The Governess and the Sheikh (16 page)

‘Do you know, Jamil, I am positively glad now that he did abandon me. Only think, if he had not I may have had to listen to such doggerel every morning over the breakfast cups.'

‘That would indeed have been tragic, though I would have thought that such a romantically inclined person as yourself would have been happy to listen to poetry at any time of the day.'

She slanted a look up at him from under her lashes. If she did not know him better, she would have said he was flirting with her. She could not resist being charmed, so beguilingly handsome was he, and so delightfully romantic the setting. ‘True, but it depends upon the quality of the poetry.'

‘I hope you find this to your taste,' Jamil said sweeping her theatrically into his arms. ‘“Shall I compare
thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely, and more temperate.” Your Mr Shakespeare's lines, but they could have been written for you, most lovely Cassandra.'

He kissed her then, what was meant to be a courtly kiss, a stage kiss, but the touch of her lips, warm and soft and yielding, lit a fire in him. Pulling her upright and close into his arms, he kissed her passionately and, with a soft moan of long pent-up need, she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him back with equal fervour. The heady scent of the roses wafting up as their clothes brushed the petals, the arid heat of the desert sun brightly blazing down upon them, the bitter-sweetness of the forbidden, gave to their kisses a romantic, never-to-be-repeated edge. Their lips drank deep, for they knew they would not drink again. They kissed, and kissed again, and again, until finally Jamil drew away. He was breathing heavily. His face was flushed, his eyes burning dark and golden.

‘To quote another of your poets,' he said huskily, ‘“Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part.”'

‘“Nay, I have done,”' Cassie finished, with a sad little smile, ‘“you get no more of me.”'

Picking up her skirts, she made her way swiftly out of the garden. The heavy door into the palace swung shut behind her. Jamil stood among the roses, as still and impassive as the statue of Ra. On the ground, unnoticed in the heat of passion, the torn remains of Augustus's poems swirled aimlessly in the breeze.

 

It was the time of the annual ceremony of Petitions, the traditional handing out of alms to the nomadic
tribes. The week in the desert amongst his people, resolving disputes and acting as mediator in marriage negotiations, was usually one of Jamil's favourites, but this time he found himself unable to concentrate, wishing himself back at the palace. He missed Linah. He missed Cassie more—much, much more than was good for his peace of mind. He wondered if she missed him, too, and chastised himself for such mawkish thoughts, but could not banish them. Her face hovered before him each night as he drifted off into a troubled sleep. His body ached with unfulfilled longings. In the midst of a crowded tent filled with grateful tribesmen, in the middle of a celebration around a camp fire, surrounded by his loyal and adoring people, Jamil felt lonely. He was tired of being a prince, weary of being the all-seeing, all-knowing ruler. Cassie, only Cassie, saw him as a man. A man with flaws.

He was not invincible, and he was beginning to wonder why he had ever aspired to be so. Feelings, vague longings, long-suppressed emotions he hadn't even realised were there, seemed to be uncurling themselves, as if they had been hibernating and were now emerging blinking into the light, seeking a voice. But it was a voice only she could hear, and so it remained unspoken. And the silence hurt him. He missed her. It gradually dawned on him that only she could ease him. Whatever it was that ailed him.

Returning to Daar in the cool of the evening, his first impulse was to seek her out, but, knowing his daughter would be sleeping, and therefore unable to perform her role as unwitting chaperon, Jamil resisted the urge with
immense difficulty. This self-imposed treaty of theirs was proving to be an agonising burden. Truthfully, he knew it would take very little temptation to break it. Very truthfully, what he wished was for something or someone to put temptation in his way.

Wearily, wishing he were headed in quite the opposite direction, Jamil made for the hammam. A long relaxing steam bath was just what he needed. At least, if it was not what he needed, it was what he could have.

Though each of the main palace courtyards had their own bathing chambers, the hammam was housed in a separate building. It consisted of a series of interconnected rooms, each with a domed roof. Only the first, the changing room, had windows set high into the walls; the rest were completely enclosed. Impatiently dismissing the servants who would normally oversee the bathing ritual, Jamil stripped off his tunic, head dress and slippers and headed naked into the hot room. The plunge pool, a tiled bath of cold water constantly refreshed from a spring located deep underground, was octagonal in shape and formed the room's centrepiece. Ignoring the steps, Jamil launched into the icy depths, relishing the shock as the cold water enveloped his body, taking his breath away.

Emerging shivering, he threw himself down on one of the full-length marble tables which were arranged around the hot room, interspersed with little basins with gold taps which were built into niches in the round walls. Lying on his stomach, he closed his eyes, allowing the steam to envelop him, willing the heat to lull him into a much-needed torpor. Eventually, it did.

 

It had been Linah's suggestion that her governess make herself some looser-fitting clothes more appropriate to the desert climate. Cassie, who was heartily sick of the way her English garments, and in particular her English undergarments, clung to her skin, eagerly made the expedition to the souk for materials, accompanied by one of Linah's handmaidens. She did not know if Jamil would approve, but Jamil was not here to ask. His week-long absence attending the Petitions ceremony should have been a relief, a period for sensible reflection and acceptance of the boundaries that constrained their relationship, but though she tried—
how she tried
—it just wasn't working.

The more she tried not to think of him, the more she did. The more she told herself, sternly, that to think of
such
things was wrong, the more they crept, with startling, arousing clarity, into her dreams. Invoking Aunt Sophia made no difference. Telling herself the sacrifice was worth it for Linah's sake made no difference either, Cassie was ashamed to admit. What had happened in the cave had changed her for ever. She could not now un-know. She could not help wanting to know more. She could not—would not—have it undone. And she was pretty certain that Jamil felt the same.

That was the difficult part. She caught him watching her, time after time, when he thought himself unobserved. She saw the look of naked desire on his face and it made her own flare and flame. She recognised it from her mirror, that desire. It was not only she who was denying herself. She
could
deny herself, but how she wanted. Ached. Yearned. Pined, wickedly wished
for the fates to throw them together, alone, just once more. She would not resist the fates. She was pretty certain Jamil would not either. But the fates, unfortunately for Cassandra, seemed quite oblivious of her wishes.

As usual, everyone save her was asleep. As usual, Cassie was restless. Deciding to take a walk around the palace grounds, she donned one of her new outfits for the first time. A pair of loose pantaloons, which Linah told her were called sarwal or harem pants, pleated at the waist, billowing out over her legs, then gathered in at her ankles with a beautifully worked piece of braid studded with little pearls, they were made of dark blue gauzy material, which rustled alluringly when she walked. Over these rather daring items, she wore a long silk caftan in her favourite cerulean blue, slit almost to the top of her legs to allow ease of movement, with long, loose sleeves, finished with the same braiding that ornamented her sarwal pants and fastened down the front with a long row of tiny pearl buttons. Little slippers, also pearl-studded, of the softest leather she'd ever come across, covered her feet. Aside from a tiny scrap of silk like a sleeveless shirt, she wore nothing else. No stays, no chemise, no petticoats, no stockings. Her hair was combed down, held back from her face with a tortoiseshell clip, a gift from Linah.

Looking at herself in the mirrored tiles of her bathing chamber, Cassie was confronted by an exotic creature, the curves of her body quite clearly defined through the softly draped clothes, though in fact there was little actual flesh on show, and the neckline of her caftan was much higher than her day dresses. Despite this, she knew Aunt Sophia would be shocked, not just
at her lack of English corsetry, but by the way such a lack allowed her body to move freely, and for the movements to be quite apparent as she walked.

Was she verging on the indecent? Aunt Sophia would say so, but Celia would not—Celia herself dressed all the time in just such garments. And Linah's servants, too, though their clothes were plainer, wore no more than these three items of clothing and slippers. When in Rome, and all that. In any case, no one would see her, not at this time of night. It was just a question of becoming accustomed to unfamiliar garments, and she could not do that if these lovely new clothes lay unworn in the chest in her sleeping chamber.

Reassured, Cassie opened the door of the courtyard. The guards were too well trained to display any reaction, and, as she had hoped, she met no one else. With the rose garden strictly out of bounds in her mind, Cassie wandered off to the opposite end of the palace, where a strangely shaped building stood surrounded by shady palms. Intrigued by the series of little domed-roof rooms, assuming from the lack of guards that it was some sort of summer house or perhaps even a plant house, Cassie opened the large door and stepped inside.

The walls of the changing room were not marble, but tiled, Roman-style, with intricate mosaic pictures of various gods, some of whom she recognised, some not. The images were what Aunt Sophia would most decidedly have called
warm
. Men and women entwined in any number of embraces. Cassie, examining them more closely, found herself blushing. And wondering. These images were designed to stimulate, and they did,
providing her with some astonishingly arousing images of herself and Jamil doing those very same things.

Captivated, entranced by now being able to give some form to her own already fevered imagination, Cassie followed the mosaics round the room, growing more and more heated as she tried to picture Jamil doing
this
, or herself doing
that
. By the time she came to a break, formed by the door opposite the one by which she had entered, she was flushed, and not particularly from the heat of the room. Realising now that she must be in the Roman-style baths the locals called a hammam, she hesitated with her hand on the handle, but no one would be taking a steam bath at this time of night. Besides, there had been no sign of the attendants, and she wanted to see more of these mosaics. She suspected that in the next room they would have progressed to even more compromising positions, the kind of compromising positions Jamil called pleasure. If she could not experience, at least she could understand.

The door opened silently. Closing it behind her, Cassie's vision was momentarily obscured by the cloud of steam that rose up to meet the cooler air. The room was fiercely hot, the air damp and extremely humid, lit by oil lamps built into the walls. Her silk tunic began to mould itself to her skin.

She didn't notice him at first. The plunge pool attracted her attention. Stopping down, she dipped her fingers in the icy water, dabbing some of it on to her temples. Standing up again, slightly giddy with the cloying heat, she saw that someone was lying flat on a marble bed. A man. A naked man. With an exclamation of dismay, she was about to head quickly out of the
room, when he looked up. Autumn eyes. Even through the haze there was no mistaking them, or their owner.

‘Jamil!'

He had been dreaming of her, and now here she was, clad most alluringly in silk and organdie, the damp material clinging deliciously to her curves. She stood rooted to the spot, her eyes wide, fixed upon him. He remembered he was naked, save for the small strip of towel upon which he lay. His robe was in the changing room. The larger bathing towels were kept in the warm room. There was no way to avoid her seeing him. Part of him relished the prospect.

This thought startled him, for though many women had admired his body, Jamil was very far from being a vain man. Cassie looked delectable, with her skin flushed and her hair clustering in damp tendrils on her brow. The caftan suited her. The sarwal pants showed her shapely legs to perfection. ‘Cassie.' Desire gripped him. She was here, just as if the gods had gifted her to him, dressed as if they had done so for his pleasure. This time, he would not—
could not
—resist.

‘Jamil. I didn't know anyone was here.'

‘You look delectable.'

A blush stole over her already heated skin. She stared at him, as if mesmerised. Had she not been wishing, only a few moments ago, for just this? Had the fates finally thrown her an opportunity? If so, would it be wrong to ignore it? ‘I should go,' she said uncertainly. ‘
No!
Don't go. No one will disturb us here. Stay.' Jamil held out his hand towards her.

She didn't seem able to move, in any case. Her feet in their seed-pearl slippers seemed to have taken root on
the tiled floor. Her eyes were riveted on his body. She could not force them to look away. She had seen naked statues and she had seen paintings of naked gods, but nothing had prepared her for the reality of this man. He was quite beautiful, and so very, very different from her. The breadth of his shoulders tapered down to a trim waist. His back was muscled, his buttocks taut, his legs long, rough with hair. His skin was the same golden colour all over. All around him, on the walls, the gods sported together, coupling intimately. The steam was making her light-headed. She was hot, her clothes were damp and clinging. She couldn't seem to breathe properly.