Epilogue
Author Afterword
Extract
Marguerite Kaye
Stolen nights with the secret princess...
Bound to marry for duty, Princess Tahira finds her only freedom in forbidden escapes to the desert. Then one night she encounters a stranger under the stars—adventurer Christopher Fordyce. He’s wildly attractive and thrillingly dangerous...an illicit fantasy she can’t resist!
Even unaware of Tahira’s royal blood, Christopher knows his shameful past makes any future with her impossible. But in the sultry desert heat, desires are uncovered and secrets unveiled, and soon Christopher will risk everything to claim his desert princess!
Be seduced and swept away by these desert princes!
You won’t want to miss this new, thrillingly exotic quartet from Marguerite Kaye!
First, exiled Prince Azhar must decide whether to claim his kingdom and beautiful unconventional widow Julia Trevelyan!
Read
The Widow and the Sheikh
When Sheikh Kadar rescues shipwrecked mail-order bride Constance Montgomery, can a convenient marriage help him maintain peace in his kingdom?
Find out in
Sheikh’s Mail-Order Bride
To secure his kingdom’s safety, Sheikh Rafiq must win Arabia’s most dangerous horse race. His secret weapon is an English horse-whisperer...whom he does not expect to be an irresistibly attractive woman!
Read
The Harlot and the Sheikh
Daredevil Christopher Fordyce has always craved adventure. When his travels lead him to the kingdom of Nessarah he makes his most exciting discovery yet—a desert princess!
Find out in
Claiming His Desert Princess
All available now!
First of all thank you to Tahira, whom I met at a Mills & Boon ‘New Voices’ workshop. I thought she had a fabulous name—fit for a desert princess. She very kindly permitted me to use it. I hope she likes her namesake and thinks I’ve done her justice.
More thanks for a name suggestion are due—this time to Mairibeth MacMillan, writer, friend and coffee mate, who named Tahira’s sand cat Sayeed (Hunter). Sayeed owes his slightly vicious predilections to two of my previous pet cats, both of whom were feral by nature, and loved by me and no one else!
My final thanks go to a fictional character, Lord Henry Armstrong—is it permissible to thank your own creation? He made his first appearance in Innocent in the Sheikh’s Harem, as a conniving and ruthless diplomat with a bevy of daughters he was determined to marry off. That book spawned the Armstrong Sisters series, and at the conclusion of the last story, Unwed and Unrepentant, I thought I was done with him and he with me. But, like the proverbial bad penny, he just kept turning up unexpectedly. Thank you, Henry, I’ve loved delving into your secret and dark past in this book, you cad, you!
This book rounds off the Hot Arabian Nights quartet. I hope that it finishes the series on a high, and that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
MARGUERITE KAYE writes hot historical romances from her home in cold and usually rainy Scotland, featuring Regency rakes, Highlanders and sheikhs. She has published almost thirty books and novellas. When she’s not writing she enjoys walking, cycling (but only on the level), gardening (but only what she can eat) and cooking. She also likes to knit and occasionally drink martinis (though not at the same time). Find out more on her website: margueritekaye.com.
Kingdom of Nessarah, Arabia—July 1815
The moon was little more than a scimitar-shaped crescent in the night sky as Christopher moved stealthily towards the summit of the rocky outcrop which would provide him with the perfect vantage point. The heavens were strewn with hazy stars tonight, a scattering of dusty diamonds rather than the usual pincushion of bright-silver discs. Though he was pretty certain that the site he had come to reconnoitre was deserted, he had taken the precaution of leaving his hobbled camel at the nearest well, located over a mile away. The soft sand had given way to gravelly rubble underfoot. Patches of sparse scrub had forced their way through the hard-packed mud. Dusty and bereft of any greenery, their thick thorns snatched at his cloak as he crept forward, his soft-soled boots making no sound.
The rock formation which was the focus of his interest rose out of the gentle swell of the ground like the battlements of an ancient keep. In this light it looked russet red in colour, the vertical striations glittering. A clearly identifiable track had been hacked through the scrub leading towards a cleft in the rock. Stooping to examine the ground, Christopher could make out the indentations created by heavy cart wheels rumbling across the terrain. He was definitely in the right place.
His heart began to race with anticipation, but he mustn’t get ahead of himself. The whispered conversations he had overheard, the careful questioning of local contacts, his own research, might yet prove unfounded. The familiar tightening in his gut, the flicker of excitement which always accompanied such discoveries, was on this occasion leavened with a healthy dose of desperation. Never in his entire career had so much been riding on a mineral find.
A single black cloud traversed the moon, casting a shadow over the rugged desert landscape laid out before him. For six months he had been scouring southern Arabia in search of the perfect confluence of natural resources without once finding this, the most elusive of them all. He had now exhausted his list of potential locations. Nessarah was pretty much his last throw of the dice.
‘But this time, I know I’m in the right place,’ Christopher muttered resolutely to himself. The answer had to be here. He had grown weary of this self-imposed quest, longing for it to be over. He could not contemplate failure.
‘And so I must succeed.’ His hand felt automatically for the pouch containing the amulet. He did not need to remove it to trace the shape cast from beaten gold, the smooth enamel interior, the setting of each individual precious stone, and the oddly-shaped gap which might hold the key to the origin of the piece. He carried it with him everywhere, a tangible
