trousers of royal green.
Marlani said sweetly, “Did the nasrany give you any difficulty, Shellah?”
“No difficulty, highness,” replied the girl, entering behind Fletcher and closing the door.
Apparently still entranced by the dangling lengths of red, blue and yellow silk floating in the eddies of air above her, the kedin laughed softly. “He is a disappointment. I was hoping that hot red blood ran in his veins. It seems I made a mistake.”
Her hand came away from the kitten and gestured lazily. “Come stand before me, nasrany. I want to see what my new guard looks like.”
Fletcher went to the foot of the divan and let her stare at him. Admiration shone in her yellow cat eyes as she examined his deep chest and bared midriff. He was a big man, Fletcher, towering tall and muscular among the scented cushions and silks. His height made Marlani look up at him, and now the American could read the wanton hunger in her eyes, the hidden desires and emotions that must be veiled everywhere but in the privacy of her harem boudoir.
The woman writhed, stretching. Laughter gurgled deep in her throat as she saw his eyes drawn instinctively to the hard brown breasts thrusting up at him. She whispered throatily, “You are mine now, Americano. You belong to me. Here in the selamlik my word is law. Even Yussuf does not interfere with what I do.”
She came off the low, cushioned sofa with a flash of shapely brown legs and walked toward him, hips rolling easily, a smile twisting the corners of her red mouth. Lightly, she scratched her fingernails, sharply pointed and coated with silver dust, across his chest. Her yellow eyes brightened, glowing.
“He does not interfere at all! Whatever I do here, is my own business!”
Fletcher thought numbly that the pasha of Tripoli would make it his business if Fletcher dared to do what the bold yellow eyes invited him to do. For the first time since the Philadelphia went down, there was good food in his belly and clean clothes on his body. If this wanton with the kohl-darkened eyes and the musk-scented hair were to have her way with him—and the pasha learned of it—he would be strung up by his heels over a slow fire.
Marlani Chamiprak read something of this in his stony face. The yellow eyes narrowed. The red lips drew back a little, to show even white teeth. “You are a coward! You are afraid of Yussuf. And I thought all you Americanos were brave men!”
Marlani let the tide of her desire run wild in her, making no attempt to check it. Never before this moment had she felt like this. Never before had a big blond American stood in her boudoir, fighting for control, forcing his eyes away from the body she exhibited so shamelessly.
Before she had been wed to Yussuf Caramanli, Marlani had been a dancer at the court of Sultan Selim III of Turkey. Long ago she had learned the ways of pleasing men, and with her lessons had come an avid addiction to the art. She had been faithful to Yussuf, but since he had begun this stupid war with the United States, he had become more and more neglectful of her.
She laughed softly, throwing her head back. Then she swirled, arms spread wide, and went dancing about the room, her thin silken trousers billowing outward. She danced nearer to Fletcher, tripped across a cushion and fell against him. Her upturned face was an inch below his chin, her honeyed breath fanning his lips as her cat eyes mocked him.
“Coward!” she whispered fiercely. “What are you afraid of? Put your arms around me! Make love to me, nasrany!”
He held himself as rigid as if he were at attention on the spar deck of the Constellation, his training ship. For one instant he stared down into her flushed, lovely face with its kohled eyes and long lashes, seeing the moist red lips waiting, parted. Then his gaze lifted until he was staring blankly above her brown hair at the Moorish windows of the haremlik.
He said heavily, “The pasha said I was to guard his wife against all harm. He said my life depended on it.”
She whispered, “In the harem, my word is the law. Kiss me!”
She writhed against him, but he was as unmoving as a statue. Then Marlani Chamiprak drew back and snarled, like a savage cat. Her hand came up and her palm cracked hard against his cheek. Three times she hit him, until his cheek was an angry scarlet.
“You Americano fool! You shouldn’t have made an enemy of me. It would have been better for you to have Yussuf angry with you, than me!” She paused for breath and slowly the rage gave way to a quiet slyness, brightening her eyes and curving her lips. “If you want it like this, with open war between us, very well. But remember, I fight as a woman fights!”
She turned on a heel and walked away. Just before she disappeared behind the archway curtains, she looked back over a bare shoulder. “I’ll make you forget yourself yet, nasrany. When I do, I’ll tell Yussuf you raped me! Pray to your gods that it will take a long time.”
The curtain fell behind her, limply, and Stephen Fletcher was aware that sweat was standing out like jeweled beads on his forehead.
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