Her Desert Dream

by Liz Fielding

  ‘A new man for a new age.’

  ‘Smarter than my grandfather, certainly. When his father had a stroke Jaddi raced home, but he was too late. The Emir had slipped into a coma and was beyond extending the hand of forgiveness. There was to be no feast for the prodigal.’

  ‘Poor man.’

  He glanced at her, uncertain who she was referring to.

  ‘I wonder if there was a moment when he knew it was too late. The Emir. Wished he had acted differently? You think that you have all the time in world to say the words. When my father was killed I wanted to tell him…’

  She broke off, unable to continue, and it was his turn to reach out for her hand, curl his fingers around it, hold tight as she remembered the family that had been torn from her.

  After a moment she shook her head. ‘I’m fine, Kal.’

  Was she? He’d never lost anyone close to him. Rose had only her grandfather and he wished he could share his many grandparents, parents, siblings with her.

  ‘What did you want to tell him, Rose?’ he pressed, wanting to know about her. How she felt. What her life had been like.

  ‘That I loved him,’ she said. And for a moment her eyes were noticeably brighter. ‘He used to take me for walks in the wood on Sunday mornings. Show me things. The names of trees, flowers, birds.’

  ‘Your mother didn’t go with you?’

  She shook her head. ‘She stayed at home and cooked lunch but we’d always look for something special to take home for her. A big shiny conker or a bird’s feather or a pretty stone.’

  The Marchioness slaving over a hot stove? An unlikely image, but Rose’s mother hadn’t been born to the purple. She’d qualified as a doctor despite the odds, had met her polo playing Marquess in A &E when he’d taken a tumble from his horse.

  Such ordinary domesticity must evoke a genuine yearning in the breast of a young woman who’d been brought up by a starchy old aristocrat who probably didn’t even know where the kitchen was.

  ‘I should have told him every day how much I loved him. That’s all there is in the end, Kal. Love. Nothing else matters.’

  ‘It’s tragic that you had so little time to get to know him. Be with him. With both of them,’ he said. ‘To lose a mother so young…What do you remember about her?’

  She started, as if brought back from some distant place, then said, ‘Her bravery, determination. How much she loved my father.’

  She looked at her hand, clasped in his, reclaimed it.

  ‘Go on with your story, Kal,’ she urged.

  He didn’t want to talk about his family. He wanted to know more about her. His six-year-old memories of his mother were of stories, treats, hugs. Were Rose’s most abiding memories really of her mother’s bravery? Or was that the result of years of media brainwashing?

  ‘What happened after your great-grandfather died?’ she pressed.

  There was definitely something wrong here, he could sense it, but Rose Napier was no more than a means to an end, he reminded himself. She was not his concern.

  ‘When Jaddi learned that his father had named his younger brother as Emir his heart broke, not just with grief,’ he told her, refocusing himself on what was important, ‘but with guilt, too. For a while he was crazy.’

  He stared at the plate in front of him. Somehow, he’d managed to clear it, although he hadn’t tasted a thing.

  ‘What happened?’ she pressed. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He refused to swear allegiance to his younger brother, raised disaffected tribes in the north, attacked the citadel. He thought that the people would rise to him, but he’d been away for a long time. While they’d once adored the dashing young sheikh, in his absence they had grown to admire and respect his brother.’

  ‘Was anyone hurt?’

  He shook his head. ‘When it was obvious that he lacked popular support, his allies were quick to make their peace with the man holding the purse strings.’

  ‘It’s like something out of a Shakespearean tragedy,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose it is. But it was of his own making. Even then, if he’d been prepared to acknowledge his brother as ruler, publicly bow the knee, he would have been allowed to stay. Play his part. When he refused to humiliate himself in that way, his brother exiled him from the tribe, stripped him of his name, title, banished him. All he was left with was the financial settlement that his father had hoped would compensate him for being supplanted by his younger brother.’

  ‘And your father? Was he included in this punishment?’

  ‘Banishment was for Jaddi alone, but the rest followed. If a father does not bear the name of his tribe, the title owed to him by birth…’

  ‘So you are al-Zaki.’

  ‘A name without history,’ he said. Without honour. ‘My father and I are free to come and go, as is my sister. I have an office, an apartment in Rumaillah but, without a family, I remain invisible.’ His letters returned unanswered. Barred from his place in the majlis. Forbidden any way of appealing for mercy for a dying man. Reduced to using this woman.

  ‘What do you think will happen when Princess Sabirah comes here? Will she “see” you?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said, angry with himself, angry with the Emir, angry with her for making him feel guilty. ‘Her Highness won’t do anything to embarrass her distinguished guest.’

  That was what Lucy was relying on, anyway. If she acknowledged him, he would beg her to intercede with the Emir for his grandfather. That was all that was left, he thought bitterly. A chance to plead with the woman who shared the Emir’s pillow to show pity on a dying man.

  Lydia felt the emptiness in Kal’s words, the loss, an underlying anger too, but to say that she was sorry would be meaningless and so she said nothing-she’d already said far too much, come close to blowing the whole deal.

  The silence drifted back, broken only by the clink of dishes when Yatimah appeared to clear the table, loading everything on to the tray.

  Having come-in a moment of high emotion-perilously close to letting slip the truth about her own father’s death, she took the chance to gather herself before turning to Yatimah to thank her for the meal.

  ‘La shokr ala wageb, sitti. No thanks are due for duty.’

  ‘Will you say that again?’ Lydia begged, grabbing the chance to move away from dangerous territory. Listening carefully and repeating it after her self-appointed teacher.

  ‘I will bring coffee?’

  ‘Nam. Shukran.’

  When she’d gone, Kal said, ‘You listen well, Rose.’

  ‘I try to pick up a few words of the local language when I’m on holiday. Even if it’s only hello and thank you.’ The truth, and how good that felt, but before he could ask where she usually went on holiday, ‘So, what time are we going fishing?’

  ‘Maybe we should give that a miss today,’ he said. ‘Wait until you’re really bored.’

  She tried not to look too happy about that.

  ‘You might have a long wait. I’ve got the most beautiful garden to explore, a swimming pool to lie beside and a stack of good books to read. In fact, as soon as we’ve had coffee I’ll decide which to do first.’

  ‘Qahwa. The Arabic for coffee is qahwa. You make the q sound in the back of your throat.’

  ‘Ga howa?’

  ‘Perfect.’ Then, with one of those slow smiles that sent a dangerous finger of heat funnelling through her, ‘Maybe we should add Arabic lessons to the schedule.’

  Doing her best to ignore it, she said, ‘You do know that I had planned to simply lie in the sun for a week?’

  ‘You can listen, speak lying down, can’t you?’

  Lydia tried to block out the image of Kal, stretched out on a lounger beside her at the pool she’d glimpsed from the dining room, his skin glistening in the sun while he attempted to teach her the rudiments of a language he clearly loved.

  Did he really believe that she would be able to concentrate?

  ‘Lying in the sun rest
ing,’ she elaborated swiftly, all the emphasis on resting. ‘You seem determined to keep me permanently occupied. Rushing around, doing stuff.’

  ‘It won’t be hard work, I promise you.’

  His low honeyed voice promised her all kinds of things, none of them arduous, and as he picked up her hand the heat intensified.

  ‘We can begin with something simple.’ And, never taking his eyes from her face, he touched his lips to the tip of her little finger. ‘Wahid.’

  ‘Wahid?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Ithnan.’ His lips moved on to her ring finger, lingered while she attempted to hold her wits together and repeat the word.

  ‘Ithnan. Two.’

  ‘Thalatha.’

  Something inside her was melting and it took her so long to respond that he began to nibble on the tip of her middle finger.

  ‘Thalatha!’

  ‘Arba’a.’ And he drove home the message with four tiny kisses on the tip, the first joint, the second joint, the knuckle of her forefinger.

  ‘Arba’a.’ It was her bones that were the problem, she decided. Her bones were melting. That was why she couldn’t move. Pull free. ‘Four.’

  ‘Khamsa.’ He looked for a moment at her thumb, then took the length of it in his mouth before slowly pulling back to the tip. ‘Five.’

  He was right. This was a language lesson she was never going to forget. She mindlessly held out her other hand so that he could teach her the numbers six to ten, already anticipating the continuation of a lesson involving every part of her body.

  He did not take it and, catching her breath as she came back to earth, she used it to sweep her hair behind her ear, managing a very creditable, ‘Shukran, Kal.’

  Yatimah placed a tray containing a small brass coffee pot and tiny cups on the table beside her.

  Feeling ridiculously light-headed as she realised that he must have seen her coming, that he had not rejected her but chosen discretion, she said, ‘Truly, that was a huge improvement on Mrs Latimer’s Year Six French class.’

  ‘Mrs Latimer?’ Lucy had been saying something about Rose not being allowed to go to school when he’d interrupted her. He wished now he’d been less impatient…

  For a moment Lydia’s mind froze.

  ‘A t-tutor,’ she stuttered as Kal continued to look at her, a frown creasing that wide forehead.

  She longed to tell him everything. Tell him about her brave mother who’d lost her husband and her mobility in one tragic moment on an icy road. Tell him about school, how she’d left when she was sixteen because what was the point of staying on when she would never have left her mother to go away to university? Tell him everything…

  She was rescued from his obvious suspicion by the beep of a text arriving on her mobile phone.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, retrieving it from her pocket. ‘It might be…’ She swallowed, unable to say the word grandfather, turned away to check it, assuming that it was simply a ‘have fun’ response from her mother to her own text.

  But it wasn’t from her mother. It was from Rose.

  Vtl you b on frnt pge am!

  Vital you be on the front page tomorrow morning…

  Lydia swallowed. Had she been recognised? Clearly she had to convince someone that she really was in Bab el Sama.

  She quickly keyed in OK and hit ‘send’, returning the phone to her pocket. Realised that Kal was watching her intently.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked as Yatimah offered them each a cup, then filled them with a thin straw-coloured aromatic liquid that was nothing like any coffee she’d ever seen.

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ she said with a nervous laugh which, even to her own ears, rang about as true as a cracked bell.

  Only him.

  Only her guilt that she was lying to a man who made her feel things that needed total honesty. And she couldn’t be honest. The text was a timely reminder just how deeply she was embedded in this pretence. She was doing this for Rose and right now only she mattered…

  They were four hours ahead of London, plenty of time to make the morning papers, but to accomplish that she had to get into the open in daylight. On her own. Wearing as little as possible.

  She and Rose both knew that what the paparazzi were really hoping for was a picture of her in a private ‘love nest’ scenario with Rupert Devenish.

  That was never going to happen, so in order to keep them focused, they’d planned a slow striptease to keep those lenses on her for the entire week.

  First up would be a walk along the beach in shorts with a shirt open over a bathing suit.

  After that she was going to discard the shirt to reveal a bathing suit top beneath it. Rare enough to excite interest, but nothing particularly sensational-it was a very demure bathing suit. Finally she’d strip down to the swimsuit. That should be enough to keep the photographers on their toes, but there was a bikini in reserve in case of unforeseen emergencies.

  Rose’s text suggested they were in the ‘unforeseen emergency’ category. What she didn’t, couldn’t know was that her good friend Lucy al-Khatib had provided her with a ‘protector’. Kal was relaxed about letting her wander, unseen by the outside world, in the shelter of the gardens, but she very much doubted that he’d sit back and let her take a walk along the beach without her minder.

  While it was true that his presence would absolutely guarantee a front page spot, she also recognised that the presence of some unknown man in close attendance would cause more problems than it solved.

  She was going to have to evade her watchdog and get down to the beach and she had less than an hour in which to manage it.

  Kal watched Rose sip gingerly at the scalding coffee. Clearly, whatever had been in the text had not been good news. The colour had drained from her face and a man didn’t have to be fluent in body language to see that she was positively twitching to get away.

  Which begged the question, why didn’t she just say, Great lunch, see you later…and walk away? Or tell him that something had come up that she had to deal with?

  Why was she sitting there like a cat on hot bricks, doing her best to pretend that nothing was wrong?

  A gentleman would make it easy for her. Make an excuse himself and leave her to get on with whatever it was she wanted to do.

  A man who’d been charged with her safety, in the face of some unspecified threat, would be rather less obliging. Lucy might have disparaged the Duke’s concerns, but she hadn’t dismissed them entirely.

  She hadn’t elaborated on them, either. Could it be that she was more worried about what Rose might do than what some imaginary assailant had in mind?

  Maybe he should give her a call right now. Except that would leave Rose on her own, which didn’t seem like a great idea.

  ‘This is desert coffee,’ he said conversationally. ‘The beans are not ground but boiled whole with cardamom seeds. For the digestion.’

  ‘Really? It’s different. Very good,’ she said, although he doubted she had even tasted it.

  As she put the cup down, clearly eager to be away, he said, ‘Traditionally, politeness requires that you drink two cups.’

  ‘Two?’

  She scarcely managed to hide her dismay and his concern deepened. What on earth had been in that text?

  ‘They’re very small. If you hold out the cup, like this,’ he said, holding out his own cup, ‘Yatimah will refill it for you.’

  Obediently she held out the cup. Drank it as quickly as she could without scalding her mouth, handed the cup back to the girl.

  And it was refilled a third time.

  ‘She’ll refill it as often as you hold it out like that,’ he explained. ‘When you’ve had enough you have to shake the cup from side to side to indicate that you have had enough.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ She swallowed it down, shook the cup the way he told her, thanked Yatimah who, at a look from him, quickly disappeared. Rose, looking as if she wanted to bolt after her, said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, Kal, I’ll
go and get my book. Find somewhere quiet to read. You don’t have to stand guard over me while I do that, do you?’

  ‘Not if you stay within the garden,’ he said, rising to his feet, easing back her chair.

  ‘What about the beach?’ she asked, so casually that he knew that was where she would be heading the minute he took his eyes off her. ‘That’s private, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s private in that no one will come ashore and have a picnic. Local people respect the privacy of the Emir and his guests, but the creek is busy.’ He glanced across the water. ‘There are plenty of boats where a photographer hoping to catch a candid shot of you could hide out.’ He turned back to her. ‘Lucy said you found the intrusion stressful but if you want to risk a walk along the shore, I’ll be happy to accompany you.’

  ‘Lady Rose Napier plus unknown man on a beach? Now, that really would make their day.’ Her laughter lacked any real suggestion of amusement. ‘I’ll stick to the garden, thanks.’ Then, ‘Why don’t you take yourself off on that fishing trip you’re so keen on? Give me a break from the maggots.’

  Give her a break? Where on earth had the secluded Lady Rose picked up these expressions?

  ‘The maggots will be disappointed,’ he said, coming up with a smile. ‘I’ll see you at dinner?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Her relief was palpable at the prospect of an entire afternoon free of him. He would have been offended but, from the way she’d responded to his kisses, he knew it wasn’t personal.

  ‘Although I’d better put in a few laps at the pool, too, or at this rate none of the clothes I brought with me will fit.’

  ‘There’s an upside to everything,’ he replied.

  His reward was a hot blush before she lifted her hand in a small, oddly awkward, see-you-later gesture and walked quickly towards the cottage.

  Kal, getting the message loud and clear, didn’t move until she was out of sight.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LYDIA’S luggage had been unpacked and put away and she quickly hunted through drawers, doing her best not to linger and drool over silk, cashmere, finest linen, as she searched for a swimsuit.