Читать книгу Possessed by the Sheikh - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 5

THE sun was just starting to rise over the horizon as they drove out of the villa in a convoy of sturdy, well-equipped four-wheel-drive vehicles heading for the desert. To Katrina’s dismay, Richard had insisted that she was to travel on her own with him in the vehicle that he was driving.

‘You’ll be much more comfortable here with me in the lead vehicle,’ he told her, laughing as he added unkindly, ‘The others will all be choking on our dust.’

It was true that the speed at which he was driving was throwing up a heavy cloud of fine sand, but Katrina would still far rather have been with someone else.

‘Why don’t you relax and close your eyes?’ Richard suggested oilily. ‘Catch up on your sleep. It’s going to be a long drive. But drink some water first. You know the rules about making sure we don’t get dehydrated.’

Obediently she took the open bottle of water he was handing her and drank from it.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to sleep, Katrina acknowledged fifteen minutes or so later as she stifled a yawn and then gave in to a sudden overwhelming temptation to close her eyes. If only so that she could avoid having to make conversation with Richard. And she did feel extraordinarily sleepy. Probably because she had spent far too much of the night thinking about the man with the golden eyes. As she drifted off to sleep she felt the vehicle start to pick up speed.

It was the late afternoon sun that finally woke her as it shone in through the windscreen. The realisation of how long she had been asleep made her sit bolt upright in her seat and turn to Richard in consternation.

‘You should have woken me,’ she told him. ‘How much longer will it be before we reach the wadi?’

It was several seconds before Richard answered her, the look in his eyes as he turned his head towards her making her feel sharply apprehensive. ‘We aren’t going to the wadi,’ he replied smugly. ‘We are going somewhere much more secluded and romantic…Somewhere where I can have you all to myself. Somewhere where I can show you…teach you…’

Katrina stared at him in dismay, hoping that she had misunderstood him, but it was obvious from the look on his face that she had not.

‘Richard, you simply can’t behave like this! We have to go to the wadi. The others will be expecting us…’

‘They think that we’ve had to turn back,’ he announced calmly. ‘I told them that you weren’t feeling very well. It was a good idea, I think, to get you to drink that water, which had some sleeping tablets in it.’

Katrina stared at him in horror.

‘Richard, this is ridiculous. I’m going to telephone the others right now and—’

‘You can’t do that, I’m afraid.’ He gave her a self-satisfied smile. ‘I’ve got your mobile. I took it out of your bag when I stopped to tell the others we were turning back.’

Katrina couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘This is crazy! Let’s just go and join the others and forget—’

‘No!’ He silenced her passionately. ‘We are going to the oasis. I’ve been planning how to get you to myself for days, and this is the perfect opportunity and the oasis is the perfect place. It is in the empty quarter of the desert, a veritable no man’s land, and this should appeal to you, Katrina, with your love of this region’s history. It was once used as a stopping-off place by the camel trains.’

Katrina stared at him. Her throat had gone dry and her heart was thudding uncomfortably hard with apprehension. It wasn’t that she was frightened of Richard exactly, but there was no denying that his behaviour pointed uncomfortably towards, if not an obsession with her, then certainly an unpleasant and unwanted preoccupation with her, just as Bev had shrewdly suspected.

‘Look, there’s the oasis,’ Richard declared unnecessarily as the dusty track wound between a rocky outcrop revealing a clutch of palm trees and other vegetation, beyond which lay the blue shimmer of water.

As Richard stopped the vehicle Katrina acknowledged that in different circumstances—very different circumstances—she would have been entranced and fascinated by her surroundings.

The vegetation surrounding the oasis was unexpectedly lush and thick, especially on its far bank. At one time surely a river must have run here, for what else could have carved a path through the steep rocky escarpment on the other side of the oasis? Perhaps even a waterfall had plunged down the smooth, sheer rock face.

Certainly there must be an underground spring filling the oasis itself, or perhaps an underground river. But, undeniably beautiful though the oasis and its surroundings were, Katrina had no wish to remain there on her own with Richard.

Somehow she doubted that he would be responsive to any attempt from her to persuade him to abandon his plans, which meant that if she was to escape she would have to find a way to distract him long enough to allow her to get her hands on the vehicle’s keys and drive off in it before Richard could stop her.

‘I’ve brought a tent with me and everything else we will need.’

‘Oh, how clever of you!’ Katrina told him, trying to sound impressed. ‘I’ll stay here, shall I, whilst you unpack everything?’

Richard shook his head at her.

‘No, I’m afraid you can’t do that, my dear! I haven’t gone to all this trouble to have you do something silly like trying to run away from me!’

He couldn’t make her move, Katrina comforted herself, but a few seconds later, after she had told him quietly that she was not prepared to get out of the vehicle, she realised she had under-estimated the lengths he was prepared to go to.

‘Well, in that case, my dear, I’m afraid you leave me no option but to use these.’ He reached into his pockets and produced a pair of handcuffs. ‘I really wish it wasn’t necessary to do this, but if you refuse to do as I ask then I am going to have to handcuff you to the door of the vehicle.’

She had been wrong not to feel afraid of him, Katrina acknowledged as a cold sweat broke out on her skin. He had already locked the doors of the vehicle and if she allowed him to handcuff her inside it then she’d be trapped.

‘It would be nice to have some fresh air,’ she conceded, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Perhaps I could sit by the oasis whilst you unpack everything?’

‘Of course you can, my dear,’ Richard agreed, smiling at her. ‘Let’s go and find somewhere comfortable for you, shall we?’

She mustn’t give up hope, Katrina told herself stoutly five minutes later. Richard was escorting her to the oasis, his behaviour more that of a jailer than a would-be lover.

‘This will do,’ he announced, indicating one of the palm trees, but as Katrina walked towards it he held back. When she caught the warning chink of metal on metal she knew immediately that it was the handcuffs he had shown her earlier. Without stopping to think, she started to run, her flight from him as panic-stricken as that of a delicately boned gazelle. Fear drove her forward, towards the narrow pass between the steep rocks, oblivious to the sound of vehicles being driven fast over the bumpy terrain and the cries of warrior horsemen. Too late to realise what those sounds were, she burst through the pass and into full view of the group of fugitives.

They were led by El Khalid, but it was one of his young lieutenants who saw her first. He swerved the battered Land Rover he was driving round so hard that he almost overturned it.

Behind Katrina, at the pass between the rocks, Richard fell back in terror, and then turned and ran towards his own vehicle, ignoring Katrina’s plight. He leapt into it and started the engine, driving back in the direction he had come as fast as he could.

Katrina, though, was oblivious to his desertion of her.

The air around her was thick with choking dust, the last dying rays of the sun striking blindingly against the metal of the vehicle racing alongside her. The driver was leaning out of the window, one hand on the steering wheel, the other reaching for her, a lascivious grin slicing his face.

Immediately she turned to run back the way she had come. Unwanted though Richard’s attentions were, she could deal far more easily with him than she could with what she was now facing, but to her horror she recognised that her escape route was already being blocked off by the horse and rider bearing down on her even as she still tried to run from him.

The sound of his horse’s hooves mingled with the fierce cries of the men surrounding her. He was so close to her that she could feel the heat of the horse’s breath on her skin. Her heart felt as though it were about to burst. She saw him draw level with her and bend low in his saddle, his hand coming out, and then unbelievably she was being lifted off the ground and swept up onto the horse’s back in front of him, as his prisoner.

Sobbing for breath, her heart pounding sickly, her face pressed against the coarsely woven cloth of the tunic he was wearing, she could do nothing other than lie there, forced to breathe in the smell of the fabric, with its faint lemony scent. Katrina stiffened. She now realised the lemony cologne, like the scent of the man himself, were both immediately familiar to her. The drumming of horse’s hooves became the drumming of her own heart as she struggled to twist her body so that she could look up into his face.

As she had expected all she could see of it were his eyes—gold-flecked, reminding her of a tiger’s eye. Her heart leapt and banged against her chest wall as she looked into them and saw them flash gold sparks of molten anger back at her.

Quickly she turned her head, too shocked to withstand the contempt in his eyes. In the distance she could see the four-wheel drive disappearing as Richard drove himself to safety, having left her to her fate. Tears welled in her eyes and one rolled down her face to land on the golden warmth of the male hand holding the horse’s reins.

His mouth hardening, he shook it away. He murmured to the horse as he wheeled round and started to head back to the group of men watching them.

As he did so out of nowhere, or so it seemed to Katrina, a vehicle appeared, driven at frightening speed right at them. In the driver’s seat was the man who had first pursued her, his face contorted with savagery as he shook his fist at her captor and mouthed some words in a dialect she could not understand before driving off again, reaching the waiting onlookers ahead of them.

There were a hundred, no, a thousand questions she wanted to ask, Katrina acknowledged, but before she could do so he was reining in his mount in front of a powerfully built man of medium height, who was gesturing to him to dismount.

Katrina shivered to see the powerful-looking rifle he was wearing slung over one shoulder, an ammunition belt around his waist, into which was thrust a wicked-looking traditionally curved dagger.

At his side was the man who had pursued her, gesticulating angrily as he pointed towards her and burst into a rapid speech, of which she could only catch the odd word.

A brief inclination of his head from the man at her side told Katrina that the man with the gun must be the leader of the men. But whilst he obviously commanded the obedience of everyone else, she was aware that her captor’s body language was subtly emphasising his own independence.

‘Why did you let the man get away?’ Katrina heard the leader demand angrily in Zuranese.

There was a brief pause before her captor answered him coolly, ‘El Khalid, you’re asking me a question you should surely be asking another! A man on horseback, even when that animal is as fast as any mount in the Ruler’s fabled stable, cannot hope to outrun a four-wheel drive. Sulimen could have caught up with him had he not decided to pursue an easier prey.’

‘He has taken my prize and now he seeks to discredit me. The girl is mine, El Khalid,’ the driver of the Land Rover protested hotly.

‘You hear what Sulimen says, Tuareg! What do you answer him?’

Katrina had to bite down hard on her lip to stop herself from turning to her captor and begging him not to let Sulimen take her. The leader had called him ‘Tuareg’, using only his tribal name, whereas he had used the more intimate Sulimen for the other man. Did that mean he would favour the other’s claim? Katrina felt sick at the thought.

Why didn’t her captor say something…? She could feel him looking at her, but she could not bring herself to lift her head and look back at him. She was too afraid of what she might see in his eyes.

‘I answer him that I have the girl and he does not. She will earn me a fat purse when I take her back to Zuran City and ransom her back to her people.’

‘No one is to leave this camp until I say so,’ came the harsh response. ‘I have gathered you all here in this place for a special mission. Our success in it will make us all very rich men.

‘Since both of you lay claim to the girl, then you might fight one another for her.’ He gave a small jerk of his head, and before Katrina could protest she was being led forcibly away by two fierce-looking armed men.

Anxiously she turned round just in time to see El Khalid removing the glitteringly sharp-edged hooked dagger from his belt and throwing it towards her captor.

The breath left her lungs in a rush as he caught it and he and Sulimen began to circle one another. Sulimen already had a similar dagger in his hand and almost immediately he jabbed savagely at his opponent with it. The other men had begun to form a circle around them.

Standing behind them between her jailers, Katrina could only catch maddeningly brief glimpses of the two men as they fought.

Not that she liked watching men fight—far from it—but on this occasion she had a very strong reason for wanting to know which one was going to be the victor. Whilst the men had dragged her away, the two opponents, whilst retaining their headgear, had removed their cloaks and tunics and were fighting bare-chested as they circled one another barefoot.

It was now dark and lanterns had been lit to illuminate the scene that to Katrina looked like something from another world.

The light from one of the lanterns glittered on the daggers as they were raised in clenched hands, and the sickening sounds of human combat echoed the thuds of bare feet on sand.

She heard a low grunt of pain and heard the watching men roar in approval; above their heads she could see the hand holding a dagger aloft, the light catching the tiny droplets of blood that fell from it. Her stomach heaved. Was the man with the golden eyes badly wounded? Ridiculously, given all she already knew about him and all that she didn’t, her anxiety and concern were not for her own plight and safety, but for his, and she knew that had she been able to do so she would have rushed to his side.

She heard another groan and another roar of approval, but this time it was the name ‘Tuareg’ the watching men were calling out in praise.

The fight seemed to go on for ever, and Katrina was becoming increasingly sickened by the thought of such violence and cruelty. She was simply not programmed to find anything about physical violence acceptable, Katrina acknowledged. Her initial anxious need to see what was happening had been overlaid by relief that she was spared witnessing such a loathsome spectacle.

But at last it was apparently over, the watching men cheering loudly as she was pulled through their ranks to where the two antagonists stood in front of El Khalid.

Only one of the three men commanded her attention, though, and her stomach churned with a mixture of nausea and guilty relief as she heard the crowd chanting ‘Tuareg’ and saw that in his hands he was holding aloft both of the daggers, whilst his opponent slumped despondently beside him.

But then he turned round and Katrina sucked in a shocked breath as she saw the blood-beaded wounds on his flesh. One had slit the taut skin of his face along his cheekbone and dangerously close to his eye, another was carved just above his heart, and blood was dripping from a third on his upper arm.

A feeling of sick dizziness began to threaten her, but she ignored it, dragging her gaze away from the sweat-gilded expanse of taut male chest in front of her. Sulimen, in contrast, did not appear to have any wounds at all, which puzzled Katrina a little since ‘Tuareg’ was obviously the victor.

‘Here is your prize,’ she heard El Khalid telling him. ‘Take her.’

Was it her imagination or was the slight bow her captor made in El Khalid’s direction more cynical than respectful? If so, no one else seemed to have thought so.

He still hadn’t so much as acknowledged her presence, turning to toss El Khalid’s dagger back to him, and then turning back to lean forward and scoop up his discarded tunic.

Out of the corner of her eye Katrina saw Sulimen go to sheathe his own dagger, but then terrifyingly, instead of doing so, he lunged violently towards her captor’s unprotected back, the dagger clenched in his raised hand.

Katrina heard her own sharp sound of shocked warning, but it seemed something else must have alerted ‘Tuareg’ to the danger because he had already whirled round, and in a movement so fast that Katrina’s eyes could not follow it he had kicked out at Sulimen’s raised hand, dislodging the knife.

Immediately three men seized Sulimen and dragged him away. As though nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened, her captor picked up his tunic and pulled it on before indicating with a brusque inclination of his head that she was to join him.

‘Come,’ he said peremptorily. He took such long strides that she had difficulty in keeping up with him, but the moment she reached his side he stopped walking and turned to look down at her.

‘You will not walk at my side, but behind me,’ he told her coldly.

Katrina could hardly believe her ears. And as for walking behind him! The traumas she had endured were forgotten, in the full fury of her outraged female pride.

‘I will do no such thing,’ she refused hotly. ‘I am not your…your chattel…And besides, in Zuran men walk alongside their partners.’

‘This is not Zuran, it is the desert, and you are mine to do with as I choose, when and how I choose.’

Without giving her the opportunity to answer him, he turned away and continued to walk swiftly towards the pitched tents, which were cleverly concealed from view in a protective natural enclosure of steep-sided rocky outcrops.

Several fires had been started in a clearing in front of some of the tents and dark-robed women were stirring the contents of cooking pots. The rich smell of cooking food made Katrina realise just how long it was since she herself had eaten, and her stomach growled hungrily.

Predictably, she felt, the tent her captor had led her to was set apart from the others.

A battered-looking utility-type vehicle was parked alongside it and behind that his horse was tethered, happily munching on some food, watched over by a young boy. But Katrina wasn’t given any time to study her surroundings; a hard hand in the middle of her back was already pushing her into the tent.

She had of course seen similar tents set up for display and educational purposes on a cultural education site in Zuran City, but she had never imagined she might occupy one of them! Several lamps cast a soft glow over the tent’s main living area, with its richly patterned carpets and traditional divan. There were several cushions on the floor and a low wooden table with a coffee pot on it.

All at once the events of the day caught up with her and reaction swamped her, causing exhausted tears to fill her eyes.

‘What are you crying for? Your lover? I doubt he is wasting any tears on you, to judge by the speed with which he abandoned you.’

Katrina stared at him. ‘Richard is not my lover! He’s a married man…’

‘But of course. Otherwise, why would he bring you to such a remote place?’ A cynical smile hardened the narrowed eyes.

‘I did not allow him. He…he forced me…’

‘Of course he did!’ he agreed mockingly.

Katrina lifted her head and looked challengingly at him.

‘Why are you pretending to be a Tuareg when it is obvious that you are not—?’

‘Silence!’ he commanded her angrily.

‘No. I will not be silent. I remember you from the alleyway in Zuran City, even if you don’t.’

She gave a small breathless gasp as his hand closed hard over her mouth, a menacing look glittering in his eyes as he bent towards her and said softly, ‘You will be silent.’

Katrina had had enough! She had been kidnapped, bullied, threatened, and now this! Angrily she bit sharply into the hand covering her mouth, more shocked by the salt taste of his blood than by the savagery of the oath he uttered as he wrenched away from her.

‘Woman, you are a hell-cat!’ he stormed as he frowned down at the tiny pinpricks of blood on the soft pad of flesh just below his thumb. ‘But no way will I allow you to poison me with your venom! Clean it.’

Katrina stared at him in disbelief, her face starting to burn. What she had done had shocked her. Outraged female fury stiffened her whole body. And yet shockingly there, deep down inside her, was a vagrant acknowledgement of intoxicatingly dangerous awareness of the sensuality of her own thoughts. Thoughts that mirrored her own actual desires? Desires she secretly wanted to turn into actions?

Absolutely not! She could feel his breath against her ear, and she took the cloth he was handing her, dipped it in the bowl of water next to her and dabbed the wound.

Abruptly he released her and stepped back from her, his voice both harsh and somehow distorted as he demanded thickly, ‘No! Why should I give you the opportunity to inflict even more damage?’

‘Why are you behaving like this?’ Katrina demanded tremulously. ‘Who are you? In the souk, you looked European.’

‘You will not say such things. You know nothing about me!’

She could hear the savage rejection and hostility in his voice. ‘I know that you are not a Tuareg,’ she persisted.

‘And you would know, of course,’ he taunted her, his anger replaced by mockery.

‘Yes, I would,’ Katrina confirmed bravely. ‘I have studied Zuranese history and culture and no true Tuareg male would ever uncover his face in public the way you did the other day in the alleyway…’

There was a small telling silence before he said quietly but oh, so menacingly, ‘If I were you, I would forget all about Zuran City and its alleyways.’

Katrina took a deep breath and then exhaled it raggedly. ‘So, are you going to tell me who you are?’

For a few seconds she thought he wasn’t going to reply. And then he gave a small dismissive shrug. ‘Who I am does not matter. But what I am does. Those of us who have given our allegiance to El Khalid have strong reasons for doing so. We live outside the law as you know it and you would do well to remember that.’

‘You’re a criminal?’ she guessed. ‘A fugitive?’

‘You ask too many questions and, I can assure you, you would not want to know who and what I really am.’

It was hard not to allow herself to shiver in reaction to those menacing words, and to demand instead, ‘Well, at least give me a name that I may call you. You cannot really want to be called Tuareg. I would certainly not want to be called English!’

To her astonishment he laughed.

‘Very well, then. You may call me…’ Xander paused. To give her his real name of Allessandro was impossible. It was far too easily recognisable. Here in the rebel camp, where a man’s lawful identity was respected as his own private business, he was known by everyone only as ‘Tuareg’ and had given himself the very common family name of bin Sadeen. But ‘Tuareg’ wasn’t the name he wanted to hear falling from this woman’s lips, although just why he should feel like that he wasn’t prepared to analyse.

‘You may call me Xander,’ he heard himself telling her. Xander was the shortened version of his name used only by those who were closest to him, his half-brother and sister-in-law, and so would not be recognised by anyone else.

‘Xander?’ A small frown etched Katrina’s smooth forehead. ‘That is very unusual. I do not believe I have heard it before.’

‘It was my mother’s choice,’ he told her curtly. ‘And what am I to call you?’

‘My name is Katrina Blake,’ she informed him, hesitating before finding the courage to burst out anxiously, ‘How long will it be before…before I can go back to Zuran City?’

‘I cannot say. El Khalid has given orders that no one is to leave the oasis until he permits it.’

For a moment Katrina was tempted to ask him what had brought them to the oasis, and indeed the question was already on the tip of her tongue, but cautiously she decided not to ask it. ‘Very wise,’ he told her coolly, as though he had guessed what she was thinking.

‘Stay here,’ he ordered her. ‘Do not leave the tent.’

‘Where are you going?’ Katrina demanded wildly as he started to walk away from her.

Turning round, he told her smoothly. ‘To my sleeping quarters to remove my soiled clothes.’

Oh! Katrina felt herself begin to blush.

‘Oh, your cuts,’ she remembered with guilt. ‘Shouldn’t you have them attended to?’

He shrugged carelessly. ‘They are mere scratches, that is all, and will heal quickly enough.’

Katrina suddenly remembered something. ‘Why was it Sulimen who lost the fight when you were the one who was injured?’ she asked him curiously.

‘The aim is not to carve slices from one’s opponent, but to disarm him,’ he told her dispassionately.

As he turned away again she looked towards the exit.

‘There are two hundred miles of empty desert between here and Zuran City.’

The clinically detached words sent a tingle of apprehensive hostility and despair zinging over her skin. The desert was its own kind of prison—a guard designed by nature to prevent her from escaping him, and he of course knew that. Did he also know how afraid she had been when Sulimen had claimed her as his trophy? How relieved she had been when he had stepped in? How complex and disquieting the tangled mass of her own emotions was? Her mouth compressed. She sincerely hoped not! He was already making her feel far more emotionally vulnerable than she knew was wise.

Determinedly she turned round to confront him. ‘You won’t get away with this, you know. Richard will alert the authorities and—’

‘We are in the empty quarter—beyond the reach of both your lover and the authorities,’ he replied chillingly.

‘Richard is my boss, not my lover.’ Katrina’s face burned as she saw the way he was looking at her.

‘So why else would you be at the oasis, together and alone? Though I’m not surprised that you should deny your relationship with him after the way he has abandoned you.’

‘He obviously thought it made good sense for him to go for help rather than for both of us to be taken hostage,’ Katrina returned shortly.

“‘Good sense”? Oh, of course, you are European!’ he taunted her. ‘Here in the desert it is not “good sense”. We are driven by our interactions with your sex, especially when we are bound to a woman, emotionally committed to them. But then, of course, your culture does not consider such things important, does it? I would rather cut out my own heart than abandon the woman who held it to any kind of discomfort or danger.’

Something in his voice was raising goose-bumps on Katrina’s skin and a dangerous burning sensation at the backs of her eyes. The intimate and intense images his words were conjuring for her were intruding on dreams she held so private and secret that just the sound of his voice was enough to bring them to the front of her mind. Hadn’t she always longed for such a man and such a love and hadn’t she told herself that she was hungering for something that did not exist? Hadn’t she strived to make herself put aside such foolishness and to concentrate instead on the realities of life?

Swallowing hard against the ball of emotion blocking her throat, she turned away from him.

‘Go if you wish,’ she heard him say carelessly from behind her. ‘If Sulimen does not take you, then the desert most surely will.’

Katrina made no response. How could she when she knew that he was speaking the truth?

Although she had her back to him, disconcertingly she knew immediately when he had left the living area of the pavilion and gone through to his sleeping quarters.

The rush of adrenalin that had given her the courage to speak so challengingly to him had gone and she felt weak and shaky. The pavilion and its owner were her prison and her guard, but they were also her place of safety and her protection, she acknowledged.

But she must not allow herself to forget just what he was! She could remember reading somewhere of the intense and dangerous emotional dependence a captive could end up having on his or her captor. She must not let that happen to her.

Because he had kissed her? Just because he had used her? Her head had begun to ache and she was beginning to feel slightly sick on the heavy mixture of adrenalin and anxiety unleavened by anything else.

She paced the soft carpet of the pavilion, checking and tensing at every alien sound, but she was still caught off guard when she turned round and saw that Xander had padded soft-footed into the room and was standing watching her.

He was wearing a clean soft white tunic that he was still fastening, his feet and head bare. In the lamplight she could see the golden gleam of his chest through the soft mesh of fine dark hair.

A feeling she couldn’t control exploded deep down inside her body, releasing an ache so shocking and intimate that it made her catch her breath on a betraying indrawn rattle.

His hair was damp and as he walked across the carpet towards her he brought with him the smell of clean skin and the subtle cologne she was already associating with him. Her heart did a neat double somersault inside her body and then just in case she had not got the message, it took a high dive on a trapeze that left her feeling as though it had somehow become lodged in her throat.

He was making her feel uncomfortable and very aware of the difference between his clean, fresh appearance and her own tired stickiness. But even without that he was making her feel uncomfortable, full stop, Katrina acknowledged mutely. She was trying desperately to drag her traitorous gaze away from the dark hand casually fastening the robe buttons and concealing from her the matt satin gold of his bare flesh.

In an attempt to cover what she was feeling she demanded sharply, ‘Just how long do you plan to keep me here?’

He shot her a look of cold arrogance. ‘For as long as I have to!’

She was finding it difficult to swallow. ‘What…what will you do?’ Could he hear the nervousness in her voice?

He gave her a look of narrow-eyed scrutiny and then questioned mockingly, ‘Do?’

‘Yes. I mean—’ She had to stop speaking to swallow again. ‘I mean, how will you let the expedition know that—?’

‘You ask far too many questions! There is a saying, isn’t there, in your country about curiosity?’

‘About curiosity killing the cat, you mean?’ Katrina managed to croak.

‘In your shoes I should concern myself more with questioning how willing your friends are to buy your freedom and at what price than how I intend to go about informing them of your whereabouts.’

Katrina could feel the panic biting into her, but she refused to give in to it. Her parents’ death had forced her into self-reliance at a young age and the habit of depending on herself and facing up to sometimes very unpleasant truths and realities was one she had forced herself to adopt.

And right now there was a very unpleasant question she had to have an answer to. Moistening her over-dry lips, she pressed him huskily, ‘And if my…if the company cannot pay the ransom demand?’

There was a small pause and a flash of something she couldn’t interpret in his eyes before he said softly, ‘Then in that case I shall have to take my goods to a wider market.’ When she looked blankly at him he derided her, ‘Who else will pay handsomely for a young attractive woman?’

Katrina’s eyes widened as she stared at him in appalled anxiety. He couldn’t mean what he was saying. Could he?

Without another word he pulled on his Tuareg headdress, slid his feet into a pair of sandals and, pulling back the heavy curtain, stepped out of the tent.

She was alone! He had gone! She could simply walk out if she wished. But walk out to what? She was pretty sure that a group of men such as these, bound together by their illegal activities, would post guards on their camp. If she tried to leave she would suffer the ignominy of being forcibly brought back, and even if she should succeed in escaping, she knew she could not possibly walk back to Zuran City. No, she had no option other than to wait tamely here, for him and whatever fate he chose to impose on her. And of course he knew that!

Whatever fate?

Supposing he himself should decide that he found her desirable? Her heart thumped heavily against her ribs, and a frisson of sensation that shamingly had nothing whatsoever to do with either fear or outrage stroked feather touches of liquid and dangerous excitement over her.

His dishonesty must obviously pay him well, she decided cynically, at least if the interior of the pavilion and its furnishings were anything to go by.

The carpets covering the floor and ‘walls’ were exquisitely worked and far superior to anything she had seen in the shops she had visited. She touched one of them tentatively, stroking her fingertip along one of the branches and then down the thick trunk of its richly hued tree of life. The silky threads felt as warm as though they were a living, breathing entity. If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine…

Her face was on fire as she snatched her hand back from the carpet as though she had been burned. The carved and gilded raised divan was draped with something dark and soft, jewel-coloured velvet cushions piled on top of it. The flickering oil lamps cast mysterious shadows, which echoed the sensual richness of the fabrics. A discarded lute-like instrument lay on the floor to one side of the divan, and behind them she could see a pile of leather-bound books.

Automatically she went over to them and picked one of them up. Its title was picked out in gold leaf, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam…A book of poetry. It seemed out of character somehow. She put the book back and sat down on one of the cushions. Her head was still aching and she felt both physically and emotionally exhausted. Tiredly she closed her eyes.

Pensively Xander picked his way through the tents towards his own, pausing to check on the mare he had been riding earlier. When she saw him she tossed her head and pushed her nose into his arm, begging for the tidbit he always gave her. The boy whom he paid to keep an eye on her sprang up from where he had been lying several feet away from her and then settled down again as he recognised him.

Katrina’s challenge to him about his European inheritance had rubbed against a raw place in his emotional make-up. His mother had been loved and respected by all of his Zurani family, with the exception of Nazir and Nazir’s late father. And, according to his half-brother, his mother had happily embraced the way of life of her husband. She had loved the desert and its people, as he did himself, but she had not been totally and completely desert blood, bone and sinew, just as he wasn’t himself. His father had chosen to have him educated in Europe, wanting him to experience his European cultural inheritance, and to keep the promise he had made to his dying wife, but Xander had never forgotten overhearing a conversation between his father and the British government official who had undertaken to escort him to his new school in England.