said quietly, ‘but only if you listen to me first.’
When she nodded her head slightly he swung her up in his arms, carrying her over to one of the low divans and sitting down with her still in his arms.
‘You shame me, Felicia,’ he said at last. ‘You shame me as no other human being has ever done. When I left you last night I felt sick to my soul, not only for misjudging you, although that was bad enough, but for teaching you to think that I would actually go to such lengths to part you from Faisal.’
‘But you said….’
He placed his fingers to her lips. ‘No—no more misunderstandings. Let me tell you the truth. Initially it is true that I did want to destroy the love Faisal bore you, for Faisal’s own sake,’ he admitted wryly. ‘He is fickle and too young to settle down, especially with a girl not used to our ways, sophisticated, and perhaps more in love with his wealth than with him. This would not have been the first time I have had to extricate him from such a situation, and shall we say that his track record to date has made me somewhat cynical.
‘But it didn’t work out like that. For one thing you were so beautiful, so proud and spirited, and I found myself less and less concerned with Faisal and increasingly determined to make you turn from him to me, at the same time despising myself for being attracted to a woman of the type I thought you to be.
‘I told myself I was a fool, letting your beauty steal away my common sense. But it was my heart you took, driving me mad by coming to life in my arms like the desert after rain, and yet still insisting that you preferred Faisal.
‘I wanted to crush your resistance, to force you to admit that you loved me, but always you eluded me, until at last I thought that you had guessed my feelings for you and were playing on them to make me accede to your betrothal to Faisal. Then I knew bitterness indeed. I admit now that I let my prejudice blind me, seeing only what I wanted to see—what experience had taught me to see. When you walked openly in the street I admit you played straight into my hands, but I didn’t write to Faisal. I could not bring myself to denounce you to him, much as I longed to part you. When you accused me of knowing that your romance with him was at an end I had no idea what you meant. You see, I hadn’t read his letter. While we were in the desert I meant to read it, but there never seemed to be time.’ He shrugged. ‘To tell the truth, I did not want to read it. I thought he would be begging me to allow him to return to further your romance, and I planned to keep you apart, hoping that you would turn from him to me.
‘When I discovered that you were missing…. Never as long as I live do I want to go through that torment again. My relief at finding you, coupled with your own stubborn refusal to admit your response to me, drove me over the edge of sanity. This morning I telephoned Faisal and told him that I had received his letter—which I have now read. It seems that Yasmin wrote to him after seeing us together in Kuwait, and her letter provided him with the loophole he had wanted. Unlike me, he had the wit to see your essential innocence, and he had decided that you would never enter the kind of impermanent relationship he most enjoys. When Nadia came to me and told me that you were leaving I knew I had to stop you. My pride was as the sand beneath my feet…. Marry me, Felicia,’ he begged. ‘I want you now and tomorrow and for all our tomorrows. I want to be the man who will unfasten the one hundred and one buttons of your bridal gown; the one who penetrates the final veil, the one whose child you bear, the one whose grave you share. I want you for my wife, Felicia—my only wife,’ he promised. ‘Many, many times my sister has pleaded for me to marry, but I could not. Perhaps it is a weakness in me, but I knew always that the woman I married must be the only woman, and when I saw you I knew you were she. Only let me, and I shall wipe away the bitterness of last night and teach you the true meaning of love.’
‘But you told me that a marriage between East and West would never work,’ Felicia reminded him, not daring to believe her ears.
‘Between you and Faisal,’ Raschid corrected. ‘Because no sooner had I set eyes upon you than I knew that I could never allow you to waste yourself on Faisal, not when I could love you so much better. But you rejected me, and drove me insane with jealousy, tormented by images of you in Faisal’s arms, when I longed to have you in mine.’
The ice that had invaded her heart melted, and Felicia looked up at him, giving herself trustingly into his care.
‘Tell me you love me, Felicia,’ he pleaded hoarsely. ‘Tell me I am not deluding myself, misreading what I see in your eyes.’
She knew that this time she was not being deceived and her arms reached out to enclose him, her only protest a small murmur when his breath lost its cool, even tenor, and instead became the charged, uneven rasp of a lover.
Last night had all been a bad dream. Only this was real. There was reverence as well as desire in the sure touch of his hands and lips, as he whispered how desperate he had been when Achmed told him she was leaving.
A small smile touched Felicia’s face. Achmed had told him. So Nadia had not really broken her promise after all. Clever Nadia!
He would never let her go, Raschid whispered fiercely. She would be his prisoner throughout their lives and beyond. They were two halves of an indivisible whole, and Felicia, lost in the wonder of his love, could only agree, her hands running lovingly over the satin smoothness of his back beneath the thin shirt.
‘No, not now….’ he muttered thickly, trapping her importuning hands. ‘I cannot dishonour you.’
‘But I want you,’ Felicia pleaded.
Strong hands cupped her face, dark eyes understanding and stormy. ‘Do you not think I want you?’ Raschid whispered unevenly, groaning suddenly as he pulled her against him, letting her feel his need. Her fingers spread against his chest, as she pressed shy kisses against his skin. ‘If I take you now, I shall be like a man consumed by thirst, who is given but one sip of water.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I have denied myself this long, I can deny myself a little longer, but to taste water now and then have it withdrawn before I have quenched my thirst will drive me to madness. Do you understand?’
If she had doubted the depth of his love, she did so no longer. Shyly she nodded, overwhelmed by the recognition of a need she had never suspected existed; a need only she had the power to arouse—and to assuage.
‘It will not be long,’ Raschid promised as he removed his shirt and gently fastened it over her. His eyes burned dark with desire as the damp fabric clung seductively to her swelling curves. ‘Indeed it must not be long,’ he added with a touch of self-mockery. ‘My sister already knows of my hopes. Our betrothal shall be announced tonight. I will not give you an emerald,’ he told her, betraying his knowledge of the stone Faisal had bought her. ‘Do you remember the glass paperweight you gave me?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Well, I have it still, even though I knew you intended it for another. After you had gone I found it where you had thrown it. I keep it in my room so that I can always be reminded of you—little though I need to be. I have slept little since you invaded my life, Felicia Gordon, but soon I shall know the delights of your love.’
THREE WEEKS LATER, when the last of the wedding guests had drifted away, Felicia remembered his words, and trembled a little as wordlessly he lifted her into his arms and carried her through the now empty house.
She had begged to spend her honeymoon at the house by the oasis, and now they were alone, the faint light of the oil lamps throwing flickering shadows across the mosaic floor. Outside the Eastern night had veiled the skies in a shimmer of midnight gauze, studded with sparkling diamonds, like the tiny buttons fastening her robe.
Without a word Raschid knelt at her feet, and she held her
