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Suddenly at the thought of that word sensual she felt ridiculous, and sat up as if to get out. Immediately a stern-eyed Lina was there. ‘You stay in the bath, Miss Iseult. You need to let the healing oils work.’
Iseult sank back down hurriedly—as much because she’d never been naked before someone else as any thing else. ‘Okay,’ she said sheepishly, but then added, ‘But only if you stop calling me Miss Iseult…it’s Iseult.’
Iseult could see from Lina’s dark eyes that she was smiling, and wondered what she looked like. ‘Okay, Miss Iseult.’
She left her alone again, and when Iseult was starting to feel like a prune, she reappeared, holding a large towel. Iseult got out and Lina wrapped her in the towel. After she’d dried herself Lina appeared again with a pot of ointment, and smoothed the cream into her tender back and buttocks. Then she draped a robe of some sort over a nearby chair and bade Iseult goodnight.
Iseult dropped the towel and drew on the robe. It was made of brushed silk, and felt far too delicate for someone like her. An edging of gold thread went around its whole perimeter. There was a long golden ribbon-like tie which ran just under her breasts, and she looked up from tying it to see herself reflected in a mirror in the washing area.
She was caught unawares, and stood transfixed by the unfamiliar person reflected back at her. In the mirror was a woman with a long graceful neck, highlighted by the hair piled high on her head. Her eyes were huge, her mouth full and pink. She looked pale, her skin almost luminous in the low lights. She looked very nearly…beautiful.
With a shaking hand Iseult reached up and undid her hair, so that it fell down her back and over her shoulders. With one hand on the tie under her breasts, and the other falling limply to her side, she couldn’t stop looking. She’d been transformed into someone else. The person she felt stirring within her when Nadim kissed her.
The material fell in a diaphanous swirl of cream and gold to her feet, skimming over curves she’d never thought she had, making them look fuller, more alluring. The generous shape of her breasts she’d always fought to hide was accentuated by the deep V and empire line of the robe, with her cleavage a shadowy line between them.
She looked…she looked like— She heard a sound then, and the breath left her throat. Her skin tingled and the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Hoping against hope it was just Lina, but knowing exactly who it was, she turned to see that Nadim had come to the entrance of the tent.
He was dressed in dark gold robes now, and Iseult could see that the sun was setting outside, just beyond his turbaned head and broad shoulders. Every cell in her body reacted violently at seeing him there, and she was caught in such a vulnerable moment she could only look at him helplessly.
Nadim fought to remember why he’d come to Iseult’s tent; perhaps it had been some bid to assure himself that he could resist her, and that he should keep trying to resist her—because she was an employee, and because he knew that beneath that spiky exterior she was vulnerable and had shouldered a heavy burden for a long time. She wasn’t worldly, like the mistresses he was careful to take now—women who knew the score. No emotional involvement. He could end up hurting Iseult, just as he’d hurt his own wife…
Despite all those very good reasons he fought to try and say something, anything coherent, and not just stand there like a teenager transfixed by the first naked woman he’d ever seen.
And she wasn’t even naked! But the delicate robe might as well have been see-through. The line of her cleavage still looked damp, the skin pale and silky-looking next to the material. And through the fall of the robe he could see those long long legs, and in between them the shadowy promise of a carnal satisfaction he’d never craved this badly before… It made his blood thrum and his body harden in rampant response.
‘How is your back?’ It was a miracle he’d found his voice. Nadim didn’t dare even move one inch towards Iseult, knowing that if he did he wouldn’t re-emerge from that tent until he’d had her. And the gut-clenching panic he’d felt when he’d seen that horse throw her like a rag-doll still made him feel very vulnerable. Too vulnerable.
Iseult blinked and suddenly felt cold. For a moment there— She mentally shook her head and was instantly self-conscious. She was practically naked! She crossed her arms to cover her breasts, unaware of how it pushed them forward, or of how the robe gaped slightly, showing a long length of leg. She was also unaware of how Nadim tensed, because he was cast in shadow.
‘Fine… Lina gave me some ointment…’
Nadim just inclined his head. ‘Good. Lina comes from a family of healers, so you’re in good hands. But you’ll probably be sore tomorrow.’
Iseult shook her head. ‘Really. I’m fine. I’m sure you have to be somewhere…?’
He nodded once abruptly. ‘Goodnight, then, Iseult.
’
‘Goodnight.’
Of course he had somewhere else to be, a voice mocked her. He left, and seemed to suck the energy of the space out with him. Iseult sagged, literally, against the chair, and a wave of humiliation washed through her to think of how she’d been mooning at herself in the mirror, believing that she was looking at someone different. Believing she might be beautiful. Feminine. Believing that perhaps he’d brought her here because of something elemental that had passed between them that morning on the terrace.
She was no different from the girl who had never been feminine—the girl her classmates had found it so easy to send up. And she would never be anything else. She would never be the kind of woman to have a man like Nadim. They were worlds and leagues apart, and clearly he just felt some misguided sense of responsibility towards her.
With an inarticulate sound of rage at herself, she tore off the robe, hearing it tear.
Tears pricked her eyes as she found and pulled on the pants and T-shirt she normally slept in. Castigating herself bitterly for her weakness, she crawled into the sumptuous bed, suddenly wishing she were back at home in Kildare and sliding between plain flannel sheets—not these silky decadent sheets that made her think of Nadim and want hot, forbidden things.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE following day Iseult was up and dressed in her usual uniform of jeans and a shirt and riding boots. Ready and waiting to take on the day and ignore her disturbing growing feelings for Nadim. Without waiting for instruction she went back to the horse enclosure, to the same horse that had thrown her off the day before.
Determined to prove something to herself as much as anyone else, she put on a hat and got onto his back to conquer the fleeting fear that such a fall always engendered.
Nadim watched Iseult from a distance and shook his head ruefully. He knew she hadn’t seen him yet as that telltale tension in her body whenever he came near hadn’t come into her. At that moment he knew that any hope of control over this attraction was futile. He’d thought somewhat misguidedly that he might be able to wait until the Sultan of Al-Omar’s birthday party next week, but even the prospect of looking at another woman was anathema to him now.
He grimaced at the thought of a day of meetings ahead, and celebrations in his honour tonight, but even with aides clamouring for his attention Nadim didn’t move away until he saw that Iseult was safely off the horse.
