The Sheikh’s Reward

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ELISE was back in Kamar by noon next day. Ali reached the palace an hour later. Within minutes he was on his way to his mother’s room.

The thunder of his boots on the tiled floor caused a quaking everywhere, except in the princess’s apartment. She sat calmly writing at her desk, waiting for her son to arrive. The slam of the door shook the building. She glanced up, then returned to what she was doing.

Ali cast a glowering look at her bent head, and set about pacing the floor. When he’d covered the ground several times he snapped, ‘My grandfather would have fed you to the alligators for what you’ve done.’

‘Your grandfather was an exceedingly foolish man,’ Elise observed calmly. ‘I regret to say that you seem to have inherited the worst of his foolishness. Of course I got her away. Whatever were you thinking of to let things get so far?’

‘She is the bride I have chosen,’ Ali growled.

‘But has she chosen you? Marry her at the sword’s point and you would never know.’

‘Do you think I know nothing about her heart? There have been such things between us-I cannot tell even you-’ He found himself reddening, and turned away from his mother’s understanding eyes. ‘I promise you, I know her heart.’

‘No, my son, you know only her passion. Her heart is a secret to you. And when passion dies?’

‘That will never happen.’

‘For you, perhaps. But a woman’s heart is different. For her, passion is nothing without love. How can she know that you love her when you have behaved with arrogance and unkindness, and treated her wishes as though they were nothing?’

‘Everything I have is hers. What can she ask that it will not be my pleasure to give?’

‘Her freedom. Freedom to choose you-or reject you.’

He paled. ‘Reject me?’

‘You must win her, so that she can choose you freely.’

‘And if she does not?’ he asked, almost inaudibly.

‘Then you must let her go. Unless her happiness is more to you than your own, you do not truly love her, and she is right to refuse you.’

‘You’re asking me to beg from a woman.’

‘If she’s the woman I think her, she won’t make you beg.’

‘But to humble myself-to go to her as a suppliant, uncertain of her answer- I am the prince.’

‘And have never had to ask for what you wanted. It’s time you learned.’

‘And if I can’t?’

‘Then she will never be yours,’ Elise said simply.

He wheeled away from her sharply. His mother watched him with sympathy and pity. It was hard for her to do this to him. Only the knowledge that his eventual happiness depended on it had given her the courage.

When at last he spoke again his voice was shaking. ‘I can’t believe that she left without a message to me-not a single word.’

‘Have you looked everywhere?’

He stared at her, and after a moment he hurried out of the room.

The maids were still in Fran’s apartment. They took one look at his face and scattered. Ali raged through the rooms, looking for he knew not what. Somewhere, surely, there must be a sign that she hadn’t simply turned her back on him. Because if she had done that then everything he’d thought was between them was no more than a mockery.

At last he found what he was looking for on a little inlaid table, held down by a gold box. He opened out the single sheet of paper and read:

My Darling,

I know you’ll think it’s a terrible betrayal, my leaving you, but try to understand that I have no choice. Nobody should get married like this. There would never be peace between us, and eventually there would be nothing at all.

Do you remember my dream of a flying carpet? Well, it happened, as you meant it to. The magician cast his spells and the prince came out of the coloured smoke. He was handsome and charming, and he showed me wonders that will live in my heart for ever.

It was a lovely dream and I shall always remember that I once had a little magic, all my own. But, sadly, magic doesn’t last, and the carpet flies away again.

Goodbye, my darling. I wonder where we’ll meet again? Will it be in the Enchanted Gardens? Were we ever destined to find them? Or maybe they don’t really exist.

I’ve wondered how to sign this letter. You gave me so many names, and it was lovely pretending to be them for a while. But they were only illusions, and I can’t live on illusions. If you can’t love the woman I really am, let us forget each other.

No, not forget. Never. But put the dream aside as too beautiful to be true. I’ve signed this letter with the one name you never called me, but the only one that was true. Try to forgive me.

The letter was signed, ‘Frances.’

When he’d finished reading Ali realised how quiet and empty the apartment was. Where once there had been her laughter, now there was nothing. Her defiance had enraged him, but he would have given all he had to have her there again, telling him that she would do as she pleased, no matter what he thought. With what courage she had opposed him, and how wonderful that courage seemed now.

Only the soft plashing of the fountains broke the silence, and suddenly he realised that another noise was missing. He’d grown used to the cooing of her white doves, the faithful birds that would never leave her. He strode out to the courtyard.

But the dovecote was empty. The doves had flown away.

He knew then that she had really gone.

It was strange, Fran thought, how you could love a man so much that it hurt. You could dream of him at night and yearn for him by day. The memory of his passion and your own could make your flesh ache with longing. He could fill your heart and thoughts until nothing else existed in the whole world.

And yet you could force yourself to leave him, and know that you’d done the right thing. You could struggle not to be crushed by your own heartbreak and resist the fierce temptation to run back to him.

For the first few days she flinched whenever the telephone rang, certain that it must be Ali. But it never was. She’d half expected an explosion of wrath at her defection. But perhaps he would simply ask her to talk, say that he understood, and wanted to start again, without coercion. If he truly loved her…

But there were no telegrams or letters, and nobody came to the door. It was as though he had wiped her out of his existence, and a shiver went through her. He’d planned to marry her out of duty, because he’d ‘compromised’ her. Her departure had actually been a relief to him, and now it was all over.

Barney, a kindly elderly man who ran The Financial Review, threw up his hands at the sight of her.

‘So the prodigal returns! There was a crazy rumour that you were going to marry Prince Ali.’

‘Crazy,’ Fran agreed with her brightest smile. ‘You shouldn’t believe all you hear. But I have been in Kamar.’

‘Great! So what really happens to all that money?’

‘He spends it on his people.’

‘Oh, c’mon; the story must be better than that.’

‘It’s the truth. He doesn’t make a big fuss about it because he thinks it’s nobody else’s business. But he isn’t the way we thought. In fact, I don’t think there’s a story there at all.’

The editor’s jaw dropped. ‘No story?’

‘Well, if there is, I can’t write it. I’m sorry.’

‘Then I’ll have to assign someone else.’

‘I wish them luck,’ Fran said with a wan little smile.

Once she would have thought herself crazy to give up an assignment, but what had happened to her was something that could never be mined as raw material for a feature. It was too precious, too sacred.

Howard called. After the volcanic emotions of the last few weeks his kindly, slightly pompous voice sounded very welcome, and she agreed to have dinner with him.

Luckily he was a man of little imagination, and he readily accepted the story that she had been in Kamar to work.

‘You really have been the mystery woman,’ he said, when he’d ordered an excellent supper at an expensive restaurant. Howard always ate at expensive restaurants. He felt it was expected of a man in his position. ‘You might have given me a call, my dear.’

‘I’m sorry, Howard, there was a lot going on.’

‘Of course, of course. And I’ve been very busy myself. There’s a bit of manoeuvring going on at the bank. The chief executive is retiring, and-er-’ he coughed modestly ‘-it’s between me and one other fellow.’

‘I’m sure the other fellow doesn’t have a chance,’ Fran said dutifully.

‘Well, if I could bring some spectacular new business it would certainly help.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ve missed you, my dear. I enjoy taking you to dinner. You’re a fine-looking woman, and you make me very proud.’

‘Your hair…is like a river of molten gold… How your eyes enthral me!’

Fran closed her eyes against the sound of Ali’s voice whispering passionate hymns to her beauty. When would those memories cease to torment her?

‘Well,’ Howard said, filling her wine glass, ‘I hope it was all worth it.’

‘Worth it?’

‘I mean did you gather plenty of material?’

‘Well-’

‘You must brief me about Kamar. It’s a big nut and I’d like to crack it. That would really be a feather in my cap.’

Fran repeated what she’d told the editor about how Ali handled the Kamari budget, and his lavish giving to charity. Howard listened with a gleam in his eye that told her he was mentally taking notes.

It was a dull evening because Howard was a dull man, but dullness was what she wanted right now. It relaxed her tortured nerves, even though nothing was going to ease the pain in her heart. He drove her home and gave her a brief kiss goodnight, but she escaped before it could develop into anything more intense.

She had been home a week when she received an excited call from Barney.

‘I’ve just had a call from Prince Ali’s office. We can do the feature with his co-operation, the lot.’

‘That’s wonderful, Barney. I’m very pleased for you.’

‘Not me, love, you.’

‘I’ve told you, I can’t do it.’

‘You have to. Prince Ali made it a condition. You or nobody.’

At the words ‘You have to,’ something inside Fran flinched. This was the old Ali, laying down the law, insisting on his own way, giving her no choice. He wanted to see her again, but it was beneath his dignity to ask, so he tried to coerce her. He’d learned nothing.

‘It can’t be me,’ she said in a tense voice.

‘Fran, if you turn down a scoop like this I’ll have to say you’re unreliable, and then I couldn’t use you again.’

‘All right,’ Fran said in a smouldering voice, ‘I’ll do it.’

Even now the signs of Ali’s power were all around her. She arrived home to discover that some files, containing a wealth of material about Kamar, had been delivered in her absence.

There was also a typewritten note, saying that she would be given twenty-four hours to master the material, and then Ali’s secretary would see her.

Perhaps that meant he wouldn’t be there himself. This was a farewell gift. Afterwards she would hear of him no more, and somehow she would try to persuade herself that it was for the best.

Reading the file, she felt as though somebody had let her into Aladdin’s cave. All the doors she had knocked on fruitlessly were now open to her. With what she had learned while in Kamar, she had the basis for a splendid feature. Once that would have been enough.

She made a long list of questions, and on the appointed day she approached Ali’s house. The huge front door opened while she was still halfway up the path.

Ali’s secretary advanced to meet her with a bow. If he knew that this was the woman who’d jilted his master he gave no sign of it.

‘His Highness regrets profoundly that he is unable to be present. He has instructed me to give you all the help you require.’

So she wouldn’t see Ali. When her heart had recovered from its pang of disappointment she would feel relieved.

Everything was ready for her. Ali’s secretary was prepared with answers to all her questions. At her request he opened computer files and explained everything with perfect courtesy. Finally, he said, ‘I’ll arrange for some tea to be served to you.’

He slipped quietly out, leaving Fran frowning at the screen, concentrating too hard to hear a movement in the room.

‘I hope everything is to your liking.’

She looked up quickly to see Ali watching her, and now she realised that she’d always secretly known that he would be there.

‘Your secretary told me you were away,’ she said.

‘I instructed him to say that. I was afraid that otherwise you would leave.’

‘Still manipulating people,’ she observed.

He gave a wry, mirthless smile. ‘Well, I’m afraid the habit is ingrained by now.’

‘That’s what I was afraid of. I tried to tell you in my letter-’

‘Yes, your letter. Let’s not discuss that.’

‘No, let’s discuss why you pulled so many strings to get me here. Or is that simply what I should have expected of you?’

‘I don’t understand your attitude,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘You made a fool of me before my people. In return I’m giving you what you wanted.’

‘Giving? Or commanding? You told my editor it had to be me and nobody else.’

‘It didn’t occur to me that you would refuse. I wanted to see you, to give you a chance to explain your behaviour.’

‘Explain? You kidnapped me and I escaped. What is there to explain?’

‘I offered you honourable marriage-’

‘You didn’t offer me, you ordered me, just as you’re ordering now. I refused but you wouldn’t listen.’

‘Because I couldn’t understand how you could prefer your cold-blooded Englishman-’

‘He looks cold-blooded to you because he knows how to behave with some restraint. He doesn’t just grab anything he wants. He respects me.’

‘Respects!’ Ali said scornfully. ‘I despise his kind of respect which is nothing but another name for cowardice. He respects you so much that it was days before he knew you were missing.’

‘Because Howard doesn’t demand an account of every moment of my life. He doesn’t treat me like a possession.’

‘Oh, you westerners! You know nothing. “People aren’t possessions”, “People don’t own each other”, “You can’t belong to someone else”. You see, I know all the standard phrases. But I come from a hot country, with hot-blooded people, and I tell you that if a man really loves a woman he wants her to belong to him in every possible way.

‘It’s not liberal, it’s not fashionable, it’s not correct, but if the love is there he wants everything about her- her heart, her mind, her body, her soul. He wants her thoughts to be of him, her heart to beat for him, and her passion to throb only for him. When she bears children, they must be his children.

‘If she betrays his love his heart breaks. If he turns to find her, and she is not there, he doesn’t wait days and then ask a few mild questions. He goes insane.’

She could almost believe that he had gone insane that moment. His eyes burned with a fierce light and seemed to see right through her.

‘Do you understand?’ he grated. ‘Do you know what you have done?’

‘Yes, I left you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It was what I had to do. I hoped that I could make you understand, but you can’t understand, can you?’

‘I understand that you belong with me, and this nonsense has to stop-’

‘Stop saying “belong”,’ she insisted desperately. ‘I don’t belong to you. I never will. I can’t love that way.’

‘What is your way of loving?’ he asked savagely. ‘To drive a man to distraction and then abandon him, laugh at him?’

‘I didn’t-’

‘Do you enjoy showing your power? Is that why you did this?’

‘If you think that, we’ll never understand each other,’ she said desperately.

‘Talk!’ he said contemptuously. ‘All this is talk.’ He seized her and tried to pull her into his arms. ‘Come back with me, and I will make you the most envied woman in Kamar. We can forget this and all shall be well between us again. Come back with me, Diamond-’

‘Don’t call me that,’ she cried. ‘Diamond never really existed. She cared for nothing but jewels and having people bow to her. She enjoyed being known as your favourite, and she didn’t mind that it wasn’t going to last, as long as she had her moment of triumph.

‘But that’s not me. My name is Frances and I don’t like being piled high with jewels. They could be made of plastic for all I care. You wanted Diamond, but you weren’t interested in Frances. Ali, have you any idea how wretched we would have made each other?’

It was as though she had struck him. He let his hands fall and stepped back from her.

‘You mean how wretched I would have made you,’ he said in a shocked voice.

‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘I think you would. And I’d have had to live with that wretchedness all my life. But you could have consoled yourself with a succession of favourites.’

His eyes were murderous.

‘You should not have said that to me.’ He wheeled away from her and began to stride the room. ‘You shouldn’t have said it, but perhaps it’s as well you did. It shows how far apart we are. There would have been no other woman but you, no other wife, no favourites. That was how my father treated my mother, and how I would have treated you.

‘Have you forgotten the day I found my cousin bleeding and you standing over him with a knife in your hand? I arrested him because I knew that, however it looked, you must be innocent. That was how much I trusted you. That was how close I thought we were. If you never understood that, then truly our minds never met.’

‘No,’ Fran said, nodding. ‘That’s exactly it. Our minds never met.’

‘And this banker-your mind meets his? Of course you are half a banker yourself.’

‘Luckily for you. How much did a mere woman save you, Ali?’

‘A great deal. I admitted that at the time and thanked you. But I missed the real point-that you have more in common with him than with me. You always did have, and you always will.’

He regarded her strangely. ‘My mother was right, as she is about all things. He is a good marriage for you.’

‘He’s a good banker, if that’s what you mean,’ Fran said stiffly. ‘Henderson & Carver is one of the most highly regarded merchant banks in London, and any day now he’ll be appointed chief executive.’

It felt strange to hear herself talking in that stiff, ‘proper’ way when her heart was breaking at the distance that increased every moment between herself and the man she loved. But she couldn’t bridge that distance, and only pride was left to sustain her.

There were lines of suffering etched on Ali’s face, yet the words that came out belied that suffering. She had hurt him, and that hurt her, yet he would deny his own pain to her, and so keep her at a distance. And that was a denial of love.

‘Chief executive,’ Ali mused. ‘What can I say to the woman who will be the wife of such a powerful man?’

‘Don’t jeer at me. I know he isn’t as powerful as you-’

‘He is nothing like me at all. And that’s why you’ve chosen him, isn’t it?’

‘What’s the point of talking about it?’ she said wearily. ‘Maybe I will marry Howard, maybe I won’t-’

‘Don’t tell me he’s hesitating?’ Ali’s face darkened and he turned away quickly. ‘He’s a fool,’ he said over his shoulder.

‘No, just a very cautious man.’

‘If he was a clever man he would seize you while he had the chance.’

‘Exactly,’ she said in despair. ‘Seize. That will always be the way you think.’

Suddenly she realised what a dangerous thing she’d done in coming here. This was Ali’s territory, where she could simply be taken prisoner again.

At that moment he turned and their eyes met. With a gasp Fran seized up her bag, ran for the door, pulled it open and hurried out into the hall.

The doorman on duty was the same one as last time. He’d learned his lesson by now, and stood in front of the front door, arms folded.

Ali came out behind her. Fran turned to look at him with a face full of accusation.

‘Let her go,’ he said.

The porter stared, not sure he’d heard properly.

‘Let her go!’

The door opened, and the next moment Fran was gone.