Chosen as the Sheikh's Wife

CHAPTER TWO

'Honestly, Violet,' Sarah said, shaking her head, 'that's the first place a burglar is going to look for valuables.'

'Then good luck to them.'

She'd wrapped the jewelled knife, still in its silk bundle, first in bubble wrap, then several layers of kitchen foil, and now, having carefully labelled it "chicken thighs", was busy chipping out enough space in the thickly frosted freezer compartment of her ancient fridge so that she could jam it in behind the defrosted bag of peas that she'd used as a compress on her ankle to bring down the swelling.

'As I know to my cost, an hour from now any burglar is going to need a blowtorch to get past the peas.'

'What if someone decides to steal the fridge?'

'Oh, please! You've only to listen to it to know that it's on its last legs,' she said, looking around at a kitchen that hadn't seen more than a change of wallpaper since the Formica revolution in the fifties. 'Like just about everything else in here.' She was going to miss it all so much… Then, because nothing, after all, had changed-she'd always known she'd have to leave, she grinned and said, 'I mean, who would be that desperate? But don't worry. I'll hack it out and take it to the bank tomorrow.'

'If I were you I'd cut out the middle man and take it straight to a dealer. Give that expert a call-he'll know someone reputable. He gave you his card, didn't he?'

She nodded.

'Well, there you are. Sorted. It'll make a decent deposit on a two-bedroom flat, and if you let a room you'll have the mortgage covered. You could finish that design course you were taking…'

'Get real, Sarah. Who in their right mind would give me a mortgage on the chance of me letting a room? Besides…' She shrugged, shook her head.

'What?'

'She stole it, didn't she? Okay, the jewels may have been technically hers, but the knife…'

'Violet, sweetheart. It was nearly a hundred years ago. Who are you going to give it back to?' She shook her head and Sarah frowned. 'Are you going to be all right?'

'Yes. Yes, of course I am,' she said, making an effort to pull herself together. 'I guess I'm still in a state of shock.'

'I'm not surprised. I thought the knife would be worth a bit, but that was an amazing result.'

'Yes.' That kind of amazing just made her feel uneasy. 'Thanks for insisting on dragging me along to the T or T roadshow today.'

'Oh, I just wanted to get on the telly. Trust me to miss the big moment. Never mind. I'll get a thrill out of watching you when the programme is broadcast next week.'

Violet pulled a face, hating the thought. 'I must have been mad to sign the release form.'

'It would have made no difference. You'll be front page news in the local paper tomorrow.'

This time she just groaned. 'What on earth made me say all that stuff about Great-Great Grandma Fatima? I must have been mad.'

'Was it true? Really?'

'You think I could make up something like that?' She nodded at the pictorial family gallery that her grandma had always kept on the dresser. 'That's her, at the top in the middle.'

'Goodness.' Sarah took the picture down to take a closer look. 'You've got a look of her, Violet. Something about the eyes. Hers are light, too. That's strange, isn't it?'

'I suppose…'

Sarah put the picture back. 'I'd better get home and feed the brute before he chews through the table-leg.' She stopped in the doorway, pausing to look back. 'You will be careful, won't you, Violet? Once this gets out… Well, a woman with a nice little windfall is likely to find herself the target of all kinds of smooth-talking men looking for a soft touch.'

More likely find herself the target for every local villain, she thought.

Then, realising that Sarah was waiting for an answer, she laughed. 'You mean I might get a life?'

'And not before time. You've spent the last three years as a full-time carer. No holidays, scarcely a break. Nothing in your pocket but your carer's allowance and the little bit of money you make on your stall. Believe me, I know how hard it's been.'

'You're wrong, Sarah. It hasn't been hard. My grandmother was the one person in the entire world who was always there for me, who never let me down, and I loved her. I'm trying to tell myself that she isn't suffering anymore, but what's really hard is not having her here.'

Sarah gave her a hug, then, leaning back, said, 'You're so vulnerable just now. I'm afraid you're going to lose that tender heart to the first man you meet with a killer smile.'

'Chance would be a fine thing,' she said. 'Getting a life is going to have to wait a while. There's a ton of stuff to do here first. I've got to sort out Grandma's things. Find somewhere to live…'-the finance people had given her until the end of the month-'… and get a job.'

'Well, at least now you'll have some money behind you.'

'Yes…' Then, 'Thanks again for rushing to the rescue this morning.'

'Any time. Just scream.' Sarah grinned, hugged her again, and finally left.

Violet closed the door and leaned back on it for a moment. Much as she loved Sarah, it was a relief to be on her own for a moment, to be able to think.

Could it possibly be true? About the exotic Fatima being a princess? She'd dismissed the idea as nonsense when Sarah had asked her, but was it? Really?

The TV expert had said the knife could have belonged to a sheikh or sultan, and it was worth a great deal of money. So why had she kept it? Hidden it beneath the floorboards when, presumably, her jewellery-according to family legend-had been sold to fund the purchase of this house?

As if it were too important, too precious, to part with? Hidden it and never told a living soul. Because if she had someone would have sold it long ago. If her grandma had known about it she wouldn't have sacrificed the house to raise money when she'd needed it. Would have passed on the secret when she knew she was dying…

She sighed. She didn't need more questions. It was answers she wanted. And upstairs, in the bottom of her gran's wardrobe, was an old Gladstone bag, stuffed with the kind of stuff that women couldn't part with. Dried flowers. Letters. Embroidered handkerchiefs. Bits of lace and ribbon. Wedding invitations, school reports-whoever would want to keep those!-theatre programmes. Greetings cards for every possible occasion. Great-Great-Grandad's Military Medal.

Generations of the stuff.

There had been a time, when she was a little girl, when it had been a magic bag, and being allowed to "tidy" it had been a special treat.

Then it had become an emotional ambush to be avoided at all costs. Full of things that just to look at, hold, brought tears welling to the surface: a postcard from her mother on honeymoon in Venice; a Mother's Day card she'd made when she was so little she'd needed her gran to help with the letters; a button from her father's jacket that she'd hidden there.

At the bottom, hidden by a false base, was the big envelope that she had not been allowed to open. The one containing family documents. The certificates- birth, marriage, death-that said who they were, where they came from. An envelope that her grandma had said she could open "when she was older".

Except, of course, the temptation had been too much for a curious ten-year-old. Which was how she knew about the Arabic letter, although at the time she hadn't realised what it was. How she knew why her grandmother had had to raise money in such a hurry…

She had a new document to add to the family archive, but she'd been putting it off. She'd been ignoring the bag ever since her grandmother had died, delaying the moment when she became the family matriarch. The keeper of its history. Its awful secrets.

Now she needed the letter from Fatima-there was an Iraqi woman who worked in the market who might be able to translate it for her-but she couldn't bring herself to simply dump the contents of the bag on her grandmother's bed.

It was not just the trivia of their lives, but the small tokens of love and remembrance that women clung to. Family history was written in the names of men, but this bag contained the women's story. In cards, tiny treasures, a crumbling corsage worn by some unknown girl with her heart full of hope.

It was only when the hall clock struck one that she realised how long she'd spent reading old letters, scanning cards that had nothing to do with her hunt for the truth about Fatima but everything to do with her life.

Her mother's life.

A school exercise book full of gold stars. An old blue passport. School photographs full of hope and promise that was never realised.

She put them to one side and pulled out the envelope. The certificates were all in there. And the letter written in flowing Arabic script that made her heart beat faster just to hold it. Only Fatima herself could have written it and she held it close to her heart as if she could feel the words, make some direct connection with this extraordinary woman.

She did not open the last envelope. The one containing the equity release documents that her grandmother had signed and the letter from her father.

Being old enough made no difference, and, as she had done when she'd defied her grandmother's ruling and opened it, she crawled into bed, pulling the ancient quilt over her. Except that this time there was no one to come and find her and comfort her.

It was the phone that woke her. Dragging her from somewhere so deep that she was certain that it must have been ringing for some time.

She ignored it and finally it stopped, allowing her to concentrate on her headache, and the fact that her eyes felt as if someone had been shovelling grit in them all night.

The bright sunshine didn't help.

With her hand shading her eyes, she made it to the bathroom. She was in the shower when the phone began to ring again. Sarah, she thought. It would be Sarah, worrying about her. She'd call her back…

She washed her hair, brushed her teeth. Decided to forget about getting dressed until she'd had coffee.

The local newspaper was lying on the mat. Her gran had liked her to read the local news to her…

She bent to pick it up, groaning as the headache she thought she'd defeated slid forward and collided with the back of her aching eyes.

Then she groaned again as she saw the front page. It must be a slow news day, because she seemed to fill the front page, staring like a rabbit caught in the media headlights, with the Trash or Treasure expert beside her displaying the khanjar. In full colour.

The headline read: ARABIAN 'PRINCESS' AT ROADSHOW.

What?

The doorbell rang and without thinking she wrenched the door open, certain that it would be Sarah. She'd taken to dropping in every morning over the last few weeks, to see if she needed anything. She usually came round the back, letting herself in with her "good neighbour" key, as she had yesterday when she'd heard her cry for help when the floor had given way.

Clearly the fact that the phone had gone unanswered was causing her concern, but since she'd bolted the back door last night the key would be useless.

But it wasn't Sarah, who was tiny-apart from around the middle, where she was spreading spectacularly-and fair; the figure that filled the tiny porch was her opposite in every conceivable way.

Tall, spare, broad-shouldered, male, there was nothing soft about him. His features were austere, chiselled to the bone, and his olive-toned skin was positively Mediterranean against a snowy band-collared shirt, fastened to the neck. His hair was thick and crisply cut. But it was his eyes that held her.

Dark as midnight and just as dangerous.

He looked very…foreign.

He was also stunningly, knee-wobblingly handsome.

Violet was suitably stunned. And her knees dutifully wobbled.

Just her luck that she'd emerged from the shower pink of face, with her hair in its usual wet tangle, and with nothing between her and decency but a film of moisturiser and a faded pink bathrobe that could only be described as…functional.

'Miss Hamilton?'

Oh, and guess what…? He had a voice like melted chocolate, delicately flavoured with an exotic, barely there accent.

Whatever he was selling, she was buying it by the crate…

Except, of course, that he was far too expensively dressed to be a door-to-door salesman. She knew clothes. And what he was wearing did not come off a peg in the high street.

Oh, well. She was expecting a visit from a representative of the finance company to call any day, with the release papers for her to sign so that they could sell the house, recover their money.

This had to be him.

'Miss Violet Hamilton?' he repeated, when she didn't answer.

'Who?' she asked, just to hear him say Violet again. Long and slow.

Vi-o-let.

Pronouncing every syllable, turning a name she loathed only slightly less than the hideously shortened "Vi" into the most desirable name in the entire world.

'I'm looking for Miss Violet Hamilton.' And, taking the newspaper from her hand, he held the front page up for her to see. 'I believe I've found her.'

No point pretending to be the lodger, then. Asking him to come back when she'd gussied herself up, straightened her hair, applied some make-up, was decked out in one of her more creative outfits. Oh, well…

'And here I was kidding myself that the photograph is so awful that you couldn't possibly tell,' she said.

'Clearly I was fooling myself.'

He looked at the photograph and then at her, for rather longer than seemed necessary just to confirm the likeness. Then, clearly thinking better of commenting one way or the other, he returned the paper and said, 'I am Fayad al Kuwani, Miss Hamilton.' And he held out a visiting card-as if they couldn't be printed off by the dozen in any name you cared to dream up by anyone with a computer.

Except that this wasn't a do-it-yourself job, but embossed on heavy ivory-coloured card.

If he was from the finance company, he certainly wasn't one of the foot-soldiers.

The front of the card gave no hint, but contained only his name: Fayad al Kuwani. Unusual enough.

She turned it over. The back was blank. No address, no phone number.

Obviously this was a man whose name was enough for those with the wit to recognise it. Which did not include her.

'Nice card,' she said. 'But a trifle shy of information.'

'The Ras al Kawi Embassy will vouch for me.'

'Oh, well, that's all right, then,' she said. Her friends would have recognised sarcasm. He apparently did not, but merely nodded. Good grief, he was serious…

Ras al Kawi? Where was that?

'I need to talk to you about a khanjar that I believe is in your possession,' he said. 'It is possible that it once belonged to my family.'

'Oh?' Then, realising that he'd come to demand it back, 'It's amazing how fast good news spreads.'

'You have no idea. Perhaps I should wait in my car while you…?'

He made the vaguest of gestures, resolutely looking at her face, avoiding her bare legs, the shabby bathrobe that had a tendency to gape at the neck. It made no difference. Every inch of her skin tingled.

'Dress?' she offered, lippy to the last. Except that the word didn't come out quite as she'd intended, but thick and throaty. More to avoid those eyes than because she was interested in his choice of transport, Violet looked past him.

A black Rolls-Royce was parked at the kerb. The little green and gold flag on the bonnet stirred in the breeze.

She barely stopped herself from letting slip an expression that would have brought her a rebuke from her grandma.

Her breathless, 'Who are you?' wasn't a whole heap better.

'If your story is true, Miss Hamilton, then your great-great-grandmother, Princess Fatima al Sayyid, was once married to my great-great-grandfather.'

At which point she did let slip a word that she used only under the most extreme pressure.

She would have been embarrassed about that, but a scream from rear of the house-Sarah's scream- obliterated the sound.