The Sheik Retold(54)

Raoul stood once more by the couch, looking down for a long time in silence. I raised my face to his, and he read the agonized question in my eyes. "I don't know," he said gently. "All things are with Allah."

Two soft-footed Arab servants brought us a hastily prepared supper. It was a ghastly meal that nearly choked me, but I forced myself to eat a little. Later Henri appeared, bearing two little gold-cased cups of coffee that I gulped down eagerly.

"You must rest tonight, Raoul, or you will be no good to either Ahmed or Gaston. I will stay here with him," I insisted.

"As will I," he replied. "I will sleep here in the chair for a few hours if you will promise to wake me if he stirs or appears to worsen. You only need watch his breathing and check his pulse from time to time. If there are any changes at all, Diana, you must wake me."

"I promise," I answered.

For the longest time there was no change at all. Ahmed still lay pale and motionless, but later as the day crept into night and the last rays of the warm sun filled the tent, he stirred. He moved restlessly, and began a feverish muttering in a confused mix of Arabic and French that I could not decipher. I rose to wake Raoul, who still slumped in the chair, having fallen into a deep sleep of total depletion.

My hand hovered over Raoul's shoulder as Ahmed's words slowed and his voice became clearer. The first words were in Arabic, but then he lapsed into French, pure as the vicomte's own. "Lie still, you little fool…Why have I brought you here? Mon Dieu! Are you not woman enough to know?"

I froze, my gaze fixed upon him through this verbal replay of the night he had taken me.

"No! I will not spare you. Give me what I want willingly and I will be kind to you, but fight me, and by Allah, you shall pay the cost…! I know you hate me. You have told me so already. Shall I make you love me?"

He had boasted that he could make any woman love him. He had said it purely to mock me and had now proven the truth of his claim. I never would have believed that I could grow to love the same man I had loathed and despised so deeply. I thought that I would never know what love meant. None of the men who had professed love to me had ever had the power to touch me. I had believed myself incapable of the emotion—that I was devoid of all natural affection. I was wrong.

Love had come upon the same one who had once scorned it with such ferocity, and I suffered with the knowledge that my love would ever be unrequited. The love that filled me was overwhelming, passionate, and frightening in its hold upon me. I wanted him for myself alone, craved his undivided love. Yes, I loved him, while no higher motive than a passing lust stirred him. I had tried to hold back the knowledge of my love, knowing it would only bring about the disaster I dreaded.

"If you loved me, you would bore me, and I should have to let you go."

He had been honest. He had never pretended to love. He had seen me, had desired me, and had taken what he wanted. He had said he would grow bored with me eventually. His callous words had bruised my pride even then. It was my injured pride more than anything else that had inspired my flight from him. I loved him—I had for a long time, even when I thought I hated him so passionately. I could not bear to permit him to weary of me and cast me aside, so to save myself, I had tried to leave him first.

"Still disobedient?" his voice went on. "When will you learn that I am master…? When I have tired of you…Why do I want her still? Why does it give me no pleasure to have broken her at last? She is English, and I have made her pay for my hatred of her cursed race. I have tortured her to keep my vow, and still I want her…. "

He still wanted me? My heart surged in a triumph that was short-lived. The passion that smoldered so often in his gaze was not the reciprocal love I craved. I had never seen the light that I longed for kindle in his eyes. His caresses had been passionate or careless with his mood. When the humor took him, he could be gentle, but gentleness was not love.

"Diane, Diane, how beautiful you are! What devil makes me hate you? Allah! How long the day has been…. Has it been long to her? Will she smile or tremble when I come? Ibraheim Omair! That devil and Diane! Oh, Allah! Grant me time to get to her…. How the jackals are howling…. See, Raoul, there are the tents…. Diane, where are you? Grand Dieu! He has been torturing her! You knew that I would come, ma bien aimee. Only a few moments while I kill him, then I can hold you in my arms…"

I reminded myself that Ahmed was a brute, a lawless savage who had used me many times with merciless cruelty, but the ferocity, passion, and mercurial temper were inseparable from the man. I had watched him squeeze the life out of his enemy and loved him still—perhaps even more for his very jealousy and passion. A year ago, a few weeks even, I would have shuddered with revulsion, but all that was swept away. I knew then as I know even now that no other man will ever touch me as Ahmed has done.

Still, his fevered murmurings continued, "Where is Diane? Was I in time? Diane, Diane, how could I know how much you meant to me? How could I know that I would love you?”

Love?

Had I also become delirious? I closed my eyes in disbelief, yet these last words echoed in my ears. How could I know that I would love you? With caution, I turned this over and over in my brain, carefully examining every facet of the jewel.

"Diane, Diane, my sunshine. The tent is cold and dark without you…. Dieu! If you knew how much I loved you… Diane, Diane, it is all black. I cannot see you, Diane, Diane…" he murmured my name over and over until finally growing once more silent.