Free The Governess and the Sheikh by Marguerite Kaye

idea. Yet cold as he was—as he liked to appear, perhaps?—he could not really be so. He cared enough about Linah to want to bring her up properly. And Cassie had her own reasons for knowing he wasn’t incapable of emotion. Last night…
    Stop! She wouldn’t think about last night. Her own behaviour had shocked her. She just couldn’t understand it. But Jamil—well, he was a man, after all. One to whom desire came easily. Cassie’s skin prickled. He had seen her in a state of undress and he had wanted to…
    It was her fault! He was hot-blooded. It must be the desert air, or the heat of the sun, or perhaps therewas just something in the prince’s culture that encouraged such behaviour. Celia had hinted at something she called sensuality, though she wouldn’t explain, and to tell the truth, Cassie had been too embarrassed to ask. Whatever it was, it had to be said, there was something terribly romantic about desert princes. And Jamil was the epitome of a desert prince. A passionate sheikh with a strong sense of honour—look at the contemptuous way he had talked of Augustus! It made her feel just a bit better, to have him take her part. Sort of. Just a little.
    But that didn’t mean he would always be so understanding. She would do well indeed to forget all about last night, and all about Jamil as anything other than her exacting employer. She was done with romance. Done with giving her heart any say at all in matters. She was done, quite done, with men, whether traitorous poets or desert princes, romantic or otherwise.
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    Cassie made the journey to the city of Daar mounted on a snowy white camel, a rare breed, though its exclusivity did not, unfortunately, make it any more of a comfortable ride than its more dowdy brethren. The high-backed saddle was more splendid than the one on which she had arrived at Jamil’s camp, but it was still basically a sparsely-padded wooden seat. As Jamil made a clicking noise at the back of his throat, and the beast knelt down to allow her to mount, Cassie’s muscles protested by cramping. However, she climbed on to what passed for a saddle, pleased to discover that she did so with some semblance of grace, even more pleased to see the very brief look of approval that flittedacross Jamil’s face. He made the clicking noise again, and the camel got back to its feet. Cassie arranged her skirts and pulled the long veil, which she had attached to her little military hat, over her face. ‘I’ll take the reins, thank you,’ she said, holding out her gloved hand.
    Jamil hesitated. It was the custom for women to be lead and the white camel was not only extremely rare but extremely sensitive, with a mouth as soft as a thoroughbred horse. What if this woman was as impetuous a rider as she was in every other way? It would just take one jerk of the reins and she would end up thrown.
    â€˜You need not worry, I won’t let him bolt and I won’t ruin his mouth,’ Cassie said, reading his thoughts a mite too easily for Jamil’s liking. He surrendered the reins reluctantly, and, mounting his own camel with practised ease, headed the caravan east.
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    They had journeyed all day, save for a short break at the sun’s zenith, and on into the night, too, for Jamil was anxious to be home. By the time they made camp, the stars were already luminous, stitched like jewels into the blue velvet blanket of the sky. Cassie sat a little apart on a little outcrop of rocks, next to the small drinking pool, watching them set up the tents. Leaning back on her hands, she threw her head back to gaze up at the night sky, which looked so vast compared to England, the stars seeming to hover so much closer to earth than they did at home. The desert, too, in daylight, was vast, undulating and unrolling in front of them in shades of ochre and rust, of gold and tawny brown, a landscape of barren beauty, so exotic in its fierceness, and so