“Do you know,” he said, watching her eyes, “that I was trained in the art of lovemaking?”
“You were wh-what?”
“At the ripe old age of thirteen, an old woman, probably about your age, introduced me to the marvels of my body and a woman’s body.” His fingers lightly touched her. “Here, she taught me was a woman’s essence. Here is softness, warmth, and a woman’s release. She taught me how to stroke and caress both with my fingers and my mouth, to control my own desire until the woman had reached her climax.”
“But that seems so calculated.”
“Then it was, I suppose. She observed me with other women to ensure that I followed her instructions. It was a bit unnerving. I remember one young girl who liked me, and probably felt sorry for me. In any case, she began moaning and carrying on before I scarce had a chance to begin. I thought myself the most brilliant lover in the land. Ada, my teacher, on the other hand, nearly fell over a chair laughing.”
“If you ever, for the rest of your life, touch another woman, I will not be responsible for my actions.”
“I love you.”
After he brought them both to pleasure, Arabella whispered, “I do not hear your teacher laughing.”
“Master.”
Kamal grinned at Ali, giving him a jaunty salute before he helped Arabella dismount.
She stood beside the stallion for a moment, staring about the camp. All signs of the burned tent had been obliterated, for which she was thankful, and another had been erected. She saw the lion skin, and shot Kamal a questioning look beneath lowered brows, but he was speaking to one of his men and did not notice.
It was close to noon, and Arabella, her stomach growling, was relieved to see food spread upon a cloth near the small fire. She was again wearing her men’s clothes and thus sat cross-legged near the food and began to eat an orange.
“Here are lamb and bread,” Ali said, handing her a plate.
Arabella thanked him solemnly.
Ali wondered at this woman with her golden hair and her spirit that made him shudder. A woman should not behave as this one did, but his master loved her. Ali had seen it in his eyes.
“You will marry the master?” he asked, squatting down beside her.
“Yes,” Arabella said without hesitation.
“You have driven my master nearly wild,” he said. “It is good that he has finally tamed you.”
Arabella stopped chewing on the tasty lamb. “Tamed?”
Ali shrugged. “He is the master and he will have what he wishes. I am pleased that Elena will not be his first wife. She is a bitch, that one. I suppose if a man wishes spirited sons, he must breed them off a spirited woman.”
The lamb fell unheeded to Arabella’s plate. The world was intruding. “First wife,” she repeated, feeling numb and cold despite the warm sun beating down. “Breed? That sounds like two animals.”
Ali regarded her with some surprise. “It is our way,” he explained as if to a dull child. “Women are made to breed and birth men’s sons. Allah knows that a man cannot be happy with but one wife. The master, after he satisfies himself with you, will doubtless take three more wives. He will want many sons to follow after him.”
Fool. Kamal’s first wife. She laughed aloud.
“Arabella?”
It was Kamal. The master. The man who had tamed her. The man who wanted her for his first wife.
She turned distraught eyes toward him and slowly began to back away from him. “I will not do it. I will not be but one of your women, Kamal.”
Kamal stared at her, stunned. He started toward her, only to draw up at the shouts from his men. He whirled about to see swirls of dust in the distance, heralding the coming of a number of men. There were no hostile tribes this close to Oran, but he would take no chances. “Arabella, get into the tent and stay there. Now.”
Robbers? More men like Risan? There were only a half-dozen men here with them. Many more were riding toward them, possibly twenty. She looked toward Kamal, watching as he caught a wickedly curved scimitar from one of his men and pulled his dagger from his belt. Did he expect her to hide, to watch him die? Kamal shouted at her again, waving the deadly scimitar toward the tent.
She needed a weapon, anything. She dashed into the tent, frantically searching. She found a dagger lying on a pile of furs. She heard the shouts of men now, nearly at the camp. She pulled back the tent flap and looked out. Kamal and his few men stood together, but the riders were spreading out, surrounding them. Three men were riding directly toward Kamal, their faces swathed in kufiyahs.
She stole up to stand directly behind Kamal, unaware that her hair was unbound and streaming down her back. Suddenly one of the men shouted and pointed at her. She felt her blood freeze.