Innocent in the Sheikh's Harem (2 page)

It fluttered to the ground, where four semi-naked children contested for the honour of retrieving it and handing it back. Laughing at their antics, Celia thanked them all solemnly in turn. By the time she looked up George was disappearing into the crowd, following the trail of their baggage, which was being carried on the heads of the crew of the dhow, ushered on its way by a man dressed in flowing black robes.

Struggling through the small forest of children’s hands clutching at her dress, her gloved hands, her long veil, Celia made slow progress. The colours dazzled her. In the relentlessly glaring light of the sun, everything seemed brighter, more starkly outlined. Then there were the smells. Sweet perfumes and incense, spices that tickled her nose, the dusty dryness of the heat, the strong musty smell of the camels and donkeys all combined to emphasise the incredible foreignness of the place, the far-awayness, the overwhelmingly exotic feel of it.

Except, she realised, stopping amid her small entourage of children to try and locate the train of her luggage with her husband in its wake, it was really she who was the foreigner here. She could no longer see George.
Had he forgotten all about her?
Panic and a spurt of temper made Celia instinctively push back her veil in order to obtain a better view.

A startled hiss came from the people in her immediate vicinity. The children all turned their heads away, covering their eyes. Fumbling for her veil with shaky fingers, she managed to catch the gauzy material in a hat pin and grew flustered.
Where was George?

Anxious now for a glimpse of her husband, she cast a frantic look around the crowds. The docks were set into the shade of a low outcrop, and many of the storehouses and animal pens were built into the rock itself. Celia’s eyes were drawn to the top of the hill, where a lone figure sat astride a magnificent white horse. A man dressed in traditional robes, and if anything even more magnificent than the beast which bore him.

Outlined against the blazing blue of the azure sky, dazzling in his white robes, he looked like a deity surveying his subjects from the heavens. There was something about him—an aura of authority, a touch-me-not glaze—which dazzled and at the same time made her want to reach out, just to see if he was real. He both compelled and intimidated, like the golden images of the pharaohs she had seen in Cairo. And, like the slaves in the murals she had seen on the walls of the temple the day she had finally persuaded George into taking a sightseeing trip, Celia had an absurd desire to throw herself to her knees at this stranger’s feet. He seemed to command adoration.

Where on earth had that come from?
Celia gave herself a little mental shake. He was just a man. An extremely striking man, but a mere mortal all the same.

He was dressed entirely in white, save for the gold which edged his
bisht
, the lightweight cloak he wore over the long, loose tunic which all the men here favoured. There was gold too, in the
igal
which held his headdress in place. The pure white of his
ghutra
fluttered like a summons in the light breeze. It fell in soft folds, and must be made of silk rather than cotton, she noted abstractedly. Underneath it, the man’s face showed in stark relief. His skin seemed to gleam, as if the sun had burnished it. It was a strong face, the clean lines of his cheeks, his nose, his jaw, contrasting sharply with the soft, sensual curve of his mouth.

His eyes were heavy-lidded—a little like hers. She could not see their colour, but Celia was suddenly acutely aware that his piercing gaze was trained directly on her. She was not properly veiled. He should not be looking at her thus. Yet he showed no sign of looking away. Heat began to seep through her, starting from somewhere in her stomach.
It was the hot sun!
It must be, for it was most unlike her to feel so unsettled.

‘My lady?’ Celia turned to find the man who had taken charge of their bags standing before her, his hands pressed respectfully together as if he was praying.

Reminded by his averted eyes to pull her veil back into place, Celia dragged her gaze away from the god on the hilltop and returned the gesture with a slight bow.

‘I am Bakri. I have been sent by my master, His Highness the Prince of A’Qadiz, to escort you to his palace. I must apologise. We were not expecting a woman.’

‘My husband does not travel well. He needs me to take care of him.’

Bakri raised a brow, but swallowed whatever words he was about to say. ‘You must come,’ he said instead. ‘We must leave soon—before night falls.’

Sheikh Ramiz al-Muhana, Prince of A’Qadiz, watched her go, a frown drawing his dark brows together. The man with the weak face could only be the English diplomat, but what in the name of the gods did he think he was doing, bringing a woman companion? His wife? His mistress? Surely he would not dare?

Ramiz watched as the woman followed Bakri to where the Englishman waited impatiently by the camels and mules which would form their small caravan. She was tall and willowy. In the East, where curves were seen as the apex of womanly beauty, she would be deemed unattractive, but Ramiz, who had spent much of his adult life in the great cities of the West, completing his education and later acting as his father’s emissary, was not so biased. She moved with the grace of a dancer. In her pale green dress, with her veil covering her face, she made him think of Guinevere, the queen from Arthurian legend. Regal, ethereal, temptingly untouchable. Definitely not a mistress, he decided, yet she had not the demeanour of a wife either.

Ramiz watched in disgust as her husband chastised her. The Englishman was a fool—the type of man who blamed everyone but himself for his faults. He should not have let her out of his sight. The woman was not responding, but Ramiz could see the tension in her from the way she stood a little straighter. Her cool exterior was belied by that flame of hair which he had glimpsed when she had thrown back her veil. She would be magnificent when angry. Or roused. Despite her married state, Ramiz was certain her passions slumbered still. He wondered what it would take to awaken them.

Her husband was not just a fool, but obviously inept. It was one of the things which Ramiz found incomprehensible—this reticence the English had regarding the arts of love. No wonder so many of their women looked uptight. Like buds frozen into permanent furls by frost, or simply withered through lack of the sun, he thought, as he watched the Englishman struggle to mount one of the camels. The woman was organising the loading of their baggage onto the mules. She made short work of seating herself on the high platform which formed the camel’s saddle, arranging her full skirts with elegant modesty, for all the world as if she rode one every day. Unlike her husband, who was clutching nervously at the pommel, making the animal dance playfully, the woman sat with her back straight, holding the reins at precisely the correct angle, swaying in tune to the undulating movement of the beast.

Ramiz cursed under his breath.
What did he think he was doing, looking upon another man’s woman in such a way?
Even if the man appeared to be an incompetent fool, honour forbade it. The Englishman was his guest, after all, and here at his invitation.

Ramiz was under no illusions. The English, like the French, were waiting in Cairo like vultures, ready to prey upon any sign of weakness as the Sultan of the once-great Ottoman empire struggled to retain his control over the trade routes. Already the ruthless Mehmet Ali had taken Egypt. A’Qadiz, with its port on the Red Sea, could prove a valuable link to the riches of India. Ramiz was in no doubt about the benefits to his country that playing such a role might bring, but nor was he blind to the disadvantages. Westerners were desperate to plunder the artefacts of the old world, and A’Qadiz was a treasure trove of antiquities. Ramiz had no intention of allowing them to be hauled off and displayed in private museums by greedy aristocrats with no understanding of their provenance or their cultural value, any more than he intended handing control of his country over to some conquering imperialist. As Prince al-Muhana he could trace his lineage back far beyond anything English or French dukes and lords could dream of.

Examine what is said, not he who speaks.
His father’s words, and wise as ever. The Englishman deserved a fair hearing. Ramiz smiled to himself as he turned his horse away from the harbour. Three days it took to travel across the desert to his palace in the ancient capital city of Balyrma. Three days—in which time he could observe, study and plan.

Six camels and four mules formed their caravan as they wound their way up the hill from the port of A’Qadiz into the desert, for Prince Ramiz had assigned them three guards in addition to Bakri, their guide. The guards were surly men, armed with alarming curved swords at their waists and long slim daggers strapped to their chests, who eyed Celia with something akin to disgust and muttered darkly amongst themselves. Their presence was alarming, rather than reassuring to her. George, too, seemed uncomfortable with them, and stuck close to Bakri at the head of the train.

This part of the desert was much rougher underfoot than Celia had anticipated—not really sand at all, more like hard dried mud covered with rock and dust—and it wasn’t flat either. After the first steep climb from the sea, the land continued to rise. In the distance she could see mountains, sharp and craggy, ochre against the startling blue of the sky, which was deepening to a velvety hue as the sun sank. The sense of space, of the desert unfolding for miles, beyond anything she could ever have imagined, was slightly intimidating. Compared to such vastness, she could not but be aware of her own insignificance. She was awestruck, and for a moment completely overwhelmed by the journey they had travelled and the task ahead of them in this land as shrouded in mystery as the people were shrouded in their robes.

However, as the caravan made its way east over the desert plain and she became more accustomed to the terrain as well as to the undulating movement of the camel, Celia’s mood slowly lifted. She amused herself by picturing Cassie’s face when she read of her account of her ride on the ship of the desert, and revived her flagging optimism by reminding herself of the very high esteem in which George, as a diplomat, was held. This mission would be a success, and when it was, George would stop fretting about his career and turn his mind to making an equal success of his marriage. She was sure of it!

They came to a halt in the shelter of an escarpment, the terracotta-coloured stone glittering with agates, as if it were chipped with diamonds. Above them, the sky was littered with a carpet of stars, not star-shaped at all, but huge round bursts of light. ‘You feel as if you could just reach out and touch them,’ Celia said to George, as they watched the men put up the tent.

‘I’d like to reach out and touch my four-poster just at the minute,’ George said sarcastically. ‘Doesn’t look like very luxurious accommodation, does it?’

In truth, the tent did look more like a lean-to, for it had only three sides, with a curtain placed down the middle to form two rooms. The walls were woven from some sort of wool, Celia thought, feeling the rough texture between her fingers. ‘It must be goat’s hair, for I don’t think they have many sheep here. I’m pretty sure that was goat we had for dinner, too,’ she said. ‘You should have tried some, George, it was delicious.’

‘Barbaric manners—eating with their hands like that. I was surprised at you.’

‘It is their custom,’ she replied patiently. ‘You’re supposed to use the bread like a spoon. I simply copied what they did, as
you
must do if you are not to starve. Now, where shall I put this carpet for you?’

‘I’ll never sleep like this, with the guards snoring their heads off next door,’ George grumbled, but he allowed Celia to clear the rocks from a space large enough to accommodate him and very soon, despite his protestations, he was soundly asleep.

Celia sat outside the tent, looking up at the stars for a long time. She was not in the least sleepy. Such a vast space this desert was. Such beauty even in its apparent barrenness. When it rained, Bakri said, it was a carpet of colour. She thought of all the little seeds sleeping just below the surface, ready to burst into life.
Promise is a cloud; fulfilment is rain,
Bakri had said.

She was obviously expected to share the same room as George, but she couldn’t bear the idea of their first night together to be
this
night, even if her husband was fully dressed and already sleeping. Celia took her carpet and found herself a quiet spot a short distance away, tucked up behind a large boulder. ‘Promise is a cloud; fulfilment is rain,’ she murmured to herself. Perhaps that was how she should think of her marriage. Not barren, just waiting for the rain. She fell asleep wondering what form such a rain would take if it were to be powerful enough to fix what she was beginning to think might be unfixable.

Above her, still and silent, Ramiz watched for a long time over the dark shape of the sleeping Englishwoman who could not bring herself to stay in the tent beside her husband. Then, as the cold of the true night began to descend, he made his way back to his own small camp some short distance away, wrapped himself in his carpet, and settled down to sleep next to his camel.

Chapter Two

T
hey came just before dawn. Celia was awoken by the sound of camel hooves. She sat up, cramped from her sleeping position, and peered out over the rock at the cloud of dust moving frighteningly fast towards the tent. A glint of wicked steel drew her attention. Who ever these men were, they were not friends.

There was still time. A few moments, no more, but enough. She must warn the guard. She must save George. It did not occur to Celia that it should be the other way round. She scrambled to her feet, and had taken one step from behind the rock when a large hand covered her mouth and a strong arm circled her waist. She struggled, but the hold on her tightened.

‘Keep still and don’t scream.’

His voice was low, but the note of command in it was perfectly apparent. Celia obeyed unhesitatingly, too frightened even to register that he spoke English.

The hand was removed from her mouth. She was twisted around to face him, though still held tight in his embrace. ‘You!’ she exclaimed in astonishment, for it was the man she had seen yesterday on the hill.

‘Get back behind the rock. Don’t move. No matter what happens, do not come out until I tell you. Do you understand?’

‘But my husband…’

‘What they will do to him is nothing to what you will suffer if they find you. Now, do as I bid you.’

He was already dragging her back towards her sleeping place. Behind her she could hear shouts. ‘Please. Help him—save my husband.’

Ramiz nodded grimly and, wresting a glittering scimitar from its sheath at his waist and a small curved dagger from a silver holder in the same belt, he gave a terrifying cry as he leapt, sure-footed as a lion, over the short distance to the tent, calling out to the three hired guards to come to his aid.

But the guards were nowhere to be seen. Only Bakri stood between the English diplomat, cowering in the far corner of the tent, and his fate. Ramiz cursed furiously and turned his attention to the first of the four men, shouting to Bakri to see if the Englishman had a gun.

Whether he had or not, it was destined never to be used. Ramiz fought viciously, utilising all his skills with the scimitar, slicing it in bold arcs through the air while defending himself with his
khanjar
dagger. It was four to his one. Trapped in the circle of the men, he fought like a dervish, managing a disabling cut in the shoulder to one man before swirling around, his scimitar clanging against that of his enemy with a last-minute defensive move, the strength of which vibrated painfully up his arm.

Two down. Two to go. As Ramiz fought on, sweat and dust obscuring his vision, he became dimly aware of a cry coming from the corner of the tent. Turning towards it, he saw one of his own hired guards raising his dagger over Bakri. ‘Help him! In the name of the gods, help him,’ he cried out to the Englishman.

It all happened so fast after that. The Englishman moved, but instead of attempting to lend his assistance he pushed past Bakri and his attacker, making for the entrance of the tent. Bakri fell, clutching the dagger which had been plunged deep into his heart. Ramiz abandoned his attempts to slay the other two men and lunged forward. The Englishman was running away. Disgust slowed Ramiz’s steps. Even as he reminded himself that the foreign coward was nevertheless his honoured guest, it was too late. One of the invaders raised his scimitar and sliced deep into the Englishman’s belly.

A piercing scream rent the air. The woman abandoned her hiding place and, running full tilt towards them, distracted everyone. They would kill her as they had killed her husband. He realised it was what they had come for, these men of Malik, the ruler of the neighbouring principality, for it could only be he who would have contemplated such a dastardly plot. Fuelled by fury, Ramiz launched himself at the two men. They had already reached the woman, yanking her hair back and pressing a lethal dagger to her throat. A well-aimed kick sent the first one flying, unconscious, his dagger soaring through the air in the opposite direction. The sight of Ramiz, his face taut with rage, his scimitar arching down towards his head, sent the other man prostrate to the ground in the time-old attitude of abasement.

‘Please, Lord. Please, Your Highness, I beg of you to spare me,’ the man muttered, over and over.

Ramiz yanked him up by the hair. ‘You have a message for me from your prince?’

‘Please, do not. I beg of you. I…’

Ramiz twisted his hold, making the man scream. ‘What does Malik have to say?’

‘To invite strangers into our house is to risk disaster.’

Ramiz dropped his hold and turned the man onto his back with the toe of his boot. ‘Tell Malik that I invite who I choose into my house. Tell Malik he will live to regret this day’s work. Now, go—while you still have your life—and take your sleeping friend with you.’

Needing no further encouragement, the man scurried over to his unconscious comrade and roughly bundled him onto a camel, before mounting one himself and galloping off in a cloud of dust.

Ramiz knelt over the body of the fallen diplomat, but there was nothing he could do. As he got slowly to his feet, the Englishwoman staggered towards him. Instinctively Ramiz stood in front of the body, shielding it from her gaze.

‘George?’ Her voice was no more than a whisper.

Ramiz shook his head. ‘It is best you don’t look.’

‘The guards?’

‘Traitors.’

‘And Bakri?’

Ramiz shook his head again. Bakri, who had been his servant since he was a boy, was dead. He swallowed hard.

‘You saved my life. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. But I heard George, you see. My husband. I thought— I thought…’ Celia began to shake. Her knees seemed to be turning to jelly. The ground was moving. ‘I’m a widow,’ she said, a touch of hysteria in her voice. ‘I’m a widow, and I’ve never really been a wife.’ As she began to fall, Ramiz caught her in his arms. The feel of them, securing her to the solid, reassuring bulk of his body, was the last thing Celia remembered.

She was climbing through a tunnel. Slowly up through the thick darkness she went, fighting the urge to curl up and stay where she was, safe, unnoticed. A slit of light lay ahead. She was afraid to reach it. Something horrible waited for her there.

‘George!’ She sat up with a start. ‘George!’ Celia struggled to her feet, clutching her head as the ground rolled and tipped like the deck of a ship in a storm. She was in the tent.
How had she got there?
It didn’t matter. She staggered out into the open air.

The blaze of the sun dazzled her eyes, temporarily blinding her. When her vision cleared, she clutched at the tent rope for support. The blood had dried dark on the ground, and she remembered, in a rush, what had happened. The men arriving in a cloud of dust like something from the Bible. The man from yesterday.
Who was he? And what was he doing here?
Then the fighting. The cries. And George running. Running away. Even though he had a gun. Even though he used to practice shooting at Manson’s every week. He had been running away. He hadn’t even looked for her.

No! She mustn’t think that way. He had just panicked, he would have come back for her.

A clunking sound coming from the back of the tent distracted her. Celia made her way cautiously, already knowing in her heart what she would find. Sure enough, the stranger was there, his gold-edged cloak discarded on a rock. His headdress was tied back from his face, which glistened with sweat from his exertions. He was smoothing sand over a distinctive mound of desert earth. He must have found a shovel with the supplies their traitorous guards had left when they’d fled.

He was facing away from her. The thin white of his tunic clung to his back with sweat, outlining the breadth of his shoulders. He looked strong. A capable man. Capable of saving her life. A man who knew how to take care of things. Who didn’t run away.
Stop!

He put down the shovel and wiped the sweat from his brow. She must have moved, or made a noise, or maybe he just sensed her, for he turned around. ‘You should stay in the tent, out of the sun.’

He spoke English with an accent, his voice curling round the words like a husky caress. His eyes were a strange colour, like bronze tinged with gold, the irises dark. He walked with a fluid grace. Celia could not imagine that such a man was regularly employed in manual labour. It struck her then that she was quite alone with him, and she shivered.
Fear?
Yes, but not as much as there should be. She was too shocked, too numb to feel anything much at the moment.

He stopped just in front of her, was watching her with concern. She didn’t like the way he looked at her. It made her feel weak. She didn’t like feeling weak. She was normally the one who took care of things. Celia straightened her back, tilting her head up to meet the stranger’s eyes, forgetting all about protocol and hats and veils.

‘Who are you?’ Her voice came out with only the tiniest of wobbles.

‘Sheikh Ramiz al-Muhana,’ he said, bowing before her with a hint of a smile, lending a fleeting softness to the hard, rocky planes of his face. It lightened his eyes to amber, as if the sun shone from them. Everything about him gleamed. She remembered thinking yesterday of the ancient pharaohs. He had that air about him. Of command.

‘Sheikh Ramiz…’ Celia repeated stupidly, then realisation dawned. ‘You mean Prince Ramiz of A’Qadiz?’

He nodded.

‘We were on our way to visit you in Balyrma. George is—was…’ She drew a shaky breath, determined not to lose control. ‘I don’t understand. What are you doing here? What happened this morning? Who were those men? Why did they attack us?’

Her voice rose with each question. Her face was pale. Her eyes, with their heavy lids which gave her that sensual, sleepy look, were dark with a fear she was determined not to show. She had courage, this Englishwoman, unlike her coward of a husband. ‘Later. First you must say your farewells, then we will leave this place.’

‘Farewells?’

Her lip was beginning to tremble, but she clenched it firmly between her teeth. Big eyes—the green of moss or unpolished jade, he thought—turned pleadingly towards him. Ramiz took Celia’s arm and gently led her towards the graves.

Two graves, Celia noticed. And another two at a distance. Prince Ramiz had obviously laboured long and hard as she lay unconscious. Such labour had spared her much. She could not but be grateful.

They stood together, she and the Prince of A’Qadiz, in silent contemplation. Sadness welled up inside Celia. Poor George. A tear splashed down her cheek, then another. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

They should never have married. George hadn’t really wanted a wife, and she—she’d wanted more from her husband than he’d been prepared to give. It was as well he had not, for were she standing here a real wife, with three months of real marriage behind her, the pain would be unendurable.

Overcome with remorse, Celia clenched her eyes tight shut and prayed hard for the husband she knew now she could never have loved, no matter how hard she’d tried. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered again.

‘He is at peace now. He walks with his god.’ Ramiz broke the silence. ‘As does Bakri, who was my servant, and my brother’s, and my father’s before that.’

Celia roused herself from the stupor which threatened to envelop her. ‘I’m sorry—I didn’t realise. It must be a great blow for you to lose him.’

‘He died an honourable death.’ Ramiz closed his eyes and spoke a prayer in his native language. His voice was low, and the strange words had a simple beauty in their cadence that soothed. ‘Now, go back to the tent. I will finish here.’

An honourable death.
The unspoken criticism hung like a weight from Celia’s heart as she made her way slowly back to the tent. Though common sense told her she could not have saved George, that to have disobeyed Ramiz when he’d told her to hide would almost certainly have resulted in her own death, it did not prevent her from being racked with guilt for having survived.

George was dead. She was a widow. George was dead—and in such a horrible way that it was as if she had dreamt it, or imagined it as a tale from
One Thousand and One Nights
. If only it had been. If only she could wake up.

But she could not. All she could do was behave with what dignity she could muster. With the dignity her father and Aunt Sophia would expect of her. With the dignity which others would expect of George’s wife, a representative of His Majesty’s government, she re minded herself strictly.

Thus, when Ramiz joined her half an hour later, though she longed to sink onto the carpeted floor, to curl up under the comfort of a blanket and cry, Celia forced herself to her feet. ‘I must beg your pardon, Your Highness, if I have offended you by appearing rude,’ she said, turning towards Ramiz, remembering belatedly to avert her eyes from his face. ‘I must thank you for saving my life, and for the trouble you took with—with my husband.’ She swept him a deep curtsy. ‘I realise I haven’t even introduced myself. I am Lady Celia Cleveden.’

‘I think we are long past the need for such formalities,’ Ramiz replied. ‘Come, we must leave this place if we are to find another shelter before dark. I don’t want to risk spending the night here.’

‘But what about—? We can’t just…’

‘There is nothing more we can do. I have already formed the animals into a caravan,’ Ramiz said impatiently.

She had not the will to argue. Questions tussled for prominence in her mind, but she had not the strength to form them. And she had absolutely no desire at all to remain here, in the presence of the dead, at the scene of such horror, so she followed the Prince obediently to where her camel was tethered, and when it dropped to its knees at Ramiz’s barked command Celia climbed wearily onto the high wooden platform which served as a saddle. Vaguely she noticed that the beast Prince Ramiz mounted was as white as his horse yesterday had been. That its saddle cloth was silk, intricately embroidered with gold, and that the tack was similarly intricately tasselled and trimmed with threads of gold.