The Sheik Retold(6)

Passion. I could not comprehend how it made such asses of otherwise fine fellows.

I shrugged a thin wrap over my pyjamas and then went out to the broad balcony outside my bedroom. The room was on the first floor, and opposite the window rose an ornately carved and bracketed pillar that supported the balcony, stretching up to the second story. I gazed down into the gardens below. It was an easy climb—far easier than many I'd achieved as a child when overtaken with the need of a solitary ramble.

Often at home, I stood like this on the little stone balcony outside my room to drink in the smells of the night. I'd always loved the night—the pungent, earthy smell after rain, the aromatic scent of pine trees near the house. I thought of it all as I sat on the broad rail of the balcony, with my head slanted against the column.

The Kashmiri song came back to me as I gazed out over the hotel gardens, and I thought again of Jim's proposal. I wondered if it was truly my nature or Aubrey's cold, loveless training that had debarred me from all affection, making me oblivious to it. The thought of passion, of physical intimacy with a man, filled me with revulsion. Love like Jim professed did not exist for me. Still, I'd never been so gentle with any of my would-be suitors as I had been with Jim. I could only conclude that it was due to my delight over the impending journey.

I leaned far over the rail, trying to see into the verandah below, and thought I caught a glimpse of white, but when I looked again, there was nothing. Convinced my eyes were up to trickery, I shook it off with a little grimace and settled back against the column. It was a wonderful night, heavy with the inexplicable mystery that hangs always in the Orient. The smells of the East rose up all around me, seemingly more perceptible by night than by day.

I yawned, suddenly desperately sleepy. Leaving the windows wide, I turned back into my room, flung off my wrap, and tumbled into bed, falling asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.

I awoke only a short time later. The moonlight streaming into the room told me it was still night. Although all was quiet, I sensed that I was not alone. The certainty of this pierced through my sleep-dulled brain. My heart raced, yet I lay perfectly still, keeping my breathing slow and deep. I peered through my lashes, straining to see into the darkness. There! A shadow fading away by the window. Was it a thief?

Summoning my courage, I sprang from bed and ran onto the balcony, but it was empty. Leaning over the railing, I could see no one. I listened intently but heard nothing. Still, I was convinced I hadn't imagined it.

I returned to my room and turned on the lights, but nothing seemed to be missing. My watch lay on the dressing table precisely where I had left it. My suitcases had not been tampered with. I looked to the bedside table. My ivory-mounted revolver was lying undisturbed.

Was it all just a dream? But it had seemed so very real. I had felt a presence. Why else would I have awakened from a sound slumber? I was not an unusually light sleeper. After one more visual inspection of my room that indicated nothing amiss, I shrugged it off as over-excitement, shut off the lights, and returned to my bed.





CHAPTER THREE


The next morning fulfilled my every expectation. My arrangements were pitch-perfect, and the hired guide, Mustafa Ali, appeared capable and efficient. Although the ride to the first oasis was long and hot, I had never been so exhilarated. Jim Arbuthnot was back to his usual jovial self. With the awkwardness of the prior night laid to rest, we resumed our playful badinage and I enjoyed his company immensely. Aubrey, however, appeared unusually sullen.

When our party arrived at the chosen camp site, our tents were already pitched, and everything was so well ordered that even Aubrey's valet Stephens, who was as critical as his master, found no fault. As for me, I was completely and blissfully content.

Compared to my accommodations in India the previous year, complete with bath, dressing rooms, and swarming with servants, my tiny camp tent was ridiculously Spartan. Nevertheless, I had been taken with a whim to dispense with all the chattels that Aubrey had cultivated. The narrow camp cot, the tin bath, the little folding table, and my two suitcases took up all the available space; and though I drenched my bed with splashing and the soap found its way into the toe of my boot, the novelty of it all amused rather than irritated me.

Once I settled down to nap on the narrow cot, however, I wished it wasn't quite so Spartan after all. I wondered with bemusement if a sudden movement in the night would precipitate me into the bath that stood alongside the cot. It was also very hot. I longed for a punkah.

"Sybarite!" I laughed at myself. "You need a few discomforts."

After my nap, I bathed and dressed, forsaking my riding clothes for a dress of clinging jade-green silk. It was a favorite, in a color that suited me well, with a hemline that swung several inches short of the ankle. The gown was cut modestly in front, which was truly deceptive, as the back of it plunged indecently down to the dimples that hollowed just above my buttocks.

I exited the tent, drawing a long breath and reveling in the scenery that was nothing short of enchanting in the twilight. The camp was spread out over the oasis—the clustering palm trees and the desert itself stretching outward in undulating sweeps as far as the eye could see, eventually leveling into the distant hills like a dark smudge against the horizon.

I was here at last—the place I had longed for all of my life, yet I never knew until that moment how intense my longing had been. I felt strangely at home, as if the great, silent emptiness had been waiting for me, just as I had been waiting for it. It spoke to me softly with the faint rustle of the whispering sand, with the mysterious charm of its billowy, shifting surface that beckoned me to penetrate deep into its unknown obscurities.