The Pleasure of Your Kiss Page 26

  Farouk sat all alone in the darkness of his throne room.

  He had dismissed his guard, something he found himself doing with increasing frequency lately, preferring the solitude of his thoughts. But on this night his thoughts were as black as the shadows gathering around the throne that had once been his father’s and his father’s father’s before him. Why should he concern himself with an anonymous assassin’s blade when he was already surrounded by enemies?

  By now one of those enemies would be waiting for him on his sleeping couch, her silvery blond tresses rippling across his pillow in the moonlight. He had longed for this moment for so long. All he had to do was go to her and claim what was rightfully his, what he had paid for with a fortune in gold that day in the slaver’s market.

  Yet there he sat, brooding all alone in the dark.

  He could still clearly see the outrage on her face when she had risen out of her chair after he had informed her she would be sharing his bed that night. He had been spoiling for a fight in that moment and had halfway hoped she was going to give it to him. But instead she had swallowed her pride and offered him a mocking curtsy.

  That was when he had finally seen what had been right before his eyes all along. There could be only one reason for her reluctant surrender—she was willing to sacrifice herself to save the man she loved.

  And that man was not him.

  She had never truly loved him. Her heart was not hers to give because it already belonged to another. It belonged to the man Farouk had welcomed into his home with open arms, the man who had saved his life not once, but twice, the man who had pretended to be his friend while plotting all the while to steal Clarinda right out from under his unsuspecting nose.

  The two of them had played him for a fool. Had made him feel like the fat, clumsy boy the English had called Frankie, the boy who had cowered on the ground while his classmates rained blows down on him with their fists and kicked him with the hard, polished toes of their boots.

  When he had returned from England to assume his father’s throne, he had vowed he would never again be that boy.

  If he failed to exert his mastery over Clarinda now, to punish her for her lies and her betrayal, he would prove himself to be everything his uncle believed him to be—weak, foolish, unfit to rule a province as magnificent as El Jadida.

  He had a harem full of women fighting over the privilege of being summoned to his bed, women who would do anything to please him. Yet tonight he would force himself on a woman who would be counting the seconds until he was through with her. She would submit, of course. What choice did she have? Her champion had fled, leaving her at his mercy. But as he gave her even more of a reason to despise him, her face would be turned away from him, her eyes squeezed shut as she dreamed of the man she wished were touching her, taking her.

  Farouk might possess her body but he would never possess her heart or her soul.

  When he wearily closed his own eyes, it wasn’t Clarinda he saw but another woman, good-hearted and true. Her laughter was a merry ripple that did not humor him or mock him but soothed his restless soul. Her smile was always welcoming, her eyes always hungry for the sight of him. She did not look at him like that because he was Zin al-Farouk, the Exalted Sultan of El Jadida, but simply because she enjoyed his company. He had the strangest feeling she might have liked Frankie as well. That she might have helped him sneak into the kitchens at Eton to pilfer pastries so they might enjoy them together beneath the light of the pale English moon.

  Someone sharply cleared his throat, interrupting his reverie.

  He opened his eyes, expecting to find Solomon waiting in the torchlit corridor to escort him to the bed of his new concubine.

  It wasn’t the hulking eunuch who stood in the doorway of the throne room but Tarik. There was no disguising the look of gloating satisfaction on his uncle’s face. Not even the nasty bruise on his jaw could dim the radiance of his wolfish smile.

  “You should have never let the English infidel escape with his life,” his uncle said, a triumphant sneer curling his upper lip, “because now he has returned to take what is yours.”

  “The sultan is coming! The sultan is coming!” The frantic whisper rippled through the harem, generating hope and panic in the heart of every women who heard it.

  Some shot straight to their feet, frantically snatching up their robes, while others, still half-asleep, rolled off their sleeping couches, groaning and blindly fumbling for brushes and combs. After living with so many women day in and day out, very little ruffled the eunuchs who guarded them, but even they were stumbling over one another in their haste as they rushed about to light the lamps and rouse the more sluggish women.

  When one of the concubines burrowed deeper beneath the sheets, dragging a colorful pillow over her head, the wife next to her gave her rump a sharp swat. “Get up! Do you want His Majesty to see you looking like the lazy cow you are?”

  The concubine popped out from beneath the pillow just long enough to spit a curse at her. The wife beckoned to a younger wife, and together the two women yanked the sheets clear off the couch, dumping the sputtering concubine onto the floor.

  It was rare indeed for the sultan to appear in the harem. He was far more likely to summon one of his wives or concubines to his sleeping quarters or even allow the eunuchs to choose a suitable bedmate for him. But tonight was different. Tonight he had decided to choose his companion for himself.

  The women scrambled to the foot of their couches to stand at attention, desperately raking their fingers through their tangled hair, licking their lips and struggling to look sloe-eyed and seductive with eyes still dazed and puffy from sleep.

  As the sultan’s towering figure appeared in the doorway, they lowered their heads, bowing as one. Farouk stalked through their ranks as if they weren’t even there, his long robes whipping around his ankles with each resolute stride. The women exchanged apprehensive looks beneath their lashes as he passed, and those who dared to steal a peek at the forbidding thundercloud of his face almost wished they hadn’t.

  It wasn’t romance the sultan appeared to have on his mind that night but murder.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  When Farouk came barging into Poppy’s alcove, tearing the curtain clean off its hooks with one furious swipe, the look on his face made her wonder if she had made a terrible miscalculation, perhaps even a fatal one.

  The book of sonnets she was reading slid from her numb fingers as he stopped just inside the door, breathing hard and gazing at her with the oddest mixture of relief and fury. It was almost as if he had expected to find her alcove—and her couch—empty.

  When he lunged back into motion, she scrambled off the other side of the couch, her every instinct warning her that if she cared one jot about her survival, she needed to get as far away as possible from this man.

  But it was a very small alcove.

  And he was a very large man.

  He walked right over the couch, leaving an impressive bootprint in the middle of her silk sheets. Capturing her shoulders in his hands, he drove her back against the wall, pinning her as handily as a collector might pin a captive butterfly. Poppy had always felt like a big, clumsy ox standing next to Clarinda, but being handled in such a masterful way made her feel positively delicate and slightly light-headed. Thinking about all the wicked things he might do to her if she swooned only made her head swim faster.

  “Where are they?” he demanded.

  She blinked innocently at him through her spectacles. “Who?”

  He lowered his head to give her a baleful look.

  “Oh! You must mean Clarinda and Captain Burke. If I’m not mistaken, I do believe they’re on their way back to England.”

  Although she wouldn’t have thought it possible, her confession only enraged him further. He spat out a stream of guttural Arabic before remembering to switch to English. “Then what in the name of Allah are you still doing here? Why did the fools not take you with them?”

  Pop
py lifted her chin. Did no one in this world believe she was capable of deciding her own fate? “Because I didn’t wish to go. I like it here. I can read as much as I like and I never have to wear a corset or slippers that pinch my toes.” Her courage faltered as his heavy-lidded gaze danced down the front of her satin dressing gown, almost as if he could see the unrestrained softness beneath. “And besides, I’ve become very fond of ktefa. I sincerely doubt you could get a decent ktefa in any coffeehouse or bakery in London.”

  Farouk gave her a little shake, his bared teeth looking incredibly white against the darkness of his beard. “Did it not occur to you that you were taking a terrible risk? What if I had decided to take my revenge on them by throwing you in my dungeons or turning you over to my guard so they could use you for sport?”

  Poppy knew she was supposed to quail with maidenly horror before such vile threats. But before she could stop it, a bubble of laughter welled up in her throat. “I was more worried about you jabbing hot spikes beneath my fingernails or cutting me up into tasty little morsels with one of your very large swords and feeding me to your crocodiles.” She was laughing so hard now that his hands on her shoulders were all that was keeping her from doubling over. “You do have crocodiles, don’t you? If you don’t, you could always feed me to your tiger cubs, although I daresay it would take them a very long time to finish me off since I’m a rather hearty girl and they really are only overgrown kittens.”

  Farouk glowered down at her, looking as if he were on the verge of wolfing her down himself. Instead, he seized her by the hand and started for the door.

  “Where are we going?” she gasped, wondering if she had spoken too soon and he was going to fetch his sword and personally cut her up and feed her to his crocodiles.

  “To find your treacherous little friend and her lover.”

  “But Captain Burke isn’t—”

  “And when I do, I am going to give them a piece of my mind for being so foolish as to leave a woman like you with a man like me.” Farouk dragged her right over the top of the bed with him, making it clear that any more protests would fall on deaf ears.

  As he strode through the hall of the harem, giving her no choice but to stumble after him, the women ceased their whispering and gaped at the two of them in slack-jawed astonishment.

  Amused by their disbelieving faces, which reminded her so much of the faces of the girls at Miss Throckmorton’s, Poppy could not resist dragging her feet just long enough to give them a smug smile and a cheery wag of her fingers before Farouk jerked her out the door.

  The stallion went plunging down the rocky path that led to the sea, leaving the shadow of Farouk’s fortress behind them. Clarinda knew she should have been terrified, but all she felt was exhilaration. She would gladly have raced through the night forever, her arms wrapped around Ash’s waist, the fullness of her breasts pressed to the warmth of his back.

  She felt liberated at last. This freedom had nothing to do with escaping the gilded bars of Farouk’s cage. She had always felt free when Ash was in her arms. He had never expected her to be anything more than what she was. She could be mischievous, charming, or as ill-tempered as a wet cat and still trust that he would adore her. At least that’s what she had believed up until the moment he had walked out of her life.

  She linked her hands together over the shifting muscles of his abdomen and turned her face to the wind, finally ready to leave that moment behind forever, just like Farouk’s fortress, and embrace this one. She had lived long enough now to know it might be the only one they would ever share. The wind whipped away the hood of her robe, setting her hair free to stream behind them in silvery ribbons.

  As they ran out of road, Ash guided the stallion in a wide arc and sent them racing along the shoreline. Moonlight frosted the curl of the waves spilling onto the sandy shore. The stallion thundered down the beach, his flashing hooves sending up a fine mist of sand and spray. The scent of the sea filled Clarinda’s lungs, its clean, salty tang washing away every lingering trace of sandalwood and jasmine.

  They were going to make it. They were going to be free.

  At least that’s what she allowed herself to believe until the first shot rang out. Her heart leapt into her throat. She twisted around in the saddle. All she could see behind them were Luca and Yasmin, their camel making a valiant effort to keep pace with the stallion.

  A second pistol ball whizzed past her ear, sending up a plume of sand a few feet in front of them.

  To Clarinda’s shock, Ash began to tug on the reins, slowing the stallion from a gallop to a canter.

  “They’re shooting at us!” she shouted. “You need to go faster, not slower!”

  “Those were only warning shots,” he called back to her. “If they had meant to hit us, we’d be dead right now.”

  “So what’s your plan? Making it easier for them to hit us when they decide to stop firing warning shots?”

  As they slowed even further, Luca pulled the camel abreast of them, a disgruntled Yasmin hanging on to him for dear life. “What in the bloody hell are you doing, Cap?” he yelled. They could hear the thunder of hoofbeats behind them now, growing louder with every second they squandered. “We’ll never be able to outrun them at this pace.”

  Ash twisted around to face his friend, his profile as grim as Clarinda had ever seen it. “I can’t risk them firing on her. I won’t risk it. Even if they take us, at least she’ll be alive.”

  “For how long?” Luca’s panicked shout echoed Clarinda’s own bleak thoughts.

  Plainly in no mood for argument, Ash sawed on the reins, wheeling the stallion around so they could face their pursuers. The spirited beast reared up on its hind legs and pawed at the air, forcing Clarinda to cling even more tightly to Ash or risk being dumped on her bottom. Ash easily brought the creature under control, using little more than a masterful squeeze of his thighs.

  Swearing in both Italian and Romany, Luca followed Ash’s example, guiding the camel in a clumsy circle that nearly unseated Yasmin, who proved she needed only one language in which to swear.

  Then all they could do was sit and wait for Farouk and his riders to descend upon them.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Farouk had brought only a dozen soldiers of his guard with him. Clarinda couldn’t decide if that was a measure of his confidence in himself or of his contempt for his adversaries.

  As the riders approached, Ash surprised her once again by dismounting and then reaching up to lift her to her feet. “I’d rather be on my feet to face an enemy than have my horse shot out from under me,” he murmured, his hands lingering against her waist. “Although I have a feeling Farouk would shoot me before he’d shoot this particular horse.”

  Ash was right, Clarinda thought. There was something bracing about standing on one’s feet to face an adversary. At least there was until Ash firmly tucked her behind him, forcing her to crane her neck to see around one of his broad shoulders.

  The riders swooped down upon them like vultures, their black robes rippling behind them. Beneath the kaffiyehs wound around their brows, their faces were dark and forbidding. When Clarinda saw that Farouk’s uncle Tarik was among them, her heart plunged all the way to her toes.

  Farouk was riding a towering chestnut that could have held its own during any race at Newmarket. It wasn’t until he reined in the horse that Clarinda saw the cloak-wrapped bundle in his arms. A pale hand appeared to push back the hood of the cloak, and a pair of spectacles emerged, moonlight winking off their wire frames.

  “Poppy?” Clarinda whispered disbelievingly. She started forward instinctively, thinking only to make sure her friend was unharmed. Ash’s arm shot out to block her path.

  Before anyone else could speak, Yasmin heaved a dramatic sigh from atop the camel. “I was a fool to run away. I should have known he would never let me go.”

  Farouk squinted at her. “Yasmin, is that you? What are you doing here?”

  Yasmin gaped at him, her tragic resignation turning t
o outrage. “You did not even notice I was missing?”

  “Forgive me,” Farouk said, sarcasm ripening in his tone, “but I did not have time to count my concubines before riding out. My stable had just been robbed and I was too busy counting my horses!”

  “Pshaw! This is why I can no longer be this man’s concubine. He cares more for his horses than his women!” Yasmin twined her arms around Luca’s waist, rubbing against him like a hungry cat. “Today is a good day for you, Gypsy. I have decided I will marry you after all.”

  “That’s odd,” Luca said, “since I don’t recall asking you. But if you keep doing what you’re doing, I just might.”

  Farouk slid off his mount, putting himself on equal footing with Ash and leaving Poppy sitting astride the horse. His contemptuous gaze encompassed both Clarinda and the stallion before shifting to Ash. “I finally recognized you for the scoundrel you are, Burke, but I did not take you for a thief as well.”

  “Didn’t you once tell me if I desired anything that belonged to you, I had only to ask?”

  Farouk’s eyes narrowed, the gleam in them reminding them all just how dangerous he could be. “You did not ask.”

  Tarik flung himself off his own horse and strode forward. “You are wasting your breath arguing with these infidels. Why do you not just kill them all and have done with it?”

  “Silence!” Farouk roared. “If I require your counsel, I will seek it! Until I do, it would be wise for you to stop wasting your breath.”

  Although he was still visibly seething, Tarik was not so foolish as to ignore his nephew’s warning.

  Farouk nodded toward Clarinda. “You have risked everything for this woman. Do you believe she is worth it?”

  Ash lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “She’s worth far more to me than you know. If I don’t return her to the man who hired me to retrieve her, I don’t get paid the rest of what he owes me.”