The Lady and the Desert Scoundrel

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The Lady and the Desert Scoundrel Page 3

by Lisa Torquay


  Scorching hate. At that precise minute, she hated him with all her might. When her family heard of this, they’d be sick with worry. Each step taking farther from a solution to escape. But if he imagined that she’d give up, he was stupidly mistaken. She’d find a way out, she promised herself. No dumb ninny here, she’d be able to take care of herself.

  They climbed out of the boat to a cacophony of shouts, scents and sight in the harbour. Men of varied appearances and garbs worked around the docks, speaking a Babel of languages. The salty air mingled fish, spices, perfumes and diverse fruits. Wooden boxes piled everywhere, and they had to duck many on their way. The sunny weather warm, but not scorching, and a wind circulated from the sea.

  Far ahead, a cobweb of narrow streets led to two-story buildings.

  “What place is this?” Lucinda asked Tariq.

  “This is the Port of Gabes, Tunisia.” He walked behind her alert to the curious eyes observing disguisedly the woman in a Boudreaux-coloured dress in front of him. A woman with that proud, haughty walk would be bound to draw attention.

  Clearly, it’d be his country, she concluded with no small amount of disdain for him. Where else would he take her? Well, better not ask such a dangerous question.

  The country had been under the presently weak Turkish Empire administration for centuries. Janissaries, Turkish guards, milled here and there.

  They reached a narrow street and walked on for a few of minutes more and stopped in front a large two-floor building with a big and busy yard around it.

  “A caravanserai.” Tariq provided. “A place where caravans and merchants prepare for their journey.”

  In fact, she looked about her, stables, men in Arabic attire, camels, horses and several boxes dominated the place. Very much like any lodging scattered in English countryside, except for the camels and clothing, naturally.

  They entered the building and climbed up a narrow wooden staircase and the man showed her to a room. He motioned for her to go inside the shady hall. As she did, he stopped at the threshold.

  “I have the last details of the caravan to prepare.” His velvety voice caressed her ears. “Meanwhile, you can refresh. I’ve ordered a bath for you.”

  She looked at the bare room with sleeping mats on the floor and a tub in the middle.

  “It took me a while to procure a tub and hot water for you.” He looked at her. He expected Adriana, not Lucinda, he’d planned to offer her this. “It’s not usual here. Baths are taken collectively in public bath houses, with separate ones for men and women. I didn’t think you’d be comfortable with them, though.”

  “A foreign idea, no less.” She agreed. The mere notion of being naked with other people in a room was embarrassing, let alone the thing itself.

  With an ironic grin, he turned to leave. She’d take her culture as superior, no doubt. Her excuse being that her way of life was the only possibility she’d known. He stepped once and turned back to her again. “Oh, and Aziz will be watching the door. Just in case, you know.” His obsidian brows lifted, conveying he would not take chances.

  She nodded, and he closed the door, just as she saw Aziz posting himself at the side of it. When she saw herself alone, she hurried to the wooden window. Too high. She closed it and the only light came from the oil lamp hung from the ceiling.

  Lucinda welcomed the bath and enjoyed the privilege of being able to refresh, even to wash her hair. Undressing and dressing again proved difficult, but not impossible. Her long-sleeved dress proved compliant, and she kept her shawl, folded, with her.

  The travellers’ book she’d read described the Sahara extensively. She remembered the information it heated during the day and cooled at night. Those books had provided her with a lot of valuable knowledge which she had every intention of using now.

  When she finished, she opened the room’s door and came face to face with Aziz. Soon footsteps on the floorboard announced Tariq. “Ready?”

  She assented, and they all walked to the yard. His tall, broad frame in full white Arabic garb now. The kaftan, or tunic, the sirwaal, or loose trousers, sandals and his head covered with the ghoutra, held by the igaal circle. His attire only made his cognac-against-fire eyes stand out and he revealed to be no less attractive in it.

  Tariq had the habit of having camels to ride as much as to carry the goods. He’d purchased an extra one for Lucinda. Well, not for her, but for Adriana, actually. He made the camel sit so she could climb on it and sit on the flat saddle. The camel pace suave it rocked pleasantly. Lucinda enjoyed this new experience.

  The caravan left the caravanserai in a serpent line of camels, goods and people. Tariq rode at the head on his camel of the best breed. Lucinda rode at his side and he held her reins. He’d take no chance while they were still near Gabes.

  “What has happened to her?” Adriana asked to no one in particular, with a deep concern pleating her brows and shading her eyes.

  Pietro, Harriet Croft and Adriana sat at the villa’s drawing room. They’d noticed Lucinda absence this morning. They’d gone off to sleep last night believing she had already retired to her room.

  Pietro sent his footmen to look about for Lady Lucinda. One of them brought back a hair-pin Mrs Croft recognized as one of her charge’s. The lady used several to pin her thick, glossy chocolate hair.

  “I’ll have to write to her parents.” Harriet said in distress. How would they judge her, Harriet, as a companion? She’d let the girl slip away from under her nose!

  Pietro sighed and looked at her, his honour also in check, if he did not keep a lady safe under his roof. “Please, give me a few of days. I’ll put my men after her. If we get no news, you can write her parents.”

  Harriet looked at him and considered his suggestion. She acquiesced with a dry nod, too agitated and tense to utter any word.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The sun glared blindly as the caravan advanced westwards. Lucinda mentally marked the route and the views, in case she’d get a chance to make it back. Tough it proved difficult in a desert. They’d been ridding for hours now and she congratulated herself for being a good amazon, lest she’d already be sore. She wished she had her bonnet though. The sun burned on her exposed skin over her modest neckline and face. She retrieved her shawl and covered her bosom. The wool was a little heavy for that temperature, but better than nothing. March wasn’t the worst climate in Sahara. The travellers stated that it remained still mild, compared to the summer months, when it’d be scorching.

  Tariq moved his cognac eyes discretely to her. No complaints, no swooning, no tantrums. She rode in silent dignity, with her shawl wrapped around her. He couldn’t help admiring her serenity and fortitude. Any other franj woman wouldn’t take it thus. With difficulty, he tore his eyes from her and trained them ahead.

  At sunset, he gave word for the men to build up camp for the night.

  Lucinda climbed down from her mount, patting the camel’s neck for its good work. She looked around the landscape. The landscape had changed. It transformed from green near the coastline, to arid now at inland. The setting sun tinted the endless stretch of sand and rocks in purple shades. So different from what she was used to, and yet so grandiose. She sat on a rock nearby and drank water from a skin container that Tariq had given her at the beginning of the journey. Ideas for a way to escape swirled in her head.

  Tariq’s velvety voice interrupted her musings. “Come, the tent is ready.”

  She turned to him, magnificently tall before her, and beyond, where his men erected canvas tents, and accompanied him.

  He flapped open the biggest of them followed by her. Her attention encompassed the enclosed space. Four masts held the pointed ceiling canvas and the ones which served as wall. The front draped as to offer a way in and it could pull down and tie for closing. The white material shaded the setting sun and gave the tent a cool, suave light. In the centre of it, a large thick intricate embroidered rug served as base for a cushioned mattress and many colourful cushions. Folded bla
nkets cast about casually. A feint aniseed perfume fluttered in the air. The atmosphere invoked the Arabian Nights tales, which had recently been translated to English.

  Tariq observed as her pepper-mint eyes wandered the place in pleasant admiration. Why, the woman liked what she saw, after all. He dropped his personal sac on a corner. “We’ll sleep here.”

  Her gaze snapped to him abruptly, her eyes widening, in bewilderment. “Together?”

  An ironic lopsided grin came to his face. “Depends on what you mean by together.”

  This rather unsubtle remark irritated her. “I want to stay here alone! You can sleep somewhere else!” Her chin rose defiantly.

  “Oh, yes?” He came near her and their gazes clashed. “And what happens next?” He questioned as he removed the igaal and ghoutra from his head and a lock of his tousled obsidian hair fell on his forehead. “Care to receive a visit from every man in this caravan?” He emphasized the word ‘visit’ in an impatient way. Just the mere probability of any other man touching her made his guts wrench in boiling fury. He didn’t have the slightest idea as to why.

  Her eyes opened wider and her chin fell at that. “They wouldn’t-

  “No?” He raked his sleek hair with his fingers. “Your pedigree, your precious peerage means nothing here! For these men, you’re no more than an outsider!” His breathing came hard with vexation. “Outsider women are meant to slake needs without a second thought!”

  Her indignation flushed her already sun-reddened cheeks. She turned her back to him, murmuring under her breath. “Barbarians!”

  He caught her by the arm and turned her to him. “Barbarians, are we?”

  She had to tilt her head a good forty-five degrees to meet his gaze this close, her temper intensifying. “Yes! And you are the biggest of them, abducting an honoured lady for your selfish purposes!” She accused without a shade of regret.

  He held her other arm and pulled her as their bodies bumped, sparks of anger and something more launched everywhere. “So, maybe, I should be even more of a barbarian and cause my men to envy me!”

  The implications clear, he hinted he might take her if he wished, and nobody would say a word. Her breath caught in her throat as molten images of them on those cushions flashed in her mind, unwelcome and tempting.

  Darkened cognac eyes melded with shaded green ones and desire fulminated between them. Both were breathing hard as they faced each other in predicament.

  The air between them shifted and anger did not prevail anymore. Lucinda’s lashes lowered heavy as her lips parted. Tariq’s cognac attention fell to her full rosy lips

  Oh, how he hungered to banquet on those lips and kiss her senseless, more, and more, until they surrendered and became sated! Blast all the djins of the desert! He wasn’t supposed to even conceive this. He didn’t decide what he should do with her. Well, he knew what he wanted to do with her. He’d had European tutors who’d ingrained him with a foreign sense of honour and here stood a British lady who expected exactly this from him. Damnation! This was bound to be the worst caravan track he’d ever done!

  His eyes hovered longer over her alluring, fetching face and, in an abrupt jerk, he pushed from her and walked away, rubbing a hand over his stubbed cheek. Without a word, he left the cocooning tent.

  Lucinda exhaled, the air whistling out of her tingling lips. For a moment, she believed he’d kiss her. If he had, she wouldn’t have been able to oppose the feeblest resistance. She’d desired it so violently, it scared her. And when he let her go, a weird mixture of relief and frustration overtook her. And right now she was wondering what it might have felt like, his sensuous dark-olive lips touching hers. Would it be like the chaste pecks she’d got from suitors in the balls?

  A shared tent with her would be a way of protecting her from the odds, Tariq concluded as he sped out of the tent to oversee the accommodating of the goods. But who’d protect him from this inconveniently misplaced pull that corroded him from the minute he’d set eyes on her in the market? He decided to get busy and stop musing about nonsense.

  After a meal composed of stewed mutton and couscous, finished with dried dates, Lucinda’s drowsy eyes blinked. A pitcher of water lay on the carpet for her, an unreasonable luxury in the desert. She used it parsimoniously and saved part of it to bring with her. Her dress deserved airing since it was the only one she had. She missed her clean clothes back in the villa and sighed at the comforts of civilisation, none of them available here. But she skipped the dress airing. Her mind had other ideas for the night.

  As far as she traced back, they had come a straight line towards west from Gabes. And they had ridden for about a day, at camels’ pace and with a stop for luncheon. If she could take the camel, she’d reach the port by mid-morning, faster than the dragging caravan. The hunch-backed poor animal would have had time for rest and feed by now. The stars would give her the direction. She wasn’t sure of what she’d do when she arrived at Gabes, but she’d think of something. She’d take a blanket to protect from the chilly desert night and its viperous creatures. Fresher weather would make it better to journey. Imperative that she try it tonight while still in time. She remembered little of North Africa’s map from her school days, so she wouldn’t be able to venture new routes. With her plan settled, she’d wait until Tariq fell asleep and slip away.

  In conference with his men, Tariq decided there was no going around it. He’d have to go find his sleep. A joke when he thought he’d have to spend a whole tormented night in the same bed as Lucinda. And never touch her. He needed his rest, though, to be fit for leading his caravan.

  He parted the canvas and peeped the dimness. The oil lamp illuminated the cocooned space. His eyes searched and found Lucinda’s body tucked under blankets on the mattress, Her head on the cushion, her glossy dates-coloured hair all around her. Turned on her side, she slept, indifferent to the heated turmoil that made him restless. He approached the rug and made a herculean effort to divert his gaze from her sleeping form. He usually slept as he came to this world. Not tonight, naturally. He covered himself with a blanket and turned his back to her. He put the lamp out.

  Closing his eyes was the night’s biggest mistake. Because then everything he suppressed during the day came out, uncensored. He visualised them both, on this very bed, limbs entangled, skin to skin, as he took possession of all she had, all she was. His eyes snapped open, his body hard and on fire. Stare fixed in the dark, he willed himself to cool down, a daunting task, he lamented.

  That’s when he sensed a movement. He froze. Swish of skirts sounded in the hollow night. And he waited.

  Lucinda sat up as silently as possible, taking the blankets with her. Her hand groped the floor, searching for the water skin she’d filled before dinner. She stood up and tip-toed to the tent’s entrance. A rest of fire still glowed where the men had been talking, but all was quiet. She lifted the canvas and stepped in the cold night. The remnants of the fire helped her see where the men had tied the animals. She walked that way, carefully. The care-takers shared the other tents, for sure.

  The sandy camel stood out in the darkness, the saddle at its side on the sand. Lucky, she wouldn’t need to go looking for it. She stooped to leave the blankets and skin on the ground and take the saddle.

  "I'd advise you not to do this."

  In a startle, she dropped the saddle and turned to him, tense and angry for being discovered. "And who are you to advise me on anything?" His legs apart and crossed arms, he ogled her in a vexed expression

  "The son of a caravan owner, the grandson to a caravan owner" His attention found her hair falling to her back, dishevelled, the dying fire giving reddish strokes to it.

  The information surprised her. She’d heard Adriana saying his father had been a merchant too. But a dynasty of them?

  "You'll perish out there." His low velvety voice had an edge to it.

  "I prefer to perish trying to go home than to stay in hostage!"

  If she’d be willing to risk her life to
flee, then she must be intent on escaping. He’d have to handle this more carefully.

  He uncrossed his muscled arms, visible as it marked his white kaftan. Smoothly, he took one of her hands. "Where's home, Lucinda?"

  The even silkier tone a contradiction to his calloused fingers. Ripples of electricity trailed up her arms as her skin formed goose-bumps.

  Yes, Lucinda, where's home? Her inner voice asked her.

  Would home be in a stuffed ballroom full of silly noble people? Or would it be in her future husband’s townhouse hosting ladies’ tea and prattling on about ribbons? The place where she would have to give up travel, fencing, arrow shooting? Home designed as a tight box she must fit in with a high cost to who she was.

  And then his warm calloused fingers traced each of hers in a slow caress that only made her hungry. Her eyes, dark in the night, wide, her mouth dried suddenly driving her to moisten it with her tongue. She forgot to breathe entirely.

  His utterly enchanting eyes didn’t miss a single movement as he became unperceptively rigid in his body and elsewhere. This whole thing proved to be a trial by fire of his self-discipline.

  Slow, oh so slow, he entwined his fingers with hers; and, there, in the middle of the desert, with dark sky sprinkled with millions of stars, they were holding hands in thick silence, only their eyes speaking secrets to each other.

  "Come to bed, Lucinda. His whisper wandered like a feather caressing her sensitive skin, with his accent more audible in her name. His uttering making it Lucindah.

  The 'invitation' came dubious to say the least. But when she lifted her gaze to his, there wasn't an atom of ambiguity there. The meaning so earthy, it washed her with a temperature higher than the desert at midday.

  She didn’t have a choice, obviously. They walked back to the tent, hand in hand. He let go of it before they passed the flapping canvas which he tied afterwards.

 

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