Free The Sheikh's Impetuous Love-Slave by Marguerite Kaye Page B

of hers, a well-born mademoiselle to boot. The diplomatic implications could be severe. ‘Where did you find her? How long ago?’ Khalid demanded curtly.
    â€˜By the sea, Highness,’ the head tribesman replied, keeping his eyes cast firmly at his prince’s feet. ‘A month ago, thrown ashore by a storm.’
    A whole month! Could it get any worse? Khalid swore silently. ‘What happened to the others?’ he asked, addressing Juliette in her own language.
    His French was flawless, softly accented. The question brought a brief, horrible memory of the storm, the screeching of the wind as it ripped through the sail of the dhow, the screams of the crew, her own urgent entreaties to Papa to leave his precious artefacts, to save himself. He hadn’t of course. The rogue wave which had tossed her to shore had also sent Papa and the trunk full of carefully garnered relics to the bottom of the Red Sea. In death, as in life, Papa had put his lost civilizations first. ‘Lost, all of them, including my father,’ Juliette said, biting her cheek.
    â€˜I am sorry,’ Khalid said, touched by the effort she was making not to cry. ‘What of the rest of your family, where are they?’
    â€˜Family?’ Juliette shook her head, swallowing the lump in her throat caused by his too-obvious sympathy. Though Papa had been well-born, when he made archaeology his career rather than a mere gentlemanly interest, his family had disowned him. Juliette had never met any of her relatives, nor had Papa encouraged her to show any interest in them. So used was she to considering herself alone in the world—for Papa, by his own admission, was more her mentor than her parent—that she had come to think it quite normal, unless it was brought to her attention. She did not like to have it brought to her attention, and so she shrugged. ‘I have no other family. My mother died when I was a baby. It has always been just Papa and me.’
    Though much of the time, Juliette admitted sadly to herself, especially when she was little, Papa had barely noticed her. It was only as she grew old enough to be of use that he took control of her education, though his purposes were self-serving rather than altruistic, his teaching confined to his own field. In his daughter’s views on anything outside the world of archaeology, he had no interest. Juliette doubted he even knew whether she preferred tea or coffee, Rousseau or Voltaire. Certainly, he would have considered both questions irrelevant.
    Prince Khalid was looking at her strangely. ‘No husband?’ he asked with a raised brow. ‘That is surely rather…unusual?’
    Juliette bristled. She was aware that her life had been unconventional, but it was all she knew. Though she herself had begun to question it, she did not relish a complete stranger doing so. ‘All my life, I have helped Papa with his work. Important work, far more important than a mere husband. I have no time for such things. I earned the right to be treated as an equal by Papa and his assistants.’
    Eyeing the extremely shapely female body beneath the tattered remnants of her clothing, Khalid found this rather difficult to believe. Catching the lascivious look of the tribesmen as they ogled her, he felt a stab of anger at his subjects’ lack of manners, but also at this odd female’s naïveté.
    â€˜She is very pretty, no?’ the tribesman said with a wink in Juliette’s direction.
    â€˜Son of a camel,’ Juliette spat at him, ‘how dare you look at me like that!’
    The tribesman moved quickly to the side as Juliette aimed a kick at him, hampered by her bonds. ‘As you can see, Majesty, she has a fine, fiery spirit.’
    â€˜I hope,’ Khalid said coldly, ‘that you have treated her with the respect due to a foreign visitor to my kingdom.’
    The tribesman gave a nervous laugh. ‘Such a temper she has, my men would