Chosen as the Sheikh's Wife

CHAPTER SIX

Fayad looked up as his aide approached him. 'The Princess is waiting,' he said.

He'd given no instructions that she was to be given that title, but everyone knew who she was, and it seemed that her transformation from Violet Hamilton to Princess Violet al Sayyid had already begun.

He still did not know what he was going to say to her, only that he must somehow prepare her for his grandfather's expectations. Reassure her that she was totally in control of her own destiny. But as the door to the hareem majlis was opened to his knock he saw her standing in the centre of the room, waiting for him, and words became an irrelevance.

He could not have spoken even if he'd wanted to.

Grave, beautiful, untouchable.

As distant from the girl who'd opened the door to him that morning-hair an enticingly damp tangle of curls, legs and feet bare, wearing nothing but a faded pink bathrobe-as the moon was from the stars.

Mistaking his silence for disapproval, she said, 'This was Leila's idea.' A tiny gesture took in her clothes, some rich creation that would have his sisters drooling with envy.

'Leila will be rewarded,' he said.

'Oh. I wasn't sure. I thought it seemed a little…excessive, but…'

'But everything is strange.'

Her silence, her stillness were answer enough.

'You are wondering, now you've had time to think, whether you have made a mistake.' And this time heat rushed to her cheeks. Not that cool, then.

'You have the khanjar,' she said. 'And now you have me. If this was a movie I would probably be screaming at the heroine not to be so dumb.'

'Believe me, I appreciate the trust you have shown. Your generosity. You could so easily have told me to…how do you say it? Get lost? Sold the khanjar to the highest bidder.'

She could have no idea how high the bidding would have gone.

'No. That would have been wrong. And I'm here to protect Sarah. Her family. The innocent people who get hurt when powerful people clash.'

'Not even a little bit for yourself? Are you not curious about your family? About where you come from?'

'I could have gone to the library,' she said, continuing to regard him with those extraordinary eyes. Then, 'Your only concern was to get me away from the house. Anyone else would have called the police, but you didn't want them involved, did you?'

'My country's politics are not the concern of your police, Princess.'

'Don't call me that. I'm not a princess. I'm just Violet Hamilton.'

'And you're angry with me. You find yourself being torn from everything you know and you're just a little frightened.'

'Of course I'm frightened!' she said. 'It's been a hell of a day…'

Without thinking, he reached out and took her hand in what he'd intended as no more than a gesture of simple reassurance, but he continued to hold it long after it became much more.

Beneath his, her hand was small, but not soft. There was nothing soft about her. He had her history and he knew she had given up her education to care for her grandmother, not for expectation of reward, but out of love.

She was a woman whose value was far above rubies. Far beyond him…

'Are you afraid now? Truly?'

'Should I be?'

'What does your heart tell you?'

Violet shook her head. The nonsense that her heart was babbling as he held her hand, warmed her with the heat of his eyes, was for her ears alone.

In a suit, Sheikh Fayad had been drop-dead gorgeous. Attainable, if only in some foolish midnight fantasy. But here, in snowy robes, a silver khanjar at his waist, he was a figure from another world. One that was so far beyond anything she knew that she could see just how foolish any fantasy involving him would be.

'My heart says that it's a bit late for second thoughts,' she replied, retrieving her hand.

The fact was, she'd rushed into this without a clue about where she was going, or what to expect.

'It is only natural to feel anxious, but I promise you will be made most welcome.'

'Even though Princess Fatima stole the khanjar from you?' she asked.

'That worries you? It need not. You will be honoured for returning it.' Then, 'Shall we sit down? I will do my best to answer any questions. Explain what will happen when we arrive at Ras al Kawi.'

He indicated one of the armchairs, waited while she settled herself before taking the one beside her.

Questions. Dozens of questions had been racing through her mind, but mostly about where she would stay.

One thing was sure. She could not expect the undivided attention of the heir to the throne so, while she had it, she'd better make the most of it.

'Tell me about Ras al Kawi?' she asked.

It was the right question, his smile transforming his grave countenance into something very different. Making him seem younger, less…haunted. Sarah, she realised, had been quite wrong when she'd warned her about some man charming her out of her windfall.

If he'd smiled she would have been on her guard, suspected his motives. Wouldn't have been so quick to hand over the khanjar. So quick to pick up the phone and call him.

That quiet, austere gravity was far more deadly.

'What is it like?' she pressed.

'A great traveller once said that Ras al Kawi sits like a dragon's tooth between Ramal Hamrah and Ras al

Hajar,' he told her, 'but within the fortress of the mountains our valleys are fertile and green, and the coast brings us fish and pearls.'

'There is no desert?'

'You British are all the same. What is this yearning you have for empty spaces where the wind continually removes any trace of man? Great shifting dunes?' He shook his head, but his smile intensified as if it pleased him to tease her a little.

Encouraged, she grinned, said, 'Blame Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia.'

'Not the fabled Lawrence himself?'

'He was a little…intense.'

'Indeed,' he said, his brows twitching slightly at her choice of word. 'And we do have desert. Beyond the mountains. Flat, arid scrub with an endless horizon. And beneath it the oil and gas field that gives our country its wealth.'

'You have everything, then.'

'Ras al Kawi is a country that many have coveted. It is strategically placed to command the sea, and through the centuries invaders have left their mark on the landscape, on the people. Your eyes, Princess, are the legacy of some Portuguese pirate, or maybe a Caucasian soldier who came this way with Alexander, leaving his seed before returning home.'

His passion for his home was genuine enough. He would, she thought, do anything to keep it from harm.

'No matter how beautiful a place is, in the end people always choose home,' she said.

'I hope so.'

It was impossible to miss the meaning in his words, that Ras al Kawi was her home, too, but she was generations away from his world.

As she'd dressed she'd had time to think about what she'd done. She knew she'd been rushed into a decision when she was afraid, not so much for herself as for the people around her, friends and neighbours who'd been a tower of strength in the last months, when leaving her grandmother, even for an hour, had felt like a betrayal.

She would never forget the image of the man with his arm about Sarah's throat, and yet the idea that the theft was politically motivated seemed, at a safe distance, to be unlikely. She'd just been targeted by local villains who'd read about her discovery in the local paper and thought she'd be easy prey.

She looked across at her hero. The man who'd raced to her side the moment she'd called. She might not have been swept off her feet by a desert warrior thundering across the sand on his stallion, but on reflection the black limousine was a fair approximation-bearing in mind that London was a tad short on the sand front- as was the private jet flying her thousands of miles from home to a very foreign country.

He hadn't been kidding about her being treated like a princess, though.

'When we arrive, there will be a formal reception party waiting for me,' he said, breaking into her thoughts. 'You will be driven straight to the palace. Leila will be with you,' he assured her.

'Am I about to be whisked off to your harem?' she asked, only half joking. It had been a very odd day.

'Of course,' he replied. 'You'll join a thousand women wearing nothing but filmy veils and jewels in their navels, each desperately hoping that tonight they'll be the one summoned to my bed.'

For a moment she couldn't breathe. Then she said, 'You're kidding, right?'

'I'm kidding,' he agreed. 'But not about the harem, although the word is hareem! He gestured around them.

'And you are already part of it.'

'I am?' She swallowed nervously.

'The word simply means women. Al hareem means no more than the women of the house.' Then he shrugged. 'If it helps, I can assure you that no man in my family has had more than one wife in nearly a century.' Then, with a shrug, 'Apart from my father, who has had seven. But only one at a time. Even so my grandfather disinherited him, and he sulks in self-imposed exile in Europe.'

'Do you miss him?'

'He was never there to be missed, Princess.'

'Something we have in common, then. My father rarely slept in his own bed, either.'

'And your mother? Did she leave him?'

'In a manner of speaking. She took an overdose. I don't suppose she meant to kill herself, just shake him up, but there was a traffic hold-up, and my father was late home, by which time it was too late to save her.' At least that was the story she'd been told. 'Or maybe he just didn't bother to call anyone until it was too late. A man who would blackmail his mother, demand money in return for the surrender of his little girl, might do anything, don't you think?'

'That is what your grandmother used the money for? The equity release?'

'Twenty thousand pounds. She was too old to raise a mortgage, could not have made the repayments even if she had. Instead she borrowed against her only asset. I found his letter years ago.'

'I am sorry.'

She shook her head. 'You have brothers? Sisters?'

'My mother remarried. I have a brother, three sisters. Many nephews and nieces. They will all visit. Everyone will want to meet you.' Then, 'I should tell you that my wife and son were killed by a car bomb in Beirut. Hasna wanted to visit an aunt who lives there. I was too busy to go with them. They were not targets, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

And it was her turn to reach out, wordlessly lay her hand over his.

'No one will talk about it, and I did not want you to think there is a mystery,' he said, but there was an underlying hesitation in his demeanour, suggesting that he had something on his mind. Something that he was finding difficult to broach. 'It is only to save my feelings that they keep silent.'

'You should talk about them,' she said. 'Remember the things that brought you joy.'

He shook his head, but there was something bothering him. He certainly hadn't asked to see her to discuss the correct depth of curtsey when she met the Emir.

'What is it, Sheikh Fayad? What is it that you wanted to tell me?'

He lifted a brow. 'You are perceptive as well as astute, Princess.'

'It comes packaged as standard with the X chromosomes,' she replied. 'What's up? Are you trying to find some way to tell me that I'm going to have to wear a veil when I meet your grandfather?'

'Would you do that?' he asked.

She shrugged. 'I do understand that different societies have different expectations, and while I wouldn't be prepared to wear one on a regular basis, I wouldn't want to do anything to offend him.'

He shook his head, but he was smiling. 'There's no need for a veil. They are worn by women only on desert journeys, as protection against sun and sand, and the abaya, the cloak that covers head and clothes, is worn as protection against dust and heat.'

'How do they live? What are their lives like?' she asked.

'Those who are educated and wish to work are employed in medicine, business, teaching. Nothing is haram. Forbidden.'

'What about those who are not educated? Isn't schooling compulsory?'

'Not for girls. And there are few jobs for the uneducated. They are forced to stay at home, work in the home, on the land.'

'Captive labour?'

'That is, perhaps, a little harsh. They do what women have been doing for centuries. It is, however, my intention to change that when I become Emir. We need all our people to be educated so that they can play their part in building our country.'

He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, his fine dark eyes searching her face as if weighing his words. She'd felt the silk of his skin against her temple as he'd held her. Wanted to reach out now and run her fingers over his cheeks, above his lip, feel his mouth against hers…

'I wish it were something as trivial as whether or not you should wear a veil,' he said, turning abruptly away.

'Now I'm really worried.'

'No…' He shook his head. 'Trust me, Violet. Whatever happens you need have no fears for yourself. I am the one who has been…' He lifted his hand in a gesture that in anyone else she might have described as helpless. There was nothing helpless about Sheikh Fayad. '…thoughtless. Reckless with your reputation.'

'My reputation?'

She would have laughed. This was the twenty-first century, and girls didn't have "reputations" any more. At least not in her world. But obviously for him this was no laughing matter, and so she kept her mouth in order.

'In my society to be alone with a woman, to hold her as I held you-'

'You were comforting me,' she said, doing her best to reassure him that he had done nothing to offend her, although she suspected that somehow it went beyond that. 'I was falling apart and you held me together.'

'I did a great deal more than that, Princess.' And he turned to face her. 'Much more.'

The kiss…

'Only because you thought I was going to have hysterics at leaving my home. It was nothing,' she said quickly, but could not meet his eyes.

It had not felt like "nothing". It had felt like a bridge between the past and the future. And how easily she had stepped towards the unknown, leaving everything, everyone she knew, behind her. Because with his lips on hers she had not cared if she ever came back.

'And who would know?' she said.

'Staff from my embassy, those who were at your house, who packed your clothes, stayed to organise the clean-up. And because they know it is inevitable that my grandfather will have heard exactly what happened today and drawn his own conclusions.' Then, 'And I know.'