The Sheikh's Guarded Heart

by Liz Fielding

  Maybe he was right. He’d want to know why she had stolen the four-wheel drive, what she had been doing out in the desert on her own. To tell him would mean betraying Steve, with consequences beyond her control. She needed to think it through properly.

  He’d picked up the capsules and offered them to her and, after a moment, she took them, swallowed them.

  ‘If you need anything, please, just ring the bell. Someone is always near.’

  Whatever was in the capsules had to be more than simple painkillers because within minutes she was sinking fast into sleep but, before she went under, her mind snagged on the one question she hadn’t asked.

  Who was the little girl?

  And why had he said that there were no women in his house?

  She might even have cried the words out loud as she was dragged under by the sedative because, far away, she was certain that he answered her.

  Han watched Lucy slide into unconsciousness; she was troubled, tried to speak even as sleep claimed her, but trouble, as he knew, did not go away. Whatever was on her mind would wait until morning and he murmured some meaningless soothing words.

  Apparently satisfied, she finally let go, slept and, dismissing the faraish who had been on duty in the adjoining sitting room ready to find him at a moment’s notice should Lucy need him, he opened the doors to the balcony and sat watching as night drew in and the stars began their journey across the night sky. Breathing in air heavy with scent of jasmine.

  A thin crescent moon rose and set. The darkness faded to grey, then lilac. He was finally roused, cold and stiff, when Lucy Forrester called from the inner room.

  ‘Hello… Is there anyone there?’

  ‘Is the bell not working?’ he asked, opening the door from the balcony into her room.

  She scowled at it. ‘Ringing a bell for attention is a bit princessy, don’t you think?’

  ‘You have no desire to be a princess?’

  ‘I’ll bet Cinderella had trouble making the leap,’ she said. ‘From ringee to ringer.’

  ‘Quite possibly.’ It had been his intention to tease her a little for her reticence. Living in the company of men, his horses, hawks, for so long, he’d clearly lost his touch. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked, deciding that it was safer to stick to the basics.

  ‘Better, thank you.’ Then, glancing to the window where the soft light that preceded dawn was filtering through the shutters, throwing bars of coloured light across the room, ‘I thought I’d been asleep for longer.’

  ‘You’ve slept the clock round, Lucy. That’s not sunset, it’s dawn.’

  Her long sleep had done its work, he thought. It would take days for the swelling to go down, longer for the bruising to fade, but she looked much brighter and seemed to be moving more easily too. And the colour in her face was not entirely the result of her accident.

  ‘Would you like to join me for breakfast?’ he asked. ‘Outside on the balcony.’

  The invitation came from nowhere; the private meals he’d shared there with Noor, with time running out for both of them, had been precious moments, hoarded in his memory. Breakfast had long since lost it charm, ceased to be a meal to linger over; it was a long time since food had been anything but a necessity. But once voiced, however much regretted, the invitation could not be withdrawn.

  Besides, the cool morning air would be good for Lucy and over breakfast she would have a chance to unburden herself.

  ‘I’ll bring your crutches,’ he said, without waiting for an answer.

  ‘Right.’ Despite the half-closed eye, a split lip, she somehow managed a smile. ‘This comes under the heading of total obedience, does it?’

  He should return her smile, reassure her, put her at her ease. He’d learned the art at his father’s knee. As a diplomat he’d practised it in the highest circles. When was the last time he’d done it for real? Not simply a going-through-the-motions movement of facial muscles, a polite response, but really smiled?

  He had, he found, no difficulty in pinpointing the exact day. The exact moment.

  He didn’t try the diplomatic variety on Lucy Forrester. She deserved better.

  ‘On the contrary, Lucy. I am at your command.’ He picked up the telephone receiver and pressed a button. ‘Tell me what you would like to eat.’ Then, when she hesitated, ‘Please, just say.’

  ‘Orange juice?’

  She was so uncertain. How could such a woman lack the confidence to ask, demand what she wanted, needed?

  ‘Orange juice,’ he agreed. ‘And tea? Coffee?’

  ‘Tea. Thank you.’

  ‘And to eat?’

  ‘Anything. Really.’

  At that point he gave up prompting her and ordered a selection of food for her to choose from.

  ‘It will be a few minutes,’ he said when it was done and, picking up the robe that he had found for her, holding it so that she could slip her arms into the sleeves, said, ‘plenty of time for you to practice your new found skills.’

  After her shower Han had produced a full length cream silk nightgown, the kind donned by glamorous film stars way back in the days when they’d worn more than a spray of scent to bed, and a matching robe. Not new, for which he’d apologised, but clearly something that had belonged to his wife.

  She wrapped the robe about her, moved, under her own steam, to the bathroom and finally joined him outside on a broad balcony. Shaded by an ornate wooden roof, trailed by scented jasmine, it ran the entire length of the building.

  Below them was a formal garden divided by long rills of water that opened up at regular intervals into pools, clustered with lilies. There were almond trees in blossom, twining around slender cypresses stretching into a wilder distance. It seemed to go on for ever. When she lifted her eyes to the horizon all she could see beyond the trees were dark mountains, peaks already turning golden as the sun rose behind them.

  ‘How beautiful!’ she said as he held a chair back for her, relieved her of the crutches. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘In ancient times the Persians called it a pairidaeza,’ he said.

  ‘It sounds like paradise,’ she said. ‘Actually it looks like paradise.’

  ‘In modern Persian they use the same word for both paradise and garden, but a pairidaeza is simply a place with a wall around it. This is known as Rawdah al-’Arusah,’ he said, pouring a glass of orange juice, handing it to her as she repeated the words, glanced at Hanif for a translation. ‘The Garden of the Bride.’

  ‘Oh…’

  For one terrible moment she thought the bride was his, but even before he shook his head she realised her mistake. This was old. Centuries old. ‘The original pavilion—’ he indicated the building they occupied ‘—this garden, was built by one of my ancestors for his Persian bride, homesick for the garden she’d left behind.’

  ‘All this for one woman? He must have loved her a great deal.’

  ‘That surprises you?’

  ‘Yes. No…’ Confused, and not a little embarrassed, she said, ‘I imagined that marriages among the wealthy would have been arranged. Alliances between great families. Just as they once were in England.’

  ‘Of course. It is expected that suitable marriages will be arranged, to strengthen ties between allies, to unite those who were once enemies.’

  She did not miss the present tense and said, ‘It is still your custom?’

  ‘Matters of such importance cannot be left to chance.’

  She sipped the juice. Made no comment.

  ‘You think it cold? Passionless?’

  ‘You’ve just described a business transaction,’ she pointed out.

  ‘When a man and a woman come to an alliance with honour, the knowledge that their future has been written for the benefit of family and state, love and duty are one,’ he replied.

  Love and duty.

  Her life, until a few weeks ago, had been entirely a matter of duty. There had been precious little love in it.

  Then, in an instant, everything had cha
nged.

  She put down the glass, flexing the fingers of her left hand which had, until yesterday—was it only yesterday?…no, the day before that—worn a plain gold band. Unused to wearing a ring of any kind, it had felt odd, uncomfortable, on her finger, yet now it was gone she missed its reassurance. That heady, unaccustomed status of being a woman who the world could see was loved.

  Realising that he was watching her, a slight frown creasing his forehead, she asked, ‘Is it that easy?’

  ‘Nothing of worth is easy. All partnerships require effort, understanding, compromise, if they are to work.’

  ‘You discount initial attraction? Did you meet your wife before your betrothal?’

  ‘Not before the contract was signed.’

  ‘And yet you loved her.’

  ‘You doubt that happiness can be achieved between two people united in such a manner?’

  ‘Actually, when you put it like that I can see that I would have been much better served by such a clearly understood arrangement.’

  ‘You were married?’ He sounded surprised and she remembered how carefully he’d washed each of her fingers; presumably he’d noted the absence of a wedding ring. Which was undoubtedly why he’d used the past tense.

  ‘I am married,’ she said with reluctance. ‘I was married six weeks ago.’

  ‘Six weeks?’

  This time he was not simply surprised, he was openly astounded.

  ‘Your husband can bear to let you out of his sight so soon?’ He spoke as a man whose culture could not conceive of such a thing. With derision for a man who took so little care of that which was his. Or possibly for a woman could not keep her man close.

  Whichever it was, his attitude was entirely alien and yet she would have welcomed a little of his honour, his notion of love bound to duty in her own ill-fated union.

  If she’d been offered an old-fashioned alliance, a contract that laid out the terms in black and white, giving her the security of marriage, the glamour of being the wife of a man like Steve Mason in return for the inheritance that she had never expected anyway, she might still have thought herself luckier than she had any right to expect.

  Instead Steve had tricked her, cheated her, taken everything and given nothing, which was why she’d thrown the ring that he’d put on her finger, that had chafed at her skin, into a Ramal Hamrah gutter.

  Now, clinging to all that was left to her—pride—she lifted her head and said, ‘My husband had urgent business to attend to.’ That was what he’d told her; it was probably the only thing he had said that was the truth.

  ‘So urgent that you have decided not to bother him with your accident?’

  Belatedly, it occurred to Lucy how this must look to Han. That she was taking advantage of his generosity when she had a husband whose duty it was to care for her. Who might, for all he knew, take violent exception to the fact that another man had usurped his place, touched his wife, held her so intimately.

  Or had she, as the wife of another man, somehow compromised him?

  ‘I’m so sorry, I should have told you straight away. My presence must be a dreadful embarrassment to you. I’ll leave—’

  He reached out, catching her hand as she turned, reaching for the crutches.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Really, you can see how much better I am—’

  ‘On the contrary, Lucy Forrester,’ he cut in, ‘you need time to recover your strength. You are welcome to stay in my house for as long as you need sanctuary.’

  ‘Sanctuary?’ she repeated, staring at his hand, wrapped around hers. Strong, sinewy, without a trace of softness, yet he held her as gently as he would an injured bird.

  ‘I have used the wrong word?’ he asked. ‘It means a place of refuge, does it not?’

  ‘Well, yes. It’s just…’ She forced herself to look up, meet his gaze. ‘Sanctuary is a word more usually used to describe a place of safety for someone on the run from danger, in fear of their life, even. Of asylum,’ she added, when he made no comment.

  ‘We are all running from something, Lucy, even if the demons at our heels are nothing but shadows.’ Then, as if suddenly aware that he’d overstepped some invisible boundary, he let her go, picked up a dish—a diversion, she thought, to give them both time to recover.

  ‘In my case they’re not exactly shadows,’ she said, still feeling the cool strength of his fingers against her skin. This was not a man to deceive. He deserved nothing less than the truth. ‘You have a right to know that the vehicle I was driving, that I wrecked, did not belong to me.’

  He paused in the act of spooning yoghurt into a dish, regarding her steadily. ‘It was rented?’ he enquired. ‘Borrowed?’

  A tiny prickle along her spine warned her that he already knew what she was going to say.

  ‘Not rented. Not borrowed. Steve told me he owned Bouheira Tours, but he may have lied about that. He lied about everything else. If he did, then I stole it.’

  He handed her the dish of yoghurt and said, ‘This is very good. It is made from milk produced by our own goats. Can I offer you honey, fruit, to flavour it?’

  She ignored his gesture towards a dish of fresh fruit. ‘Didn’t you understand what I said?’

  ‘You took the 4x4 from Bouheira Tours without permission.’

  ‘A fine distinction, but not one that would impress the courts, I imagine.’

  ‘Possibly not.’ He served himself yoghurt, took some dates from the dish, bit into one. ‘I recognised their logo, of course, and naturally they were the first people we contacted. We assumed you were an employee or a client of theirs. That they would take care of you.’

  ‘Then you knew all along. I should have realised. What did they say? Am I going to be charged with theft?’ Her heart was beating like a drum. Was that why he’d bought her here, to keep her from running away?

  ‘It may interest you to know that Bouheira Tours not only denied knowledge of anyone by the name of Lucy Forrester, but they were adamant that none of their vehicles is missing.’

  ‘But I…’ She sat back, frowned. ‘But I took it from their yard. The keys were in it and I thought…’ He waited, but she couldn’t begin to explain exactly what she’d been thinking. ‘You saw it, Han. You must have done. Their name was plastered all over it.’

  ‘A clerical error, no doubt,’ he said. ‘But if they insist they aren’t missing a vehicle, they can hardly make a fuss about its disappearance. And even if they belatedly realise their mistake, be assured that your shadows cannot penetrate my walls.’

  Walls?

  She glanced at the mountains, so close in the clear morning light. They had been nothing more than a shimmer through the heat haze when she’d landed at the airport.

  ‘We are out in the desert, aren’t we? This is where I crashed?’ She turned to Han. ‘I saw high walls…glimpsed green just before the accident. I told you, I thought it was a mirage.’ She considered what that meant. What he’d said about a pairidaeza, the sheer scale of it. ‘All this…’ without taking her eyes off him she swept her arm in a wide gesture to take in the vastness of the gardens ‘…all this is behind walls? In the middle of nowhere?’

  ‘The walls are necessary to protect the spring that waters the garden, to keep out wandering animals who would graze the garden back to desert in the blink of an eye.’ Then, ‘You would prefer to be in Rumaillah? The city.’

  ‘No!’ she said without thinking. ‘No…’

  ‘It can be arranged. My house there is closed up, but my mother or my sisters would, I’m sure, be happy to take you in.’

  If he asked them. The fact that he hadn’t asked suggested they wouldn’t be exactly thrilled at the prospect. Which made his own concern for a stranger all the more worthy. Especially one who had committed a criminal act.

  ‘No, really,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll be fit in a day or two and once I have my tickets, a passport, I’ll be out of your hair. No need to bother anyone else.’

  ‘Take as long as you need to regain
your strength before you confront whatever troubles you.’

  ‘Why do you insist that I am troubled?’

  ‘No one who is at peace steals a vehicle, or risks her life as you did.’

  She had no answer to that.

  ‘Eat,’ he said. ‘Try the figs; they have been picked especially for you.’

  He picked up a purple fruit with a bloom on its skin, handed it to her. Then took another and bit into it. Obviously, the subject of the stolen vehicle, any discussion of her departure, had been dismissed and to pursue either seemed rude. Instead she looked at the heavy fruit filling her palm, so different from the dried figs that had been a feature of her grandmother’s Christmas sideboard. She’d hated those chewy, pippy things, but this was nothing like them and, somewhat cautiously, she bit into it, uncertain quite what to expect.

  As the fresh sweetness filled her mouth she gasped in surprise, catching the juice that trickled down her chin with her hand, staring at the red flesh with astonishment.

  ‘That’s amazing! So different!’

  He laughed too, apparently delighted with her delight. Then, as if caught unawares by the sound and horrified by it, he got up and strode away from her, putting the length of the balcony between them, before gripping the ornate wood rail as if it was the only thing stopping him from throwing himself to the stone path twenty feet below.

  He looked so alone that Lucy felt an almost overwhelming urge to follow him, wrap her arms around him and pull his head down on to her shoulder in a simple gesture of comfort. Reassure him that it was all right to go on living. That laughter was not a betrayal.

  It was probably a good thing that crutches made any such gesture out of the question.

  She didn’t know what he was going through, how he was suffering. She knew nothing of comfort, love, tenderness, and, having barely lived herself, she was in no position to offer advice to anyone else on how it should be done.

  Unable to do anything useful and certain that he would rather she ignored his loss of control and left him to gather himself, she instead forced herself to give her complete attention to the breakfast that had been provided for her.