Lord of the Desert. Diana Palmer

blow all the time, and she’d noticed that none of the cars seemed to have or use air conditioning, because the windows were always open. The sand came into the cabs and, apparently, everywhere else. She took a quick shower, careful not to use more water than she had to. Water in a desert country must be precious.

      Her wardrobe was severely limited by Maggie’s insistence on only one carry-on piece of luggage. She put on a pair of white slacks with a patterned white-and-purple silk blouse and sandals and grimaced at the white Mexican peasant crinkle-cloth dress hanging in the bathroom, which was all she had to wear to dinner. Perhaps she could wear her hair long and put on her single strand of cultured pearls and their matching earrings and pass. She felt uncomfortable at the idea of disgracing Philippe, who would probably turn up in a dinner jacket and be embarrassed by her.

      She went down to the buffet luncheon with apprehension, which was lessened when she saw other tourists in bathing suits filling up china plates. The waiter grinned and her and she grinned back. She realized that many of their visitors would be similarly limited in wardrobe and she stopped worrying.

      She had prosciutto and melon with tiny pastries of stuffed pigeon and wondered what people back in Jacobsville would think of the entrée. She sipped water “with gas” as the waiter called sparkling water and felt like a Sybarite on holiday. The sun was warm, the grounds exquisitely beautiful and full of blooming roses and other flowers. The sounds of carefree bathers fell softly on her ears as she curled up drowsily by herself in one of two canopied swings behind the row of padded chaise lounges. Before she knew it, she was asleep.

      She was dreaming. She was being rocked in a boat while the breeze stirred a loose strand of hair at her throat. Her cheek was resting on a soft pillow that seemed to beat rhythmically. She sighed and stretched, and the pillow made an odd sound.

      She opened her eyes and looked up into a scarred dark face with black eyes that held an odd expression. Her cheek was against his shoulder, and she was cradled across his long legs in the swing. For long seconds, they simply stared at each other in the fading sunlight.

      “How fortunate that you went to sleep out of the sun’s reach,” he said in a voice that was more heavily accented than she’d heard it before. “Sunburn can be lethal in this climate.”

      “Lunch was delicious and I got drowsy,” she said in a hushed tone.

      One of his hands was at her throat. He moved it in a faint caress, looking down at her soft mouth for an instant before he lifted his gaze beyond her to the sea. “I sleep very little,” he said quietly. “Mine brings nightmares.”

      “About what?” she asked, intrigued by the familiarity of being held close to him when she should be nervous and wary. He was a stranger. He should have been a stranger…

      He spread her fingers against the silky fabric of his jacket and smoothed over her short nails. “War,” he said quietly. “Death. The screams of the innocent in the darkness of terror.”

      She stared up at him uncomprehendingly, with wide, curious eyes. “Aren’t you from France?” she asked hesitantly.

      His black eyes slid down to search hers. “No.”

      “Then, where…?”

      The hand at her throat moved, so that his thumb pressed the words back against her lips. “It is too soon, Gretchen,” he said gently. “Much too soon for truth. Let us live in a world of utter fantasy for a few days and let tomorrow wait for answers.”

      She smiled hesitantly. “What sort of fantasy do you have in mind?”

      He traced her mouth tenderly. “A very innocent sort,” he said with an oddly harsh laugh. “The only sort I am capable of.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      “I know. Perhaps it is as well that you don’t.” He smiled down at her, cradled in his arms like a kitten. She smelled of orchids. He traced her cheek with its faint flush and her straight nose, and then her thin eyebrows as if he were sketching her. “How old are you?”

      “Twenty-three,” she said honestly.

      His forefinger eased between her parted lips, sensuously tracing the upper lip and then the lower one, enjoying her reactions. Her breath was jerky against his skin. Her eyes were dilating. He felt her body stir involuntarily and cursed himself and his fate.

      “What are you like in passion?” he asked roughly. “Are you submissive, or do you like to bite and claw…?”

      Her scarlet blush interrupted him. He scowled down at her horrified expression just before she struggled away from him and moved a foot away on the swing, trying to catch her breath.

      “I don’t know…what sort of women you’re used to,” she choked, avoiding his intent scrutiny, “but I don’t do that kind of thing!”

      His arm was across the back of the swing. His narrow black eyes watched her, intrigued. “What sort of thing?”

      “Sleep around,” she said flatly and glared at him. “Least of all with a man I’ve only just met. So if that’s why you’ve been so nice to me, well, you’d better find a more modern woman. If I ever go to bed with a man, it’ll be my husband and nobody else. Period.”

      The harshness went out of him at once. He looked at her with curiosity and, then, with utter delight. He smiled and then he laughed.

      “Go ahead,” she invited warily. “Call me a prude. Say I’m living in the last century. I don’t care. I’ve heard it all before.”

      “The small, still voice of reason in a mad world,” he said under his breath. “I knew that you were unique among your countrywomen,” he added huskily.

      “I’m a throwback to Victorian times,” she agreed.

      He took her hand in his and held it gently. “I don’t want a sexual interlude with you, Gretchen,” he said quietly.

      She hesitated. “You don’t?”

      He looked at her small hand and hated himself for the curse that denied him a man’s expectations. He smoothed his fingers over hers while he considered his options. He could send her home at once. It would be the best thing for her. But she opened his heart. She made him want to live. She made him laugh and smile and look at the world as a place of fascination and delight. He hadn’t felt that way for a long time. For two years, in fact. He hadn’t ever expected to feel that way again. And if it was like this, so quickly, how would it be as time passed and they got to know each other?

      His features twisted. Yes, how would it be when she knew his horrible secret, when the truth came out. Would she look at him with pity, or with contempt and disgust? Could he bear to see that, in her soft green eyes?

      He looked at her with torment in his face.

      “Oh, don’t look like that,” she said with concern. “Whatever’s wrong, it will all come right one day. Really it will. You have to look for miracles or they don’t happen, Philippe.”

      “How do you know that something is wrong?” he asked at once.

      She frowned. “I don’t know. But something is.”

      His breath caught in his throat. His fingers tightened on hers. He looked into her eyes and knew at that moment that he wasn’t going to be able to let her go.

      Chapter Four

      “It isn’t something I’ve said, is it?” Gretchen asked, breaking into his thoughts. “I know that I’m very opinionated. I didn’t mean to be rude…”

      He brought her fingers to his lips and then released them. “It isn’t anything you’ve said. In fact, I quite admire your attitude,” he added with a smile. “Muslim women value their virtue. But it is a rather unusual trait in this day and age.”

      “That’s what everyone says, all right,” she agreed whimsically. She averted her eyes. “My parents were