‘Stop it!’ Danielle protested, at last finding her voice. ‘I won’t listen to you! Let me go… I shall complain to the Sheikha!’
His laughter completely unnerved her, but at least she was released from that uncomfortably intimate contact with his body, although his long fingers still circled one slender wrist.
‘Do that, mignonne,’ he taunted softly. ‘But first do you not want to know whom you must complain of?’
Confused by his abrupt change of front, Danielle could only stare at him through the darkness, wondering a little at the prickly, warning sensation being relayed to her by her senses. What was the matter with her? she demanded of herself. Surely she hadn’t gone so completely spineless that the presence of a mere man (and an arrogantly unpleasant one at that) had the power to overwhelm her like this?
She glanced upwards uncertainly at the dark, chiselled features, noting instinctively the autocratic curl of the long mouth and the taut line of a jaw which she sensed could clench frighteningly in anger, but which was now relaxed in lazy amusement.
‘What, nothing to say?’ the soft voice taunted.
The lean fingers moved from her wrists to her shoulders, tracing the shape of her through the double thickness of her robe and her caftan with a sure knowledge that made her clench her teeth against her frantic protest. This was a man who knew women, and he was playing with her, enjoying her anguished embarrassment. Sparks flew from her eyes and she stiffened automatically, but he only laughed again, a low, warm chuckle which infuriated her more than everything that had gone before, one hand hovering tauntingly over her breast without actually touching her flesh until both of them could hear the nervous shallowness of her breath.
‘Your heart sings under my hand like a trapped bird,’ he said softly, placing palm and fingers against that organ.
Danielle stepped back as though she had been burned, and indeed the warmth generated by his hand against her body was such that she wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that it had actually scorched her flesh, but his grip of her shoulder prevented her from moving very far.
With lazy appreciation his hand was removed from her now fast beating heart, to push back the hood of her robe and reveal the tumbled disorder of the curls Zanaide had so carefully brushed before the evening meal. The thin light from the wall sconce turned her hair to living fire, and Danielle gasped as the soft voice drawled with a thread of living steel,
‘Well met by candlelight, daughter of Hassan.’
It should have sounded ridiculous, and in any other circumstances it might well have done so, but here in this ancient palace fortress, surrounded by strangers, Danielle could only react after the fashions she had always despised in novel heroines, by demanding breathlessly,
‘Who are you?’
He moved fractionally and in the faint light she could see the sardonic lift of his eyebrows, the smile that twisted his lips with bitterness and never reached his eyes; the powerful thrust of his body, which almost seemed to menace her as they stood together a frozen tableau in a world in which no other human beings might have existed.
‘You mean you honestly don’t know?’
His abrupt change of front, from laconic mockery to ice-cold hauteur, frightened Danielle. The air around her seemed to grow colder, filled with some malevolent presence.
‘How could I do?’ Danielle found herself stammering nervously. ‘I have only just arrived, I…’
‘So have I, and finding you on your way to my private apartments made me think that you must have some pressing purpose in seeking me out. A logical conclusion, would you not say, daughter of Hassan? You see, I know much of your race. The British are addicted to logic, are they not?’
‘Well, you’re wrong,’ Danielle said hotly, ignoring the latter part of his speech to deny his claim that she had been looking for him—or for anyone, for that matter. ‘I was on my way to my own apartment. I must have taken a wrong turning…’
Now, too late, she remembered how the stairs had seemed to go on for ever. If only she had stopped then and retraced her steps! ‘Besides, what possible motive could I have for seeking you out?’
She was pleased with the amount of scorn she managed to inject into the words, but her pleasure was soon swamped by another emotion as she witnessed the sudden tightening of the lean jaw. As she had suspected, it denoted anger; an anger which was soon unleashed about her, inducing the dry-mouthed terror of a sudden storm as he said with a softness which menaced where it had earlier mocked,
‘A very strong one, I should have thought, daughter of Hassan. I am Jourdan Saud Ibn Ahmed.’
CHAPTER FOUR
WAS it her imagination or had the earth really moved under her feet? Danielle thought weakly, her mind a frantic jumble of thoughts as she sought to come to terms with what she had just been told.
‘But you’re supposed to be in France,’ she protested. ‘I…’
‘You would never have come had you thought otherwise?’ he said for her. ‘How little you know of men, daughter of Hassan, for all your modern upbringing. Did you honestly think I would allow you to insult me in such a fashion? To refuse me as your husband?’
Cruel fingers gripped her wrists like the talons of the eagle her stepfather claimed he represented. A terrible cold fear gripped Danielle in a numbing embrace. She couldn’t believe that this was happening. She would have to return home immediately; she would phone her parents. But they were in America, travelling from coast to coast in a hectic round of business and social commitments. The Sheikha, then, Danielle decided, her thoughts leaping the chasm of her fear. She would surely help her. If only she had insisted on her stepfather providing her with some money! She would have no need of any, he had told her calmly. Indeed her hosts would think it an insult if she tried to use any. But surely her air fare home, she had protested, but again her protest had been swept aside. She would be travelling in the family jet; a luxury which would not be bought simply by queueing up at an airline desk and purchasing a ticket.
Round and round went her thoughts until Danielle was dizzy with the effort of containing them, and all the time the man standing only feet away from her in the shadows retained his biting grip of her wrist.
‘I shall not apologise to you,’ she said swiftly, colour burning her face as anger came to her rescue. ‘I’ve done nothing to apologise for.’
He was more astute than she had bargained for, for instead of letting the matter drop, he enquired with dangerous calm.
‘Meaning?’
When Danielle remained stubbornly silent, he goaded softly, ‘So, the daughter of Hassan lacks the courage she would lay claim to. It is very easy to scatter insults in the heat of the moment, mignonne, but far harder to justify them.’
‘Meaning that any man who marries a girl purely for financial gain, as a business undertaking, has everything to apologise for?’ Danielle burst out furiously. ‘I disliked what I heard about you before I knew what you and my stepfather had planned between you, but after that…’
‘What did you hear about me?’ Jourdan demanded, his eyes narrowing sharply. He was like a panther, Danielle thought fearfully, tensed and waiting, coiled to spring upon her fragile arguments and rend and scatter them to the winds. ‘And where?’
‘From a friend of mine,’ Danielle responded, refusing to be quelled, her chin firming courageously. ‘Philippe Sancerre.’ Her upper lip curled faintly. ‘I suppose I should consider myself fortunate, All I would have been forced to bear was your name, while other women are obliged to endure your possession of them without even the saving grace of that.’
For a moment she thought he meant to strike her. She stepped back instinctively, appalled by the fierce glitter in the now almost black eyes.
‘Think yourself fortunate that I realise that your insults are those of a child who knows not what she is saying,’ Jourdan told her grimly, adding with a cold sneer, ‘A child, who betrays her very youth in her speech.’ He leaned a little closer to her, his warm breath grazing her temple. ‘A child, who knows nothing concerning that of which she speaks so disparagingly.’ His eyes swept Danielle’s now shivering form. ‘So you think my possession is to be endured, do you, mignonne? You shrink from me in horror and disgust? And you talk of a marriage where all you would be required to bear would be my name. Think again, little fool, and so that you may have something to think about…’ He bent his head, at the same time drawing her towards him, his fingers leaving her wrist to grip her shoulder while his free hand tilted her face upward until she was blinking protestingly as the light from the wall sconce fell fully on to her startled features.
‘You are as timid as the gazelle that grazes by the oases,’ he mocked softly. ‘Your eyes are those of a timid, hunted creature. Where is your bravery now, daughter of Hassan? Am I not only a man—only flesh and blood, whose heart beats even as yours does. Can’t you feel it beneath your fingers?’
Her hand was trapped and spread against the warmth of the flesh beneath the thin gown. She prayed desperately that someone would come and rescue her from this nightmare situation, and as though he read her thoughts Jourdan said sardonically, ‘No one will come to rescue you. These are my private quarters. Think upon this, daughter of Hassan. Should I choose to show you exactly what it means to know my possession there is none to gainsay me; none to overhear your timid virgin cries…’