Claiming His Desert Princess

by Marguerite Kaye

  Christopher shook his head.

  ‘It has been very cleverly done,’ Tahira said, her face almost pressed up against the rock. ‘An opening has been blocked up with stone and adobe to blend in with the natural rock. Time has done its work most effectively to cover it up, but I am sure of it. This has been sealed very carefully indeed. Someone has been most determined that whatever is behind here should not be discovered. Could it be our thief’s treasure trove?’

  He waited, clearly enjoying watching her thought process reflected in her face. ‘But, no,’ she said now, shaking her head, ‘that would not make sense. If our thief did exist, he would have wished to recover his loot at some point. This would take a great deal of effort to break through. That, and the effort put into concealing its existence means that it was never intended to be opened up.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Christopher said, primly.

  She burst out laughing. ‘It is not fair, you have the advantage of me. What have you found?’ She set the lantern down, gave his arm a shake. ‘Please, I am desperate to know.’

  He handed her something, wrapped in a piece of cotton. ‘This was buried at the concealed entrance.’

  Tahira dropped to the ground to open it, crossing her legs and setting the bundle between them. Slowly, she unwound the protective wrapping—one of Christopher’s cloaks had been sacrificed. The effigy was carved from stone, and almost perfectly preserved. She held it reverently as she traced the cat’s feet, tail, ears. The paint was flaking in places, but the rings on the tail and legs clear enough. ‘It’s a sand cat,’ she said, smiling, flattening her hand over the head of the statuette, running it down the back as if she were stroking the real animal. ‘A perfectly beautiful sand cat. And very, very old.’

  Christopher nodded. ‘What do you think is its purpose?’

  ‘Purpose?’ But almost before the word was out, she understood. ‘It’s a guardian, isn’t it? This pose, sitting sentinel, I have seen drawings of such things. They usually guard—by the stars! A tomb?’

  ‘Of a wealthy and important person too I reckon. Though I fear it has been raided, for that is the only explanation of our finds.’

  ‘But the entrance has been concealed so perfectly.’

  ‘It was most likely raided not long after the burial, before the tomb was properly sealed. A common occurrence in Egypt, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Who could be buried here?’ Tahira wrapped the sentinel sand cat back up carefully, and got to her feet. ‘I’ve never come across anything like this in Nessarah. It begs the question, why? Do you think it’s possible for us to take down these stones?’

  Christopher grinned. ‘Do you think it’s possible for us to resist? Though it’s very well done, I don’t think it would be too difficult, and fortunately, we’re quite some distance from the mine, it’s highly unlikely anyone will notice.’

  ‘My heart is racing. I can’t believe it. Could we start tonight?’

  ‘Do you really have so little time left before you are—is your betrothal so imminent?’

  In the light of the lantern, she was reminded of their first meeting at the entrance to the mine. His hair had shimmered like gold. His eyes were such a striking blue. A dangerous man, she’d decided and she’d been right, but during the long nights working together, she had come to see that there was so much more to him than that. An honourable man. A troubled man. A man with demons. A thoughtful man. A man who would take ridiculous risks, go to any amount of trouble, to make a wish come perfectly true. A man she had come to care for far too much, despite the fact that he was also a man about whom she knew far too little. A man who, in a very short period of time, she would never see again.

  ‘Tahira?’ Christopher gently wiped the tear which tracked down her cheek with his thumb.

  She caught his hand, pressing a kiss to his palm. ‘My sister says I am very fortunate. He is not old or cruel, the man my brother has found for me. My sister says she would gladly marry him herself. He is a widower, with a small child. A boy. I would not even be expected to provide an heir. He even lives—he lives within travelling distance. I could not have asked for a more suitable and amenable match, Christopher, but still I cannot—I simply cannot bring myself to embrace it.’

  He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. She burrowed her face into his chest, breathing deep of the scent of lemon soap and whatever it was that was particularly Christopher.

  She had heard Ghutrif boasting about the mine to Juwan yesterday, promising her a turquoise necklace made of the first ore, when their son was born. If she could find a way to steal a sample for Christopher, it would save him from taking yet another unnecessary risk by stealing a sample himself.

  And yet, the more she helped him, the sooner his quest would be over and he would leave for ever. Another thought struck her forcibly. The more she helped him the more likely it was that he would turn up at the palace to hand back the amulet. Reducing the risk to him made the risk of his discovering her true identity terrifyingly likely, and if he then let slip their acquaintance...

  Acquaintance! A word that fell a long way short of whatever it was that they had between them. She shuddered. It simply didn’t bear thinking about. If the worst came to the worst—or the best came to the best—or the worst came to the best, or whatever combination—she would think of something to prevent him storming the palace. She would have to.

  ‘Tahira?’

  She forced herself to look up. Christopher pushed her hair back from her cheek, his expression set. ‘There is no chance that this betrothal will come to nothing, like the others?’

  At least he had not guessed her true thoughts. Tahira smiled wanly. ‘Lightning will not be permitted to strike again. The last time, I was not—I made my indifference clear, and so too did my betrothed.’ She hesitated. Christopher was frowning, that frown he wore when he was trying to bite his tongue. ‘That previous match was arranged by his family,’ she elaborated, which was the truth, though not specific enough to betray her identity. ‘In the end, he chose to ignore their wishes.’

  The one thing she could not do. The words hung between them, but they’d already said more than enough on the subject. ‘Should we make a start?’ Tahira asked, far more brightly than she felt.

  * * *

  The hours passed too quickly. After they had stopped excavating, they sat, as had become their habit, chatting and drinking water from Christopher’s goatskin flask. Tahira looked up at the sky and sighed. ‘I must leave a little sooner tonight. My friend is worried. Farah,’ she added. ‘My friend’s name is Farah.’

  The first name she had spoken save her own and Sayeed’s. Christopher acknowledged this rare confidence with a quirk of his brow. ‘Would Farah happen to have access to a camel?’

  ‘You guessed!’

  ‘I reckoned you would not dare risk taking one from the family stables.’ He angled himself towards her. ‘So Farah knows that you escape at night? She must be a very good friend if you trust her with such a big secret.’

  ‘None better. Farah was once my maidservant, but she is so near in age to me that she has always been more of a friend. When Mama died, we became closer. Too close,’ she said, her smile fading. ‘My brother was jealous.’

  ‘It seems all roads in your life story lead to your brother,’ Christopher said, grimly. ‘What happened?’

  ‘It would have been better if we had kept our distance in front of him, but we were children, and my brother—oh, we thought him just a spiteful little boy. We never considered that there would be consequences to our excluding him from our games. But as the years passed and we became closer, and Farah—I fear that she took her lead from me and was too bold in her dislike of him, and I was naïve enough to show how much I cared for her. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when he contrived to have my father unfairly dismiss her, causing her character to be unjustly blacke
ned.’ Tahira clenched her fists. ‘But it was.’

  ‘And so your friend takes pleasure in thwarting your brother by assisting you?’

  ‘She has always been happy to do so, but tonight—you see, until lately my absences have been well spaced. It is only recently that I’ve risked escaping so often. Farah is afraid that I will be caught. Which made me worry about what would happen to her if I was. It has been selfish of me not to think that by implicating her I was putting her at risk too.’

  ‘Does she know that you are to be married?’

  ‘She does now. She is pleased for me,’ Tahira said, with a bittersweet smile, for Farah had actually been delighted that she would escape from Ghutrif, even though it would mean they would never see each other again.

  ‘So you haven’t shared your own feelings on the subject with her, even though you trust her implicitly?’

  ‘No. Nor—Christopher, you must not worry that Farah knows about you.’

  ‘I hadn’t even considered it.’

  ‘No one knows of you, or our meetings. You are my secret, and mine alone.’ Flushing, startled by the tone of her voice, which gave her words far more meaning than she had intended, Tahira hurriedly pulled her headdress over her face. ‘I must go. I don’t want to upset Farah any further.’

  Urging her sluggish camel into a trot, she wondered with a sinking feeling how many more times she would make this journey. If Farah had her way, it would be none. It would be the same number if common sense prevailed, but Tahira had never felt less sensible. She had never had so much to lose. She couldn’t stop now, not with the tomb to be opened, the turquoise to be matched, Christopher’s quest to be completed.

  The dangers made her head spin, but the rewards made her heart soar. With Christopher she was alive. Why shouldn’t she admit that she cared for him, longed to be with him, relished every moment they were together? Their time was so precious, it intensified every feeling, but their time was finite, and so too, she was sure she would discover, were her feelings. It was as if she had leapt from the highest mountain. It was impossible to stop herself, impossible to climb back, so she could enjoy every moment of the wild careening down before coming back down to earth. She would find a way to beat the odds. She would find a way to land safely. But in the meantime, she had no intentions of shortening the fall.

  * * *

  Even by the opulent standards of the royal palace of Nessarah, the library was an imposing room, and one which was very different in style from the rest of the palace. The ceiling was not decorated with traditional tiles but was elaborately moulded, painted in a soft palate of gold and celestial blues, the central fresco depicting a summer sky with light fluffy clouds of the sort never seen over the Nessarah desert. In contrast, the vast floor space was laid with simple polished flagstones, and just as sparsely furnished. Four long, highly polished reading tables doubled as cabinets for storing papers, but there was not a single other item of furniture or any form of seating. A harem sentry guarded the other side of the door through which Tahira entered for her pre-sanctioned private visit. On the opposite wall, light streamed in from a vast arched window.

  Every other inch of available wall space was taken up by books and scrolls. Thousands of them, in shelves which climbed to the ceiling. A narrow gallery ran at half-height, reached by a single narrow, spiral staircase which required the intrepid reader to walk around the full length of the library to reach the books on the furthest side. A single freestanding ladder on wheels provided access for the reader to the lower shelves. The library, created and largely populated by Tahira’s great-great grandfather, was not a place often visited by her more recent forebears. No catalogue of any sort existed, and she had never been able to divine any system for the placement of tomes on the shelves. In this sense, every visit to the room was a voyage of discovery, but it could also be highly frustrating. As a result she had started her own system. In effect, creating her own library within the library, relocating, book by book, scroll by scroll, the volumes in which she was interested.

  Today however, she was not consulting any of those previously read works on Nessarah’s history. The book which lay open on the reading table was bound in red leather tooled with gold, and intriguingly entitled The Art of Love. It was not the first book she had perused today, but the illustrations in The Garden of Delights had appalled her. Such contortions appeared more likely to induce pain rather than delight, and the book, while it contained a great many words in praise of the male member, contained no relevant information on how to minister to it. The Art of Love, which she had discovered between a guide to the art of an Italian painter, and a notebook containing household remedies, was a very different matter. There were no illustrations and no poems eulogising male prowess. Instead, the book was a practical guide to giving and receiving pleasure, narrated alternately by a man and a woman.

  She had not progressed beyond the early chapters, for the descriptions brought to mind her own experiences. Christopher’s kisses. The way her nipple had tightened when he took it into his mouth, the way she had arched under him in response. The tension. And the heat. Which Christopher, according to the book, had been experiencing too. Eyes closed, seated cross-legged on the floor, she tried to imagine what he would feel like. Silk and iron, the book said, but such a combination was too strange. His chest was hard, solid muscle, expanding and contracting as he breathed. He was clean shaven, though his cheek was rough compared to hers. Would his chest be smooth, or would there be a smattering of dark-gold hair? And his nipples? A flush stole over her cheeks, embarrassment mingled with excitement. Her own nipples peaked against the silk of her camisole, proving that the little book was right. Arousal did not require physical contact. But she did touch herself, imagining her hands were Christopher’s, imagining his skin against hers, his rough palms on the soft skin of her breasts.

  Only when she slid on to the floor, her breathing ragged, did she remember where she was. Thankfully no one would disturb her with the sentry outside. All the same. Tahira closed the book and got to her feet, placing it carefully on her own shelves before wandering over to the window. Though it looked out only to a rather boring courtyard with a rather plain fountain, at least from here she could see the sky. Cloudless again. It would be another clear night for their work at the tomb. It would take them several nights, Christopher had estimated, before they would be ready to break through to whatever was on the inside. He was working longer hours than she. She had asked him to promise not to work when the miners were there, not in daylight, but he had avoided answering her. though he had promised he would not enter the tomb unless she was present.

  Ishraq had informed her today that Ghutrif was planning to make the betrothal announcement at an upcoming camel race, organised specially for the occasion, which all of the princesses would be permitted to attend. A camel race was a rare, exciting treat, but Tahira heard this with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. There would be a huge crowd. Ghutrif was making certain, with such a very public pronouncement, that this time the marriage would definitely go ahead.

  Fortunately, Ishraq was beside herself with excitement, more than compensating for her elder sister’s distinct lack of enthusiasm. It was the one good thing to come of it, for now that she knew Tahira was soon to be wed, Ishraq was her former sunny, loving self. As for Durrah and Alimah—yes, they were upset, but they too were excited by the prospect of attending a camel race and very shortly after, the wedding celebrations. They were thrilled that Tahira was to marry such an eligible man, and were already talking of bridal visits while Tahira—just thinking of anything bridal made her nauseous. She didn’t want to marry this man. She didn’t want to think about it, so instead she would think about Christopher. Again. Her escape from reality, because reality was simply too unbearable to contemplate. Was that wrong? She didn’t care. Tonight, she would once again inhabit her dream world, with her dream man. Tahira closed her
eyes, wrapping her arms around her waist and transported herself there.

  * * *

  The large rock formation where they brought their camels to a halt two nights later was not unlike the turquoise mine, the craggy rocks the same russet red colour, the soft sand tinged with the same hue. ‘What is this place?’ Tahira asked.

  Christopher shook his head, dismounting before helping her from the saddle. ‘A place where wishes come true, I hope.’

  Just like the turquoise mine, there was a fissure between the rocks, though this was much wider, forming a passageway open to the night sky. Tahira followed in Christopher’s wake, leading her camel a few short steps before stopping with a gasp of amazement. The low rock cliffs encircled the space to form a natural arena carpeted with soft sand, which shelved down towards a large pool bordered with juniper trees, their foliage lush. On the far side, a narrow cascade of water fell with a mesmeric murmur into the pool like a shimmering sheet of white silk. Through another gap in the rocks, the desert landscape was framed like a painting, a ribbon of similar rock formations growing ever higher into a mountain range until it looked to Tahira that they formed a staircase to the galaxy of silver stars pinned above.

  ‘How on earth did you find this place?’ she said, turning to Christopher.

  ‘I have the Midas touch, remember?’

  He had hobbled the camels, discarded his headdress and cloak. His hair had grown longer, thick ripples of gold fell over his brow, giving him a distinctly raffish look. The deep tan of his face made his eyes seem as blue as the oasis pool. This man, this fascinating, fiercely attractive, fearless and driven man, had gone to all this trouble for her. A lump rose in her throat. She felt as if her heart were being squeezed, making her breathless, unable to speak her gratitude, so instead she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, pressing her cheek against the hard wall of his chest, the unique scent of him mingling with the verdant green of the oasis, the salty, heady taste of the desert night.