The Sheik Retold(55)

My God! It was true! Overcome by the evidence of what lay buried deep in his heart, my own leaped into my throat. All the confusion of my mind and my own mélange of contrary emotions were now explained. Suddenly all of his hurtful words and conflicting actions made sense to me. He loved me but could not reconcile this with his hate-filled prejudice. He loved me but could not bring himself to accept it.

Although Ahmed's delirious mutterings were proof of his feelings, would his powerful self-will continue intractable against me? Would the vow of fifteen years duration against Lord Glencaryll, the vow he had never once broken, prove stronger than his love for me?

Suddenly in all of its vivid horror, the vision came to me of the wailing Arab woman who had thrown herself at Ibraheim Omair's feet. She had pleaded with her lover for what he would not give, but now it was my face and my hands clutching the hem of Ahmed's snow-white robes.

Could I lower myself to accept whatever crumbs he might drop? I knew I could not.

Ahmed's pretense of indifference would snuff out my love as effectively as the robber sheik had snuffed out the Arab woman's life. I would remain faithfully by his side during his convalescence, but once my sheik was restored to full health, I swore I would never again let him punish me for my love.





CHAPTER TWELVE


Three weeks had passed since the awful night, three weeks that reduced me to a weary-eyed shadow of my former vigorous self and left marks on Raoul that would never be effaced. Once the fear for Ahmed was removed, I banished all else from my mind but the joy of knowing he would recover. He had deeply resented his confinement, despising it as weakness, but thanks to his great strength and splendid constitution, his convalescence progressed rapidly.

My happiness, however, diminished in direct proportion to his regained strength. His attitude toward me had taken another marked change. The camaraderie that we once enjoyed was gone, replaced by a new reserve that chilled me. Gone was the former intimacy that had been so precious to me.

He avoided me as much as possible, insisting that I ride twice every day, sometimes with Saint Hubert, sometimes with Henri. I didn't mind because I badly needed the exercise—hard physical exertion that kept my mind occupied and prevented me from thinking. The new horse I rode supplied both needs, almost to an extreme. He was pure white, not as fast as Silver Star, but very tricky. He was called The Dancer, from a nervous habit of dancing on his hind legs at starting and stopping, much like a circus horse. He required watching all the time, but I let him out to his full pace for both his sake and mine. During these rides, the air and the movement banished my anxiety, replacing it with my old exhilaration.

Ahmed seemingly used Raoul as a barrier between us, and I was often thrown into the vicomte's company. I didn't mind this. All that we had gone through together had drawn us close. I loved Raoul as a dear friend and admired him greatly. I often wondered what my girlhood would have been had I had the benefit of his guardianship rather than that of Sir Aubrey Mayo. The sisterly affection I never felt toward my own brother, I freely gave to him.

Since Ahmed's recovery, his attitude of aloofness had augmented each passing day. The one time I encountered Ahmed without Raoul or Henri, he was in one of his taciturn moods, characterized by his black scowl. Although Ahmed rarely spoke to me, I was ever conscious of his constant surveillance, of jealous eyes that watched with a fierce scrutiny.

I was thankful the vicomte had brought a pile of newspapers and magazines. I curled up on the divan with an armful, as if hungry for news, but they only served as a pretext for silence. I dipped into the batch of papers, but my zeal quickly waned. I had little interest in current events, and the allusions were now incomprehensible to me anyway. I had been away from the world too long.

I was relieved when Raoul joined us for coffee. When Henri entered with the tray, Raoul brought me a cup and set it on a stool beside me. His sympathetic eyes looked straight into mine, sending the quick rush of blood into my face that I hid with a magazine. I knew he was trying to help, but his chivalry only made Ahmed's disregard all the more painful by comparison.

I left them shortly after that, determined to do all in my power to make Ahmed take notice of me again. I refused to stand by waiting like a dog for a bone until the baser part of him had need of me—the woman he had taken merely for his pleasure.

I lingered over my bath and changed into the green dress and the jade necklace that Ahmed preferred, but when I entered, they were already seated at the dinner table and deep in conversation. I took my place with a murmured apology.

Raoul gave me a welcoming smile, but Ahmed barely acknowledged my presence.

"Et toi, Raoul, eh? Do you remember—?" He immediately resumed the conversation I had interrupted, plunging afterward into a flood of reminiscences that lasted until the end of dinner. I watched them unheeded as their voices rose and fell continuously. The spoke indiscriminately in both French and Arabic so that much they said was incomprehensible to me. It seemed as if they had both forgotten my presence with the accumulated conversation of two years.

As soon as the table was cleared, I pled a headache and retired. Once in my room, I buried my face deep in the pillow. His complete rejection was the greatest humiliation I had yet experienced. There seemed only one interpretation of his silence and studied avoidance of me—his passing fancy had passed. His passion had drained from him with the blood that flowed from the terrible wound.