WAS it her imagination or had the earth really moved under her feet? Danielle thought weakly, her mind a frantic jumble of thoughts as she sought to come to terms with what she had just been told.
‘But you’re supposed to be in France,’ she protested. ‘I…’
‘You would never have come had you thought otherwise?’ he said for her. ‘How little you know of men, daughter of Hassan, for all your modern upbringing. Did you honestly think I would allow you to insult me in such a fashion? To refuse me as your husband?’
Cruel fingers gripped her wrists like the talons of the eagle her stepfather claimed he represented. A terrible cold fear gripped Danielle in a numbing embrace. She couldn’t believe that this was happening. She would have to return home immediately; she would phone her parents. But they were in America, travelling from coast to coast in a hectic round of business and social commitments. The Sheikha, then, Danielle decided, her thoughts leaping the chasm of her fear. She would surely help her. If only she had insisted on her stepfather providing her with some money! She would have no need of any, he had told her calmly. Indeed her hosts would think it an insult if she tried to use any. But surely her air fare home, she had protested, but again her protest had been swept aside. She would be travelling in the family jet; a luxury which would not be bought simply by queueing up at an airline desk and purchasing a ticket.
Round and round went her thoughts until Danielle was dizzy with the effort of containing them, and all the time the man standing only feet away from her in the shadows retained his biting grip of her wrist.
‘I shall not apologise to you,’ she said swiftly, colour burning her face as anger came to her rescue. ‘I’ve done nothing to apologise for.’
He was more astute than she had bargained for, for instead of letting the matter drop, he enquired with dangerous calm.
‘Meaning?’
When Danielle remained stubbornly silent, he goaded softly, ‘So, the daughter of Hassan lacks the courage she would lay claim to. It is very easy to scatter insults in the heat of the moment, mignonne, but far harder to justify them.’
‘Meaning that any man who marries a girl purely for financial gain, as a business undertaking, has everything to apologise for?’ Danielle burst out furiously. ‘I disliked what I heard about you before I knew what you and my stepfather had planned between you, but after that…’
‘What did you hear about me?’ Jourdan demanded, his eyes narrowing sharply. He was like a panther, Danielle thought fearfully, tensed and waiting, coiled to spring upon her fragile arguments and rend and scatter them to the winds. ‘And where?’
‘From a friend of mine,’ Danielle responded, refusing to be quelled, her chin firming courageously. ‘Philippe Sancerre.’ Her upper lip curled faintly. ‘I suppose I should consider myself fortunate, All I would have been forced to bear was your name, while other women are obliged to endure your possession of them without even the saving grace of that.’
For a moment she thought he meant to strike her. She stepped back instinctively, appalled by the fierce glitter in the now almost black eyes.
‘Think yourself fortunate that I realise that your insults are those of a child who knows not what she is saying,’ Jourdan told her grimly, adding with a cold sneer, ‘A child, who betrays her very youth in her speech.’ He leaned a little closer to her, his warm breath grazing her temple. ‘A child, who knows nothing concerning that of which she speaks so disparagingly.’ His eyes swept Danielle’s now shivering form. ‘So you think my possession is to be endured, do you, mignonne? You shrink from me in horror and disgust? And you talk of a marriage where all you would be required to bear would be my name. Think again, little fool, and so that you may have something to think about…’ He bent his head, at the same time drawing her towards him, his fingers leaving her wrist to grip her shoulder while his free hand tilted her face upward until she was blinking protestingly as the light from the wall sconce fell fully on to her startled features.
‘You are as timid as the gazelle that grazes by the oases,’ he mocked softly. ‘Your eyes are those of a timid, hunted creature. Where is your bravery now, daughter of Hassan? Am I not only a man—only flesh and blood, whose heart beats even as yours does. Can’t you feel it beneath your fingers?’
Her hand was trapped and spread against the warmth of the flesh beneath the thin gown. She prayed desperately that someone would come and rescue her from this nightmare situation, and as though he read her thoughts Jourdan said sardonically, ‘No one will come to rescue you. These are my private quarters. Think upon this, daughter of Hassan. Should I choose to show you exactly what it means to know my possession there is none to gainsay me; none to overhear your timid virgin cries…’
‘I am not a vir…’ Danielle began, but he swept aside her words with a husky laugh.
‘You lie, Danielle. If it were otherwise you would know without my having to tell you that a man finds piquantly attractive the thought of a girl whose body is as the most perfectly concealed courtyard. Indeed, I am surprised that Sancerre has not already told you this.’
‘What makes you think he hasn’t?’ Danielle retorted, wishing she had the courage to press harder against the hard warm chest beneath her splayed fingers, and thus free herself, although, of course, whatever puny effort she might make to escape would be swiftly quelled by the iron-hard arm circling her waist.
‘Because had he done so, he would not merely have told you in words,’ was the calm reply. ‘And your fingers would not tremble so timidly against my flesh, nor your eyes widen with fear of the unknown when I touch you thus…’
Danielle gasped and stiffened as her robe was pushed carelessly aside and lean fingers cupped her breast. Beneath the caftan she was wearing only tiny lacy briefs, having been persuaded by Zanaide that her taut youthful breasts needed no extra support.
Her heart hammering like a drum, she felt her mouth go dry, her frantic thoughts protesting that this could not be happening, that this careless, arrogant stranger could not be sweeping aside all her defences and caressing her breast in this intimate fashion.
‘How young you are! And how foolish.’ Jourdan’s voice seemed to have deepened, his touch mockingly sure as the tiny loops fastening the front of the caftan were released, and Danielle’s panicky protest was lost beneath the pressure of his mouth as it descended to hover threateningly over hers before its cool mastery was forcing her stunned senses to assimilate emotions and sensations completely outside all her existing experience.
Beneath his tormenting fingers she felt her breast swell and harden, her mouth parting irresistibly for the demanding insistence of his tongue as it slid moistly over her lips, her whole body becoming pliant with a sensation that made her feel as though she were unable to do anything but give in to the strange power he seemed to have over her.
When his mouth left hers sanity returned and she tried to push away from him, but his lips were sliding from her throat downwards, his voice husky with mingled mockery and laughter as he murmured.
‘Be still, daughter of Hassan, lest I take your inexperienced squirming for a plea to know that complete possession of which you are at once so innocent and so scathing.’
‘Let me go!’ Danielle demanded breathlessly, conscious of hurried breathing and thumping heart, but Jourdan ignored her, his lips continuing their downward path until they came to rest for a heart-stopping moment against the smooth curve of her breast. Shocked, Danielle froze, only to gasp and tremble as his fingers curved warmly against her breast and his mouth closed over the tender pinkness of her nipple, savouring its burgeoning arousal and encouraging it until Danielle felt weak with the throbbing pressure of her own body, and horrified by the overwhelming sensation of pleasure radiating all over her body from the place where his mouth was caressing her flesh.
When he moved and straightened she all but collapsed, and would have fallen had his arms not come round her with lazy amusement.
‘What has shocked you the most?’ he asked her laconically, casually fastening her robe. ‘What I did or how you felt?’
‘I felt nothing,’ Danielle lied vigorously. ‘Unless you count my revulsion…’
‘Revulsion?’
For one hideous horror-filled moment Danielle thought he wasn’t going to release her, but then to her relief he stepped backwards, his hair gleaming under the light, his eyes brilliant with sardonic amusement.
‘Oh no, little one, I can’t be challenged in that fashion, and besides, I am too tired to begin the initiation of a virgin tonight, although I confess it would be intriguing to lie with you in my arms on a bed of satin cushions and remove the layers of prudery and pride with which you think you have so successfuly protected yourself.
‘Come, show me that you are not such a child as you appear, and admit that my touch was not… unpleasant…’
‘Unpleasant? Oh no, it was not unpleasant,’ Danielle gritted, fear and anger igniting to push her beyond the bounds of caution. ‘Rather it was degrading, insulting, revolting and totally and completely repulsive!’ she stormed at him, turning tail and running back down the stairs before he could reach out for her.
At the bottom of the first flight she paused to get her breath, listening for the sound of him behind her, but only silence had followed her.
She descended two more flights at a more decorous pace, and then discovered where she had originally gone wrong.
Zanaide was waiting for her in her room.
‘The Sitt is late,’ she began anxiously, but Danielle silenced her, explaining that she had got lost.
‘I thought Jourdan was in France,’ she added.
‘The Sheikh has returned this very evening,’ Zanaide told her, paling a little as she eyed Danielle’s flushed face. ‘The Sitt did not take the staircase to the Sheikh’s private quarters in error?’
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Danielle admitted dryly.
What had happened to her on the stairs refused to be banished to the far recesses of her mind; her heart was still thundering and her breast still throbbed betrayingly, but she wasn’t going to discuss with anyone else what had occurred, even someone as sympathetic as Zanaide.
‘The Sheikh Jourdan is very handsome,’ Zanaide confounded her by saying, ‘and very much a man. To lie with him would surely bring great pleasure. He is not of our faith and for this reason must only take one wife. Many of the Sheikha’s family wish that he would choose from amongst their daughters, for he is powerful and wealthy…’
‘He is arrogant and domineering,’ Danielle said through gritted teeth, ‘and I don’t want to hear one more word about him.’
‘The Sitt does not find him attractive?’ Zanaide asked, plainly puzzled.
‘About as attractive as a snake,’ Danielle muttered as Zanaide helped her off with her caftan. ‘And twice as dangerous!’
When Zanaide had gone and she was alone in her room, compelled by some strange inner prompting Danielle slid out of bed and moved like a sleepwalker to the mirror-lined dressing room, where she slowly stepped out of her nightdress and studied the pale, glimmering shape of her naked body, one hand going instinctively to cup the swelling breast which was somehow no longer completely part of her, but seemed to have developed an alien life of its own, a life summoned into being by Jourdan’s knowing touch. A sound suspiciously like a sob broke the silence of the room. Danielle reached frenziedly for her nightgown, unable to bear the sight of her naked flesh and know how it had betrayed her, willing herself not to remember with such vivid clarity exactly how it had felt to have Jourdan’s lips tease her nipple into erect obedience and the pleasure which had followed.