The Barbarian's Bride by Alex Ryder

Author:Alex Ryder [Alex Ryder]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459276512
Publisher: Harlequin

CHAPTER SEVEN

SHE’D walked about a hundred yards when the Land Rover drew up alongside her. He leaned from the driver’s window and called, ‘Get back in here, you foolish Englishwoman. This isn’t the place for a leisurely stroll. It isn’t Hyde Park. It’s dangerous.’

Ignoring him, Janene hitched her robe higher and ploughed ahead with grim determination. Damn all men…and him in particular.

He kept pace with her, and from the corner of her eye she saw him thump the steering-wheel in annoyance. ‘There are snakes and scorpions out there,’ he shouted.

‘Good,’ she yelled back. ‘It’ll be an improvement on your company.’ She squinted her eyes against the glare of the sun and pulled her headscarf lower over her face.

‘You’ll get heatstroke,’ he warned. ‘It’s over a hundred degrees out there.’

‘Go away! Leave me alone!’ she shouted. ‘I hate you. I never want to see you again. Never.’

He shook his head and looked imploringly at the sky. ‘Allah, spare me from the peverse machinations of a woman’s mind. Tell me, your humble servant, how I have offended her.’

‘If you had a grain of decency in your body, you wouldn’t have to ask a stupid question like that,’ she cried. ‘But you’re just a big, unfeeling brute.’

He drove ahead for about two hundred yards, then waited for her to catch up. ‘You’ll die of thirst,’ he called as she drew level. ‘That beautiful little body will be nothing but a heap of bleached bones.’

Her thin babouches weren’t much protection and the soles of her feet were getting hot from the burning sand. She quickened her pace and he put the Land Rover in gear and kept alongside her.

‘I’ve a good mind just to leave you here and teach you a lesson,’ he growled through the open window. ‘In this country, only mules are allowed to be stubborn. Women are supposed to do as they are told.’

‘Leave me, then! I don’t give a damn what you do. I told you that I never wanted to see you again, didn’t I?’

He eyed her in amused exasperation, then complained, ‘I can’t leave you here to rot. I haven’t had my money’s worth yet.’

Almost exploding with rage, she picked up a stone and hurled it at him.

‘You should take better aim,’ he observed mildly. ‘Anyway, it would be wiser to save your energy. You’re going to need it.’

Sweat was trickling into her eyes, causing them to smart, and she drew her sleeve across her brow.

‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked politely. ‘A large mug of cold, refreshing water?’

She didn’t answer, because it was becoming too much of an effort and it just made her mouth drier.

Her feet were really burning now, but she wasn’t going to give in. She’d crawl on her hands and knees if necessary.

‘You’re doing fine,’ he called to her ironically about ten minutes later. ‘You’ve walked a kilometre. Only another ninety-six to go.’

She blotted the sound of his sarcasm out and wiped her brow again. Walking on sand was hard on the legmuscles, and hers seemed to be on fire.

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