Nan Ryan (20 page)

Directly across the palm-fringed lagoon, thick rugs had been spread in a colorful patchwork, one atop the other, on the grassy banks beneath the tall palms. Throngs of tribesmen from two separate empires, all of them wearing their finest robes, were gathered, sitting about on pillows and hassocks. The evening meal had just ended, and now they were drinking that thick sweet coffee from delicate demitasse cups.

Scanning the sea of dark faces, Temple anxiously sought out the handsome face of the Sheik. He was easy to spot. His were the robes that were snowy white. He sat cross-legged at the center of a low table upon which rested a long-beaked brass coffeepot and silver platters filled with dates, figs, fruits, and sugary cakes.

On his right was a small, bearded man who was grandly robed in varying shades of blue. Temple recognized him as the visiting Sheik Hishman Zahrah Rahman. On Sharif’s left was a young dark-haired woman garbed in modest but exquisite robes of pink rose brocade. A transparent pink veil, weighted with sparkling jewels, covered the lower half of her face but did not conceal the fact that she was beautiful. Bracelets of glittering gold adorned both her wrists, and golden rings gilded each slim finger.

Sharif’s white teeth flashed in a smile as he turned and whispered something in the young woman’s ear.

“No!” Temple murmured as it dawned on her.

Sheik Rahman’s daughter was not a little girl at all, but a gorgeous fully grown woman.

As Temple watched, frowning, Sharif bowed his head and leaned close while the dark-eyed young beauty whispered to him. As she spoke the woman laid a small hand on his forearm and Sharif’s tanned fingers covered hers.

Temple swallowed hard. Her hand went to her heart. She tried to turn away but couldn’t. All kinds of strangely unacceptable thoughts ran through her mind. The real purpose of Sheik Rahman’s visit was to deliver his beautiful daughter to Sharif. This feast was actually a prenuptial celebration. Sharif was to marry the woman!

Sharif gracefully rose to his feet. Temple’s eyes clung to him as he made his way through the crowd and disappeared into the thickest part of the palm grove. Other tribesmen were rising, following him.

A large circular space was being cleared at the center of the crowd, directly before the low table where the visiting sheik and his daughter sat. The throb of the silver drums grew louder. Men with tambourines began playing their instruments.

A buzz of excitement rippled through the crowd.

All at once a group of men carrying long swords appeared in the clearing. Singers joined them. They linked arms together and faced each other in two long lines. The singers chanted verses in Arabic as they swayed back and forth. Then the men carrying swords began a slow walk around the circle, keeping in step with the beating of the drums.

A deafening shout and a great round of applause went up from the crowd when a tall, lean swordsman materialized from the dense palm grove.

Sharif stepped into the center of the circle, and every pair of eyes, including Temple’s, was instantly riveted to him.

Gone were the flowing white robes, the silver-corded headdress, the handsome, loose-sleeved white blouse.

He wore a only pair of baggy, calf-length white trousers riding low on his flat brown belly and secured by a long silver sash tied atop his hipbone, the ends flowing down his thigh to his knee. He was shirtless. A vest of flaming crimson was open over his dark chest, and wide armbands of gleaming gold adorned his bulging biceps.

He was barefoot and bareheaded, and his naked torso and muscular arms glistened with a gloss of rich oils that had been rubbed into every inch of undraped olive flesh. In his strong right hand he carried a heavy gleaming sharp-edged sword. His bearing, as was to be expected, was haughty.

For a long moment he stood there unmoving as the late afternoon sun struck him fully, adding an ethereal radiance to his magnificent physique and dark head and fine features. He was so arrestingly beautiful that he appeared to be not a man, but a god, not of this world.

Oohs and aahs rose from the large assembly when Sharif began to swing his heavy sword over his head in a slow, fluid motion. Temple, watching with her heart in her throat, was instantly worried about his injured shoulder. The bandages were gone. Oil covered the not-yet-healed purple bullet wound. She was afraid he was not really able to swing the heavy sword. Surely it was dangerous to engage in such a perilous exercise when he wasn’t fully recovered.

“Oh, God, no,” she murmured when he threw the sword high into the air and caught it as it fell.

The excitement grew as the
Ardah
, the Sword Dance, went on. The low singsong chant and the sensual, slow-motion dance made the ceremony a stunning, unusual sight to behold, and Temple was captivated.

As Sharif continued to perform such heart-stopping feats of derring-do, she wrung her hands with worry even as she watched, entranced. Each time he swung or tossed his sword, she stopped breathing. And when he threw it straight up and spun about in a full circle before reaching out to pluck it from the air, she impulsively cried out his name.

“Sharif!”

His hand firmly gripping the sword’s heavy handle, the Sheik froze and his dark head snapped around. Horrified, Temple ducked back inside the tent.

But not before he had spotted her.

Temple was barely back inside
and stretched out on the long sofa before the tent’s flap was yanked open. She sat up quickly, blinking against the sudden infusion of light. She gasped and swung her slippered feet to the floor.

Backlit by the dying sun, Sharif stood in the open portal, the heavy sword still gripped firmly in his right hand. He advanced swiftly, the gold bands encircling his oiled biceps winking in the wide shaft of sunlight as he bore down on her.

Temple flinched instinctively when he reached out, wrapped his lean fingers around her upper arm, and pulled her to her feet. She found herself slammed up against his solid length, his muscular forearm wrapped around her in a viselike grip. The ruby ring bit into her back, and she was acutely aware of the Saracen sword, its long metal blade resting heavily against her buttocks, nudging her closer to him.

Her hands fluttering up to brace against his bare, slippery shoulders, she shuddered against him when he glared into her eyes and said, “I have been patient with you, American, but you continue to try me at every turn.” She started to speak, but he stopped her. “You were forbidden to leave the tent.”

In a voice at once defiant and defensive, “I did not leave, I—”

“Calling my name while I was performing the
Ardah
could have cost me my life.”

Her sliding fingers unable to get a grip on his oiled shoulders, Temple stared right back at him and replied, “Performing a dangerous sword dance with your injured shoulder could have cost you your life.”

As if she hadn’t spoken, he said, “You will stay inside this tent until I give you permission to leave.”

“Oh? Am I required to stay shut up here until your guests leave the village?”

“You are required to obey my wishes.”

Temple couldn’t stop herself. She asked, “Is the visiting sheik’s daughter required to obey your wishes as well?”

“You are a great deal of trouble,” was his reply as his arm tightened around her. The heavy sword pressed against her backside, forcing her more fully to him. “The visiting sheik’s daughter gives me no trouble.”

“What does she give you?”

“Only joy.”

Temple felt a quick stab of jealousy pierce her breast. “You told me she was a child.”

“No. You assumed she was child.”

Temple’s emerald eyes narrowed. “You will marry her, then? That is the reason she is here, isn’t it?”

“Need you know everything?”

“Everything? You tell me nothing! I’ve no idea why you’re holding me. Or how long you plan to keep me. Or what you mean to do with me.” She took a quick, shallow breath and added quickly, questioningly, “Am I to be added to your harem?”

“No.” She winced at the cold brutality of his tone when he said, “You could never be properly trained.”

“Let me go!” Temple demanded angrily, pushing on his chest, struggling to free herself.

“I will release you, Temple, but you are
not
to go outside this tent until I say you may.”

“I’m to live hidden away forever like a prisoner?”

“You’re to do as I tell you.”

“And if I disobey you?”

“You won’t,” he said arrogantly, and released her.

She looked down at her dress. It was stained with oil where his arms had held her, spotted where his chest had pressed against her breasts. Plucking at the soiled fabric, pulling it away from her skin, she made a face, wrinkled her nose, and said, “You’ve ruined my dress! You know very well I have nothing else to wear! Now what shall I do?”

Shrugging out of his soiled crimson vest, he said coldly, “You will stay in the tent where you belong.”

Temple stayed in the tent.

Bored, restless, she was all but forgotten by Sharif. She languished alone in the lonely silk-walled prison, overlooked, ignored as if she were a piece of furniture, while Sharif lavishly entertained his guests. She saw him only on those occasions when he returned to the tent to clean up and change clothes for yet another of the many elaborate feasts honoring his exalted visitors, an endless round of celebrations to which she was never invited.

Tariz admitted, under Temple’s seemingly casual questioning, that Mumtaz, Sheik Hishman Zahrah Rahman’s lovely daughter, had been brought along in the hope that she would find favor with Sharif. Temple had to bite her tongue to keep from asking if Mumtaz had indeed found favor with Sharif.

What did she care?

She didn’t, really. It made no difference to her if he had one wife or four. It meant nothing to her.
He
meant nothing to her.

Still, when three days and nights passed and finally Sheik Hishman Zahrah Rahman rode out of the village, taking his clearly disappointed daughter with him, Temple was relieved to see them go. She realized, with a quick stab of guilt, that although it made no sense, she
was
jealous of this young Arabian beauty, had been afraid Sharif would want her, desire her.

After the visitors’ departure, life in the desert village returned to normal. Nothing had changed. The Sheik continued to act as if she were not there. He became increasingly aloof. Maddeningly distant. Coldly indifferent.

The Sheik drove his booted heels into Prince’s lathered flanks one blistering hot afternoon. He had been away at a three-day tribal meeting with his allies, the Otaybas. He was anxious to get back to camp.

His eyes squinted against the sun’s fierce glare, and his head was throbbing from the sleeplessness of the past two nights. He hadn’t slept a wink, hadn’t rested a minute.

She
was on his mind constantly, he could think of nothing else. Of no one else. Just Temple. Only Temple

For days, weeks, he had wrestled with his conscience, fought to cling to his weakening control, battled the growing lust that was tearing him apart.

He wanted her.

He wanted Temple DuPlessis Longworth. He desired her with all the driving power of the passionate nature he had inherited. He yearned for her with an intensity that was nothing short of torture. He could no longer endure the agony. He was torn apart, rendered helpless by the force of his primeval hunger for the beautiful blond American.

Despising his weakness, Sharif was nonetheless propelled by it. He was racing back to her, his intent evil, his purpose inexcusable. He was going to take her, willing or unwilling, despite honor, despite reason. The maddening temptation had driven him over the edge, and he could stand it no longer.

The decision had been made. There was no turning back. He was racing headlong into hell, and he didn’t care.

He had tried everything. He had forced himself to remain withdrawn, detached. He had willed himself to pay her no attention. Had pretended she was not there, that he was actually alone in the tent.

At times he dared not even look at her, so afraid was he of what the sight of her delicate blond loveliness would do to him. And even then, with his eyes tightly closed against her, he saw her all too plainly—the gentle curve of her ivory throat and the golden blond of her hair and the emerald green of her eyes and the soft fullness of her lips.

A hundred times a day he would find himself lost in a daze from which only her image emerged. He could see nothing else. Could hear no one else. Only Temple. Just Temple.

Temple in tight riding pants mounted astride the stallion Toz, racing over the sands. Temple seated across the dinner table in a lush, low-cut gown. Temple curled up on the floor before the chess board. Temple sleeping peacefully beneath the sheet covering her warm nakedness.

Temple. Temple. Temple.

He had to have her to save his sanity. Nothing else would. It was the only hope he had of getting her off his mind and out of his blood.

Through the heat haze, the squinting Sharif finally saw his cool green oasis in the near distance, waiting, beckoning to him. He spotted the large white tent and pictured her there, napping on the divan in the main room, a book resting on her chest, gently rising and falling.