Desert Jewels & Rising Stars

by Sharon Kendrick

  Sexy, Polly amended silently. Layers of finest silk that skimmed the body were very sexy.

  ‘They’re gorgeous.’

  ‘Come. I thought you would enjoy eating in the cool of the gardens.’

  Reluctantly Polly let Bahiyaa lead her away from the mirror. She’d never been one for admiring herself, but she couldn’t quite believe she could look so different. Even more amazingly she felt different.

  Bahiyaa led her through a maze of narrow corridors. Polly’s eyes snagged on the intricately carved archways and a fleeting glimpse of a small courtyard filled with lemon trees in pots. Then they were back in the room in which she’d fainted.

  ‘The rose garden is one of my favourite places,’ she said, leading her outside. ‘Rashid’s, too.’

  Polly could understand why. If anything the scent of roses was stronger now than in the heat of the day. And there were other unfamiliar smells. Jasmine, maybe?

  ‘It is a romantic place, I think.’

  Like something out of an old Hollywood version of Arabian Nights, a real mix of East and West. Polly followed, acutely conscious of how the heels of her borrowed sandals tapped on the mosaic-tiled floor and charmed by the creamy candles placed in large ornate holders.

  Bahiyaa walked on in a jangle of gold bangles. ‘These gardens were here in the time of your great-great-grandmother.’

  Were they? Really? Polly looked around with new eyes. Was she looking at something Elizabeth would have seen?

  ‘You must ask Rashid to tell you something of their history.’

  ‘Yes, I…’ will. That was what she’d meant to have said, but the single word dried in her throat as Rashid came out of the shadows to meet them.

  Unlike her, he was no longer in traditional Amrahi clothes. He wore jeans and a light cotton shirt open at the neck, his dark hair uncovered…

  ‘He is something of an authority.’

  Sexier even than she’d thought him at Shelton. More intimidating than he’d ever been before.

  ‘Bahiyaa.’ He spoke his sister’s name on a breath.

  Polly glanced back over her shoulder as the suspicion Bahiyaa had orchestrated this ‘accidental’ meeting took hold and that her brother was not happy about it.

  ‘I have brought your guest to see you, Rashid, now Polly is feeling so much better. Please,’ his sister instructed, gesturing towards a sumptuous pile of cushions on a raised dais, ‘sit with Rashid for a while. He will love to tell you about these gardens while I organise for your food to be brought out here.’

  Then, with a mischievous smile at her brother, she was gone.

  Rashid’s eyelids quickly came down to cover his expression, but Polly was sure he didn’t want her here. She was intruding. What was more she felt a little as though she’d been caught dressing up.

  When she was in her own clothes, in her own country, Rashid made her feel uncomfortable enough. Here it was almost unbearable. And, face to face with Rashid again, it didn’t take any thought to understand why she’d fainted. Around him she found it difficult to remember to breathe. He was scarily beautiful in an aggressive, masculine way.

  And not at all likely to be interested in her. Best she remember that. A man who lived a life completely different from hers. With a very different moral code.

  ‘Would you prefer to be alone? I—’

  ‘No,’ Rashid stopped her. ‘I’m glad of your company.’ He, too, indicated the richly coloured cushions. ‘Please join me.’

  Polly didn’t believe him, but she sank down as gracefully as she could manage and carefully tucked her feet beneath her. Soles pointing away from him, as instructed in Minty’s manual.

  Polly looked up to find Rashid’s eyes were glinting down at her. He was laughing. Heat washed over her face and with it a sudden, unexpected flash of anger. Polly tilted her chin. ‘Am I doing this wrong?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why are you laughing at me?’

  The smile in Rashid’s eyes intensified. ‘You are charming. I wish all visitors to Amrah were as courteous and considerate of our customs.’

  ‘I-I’m trying to follow the rules. There’s no point coming here if you aren’t…’ her voice trailed off as he sat down beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body ‘…aren’t going to make the effort.’

  ‘I agree. I try to follow them myself.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I drink alcohol, but not when I’m in Amrah because it offends so many. Moving between cultures requires dexterity.’ Rashid smiled.

  His eyes moved over the fine fabric of her dishdasha, setting her on fire. He made her feel…out of control. As though she were entirely made up of hormones. ‘B-Bahiyaa said I’d be more comfortable in something of hers.’

  ‘And are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  If it weren’t for the way he was looking at her. At Shelton she prided herself on being able to handle any situation, but here…she couldn’t. But it wasn’t being in Amrah that made the difference. It was the garden. The night. Rashid. Mostly Rashid.

  His clever face concealed so much more than it showed, but when his eyes danced they seduced her. They melted her from the inside out. And every now and then she fancied they hovered on her lips as though he might be thinking what it would be like to kiss her.

  Her breath seemed to dry in her throat at the thought of what it would be like to have him kiss her. In her entire twenty-seven years she’d never felt her body wouldn’t respond to the instructions of her brain before. She wasn’t sure she liked him, but he was the most compelling man she’d ever met.

  ‘You look very beautiful.’

  Polly’s eyes flew up to meet his. It would be so easy to believe he meant that. Seduced by the moment into doing goodness knew what.

  If she wasn’t sensible. If she didn’t remember Rashid was known in the West as Amrah’s playboy sheikh for a reason. Presumably women often dissolved in a pool of oestrogen at his feet. It would be much better for her self-esteem if she didn’t become another conquest.

  ‘I am glad you have recovered,’ he said softly.

  ‘So am I.’ Polly’s hands pleated the end of her lihaf, watching the silver threads glint in the candlelight.

  ‘The heat can be punishing.’

  Polly moistened her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. ‘I—I bet the guys are dreading going with me into the desert. They must think I’m a complete liability now.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  Polly dragged her eyes away from his. She’d had six years of making ‘small talk’. She could do this. If she just kept breathing in and out he need never know she felt as though a million tiny ants had been let loose inside her. ‘Are they joining us here?’

  ‘Baz and John intended to swim here at the palace before having an early night. Graham, Pete and Steve have gone into Samaah. I suspect in search of alcohol in one of the international hotels. Do you wish you could have gone with your friends?’

  Polly gave a sudden nervous laugh. ‘If I said “yes” that would be a little rude, wouldn’t it? And the guys aren’t “friends”. I met them for the first time at the airport.’

  ‘Colleagues,’ he amended.

  ‘Even that sounds a bit grand. I keep pinching myself to prove I’m really here and not dreaming.’ Polly turned her head at the sound of people approaching. Men. All dressed in simple white dishdashas. She watched wide-eyed as her food was set over a small burner to keep warm. The saffron-coloured rice dish smelt absolutely fantastic.

  ‘This is maqbous,’ Rashid said as one of the men spooned a portion into a shallow bowl. ‘It’s a popular Amrahi dish, although not confined to this region. You’ll find the same in Oman and Saudi Arabia. Balkrash, too.’

  Instead of handing it to her, the man placed it down on the low table in front of her and it was Rashid who passed it across. Then he spoke to the men in Arabic and they silently moved away, leaving behind tall glasses of layered fruit juice and a jug of iced water.


  ‘I hope you will enjoy this more than gahwa.’

  Polly looked back up into his teasing blue eyes. When he looked at her like that it was really very difficult to remember all the reasons why she shouldn’t let herself relax into the moment. She’d had years and years of being responsible. It would be wonderful to act without thinking. To succumb to the playboy prince of Amrah, perhaps?

  Crazy.

  She carefully combined some of the white meat with the rice for a perfect first mouthful, glad she had something to do.

  ‘It’s spicy,’ she said, surprised. ‘And it’s lovely. Are you not eating anything?’

  ‘No.’

  Polly felt a sudden wave of renewed embarrassment as she realised all this food was for her. ‘You know, I could have waited until tomorrow. There was no need for Bahiyaa to—’

  ‘It is our pleasure.’

  It was really too late to protest too much. The food was there, she was hungry and it was delicious. She’d been too excited during her flight to eat much, not particularly inspired by what had been served either. ‘Thank you.’

  Rashid poured her a glass of iced water. He set that on the low table in front of her and, once she’d finished eating, she exchanged her empty bowl for the water. Ice, ice cold.

  ‘I think I’m in heaven.’

  ‘I always think that when I come home to Amrah.’

  He smiled and Polly felt her own falter. ‘Then why spend so much time away?’

  He shrugged with typical Arab insouciance. ‘I have business which takes me abroad. Hobbies.’

  Oh, yes, she knew plenty about those. She’d seen the smiling pictures of Sheikh Rashid Al Baha with assorted society beauties. It might help control her awareness of him if she remembered that.

  ‘Like your stepbrother I am passionate about horses, but that is more of a mission than a hobby.’

  Nothing like Anthony, then. The Beaufort Stud was a means to an end. Not a passion, certainly not a mission. Even Shelton wasn’t. He saw the castle as a financial drain.

  Polly took another spicy mouthful, determined not to dwell on how precarious Shelton’s future was. She couldn’t alter Anthony’s personality, couldn’t inspire him with her love for the castle, any more than his father had been able to. ‘In what way a mission?’

  ‘I want to see Arabia acknowledged as the home of racing.’ Rashid placed his glass down on the table and looked at her. ‘Every thoroughbred can trace its lineage back to one of three sires.’

  ‘Yes, I know. The Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Barb and…the Byerly Turk,’ she produced triumphantly, ridiculously glad her marshmallow brain had come up with something sensible.

  Rashid sat back against the cushions. ‘Trace their heritage back a little further and you discover all three have their roots in Arabia. Racing belongs here. What I have begun here is a fraction of what the Maktoum family have achieved for Dubai, but it will come.’

  ‘Gambling is forbidden here, isn’t it?’ Polly said, after a moment.

  ‘As it is in Dubai.’

  Polly nodded. ‘So that must mean your interest is tourism. Particularly since you said your oil reserves are running out. So, why,’ she continued, slightly intimidated by the sudden narrowing of his eyes, ‘why aren’t you more enthusiastic about this documentary?’

  ‘What makes you think I’m not?’

  ‘Are you?’

  His sensual mouth twisted into something approaching a smile. ‘I have given my permission.’

  Which was no answer at all. And he was watching her again as though he expected her to be trouble. She didn’t understand why. ‘Surely you want people to catch a glimpse of Amrah and be inspired to come here?’

  He said nothing. Hard, flinty eyes looked at her, a muscle flexing in his cheek, then he leant forward to pick up his glass again and took a sip. ‘Let us say I find it difficult to trust,’ he said, at last.

  ‘We really don’t intend any kind of political comment. This documentary is to be entirely about Elizabeth Lewis.’ Polly looked about the garden, foolishly hurt. There was no reason on earth why he should trust her. He didn’t know her. It wasn’t personal… ‘Was this really here in the time of my great-great-grandmother?’

  ‘It was created for her.’

  ‘It was?’

  ‘It’s why there are so many roses. Tradition has it that Elizabeth missed the roses of her English home and so my great-great-grandfather conceived and planted this garden for her. You know they lived here for a time?’

  Polly shook her head.

  ‘After their adventure in the Atiq Desert in eighteen eighty-nine they stayed here for a handful of months.’ Rashid settled back against the cushions once more, the fierce glitter in his eyes gone. ‘You knew they became lovers within days of meeting?’

  Polly nodded. The knowledge that their ancestors had been lovers made her feel shy. ‘Dr Wriggley said they settled in Al-Jalini.’

  ‘Elizabeth was settled there. When it became clear she wasn’t going to return home. It’s a beautiful sea port and she lived there until she died in nineteen oh-four.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘No.’ Rashid picked up one of the fruit juices and handed it across to Polly. ‘Al-Jalini is the perfect place to live out a romantic idyll. I think King Mahmoud spent every moment he could with her, much to the anger of his wives. Theirs was an enduring love story.’

  ‘But selfish.’ She’d thought a lot about this. ‘He was already married and so was she. And Elizabeth was a mother. I’ve read some letters which say her son was told she’d died and we know her husband drank himself to a premature death. The scandal was too much for him, I suppose.’

  ‘The son being your great-grandfather?’

  Polly nodded. Those letters had made her cry. ‘It’s a strange feeling to be connected to someone as…colourful as her,’ Polly said, searching for the right word, ‘but when you start to think about the hurt she caused I can’t like her particularly.’

  Rashid picked up the second fruit juice and sipped, his eyes not leaving her face.

  ‘I do like her courage and zest for living,’ Polly said, stumbling on. ‘I’d like to have that.’ She’d really like to have that, but real life had intervened. She had responsibilities, people she cared for and who cared about her. As Elizabeth Lewis had had. ‘I know I’d have stayed in England and tended my rose garden there. Not very exciting of me, is it?’

  ‘It depends on the motivation behind the decision.’

  ‘I couldn’t have left my child.’

  ‘Mothers do.’

  His mother had, if what she’d read about him was true. If only there were a nice deep hole in which she could hide herself. For someone who prided herself on her social skills, she was doing appallingly.

  She struggled on, ‘And, maybe it wasn’t as straightforward as it seems. These things often aren’t.’ She stopped her fingers pleating her lihaf.

  ‘What became of the son?’

  Polly forced a smile and said brightly, ‘Oh, he married and had five children spread over two wives. The youngest son being my grandfather, who became a not particularly distinguished soldier with something of a drink problem. So perhaps his grandfather’s early demise wasn’t entirely due to Elizabeth. It would be nice to think that. My mother remembers her father as being very…handsome but ineffectual.’

  ‘You didn’t know him?’

  ‘Oh, no, he died in his forties and his widow became a housekeeper and, family gossip has it, a little bit more to a Major Bradley.’ Polly picked up her fruit juice and traced a finger across the condensation on the glass. ‘Now, I do remember him. Not that I knew anything about the “little bit more”. As far as I was aware she really did just look after his house. They never married.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Became a shorthand typist and eventually married my father. Who was a chef at Shelton.’

  Rashid hadn’t moved. His eyes were still on her face, his expression one of
polite interest. She’d probably bored him rigid.

  ‘What’s in this?’ Polly asked, holding out her fruit juice. ‘I don’t think I’ve tasted anything like it.’

  Rashid moved one long finger up the glass. ‘Avocado, orange, pomegranate and mango.’

  She took another sip. ‘I can taste the orange, but I’d never have guessed avocado. It’s lovely.’

  ‘I am glad you like it. Have you lived at Shelton Castle all your life?’

  ‘On and off,’ she said evasively. Rashid was being polite and she didn’t want that. She wished, for perhaps the millionth time in her adult life, she were more like Minty. It would have been nice to have felt confidently sexy and flirted a little bit with a man who most certainly knew how the game was played.

  But she was seriously out of practice. Like the clothes, the easiest way to maintain the peace at Shelton was to keep a low profile. Her life would have been immeasurably worse if Anthony had thought she intended to snare a society husband for herself. Far better to blend into the background.

  ‘Go on,’ Rashid prompted, his entire attention focused on her.

  ‘Initially we had a house on the estate. Then he died and we moved out into the village. For a while.’

  ‘But not for long?’

  ‘No.’ Polly made a great show of sipping her fruit juice as the silence stretched out between them.

  ‘Please. If it is not intrusive I would like to know about your life.’

  He really did sound as if he meant it. Goodness, but he was good. How incredibly easy it would be to allow herself to believe he really wanted to know all about her. And how foolish. She ought to have slipped some of those glossy articles in her handbag so she could remind herself how Rashid had become quite so adept at making a woman feel special.

  Only she hadn’t thought she’d meet him again. Certainly hadn’t thought she’d be staying in his home. And couldn’t have imagined he would turn any part of his attention on her.

  ‘My mum continued to work at the castle and eventually she became the housekeeper. So we moved back. We had a suite of rooms in the staff quarters…until Mum married Richard,’ she said, truncating years into the fewest number of sentences possible.