brightly. “Oh, sweet Jesus, he is so beautiful.” The blasphemy was out before she could quell it. Still holding the burning match in front of his face he looked up at her. She stared back. He was fifty yards away but she was mesmerized, like a bird by a cobra.
He blew out the vesta, and the image of his face was gone. Only the glow of his cigar remained, brighter then fading as he drew on it. The pain came over her again, pervasive and debilitating, until she no longer had control of her emotions. Like a woman in a trance she turned slowly, went back through her bedroom and out into the corridor beyond. She passed the door to her father’s suite, and her bare feet danced faster over the silken carpet that led her to the head of the staircase. She ran down, and was suddenly stricken with the fear that he would be gone by the time she reached the terrace. She fumbled with the latch of the front doors it seemed an eternity before they opened. She ran across the lawn, then stopped dead when she saw his dark shape exactly where it had been.
He took the cigar from his mouth, dropped it on to the stone flags and waited. Her feet moved again, of their own accord, slowly at first then faster. “I don’t - I won’t she stammered.
“Don’t talk,” he commanded. And she was overwhelmed by deep gratitude although she did not understand why. She went into his arms, which closed round her. She lost all contact with reality. His mouth tasted of cigar smoke mingled with precious musk, a distillation of masculine ambergris, a rare elixir of desire. She felt terrified and helpless, yet as safe and secure as though she had been spirited into the keep of a fairy fortress.
Her silk robe and the light cotton nightgown offered no obstacle to him. Her skin beneath them was burning hot, but his cunning fingers ignited deeper and more intense fires within her. She closed her eyes, threw back her head and surrendered to his touch. Suddenly she gasped and her eyes flew open at a sensation almost too exquisite to be borne. The painful knot in the pit of her stomach burst, and a new, wonderful sensation replaced it and diffused through her whole being. She looked down and realized that the front of her gown was open to her navel and his mouth was pressed to her breast. She could feel his teeth upon her nipple, and thought he might bite through to her very heart.
He picked her up and she felt weightless. He laid her on the lawn, and the grass felt cool and soft under her back. He lifted the skirts of her robe and the night air caressed her thighs and belly. She felt his weight come over the top of her. He was touching her where she had never been touched before. Her thighs fell apart.
The cannon across the river roared. She heard the shriek of the approaching shell, and her legs snapped together like the blades of a pair of scissors. The shell flew so close overhead that it took her breath : away so that she could not scream. It crashed into the east wing of the palace, and burst in a cloud of flame, dust, flying plaster and bricks.
With all her strength she thrust him away and rolled out from under him. She jumped up and, long pale legs flashing, ran like a fawn startled from its forest bed, back across the terrace and up the stairs. Frantically she raced to the twins’ room, beside her father’s suite. The door was never locked. She ran in to them, gathered them up and held them tight. She was sobbing with relief to find them safe, and for her own escape. “Are you all right, my darlings? Oh, dear Jesus, thank you for keeping us all safe.” She hugged them closer, but the twins were sleepy and grumpy.
“Why did you wake us up?” demanded Saffron.
“What’s wrong with you, Becky? Why are you crying?” Amber yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Why are you being so silly?”
Before she could reply her father came in through the door, carrying a lantern. “Are you girls all right?”
“What happened? What is all the fuss about?” Saffron clamoured.
“Didn’t even wake you up, what?” David laughed. “The Bedlam Bedouin will be mortified. He’s been shooting at the palace for months. The first time he manages to hit it, you go on sleeping as though nothing had happened. Shows a lack of respect, I’d say.”
“Oh, was it a shell?” Amber said. “I thought it was a dream.”
“Where, Daddy? Where did it hit?”
“The east wing, but it’s deserted. Nobody hurt. No fires. Everything safe.”
The twins were asleep before Rebecca left them, but after she got back to her own bed she could not drop off. She tried a prayer. “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, thank you for looking after Papa and the twins. Thank you saving me from…” She did not think it necessary to elaborate: He knew everything. ‘.. . for saving me from a fate worse than death.” She had read that expression somewhere, and now seemed an appropriate time to use it. “Please keep me from temptation.” But the prayer did not seem to help. She did not truly feel as though she had been saved; on the contrary, she felt as though she had been cruelly deprived of something of great value, something as dear as life itself.
She thought about how he had touched her and began to ache again, where his fingers had been. Timidly she ran her own hand down to make sure he had not hurt her. She started with panic as she felt that she was bleeding, all hot and running wet. She pulled away her hand and held it up to the moonlight streaming in through the window. Her fingers were indeed damp but not with blood. She replaced her hand, and felt the pain swelling up inside her. She was panting, and wicked images flashed before her tightly shut eyelids. Penrod Ballantyne standing over her, naked, with the knife in his hand. She imagined his fingers where hers were now.
The huge ball inside her exploded, and the pain was gone. She felt a wonderful sense of elation and freedom. She felt herself falling backwards through the mattress, sinking down into a warm dark nest of sleep. When Nazeera woke her, sunlight was streaming in through the open balcony door.
“What happened to you, Becky? You are glowing like a ripe peach on the bough with the morning sun upon it.”
Arabic is such a romantic language, Rebecca thought. It suits my mood perfectly. “Darling Nazeera, I feel as though this is the very first morning of my life,” she replied, in the same language, and wondered why Nazeera suddenly looked so worried.
Penrod understood David’s reluctance to part for even a few hours with his precious double-barrelled twelve-bore London best guns by James Purdey & Sons. They were extraordinary weapons and had probably cost him as much as fifty pounds each, he guessed. “One hundred and fifty,” David corrected him. “Tsar Alexander of all the Russias and Kaiser William of Germany both have guns almost identical to mine.”
“I assure you that they are needed in the furtherance of an excellent cause, sir. I give you my solemn word of honour that I will look after them as though they were my firstborn,” Penrod wheedled.
“I hope you treat them better than that. It is always possible to beget brats. Purdeys like mine are another matter entirely.”
“Perhaps I should explain why I need to borrow them,” Penrod suggested.
David listened attentively. He became more intrigued as Penrod continued. In the end he sighed with resignation. “Very well, but there is a condition. The twins go with them.” As he saw Penrod’s nonplussed expression he went on, “They are my loaders and I have taught them to pay proper respect to my guns.”
Both girls were delighted to be chosen for the commission, Amber even more so than Saffron. This was an opportunity for her to have her hero to herself for a while. They were ready and waiting on the palace terrace an hour ahead of the appointed time.
When Penrod arrived they insisted on coaching him in the skills of passing and handing the guns. He soon saw how seriously they took their duties: to humour them he pretended ignorance and asked a few asinine questions. “Where do you put the bullets in?”
“They are not bullets, silly. They are cartridges,” Amber explained importantly. She was chief instructress. She and Saffron had debated this issue the previous night, when the lights were out and they were supposed to be asleep. Finally Amber had settled the matter: “Saffy, you can have Ryder as your special friend, but Captain Ballantyne is mine. Remember that!”
When it came to handling the guns, Penrod was deliberately clumsy and slow so that he did not deprive Amber of the pleasure of correcting him.
“When I pass it to you, you must try to remember to hold out your left hand with the palm up, Captain Ballantyne, so I can place the fore-end into your hand.”
“Like this, Miss Amber?” He managed to keep a straight face, as he reflected that he had been about the same age that Amber was now when he had first been allowed to attend his family’s grand shoot at Clercastle on the Borders, and to take his place in the line like a man.
“Don’t hold your hand so high, Captain Ballantyne, otherwise I can’t reach.” She hated to draw attention to the discrepancy in their heights. At last she was satisfied. She even commended him on his progress: “I must say,
