The road swung along the edge of the valley, turning so that she saw the house again, standing like a sentry on the moor.

Here's my tunnel, he had said, when he was deep in delirium. Do you want to come in?

"You won't stay," she whispered. "You won't, you won't."

But she was the one leaving. She chewed the knuckles of her glove, hunching in misery, watching the house disappear. She had a sudden vivid impression of her mother's voice, screaming, driving one of the servants out of the house-driving Zenia out of Dar Joon. She stared at the seat opposite. She remembered the night Mrs. Williams died. Zenia had screamed back at her hysterical mother for killing the only person Zenia had ever loved-and she could remember her mother looming over her, that white-robed figure, like a djinni, cursing her with Arab curses. She remembered the silent Bedu who had taken her away into the desert, into exile-all alone, all alone, terrified and alone among strangers.

Suddenly she seized the checkstrap, dragging frantically on it. The carriage ground to a slow halt. Mr. Bode drew back the little door in the roof. "Ma'am?"

'Turn around," she said, her throat so tight she could barely speak.

'Turn around, ma'am? Beg pardon, but the road's too narrow here, ma'am-and might be we will miss the train. Have you forgot something?"

She thrust open the door, with her mother's djinni shrieking a warning in her ears, blinding and choking her. She stumbled as she reached the ground, barely hearing Mr. Bode's voice.

'Turn around," she exclaimed. "I want to come in! El-Muhafeh!"

Her mother howled prophecies and threats; she blamed Zenia for the black draught that had killed Mrs. Williams, she called her faithless and cowardly and female, worthless and nameless; she raged against trust; only a fool would depend on love; what was love but a weak woman's delusion, a madness, a pestilence-he did not love her, but wildness and wilderness-he would go back to it, called back to it inevitably, not today or tomorrow, but just when she came to need and rely on him ...

Zenia faltered, finding herself halfway up the road to the house, with Mr. Bode calling behind her. She felt the pull of her mother's life-she felt the fixed will in her own heart to clutch Elizabeth to her, to never let her go, the way her own mother had held Zenia and Mrs. Williams, alternating sweetness with dread, with the sheer force of her dominion over them-Zenia knew with a terrible certainty that she had the same power inside her and the knowledge to use it. She did not want to, but when she thought of being alone, of the days to come, she stood still in the snow, shaking with fear.

"I'm not like my mother," she said. "I'm not."

She walked a few feet, and then turned and looked back toward the carriage. It was moving away from her, down the hill. She felt a welling of panic.

"I don't want to be alone," she cried. She ran down, stumbling, slipping on the snowy slope. She stopped, panting. "I want to be safe! I hate the desert! You'll leave me!"

But she remembered his face. His face, and the rooms in a deserted house. And a man growing strange and lonely and remote, speaking to no one. While her mother's djinni roared furiously in the wind, dragging her ruthlessly away from him, promising refuge and peace, safety; promising no loss, because everything was lost already.

She began to run. She did not know if it was up or down, until the house loomed up in front of her. She was up the steps and into the dark passage, discovering herself there, the door closed behind her.

She swallowed her panting. Her heart was beating so that she could hear nothing, not even her own footsteps as she walked down the passage and stopped before the door of his room.

He sat at one of the desks, his head bent over a book. He was so still that he did not even seem real to her. He seemed like someone very far away.

He flipped the page, leaning over it: an English gentleman sitting alone, intensely occupied by the volume before him. Zenia could see the print. The engraving he was staring at so raptly was still covered by a leaf of blotting paper tucked in the spine.

"El-Muhafeh," she said desperately, "help me!"

His head jerked up. He rose, knocking the book from the desk.

Her face crumpled. "There is a djinni!" she cried. "It's my mother!"

He stood gazing at her as if she were a supernatural manifestation herself.

She gripped the doorframe, shaking her head. "There are no djinn," she exclaimed. "It is all superstition and ignorance. It is unchristian."

His blue eyes narrowed. "What has happened?"

She closed her eyes. "I'm afraid! She's in my head. She makes me do things, and say things! She's making me the way she was! She's making me leave you." Her eyes opened. "Do you understand?" she cried. "You promised to protect me!"

She saw the elemental spring alive within him, the demon she had always thought she feared. With a sudden move, he stepped forward, his teeth showing in a fierce smile. "You're mine, little wolf. I won't let her have you."

"I'm afraid! I'm afraid you can't stop her."

"Who came for you," he said, "when you were alone at Dar Joon?"

"You came," she whispered. "You were never afraid of the djinn."

"Never," he said.

"They aren't real," she said. But in her heart she believed, she felt the malevolent power that reached out to tear her away. She looked up at him, ashamed to plead for reassurance. "But my mother-I dream about her. What if you leave me? What if you go away and I wake up and she's there?"

He did not touch her. He stood looking down at her, smiling his demon smile. "I'll write you a charm," he said. 'To keep you safe."

While Zenia watched wide-eyed from the doorway, he caught the leather thong off the sculpture on the mantel and carried it to his desk. He lit a candle, and then tore a small strip of paper, writing on it.

Carefully, soberly, he rolled the scrap and held it in the smoke for a moment. Zenia watched his lips, but he spoke his short incantation silently, his face intent.

With a knife, he split the seal of the amulet, a little silver box the size of a sugar lump, and flicked the former contents into the fire. He placed his charm inside, resealed the silver band with a hard pressure of the knife, and rose.

"I said I would always be with you," he murmured, lifting the amulet about her neck. "Wolf cub. This holds me. This defends you. Forever."

She put her hand up, clasping it. She didn't believe in magic-that was her mother's influence, her mother's folly, the delusions of the East. But there was such a look of strong certainty in his expression, such an assurance . . .

For the first time, with the charm about her neck, she felt conviction spread through herself. It was like sweet water, like a mantle wrapped about her as she looked up into his face-his strong, harsh face that held no fear of demons-a pure, calm trust in him to stay.

She held onto the amulet all through their wedding, performed in the cold staircase hall before Mr. and Mrs. Bode. And when the curate copied out her marriage lines and gave them to her, she held them, too. She kept them in her lap through the surprisingly excellent dinner, put on by Mrs. Bode in the dining room surrounded by guns and maps.

There was an extra place cleared for the diffident young curate, who only blinked and discreetly applied himself to his soup when Lord Winter began, "Now that Beth's parents have made a Christian marriage-" And broke off in the middle of the sentence. "I mean to say-"

He apparently found nothing that he meant to say after that unguarded blunder. In the ensuing awkward silence he glanced ruefully at Zenia and made a faint gesture of regret with his hand. He seemed disinclined to say much at all after that, sinking into one of his bleak dinner-table silences.

But Zenia did not care. She felt pleased and easy with everything. After a long interval in which neither of the gentlemen offered to look up from their soup bowls, she even ventured to suggest that perhaps they could wait a day, or even two, to return to London, as Elizabeth was in excellent hands with Mrs. Lamb.

Lord Winter made a little grimacing glance about the room. "What a delightful place to honeymoon!"

"There is the cottage," Zenia suggested.

He looked at her, and then at the politely attentive curate, and positively blushed. She watched blood rise in his throat and cheeks. He cleared his throat. "Where the gamekeeper lives, do you mean?"

Zenia remembered that Mrs. Bode had called him a shy gentleman. It was such a wildly incongruous description of the man she knew that she had hardly paid it any mind. Reserved, yes-moody and difficult to understand-she curled her hand about her amulet and observed him curiously, his arrogant look down at the glass, black brows raised a little, as if he had been affronted.

You are shy, she thought,, gazing at him with profound affection.

"It seemed quite cozy last night," she said placidly.

He gave her a smoldering glance, still red in the face, and then scowled at his glass, turning it around and around between his fingers.

It seemed her place, then, between these two backward gentlemen, to take the lead in conversation. She managed to carry them along, one after the other, with a speculation on the weather, and questions about the curate's parish duties, and a description of how Lord Winter's property lay in relation to the railway, but she did not engage them both until she happened to hit upon the topic of guns.

The curate, apparently too bashful to inquire for himself, eagerly seized her lead to enter into a torrent of queries about Lord Winter's collection. He was, it appeared, a devotee of shooting; he was inspired by several of the pieces hanging upon the walls and positively in awe when Lord Winter took down the Colt revolving rifle.

The clergyman listened with passionate attention to his host's description of the gun's action and performance in a series of desert encounters. They had it all apart on the table while the mutton grew cold and Mrs. Bode pugnacious.

"Something of a bachelor house," the housekeeper muttered audibly as she took away the plates. "Nasty guns all over, and my lady allowing it."

The curate instantly covered himself in stuttering apologies to Zenia, while Lord Winter looked up with a slightly startled expression. He sat down, leaving the rifle scattered between the green peas and marrowbone pudding.

"Lady Winter is familiar with guns," he said, with a trace of defensiveness. "She is a fine shot herself."

Zenia, afraid that Mrs. Bode had little respect for rifles, gathered the pieces up from between the dishes and put the Colt back together, as she had done a hundred times in the desert after cleaning and oiling it. She looked up to find Lord Winter smiling ironically at her, and the clergyman watching her in wonder.

"How you must long to be back in such marvelous strange places," the curate said warmly. "Do you plan another journey soon?"

Zenia touched the amulet about her neck. She curled her fingers around it.

"No," Lord Winter said, "I am a little weary of marvelous strange places. I am glad to be safe home." He gave Zenia a sideways smile. "If the chicken pox doesn't kill me."

The curate proposed a toast to Lady Winter. The conversation, easier now, led away to more mundane things, and the clergyman took his leave after an apple tart and port. Zenia went back into the dining room as the two men lingered at the foot of the front stairs. From the window, she saw the curate accept his vail, and give every appearance of surprise and heartfelt gratification before he went off in his little buggy.

Lord Winter stood watching after him a moment. Zenia waited, expecting him to come back, but he turned instead and vanished from sight around the corner of the house.

She sat in the window, trying to imagine the dining room without the gun racks and the jumble of books and charts. There were two pretty cascades of woodcarving, flowers and fruit and wild birds, framing the space above the mantel, and scattered about under the overflow of maps were side tables and needlepointed chairs that seemed as elegant as the ones at Swanmere.

It would be pretty, cleaned and straightened, the rose-colored curtains renewed, the woodwork and brasswork polished. With a little wonderment, she realized that it was hers. Mrs. Bode had made a number of remarks implying that Zenia would be grossly derelict in her duty if she did not see to putting the house to rights, and sending the snakes and guns to some proper territory within it, masculine but strictly confined.

But Zenia was not certain what Lord Winter would think. Perhaps it would make him uncomfortable-more inclined to leave. Perhaps he wished her to live at Swanmere, so that he could keep this place for his own retreat.

Doubt began to possess her. Had he not sounded faintly troubled when he said he was glad to be home? And the rifle, the excitement in the desert-had he not had the

same light in his eyes when he spoke of it?He had not come back for a long time. She closed her eyes and put both her handsabout the hijab.

She heard the sound of a horse and then his voice shout her name from outside.

Zenia jumped up, leaning on the window.He rode Shajar bareback, right up under the window, grinning at her. "Yallah!" Themare danced and reared, flinging her long mane as if she were ready for a ghrazzu."Open up, beloved!"

She forced open the sash. Cold air poured in. "What are you doing?""Repeating my one success," he said, breathing frost as he reached up to catch her hand. "Abducting you again. You'll have to cooperate a little more this time, unlessyou wish me to drag you out the window.""You are mad!" she cried, laughing."Well," he said, "it seems to work rather well.""And Mrs. Bode says you are a shy gentleman!""Not much for small-talk," he admitted."May I come out the door?""No, beloved, that is entirely too sane and simple." He urged the mare up close.

"You must come out the window, to prove you love me."She sat on the sill. "I don't have a cloak.""Such ladylike scruples! When it's your undying devotion at the test. Duck now, we're on our way."With his arm about her waist, he pulled her down before him. Zenia had a moment of falling, tumbling, and then he drew her firmly between his arms as the horse reeledaround, following the buggy tracks in the melting snow.She looked back at the house. In the afternoon light, its golden stone and tall white windows made a fine sight against the open moorland beyond, where streaks of

yellow grass and rocks were beginning to show."Will Elizabeth and I live here?" she asked, afraid to be more pushing than to put itas a question.

He laughed. "I sincerely hope so." Then his voice changed, and he said stiffly, "Isuppose you would prefer Swanmere. It is far more civilized, of course.""Yes," she said, "but this is mine."He held her hard against him. "My opinion precisely, wolf cub.""Perhaps you will not care for it so much if we put the guns into a special room.""Mmmm," he said, nuzzling her throat. "Mrs. Bode has been working upon you, I see."

"May I buy some fabric for new curtains in the dining room?"

"You may take everything out, burn it, and start over. It's just a lot of old antiques. Burn the house down, if you like, and we'll sleep in our cottage."

"You are a horrid Philistine. Mrs. Bode says that you could just as well live under a bridge."

"That would make me a troll, rather than a Philistine. And I suspect there is something of a fortune in fusty old masterpieces somewhere in there, so perhaps you had best not put it to the torch, at least without an inventory."

The gamekeeper's cottage was in view now, tucked below the edge of the moor.

"What is a troll?" she asked.

"A demon, wolf cub. The djinn that live under bridges and under the ground."

"Oh," she said.

In the night, after he had entered her deeply and at sensuous leisure, and lay warm and asleep beside her, she stared at his face in the glow of the fire. She could feel the amulet about her neck, a silver shape pressing into her breast.

It troubled her. It had brought her instant comfort, but when she touched it, calling on its magic, she felt unchristian and un-English-she felt herself sliding into the old world of the East.

She had married him. He had understood her well enough to guess that in that moment of crisis, she would respond from her deepest fears, from the magical fantasy of her mother's faith, the realm of demons and supernatural powers. So he had written her a charm.

The worst of it was, she believed in it. Even as her reason fought the feeling, she was certain in her heart that this hijab held him. She had seen the truth of it when he looked at her; when he spoke to her; when he answered its magic.

She crept out of bed, kneeling beside the last leaping flames of the fire. He moved, and she looked up quickly, ashamed that he should see what she was doing, but he only shifted on the pillows, settling deeper. The light glimmered on his face and bared shoulder, on golden warmth and his black eyebrows and hair that blended with the shadows. Zenia held the amulet, frowning down at it. She did not need magic to trust him. She did not need magic to hold him.

With a deep, unsteady breath, she used a broad knife from the table to pry the silver seal open. She would put it into the fire, this charm.

The little roll of paper fell into her palm, smoke-scented and faintly darkened by the candle flame. But just before she threw it into the hearth, she hesitated-and then spread the ragged slip open.

Her heart contracted a little at the sight of the cabbalistic script, the mystical writing that was not Arabic or English or any familiar lettering. It flowed strong and blackacross the scrap, a strange elegance and power. It was fascinating and repelling atonce, like his demon-look, an electric energy that made her loathe to toss it into theflames.

"I believe you have it upside down," he said.Zenia looked up at him with a faint startled gasp.He smiled lazily at her, lifting up on his elbow. "Turn it over, wolf cub. And then come back to bed."She inverted the fragment of paper. And instantly the words were dark and clear.I love you, her charm said. Her magical charm to hold him.I love you.

Very carefully, she rolled the small scrap and put it into the amulet again. With theknife she pressed hard to reseal the silver strip that bound the talisman. Then she putit over her head and climbed into bed and buried herself deep and safe in hiswelcoming arms.

HISTORICAL NOTE.

While the heroine of this novel, Zenia, is entirely my fictional creation, Lady Hester Stanhope and her young lover Michael Bruce were quite real, as fantastic and dreamlike as their story seems. I have adhered to the available historical facts about them, only extrapolating from holes in the record: while there is no evidence whatsoever for an illegitimate child of their love affair in the desert, there was in fact a period of time, immediately after Lady Hester insisted that Michael leave her in Lebanon, during which she fell ill of a malady she called the plague. She was certainly surrounded by a frighteningly severe bubonic plague epidemic, but her stated symptoms were not very plaguelike. During her long recovery, lasting some eight to ten months, she isolated herself even from her faithful medical attendant, Dr. Meryon, and then suddenly sprang up refreshed and ready to hunt treasure in the desert. There was even one rumor, published in a French paper, suggesting she had one or more children by Bruce, but that is the sum total of historical evidence on the matter.