Historical Romance: April Books 1 - 4. Marguerite Kaye

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       Chapter One

      Kingdom of Nessarah, Arabia—July 1815

      The moon was little more than a scimitar-shaped crescent in the night sky as Christopher moved stealthily towards the summit of the rocky outcrop which would provide him with the perfect vantage point. The heavens were strewn with hazy stars tonight, a scattering of dusty diamonds rather than the usual pincushion of bright-silver discs. Though he was pretty certain that the site he had come to reconnoitre was deserted, he had taken the precaution of leaving his hobbled camel at the nearest well, located over a mile away. The soft sand had given way to gravelly rubble underfoot. Patches of sparse scrub had forced their way through the hard-packed mud. Dusty and bereft of any greenery, their thick thorns snatched at his cloak as he crept forward, his soft-soled boots making no sound.

      The rock formation which was the focus of his interest rose out of the gentle swell of the ground like the battlements of an ancient keep. In this light it looked russet red in colour, the vertical striations glittering. A clearly identifiable track had been hacked through the scrub leading towards a cleft in the rock. Stooping to examine the ground, Christopher could make out the indentations created by heavy cart wheels rumbling across the terrain. He was definitely in the right place.

      His heart began to race with anticipation, but he mustn’t get ahead of himself. The whispered conversations he had overheard, the careful questioning of local contacts, his own research, might yet prove unfounded. The familiar tightening in his gut, the flicker of excitement which always accompanied such discoveries, was on this occasion leavened with a healthy dose of desperation. Never in his entire career had so much been riding on a mineral find.

      A single black cloud traversed the moon, casting a shadow over the rugged desert landscape laid out before him. For six months he had been scouring southern Arabia in search of the perfect confluence of natural resources without once finding this, the most elusive of them all. He had now exhausted his list of potential locations. Nessarah was pretty much his last throw of the dice.

      ‘But this time, I know I’m in the right place,’ Christopher muttered resolutely to himself. The answer had to be here. He had grown weary of this self-imposed quest, longing for it to be over. He could not contemplate failure.

      ‘And so I must succeed.’ His hand felt automatically for the pouch containing the amulet. He did not need to remove it to trace the shape cast from beaten gold, the smooth enamel interior, the setting of each individual precious stone, and the oddly-shaped gap which might hold the key to the origin of the piece. He carried it with him everywhere, a tangible СКАЧАТЬ