Page 19 of At the Sheikh's Bidding
She stepped towards them, her heart pounding, but this time with fury.
“Then I suggest you check with the palace officials!”
“And which official would that be? The King, no doubt?”
“No,” said a voice from behind them. “The Crown Prince.”
All three turned around to see Amare, dressed in a traditional white thobe and a keffiyeh. He looked every inch a prince of his country, his shoulders squared, his gaze focused.
“Now,” Amare continued, “that you understand the situation, perhaps Dr. Montgomerie and myself may continue with our evening.” He glowered at the two guards who immediately disappeared into the darkness from where they’d come, muttering apologies.
Amare watched the two guards disappear before turning back to Janey, his demeanor changing immediately.
“I had a feeling you might come here when you didn’t turn up to dinner.” He extended his arm to her. “Shall we?”
She wasn’t sure what she was accepting when she slipped her hand through his arm. But she was so intensely glad he’d arrived when he had, and she thought she’d have accepted anything he said at that moment.
He withdrew from a pocket a ring of large keys and they walked through the shadowy antechamber, over to the inner door, which he unlocked. Inside, he punched in a sequence of numbers into a security screen and she looked around.
The tall clerestory windows caught the last light in the sky, turning the interior a dusky purple, and making the gold decorations glow dully and the lapis blue gleam. She felt as if she were underwater, as her gaze hungrily took in the mural paintings, the misty form of statues swathed in white duster sheets, and the walls, covered with mosaics which the present light did no justice to.
He thrust the door open, and they stepped into another room. This one was even more bejeweled, but more domestic in scale. “This is the main drawing room.”
“It’s amazing,” she breathed, looking upward at the painted ceiling.
“It was built in the seventeenth century,” said Amare, looking around. “It doesn’t look as if it’s been dusted since then,” he noted wryly. As he pointed out features of the room, she followed him, unable to stop herself from touching the faded velvets and the cool, gold inlay of the table decoration. “It’s the place where the women, the eunuchs, and the children met and spent their days together.”
“Locked in.” She shivered, imagining how it would have been. It would have been her worst nightmare.
“Yes. Locked in and separated. Although I believe locked doors didn’t stop some women from extending their power into the kingdom.”
“Even so. I’m sure they’d have preferred to live their lives outside these walls.”
He shrugged. “No doubt. It probably depended on what the king was like. Whether they were kept safe and treasured and respected, separate from the vagaries of the world outside. Or…”
“Or?”
He grimaced. “Or less treasured, less respected.”
“Less safe.” She shivered again, looking toward the other closed doors beyond which secrets lay. Secrets she was desperate to uncover.
“You’re cold,” he said. “We should return. It’s late.”
“No! I mean, can’t we continue through? Take a quick look?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s too late. There’s no electricity in this part of the palace. We’ll come back tomorrow, when there’s enough light to see properly.” He looked at her, his eyes bright in the phone’s light. “Or, if you’d prefer, I will have the torches and candles lit. From what my grandmother told me, it has quite a magical effect. Quite romantic. Quite…” He leaned towards her. “Seductive.”
Her skin shivered as his breath touched her cheek, sending treacherous, snaking coils of desire shimmering through her. What he didn’t seem to realize was that she didn’t need any of the trappings of seduction to be seduced by him.
His stepped in front of her, lifting her chin until she was forced to meet his gaze.
“Would you like that?”
For one long moment, her body warred with her mind how to answer. In the end, it wasn’t anything he said which tipped the balance. It was something prosaic. A gust of wind through the open door, so long unopened, lifted a piece of silk, sending it sliding to the floor, revealing a naked statue of a woman. She felt as if it was a reflection of herself, taunting her for how easily she could be seduced.
“No.” She held up the flat of her hand to him and shook her head. And continued shaking it as she stumbled toward the open door. “No,” she repeated before stepping outside and gulping in lungfuls of the sweet night air.
Behind her, she heard Amare lock the inner door and return outside, closing the door to the harem with a clunk.
