The Sheikh's Bride

Hari bit back a smile. He had not been present at the interview between father and son before Amer left Dalmun this time. But the reverberations had shaken the city.

A terminal fight, said the palace. The father would never speak to the son again. An ultimatum, said Amer’s household; the son had told his father he would tolerate no more interference and was not coming back to Dalmun until the old Sheikh accepted it.

Amer eyed him. ‘And you can stop looking like a stuffed camel. I know you know all about it.’

Hari disclaimed gracefully. ‘I just hear the gossip in the bazaars, like everyone else,’ he murmured.

Amer was sardonic. ‘Good for business, is it?’

‘Gossip brings a lot of traders into town, I’m told,’ Hari agreed.

‘Buy a kilo of rice and get the latest palace dirt thrown in.’ Amer gave a short laugh. ‘What are they saying?’

Hari ticked the rumours off on his fingers. ‘Your father wants to kill you. You want to kill your father. You have refused to marry again. You are insisting on marrying again.’ He stopped, his face solemn but his lively eyes dancing. ‘You want to go to Hollywood and make a movie.’

‘Good God.’ Amer was genuinely startled. He let out a peal of delighted laughter. ‘Where did that one come from?’

Hari was not only his personal assistant. He was also a genuine friend. He told him the truth. ‘Cannes last year, I should think.’

‘Ah,’ said Amer, understanding at once. ‘We are speaking of the delicious Catherine.’

‘Or,’ said Hari judiciously, ‘the delicious Julie, Kim or Michelle.’

Amer laughed. ‘I like Cannes.’

‘That shows in the photographs,’ Hari agreed.

‘Disapproval, Hari?’

‘Not up to me to approve or disapprove,’ Hari said hastily. ‘I just wonder—’

‘I like women.’

Hari thought about Amer’s adamant refusal to marry again after his wife was killed in that horse riding accident. He kept his inevitable reflections to himself.

‘I like the crazy way their minds work,’ Amer went on. ‘It makes me laugh. I like the way they try to pretend they don’t know when you’re looking at them. I like the way they smell.’

Hari was surprised into pointing out, ‘Not all women smell of silk and French perfume like your Julies and your Catherines.’

‘Dolls,’ said Amer obscurely.

‘What?’

‘Has it occurred to you how many animated dummies I know? Oh they look like people. They walk and talk and even sound like people. But when you talk to them they just say the things they’ve been programmed to say.’

Hari was unmoved. ‘Presumably they’re the things you want them to say. So who did the programming?’

Amer shifted his shoulders impatiently. ‘Not me. I don’t want—’

‘To date a woman who has not been programmed to say you are wonderful?’ Hari pursued ruthlessly. He regarded his friend with faint scorn. ‘Why don’t you try it, some time?’

Amer was not offended. But he was not impressed, either.

‘Get real,’ he said wearily.

Hari warmed to his idea. ‘No, I mean it. Take that girl down stairs in the lobby just now.’

Amer was startled. ‘Have you started mind reading, Hari?’

‘I saw you looking her way,’ Hari explained simply. ‘I admit I was surprised. She’s hardly your type.’

Amer gave a mock shudder. ‘No French perfume there, you mean. I know. More like dust and cheap sun-tan lotion.’ A reminiscent smile curved his handsome mouth suddenly. ‘But even so, she has all the feminine tricks. Did you see her trying to pretend she didn’t know I was looking at her?’

Hari was intrigued. ‘So why were you?’

Amer hesitated, his eyes unreadable for an instant. Then he shrugged. ‘Three months in Dalmun, I expect,’ he said in his hardest voice. ‘Show a starving man stale bread and he forgets he ever knew the taste of caviar.’

‘Stale bread? Poor lady.’

‘I’ll remember caviar as soon as I have some to jog my memory,’ Amer murmured mischievously.

Hari knew his boss. ‘I’ll book the hotel in Cannes.’

It was not a successful visit to the pyramids. As Leo expected, Mrs Silverstein insisted on walking round every pyramid and could not be persuaded to pass on the burial chamber of Cheops. Since that involved a steep climb, a good third of which had to be done in a crouching position, the older woman was in considerable pain by the end of the trip. Not that she would admit it.

Ever since Mrs Silverstein arrived in Egypt on her Adventures in Time tour, she had wanted to see everything and, in spite of her age and rheumatic joints, made a spirited attempt to do so. When other members of the group took to shaded rooms in the heat of the afternoon, Mrs Silverstein was out there looking at desert plants or rooting affronted Arabs out of their afternoon snooze to bargain over carpets or papyrus.

‘The woman never stops,’ Roy Ormerod complained, looking at the couriers’ reports. ‘She’ll collapse and then we’ll be responsible. For Heaven’s sake get her to slow down.’

But Leo, joining one of the party’s trips, found she had a sneaking sympathy for Mrs Silverstein. She was a lively and cultivated woman with a hunger for new experience that a lifetime of bringing up a family had denied her. She also, as Leo found late one night when the local courier thankfully surrendered her problem client and retired to bed, had a startling courage.

‘Well, it’s a bit more than rheumatism,’ Mrs Silverstein admitted under the influence of honey cakes and mint tea. ‘And it’s going to get worse. I thought, I’ve got to do as much as I can while I can. So I’ll have some things to remember.’

Leo was impressed. She said so.

‘You see I always wanted to travel,’ Mrs Silverstein confided. ‘But Sidney was such a homebody. And then there were the children. When they all got married I thought now. But then Sidney got sick. And first Alice was divorced and then Richard and the grandchildren would come and stay…’ She sighed. ‘When Dr Burnham told me what was wrong I thought—it’s now or never, Pat.’

Leo could only admire her. So, instead of following Roy’s instructions, she did her best to make sure that Mrs Silverstein visited every single thing she wanted to see in Egypt, just taking a little extra care of her. It was not easy.

By the time Leo got her back to the hotel she was breathing hard and had turned an alarming colour. Leo took her up to her room and stayed while Mrs Silverstein lay on the well-sprung bed, fighting for breath. Leo called room service and ordered a refreshing drink while she applied cool damp towels to Mrs Silverstein’s pink forehead.

‘I think I should call a doctor,’ she said worriedly.

Mrs Silverstein shook her head. ‘Pills,’ she said. ‘In my bag.’

Leo got them. Mrs Silverstein swallowed three and then lay back with her eyes closed. Her colour slowly returned to normal.

The phone rang. Leo picked it up.

‘Mrs Silverstein?’ said a harsh voice she knew all too well. Even when Roy Ormerod was trying to be conciliating he sounded angry. ‘I wonder if you can tell me where Miss Roberts went when she left you?’

Leo braced herself. ‘This is me, Roy. Mrs Silverstein wasn’t feeling well, so I—’

He did not give her the chance to finish.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? I told you to stop that old bat going on excursions, not give her personal guided tours. You should be back at the office. And what do you mean, leaving me a message that you won’t be at the dinner, tonight? You’ve got to be there. It’s part of your job….’

He ranted for several more minutes. Mrs Silverstein opened her eyes and began to look alarmed.

Leo interrupted him. ‘We’ll talk about this at the office,’ she said firmly. She looked at her watch. ‘I’ll come over now. See you in half an hour.’

‘No you won’t. I’m already—’

But she had cut him off.

‘Trouble?’ said Mrs Silverstein.

‘None I can’t handle.’

‘Is it my fault?’

‘No,’ said Leo.

Because it was not. Roy had been spoiling for a fight ever since she first arrived from London.

Forgetting professional discretion, Leo said as much. Mrs Silverstein looked thoughtful. She had met Roy.

‘And he doesn’t like it that you’re not attracted to him,’ she said wisely.

Leo stared. ‘What? Oh, surely not.’

Mrs Silverstein shrugged. ‘Good at your job. Independent. Clients like you. All sounds too much like competition to me, honey.’ She struggled up among the pillows. ‘The only way you could put yourself right with the man is by falling at his feet.’

Leo stared, equally fascinated and repelled.

‘I hope you’re wrong,’ she said with feeling.

There was a knock at the door. Leo got off the side of the bed.

‘That must be your lemon sherbet.’

But it was not. It was Roy. His eyes were bulging with fury.

‘Oh, you were calling from the desk,’ said Leo, enlightened.

He brushed that aside. ‘Look here—’ he began loudly.

Leo barred his way, giving thanks for the carved screen behind the tiny entrance area. It masked the doorway from Mrs Silverstein’s view.

‘You can’t make a scene here,’ she hissed. ‘She’s not well.’

But Roy was beyond rationality. He took Leo by the wrist and pulled her out into the corridor. He was shouting. He even took her by the shoulders and shook her.

An authoritative voice said, ‘That is enough.’

They both turned, Leo blindly, Roy with blundering aggression.

The speaker was a man with a haughty profile and an air of effortless command. A business man, Leo thought. Someone who had paid for expensive quiet on this executive floor and was going to see that he got what he paid for. The dark eyes resting on Roy were coldly contemptuous.

Roy did not like his intervention. ‘Who are you? The floor manager?’ he sneered.

Leo winced for him. On the face of it, the stranger’s impeccable dark suit was indistinguishable from any of the other business suits in the hotel. But Leo’s upbringing had taught her to distinguish at a glance between the prosperous and the seriously rich. The suit was hand tailored and, for all its conservative lines, individually designed as well. Add to that the air of being in charge of the world, and you clearly had someone to reckon with.

But Roy had never been able to read nonverbal signs.

He said pugnaciously, ‘This is a private conversation.’

‘Then you should conduct it in private,’ the man said. His courtesy bit deeper than any invective would have done. ‘You have a room here?’

‘No,’ said Leo, alarmed at the thought of being alone with Roy in this mood.

For the first time the man took his eyes off the belligerent Roy. He sent her a quick, cool look. And did a double take.

‘Mademoiselle?’ he said blankly.

Leo did not recognise him. She tried to pull herself together and search her memory. But Roy’s shaking of her seemed to have scrambled her brains.

Meanwhile, the fact that the stranger seemed to recognise her had sent Roy into a frenzy.

‘You want to be careful with that one, friend,’ he said. ‘She’ll stab you in the back as soon as look at you.’

Leo’s head spun as if she had been shot. All she could think of was that Roy must have found out who her father was.

‘What?’ she said hoarsely.

The stranger sent her a narrow-eyed look. ‘It is perhaps that I intrude unnecessarily,’ he said, his accent pronounced. ‘Mademoiselle?’

Leo shook her confused head.

Roy snarled, ‘You’re fired.’

Leo paled. She could just imagine what her father would say to this news.

‘Oh Lord,’ she said with foreboding.

This time the stranger did not bother to look at her.

‘Your discussion would benefit from a more constructive approach,’ he told Roy austerely.

Roy snorted. ‘Discussion over,’ he snapped. He sent Leo one last flaming look. ‘You don’t want to come to the dinner tonight? Fine. Don’t. And don’t come near the office again, either. Or any of my staff.’

Leo began to be alarmed. She shared an apartment with two of his staff.

‘Roy—’

But he was on a roll. ‘And don’t ask me for a reference.’

Leo was not as alarmed about that as he clearly thought she should have been. When she said, ‘Look, let’s talk about this,’ in a soothing voice, two bright spots of colour appeared on Roy’s cheeks.

He took a hasty step forward. Leo thought in a flash of recognition: He is going to hit me. It was so crazy she did not even duck. Instead she froze, panicking.

Fortunately their companion did not panic so easily. He stepped swiftly in front of her.

‘No,’ he said.

It was quiet enough but it had the force of a blow.

Leo winced. It stopped Roy dead in his tracks. For a moment he and her rescuer stood face-to-face, eyes locked. Roy was a big man and the red glare in his eyes was alarming. The other was tall and his shoulders were broad enough but, under the exquisite tailoring, he was slim and graceful. No match for a bull like Roy, you would have said. Yet there was no doubt who was the master in this encounter.

There was a moment of tense silence. Roy breathed hard. Then, without another word, he turned and blundered off, sending a chair flying.

Leo sagged against the wall. Her heart was racing. Now that it was over she was horrified at the ugly little scene.

Out of sight, she heard the lift doors open…several people get out…voices. Her rescuer flicked a look down the corridor. The voices got louder, laughing. He slipped a hand under her arm.

‘Come with me.’

And before the new arrivals caught sight of them, he had whisked her to the end of the corridor and through impressive double doors. Before she knew what was happening, Leo found herself sitting in a high-backed chair in what she recognised as the Presidential Suite. The man stood over her, silent. He looked half impatient; half—what? Leo felt her heart give a wholly unfamiliar lurch.

‘Are you all right?’ he said at last.

Leo thought: I want him to put his arms round me. She could not believe it.

‘What?’ she said distractedly.

He frowned. As if people usually paid closer attention when he spoke, Leo thought. Now she came to look at him closely she saw there was more to him than grace and good tailoring. The harsh face might be proud and distant but it was spectacularly handsome. And surely there was a look in those eyes that was not proud or distant at all?

I must be hallucinating, Leo thought feverishly. This is not my scene at all. I don’t fancy chance-met strangers and they don’t fancy me. This is the second time today I’ve started to behave like someone I don’t know. Am I going mad?

‘I said, are you all right?’

‘Oh.’ She tried to pull herself together. ‘I—suppose so.’ She added almost to herself, ‘I just don’t know what to do.’

He sighed heavily. ‘In what way?’ His distaste was obvious.

If he dislikes this situation so much, why doesn’t he just leave me alone, Leo thought irritated.

‘He said I wasn’t to go back. But everything I have is at the flat…’

Unexpectedly her voice faltered. To her horror, Leo felt tears start. She dashed them away angrily. But the little gesture gave her away more completely than if she had started to bawl aloud.

The man’s face became masklike.

‘You live with this man?’

But Leo’s brain was racing, proposing and discarding courses of action at the rate of ten a minute. She hardly noticed his question.

‘I’ll have to call London.’ She looked at her watch. ‘And then book a room somewhere. If I can get one in the height of the tourist season.’

The man sighed. ‘Then it will be my pleasure to offer you my assistance,’ he said in a long-suffering tone. He picked up the phone.

Leo’s brows twitched together. There was something oddly familiar about the formal phrase.

‘Have we met?’

He was talking into the phone in quick, clicking Arabic. But at that he looked down at her.

‘We have not, Miss Roberts.’

He had the strangest eyes. She had thought they would be brown in that dark face but they were not. They were a strange metallic colour, somewhere between cold steel and the depths of the sea; and dark, dark. Leo felt herself caught by their icy intensity; caught and drawn in, under, drowned…

She pulled herself up short. Was the man a mesmerist?

‘You know my name,’ she pointed out breathlessly.

He smiled then. For the first time. It made him devastating.

‘I can read.’

She stared at him, uncomprehending. He reached out a hand and brushed her shoulder. Even through the poplin jacket of her suit, his touch was electric. Leo shot to her feet with a gasp.

‘What—?’

‘Your label,’ he said gently.

He had removed the large lettered name tag that she had worn to the airport this morning. He dropped it into her hand, not touching her fingers.

Leo’s face heated. She felt a fool. That was not like her, either. What is it about this man that makes me lose my rationality? And feel like I’ve never felt before?

The phone rang. He picked it up, listened without expression and only the briefest word of acknowledgement before ringing off.

‘The hotel has a room for you. Pick the key up at the desk.’

Leo was startled into protesting. ‘A room? Here? You’re joking. They’re booked solid for weeks. I know because I was trying to get a room for a late attender at the conference.’

He shrugged, bored. ‘One must have become available in the meantime.’

Leo did not believe that for a moment. Her eyes narrowed.

But before she could demand an explanation, the door banged back on its hinges and two large men in tight suits appeared at it. One of them was carrying a revolver. Leo gaped.

Her rescuer spun round and he said something succinct. The gun stopped pointing at her. The two men looked uncomfortable. Leo turned her attention from the new arrivals to her rescuer.

‘Who are you?’

He hesitated infinitesimally. Then, ‘My name is Amer,’ he said smoothly.

Leo’s suspicions increased. But before she could demand further information, one of the men spoke agitatedly. Her rescuer looked at his watch.

‘I have to go,’ he said to her. ‘Moustafa will take you down to the lobby and ensure that there are no problems.’

He gave her a nod. It was sharp and final. He was already walking away before Leo pulled herself together enough to thank him. Which was just as well. Because she was not feeling grateful at all.

CHAPTER TWO

LEO was not really surprised when the room proved to be not only available but also quietly luxurious. When a discreetly noncommittal porter ushered her in she found there were gifts waiting on the brass coffee table: a bowl of fruit, a dish of Arabic sweetmeats and a huge basket of flowers.

Leo blinked. ‘That’s—very beautiful.’

The porter nodded without expression. He surrendered the plastic wafer that served as a key to her room and backed out. Neither he nor the hotel receptionist had expressed the slightest surprise about her lack of luggage.

It was unnerving. Leo felt as if the unknown stranger had cast some sort of magic cloak over her. Oh, it was protective all right. But it made her feel as if he had somehow made her invisible as well.

Still, at least it had got her a roof over her head tonight. Be grateful for small mercies, she told herself. He’s given you the opportunity to get your life back on track. She checked her watch and started making phone calls.

Her mother was fourth on the list. She expected to have to leave a message but Deborah was there.

‘Sorry, Mother, you’re going to have to take a rain check for tonight,’ she said. ‘I’ve got problems. They’ll take a bit of time to sort out.’

‘Tell me,’ said Deborah.

Leo did.

Her mother was indignant. She might not approve of her only daughter toiling as a menial courier but that did not mean that she thought anyone had the right to sack her. She urged various strategies on Leo, most of which would have ended with both Roy and Leo being deported. Used to her mother’s fiery temperament, Leo murmured soothing noises down the phone until her mother’s fury abated.

‘Well,’ said Deborah pugnaciously, ‘Mr Ormerod is certainly not interrupting my dinner plans. You have to eat and I want your company. See you at eight o’ clock.’

‘But I haven’t got anything to wear,’ wailed Leo.

‘You’ve got a credit card.’ She could hear the glee in her mother’s voice. Deborah was always complaining about Leo’s lack of interest in clothes. ‘And you ought to know this town well enough to know where the class boutiques are. I’ll see you downstairs now.’

Leo knew when she was beaten. She negotiated a fifteen-minute delay to allow her to make the rest of her calls. But that was as much of a concession as Deborah was willing to make.

Deborah was waiting in the lobby.

‘I’ve got a car,’ she said briskly. ‘And I know where to go, too, so don’t try to fob me off with any old shopping mall.’

She led the way purposefully. Leo grinned and followed.

Installed in the back of the hired limousine, Leo tipped her head back and looked at her mother appreciatively. Deborah fluffed up the organza collar to her stunning navy-and-white designer dress. The discreet elegance of her earrings did not disguise the fact that they were platinum or that the navy stones which echoed her ensemble were rather fine sapphires.

‘You look very expensive,’ Leo said lazily.

She did not mean it as a criticism. But Deborah flushed. She swung round on the seat to inspect her weary daughter.

‘And you look like a tramp,’ she retorted. ‘Do you dress like that to make a point?’

Leo was unoffended. She had been taller than her exquisite mother when she was eleven. By the time she entered her teens she had resigned herself to towering over other girls. She had even started to stoop until an enlightened teacher had persuaded her to stand up straight, mitigating her height by simple, well-cut clothes. Deborah had never resigned herself to Leo’s chosen style.

Now Leo said tolerantly, ‘I dress like this to stay cool and look reasonably professional during a long working day, Mother. Besides,’ she said as Deborah opened her mouth to remonstrate, ‘I like my clothes.’

Deborah gave her shoulders a little annoyed shake.

‘Well, you won’t need to look professional tonight. So you can buy something pretty for once. It’s not as if you can’t afford it.’

Leo flung up her hands in a gesture of surrender.

The car delivered them to a small shop. The window was filled with a large urn holding six-foot grasses. Leo knew the famous international name. And the prices that went with it. Her heart sank.

‘It’s lucky I paid off my credit card bill just last week, isn’t it?’ she said.

Deborah ignored this poor spirited remark. ‘We’re going to buy you something special,’ she said firmly, urging her reluctant daughter out of the car.

‘Here comes the frill patrol,’ groaned Leo.

But she did her mother an injustice. Deborah clearly hankered after a cocktail suit in flowered brocade. But she gave in gracefully when Leo said, ‘It makes me look like a newly upholstered sofa.’ Instead they came away with georgette harem pants, the colour of bark, and a soft jacket in a golden apricot. Deborah gave her a long silk scarf in bronze and amber to go with it.

‘Thank you mother,’ said Leo, touched.

Deborah blinked rapidly. ‘I wish you were wearing it to go out to dinner with someone more exciting than me.’

For a shockingly irrational moment, Leo’s thoughts flew to her mystery rescuer. She felt her colour rise. Inwardly she cursed her revealing porcelain skin and the shadowy Amer with equal fury. To say nothing of her mother’s sharp eyes.

‘Ah,’ said Deborah. ‘Anyone I know?’

‘There’s no one,’ said Leo curtly.