Love Me No More

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

In the shadows of the Pyramids, she discovers ecstasy, torment... and the fierce desires of a foreign prince. Iris has lived an idyllic, sheltered life - born and raised in the "Little Palace: - her family home in exotic Egypt. But when her wealthy archaeologist father dies, his final wish is that she be sent to England to live with her aunt. Determined to remain in her beloved home, Iris impulsively asks the mysterious Prince Usref to marry her... little realizing that British diplomat Stephen Daltry will soon arrive to sweep her off her feet! Though every fibre of her being yearns to be with Stephen, her fear of Usref drives her to a fateful decision. For now the insidious Prince wants her in all possible ways, and he will stop at nothing, not even murder, to make her his lifelong slave!

Release date: July 24, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 240

Sample

The midday sun beat down fiercely hot on the smooth white terraces and flower-filled roof garden of Lowell Pasha’s villa on the Nile.

It was no ordinary villa, it had the noble proportions of a small palace. To the fellahin working in their fields on the delta it was called the ‘Little Palace’. And Lowell Pasha—one of the few Englishmen to bear such an Egyptian title—was deeply respected, one of the wealthiest as well as one of the most brilliant of men, in a cultural sense, and an archaeologist of world renown.

The ‘Little Palace’, glaring in the heat of such a day as this, glowed like a jewel, set in the restful shade of many tall palm trees. Its marble halls had been built around an open court which contained an exquisite fountain, and were enriched by borders and friezes of a design which Lowell Pasha had copied from one of the ancient temples he had excavated and preserved.

When the sun was at certain points in the zodiac the small carved domes of the building, which were decorated with wonderful tracery, wrought with blue glass and mother-of-pearl, could be seen flashing from a far distance. It was the wonder and delight of the native inhabitants of the small surrounding villages and of tourists. But nobody save certain privileged persons, well known to Lowell Pasha—and his retinue of trusted Sudanese servants—ever got through the gates of the ‘Little Palace’. The gate entrance was locked. On three sides the building was protected from the public by high white walls. On the fourth lay the glittering waters of the Nile.

Today the very Nile itself seemed turgid, oily with the heat. There was no sign of movement either inside the Palace or out, save from two magnificent white peacocks strutting slowly across the lower terrace.

The gardens and green lawns, religiously watered and tended by six Sudanese gardeners, simmered and steamed in the heat. A deep silence prevailed.

But high up on the flat roof, under a silken canopy, in a temperature controlled and cooled by electricity, a young girl, with a letter crushed in one slender jewelled hand, lay face downward on a low divan, sobbing as though her heart would break.

She was alone.

She had dismissed the servant who had just brought her the note. (It had been delivered by one of the great flying-boats which stopped a mile down the Nile, on the route between Luxor and Assuan). At a distance, half-hidden by a Moorish screen, there hovered a stout, grey-haired woman of Arab descent, wearing a black cotton gown and scarf about her head. She was anxiously watching the girl. Every now and again as those bitter sobs broke the hot silence the old woman, who was the girl’s nurse, made a little wailing sound to herself and wiped away her tears. But she dared not approach the couch. When the Lady Iris told people to keep away from her, who would dare approach? The Lady Iris had a sweet and kind disposition but she was used to having her own way, and her word, when His Excellency the Pasha was away, was law. Nobody would argue with her, except the old English governess, Miss Morgan, of whose sharp tongue all the servants were afraid. And she, praise be Allah, was sick of a fever today and up in her rooms, unable to come down and interfere.

Let the Lady Iris cry … it is good to loose the floodtide of grief, thought old Ayesha, the nurse. And why should she not weep, indeed, since this letter was to tell her that her revered father lay dying … perhaps by now was dead … in far-off Turkey?

Aiee … aiee! … What a loss to all of them! Ayesha wept and watched the adored and beloved young mistress whom she had rocked in her cradle from the time she was born … twenty years ago.

Lowell Pasha’s daughter turned now and lay staring for a moment up at the canopy which shielded her from the sun … then looked through tear-swollen lids down at the garden … and beyond to the desert … far beyond towards a civilisation she had never known or seen. Turkey lay over there, somewhere … Ankara … whither her father had gone on a conference … and from whence he would never return. It was almost unbelievable to Iris, who a week ago had seen him drive off in his car to Cairo, in what seemed the best of health and spirits. He had gone to meet and consult some well-known British engineer, who was on a visit there, about the installation of a new swimming-bath—for her. Iris loved swimming. The present bath, made in her childhood, was now too small. Dear, dear father, who had spoiled and indulged her slightest wish, always … he had gone to Ankara on a mission for her … but he had had a sudden stroke, so this letter said, in the ’plane, travelling to Ankara. He had been given only a few hours … perhaps less … in which to live. Lying in a hospital in the Turkish capital, he gathered together the strength to dictate some letters to an Englishman … a new friend whose name Iris did not know … and whose acquaintance he had made in Cairo the night before he flew to Turkey … and beside whom he had been seated in the ’plane.

This man, Stephen Daltry, was described by Lowell Pasha as a young diplomat … a fine type of Englishman … whom one could trust … in a world where values were shifting and integrity hard to find. Stephen Daltry had been exceedingly kind and helpful and finally gone with him to the hospital and stayed with him because Lowell Pasha said he feared his end was near. Because there were important words to be written … Stephen Daltry had waited to write them down.

Iris, grief-stricken though she was, felt that she could remember every word of this letter, she had read it so many times before she had burst into tears.

I shall not be alive by the time this reaches you, my adored Iris … whom I have felt always to be an incarnation of Isis, the great goddess of my beloved Egypt … so I must hasten to send this letter and warn you that life as you have hitherto lived it can be lived no more. I have done you a wrong by bringing you up as I have done, sheltered and kept strictly away from the modern world. When your mother died in bringing you into the world I wished to protect you from that world … and believed myself wise … but now know that I was foolish. For I realise that when death overtakes me you will be unable to go on living alone in our beautiful home, blissfully ignorant of the sorrows and difficulties which beset human beings … and that you must become one of them … and go back to England … to my sister in London who will guide and protect you.

I have lived only for you … ever since your darling mother passed into the shadows … but it has been madness … a terrible mistake on my part, daring to hope that you could always escape reality. … But you must be brave and obey what I am going to ask of you. I am sending instructions to you by Stephen Daltry, who will be in Cairo at the Legation next week, and will come to see you. I have entrusted him with your future. He has sworn to take you safely back to London to your Aunt Olivia. You know nothing of her … nor she of you beyond what I am proposing to write to her if my strength holds out and I can dictate more to Stephen. … The rest you can talk over with him … good-bye, my beloved … my Isis, daughter of earth and sky. …

Daughter of Earth and Sky! That was how history described the ancient goddess of Egypt … Daughter of Keb and Nut. That, too, was what Lowell Pasha called his child.

Iris knew much about Ancient Egypt … had studied the fascinating era with her father when she was still a child … and was as conversant with the wonder and magic of its history as she was with the Arabic language, which she spoke fluently.

She had always felt herself to be part of old Egypt. Outside these high white walls lay a world unknown to her … a post-war world, occasionally described to her by old Miss Morgan, who had come, fourteen years ago, to teach her English subjects and remained, a faithful and devoted part of the household.

She lifted her father’s letter in order to read it again but a voice interrupted her … calling her from below.

‘Iris … my Lady of Moonlight, where are you?’

She sat up, pushing the long silken hair back from her wet, sad face. She knew that voice. It could only be Prince Usref, whom she called Mikhilo … a young Serbian whom she had met through an Egyptian friend, Nila Fahmoud. Nila was the daughter of Fahmoud Pasha, one of the talented Egyptians working on a new temple excavation with Iris’s father. She and Nila had been friends since babyhood, despite the utter difference in their characters and upbringing, for Nila had been educated in a university and was fond of the fashionable, social life of Cairo about which Iris knew nothing.

Nila was engaged to be married. Her future husband, whilst training for a special job in America, had met Usref there and he had come back to stay with the Fahmouds in Egypt. From the hour that the young Serbian Prince had set eyes on Iris he had been deeply enamoured of her.

He was handsome and amusing, and the only person so far to open Iris’s large long-lashed eyes to the fact that a young, good-looking man can be more stirring to the pulses—and so much more interesting—than elderly grave professors! He called her his ‘Lady of Moonlight’. It was his especial name for her … and amused her so she had allowed it. It was the first touch of familiarity she had ever accepted. For she had grown up in these walls … lived in the ‘Little Palace’ like a queen … young though she was … issuing her royal commands and expecting as well as receiving blind obedience—even subservience—from those around her. Nobody save her father and her English governess, whom she loved, ever dared thwart the Lady Iris.

‘My Lady of Moonlight … let me come to you …’ pleaded the voice of Prince Usref, the Serb.

Old Ayesha shuffled nearer the couch.

‘Shall I bid him depart, little mistress?’

‘No, bid His Highness wait below on the terrace, and then come, do my hair and fetch my mirror and face-box,’ Iris said in Arabic.

The old nurse hurried to do her bidding. It was well for the little dove to have young company and stop this grieving … even though Ayesha had no great liking for the Serbian Prince, friend of the Fahmouds. He had found her in his way the other evening when entering the Palace and had caught her with his foot, tripped her up and laughed when she had difficulty in raising her big bulk from the ground, It had been mischievous and deliberate, and she had resented it.

But Iris felt suddenly glad because Mikhilo. had come to see her. She could talk to him. He would help her. Nila said that he was greatly taken with her. He was cultured and had been in the modern world. He must advise her … as old Miss Morgan could not do. She had been so long here, in the ‘Little Palace’, that she had half forgotten English life and customs. …

A few moments later Iris was downstairs in the upper terrace, where, beneath a great awning of blue-painted canvas, cool iced drinks were being served by Pilak, one of the Sudanese house-boys.

Prince Usref was leaning over the balustrade smoking, watching the great garden hose being sprayed in high silver jets of water over the parched grass and the scarlet carnations which fringed the lawns. … He turned and flung away his cigarette as he heard the soft patter of Iris’s sandalled feet. He gave her an ardent look, then bowed. He had been warned by Nila never to take liberties with Lowell Pasha’s daughter. And, ye gods, she was indeed like one of the goddesses of the past, he thought … her slender beauty outlined against the jade-green painted doors through which she had just come. Alabaster-pale, her face was young and pure and of classic outline, with dark silken hair braided around her head. (Nila had told him that when Iris’s hair was loosed it fell to her knees in a glorious cloud.) Her eyes held something of the changing colours of the Nile … dark, amber-flecked under delicate narrow brows. The only touch of colour lay in the scarlet of her proud lips … of her filbert nails.

She wore a long white linen gown, looped on one shoulder by a great scarab brooch of brilliant blue, and with a hem of blue and scarlet. She nearly always wore such clothes—designed from engravings she had seen of the women of ancient Egypt.

‘My Lady of Moonlight …’ murmured Mikhilo, ‘I have heard of your disaster. News travels fast along the banks of the Nile. I have come to offer my services. My life is yours.’

Iris did not reply to this extravagant speech for a moment. She looked at him in a grave, searching way which she had, and which always disconcerted Mikhilo (fresh from easy conquests of the pretty American women). Then she said:

‘Sit down. I have worse news for you, Mikhilo. I shall need your help.’

He allowed her to sink into one of the low, cushioned chairs facing the river. He stood watching her, fascinated as always by her marvellous beauty and the incredible atmosphere of a bygone imperial dynasty which she managed to create around herself. He said, speaking French, which was a language he knew better than English and which Iris spoke as well as Arabic:

‘What can I do?’

Her big, mournful eyes looked up at him. She hardly saw the slim, well-groomed young man in his white linen suit … so sleek, so handsome … with the ebony-black head and big liquid eyes of his race.

She saw only the burning blue of the sky and heard the harsh plaintive cry of the peacocks on the lower terrace. This was her home; she could not, she would not, leave it, she thought desperately.

In a few brief words she told Mikhilo the contents of her father’s letter.

A change came over the smiling face of the young Serbian Prince. He was aghast at the possibility that this most unique and exquisite girl might be removed from him. And at the very thought of the Englishman a bitter jealousy sprang to life within him.

Who was Stephen Daltry? A diplomat. An intruder who had no earthly right to control Iris’s existence.

‘But this is not to be tolerated!’ he burst out. ‘You must refuse to go away. He cannot forcibly remove you.’

Iris bit her lip. She was struggling with many emotions. Intermingled with her grief for her father was the desire to obey his dying wishes. He was sending Stephen Daltry to her and she knew that she must receive him. From him alone could she hear details of her father’s end. But as she listened to Mikhilo’s outburst, which continued on a note of passion, an uneasy feeling came over her. Perhaps he was right … perhaps she could escape her fate and insist upon remaining here with old Miss Morgan. She knew nothing of the law, and Mikhilo was forgetting that Lowell Pasha’s daughter was under age and might be forced to accept the guardianship of her aunt.

‘Oh, Mikhilo,’ exclaimed Iris, ‘I knew that you would comfort and advise me. Say … what can I do?’

‘Refuse to see this man,’ said the young Serb promptly.

She hesitated.

‘I think I must see him if it is my father’s wish.’

‘When is he coming?’

‘Soon, I understand—from Cairo.’

‘Send for me the moment he arrives and I will deal with him,’ said Mikhilo with youthful arrogance.

But as soon as he had spoken he regretted his words. He had forgotten that Lowell Pasha’s daughter was not used to being given orders. She stood up, drawing her slender body erect, and said with a touch of coldness:

‘No, Mikhilo, I will deal with him. I am mistress here now that my father …’ She did not finish, but turned from Mikhilo, choking a little.

He kept a respectful distance.

So far he believed that he had gained her friendship and trust and that the rest would follow. It was only in moments like this when she ‘froze’ that he was less certain of himself and of her; made aware of the strange determination and strength of character in this extraordinary girl.

When he next spoke it was meekly.

‘You have only to send for me, my Lady of Moonlight, and I will come. But I implore you, be firm with the Englishman.’

She looked through her black, glistening lashes at the waters of the Nile. Then she repeated in a low, slow voice:

‘I will deal with him.’

There came the sudden sound of voices … of a disturbance unusual in the quiet gardens. Iris frowned and looked enquiringly in the direction of the gateway that led into the Palace grounds.

Mandulis, the Nubian who was Lowell Pasha’s head suffragi, or servant, came running towards the terrace, his striped gown flapping, his broad ebony face betraying much indignation.

He spoke in Arabic to Iris. Mikhilo saw the girl’s face flush a little. Then she drew herself into a position of incredible dignity for one so young.

‘So!’ she exclaimed. ‘He has come already. …’

Mikhilo said:

‘It is Stephen Daltry?’

‘Yes,’ she said in a tense voice. But in spite of that colour in her cheeks and the slight quivering of her slender body, she remained cool and poised. She gave an order to the suffragi, who turned and hastened away. Then she said:

‘They are trying to stop his coming to the Palace.’

‘Why let him enter?’ said Mikhilo eagerly.

‘Because my father has sent him,’ she said, her brows knit, and she caught her lower lip between her small white teeth in an effort not to betray any more emotion. She added, ‘Leave me, please, Mikhilo. I must see this man alone.’

The young Serbian made a gesture as though to argue this point but one look from Iris’s glorious eyes restrained him. He bowed and left her.

She walked out of the sunlight into the dim coolness of the house, there to wait the man who called himself her father’s friend yet seemed to be the one and only enemy she had in the world.

Stephen Daltry was shown into the ‘Little Palace’ with slightly more respect than he had received at the gates. But he was hot, tired, and not in the best of humours.

He had come here on a difficult and delicate mission which he was already regretting. He had made up his mind to waste no time, but to give Lowell Pasha’s daughter the instructions from her father immediately and carry out his own promise to see her safely to England.

Since Romney Lowell’s death in the hospital at Ankara Stephen had made one or two enquiries about the old man whom he had first befriended when taken so critically ill. Lowell Pasha was reputed to be a little mad. Everyone said that he had brought his daughter up as a kind of goddess—and kept her a prisoner in her own home.

Nobody seemed to have seen Iris Lowell, except on rare occasions driving in a car, veiled, when she accompanied her father to their summer villa near Alexandria. There she was equally well guarded. And nobody seemed to think that she was kept ‘in purdah’ against her will. It seemed that she had never known any other existence and hankered for no other.

Stephen had received confirmation of these facts from Romney Lowell himself. But the old man, when he lay dying, had appeared to Stephen agitated, because of his fears for the girl’s future. It had become obvious to him that Iris could not go on living alone in the palace with only an old English governess as chaperon.

‘I have confidence in you, my boy,’ he had told Stephen. ‘My child shall be a sacred trust to you. She must be taken back to England, where my sister Olivia will look after her. She must have a chance to know her own people and country. Then when she is of age she can make her choice—return to our Palace and marry in Egypt—if she so wishes.’

It seemed to Stephen fantastic—more like a slice from a Rider Haggard novel than anything in real life. And the last thing he had ever imagined himself doing was acting as guardian to a beautiful girl of twenty.

At twenty-seven he had already distinguished himself in the Diplomatic Service; had just handed over his job as secretary to the attaché at Ankara and was now in the running for a new and important job as assistant attaché in Cairo.

Stephen liked Egypt. He also liked the heat and sunshine, spoke a little Arabic, and got on well with the Egyptians.

He had a tremendous zeal for work, an unflagging enthusiasm for anything upon which he embarked. He was now on a fortnight’s leave, and although he could not altogether look forward to his meeting with the girl, he wondered what he would find. What would she be like? How would she act? What the deuce would he do if she proved unwilling to fall in with her father’s plans?

But the greeting which he had prepared died on his lips once he entered the room in which Lowell Pasha’s daughter awaited him.

After the strong sunlight he stood blinking a moment, holding his smoked glasses in one hand. A swift survey revealed to him exquisitely carved walls and white graceful archways. The floor was pure mosaic. There were tall flowers everywhere. The atmosphere was fragrant and of refreshing coolness. Through the archways one could glimpse a green palm tree and a greener Nile.

Then Stephen saw Iris Lowell. She spoke in a cool, musical voice which seemed to him to have a faintly foreign inflection.

‘You are Stephen Daltry?’ she said.

For an instant he could not speak. He stared at her. He was an easy-going young man, the typical diplomat with all the social graces at his fingertips. He had met many beautiful women in his time, but he was literally struck dumb by the entrancing picture made by the remarkable daughter of Lowell Pasha.

She sat motionless in a chair which had a high back carved out of cedarwood and wrought with gilt Egyptian scrolls. The two arms were shaped like Sphinx heads and on each rested a slender hand. Stephen recognised the fact that the emeralds on those pointed fingers with their red lacquered nails might well have come from one of the coffers unearthed from a Pharaoh’s tomb.

It was rather a shock, too, to see her in the classic white Egyptian gown which showed the exquisite lines of her lissom body.

Slowly he moved nearer her. Despite the beauty of her face, it seemed to him that there was a childish fragility about her, and he could only guess at the length of the black silky hair which was wound in three great plaits about her small head.

She repeated:

‘You are Stephen Daltry?’

He felt a vague inclination to bow as though before royalty—so regal was her bearing.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have brought back your father’s effects—and his instructions concerning yourself. I had the honour to be with the Pasha at the end. I would like to offer you all my sympathies …’ He broke off in an embarrassed way.

Her head remained high, but he saw the slender hands grip the Sphinx heads tightly, and into those wonderful eyes of hers crept a desolate look. She said:

‘Thank you. I am … grateful for all you did for my dear father. Later, when you have had food and drink, I want to hear … everything. You will stay in the “Little Palace” as my guest tonight. You will be well looked after. It would be my father’s wish and there is much to settle.’

Stephen raised his brows. He was, as a rule, completely at ease with women, but this girl persisted in making him feel that he was merely being given an audience, and that at any moment he would be peremptorily dismissed.

He said:

‘I have already booked a room in a hotel at Assuan and left my luggage there.’

‘The room shall be cancelled,’ she said haughtily. ‘My servants will fetch your things. I know that my father would wish you to receive the hospitality of our home.’

Again Stephen raised his brows. He began to be a little amused. But the smile which hovered on his lips faded when he heard her next words.

‘But I wish you to know right from the start, so that there shall be no misunderstanding, that I shall obey my father in all things except his order that I should go to England. I shall not go. I shall never leave Egypt.’

So the gauntlet had been flung down at once and the fight was on, thought Stephen wryly. Iris Lowell was not wasting time. He had been prepared for opposition. The Pasha himself had anticipated it. But he had said: ‘She must be made to see reason. I could not rest if I thought of her living alone in our Nile retreat. She must go to her Aunt Olivia. …’

Stephen said:

‘I thin. . .