‘Are you hungry now?’
She was, surprisingly, but it seemed rude to say so.
‘I’m starving,’ Ramiz said with a grin. ‘Come on.’
Before she could move, he scooped her up in his arms, striding with her held high against his chest to the other room. ‘We can’t eat like this,’ Celia said, for they were both still naked.
Ramiz grinned again. ‘Trust me—we can.’ He kicked a heap of cushions together on the floor, and picked up the huge silver tray upon which the dishes were held, placing it on the carpet in front of the cushions before sitting down. ‘Come here.’ He patted a cushion invitingly. When Celia didn’t move, hugging her arms around her breasts, he caught her hand and pulled her down beside him, so that she sprawled, half lying, half sitting, on a huge tasselled velvet cushion.
Ramiz lifted the cover from a dish and took out a pastilla, breaking it open so that some of the pastry flaked onto Celia’s arm. He leaned over her to lick it off. Then he offered her a bite of pastry, licking the crumbs from her lips when she bit, before popping the rest into his own mouth.
A pomegranate salad was flavoured with lime juice and finely chopped onion. He fed her from a silver spoon. The lime gave their kisses a tangy taste which sparkled on their tongues.
Roasted aubergines and sweet peppers drizzled with olive oil were next. The oil dripped over her fingers and Ramiz sucked at them, drawing each one into his mouth and licking it clean before moving to the next.
The juice of a pineapple which had been roasted with sugar and ginger he deliberately allowed to trickle down the valley between her breasts. By this time they had given up all pretence of eating. It was a game of call and response. Where Ramiz led Celia followed, so that what had started as his teasing was in danger of turning into his own undoing.
He feasted on her breasts, tasting pineapple juice and salt and sugar, and underneath the delicious tang of what he had already come to think of as essence of Celia. She lay beneath him, aroused, flushed, her hair tangled, her eyes alight with the passion he knew she could see reflected in his. He had never known this feeling before. He couldn’t put a name to it. It was as if she was drawing something out of him, mixing it with something of her own, so that she mingled in his blood, so that he felt mingled in hers. As if he knew her. Was inside her. As if she was inside him somehow.
He fastened his mouth around her nipple and sucked, then tugged, then sucked again, delighting in the way she cleaved to him, the way he could make her arch or jolt or writhe, depending on how soft or hard he licked or sucked or nipped. He sucked again, and cupped his palm over the mound of her curls between her legs. Damp. Hot. He pressed the heel of his hand against her in a little circling motion, felt the responding clenching at the base of his shaft. He wanted her again. Now. Urgently.
He nudged her legs to part them, but Celia resisted. Before he could stop her she had pushed him over onto his back. Before he could resist her she’d dipped her hand into a dish of something and trailed it neatly in a line from the middle of his ribcage. Down. It was cold. Creamy. Yoghurt of some sort, he thought vaguely. Then he stopped thinking as Celia began to lick it, daintily flicking her tongue along the path across his abdomen, dipping into his navel, down to where the path ended, at the point where his hair began to thicken. Ramiz closed his eyes and held his breath. There was a pause, during which he thought he would cry out with frustration, and then her tongue flicked over the tip of his shaft. Stopped. Another flick—a little longer. Another. Down. Down. Down the length of him and then back up, in one fluid movement that made him jolt with pleasure. Blood surged. He felt the tightening in his groin that presaged his climax. Dear heavens, he thought he would die with the pleasure of it. If only she would—now—like—just exactly like that! And like that. And—oh—like that!
‘Celia.’ She stopped. He didn’t want her to stop. Ramiz reached down to grip her by the shoulders. The look of surprise on her face would have been funny if he had been in the mood to be amused. He wasn’t. He pulled her down over him. Her knees brushed his shoulders. Her breasts were crushed into his stomach. Her mouth was back where he wanted it. And his was exactly where he wanted it to be too. He put his palms on the delightful swell of her bottom, he put his mouth over the delightful mound of wet curls and tender folds between her legs, and moaned as he tasted her and breathed her and sought out the nub of her. He moaned again as she followed him, reflecting and echoing every lick and stroke, resisting, but only just, the urgent clamouring of his climax until he felt hers, and then he let himself go as she came, and he had never, ever felt anything quite so heady as that feeling of her sweetness in his mouth as he surged and pulsed into hers.
It felt right. Which was absolutely wrong. But for now Ramiz cared for nothing, nothing—at all.
Chapter Eleven
Ramiz did not sleep in her tent but returned to his own. For a long time Celia gazed at her reflection by the light of the lamps. She barely recognised the woman staring back at her from the mirror. Her hair was a tangled mess. Her eyes were huge—a darker green than she had ever seen them. Her bottom lip seemed swollen. Her skin was flushed all over, with the faint marks of Ramiz’s fingers on her breasts, a slight bruise on her bottom. Between her thighs she was tender. Under one of her nails was a trace of blood where she had dug her fingers too deep into his back. Something else she couldn’t put a name to shone from her face too. A different kind of glow she hadn’t experienced before. Sensual, that was what it was, she finally decided. Wanton, even. For the first time since she had arrived in the East she saw the point of the veil. She would certainly not like anyone else to see her like this. They’d know straight away.
Sliding between the silk sheets of the divan, she wondered if Ramiz looked the same. Somehow she doubted it. None of this was new to him. They had done nothing he had not done before, and no doubt he would do it again. The idea of him with another woman made her feel sick.
She must be careful. Though she had pleased him, though he had seemed most reluctant to leave, she must remember it meant nothing to him. And he was just a passing fascination for her. She would do well to re member that, too. It meant nothing. No matter how right it felt, or how amazingly he had made her feel. Ramiz was an oasis of sensuality in the desert of her life.
Celia chuckled at that, for it was the sort of thing Cassie would have said. She wondered if he was sleeping. She wondered if he was thinking about her. Celia drifted into a deep sleep, most certainly thinking about him.
When she awoke, the sun was rising and the caravan was already being prepared to depart. She ate a hurried breakfast alone in her tent, conscious that the men were waiting to take it down. Ramiz was waiting with her camel, anxious to make a start, leaving Akil to lead the caravan which would again follow in their wake.
She expected Ramiz to ignore her. She expected him to be brusque, to have returned to his princely remoteness now he had what he wanted from her, but he surprised her, helping her onto the camel with a smile so warm it might as well have been a kiss. They set out as yesterday, in companionable closeness. If this were not Ramiz she would feel she was being courted. But it was Ramiz, and he could never court her.
They made camp that night in the same manner as before, but this time they were not alone. ‘Sheikh Farid and his tribe,’ Ramiz told Celia, nodding over at the cluster of tents about five hundred yards distant. ‘We must pay our respects tonight. Dress up. It is expected.’
‘You want me to come with you?’
‘If you don’t he will be insulted. You think they haven’t heard of the mysterious English lady travelling with me?’
She hadn’t given it much thought, though she realised now that she should have. ‘What will they think of me?’
‘I have asked Akil to put out the word that you are here as an emissary of the British Government.’
‘A woman! They’ll hardly believe that.’
Ramiz shrugged. ‘Just another Western quirk—treating a woman as a m
an. It is why we have separate tents. You would not want them to think you my concubine.’
‘No, of course not. I—thank you, Ramiz.’
‘It is my own honour as much as yours I must protect. Besides,’ he added, acknowledging Akil’s summons, ‘Sheikh Farid’s daughter is one of the princesses on my council’s list of brides.’
She had been touched by his care for her reputation. Now she saw it was care for his own, and was angry—not at Ramiz, but at herself for reading something into nothing. Celia made her way to her tent, mortified and fighting a wholly unaccustomed feeling which she realised, as she stepped into her waiting bath, was jealousy. ‘Of a woman I have never met,’ she muttered in disgust, ‘and whom he may not marry in any event.’
The bath calmed her, and the oil she rubbed into her arms and legs afterwards soothed her. She must find out the receipt for it from Fatima. Cassie would like to try it, and she knew they would not be able to buy such a thing at home.
Home! The word startled her. Soon she would be going back to England. Far away from the heat and the smells of this beautiful land, from the contrasts of barren deserts and green oases, from A’Qadiz and its exotic foods and vibrant colours. And far away from Ramiz. She wasn’t ready to go, not yet, but, counting up the days, she knew it could not be long before her father arrived in Cairo. ‘Home.’ She said it out loud, experimentally, but it still didn’t work.
She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Ramiz. She couldn’t imagine her life without him. ‘Because I might as well admit it,’ she said to her reflection. ‘I’m not just beguiled. I’m not just in thrall to him. I’m in love with him.’
Her reflection smiled. A soft, tender smile, which crept warily across her lips. ‘I’m in love with Ramiz.’ Her smile spread. Her skin tingled. ‘I’m in love with Ramiz. Oh, God, I’m in love with Ramiz.’ Celia tottered backwards onto the divan. ‘I’m in love with Ramiz, and I’m just about to meet the woman he may well marry.’ A hysterical little bubble of laughter escaped her, followed by a large solitary tear which trickled like acid down her cheek.
She was in love! Who’d have thought it? Certainly she’d never considered herself capable of such a thing. Not this kind of love, at any rate. She’d always thought of love as something comfortable, something that grew slowly over time, something stolid, dependable, rather than essential. But this, this thing she called love, was nothing at all like that. It glowed inside her like a living thing, pulsing and throbbing with life, the source of her being rather than a pleasant appendage. The reason for her being. Ramiz completed her. He was the heart which beat in her, the sun around which she revolved.
Celia laughed. Such fancies were the stuff on which Cassie thrived, and she had always mocked them, but now she found they were true. It was all true. She had been waiting to be woken. The way he made her feel, the way only he could make her feel, was nothing to do with the harem and everything to do with Ramiz. Her body was in thrall because she was in love. Her body responded to him at some elemental level because it had recognised, long before her mind did, what he meant to her. She loved him.
And Yasmina was right too. She would always love him. She was not the type to love twice. There would never be anyone else. She loved Ramiz. He was the beginning of her story and the end.
Except there could never be a happy ever after.
Fortunately Celia had never allowed herself to hope for one. There would be an end to this, and she would have to cope with it. Cope with it and never allow Ramiz to know. For if he thought she cared he would feel responsible, and that responsibility would touch his honour and—no, she could not allow that.
Celia dressed with care in a pair of lemon pleated pantaloons bound at the ankles with silver and pearl beading. The same design was embroidered onto the long loose sleeves of her caftan, which was velvet, in her favourite jade green, and on the matching velvet slippers too. Around her neck and wrists she roped her mother’s pearls, and there were pearls in her hair too, which she wore up, but with a loose knot over one shoulder.
Passable, she thought, looking at herself again in the mirror. The caftan, which was slashed to the thigh, drew attention to her height, and the length of her legs. The pearls lent their lustre to her skin. Her hair was glossy from the care lavished on it by Adila and Fatima. She looked exotic, she realised. Although the outfit covered more of her than a ballgown, the diaphanous material of the pantaloons, visible through the caftan’s vents, made her legs clearly visible. The soft folds of the caftan itself hinted at her uncorseted shape beneath. Celia laughed, wondering what Aunt Sophia would think of her going to pay a visit without her stays!
Ramiz might not love her, but he desired her, and in this outfit even Celia could see that she had a certain allure. Which was consolation enough, she told herself firmly as she left the tent.
Ramiz was conferring with Akil. Dressed in his formal robes, white silk edged with gold, the state scimitar glinting at his waist, he looked every inch the regal prince. He was preoccupied, giving her a cursory glance only as he rapped out instructions to the guards, inspected the gifts which were to be given to Sheikh Farid, and listened impatiently as Akil read through his seemingly endless notes.
The procession they formed to walk the short distance to the Bedouin tents was impressive. Ramiz took the lead, preceded by his Head of Guards, a great hulk of a man whose robes, Celia thought, were large enough to form a tent of their own. She herself followed Ramiz, with Akil behind her, flanked by the remainder of the guards carrying blazing torches to light the way.
Sheikh Farid was a small man of about the same age as Celia’s father. He was simply dressed, in a black robe and red-checked headdress, but his womenfolk more than made up for his lack of ostentation. Celia counted six wives, bedecked in so many gold anklets, bracelets, necklaces and earrings that they jangled when they moved. Bedouin women covered their skin with complex ink and henna tattoos—swirling designs encompassing leaves and flowers, mixed in with ancient symbols. Their nails were stained red with henna, and their eyelids stained black at the corners, much in the way the eyes of the pharaohs were painted. They did not wear the veil, and stared with blatant curiosity at Celia, though when she smiled in their direction they giggled and lowered their eyes.
She kept discreetly in the background, under Akil’s watchful eye. Though he had said nothing, she was aware that Akil did not approve of her presence here. No doubt he fretted over the propriety of it, and she could not blame him—especially since his suspicions had all too recently been proved correct. He would think her a loose woman. No doubt he would be glad when she was gone, for he could not approve of her relationship with Yasmina. It saddened Celia, and she determined to do all she could to ensure she intruded on official business no more than necessary.
As it turned out, she enjoyed her role as onlooker immensely, for it gave her the opportunity to observe Ramiz the Prince. It was a role he performed with the assurance and dignity she had come to expect of him, but as the ritual of the alms-giving got underway what impressed her most was his complete lack of arrogance. Throughout the long process of receiving each person who wished to make a plea, Ramiz showed only patience and concern. He had that rare ability to talk without talking down, taking time to calm the most nervous of the supplicants or the most aggressive of the litigants, treating the ancients with touching deference, joking with the younger men as a contemporary. Despite the long line of supplicants, there was no sense of hurry. Every case was given due consideration, every decision proclaimed formally to the audience before the next commenced. Not everyone received the outcome they’d hoped for, but all seemed to be treated fairly, and Celia realised that this, and not the sums of money given out in alms, was the point. Prince Ramiz was seen to be fair and just, as well as accessible.
She was impressed and touched—not just by Ramiz’s humanity, but by his vision, for he was obviously intent on demonstrating to his people the principles by which he ruled. The principles to which too
many other rulers, in Celia’s experience, paid merely lip-service. He truly was a remarkable man. She loved him so much.
Humbled, and slightly overcome by the strength of emotion which enveloped her, Celia crept unnoticed from the ceremony. Away from the blaze of the torches which lit Sheikh Farid’s tent, the full moon cast a ghostly light across the Bedouin encampment. She wandered a little distance from the tents, absorbed in her thoughts, enjoying the cool of the evening and the scents of the desert which came to life after dark. The vast stretches of sand which surrounded her began to have their usual effect, imbuing her with a strange combination—a sense of her own insignificance and at the same time a feeling of endless possibilities. Desert euphoria, she called it, for it was both exhilarating and chastening, like flying in Signor Lunardi’s balloon, which Papa had been fortunate enough to witness on its inaugural flight from Moorfields.
A shuffling sound alerted her to the presence of another person. A glint of steel showed the shadowy figure to be one of Ramiz’s guards, no doubt instructed to keep an eye on her. Strange to think that when first they’d met she would have been insulted by this apparent lack of trust. She knew better now, and recognised it for a combination of deeply embedded chivalry and an equally strong duty of care which was an essential part of him. She had come to like it.
Nodding to the guard as she passed, Celia made her way back to the Bedouin camp. The line of people was coming to an end. Fires had sprouted up outside many of the tents, and the smell of cooking filled the air. Women were gathering around the glowing embers, chatting and laughing. A group of semi-naked children were playing a ball game. As Celia stopped to watch, the ball landed at her feet, and before she knew it she was embroiled in the game, whose complex rules were explained with many gestures and much hilarity.
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