The Sheik Retold(71)

There was a long pause before he shut his eyes and exhaled. "Yes."

"But just last night—"

"You will take Zilah with you as far as Oran, and Gaston will accompany you from there as far as you wish him to go. In the event your Englishman cannot be found, he will personally escort you to Marseilles as you originally planned. If you still need him, he will go with you to Paris, Cherbourg, or London—wherever you wish. Gaston can make all the arrangements for you. You know you can trust him absolutely. When you no longer need him, he will come back to me."

He rose and took up his restless pacing, speaking in the same strange, toneless voice. "For your own sake, I must not be seen with you north of Bou Saada. If you should by any chance be recognized or your identity should leak out, you can say that for reasons of your own you extended your trip, that your messages miscarried, anything that occurs to you. But it is not at all likely to happen.

"You need not fear for your…reputation. Things are forgotten in the silence of the desert. Mustafa Ali is many hundreds of miles away, but not so far that he would dare to talk. My own men speak or are silent as I wish. There is only Raoul, and there is no question of him. You are free to go back to your own country, to your own people, to your own life, in which I have no place or part. Soon all this will seem only like an ugly dream."

Only last night I had lost all hope of ever leaving, but now in an unexpected volte-face, he had conceded to set me free. I should have been jubilant, elated. So why did I feel this lead weight in my heart, not to mention the sudden surge of irrational jealousy that nearly choked me? "Answer me one thing, Ahmed. How many times a year does Gaston take your discarded mistresses away?"

"Merciful Allah!" He squeezed his eyes shut with a curse. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his hands clenched by his sides. "You have your wish to go. Is that not enough? Why do you make this more difficult than it already is?"

He turned from me with a little gesture of weariness and went to the tent flap where he gazed out upon the camp. "I will not trouble you anymore. You need never fear I will come into your life again. In time you will forget these months in the desert and the savage Arab who crossed your path."

Gaston entered that moment with a breakfast tray, and with a nod, the sheik went out.

I stared after him, wondering numbly what would become of me. Quite suddenly my mind was filled with thoughts of my own people and the rambling ancient estate of cold stone. My old life seemed suddenly so very far away, in another world that I was no longer part of. This simple desert camp had become the home that the old castle in England had never been.

The past weeks rose up, rushed and uncontrolled, through my brain. Incidents crowded into my recollection of headlong gallops across the desert riding beside the man who I had hated as much as I was compelled to admire; memories of him schooling the horses he loved and sitting them like a centaur; his varying moods; his swift changes from savage cruelty to amazing gentleness, from brutal intolerance to sudden consideration.

I recalled when I had struggled against his caresses and how he mocked my helplessness against his great strength. I shivered as I recollected lying in his arms panting and spent from his fierce lovemaking. At one time I had feared him as I had never believed it possible to fear, but now that he would set me free, I wondered how I would ever go on without him.

Perversely, as the moment approached that I would gain the freedom I had so desperately craved, when liberty that seemed more essential to me than life itself was finally within my grasp, I found I no longer had much taste for it.

***

Once he'd determined to be rid of me, Ahmed spared neither me nor his horses in his haste. Traveling at a breakneck pace, we set out for the centuries-old oasis town of Bou Saada. He, Gaston, and I rode together, along with Zilah, who fulfilled a dubious role of chaperone, while a company of Ahmed's men followed us at a discreet distance but close enough to provide safety.

On the long journey northward, I experienced a protracted misery that we would soon be parting. For the stretches that I rode beside Ahmed, he remained distant and taciturn, as if my company was an ordeal to bear. Our only conversation was the fabrication of a suitably credible story that I would recount to the authorities to explain my lengthy absence from civilization.

On the nights we made camp, he slept by the fire, leaving me alone in the little traveling tent. With a deep longing in my heart, I sat within the doorway watching the interplay of light and shadow cast over his face by the campfire.

Ahmed had taken me solely for his pleasure and had never led me to expect anything else, yet I knew I would never give myself to another man. I would never meet his match. I had loved and loathed him in equal measure. Our pride and passion had continually clashed in a relentless rivalry, but now that my pride had prevailed, I felt only loss in my victory.

We arrived early on the third day. Under normal circumstances I would have been entranced by the seemingly endless miles of date groves that shaded the dusty caravan route within a canopy of palm fronds. I would have been enthralled by the town square with its loud and colorful bazaar that predated the Romans, but our arrival marked the beginning of the end for me—the end of something I would never experience again in my life.

Once we entered the town, Ahmed deposited me at the home of a merchant with whom he was acquainted, while he and Gaston made inquiries about the Englishman who had sought me. The merchant, Abdullah, had two marriageable daughters, Adara and Afifah, who both appeared to have eyes for a certain sheik, eyes that tracked his every move. After Ahmed departed, they did little to make me feel welcome, aside from pressing upon me countless cups of the sickly sweet native coffee I despised. Once more, I found myself perceived as a rival and scrutinized with unconcealed jealousy and scorn.