LITMIR.BIZ

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His logic was skewed by his misplaced anger, his interpretation of his history so tangled—but how to help him untangle it now, when the sands of their time together were down to the last few grains? If Christopher wished to imagine a better life, a different life with his mother, who was she to disillusion him? Hadn’t she fallen into the very same trap herself? And didn’t she know how painful it was, to realise that even a mother would not put her child’s wishes over her duty?

      ‘This is the last time we will be together, my last night free in the desert, your last night here in Nessarah,’ Tahira said helplessly. ‘I am afraid that whatever I say to you now will be the wrong thing, Christopher, but I can’t allow you to carry the burden of guilt for what happened between us—what so nearly happened, but did not.’

      His arms were crossed across his chest. A light breeze ruffled his hair, blowing the soft, worn cotton of his tunic against the muscled contours of his body. His gaze was averted, fixed on the undulating contours of the desert sands as they formed and re-formed in an endless, shifting pattern of dunes. A dangerous man, she had thought him, from the first moment they met, and a wildly attractive man too. But she knew now that he was also a vulnerable man, a man who felt betrayed, rejected, and lost. A man desperate to wipe the slate of his history clean, yet a man who was set on dedicating his life to uncovering the history of others. Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed, watching him. She felt—she felt far too much. It was not safe to feel so much for a man she was about to say goodbye to, but from the moment she met him, Christopher had made her want to cast caution to the winds. Right now, safe was the last thing she wanted to feel.

      ‘Over there is where you took me sledding,’ Tahira said, stumbling over the English word, slipping her arm through his. ‘And over there, in the other direction, the oasis where we went swimming—though I never did swim.’

      ‘You floated very beautifully though. I won’t forget that image of you, with your hair streaming out behind you, the moonlight on the water, and you...’

      Christopher pulled her into his arms, holding her breathlessly tight. ‘I have never wanted anyone so much as I wanted you tonight. The other times, the dune, the oasis, though you were temptation personified, I was always—I never once lost control of my desire for you. I was so sure, Tahira, so very much aware of that line my father crossed in begetting me, so certain that I never would allow history to repeat itself. Yet tonight—it was the fact that I didn’t think at all which frightened me.’

      ‘But it was the same for me, Christopher.’

      ‘No,’ he said gently but firmly, ‘it is not the same. The consequences are so completely, unfairly disproportionate. My loss of control would have been your downfall, just as my father’s was my mother’s.’ He shuddered, his hold on her tightening painfully. ‘If we had made love, what would have become of us, do you think? All very well for me to tell myself that I would do what they call the honourable thing, in England—marry you—but I will not tell myself that pathetic lie. We are from different worlds. I am a bastard with no name to call my own, certainly none to give to a wife or a child, while you, Tahira, whatever your name, it is obviously a good one. Your brother would never accept me, and you cannot marry a man unacceptable to your family.’

      He let her go, only to clench his fists, his mouth curled into a self-deprecating sneer. ‘The parallels are painfully obvious. When that man explained the circumstances of my mother’s downfall, I thought he too easily dismissed the option of marriage, but though it makes my bile rise to admit it, by understanding how intractable your own family are in the matter of making a good match for you—which brings me back to my point. My act of selfishness would be paid for by you. What would you do, Tahira? What could you possibly do, save proceed with the marriage arranged for you, make a cuckold of your husband before you have even said your vows, and live for ever with the lie, or bring dishonour to your family with the truth?’

      His words cut her to the quick, for they were the stark, brutal truth. It terrified her to see how close she had come to the precipice he depicted. ‘You are right,’ Tahira whispered, shamed. Her future husband was not her choice, but everything she had heard implied he was a good man. He did not deserve a marriage based on lies, a wife who deceived him about the one commodity she brought to the alliance. Yet she still could not bring herself to regret a moment spent with Christopher. ‘You are quite right,’ she repeated, in an effort to persuade herself it was so.

      ‘Thankfully, it is not a choice you will have to make.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Tonight I proved that I can be every bit as selfish, as vile, as the man whose blood runs in my veins—because that’s the point, you see. I did not ultimately lose control, but I wanted to. The moral high ground I have claimed is no longer mine.’

      ‘Nor mine.’

      ‘I won’t have you say that. You are sacrificing your freedom to do your duty.’

      ‘And am therefore granted the moral leeway you will not grant yourself?’ Tahira exclaimed bitterly. ‘You deride my brother for imposing his will on me, but aren’t you doing the same, by denying me the right to claim some responsibility for my own actions?’ Too late, she realised how inflammatory her words were. Too late she remembered that they were amongst her last words to Christopher. But they were said now, and part of her could not regret them.

      ‘I am, as you have pointed out, quite powerless to dictate the course of my life,’ Tahira continued, thinking fatalistically that she might as well finish what she started. ‘When I’m with you, you allow me to be myself. Can’t you see that’s the most important thing to me in all of this? You have given me a taste of true freedom, and I used that freedom to choose, tonight, to make love to you. A foolish—far beyond foolish—choice, but my choice all the same. You did not coerce me. And as to the consequences—they are my responsibility as much as yours.’

      He did not speak for some moments, but she could see from the way his throat worked that he was struggling with some strong emotion. Anger?

      But when he did speak, he sounded shaken. ‘Forgive me, I have been thinking only of myself.’

      ‘Christopher, it has been—what you have told me tonight—I cannot imagine what you must have suffered, these last nine months. I am honoured that you have chosen to confide in me, that you trusted me.’ Guilt swooped down on her, reminding her that she had not reciprocated that trust. But it was too late for that too.

      ‘I doubt I would, had not we—but enough of my guilty conscience.’ Christopher held out his arms, and she stepped gratefully into the comfort of them. ‘We have a little time left,’ he said, looking anxiously up at the stars. ‘Let us sit here together, on our magic carpet, and waste no more time fighting to prove which of us is more culpable.’

      Tahira reached up to smooth his hair back from his furrowed brow. ‘We are equal,’ she said. ‘Equally right, equally wrong, equally reckless, and I hope, during the time we have been together, equally happy.’

      His fingers warm and gentle on the back of her neck. ‘I hope that you will find happiness in the future. You deserve to.’

      She put her finger over his mouth. ‘No past, no future. Just the present. That’s all I’m interested in. Here and now. You and I. Just us.’

      With a groan, he kissed her, and with a soft sigh, she melted into his kiss. Lips clinging, hands smoothing and stroking, they sank on to the carpet together. There was an aching sweetness in this kiss that had not been there before, a tenderness in their touch, as if they were made of glass and might shatter.

      When it ended they did not break apart but curled into each other, lying on their backs, gazing up at the stars spread across the night sky just for them. More kisses, equally tender, but as the sky turned from indigo to violet and the stars began to fade, their lips and hands became desperate. Passion not spent, but forever suspended, the sense of an ending finally forced them apart.

      In silence, Tahira pulled on her cloak and fixed her headdress. Her throat was clogged, her heart heavy, but she was beyond tears. One final kiss before she clicked her tongue for her camel to drop to his knees. Tearing herself from Christopher’s embrace

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