Lord of the Desert Read online

  “You like?” Leila asked with twinkling eyes.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Gretchen remarked dreamily.

  Leila leaned toward her. “It was the old harem,” she said confidentially. “The sidi’s great-grandfather had twenty concubines, and this is where they stayed, surrounded by eunuchs.”

  “Sidi? What does it mean?” she asked curiously.

  “It means lord.”

  “Lord of the desert,” she mused, picturing a sheikh in flowing white robes on a huge stallion riding like the wind in front of his warriors. She smiled at her folly. Philippe probably couldn’t even ride a horse. What a fanciful woman she was getting to be. The mystique of the place was affecting her.

  “He is a strong man, the sidi,” Leila continued to speak, moving to unpack the suitcases the bodyguard had brought to the women’s quarters. She shook her head disparagingly over Gretchen’s few clothes. There were two skirts, a blouse, and a pair of slacks, besides the white Mexican dress and accompanying shawl. “No, no, this will not do at all! I must make the sidi aware of your wardrobe, Lady FIL-fil,” she continued. “He will expect you to dress as befits a woman of your station here.”

  “My station?” Gretchen asked, diverted.

  “You will be my Lady, of course,” the Arab woman said simply. “You will be the bride of our sheikh.” She smiled at Gretchen’s expression. “We know of the sidi’s desire to marry you, my Lady,” she added. “We had feared that he would never take a bride. In fact, there were whispers that he had no use for a woman…”

  Gretchen’s face flamed and she knew she looked guilty as sin.

  But Leila saw the expression in an entirely different light, and began to laugh secretively. “Ah. So it was not the lack of need for a woman, it was the lack of someone for whom he could care, eh?” She chuckled. “I see.”

  “He is…very attractive,” Gretchen said demurely.

  “He is very much a man, my Lady,” Leila replied. “A tiger of a man. They still tell stories of him around the Bedouin campfires, of the fierce battle he waged to regain Qawi from the mercenaries.”

  “Yes, he told me about his personal bodyguard,” Gretchen recalled.

  Leila gave her an odd look. “The battle was joined by all the tribes, my Lady,” she said softly. “By every tribe in our country. You cannot possibly imagine the divisions, the clan feuds, the vendettas that had to be overcome to unite them.”

  “I know so little about Qawi,” came the quiet reply. “I have a lot to learn.”

  “You will enjoy the learning,” Leila assured her with a smile. “And now, my Lady, would you like to soak in the whirlpool bath?”

  “A whirlpool bath?” she exclaimed with delight.

  “One of many modern amenities we have here now,” the young woman giggled. “And large enough for a woman and her husband to share,” she added with a blush.

  “Leila!” Gretchen exclaimed, flushing.

  The other woman’s smile was deeply approving. “I can see that you are like us in your beliefs, my Lady, and it pleases me very much. The tribespeople value morality.”

  “I come from a very small town,” Gretchen told her. “I’m very old-fashioned, too.”

  Leila’s eyes twinkled with affection. “Then you must learn a little about our traditions. It will be my pleasure to instruct you, with my sidi’s permission.”

  “Do you have to have permission from men to do things here?” she asked without sarcasm. “I mean, do all women?”

  “In much of the Middle East, we live by the Qu’ran,” Leila said solemnly, “which means that we permit no sexual exploration outside marriage and no access to immoral things or pursuits. This is the law for men as well as women. We are a clean and moral people.” She paused and glanced at Gretchen to see how the liberated American woman would react to the statement.

  “Those who believe in the old values are pretty much thought of as prehistoric these days in my country,” Gretchen told her quietly.

  Leila raised her eyebrows. “Then welcome to the caves, mademoiselle,” she said impishly.

  Gretchen laughed with pure delight. She was going to enjoy this new friend’s company. “From one cavewoman to another, thanks!”

  “And now, shall I draw your bath?”

  Despite Philippe’s assertion that he wouldn’t see her again that day because of the pressures of his office, she was sipping coffee and eating almond pastries after her evening meal when he came through the door into her apartment. Surprisingly, Leila was with him, although he motioned her curtly into an antechamber and had her close the door behind her.

  “A chaperone?” she teased as he came to sit down in the chair across from hers at the small glass table. “How exciting!”

  He chuckled. He was wearing a thobe now, like the ones called djellabahs in Morocco, but his was elegant, deep blue and embroidered in gold thread. On his feet were the heel-less shoes called babouches in Morocco. He cocked his head and stared at her, approving the way she looked in a gold-embroidered white silk gellabia, which was thin enough to show the long embroidered thick cotton gown she wore under it.

  “You dress conservatively,” he said approvingly. “But not well enough, I’m afraid. I’ve arranged for a woman to come tomorrow and measure you for a new wardrobe. I particularly like you in white, but I think a deep, rich green would suit you equally well.”

  “You shouldn’t spend a lot of money on me,” she protested. “I’m really not that clothes-conscious, and when I go out, I’ll wear an aba, even if I go out with you.”

  “You must dress the part I brought you here to play,” he said gently, and with a smile. “Besides,” he added, leaning back to study her with faint arrogance, “it will please me to buy you pretty things. Indulge me.”

  She grinned. “Okay, then, but will you get me at least one pair of jeans so that I can go riding with you?”

  His heart leaped. “I would love to take you riding,” he told her. “But you must have jodphurs and a helmet, Gretchen. Riding clothes.”

  She grimaced. “I like blue jeans.”

  “When in Rome…?” he teased.

  “All right.” She studied his hard face, seeing faint new lines in it. “You’re tired,” she mused. “And you look as if someone’s tried to take several bites out of you and been poisoned in the process.”

  He chuckled. “An apt description.” He stood up and stretched lazily. Hard muscle rippled in his powerful body with the action. “Have they fed you?”

  “Very nicely,” she said. “I had pigeon pastries. They were delicious. So are these,” she added, lifting a small crescent-shaped almond pastry. “Want one?” she asked, offering it.

  He bent over her and opened his mouth, holding her gaze as she fed him. He chewed it deliberately and swallowed it before he bent and opened his mouth against her soft lips, brushing it lazily with a featherlight pressure.

  Her breath caught and she reached up, but he stood up and pursed his lips, studying her with deliberate intensity.

  His gaze went to the huge, four-poster bed with its gauzy curtains and then back to her, sliding down her body in the silky garment. His black eyes began to glitter faintly as they met hers.

  “Hours seem like days to a thirsty man,” he murmured softly. “Come here, little one.”

  He bent and lifted her out of the chair and up into his hard, strong arms. He bent, brushing his lips over her eyes as he carried her to the bed and placed her gently onto the heavily embroidered coverlet. She lay still, looking up at him with wide, hungry eyes.

  He slid onto the bed beside her, his hands on either side of her head as he poised there, with a look of eminent conquest on his lean face. Resting his weight on one forearm, his fingers went to the pins that contained her hair and loosened its soft weight so that it fell around her head like a golden halo.

  His eyes dropped to the tiny buttons of the gellabia and his lean fingers followed them. He began to unbutton them while he held her eyes.

&nb
sp; Her heartbeat went wild. She knew that he could see it, because the garment she was wearing jerked with every hard, quick pulse. Her body moved almost imperceptibly, aroused by the brief touch of his knuckles against the soft skin barely concealed by the thin embroidery of the gown.

  His hand went under the concealing overgarment and to the buttons under it. He flicked them open with a lazy, teasing pressure and then slid his hand under the fabric and onto the silky soft skin barely contained by the tiny little lacy brassiere she was wearing. “Ah,” he whispered as he found the hard peak and felt her body jump with pleasure. “No pads this time?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Not with you. Not ever. You make me proud of my body.”

  “As you should be,” he said tenderly. “How soft you are here, Gretchen,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her closed eyelids as he traced her firm little breast. His lips moved to her mouth and he nipped her lower lip gently with his teeth as his fingers became bolder. “Listen to me,” he said urgently. “I want to put my mouth on you and make you cry out. I want Leila to hear you. But if this would be too embarrassing…”

  While he was talking, her hands were getting fabric out of the way. She eased out of the top of the overgarment and the gown under it, and lay back down, inviting his eyes to her soft nudity. Her arms reached up to him, without coyness or pretense or embarrassment.

  Her soft green eyes made him feel like a true king as she watched his head bend to her body. Her back arched, just a breath, just enough to invite his mouth over that hard, dark pink little nipple…

  The quick, jerky cry that pulsed out of her made him violently hungry. His mouth became demanding, insistent, as he suckled her in the fierce tension of desire. His body moved over hers. He’d forgotten Leila, his resolutions, his reticence, all his misgivings about her reputation. He was on fire. His body was throbbing, pulsating. He was so fiercely aroused that he barely felt her sharp nails biting into his back below the waist. He moved on her, edging between her long, trembling legs, his mind focused on nothing more immediate than satisfaction. Perhaps he could, perhaps he could, perhaps…!

  “Sidi!”

  He shuddered. His eyes were terrible as he forcibly dragged his eyes from Gretchen’s misty, hungry eyes and her soft body and looked toward the doorway into the room that contained the whirlpool path.

  Leila stood there with her arms folded, her face set disapprovingly, glaring at him.

  He said something in a furious tone in Arabic to her and she replied very calmly, and firmly, in the same language.

  Philippe cursed in French and English and Arabic as he looked down at his handiwork and was barely able to stop shivering with unsatisfied desire. This time was worse than it had ever been. He’d felt more aroused than ever before. He still was. He wanted to rip away the fabric between himself and this woman and drive himself into her soft body. He wanted…

  He groaned harshly and rolled away from her to sit on the side of the bed with his face in his hands.

  Gretchen could hardly breathe. She dragged her gown up over her taut breasts and stared at Leila with a mixture of confusion and embarrassment.

  “You come with me, my Lady,” Leila said firmly, moving forward to tug Gretchen out of the bed. “Not before the wedding, sidi,” she told Philippe in firm English. “Shame on you!”

  Philippe burst out laughing even through his agony. “Pest,” he groaned. “I should have given you to Mustapha al Bakir when he begged for you!”

  “He aspires far higher than his worth. I had sooner marry an ox,” she returned haughtily. “Now, I will take my Lady into the other chamber until you leave, sidi,” she continued, drawing Gretchen along with her. “You must not dishonor her.”

  Philippe managed to get to his feet. He didn’t face them as he stared over his shoulder toward the women, one commanding, the other trying to keep her breasts covered with a garment that was still unbuttoned and steadily slipping. He pursed his lips with a wicked grin.

  “Then keep her locked carefully away until we leave for the desert,” he advised Leila. “The temptation she presents is difficult to resist.”

  “So Hassan told me,” she returned, nodding when his eyebrows rose. “Yes, I heard all about what happened on the airplane! My Lady is not safely left alone with you, sidi, and it will be my chore to keep her chastity intact until the ceremony takes place. Whether you like it or not!”

  “I won’t like it,” Philippe assured her, but his eyes were twinkling as they met Gretchen’s. “Third time lucky, mademoiselle,” he added to Gretchen in a low undertone, and chuckled when she blushed.

  He left the apartment, and Leila helped Gretchen back into her gown and djellabah, frowning. “What means this third time?”

  “An idiom,” she told the Arab woman. “And never mind what it means,” she added primly but with a smile.

  “That man is a menace,” Leila said, shaking her head. “And to think I trusted him alone with you!”

  Gretchen didn’t say a word, but she could only imagine how it flattered Philippe to be thought of as a potential seducer. Leila’s fierce protection had amused and delighted him, for reasons the Arab servant could never imagine.

  Remembering the fierce arousal of his lean body and the increased urgency of his embrace, Gretchen had very little doubt that one day soon she was going to learn all the secrets of the bedchamber. She could hardly wait for the wedding ceremony that would make Philippe her own. If she could seduce him, the mysterious Brianne would never be able to hold his affections. And she was going to seduce him. By any means, by all means, possible!

  A week went by very quickly while Gretchen learned her way around the enormous palace and got to know the people who served in it. She felt sorry for the poor servants who had to wash down the walls. They used bleach, and it made their hands raw. She complained about this to Philippe, who provided them with rubber gloves. She found one of the women in the kitchen barely able to stand, sick with some female problem, and this problem, too, she insisted on addressing. A doctor was sent for and the woman was treated and given sick leave.

  There were other problems she noticed, to the amusement of her future husband. She found the working hours too stringent and the lack of day care facilities and kindergarten worrying. She met with the servants at the end of a particularly long day with a translator Philippe provided, and she listened to their shy requests with patience. Each one was given a chance to speak, even the long-suffering cook who had no modern tools or appliances to produce the delicious French dishes Philippe preferred. The household manager was at first resentful and appalled at the interference of a foreign woman in such business. But as Gretchen accomplished remarkable changes in working conditions, he soon looked upon her as an ally and even conspired with her to have china replaced and new linen ordered for the tables.

  Nor did she stop at the household. She found children playing in the dirt with sticks. There were no toys, and there was no place to play. With the translator, she went to the small, meticulously clean houses that filled the kasbah and gathered the mothers together. Most of them worked at making textiles for the palace and its occupants, but there was no one to look after the children. They played outside in the dirt, because there was no other facility. She went back and told Philippe, and asked for a proper fenced playground and a supervisor to watch them while their mothers worked. A kindergarten, she added, was going to be a necessity, and it must have a capable educator to run it.

  Philippe agreed, all but shell-shocked at the change in her since her arrival. She seemed to be everywhere, watching, listening, learning. She saw things that needed changing and went right to work changing them. She became mature under his very eyes. She was charming his household. She was charming him, as well. He wanted her more each day, but Leila managed to keep him from Gretchen except for rare occasions in the evenings. And now, she refused to leave the room when he entered Gretchen’s apartment.

  Philippe glared at the woman with her embroider
y in her lap, and said something to her in their language.

  Unperturbed, Leila grinned at him and went right on with her embroidery.

  “We leave for Wadi Agadir in two days,” he told Gretchen. “By then, the first of your new things should be delivered to the palace. Leila will come with you on the journey.”

  “A caravan?” Gretchen asked enthusiastically. “Camels and horses…?”

  He chuckled. “A Land Rover,” he corrected. His eyes twinkled at her disappointment. “I am a city man,” he said lazily, darting a warning glance at Leila, whose mouth was open. “Why should I suffer the discomfort of riding on a camel when I can travel in comfort?”

  “I read too many novels, and watch too many Valentino movies,” Gretchen confessed sheepishly. “I’m sure that traveling in a Land Rover will be an experience, too.”

  “This entire trip will be an experience. One which I expect neither of us will ever forget,” he added softly. He lifted her hand to his mouth. “I must retire. Sleep well.”

  “You, too. Thank you for not minding.”

  “Minding what?” he asked, curious.

  “I’ve been making waves around the palace,” she confessed. “I’m sorry I’ve caused you so much trouble. Perhaps I should have stayed in my quarters…”

  Leila was laughing uproarously. So was Philippe.

  “The cook makes those little almond pastries you enjoy so much with his own hands—a man whom his underlings call ‘Napoleon.’ The washwomen use the most expensive perfumes on your clothing. The children swarm around you whenever they see you. My own valet carried a pot of orchids stolen right out of my father’s conservatory—an offense for which he could have been beheaded once—and put them in your sitting room. Trouble? I live in constant apprehension, wondering if a servant who brings your tea late may slit his own throat for fear of offending you!”