And the Desert Blooms (14 page)

“It occurred to me. I suppose I was just too scared to risk it.”

“You should have been afraid. I never would have married you.” Her hands clenched at her sides. “You had no right to fool me like that.”

“Perhaps not, but I took that right anyway.” His lips twisted. “I assume you think you’re going to run back to your rock group and file for divorce now?”

“With the speed of light. I’ll be free so fast it will make your head swim.”

“No!” he said with great precision. “There will be no divorce and no running away. You’re not leaving.”

“The devil I’m not. You’ll have to throw me into the dungeon to keep me here.”

“That won’t be necessary. The dungeon is very dirty and uncomfortable, as it hasn’t been used for a century or so. I think house arrest will do as well. I’ll even extend your privileges to the stables as long as you understand that you won’t be permitted to ride.”

She was staring at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh yes, I’m very serious.” His smile was bittersweet. “You told me once I was a good deal like my father. Perhaps you were right. He imprisoned my mother for nine months before his child was born. Believe me, I’ll do the same if I have to.”

“You’re barbaric,” she whispered.

“But then, you’ve always known that.” His lips were a thin line. “You should have expected me to react like this. I’m not letting you leave here. When you calm down we’ll talk.”

“We have talked.”

“You’ve done all the talking. I haven’t even been permitted to defend myself.” He turned away. “When I leave this room I’m giving orders that you’re not to leave the premises. There will be guards posted throughout the house and in the courtyard. Your freedom won’t be circumscribed unless you try to leave the grounds.” He glanced over his shoulder, and for a moment his eyes were bright with pain. “When you’re ready to let me explain, send for me. I’ll try to give you the time you need, but I don’t know if I can.” His voice was suddenly harsh. “I’m hurting too, dammit.”

She watched the door close behind him with stunned disbelief. He meant it. She heard the muffled sound of his voice through the closed door. He must be telephoning his blasted orders for her restriction right now. Within fifteen minutes the entire place would be bristling with guards.

She felt fury surge through her. Well, she wouldn’t be here in fifteen minutes. She’d have to leave the suitcase. She ran to the bureau and grabbed up her passport and wallet and jammed them into the back pockets of her jeans. Then she was out on the balcony, climbing over the balustrade. It was only a six- or seven-foot drop to the courtyard below and, by lowering herself with her hands until she hung full length, she lessened the jump to only a few feet.

Then she was running across the courtyard in the direction of the stables.

TEN

O
EDIPUS WAS ON
the far side of the pasture when she climbed the fence. Trust him to make a difficult situation worse. She had hoped he would be close enough so that she could just jump on him and be out the gate in a matter of seconds. Now she would have to run across the pasture and hope he wouldn’t spook and leave her to chase after him.

She leaped down and streaked across the pasture toward the stallion. “Oedipus,” she called softly. “It’s only me. You don’t want to run away. We’re a team, remember? Why don’t you come over here and we’ll go for a ride?”

He was ignoring her. Maybe that wasn’t all bad. At least he didn’t appear to be skittish today.

“Stay away from him, Pandora.”

Philip! Her pace faltered as she glanced over her shoulder. He was swiftly climbing the fence, his expression as dark as his voice was menacing.

Oh, let Oedipus be good today. There wasn’t time for his usual shenanigans. She was next to him now and with one spring was on his back. He half reared and her knees gripped him firmly. “Not now, boy. Please.”

He wasn’t listening. He went through a series of bucks that would have done justice to a rodeo bronco and finished with a rear that almost toppled them.

“Get off him.” Philip was right in front of them. His blue-green eyes were blazing. “Get off him, dammit.”

“No!” She glared down at him. “I’m leaving here. I’ll send him back when I get someplace where I can find other transportation.”

“In Sedikhan?” He shook his head. “I’ll close the borders, if necessary, to keep you here.”

“Then I’ll ride him over the hills to Said Ababa.” She smiled at him recklessly. “They don’t like either you or Ben Raschid any too well. Perhaps they’ll give me sanctuary.” Oedipus began to rear again, and she had all she could do to stay on his back for the next minute or so. “Now get out of my way.”

“And if you run into those bandits that are holed up in the hills there’s a good chance you’ll be raped or murdered,” he said grimly, starting toward her again.

She felt Oedipus’s muscles tense beneath her, and a sudden fear pierced the haze of fury that enveloped her. “No! Stay back. Oedipus—”

It was too late. Oedipus reared, his front hoofs flying, and Philip was right in front of those hoofs. She heard a low cry that chilled her blood.

“Philip!” She saw the blood on his temple and screamed. “No!” She was off Oedipus in an instant. At least Philip hadn’t fallen to the ground. Perhaps the blow hadn’t been too severe. She was by his side, her eyes enormous with fear as she saw the trickle of blood running down his cheek from the wound in his temple. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right,” he bit out. “I’m mad as hell, frustrated, and I will probably have a colossal headache, thanks to our old friend Oedipus.” He suddenly picked her up and slung her face down over his shoulder. “And you. Now try to refrain from struggling or I’ll tie you up and gag you.”

She felt a brief surge of indignation that was immediately submerged by a relief so intense that it made her go limp. Philip couldn’t be badly hurt if he was able to carry her like this.

“Open that gate, blast it!”

She heard a low exclamation and then she was being carried through the gate and across the stableyard. Her hair had tumbled forward over her eyes so that she had only brief glimpses of the stableboys and trainers as they passed, but she heard the low comments and laughter. Comments that didn’t put her in any better temper.

“You can put me down now. Surrounded by all these chauvinistic idiots, I doubt I’ll be able to escape. This isn’t at all dignified.”

“Since when has dignity ever mattered to you? I’m not letting you go until I have you in a place where you can’t run away from me.” They were abruptly out of the sun. The dirt of the stableyard had been replaced by the wooden planks and sawdust of the stable itself. “Get out of here,” he ordered someone who was beyond her vision. “And stay out. Lock the stable doors behind you and don’t open them until I tell you.”

A pair of scuffed brown boots crossed her line of vision, and then the barn became suddenly dusky as the door was slammed shut.

She heard the bolt being shot as Philip moved down the line of stalls. “Don’t you think you’ve carried this far enough?” she asked. “I’m getting dizzy from being upside down.”

“Well, I’ve certainly carried you far enough.” He knelt in an empty stall and put her down on a bed of fresh hay. “I’m getting a little dizzy myself.”

“Are you?” She sat up, her face concerned. “You’re still bleeding. Why did you have to be so stupid? You knew Oedipus wouldn’t put up with being approached like that.” She scrambled to her knees. “Let me look at it.”

“It was the only way to get you off that contrary devil before he bucked you off.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a white handkerchief, and dabbed carelessly at his cheek and temple. “You obviously weren’t going to display any sense in the matter.”

“Let me do that.” She took the handkerchief and carefully wiped the blood away from the cut. It wasn’t much more than a scratch she noticed with relief. Oedipus must have clipped him with the edge of his hoof. “You didn’t have to try to commit suicide. You could have let me go.”

“Never again,” he said quietly. “Not as long as we both live.”

“Which won’t be very long for you if you continue to do crazy things like that,” she said huskily. She felt as if something inside her was loosening, breaking up like an ice floe in sunlight. She had to blink rapidly to keep back the tears. “You could have had your brains knocked out, dammit.”

“No loss. I don’t seem to have many left since you reappeared in my life.” He closed his eyes, and his voice lowered. “Lord, you scared me. I thought he was going to throw you again.” He was shaking, she realized incredulously. The trembling was barely perceptible, but it was there, nonetheless. He opened his eyes, and they were unutterably weary. “Please, don’t do that to me again. I kept seeing you lying on that path in the hills, crumpled up like a broken doll. It was like repeating a nightmare.”

Please. When had she ever heard Philip plead for anything? She tried desperately to hold on to her anger. “It was your fault. Who ever heard of anybody locking up a wife in this day and age?”

“You wouldn’t stay,” he said simply. “I can’t do without you now.”

“You mean you can’t do without your child,” she said dully.

“I know what I mean. What do I have to do to convince you? Shall I arrange for an abortion?”

“No!” Her eyes widened in shock. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“No. We’d end up hating each other if I did. Besides, that child is probably more alive to me than it is to you. I’ve had more time to think about it. I want that child, Pandora.”

“I know that,” she said shakily.

“I want it,” he said slowly. “But I’ll give it up. If you’ll promise to stay with me for the next year, I’ll relinquish all claim to the baby. Should you choose to leave me after that time, the child goes with you.”

She froze. “You’d do that?”

“If I have to.” A muscle jerked in his cheek. “I’m hoping that at the end of that year I will have been able to convince you to stay with me.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “God, I hope that.”

“Why?” she asked. “It’s not like you. I can’t believe you’d calmly give up your own child.”

His lips twisted in a travesty of a smile. “Not calmly. Rebelliously, agonizingly, perhaps. But never calmly.”

“Why?” she asked again, her voice a mere whisper.

“Because I love you.” His hands came up to clasp her shoulders. “How many times do I have to tell you before you believe me?” There was a touch of desperation in his tone. “Yes, I want the baby. But only because it’s your baby, not because it’s mine. Because I know I’ll love your child almost as much as I love you.”

Hope leaped wildly. She moistened her lips. “I’m afraid to trust you.”

“How long am I going to have to pay for that night? I know I hurt you. I know I can’t turn back the clock. Look, would it help if I told you why I brought Natalie here?”

“I know why you brought her here. You wanted to get rid of me.” Her lips were suddenly trembling. “You wanted to hurt me.”

“Yes, I wanted to hurt you. I reacted like a madman when you told me you were leaving me.” He was silent for a few seconds, gathering himself to go on. “I don’t like being this vulnerable. God, I don’t want to put it into words.”

“Put what into words?”

“It was one of the games she used to play,” he burst out. “Most of the time she wasn’t very subtle in her little cruelties, but she enjoyed that one very much. I was an exceptionally lonely child. She made sure of that. Lonely children are desperate for affection, and it was a weapon she could use. She was always trying to get back at my father through me.”

“Helena Lavade,” Pandora murmured. It was a statement, not a question.

“Who else, but my charming mother? And she could be very charming. She had been trained from childhood to dazzle and please. I was an easy mark for someone with her particular talents. When it amused her she would spend a week or so lavishing all her attention on me. I lapped it up like a starving puppy.”

She couldn’t stand to see the pain and self-disgust in his eyes. “Don’t.” She lifted a finger to his lips. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

He took her hand from his mouth. “And I don’t want to say any more,” he said. “But I will. I owe it to you to bleed a little.” He looked down at her hand and began to play absently with her fingers. “She liked Paris and Vienna and London. They suited her expensive tastes, and it was easier to elude my father in a large city. She always had a lover in tow, and when she decided I was primed for the kill, she would tell me that she was going away with him. She’d smile very sweetly and tell me I mustn’t ever expect her to stay. She told me I was too boring to keep her amused for very long.” His hand closed on hers with convulsive force. “I can remember begging her to stay, but she would only laugh.”

Stay, he had said as he’d held Pandora in his arms last night. Stay forever. Her throat tightened with an aching tenderness.

“I didn’t think that morning you told me you were going to Paris, I just reacted,” he said quietly. “You were leaving me, and I knew I already loved you a thousand times more than that bitch who gave birth to me. You had made me love you, and now you were leaving too.”

“But you knew I loved you.” She was trying to keep her voice from breaking. “I’ve always loved you.”

His gaze lifted from her hand to her eyes. “I didn’t believe it could ever really exist. Not for me. It was safer not to believe than to be hurt again.” He moved his shoulders in a shrug. “Now you’ve heard my little confession,” he said with a touch of self-mockery. “I hope you listened closely, for I never intend to indulge in that maudlin form of self-pity again.”

“You won’t have to,” she said gently. “You didn’t have to confess anything to me.”

“Yes, I did.” There was no bitterness now in the smile he gave her. It contained only tenderness and a little sadness. “You said you didn’t trust me. It’s very difficult to trust without understanding. Ask me. I’m the expert on cynicism.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. “Until now.”

“You mean it?” she asked, her eyes bright with tears. “Oh, please mean it, Philip.”

“I mean it.” The words were as solemn as a vow. “I never meant anything more in my life. Do you remember when we were on the cliff that morning and I told you what miracles could come from such an ordinary source as water?”

“ ‘One pure, crystal drop of water and the desert blooms,’ ” she quoted softly.

“I was like that desert until you came into my life. Barren and eroding into nothingness.” He smiled. “I didn’t even know it. That’s the most dangerous kind of erosion, the kind that can’t be detected until it’s too late. Then you came and bubbled through that desert like a clear, deep stream. You brought me to life again.”

She drew a deep breath, struggling to keep the incredible happiness bursting inside her under control. “I’ve never been compared to an irrigation project before. Trust you to be different.”

His lips moved from her palm to her wrist. “You want something more picturesque?” He met her eyes with a teasing glance. “I’ll be glad to oblige. How about spring? I hate to be cast as the god of the underworld when I’m trying to impress you with my more noble qualities, but you certainly fit the role of Persephone. You bring the spring, Pandora. Every minute of every day you bring the warmth and the sunlight and the blossoming to my winter world.” His voice lowered to a husky whisper. “Please, don’t take away that spring.”

Beautiful. Had any man ever spoken such beautiful words to a woman before? The tears that had been brimming in her eyes could no longer be contained. Two drops ran slowly down her cheeks. “I wish you’d make up your mind. First you’re a desert and then you’re Pluto. A girl could get confused.”

“I’m nothing but a man,” he said gently. “Just a man who wants to share your life. Who wants to be your friend and your lover and the father of your child. Is that clear enough?”

“Oh, Philip.” She flew into his arms, hugging him as tightly as she could. “You know that’s not true. You’re Hannibal and Alexander and a Khadim and . . .” She ran out of words. “Oh, just everything.”

His arms went around her. “Am I?” he asked huskily. “That’s nice to know.” Then, with the half-mocking arrogance that was quintessentially Philip, he added, “I suspected as much, of course, but it’s always good to have one’s qualities appreciated.” His hand was stroking her hair with infinite gentleness. “You’ll stay with me?”

“I’ll stay.” The words were muffled in the front of his shirt. “You’d have to tie me up and ship me out of Sedikhan in a trunk to get rid of me now.”

“I don’t think that’s likely.” His chuckle reverberated against her ear. “I’m already regarded as something of a barbarian in diplomatic circles, but even I draw the line somewhere. Besides, the cramped position might be bad for the baby.”

“The baby.” She pulled back to look up at him, her face lighting up. “I’m going to have a baby. Isn’t that wonderful?”