Tawny Sands

by Violet Winspear

  `You are being a devil,' she gasped, twisting her face away from his mocking, searching lips, and giving a little cry as their warmth pressed into the hollow of her throat. He laughed against her lips and silenced them, and she felt helpless, as if flames crept near and she must run yet was unable to move.

  Then she seemed to be floating, even as he kissed her, and realised that he was carrying her into the shadows of an archway. A mass of honeysuckle grew there, falling to the ground to form a carpet of rusty-gold petals and a dizzying scent. She felt them beneath her, crushed by her slight weight as she was crushed by the lean strength of Raul. He held her there, slender and pale on the dark cloak and the honeysuckle, and she beat with her hands at his face, his shoulders, his laughing mouth.

  `You little fool, Janna. Your blows don't hurt me, and you have not the spite to claw at my eyes.'

  `I hate you ... hate you ...'

  `That is understood,' he mocked, and with a deliberate movement of his hand he bared her shoulder and kissed her soft white skin. 'This is what you have feared all along, eh? The little English girl forced to submit to the embraces of a desert man. Forced to give her lips to his kisses. Poor Janna! If I had known your terror was this great, then I should have left you to the tender mercy of Madam Noyes. I am sure she would have taken you back as her little runabout ... after all, it isn't every girl who wishes to make a vocation of spinsterhood.'

  `I—I'd sooner be a spinster than just an object!'

  `My dear girl, you are rather more decorative than a mere object.'

  `Y-you know what I mean.'

  `Nina, I am in no mood for solving puzzles.' His lips travelled the line of her cheek to her earlobe, and at their touch she grew desperate.

  `It amuses you to play about with me ... because I'm shy, and I have no money, a-and no one of my own to turn to. You get a kick out of using your charm on me ... because you're rich and privileged, a-and attractive!'

  `I am the complete rake, eh?'

  `Right now you're behaving like one !'

  `You dislike my kisses that much?'

  `I find them hateful.' And it was true; these were not kisses of love and so they were unbearable to her. They made her feel ashamed, because she wanted to respond to them. They made her ache to her heart—and suddenly she began to cry. The stormy tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks, and she was hurt and tormented, by Raul, by the moon and the honeysuckle, and the startled hoot of the little owl who usually had this place to himself.

  She put her hands over her face and cried as if she were a child again, shut alone in the dormitory, punished for diving into the icy stream because she saw someone in trouble and wanted to help. She had been chastised, told off for going into the stream when she couldn't swim.

  Tonight Raul was angry with her. She had risked upsetting his beloved Princess, and though she could understand his concern, she didn't know why he had to be cruel with her. It was cruel of him to kiss her when he didn't care, and to threaten even more when he held her, crying and captive, on the crushed flowers.

  Janna, what a child you really are.' He pulled her hands from her wet eyes and began to mop up her tears with a large handkerchief. 'I forget that you are different in ways from the girls of El Amara. Your upbringing has made you extra-sensitive, and unsure.'

  `I expect you mean naive, senor, but I have my pride.' `Yes, you have your pride, chica. Now have the tears decided to leave off?'

  `Yes, thank you.'

  `Come, then.' He lifted her to her feet and brushed the honeysuckle petals from the cloak he drew around her. Her hair was a pale, silky ruffle framing her tear-stained face. `You do look forlorn, Janna, as if I had done something terrible to you. You make me feel I have hurt you ... are you bruised?'

  `No—' But she was bruised at heart, and she felt almost as cold as when the angry teacher had pulled her out of the stream and given her a push towards the tall grey building that had been her only home.

  Two large tears spilled again from her eyes, and she turned away from Raul so he wouldn't see them.

  `Let us go in.' He spoke with a sudden chilly note in his voice. 'It will be almost time for dinner.'

  `May I be excused?' Her voice held a tremor.

  `You are afraid the family will notice that you have been crying?'

  `Yes—it would be embarrassing.'

  `But Leila sometimes weeps, when Kassim is a little cruel to her. Men are not angels, chica.'

  'Leila loves her husband ... I daresay she understands him, and forgives.'

  `Love is like that, eh?'

  `I should imagine so.'

  `But I must remain unforgiven?'

  For tonight,' Janna admitted, upset, torn by mixed emotions, needing to be alone. Will you allow me to stay in my room? I have no appetite for dinner, and no heart for pretending to be gay when I feel the opposite.'

  `Janna

  `Please be kind to me ... if you can be without having to make the effort.' Then in a torment that had to find expression in action, she tore off his hindering cloak, dropped

  it to the ground, and fled into the house away from him. One of her babouches came off and she left it behind her, feeling the coldness of the tiles beneath her bare foot. She came to the corridor that led to her apartment, and gave a little cry as she ran full tilt into a silent-footed servant. She was aware of the man's startled gaze as she ran on until she came to the entrance of her rooms. It was a relief to close the door behind her and to sink down on a divan with her chaotic thoughts.

  She clenched a cushion with her cold hands and felt the pressure of Raul's emerald against her fine-boned finger. She needed no reminder of his kisses, their touch still lingered on her lips, her neck, her eyes.

  She must get away ! She couldn't face seeing him again .. yet she had to in the morning.

  With a troubled sigh she rose to her feet and entered the room with the sunken marble bath. She would bathe her aches away, and then go to bed.

  `Have I hurt you?' He had asked her that, and she gazed with shocked eyes at the bruise that came to light on her arm when she peeled off her clothes and let them fall to the coloured tiles. She touched with her fingertips the petal-shaped violet mark, reminding her vividly of the crush of his arms, the dizzying scent of the honeysuckle, the twisted myrtles like wraiths in the moonlight.

  She slipped into the scented steam of her bath and the warm silky water felt soothing against her skin. Pale skin, long slim legs, a slightly curved bosom that guarded her heart and its secret.

  Suddenly she heard footsteps, but was not disturbed. It would be Farima with some food on a tray and a pot of delicious Arabian coffee. She lifted an arm above the water to wave to the girl.

  `I will put the tray just here on this stool.'

  She looked up wildly, and there was Raul, unperturbed to find her in the bath, standing tall beside it with the air of a man who would hold the towel for her if she wished to

  come out.

  `I—I thought you were Farima!' she gasped.

  `Do I look like her?' he drawled. 'You dropped your slipper, Cinderella. I came to return it, and to bring you some food and coffee. Unless you promise to eat something before going to bed, I shall stay to see that you do.'

  `You'll go ... this instant!' Her cheeks were scarlet, and she held the sponge protectively against her. He really was a devil! Standing there, so lithe and dark, unrepentant about that interlude in the courtyard, tormenting her again with his roving, dark-lashed eyes.

  `Raul ... please go.'

  He smiled slowly. 'When you beg so prettily I have to stay out of the sheer inability to leave you.'

  `Y-you aren't at all nice to me tonight.'

  `No, because I was concerned for Madrecita. But I found her looking very pleased with herself. She enjoyed your little talk and said you were a nice girl who wanted me to be happy ... do you want that, chica?'

  `I suppose so. What will become of El Amara if you don't get what you want? You are an arrogant
man, Raul Cesar Bey, but you're the best man for the job.'

  `You little fraud !'

  `W-what?' Her great blue eyes met his, startled, bewildered, begging him to go, to stay, to explain himself.

  `You utter child !' He laughed and it rang out resonantly in the marbled bathroom. 'Did you really get it into your funny head that I was madly in love with Rachael Corleza?'

  `But you are . . . in love with her.'

  `Am I? Many thanks for knowing the state of my mind, and my heart, better than I know them myself.'

  `The Princess knows how you feel about Rachael.'

  `My grandmother has always known of my regard for my lovely cousin by marriage. Rachael made her husband a good wife, and we all hope that one day she will marry again. Someone lovely should not be alone, without a man in her life.'

  `But ' Words failed Janna, and she shrank among the

  soap bubbles as he knelt, smiling, beside the bath and gazed down at her, a look in his eyes that made her desperately aware of her almost transparent cloak of scented foam.

  `I—I want to come out, Raul. Won't you go into the other room . . . we can talk there.'

  `Of course, little one.' He leapt to his feet and carried her supper tray into the adjoining salon. On trembling legs she climbed from the bath and quickly dried herself. She slipped into a silk wrap, and found that he had placed her lost babouche beside its mate. She put them on, and it took all her courage to join him. He lounged on the divan, where she had sat an hour ago, and he was pouring coffee into a pair of cups with bluebirds painted on them.

  `Come.' His eyes drew her towards him. 'A cup of coffee will steady your shaken nerves.'

  `Raul . . .' Her knees were weak as she sank down on a huge velvet cushion, a slender figure in lemon silk, beseeching eyes raised to him. 'What has your grandmother told you . . . about me?'

  `It was a little wicked of her to give you away, eh?' `Oh, this is so embarrassing.'

  `Your coffee, nina, just as you like it.'

  `Thank you.' She took several heartening sips of the delicious brew. 'You surely don't believe what your grandmother told you.'

  `Don't you want me to believe her, Janna?'

  `It might be better if you didn't.'

  `I think it would be infinitely desirable if I did.'

  `Really?' Her eyes widened and were held by his. She was at his knees on the velvet cushion, her hair in damp tendrils at her temples and the nape of her neck, a slim young slave of feelings she could barely fight any more.

  `Don't you wish to know why I want to believe what the Princess confided to me?'

  `She promised not to tell you.'

  `I confess that I coaxed your secret out of her ... not that

  she took much coaxing.'

  `And I suppose you want to hear me say it, so you can laugh!' She was poised to feel from him again when he swiftly caught her hands in his and held her captive.

  `Don't speak to me like that, Janna, or I shall become as dangerous as you have always thought me.' Raul drew her firmly, gently, inescapably into his arms, and his hand stroked her soft hair, her thin cheek, the curve of her shoulder. 'Why be afraid of me, Niña? I only love you.'

  `I loved you from the moment you looked at me with those big blue eyes that hungered for affection. Little waif. Little runabout. Fighting me every inch of the way from the beach to Benikesh, from the mosque balcony to the old courtyard tonight. Why, in heaven's name?'

  `Because I thought you loved Rachael.'

  `Did I not warn you not to let your imagination run away with you?' He gave her a tiny shake, and then he gathered her closer still to the warm muscles beneath the silky white shirt. Warm-skinned, tawny, tormenting man. With an incoherent little murmur she buried her face against him.

  `Y-you didn't kiss me, Raul, like a man who cared. You were being cruel.'

  `And you were being cool . . . too cool for my desert liking.' He tilted her chin, made her look at him as he read deeply of her eyes. 'So I was all set to be the bridegroom of Rachael, who would be most alarmed if she knew. She finds me a terrible tyrant. Her husband was much more like Ahmed.'

  Janna gave a start at his mention of Ahmed, who had been so sure that she was not the girl for Raul. Was he right? Should she still run away as planned?

  `Raul, would it work out . . . you and I?'

  `Like honey and toast, mi querida,' he grinned, and dropped a kiss on her nose. 'Like snow and flame.' `Meaning I must melt for you?'

  `.Mmmm.' He lowered his head and kissed her lips very

  slowly, lingering on their shy softness, caressing, possessing, but no longer hurting her in anger. 'Melt and be sweet, my Janna. I want you so much. I want to love you, to make you safe, to make you know what it is to be part of someone. I want the Princess to announce our coming marriage the evening of her birthday. It will be the best gift we could give her.'

  Janna took a deep breath, unbelieving and yet beginning to believe in the warm and wonderful reality of Raul's love. It was there in his eyes, in his touch, in the firm and tender clasp of his arms. It was for her, if she had the courage to take it. The love of Raul Cesar Bey, who would be the next governor of El Amara, with whom she would live on the edge of the tawny sands, in the House of the Pomegranate.

  `Then let us give the Princess her gift.' Janna spoke shyly. `I should like to marry you, if you really want me.'

  `Shall I demonstrate how much, Janna?' His eyes smiled down into hers, a gleam of devilment in them. 'Can you take it, or do you need some food to strengthen you?'

  `What did you bring me?'

  `All the things you like best . . . including myself.' `Arrogant man !'

  `But you love me for it.'

  `More than you deserve.' Her arms crept around his bronzed neck. 'It was never true, Raul, that I was afraid of your desire. I was only afraid of loving you too much, and not being loved in return. I so believed my own fiction about you and Rachael. I wonder why?'

  `I imagine it was a defence action against me.' He smiled and cradled her close to him. 'An instinctive retreat into fantasy because you were a little afraid of the sheik in me.'

  She touched his brown throat with a shy hand, and the emerald glowed as he took her hand and pressed a kiss deep into her palm.

  `Do you see, querida, the stone has come truly alive and I think at last that the temple dancer of long ago would be happy for us. You are all that a man could desire, kind and

  impulsive of heart, innocent and quietly ardent, and lovely for me.'

  Smiling into her eyes, he kissed the ring and so he pledged that soon they would be married, and her heart told her that she need have no more doubts about their future together. He had conquered her and all her fears, and she recalled little things he had said to her in the desert, which in her innocence she had not fully understood. Even then he had been saying he loved her.

  `Raul, I'm so very happy,' she whispered, and with a blissful smile she gave herself to his kiss, a slight young thing in silk, lost in the arms of her desert lover.