The Governess and the Sheikh (15 page)

For a fleeting moment, his arms tightened around her. She felt the whisper of his kiss on the top of her head. Or she hoped she did. Then he gently put her from him and got to his feet, straightening his robe. ‘The storm has passed,' he said brusquely, heading for the mouth of the cave. ‘When you are ready, we will be on our way.'

Jamil did not look at her, or speak to her again, waiting outside while she righted her clothing, the short distance between them seeming, after such intimacy, more like an unconquerable gulf than a mere few yards. Despite her resolution to create just such a distance, Cassie was hurt by it. Too caught up in the novelty of her own feelings, she had not had a chance to analyse his, but now it struck her forcefully that she had no clue at all about them. His face was impassive. The shutters were closed.
Did he even care?

Outside, the desert seemed to have shifted its contours, with new dunes formed where none had been, flat rippled sand where before there had been rolling hills. A landscape as altered as Cassie's own feelings, as alien to her as Jamil's. Sitting astride the black stallion in front of him, her back pressed close against
his chest, his arm tight around her waist, she looked around her in bewilderment. ‘How do you know which way to go?' she asked, relieved to be able to break the ominous silence that was growing between them. ‘It looks so different.'

‘A man who navigates by the shifting sands is like to be a dead man,' Jamil replied, his voice cold as he urged his horse into motion. ‘I set my course by the stars.'

Night was falling, but the storm-cleared sky was lit by an almost-full moon. As they headed back towards the oasis where Cassie's horse was tethered, the silence between them became tangible. The oppressive heat had given way to more balmy conditions. Save for the soft fall of the horse's hooves on the sand, the occasional scuffle of some night creature, silence reigned. The journey should have been the very essence of romance, just the two of them on a black stallion galloping across the desert under the stars, bathed in the warm glow of sated passion, she held close in the arms of the man who was, just for the moment, her desert prince. It should have been romantic, but Cassie was aware, horribly aware, that this journey marked not a lovers' meeting, but a lovers' parting.

Not that they had been truly lovers. How she wished they had. But she must not wish that. If only she knew what
he
was thinking. Except maybe she didn't really want to know. Cassie sighed wearily.

Jamil tightened his arm around her distractedly. He had not planned what had happened. Despite the fact that, from that very first encounter in the tent, he had been unable to banish his desire for Cassie, he had
until now at least succeeded in constraining it. The position she held in the royal household, coupled with a conviction that the reality of her would never live up to his imagination, had ensured he did so. Now, he had abused one and proved conclusively the falseness of the other, rousing unfamiliar emotions he had no precedent for dealing with.

He wanted her. More than ever. Giving her pleasure had given him pleasure. A strange satisfaction it had been, unsated, but satisfaction nevertheless. Jamil cursed himself for a fool. He shifted in the saddle, trying to create even a fraction of distance between himself and the distractingly soft bundle he was holding, but it was to no avail. The horse's gentle jogging brought Cassie's delightfully rounded bottom immediately back into contact with his embarrassingly persistent erection. What was it about this infuriating Englishwoman that so got under his skin? He could have any woman he desired and yet he was drawn to this one, a woman who had the ability to confuse him, rouse feelings in him he had spent a lifetime subduing. Well, he would put an end to it. It was time to reestablish order and control in his life. Enough of this mawkish dabbling in emotions. No matter how much he wanted her, the simple fact was that Cassie must remain strictly out of bounds.

They had arrived at the Maldissi Oasis. The grey mare whinnied a welcome as they approached. Jamil dismounted and helped Cassie down. She winced as she put weight on her injured ankle, but shook her head at his offer of support. ‘I can manage.' The pain that shot up her leg from her injury had jolted her into reality.
Jamil's silence spoke volumes. She sensed a speech coming and braced herself.

‘What transpired between us must not happen again,' Jamil said.

She hung her head, lest he see the foolish tears that sprang to her eyes. That he was right, that it was just what she'd thought herself, did nothing to alleviate the stab of what felt decidedly like rejection.

‘Cassie, you do see that?' Jamil said, tilting her chin up with his finger.

‘I know, I know,' Cassie interrupted, jerking her face away, ‘No doubt you bitterly regret it.'

Jamil hesitated, then shook his head. ‘I don't, I cannot.'

She couldn't help it, her heart gave a little flutter. ‘Nor can I,' Cassie said softly, just touching his arm with her hand.

He grasped her hand firmly. ‘I am—relieved,' he said picking his words with care, ‘but it changes nothing. Our actions must not be repeated, you understand that, Cassie?'

She forced herself to smile, though it felt very much like a grimace. ‘I understand, Jamil, completely. And I want you to know that I'm very conscious of the…the honour you do me in investing such…such trust in me—and I can assure you that I will do my very best to make sure it is not misplaced.'

Once again, her willingness to shoulder the whole burden of responsibility touched him, where recriminations, probably quite justified recriminations, would have set his back up. Jamil's smile was wry. ‘I am sure you will, but I think it best if our noble intentions are
fortified by some more practical considerations. There are conditions attached,' he said, thinking bitterly that his whole life seemed to have conditions attached. ‘We must not be alone in each other's presence. Any contact must be in relation to Linah only. I require these terms to be strictly observed. You do see that it's for the best, don't you?'

‘Of course. Absolutely. Definitely.' Stoically ignoring the ominous sinking feeling in her heart, Cassie took a deep breath and held out her hand. ‘In my country, we shake hands on a treaty.'

Jamil took her hand, but instead of shaking it, pressed a kiss. On her wrist. Then on her palm. Then on each of her fingertips. ‘I am not in your country, more's the pity,' he said enigmatically. ‘You, on the other hand, are in mine.'

Settling herself in the saddle, trying to be pleased by the bargain she had just struck, which had, after all, granted her exactly what she wished, Cassie cast a longing eye back at the sandy blue waters of the Maldissi Oasis. Another opportunity for a midnight dip gone. She was beginning to doubt there would be another.

F
or the second time in his life, Peregrine Finchley-Burke, formerly, for an embarrassingly brief period, of the East India Company, currently acting in a junior capacity within the large confines of the British Consulate in Cairo, found himself in the unenviable position of being required to assist the estimable Lord Armstrong in the recovery of one of his daughters. For it to happen once, Peregrine considered himself unlucky. For it to have happened a second time, he began to consider himself cursed.

‘Why the blasted fellow had to have so many of 'em, and why he ain't able to keep them closer to home, I don't know,' muttered Lord Wincester, the Consul General, known to Lord Henry Armstrong and his other fellow Harrovians as Wincie. ‘First it was the eldest getting herself kidnapped…'

‘Not actually kidnapped, my lord,' Peregrine reminded him gently, ‘Lady Celia was being held for her own safety in the royal palace at Balyrma.'

‘Aye, so you told me, and to be fair you were directly involved,' Lord Wincester agreed testily, ‘but I'm pretty certain, despite all the hush-hush afterwards, that there was a damn sight more to it than that.'

‘Lady Celia's marriage to Prince Ramiz was an excellent alliance for the crown, my lord,' Peregrine said tactfully.

It was undoubtedly true that Prince Ramiz's principality of A'Qadiz was endowed with a most convenient port on the Red Sea, a port that had already proved invaluable to Britain in opening up a faster route to India, but Peregrine was not telling, as Lord Wincester suspected, the whole truth. Even now, two years after the event, the memory of that trip to Balyrma with Lord Armstrong could still make Peregrine sweat. His journey to take up his position with the East India Company had been fatally interrupted by the affair and he had been offered a posting with the diplomatic service as a reward, Lord Armstrong had made clear, for his continued discretion. And Peregrine had in turn remained obdurately discreet. He had not spoken, not once, not even in his letters to his dear nanny, Lalla Hughes, about that scene in the royal palace harem, a fact for which Lord Wincester had not quite forgiven him.

Though Peregrine had dreamed of diplomatic glory in Cairo, operating at the hub of British relations with the crumbling Ottoman Empire, it had been mundane diplomatic graft that had sustained him over the last years. Humble had been his beginnings in the Consulate, and humble they remained. Peregrine was Lord Wincester's preferred dogsbody, for which role
he was rewarded by also serving as the butt of Lord Wincester's rather cumbersome wit. The kind of Old Harrovian wit that found the placing of a pig's bladder filled with water under Peregrine's pillow, or the replacement of snuff with pepper, hysterically funny. Peregrine endured such japes with unabated good humour—being an Old Harrovian himself, he had, in fact, made a career out of providing his school fellows with a willing victim—but the truth was that he would take them in even better part if only his genial suffering were complemented by even the tiniest element of progression in his diplomatic career.

Lord Wincester drummed his fingers on the walnut veneer of his imposing desk, and frowned over the communiqué, sent express in the diplomatic bag, from Lord Armstrong. ‘Nothing for it, Perry, but you're going to have to go and fetch the damned girl,' he said. ‘She's in Daar-el-Abbah, can't quite remember where that is.'

Peregrine rolled to his feet and studied the large map of Arabia which was laid out upon one of the long side-tables under the window. ‘Here, just next to A'Qadiz,' he said.

‘Hmm. Might make sense for you to take a detour then. Consult her sister, Lady Celia.'

‘May I ask, my lord, what exactly it is I am required to do?' Peregrine asked tentatively.

Lord Wincester's copious eyebrows shot up in surprise, looking rather like two furry caterpillars. ‘Do? Haven't I just told you, go and fetch the girl.'

‘But which girl? Lord Armstrong has five daughters.'

‘Lady Cassandra. You surely remember her—quite
a little beauty, as I recall, even if she was prone to fits of histrionics.'

Peregrine paled. Lady Cassandra was the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and quite the most intimidating. It had been she who had persuaded him to escort her and her father and that terrifying aunt of hers across the desert. Persuaded him with those big blue eyes and those big luscious… He coloured, coughed and shuffled forwards to position himself in the shade of the map table. ‘Lady Cassandra. How—what…?'

Lord Wincester chuckled. ‘Locked up in Sheikh al-Nazarri's harem, or so Henry seems to think. Don't believe a word of it myself—though mind you, if I was the sheikh and she was in my palace—but there, I'm sure Henry's exaggerating. Don't need me to tell you, mind, that if he's not, the utmost discretion is needed. Henry's marked her down for one of Wellington's protégés, don't want the goods tainted. At least,' Lord Wincester added with a chuckle, ‘if they're tainted, don't want any word of it getting back to Blighty. Do you understand me, Perry?'

Peregrine goggled.

‘Right. Expect you'll want to be off in jig time,' the Consul General said, rubbing his hands together in a gesture that made Peregrine think ominously of Pontius Pilate. It was a gesture of which Lord Wincester was rather fond. He slapped Peregrine's back in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, handed him Lord Armstrong's epistle and exited in search of much-needed refreshment in the form of his latest shipment of port, which had arrived with the diplomatic bag from Lisbon.

Alone in the office, Peregrine sank on to the
extremely uncomfortable gilded chair that faced the great man's desk, and perused the letter with a growing sense of horror. Clutching his pomaded locks in his sweaty palms, he grasped at the only straw he could think of. ‘Lady Celia,' he said fervently to himself. He sincerely hoped she would prove the answer to his prayers.

 

Back in Daar, both Cassie and Jamil strictly observed their new rules of engagement. Superficially at least, it seemed to work. Cassie thought of life in the royal palace of Daar as being like a Persian carpet, the surface depicting their day-to-day life, but underneath the strands were stretched and tangled with the multi-hued threads of desire. And then she would chide herself for her overheated romantic sensibilities and concentrate on the task in hand.

She continued to enjoy every day spent with Linah, whose new-found thirst for knowledge was second only to her new-found hunger for the company of her beloved pony and adored
Baba
. Linah was a rewarding pupil. She would always be highly strung, her temper would never be anything other than volatile, but with the correct balance of mental and physical exercise, the days of her tantrums were finally, truly in the past. Everyone in the palace commented on the changes in her, and while Halim was reluctant to grant Cassie any credit, preferring to attribute this to the time his master spent with his daughter, Jamil did not stint in his admiration for Cassie's talents as a governess. He had even permitted a select group of other little girls to visit the palace. Linah was finally making friends.

Cassie should be pleased, thrilled even to receive such an endorsement of support from a man whose standards in all things were of the highest. She had proved herself, exactly as she had hoped. Her own papa, Aunt Sophia, even Celia would surely be impressed. But the satisfaction such an achievement should have given her eluded her. She never saw Jamil, except in company. They were never alone. He no longer visited the Scheherazade courtyard save at times he could be sure of Linah's presence. She missed their talks and their laughter and their outings. She missed him terribly, and no matter how many times a day she reminded herself it was for the best, every day she missed him more.

Jamil had, for a few precious moments out in the desert, been her lover, and because of that, he was now a stranger to her. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And yet anything else would be wrong. The conflicting thoughts fought for attention in her head. She could not sleep for thinking of him, for speculating in lurid, shocking and exciting detail what exactly were the many ways of giving pleasure he had spoken of. And the many ways of receiving. But in her dreams such thoughts would have to remain. Restless and aching with unfulfilled desire, she spent many hours pacing the perimeter of the courtyard in the star-strewn hours of the night.

Jamil, too, took to pacing his own private courtyard at night. He thought of Cassie more than he had thought it possible to think of anyone. He, who had never before had any problems in denying himself, was now tossed on a stormy sea of need, frustration and unsated passion.

The same arguments that rolled and roiled around Cassie's head played havoc with his orderly mind. He caught himself staring into space in the middle of Council. When setting off for the stables or the throne room or his own courtyard, he often found himself standing outside the schoolroom doors, as if his feet had a mind of their own, as if his entire body was conspiring against him in its efforts to slake its need. He knew Halim was worried about him. He was worried about himself. He had no solution, save to stay resolute in the hope that it would pass, comforted in the belief that at least Cassie remained oblivious, but perversely not comforted by that at all. For some reason, her thinking him indifferent was unacceptable, yet her thinking him indifferent was surely the point.

He had not realised, until it was denied him, how much he had come to enjoy her company. Cassie was witty, she was endearing and, most of all, she was never predictable. She made him laugh and even made him angry sometimes, when she disagreed with him, just to see how he reacted, and that made him laugh, too. While she was never anything but deferential upon the rare occasions they were together in the public eye, in private she was not afraid to call him to account. She would not tolerate what she had confessed to calling his Corsair behaviour. He had never had a friend, a true companion, or wanted one. As a woman, Cassie could not possibly fulfil such a role, but it was exactly in that role that he missed her. Though not only in that role. There were other parts he wished her to play. Other lines he wished her to recite. Other deeds he would have her perform. If only.

 

He came upon her one day, walking in the palace rose garden. Her golden hair, burnished by the sun, was arranged in a simple knot on the top of her head, long tendrils curling down over her shoulders, flaxen wisps caressing her forehead. As usual, when alone, her head was uncovered. Her dress, palest lemon with a white sash tied at the waist, showed her curves to perfection. The sun had given her pale English skin a warm glow, an endearing scatter of freckles on her turned-up little nose.

From under cover of the terrace, hidden by a colonnade, he watched her. She tripped gracefully along the little paths between the rose beds, stooping every now and then to smell a bloom. This she did, as she ate, with relish, closing her eyes, her coral-pink mouth pouted into a delicious smile, completely unaware that she was being watched. She moved with the sensuous grace of a dancer. She looked so delectable that he could not be anything else but aroused by her as she flitted between the flowers, overshadowing their beauty, no English rose but something far more exotic. Jamil's manhood stirred, stiffened.

A statue of Ra, the Egyptian Sun God, stood at the centre of a riot of pink and peach, a gift to his mother from one of her relatives. Here, Cassie stopped and consulted what looked like a sheaf of papers. To his surprise, she threw her head back to look into the eyes of the marble god, casting an arm dramatically wide as if she were on the stage. She was clearly in what she had once told him, laughingly, her sister Celia referred to as her ‘full Cassandra mode'. Intrigued, Jamil made
his way around the terrace until he was behind her, then padded closer, the better to hear her performance.

‘For Cassandra, upon the occasion of her accepting my hand,'
Cassie intoned. Momentarily abandoning her pose, she addressed the statue in her normal voice. ‘Would that I had not, for then in his misery perhaps Augustus would have been inspired to write something a little more accomplished.' She cleared her throat and began again.

Cassie giggled. ‘Poor Augustus, it really is quite dreadful,' she said to Ra. ‘I'm not surprised you're looking so pained. I'm afraid there's more, though.

She finished with a deep curtsy. Standing only a few feet away, Jamil struggled to contain his laughter, resisting the urge to applaud only because he wished to see what she was going to do next—for he realised this was not just a performance, but a rite.

Cassie emerged from her curtsy with a regal nod
at the sun god. ‘I was going to read them all, but you know, I don't think I can bear it, and I see no reason why you should have to endure it either,' she told the statue. She shuffled the sheaf of paper, upon which, Jamil could now see, were numerous poems, all written in the same rather untidy scrawl.

Cassie took the first, and began to tear it into strips, then into scraps. ‘Cast yourself upon the winds and fly,' she declaimed. ‘Begone, ghost, begone.' With one extravagant gesture, she threw the shredded pieces of poetry into the air, twirling round as she did so, and coming face to face with Jamil. ‘Oh! What a fright you gave me.' Colour flooded her face. ‘How long have you been there?'

‘Long enough to work out that your Augustus was not only a despicable man, but a truly mediocre poet.'