The Pleasure of Your Kiss by Teresa Medeiros

Author:Teresa Medeiros
Language: fr
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9781439170731
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 2011-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

He wasn’t coming back.

Poppy drew off her spectacles and gazed out over the sea, a plaintive sigh escaping her lips. Sometimes the world was more pleasing to her eyes when it was slightly out of focus. It seemed to soften the sharp edges that could be so bruising to a tender heart.

Five days had passed since Farouk had stumbled upon her garden retreat. Even though there had been no sign of him there since then, she had returned faithfully to the bench each morning, taking great care to always arrive at the exact same time with a basket of freshly baked ktefa hooked on her arm. The sultan’s behavior toward her might be a mystery, but there could be no mistaking the way he had looked at those pastries.

A gentle breeze sifted through the clusters of curls pinned over her ears, but the merciless golden orb of the sun was already climbing in the eastern sky. Soon the heat would begin to rise over the desert in shimmering waves, making even the most heavily shaded corners of the garden unbearable until nightfall, especially to a woman with Poppy’s generous curves.

Despite the oppressive heat in this place, she was growing increasingly fond of her attire. There were no corsets with their biting whalebone stays, no endless layers of petticoats, no too-tight slippers to ruthlessly pinch her toes. Without the ribbons, buttons, and hooks, she no longer felt trussed up like a Christmas turkey. She was free to draw a deep breath, to stretch her legs and wiggle her toes, to entertain silly, girlish notions such as believing the sultan had been on the brink of kissing her.

She should have known that was just another of her foolish fancies, like believing Mr. Huntington-Smythe was infatuated with her just because he had retrieved her parasol when a gust of wind had turned it inside out and whisked it from her hand. Why would such a magnificent man as Farouk ever look twice at a plain, plump girl like her, much less kiss her, when he had a bevy of exotic beauties fawning all over him? Why, he was probably languishing in his bed with one of them at that very moment!

Swallowing her disappointment, she pushed her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose and opened the book in her lap. There was no point in letting her melancholy musings spoil a perfectly fine morning.

She had just begun to read when a forbidding shadow fell over the pages of the book.

She glanced up to find Farouk scowling down at her, his stern visage blocking the sun as surely as a thundercloud.

She could not stop a delighted smile from spreading over her own face. “Why, good morning, Your Majesty! What a wonderful surprise to see you here!”

“It is my garden, you know.”

“Of course I do. The entire palace is yours. Why, one might even venture that the entire province belongs to you!”

He continued to glower down at her from beneath the thick, raven wings of his brows, not even bothering to blink.

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