She responded with a breathy, scarcely audible chuckle. "I guess that makes it all worthwhile." She exhaled roughly. "I'm sorry I asked you to do the cauterization. I don't know what I was thinking of, but I don't imagine you enjoyed doing it."
"About as much as you enjoyed having it done," he said dryly. "But someone had to."
After another few minutes had gone by in silence, Juliet whispered, "You sew rather well, for a marquess."
Ross smiled into the darkness. "You fight rather well, for a marchioness."
She sighed. "None of my talents are the least bit ladylike."
Her words dissolved the control that Ross had been exercising for the last two hours, and he could no longer restrain himself from touching her. She was only eighteen inches away, so he reached out and took her restless hand in his.
Her cool fingers moved and he thought she was pulling away. Instead, she turned her hand palm upward and twined her fingers through his in a gesture that expressed the night's strain and pain more eloquently than words.
It was one of those odd moments between them when the past seemed more alive than the present. Ross felt his tension begin to ease as her hand warmed under his.
In fact, to his drowsy surprise, it was even possible for both of them to sleep.
Chapter 11
Using a couple of rugs to make a comfortable nest in the sand, Juliet lounged back with her head supported by a saddlebag and watched Murad prepare their dinner.
It had been a lazy day. In order to rest for the last and most grueling leg of the journey, Abdul Wahab had decreed that the caravan would stay three nights at the oasis of Merv.
Their group was too large for the small caravansary, so many of the travelers had to make camp outside under the palm trees. That was fine with Juliet; she preferred sleeping outdoors rather than in the crowded confines of a caravansary cell.
Even in the shade, the afternoon was very warm and she found herself yawning. One advantage of a tagelmoust was that it was not necessary to cover a yawn with a hand, so she didn't. If she got any lazier, she would turn into a rock.
Glancing across the campground, she saw Ross and Saleh approaching, carrying supplies they had bought in the town bazaar. She had been excused from that duty because of her arm, though it felt much better today than it had the day before. In a few days she would scarcely notice it.
After their purchases had been stored away, both men sat down on the opposite side of the fire, making idle conversation about the town. Ross's previous journey across the Kara Kum had not included Merv, so the community was new to him.
Juliet paid no real attention to their words, for it was more enjoyable simply to watch her husband. That was another virtue of the tagelmoust: if she was careful, no one could tell where she was looking
She took full advantage of that fact when she was around Ross. Since a blond beard would be conspicuous, he was clean-shaven and his handsome face, sun-browned skin, and Asiatic dress made him the very image of a dashing desert explorer. Rather sourly Juliet reflected that he must be a sensation in London drawing rooms when he was between journeys.
As she did with great regularity, Juliet found herself pondering the oddities of their relationship. For example, there was the way she and Ross had held hands after the knife fight. They had both slept soundly until wakened by the dawn call to prayers; then they had wordlessly disengaged their interlocked fingers.
In the day and a half since, neither of them had made a single reference to the fact that they had spent the night handfast, as if silence meant that it hadn't happened. Not that Juliet was complaining, for she had been grateful for his gesture, but the incident had definitely been odd.
She gave herself credit for the fact that this time she had not ended up wrapped around him like ivy. She would have liked to think that was because she was becoming immune to his attractions, but knew that was not true. More likely, her injured arm had hurt so much that even her sleeping self had known better than to disturb it.
Juliet yawned again, wondering when dinner would be ready. For the first time since Sarakhs, they were having fresh meat, though the piece of lamb was a small one, in keeping with the humble way they were traveling. Murad was stewing the lamb with rice and vegetables, and it smelled delicious, but would not be ready for a while yet.
That being the case, Juliet decided she might as well behave like a proper camel driver. She pulled the end of her veil over her eyes and went to sleep.
* * *
Ross regarded his dozing wife with amusement. Her absolute lack of female fussiness had always been one of her most appealing traits, and she made such a convincing camel driver that even he had trouble remembering that she was a marchioness.