The Sheikh's Virgin Stable-Girl

‘Oh, forgive me, Highness, forgive me,’ stumbled Gamal. ‘You will please enter my humble abode and anything you desire shall be brought to you.’

The smoke-filled salon was lit by oil-lamps with a bright, spotlight glare over the poker table and Kaliq dipped his head as he entered the room, noting that one of his bodyguards had slipped in before him. The faint scent of incense mingled with the smell of tobacco and the deep voices grew silent as the assembled men sprang instantly to their feet.

Kaliq’s smile was wolfish as he waved at them to resume their seats. For wasn’t the number one rule of defeating the opposition to first give them a false sense of security? ‘No, no. Tonight you do not stand on ceremony; tonight we are as equals,’ he instructed softly. ‘For the cards cannot be played properly if one insists on hierarchy. Tonight I am not a prince of your land—I am simply a man, just like you, Lakis.’

Standing just outside the door and summoning up the courage to enter the room, Eleni wondered if her father knew what he was up against. Because as she listened to the prince’s drawled statement, it somehow didn’t ring quite true. As if this powerful prince would ever desire that these ruffians should be his equal!

‘Eleni!’

She was just about to call, ‘Yes, Papa,’ when she heard his next words.

‘My servant girl will bring us food and drink! Eleni—come now!’

In spite of her nerves, Eleni almost smiled. How wily her father was. Not only was he elevating his status in front of the prince by bringing in an extra, female servant—but by using his daughter he would guarantee absolute discretion. As well as not having to pay her anything!

Sucking in a deep breath, Eleni entered the room, keeping her eyes down and resisting the terrible overwhelming instinct which made her long to look at the prince again, which wasn’t easy since servants were never permitted eye-contact with a member of the ruling family of Calista. She knew too that protocol demanded she make a deep curtsey—not something she was used to doing.

‘Your Highness,’ she said softly, and, bending one knee behind the other, she made a sweeping kind of bow—glad that all her years of riding had given her a certain grace. ‘What does my master request that I should bring to his honoured guest?’ she added quietly.

Kaliq glanced over at her, his antennae automatically alerted by the sound of a woman’s voice. It was soft and soothing, he thought—like cool, running water running through this oppressive and stuffy room. And it was curiously fluent for a servant. His eyes narrowed, but he could not see whether she was plain or beautiful.

Her head was covered with a veil and the clothes she wore were drab and concealing—and while they were entirely appropriate for a woman of her class and status, he would have preferred to feast his eyes on something attractive. Some buxom young thing with her breasts half spilling out, who would pleasure him with the yearning in her eyes!

‘A drink,’ he ordered curtly, forcing his thoughts away from the subject because he was here tonight to play cards—not to lose himself in the delights of a woman.

‘You will drink some Zelyoniy with us?’ questioned Gamal hopefully.

Kaliq suppressed a shudder. As if he could bring himself to drink Zelyoniy! The potent green spirit made from cactus plants was banned in most of the country, though he knew that its use was still widespread in the rougher regions. But might it not assist his game if his partners were partial to hard liqueur? ‘Not for me,’ he answered silkily. ‘But the rest of you must drink what pleases you. Bring me pomegranate juice instead,’ he told the servant girl.

‘At once, Highness,’ said Eleni, and hurried off.

Kaliq leaned back in his chair as the dealer opened the new pack of cards and a familiar excitement began to steal over his skin. He wanted to win, yes, because he loved winning—but more important than victory was the risk involved. He shouldn’t really be here, associating with these low-life racehorse breeders and trainers—but that, of course, only added to the evening’s appeal. The sense of the unknown, the forbidden and the elicit.

Because sometimes Kaliq grew bored with his privileged life—a life which took him to cities all over the Western world. Cities where he could slip easily into the role of the playboy sheikh—as the international newspapers were so fond of calling him. Impossibly rich from the wealth of his country’s diamond mines, he could have anything he wanted—and mostly he did.

But sometimes he wanted harsh contrast and that was what brought him to places like this. Where the hardships and toughness of desert life made the fleshpots of Europe fade into insignificance. As the cards began to be dealt around the table Kaliq felt the familiar thrill of expectation.

‘You will take food, Highness?’

Kaliq glanced up. The servant girl was standing before him and putting a goblet of pomegranate juice before him. He shook his dark head impatiently. As if he would eat with people such as these!

‘No. I have no appetite for food.’ And then he glanced at the drink. ‘But my thirst is great. Taste it,’ he instructed the girl.

Eleni’s heart raced in confusion. Surely the prince did not intend her to drink from his glass? ‘But—’

‘I said, taste it,’ he repeated softly. ‘Or I will begin to worry that you are trying to poison me.’

With nervous fingers Eleni lifted the heavy cup—her father’s best—to her lips and sipped at the sweet, tangy juice, the tip of her tongue automatically removing its sticky trace from her lips. How horrible for the prince to have to live with such terrible fears, she thought, her heart giving an automatic little tug of compassion. Did he have to watch his back, wherever he went, she wondered—afraid that some unknown assassin was lurking in the shadows?

Aware that his piercing black eyes were fixed on her, she felt as if she had been turned to stone. What was she supposed to do now? And how long did they have to wait to see if she had been poisoned?

‘Well?’ Kaliq shot the word out.

Eleni swallowed as she stared down at the goblet. ‘I think the drink will please you, Highness.’

‘Then give it to me,’ he ordered silkily.

At this, she was forced to lift her gaze upwards as she held the juice towards him and as Kaliq stared into her face he felt the first shimmering of astonishment. For she had green eyes—pale green and glittering! The fabled green eyes of Calista—a throwback to warriors from Persia who had briefly conquered this land and its women many centuries ago, before being defeated by one of his ancestors. Legendary eyes—rare and lovely and spoken of in the palaces and tea rooms—but he had never seen them before now.

‘By the desert storm,’ he murmured beneath his breath, a strange wild beating in his heart as he sipped some of the juice and stared into them. ‘Such beautiful eyes.’

But then the cards began to fly from the dealer’s hands and Kaliq turned his attention to the game, the servant dismissed from his mind, her eyes forgotten.

There was a lot of money at stake, but it soon became clear to Kaliq that he and Gamal were playing to a different agenda from the other men, and soon their natural aggression ensured that there were only two of them left in the game. But Gamal was drinking too much alcohol—and Kaliq knew that there was one place in the world where you could not afford to be drunk, and that was at the poker table.

As the dealer skimmed them each two cards he saw Gamal try and fail to hide his smile of triumph and Kaliq sensed that his moment was drawing near. He looked up to find that the green eyes of the servant girl were fixed on the table with a look of terror. Was she perhaps worried that her master would gamble away all his livelihood, and her job into the bargain?

Glancing down at his own cards, Kaliq leaned forward. ‘A thousand to play,’ he said softly to the soft gasp of one of the onlookers.

Gamal immediately pushed a pile of hyakim notes into the pot. ‘Three thousand,’ he croaked, licking his lips.

Kaliq leaned back in his chair, sensing the man’s greed and certainty that he was going to win and the prince smiled with the confidence of a man who held an unbeatable pair of cards in his hand. ‘You look as if you’d like to bet more, Lakis,’ he said silkily. ‘Shall we raise the stakes? I’ll allow you to make a larger bet if you wish.’

Gamal’s eyes gleamed. ‘How much?’

Kaliq shrugged. ‘Well, as you know, I have no use for money—but if you want to sweeten the pot with that Arab stallion of yours that I’ve heard so much about, then I’ll put in a million. What do you say to that, old man?’

Unable to believe what she was seeing, Eleni dropped a spoon in an attempt to bring her father to his senses but the atmosphere in the room was so tense that nobody even noticed it clattering to the ground. This was like a bad, bad dream—her drunken brute of a father threatening to use his prize stallion as a wager. Her own beloved horse and just about the only thing which kept her sane in the harsh environment in which she lived.

‘A million, you say?’ questioned Gamal greedily.

‘A million,’ agreed Kaliq.

Eleni wanted to scream at her father not to persist with this foolishness—for even she could see from the prince’s demeanour that he must hold the winning cards. But how could she possibly boldly assert herself in this company of men, and in front of their royal guest? Why, Kaliq would probably have one of his bodyguards carry her from the room and slapped into the jailhouse in Serapolis!

‘Would…would you care for another drink, Highness?’ she questioned desperately, hoping to shatter the mood with her inappropriate question.

‘Do not dare speak to me when we are engaged in play,’ snapped Kaliq.

‘Yes, yes. I’ll wager the stallion!’ butted in Gamal wildly, triumphantly slapping two kings down on the table.

Eleni bunched her fist into her mouth. ‘No!’ she whimpered, but nobody heard. She could hardly bear to watch, but it was as inevitable as watching the sun sink down over the distant mountains. Her father was going to lose, or rather, the prince was going to win—that much had been apparent from the moment he had first galloped up on his own magnificent stallion.

Slowly, Kaliq laid down his two aces—the only hand which could beat Gamal’s—and there was a collective gasp in the room. ‘My game, I think,’ he said softly.

Eleni honestly thought that she might faint, and on shaky knees she staggered to the door, not caring if it was discourteous to their royal guest to leave without being dismissed, not caring about anything—because to all intents and purposes her life was over.

She took one last look at Kaliq’s beautiful hard face and the cruel smile which curved his lips—and her fingers itched to pick up the heavy spoon she had dropped and to hurl it at his arrogant royal head. How dared he try to rob them of the one thing in their lives which brought them income and prosperity?