The Sheikh’s Reward

CHAPTER TEN

ELISE’S apartment was a clever combination of royal luxury and English comfort. She was immediately above Fran’s own rooms, looking out onto the Peacock Garden, and her sitting room was filled with light. Long net curtains filled the floor-length windows and wafted gently in the faint breeze.

She rose, a tall, graceful figure in white robes, and embraced Fran warmly.

‘I have longed for this meeting,’ she said, adding mysteriously, ‘I’ve heard so much about you that it has made me most curious.’

Tea was served. It was good, solid English tea, because, as Elise explained, ‘After thirty-five years in this country I still can’t do without my cuppa.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Fran said, sipping gratefully.

They made polite small talk, with occasional interjections from Ali, until Elise said with a touch of exasperation, ‘My son, I’m sure you have affairs of state to attend to.’

‘No today,’ he said, smiling at them both. ‘If I leave you may talk about me.’

‘Certainly we are going to talk about you. Please go away at once. Can’t you see when you are not wanted?’

He gave a wry glance first to his mother, then Fran, before reluctantly leaving.

When they were alone Elise kissed Fran on both cheeks and smiled.

‘I knew you would be beautiful,’ she said, ‘from the effect you have had on my son. But you are more than beautiful. Speak to me quite frankly, I beg you. Are you here of your own free will?’

‘No,’ Fran said, and Elise’s face darkened.

‘We will talk of that later,’ she said heavily. ‘For now, tell me how you met.’

Fran described the first evening, and what had happened subsequently. When she came to the part about the cheque, Elise said, ‘Ah! Now I understand something that has been puzzling me. Come with me.’

She took Fran’s hand and led her into the next room. Fran stopped dead on the threshold. This room didn’t belong to a female forced to live in retirement. This was a business office, complete with desks, filing cabinets and all the latest equipment.

Two young women were busy at computers. They rose and bowed when the princess entered, and she waved them lightly away. Under Fran’s astonished eye she went to a third computer and began to tap in some figures. A file opened on the screen and Elise beckoned her to look.

‘Normally Ali gives the ICF one million a year,’ Elise observed calmly. ‘When he suddenly added another hundred thousand I couldn’t understand it. He never does such things without first consulting me.’

‘A million?’ Fran echoed in dismay. ‘And-consulting you?’

‘I handle all his donations to foreign charities.’

‘All his-?’

‘About twenty million a year.’ Elise gave her lovely smile again. ‘My dear, have you fallen for the legend of the playboy who spends every penny on himself? How unwise of you!

‘Ali maintains this grandiose palace because it’s expected of him, but the oil revenues are spent first on his subjects, and only afterwards on himself. I must show you some of our hospitals. They are simply the best equipped in the world.’

‘But why didn’t he tell me this instead of just saying loftily that he wouldn’t discuss it?’ Fran said in frustration.

‘Because he is a prince,’ Elise said, amused. ‘He doesn’t feel he has to explain himself to anybody. You take him on his terms or not at all.’

‘And all those things he told me about not discussing serious things with women-’ Fran said with mounting indignation.

‘He was probably trying to annoy you. And it’s true that he wouldn’t talk with a strange woman, nor does he appoint women to his cabinet. He makes an exception for me because I am his mother. In this country, a man who does not respect his mother is considered a disgrace.

‘I remember years ago, in England, my own brother once quarrelling with our mother and telling her to shut up. No Kamari man would speak like that to the woman who gave him life.’

She gestured towards the computer.

‘He takes his charities very seriously indeed, and they are all in my hands. If people wish to solicit donations they come to me, not to him. I visit them, and advise Ali according to what I discover. That is why I have been out of the country recently.’

‘And I thought it was a shopping trip.’

‘Well, I indulged myself with a little shopping as well.’

‘I can’t take all this in,’ Fran said, dazed.

‘Then I will give you some more.’ Elise pressed a buzzer on her desk and spoke into an intercom. ‘Be good enough to have my car brought around to the front.’

Ten minutes later the two women were seated in the back of the princess’s personal limousine, gliding into the heart of town. They stopped outside a huge white-walled building, which Elise explained was the city hospital.

‘We shall have to go through the private part first, but quickly.’

The private section was much like a private hospital anywhere, but it was the public wards that alerted Fran.

‘These are for people who cannot afford to pay,’ Elise explained. ‘The money comes from state funds, or, in other words, Ali.’

Everywhere she looked Fran saw spotless cleanliness, the finest equipment and a high ratio of staff to patients. She had to admit that the place shamed a good many western hospitals.

‘The people with money are charged heavily,’ Elise said, ‘and they partly pay for the poor patients. But only partly. The rest of the money comes from the royal coffers.’

‘From the oil,’ Fran mused.

‘Not just from the oil. The casinos make a handsome profit.’

‘Casinos? Plural?’

‘In almost every capital city in the world, and several in Las Vegas. We need all the profit we can make because Ali has some very expensive ideas for irrigating the desert. So far most of the money has been soaked up by the sand, but he keeps trying one experiment after another.’ Elise smiled fondly. ‘Sometimes there’s a touch of the mad professor about my son.’

She saw Fran craning her neck out of the window. ‘Something interests you?’

‘The Sahar Palace. Ali told me how it was built and then abandoned as not being big enough.’

‘Did he tell you what it’s used for now?’

‘No, I thought it was just standing empty.’

‘And he let you think that,’ Elise said with motherly exasperation. She said something in Arabic to the driver, and the car turned into the palace entrance.

As they went through the main gates the big front door opened and two women came hurrying out, smiling as they saw their visitor. They were followed by a stream of children who engulfed Elise, with scant regard to her royalty.

‘They all love it when Her Highness visits us,’ one of the women confided to Fran. ‘They have no mothers of their own, so in their hearts she is their mother.’

‘This is an orphanage?’ Fran asked.

‘Of course,’ Elise said. ‘Ali insisted that this place must be put to good use, and what better use can there be than the future of our country? Come inside. I think you will see things that will surprise you.’

But Fran was no longer surprised by any revelation. The home clearly had a generous budget and was well staffed and equipped, but it was the place’s warm atmosphere that delighted her. She had begun to realise that she knew nothing about Ali and the way he ran his country.

At the rear of the orphanage were the classrooms. Girls were taught apart from boys, but Fran’s alert eyes noted that their science equipment was equally good.

‘My husband was an enlightened man,’ Elise explained. ‘Which is to say that he listened to me,’ she added with a twinkle. ‘I made him see the need for women to be properly educated. My son is the same. His ideas are old-fashioned, but the right woman could make him listen.’

She smiled, apparently not needing a reply to this, which was lucky because Fran was far from knowing what to say.

‘Do the casinos pay for all this?’ she asked, changing the subject.

‘No, this is the London property portfolio.’

It wasn’t until they returned to the palace that Elise demanded full details of Fran’s presence in Kamar. She listened composedly, only a small furrow on her forehead betraying any sign of disturbance. When the story was finished she simply said, ‘How charming.’

They had tea together, then Elise declared that she was tired and needed to lie down. But as soon as Fran had departed Elise picked up the phone and demanded, in a voice that promised trouble, to be connected to her son.

He arrived to find her pacing the floor, and her first words contained no welcome, and certainly no respect.

‘My son, are you quite mad? This young woman is a writer for several internationally respected publications. She has friends in high places, and you have simply kidnapped her. Are you asking for an international incident?’

‘There will be no incident that I can’t smooth over,’ Ali said arrogantly. ‘They need our oil.’

‘I like you least when you talk like that,’ Elise snapped, and he had the grace to blush.

‘You don’t understand, Mother,’ he said at last. ‘Fran and I-understand each other. We have done so from the first moment when I met her in the casino.’ His eyes kindled. ‘At least, so I thought. Later I discovered that she went there on purpose to find out about me.’

‘And so you fell in love with her and took her home,’ Elise said wryly.

‘Certainly not. I took her home but there was no question of falling in love. She was a pleasant companion for a night.’

‘Really,’ Elise said with a touch of scorn. ‘Continue. I am agog!’

‘When we talked-something changed. Her mind enchanted me. She took me back to my childhood, and the magic stories I loved to read. She knew them too. I could talk to her. We felt so close, but she wouldn’t tell me her name.

‘Then I was summoned away, on business, and when I returned she had gone.’

Elise’s lips twitched. ‘She just walked out on you?’

‘Yes!’ Ali’s voice had an edge. ‘But she returned two days later, as herself. I’d agreed to see a journalist; I was expecting a man. Naturally I refused to talk to her.’

‘Naturally,’ Elise murmured.

‘While I was away, she gained entry to my house, pretending to be a maid.’

‘And so you decided to teach her a lesson. For what, I wonder? For her methods, or for daring to reject you?’

Ali flung her a dark look, but made no comment.

‘So,’ Elise continued thoughtfully, ‘if you’re not afraid of an international incident, it seems that all you have to worry about is Mr Howard Marks.’

‘Who is he? I’ve never heard of him.’

‘I gather he is Miss Callam’s fiancé.’

‘Impossible,’ Ali said at once. ‘If that were true she would never have-’ He stopped. His mother was looking at him with eyes raised. ‘Never mind.’

‘Perhaps I should have spoken of this last night, but first I wanted to meet this young woman, and see what kind of person she is. Now I think I know. Mr Marks is a banker. He has been going out with Miss Callam for some time, and has it in mind to marry her. He is evidently an extremely good match. Of course, I’ve been out of England for some time, but in my day a good match was the kind of thing a girl had to think of very seriously.’

‘Then why did she never speak to me of this man?’

‘From what I can see, you haven’t given her much chance to tell you anything.’

‘Then she can tell me now,’ Ali said grimly, rising to his feet.

Fran was lying down with her hands clasped behind her head, brooding on what she had learned that day. Her picture of Ali as a self-indulgent playboy had been wrong all the time. That was merely what he allowed the world to think. Behind the scenes he was a true father to his people. She felt happiness stealing over her at being able to think the best of him.

She wondered when she would see him. He would probably want to devote some time to his mother, but later perhaps he might come to her. She was eager to see him in this new light, and to let him know how her heart had warmed to him.

At last she heard his footsteps outside, and sat up eagerly as he came into the room.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about-?’ they both said together, and stopped.

‘I’ve been talking with my mother,’ Ali said. ‘Why did you never speak to me of Howard Marks?’

For a moment Fran had to think who he meant. Howard and the life he represented was so far away.

‘Ali-I don’t understand-’

‘Howard Marks-the man you were planning to marry. My mother knows all about him, so don’t pretend that you don’t. How could you have concealed such a thing from me?’

A moment ago she’d been full of tenderness towards him, but at this flash of the old, imperious Ali her temper rose quickly.

‘How could I-? Well, you’ve got a nerve!’ She bounded off the bed and confronted him. ‘Don’t tell me that my disappearance has been noticed after all?’

‘Evidently. According to my mother, Mr Marks has been asking questions, claiming to be your future husband. This was something you should have told me.’

Fran stared at him, outraged beyond speech. She hadn’t mentioned Howard because Ali had driven him right out of her mind. In Ali’s arms no other man had existed. But there was no way she could say such a thing to this arrogant, overbearing man who barked out his unreasonable orders like a tyrant.

‘You’re very fond of telling people what they should do,’ she seethed. ‘Perhaps it’s you that should listen. I never asked to come here; I was tricked into it. I don’t recall you enquiring if there was a man in my life.’

‘Are you saying that there is?’

‘Are you saying it would have made a difference?’

They glared at each other, both furious.

‘Was he the man with you at the casino?’ he snapped.

‘Of course not. That was Joey. I wouldn’t take Howard on a job.’

‘Ah, yes, you were on a job. A job entitled “the seduction of a prince”. You naturally wouldn’t want to tell Mr Marks about that.’

‘There was nothing to tell. You may recall that there was no seduction-’

‘Yes, you slipped out when my back was turned,’ he said grimly.

‘So you did know I’d gone,’ she said triumphantly. ‘That story of yours about not coming back was just to fool me.’

He regarded her coldly, and she guessed he was furious with himself for the slip.

‘It seems we’ve both been playing a game of delusion,’ he said at last, in a voice harsher than she’d ever heard him use before. ‘You set out to trick me into thinking you were a true woman with a heart to offer, and you were very convincing, for a while.’

‘Was it my heart you wanted, Ali? I wonder. Maybe we both played games at first, but we weren’t playing for hearts.’

‘Yes, I know the prize you were after,’ he said grimly. ‘Not a heart but a scoop for your paper. And I taught you that I’m not a man to be played with. Now tell me about this man who plans to marry you. What kind of man is he who permits you to take such risks?’

‘Howard doesn’t permit or not permit. He understands that I’m my own woman, not subject to his orders.’ Furious indignation made her say the next words. ‘It will be a great relief to get back to him.’

Ali drew a sharp breath. ‘Do you think I’m going to let you return to the west with the secrets you’ve discovered?’

‘What secrets? I’ve learned about your charities, not your national security.’

He didn’t answer in words, but he gave her a burning stare that told her his true meaning. Facts and figures weren’t the only secrets. There were also the secrets of a man’s heart that could be learned only in his arms, in his bed, when two eager bodies became one in the life of true passion. These were the secrets that lived in the night, in the incoherent words of love too deep to be spoken. They were secrets a man might turn away from by day because they confronted him with a self that he feared. But they couldn’t be denied, and his eyes told her that he would kill them both before letting her expose them to a derisive world.

But how could he know her so little, she wondered wildly, as not to understand that he could trust her with these things, because for her too they were sacred?

‘Even you must know by now that you can’t keep me here for ever,’ she said.

‘But I can, and I will. My mother says that I have compromised you, and so deprived you of a good marriage. Very well. Then I have a duty towards you. I will replace a good marriage with a better one. As my wife you will have nothing to complain of.’

‘Your wife?’ she echoed, aghast.

‘Our marriage will take place immediately.’

‘Our marriage will never take place,’ she flung at him. ‘I won’t stay with a man who informs me of our wedding as though he’s doing me a favour.’

‘You will stay,’ Ali said, ‘and you will become my wife. The truth that is between us will prevail and make our marriage a happy one. I shall give instructions immediately, and the ceremony will take place in three days’ time.’

‘It will not,’ Fran cried wildly. ‘Ali, understand once and for all that I won’t marry you. Not in three days’ time. Not ever.’

‘My mind is made up. There is nothing further to discuss,’ he said calmly, and walked out.

Marriage, for a ruler of Kamar, was a complex business. Officially it was a secular state. Three of the world’s great religions lived peacefully side by side, with no one religion predominating.

So there would be, in effect, four weddings. The first was a civil ceremony, conducted in a small room in the palace. Then the ruler and his bride would present themselves at each of the three main religious headquarters in the city for the pronouncement of a blessing. These were riotous occasions, with the public thronging the entrances, clapping and cheering.

If this had been a normal wedding Fran would have enjoyed the buzz of preparation. From dawn to dusk she was engulfed in the making of a new wardrobe, and the selection of adornments for her state rooms. Instead, she floated through it all in an unhappy dream, wondering how she could be so miserable when her life was about to be joined to that of the man she loved. No, she amended that. The man she could have loved. For he seemed bent on destroying her feelings for him.

Elise had said the right woman could make Ali listen, but he showed no sign of listening. And in this tyranny Fran saw an ominous portent for their future.

Two days before the wedding Ali departed on a flying visit to the north of his little country, stating that he would return the following day. Elise came to spend the evening with her future daughter-in-law.

‘You’ll be glad to know that Yasir will not trouble you again,’ she said. ‘His wound is superficial and healing well, and he will have left the country before your wedding. Ali has banned him from returning in less than five years.’

‘That’s good,’ Fran said.

Elise observed her critically. ‘You don’t look like a happy bride preparing for her big day.’

‘Don’t I?’ Fran asked listlessly.

‘Anyone would think you were going to your execution instead of your wedding.’

‘Well, it feels like the end of my life.’

‘How ungrateful you are! Ali will make you the princess of a wealthy country. You’ll never have to lift a finger again.’

‘Is that why you married?’ Fran asked, regarding Elise levelly.

It fascinated her to observe that even now the mention of her late husband could bring a faint blush to Elise’s cheek.

‘I married the man I loved more than anything in life,’ Elise said. ‘And I knew that he loved me the same way.’

‘You’re lucky it was that easy for you,’ Fran said wistfully.

Elise gave her rich laugh. ‘It wasn’t easy at all. We had terrible fights, especially in the first year. But we survived them all, because we knew that we couldn’t bear to be apart. Whatever happened, we knew how much we loved and needed each other.’

She fell silent, leaving the implication hanging in the air. Fran met her eyes.

‘Is that how you love my son?’ Elise asked at last.

‘I don’t know,’ Fran said desperately. ‘How can I know when he’s forcing me into this wedding? Because he knows his own feelings he thinks that’s all that matters.’

‘But what makes you think he knows his own feelings?’ Elise asked.

‘Well, he’s certainly acting like a man who knows.’

‘Nonsense. He’s acting like a man in the depths of confusion. Does he really love you? Or does he only want you? Even he doesn’t know. But he thinks if he acts firmly the confusion will sort itself out by magic. He’s wrong, of course. He’s merely ensuring that he’ll never know the truth. And neither will you if this ridiculous marriage is allowed to go ahead.’

‘I thought you approved of me,’ Fran said.

‘But I do. I think you’re extremely good for him. You’ve got him not knowing whether he’s coming or going, and he needs some uncertainty. He’s had things all his own way for far too long. I want to see you married to Ali, but, oh, Fran, my dear-not like this.’

‘Have you said all this to him?’

‘Of course I have, and I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. The men of this family have always been distinguished for their stubbornness, and their inability to see beyond the ends of their noses. I’m sorry to say that my son is a chip off several unfortunate old blocks. Your sons will probably be the same.’

‘You mean-my sons with Ali? Will they ever exist, I wonder?’

‘They will if we act sensibly. You say you don’t know how much you love Ali. But do you love him enough to leave him?’

A bleakness settled over Fran’s heart. To leave him, perhaps for ever, never to ride beside him, never again to lie in his arms?

But the alternative was to live by his side as his chief concubine-for she would be little more than that-enjoying his desire but not his respect, never knowing the truth of his heart or her own, and seeing their love wither in that uncertainty.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I love him enough for that.’

‘In that case,’ Elise said decisively, ‘we have work to do.’

It was unlike the princess to act impulsively, but when she announced her immediate departure nobody dared to argue. Ali’s chief adviser ventured to suggest that His Highness might prefer her to wait until his return, but she gave him her chilliest and most imperious stare until he faltered into silence. When he gathered his wits sufficiently to remind her that the wedding was set for two days hence, she informed him loftily, and with perfect truth, that she would have returned by then.

Instantly a smooth-running machine was set in motion. The princess’s personal limousine was brought to the front to wait for her with its engine running. A message was sent to her state apartments and a moment later Her Highness emerged, accompanied by a heavily veiled maidservant. In a few minutes they were in the car, on their way to the airport, and the flight to London.

Another limousine was waiting at the other end, to take them to Ali’s house. After a brief pause there, it set off again for the short journey to Fran’s address, where it disgorged the ’maid servant the ’maidservant’, now without her Arab garb and veils. The whole business had taken under twelve hours.