Lord of the Desert

“All right.” She wasn’t used to having dinner so late, but the hotel didn’t serve meals until that hour. She was already hungry. Perhaps she could find something to nibble on in the small refrigerator in her room.

“Did you have breakfast?”

She hesitated. “Well, yes.”

He smiled warmly. “But no lunch. You do know that the hotel serves a marvelous little buffet beside the swimming pool around 3:00 p.m.?”

She sighed with relief and smiled back. “I do now. You see, the menus are all in French and I’ve had to have waiters translate them for me.”

“I will do that for you this evening.” He pulled out his phone again, pushed in numbers and spoke into it rapidly. The reply came at once. He listened, said something else, and put it away with a sigh. “The would-be kidnappers are in custody.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” she said on a heavy breath.

“Sadly, I see it far too often,” he said absently. He said something to the driver, who nodded. He leaned back again and crossed his legs. “I must have Bojo drop me off at the embassy,” he told her. “But he will drive you back to the hotel and escort you inside. I have instructed him to make the concierge aware of our…adventure…this morning, and to look out for you.”

She felt as if he were wrapping her up in soft cotton, like a treasure. She barely knew him, yet he wasn’t a stranger. “Thank you,” she said, feeling that the words were hopelessly inadequate to express what she really felt.

“The entire incident was my fault,” he muttered darkly. “I was careless.”

“I don’t understand. We were only sightseers.”

They approached a group of imposing buildings in the middle of the city and the driver pulled up to the curb and stopped.

“I must go.” Philippe took her hand to his lips and kissed it lightly just above the knuckles, with his black eyes holding hers the whole time. “Don’t brood,” he added gently. “You are safer right this moment than you have ever been in your life.” He turned his head and said something sharp in that gutteral language. Their driver chuckled and replied with a wave of his hand.

Philippe left the car without a backward glance, but as the driver pulled away from the curb, Gretchen noticed that the black car with the two bodyguards slid quickly to the curb in the wake of hers and the two dark-suited men got out and followed close behind Philippe.

She frowned, wondering why they were following him instead of the Saudi prince. “Those bodyguards…” she began.

“Mademoiselle must not worry,” the driver said easily. “Monsieur is in good hands.”

“But aren’t those men supposed to be the Saudi prince’s bodyguards?”

He hesitated. “They are not in the employ of the prince,” he said finally. “They are often called upon to escort visiting dignitaries. And important businessmen,” he added hastily and smiled.

“I see. Thank you.” She smiled and leaned her head back against the seat, relieved and still a little puzzled. Now that she had a friend in Morocco, she didn’t want to lose him so quickly.

Bojo got out of the hotel’s Mercedes, which he had driven, and escorted Gretchen in to the concierge. He seemed different now, very focused and intent as he related, in the language she didn’t understand, what had happened. She noticed that while he was wearing the long striped, hooded robe favored by many Moroccan men, that underneath it he was wearing a suit. She studied him unobtrusively, noting the expensive watch on his own wrist and a diamond-studded ring on his left middle finger. He didn’t look like a hotel guide at all. But then he turned back to her, motioned to one of the bellboys and had her escorted up to her room, all with reassuring smiles and consideration. She wondered if she’d ever get used to all this pampering.

She looked at herself in the mirror and noticed a fine layer of yellow sand. The wind seemed to blow all the time, and she’d noticed that none of the cars seemed to have or use air conditioning, because the windows were always open. The sand came into the cabs and, apparently, everywhere else. She took a quick shower, careful not to use more water than she had to. Water in a desert country must be precious.

Her wardrobe was severely limited by Maggie’s insistence on only one carry-on piece of luggage. She put on a pair of white slacks with a patterned white-and-purple silk blouse and sandals and grimaced at the white Mexican peasant crinkle-cloth dress hanging in the bathroom, which was all she had to wear to dinner. Perhaps she could wear her hair long and put on her single strand of cultured pearls and their matching earrings and pass. She felt uncomfortable at the idea of disgracing Philippe, who would probably turn up in a dinner jacket and be embarrassed by her.

She went down to the buffet luncheon with apprehension, which was lessened when she saw other tourists in bathing suits filling up china plates. The waiter grinned and her and she grinned back. She realized that many of their visitors would be similarly limited in wardrobe and she stopped worrying.

She had prosciutto and melon with tiny pastries of stuffed pigeon and wondered what people back in Jacobsville would think of the entrée. She sipped water “with gas” as the waiter called sparkling water and felt like a Sybarite on holiday. The sun was warm, the grounds exquisitely beautiful and full of blooming roses and other flowers. The sounds of carefree bathers fell softly on her ears as she curled up drowsily by herself in one of two canopied swings behind the row of padded chaise lounges. Before she knew it, she was asleep.

She was dreaming. She was being rocked in a boat while the breeze stirred a loose strand of hair at her throat. Her cheek was resting on a soft pillow that seemed to beat rhythmically. She sighed and stretched, and the pillow made an odd sound.

She opened her eyes and looked up into a scarred dark face with black eyes that held an odd expression. Her cheek was against his shoulder, and she was cradled across his long legs in the swing. For long seconds, they simply stared at each other in the fading sunlight.

“How fortunate that you went to sleep out of the sun’s reach,” he said in a voice that was more heavily accented than she’d heard it before. “Sunburn can be lethal in this climate.”

“Lunch was delicious and I got drowsy,” she said in a hushed tone.

One of his hands was at her throat. He moved it in a faint caress, looking down at her soft mouth for an instant before he lifted his gaze beyond her to the sea. “I sleep very little,” he said quietly. “Mine brings nightmares.”

“About what?” she asked, intrigued by the familiarity of being held close to him when she should be nervous and wary. He was a stranger. He should have been a stranger…

He spread her fingers against the silky fabric of his jacket and smoothed over her short nails. “War,” he said quietly. “Death. The screams of the innocent in the darkness of terror.”

She stared up at him uncomprehendingly, with wide, curious eyes. “Aren’t you from France?” she asked hesitantly.

His black eyes slid down to search hers. “No.”

“Then, where…?”

The hand at her throat moved, so that his thumb pressed the words back against her lips. “It is too soon, Gretchen,” he said gently. “Much too soon for truth. Let us live in a world of utter fantasy for a few days and let tomorrow wait for answers.”

She smiled hesitantly. “What sort of fantasy do you have in mind?”

He traced her mouth tenderly. “A very innocent sort,” he said with an oddly harsh laugh. “The only sort I am capable of.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. Perhaps it is as well that you don’t.” He smiled down at her, cradled in his arms like a kitten. She smelled of orchids. He traced her cheek with its faint flush and her straight nose, and then her thin eyebrows as if he were sketching her. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three,” she said honestly.

His forefinger eased between her parted lips, sensuously tracing the upper lip and then the lower one, enjoying her reactions. Her breath was jerky against his skin. Her eyes were dilating. He felt her body stir involuntarily and cursed himself and his fate.

“What are you like in passion?” he asked roughly. “Are you submissive, or do you like to bite and claw…?”

Her scarlet blush interrupted him. He scowled down at her horrified expression just before she struggled away from him and moved a foot away on the swing, trying to catch her breath.

“I don’t know…what sort of women you’re used to,” she choked, avoiding his intent scrutiny, “but I don’t do that kind of thing!”

His arm was across the back of the swing. His narrow black eyes watched her, intrigued. “What sort of thing?”

“Sleep around,” she said flatly and glared at him. “Least of all with a man I’ve only just met. So if that’s why you’ve been so nice to me, well, you’d better find a more modern woman. If I ever go to bed with a man, it’ll be my husband and nobody else. Period.”

The harshness went out of him at once. He looked at her with curiosity and, then, with utter delight. He smiled and then he laughed.

“Go ahead,” she invited warily. “Call me a prude. Say I’m living in the last century. I don’t care. I’ve heard it all before.”

“The small, still voice of reason in a mad world,” he said under his breath. “I knew that you were unique among your countrywomen,” he added huskily.

“I’m a throwback to Victorian times,” she agreed.

He took her hand in his and held it gently. “I don’t want a sexual interlude with you, Gretchen,” he said quietly.

She hesitated. “You don’t?”

He looked at her small hand and hated himself for the curse that denied him a man’s expectations. He smoothed his fingers over hers while he considered his options. He could send her home at once. It would be the best thing for her. But she opened his heart. She made him want to live. She made him laugh and smile and look at the world as a place of fascination and delight. He hadn’t felt that way for a long time. For two years, in fact. He hadn’t ever expected to feel that way again. And if it was like this, so quickly, how would it be as time passed and they got to know each other?

His features twisted. Yes, how would it be when she knew his horrible secret, when the truth came out. Would she look at him with pity, or with contempt and disgust? Could he bear to see that, in her soft green eyes?

He looked at her with torment in his face.

“Oh, don’t look like that,” she said with concern. “Whatever’s wrong, it will all come right one day. Really it will. You have to look for miracles or they don’t happen, Philippe.”

“How do you know that something is wrong?” he asked at once.

She frowned. “I don’t know. But something is.”

His breath caught in his throat. His fingers tightened on hers. He looked into her eyes and knew at that moment that he wasn’t going to be able to let her go.

Chapter Four

“It isn’t something I’ve said, is it?” Gretchen asked, breaking into his thoughts. “I know that I’m very opinionated. I didn’t mean to be rude…”

He brought her fingers to his lips and then released them. “It isn’t anything you’ve said. In fact, I quite admire your attitude,” he added with a smile. “Muslim women value their virtue. But it is a rather unusual trait in this day and age.”

“That’s what everyone says, all right,” she agreed whimsically. She averted her eyes. “My parents were very strict and deeply religious.” She toyed with a button on her shirt. “I suppose you’re Muslim?”

“No,” he said unexpectedly.

That brought her face up. She searched his eyes curiously.

“I am a Christian,” he said unexpectedly, and without explanation. “And so are many of my people. We are almost equally divided between Muslim, Christian and Jew. It makes for interesting politics,” he added with a grin.

“I’m surprised at how much I don’t know about this part of the world,” she told him. “I thought everybody was Arab, and Muslim. But I’ve learned already that many of the people who were born in Morocco are Berbers, not Arabs.”

“A people very proud of their ancient heritage,” he agreed. “The Berber language is not a written one, either. It is passed down from generation to generation verbally, and its history is woven into the carpets they sell, story by story.”

“I’d love to see them,” she said.

“Tomorrow,” he promised. “I’ll have Bojo take us on a walking tour of the city.”

“I’ve already been, but I didn’t want to look at carpets,” she said sadly. “I didn’t realize what I was missing.”

He chuckled. “Something to anticipate,” he said. “Now, I still have some telephone calls to make, so I must leave you. I’ll be along for you just before eight.”

“I only have one dress with me,” she told him. “It’s a lacy white Mexican dress…”

He guessed her thoughts from the worry on her face. “And you think I may be ashamed of you, because you aren’t wearing something very expensive?”

“Yes,” she said honestly.

He smiled. “I’m sure that whatever you wear will be charming,” he said gently. “I look forward to tonight.”

He left her there on the swing and she watched his elegant back as he walked away. One thing this country had already impressed on her was the grace of movement that these people seemed to share with Arabs. Nobody ever seemed to hurry. It was a wonderful slow pace that suited the easy manner of life and business, unrushed, unharried. She wondered whimsically if anyone here ever got ulcers. She really doubted it.

She dressed with more care than ever that evening. It had been months since Daryl had taken her out and pretended to be in love with her. She thought of him with mingled shame and self-contempt. She’d been easy prey for him, in love for the first time in her life and flattered that such a handsome young man should be so interested in her. He’d even come to sit with her at the hospital during the last terrible days when her mother was dying.

Only after the funeral had she understood his interest. He stopped by the ranch after work and offered to marry her and manage her inheritance for her. When she explained that there was no inheritance, he’d looked shocked and then angry. Muttering something about a waste of time, he’d walked away and never looked back. Her brother, Marc, had tried to warn her about him, but she’d only gotten angry and refused to listen. It was the first time a man had made her feel special and loved. What hurt was that she’d been naïve enough to believe him. But, then, her mother had been so possessive and dependent on her that she rarely got to date anyone while she was in her teens and early twenties. Even then it was mostly blind dates that were one-time occurrences. Marc had commented once that she needed to assert herself more with their mother, despite her illness, but Gretchen’s soft heart had been her undoing. When she asked for more freedom, her mother agreed, and then cried and cried about being left alone. Gretchen settled for those rare blind dates until Daryl came along.

She’d met him at the law office where she worked. He’d had Mr. Kemp do some legal work for him and in the course of talking to Gretchen, he’d learned that her mother was terminal and that she lived on a large ranch. Suddenly, he was around when she went to lunch at the local café, and she ran into him often at the supermarket. He asked her to go with him to Houston to a ballet, but she told him her circumstances. He’d laughed and said they could have a picnic in her house and her mother could join them.

Gretchen had been floating on air. Not only did he charm her, but he charmed her mother. He really did make her remaining few weeks happy and cheerful. Gretchen treasured her few stolen minutes with him, thrilling to his kisses and caresses. He’d proposed the week her mother died, and she’d had at least that future happiness to anticipate while she mourned the only parent she had left.

Then, like all dreams, it had ended abruptly. The shame and humiliation she felt was only heightened by Daryl’s very public avoidance of her after the funeral. People felt sorry for her, but she didn’t want pity. She wanted escape. Then Maggie had phoned and asked if she’d like to go to Morocco…

She came out of her depressing thoughts and back to the present. She looked at herself in the mirror. With her long blond hair loose and faintly waving down her back, and the white dress flowing around her slender curves, with pearls at her ears and neck, she looked different. She wasn’t pretty, but she wasn’t ugly, either. She felt vulnerable, too. She hoped her new friend meant what he said about not wanting a passionate affair, because for the first time, she might be at the mercy of her own repressed needs. He was far more attractive than Daryl had ever been, and he aroused a fiercer hunger in her than even Daryl had. She could tell already that Philippe was sophisticated. Probably, he’d left a trail of broken hearts and affairs behind him. She had to make sure she didn’t end up as one of them. She’d had enough grief lately.

Promptly at a quarter until eight, there was a knock on the door. She opened it, to find Philippe in a beautifully tailored dark suit with a white shirt and patterned blue silk tie. He looked elegant and rakish, like a photo in a fashion magazine, and she felt inhibited and tawdry by comparison in her chain-store dress and shoes.

His black eyes fixed on her long mane of hair and he seemed mesmerized. Slowly, his hand lifted to it, smoothing down it, savoring the feel and scent of it. His indrawn breath was audible. “And you hide it in a braid,” he murmured deeply. “What a waste.”

She smiled self-consciously. “It worries me to death when I wear it like this.”

“But you did it, for me, yes?”

She moved restlessly. “Yes.”

He tilted her chin up and searched her eyes. His thumb moved over her chin. “We are strangers, and yet we have known each other for a thousand years,” he said under his breath.

Her heart bumped in her chest. “How very odd,” she replied in a hushed tone. “I was thinking that, only this afternoon.”

He nodded. “It is, perhaps, the most cruel cut of fate,” he said enigmatically as he removed his hand. “Come along. I understand they have belly dancers from Argentina this evening,” he added with a wicked smile.

She moved a little closer to his side. “Decadent man.”

“I’m not decadent. I appreciate beauty.” He took her arm just below where the black shawl she’d bought reached with its fringe. “Believe me, I find you far more intriguing than a dancer, no matter how adept.”

“Thank you.”

“It isn’t flattery,” he said as they walked down the carpeted hall past the curtained windows that looked down on the open patio below. “I know you well enough already to know that you loathe insincerity as much as I do.”

She smiled. That was reassuring. They went down in the elevator and walked down the steps that led into the courtyard, where a central fountain was surrounded by beautiful mosaic tile. Tables with white linen tablecloths and napkins and pink china were set with silver utensils and crystal glasses. Several couples were already seated, and a beautiful dark-haired woman in a white dress with lavish colored embroidery was sitting on a stage with her accompanist, both with guitars in their hands.

“Tonight’s entertainment,” he informed her. “She is from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and she sings like an angel.”

“Do you know her?”

He shook his head. “No, but I came here from Madrid. She was appearing in a hotel there, too.”

“Madrid?”

They paused while a white-jacked waiter in a burgundy fez led them to a table. Philippe seated Gretchen and then himself. The waiter left menus and departed. “I do business all over the world,” he told her with a gentle smile. “You might call me an ambassador, of sorts.”

“That explains the bodyguards, I guess.” He looked puzzled and she shrugged. “I saw them follow you into that building this afternoon and asked Bojo about them. He said that they often watch out for businessmen as well as visiting dignitaries.”

He let out an odd sigh. “Yes, they do.”

“I enjoyed this afternoon very much,” she said abruptly. “It was kind of you to offer to go with me. It’s lonely now that Maggie’s gone. I suppose she’s in Brussels now, waiting for her flight back to the States.”

“Have you ever been to Brussels?” he asked curiously.

“Yes. Maggie and I flew from Brussels to Casablanca and then here. I’m going back through Amsterdam on my way home…” She hesitated. Her eyes lifted to his. Suddenly the thought of home was unpleasant. “Well, not now, of course,” she added slowly. “I’ll be going to Qawi instead.” She looked down at her neatly folded pink napkin. “Philippe, I don’t suppose you ever get to Qawi?”

“In fact,” he said slowly, “I spend a great deal of time in Qawi. I do business with the ruling sheikh. Quite a lot of business.”

Her eyes lifted and dreams danced in them. It really was like a fantasy, as if she’d given up ordinary surroundings and had been caught up in mystery and joy. It was all there, in her face, the delight she felt.

He smiled at her, his black eyes searching her excited expression. “And now, Qawi seems less frightening to you, does it not?” he asked softly. “As you see, we won’t say adieu when you leave Tangier. We will say au revoir.”

“I’m glad.”

His long fingers touched the back of hers where her hand lay on the table beside her glass. “So am I. Although,” he added broodingly, “I am not doing you a favor to let you go there.”

“Why not?”

“You may discover that appearances can be very deceptive.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Don’t tell me. You’re really an international jewel thief or a spy on holiday.”

He burst out laughing. “No,” he said. “I can assure you that isn’t the case.”

She studied his hand. It was his left one, and there were scars on the back of it, white lines against his olive complexion. She touched them lightly. “From the accident?”

His whole body clenched at the memory of the injuries. “Yes,” he said reluctantly, withdrawing his hand.

“That was clumsy,” she said, grimacing. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

He stared at her with conflicting emotions. “You will have to know before you leave Tangier,” he said quite calmly. “But I prefer to put it off for a few days. Honesty can be a brutal thing.”

“Then you’re an ax murderer,” she said thoughtfully, nodding. “I understand. You don’t want to shatter my illusions of you as some elegant scoundrel.”

He laughed again, caught off guard. “You remind me of her, so much,” he said without thinking. “The first thing that attracted me to her was a sense of humor that made me laugh at myself, something I was never able to do before.”

“She?”

He shifted, as if he hadn’t meant to say that. “A woman I knew,” he hedged. “A blonde, like you, with a very open personality. I thought she was one of a kind. I am delighted to find that the earth contains another woman similar to her.”

“Maggie thinks I’m a certifiable lunatic.”

“You’re refreshing,” he said, leaning back in his chair to study her. “You might be surprised at how many people say only what is expected of them, out of fear of giving offense. I abhor being toadied to,” he added quite fiercely, and his eyes blazed for an instant.

He must be, Gretchen decided, someone very important. She wanted to ask him about his life, his background, his work. She was curious about him. But he seemed not to like discussing his past.

She glanced at her menu and grimaced. “French. Everywhere we go, everything’s written in French,” she moaned.

He laughed softly. “I must make it my business to teach you to read a menu. Here.” He shared his menu with her, pronounced each entry and made her pronounce it after him, and then explained what it was. She started with an appetizer of prosciutto and melon, followed by a main dish of lamb done in a Moroccan sauce. He ordered fish and a bottle of white wine.