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As the bra slipped away from her breasts, Anna let it fall onto the bed, then turned to face him, lifting her arms to his shoulders.
“Do you still love me?” she whispered.
His arms closed around her, his hands warm on her bare skin. Her breasts pressed against his silk shirt as her arms cupped his head. He looked down into her upturned face with a completely unreadable expression in his eyes.
“Do you want me, Ishaq?” she begged, wishing he would kiss her. Why was he so remote? She felt the warmth of his body curl into hers and it was so right.
A corner of that hard, full mouth went up and his eyes became sardonic. “Believe me, I want you, or you would not be here.”
“What have I done?” she begged. “I don’t remember anything. Tell me what I’ve done to make you so angry with me.”
His mouth turned up with angry contempt. “What do you hope to gain with this?” he demanded with subdued ferocity, and then, as if it were completely against his will, his grip tightened painfully on her, and with a stifled curse he crushed his mouth against her own.
He was neither gentle nor tender. His kiss and his hands were punishing, and a part of her revelled in the knowing that, whatever his intentions, he could not resist her. She opened her mouth under his, accepting the violent thrust of his hungry, angry tongue, and felt the rasp of its stroking run through her with unutterable thrill, as if it were elsewhere on her body that he kissed her.
Just for a moment she was frightened, for if one kiss could do this to her, how would she sustain his full, passionate lovemaking? She would explode off the face of the earth. His hand dropped to force her against him, while his hardened body leapt against her. She tore her mouth away from his, gasping for the oxygen to feed the fire that wrapped her in its hot, licking fingers.
“Ishaq!” she cried, wild with a passion that seemed to her totally new, as the heat of his hands burned her back, her hips, clenched against the back of her neck with a firm possessiveness that thrilled her. “Oh, my love!”
Then suddenly he was standing away from her, his hands on her wrists pulling her arms down, his eyes burning into hers with a cold, hard, suspicious fury that froze the hot rivers of need coursing through her.
“What is it?” she pleaded. “Ishaq, what have I done?”
He smiled and shook his head, a curl of admiring contempt lifting his lip. “You are unbelievable,” he said. “Where have you learned such arts, I wonder?”
Anna gasped. He suspected her of having a lover? Could it be true? She shook her head. It wasn’t possible. Whatever he might suspect, whatever he might have done, whatever disagreement was between them, she knew that she was simply not capable of taking a lover while pregnant with her husband’s child.
“From you, I suppose,” she tried, but he brushed that aside with a snort of such contemptuous disbelief she could go no further.
“Tell me why you won’t love me,” she challenged softly, but nothing was going to crack his angry scorn now.
“But you have just given birth, Anna. We must resign ourselves to no lovemaking for several weeks, isn’t it so?”
She drew back with a little shock. “Oh! Yes, I—” She shook her head. He could still kiss her, she thought. He could hold her. Maybe that was the problem, she thought. A man who would only touch his wife if he wanted sex. She would certainly hate that.
“I wish I could remember!”
He reached down and lifted up the silky white pyjama top, holding it while she obediently slipped her arms inside. He had himself well under control now, he was as impersonal as a nurse, and she tasted tears in her throat for the waste of such wild passion.
Funny how small her breasts were. Last time, they had been so swollen with the pregnancy…hadn’t they? She remembered the ache of heavy breasts with a pang of misery, and then reminded herself, But that’s all in the past. I have a baby now.
“Do you think I’ll remember?” she whispered, gazing into his face as he buttoned the large pyjama shirt. It seemed almost unbearable that she should feel such pain for a baby who had died two years ago and not remember the birth of the beautiful creature who was so alive, and whose cry she could suddenly hear over the subdued roar of the engines.
“I am convinced of it.”
“She has inherited your birthmark,” she murmured with a smile, touching his eye with a feather caress and feeling her heart contract with tenderness. “Is that usual?”
He finished the last button and lifted his eyes to hers. “What is it you hope to discover?” he asked, his hands pulling at her belt with cool impersonality. “The… Ahmadi mark,” he said. “It proves beyond a doubt that Safiyah and I come of the same blood. Does that make you wary?”
“Did you think I had a lover?” she asked. “Did you think it was someone else’s child?”
His eyes darkened with the deepest suspicion she had yet seen in them, and she knew she had struck a deep chord. “You know that much, do you?”
Somewhere inside her an answering anger was born. “You’re making it pretty obvious! Does the fact that you’ve now been proven wrong make you think twice about things, Ishaq?”
“Wrong?” he began, then broke off, stripped the suede pants down her legs and off, and knelt to hold the pyjama bottoms for her. His hair was cut over the top in a thick cluster of black curls whose vibrant health reflected the lampglow. Anna steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder and stifled the whispering desire that melted through her thighs at the nearness of him.
They were too big. In fact, they were men’s pyjamas.
“Why don’t I have a pair of pyjamas on the plane?” she asked.
“Perhaps you never wear them.”
He spoke softly, but the words zinged to her heart. She shivered at the thought that she slept naked next to Ishaq Ahmadi. She wondered what past delights were lurking, waiting to be remembered.
“And you do?”
“I often fly alone,” he said.
It suddenly occurred to her that he had told her absolutely nothing all night. Every single question had somehow been parried. But when she tried to formulate words to point this out, her brain refused.
Even at its tightest the drawstring was too big for her slim waist, and the bunched fabric rested precariously on the slight swell of her hips. Ishaq turned away and lifted the feathery covers of the bed to invite her to slip into the white, fluffy nest.
She moved obediently, groaning as her muscles protested at even this minimal effort. Once flat on her back, however, she sighed with relief. “Oh, that feels good!”
Ishaq bent to flick out the bedside lamp, but her hand stopped him. “Bring me the baby,” she said.
“You are tired and the baby is asleep.”
“But she was crying. She may be hungry.”
“I am sure the nurse has seen to that.”
“But I want to breast-feed her!” Anna said in alarm.
He blinked as if she had surprised him, but before she could be sure of what she saw in his face his eyelids hooded his expression.
“Tomorrow will not be too late for that, Anna. Sleep now. You need sleep more than anything.”
On the last word he put out the light, and it was impossible to resist the drag of her eyelids in the semi-darkness. “Kiss her for me,” she murmured, as Lethe beckoned.
“Yes,” he said, straightening.
She frowned. “Don’t we kiss good-night?”
A heartbeat, two, and then she felt the touch of his lips against her own. Her arms reached to embrace him, but he avoided them and was standing upright again. She felt deprived, her heart yearning towards him. She tried once more.
“I wish you’d stay with me.”
“Good night, Anna.” Then the last light went out, a door opened and closed, and she was alone with the dark and the deep drone of the engines.
Five
“Hurry, hurry!”
The voices and laughter of the women mirrored the bubble of excitement in her heart, and she felt the corners of her mouth twitch up in anticipation.
“I’m coming!” she cried.
But they were impatient. Already they were spilling out onto the balcony, whose arching canopy shaded it from the harsh midday sun. Babble arose from the courtyard below: the slamming of doors, the dance of hooves, the shouts of men. Somewhere indoors, musicians tuned their instruments.
“He is here! He arrives!” the women cried, and she heard the telltale scraping of the locks and bars and the rumble of massive hinges in the distance as the gates opened wide. A cry went up and the faint sound of horses’ hooves thudded on the hot, still air.
“They are here already! Hurry, hurry!” cried the women.
She rose to her feet at last, all in white except for the tinkling, delicate gold at her forehead, wrists, and ankles, a white rose in her hand. Out on the balcony the women were clustered against the carved wooden arabesques of the screen that hid them from the admiring, longing male eyes below.
She approached the screen. Through it the women had a view of the entire courtyard running down to the great gates. These were now open in welcome, with magnificently uniformed sentinels on each side, and the mounted escort approached and cantered between them, flags fluttering, armour sending blinding flashes of intense sunlight into unwary eyes.
They rode in pairs, rank upon rank, leading the long entourage, their horses’ caparisons increasing in splendour with the riders’ rank. Then at last came riders in the handsomest array, mounted on spirited, prancing horses.
“There he is!” a voice cried, and a cheer began in several throats and swelled.
Her eyes were irresistibly drawn to him. He was sternly handsome, his flowing hair a mass of black curls, his beard neat and pointed, his face grave but his eyes alight with humour. His jacket was rich blue, the sleeves ruched with silver thread; his silver breastplate glowed almost white. Across it, from shoulder to hip, a deep blue sash lay against the polished metal.
The sword at his hip was thickly encrusted with jewels. His fingers also sparkled, but no stone was brighter than his dark eyes as he glanced up towards the balcony as if he knew she was there. His eyes met hers, challenged and conquered in one piercingly sweet moment.
Her heart sprang in one leap from her breast and into his keeping.
As he rode past below, the white rose fell from her helpless hand. A strong dark hand plucked it from the air and drew it to his lips, and she cried softly, as though the rose were her own white throat.
He did not glance up again, but thrust the rose carefully inside the sash, knowing she watched. She clung to the carved wooden arabesques, her strength deserting her.
“So fierce, so handsome!” she murmured. “As strong and powerful as his own black destrier, I dare swear!”
The laughter of the women chimed around her ears. “Ah, truly, and love is blind and sees white as black!” they cried in teasing voices. “Black? But the prince’s horse is white! Look again, mistress!”
She looked in the direction of their gesturing, as the entourage still came on. In the centre of the men on black horses rode one more richly garbed than all. His armour glowed with beaten gold, his richly jewelled turban was cloth of gold, ropes of pearls draped his chest, rubies and emeralds adorned his fingers and ears. His eyebrows were strong and black, his jaw square, his beard thick and curling. He lifted a hand in acknowledgement as those riders nearest him tossed gold and silver coins to the cheering crowd.
Her women were right. Her bridegroom was mounted on a prancing stallion as white as the snows of Shir.
“Saba’ul khair, madame.”
Anna rolled over drowsily and blinked while intense sunlight poured into the cabin from the little portholes as, whick whick whick whick, the air hostess pulled aside the curtains.
Her eyes frowned a protest. “Is it morning already?”
The woman turned from her completed task and smiled. “We here, madame.”
Anna leapt out of the bed, wincing with the protest from her bruised muscles, and craned to peer out the porthole. They were flying over water, deep sparkling blue water dotted with one or two little boats, and were headed towards land. She saw a long line of creamy beach, lush green forest, a stretch of mixed golden and grey desert behind, and, in the distance, snow-topped mountains casting a spell at once dangerous and thrilling.
“Where on earth are we?”
“Shower, madame?”
“Oh, yes!”
The hostess smiled with the pleasure of someone who had recently memorized the word but had produced it without any real conviction and was now delighted to see that the sounds did carry meaning, and led her into the adjoining bathroom.
Anna waved away her offer of help, stripped and got into the shower stall, then stood gratefully under the firm spray of water, first hot, then cool. This morning her body was sore all over, but her headache was much less severe.
Her memory wasn’t in much better shape, though. It still stopped dead on the night before she had been due to leave for France. Now, however, she could remember a shopping expedition with Lisbet during the afternoon, going home to dress, meeting Cecile and Lisbet at the Riverfront Restaurant. Now she could remember leaving the restaurant, and almost immediately seeing a cab pull up across the street. “You take that one, Anna, it’s facing your direction,” Lisbet had commanded, and she had dashed across the street…
She could remember that as if it were yesterday.
Of the two years that had followed that night there was still absolutely nothing in her memory. Not one image had surfaced overnight to flesh out the bare outline Ishaq Ahmadi had given of her life since.
When she tried to make sense of it all, her head pounded unmercifully. The whole thing made her feel eerie, creepy.
Last night’s dream surfaced cloudily in her mind. She had the feeling that the man on the black horse was Ishaq Ahmadi.
She wondered if that held some clue about her first meeting with him. Had she seen him from a distance and fallen in love with him?
That she could believe. If ever there was a man you could take one look at and know you’d met your destiny, Ishaq Ahmadi was it. But he was definitely keeping something from her. If once they had loved each other, and she certainly accepted that, there was a problem now. It was in his eyes every time he looked at her. His look said she was a criminal—attractive and desirable, perhaps, but not in the least to be trusted.
Anna winced as she absently scrubbed a sore spot. The accident must have been real enough. Her body seemed to be one massive bruise now, and she ached as if she had been beaten with a bat.
That thought stilled her for a moment. Panic whispered along her nerves. Suppose a man had beaten his pregnant, runaway wife and wanted to avoid the consequences…
Anna reminded herself suddenly that they would be landing soon and turned off the water. In the bedroom mirror she stared at herself. She was still too thin, just as she had been after losing her baby two years ago. There were dark circles under her eyes to match the bruising on her body.
She had a tendency to lose weight with unhappiness. Anna sighed. By the look of her, she had been deeply unhappy recently, as unhappy as when she had lost Jonathan’s baby. But the question was—had she lost the weight before she left Ishaq, or after?
Her clothes were lying on the neatly made bed. The shirt had been mended, the suede pants neatly brushed. Anna’s breath hissed between her teeth. It’s terrific, Anna. Stop dithering and buy it!
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