Jamil hesitated momentarily and Cassie threw herself into the breach. ‘Prince Jamil. Your Highness. Sheikh al-Nazarri.’ She made a low and extremely elegant curtsy, completely unaware that she was granting Jamil a tantalising glimpse of cleavage. ‘You would concede that your daughter is in urgent need of a governess and I—well, to be frank, I am in urgent need of an opportunity to prove myself, so you see, we both stand to profit from making this arrangement work. I know I’m not what you were expecting, though indeed I’m still not sure what exactly you were expecting, but I assure you I am extremely capable of looking after a little girl like Linah. I myself lost my mother at an early age, and I have three younger sisters whose education and upbringing I’ve been closely involved in. I’m sure she and I will get on. I know I can get through to her, make a difference to her. Please. Don’t send me back. Give me a chance. You won’t regret it.’
She clasped her hands in supplication and only just resisted the urge to throw herself on her knees. Prince Jamil gave no indication of wavering, his face set in an implacable expression. Only his eyes betrayed a flicker of something else. What, she couldn’t discern.
Why on earth had he kissed her like that? To teach her a lesson? And why had she let him? She wasn’t attracted to him, she couldn’t be, she wasn’t going to allow herself to be attracted to anyone. Not ever. She’d never allowed a man such liberties before. No man had ever attempted to take such liberties before, but Prince Jamil did not seem to think his behaviour questionable. Only her own.
And he was right about that. She had behaved like a very wanton. No wonder he thought—oh, God, she didn’t want to even think about what he thought. Cassie clasped her hands together tighter and swallowed her pride. What use was pride, after all? She had no right to it, and no use for it either, if it prevented her from using all her powers to persuade the prince that she was worthy of his trust. ‘I don’t know what came over me—when you—when you—when I allowed you to kiss me, I mean,’ she said, blushing madly but forcing herself to continue to meet those strange golden brown eyes. ‘I can only assure you that I am not in the habit of allowing—of indulging—in kissing.’
‘I know,’ Jamil said, surprised out of his rigid hold on his control by this naïve admission.
‘You do?’
‘Your kisses were hardly expert.’
Cassie wasn’t sure if this was an insult or a compliment. Though she was much inclined to pursue this very interesting question, for once sense prevailed and she held her tongue. ‘Anyway, whatever they were or were not, I assure you I won’t subject you to them again.’
Despite his determination not to be persuaded, Jamil was intrigued. And amused. It had been so long since he had found anyone so entertaining as Lady Cassandra. Or so—confounding. Unexpected. Interesting. He would be quite happy to be subjected again to her kisses. More than happy. The question was, was this a good thing or a bad? ‘My daughter.’
‘Linah.’
‘She is.’
‘Unhappy.’
He raised a supercilious brow. ‘I was going to say difficult.’
‘Yes, but that’s because she’s unhappy.’
‘Nonsense. She has no reason to be so. She has everything any little girl could wish for.’
‘Children are not born difficult, they are difficult for a reason,’ Cassie persisted, feeling herself on surer ground. ‘The trick is to work out what that reason is. Linah is only eight years old, she has not the language to express her feelings properly. So instead she expresses them by.’
‘Being difficult.’ Jamil pondered this. All his experience told him that leniency was the root cause of Linah’s tantrums. It had not occurred to him until now that Linah could actually be unhappy; he had assumed that withholding the harsh physical discipline which had been meted out to him would be enough. Could he be wrong? The thought was discomfiting.
‘You see, I do understand little girls,’ Cassie continued, sensing from the look on the prince’s face that she had struck a chord. ‘I want nothing more than to help Linah. If we could forget about what happened tonight—make a fresh start in the morning …’
Jamil raised an imperious hand. ‘Enough. I admit, you’ve given me food for thought, but it’s late. I will sleep on it and inform you of my decision in the morning.’
‘Sleep is the wisest counsel. That’s what my sister Celia always says.’
Jamil smiled properly this time, showing a fleeting hint of a single dimple. ‘My father used to say something similar. I will bid you goodnight, Lady Cassandra.’
Dazzled by the way his face changed, from intimidating sheikh to an extraordinarily attractive and somehow more youthful man, Cassie gazed up at him. Only his turning to go brought her to her senses. ‘Goodnight, Highness,’ she said, dropping another curtsy. By the time she emerged from it, he was gone.
The next morning found Jamil, most unusually for him, still in two minds. It did not help that Lady Cassandra had haunted his dreams. It did not help that the memory of her lips, her skin, her nubile body, had awakened his own slumbering desires, conjuring endless teasing fantasies that made sleep impossible. He had finally quit his divan in desperation, plunging into the refreshing water of the pool before dawn had even risen, in an effort to cool his body and order his mind. He was quite unused to such carnal thoughts getting in the way of his decision-making process. The base needs of his body had never before intruded on the logical processes of his brain. Lady Cassandra confused him by blurring the neatly ordered boundaries of his mind. She was made for pleasure. She was here for a much more pragmatic purpose.
Returning to his tent to don his travelling clothes, Jamil resorted to drawing up a mental list of the advantages and disadvantages of employing Lady Cassandra as Linah’s governess, and in doing so uncovered one of the questions that had been niggling away in the back of his mind. Lady Cassandra had said she urgently needed an opportunity to prove herself. Why? he wondered. Prove herself after what?
It was the first question he put to her when she appeared before him in the makeshift throne room. She wore her travelling outfit, the blue riding habit and veil in which she had arrived yesterday, and was at pains to keep her head correctly bowed, but Jamil was in no mood to allow her to hide behind the trappings of propriety. He bade the servants draw forwards the light curtains and instructed her to put back her veil. He did not, however, bid her sit, choosing to keep her standing before him, like a supplicant. ‘Explain to me, if you please, what you meant by needing an opportunity to prove yourself,’ he said in clipped tones.
Cassie stared at the prince in consternation. All through the long night she had rehearsed her arguments and mustered her reasons, drilling them into a tight formation, readying them to be paraded, impeccable and indisputable, before the prince. She was ready to recite lesson plans in everything from watercolour painting to deportment, map reading to account keeping, playing upon the pianoforte—though she wasn’t particularly sure that such an instrument would be available—French conversation—though she didn’t know, when it came down to it, if Linah even spoke English—botany—though she had no idea what flowers—if any—grew in the desert—and horse riding, the one subject on which Cassie knew herself to be expert. All of this she had ready at her fingertips, along with her ideas for instilling strict but fair discipline, and most of all her ardent desire to give Linah some much-needed affection.
But it seemed Prince Jamil was not interested in any of this. Instead he wanted to know about her motives, a subject Cassie herself was a little hazy on, just at the moment.