Page 30 of The Lady and the Desert Scoundrel

Megan stood up and curtsied. “Not at all, my lady.” And walked out of the room.

Lucinda left the house in brisk pace and walked for more than an hour. By dinner time she was a little better.

That night Lucinda had vivid dreams about Tariq, his kisses, his touch. So real that when she opened her eyes, sitting up in the night, she wanted to scream in frustration. Fortunately, Megan slept in the servant’s quarter, or her sleep would be disturbed.

Morning dawned with buckets of rain pouring against the Edwardian windows of her bedroom. Her already coarse mood declined. She’d planned on an early ride and archery today. Instead, she’d have to be confined, having to tackle her restlessness. She decided on a hot bath and, after having dressed her purple tunic, took refuge in the library by the fire.

Shortly before luncheon, a commotion rose in the corridors. The rain had finally stopped and a grey light tinted the library. A second later the door burst open and the world almost crumbled at her very feet.

Tariq halted at the threshold, tall, powerful and energetic. His obsidian hair mussed by the wind, he wore breeches and fine hessians muddy with the wet road. White shirt and cravat, and a riding black coat that made him look even more domineering. His cognac eyes trained on her. English attire fit him so perfectly it screamed an insult to her countrymen.

Lucinda’s heart leaped and pounded as it’d fire from her chest. She blanched and her forces faltered as she struggled not to lose consciousness. Never in her wildest fantasies had she indulged in seeing him again.

And there he stood. Bodily. His presence a gale-blast of emotions, it threatened to crush her sanity.

“What are you doing here?” She whispered so weakly he might have not heard. Her eyes wide, her lips parted and dry. Her book squeezed, as her hands pressed it with all her force against her bosom.

This was the man she loved. The man her body yearned for every single desolate night, since she’d left Tunis. The man her heart had been torn in shreds. The man who wouldn’t leave her thoughts.

“I’m sorry, Lady Lucinda.” Mr Burns intervened. “I tried to tell him it is not receiving hour, but he’d not hear me.

Of course he wouldn’t, she thought with a drop of tenderness for such a familiar trait. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, she wanted to scream in anger for his arrogance. All at the same second. Except these conflicting emotions rendered her motionless.

And she wanted to demand what took him so long!

But she didn’t. She strove for a modicum of articulation and answered her butler. “It’s alright, Mr Burns. You can go now. I’ll call you if there’s need.”

With a doubtful expression, Burns bowed and left, clicking the door shut.

Beautiful. She appeared beautiful in the tunic he’d given her. Tariq looked at her and he had this nearly ineluctable impulse to go and kiss her senseless. The flabbergasted look in her wide pepper-mint eyes stopped him though. He’d spent these last weeks in a ragged desperation to find her. He’d sent Aziz to Syracuse and came to know she’d left on a ship to England. His affairs had kept him in Tunis and it took all his will-power not to forsake everything and rush after her. Only to arrive in London and learn she was not at the Lancefield town house. He did not ring the bell there and ask, naturally. He found out by talking to the servants as Aziz didn’t speak English. And then there was this breakneck ride here, his patience hanging by a thread, his craving for her in overdrive. He’d almost punched the damn butler before he forced his entry in blind search for her. The nervous glance the butler shot at the library’s door gave it away.

“I came for my woman.” He answered her forgotten mindless question. Her reaction to his hoarse voice incurable.

“What?” Unachievable not to be defiant with him. “Are you going to abduct me again?” The desire to run to him and kiss him to the end of the ages almost overpowered her. She lifted her chin in an attempt to hide this emotional cauldron in her, holding her book as a shield.

“If need be!” The velvety tone lower. This time it would be the right woman. It had been the right woman all along, you moron! A nagging voice reprimanded.

He wouldn’t need to, she mused. She’d go willingly. To Hades, if he sailed to it. If he’d touch her as he did. As her body was burning for right now. “

A little more difficult here, I reckon.” She said instead.

“But not impossible.” Never had a woman left him the way she did. And never had he been so lost and furious. And frustrated. To miss a woman this much was unprecedented for him.

She looked at his magnificent cognac eyes, which luminosity intensified by the fire in the fireplace. “We cannot, you know it.” She murmured infirmly as her fingers stabbed the book’s pages, marking it unevenly.

“I don’t care.” His rather aggressive tone brought butterflies to her belly.

“Obviously you don’t. But I do.” She countered in a clearer voice. “A concubine is a comfortable arrangement for you.”

“You’d always have my protection.” He paced nearer her.

A shadow of a smile on her face. “I am protected here.” She paced back. If she gave in to her yearning, it would be the end of her.

“You know what I mean.” He advanced farther. That she wore one of the garments he’d given her proved she had not forgotten him, or their time together.

“I deserve more.” She backed farther.

“What do you want?” He continued approaching, his glare searing every cell in her. “I’ll give you anything.”

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