Falcon's Prey Read online

  Retribution came sooner than she had imagined.

  ‘I sought you out because Zahra was concerned for you. She tells me that you grow pale and do not eat, and she attributes this to the fact that you are missing Faisal. I know otherwise, but I will not be deceived by your playacting. I shall not allow Faisal to return now to be ensnared by you all over again. However, we cannot have you pining for lack of his lovemaking,’ he told her silkily. ‘It is fortunate that Zahra’s window does not overlook this courtyard—she may not approve of the methods I employ to assuage your need of him.’

  Zahra wasn’t the only one who did not approve, Felicia thought numbly as her flaying hands were captured and pinned to her sides, as hard masculine lips plundered the trembling softness of her own, parted to voice her fury. She was forced backwards, imprisoned against Raschid’s arm, her throat and the swelling softness of her breasts exposed to his merciless scrutiny. His eyes glittered over the answering fury in her own, fastening on the erratic pulse beating frantically in her creamy throat before lingering on the pale blur of flesh revealed by the V neckline of her cotton dress.

  ‘Let me go!’ she muttered furiously, her mouth throbbing. ‘Save your kisses for the women who are obliged to endure them in return for some worthless trinket!’

  She heard the angry hiss of his escaping breath, hard fingers tightened on her wrists, and her flesh burned from the contact with his.

  ‘Never worthless, Miss Gordon. I can assure you of that.’

  But despite the lazy drawl she knew that his anger was no longer held in check. She had unleashed it with her hasty words. She closed her eyes, against a sudden weak rush of tears, as his hands moulded her hip bones, forcing her against him. She would not cry now! She bit her lip. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her face, and stiffened, willing him to release her.

  ‘Oh no, Miss Gordon, you will not escape so lightly this time!’

  She could feel the tensile strength of his chest muscles against her breasts; the faintly harsh rasp of the dark hairs exposed by the open neck of his robe, so compellingly masculine that reaction flooded through her on a shock wave, making her painfully aware of just how inexperienced she actually was. The contact—which obviously meant nothing to him—suffocated her with its implied intimacy of flesh against flesh, and she struggled to get away, panicking as his lips took their fill of the exposed column of her throat, lingering appreciatively against her skin. If she had once doubted his skill and experience she could do so no longer. The deliberately arousing caresses would have melted ice; but she struggled not to give in; not to admit the drugging sensation of rising desire as his assault of her senses was subtly increased.

  There was no affection or tenderness in his touch—she knew that; she knew that all he offered was the hollow sham of sexual need, and that even that was probably counterfeit, but she could do nothing when his free hand slid downward from her shoulder, cupping her breast, and stroking the soft curves.

  Fear and indignation shot through her. Not even Faisal had touched her so intimately—nor so insultingly as though her body held no secrets, no pleasures, but merely the familiarity of the oft-known. She shuddered as his fingers found her nipple, coaxing it into hardening desire without exhibiting either haste or urgency; the pain and shock of her body’s betrayal there for him to see in the widening of her eyes and tensed muscles.

  Satisfaction gleamed in the night-dark eyes, as they raked her pale, shocked face.

  ‘Well, now you can join the ranks of those who have known my objectionable touch, Miss Gordon. Although unlike them your reward was not well earned,’ he taunted.

  She reeled as he released her, hating the grim comprehension in his voice. There was a parcel in his hand, wrapped in tissue paper, and tied with green ribbon.

  ‘It seems that Zahra purchased a gift for you on my behalf this afternoon. I only trust you will think of me when you wear it.’

  The package was flung at her feet. Speech would have been a complete impossibility, as she stared up at him with hate-filled eyes.

  ‘Pick it up,’ he commanded inexorably. ‘Otherwise I shall be obliged to deliver it again—in person, and since the gift has been given twice, it will have to be paid for twice.’

  ‘You’re nothing but a barbarian!’ Felicia choked. ‘I was a fool to think you could ever understand what I feel for Faisal…or any other human emotion!’

  She bent down, picked up the parcel, and fled before he could retaliate, clutching the tissue paper in trembling fingers. In her room she flung it against the wardrobe door, and the fragile paper tore on the sharp edge of the handle, releasing a froth of sea-green chiffon.

  She paled, staring at the silky fabric. The nightgown! Zahra had bought it for her! With Raschid’s money! She was shivering with reaction and despair. In the mirror she could see the redness on her lips from his kisses. Her neck and shoulder burned from the searing heat of Raschid’s practised kisses and her breast was on fire from the arrogant sureness of his hard caress. Her body stiffened with rage.

  How dared he treat her like a woman he had bought for the night! She suppressed a wild sob. He had tainted her—stamped on her pride and destroyed the protective shield she had thrown around herself. Never again could she assert that desire was nothing without love and that she could never experience the former without the latter, because for one fleeting moment she had known desire; and it was that more than anything else that caused the hot tears to roll down her cheeks as her fingers curled furiously into her palms and she found some slight surcease in contemplating Raschid’s muscular body writhing in mortal agony.

  As for the nightdress…. She stared disparagingly at the fragile silk she had coveted not so many hours ago. She would burn it before she allowed it to come anywhere near her body!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BEMUSED, Felicia asked herself how on earth order would ever result from such chaos. The household was preparing to move to the oasis, and Zahra, lifting yet another armful of dresses from her wardrobe, said impishly that it was no wonder that Raschid had absented himself from the house. His excuse had been that he would go on before them to make sure that everything was in readiness for their arrival, but Felicia believed that if he had the smallest spark of decency he would be as anxious to avoid her company as she was his.

  Never, if she lived to be a hundred, would she forget the emotionless destruction of her flimsy barriers, the calculated assault on her senses, and the bitter lessons she had learned. When she slept at night she dreamed of him, of his cold, jeering face, and most of all of his knowledgeable, caressing hands, and she would wake, trembling with anguish, tears cascading down her cheeks.

  It was no wonder that she was losing weight. Several times she had started to pen a letter to Faisal, telling him as gently as she could that their love had died, but every time she reached the part where she had to beg him to send her the money for her fare home, her pride stopped her. She was reaching the point where she was contemplating paying a visit to the British Embassy, but Zahra’s delight that she would be with them for her birthday celebrations prevented her from making a move until they returned from the oasis. She could manage for a few more days, she told herself, trying to believe that it was true.

  ‘It’s a pity that Raschid cannot spare Faisal,’ Zahra mourned. A pity indeed, Felicia agreed, although she knew that the supposed ‘emergency’ that kept Faisal in New York was no more than a figment of Raschid’s Machiavellian imagination.

  She was helping Zahra with her packing. She had not imagined that a girl could possess so many clothes at the same time, and said as much.

  Zahra grinned. ‘Raschid makes me a very generous allowance.’ She indicated a filmy harem outfit comprising baggy trousers in flame chiffon and a matching sequinned top. ‘What do you think of that? I bought it for a joke. Raschid would be furious if he knew.’ Felicia’s raised eyebrows prompted a defensive outburst. ‘Saud said it was a pity that harem dancers no longer existed, out
side the imagination of Hollywood producers, and I thought….’

  ‘I can see what you thought,’ Felicia murmured drily, amused and touched to see Zahra blushing a little. What business was it of Raschid’s if the younger girl chose to play the harem dancer for her undoubtedly appreciative bridegroom? She folded the outfit briskly.

  ‘It won’t go in this box, it’s full,’ Zahra complained.

  ‘Never mind, give it to me. I’ve plenty of room in my case.’ Felicia looked rather quizzically at Zahra. ‘Why do you want to take it? You won’t be wearing it until you are married, I trust?’

  ‘I daren’t leave it here in case one of the maids sees it,’ Zahra confessed. ‘Mother wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘I can see why,’ Felicia agreed, thinking of the transparent chiffon. It was obvious that Zahra was very much in love with her Saud, and Felicia wondered a little enviously what it was like to prepare for marriage basking in the warm approval of one’s family. Had she ever anticipated Faisal’s caresses with the enthusiasm with which Zahra looked forward to Saud’s?—and not for the first time she questioned her ability to respond to a man’s lovemaking. Had her uncle’s cold rejection of her as a child destroyed her ability to give and receive love? And yet she had responded to Raschid. But she did not love him. She hated him. He was determined to destroy her, she thought bitterly, gathering up the small pile of garments which would not fit into Zahra’s boxes and putting them in her own case. And he did not care what means he had to use to do so. She straightened up and her breast throbbed pulsatingly as it had done when he had touched her. Her face flaming, she squashed the impulse to place her own hand against her quickening flesh in an effort to eradicate the tingling memory.

  IT WAS NOT a great distance to the oasis when measured in mere miles, but the journey would take them through empty desert and careful preparations had to be made, checked and re-checked by Ali, who had been left in charge of their safety. Water bottles had to be filled, tires checked, and spare gasoline cans placed in the trunks of cars. They were to travel in convoy, the Mercedes carrying Umm Faisal, Zahra and Felicia, going first, three other cars with the staff and the luggage following on behind.

  Felicia tended to be amused by the flurry of preparation, until Zahra pointed out the fate of other, less careful travellers. To die of thirst under a burning sun was no pleasant death, and could happen even to the most experienced desert traveller if a sandstorm blew up, obliterating the road, or a sharp stone pierced a gas tank, leaving them without transport.

  It was just over a hundred miles to the oasis, but Felicia was ready to agree feelingly that it might have been a thousand, long before the green fringe of the palm trees warned her that journey’s end was in sight. Even with the air-conditioning on full the heat inside the car was stifling, the sun dazzling as it bounced off the immaculate black hood of the Mercedes. The tires hissed wetly along the soft tarmac until they turned off on to a sandy track, throwing up clouds of fine dust to clog the throats and eyes of those driving behind.

  ‘Now you see why we go first,’ Zahra explained. ‘The last vehicle is the most at risk. Even an expert driver can lose his way when the windscreen is covered in sand.’

  Felicia repressed a small shudder at the thought of being lost in this vast wasteland. And yet for all its terrible emptiness the desert held a beauty all of its own. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but mile upon mile of never-ending sand, burning golden-red against the cobalt blue sky. The intensity of it hurt the eyes, and Felicia wondered anew at the tenacity of a people who had carved out their lives from this unyielding wilderness.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Zahra said cheerfully, as the fringe of palm trees on the horizon grew tantalisingly larger. ‘You will love the oasis, Felicia. I believe Raschid considers it is our true home, although Faisal does not care for it in the same way, but in you I sense a sympathy for our ways. You do like our country, don’t you?’ she asked anxiously.

  Felicia acknowledged that she had fallen under its spell, surprised to realise how true this was. Had circumstances been different, she would have been content to make her life in this magnificent, timeless land.

  ‘Only one more day until Nadia arrives,’ Zahra added. ‘I’m longing to see her!’

  Felicia hoped that Faisal’s elder sister was as easy to get along with as his younger. Since the arrival of Faisal’s letter she was conscious of being something of an impostor, in her own mind at least, and having Raschid as her enemy was more than enough to cope with.

  It was dusk when they drove into the oasis, so Felicia could see very little of her surroundings apart from the clustering tops of palm trees, swaying lightly in the evening breeze, and the silky shine of moonlight on water as they drove past the silent oasis.

  ‘Once the Badu camped here,’ Zahra said softly, ‘but now the tribesmen have retreated into the interior of the desert to pursue their chosen way of life unhindered.’

  The house bore no resemblance to the villa outside Kuwait. Built of white stone, its narrow Moorish windows presented a blank face to the world. They drove through a fretted archway into a courtyard slightly similar to the one belonging to the villa, but whereas that was of modern construction combining the best of East and West, this one bore mute evidence of age. Behind them enormous iron-studded oak doors slammed shut, a reminder that once visitors to the oasis might not have been friendly. The soft-footed Moslem servants added to the sensation of having stepped back in time, and Felicia would not have been surprised to see a couple of Zahra’s harem dancers wandering in the garden, the bracelets on their ankles tinkling in time to their sinuous movements.

  Instead, Ali ushered them into a large hallway, and then Felicia did gasp with amazed delight. Huge pillars of malachite supported an intricately patterned ceiling, painted in jewel-bright colours. She could hear the sound of water somewhere in the distance and the timeless enchantment of the East engulfed her.

  Zahra laughed at her open-mouthed wonder.

  ‘I knew you would like it!’

  Ali and the other servants were bringing in their luggage, stacking it on the cool marble floor. Selina hurried away, promising that soon they would have a cup of coffee, and as the double doors at the other end of the hall opened, Felicia saw Raschid framed there, his flowing white robe in stark contrast to the rich bronze of his skin and the jewelled silks of the furnishings.

  ‘Zahra will take you to the women’s quarters, Miss Gordon. They overlook an inner courtyard. In the desert a wise man kept his rarest treasures under lock and key, and in my grandfather’s day the women of the harem were never allowed outside the confines of this house. For my grandmother’s pleasure he had a garden constructed inside the protective walls of his home so that she might enjoy the cool breeze that blows over the desert when dusk falls. She used to say that it reminded her of England.’

  ‘You will love it, Felicia,’ Zahra said softly, ‘and the harem quarters. They are ridiculously exotic. Believe it or not, there is even a marble bath large enough to swim in.’

  She laughed delightedly when Felicia flushed, exclaiming suddenly, ‘Uncle Raschid, Felicia’s eyes are exactly the same colour as these pillars!’

  ‘The colour of malachite,’ Raschid agreed, looking down at Felicia, and running his lean fingers caressingly down the pillar nearest to him. ‘But I don’t suppose Miss Gordon will be complimented to have her eyes compared with the cold hardness of marble—mm?’

  As always his tone when he spoke to Zahra was teasingly indulgent, and Felicia was struck by the difference from when he addressed her.

  Ali staggered in with more boxes, which he dropped by Felicia’s cases. The top one fell on its side, bursting open to spill its contents in gay profusion across the floor. Felicia had been looking at Raschid and she saw his face change suddenly, from avuncular indulgence to grim disgust. He stepped forward, crossing the floor with a couple of lithe strides, bending to finger disdainfully the crimson chiffon billowing against the starkne
ss of his robes.

  Zahra trembled, casting Felicia a look of agonised appeal, and instantly she rose to the occasion. It didn’t matter that Raschid’s fingers were flicking the chiffon away with arrogant contempt, nor that his eyes were narrowing thoughtfully on her flushed face, his mouth curving downwards in contempt.

  ‘Mine, I believe,’ Felicia said bravely, with saccharine sweetness as she made a dive for the chiffon. Raschid was holding the fabric more firmly than she had realised and as she tugged effectually at it, the harem pants were revealed in their full glory. Almost she would have laughed at his distasteful expression as he relinquished the sequinned waistband after one look of incredulous contempt.

  ‘I bought them in the souk the other day. I thought they might start a new fashion at home.’ Some devil of mischief, too long submerged, suddenly reasserted itself prompting her to add flippantly, ‘I hope Faisal likes them.’ Demurely she let her eyelashes drop to veil her cheeks in mock modesty, even risking a coy giggle. ‘They aren’t the thing for shopping in Sainsbury’s, of course, but for a quiet evening at home….’ She deliberately let her voice trail away, raising limpid eyes to the concentrated acidity in Raschid’s and allowing just the merest hint of suggestiveness to peep through her assumed modesty. Watching his impassive features, she admitted that she was playing with fire, but shrugged the thought aside—in for a penny, in for a pound! When long seconds ticked by with Zahra frozen like a sphinx and Raschid’s expression remotely unreadable she wondered if she had gone too far.

  A cold grey glance, informed with deliberate and exactly calculated insult, roamed her body, oblivious to Zahra’s shocked protest, and at length he drawled carelessly:

  ‘Not your colour, I would have thought, Miss Gordon, with that hair.’