The Sheikh's Impetuous Love-Slave
Auteur·e
Marguerite Kaye
Lectures
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Chapitres
5
Chapter 1
Lash’aal, Arabia, 1816
‘The tribal delegation has arrived, Highness.’
Sheikh Khalid al-Raqam, Prince of Lash’aal, continued to study the sketch of the shrine recently discovered on the site of the lost city of Persimmanion. The ruined temple fascinated him, for it predated the rest of the city by many centuries. Perhaps it was the reason for the city’s existence in the first place? Khalid picked up the latest artefact to be uncovered, a little gold idol in the shape of a female goddess, most unusual for this region of Arabia. He smiled to himself. The more superstitious of his subjects, including Farid, his man of business, now waiting deferentially for instructions, would think it some sort of portent, but Khalid was above such childish notions. He was fascinated by the past, not haunted by it.
He rolled the tiny antiquity in the palm of his hand. Persimmanion was proving rich in such finds. It was vital that they keep its existence quiet, lest the European vultures get wind of it and attempt to loot Lash’aal’s precious heritage, as they’d already done in Egypt. Khalid’s hand tightened on the golden goddess. He would not permit such desecration on his sovereign territory.
‘What do they want, this delegation?’ he asked Farid irritably.
‘An audience, Highness. They have travelled five days across the desert to pay the debt of honour owed for your assistance in settling the border dispute. You would not wish to cause offence by keeping them waiting too long.’
Khalid sighed and carefully rolled up the drawing. ‘Very well, I’ll see them now.’
Farid bowed. ‘You will receive them in state, Highness?’
It was phrased as a question, but Khalid knew better. He sighed again. ‘If I must. As always, Farid, I rely on your counsel when it comes to matters of protocol.’ Three years into his reign, Khalid still found many of Lash’aal’s customs, the pomp and ceremony in particular, irksome. But the peace which he had fought hard to bring about within his kingdom was still fragile, and with so many different tribes ready to rise against each other at the slightest provocation, it was vital that his status as the ultimate source of power, justice and, if need be, retribution, was publicly reinforced.
It was a heavy responsibility and it exacted its own price, isolating Khalid as it did, from other mere mortals. His duty was to be infallible, invincible, all-powerful. Though he was now thirty-two years old, more than past the age for thinking about siring an heir, choosing a bride for him from one of the many factions which made up his kingdom without offending the others had so far defeated even Farid’s legendary powers of diplomacy. Since Khalid himself was largely indifferent to the choice, based as it must be on the needs of Lash’aal rather than any more personal desires, he had been content to remain unwed. The burdens of state were better borne alone—or so he told himself as he donned his heavy formal robes in his private chambers.
The midnight-blue silk tunic with its heavy edging, designed to weight down the long, full sleeves, had a high neck braided with the same passementerie, made from thread twined with silver and pearls. The belt which he fastened around his waist was embossed silver, decorated with turquoise and sapphire. Into it was thrust the ceremonial state scimitar, also made of silver, and onto his finger went the ring of state, the legendary Lash’aal sapphire set in white gold. The cloak which was draped around Khalid’s tall muscular frame was also midnight-blue, also weighted with precious and semiprecious jewels, as was his headdress with more silver thread in the igal which held it securely in place. By the time he had finished dressing, Khalid felt as if he were literally bearing the weight of his kingdom on his shoulders.
The magnificent throne room of the royal palace of Lash’aal was eighty paces long, the bright light flooding in the oriole windows reflecting endlessly off the walls, which were tiled with mirrored glass. Khalid took his place on the throne, which was positioned on a dais at the head of the room, as Farid barked an order and the double doors were flung open. A motley crew of tribesmen shuffled nervously in, bearing a large bundle between them. It looked like a carpet, and judging from the ragged ties at each end and the dusty condition of it, not a particularly fine example, either. Khalid raised one eyebrow questioningly.
One of the tribesmen stepped forward, bowing repeatedly. ‘Highness, we come to pay homage and bid you accept this most unworthy gift from your eternally grateful subjects.’
‘I am delighted to accept,’ Khalid said with a nod, ‘but I cannot disagree with your description of the quality of your offering.’
The tribesman looked momentarily baffled before breaking into a broad grin, revealing a set of yellow, mismatched teeth which a camel would be proud to own. ‘The carpet? No, Highness, that is but the wrapping. The real treasure lies within.’ He clapped his hands loudly and the other tribesmen unrolled the carpet onto the floor with a flourish.
‘Oof!’
The voice was indignant, foreign and most definitely female. The owner, her dirty, tattered clothes revealing a surprisingly shapely form, with long hair black as night and eyes as stormy as a winter sea, struggled with her bonds and raised herself to her knees to glare at him insolently.
Juliette de Montignac’s eyes stung as they adjusted to the blaze of reflected sunlight after the oppressive darkness of the carpet in which she had been confined. She was in some sort of enormous, formal room. Her eyes focused on the man standing before her. A tall man. His feet were clad in jewelled slippers. A very rich man, judging by the fine clothes he wore, and a very well-formed one, too. Beneath the thin silk of his tunic, she could see that his body was toned. Muscled, even. The ornate belt with its vicious-looking scimitar was fastened to a slim waist, unusual in a land where girth was perceived to be evidence of wealth. She raised her eyes farther, past the solid wall of his chest, his broad shoulders, to meet his eyes. Startlingly blue eyes, deep set, with fine lines fanning out at the corners. A face more striking than classically handsome, with sharply defined cheekbones. A tiny cleft in his chin. A thin scar slicing through one eyebrow. A memorable face.
Formidable was the word which leaped into her mind. A shiver of something akin to fear shook Juliette, taking her by surprise. A lifetime spent with her father on archaeological digs, living rough in tents and mixing with every sort of scoundrel had, she thought, inured her to such girlish emotions, but this man was somehow different. Not a man to make an enemy of.
Looking covertly around at her ornate surroundings, the gold throne upon the dais, and back to the autocratic man before her, Juliette realized she was being offered by her captors as some sort of gift. Garnering all her courage, determined that he should not see even a glimmer of her trepidation, she met, full-on, the gaze of the man scrutinizing her. ‘Je m’appelle Juliette de Montignac,’ she said, her voice emerging with reassuring authority from her parched throat.
French! Watching the head tribesman rubbing his hands together, Khalid wondered if the fool had any idea of the predicament this unwanted gift of theirs had placed him in. He bowed. ‘Prince Khalid al-Raqam of Lash’aal.’
A prince! She should have guessed from that haughty stance. Well, prince or no, he had not the right to hold her against her will. Juliette tilted her chin. ‘These men have kidnapped me. I demand that you set me free.’
Definitely French, and judging by the sound of her voice, and that superior air of hers, a well-born mademoiselle to boot. The diplomatic implications could be severe. ‘Where did you find her? How long ago?’ Khalid demanded curtly.
‘By the sea, Highness,’ the head tribesman replied, keeping his eyes cast firmly at his prince’s feet. ‘A month ago, thrown ashore by a storm.’
A whole month! Could it get any worse? Khalid swore silently. ‘What happened to the others?’ he asked, addressing Juliette in her own language.
His French was flawless, softly accented. The question brought a brief, horrible memory of the storm, the screeching of the wind as it ripped through the sail of the dhow, the screams of the crew, her own urgent entreaties to Papa to leave his precious artefacts, to save himself. He hadn’t of course. The rogue wave which had tossed her to shore had also sent Papa and the trunk full of carefully garnered relics to the bottom of the Red Sea. In death, as in life, Papa had put his lost civilizations first. ‘Lost, all of them, including my father,’ Juliette said, biting her cheek.
‘I am sorry,’ Khalid said, touched by the effort she was making not to cry. ‘What of the rest of your family, where are they?’
‘Family?’ Juliette shook her head, swallowing the lump in her throat caused by his too-obvious sympathy. Though Papa had been well-born, when he made archaeology his career rather than a mere gentlemanly interest, his family had disowned him. Juliette had never met any of her relatives, nor had Papa encouraged her to show any interest in them. So used was she to considering herself alone in the world—for Papa, by his own admission, was more her mentor than her parent—that she had come to think it quite normal, unless it was brought to her attention. She did not like to have it brought to her attention, and so she shrugged. ‘I have no other family. My mother died when I was a baby. It has always been just Papa and me.’
Though much of the time, Juliette admitted sadly to herself, especially when she was little, Papa had barely noticed her. It was only as she grew old enough to be of use that he took control of her education, though his purposes were self-serving rather than altruistic, his teaching confined to his own field. In his daughter’s views on anything outside the world of archaeology, he had no interest. Juliette doubted he even knew whether she preferred tea or coffee, Rousseau or Voltaire. Certainly, he would have considered both questions irrelevant.
Prince Khalid was looking at her strangely. ‘No husband?’ he asked with a raised brow. ‘That is surely rather…unusual?’
Juliette bristled. She was aware that her life had been unconventional, but it was all she knew. Though she herself had begun to question it, she did not relish a complete stranger doing so. ‘All my life, I have helped Papa with his work. Important work, far more important than a mere husband. I have no time for such things. I earned the right to be treated as an equal by Papa and his assistants.’
Eyeing the extremely shapely female body beneath the tattered remnants of her clothing, Khalid found this rather difficult to believe. Catching the lascivious look of the tribesmen as they ogled her, he felt a stab of anger at his subjects’ lack of manners, but also at this odd female’s naïveté.
‘She is very pretty, no?’ the tribesman said with a wink in Juliette’s direction.
‘Son of a camel,’ Juliette spat at him, ‘how dare you look at me like that!’
The tribesman moved quickly to the side as Juliette aimed a kick at him, hampered by her bonds. ‘As you can see, Majesty, she has a fine, fiery spirit.’
‘I hope,’ Khalid said coldly, ‘that you have treated her with the respect due to a foreign visitor to my kingdom.’
The tribesman gave a nervous laugh. ‘Such a temper she has, my men would not dare go near her. Truth be told, Majesty, we are glad to be rid of the little wildcat. Only a prince such as you, Mighty One, can tame her, bring her to heel,’ he said with an unconvincing smile and a sideways glance at Juliette.
‘Qu’est-ce qu’il dit?’ Juliette demanded of Khalid. ‘What is he saying about me, that man who has a goat for a father?’ Though her hands were still bound, she looked so fierce that the tribesman shrank away. ‘For a month, they have kept me tied up like an animal. I demand that you tell me….’
‘Enough!’ Khalid clapped his hands together so loudly that Juliette fell abruptly silent. ‘You are in no position to make demands, mademoiselle. I did not ask for you, and by the gods, I wish you had not been given to me, but you are now, by the laws of Lash’aal, my property. Payment for a debt of honour, ‘ he explained grimly. ‘Despite their ramshackle appearances, these men represent a powerful tribe. It would be unwise of me to offend them by refusing their gift.’
It would indeed be most unwise. In fact, the situation was extremely tricky, and Khalid could not help blaming the female gazing belligerently up at him for causing it. Why did she have to wash up on his coastline? By accepting her, there was a risk her government might think him complicit in her imprisonment. He would have to think very carefully indeed about the best way to return her to the French Consulate in Cairo.
Turning back to the tribesmen, Khalid decided to dispense with at least one part of the problem. ‘I consider the debt now paid in full. You may go with my thanks. Take my honoured guests away, Farid, and see that they are well fed and watered before their return journey.’
‘Yes, Highness. And the—the female?’ Farid replied, casting Juliette a pointed glance.
‘I will deal with Mademoiselle Montignac,’ Khalid replied grimly. ‘Just get them out of here.’
The room emptied quickly. Alone with Prince Khalid in the vast, strange space, the light refracting and reflecting off the multitude of mirrors, Juliette tried desperately to think of her next move. Her insides might well be churning with dread, her knees unaccountably like jelly and worryingly unwilling to support her, but support her they must. All she had were her wits, and she must at all costs keep them about her. A frisson of awareness, like the wind rippling over the soft sand of a dune, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as Prince Khalid turned the full blaze of his piercing blue eyes on her.
At four and twenty, Juliette’s experience of men other than those involved in her father’s excavations was extremely limited. It occurred to her now as she tried to rally her flagging spirits, that the man eyeing her with what looked horribly like contempt might not share her enthusiasm for Papa’s profession. The unofficial war being waged between the British Consul General Henry Salt and the one-time French Consul General Bernardino Drovetti had forced Papa to break all his own rules, excavating and smuggling artefacts without permission. It was extremely likely that this Prince Khalid would see this as nothing more than looting. Papa, who was usually so adamant about things remaining in the place where they had been found, had compromised almost every principle of his in the past year or so. When he had drowned, he had been a bitter, disillusioned man.
‘Montignac,’ Khalid said musingly. ‘That is what you said your name was?’
Juliette nodded warily.
Khalid frowned. ‘What were you doing in my country?’
Juliette hesitated. They had not had official permission for their latest foray, had been coerced by the French Consulate into taking advantage of the confusion caused by the sudden death of the kingdom’s prince, Asad al-Muhanna, and the unexpected succession of his brother Ramiz. ‘We were in A’Qadiz, not Lash’aal, which I think is the kingdom adjoining yours. Papa is…was—he worked for the French government,’ she said cautiously.
‘A diplomat? Sent to pay his respects to the new ruler, perhaps? I believe Prince Ramiz has spent much time in the West as his brother’s emissary.’
The words formed, but Juliette hesitated to speak them. She was a very poor liar. ‘Not exactly,’ she said uncomfortably.
‘You said you helped him, your father? In what role, precisely?’ Khalid tapped one long finger on the hilt of his scimitar. ‘Montignac. Montignac. Montignac! Of course. Jean-Louis Montignac. The archaeologist. That was your father?’
‘Oui.’
‘Your father was one of those tomb raiders who rape our country of its history, and you, by your own admission, his companion in crime. Does Prince Ramiz of A’Qadiz even know you were within his kingdom’s boundaries?’
Though her inclination was to leap to Papa’s defence, the knowledge that he had, in fact, been operating illegally made Juliette hesitate. This prince did not look like a man to tolerate lies, and she knew, in any case, how transparent she was when she told them. She bit her lip.
‘I assume from your silence that the answer to that is no,’ Khalid snapped, appalled at this further complication. ‘I presume also, that you thought to take advantage of the fact that Prince Ramiz is too distracted by the conflicts which have arisen as a result of his brother’s death, to worry about being invaded by looters. What is it about you Westerners that you think you have the right to pillage any part of the world in which you set foot? You may rest assured, mademoiselle, that I will inform Prince Ramiz myself of your intrusion. He will want to know what was illegally and forcibly taken.’
‘What my father took from A’Qadiz is at the bottom of the sea along with my Papa.’ Tears started in her eyes, but Juliette brushed them away angrily with the back of her bound hands. ‘It’s true. He did take things without asking permission, but only because he was forced to, and he only selected the least valuable,’ she said fiercely. ‘What he cared about more than anything—what he taught me to care about—was knowledge. Who were these people, he asked. How did they live, what gods did they worship, what did they believe in, how were these things passed from one civilization to another? Whether an amulet was bone or gold, whether an idol was studded with jewels or formed from clay, it was what it represented, not what it would fetch in a market which mattered. I don’t care if you believe me or not, but it is the truth. Now he is dead, and there will be others with far fewer principles sent to replace him.’
Her passionate plea surprised him, for she articulated exactly what he felt himself about Persimmanion and all the other sites here in Lash’aal, but the fact remained, she and her father had been stealing. ‘I can guarantee that our borders will not be so easily breached as those of A’Qadiz,’ Khalid replied. ‘We are quite capable of looking after our own treasures without the help of your Western experts.’
‘Sans doute you will treat them all as well as me,’ Juliette threw at him. ‘Perhaps when they hear that their fate is to be held prisoner by savages and given away like a slave they will not come.’
Her refusal to back down infuriated him. There was something about this feisty, altogether wholly unusual female, with the mind of a man, the manners of an infidel and the body of an odalisque, that set his blood aflame. He was wholly unused to being challenged, and entirely unprepared for the source of the challenge to be a mere woman. ‘Perhaps,’ Khalid retorted furiously, driven beyond logical thought in his sudden burning need to bring her to heel, ‘we would treat them more hospitably if they waited upon an invitation.’
Without really thinking what he was doing, wanting only to cow her, Khalid pulled the little dagger, which nestled in the hilt behind his scimitar, from his belt.
