Chosen as the Sheikh's Wife

CHAPTER ONE

Violet had been waiting for what seemed like hours, but eventually it was her turn and she limped forward with the object she'd brought along to the Trash or Treasure roadshow.

She'd already been through the junk/interesting/wow! "triage" at the entrance, and since the object she'd brought along for assessment had received a unanimous "wow!", and been red-stickered to indicate its status, a television camera zoomed in to film the expert's reaction.

She was not carried away on a tide of excitement by all this enthusiasm. It only meant that her piece of "trash" was unusual enough to arouse interest-and not necessarily of the kindly variety. This show was, after all, primarily entertainment, and if you set yourself up as an Aunt Sally, you had to expect the knocks.

She hadn't wanted to come. It was Sarah, her next-door neighbour, who'd insisted on dragging her reluctant bones along to the town hall so that she could be publicly humiliated for the amusement of several million viewers. Sarah who, just at the moment when she'd needed her for moral support, had disappeared in search of a loo.

Pregnancy was no excuse…

'What have we got here?' The "expert"-permanently tanned, silver-haired, a darling of the blue-rinse brigade-was familiar from the many evenings she'd sat watching this programme with her grandmother.

'I don't know,' she said truthfully, putting the brown padded envelope she had been clutching to her chest on the baize-covered table in front of him. 'To be honest I feel a bit of a fool bringing it here-' She felt better for getting that out, disassociating herself from any pretence to have found "treasure" '-but my neighbour lived in the Middle East for a while and she thought it was…interesting.'

Oh, lame, Violet Hamilton. Pathetic to blame someone not here to defend herself.

'Well, let's have a look at it, shall we?' He tipped a rag-wrapped bundle out onto the table in front of him.

'That's just how I found it,' Violet said quickly, not wanting him to think she routinely kept her valuables wrapped in rotted black silk. Not that she had any valuables. 'This morning,' she added. 'When I put my foot through the floorboards.' The cameraman pointed his lens at her strapped up ankle. Terrific… This was her "fifteen minutes of fame", and already her ankle was more interesting. 'It must have been there for years,' she said.

Without a word he carefully unfolded the rotted silk to reveal an ornately decorated dagger. Around them people crowded in to get a closer look.

That it was old was not in doubt. The handle had the patina of hard use, and inset in the top was a large, smoothly polished red stone the size of a pigeon's egg. The sheath wasn't straight but sharply curved and adorned with fancy silver and gold-coloured filigree work into which were set three similar tear-shaped red stones, decreasing in size as they reached the curved point and looking for all the world as if the stone on the handle was bleeding along its length.

The man said nothing for so long that Violet said, 'If I'd seen it on a market stall I'd have sworn it was a pantomime prop. Something the genie might wear in Aladdin.' The crowd, obligingly, laughed. 'All glass beads and plastic handle,' she added.

Then, as he eased the knife out of the sheath and the lights glinted off the blade, the laughter died.

'It's not a theatrical prop,' he said, unnecessarily.

'No.' And belatedly Violet wondered exactly how many laws she'd broken simply by carrying the thing in public.

'You found it under the floorboards, you said?' he prompted, with a keen, assessing glance. 'And which floorboards would they be?'

'My floorboards,' she replied a touch defensively, although now that the equity release people had done their sums the floorboards-along with most of the structure-were apparently theirs.

'I'm the fourth generation of my family to live there,' she added. And the last.

'Then it's likely that someone in your family hid it?'

'Unless burglars have started breaking in and leaving loot instead of taking it,' she agreed, and raised another laugh from the people crowded round to listen to what he had to say. Maybe she should consider a career in stand-up…

'Indeed,' he agreed, his smile as fake as his tan. It was his job to make the humorous remarks. 'Maybe we can come back to that.' Then, turning back to the knife, 'The Arab world has always been famous for its weapons and this is a khanjar, mostly worn now as a ceremonial piece in the same way as swords are worn with dress uniforms.'

He talked about the blade, about how the sharply curved scabbard was made, the skills being passed on from one generation of craftsmen to the next. He knew his stuff and the crowd around them was quiet now, intent. They knew that when he took this amount of time it was because he'd found something a bit special.

'This knife is exceptional,' he continued. 'Not only is the blade of the very highest quality, but the handle is made from rare, much-prized rhino horn.'

'Eeeuw…' Violet sat back, instinctively distancing herself from it.

'It's more than a hundred years old,' he said reassuringly.

'Does that make a difference?' she asked. 'The rhino still died just to furnish some man with a handle for his knife.'

'The transference of power had a potent appeal. It was a different world…'

'Not that different.'

'No.' Then, turning to a safer subject, he went on, 'The filigree work is fine gold and silver, and the use of rubies-'

'Rubies!' Violet exclaimed, forgetting all about the poor rhino who'd given up his horn just so that some dumb man would feel invincible when he wielded this blade. Forgetting everything in her shock. 'They can't possibly be rubies!'

This time his smile was genuine. It was finds like this, reactions like hers, that made the programme compulsive viewing.

'I mean, they're huge,' she said. Then, 'I thought they were glass. And raised another laugh. This time for her foolishness. Everyone was an expert…

'They might well have been,' he agreed. 'All kinds of decoration can and have been used on this kind of knife, but these stones are the real thing. Cabochon rubies-that is they have been polished rather than cut.'

Violet, aware that something more was expected, could only manage a slightly croaky, 'Oh…'

Rubies…

'What we have here is the kind of weapon that would have been owned and worn by a chief. A sheikh,'

he elaborated. 'Maybe even a sultan. It needs cleaning, of course, but even in this state I can't remember when I've seen anything quite so fine.'

It was rare for anything to reduce Violet to silence, but he had managed it.

'The really interesting question is how it came to be hidden beneath your floorboards.'

Violet was well aware what it must look like. What everyone must be thinking. That it had been stolen and, too hot to fence, had been hidden away and eventually forgotten about. But her family had enough of a history without adding larceny to the list, so she said, 'I suppose it could have something to do with the family legend.'

'Family legend?'

'The one about my great-great-grandmother being an Arabian princess who sewed her jewels into her clothes,' she said, 'and ran away from her husband with my great-great-grandfather.'

It was, gratifyingly, Mr Smooth's turn to be reduced to silence-if only momentarily.

'An Arabian princess?' he repeated, with a touch of uncertainty. She could see from his expression that he wasn't sure whether she was pulling his leg.

'With blue eyes,' she added, beginning to see the possibilities for entertainment herself. 'I'd always assumed it was just one of those tales that had grown in the telling.' She shrugged, leaving him to make up his own mind.

'Most stories have some element of truth in them,' he suggested. 'Was he a soldier? Your great-great-grandfather?'

'He was in the army. He was a medic. Stretcher-bearer,' she explained.

'Quite.' Then, 'It's more likely that he brought this back from the Middle East as a trophy,' he said, apparently discounting the Arabian princess theory as pure fantasy. 'Possibly from Turkey. This kind of elaborate decoration was favoured in the Ottoman dynasty.'

'Actually,' she said, refusing to allow him to dismiss her story in quite so casual a manner, 'it was the

princess and the jewels I always assumed were the tall stories.' Her great-great-grandfather had braved artillery fire to carry wounded soldiers to safety, had a Military Medal to attest to his heroism, and she wasn't having him publicly branded a thief. 'Great-Great-Grandma Fatima was real enough. I have a photograph of her.'

There was a stiffly posed sepia-tinted photograph of a tall, exotically handsome woman, standing behind her seated husband, in the "family gallery" on the kitchen dresser.

'And a letter. In Arabic…'

'Well…' For a moment he appeared lost for words-twice in one day had to be a record. 'Well, you have a real story. And a rich treasure. Knives like these are very much in demand, and if you were to put it up for auction in a specialist sale…'

He mentioned some ridiculous sum of money, and all around her she heard gasps. And she was the one left struggling for words.

It was, Violet thought, numbly, a bit like a fairy tale.

She'd been in her late grandmother's bedroom, emptying her wardrobe, sorting out what was good enough to send to the chaiity shop, when she'd stepped back and gone through a floorboard that had creaked for as long as she could remember. And then, having pulled out her foot, she'd seen the carefully wrapped black silk bundle.

Buried treasure.

She was still in shock when the photographer from the local newspaper said, 'Smile!' and took her photograph.

'I'm sorry to disturb you, Fayad,' the ambassador said, but the press attache has just received a call from the news desk of the London Chronicle about a story they're running tomorrow. It's something I thought you might want to know about.'

Sheikh Fayad al Kuwani, grandson to the ruler of Ras al Kawi, looked up from his laptop. His cousin would not have disturbed him unless it was something important.

'What scandal has my father visited upon us now?' he asked, sitting back, prepared for the worst.

'No… No, it's nothing like that, in sh'Allah,' Hamad was quick to reassure him. 'It seems that a young woman took a spectacular khanjar for expert valuation to some television programme that was being recorded this afternoon.'

'That makes the national news in this country?'

'There were rubies,' he replied. 'Very large rubies. And a story about a runaway Arabian princess and stolen jewels, which apparently makes it…' He hesitated, then with distaste, said, 'Sexy.'

Fayad stilled. 'Go on.'

'The local paper picked up the story and passed it along, and, having done some research, the Chronicle has inevitably come up with the mystery of the long-lost Blood of Tariq. They're running the story using the photograph of your great-great-grandfather with Lawrence, along with the original 1917 despatch from the front line in tomorrow's first edition. They were hoping for a comment from the embassy.'

'Did they get one?'

'Only that many fakes of the Blood of Tariq had been produced over the years, and this is undoubtedly one of them. That the value of the rubies is nothing compared to the value of owning the khanjar touched by Lawrence.'

'Yes…' Fayad sat back, squeezing the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

The Blood of Tariq had a mystical power that put it beyond price. To hold it, possess it, was to hold the fate of Ras al Kawi in your hand.

A fake.

It had to be a fake. But in the present climate that might be irrelevant.

It was what people believed that mattered.

Lost, the khanjar was a legend, a tale for old men as they sat around the campfire recalling past glories.

Found, it was trouble.

His grandfather was failing in health, his father was a disaster, and in the wrong hands even a fake, especially one with such an incendiary story attached to it, could prove disastrous to his country.

'You know who she is, this woman? Where to find her?'

'Her name is Violet Hamilton. She's twenty-two years old, unmarried. For the last three years she's been caring for her sick grandmother. The old lady died two weeks ago. At present she's living alone in her grandmother's house in Camden, where the khanjar was found. The equity of the house is owned by a property company, however, so she is about to become homeless.'

Fayad raised an eyebrow and the ambassador smiled. 'I don't ask how he does it, but in any exchange of

information you can be sure that our man came out with the better deal.'

'Thank him for me.'

'I will' Then, 'You'll make her an offer for it? You know it can't be real, Fayad. The original was surely broken up for the gold, the stones, decades ago.'

'Princess Fatima would never have done that. She knew that its worth lay in more than rabies and gold. Knew its power in the right hands. But, real or fake, it's a bad time for it to come to light. There are tribal factions who will move heaven and earth to get hold of it.'

Because of the reclusive nature of his grandfather, and the lack of interest his father had shown in anything but money, Ras al Kawi had remained relatively untouched by the tide of offshore banking and tourism that had swept through neighbouring countries.

Fayad had such plans for it, and now, just when things were finally beginning to take shape and he was preparing to move the country into the twenty-first century, onto the international stage, he was being faced with some mystical symbol straight out of a medieval melodrama.

It couldn't just be coincidence.

This had to be some elaborate hoax set up by someone planning to seize power. Except for the story of the runaway princess. And yet, for power, some disaffected member of the family might have betrayed them. Even his disinherited father…

'It scarcely matters if it is real or not, Hamad,' he said abruptly. 'We have to secure this knife before the story gains ground. And the woman, too.'

'The woman? You're not suggesting you carry her back to Ras al Kawi as symbolic proof of the restoration of Kuwani pride? As your grandfather's ambassador, I really could not allow that.'

'As my grandfather's ambassador I suggest you concentrate on the word "symbolic". Forget the khanjar for a moment. How safe do you think Miss Hamilton will be once it becomes rumoured that she is a descendant of Princess Fatima? There will be people ready to use her as a cipher at best. At worst…' He left that to his cousin's imagination.

'And you? What do you want with her, Fayad? Bearing in mind that I will be the one carpeted by the British Foreign Secretary if anything should happen to her.'

'What could I possibly want other than to extend to this descendant of Princess Fatima the hospitality of our country?' he replied wryly. 'Invite her to discover her true heritage.'

Hamad gave him a look that suggested he could think of any number of things, but confined himself to, 'And suppose she doesn't want to go to Ras al Kawi?'

'I will have to use all my diplomatic skills to persuade her that it's in her best interests. Have no fear, Hamad. She will be treated with the utmost respect.' Then, almost as an afterthought, 'After all, if she genuinely is a descendant of Fatima al Sayyid, then she, too, is a princess.'

'In other words she'll be feted and entertained and never notice that she's in a gilded cage. What happens when she wants to fly?'

'My grandfather is desperate for me to remarry,' he said, without expression. 'An alliance between the Kuwani family and a descendant of Princess Fatima al Sayyid would be right in so many ways…'

'The Sayyid family might not take that view. Nor might Miss Hamilton.'

'True. But possession, as they say, is nine-tenths of the law.'

'You haven't got her yet, Fayad. For all you know she's already sold the khanjar to one of the dealers who undoubtedly take a keen interest in these events.'