Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

Felicia shook her head. There was no point in raising the younger girl’s hopes.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Raschid might do something if you went to him and told him how much you are missing Faisal. Why don’t you, Felicia? You must be longing to see him.’

She was. But not for the reasons that Zahra supposed. If Faisal were to return she could ask him to help her get home, but of course she could not say this to Zahra. Thank goodness she had not allowed him to persuade her into wearing the ring he had bought her.

‘I’m sure you could coax Raschid round,’ Zahra continued. ‘He isn’t a complete monster, you know.’

‘That wasn’t the impression I got this afternoon,’ Felicia reminded her drily, remembering the younger girl’s desire not to be seen.

‘That was different,’ Zahra replied promptly. ‘Mother worries because Raschid does not marry. The responsibility of caring for her and us has aged him, I think, although he never lets us see it. Perhaps when I am married he will look for a wife, although it will not be easy. Mother fears that his English blood makes him impatient of our own girls.’ She glanced speculatively at Felicia. ‘Faisal must have told you how like Raschid’s grandmother you are. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have deliberately sent you out here to tease Raschid. When we were little I remember our father saying that Raschid, as a child, had been fascinated by the portrait of his grandmother. I think he has a softness for you, Felicia, even though he hides it.’

A softness for her! Felicia nearly told her how wrong she was, and why. So Zahra thought that Faisal’s motives in sending her to Kuwait might not have been entirely altruistic. Felicia suspected that she might be right. It was obvious to her that there had been differences of opinion between Faisal and Raschid in the past, and she wondered if Faisal had announced their ‘engagement’ to Raschid, in a deliberate attempt to annoy him. It was not pleasant to realise that she might have been used in this fashion, and she was coming to accept that Faisal was not the charming young man he had seemed on the surface.

ONCE AGAIN Raschid did not join them for dinner, and when Umm Faisal explained that he was dining with friends, Felicia smiled rather mirthlessly to herself. Friends, or friend, in the singular? She was tired, and excused herself, going to her room.

Each day the temperature seemed to rise a little more and Felicia had grown quite used to rising each morning to a cloudless blue sky; the muezzin no longer a weirdly unfamiliar sound, but part and parcel of everyday life. She was coming to love this country of stark contrasts, she admitted, and would miss it when she left. She had still not written to Faisal, and she knew that it was a task she must complete, but her pride shrank from having to beg his aid. Sensitive to the opinions of others, she was reluctant to have him think that she expected him to pay her fare home. And yet what alternative did she have?

The scent of the roses reached her from her bedroom window. Throwing a crocheted shawl round her shoulders, she went downstairs, through the silent hall and into the welcome coolness of the garden. They were particularly attractive, these enclosed courtyards with their fountains and shady trees. The sharp, acid scent of the limes mingled with the fragrance of the roses. Doves cooed softly from the dovecote by the fountain. She trailed her fingers in the water, watching the fish slide quickly away. With the moon full the garden was almost as bright as day, the landscape etched in stark silver and black.

She sighed and froze as feet crunched on the gravel.

‘Wishing there was someone to share the enchantment of our evenings with you, Miss Gordon?’

Raschid! Her hand crept to her throat to still the small pulse beating frantically there. He was dressed Arab-fashion once more, one leather-booted foot resting arrogantly on the rim of the pool as he surveyed her. She bit back a sharp retort, swallowing her dismay.

‘As a matter of fact I was,’ she lied lightly, her hands clenching impotently at her sides, as his cool glance slid over her small, flushed face, resting momentarily on the rise and fall of her breasts beneath their thin covering, before lingering thoughtfully on her neat waist and the narrow tautness of her hips. For some reason it had become desperately important to conceal from Raschid the truth about her feelings for Faisal.

His eyebrows rose, and again she bit back the burning anger clamouring for utterance. All her senses were urging her to escape, but she would not let him see her fear.

‘I believe you wish me to arrange for Faisal to come home? Zahra has been soliciting my forbearance on your behalf. Her tender heart aches for what she imagines to be the tragic parting of two star-crossed lovers. Naturally I have had to disabuse her of what is merely romantic fantasy.’

Forgetting her own doubts about her feelings for Faisal, she stared at him, her eyes blazing.

‘By doing what? Giving her your interpretation of our relationship?’

‘Oh, come,’ he mocked mildly, ‘why all the maidenly indignation? You made no demur the other night when I implied that you and Faisal had already shared the delights which Zahra only merely anticipates. You forget that I have lived in your country. I know in what scant regard your women hold their modesty and innocence.’

‘Which, of course, a woman of your race would never do!’

‘And what is that supposed to mean? Or can I guess? If you are referring to my companion of this afternoon—oh yes, I know you saw me, that hair of yours is instantly recognisable—she makes no pretence to being anything she is not.’

Felicia’s lip curled in a fair imitation of his own sneer. ‘Unlike you! I must admit that you surprised me. You don’t look the type of man who needs to buy a woman’s favours, but I suppose when all you can offer is physical gratification, the pill has to be sweetened somehow.’

His incredulous, ‘Why, you little…’ told her that she had managed to slip under his guard, but allied to trembling satisfaction was the certainty that she would be made to pay for that moment of victory.

Retribution came sooner than she had imagined.

‘I sought you out because Zahra was concerned for you. She tells me that you grow pale and do not eat, and she attributes this to the fact that you are missing Faisal. I know otherwise, but I will not be deceived by your playacting. I shall not allow Faisal to return now to be ensnared by you all over again. However, we cannot have you pining for lack of his lovemaking,’ he told her silkily. ‘It is fortunate that Zahra’s window does not overlook this courtyard—she may not approve of the methods I employ to assuage your need of him.’

Zahra wasn’t the only one who did not approve, Felicia thought numbly as her flaying hands were captured and pinned to her sides, as hard masculine lips plundered the trembling softness of her own, parted to voice her fury. She was forced backwards, imprisoned against Raschid’s arm, her throat and the swelling softness of her breasts exposed to his merciless scrutiny. His eyes glittered over the answering fury in her own, fastening on the erratic pulse beating frantically in her creamy throat before lingering on the pale blur of flesh revealed by the V neckline of her cotton dress.

‘Let me go!’ she muttered furiously, her mouth throbbing. ‘Save your kisses for the women who are obliged to endure them in return for some worthless trinket!’

She heard the angry hiss of his escaping breath, hard fingers tightened on her wrists, and her flesh burned from the contact with his.

‘Never worthless, Miss Gordon. I can assure you of that.’

But despite the lazy drawl she knew that his anger was no longer held in check. She had unleashed it with her hasty words. She closed her eyes, against a sudden weak rush of tears, as his hands moulded her hip bones, forcing her against him. She would not cry now! She bit her lip. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her face, and stiffened, willing him to release her.

‘Oh no, Miss Gordon, you will not escape so lightly this time!’

She could feel the tensile strength of his chest muscles against her breasts; the faintly harsh rasp of the dark hairs exposed by the open neck of his robe, so compellingly masculine that reaction flooded through her on a shock wave, making her painfully aware of just how inexperienced she actually was. The contact—which obviously meant nothing to him—suffocated her with its implied intimacy of flesh against flesh, and she struggled to get away, panicking as his lips took their fill of the exposed column of her throat, lingering appreciatively against her skin. If she had once doubted his skill and experience she could do so no longer. The deliberately arousing caresses would have melted ice; but she struggled not to give in; not to admit the drugging sensation of rising desire as his assault of her senses was subtly increased.

There was no affection or tenderness in his touch—she knew that; she knew that all he offered was the hollow sham of sexual need, and that even that was probably counterfeit, but she could do nothing when his free hand slid downward from her shoulder, cupping her breast, and stroking the soft curves.

Fear and indignation shot through her. Not even Faisal had touched her so intimately—nor so insultingly as though her body held no secrets, no pleasures, but merely the familiarity of the oft-known. She shuddered as his fingers found her nipple, coaxing it into hardening desire without exhibiting either haste or urgency; the pain and shock of her body’s betrayal there for him to see in the widening of her eyes and tensed muscles.

Satisfaction gleamed in the night-dark eyes, as they raked her pale, shocked face.

‘Well, now you can join the ranks of those who have known my objectionable touch, Miss Gordon. Although unlike them your reward was not well earned,’ he taunted.

She reeled as he released her, hating the grim comprehension in his voice. There was a parcel in his hand, wrapped in tissue paper, and tied with green ribbon.

‘It seems that Zahra purchased a gift for you on my behalf this afternoon. I only trust you will think of me when you wear it.’

The package was flung at her feet. Speech would have been a complete impossibility, as she stared up at him with hate-filled eyes.

‘Pick it up,’ he commanded inexorably. ‘Otherwise I shall be obliged to deliver it again—in person, and since the gift has been given twice, it will have to be paid for twice.’

‘You’re nothing but a barbarian!’ Felicia choked. ‘I was a fool to think you could ever understand what I feel for Faisal… or any other human emotion!’

She bent down, picked up the parcel, and fled before he could retaliate, clutching the tissue paper in trembling fingers. In her room she flung it against the wardrobe door, and the fragile paper tore on the sharp edge of the handle, releasing a froth of sea-green chiffon.

She paled, staring at the silky fabric. The nightgown! Zahra had bought it for her! With Raschid’s money! She was shivering with reaction and despair. In the mirror she could see the redness on her lips from his kisses. Her neck and shoulder burned from the searing heat of Raschid’s practised kisses and her breast was on fire from the arrogant sureness of his hard caress. Her body stiffened with rage.

How dared he treat her like a woman he had bought for the night! She suppressed a wild sob. He had tainted her—stamped on her pride and destroyed the protective shield she had thrown around herself. Never again could she assert that desire was nothing without love and that she could never experience the former without the latter, because for one fleeting moment she had known desire; and it was that more than anything else that caused the hot tears to roll down her cheeks as her fingers curled furiously into her palms and she found some slight surcease in contemplating Raschid’s muscular body writhing in mortal agony.

As for the nightdress…. She stared disparagingly at the fragile silk she had coveted not so many hours ago. She would burn it before she allowed it to come anywhere near her body!

CHAPTER SEVEN

BEMUSED, Felicia asked herself how on earth order would ever result from such chaos. The household was preparing to move to the oasis, and Zahra, lifting yet another armful of dresses from her wardrobe, said impishly that it was no wonder that Raschid had absented himself from the house. His excuse had been that he would go on before them to make sure that everything was in readiness for their arrival, but Felicia believed that if he had the smallest spark of decency he would be as anxious to avoid her company as she was his.

Never, if she lived to be a hundred, would she forget the emotionless destruction of her flimsy barriers, the calculated assault on her senses, and the bitter lessons she had learned. When she slept at night she dreamed of him, of his cold, jeering face, and most of all of his knowledgeable, caressing hands, and she would wake, trembling with anguish, tears cascading down her cheeks.

It was no wonder that she was losing weight. Several times she had started to pen a letter to Faisal, telling him as gently as she could that their love had died, but every time she reached the part where she had to beg him to send her the money for her fare home, her pride stopped her. She was reaching the point where she was contemplating paying a visit to the British Embassy, but Zahra’s delight that she would be with them for her birthday celebrations prevented her from making a move until they returned from the oasis. She could manage for a few more days, she told herself, trying to believe that it was true.