The Governess and the Sheikh (4 page)

Jamil waited until his new ally was beyond the torch-lit path, and turned to Halim. ‘That went well, I think.'

‘Indeed, Highness. Extremely well.'

‘I'll see the Lady Cassandra now.'

‘But, Highness, it's very late.'

‘Nonsense. She'll be expecting me to welcome her formally into my household, as is the custom. You know that until I do, she will not be considered under my protection. I hope you told her, as I instructed you, that I would call on her when my business with Prince Ramiz was concluded?'

Halim swallowed. ‘Not in so many words, Highness. My English is not the best, perhaps something was lost in translation.'

‘That is news to me. You speak, to my knowledge, seven languages fluently.' Jamil looked sharply at his aide. ‘I hope, Halim, I can be assured that your enthusiasm for this endeavour matches my own? I would not like to contemplate the consequences, were it otherwise.'

‘Highness! I promise you that—'

‘I do not want promises, Halim, I want your unequivocal support. And now, whether she is expecting me or
not, I intend to see Lady Cassandra. We start for home at first light. Make sure all is ready.'

Jamil nodded his dismissal and turned towards Lady Cassandra's tent. Over the last few days, he had constructed his own mental image of his daughter's new governess. His fleeting glimpse of her had done little to confirm or deny the figure that existed in his mind's eye, that of a rather frumpy, slightly forbidding bluestocking, austere and businesslike. He hoped he would not be disappointed.

He pulled back the door curtain of the tent and stepped through into the main room. The vision that greeted him was so far from the one he had imagined that Jamil stopped in his tracks. Was the sleeping beauty who lay before him some sort of offering or gift that Lady Cassandra had brought with her? It was a ridiculous notion, he realised almost immediately, but how else to explain the presence of this alluring female?

Her long hair, a dark golden colour with fiery tints, rippled over the cushions. Her face had all the classical proportions of beauty, but it was not that which made her beautiful. It was the way her mouth curved naturally upwards. It was the colour of her lips, like Red Sea coral. It was the hint of upturn on her nose, which made it not quite perfect. And it was her curves. There was something so pleasing, so tactile about a curve, which was why it was such a prominent feature of the Eastern architecture. Curves were sensual, and this female had them in plentiful supply, from the roundness of her full breasts, to the dip and swell from her waist to her hips.

She was wearing some sort of loose gown with long
sleeves trimmed with lace, an absurdly feminine piece of clothing, obviously designed for the boudoir. The sash had come undone to reveal a thin garment that left little to the imagination. He could see the rise and fall of her breasts at the neckline. He could see the dark aureole of her nipples through the gauzy material. He could see all too clearly that underneath it she was completely naked. She gave off an aura of extreme femininity, the type of yielding softness that begged for a corresponding male hardness. A sharp pang of desire jagged through him. This woman had the type of beauty that turned heads. The type of beauty that inevitably spelled trouble.

‘Lady Cassandra?'

The temptress opened her eyes. They were the blue of a turquoise gemstone, under heavy lids that gave her a slumberous appearance. A woman waiting to be woken, stirred into life.

‘Yes?' Cassie gazed sleepily up at the man standing over her and rubbed her eyelids. Her surroundings came into focus. And then so did the man. The first thing she noticed was his eyes, which were the strangest colour she had ever seen, burnished like an English autumn, though his gaze was wintery. His mouth was set in a straight line, his brows in a frown. His skin, framed by the traditional white silk head dress, was the colour of honey.

A man of loneliness and mystery, scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh.
Lord Byron's words popped into her head, as if they had been waiting for just this opportunity to be heard, so pertinent were they. Like the Corsair, this man was both intriguing and
inscrutable. He had an imperious air about him, as if he surveyed the world from some higher, more exclusive plane. Intimidating, was the word which sprang to mind.
Who was he? And what was he doing in her tent in the middle of the night?

Clutching at the neck of her nightgown, the sash of her robe, her unbound hair, Cassie tried to get up off the cluster of cushions upon which she had been lying and succeeded only in catching her bare foot on a particularly slippery satin one, which pitched her forwards. ‘Oh!'

His reactions were lightning quick. Instead of falling on to the carpet, Cassie found herself held in a hard embrace. She had never, even dancing a waltz, been held this close to a man—not even by Augustus, that soul of propriety. She hadn't realised how very different was the male body. A sinewy arm, lightly tanned under the loose sleeve of his tunic, held her against his unyielding chest. Were all men this solid? She hadn't really realised either, until now, that she was so very pliant. Her waist seemed designed for his embrace. She felt helpless. The feeling was strange, because it should have made her feel scared, but she wasn't. Not completely.

‘Unhand me at once, you fiend!'

The fiend, who was actually remarkably un-fiend-like, retained his vice-like hold. ‘You are Lady Cassandra?' he said, gazing at her in something akin to dismay. ‘Sister to Lady Celia, daughter of Lord Henry Armstrong?'

‘Of course I am.' Cassie clutched her robe more firmly together. ‘More to the point, who are you, and
what, pray, are you doing in my tent in the middle of the night? I must warn you,' she declared dramatically, throwing herself with gusto into the role of innocent maiden, safe now in the knowledge that the stranger meant her no harm, ‘I will fight to the death to protect my honour.'

To her intense irritation the man smiled, or made as if to smile, a slight curl of the mouth that she'd seen somewhere before. ‘That will not be necessary, I assure you,' he said. He had a voice like treacle, rich and mellow, his English softly accented.

‘I am here as Prince Jamil's guest, you know,' Cassie said warily. ‘If any harm were to come to me and he were to hear of it, he would—he would…'

‘What would he do, this Prince Jamil, who you seem to know so well?'

‘He would have you beheaded and dragged through the desert by a team of wild horses,' Cassie said defiantly. She was sure she had read about that somewhere.

‘Before or after the beheading?'

Cassie narrowed her eyes and set her jaw determinedly. ‘You are clearly not taking me seriously. Perhaps I should scream.'

‘I would prefer it if you did not. My apologies, Lady Cassandra, allow me to introduce myself. I am Sheikh Jamil al-Nazarri, Prince of Daar-el-Abbah. I did not intend to alarm you, I merely wished to formally welcome you into my protection. Protection,' he added sardonically, ‘that you obviously feel in urgent need of.'

Prince Jamil! Dear heavens, this was Prince Jamil!
Cassie stared aghast at his countenance, forgetting all
about the heinous crime of meeting a prince's eyes, which Celia had warned her about. ‘Prince Jamil! I'm sorry, I didn't realise, I thought…'

‘You thought I was about to rip your nightclothes unceremoniously from you and ravish you,' Jamil finished for her, eyeing the luscious curves, barely concealed by her flimsy garment.

Cassie clutched her nightdress even tighter to her and tried, not entirely successfully, to banish this shockingly exciting idea from her mind. ‘I wasn't aware that you were going to call on me,' she said in what she hoped was an unflustered tone.

‘Halim did not mention that I intended to visit you?'

‘No.' She saw a fierce frown form on the prince's countenance. She would not like to be in Halim's shoes. Cassie bit her lip. ‘I'm sure it was an oversight. He may even have mentioned it, but I didn't hear him. I was very tired.'

‘Your generosity does you credit. Don't worry, I won't have him beheaded and dragged through the desert by wild horses.'

His words were accompanied by a half-smile that Cassie could not help but return. ‘I'm afraid I let my imagination run away with me a bit.'

She was not the only one. Reality crashed down on Jamil's head with a vengeance, forcing him to bid a metaphorical goodbye to his cherished vision of a dowdy, sober, English aristocrat. He looked at the dishevelled female standing before him who apparently was Lady Cassandra Armstrong, Linah's new governess. This ravishing, curvaceous, luscious creature with lips that were made to cushion kisses was to stay at
the royal palace and teach Linah manners. Respect. Discipline.

Jamil clutched at the golden band of his headdress and pulled it from his head along with the
gutrah
itself and threw both onto a nearby divan. He ran his hands through his short hair, which was already standing up in startled spikes, and tried to imagine the reception his Council would give her. Almost, it would be worth bringing her back to Daar just to see their stunned expressions. Then he imagined Linah's reaction and his mouth straightened into its familiar determined line. ‘No,' he said decisively.

‘No? No—what, may I ask?'

‘I cannot permit you to be my daughter's governess.'

Cassie's face fell. ‘But why not? What have I done?'

Jamil made a sweeping gesture. ‘For a start you look like you belong in a harem, not a schoolroom.'

Dismay made Cassie forget all about the need for deference and the necessity of not speaking without thinking. ‘That's not fair! You caught me unawares. I was prepared to go to my bed, not to receive a formal state visit. You talk as if I lie around half-naked on a divan all day, buffing my nails and eating sweetmeats.'

Jamil swallowed hard. The idea of her lying around half-naked was most distracting. To be fair, she was actually showing less flesh than if she had been clad in an evening gown. Except that he knew her to be naked underneath. And the folds of her robe clung so lovingly to her, he could not help but notice her contours. And there was something about her, the slumberous eyes, the full bottom lip, the fragrance of her skin, jasmine and something else, sensuous and utterly female.

‘What I meant is, you don't look—strict enough to be a governess,' he said.

Despite the very awkward situation, Cassie's sense of the ridiculous was tickled. She bit hard on her lower lip, but her smile quivered rebelliously.

‘I don't know what you find in the situation to amuse you,' Jamil snapped.

‘I beg your pardon,' Cassie said, trying very hard to sound contrite. ‘If you would perhaps tell me how you expect me to look, I will endeavour to change my appearance accordingly. I have lots of perfectly demure dresses, I assure you.'

‘It's not a matter of clothing. Or lack of it. It's—it's you. Look!' He took her by surprise, taking her by the arm and turning her towards the full-length mirror that stood in a corner of the tent.

Cassie looked at her reflection in the soft glow of the lamp that hung from the canopied ceiling. Her hair was burnished, more auburn than gold, curling wildly about her face, tangling with the lace at the neckline of her negligee. Her skin was flushed. Her eyes had a sparkle to them that had of late been missing. She had an air of disarray that made her look a little—wanton—there was no denying it.
How could that be?

Behind her, Prince Jamil moved closer. She could feel the hardness of his body just barely touching her back. She could sense him, warm and male, hovering only inches away from her. He reached over her shoulder to brush her hair back from her face and his touch, for some reason, made her shiver, though she wasn't cold in the slightest.

‘Look,' he said, gazing at her intently, straightening
the lace at her neck, running a hand down her arm to twitch the lace straight there, too, to tighten the sash of her robe which kept coming undone despite her best efforts to knot it securely. ‘Look,' he said, his hand brushing her waist. Their eyes met in the mirror, autumn gold and summer blue, and she looked—not at herself but at them, the two of them, close enough to almost merge into one—as he did, too, at precisely the same moment.

And at that precise moment something happened. The air seemed to crackle. Their gazes locked. Cassie's breath caught in her throat. Prince Jamil bent his head. She watched in the mirror as he lifted the fall of her hair from her shoulders, as if she were watching a play, as if it was happening to someone else, as if the sensual creature before her was not her.

But if it was not her, why was it that she could feel his lips on the bare skin of her neck? The tiniest touch, but it was searing. Her skin contracted and burned. Now her breath came, rapid and shallow, too fast, like her heart, suddenly galloping. She realised only a fraction of a second before he did so that he was going to kiss her.

Kiss her properly.

Kiss her on the mouth.

He turned her around and tilted her chin up. His eyes met hers again, darker gold now, intensely gold, irresistibly gold. He made the tiniest movement towards her, so subtle as to be almost undetectable, except she detected it and responded, stepping into his arms and lifting her face and slanting her lips. And he kissed her.

Cassie had been kissed before. Truth be told, men
had a habit of trying to kiss her, though she gave them no encouragement as far as she was aware, and had never had any problem in actively discouraging them when necessary. But strangely, discouraging Prince Jamil simply did not occur to her.

Augustus's kisses had been worshipful and chaste rather than intimate. To be honest, Augustus's kisses had failed singularly to arouse
the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love
, which Lord Byron had so beautifully evoked and which Cassie had been led to expect. It had been one of the things that had made her question the depth of her feelings for Augustus, for neither the
first kiss of love
nor the twentieth had roused in her anything but mild indifference. But as Prince Jamil's mouth met hers, indifference was the furthest thing from her mind, and she knew that when he finished kissing her, she would be in no doubt whatsoever that she had been kissed.