Lord of the Desert by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online

patrons pay at the counter and eat here.”
    â€œThis is very nice,” she said, looking around her at comfortably dressed people wandering about. “There are lots of tourists here.”
    â€œYes. The city is the site of an arts festival which is going on even now. The shops in the old walled city are brimming over, and Asilah has put on its brightest face for the festival. It draws people from around Europe and Africa and from all over the world.”
    â€œYou said the revolutionary’s palace was here?” she asked.
    He nodded. He sipped his mint tea, finished it, and excused himself to return the china cup and saucer to the stand. She was curious about that, because most of the tourists had disposable containers like hers. Following Philippe with her eyes, she saw the extreme courtesy with which the shop owner treated him. While she was observing that, she noticed something else—foreign men in sunglasses and dark suits standing nearby. They’d parked behind them when they arrived. She wondered why they were here. Whimsically she wondered if they were shadowing some important foreign dignitary who was in disguise. When she got home, she’d have to ask her brother about foreign security. Then she remembered that she was going to Qawi, not home. It made her nervous and a little sad.
    Philippe came back and studied her from his great height. “You’re worried,” he said abruptly.
    â€œSorry.” She pinned a smile to her face as she got to her feet, clutching her half-finished bottle of water. “I was thinking about my new job, if I get it.”
    â€œAnd worrying,” he persisted.
    She grimaced. “I don’t like using a plane ticket in someone else’s name and pretending I’m her, even if he does eventually hire me anyway.”
    He smiled. “I think you have very little to worry about in that respect. As for the plane ticket, the concierge will change it for you, into the right name, and Mustapha or Bojo there—” he indicated their tall driver and guide still lingering at the shop counter “—will even take you to the airport and wait with you.”
    â€œThey will?”
    He grinned at her shocked expression. “Isn’t this done in your country?”
    â€œNo, it isn’t,” she said flatly.
    â€œTo each his own,” he said tolerantly. “You will find life a little different in this part of the world.”
    â€œI already have,” she said. She laughed gently. “I don’t know that it’s good for me to be pampered like this. I’m just a very ordinary paralegal.”
    One eye narrowed. “I think, Gretchen Brannon, that you are not very ordinary at all.”
    â€œYou don’t know much about women from Texas.”
    â€œA gap in my education which I hope to correct in the next few days,” he said gallantly. With a twinkle in his black eyes, he added in the classic line from an old Charles Boyer movie, “Will you come with me to the kasbah?”
    She laughed helplessly. “I really do watch too many movies. I only thought there was one kasbah until the cabdriver at the airport told me what they were.”
    â€œCharles Boyer and Humphrey Bogart films,” he mused. “They portray a very different Morocco.”
    â€œYes. Those days are long dead.”
    â€œThe old ways, perhaps. Not the intrigue,” he informed her. He put a hand under her elbow to guide her through the gates of the old city and into the maze of narrow streets and small shops. He leaned down to her ear. “Do you see the man in the beige suit wearing sunglasses? No, don’t turn your head!”
    She had a flash of vision out of the corner of her eye. “Yes.”
    â€œNow, do you notice the gentlemen in dark suits and sunglasses nearby?”
    â€œI saw them earlier…!”
    â€œBodyguards.”
    â€œReally?” She sounded breathless with excitement.