Philippe must have returned, because she could hear him speaking, his voice raised in sharp protest while someone else spoke in curt deeper tones in a voice whose icy disdain made Danielle flinch instinctively.
‘Danielle, Danielle, can you hear me?’
She moaned and turned away from the deep voice, not wanting to be bothered. Some instinct told her that to respond to that voice would be to open the door to pain, and she had endured enough of that.
‘No, it’s all right, I’ll carry her,’ she heard the same deep voice continue. ‘She’s been badly burned… I could kill Sancerre for this!’
There was a sensation of movement, and of warmth which had nothing to do with the fierce heat of the sun. She struggled instinctively against the treacherous lassitude of her own body, sensing a danger far greater than that represented by the harsh strength of the sun.
‘It’s all right, mignonne.’ the same deep voice reassured her. ‘I know how you feel, but all that matters right now is getting you back to the castle.’
Mignonne. The floodgates of her memory opened wide at the word and Danielle opened her painfully swollen eyelids to stare upwards into the face of the man who was carrying her.
He seemed to have changed since she last saw him; his features had become more drawn, accentuating the arrogance of his profile—and no wonder, Danielle acknowledged, trembling. How galling it must have been for him to learn that far from being free of her, he was obliged to rescue her once again from the consequences of her own folly.
‘Don’t try to speak,’ he told her curtly. ‘Your skin is badly burned, and we must get you back to the castle as soon as possible. What on earth…’ He stopped, obviously clamping down on the words, and sensing his question Danielle murmured painfully.
‘It seemed the best thing. I just wanted to spare us both further pain.’ There was no point now in pretending. He had said that he knew how she felt, and she could no longer keep up the pretence of concealing it. Not having to do so was a tangible relief, and she refused to think further than the moment. He was here; she was in his arms.
His face looked bitterly grim. ‘And you thought this was the way to do it? By choosing certain death?
‘Philippe thought he knew the way. Everything would have been all right if we hadn’t had the puncture,’ Danielle protested, moved to defend Philippe. She intended to say nothing about how Philippe had abandoned her—for now, with returning recognition, she realised that that was exactly what he had done, but Jourdan tossed her words contemptuously aside, his face an angry mask.
‘Oh yes, Sancerre is a great one for “thinking,”’ he agreed sardonically. ‘I’ve no doubt he also has a thousand plausible excuses for leaving you to die.’
‘He didn’t mean to,’ Danielle started to protest, but Jourdan’s expression forestalled her.
In front of them was a helicopter which she now realised was responsible for the noisy ‘waves’ she had thought she had heard. Jourdan lifted her into it, positioning her comfortably on his lap.
‘What about Philippe?’ She started to object as they became airborne, but her protests were waived aside with a curt, ‘He will remain with my comptroller and the Land Rover. When the puncture is mended they will travel on to Kuwait as Sancerre first intended.’ His mouth a forbidding line, he added bitingly, ‘Not even for your sake will I permit him to enter my house again. I have had my fill of uninvited guests!’
Their return to the castle was a subdued one. It was dark when the helicopter put down, and Danielle learned from the few words that Jourdan exchanged with the pilot that the aircraft belonged to the oil company and that he had commandeered it immediately he learned of her and Philippe’s disappearance.
Ignoring the protests of his household, Jourdan carried Danielle not to her own room, but up to the room at the top of the turret, where Zanaide, who had been clinging anxiously at his side, was dismissed with a swift instruction in Arabic.
‘Your skin is badly burned,’ Jourdan told her curtly. ‘The pilot of the helicopter has gone to fetch a doctor to look at it. Until he comes Zanaide will sit with you.’
Danielle must have made a small inarticulate protest, because he paused for a moment at the door, turning to study her gravely.
‘You wanted something?’
‘Only you,’ Danielle longed to say, but instead she shook her head, a solitary tear coursing down her hectically flushed cheek.
‘Danielle, I…’ What he had been about to say was lost as the door was thrust open and Catherine stood there, a picture of elegance in the very latest Parisian fashion.
‘Jourdan, where’s Philippe?’ she demanded imperiously, barely sparing Danielle a glance.
‘Your brother is on his way to Kuwait.’ Jourdan said tersely, ‘with two of my men to speed him on his way.’
Catherine flashed Danielle a look of bitter dislike before laughing acidly and coming into the room to place possessive fingers on his arm.
‘Darling, was that really necessary?’ she purred. ‘Poor Philippe, I’m sure he wasn’t the only one to blame. It takes two, you know…’
‘It is not for running away with my wife that I refuse to have your brother beneath my roof for another night, Catherine,’ Jourdan replied curtly, ‘but because he callously left her to die.’
‘Oh, come, darling,’ Catherine protested, darting Danielle another venomous look. ‘Are you sure you’ve got your facts right? Couldn’t it have been Danielle who refused to go with him? After all, in giving up her position as your wife, she would be taking a considerable risk… You are after all a very wealthy man, while poor Philippe…’
It wasn’t like that at all, Danielle wanted to protest. The only reason she had consented to go with Philippe in the first place was to give Jourdan his freedom, but a terrible weariness seemed to be pressing down upon her. Her skin hurt and her whole body cried out for sleep.
‘We shall continue this discussion on another occasion,’ she heard Jourdan telling Catherine, no doubt wanting privacy to confirm to her that the fact that he had rescued Danielle from the desert made no difference to his love for the French girl.
The doctor came and made his examination with gentle hands. Her skin, being so fair, had burned quite badly he told her, but it looked worse than it actually was. Some deliciously cooling lotion was applied to her face and arms, immediately removing most of the pain. It was something new, the doctor told her in response to her hazy questions, containing an anaesthetic to effectively relieve the pain. Zanaide was to repeat the application whenever necessary, and in addition he would give her a sleeping pill to ensure that she got some rest. She was a very lucky girl, he continued, and only Jourdan’s prompt action had saved her from dehydration and ultimately death.
Danielle thanked him for his care and obediently drank the bitter-tasting liquid he produced. Whatever he had put in it quickly induced sleep and her eyes were closing even as he left the room.
When she opened them again the room was in darkness, and for a moment she panicked, not knowing where she was or why. A figure moved at the foot of the bed and she cried out in alarm.
‘No, it is not Philippe,’ she was told in harshly controlled tones. ‘By now Sancerre should be on his way to Paris, and if you find my presence here at your bedside unwanted, mignonne, try to remember that it is expected by my household. You are my wife…’
‘A marriage of convenience only,’ Danielle cried out bitterly. ‘A marriage that…’
‘You will not talk of this now,’ Jourdan silenced her firmly. ‘When you are recovered, then we will talk of our marriage and of the future.’
Danielle longed for the will power to tell him that she did not need his presence at her bedside and that he was free to go to Catherine, but it was all too fatally easily to give in to the desire to have him stay. She drew comfort from the knowledge of his presence and the false sense of intimacy it created. Tonight was hers, and she would guard its memory jealously.
* * *
It was three days before she was pronounced well enough to leave her bed, and then only to go as far as the inner courtyard, when the sun had lost most of its power. Zanaide had accompanied her, but the maid had gone to bring her a cooling glass of sherbert, and Danielle was alone when she heard the imperious tap of Catherine’s high heels on the cobbles. She knew who it was without turning her head or opening her eyes, and she felt-Catherine sit down at her side in the seat which Zanaide had just vacated.
‘I know you aren’t asleep,’ Catherine began without preamble. ‘Just how long do you intend to continue with this farce? Jourdan and I both know that you are now well enough to leave, but still you persist in remaining. Why? Do you hope to persuade Jourdan to continue your marriage out of pity? Surely even you must be aware by now that he doesn’t want you?’
Painfully weakened by her ordeal, Danielle could summon no defence. What Catherine said struck home to her heart. She was well enough to leave, but she had been putting off the final decision, dreading taking her final leave of Jourdan.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Catherine goaded her. ‘Jourdan to ask you to leave? Have you no pride?’