Margaret Pargeter Page 3

  CHAPTER TWO

  As soon as the flap of the tent dropped behind their formidable visitor Ross slumped, only managing to zip up her anorak again before falling back to the ground. It had been of no avail, her silly ruse hadn't worked. There had been no sympathy on the man's face, merely contempt. If he was a true Arab, of course, he would not appreciate immodesty in a woman. Her small indiscretion, though prompted by desperation, had obviously only enraged him.

  Her heart sank with a hopeless despair as she tried to raise her head to look at the boys. The man had ,no intention of having anything to do with any of them. He hadn't so much as spared one kind word. When Freddy and Lance had attempted to speak to him he had made no reply, and Ross suspected it was not because he had not understood Freddy's almost perfect French. Even Lance's fluent Arabic had done nothing to merit an answer. He had no inclination to do anything to help them out of their unfortunate position. That, she decided, with a small quiver of rage, was how he would consider it I The indifferent shrug of his broad shoulders as he had left had more than emphasised his unshake- able Eastern philosophy.

  'What Allah wills,' she guessed he would be saying to himself. Not that Ross could believe God had much to do with the predicament she was in now. It had been her own fault, and all her humiliating attempts to put things right had failed. In unforeseen ways she might inadvertently have made their situation worse.

  Slow, painful tears forced a desolate path down her sand- hazed cheeks, but the peculiar lethargy was returning, anaesthetising to some extent her agony of mind. This time when Ross's eyes closed she did not dream of home, the heat and dust triumphing even over her imagination. The noisy splutter of an engine bursting into life a little later did not register. Nor did the startled, low-voiced comments of the boys.

  When the flap of the tent opened once again and Ross found herself roughly released from her bonds, she even felt a faint' resentment at being disturbed. It was only after the ropes actually fell away that the subsequent pain in her limbs caused her to cry out, and, as if protesting against the returning circulation, she tried to fight the hands which set her free. The feeble endeavours of her protesting arms were instantly stilled with a quick word of command from a hard, decisive voice she had not expected to hear again. Instantly she felt herself grasped and lifted, taken outside and flung swiftly, with uncaring hands, across the front of a horse.

  The impact of the saddle hurt, adding to the sharp soreness that seemed to be attacking every part of her body. Vaguely terrified, she thought of Freddy, still imprisoned in the horrible tent, but when she opened her eyes she saw beneath her only the wavering sand, and when she tried to speak, to beg whoever it was she was with to save him, her throat burned as before and no words came.

  Ross was conscious of a man's arm holding her with all the restriction of an iron band, and that her face, hanging downwards, was pressed against a heavily muscled thigh. The tall man—if it was he who held her—was murmuring coldly, apparently to the nornads. 'Beslama,' she heard him say, which she had learnt from Lance meant goodbye, and the thanks of the nomad leader, also in Arabic, followed them effusively as they rode away. The rogue sounded as if he was congratulating himself jubilantly, Ross decided bitterly. Hadn't he got the truck started and rid himself of a useless prisoner all on the same day?

  Because of her unnatural position, slung like a sack over the horse, the ground danced crazily, and where only a few minutes ago she had longed to escape, now the crude tent she had left began, in retrospect, to take on all the advantages of a haven! Inevitably, in spite of the absorption with her thoughts, she began to feel sick. This turned the discomfort of her position into the kind of ordeal she had never known existed. Yet, when her weak struggles must have given some indication as to the degree of her suffering, the man's arm merely tightened, the depth of his antipathy mingling fiendishly with the cruel heat. The sand off the pounding hooves flew up in her face with a suffocating force so she could scarcely breathe, and she wondered how much longer she could stand it.

  As they galloped the sound of the truck's engine faded in the distance and then there was nothing but silence broken by the dull thud of the horse. When at last it reared, the man bringing it to a sudden halt, Ross found herself lifted up and everything faded abruptly. With a small sigh she knew no more.

  When she recovered consciousness she was not immediately aware of her surroundings. Stirring restlessly, she opened her eyes with a feeling she had slept for a very long time, the dreamless, heavy sleep that comes from sheer exhaustion. The light stung her sore eyes and she closed them again, burying her face once more in her pillows. For the next few minutes she could not seem to see anything clearly and imagined she might still be tied up with Freddy and his friends. Yet, when she experimentally flexed her limbs, they were stiff but not bound, and she became aware that she lay on a soft couch, not on the hard ground.

  Oddly perturbed, she felt forced to concentrate again, and when her vision really cleared she was amazed to see she was in a kind of silk-draped room and against her skin was the soft coolness of fine white sheets. Startled, she stared about her, feeling she must be in some sort of drug-induced stupor. However did she come to be in a place like this? There had been a whole day of terror such as she had never experienced in the whole of her comparatively sheltered life, but the ending of it was obscured and hazy. She had a vague recollection of being carried in strong arms, of her head resting helplessly against a broad shoulder. Then there had been a voice, deep and hard, drumming angrily on her fading senses, but that was all.

  Her rescuer, if she could call him that, must have brought her to this large tent which, at first glance, did not seem so very different from that other very dreadful one. She saw now that her bed was covered with a fine blanket, and on the floor around her were spread the most beautiful skins, the stripes and swirls of their incredible patterns gleaming with a satin-like sheen. There was no movement from the curtain which hung over the door, so Ross guessed she must be in some sort of inner room as the light wind she could hear outside failed to stir it.

  A frown creased the smoothness of Ross's brow as her mystified glance returned to the lovely clear blue of her bedspread. Where was she? Exactly who was the man who must have brought her here? Over and over in her mind she tried to recall his hawk-like features, the cruel line of his lips, the steel of his eyes, the only parts of him entirely visible in his hooded burnous. Why was there nothing that she could remember clearly? She was only left with the impression of great strength and an even greater intolerance.

  Suddenly she did remember Freddy, and her heart shook with fright. Where was he, and the others? Faintly she recalled attempting to ask the man to rescue them too, but failing to make herself heard. Was she still unable to speak? Tentatively she tried her voice in a whisper and was relieved to find it had returned. Her throat was still sore, but at least when she saw this man again she could question him as to what had happened, where her companions were.

  Whoever the man was, that he could have rescued Freddy as well as herself she had no doubt. Simply to look around this tent told her he must be comparatively wealthy, and Freddy had told her that in the desert money was the greatest influence of all. Nervously she considered that he might possibly be a bandit, no better than the men she had escaped from. Could he have bargained for her—a girl, in exchange for repairing a truck? Yet she couldn't have looked anything but repulsive, filthy as she must have been from the dirt and sand.

  Which brought to Ross the startling realisation that she was now remarkably free of it, there being no sign of either oil or sand on her slender arms and hands. Even her face felt clean and wonderfully soothed, the skin no longer hurting as it had done in that other, awful tent. She felt weak, oddly listless, disinclined to get up or to bother her head with the things that worried her now, but overall she was free of pain. Remembering the fierceness of it shooting through her limbs as the nomads had released her, she couldn't restrain a heartfelt sigh
of relief.

  A sudden sound made her hold her breath with a consuming fear. Having made up her mind to confront her new jailor coolly, she couldn't account for a shivering apprehension. It was a footstep she had heard, and with a soft rattle of rings a hand drew aside the curtain that hung at the door and a girl came in.

  Ross stared, feeling a flood of relief that it was not the person she had feared it might be. This was a girl, and young, and though she was swathed in a dark-coloured dress her face was not veiled. She had dark hair and eyes and her skin was brown and smooth. Altogether attractive, she smiled. It was this that Ross found suddenly so wonderfully reassuring, so immediately calming to her taut nerves that she relaxed with a sigh.

  The girl's shy gaze dropped humbly before Ross's-more inquiring one. ' Bonjour, mademoiselle,' she greeted her, in passable French. 'Est-ce que je vous derangeV

  'Non,' Ross heard herself replying gently. 'No, you are not disturbing me. I was beginning to feel very much alone.' She couldn't be sure the girl understood—Ross's own French leaving a lot to be desired as she had never used it much since she had left school.

  But the girl nodded, as if she understood quite clearly and was sympathetic. Ross felt a small measure of warm satisfaction. Suddenly there were so many questions it became imperative to ask that she scarcely knew where to begin. Her thoughts curiously disorganised, refused to be sorted logically. There were so many things she wasn't at all sure about. She had no idea how she had got here, for instance, nor how much this innocent-looking girl knew. It would be embarrassing, but not impossible, to confess having been tied up, in much the same way as an animal, with three friends, only she had no wish to see the first friendly face she had seen in days go cold with shocked disapproval.

  Ross nibbled at her full bottom lip in considerable perplexity. While consumed with a growing anxiety about Freddy, she felt it might be advisable not to mention him to this girl. Maybe it would be better to concentrate on her immediate predicament? If she cultivated this girl she could be invaluable. Unless, of course, she belonged to the ruthless barbarian who had brought Ross here? A slight tremor shook Ross's fast beating heart. She had little doubt that Lance had brought them deep into the desert, and hadn't he once told her, in one of his mocking moments, that some men of the desert still kept many women? Ross found it hard to believe she could be in any danger herself. She was too thin, surely, to please an Eastern man. These men were acknowledged to like women of more generous proportions. It was merely the strangeness of such things that stirred a kind of primitive fear, along with the stupid suspicion that, in spite of such civilised surroundings, the man who had rescued her might insist on some sort of repayment before he let her go.

  As Ross remained silent the girl drew nearer, her downcast eyelids rising slightly to study Ross curiously. She did not speak again, and Ross felt a flash of the spirit she had thought lost for ever returning.

  'I would like to get up,' she said quickly, 'I would like to have my clothes.' When the girl frowned, Ross, imagining she didn't understand her indifferent French, pointed meaningfully at the thin scrap of silk she was wrapped in, grasping the filmy material with disparaging hands.

  'Non, non, mademoiselle!' The girl shook her head wildly, looking positively frightened. 'Sidi ben Yussef leave orders you must stay in bed!'

  'But I have no desire . ..' Ross began, then stopped. So that was his name—ben Yussef! The girl spoke it with what seemed to Ross exaggerated respect. What, Ross wondered, was his Christian name? This ben Yussef must be the man who had brought her here. Well, she wouldn't be dictated to by the likes of him! Restlessly she stirred. If she had owed him anything she would have felt it. The cruel way he had held her across his saddle surely cancelled out any need for gratitude. If by bringing her here, and treating her for a short while like a human being, he expected her to go down on her knees and shower him with thanks, then he had better think again !

  'You may go and tell Sidi ben Yussef,' she continued defiantly, 'that I have no intention of obeying any order of his. He may command, but it will be in vain ! He is merely a ruthless savage. Didn't I see it with my own eyes !'

  There, she decided, with a fierce inner surge of achievement. That should put him well and truly in his place !

  The girl seemed visibly to shrink, her large doe-like eyes widening with bewildered horror. 'Yes, mademoiselle. If you request it then I will tell him,' she mumbled helplessly, backing from Ross's presence but staring at her as if she thought the ordeal she had been through must have affected her mind.

  Left on her own again, Ross stirred restlessly, the aftermath of her anger leaving her tearfully weak. She didn't feel quite so brave any more. She felt sick and listless, suddenly regretful of her rather childishly impulsive words. Not that she heed probably fear the girl would remember them long enough to repeat them. Perhaps she wouldn't dare repeat them to this Sidi ben Yussef? Even his name had an arrogantly repressive ring. Recalling how far she had been forced to go to attract his lordly attention, Ross could only think of him with an ever-increasing aversion.

  Maybe she had been a little too hasty about the girl, too quick to send her away? It might have been wiser to have kept her here longer. The girl might have known something about Freddy? What had happened to him. With a bit of patience she might have been persuaded to talk?

  The thought of Freddy, possibly still in that dreadful tent, seemed to call for immediate action. She must make some effort to rouse herself, not just lie here! It was still daylight but soon it could be dark, with that Eastern swiftness that was frightening. It was up to her to rescue her half-brother surely, but to do this she must be up, find some clothes and maybe a horse so that she might be as far away as possible before Sidi ben Yussef returned to stop her !

  With an effort Ross threw back the covers of her low bed and for a moment the lack of strength in her arms alarmed her. As soon as her feet touched the floor she felt curiously dizzy and was forced to sink back briefly against the softness of her pillows. As it was only a few hours since she had been freed from her captors she supposed it was not too surprising she should feel like this, but it was not something she was prepared to tolerate. She could never remember feeling so off colour before. Unsteadily she struggled until she sat on the edge of the mattress, her pulse, for no reason she could think of, jerking. If it had been sounding a kind of warning she didn't listen ! All too soon she was to wish bitterly that she had. Then she might have made an effort to get away sooner, to have avoided any further contact with a man she was more than prepared to detest, although she didn't quite know why.

  To her dismay, for all her tentative planning, it was scarcely minutes later that the door curtain was none too gently thrust aside and he was there before her.

  Ross's heart gave a peculiar lunge and antagonism raced through her body. For a moment they were both very still, not speaking, just warily looking at each other. He was much as she remembered him, his face hawk-like, even handsome beneath the white shemagh on his head. He appeared to be a man well into his thirties, unsmiling and somehow frightening as he gazed at her narrowly as she swayed weakly on the side of the bed. His eyes flicked over her sharply, and she felt their hard impact as if he had actually hit her.

  'How dare you walk straight in here like this!' she burst out nervously. Her voice was husky but getting stronger, if her throat still hurt. 'Who are you?' she whispered, her bravado changing to a sudden trembling as he did not appear inclined to answer. She had to force herself to be calm by gripping her hands tightly together. Foolishly she had forgotten how broad-shouldered he was, how strong. He' still wore the burnous she had seen him in earlier and something of the wildness of the desert seemed to cling to him as he stood there unperturbed, regarding her coolly.

  'I asked who you were?' she tried again, unable "to bear the irony of his scrutiny any longer.

  'My name, mademoiselle ,' he said at last, 'is ben Yussef.' His tone was impersonal and there was a hint of firmly held rest
raint in the curve of his mouth. 'This, I presumed, you already knew, as Jamila told me you wished to convey a message?'

  Uncertainly Ross looked at him beneath her thick lashes. Did that mean Jamila's courage had failed at the last minute? Or that, being the man he was, he was well aware of the opinion she had perhaps expressed too rashly? 'I would like to know where I am,' she muttered sullenly, 'and why you've brought me here. I don't like being fobbed off with native servants!'

  The line of his ruthless jaw hardened as his dark glance pinned hers. 'If I remember correctly you begged me to take you, mademoiselle.'' He ignored her remark about Jamila.

  Ross shivered miserably, knowing it would be futile to deny this. She hadn't begged him in so many words, but in every other way. Even so, she must make it clear that that episode was over and done with, that she must leave here at once. 'That wasn't quite what I meant,' she cried distractedly, 'but if you continue to stare at me as you are doing then you must expect me to say the wrong thing!'

  He bowed, a mocking inch from the waist. 'I am glad to hear, mademoiselle, that your insolence is no more intentional than my close surveillance. It is merely that I must continue to assure myself that you are a girl. However, this I perceive today you are undoubtedly.' His eyes, as if indifferent to her objections, continued to study her consideringly, and realising suddenly just how little she had on, Ross slid back under her silken sheets. Embarrassed, her cheeks flushed a dull red. She had never had a man look at her like this before and her heart thumped erratically. From somewhere she conceived the fleeting notion that he was deliberately taunting her, but beneath his steady gaze she could fix nothing in her mind conclusively !

  He concluded suavely, 'It becomes hourly more difficult to understand how, even allowing for the ridiculous licence granted to the modern young woman, you come to be travelling as you are.'

  'You find it—er—repulsive, monsieur ?' she countered, unable to restrain a note of aggression, even while she realised he had a point.