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 chérie, 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, petîte. 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 protestingly, 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 unwillingness. 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 purposefulness 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 some 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 time. 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…
‘No!’
The word was torn from her throat on an anguished cry. She had responded only because of the tea she had drunk—tea she knew had been drugged despite his denials. There could be no other possible explanation for the wild abandon of her final capitulation to his arrogant dominance. Could there?
All at once a terrible weariness overcame her, an aching pain in the region of her heart and throat, a burning sensation behind her heavy eyelids presaging tears. What was happening to her? Danielle wondered wretchedly. Where was her determination, her independence? She lay down on the narrow bed and closed her eyes merely intending to rest them for a moment.
The sound of someone moving intruded on Danielle’s dream. It had been such a happy one too. She had been back in London. Back with her parents. She sighed, her hand reaching up toward her stiff neck, her voice strained as she called Zanaide’s name.
‘The maid, unlike the mistress, does not dare to penetrate the eagle’s lair,’ a cool male voice drawled softly. ‘What are you doing here, petite? Or am I to draw my own conclusions from your presence here in this tower which is my preserve and mine alone?’
He had come to stand beside her. Danielle was conscious of him with every nerve ending, despite the darkness of the room, which had, with the coming of night grown cold. How could she have managed to fall asleep up here?
‘Draw whatever conclusions you wish,’ she told Jourdan bitterly. ‘But the truth is…’ She paused, her eyes focusing blindly on the stars shining so brightly outside the narrow windows. ‘The truth is that I came up here because I wanted to be free. I wanted to see the world beyond the confines of your kingdom…’
Jourdan’s harshly indrawn breath warned her that she had gone too far, her gasp of pain ignored as his fingers bit deeply into her arms and he hauled her to her feet and dragged her over to the window.
‘Look as far as you like, mignonne,’ he whispered harshly. ‘But while your eyes are fixed on the earth, the horizon, however distant it may be, still belongs to me.’
Danielle shuddered as she felt his breath on the back of her neck, his mirthless laughter as cold as the night air.
‘Come…’
His fingers on her arm propelled her back into the room and directed her to where the telescope was fixed on its stand.
‘The man who built this castle was crushed beneath a block of stone when it was being erected. Although his life was spared he was left a cripple, and it was then that he had this observatory built.’
Danielle was standing before the telescope. She shivered briefly as Jourdan’s arms closed round her, but his touch was completely impersonal, his hands directing her to look through the glass to the stars beyond.
‘Freedom is a state of mind, mignonne,’ he said against her hair. ‘My ancestor found it in this room, studying the constellations, even though physically he was a prisoner of his own infirmity. Other men are prisoners of their own emotions, their hearts given in bondage to a woman as cold and remote as the distant stars.’
‘And I am your prisoner,’ Danielle finished bitterly.
‘No, ma chérie.’ The telescope was removed and she was forced to meet the sardonic mockery in Jourdan’s eyes. ‘You are a prisoner of your own pride, for without that you would surely admit that marriage to me has its… compensations…’
He could have meant many things; after all, he was an extremely wealthy and powerful man and no doubt many women would find those irresistible lures, but Danielle knew instinctively that he was referring to her body’s treacherous betrayal of her, and her face flamed with the knowledge.
She walked unsteadily towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
The silky words halted her. She turned, probing the darkness to find the tall white-robed figure, his face masked by the shadows.
Somehow, without her being aware of him moving, he had interposed the bulk of his body between herself and the door. She stared at him, hoping he wouldn’t see the fear leaping suddenly to life in her eyes.
‘I want to go to my room.’
It was both an answer to his question and a demand, and Danielle realised that she had made a tactical error the moment the words were uttered. Something—and she feared it could only be anger—leaped to life in the dark eyes which lingered with insolent intensity on the firm thrust of her breasts beneath the flimsy chiffon robe Zanaide had chosen from her wardrobe.
‘Your room?’
There was a world of meaning in the two softly drawled words and Danielle found to her chagrin that her pulse rate had suddenly quickened, her breath coming in short nervous gasps. Jourdan was deliberately trying to unnerve her, she told herself, that was all; he could have as little desire to repeat the events of their wedding night as she; he was a man of the world, used to women as skilled at lovemaking as he was himself, and she…
Her cheeks burned as she remembered how completely she had abandoned herself to the delights of Jourdan’s touch in those few final minutes when everything else had ceased to exist.
‘Stop playing with me, Jourdan!’ she stormed, trying to banish the insidious memory of his hands on her skin. ‘You want me as little as I want you…’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure—on either count,’ Jourdan murmured with a soft mockery that sent the fine hairs at the back of Danielle’s neck standing up on end in alarm.
All at once he was far too close for comfort—close enough for her to breathe in the wholly male scent of his body mingling with the spicy tang of cologne. She tried to step back, but the white flash of his teeth as his lips parted in a smile warned her that he had seen through her artless movement and knew quite well why she wanted to avoid him.
This suspicion was borne out when his arm lifted and hard fingers grasped her chin.
‘Why the virginal fear, mignonne?’ he asked softly. ‘You are my wife in fact as well as law, and in the cool of the nights when the sands of the desert shift restlessly beneath the stars is it not only natural that a man should seek solace in the arms of a woman. Are you woman enough for me to find solace in your arms, Danielle?’ he asked, the timbre of his voice deepening huskily and causing Danielle to tremble with emotions his presence and touch suddenly brought to life. Caught fast in the grip of some strange paralysis, she was powerless to move, even when Jourdan’s head lowered.
Her heart seemed to stand still. The room was virtually in darkness. Jourdan still grasped her chin, but the quality of his touch changed from that of a goaler to a lover.
His lips felt cool and firm. Danielle’s trembled beneath them, her instincts urging her to flee.
‘You are my wife,’ Jourdan reminded her huskily against her lips. ‘My companion of the night… Shall we share together once more the pleasure we enjoyed on our wedding night? Is that why I found you in my own private domain? Were you waiting for me, Danielle?’
She wanted to deny it, but the words were never allowed to be uttered. Jourdan’s lips were trailing fire against her throat and lower, pushing aside the frail chiffon and finding unerring the taut peaks of her breasts. His shoulder bones were hard beheath her fingers and she clung mindlessly to them, making no demur when her robe was pushed aside to reveal the slender beauty of her body.
‘Jourdan?’
Her uncertain murmur was crushed beneath the hard warmth of the male mouth imposing its dominance against the softness of her flesh, her inarticulate cry lost as Jourdan lifted her in his arms and carried her across to the low divan.
This time Danielle could not blame any drug for the uninhibited passion of her own response; unless it was the mind-bending force of Jourdan’s kisses, the knowledgeable touch of his hands on her skin, teaching her pleasure and making her shudder deeply with the intensity of her response.
‘Is this what you came up here for, Danielle?’
The cold words froze the passionate warmth of her response. What on earth was she doing? She could hardly blame Jourdan for looking at her with such open contempt. She tore herself free of his grasp and ran towards the door, careless of the curt command he ground Out behind her.
The cold night air of the stairs felt like ice against her exposed skin, and she was trembling when she reached her own room. For once Zanaide was not there waiting for her. Thankfully Danielle tore off her robe and ran a bath, plunging into the warm water and soaping herself vigorously. What had come over her? For a moment in Jourdan’s arms she had experienced… Her busy hands stilled and the scented water started to cool. Why had she run away from Jourdan? Because she was frightened of him? Or because she was frightened of herself and the emotions he aroused within her?
Very slowly she climbed out of the bath and started to dry herself, her eyes enormous in her pale face.
For a moment in Jourdan’s arms she had forgotten that he was her enemy; had forgotten what he had done to her; how he had cheated her and known only that he was the man who had brought her body to life, who had released a fountain of emotion deep down inside her such as she had never dreamed she possessed.
With a small, almost inarticulate cry, Danielle flung herself on her bed, her body shaking with soundless sobs as she forced herself to face the truth. She had gone up to the turret room not because she wanted to see the far distant horizon but because she had wanted to be close to the man whose room it was; the man whom she had married in hatred and whom she now… loved.
How could she? Logically it was impossible. Since when had the emotions been guided by logic? Danielle asked herself cynically. Her response to Jourdan’s touch this evening had not been that of a woman who hated or was indifferent… She stared sightlessly into the darkness. Now, more than ever, it was imperative that she left Qu‘Har. A deep shudder wracked her as she dwelt on Jourdan’s likely reaction to the discovery that she had fallen in love with him. How he would mock her! The long mouth would curl in cynical disdain. He would reach for her and…
Shivering, Danielle curled into a small tight ball, her flesh on fire with the memory of Jourdan’s hands against it. She had to find a way of leaving the castle before she made a complete fool of herself and was forced to admit to Jourdan her longing for him. Even now, knowing what she knew, there was still regret that she had not stayed in the turret room. If she had done so, she would not now be sleeping alone in this vast bed…