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Still stunned at the evidence of the sheer grandeur around her, Iseult followed Lina down a dizzying maze of pathways and corridors. Some were covered and some were not, with the darkening dusky sky visible and lending an even more magical quality to the whole place.
Even though the castle was stunning, breathtaking, there was an air of a mausoleum about it. There should be the sounds of children running about, more hustle and bustle. Iseult’s heart clenched when that made her think of what Jamilah had told her about Nadim’s wife and baby. If his wife hadn’t died presumably he’d have a small family by now.
They passed through a door in an ornately latticed wall and Lina came to a stop outside another door, halting Iseult’s dangerously wandering thoughts. She opened it and gestured for Iseult to enter. Iseult walked in, her heart thumping, to see a room of such understated luxury that she simply couldn’t believe it. Thick carpets felt like clouds of air. Everything was cream and dark gold. The sitting room they’d entered led into a bedroom the size of the dining room at Iseult’s house at home, with a bed the size of her entire bedroom dominating the space.
The bathroom was pure opulence, with a sunken bath and an enormous shower. Open terrace doors led from the bedroom to yet another courtyard, and when Iseult stepped out she could see that it was bursting with a wild profusion of flowers. The scent was more heady than any perfume she’d ever smelt.
She turned back to see Lina watching her.
‘There must be some mistake… This can’t possibly be my room…’
The girl shook her head and took Iseult’s case firmly out of her hand. She said in softly accented English, ‘This is where you are to sleep. You are in the women’s quarters. This is your room.’
Lina was opening the case and sorting through Iseult’s clothes, and Iseult put out a hand, mortified to see this luxurious room tainted by her rags. ‘No, please—you don’t have to do that.’
But Lina ignored her and kept unpacking. A knock sounded on the main door, and Iseult went out to see another similarly clad girl entering with a silver tray covered in small plates and bowls of food. The smells were mouth-watering. Before Iseult knew it she’d been manoeuvred to the sitting room, where she was shown to a dining area. A low table was on the ground, and the girl was putting out the food, indicating that Iseult should sit down, cross-legged, on one of the huge silk cushions.
Another set of open doors led out to the courtyard from here, and, thoroughly bemused, Iseult could only sit and watch speechlessly as Lina and the other girl took their leave through them. Lina stopped at the door and said, ‘I’ll come back in an hour to run your bath.’
Iseult jumped up. This was going too far. ‘No!’ She saw the way the other girl seemed to flinch slightly and moderated her tone. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. All I mean is that there’s really no need. I can manage on my own.’ She gestured to the food. ‘And thank you for this…but in future can’t I just go to the kitchen or something?’
Lina seemed to giggle, and held a hand up to her mouth. She shook her head. ‘No, Miss Iseult. This is how it is here. You are a guest of the Sheikh. I’ve been instructed to wake you at six in the morning…if you’re sure you won’t require any further assistance?’
Iseult shook her head quickly and the girl left. The reminder of her wake-up call brought her back to earth a bit. She might be living in these spectacular rooms now, but tomorrow she’d be back at the stables and working hard, and she had no doubt at all that Nadim wouldn’t be paying her another visit.
She wondered where his rooms were within the vast castle, and then chastised herself, sitting down again to eat some of the deliciously prepared food. She tried to focus instead on what she’d been doing that day with Pierre, but every second moment the sheer opulence of her surroundings would floor her again, and all her mind could do was helplessly gravitate to the tall dark man who was turning her upside down and inside out.
Nadim heard nothing. He knocked again. Still nothing. Dammit—where was she? With a surge of something hot within him that he labelled anger, and not something more sexually primal, Nadim opened Iseult’s door and went in. Silence greeted him, and he saw the remnants of her dinner on the low table in the sitting room.
With the carpet muffling his steps he walked into the vast bedroom—and stopped dead at the sight before him. One light threw out a halo of a dim glow. Iseult lay asleep on the bed, with just a short white towel wrapped around her body. One arm was flung up by her head, in a curiously childish gesture, the other across her belly. Her hair had been wrapped in another towel turban-style, but it had come loose and now a long skein of damp hair rippled across the pillow beside her, a stain of red against the pristine white cotton. Her skin was almost as pale as the sheets she lay on.
For a second sheer lust threatened to blind Nadim as his gaze dropped and he took in the swells of her breasts against the towel. And her endless legs. Her thigh muscles were toned and strong from years of riding, and all he could imagine now was how they might feel clamped around his waist as he drove into her welcoming heat again and again. How she would arch her back so that he could feel her breasts crushed against his chest.
In an effort to claw back his rapidly disappearing control Nadim looked around the room. Her jeans were hung tidily on the back of an ornately brocaded chair, with what looked like a fresh shirt a
nd clean underwear. This evidence of her setting out her clothes so methodically for the next day made something in his chest feel weak.
He should be walking away, retracing his steps back out of her room. He should never have come here, and he should not come here again. He should not be wanting her this badly, with a raging fever in his blood. He should not have moved her here, to the castle. He should never have brought her here from Ireland.
And yet as his treacherous gaze settled once again on the woman on the bed he knew he would fight off an army if they came to take her away from here, from him. There was also that very unwelcome sense of protectiveness he’d had ever since he’d realised the size of the burden she’d been carrying for years in maintaining the O’Sullivan stud. Even now he could see that those purple shadows that had been under her eyes had faded away, and the angular thinness he’d first noticed was softening.
In that moment Iseult’s long-lashed eyes fluttered open, and the breath left Nadim’s body when he saw their dark amber glow settle on him.
Iseult lay very still on the bed. Was she awake or was she dreaming? She was lying on the softest bed she’d ever known, and in the dim seductive light Nadim was just standing there, watching her, dressed in a snowy white shirt and dark trousers, his beautiful harsh face set into shadows by the light. His tall lean body looked intimidatingly powerful and awe-inspiring.
She blinked, and as if a spell was broken Nadim took a step back and turned, walking swiftly out of her room. She heard the faintest click of the main door closing.
Reaction set in; her heart hammered painfully and she felt the most curious wrenching feeling. Her whole body tingled, as if Nadim had walked over to her and twitched the towel aside to look at her. The image was so audacious that Iseult had to question very seriously if she’d just experienced a hallucination.
To wake like that and see him there…it couldn’t be possible. The fact that no words had been spoken seemed to make it even more dreamlike. Iseult sat up and felt seriously disorientated. The heavy damp length of her hair fell down her back. And yet all she could think of was how the persistent ache within her gnawed with renewed intensity…and all because her traitorous mind was now conjuring up three-dimensional apparitions.
She stood from the bed, and wobbled a little precariously before striding purposefully to the bathroom to dry her hair. This was ridiculous. She was twenty-three, she’d never been kissed properly until Nadim had kissed her for the first time, and she was a virgin. She was also hurtling headlong into a crush of monumental proportions on a man so out of her league at every possible level that it was ludicrous.
She winced as she ran the brush through her hair before drying it, and ignored the too-bright glitter of her eyes in the mirror. From now on she was here to work, and not to dream or moon or have hallucinations. Work—that would be her salvation, and in time she would request that she be sent home so that a few oceans and thousands of miles would be put between her and this dark nemesis of her vulnerable imaginings.
After a broken night of sleep, gritty-eyed, Iseult heaved a deep sigh when she saw delicate lines of pink usher in the dawn in the sky outside. Just then she heard the sound of a solitary voice calling people to prayer. She’d grown used to it since she’d arrived, coming at regular points in the day, but here in the castle it was much clearer.
Obeying an instinct to follow the sound, Iseult got out of bed and pulled on a short silk robe over her T-shirt and knickers, and on bare feet went out of her bedroom. Everything was still and hushed, and the slightly cool morning air made goosebumps pop up on her skin.
