“Melisande?” Gabriel asked, sitting as she slid off the bed.
“I can’t.” She leaned her cheek against the bedpost.
His finger drifted along her arm before he cupped her elbow. “Don’t be foolish, az-Zahra.”
Fighting her longing to fling herself into his arms, she stepped away. “This is not a trifle. I have played at life for too long, leaving my home and chasing a dream that never existed to the far ends of the world. My foolishness has left my father without an heir and me without a brother. I deluded myself, believing that I could change because I love you.” She laughed tersely. “Even that love is foolish. You have denounced your past and I am so firmly rooted in mine.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she whispered, “This is the first time I have truly been serious.”
He stood behind her, but did not touch her. She stiffened her shoulders so they would not quiver in anticipation of the touch that she wanted so much. Not that it mattered. Every inch of her was so aware of him that it was as if he were holding her.
“Melisande …” She heard the anguish in his voice. “I do not want to see you dead. You belong here … with me.”
When he turned her to face him, she did not resist. The tears in her eyes blurred his strong face. “You know that is not true.”
“You would rather die than be my ikbal?”
Her fingers brushed his face, unable to resist touching him. “No, but I cannot renounce who I am. Whether I am your ikbal or your captive waiting to be redeemed for my father’s gold, I am a Franj.”
He stared at her without speaking. Fire flashed in his dark eyes like a falling star slicing through the night sky, brilliant, then gone. He went to the shuttered doors and tossed them aside, shouting to Karim Pasa.
Melisande walked toward Gabriel, but stopped when Karim Pasa appeared from the shadows and bowed. She understood only a handful of words when Gabriel spoke to Karim Pasa. Her name, his mother’s … and Falla’s.
When Gabriel disappeared into the shadows, Karim Pasa turned to follow him after glancing at Melisande. Gabriel’s face had been blank, but not Karim Pasa’s. On it, she saw pity and sorrow and fear.
She wanted to run after them, asking one of them to explain what had been said. She sat on the floor and stared at the tiles. Bowing her head into her hands, she wished for the tears she had tried not to let fall before. Now she wanted them to wash away this misery.
Tonight, while she had this grand bed to herself, Gabriel might be calling another woman to be in his arms. Why else would he have called Karim Pasa and spoken Falla’s name?
She had made the right decision, for she could not turn her back on revenging Geoffrey’s death and her vow to the Crusade. She had known that coming to the Holy Land would mean many sacrifices.
She simply had not guessed the Crusade would require her heart to break like this.
SIXTEEN
A day’s unsettled thoughts brought no more answers than a night’s bad dreams. Nothing changed, for Melisande’s heart refused to forget her love for Gabriel de la Rive. She loved him as the daring warrior who had fought by her side and saved her life. She loved him as the arrogant shaykh who granted her a prison unlike any she had expected. Most of all, she loved him as Gabriel, the alluring lover who dared her to face the needs of her heart.
When neither Lysias nor Kalinin came to her door, she was torn between relief at not having to explain what had happened last evening and despair that they had abandoned her. She could have sought them out, but she was unsure what she would say to them. Both of them had cautioned her about the uneasy path she was on. She had not heeded either of them and had blindly brought this sorrow upon herself.
Standing by her door, she had seen Karim Pasa busy about his errands in the harim. She heard Falla’s exultant voice. No one spoke Frankish, but she could not mistake Falla’s joy. Turning from the door, she wondered if it were because Gabriel had called her to him last night.
She did not want to believe that. Certainly Falla would have sought Melisande out to taunt her with that.
With only that slim comfort, Melisande watched the sun fall beyond the western hills. There, where the Franj array marched, she should have been instead of suffering this grief in her pretty prison.
Night came, offering no relief for her aching heart. Her hope that Karim Pasa would appear to let her know that her presence was requested was for naught. Gabriel de la Rive was a proud man, and she had hurt him.
She pulled on the sleek tunic that she favored for the hottest nights. Shivering, she drew a cloak over her shoulders, but the cold came from within her. She shrugged the garment off, leaving it on her chair.
Going out into her private garden, she saw that moonlight dimmed the stars’ glow. The moon merely glittered along the path toward the rear of the enclosure, enjoying the reflection of its pasty face in the fountain. Other nights in these gardens returned to haunt her.
She slowed to a stop as a whisper slipped through her head as if the song of a distant voice had spoken to her. Her heart fluttered against her chest. Your heart calls to mine to return to you and the welcome of your arms. Gabriel had told her that the night he kept her out of the caliph’s bed. That night, she had dared to believe he might be falling in love with her as she was with him.
Was it still possible?
As if she had shouted the words aloud, she saw a door at the far end of the garden open. She hurried toward it, her silken tunic flowing out behind her like the wings of a pale night bird. She smiled when she discovered that the door opened, as she had hoped, into Gabriel’s private garden.
She walked through the greenery that was lit by lamps glowing from Gabriel’s rooms. She halted. Was she insane? The caliph could be within.
“You need not cling to the shadows, az-Zahra.” The gentle caress of Gabriel’s voice urged her to obey.
As she walked past the pool with its singing fountain, she heard the garden door close behind her. She did not look back. There was no reason. Turning back now was impossible.
She paused on the tiles which still were warm with the sun’s heat. “I do not want to disturb you, Gabriel.”
“You have disturbed me from the moment I first saw you.” He was sitting on a chair in the room where they had played chess and shared sweet passion. “Don’t you know that?”
“Karim Pasa would be aghast if he knew I had come here without being called.”
“You have followed so few of my other orders. Why should you follow this one?” He stood and pointed to the chair beside his. “Join me.”
She remained by the door, although she longed to tell him that was just what she wanted to do. To be a part of him as he was of her, their hearts joining as their bodies did. The scanty light from the single lamp outlined his firm strength. His silk shirt clung to him, creating a new pattern with each motion. Her gaze swept along the breadth of his chest to the wide belt closing his full breeches. His feet were as bare as hers.
“Melisande, will you enter?”
She met his gaze. Mysteries waited within his eyes, urging her to solve them as they discovered joy together. Together, echoed the beat of her heart. Her fingers rose, but the wide floor remained between them. To enter his rooms was to repudiate all she had lost. To stay in the garden meant denying herself all she had won.
“I thought you might be busy with …”
“With someone else?” He crossed the room and took her hands. “You should know, Melisande, that the caliph is busy preparing to leave tomorrow.” He smiled gently. “As is Falla.”
“She is leaving?”
“The caliph offered to purchase her from me.”
She shivered again. “But you did not sell her.”
“No.” He smiled. “I presented her to him as a gift.”
She pulled back, her eyes wide with horror. “You gave her away? To that old man?”
Laughing, he shook his head. “You know so little of the ways of this land, az-Zahra. If I had sold Falla to him, she would have been on
e among his hundreds of women. I gave her to him, so he is obligated to make her his wife.” When she continued to stare at him, amazed, he asked, “My sweet Melisande, will you come in or must I shout an order so that everyone in the palace knows of my desire for you?”
She stepped into the room. The blue tiles were a river drawing her closer to him. Holding out her hands to him, she whispered, “I want you to shout our desires so the whole world knows.”
“You have changed your mind about—”
Putting her finger to his lips, she shook her head. “Do not speak, Gabriel. Words lead to anger. I want to forget words and think only of touching you.”
He drew her to the bed and into his arms. As his lips captured hers, he leaned her back onto the pillows. His hand slid along her side. The silk slipped away in a hushed whisper as his fingers caressed her. Her soft moan against his mouth became a gasp when he stroked the upsweep of her breast. Lying beside her, he held her between his strong body and the iron bar of his arm.
Needing to touch him, she tried to escape from his tongue as it tantalized her neck. Her fingers splayed across his back as she drew off his shirt.
“Be mine, sweet one,” he murmured.
She shook her head, sitting so she could look down at him. “No. Tonight, you shall be my captive.”
“Me?” He chuckled, but his eyes glowed with raven fire. “How shall you hold me captive?”
She bent to tease his ear with her tongue. His breath caught as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her against his hard body. When he whispered of how he would enrapture her, his words burned along her with the power of a summer storm.
While he caressed her, she fought the scintillating pleasure, for she did not want to succumb to it until she had offered him the bliss she had discovered in his arms. She laughed when his beard grazed her face. Each sensation was a delight. She followed a meandering path along him, letting her lips and her fingertips relearn the sensual feast awaiting her.
Easily she loosened the last of his clothes and pulled them from him. His hands reached to draw her over him, but she pushed them away. He moaned as she tasted the firm skin of his abdomen. Etching curlicues into his satiny skin with her tongue, she heard him gasp her name and her heartbeat throbbed in her ears. She wanted him to ache for her as she did for him when he lured her to the very quintessence of ecstasy.
Her tongue played along him, leaving no spot untouched. With a gasp, he caught her arms and pulled her atop him. His arm held her to him as his lips burned into hers. The craving exploded to scorch her in a hunger only he could satisfy. When she clutched his shoulders, he found a welcome deep within her.
Closing her eyes, she swayed with the motion that grew out of the wanton need of his body against hers. She lowered her lips over his. The ecstasy became a torrid tumult, flowing over and through her. In one flawless second of enchantment, she was lost in a love where she had found everything she wanted.
Melisande laughed as crushed walnuts fell from the baqlawa. She scooped up the bits of pastry and put it in Gabriel’s mouth. “You are wasting this sweet,” she admonished.
“Nothing tastes as sweet as you.”
She batted his hands away as she reached for another piece of the delicious treat “You have had your chance to taste me. I am hungry. Give me a chance to eat, Gabriel.”
“Why?” He sat, his nearly black eyes twinkling with devilish mirth. “You had plenty of time to eat all day.”
“I was not hungry all day.”
“Because you thought we had lost this?” His lips coursed along her neck.
Holding up the baqlawa, she let him have the first bite, then popped another piece into her mouth. “Do you want me to starve?” she teased.
“Starving you into submission is an interesting proposition.”
“You say that only because you want all the sweets,” she countered.
“And because I would rather convince you in other ways to submit to passion.” He bent and kissed her lightly. His eyes glowed with a renewal of longing. When she offered him another bite of baqlawa, he smiled. “Do you wish to play a game of chess while we finish these?”
Eagerly, she pushed herself up from her nest of pillows on the floor. “I would be glad to defeat you again, Gabriel.”
Drawing the board between them on the rug, Gabriel chuckled. As she arranged the pieces, he fought the urge to pull her into his arms again. Never had he known such an odd mixture of woman and child in the same body. As he listened to her happy voice, he wondered what the future held for them.
“Gabriel, what is bothering you?” she asked, and he knew his disquiet must be visible.
“Only that you are so incredibly beautiful, az-Zahra.”
She frowned. “No, there is something wrong.” Her breath caught so sharply he feared it must have lacerated her throat. “Are you leaving, too, at dawn?”
“If Shakir returns with the information he hopes to have, we must rout Abd al Qadir for once and all.” He reached across the board to stroke her cheek. “You know as well as I that nothing has changed beyond this room, az-Zahra. I must stop him, but you shall be here to share the joy of my homecoming.”
She put her fingers over his. “If you come back.”
“We cannot determine the time of our deaths. Instead of worrying about such, we should be grateful for the time we have together.”
“Yes.” Tossing the pieces onto the board, she rose to her knees, then to her feet. She held out her hand to him as he had to her so often.
Without speaking, he stood. He put his fingers in hers. It did not surprise him that this astounding woman was helping him learn of sensations he had never suspected existed. He whispered a prayer that he would have many years to continue to discover more with her guidance.
As he leaned her back into the pillows, he feared that that was one prayer that might go unanswered.
“So, what do you think?”
Gabriel realized he had not been listening to the caliph. For how long? For as long as he had been standing here in the stable yard thinking about the glorious splendor that he had shared with Melisande last night.
He did not deceive himself into thinking that anything had changed. When she had thought he was asleep in the wake of the rapture, Melisande had gone to the door that opened to the storage caverns. He had watched, not moving, as she had stood in the doorway, then closed the door and returned to nestle beside him.
Although he had wanted to ask her if she sought to persuade herself to stay with him, he knew she was as determined to fulfill her vows as he was his. She might have been trying to devise a way to flee from Mukhdarr, something he had ordered Karim Pasa to watch for even as he had offered Melisande more freedom within the house after the caliph took his leave.
He hoped she would be satisfied with that, although he knew she would not. Alone among the hills, she would be an easy target for Abd al Qadir. She knew that, but it would not halt her from trying to flee if she had the opportunity. In that, she was too much like him, adamant that she would do what she must, no matter the risks.
But in so many other ways, she was not like him. He could not keep from smiling as he thought of those ways and how he enjoyed those differences. But he was abruptly brought back to the seriousness of the present when the caliph muttered a curse under his breath.
“Forgive me, Yasin,” he said with a bow of his head. “I am anticipating with great pleasure the day when these hills are free of fear.”
“Is that so?” The old man grumbled something under his breath. “You have the look of a man anticipating other things far more personal.”
“As you should.”
Yasin’s wrinkles twisted into a smile of his own as he glanced at the closed litter where Falla was waiting to be taken to his castle. “You have done me a great favor, which I will not forget, my friend.”
“It is my honor.”
“It is my honor to do you a favor which I hope you will see as valuable.” He low
ered his voice. “Rid yourself of that Franj woman. I do not like what Falla tells me of gifts you have given her. Instead of adorning her with gold, you should be sending her to a grave shorter by a head.”
Gabriel folded his arms in front of him. “Falla’s virtues are many, for she is skilled in a mans arms; but her fault of talking when she should not is something I wish you better luck than I have had at halting.”
“Shakir expressed his concerns to me as well.”
Gabriel scowled. “I had hoped he would not burden you with this unimportant matter.”
“He worries about you, for he is as loyal to you as he was to your father. He knows, as you and I both do, that there must be no hint of sympathy for the Franj attached to your name.”
“That I keep a Franj woman captive in my harim to enjoy instead of putting her to death shows only good sense on my part.”
“I understand you have asked for a high ransom for her return to her father.”
“Falla mentioned that as well?”
“You are right. She does talk too much. I shall have to change that.” The caliph ran his fingers through his neatly trimmed beard. “The Franj woman is a fascinating creature, but do not let her be your downfall.”
“I do not intend to have a downfall.”
With a laugh, the caliph signaled to one of the men to help him onto his horse. He waved and led the procession out of the stable yard and toward the tunnel that opened onto the plain.
Gabriel turned and walked in the other direction. He paid no attention to where he was going, but his footsteps led him toward his rooms. Mayhap Melisande was waiting for him there. If not, he would send for her.
“It is so beautiful, Karim Pasa,” he heard as he came around a corner and discovered Melisande in the middle of his reception hall.
She was dwarfed by the arch of the roof and the long table that ran from one end to the other. Standing as she was in the light from the door at the far end, her slender limbs were silhouetted against the sheer fabric of her breeches.
“Milady, you should wear this,” Karim Pasa said, holding out a tcharchaf.
No Price Too High Page 17
