Sheikh's Castaway

by Alexandra Sellers

  “It’s different when the marriage is arranged, though, isn’t it?” The murmurs in the next room grew louder as the two women moved past the slightly open door, in complete ignorance of the fact that the subject under discussion was on the other side of it. “Then the families at least have—”

  “How is it different? This marriage might not have been arranged in the traditional way, but it was your grandfather who chose the bride.”

  “Really?” The younger voice sounded both shocked and deliciously intrigued, and Noor’s eyes widened with startled dismay. “You mean Bari isn’t in love with her?”

  She sounded thrilled, Noor noted. Cow.

  “He was very bitter when his grandfather told him what was necessary.” The voices faded again and she heard the opening of the door that led onto the broad, shady balcony.

  “How—but why would Bari agree to something like that? He’s so independent!”

  “Bari has no choice.” The other voice was matter-of-fact. “If he wants the right to the property in Bagestan and the money to restore it, he has to marry as he is instructed. Your grandfather wants an alliance with the Durranis. He will leave the property away from Bari if—”

  The door shut, cutting the voices off, and leaving Noor stunned and as white as her veil among the broken pieces of her stupid, childish dreams….

  A loud rumble brought her back into the here and now, with all its dangers. Oh, if only her father had never told them their history! If only she could return to her ordinary life, and never learn whose blood ran in her veins. Princess! They had been happy as they were! And now…her life had so changed that it might end here, miles from her home, in the next few minutes.

  Another, louder crack of thunder, and she bit back a cry. She had seen flickering light within the roiling darkness. If lightning struck…

  They hit turbulence and dropped for a few metres before landing with a sickening thud on a boiling air mass. Her stomach churned. Oh, let me not throw up! she begged feverishly.

  Lightning danced perilously in the black cloud again, and the noise was deafening. They were at the heart of the storm.

  Bari struggled against turbulence, hoping he had a heading towards the Gulf Islands as he came down, but he was far from certain. The instruments were jumping so much they were all but useless. And as a mere human he was in the maelstrom, archetypal Chaos, the place where the ordinary senses were powerless as guides.

  Flying by the seat of your pants, they called it. On a wing and a prayer. The clichés recited themselves in his head, describing truths no one with sense wanted to discover for himself.

  He had been acting like a fool for too long. His judgement had been faulty ever since hearing his grandfather’s ultimatum, and what a pity he could only recognize that now!

  But this wasn’t the moment to fan the flames of his legitimate anger, either with his grandfather or with Noor. His mind needed to be clear of everything except the job at hand.

  He could keep dropping lower to try to get below the cloud, but that was risky: some of the islands were high and rugged. And even at the coast the foothills were over a thousand feet high in places. So whether he was badly off course or right where he hoped he was, there was terrible risk involved in flying low.

  But to continue to fly inside the storm invited even more certain disaster. He had to take the risk and try to put down, trusting that he would break out of cloud in time to see where he was and take evasive action if it wasn’t where he hoped.

  Noor’s mouth was dry. Her heart beat with terror; the metallic taste of panic was on her tongue. She had never been afraid for her life before. They could be struck by lightning. Turbulence could break the plane apart. They could fall from the sky like a stone.

  Or the earth could leap up in their path and smash them to atoms.

  She wanted to lash out and hit something; her legs were tense with the need to run screaming from the scene. She wanted her heart to stop thundering in her chest and cheeks and temples. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare and find herself safe.

  “Oh God!” she whimpered as a fist of sound punched the little plane and set it juddering. How was it possible one tiny act had set such a chain of events in motion? If she could have it to do over again…

  “Pray for some common sense while you’re at it,” Bari advised with grim humour. He was fighting to hold the plane against the turbulence, and he seemed to have as good a grip on himself as on the controls.

  The injustice of the comment infuriated her—or was it the justice of it?—and as if that fury somehow served as an antidote to the emotion that engulfed her, Noor gritted her teeth in sudden revulsion for her own fear. If this was death, she wasn’t meeting it as a coward! She wasn’t going to spend her last few minutes in a panic, pleading with fate or regretting her own stupidity or anything else.

  The noise was deafening now—the shriek of wind, the rain and thunder and the protesting engine all conspiring together to produce cacophony. Noor ran her eyes over the instrument panel. Even if they hadn’t been leaping around like drops of water on a summer pavement, the instruments would have told her exactly nothing.

  “There must be something I can do!” she cried over the noise.

  Bari’s eyes were steady on her for a moment, clocking the shift in her state of mind. He indicated the radio with his chin.

  “Try and raise air traffic control again,” he shouted, less because he thought it likely than to give her something to do. “Give them our stats. Height eleven hundred and descending. Bearing two two five. See if they have us on radar and can confirm our position.”

  But the radio responded with static. They were out of range, but that told them nothing with regard to their own position—except that a mountain might be between them and the airport. In the distance she heard the pilot of another plane saying he could hear her, but the signal faded and he didn’t respond to her call.

  “Go to the distress channel,” Bari ordered, and a thrill of renewed fear zinged through her. Every pilot knew the channel number, but not in the expectation of ever needing it. Her mouth dry, Noor turned the dial to read 121.5. She coughed.

  “Mayday, May—” she began hoarsely.

  Suddenly there was a flash of light all around them, as though they had touched an electric grid. Then a curious silence, as if the rain were taking a breath, or her heart had stopped beating. Then rippling, cracking, booming thunder.

  “Did that hit us?” Noor barely breathed the question.

  Bari shrugged. “The electrics are still working.” He pulled back on the throttle, slowing the engine further.

  “I’m going to put down. The sea will be choppy, but better to break up on the surface than up here.”

  If the sea was beneath them.

  Noor felt a sudden calm. Mash’allah. “All right. What should I do?”

  “There’s a life raft in the rear.” He sounded doubtful. “Can you get it out?”

  She set down the mike and unbuckled herself. “Right.”

  “Be prepared for more turbulence.”

  She hastily kicked off her shoes and got up, scrabbling her way between the two passenger seats behind and into the back of the aircraft as fast as she could, yanking at the voluminous skirt of her dress, clutching tightly to anything within reach. Meanwhile the plane leaped and bounced as the storm did its unholy best to knock her off balance.

  Strange, she thought distantly, all this bucking wasn’t making her queasy now. Maybe having nerves at a fever pitch had something to do with that.

  Still the wind howled and shrieked around the little plane. Lightning crackled within the clouds, and the answering thunder pounded and banged them almost physically.

  In the luggage space behind the passenger seats, she saw a suitcase-sized container fitted to the bulkhead on a mounting. There were very similar items on the yachts of friends, and in her carefree life Noor had been miles from imagining she would ever actually need one.

  She kne
lt into the cloud of her dress and wrestled with the clasps holding the case in the cradle. She noted only distantly that the tip of one perfect peach-coloured fingernail snapped off in the process.

  “LIFE RAFT, 4 PERSON. DO NOT INFLATE IN AN ENCLOSED SPACE.”

  Bari swore as the plane bucked again, and Noor fell against the seat and then the bulkhead as she dragged the case awkwardly off its mounting. It was heavy and hard and had a mind of its own, but with curses and tears she at last manoeuvred it to a position behind Bari’s seat. Two more fingernails tore in the process.

  The sweat of struggle was on Bari’s forehead, and his face was white with strain. A black curl fell over one eye. “Sit down,” he called. “We’ll break out of cloud soon and I may have to take it back up fast.”

  Fear rushed through her again at this stark statement of what she already knew—that they might be blindly flying towards a mountainside. Biting her lip, Noor struggled back into her seat and shoved her arms through the safety harness, clicking it home.

  Rain pounded the metal body of the plane, and the wind screamed around them, in an intensity of sound she’d never heard before. Thunder rolled all around. She felt the noise in her skin, in her body, as if sound itself embraced her, a physical thing.

  She picked up the mike again. “Mayday, Mayday, this is India Sierra—”

  Suddenly they were out of cloud, driving through rain so heavy there was scarcely any improvement in visibility. But below she could see water, and she let her breath out on a long silent sigh. Thank God, thank God. Alhamdolillah. She glanced at Bari, but she saw no emotion other than fierce concentration on his face.

  “Brace yourself,” he said briefly. The water looked choppy and unforgiving. Noor pushed her free hand against the control panel, pressed her stockinged feet against the floor.

  “This is India Sierra Quebec two six, we are—”

  He slowed the engine, dropping lower, trying to gauge the height of the chop by what he knew of the sea as a sailor. It was rougher than he had hoped.

  The belly of the plane touched down with a hollow thump, and then another and another as they hit the waves. Bari wrestled to keep the plane from nose-diving, the muscles of his arms bulging with the effort. As he slowed to a standstill, a bigger swell grabbed the starboard wing. With a sharp, terrifying scream of metal the plane slewed around, bounced up, smacked down, pitched forward and then dropped back.

  Four

  The high scream stopped. The propellers stopped. The pounding rain increased in ferocity, but still it sounded like silence to the two in the cockpit. Bari slapped his harness open.

  “Are you hurt?” His voice was harsh.

  “No,” Noor said faintly. The truth was she was so shocked that if she did have broken bones she wouldn’t have known.

  “The hull is damaged,” Bari said, flinging open his door onto driving rain and waves that slapped against the belly of the plane, stretching greedy fingers into the cockpit. “We’ve got a couple of minutes before it goes under.”

  Noor, dizzy and shaken, struggled out of the harness and her seat again.

  Bari was in the open doorway, the rain slashing at him, staining his jacket dark, plastering it to his skin. He tied the cord from the life raft to a metal brace with quick expertise. Somehow he did not look incongruous in his wedding finery. The purple silk jacket that was dress uniform to a Cup Companion only emphasized his physical power and masculinity. Around his hips the jewelled belt of his sword glowed dully. He looked like an ancient painting of a noble warrior, ready for anything.

  Lightning crackled behind his head, and thunder exploded around them like a small bomb.

  “Take your dress off,” he shouted.

  Her hand went unconsciously to her throat. “But I’m—”

  “Now!” His voice was harsh. “Do you want to drown?”

  She was too stunned by events to argue. He was right. If she fell into the water, the dress would drag her down. Anyway, what did she have to hide from Bari? He had been so intimate with her body he practically owned it.

  Bari didn’t waste time watching to see her obey. He dragged the life raft through the opening and heaved it onto the water.

  Noor reached up behind her neck and her fingers tugged at the first of the dozens of tiny silk-covered buttons that ran down her back. She managed to undo three or four, watching as Bari jerked at the cord of the plastic case now riding the waves a short distance away, but the dress was too tight for her to reach further.

  “You’ll have to undo me,” she said hoarsely, and so quietly he didn’t hear against the sudden hissing and snapping as the life raft opened. Noor coughed. Since trying to make the Mayday call she seemed to have no voice.

  “You have to undo me!” she cried louder.

  He looked at her. She was offering her back, her head turned to look over her shoulder into his face. Bari’s eyes took in the lifted shoulder, the fall of glowing auburn hair, the partly opened neckline of the dress, the soft skin of her back as it disappeared under the delicate white silk.

  Even now, with danger crackling all around, the thought of the might-have-been passed over them. Wordlessly his hands rose to the buttons, and moved against her back to undo her wedding dress…as he might have done in a hushed bedroom somewhere, their hearts beating not with fear but desire….

  He undid two of the tiny, impossible buttons, and then muttered something she didn’t hear. His hands clenched against her skin for a moment before he wrenched them apart. The fabric screamed its protest at the violation of the should-have-been, and he tore the dress open from neck to hip. Buttons flew like little pellets, landing all around with a sound that was curiously distinct against the noise of the storm.

  They said not a word. Bari lifted his hands and turned back to his task with the raft. It was nearly fully inflated now, and he quickly picked up a small satchel as water began to seep into the plane, staining the carpet with a warning that time was short.

  Noor dragged the dress off, down her arms and over her hips. Clutching hard on the seat back against the rocking of the waves, she let it drop with a swoosh to the floor and stepped out of it. Now she was wearing nothing but a teddy and stockings.

  She dragged the heavy weight of the dress up and flung it over her arm, and then stood waiting for his signal.

  There was a loud pop as the bright red canopy snapped into place over the raft. Bari held the raft close to the battered plane, and she watched him toss the sheathed sword and the satchel through the canopy entrance. The eyes that glanced over her were clinically impersonal. Not even by a tightening of his mouth did he seem to remember that the last time he had seen her like this lovemaking had followed.

  Lightning crackled between earth and sky, and the black clouds roiled as thunder echoed across the water. A gust of wind smacked them, causing the plane to make a terrifying shift.

  “Shoes?” Bari shouted.

  “Off.”

  “Jump onto the canopy.”

  She clutched her dress and prepared to leap. “What the hell’s that for?” he demanded harshly.

  “It’s all the clothes I have!” she screamed against the turmoil. Without waiting for his approval, she leaped out, and landed spread-eagled on the canopy. It collapsed under her, and she banged her knee painfully on something underneath.

  Noor almost panicked then, but when she looked towards Bari he was unmoved by the accident. The life raft rose and fell on the waves for a few seconds while the drenching rain came down, and the heavens roared and flashed.

  “Get over!” Bari called. Her dress was everywhere, and she feverishly grabbed at it, rolling it into a bundle with one arm as she clutched desperately to a rope with the other and tried to make room for him.

  Her bundled wedding veil landed with a thump, so Bari had seen logic in her decision. A moment later, he landed beside her.

  “Get through the entrance—we’ve got to get the canopy up!” he cried, and for a moment she stared at him in confusion
.

  Under his rapid-fire direction, dragging her dress and veil with her, Noor slithered through the entrance hole and under the flattened canopy as if into a sleeping bag, while Bari clung on precariously. Rain poured unmercifully into her face where she lay looking up at the churning black sky. There was something hard and uncomfortable under her thigh.

  Bari edged closer, then slid headfirst through the hole beside her. To Noor’s amazement, the canopy popped back into place, and suddenly they were inside.

  Bari instantly jackknifed up, grabbing at her butt, and choking the sigh of relief in her throat. “What—?” she began.

  She saw him heft the sword in the scabbard. He shoved it out the entrance and drew out the sword, tossing the scabbard to fall inside.

  The action, the speed of it, choked her.

  “Bari!” she screamed hoarsely.

  With his free hand he reached for the rope that tethered them to the downed plane, and lifted the sword over it.

  A huge swell slapped against the plane without warning, shifting it violently, dragging the rope out of his hand. Bari, the sword held high, was suddenly hanging precariously over the water. A wave lifted the little raft.

  “Bari!” Noor shrieked again, in a very different tone. She flung herself on him, grabbed the jewelled sword belt he still wore, and held on tight. The raft slipped dangerously down into the lee of the wave.

  He twisted in her hold, his back arching out over the swollen sea, his sword upraised, with rain pouring over him, looking like some ancient painting of a blood-crazed warrior. He stared at her in disbelief as she clung shrieking to his hips. The rain was so drenching she could hardly see, but she got the outrage in his eyes.