Was he cruel, too? The others were clearly in awe of him. No, thought Leo watching the way they bowed to him, not in awe. Make that terrified. She felt her mouth dry with a reflection of their terror.
He was unaware of her. He said something to the bowing reception committee. His voice was harsh. He took a step forward and the robe proved to be a loose coat, the open front heavy with gold embroidery. It flashed in the sun. Under it he wore some dark shirt with a huge plaited leather belt worked in gold stretching from waist to slim hips. And he had a huge dagger, its blade a wicked upcurve. The sheath looked like pure gold and its haft was set with jewels. It was magnificent and utterly barbarian.
Even though she could not see his face, Leo saw that this was a leader. She felt a flash of terror, pure and primitive. She must have made some sound. The man turned his fierce attention to the far side of the tent where she was standing.
He strode forward. She caught a glimpse of high boots. And the gold flashed dazzlingly. She was terrified. She shut her eyes.
The man took hold of her chin. ‘Are you all right?’ he said in clipped, furious English.
Disbelieving, Leo looked up. It was Amer. But not Amer as she had ever seen him before. There was no laughter in the grey eyes that swept over her and barely any recognition. Amer was a brisk stranger on important business. His whole manner said that she was a major nuisance.
Inwardly she cringed. Aloud she said sharply, ‘I’m fine. No thanks to—’
‘Stop right there,’ he said softly. He sounded so angry he could barely speak. ‘I’ll handle this. Keep your mouth shut.’
Leo fumed. But all her survival instincts told her to comply. So she folded her lips together and glared.
Amer turned back to their hosts.
‘I am grateful to you for finding her,’ he said formally. She could understand his Arabic more easily. ‘The lady is a treasured guest and new to our country.’
He was not just formal, Leo thought. He was glacial. The other men shuffled uncomfortably. It was clear, even to Leo, that for the time being Sheikh Amer was willing to pretend that the girl had just stumbled into their camp. But if they did not hand her over he was quite prepared to take her by whatever means were necessary. The unspoken threat of force hung heavy in the air.
Leo was not proud of herself for the feeling. But she was glad of the strong body between her and the rest of the tent’s occupants.
‘One wonders how such an honoured guest managed to get lost in the desert,’ said one of the younger men defiantly.
He attracted fulminating looks from his companions. Amer contented himself with inspecting the man in nerve-racking silence for a full minute.
‘One does indeed,’ he said softly.
His tone made even Leo’s blood run cold.
There was a general hubbub of disclaimers. The man looked mutinous but others, older and more cautious, were delivering a confused and contradictory account of how she arrived at the camp. It was not clear whether they expected to be believed. Amer made little pretence at believing them, in any event.
Above the hum his voice could be heard announcing, ‘As my future wife she is doubly precious.’
It sounded, thought Leo writhing, more like a declaration of war than love. Of course, he did not realise that she could understand him. She folded her lips together and promised herself that he would never know. Once they were out of this she would never refer to it again. Never.
But it had its desired effect. They did not exactly congratulate him. But they surrendered her into his custody with every evidence of relief. After more ceremonial coffee drinking and expressions of eternal fidelity on both sides, they were escorted to a massive four-wheel drive vehicle.
‘Not a camel?’ said Leo mockingly. ‘It would go better with the outfit.’
It was the first time she had spoken. Amer turned a look on her which, if they had detected it, would have caused their hosts to doubt that she was so precious in their Sheikh’s eyes. A muscle worked at his jaw. He looked as if he could cheerfully have murdered her.
‘Not a word,’ he said between his teeth. ‘Not one more word. Or you’ll wish you had never been born.’
‘What makes you think I don’t already?’ muttered Leo.
But he had turned away and was making their farewells.
He drove off, his face set. He handled the big land cruiser with an easy mastery which Leo somehow would not have expected. For so much of their acquaintance they had been driven by chauffeurs, she thought. This coolly competent driving in difficult terrain reminded her—if she needed to be reminded—how little she really knew Amer.
She said in a small voice, ‘Where are we going?’
‘My camp,’ he said briefly.
He looked at a dial mounted in the dash. With a slight shock, Leo realised it was a compass, not a decorative addition to an expensive car but a real float mounted compass. She swallowed.
‘Is the desert very dangerous?’
‘If you don’t know it. Or if you are careless.’ He sent her an ironic look. ‘Why? Were you thinking of setting out across the desert in your high heels if I didn’t come to rescue you?’
Leo thought: I am going to cry. All that time in captivity and I didn’t shed a tear and now, when I’m safe, I could bawl like a baby. It was because he was so angry with her, of course. And because, in part, he had cause.
And because he would not be that angry if he loved her.
She swallowed something jagged in her throat and said, ‘I never thought you would come to rescue me.’
‘Oh? You thought I would leave you to Saeed’s mercy?’ He sounded furious.
This was horrible. Floundering Leo said, ‘I mean I never thought you would come yourself. I knew you would not just abandon me, of course. But…’
‘You thought I would send someone else to do my dirty work,’ he interpreted.
Not just furious. Savage.
Leo said nastily, so that she would not cry, ‘Well you set detectives after me.’
He slammed on the brakes so hard that the big vehicle skidded. Leo cried out as she was flung violently against him. Amer turned and dragged her across the control dock into his arms.
The kiss was savage.
This was not the laughing stranger who had wooed her under the Nile stars. Nor the sophisticate who had driven her to such unexpected passion in London. No unhurried lovemaking now. No drifting of teasing hands. This was a man way past laughter or sophistication. A man driven to the very limit of his endurance.
Leo thought: He’ll never forgive me.
And then she stopped thinking altogether as desire engulfed her.
Amer twisted, slamming her body into the upholstery. Leo arched to meet him, her mouth hungry. Her jaw ached with the force of his kiss. She did to care. She heard cloth rip and did not know if it was his clothing or hers. She did not care about that, either. His fingers found her breast and she cried out in a sort of agony.
Amer gave a groan. She felt his breath in her ravaged mouth. He was too frenzied to be gentle. So was Leo. As fierce as he, she writhed against him. She needed to be closer, closer…
And he drew away. Unbelievably he drew away. Leo moaned in protest.
‘No,’ he bit out.
Her hands scrabbled for him. He caught them and held them strongly, holding her away from him.
‘No,’ he said again.
Leo was panting. She breathed in the smell of him, as familiar to her now as her own.
‘You can’t stop now,’ she said in a ragged whisper. ‘Please.’
He looked at her as if he loathed her.
‘I can.’ It sounded like a curse. ‘I will.’
His ribs rose and fell hugely, like a ship’s pump. He held himself utterly still. But Leo could see the fine tremor in his hands and knew Amer was a lot closer to losing control than he wanted to be.
She thought: I want him to lose control. It shocked her into immobility.
She felt
dazed. It was as if she had fallen into a volcano. All right, she was out now. But she did not quite know how. Or what had been changed in the fire. Just now, it felt like everything.
Shaken, she started to wrestle with the tangle he had made of her clothes.
Staring straight ahead at the desert beyond the windscreen, Amer said, ‘I’m not going to apologise.’ His lips barely moved.
Leo did not answer. A button was missing from her trousers and her bra was beyond repair. Leo pulled it off and stuffed the rags into her pocket.
Amer shifted.
‘That has been building up for a long time.’
Leo still said nothing. But she felt the quick look he sent her like a brand on her skin.
‘For you as well as me.’
Leo flinched. He swung round on her.
‘All right. I wish it hadn’t happened like that,’ he said in a goaded voice. ‘But it was only a kiss after all. We could have—’
Then he saw her face. He drew a sharp breath. Halted.
‘Damn,’ he said with concentrated fury.
It was like a physical blow. Leo was remotely surprised that it was possible to feel so much pain and go on breathing.
He must not see the pain, she thought. He must not.
‘I won’t tell if you won’t,’ she said, quite as if she didn’t care.
Evidently Amer was not taken in by her cynical tone. He sighed.
‘You will see things more clearly in time.’
As if, thought Leo furiously, she was a child and he was a sage who was never, ever, wrong.
‘No doubt I will. When I’m back home in London,’ she retorted. And added challengingly, ‘Once I’ve had time to put all this behind me.’
His mouth tightened. But he did not answer her. Instead he put on his sunglasses, switched on the engine and put the land cruiser in gear. As if he could not be bothered to waste time arguing with her, Leo thought. She could have screamed with frustration.
All right, she thought. If he would not speak, she would not, either. She folded her arms across her chest and stared out of her window, pointedly ignoring him.
Amer took no notice. His attention was divided between the compass and the track which unwound before them. It appeared and disappeared under drifts of dust. To their right pale dunes undulated across the horizon like lazy animals on the point of lying down to snooze. To their left, the plain of stony sand stretched away until it fell off the edge of the world in a golden dust cloud. In spite of the air-conditioning in the vehicle, Leo could almost taste the heat outside.
The road, such as it was, petered out. Amer coasted gently to a stop.
‘I’ll need to let some air out of the tyres.’
He swung out of the vehicle. The desert air blasted in as if he had opened the door to a furnace. Leo gasped under the impact.
Amer looked back.
‘There’s a bottle of water in the dash,’ he said, remote but kind. ‘Drink. It will take some time to get to my camp.’
It did. It was not a great journey. In spite of the land cruiser’s mighty springs, Leo thought she would be sick with the uneven motion. And, although the air conditioning worked well, the hazy glare beyond the windscreen made Leo feel as if she were being grilled by aliens.
Amer was unmoved. He drove with easy competence, his body rolling with the vehicle while Leo bumped miserably from side to side.
Leo forgot that she was not speaking to him. The vastness of the desert was intimidating. It made her feel like an ant on some giant’s beach.
‘It’s so huge,’ she whispered. ‘And all the same. Without that compass we could be going round in circles, wouldn’t we?’
Amer smiled. ‘No. This is my desert. Compass or no compass, I could get you out if I had to.’
Leo shivered. But, oddly, she found she believed him. I would trust him with my life, she thought. It was a revelation.
I am in love.
It was not a welcome revelation. She stared blankly out the window, trying to think. How long had she been in love with him? Since the evening at his London home? Before that?
And, oh horrors, did Amer know? All right, she had only just realised it. But he was so sophisticated, so infinitely more experienced than she was. Maybe he had picked it up from the first.
Leo felt sick again. And this time it was nothing to do with the motion of the vehicle. She pressed a hand to her mouth to force back a groan.
Amer looked sideways at her. ‘Are you all right?’
She sought desperately for an alibi.
‘Reaction setting in, I expect.’ How could she sound so normal? She impressed herself. And added truthfully, ‘I wasn’t admitting it but I was really scared back there.’
‘You did very well. Many women on their own would have lost their head.’
He sounded like a schoolmaster giving her marks in class, she thought, irritated. It made no difference. She was still in love with him.
‘Thank you,’ she said drily.
‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘I fully expected to arrive to find you screaming the place down.’
She shrugged. ‘What would have been the point? It would just have annoyed them and made things ten times worse.’
He made a small, exasperated noise. ‘Are you always that cool in the face of danger?’
I wasn’t cool in your arms. Leo shivered inwardly at the thought. That had been danger all right. Alone in the desert with him, she realised the truth at last: She had lost her dignity, her common sense and her heart all in one massive attack. She had not seen it coming. But it had happened. Even though she had not realised it until now.
‘Depends on the danger,’ she said with bitter self-mockery.
Amer, she thought, was a greater risk to her peace of mind than anything her embarrassed captors had done. The only thing she could do now was keep quiet and hope that he did not find out. It would be the final humiliation if he discovered how she felt.
So she did not speak again until they got to the camp.
The first thing she saw was a black shadow. It turned out to be an enormous tent. As they got closer she made out other tents and several vehicles. They all cast shadows so deep that it looked as if a cellar had been dug in the sand beside them. Only a thin, windblown tree was not supported by a black reflection on the sand.
There was nobody in sight. It looked desolate. Leo shivered.
‘Is this an oasis?’
Amer drove round the tent and parked in its sheltering shadow.
‘No. It is the site of one of my excavations. We camped here because it is central to the area where we were looking for you.’
Leo looked at the shimmering dust. It was better than looking at Amer. In the course of the drive, his black robe had fallen back. She could see the smooth golden chest where she had ripped his shirt away.
She swallowed hard and spoke entirely at random. ‘Excavation? Here? What did you do? Shift sand from one place to another?’
Amer laughed. ‘You cannot see it because your eyes have not accustomed themselves to the subtlety of the desert yet. But over there are the walls of mud brick houses. In all probability they date back to the iron age.’
Leo peered at the rise of sand. It was as smooth as an egg.
‘I don’t see any walls.’
‘The sand drifts back so quickly,’ said Amer. ‘I assure you they are there. I will show you later.’
He got out of the land cruiser and came round to help her down. The moment Leo put her hand in his, she felt that incredible tingle, as if his very touch woke the sleeping tiger at her body’s core.
She snatched her hand away.
‘I can manage, thank you.’
His mouth tightened.
‘As you wish.’
The heavy gold ornamentation on the front of his robe glinted so blindingly you could almost overlook the fact that it gaped at the shoulder where a seam had parted in their frenzy. The naked chest was golden as the sun and so close, so clo
se.
Leo’s unbidden thoughts made her head swim. Hurriedly she looked round at the other vehicles. It was only then that she took in the size of the encampment.
‘Where is everyone else?’
‘Inside in the cool.’
She said curiously, ‘Do you always bring such a retinue when you come into the desert?’
She had not meant it to but it sounded faintly scornful. Amer raised his eyebrows.
‘You think I should have set out after you alone? Would that have made me more heroic in your eyes?’
Leo flinched from his sarcasm.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said brusquely. ‘I was just wondering if royalty is required to travel in convoy. To make sure everyone knows how important you are.’
He turned his head and looked at her for a long silent moment. The sun glinted off his sunglasses, masking his expression. For some reason, Leo found her chin coming up in defiance of that silent inspection, though.
‘It is not wise to go alone,’ Amer said at last levelly. ‘It is nothing to do with being royal. We carry short wave radio and extra fuel and water. And we look out for each other.’ He paused. ‘Not something you high-powered business executives know much about, I think.’
It stung. As it was meant to.
Leo turned away. The heat lay on her skin like a blanket. She made for the cool of the tent without another word.
‘Leonora—’
But she pretended not to hear. She did not think she could take much more without flinging herself into his arms and begging him to love her. She shuddered at the thought and kept on walking.
He caught up with her. ‘I think you may prefer to go to the tent that has been prepared for you.’
She whirled, glaring. ‘Is a woman not allowed to sit with the men, then?’
For a moment he looked utterly taken aback. Then he started to laugh.
‘Not at all. You would be very welcome, of course. But I thought you might prefer…’
He made a graceful gesture. Leo looked down at herself. She had forgotten that her garments had suffered, too, in their mutual frenzy. Now she saw her naked breasts gleaming palely under a shirt that seemed to have lost all its buttons. She gasped and clutched the edges of material across herself.
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