Hot Arabian Nights. Marguerite Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ there. But it must be. It must be somewhere. Her knees shaking, she stumbled into the darker corners, but there was no sign of it. Frantically now, she began to search, pulling up her bedroll, shaking out her pillow, casting petticoats and skirts into the air in a fruitless attempt to find the small trunk and its precious contents. But it was gone, and with it the drawings of desert flowers she had so meticulously made, the plant specimens she had so painstakingly collected, labelled and neatly stored. She had almost completed her quest. Her notebooks were alive with colour, the tiny drawers of the trunk almost full. The pledge she had made was so near to fulfilment, her freedom finally within reach. Now, all was lost.

      She couldn’t believe it. This simply couldn’t be happening. Please let it be some awful nightmare from which she would awake. Sinking down on to the sand, Julia struggled to hold back the tears. She never cried. She could cope, she told herself firmly. Hadn’t she been coping exceptionally well all these past months on her own? She had been in worse situations before. Once, the barge she and Daniel had been travelling on had sunk in the middle of a fast-running muddy river in the depths of a jungle. They had floated, the two of them, clinging to the wreckage as it tumbled downstream, she remembered, until the waters had become shallow enough for them to wade ashore. They’d lost everything then. No, not quite everything. Daniel’s watch and his purse had been secured to his person. Practical as always.

      Her purse! Julia retrieved her pillow from the corner into which she had tossed it in the frenzy of her search, but no amount of probing and pummelling produced the leather pouch filled with gold coins. They must have taken Daniel’s watch too. A tear sprung to her eye. They had been right here, standing over her sleeping body, wreaking carnage in her tent, and she had not awoken.

      Dear God, what else had she slept through? Somewhat belatedly, Julia checked her body for any signs of molestation. The relief when she found none was palpable. She began to tremble, thinking of what she had been spared. They could easily have slit her throat.

      Stop!

      That way lay despair, and she had no time to despair. ‘No point in imagining the worst,’ she told herself firmly. ‘Time to take stock, not give way to a fit of the vapours.’ She was unharmed. Her gold was gone, her only cherished memento of Daniel—his watch—was also gone, but hopefully her secret stash of bank notes was safe.

      A soft thud of hooves on the sand outside the tent prevented her from checking. They had come back, realising the error of their ways! Relief flooded her, quickly followed by fury. She had been far too complacent, far too accommodating. It was time she made it clear who was in charge here, reminded them whose money was funding this expedition.

      But Hanif already had her purse and everything else of value. He had no reason to return. In fact, he had every reason to flee. Catching herself in the nick of time from storming out of the tent, Julia instead eased open the flap a mere inch and peered cautiously out.

      The lone figure sitting on the high boxed seat of a camel trailing three pack mules was just a few yards away, and a complete stranger to her. His head and most of his face was covered by a white keffiyeh held in place by a braid of dark-red scarves, leaving only his eyes, a pair of high cheekbones and the bridge of his nose exposed. She could only guess at his age. Not old. Five-and-thirty, perhaps less. He wore a long, loose tunic in the same dark red as the agal which held his headdress in place, a cloak she knew was called an abba, made of unbleached cotton or muslin. His long brown riding boots turned up at the toes. The simple attire, which was slightly dishevelled and covered in a fine coating of dust, suggested he had travelled far. Despite her apprehension, there was something about the man that held her attention. Was it his easy command of that highly strung beast that gave him such a forbidding presence? The hooded hawk which perched beside him on the saddle? Or the way he sat, shoulders ramrod straight, surveying the desert as if he and only he had a right to be here?

      He clicked his tongue and the camel dropped obediently to its knees allowing him to dismount fluidly, his billowing robes hinting at an athletic body beneath. His hand was on the hilt of the lethal-looking scimitar which hung from a loose belt on his hips. Now, Julia thought, while he was occupied with hitching the three mules, now would be the time to run for cover in the shrubs surrounding the lagoon, or even into the lagoon itself.

      She was about to melt back into the protective gloom of the tent, planning to crawl out from under the rear of it, when she saw the rangy silver-grey Saluki hound. Unfortunately the dog spotted her at the exact same moment. The animal’s ears pricked, its sleek body quivered as it turned towards her. Julia retreated hastily, but even as she tried to create an opening at the base of the tent, the front flap was thrown open and first the hound, and then its owner entered.

      Grabbing the first weapon that came to hand, she turned to confront the intruders. The dog was close enough for her to feel its breath on her bare feet, its hackles raised, teeth bared. ‘Stay where you are,’ Julia ordered, waving her weapon at its master. ‘If you value your life, you will not take a step further.’ She spoke in Italian, the language she had used to communicate with Hanif, for her Turkish and her Arabic were rudimentary at best. Certainly not up to the dire situation she currently found herself in.

      The nomad ignored her and stepped further inside. He had not drawn his sword, but wielded a wicked-looking dagger. Julia’s blood ran cold. He was at least a head taller than her, and at five foot six in her stocking soles, she had been the same height as Daniel. ‘I mean it,’ she said, brandishing her weapon and, in her terror, lapsing into English. ‘If you take one step further, I will...’

      He didn’t take one step, he took several, and all of them so quickly that she had no time to move before he closed the gap between them. A firm hand covered her mouth, preventing her from screaming. A powerful arm clamped around her waist, binding her tight against a hard and unforgiving body. The dagger on the end of that arm looked sharp enough to scythe through metal, to say nothing of clothing or delicate flesh. The hairbrush she had been rather preposterously wielding dropped to the sand as Julia struggled frantically, wriggling and kicking with all her might. The dog barked, but made no attempt to savage her.

      Seemingly utterly indifferent to her efforts to free herself, the man lifted her effortlessly off her feet and held her against his side while he made a quick tour of the tent. Only when he had assured himself that it was empty did he release her, pulling the keffiyeh away from his face and clicking his fingers to send his hound obediently back to guard the doorway of the tent.

      Night-black hair, cut very short, showed his stark bone structure to advantage. A wide brow, high cheekbones, a surprisingly clean-shaven chin with a small cleft in the middle, drawing attention to the perfect symmetry of his face. His thickly lashed eyes were golden-brown in colour, rather like a setting sun. His nose was strong, but the austerity of his countenance was offset by the sensuality of his mouth, which on a less masculine face would have looked too feminine. All of this the artistic part of Julia’s brain absorbed in seconds. He was one of the most striking men she had ever seen. Under different circumstances—very different circumstances—her fingers would have itched to draw him, to capture his potent and haughty demeanour, his languid physical grace.

      He picked up the hairbrush and handed it to her. ‘What were you planning to do with that, comb me to death?’ he demanded with a curt laugh, although his eyes betrayed no sign of amusement. ‘What are you doing here? Why are you alone in the desert?’

      He spoke in perfect English with a soft accent, unmistakably Arabic but equally unmistakably cultured. This man was most definitely not the poor nomad she had taken him to be. Julia took a step back, eyeing the open doorway of the tent.

      ‘I do not recommend it,’ he said. ‘I can easily outrun you. And even if I couldn’t Uday here of a certainty could.’ The hound’s ears pricked up at the mention of his name. ‘Uday means fleet-footed, and he is. Very.’

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