Page 19 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
He felt the weight of all that history work within him like heat as he stood in the ancient rooms, staring at the same statues and mosaics that a long line of his ancestors must have gazed upon just as he did now. All of his windows along one wall were archways that led onto a balcony that looked down into the harem courtyard, where kings of old had stood in their time and selected which women they wished might join them of an evening. Some even made them fight for the honor. They had also watched their children run and play here, protected from any who might rise against them, for the fortress boasted the most impregnable walls in the whole of the kingdom.
No one had ever breached the fortress. No one ever would.
By the same token, of course, no one ever got out, either.
As his father had reminded him when he’d brought Cyrus here.
In many ways, Cyrus knew that he was a modern man. He had his Western education. He had his Western blood, for that matter. He liked books from all corners of the globe and was not opposed to Western entertainment—for if his time at university had taught him anything, it was that one should not critique things blindly. For that could only and ever lead to knee-jerk reactions and such responses were beneath him. Far better to understand why people enjoyed such things, so that any critique would necessarily be of what any given thingactually was. Not what he feared it might be.
And so, though he had learned right here that women like the mother he had adored could hide betrayal behind their smiles, he had not rushed to judge Hope after her father died and she hadn’t come to him. He had watched. He had waited.
He had learned today that she truly intended to walk to that altar and marry another. Only when she had gone to such lengths to show him who she was had he acted upon that information. And yet even then, had honored the promises that had been made to her father and married her, though it could have been argued she deserved no such consideration.
In truth, what happened between them now was justice.
The sort women who hid behind their softness, their prettiness, could not deserve.
But Cyrus did not seek justice because it was or was not deserved, he told himself then, but because it was no more and no less thanjustand thereforeright.
And he could think of no reason at all that he should see Hope wave that languid hand of hers in his head then, as if laughing at him once again. When no one else had dared, not since he was small.
He heard the sound of the harem doors opening then, but he did not turn, because there were old songs in his head once more. He waited them out, taking notes of the sounds he actually heard here and now, keenly aware that it must have sounded just like this centuries before. Her bare feet against the cool tile. The swish of her silks against her skin.
The scent of her reached him first, that hint of spice and a warm, heady fragrance that made him think of flowers that bloomed only in the dark.
“Sire, all is as you wish it,” his man told him with the usual deference.
Cyrus turned then and felt himself go still.
For Hope Cartwright had been dangerous enough when she had existed only in photographs. She had been astonishingly perilous when he’d put his hands upon her, tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her away from the scene of her perfidy. Dressed in a wedding gown meant to be removed by another man, she had been something like a siren—even to him, who should have been immune.
But all of that faded to insignificance next tothis.
Hope Cartwright, dressed in the King’s silks with jewels gleaming in her navel and at her throat. She wore a pair of loose, billowing trousers that he knew only suggested the shape of pants and were mostly there to protect a woman’s most secret places from any stray glances of anyone who was not him. Her golden hair tumbled down all around her, brighter and more lustrous that he could possibly have imagined. Her breasts were caught in a kind of bodice that held them aloft, the same rich color as the pants, and everything else was bare.
Bared to his gaze. Baredforhis gaze.
These truths were like a roaring within him.
He was filled with the sudden, primitive fury that his man had gazed upon her like this. He understood at last the distasteful old practice of blinding the harem guards. But he shuttered these strange furies even as they beset him. He nodded at the loyal retainer who had served him so well and stayed where he was, still and in control of himself, as the other man quit the room.
At last.
“I didn’t realize when you saidharemthat you intended to go full tilt at it.” Her voice was bright. As if this was that holiday she’d mentioned. She even flashed that outrageous, heedless smile at him. “Complete with outfits.”
Because, of course, she would treat even this as something deserving of that jocularity she prized so much. Clearly she did not understand the significance of where she was. Much less what she wore.
He studied her, ordering his flesh to obey him. Ordering his sex to behave. He folded his arms, not at all certain he liked the creature this woman made him.
As if she was the one in control here, not him.
But his father had taught him the futility of wishes and the scourge of weakness, beating his own out of him in the years he stayed here, and he had not survived all of that to bend now. He no longer regarded those years as a cruelty. They had been a kindness. They had taught him, and well. He would not repeat the mistakes of the past. He would not allow a woman to get between him and his kingdom.
His children would not cry their unworthy mothers, burying their faces in their pillows in the dark of night.
He had married this woman, but he would not let her ruin him.
Cyrus watched as she took her time looking away from him, and catalogued—distantly, he told himself—the flush that appeared on her cheeks, telling him that despite the effect she had on him, she was truly only a woman, in the end.
