Innocent in the Sheikh's Harem

by Marguerite Kaye

  “You will stay in the palace, as my guest.” Ramiz turned toward her. In the firelight, his eyes seemed to glow like amber.

  “Do you mean I am to stay in a harem?” Celia’s eyes widened in shock. Images from A Thousand and One Nights, of scantily-clad concubines oiling themselves and lolling about on velvet cushions sprang to her mind. “Your highness, Ramiz, I am flattered that you should consider adding me to your collection of wives, but…”

  “My wife! You overestimate your value. A Western woman, even a titled one, could not aspire to such an exalted position. At best perhaps, she could serve as a concubine.”

  Celia gave an outraged gasp. “You expect me to be your concubine! I absolutely will not! How dare you! How dare you suggest such an outrageous, indecent…”

  He moved so suddenly she had no chance of escape. He seemed to uncoil, to pounce, so that one minute she was sitting next to him, the next she was being dragged helplessly to her feet, held in arms so strong it would be pointless to struggle. Tall as she was, Ramiz topped her by several inches. She was pressed against him, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. His breath was on her face. She could smell him, warm and overpoweringly male. She had never been held thus. She had never been so close to a man.

  Innocent in the Sheikh’s Harem

  Harlequin® Historical #1049—July 2011

  Author Note

  The Arabian world of the early nineteenth century is (if you’ll pardon the pun) very much virgin territory. As for tents, my experience is confined to nights spent under canvas accompanied by those twin stalwarts of the Scottish summer, rain and midges. Not the most romantic and glamorous of backdrops, however breathtaking the scenery.

  Then my lovely editor pointed me in the direction of the intrepid Lady Hester Stanhope, and I was instantly captivated by the exotic, intoxicating and above all utterly “other” world in which she had traveled. It made me wonder, what would it be like for a classic English rose to be stranded in such a place, completely overwhelmed by the alien customs and culture, and wholly in the power of the autocratic ruler of the kingdom in which she found herself. Which is exactly the fate that befalls my heroine, Lady Celia, who finds herself in the behind-closed-doors sensual world of the harem, in thrall to an imperious, powerful sheikh who is so revered as to be thought flawless. Could she possibly be the one to capture the heart of this moody and magnificent prince?

  I hope you enjoy immersing yourself in the intensely sensual world I have conjured as much as I have enjoyed creating it.

  Innocent in the Sheikh’s Harem

  MARGUERITE KAYE

  Look for the next sensual and dramatic story in

  Marguerite Kaye’s miniseries

  Princes of the Desert

  THE GOVERNESS AND THE SHEIKH

  Available August 2011

  Available from Harlequin® Historical and

  MARGUERITE KAYE

  Delectably Undone! #1036

  “The Captain’s Wicked Wager”

  *Innocent in the Sheikh’s Harem #1049

  and in Harlequin Historical Undone! ebooks

  The Captain’s Wicked Wager

  The Highlander and the Sea Siren

  Bitten by Desire

  Temptation is the Night

  **Claimed by the Wolf Prince

  **Bound to the Wolf Prince

  The Highlander and the Wolf Princess

  For Joan (Johanna), who taught me to read,

  inspired me to read lots, and who was there that day

  on the beach in Cyprus when Kit and Clarissa

  first popped into my head. Thank you, and love.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Historical Note

  Chapter One

  Summer, 1818

  ‘Oh, George, do come and see!’ In her excitement, Lady Celia Cleveden leaned precariously over the side of the dhow in which they had just completed the last leg of their journey down the northern part of the Red Sea. The crew lowered the lateen sail which towered high above their heads and steered the little craft skilfully through the mass of other dhows, feluccas and caiques, all jostling for space in the busy harbour. Celia clung to the low wooden side of the boat with one gloved hand, the other holding her hat firmly in place, watching with wide-eyed wonder as they approached the shore.

  She was dressed with her usual elegance in a gown of pale green sprigged muslin, one of several which she had had made especially for the trip, with long sleeves and a high neckline which in London would have been quite out of place but which here, in the East, she had been reliably informed, was absolutely essential. A straw hat with a long veil, also essential, covered her distinctive copper hair, but her tall, slender figure and youthful creamy complexion still attracted much attention from the fishermen, boatmen and passengers of the other craft currently vying for space in the busy port.

  ‘George, come and see,’ Celia called over her shoulder to the man sheltering under the scant cover provided by a tattered tented roof over the stern. ‘There’s a donkey on that boat with a positively outraged expression. He looks exactly like my uncle when a parliamentary vote has gone against him in the House,’ she said with amusement.

  George Cleveden, her husband of some three months, made no move to join her, and clearly was in no mood to be amused. He too was dressed with his usual elegance, in a cutaway coat of dark blue superfine teamed with a striped waistcoat from which a selection of elegant fobs dangled, and buckskin breeches worn with top boots. Sadly, though his outfit would indeed have been perfect for a coach journey from his mother’s house in Bath to his own lodgings in London, or even for the ride from his London lodgings to his small country estate in Richmond, it was very far from ideal for a trip down the Red Sea in the blazing heat of summer. The starched points of his neck cloth had wilted many hours ago. His head ached from the heat of the sun, and there was a very distinctive rim of sweat marking the band of his beaver hat.

  George eyed his young bride, looking confoundedly cool as a cucumber, with something akin to resentment. ‘Blast this infernal heat! Do come away from there, Celia, you’re making a show of yourself. Remember you are a British diplomat’s wife.’

  As if she needed reminding! Celia, however, continued to marvel at the spectacle unfolding before her eyes, choosing to ignore her husband. It was something at which she had become surprisingly adept during the short period of their marriage. The wedding had taken place on the very day upon which they had set out for the long journey to Cairo, and George’s new dip lomatic posting. George, the collected, organised undersecretary who worked for Celia’s father, Lord Armstrong, at the Foreign Office, had proved to be a rather less than intrepid traveller. This left Celia, who was no more experienced than he when it came to traversing the globe, to manage as best she could the challenging task of getting them—along with their mountain of baggage—from London to Egypt via Gibraltar, Malta, Athens, and an unplanned stop in Rhodes, when their scheduled ship had failed to arrive, and much of their luggage had disappeared. For this, and for a plethora of other minor mishaps which were the result of Celia’s naïve but plucky determination to get them in one piece to their destination, George blamed his wife. Damp sheets or no sheets at all, poor wine and much poorer food, insect bites and insect stings, nausea-inducing pitching seas and seas that were
becalmed—George had borne none of these with the equanimity Celia had so much ad mired in the man she had married.

  She put much of it down to the tribulations of travel, and maintained an optimistic outlook which she had intended to be reassuring, but which seemed to have rather a contrary effect. ‘How can you be so damned jaunty?’ George had demanded during one particularly uncomfortable crossing, memorable for its weevil-infested ship’s biscuits and brandy-infested ship’s captain. But what was the point in lying abed and bemoaning one’s fate? Far better to be up on deck, watching hopefully for land and admiring a school of porpoises with comically smiling faces swimming alongside them.

  But George could not be so easily distracted, and eventually Celia had learned to keep her fascination for all things strange and colourful to herself. Foreign climes, or at least Eastern foreign climes, clearly did not agree with George’s constitution. This was rather a pity, since fate had brought them here, to a clime so foreign Celia had never even heard of it and had been forced to ask one of the consuls in Cairo to point it out on a rather large and complicated map kept under lock and key in his office.

  ‘A’Qadiz.’ Celia said the word experimentally under her breath. Impossibly exotic, it conjured up visions of closed courtyards and colourful silks, of spices and perfumes, the heat of the desert and something darker and more exciting she could not put into words. She and her next sister, Cassandra, had read the Arabian tales, One Thousand and One Nights, in French, sharing an edited version with their three younger sisters, for some of the stories hinted at distinctly decadent pleasures. Now here she was in Arabia, and it looked even more fantastic than she had imagined. Watching from the dhow as the dots on the harbour became people and donkeys and horses and camels, as the distant buzz became a babble of voices, Celia wondered how on earth she would be able to convey to Cassie even a tenth part of what it actually felt like.

  If only Cassie were here with her, how much more fun it would be. As quickly as the very unwifely thought flashed through her mind, Celia tried hard to suppress it—an act rather more difficult than it should be, for though she had been married for exactly three months, one week and two days, she did not feel at all like a wife. Or at least not at all as she had expected to feel as a wife.

  The match was of her father’s making, but at four-and-twenty, and the eldest of five motherless girls—two of whom were already of marriageable age—Celia had seen the sense in his proposal. George Cleveden was Lord Armstrong’s protégé. He was well thought of, and great things were expected of him.

  ‘With a hostess like you at his side, he can’t fail,’ Papa had said bracingly when he’d first put forward the idea. ‘You’ve cut your teeth in diplomatic circles as my hostess, and a damned fine fist you’ve made of it. You can hold your own with the best of them, my girl, and let’s face it, Celia, it’s not as if you’ve your sister’s looks. You take after my side rather than your mother’s, I’m afraid. You’re passable enough, but you’ll never be a toast, and it’s not as if you’re getting any younger.’

  Celia bore her father’s casual assassination of her appearance with equanimity. She neither resented nor envied Cassie her beauty, and was content to be known as the clever one of the five Armstrong girls. Elegance, wit and charm were her accomplishments—assets which stood her in excellent stead as her father’s hostess and which would stand George in equally excellent stead as he rose through the diplomatic ranks, as surely he would if only he managed to shine in this posting. Which of course he would—if only he could accustom himself to being away from England.

  George, it seemed, was the type of man who needed the reassurance of the familiar in order to function properly. It had been his idea to postpone the consummation of their vows. ‘Until we are settled in Cairo,’ he had said on their wedding night. ‘There will be enough for us to endure on our journey without having to contend with that as well.’

  Even at the time his words had struck her as somewhat ambiguous. Though lacking a mother’s guidance, Celia was not entirely unprepared for her marital duties. ‘As with so many things in life,’ her stately Aunt Sophia had informed her, ‘it is an act from which the gentleman derives satisfaction and the lady endures the consequences.’ Pressed for practical details, Aunt Sophia had resorted to obscure biblical references, leaving Celia with the vague impression that she was to undergo some sort of stamina test, during which it was vital that she neither move nor complain.

  Slightly relieved, though somewhat surprised, given Aunt Sophia’s certainty that gentlemen were unfailingly eager to indulge in this one-sided game, Celia had agreed to her husband’s proposed abstinence, spending her first night as a married woman alone. However, as the nights passed and George showed no inclination to change his mind, she could not help wondering if she had been wrong—for surely the more one postponed something, the more difficult it became to succeed? And she wanted to succeed as a wife, eventually as a mother too. She liked and admired George. In time she expected to love him, and to be loved in return. But love was built on sharing a life together, and surely sharing a bed must play a part in that? Lying alone in the various bunks, pallets and hammocks which had marked their progress across the globe, Celia had swung between fretting that she should do something about the situation, and convincing herself that George knew best and it would all come right in the end.

  But after a week in Cairo, with George restored almost to his pleasant and agreeable self, he had still shown no interest in joining his new wife in her bed. Plucking up all her courage, Celia had tried, extremely reluctantly, with much stumbling, blushing and almost as many vague biblical references as Aunt Sophia, to broach the subject—a particularly difficult task, given her lack of any certain knowledge of what the subject actually entailed.

  George had been mortally offended.

  He was trying to be considerate, to give her time to adjust to married life.

  They barely knew each other.

  It was highly unnatural of Celia to show such a morbid interest in these things which all the world knew only women of a certain class enjoyed.

  And finally, he was doing her a favour by restraining himself from imposing what he knew she would find unpleasant upon her, and she had thrown that favour in his face!

  Celia had retired, confused, mortified, hurt and a little resentful. Was she so unattractive? Was there something wrong with her? Certainly George had implied that there was.

  Or was there something wrong with George? Not her first unwifely thought, but the most shocking. She banished it. Or tried to. In the absence of any other woman to consult—for she could not quite bring herself to confide such intimate matters to the forbidding Lady Wincester, the wife of the Consul General of Cairo—she had resolved to write to Aunt Sophia. But it was such an awesome task, and putting her fears into words seemed to make them more real, and perhaps George was right—it was just a matter of time. So she had instead written colourful descriptions of all she had seen and all she had done, and made no reference at all to the fact that her husband continued to spurn her company after dark.

  When this special assignment on which they were now engaged had come up, it had been with immense relief that Celia had turned her attentions to preparations for the trip. She had accompanied George against the express wishes of the Consul General. A’Qadiz was no place for a gently bred woman, apparently, but on this matter George had stood firm, and refused to go without her. Impressed by what he took to be a new lywed husband’s devotion to his wife, Lord Wincester had most reluctantly agreed. Under no such illusion, Celia had prepared to resume her role as chief nurse, comforter and courier with an air of sanguinity she’d been very far from feeling.

  The scenery through which they had sailed was enchanting. The deep waters were clear enough for her to watch the shoals of rainbow-coloured fish just by hanging over the back of the boat. Reefs with coral all the shades of sunset and sunrise could be seen just below the surface, shimmering like tiny mystical cities tee
ming with life. Along the shoreline were palm, orange, lemon and fig trees, olive groves and a myriad of plants with scents so heady that it was, as she had said to George at dusk one night, like being inside a huge vat of perfume.

  ‘It’s playing havoc with my hay fever,’ he’d sniffed, putting paid to the eulogy she had been about to deliver.

  The port of A’Qadiz in which they had now arrived looked impossibly crowded, swarming with people swathed in long robes. The women were all veiled, some with light gauze such as Celia’s own veil, others draped in heavier material, with only slits for their eyes. A stack of enormous terracotta urns stood on the quayside, waiting to be loaded for transport north. Through the open doors of the warehouses could be glimpsed bales of silks in a rainbow of colours, and hundreds more of the large urns.

  As the dhow pulled alongside, it was the noise which struck Celia next. The strange, ululating sound of the Arabic language, with everyone talking and gesturing all at once. The high-pitched braying of donkeys, the rumbling of carts on the rough stony ground, the low-pitched bleating of the camels which reminded Celia of the rumbling noise her father made when he was working up to an important announcement. Picking up her skirts and leaping lightly to the shore, careful to make sure her veil remained in place, she couldn’t help thinking that the camels themselves, with their thick lips and flaring nostrils, looked rather like Aunt Sophia.

  She turned to share this mischievous thought with George, but he was clambering awkwardly to the shore with the assistance of two of the crew, cursing under his breath and frowning heavily in a way that did not bode well for his temper. She made a mental note to share it instead with Cassie, in her next letter.

  Rummaging in her reticule for a little bottle of lavender water, Celia tipped a few drops onto her handkerchief and handed it to her husband. ‘If you wipe it on your brow it will cool your skin.’