‘What do you mean, it was a mistake?’
‘You are here under my protection. I should not have allowed myself—this should not have happened. No matter how much the provocation,’ he added.
‘Provocation!’ Celia’s face burned with a mixture of shame and anger. ‘I thought I was alone.’
‘This is my harem.’ He was being unfair, but it was true in a way. If she had not been—if he had not seen her in the bath like that… ‘My harem,’ Ramiz repeated firmly. ‘I am free to walk in here any time I wish.’
‘That’s preposterous. It may be your harem, but as you’ve just pointed out I am a guest here. I am entitled to some privacy.’
‘And I am entitled to expect my guests to behave more decorously.’
‘You’re being quite ridiculous.’
‘You call me ridiculous? You forget yourself, Lady Celia. You forget who you are talking to.’
She knew he had a temper, but she had not before experienced it. His face was pale with anger, his mouth set in a thin line, his hands clenched at his sides. She had overstepped the mark as far as he was concerned, but as far as she was concerned so had he. Her own formidable temper was normally kept firmly under wraps, but his heady change of mood from euphoria to accusation sent it spinning out of her control before she could rein it in.
Regardless of her naked state, she flung the cushion away and got to her feet, her hair flying out like battle colours behind her. ‘I don’t care who you are—you are being ridiculous. I was taking a bath in the privacy of a bathing chamber. The fact that it happens to be in your harem is completely irrelevant. It is not my fault that you fell victim to your own base desires. I won’t be branded some sort of siren just to satisfy your honour, be you prince, sheikh, or simply a man.’
He flinched as if she had struck him. As she had—with the truth of the matter. He had been unable to control himself. No matter that he had not taken her, he had wanted to. ‘You are right.’
Celia’s temper fled as quickly as it had arrived. There was an embroidered cover on one of the divans under the window. She snatched it up, wrapping it around her shoulders. ‘Ramiz, you were not the only one to lose control,’ she said painfully. ‘I did not provoke you deliberately, but I didn’t stop you either.’ She reached out to touch his arm. ‘You are not the only one to blame.’
He shrugged himself free of her hand. ‘You are a woman. I should not have allowed you to submit.’
‘Submit?’ Celia stared at him in confusion. ‘Why must you persist in the belief that I don’t have a mind of my own just because I’m a woman? I make my own choices, even if they do turn out to be foolish ones.’
Ramiz sighed heavily. ‘I am pleased you think this way, even if it is misguided. I hope this—this event—will not colour the view of my country that you take back to England.’
Realisation dawned, cold and savage. ‘You’re worried that I’ll make things difficult for you through my father?’
‘We are at a delicate stage of negotiations with your people.’
‘I won’t be crying ravishment, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ She glared at him, determined not to allow the hurt she felt to show.
It was the last thing he’d been thinking of, but it should have been the first. He could not forgive himself. He could not allow himself to think about why he had done what he did. Or how Celia felt. And definitely not how he felt. It was a relief at least that his actions had not offended her. He must ensure he gave her no further cause.
‘Tomorrow, if you still wish, I will take you out to see something of Balyrma.’
‘Is that my compensation for keeping my mouth shut? If so, I’d rather stay here.’
‘I thought you wished to see the city. If you have changed your mind…’
‘I’m sorry, Ramiz, I shouldn’t have said that.’ Celia attempted a weak smile. ‘All this—everything here—it’s all so strange to me. I feel like I’m in a dream half the time. I’d love to see Balyrma, and if you have the time to escort me I’d be honoured. I’m sure I couldn’t have a more knowledgeable guide. Akil told me you’ve written a history of Balyrma’s origins.’
Ramiz shrugged. ‘It is nothing. The work of an enthusiastic amateur rather than a scholar. I will have you brought to me in the morning.’ He turned to leave.
‘Ramiz.’ Difficult as it was to speak of such things, she could not square it with her conscience to allow him to think he had forced her, any more than she had been able to accept that she had enticed him. ‘Ramiz, I meant what I said. It was as much my fault as yours. You are not responsible for my actions, no matter how accustomed you may be to thinking you are.’
‘It does you credit that you say so.’
‘I say so because it’s the truth.’
Ramiz smiled like a god descending from the heavens to join the mere mortals. It transformed him. ‘It is not just me who is accustomed to shouldering the blame, is it? I think you must be a very protective sister.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘You are certainly a most unusual woman.’
Leaving her to ponder the meaning of this rather enigmatic statement, Ramiz left.
Chapter Seven
Next morning Celia dressed for the promised sightseeing trip in a lemon-figured muslin walking dress with a double flounce along the hem, trimmed with knots of gold ribbon. Gold ribbon was also threaded through the high neckline and the edges of the tight-fitting sleeves, which were fastened with a row of tiny pearl buttons. Adila had found a way for her to attach the gauzy veil of blond lace to the back of her head, rather as Spanish ladies wore their mantilla, obviating the need for a hat, much to Celia’s relief. She wore the veil back over her hair while still inside the palace, and carried her gloves as she followed in the wake of the guard. Despite giving herself a severe talking to, playing over last night’s conversation several times in her head, she was extremely nervous about meeting Ramiz again, and quite unable to decide how she felt about anything that had happened. In fact, in the bright light of day, released from the harem’s sultry ambience, she found it difficult to believe it had happened at all!
Ramiz was in his library, dressed all in white as she had first seen him, complete with headdress and cloak. ‘In desert prince mode,’ Celia muttered to herself as he nodded a distant good morning from behind his desk and turned back to complete his conversation with Akil, leaving her standing like an unwanted caller at the doorway.
Though she herself had come to think of the harem as a separate place, ruled by the senses rather than the mind, and though she herself had made every effort to put last night’s events firmly to the back of her mind, Celia couldn’t help resenting the fact that Ramiz seemed so successfully to have done the same. She eyed him from beneath her lids as she wandered over to browse the bookshelves. How she envied him his detachment. How she wished she shared it. She wasn’t used to this feeling of constantly being on the back foot. The Lady Celia Armstrong she knew was used to feeling in charge. In control. Calm. Cool. Sophisticated. Not like some country miss in her first Season, having constantly to consult a book of etiquette and even then always on the verge of a fatal faux pas.
But she was not that Lady Celia Armstrong, and she knew she never would be again. She could not forget what she had experienced in Ramiz’s arms, under Ramiz’s tutelage, and she was very much afraid that what he had taught her had spoiled her for ever for any other man—as this place, this whole experience of the exotic world of A’Qadiz, would spoil her even for her beloved England, if she let it.
It was a paradox, she thought, picking up a volume bound in soft blue leather which was on the table with a stack of books recently come from England. A paradox, because here in this kingdom, where women were veiled and segregated, where she spent much of her time behind the locked door of a harem guarded by two eunuchs, she had never been so free.
Celia opened the book. Emma, a Novel in Three Volumes by the Author of Pride and Prejudice. She’d really enjoyed Pride and Prejudice. They had re
ad it together, she and her sisters, assigning themselves roles from the sisters in the story. She had been Elizabeth, of course, and Cassie had been Jane, the beauty of the family. Smiling to herself at the memory of Caroline and Cordelia squabbling over who was to be the flighty Lydia, Celia felt a pang of homesickness. She wondered what they were all doing now. She didn’t even know what time it was back home—later or earlier? Was it sunny or raining? It was strawberry season. Cressida loved strawberries, though they brought Caroline out in a rash when she ate too many, as she always did, no matter how many times she was reminded. Cordelia preferred the strawberry jam they all made together from Mama’s treasured receipt book. It had become an annual rite, taking over the kitchen for the day, filling the big country house with the sweetly cloying scent of jam as it bubbled in the vast copper pot. Cassie had charge of the receipt book now. It would be up to her to order the extra sugar, to take Celia’s role as Jam-Maker-in-Chief, no doubt ceding her own role of Measurer-in-Chief to Caroline. Celia could already imagine the argument that would induce between the youngest two of her sisters. Poor Cassie, whose gentle temperament made her loath to intervene in any dispute, would wring her hands and implore them to share and tell them that one role was just as good as another, and they would ignore her completely, and Caroline would get involved, and without Celia to knock sense into all of them the whole jam-making would turn into a complete fiasco…
‘Of course it will not,’ she chastised herself. ‘I just want to think so because it makes me feel indispensable.’
‘What does?’
Celia jumped, dropping volume one of Emma on to the thickly carpeted floor—so thickly carpeted she had not heard Ramiz approach. Now he was standing uncomfortably close. Why did she always forget how tall he was, and how very good-looking? She took a step back. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You said, “I just want to think so because it makes me feel indispensable.”’
‘Oh. I must have been talking out loud. I hadn’t realised. I was thinking of my sisters. It’s nothing.’
‘You miss them?’
‘Yes, of course I do. Though I’m sure they’re all fine without me,’ Celia said, surprised to find her voice a bit shaky.
‘But there’s a part of you which hopes they are not, hmm?’
She smiled, trying surreptitiously to blink away the tears which had gathered in her eyes. ‘I know it’s a dreadful thing to think. I’m afraid I must be a very controlling female.’
‘It’s not surprising. You took on the role of mother to your sisters at a very early age, yes? It is perfectly natural that you should worry about how they are coping without you. It is something mothers do, even when their children have families of their own. A very feminine trait.’
Celia sniffed. ‘Thank you. I think that might even qualify as a compliment.’
‘If you wish to write to them, I will see your letter is safely delivered.’
‘You’re very kind.’
‘I should have thought of it earlier. Your people will wish to be reassured that you are safe and well. They will not want to take my word for it. You must write tonight.’
‘I see.’ He wasn’t thinking of her, but of his own reputation. Of his country’s interests. ‘If you are too busy for our outing today, perhaps we should postpone it.’
‘There is no need. I have taken care of business for today, and Akil has it all in hand. Besides, I wish you to see something of Balyrma while you are here.’
‘So that I can report back on how wonderful it is?’
Ramiz’s eyes narrowed. ‘Because I think it will interest you. If I was mistaken…’
‘No, you’re not,’ Celia said hastily. ‘I do want to see it. I was a bit disconcerted, that was all—seeing this book, if you must know. My sisters and I read another by the same author.’
‘Pride and Prejudice? I read it myself, and enjoyed it. A very amusing account of your English manners. The author must be a very perceptive man.’
‘You think it is written by a man?’
‘The wit is acerbic, none of the characters are sympathetic, and there is none of the sentimental romanticism endemic in female writers. Of a certainty it is a man.’
‘Of a certainty? If you say it is so, then it must be so, Highness.’
Ramiz looked startled, and then he smiled, showing gleaming white teeth and menacing amber eyes. ‘You are learning, Lady Celia. I am granting you the honour of my company without escort and in public. You must treat me with respect and deference in front of my people, for if you do not I will be forced to confine you to the harem for the duration of your stay. I hope I have made myself clear?’
She met his gaze defiantly for all of ten seconds, then surrendered. In truth, when he looked at her like that she had no wish to defy him. And he was honouring her with his presence after all, and she did want his company, more than she cared to admit to herself. Celia drew her veil over her face, and her gloves over her fingers. ‘Yes, Highness,’ she said meekly, following in Ramiz’s wake as he led the way across the courtyard. Which meant he did not see her pout cheekily at him as they went through the passageway and out of the gate into the city.
The heat was so intense it knocked the breath out of her—like walking into an oasthouse after the hops had been roasted. In the cool of the palace she had forgotten how fierce the sun could be, even this early in the day.
She had also forgotten the reverence in which Ramiz was held. People dropped to their knees as he passed. They did not look at him, but Celia could feel their eyes on her, curious rather than threatening. She was conscious of how strange she must look in her tight-fitting dress, and acutely aware, as she watched Ramiz nod and smile to his people, of just how big an honour he was actually conferring on her in being her guide for the day.
It was not yet nine o’clock, but Balyrma was a hive of activity. Ramiz led the way through the dusty streets away from the tiled houses and minarets of the more affluent quarter to the more crowded area nearer the city gates. ‘I thought you’d like to see the souks,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Each sector of the city is named for different artisans, and each has their own market. This alleyway here is populated by leather workers; down here is where the potters are, and the tile-makers. Come closer. I’m getting a sore neck talking to you like this.’
‘I thought I was to follow in your wake to show you respect.’
‘You can show respect just as well by doing as you are bid.’
Celia caught up with him. ‘You have the makings of a frightful tyrant, you know,’ she said with a smile. ‘Highness,’ she added as a deliberate afterthought.
‘And you have the makings of a most subversive citizen.’
‘I’m sorry if I seem flippant sometimes. It’s just that you can be rather intimidating, and I’m not used to being intimidated.’
They had stopped momentarily, allowing the small retinue of children they had collected in their wake to swarm around her, reaching out to stroke the fabric of her dress. She smiled at them all abstractedly through her veil.
‘They are not used to seeing clothing such as yours.’
‘I wish I did not have to wear it. It’s completely unsuited to this climate, and I feel as if I’m being baked alive.’
‘You should have said so before. We can get you some fabrics at the souk. I will have the maids make up some traditional outfits if you really want to go native.’
‘I would love to go native.’
‘You never look hot. In fact you always look extremely elegant.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You are welcome. Do not look so sceptical, I mean it,’ Ramiz said with a wry smile.
They set off again at a slower pace, stopping off at a stall selling sugared almonds, dried dates, long sticks of some sort of sticky toffee packed with sultanas and raisins, and all sorts of other sweet delights which had the children staring in wide-eyed wonder. Ramiz selected an assortment which he handed out before they moved on, walki
ng companionably side by side, Ramiz having forgotten all about his desire for protocol.
‘I don’t know what it is about you that makes me speak my mind,’ Celia said thoughtfully as they approached the fabric district. ‘I assure you, every time you goad me into saying something outrageous I wish I had bitten my tongue out.’
‘Before I have it cut out, you mean,’ Ramiz said.
She could tell by the way his eyes gleamed, the way his mouth firmed into an upward curve that wasn’t quite a smile, that he was teasing. ‘Yasmina told me you rule with a hand of iron in a velvet glove. She also told me one of the first things you did when you came to power was to completely overhaul the legal system. You don’t even have an executioner any more, do you?’
‘There is no need. When people have enough to eat, somewhere for their family to live, a way to earn a living, they have no need to turn to crime. And when the punishment for transgression is to lose all that—banishment—I find it is incentive enough.’
‘That is a very progressive way of thinking. Far more humane than we are in England, where a starving man who steals a sheep to feed his family can be hanged.’
‘If you read Scheherazade’s stories more closely you would see she shares my views.’
‘And your people?’ Celia asked.
‘Some of the tribes prefer the old ways. For them, violence—wars, punishment, whatever—is a way of life. I spend a lot of my time trying to prevent them overturning my treaties. I am due to visit the head of one of the tribes later this week, as a matter of fact. They occupy land on the border of A’Qadiz, where the oasis is disputed territory. It is supposed to be shared. I will spend two days reminding him of this, and he will spend two days trying to extract as much gold as he can from me as compensation for what he claims to be his exclusive rights.’
‘You bribe him not to fight?’
‘Don’t look so shocked. It’s a tactic your government uses all the time. And for me it’s cheaper in the long run than allowing him to start a full-scale war.’
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