibility. I found myself responding to him, and a wave of wildly conflicting emotions washed over me. "No. I don't want this! I don't want you!" I shuddered and then shoved at his chest.

  "Do you hate them so much, my kisses?"

  I swallowed, knowing I could not lie convincingly. In truth, I hated myself for not despising his kisses.

  He smiled, reading my inner struggle, but then the passion faded from his eyes, giving place to another flash of mockery. "Of course we can always forgo such unpleasant preliminaries if you prefer. For my part, it is quite unessential."

  I forced my eyes to his. Dark and passionate, they burned like a hot flame. He even held my gaze against my will because I could not tear it away. I felt like a trapped wild thing, panting, trembling, my eyes still fixed on him. The image of his harshly handsome face was forever etched into my brain.

  "Look at me tell me the truth. Tell me you want me, Diana."

  I recognized the command in his voice, but I fought against my fascination with him, resisting dumbly with tight-locked lips. My heart raced, but then all the humiliation and degradation I had suffered the night before flooded my mind. Yes, he had shown me pleasure, but my very enjoyment of it filled me with shame and self-disgust.

  "Tell me you want me," he repeated.

  "I hate you!" I choked out furiously.

  An ugly look passed over his face, and then he laughed. "Hate me by all means, ma belle, but let your hatred be thorough. I detest mediocrity." He released me abruptly.

  I stormed toward the inner room with my face aflame. I swore I would not let him touch me again, that I would never again allow him control over me. I would kill him—or kill myself first.

  I reached the curtains, and his voice arrested me. "You will dress appropriately for dinner. You understand?" He reached for his cigarette case and then glanced back at me with black brows raised.

  "Yes," I replied softly, recognizing it for the command it was. "I understand."

  ***

  Zilah was there once more to tend me, a shy and silent shadow. I realized I had seen no other females in the camp. "Where are all the women?" I asked Zilah.

  "There are many, madam, but they are not permitted amongst the men."

  "Then where are they? What do they do here?"

  "The women cook, do the washing, tend the children and the animals."

  "A life of complete and utter drudgery," I remarked with scorn. "Do you not desire something more?"

  She regarded me with incomprehension. "There is nothing more. Such is the lot of women," she replied with a fateful shrug.

  Her total acceptance of this life brought back to me the stark reality of my captivity. At present I was a novelty to him, but how long before I would suffer the same fate? The thought horrified me, but I refused to think any more on it.

  My bath was already waiting, filled almost to the brim with steaming water. On a nearby table were several small glass bottles of fragrant oils. I selected one. "What is this?"

  Zilah's eyes grew wide as I removed the stopper and sniffed.

  "It is Oud, madam, from the Agarwood," she explained. "A rare and costly fragrance."

  I closed my eyes, and my senses were instantly overwhelmed with the tauntingly familiar scent—a blend of ambergris and sweet incense with nuances of tobacco and wood—attar of Ahmed Ben Hassan, Sheik of the Sahara.

  I thrust it from me with a snort of disgust.

  "Perhaps madam would prefer jasmine or the rose flower oil?"

  My hand had hovered over the ja
smine, a scent I often wore, but the mention of roses suddenly reminded me of home. Although I had never thought of myself as distinctly English, but rather a citizen of the world, I now felt a strange compulsion to cling to anything connected with my Englishness. I eschewed the jasmine for the scent of roses.

  I sank into the scented water and closed my eyes, willing my mind to empty and my body to relax. I was drifting away to another place when the sound of movement disturbed me. I opened my eyes, a sharp retort ready on my lips, but it was not Zilah. The sheik stood in the doorway, watching me with an unreadable expression.

  I stifled a gasp.

  "Don't look so frightened, ma belle." His manner and tone were languid and his gaze deliberately lazy as it raked over every inch of me. I internally writhed and tamped down the urge to cover myself. He had already seen it all before.

  He had come into my bath devoid of his customary coverings. While I had seen him briefly last night without the outer vestments, he had still worn his linen shirt and trousers. Now the shirt was stripped away to reveal more of the man beneath. I tried not to stare, but I could not help myself. I have already confessed my admiration and natural attraction to all things beautiful, and Ahmed Ben Hassan in the flesh was nothing less than magnificent.

  His face and form were both an artist's dream—tall and exquisitely well made. His body was sculpted of lean, hard muscle painted over with sun-bronzed skin that offset his white teeth and unmistakable, fascinating eyes. Like a stalking tiger, his mesmerizing gaze lingered on me with a hunger that his languid manner could not disguise.

  I remembered the tiger I had shot just last year in India. After hours of weary, cramped waiting in the machan, the beautiful creature had slipped noiselessly through the undergrowth to emerge into the clearing. He had moved with the sheik's same long, free stride, with the haughty poise of a thrown-back head. The cruel curl of the animal's mouth and the glint in the ferocious eyes were also identical to this man’s. Then, I had admired the creature without fear and had hesitated at wantonly destroying so perfect a thing, until brought back to fact that the "perfect thing" had eaten a woman the previous week. And this tiger looked very much like he wished to do the same to me.

  I hated him with all my strength. Even his personal beauty was an added offence. I loathed him all the more for his handsome face and graceful, muscular form. His only redeeming virtue was his total lack of vanity. He was as unconscious of himself as the tiger to which I compared him.

  He perched a hip on my bath and stretched out his long legs. His attitude and casualness both offended and frightened me. He was so sure of himself, so sure of his possession of me. He cocked a dark brow. "You think I wish to ravish you in your bath?" His taunting tone stung me once again. "Rest assured, my dove, I don't want anything more nefarious than some soap and water. Surely even a savage sheik may be allowed to wash his hands?"

  Warm blood poured up my neck and over my face. I thrust my fingers through my loose curls, to shield my embarrassment from his eyes.

  He picked up a razor from the table and left with a shake of his head and a soft laugh. I watched his departing back with a tumult of emotions. I knew he wanted me or I would not be here, yet he seemed to take immense pleasure in ridiculing me at every turn.

  When I got out of my bath, Zilah waited on me with downcast eyes. She had laid my gown of green silk upon the bed, the same I had worn two nights ago with Jim and Aubrey. Dear God! Was it only two nights? I stared at the jade-green silk, knowing that wearing the gown was no longer my choice. He would not allow me to defy his wishes again, but when Zilah offered to dress me, I shooed her away and slipped it on by myself.

  I sat down at the dressing table to complete my toilette. My short curls needed little care, and I cared little to arrange them just for his gratification. I looked at my watch, my only remaining piece of jewelry. I'd consigned all the rest into the care of my maid, who had gone on to Paris. I thought of Paris and wished earnestly that I had gone there instead of stubbornly trekking into the Sahara. Why had I not listened to Aubrey or Jim? It was a quarter past eight. I was late, and the sheik would not be pleased, but I still could not bring myself to move.

  I heard his voice at the door and started. Although the thick rugs deadened the sound of his movements, I could feel his gaze on me, and I quivered with the consciousness of it. I kept my back turned, waiting for him to speak or move. This was a game of his, a special torment constantly to set me on edge. His methods of torture were diverse, but this was a game I would not play.

  "Come here…Diane."

  I hardly recognized the Gallic rendering of my name. It was the first time he had used it, and it was almost musical from his lips. But the thought that I could find anything about him appealing made me flush in anger at myself. I still sat, refusing to jump at the snap of his fingers. No, whatever he wanted, he must come and take. I would volunteer nothing.

  "Come here," he repeated sharply.

  Still, I took no notice of him. His proprietary tone had roused all of my inherent obstinacy, but the face that he could not see was growing very white. I sat with my hands gripped tightly in my lap, breathing rapidly.

  "Did you learn nothing today?" The more sinister tone shattered my remaining resolve. I was too unnerved to fight him any further. What would be the use? It would only end in defeat. With my heart beating faster, I rose and went to him, but slowly and reluctantly, with mutinous eyes.

  Immaculately groomed, he was very different from the half-naked and disheveled savage of an hour before. I shot a nervous glance at him. He appeared grave, but not angry, as he looked me over, stroking his lightly bristled chin. I waited in vain for him to speak.

  He gripped my shoulders and spun me away from him. His long fingers grazed a shiver-inciting caress over the bare skin of my spine, stopping at the place just above my buttocks. "You wear no undergarments?" he asked in a husky voice.

  "This gown permits none," I replied flippantly.

  I felt as much as heard his sharp intake of breath and the press of a burgeoning erection against my bottom. Fumbling slightly, he slipped a long jade necklace over my head and stepped back from me.

  Had I unnerved him with my confession? The idea amused me, but then I gazed down at the necklace resting upon my breast. For a long moment I just looked stupidly at the thing. It was a lovely piece, intricately made and pure in color. I fingered the cool stones, but then the symbolism of it suddenly struck me.

  "How dare you?" I spun around with a gasp. Tearing it from my neck, I flung it at his feet.

  "You don't like it?" His brows tented in surprise, but his tone was unruffled. "It matches your dress." His long fingers touched the folds of green silk swathed across my breast. "Pearls are too banal and diamonds too cold for you," he said. "You should wear nothing but jade. It is the color of the evening sky against the sunset of your hair."

  He had never spoken like that before or used that tone of voice. It was poetic and it baffled me. It was this changeability, his swift transition from ferocity to gentleness, that I could not fathom. His complex nature was beyond my understanding.

  He picked up the jade necklace and offered it to me again. "Take it. I wish it," he urged quietly. I still made no move to accept it. "Perhaps you prefer diamonds and pearls?"

  "No. I don't want your jewels. You have no right to think that I am that kind of woman."

  "You do not like them? Bon Dieu!" He laughed. "None of the other women ever refused them. On the contrary, they could never get enough."

  "Other women?" I repeated blankly, a dull horror settling upon me. In my self-conceit I had never considered that I was only one of a succession of mistresses, taken and discarded at his whim.

  "You didn't suppose you were the first, did you?" His candor was sharp and brutally cutting. "Don't look at me like that. They were not like you. They came to me willingly enough—too willingly. Allah! How they bored me! You are nothing like the rest, my dove."

  "I hate you, do y
ou understand?" I cried out almost hysterically. "I hate you!"

  "So you have already told me, but with reiteration your remark becomes less convincing." The hateful mockery had crept into his eyes. "You will wear the necklace to please me. Yes, to please my artistic soul. I have an artistic soul even though I am only a savage."

  I flung up my head, and my lips sprang open to retort, but he drew me to him swiftly, laying his hand over my mouth. "I know, I know," he said coldly. "I am a brute and a beast and a devil. You need not tell me again. It commences to grow tedious."

  His hand slipped down to my shoulder, his fingers gripping my arm. "How much longer are you going to fight? Would it not be wiser after what you have seen to recognize that I am master here?"

  "You mean that you will treat me as you treated the colt this afternoon?" I whispered.

  "Indeed. You are much like my horses, ma belle, as beautiful and willful. But just as I bend them to my will, you must also bend."

  "And if I do not?"

  "Then you will break. Is that what you wish?" His hand tightened on my arm, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. This cold quiet of his was infinitely more sinister to me than if he raged or blustered. His forehead was drawn together in a heavy frown, and there was no softening in his eyes as he awaited my answer. He was not threatening idly; he meant what he said.

  "Then why not just kill me now?" I demanded.

  "That would be to admit my defeat," he replied. "I do not kill a horse until I have proved beyond all possible doubt that I cannot tame it. With you I have no such proof. I can tame you, and I will. But it is for you to choose and to choose tonight if you will obey me willingly or if I must make you. I have been very patient—for me," he added with an odd smile. "But my patience is exhausted." He took my chin in his fingers and jerked my head up sharply, making my teeth jar. He tilted my head farther back, bending his own down until his lips were nearly touching mine. The heavy scowl had smoothed away, but the fierceness lingered in his eyes. "Choose quickly, Diane." He stared into me as if he were looking into my very soul.