Prince of the Desert

by Penny Jordan

  ‘It would have made sense to build a fortification around such a spring, to ensure that water would still be available in a siege situation—especially since at the time the original palace was built the valley lay close to one of the main camel train routes. Taking possession of the valley and its oasis meant my ancestors would have had both a financial asset and a need to protect it.’ As he spoke, Tariq couldn’t help thinking about Gwynneth, and the way she had reacted to his offer to buy the apartment from her.

  ‘It strikes me,’ Hal Derwent, chief archaeologist for the group, put in, ‘that we could be looking at a situation where, if there are underground caves and passages, these could have been utilised to provide an escape route from the fortress if necessary—maybe even via the environs of the oasis in some way. This land, the desert, has always fascinated me. It holds so many secrets and gives them up so reluctantly.’

  ‘Perhaps that is why my people think of the desert as female,’ Tariq told him dryly.

  ‘The earth’s inner space is equally as fascinating as outer space—more so as far as I’m concerned,’ Hal remarked, adding ruefully, ‘What I could do with a tithe of a space exploration budget!’

  ‘Well, I can’t promise you that,’ Tariq told him. ‘But it may be that with the help of neighbouring countries we could investigate further. However, as you know, preserving the environment of the area’s flora and fauna is of prime importance to me.’

  ‘And me,’ chimed in Bob Holmes, the team’s natural history professor. ‘Because the oasis is on private land which is virtually cut off from the rest of the desert, and not on any of the old camel trading routes, from a natural history point of view it is totally unique. I’m particularly interested in some of the species of fish we’ve taken from the oasis. They look like the kind of tropical saltwater fish you would expect to find on a coral reef, but the oasis isnot salt water—even though its rock formation does provide a form of reef environment for them.’

  Tariq smiled. ‘There is a story that a long-ago prince built a private courtyard garden for his favourite houri, complete with a large glass tank filled with small reef fish. When the concubine died, after being poisoned by a rival, the Prince had the tank removed because he was unable to bear the sight of something that reminded him so painfully of the woman he had loved and lost. He gave orders that the tank and the fish were to be destroyed, but the young daughter of one of the men doing the work loved the fish so much she persuaded her father to help her remove them from the tank and place them in the oasis, praying to Allah as she did so that they might live.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘Who knows? Just as the flesh of a peach holds the kernel that is its seed, maybe there is an element of truth in the story, and the fish in the oasis are the offspring of saltwater fish who managed to survive and adapt.’

  ‘Possibly. Or perhaps some seabird, or even a trained falcon, caught fish out over the gulf and then accidentally dropped its prey here.’

  Tariq raised one eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, it does sound pretty far-fetched.’ Bob laughed. ‘But one never knows.’

  With summer setting in and the temperature rising steeply, all work on the valley had ceased. Tariq had not wanted to risk disturbing its animal life by setting up arc lighting so that the men could work in the cool hours of the night. The contractors were now securing the sites, ready to leave later in the day. He still had to talk to the men working on the excavation of the site of the original palace, and on the restoration of its hanging gardens, but instead of his thoughts being totally focused on this project which meant so much to him he was finding that they kept escaping from his control, subtly drifting away so that they could embrace Gwynneth Talbot. As he himself also ached to do?

  With a brief nod to the other men he strode towards the villa where he and his parents had lived until their separation, unlocking the door and tensing as he stopped inside into the welcome dark coolness.

  The villa had been built by his grandfather following the time-honoured principles of Middle Eastern architecture—which were to ensure that as much cool air as possible was drawn into a home and as much hot sunshine as possible kept out.

  The villa was a solidly structured four-square building, enclosing four inner courtyards, three of which were gardens. Each corner of the building possessed a traditional wind tower, looking out across the desert and inward to the gardens beyond. An image slid into his head—a mental picture of himself with his father. He would have been about three, or maybe even four, clinging tightly to his father’s hand as they climbed the stairs to one of the wind towers. His father, he remembered now, had looked out across the desert as he explained to him the principles behind their construction. Longing for his freedom? Or simply yearning for a broader horizon he could share with his wife and son?

  His mother had said nothing to him of the promise his second cousin had described. But she, unlike his father, had craved the inner seclusion of the garden courtyards. Even when they had gone to live in Zuran she had preferred the solitude of her own company. Because—as he had always believed—of her grief at his father’s betrayal? Or because, quite simply, she’d been a solitary person who had preferred to stand apart from others, as he did himself sometimes?

  It was here that his father had taught him to play football and to read English, and here too that the older man had stood and watched quietly whilst Tariq had received his first lessons in the art of falconry. So many memories he hadn’t previously allowed himself to acknowledge. Doing so now in the light of what he had learned was hauntingly bittersweet.

  The apartment was silent and empty. It was gone midnight, but Gwynneth felt too restless and on edge to go to bed. Instead she went out onto the terrace. Was it really only yesterday that she and Tariq had eaten here together? Or rather, she and His Highness Prince Tariq bin Salud Al Fwaisa, she corrected herself grimly. No wonder she had thought him arrogant.

  Someone on another balcony had been burning incense, and its heavy sensual scent was conjuring up images of a wide low-lying divan and night air softly wafting shadowy, gauzy fabrics. The East was all about the senses, Gwynneth decided; it reached out to all of them in ways that one didn’t experience in the West.

  There was a small shop in the souk where one could buy a wide range of different scents and the burners, and she was tempted to make a purchase there herself. For what purpose? So that when she went home she could light the burner and remember this and Tariq? She wasn’t going to need any sensory aids to prompt her memory.

  Tariq, who was no doubt ready to pay her anything so that he could get her out of his life!

  Was that why he was so determined to keep this apartment? Because he came here to have sex with women, and needed it for the anonymity it afforded him? It all added up—right down to the way he had behaved towards her that first night.

  Tariq—she refused to mentally address him any other way, she decided belligerently—used this apartment to have sex with women chosen either by himself or, even more unpalatably, on his behalf. Its anonymity here in the heart of Zuran’s hotel quarter meant it was ideally suited for his needs. Although no doubt he could afford to buy others, plainly he did not wish to waste time or energy doing so. It was easier simply to buy her out, even if that meant he had to pay over the market price. What was an extra £500,000 to a man she now knew to be one of Zuran’s wealthier billionaires?

  Gwynneth paced the terrace, her face burning and her thoughts in turmoil. It made her skin crawl with loathing to know what the apartment really was, and to know too that she was simply another piece of female flesh who had been processed through it for a cold-hearted too-rich man’s pleasure. She had been idiotically naïve, thinking that just because she felt shocked at wanting a man she barely knew, was tormented by the intensity of that wanting, Tariq must in some way be experiencing the male equivalent of her feelings. That he, like her, must be questioning the inappropriateness of their mutual desire at the same time as he was compelled to acknowledge the sheer fo
rce of it. That was the trouble with being an ageing virgin who didn’t have the physical or emotional experience to recognise the reality of how modern sexual mores translated into real life.

  She deplored her foolish belief that they shared a mutual but inadmissible and unspoken itch for one another they had been equally driven to scratch and equally infuriated by. They were not and never had been equals of any kind. In Tariq’s eyes she was simply a piece of human flesh he’d wanted to use, he had used, and no doubt he would use many more pieces.

  She derided herself for actually thinking that Tariq’s reaction had been the male emotional stereotype. There had no emotional input into his reaction to her at all other than that of arrogant disbelief and anger.

  And she had left it too late to defend herself from the fallout—the humiliation of recognising that whilst she had engaged with him emotionally, physically and mentally, he had simply thought of her in terms of his own sexual satisfaction. The truth was that he had put about as much emotional effort into her as he would have done eating a fast-food meal—probably less.

  That was what you got from sexually locking yourself away from modern life. Another woman of her age, wiser to the reality of things than she was, would no doubt have known immediately what his agenda was.

  Of course he wanted to get rid of her. She was cramping his style.

  And he was breaking her heart.

  She stiffened, recoiling from her thoughts, but they wouldn’t be denied. Tariq breaking her heart? That just wasn’t possible. He had made her feel desire, yes. But desire was only physical. What shefelt for him was only physical. It had to be.

  She had to get away from him, and she had to put this whole episode totally behind her.

  When he came back she would tell him that she had changed her mind and that she was willing to accept his offer. Then she would move out of the apartment and into the most inexpensive hotel she could find—if there was such a thing as an inexpensive hotel in Zuran—and she would stay there until the formalities had been completed and Tariq’s money was safely in the bank account she had already opened to hold the money from her father’s estate.

  Tariq frowned as he studied his computer screen. He was supposed to be dealing with a backlog of correspondence and updating his files with regard to the fact that work in the valley had now ceased until the cooler weather. Instead of which he was wasting time thinking about Gwynneth and wondering how much thought his parents had given to the problems their different outlooks on life, and the manner in which they’d wanted to live it, could cause them before they had decided to get married. Or hadn’t they given any thought to those problems at all? Had they simply assumed that their love was strong enough to overcome them?

  If he left here now he could be back in Zuran before dawn. But to what purpose? To wake Gwynneth from her sleep with the touch of his hands and his mouth? To take from her her words of denial and change them into soft sounds of delight?

  He was crazy for thinking like this. The discovery that his father had not been the contemptible figure he had always believed was not a licence for him to start believing that…

  That what? That he did not need to fight against what he was feeling anymore? What he wasfeeling —was he crazy? She had made it plain by her behaviour that she relished the danger of sex with strangers, and with ever-changing partners. The woman he committed to would have to be his exclusively and for ever, no matter what her past sexual lifestyle had been. There would have to be honesty and openness between them, a desire to understand and to bridge any cultural and emotional differences. Perhaps most importantly of all, the woman sharing his life would have to understand and support the fact that he had a duty to his heritage—to its past, its present and its future.

  He looked towards the narrow window which gave on to the main courtyard where his 4x4 was parked. He could be back at the apartment in four hours. Less if he pushed himself.

  He got up and went to stand by the window, looking down into the courtyard. And what if he did go back and make love to her? What then? All he would be doing was taking another step towards an end that was inevitable—because ultimately any relationship they hadwould end. The leopard couldn’t change its spots, nor the falcon cease to fly. He knew himself well enough to know that he would not be able to live with the fear that ultimately she would leave him. Better the sharp agony of self-denial now than the long, slow putrefying death of his self-respect and pride.

  He turned away from the window and went back to the computer.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT MIGHTbe early, but she was far from the only person up and about, Gwynneth realised as she paid for the carton of milk she had hurried out to buy. No way could she drink black coffee, and no way could she face Tariq’s return without the mind-sharpening protection of her regular caffeine fix.

  As she made her way back to the apartment she was vaguely aware of a car crawling along the side of the quiet side street virtually beside her, but she was too busy worrying about how she was going to cope with seeing Tariq to do more than glance idly at it.

  She had almost reached the apartment block when, suddenly and terrifyingly, the two men who had been casually walking behind her abruptly closed the distance, trapping her between them, grabbing hold of her and dragging her over to the now stationary car. Zuran was famed for the safety of its holidaymakers, and Gwynneth hadn’t given a thought to the danger of walking around on her own because it hadn’t occurred to her that there was any.

  She struggled frantically to break free of her captors as she saw the rear passenger door of the car being thrust open.

  They were on the point of pushing her into the car, virtually head first, when out of nowhere—or so it seemed to Gwynneth—three police cars screeched up, blocking in her would-be kidnappers. Their doors were flung open to allow half a dozen or more armed policemen to come running to her aid, so that within seconds of being grabbed she was free and her assailants were being marched to the waiting police cars in handcuffs, along with the driver of the car.

  ‘It is fortunate that we happened to be driving past and saw what was happening,’ the most senior-looking of the policemen told Gwynneth, after he had assured himself that she was all right, if very shocked, and she had thanked him for their timely appearance. ‘Where were you going?’ he asked.

  Gwynneth inclined her head in the direction of the apartment building.

  ‘One of my men will escort you back to your apartment,’ he informed her.

  A brief nod of his head brought not one but two thick-set police officers to her side. To her bemusement, they not only escorted her all the way back to the apartment, they also insisted on coming inside with her and on checking every single room.

  Who needed caffeine? Gwynneth thought shakily once they had gone and reaction had begun to set in. She was having to fight against a very strong desire to sit down and have a good cry. Shock, she told herself pragmatically. It was just the effects of delayed shock. Perhaps she should have that coffee after all.

  Tariq had left the valley just before dawn, watching the sun bring colour and light to the desert, turning the sand from grey to an almost blinding silver gilt.

  The mobile he used for business was switched off, but the phone for his private line to the Ruler was as always on. He was an hour out of Zuran when it shrilled sharply, and he frowned and pulled up to take the call.

  The Chief of Police was brief and matter-of-fact. Thanks to the round-the-clock surveillance he had put in place at the apartment, his men had already circumvented two attacks on Ms Gwynneth Talbot.

  ‘What kind of attacks?’ Tariq demanded.

  ‘The first was an attempt to run her down in the street. They may only have intended to scare her; who can say? The second, though, was definitely more serious. They were attempting to kidnap her. We are currently questioning the men involved, who have admitted working for Rheinvelt. We think we have all the plotters now, but to be on the safe side, Highness, I would
respectfully request that Ms Talbot move into a safe house until we are sure.’

  He only had a heartbeat in which to make his decision, but that was all he needed. It was as simple as that—and as easy. Between one heartbeat and the next he had made up his mind.

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said crisply. ‘I am on my way back to the apartment now, and when I leave later today to return to Mjenat Ms Talbot will be accompanying me. She will be safe there.’

  ‘I shall have my men post a guard on the road to the Valley, Highness. Although I admit that I cannot think of anywhere safer for her. If these men we are questioning now are telling the truth, then we have all those involved in custody now, and the fact that they have been apprehended and will be punished according to Zurani law should stand as a warning to anyone else your friend might try to hire in their place. Our Esteemed Ruler has made it plain that he will not tolerate Zuran being corrupted by money-laundering or other illicit activities, and that a clear message must be sent out to anyone who doubts his determination on the matter, so he will not be inclined to deal lightly with them.’