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She turned to him, magnificently tall before her, and beyond, where his men erected canvas tents, and accompanied him.
He flapped open the biggest of them followed by her. Her attention encompassed the enclosed space. Four masts held the pointed ceiling canvas and the ones which served as wall. The front draped as to offer a way in and it could pull down and tie for closing. The white material shaded the setting sun and gave the tent a cool, suave light. In the centre of it, a large thick intricate embroidered rug served as base for a cushioned mattress and many colourful cushions. Folded bla
nkets cast about casually. A feint aniseed perfume fluttered in the air. The atmosphere invoked the Arabian Nights tales, which had recently been translated to English.
Tariq observed as her pepper-mint eyes wandered the place in pleasant admiration. Why, the woman liked what she saw, after all. He dropped his personal sac on a corner. “We’ll sleep here.”
Her gaze snapped to him abruptly, her eyes widening, in bewilderment. “Together?”
An ironic lopsided grin came to his face. “Depends on what you mean by together.”
This rather unsubtle remark irritated her. “I want to stay here alone! You can sleep somewhere else!” Her chin rose defiantly.
“Oh, yes?” He came near her and their gazes clashed. “And what happens next?” He questioned as he removed the igaal and ghoutra from his head and a lock of his tousled obsidian hair fell on his forehead. “Care to receive a visit from every man in this caravan?” He emphasized the word ‘visit’ in an impatient way. Just the mere probability of any other man touching her made his guts wrench in boiling fury. He didn’t have the slightest idea as to why.
Her eyes opened wider and her chin fell at that. “They wouldn’t-
“No?” He raked his sleek hair with his fingers. “Your pedigree, your precious peerage means nothing here! For these men, you’re no more than an outsider!” His breathing came hard with vexation. “Outsider women are meant to slake needs without a second thought!”
Her indignation flushed her already sun-reddened cheeks. She turned her back to him, murmuring under her breath. “Barbarians!”
He caught her by the arm and turned her to him. “Barbarians, are we?”
She had to tilt her head a good forty-five degrees to meet his gaze this close, her temper intensifying. “Yes! And you are the biggest of them, abducting an honoured lady for your selfish purposes!” She accused without a shade of regret.
He held her other arm and pulled her as their bodies bumped, sparks of anger and something more launched everywhere. “So, maybe, I should be even more of a barbarian and cause my men to envy me!”
The implications clear, he hinted he might take her if he wished, and nobody would say a word. Her breath caught in her throat as molten images of them on those cushions flashed in her mind, unwelcome and tempting.
Darkened cognac eyes melded with shaded green ones and desire fulminated between them. Both were breathing hard as they faced each other in predicament.
The air between them shifted and anger did not prevail anymore. Lucinda’s lashes lowered heavy as her lips parted. Tariq’s cognac attention fell to her full rosy lips
Oh, how he hungered to banquet on those lips and kiss her senseless, more, and more, until they surrendered and became sated! Blast all the djins of the desert! He wasn’t supposed to even conceive this. He didn’t decide what he should do with her. Well, he knew what he wanted to do with her. He’d had European tutors who’d ingrained him with a foreign sense of honour and here stood a British lady who expected exactly this from him. Damnation! This was bound to be the worst caravan track he’d ever done!
His eyes hovered longer over her alluring, fetching face and, in an abrupt jerk, he pushed from her and walked away, rubbing a hand over his stubbed cheek. Without a word, he left the cocooning tent.
Lucinda exhaled, the air whistling out of her tingling lips. For a moment, she believed he’d kiss her. If he had, she wouldn’t have been able to oppose the feeblest resistance. She’d desired it so violently, it scared her. And when he let her go, a weird mixture of relief and frustration overtook her. And right now she was wondering what it might have felt like, his sensuous dark-olive lips touching hers. Would it be like the chaste pecks she’d got from suitors in the balls?
A shared tent with her would be a way of protecting her from the odds, Tariq concluded as he sped out of the tent to oversee the accommodating of the goods. But who’d protect him from this inconveniently misplaced pull that corroded him from the minute he’d set eyes on her in the market? He decided to get busy and stop musing about nonsense.
After a meal composed of stewed mutton and couscous, finished with dried dates, Lucinda’s drowsy eyes blinked. A pitcher of water lay on the carpet for her, an unreasonable luxury in the desert. She used it parsimoniously and saved part of it to bring with her. Her dress deserved airing since it was the only one she had. She missed her clean clothes back in the villa and sighed at the comforts of civilisation, none of them available here. But she skipped the dress airing. Her mind had other ideas for the night.
As far as she traced back, they had come a straight line towards west from Gabes. And they had ridden for about a day, at camels’ pace and with a stop for luncheon. If she could take the camel, she’d reach the port by mid-morning, faster than the dragging caravan. The hunch-backed poor animal would have had time for rest and feed by now. The stars would give her the direction. She wasn’t sure of what she’d do when she arrived at Gabes, but she’d think of something. She’d take a blanket to protect from the chilly desert night and its viperous creatures. Fresher weather would make it better to journey. Imperative that she try it tonight while still in time. She remembered little of North Africa’s map from her school days, so she wouldn’t be able to venture new routes. With her plan settled, she’d wait until Tariq fell asleep and slip away.
In conference with his men, Tariq decided there was no going around it. He’d have to go find his sleep. A joke when he thought he’d have to spend a whole tormented night in the same bed as Lucinda. And never touch her. He needed his rest, though, to be fit for leading his caravan.
He parted the canvas and peeped the dimness. The oil lamp illuminated the cocooned space. His eyes searched and found Lucinda’s body tucked under blankets on the mattress, Her head on the cushion, her glossy dates-coloured hair all around her. Turned on her side, she slept, indifferent to the heated turmoil that made him restless. He approached the rug and made a herculean effort to divert his gaze from her sleeping form. He usually slept as he came to this world. Not tonight, naturally. He covered himself with a blanket and turned his back to her. He put the lamp out.
Closing his eyes was the night’s biggest mistake. Because then everything he suppressed during the day came out, uncensored. He visualised them both, on this very bed, limbs entangled, skin to skin, as he took possession of all she had, all she was. His eyes snapped open, his body hard and on fire. Stare fixed in the dark, he willed himself to cool down, a daunting task, he lamented.
That’s when he sensed a movement. He froze. Swish of skirts sounded in the hollow night. And he waited.
Lucinda sat up as silently as possible, taking the blankets with her. Her hand groped the floor, searching for the water skin she’d filled before dinner. She stood up and tip-toed to the tent’s entrance. A rest of fire still glowed where the men had been talking, but all was quiet. She lifted the canvas and stepped in the cold night. The remnants of the fire helped her see where the men had tied the animals. She walked that way, carefully. The care-takers shared the other tents, for sure.
The sandy camel stood out in the darkness, the saddle at its side on the sand. Lucky, she wouldn’t need to go looking for it. She stooped to leave the blankets and skin on the ground and take the saddle.
"I'd advise you not to do this."
