Daughter of Hassan & Heart of the Desert(15)

‘The Sheikha agreed because, like me, she has the good of this country very close to her heart, and as for your stepfather—my uncle,’ he leaned forward all of a sudden, forcing Danielle to bend backwards to avoid contact with his body, ‘am I not giving him what he wanted all along?’

He smiled cruelly when he saw the acknowledgement flaring betrayingly in Danielle’s eyes.

‘You see, mignonne,’ he said softly, ‘you yourself acknowledge the truth. My uncle may not be pleased with the way in which our marriage is accomplished, but the fact of its accomplishment will please him mightily…’

‘But I don’t love you,’ Danielle stormed bitterly, ‘and you don’t love me All you want is to gain control of the oil company.’

‘This I acknowledge,’ Jourdan agreed, his face slowly hardening. ‘You must have thought me a fool indeed, daughter of Hassan, if you imagined I would stand passively by while all I had worked for was given elsewhere, to a boy such as Saud.’

‘Saud!’ Danielle stared fearfully up at him. Was this the reason for her abduction and enforced marriage? Because Jourdan thought she might have fallen in love with Saud?

‘Strange as it may seem to you,’ she said coldly, ‘I do not run after men who are betrothed to others…’

‘Saud, or some other, it makes little difference,’ Jourdan remarked with a cool shrug. ‘You are ripe for marriage, Danielle, and I shall not have the fruit I have tended so long plucked by others, rather I will pluck it myself, even though it still be a little unripe and green.’

‘I hate you!’ Danielle burst out, unable to bear either his mockery or hard intent any longer. ‘I suppose the only reason you’ve finally given your magnanimous approval to my parents’ marriage is because you realised it was the only way you were going to get the oil company. Tell me something,’ she demanded sarcastically. ‘Has any decision in your life ever been governed by anything but self-interest?’

‘Once,’ Jourdan replied coolly. ‘When I thought a person of whom I was very fond was making a bad mistake. We quarrelled bitterly about it, and I lost the man who had been father, uncle and friend to me all my young life.’

Danielle let out her breath on a faint hiss, knowing he was referring to her stepfather.

‘But once you realised that the marriage was working, that the only way you could get control of the oil company was by accepting the marriage, your scruples disappeared? Very commendable,’ Danielle sneered.

‘You speak without knowledge, daughter of Hassan,’ Jourdan said abruptly. ‘I shall leave you to your maid. The marriage takes place within the hour.’ He paused by the door. ‘And be very sure it is legal and watertight. We shall be married according to the laws of Qu‘Har and those of my church. There will be no annulment; no divorce.’

The words rang on in Danielle’s ears, long after Jourdan had left her. Beyond the perimeter of the bed she could hear Zanaide moving about softly.

‘I have prepared the Sitt’s bath,’ Zanaide said coaxingly. ‘I have perfumed it with oils to ensure fertility and…’

‘I don’t want a bath, Zanaide,’ Danielle told her abruptly. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be perfumed and prepared for this marriage like a sacrifice for the altar!

Marriage! Her fists clenched in helplessly impotent rage. This couldn’t be happening. Fate couldn’t be condemning her to this travesty of a marriage—but it was.

The only thing that got her off the bed and into the billowing crimson and gold chiffon caftan was Jourdan’s parting threat that he would come and dress her himself, and even then it was with distasteful reluctance, refusing to even glance at her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors which lined one wall of the room.

‘The Sitt does not like the caftan?’ Zanaide asked reproachfully. ‘The Sheikha herself ordered its design and execution. The pearl buttons are her gift to you.’

The Sheikha who had deliberately gone behind her back and conspired with Jourdan, as though she were nothing more than a slave girl sold to the highest bidder, Danielle thought bitterly. And why? Because her stepfather was in control of Qu‘Har’s oil. Jourdan had married her for that sole purpose. Well, if she could not prevent the marriage, she could at least make sure that not a single day passed without her iterating to Jourdan how much she hated it—and him!

‘And now the girdle,’ Zanaide murmured reverently, breaking into Danielle’s thoughts, and coming towards her carefully carrying a heavy, intricately chased belt of silver studded with emeralds and diamonds.

‘This girdle belongs to the family of Sheikh Jourdan,’ Zanaide explained. ‘It is the custom for the women of the house to dress the bride and fasten the girdle.’ As she spoke she slid the heavy weight round Danielle’s slender waist, where it lay like iron hands, imprisoning her, Danielle thought, shivering under its ice-cold embrace, the myriad flashing points of colour from the precious stones hypnotising her into a strange state of lethargy where nothing seemed to matter any longer. Too late she remembered the mint tea Zanaide had coaxed her into drinking and the sense of relaxation which had followed almost immediately.

‘Zanaide.’ Was that whisper of sound really her own voice?

‘The Sitt wishes for something?’

‘What was in that tea you gave me?’ Danielle demanded urgently, wishing she could escape from the increasing sense of lethargy pervading her body and clouding her mind.

‘Nothing harmful. It was just a little of the poppy drug,’ Zanaide soothed. ‘The Sheikh ordered it so. It is quite common for girls to drink thus before their marriage. It soothes the mind and relaxes the body.’

Too concerned as she was with the coming ceremony, it was to be some time before Danielle realised the import of Zanaide’s last words. As the drug coaxed her stiffening muscles into unwilling relaxation she allowed Zanaide to to rub perfumed oils into her wrists and throat and to add a touch of kohl beneath her eyes, imparting depth and lustre.

‘You are ready,’ Zanaide said at last, touching the intricate fastenings of the silver girdle. ‘Now none but your husband may unfasten your girdle, and then the pearls of chastity which conceal from him the secret gardens of your body, where only he may venture.’

Danielle wanted to cover her ears, so that she wouldn’t be forced to listen to what Zanaide was saying, but even as she started to protest the door opened and her heart started to pound with heavy uneven strokes, her mouth dry as Zanaide led her forward to the man waiting imperiously for her.

In his ceremonial robes Jourdan was an imposing, distant stranger, a man whose eyes rested remotely on her trembling frame as white-clad servants escorted them to a chamber overlooking the now darkened courtyard which lay beyond Danielle’s own room.

The first service, in Arabic, was totally incomprehensible to Danielle, who made her responses in a voice as listless as an obedient child, without truly comprehending their meaning.

For one brief moment as they stood before the priest ten minutes later, Danielle contemplated pleading with him to help her, but as though he had read her mind, Jourdan’s fingers bit cruelly into her arm, his eyes totally pitiless as he murmured dulcetly, ‘I wouldn’t if I were you, daughter of Hassan. According to the Muslim law you are already my wife, my possession, and I shall be entitled to punish you as I think fit if you anger me…’

With that threat ringing in her ears, Danielle stumbled through her responses, the words sticking in her aching throat as she acknowledged their import and finality.

‘And now, mon fils, you may kiss the bride,’ the old priest announced with a smile, closing his bible, and Danielle’s body clenched in panicky rejection as she felt Jourdan turn towards her, his hands on her shoulders. She could feel his eyes upon her, but refused to look at him, holding her breath tensely, expecting. with every passing second to feel the hateful possession of his mouth on hers.

When it didn’t come she glanced upwards, surprised by the smile curling his mouth, until she realised that it didn’t extend to his eyes, which remained as cold and alert as a falcon’s sighting its prey.

‘I think in view of my bride’s very evident shyness that that is a pleasure I must reserve for later, Father,’ Jourdan drawled easily. ‘Mahmoud will show you to your room, and thank you once again for your good services.

‘Father Pierre came out here before the Second World War and has remained ever since,’ Jourdan explained when he had gone and they were alone. ‘Through him my uncle made good his vow to my mother that I should be brought up in her religion.’

It was the first time he had told her anything without either mockery or anger, but Danielle stubbornly refused to respond.

‘If you will just summon Zanaide to escort me back to my room,’ she said coldly, ‘I’m tired and I should like to go to bed.’

Something smouldered smokily in the dark eyes, instantly doused, and Jourdan’s voice was completely expressionless as he said silkily.

‘So should I, mignonne, but you have no need of Zanaide to escort you to your room. I shall do so myself… I had not realised my new bride would be so anxious to consummate the vows we have just made. A little old-fashioned of me, perhaps,’ he added cruelly, ‘but I had thought I would be the one to suggest that we retire. I find your eagerness refreshing.’