African Enchantment (2 page)

As they leaned back on their heels Raoul said tersely, ‘I do not know the order of service for the burial. Will the 23rd Psalm be adequate?'

Harriet brushed the sand from her skirt and rose to her feet, swaying with weariness. ‘I do not think that will be suitable,' she said stiffly.

Black brows flew upwards. ‘ The Lord's Prayer, then?'

She shook her head. ‘I do not think it would be proper. You are an Arab and a Muslim …'

‘I am a Frenchman and a Christian,' he snapped, a dangerous edge to his voice as he opened her father's well-worn Bible.

Half insensible from hunger and exhaustion, Harriet stared at him in disbelief, but did not protest. The well-known words filled the air and then there was no more reason for delay. He strode swiftly towards his horse and she attempted to follow, no longer able to see clearly for the lights that danced before her eyes.

Raoul's face was set in grim, uncompromising lines. In the morning light he had seen that the tilted eyes were golden-green and thickly lashed, the mouth gentle and soft – unknowingly sensual. Staring at her across her father's grave he had wondered what it would be like to kiss and despised himself for his carnality. She was bereaved and alone, helpless in a wilderness barely charted. She needed comfort and he was not accustomed to giving it. She needed escorting and so would delay his own progress. In short, she was a nuisance he could have well done without.

‘Please hurry,' he said curtly. ‘We have wasted enough time already. If a man wishes to live he does not tarry in the desert.'

She tried to do as he bid, but the palms and the sand, the sky and his fluttering robes, merged into one. With a small cry the darkness closed in on her and she collapsed insensible in the sand.

‘What the …' He spun round and then broke into a run. Her skin was so pale it was translucent. With dreadful clarity he saw the empty camel bags and realised that she was starving. Cursing himself for a fool he lifted her in his arms and carried her out of the morning sun and into the shade of the palms. She had told him their provisions had been stolen but the significance of her remark had not sunk in. He had assumed that there had been enough to sustain them. Certainly her father had died of heat exhaustion and not lack of food. It was now obvious that his daughter had given him all her rations.

Swiftly he removed a silver flask of brandy from his own pack and biscuits and dates.

As the blood-red mist cleared from her eyes and she regained consciousness, Harriet was aware of strong arms around her and a feeling of safety and refuge. His sun-bronzed face was no longer hard and forbidding. From beneath black brows equally black eyes surveyed her with an expression that was almost considerate.

‘When did you last eat?'

She was held close against the warmth of his chest and for some curious reason had no desire to free herself.

‘I cannot remember,' she said truthfully.

‘Have a mouthful of this. It will revive you.' His arm was around her shoulders, steadying her as she drank from the flask and then choked. A faint smile curved his mouth. ‘Hard liquor does not agree with you.'

She tried to regain her composure. ‘ I am not familiar with it.' She paused, confused as to how to address him.

Raoul screwed the top back on to his flask and handed her biscuits and dates. ‘Raoul Beauvais,' he said in reply to her unspoken question. ‘I am a naturalist and a geographer.'

She ate the biscuits and dates greedily and saw no reason to remove his arm while she did so. Only when she had eaten the last biscuit did she become aware of the impropriety of their closeness. She tried to pull away but he held her easily.

‘You are still too weak to walk,' he said, and ignoring her protest swept her up into his arms and strode with her to where his Arabian stallion waited impatiently.

‘Before we travel you need to drink,' he said, setting her once more on her feet as they reached the stallion's side.

She gazed at the hip flask in horror.

‘Water,' he said, amusement tinging the hard contours of his mouth as he handed her a leather water bottle. She took it gratefully, the water splashing down and trickling on to her bodice as she drank. The soft swell of her breasts was clearly defined beneath their thin covering, and desire surged through him. He cursed inwardly. After six months of celibacy whilst charting the mountains and rivers of Abyssinia he could have well done without such a companion. It would have been better if she had been an elderly spinster; then the inconvenience of escorting her to safety would not have been compounded by other, baser emotions.

Harriet handed back the water flask, overcome with sudden shyness. He looked more like an Arab prince than a European. His hair was thick and black, glossy as a raven's wing. His skin was olive-toned, his eyes dark and unfathomable. The strong, hawk-like face both attracted and disturbed her. He was like no man she had ever met before. He offered her no word of comfort, barely any kindness, yet there was something sensitive as well as sensual in the lines of his well-shaped mouth. His masculinity overpowered her. He moved swiftly and purposefully and with utter self-assurance. A little pulse began to beat wildly in her throat as he swung agilely into his saddle and then lifted her bodily in front of him.

As his hands circled her waist something hot flickered at the back of his eyes to be immediately suppressed. ‘ We have a long journey ahead of us – and an uncomfortable one. I trust you are not a complaining female.'

‘I have never been accused of it!' Harriet said, stung to anger.

His eyes gleamed in the darkness. ‘You still have not told me your name.'

‘Miss Latimer,' Harriet said tightly, aware that she was being held in an improperly close embrace. ‘Harriet Latimer.'

‘And what, Miss Latimer, were you and your father doing trying to cross the Nubian Desert without porters or provisions?'

‘Our porters fled and our provisions were stolen,' Harriet said simply.

He frowned. ‘ But you have not told me why you were journeying southwards into an uncharted wilderness.'

Harriet's chin tilted defiantly upward. ‘It was our intention to discover the source of the Nile.'

He laughed mirthlessly. ‘If explorers like Richard Burton and John Speke failed to find the Nile's source, an elderly man and a mere girl could not possibly do so. Your expedition was one conceived by a fool.'

Harriet swung to face him and raised her hand to deliver a stinging blow to his cheek. ‘How dare you speak of my father so!'

He seized her wrist in a steel-like grip. ‘Because it's true,' he said, eyes flashing. ‘No one but a fool would set out for Khartoum with such a small party. As for travelling further into regions still unmapped … Only a madman would consider it.'

‘My father was neither mad nor a fool.' Her voice shook with fury. ‘He was a missionary who was fully aware of the dangers he faced.'

Raoul's face was grim. ‘He was a fool,' he reiterated. ‘A man who knew of the dangers would never have brought his child with him.'

‘I am not a child!' Angry colour flooded her cheeks. ‘I am eighteen and as able to face danger as any man!'

‘I can hardly imagine having to carry a man in my arms,' Raoul said drily.

Harriet choked with impotent rage and did not deign to reply to him. She had been saved but the cost was great; enforced company with a man who did not even have the semblance of good manners. A man insolent, insulting and devastatingly handsome.

The last thought had come unbidden. She dug her nails deep into her palms, acutely conscious that the cantering of the horse obliged her to be in almost constant bodily contact with him.

‘Who do you know in Khartoum who will be able to escort you the fifteen-hundred miles back to Cairo?' he asked, breaking the hostile silence that had fallen between them.

‘No one.'

His frown deepened. ‘ It will take months for word of your plight to reach England and your mother.'

She kept her back firmly turned against him, surveying the dunes with bleak eyes. ‘ I have no mother. She died when I was three.'

‘But you have family?' A note of alarm had crept into his voice.

‘I have two maiden aunts. Both of them are over eighty. I have no intention of returning to them.'

‘You have no option.'

She swung round again and met his eyes defiantly. ‘I lived with them in Cheltenham after my mother's death until the beginning of this year. I shall not live with them again. My parents were missionaries in Cairo. I was born in Africa. I shall remain in Africa.'

Tiny green sparks flashed in her eyes. Raoul clenched his jaw. Miss Harriet Latimer was going to be even more trouble than he had originally envisaged.

‘You can stay in Cairo and rot in Cairo for all I care,' he said cruelly. ‘But Cairo is not Khartoum.'

‘In what way does it differ, Mr Beauvais?' Harriet asked tartly.

Raoul thought of the slave traders and had an overpowering urge to shake her by the shoulders. ‘ Khartoum is the last refuge of the scum of Europe,' he said brusquely. ‘It is a city outside the law, a city inhabited by murderers and worse.'

‘And is it a city that is your own destination?' Harriet asked silkily.

Raoul fought down his rising anger. She was goading him on purpose and he would not give her the satisfaction of allowing her to see that the barb had struck home.

‘Yes,' he replied shortly and dug his heels into the stallion's side, urging it to a gallop.

Harriet gasped and fell back with her full weight against him as they streaked over the dunes. Dignity was impossible. She wound her fingers into the stallion's mane and struggled to stay upright.

‘It would be easier if you rested your weight against my chest.'

‘Never!'

He shrugged indifferently. ‘If you fall you have no one to blame but yourself.'

‘I shall not fall, Mr Beauvais,' she hissed, her body aching with the effort to remain upright.

‘I trust you are not going to be so maidenly when it comes to sharing the same tent, Miss Latimer.'

Harriet choked. ‘I may be forced to travel in this undignified manner with you, Mr Beauvais, but nothing on God's earth would persuade me to share a tent with you!'

‘That is a relief, Miss Latimer. The tent is small and I would have been greatly inconvenienced.'

‘Then rest easy,' she spat through clenched teeth. ‘I shall not be inconveniencing you. Now or ever!'

The morning sun was rising high in the sky. The heat was stunning. Sand stretched undulatingly as far as the eye could see. Sand and a searing blue sky and occasionally a cluster of sun-bleached rocks.

Against her will her eyes began to close and there was a suspicion of a smile on Raoul's hard mouth as she gradually leant with increasing ease and unconsciousness against his chest.

When she awoke it was midday and the light was blinding. She blinked, momentarily disorientated, expecting to see the familiarity of a little rosewood dressing table and the water colours that hung on her bedroom wall. Instead there was a handful of palms and endless sand and she was leaning with undue familiarity against a Frenchman in flowing Arab robes. She removed herself from the comfort of the crook of his arm and said,

‘I had fallen asleep. It will not happen again.'

He slipped from the saddle and said with lazy insolence, ‘It is of no moment. I have carried sick natives thus on far longer journeys.'

She glared at him venomously but he seemed totally unconcerned at her fury and even had the temerity to circle her waist with his hands and lift her to the ground. She pushed away from him, her skirts swishing. Raoul slid his saddlebags over his shoulder and strode to the nearest palm, sitting in its shade. White rocks and scrub surrounded the meagre oasis and Harriet sat on a scorching boulder and fumed. One day's travel had brought them to another oasis. It would have done so if she and her father had been able to continue. By now, if her father had been stronger, they would have been safely on their way to Khartoum. Instead she was forced to endure the company of a man who made free with her with presumptuous carelessness. The water bottle was at his side and he was eating a leisurely breakfast of biscuits and dates. The rock she was sitting on was unbearably hot. She was thirsty and tired and her limbs ached from the ceaseless movement of the horse.

Raoul sighed. She was stubborn enough to remain in the heat of the sun all day unless he coaxed her into a better temper. His fingertips had met as they circled her waist. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed such a pleasant experience. He said, with unaccustomed patience, ‘You will need to drink and eat. Otherwise you will have no strength to continue the journey.'

Harriet fought an inward battle. She wanted nothing to do with Mr Beauvais. Yet common sense told her she could not remain in the glare of the sun, sulking, without food and water for ever.

Reluctantly she moved forward, sitting a suitable distance away from him, accepting the biscuits and dates and the water bottle with chilling politeness. As she ate he erected the tent in what shade he could find. A Persian carpet was unrolled and laid inside. Harriet's tired limbs ached for the comfort of lying on it. She watched him covertly as he tended to his horse. There was an unleashed power about his movements that reminded her of the grace and deadliness of a powerful animal. In the morning light his black hair had taken on a blue sheen and his lean face, with its firm jaw and finely chiselled mouth, looked more foreign than ever. She averted her head quickly as he turned towards her, saying, ‘Have you reconsidered your decision to rest in the open?'

‘There is as much shade here as I have enjoyed these last few weeks.'

Though she could not see it, there was grudging admiration in his eyes. ‘Maybe, but you had reservoirs of strength to draw on then. Now you have none. I suggest that you rest as comfortably as possible.'