Lord of the Desert

“I’ve never had wine before,” she said, watching his eyebrows go up.

“Would you prefer something else?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I suppose I should know something about wines. If the sheikh isn’t Muslim, he probably has a wine cellar and will expect me to know all sorts of things about wines.”

He pursed his lips. “Probably,” he murmured. “But one can rarely go wrong with a good white wine, like a Riesling or a Chardonnay. Although I prefer an Alsace wine, like a Gewürtztraminer. It is an acquired taste.”

She shook her head. “I’ll never learn.”

“Of course you will. Each night, we’ll sample a different wine from the list. By the time you leave Morocco, you’ll be knowledgeable.”

She smiled. “You’re very sophisticated.”

“I was educated in Europe,” he told her. “One matures rapidly in a sophisticated environment.” His black eyes narrowed. “But I wasn’t born to wealth, and I never forget my beginnings. Poverty is the true plague of the twenty-first century, Gretchen. And greed is its blood brother.”

“Do you feel that way, too?” she asked softly.

He chuckled as the waiter returned and took their order. When the wine came, he taught her how to taste and savor it. “This is a Riesling,” he said. “Not too heavy, not too light.”

“Just right,” she mused, and liked the way it tasted. “We had a little grapevine, but the foreman ran over it with a tractor.”

“Barbarian,” he said.

She chuckled. “That’s what I used to call him,” she murmured. “Conner the Barbarian. Not one flower in the yard was safe if he ever got on the tractor. He’s a great horseman, but he has a knack for running lawnmowers over flower beds and into trees.”

He chuckled, too, at the imagery. “And this is the man you trust to keep the ranch for you?”

“Oh, but he’s great with horses and cattle,” she told him defensively.

“And I suppose you adore him?”

“I had a terrific crush on him in my teens,” she agreed. “But I grew out of it.”

His eyes narrowed. He didn’t speak again until their salads were delivered, along with coffee for Gretchen and sparkling water for her companion.

“You like flowers, then,” he continued.

“I love them,” she said dreamily. “I grow prize tea roses and an assortment of flowering shrubs.”

He toyed with his salad. “My father has a mania for orchids,” he told her. “He calls them his ‘grandchildren’ and gives them all names.” He smiled affectionately, lost in thought. “When I was a child, I was jealous of them. He actually had a servant taken to jail for forgetting to water a sick one, which later died. A very vindictive man, my father.”

She chuckled. “I can imagine how he felt. I have a special fondness for sick roses. I seem to have the touch for making them bloom again.”

He studied her intently. “Some sicknesses, alas, cannot be cured by even the most loving of hands,” he said absently, and bitterness made harsh lines in his face.

He was a man of many contrasts. She watched his long-fingered hands move and was fascinated by their dexterity and grace.

He caught her scrutiny and tensed. “You find the scars distasteful.”

She looked up at once. “Good Lord, no,” she said at once, and with obvious sincerity. “I was watching how you use your hands. Everyone in this part of the world seems to move gracefully, especially the men. It isn’t like that back home.”

He relaxed and finished his salad. It was his own guilt at deceiving her, he thought, that was bringing on these bad moods. He had to stop it. What was, was. Nothing in the world could ever change it.

“We move as we live, unhurriedly,” he said simply.

“I’ll bet you don’t have half the rate of vascular problems that we have in the States,” she remarked.

“That is most likely true.” He finished a last bite of salad and pushed the bowl from him. His dark eyes searched hers. “You go to a country vastly different from your own, much less sophisticated than Morocco. Many modern conveniences do not exist there, and even electricity is a recent addition. The people of Qawi were largely nomadic until the early part of this century. When it was parceled out among the Europeans, the people resisted and many families were decimated. It will require a great deal of tolerance for you to adjust to such archaic surroundings.”

She put down her own fork. “Do you think I should go home?” she asked bluntly.

He wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell her to run, now, while she still could. But he looked into her eyes and felt as if part of him were sitting across the table. He couldn’t make the words come out.

“I know it’s a risk,” she said, glad that he hadn’t said anything immediately. “But I already love Morocco. I think I’m going to be very much at home in Qawi, if the sheikh is patient with my ignorance about local customs.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “I think you will find him patient, in all things.”

“I hope so,” she added fervently. “It’s like a leap of faith,” she added slowly. “A step into the unknown. Maggie said that I was vegetating in Texas, and I think she was right. I’ve never been anywhere or done anything adventurous in my life. I never realized the world was so big and its people so diverse. I’ll never forget any of this, whatever happens.”

“Nor will I,” he said quietly, and it sounded as if the words were torn from him. He was holding his wineglass so tightly that Gretchen wondered if the stem was going to snap. She wondered what was making him so broody, if it was his usual manner.

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