Daughter of Hassan

by Penny Jordan

  Danielle's anguished protest was lost beneath the mouth that plundered and then softened, coaxing her stubborn lips into parting in tremu­lous wonder.

  No one had ever kissed her like this before, she acknowledged half deliriously as Jourdan's hands slid down her back, moulding her yielding body to the hard warmth of his, his lips continuing to tease and coax until her hands went pleadingly to his shoulders, surrender in the huge, bemused eyes she lifted in shaken supplication to his.

  It must be the drug she had been given, she decided muzzily, there could be no other reason for this strange, melting need to yield herself completely to the heady persuasion of Jourdan's lips and hands. Her mouth parted automatically, her head falling back over his supporting arm, her senses reeling as he probed and explored the sweet softness she had previously withheld from him, and as though he knew that the kiss conceded defeat his hand stroked firmly over her breast, arousing sensations that made Danielle reel in fresh astonishment. Somewhere deep down inside her a small voice warned her that later she would regret this heady intoxication which told her to respond blindly to the sensations Jourdan was arousing, but his hold on her was so strong that even had she heeded it it would have been im­possible for her to break away from him.

  Her hands moved instinctively from his shoul­ders over the hard muscles of his back and down­ward, drawing a muttered protest from the lips exploring the pulsing softness of her throat, and were redirected along paths she had never in her wildest dreams imagined—or wanted to im­agine—taking.

  Beneath her shy exploration she could feel the satin texture of Jourdan's skin, damply warm where she touched it, filling her with a primeval feeling of power she could barely understand, but which made it imperative for her to press her body deeper into the hard masculinity of his, running her fingers over the long back and taut muscles, until her touch drew a husky protest and Jourdan's lips left the slender curve of her throat to tease the full softness of her breasts, already burgeoning to soft roundness beneath his skilled fingers.

  Driven farther and farther from reality along paths of sensuality which held her fast within their grip, Danielle had no conscious knowledge of arching instinctively beneath Jourdan's hard hands, or of the way they trembled slightly as his tongue touched her nipple, circling it slowly, sending her mindless with a pleasure which over­whelmed modesty and caution and left only a need for something which ached deep down inside her and grew stronger with every passing second.

  'You learn well, Danielle,' she heard Jourdan mutter hoarsely before his mouth closed in implicit demand on the tautly tempting outline of her breast. He added something in Arabic which sounded like a plea, but Danielle's mind was too fuzzy to comprehend it. She was caught in the middle of a raging tide, too confused and bemused, to try and fight it, and when Jourdan's hands slid down to her hips, lifting her slightly and coaxing her slim thighs apart with the burning heat of his own she could only look at him through the dark-j ness and feel the cramping excitement race through her body at the intimate contact with his,

  By the time the mists of sexual pleasure had parted enough for her to appreciate what the pul­sing hardness of his body betokened it was too late.

  Her sharp cry of pain and distress was lost beneath the firm pressure of Jourdan's lips, but fear swamped her earlier exultation, pleasure giving way to shocked acknowledgement of what had happened. The drugs she had been given had caused this, Danielle thought shakily, brushing away the tears she was trying to subdue. She hated Jourdan as she had never hated anyone in her life before. She tried to move away, but he wouldn't let her, his face a white mask of fury above her, and she realised that she had voiced her thoughts out loud.

  'You don't hate me, mignonne,' he drawled with harsh cruelty, his fingers biting into the tender flesh of her arms. 'You hate yourself for being a woman . . .'

  'You drugged me!' Danielle stormed back at him, falling back against the pillows as the hands which had been tender suddenly tightened and with calculated cruelty held her prisoner while his body reinforced its domination of her own.

  'Stop it!' Danielle protested furiously. 'Aren't you satisfied with the degradation you've already inflicted on me?'

  Fury mingled with a self-disgust she could barely admit surged through her until she feared nothing; not even the blazing anger burning in the darkness of Jourdan's eyes.

  His possession of her was brutally swift, making her gasp in sudden pain, her fingers curling protestingly into his shoulders as his mouth punished hers, forcing her lips to part beneath his ruthless assault.

  Quite when pain turned to heated pleasure Danielle did not know. One moment she was furi­ous and bitterly resenting the intrusion of Jour­dan's body, the next, or so it seemed later in her hazy recollections, she was responding to a sensa­tion as primitive and age-old as man himself.

  Her fingers were still curled into the hard warmth of Jourdan's shoulders, but now with pleasure instead of pain, pleasure which beat at her in ever-increasing waves until she was moan­ing softly and involuntarily beneath the burning demand of Jourdan's mouth, her arms locking round his neck as her body arched with instinctive need to prolong the pleasure he was giving her, her heart racing frantically against his flesh as his harsh breathing communicated a message which seemed to be received in every part of her body.

  The exquisite fulfilment of their lovemaking stayed locked inside Danielle's mind, even when her body had relaxed into exhausted satisfaction; Jourdan's tongue delicately tasting the tears lying damply on her cheeks her last memory as sleep claimed her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was daylight. In her drowsy, half awakened state Danielle could feel the warmth of the sun's rays through the draperies of the bed. She stretched, unconscious seduction in the languor­ous movement, her body full of a strange lethargy which made it impossible for her to jump out of bed with her normal vigour. She rolled sideways, her eyes clouding as fragments of a nightmare came back to her, her body tensing with horror as she remembered events which had been no night­mare, but cold, factual reality.

  The bathroom door opened and Jourdan strode into the room, a towel draped casually over his lean-hipped frame, its white softness in direct contrast to his tanned body. A bitter hatred filled Danielle as he walked casually over to the bed and looked down at her. Her first instinct was to turn away from the amused comprehension of his glance, but she forced herself to meet it with eyes carefully blanked of all emotion.

  'Well, ma cherie, did I not keep my promise?' Jourdan drawled, one lean hand pushing aside the bedcovers to trace the fragile bones of her shoulder.

  'Your promise? I call it a threat!' Danielle spat furiously at him, pulling away from his hand. 'I suppose I've one thing to be grateful for—at least now that our marriage can't be annulled I won't have to bear your loathesome touch on my body again!'

  'Loathesome?' Danielle was too caught up in her own emotions to hear the warning tone in the softly spoken word. 'You didn't seem to find it loathesome at the time, mignonne, far from it,' Jourdan reminded her hatefully, 'In fact unless my memory serves me wrong you pleaded with me to open the gates of paradise for you . . .'

  'Because you drugged me,' Danielle cried wildly. 'Otherwise I would never . . .'

  'Drugged you?' The forbidding words cut across her bitter protests. 'Your imagination run away with you, daughter of Hassan. The only drug that was used, if you can call it that, was your female response to my maleness.'

  'That tea you made me drink was drugged, just like the cup Zanaide gave me,' Danielle protested furiously. 'Otherwise I would never have . . . have . . .'

  'Responded to me with such sweet passion?' Jourdan suggested cruelly. 'I did not use drugs, Danielle, it wasn't necessary,' he told her sar­donically. 'However, if you should prefer me to prove my point . . .?'

  He was reaching for the towel even as he spoke, and to her chagrin Danielle felt herself crimson furiously, her body going rigid as her eyes mutely begged for the compassion her lips
refused to ask for.

  'Still such a child,' Jourdan said acidly, leaning over her, his hands either side of her body, im­prisoning her in the bed. 'It might be amusing to teach you a lesson you well deserve, petite. It would take very little to arouse those passionate fires you keep so well hidden, to the point where every night not spent in my arms would be the most exquisite torture . . .'

  'You . . . you . . . sadist!' Danielle hissed at him, driven almost beyond words in her need to show him the depths of her hatred and contempt for him. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that there was no way she was going to remain his wife with that threat hanging over her, but Caution intervened, reminding her that for now she was virtually a prisoner within his castle, and that no Arab would lift a hand to help a runaway wife. There must be some way she could escape, she reasoned. If she could just telephone her parents. One phone call that would be enough to have them both on a plane to Qu'Har.

  'When you have finished sulking you may summon Zanaide to help you dress. I am going out riding. If you behave yourself I may take you with me another day, when we have been married a little longer. Were I to allow you to ride this morning my men would think me a poor bride­groom, so today you must occupy yourself alone.'

  Try as she might Danielle could not control her shocked gasp, or the vivid colour burning her heated skin. Her hands curled impotently until her nails were digging in her palms, the tears stinging her eyes preventing her from seeing Jourdan leave the room.

  Once he had gone she did not give way to her emotions, telling herself that she would not give him the pleasure of having it whispered amongst his household that he had made her cry, and so when Zanaide came in carrying her breakfast tray she found Danielle sitting up in bed, manicuring her nails.

  Food would surely choke her, Danielle thought sickly, barely glancing at the fresh warm rolls and honey Zanaide had brought her and the sweet, juicy dates, but the young maid protested when Danielle said that she didn't want anything, her expression demurely coy as she murmured that Danielle must keep up her strength.

  'The Sheikha will not make a fine son if she does not eat,' Zanaide told her.

  A son! Danielle's stomach clenched protest-ingly, her face paling as the full implication of Zanaide's innocent words struck her. Dear God, please not that, she prayed with chattering teeth as she made a pretence of eating one of the rolls. She had to leave Qu'Har, and at once. She couldn't endure to spend another day here, especially not in this room, haunted by the memory of her own aroused breathing and soft, panting cries.

  Zanaide helped her to bathe and dress in one of the caftans the Sheikha had ordered for her, and although the younger girl's eyes widened frac­tionally as she saw the faint purpling bruises on Danielle's fair skin, where Jourdan's passion had made her forget pain, she said nothing.

  After breakfast and with Zanaide as interpreter Danielle was shown over the castle by a tall bearded Arab who Zanaide told her was Jourdan's comptroller.

  The castle was enormous; one entire wing, al­though furnished, appeared unused, but Zanaide told her that it was set aside for the use of the desert nomads who were allowed to water their herds at the castle's oasis twice a year and for that time remained under the castle roof.

  'The Sheikh has done much for our people,' Zanaide told Danielle seriously as they explored a beautiful inner courtyard, which the comptroller had told Danielle was to be her own special pro­vince. 'Our young men learn of the new tech­nology at foreign universities, our girls are per­mitted to go to school.'

  Permitted! Danielle's lip curled faintly. She and Zanaide were worlds apart in their outlook. What Zanaide looked upon as a privilege given by an indulgent male Danielle considered to be hers without question. She shivered suddenly despite the heat, as she dwelt on what her future life could be if she didn't escape from Qu'Har. He owned her, Jourdan had told her calmly last night, and her heart still burned with the resentment his arrogant words had aroused.

  Zanaide drew her attention to the beauty of the mosaic-tiled floor of the courtyard, but Danielle merely gave it a desultory glance. A cage was a cage no matter how prettily it was painted. An unbearable longing to be free of the castle and all that it represented overwhelmed her. Shielding her eyes from the fierce glare of the sun, she looked around her. A tower, soaring above the tiled roofs of the castle, caught her eye and she stared up at it.

  'That is the Sheikh's private place,' Zanaide told her eagerly, patently relieved that something had caught Danielle's attention. 'It was built by an ancestor of the Sheikh's who used it to watch the heavens and make predictions from what he read there.'

  'Can we go up and see it?' Danielle asked slowly, something deep down inside her reaching out

  towards the tower. Zanaide looked upset and shocked.

  'It is the private apartment of the Sheikh,' she told Danielle apologetically, 'and none may go there but him.' She smiled suddenly. 'But now that you are married perhaps he will invite you to share its solitude with him. He spends many hours there . . .'

  Doing what? Danielle wondered acidly, trying not to admit to the feeling of disappointment growing inside her as she realised that the tower— like her freedom—was withheld from her, and by the same man.

  Danielle had been at the castle in the desert for nearly a week. Jourdan had not been near her since their wedding night. She had spent the second night of their marriage lying in the vast bed in a state of rigid hatred, admitting only with the first pearly fingers of dawn that her efforts had all been in vain and that Jourdan was not going to give her the opportunity to prove his arrogant claims wrong and repulse him with the icy disdain with which she had intended to greet him. She was asleep when the bedroom door opened and the morning sun threw the tall shadow of a man across her bed, a frown in his eyes as he surveyed the tumbled disorder of her hair and the mauve shadows beneath her eyes.

  It was Zanaide who told her of the small child who had been lost by one of the tribes who still wandered the desert, and how Jourdan and his men had spent the night searching for the little boy.

  'The little one was fortunate that the Sheikh was here to organise the search,' Zanaide had told her. 'Otherwise he would probably never have been found. Just as the heat of our sun during the day can kill, so can the chill of it by night.'

  There had been celebrations at the nomad camp by the oasis following the safe return of the little boy, or so Zanaide had informed Danielle. The servants seemed to know everything, and Danielle's cheeks burned to think that they must also know how unwillingly she had been made the bride of the man whose word they took as law, and how ruthlessly he had overridden that un-willingness. Her one hope was that her parents would telephone her from America , and on being unable to get in touch with her would realise that something was wrong and come straight out to Qu'Har. Danielle didn't for one moment doubt that her stepfather would leave no stone unturned to have her marriage set aside once he knew how it had been accomplished and how much she hated it, firmly ignoring the small voice which told her tauntingly that there had been a good deal of truth in what Jourdan had said about her stepfather accepting the marriage.

  The days seemed to grow hotter, the sun burn­ing brassily down from a sky whose blueness seemed to hurt the eyes. Zanaide urged Danielle to try to rest during the hottest part of the day, but Danielle could not. A restless urgency seemed to possess her, her nerves constantly tightening under the constant threat of coming face to face with her unwanted husband. Her normal com­posure deserting her under the pressure of the tension enveloping her Danielle found it almost impossible to eat, and Zanaide frowned over the amount of weight she was losing.

  One afternoon when the heat of the courtyard seemed to push down on her in oppressive waves Danielle found herself moving with the slow pur-posefulness of a sleepwalker towards the stairs which led to Jourdan's tower.

  She knew that he spent most evenings there alone—Zanaide had told her as much, flushing guiltily as though she were giving away so
me carefully guarded secret. What did the other girl think she would do? Danielle asked herself wearily. Surely she must realise that she had no more desire for Jourdan's company than he had for hers. Marriage to her and the consummation of that marriage had accomplished his purpose and now he had no further need of her.

  The stone steps curved upwards spiral fashion and Danielle followed them blindly, not pausing to glance through the narrow slits let into the thick stone walls at intervals. It was cool on the stairs, shielded from the brilliance of the sun by the thick stone which Zanaide had told her had been quarried during the days of the Crusades and used to build this vast complex by the sophisticated and learned Muslim who had travelled widely with the victorious armies of Saladin.

  The stairs came to an abrupt end before a barred and studded wooden door similar to those guarding the main entrance to the castle. Danielle stared at them, focusing properly for the first lime. What on earth was she doing up here? She looked back behind her, trying to remember what impulse had driven her to climb the stairs in the first place. She had been sitting in the courtyard, watching the carp in the fishpond, their freedom as curtailed as hers, when suddenly a yearning to see as far beyond her prison walls as she could; had overcome her.

  The door to the tower yielded beneath her touch and Danielle stepped inside, the door closing behind her unnoticed as her eyes widened.

  Silky Persian rugs adorned the floor, shimmering silk gauzes veiled the walls shimmering iridescent with all the colours of a peacock's tail-no soft pastel shades here but luxury and richness of an opulence that caught Danielle's breath. The tower was circular with divans set in the window embrasures, covered in furs. A telescope—a curi­ously mundane article in such an exotic setting— caught Danielle's eye, and she wandered over to it, touching the smooth wood absently, her eyes drawn to the distant horizon. If only she could find some way of leaving Qu'Har! A tear slid down her cheek, quickly followed by another, and she brushed them away impatiently. How Jourdan would love to see her like this, defeated and in tears! Her fingers clenched, her chin lifting proudly. As she turned towards the door she saw the narrow bed she had not noticed before, was this where Jourdan slept? With an effort of will she dragged her eyes away, hating herself for the inner tremor which wracked at her, reminding her of all the things she had fought so hard to forget—like the rich satin feel of Jourdan's skin beneath her shy fingertips. The overwhelming sense of weakness she had ex­perienced before his superior strength, the trem­bling, burgeoning arousal of her own body, quick­ening through curiosity to mindless desire as he set it on fire with his hands and lips, and she . . .