Though he had to concede that she must be more intrepid than confident, if her claim to have travelled all the way from England alone was to be believed, and he had no reason to doubt her—there was honesty as well as intelligence in those wide-set eyes the colour of palm fronds. She might lack judgement, but she had courage, and she had resilience. In spite of his annoyance at this most unwanted distraction, Azhar couldn’t help but find her—in her own unique way—appealing.
She was not beautiful exactly, her face was too long for that, her brow too high, but she was memorable, with that thick mass of dark-red hair and those big green eyes. Her body, under the hideous nightgown she wore, would be deemed too thin and too tall here in the East, but Azhar found her lean suppleness alluring. The colour of her hair spoke of a fiery temper, a tempestuous nature. And that mouth, when it was not set in a firm line, had a hint of sensuality about it.
Appalled at the carnal direction his thoughts had taken, he dragged his eyes away. As if he did not have enough to concern himself with, now he must take responsibility for a complete stranger. For he had no option but to do so. He most certainly could not abandon her to her fate. His anger flared again at the thought of the miscreants who had robbed and abandoned her. That the reprobates she had employed had had the temerity to breach Qaryma’s borders with impunity astounded and infuriated him. The situation must have changed radically since he was last here. Ten years ago, no one would have dared treat the kingdom with such disrespect.
Azhar sighed heavily. One problem at a time. He turned his attention back to his most pressing dilemma. ‘I cannot in all conscience abandon you here, but neither can I escort you back across the border. I therefore have no option but to take you with me to Al-Qaryma.’
She looked dismayed rather than delighted. ‘But I don’t have the correct papers. I’ll be thrown into gaol.’
A fact Azhar himself had pointed out. He should have held his tongue. ‘Fear not, I will have your papers validated when we reach the city.’
‘How can you promise such a thing? I thought you said you were a trader?’
Why couldn’t she simply say thank you! ‘I am, and a successful one. As such I have many high-ranking contacts. Do not fear, I am not without influence, Madam...?’
‘Trevelyan.’
‘Trevelyan,’ Azhar repeated slowly. ‘It does not sound typically English.’
‘That is because it’s not English, it’s Cornish. Both my husband and I are natives of Cornwall, which is quite the most beautiful county in England, Mister—Sayed...?’
Sayed, the common formal form of address to which he had answered for many years. It was how he had defined himself, a nameless and rootless sir. ‘You may call me Azhar.’
‘Azhar,’ she repeated carefully.
‘It means shining, or bright.’
‘My name is Julia. I’m afraid it doesn’t mean anything in particular, though I expect you think I should be called Burden or Encumbrance.’
She crossed her arms, inadvertently lifting her breasts higher under her cotton shift. To his annoyance, Azhar felt his blood stirring. Desire, which had departed entirely with the arrival of that fateful summons which had brought him here, returned now at this most inopportune time. He could not afford to be distracted. He most certainly had no time to be intrigued, far less beguiled by this English widow, especially since she was actually the complete antithesis of everything those words implied.
‘What you are, Madam Julia Trevelyan, is an enormous inconvenience,’ Azhar said. ‘The day marches on. I am going to hunt for some food and then prepare a meal. You are welcome to join me. I will not drug you, though I may inadvertently poison you, since my culinary skills are somewhat rudimentary. I shall, however, endeavour not to. A dead English woman is the last thing I wish to have on my hands.’
* * *
‘Cornish,’ Julia threw at him as he left the tent, but Azhar chose not to hear her. ‘So I’m an enormous inconvenience, am I?’ she muttered. ‘How inconvenient do you think it was for me, Mr You-Can-Call-Me-Azhar, to be robbed blind and left for dead?’
Receiving no answer from the tent flap, Julia sighed. She was being most ungrateful. At least he was not abandoning her. She considered spurning his invitation to share his food, but then her stomach reminded her that she had not eaten since yesterday. She could sit here, sweltering and ravenous, with only her pride to keep her company, or she could get dressed, grovel, and get some badly needed sustenance.
Deciding to eschew martyrdom, Julia began to pick up the clothes she had been wearing the day before from the heap they formed on the sand floor beside her bedroll.
With no shocked and disapproving husband to witness her uncorseted body, after the first few days of travel in the desert she had abandoned the daily contortions required to lace herself into her stays. There was nothing in the world, she had discovered, as uncomfortable as sand trapped against delicate skin by stiff whalebone. The heat which the combination of corsets and desert sun produced transformed discomfort into torture.
In fact, her entire wardrobe was quite unsuited to the climate. As she pulled on a rough woollen skirt and cambric blouse over her nightgown before adding a jacket, perspiration blossomed all over her back. Not for the first time, Julia wished she had had the courage and sense to outfit herself with some of the loose tunics and cloaks more appropriate for the conditions. She had been on the brink of purchasing some in a souk in Damascus, but imagining Daniel’s disapproving face looking over her shoulder, she had changed her mind. She deeply regretted that now, as much irked by her instinctive loyalty to her dead husband’s opinions as she was by her very British wardrobe. He himself had never been less than impeccably turned out, whether in a mangrove swamp or halfway up an Alpine mountain. While Julia considered herself Cornish before all else, Daniel had been the living embodiment of the quintessential Englishman abroad.
No, that was not true. Above all else, Daniel was a man of science. He’d called her his woman of science. Back in the early days, she’d been inordinately proud of that. Now—oh, now was not a time for looking back. Now, it was time to turn her mind to making good on her vow. She had been so close, after all this time able to see the light of true freedom at the end of the tunnel. Her duty to the past discharged, she might finally look forward to a future of her own making. For an instant, dejection threatened to overpower her, but very quickly she rallied. In this city to which she was now destined to travel, she would hire a new and reliable guide. In this strange kingdom, she might find undiscovered and rare plant specimens. Even this dark cloud might have a silver lining.
She pulled on her stockings and laced up her boots. Daniel had always derided the notion of fate, but Julia was no longer obliged to agree with Daniel’s opinions. She had opinions of her own now. Fate had set her path on a collision course with this mysterious man of the desert. It was up to her to make sure she made the best of the situation.
The spectacular beauty of the desert sunset never failed to take her breath away. Julia watched, fascinated, as the vivid orange and gold-streaked sky gave way to a pale, soft night-blue, as if the sun, on its rapid descent to the horizon, dragged a stage backdrop behind it. The sparse puffy clouds segued from dark grey to pewter then white as the sky darkened to indigo and the stars made their appearance, a blanket of silvery jewels hung so low in the sky that she felt she could almost touch them. The moon was butter-yellow. The desert landscape was dark and moody, the dunes clearly outlined, softly rolling, sharply falling. The air changed, from dry and dusty to soft and salty. She breathed it in, lifting her face to the sky where the biggest stars were now surrounded by pinpoints of light, relishing the soft breeze which made the palm trees around the oasis quiver.
She saw the hawk first, the bird of prey she had learnt from Hanif to be an essential companion for any desert traveller. It dropped out of the sky, seemingly from nowhere, to perch on the wooden