Lord of the Desert

He let out an odd sigh. “Yes, they do.”

“I enjoyed this afternoon very much,” she said abruptly. “It was kind of you to offer to go with me. It’s lonely now that Maggie’s gone. I suppose she’s in Brussels now, waiting for her flight back to the States.”

“Have you ever been to Brussels?” he asked curiously.

“Yes. Maggie and I flew from Brussels to Casablanca and then here. I’m going back through Amsterdam on my way home…” She hesitated. Her eyes lifted to his. Suddenly the thought of home was unpleasant. “Well, not now, of course,” she added slowly. “I’ll be going to Qawi instead.” She looked down at her neatly folded pink napkin. “Philippe, I don’t suppose you ever get to Qawi?”

“In fact,” he said slowly, “I spend a great deal of time in Qawi. I do business with the ruling sheikh. Quite a lot of business.”

Her eyes lifted and dreams danced in them. It really was like a fantasy, as if she’d given up ordinary surroundings and had been caught up in mystery and joy. It was all there, in her face, the delight she felt.

He smiled at her, his black eyes searching her excited expression. “And now, Qawi seems less frightening to you, does it not?” he asked softly. “As you see, we won’t say adieu when you leave Tangier. We will say au revoir.”

“I’m glad.”

His long fingers touched the back of hers where her hand lay on the table beside her glass. “So am I. Although,” he added broodingly, “I am not doing you a favor to let you go there.”

“Why not?”

“You may discover that appearances can be very deceptive.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Don’t tell me. You’re really an international jewel thief or a spy on holiday.”

He burst out laughing. “No,” he said. “I can assure you that isn’t the case.”

She studied his hand. It was his left one, and there were scars on the back of it, white lines against his olive complexion. She touched them lightly. “From the accident?”

His whole body clenched at the memory of the injuries. “Yes,” he said reluctantly, withdrawing his hand.

“That was clumsy,” she said, grimacing. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

He stared at her with conflicting emotions. “You will have to know before you leave Tangier,” he said quite calmly. “But I prefer to put it off for a few days. Honesty can be a brutal thing.”

“Then you’re an ax murderer,” she said thoughtfully, nodding. “I understand. You don’t want to shatter my illusions of you as some elegant scoundrel.”

He laughed again, caught off guard. “You remind me of her, so much,” he said without thinking. “The first thing that attracted me to her was a sense of humor that made me laugh at myself, something I was never able to do before.”

“She?”

He shifted, as if he hadn’t meant to say that. “A woman I knew,” he hedged. “A blonde, like you, with a very open personality. I thought she was one of a kind. I am delighted to find that the earth contains another woman similar to her.”

“Maggie thinks I’m a certifiable lunatic.”

“You’re refreshing,” he said, leaning back in his chair to study her. “You might be surprised at how many people say only what is expected of them, out of fear of giving offense. I abhor being toadied to,” he added quite fiercely, and his eyes blazed for an instant.

He must be, Gretchen decided, someone very important. She wanted to ask him about his life, his background, his work. She was curious about him. But he seemed not to like discussing his past.

She glanced at her menu and grimaced. “French. Everywhere we go, everything’s written in French,” she moaned.

He laughed softly. “I must make it my business to teach you to read a menu. Here.” He shared his menu with her, pronounced each entry and made her pronounce it after him, and then explained what it was. She started with an appetizer of prosciutto and melon, followed by a main dish of lamb done in a Moroccan sauce. He ordered fish and a bottle of white wine.

“I’ve never had wine before,” she said, watching his eyebrows go up.

“Would you prefer something else?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I suppose I should know something about wines. If the sheikh isn’t Muslim, he probably has a wine cellar and will expect me to know all sorts of things about wines.”

He pursed his lips. “Probably,” he murmured. “But one can rarely go wrong with a good white wine, like a Riesling or a Chardonnay. Although I prefer an Alsace wine, like a Gewürtztraminer. It is an acquired taste.”

She shook her head. “I’ll never learn.”

“Of course you will. Each night, we’ll sample a different wine from the list. By the time you leave Morocco, you’ll be knowledgeable.”

She smiled. “You’re very sophisticated.”

“I was educated in Europe,” he told her. “One matures rapidly in a sophisticated environment.” His black eyes narrowed. “But I wasn’t born to wealth, and I never forget my beginnings. Poverty is the true plague of the twenty-first century, Gretchen. And greed is its blood brother.”

“Do you feel that way, too?” she asked softly.

He chuckled as the waiter returned and took their order. When the wine came, he taught her how to taste and savor it. “This is a Riesling,” he said. “Not too heavy, not too light.”

“Just right,” she mused, and liked the way it tasted. “We had a little grapevine, but the foreman ran over it with a tractor.”

“Barbarian,” he said.

She chuckled. “That’s what I used to call him,” she murmured. “Conner the Barbarian. Not one flower in the yard was safe if he ever got on the tractor. He’s a great horseman, but he has a knack for running lawnmowers over flower beds and into trees.”

He chuckled, too, at the imagery. “And this is the man you trust to keep the ranch for you?”

“Oh, but he’s great with horses and cattle,” she told him defensively.

“And I suppose you adore him?”

“I had a terrific crush on him in my teens,” she agreed. “But I grew out of it.”

His eyes narrowed. He didn’t speak again until their salads were delivered, along with coffee for Gretchen and sparkling water for her companion.

“You like flowers, then,” he continued.

“I love them,” she said dreamily. “I grow prize tea roses and an assortment of flowering shrubs.”

He toyed with his salad. “My father has a mania for orchids,” he told her. “He calls them his ‘grandchildren’ and gives them all names.” He smiled affectionately, lost in thought. “When I was a child, I was jealous of them. He actually had a servant taken to jail for forgetting to water a sick one, which later died. A very vindictive man, my father.”

She chuckled. “I can imagine how he felt. I have a special fondness for sick roses. I seem to have the touch for making them bloom again.”

He studied her intently. “Some sicknesses, alas, cannot be cured by even the most loving of hands,” he said absently, and bitterness made harsh lines in his face.

He was a man of many contrasts. She watched his long-fingered hands move and was fascinated by their dexterity and grace.