African Enchantment (9 page)

They cantered through groves of acacias and not until the wide river was obscured by verdant wilderness did Harriet realise they were alone. The Arabs who usually accompanied him had all remained behind. She wondered if he had known they would do so before they set off, and if so, what his purpose was in riding alone with her. Certainly it was not for companionship, for he rode a little way ahead, his lean muscled body remote and unapproachable.

She dismissed the absent Arabs from her mind and concentrated instead on her mount. The ponies she had ridden in Cheltenham had not been preparation for an Arabian mare. Yellow hot rocks interspersed the shrubs and trees and through the hanging foliage Harriet could see the barren wastes that lay beyond the greenness of the Nile's banks. Her horse was growing increasingly restless and Raoul turned, his brows meeting in a deep frown. After another few yards he reined in, his body taut with tension. With difficulty Harriet reined her horse alongside him.

‘What is it? What's the matter?'

He silenced her with a swiftly raised hand, listening intently. Harriet could hear nothing, yet not only her horse but also Raoul's was champing at the bit, ears pricked with fear. She saw Raoul's hand reach down for his pistol and felt a trickle of cold sweat in the nape of her neck. The silence was eerie. The birds that had been darting overhead had scattered with loud cries of alarm. Only the vibrating leaves testified to their recent presence.

‘I think …' Raoul began in a low voice, and then Harriet shrieked as her mare reared, hooves flailing.

She saw Raoul's hand shoot out for the reins and miss by inches as the terrified mare broke into a headlong gallop. Her feet slipped from the stirrups; she was slithering helplessly in the saddle, sand and stones, shrubs and creepers a whirling blur as she struggled to stay mounted. The reins, hung loose and her arms circled the mare's sweating neck, her face pressed close into the mane as it raced heedlessly towards the desert. Through her terror she was dimly aware of Raoul's shout and the thunder of following hooves and then the mare leapt over an obstacle and her hand clasp broke. There was a split-second kaleidoscope of sun and sky and then she hit the ground and lay lifeless.

She tried to breathe and could not. Her chest felt as if it were in a vice. Through a blood-red mist she heard Raoul calling her name and then there was daylight again and she was saying stupidly,

‘I fell.'

He was holding her tightly, burying his head in her hair. She could feel him shaking as he held her close against him, and dazedly wondered what he was doing kneeling in the sand, his composure gone, his eyes black pits in an ashen face. Tentatively she raised her hand and touched his cheek.

‘Are you all right?' she asked, her breath coming easier, the pain in her back and chest receding.

‘Yes.' He looked down at her, his voice thickening. At what she saw in his eyes desire surged through her like a flame.

‘No …' she protested weakly, and then closed her eyes in surrender as he kissed her long and deeply. She could no more help responding to him than she could help breathing. Her arms slid up and around him, her kisses as burning, as passionate, as his own. When at last he raised his head from hers there was incredulity on his face.

‘
Mon Dieu
,' he said softly, gazing down at the heart-shaped face, the gentle, sweet, sensuous lips, the green-gold eyes that tormented him waking and sleeping.

‘I … it was an accident … the fall,' she began, colour flooding her cheeks.

The incredulity had vanished to be replaced by a strange gleam in eyes she saw were as black in sunlight as they were in shadow. So this was how his days of bachelorhood were to end. Tumbling in the sand with a Miss scarce out of the schoolroom.

‘The accident be damned,' he said huskily, kissing her again with increasing passion.

Wild joy surged through her. They were once again as they had been before Berber. She loved him with all her heart and her kisses left him in no doubt of it.

When at last he raised his head from hers he gazed down at her wonderingly. ‘You did not even have your hair unpinned,
chérie
,' he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

‘I will wear it unpinned all day long if it pleases you,' she said shyly.

He tightened his hold of her. ‘That pleasure is for my eyes alone. Not for Hashim and a dozen Arabs.'

She flushed. ‘ Do you care for me so much?'

His white teeth flashed in a sudden smile. He was damned if he was going to propose marriage in the middle of the desert. ‘Very much,' he said and lifted her gently to her feet. Her face was radiant as he caught hold of the reins of the horse.

He loved her as much as she loved him. She could tell by the expression in his eyes, the tone of his voice.

He helped her into the saddle and said thickly, ‘I thought you were dead,
ma petite.
' Her eyes sparkled as his arms circled her waist. ‘I thought I was dead, too.'

‘You are very much alive,
chérie
,' he said, prodding the horse to a canter. ‘More alive than anyone else I've ever met.'

She nestled close against his chest as the acacias thinned and the sails of the dhow shone brightly in the sun. ‘Why did my horse bolt?' He hesitated fractionally and then said, ‘It was fear. Probably of the animal I heard and did not see.'

‘And what will happen to her? Will you be able to find her?'

‘There is no need.' He pointed towards the dhow. ‘She has already returned home.'

‘Oh!' Harriet stared to where Hashim was busily rubbing the steaming mare with cloth. ‘Isn't she clever?'

‘More than you know,' he said cryptically, swinging her to the ground.

Hashim looked from Harriet's glowing face to his master's and then back again. So … Narinda would have cause for jealousy after all.

‘Are we ready to sail now, Effendi?' he asked, continuing with his task.

Raoul handed his horse to one of the Arabs and stared thoughtfully at the bank. ‘Yes, Hashim. The sooner the better.'

Harriet moved into the prow as the Arab sailors began to guide the dhow once more into mid-stream.

‘What happened, Effendi? Why did Miss Harriet Latimer, English lady's mare bolt?' Hashim asked in a low voice.

‘A lion,' Raoul said so that no one but Hashim could hear. ‘I'm almost certain it was a lion.'

‘So far north?' Hashim asked incredulously.

Raoul nodded. ‘ I didn't see him, but I could almost smell him.'

‘Then Miss Harriet Latimer, English lady, is fortunate at having such a hunter with her to protect her.'

A slight smile curved Raoul's lips.
Mon Dieu
, but they had nearly both died. The sight of Harriet's seemingly lifeless body had driven all thoughts of the lurking lion from his consciousness. He had been possessed of a far more terrifying fear. His pulse beat quickened as he remembered her response to his kisses. If his instinct had been right, and there had been a lion in the vicinity, then they had been fortunate that it had not been a hungry one. He shook his head in disbelief. What sort of passion drove the thought of such a predator from a man's mind? He looked across to where Harriet was sketching demurely, her wide-brimmed hat shading her eyes, her lips pursed in concentration.

‘
Mon Dieu
,' he said again to himself. ‘After all these years! To be ensnared by a missionary's daughter!'

He began to laugh and Hashim regarded him curiously. Lions were no laughing matter. What, then, was?

‘I have a confession to make to you,' Harriet said as the blood-red sun sank behind the skyline and the dhow continued gently upstream. They had just finished their evening meal, a stew of pigeon and quail that had been pleasingly appetising.

‘Tell me,' Raoul said as she leaned against him and his fingers touched the softness of her hair. ‘Confession is good for the soul.'

‘You are teasing me again.'

‘I am not.' His deep, dark eyes held concealed laughter. ‘ I just cannot imagine what wicked sin you could possibly have to confess.'

‘It isn't a sin … At least, I don't think so.'

Her skin gleamed palely in the moonlight, her face troubled. His laughter faded.

‘Tell me,
chérie.
What is it that troubles you so?'

‘I am afraid it may have been my fault that my mare bolted, and not that of a nearby animal. You see …' Her fingers twisted in her lap. ‘… I am not a horsewoman and I should have told you so.'

He rocked her gently in his arms, the most curious tenderness sweeping through him.

‘It was not your fault,
ma chérie.
Do not worry about not being a good horsewoman. I will teach you. We will ride together every morning and evening.'

His eyes met hers and travelled to her lips. Harriet felt her nerves begin to throb. Vainly she thought of her aunts and of how horrified they would be if they knew of her behaviour. Vainly she thought of her father: tried to summon the willpower to turn her head away, to reprove him for his conduct. Instead, she heard herself give a cry of breathless joy as his head moved down, kissing the hollow of her throat. His touch seared her. It was as though he had a right to her body, as though the intimacy of their embrace was pre-ordained. His hands caressed her breasts and she moaned softly, the fever possessing her rising higher and hotter.

He tensed, steeling himself until he was rigid. She was eighteen; a wide-eyed innocent pagan. He was thirty-two, worldly and, according to the opinion of some, dissolute. His desires could be indulged no further without matrimony. He said, with a crooked smile,

‘You need a chaperon, Miss Latimer.'

She leaned against him, extremely happy, extremely confident.

‘I shall have one in Khartoum, Mr Beauvais,' and did not see the sudden darkening in his eyes at her words.

Khartoum. She still had no idea of what she would find there. It was his duty to warn her. He said awkwardly,

‘Harriet …' and got no further.

Hashim approached, a lantern held high in his hand.

‘I can hear cataracts, Effendi.'

Raoul frowned and removed his arm from Harriet's slender shoulders. ‘At this time of the year it should be no problem. We should be able to sail them.'

‘The Arabs do not think so, Effendi.'

Raoul rose to his feet. ‘Then I had better speak to them.'

From then until they reached Khartoum Raoul supervised the sailing of the dhow himself. Harriet, aware that she could best help him by keeping out of the way, spent her days curled up in the prow, sketching furiously.

The scenery that had been so bleak on leaving Berber had changed considerably. Now the river was dotted with a whole succession of islands, so many that the Arabs declared there were ninety-nine of them and Harriet spent her time counting to see if it was true. Groves of holy thorn overhung with flowering creepers crowded the shoreline so that it resembled a luxurious green wilderness.

The Nile altered character, plunging through narrow straits that reduced it to a deep mountain stream and then spreading broadly again as it approached its junction with its main tributary, the Blue Nile, that flowed from the Abyssinian mountains, and the home of the Leopard King.

Would he return to those distant highlands? Would she accompany him as his wife? She hugged her sketch pad to her breast, feeling a warm glow suffuse her. As his wife she would accompany him wherever he chose, whether it be to the lands of the Leopard King or deeper into unexplored Africa; a return to Cairo or Alexandria; or a return to his home in France. Wherever he went, his destination would be hers also.

‘Khartoum,' he said, striding towards her, his lean, muscled body damp with sweat beneath his linen shirt. ‘You are as far south now as any European woman has ventured.'

‘It looks very agreeable.'

‘Distance lends enchantment. It's a cesspool of vice and corruption.'

Her smile was impish. ‘Then as a missionary's daughter, I shall have to reform it.'

‘You will remain untouched by it,' he said, and she was startled by the depth of feeling in his voice. ‘ The degradation of Khartoum is beyond your comprehension.'

‘Yet Hashim says you have a permanent residence in the city.'

‘I have.' His voice was strangely curt. ‘However, it is not a residence suitable for yourself. You will stay with Lady Crale as your father wished.'

Her heart began to beat irregularly and she was filled with sudden apprehension. ‘And you will visit me there?'

His quick smile reassured her.

‘I will see you there,' he said and swung on his heel, calling out instructions in Arabic as the dhow threatened to become entangled in a flotilla of smaller boats, all converging on the white-walled city. Harriet regarded it with interest. It looked far more pleasant than Berber. Palms and tropical fruit trees sprung up between the closely-packed houses. The riverside was lush and verdant, domes and minarets dotted the skyline, their cupolas gleaming dull gold in the sun. Altogether, it looked most pleasing.

The Arab sailors swarmed over the side as the boat moored, whooping with glee, scampering into the crowds that thronged the streets.

‘Worthless dogs,' Hashim said, shaking his fist after them.

Raoul grinned. ‘They'll be back. They have yet to be paid.'

He was looking down at her, and a little pulse began to beat wildly in her throat as he took her hand.

‘Hashim will accompany you to Lady Crale.'

‘But I thought you would be accompanying me …'

‘I have business to attend to. I will call you tomorrow.'

‘But …'

He swung her up in his arms and carried her ashore, setting her down amidst noisy, shouting traders.

‘Tomorrow,' he said, and his voice brooked no contradiction.

Fighting her disappointment, she watched as he summoned a dust-covered and battered carriage. ‘Hashim will take care of you.' He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. ‘
Au revoir
, my love.'