His Queen By Desert Decree

Molly stood at the window staring out at that unbelievable view of the sand dunes. The sun was lower in the sky, turning them a toasty gold shade which was unexpectedly beautiful. It was time for her to find out where she was and when she was getting home, after she had reported Tahir to the authorities. As she stalked to the door in a fine temper a knock sounded on it. She flung it wide.

‘I...’ and then her tongue simply glued to the roof of her mouth because it was Mr Gorgeous from the portrait in the embassy hallway.

There he stood, in his pristine white robes and red chequered head cloth, those stunning features even more arresting in the flesh. It was as if a famous actor had stepped out of a movie screen into her presence. She was deeply shaken and she could barely breathe for nerves. In discomfiture, she backed away fast until her legs hit the very solid wooden bed frame behind her.

‘Miss Carlisle? I am Azrael, Tahir’s half-brother,’ Azrael proffered, rigid in bearing and stilted in speech from the sheer shame of what his little brother had done. ‘I must offer you my most profound apologies for what has happened to you and I assure you that you will be taken home as soon as possible.’

A tiny bit mollified by that unexpectedly humble approach from a man who looked more as if he should be waving a scimitar from the back of a horse in battle, so fierce was his expression, Molly moved forward a step. He was incredibly tall, well over six feet in height. And those eyes, a part of Molly that embarrassed her noted without her volition, he had the most amazing dark golden eyes, so heavily lashed in black that he looked as though he were sporting eye liner.

‘You speak English,’ she heard herself say rather stupidly.

‘I do,’ Azrael acknowledged, studying her with a concealed appreciation that affronted him, for he did not want to believe that he had the smallest taste in common with a brother who had committed such a very unforgivable act against a woman. But Tahir had more taste than his elder brother would have given him credit for. For some reason, Azrael had been expecting to see a Westernised blonde of pretty obvious attractions.

Instead he had Molly Carlisle before him and there was no contest in that comparison. Her skin was as fine and fair as pearlised silk. She had an astonishing colour of hair such as Azrael had never seen before and a wonderful wealth of it, and eyes the exact shade of his late mother’s famous emeralds. She was a beauty, a truly unusual beauty. His thoughts, his very awareness, were inappropriate, deeply inappropriate in the circumstances, Azrael castigated himself angrily, suppressing his too personal reactions to the very best of his ability.

‘When are the police coming?’ Molly asked baldly.

Nothing could have more surely focused Azrael’s concentration back on his dilemma than that innocent question. In point of fact, Djalia did not currently have a police force, Hashem’s police department having been wholly corrupt. A large new group of male and female applicants was currently in training but, of course, he was not going to tell her that there were no police and expose his much-maligned country to adverse criticism again.

‘It is my hope that we can settle this unfortunate matter without alerting the authorities,’ Azrael told her truthfully, resting the full force of his commanding eyes on her, his royal resolve driving him. He knew how authoritative he was and how intimidating he could be and he was prepared to use that strength against her if necessary. Regardless of the cost, he had to protect Djalia from an international scandal and the risk of the rest of the world finding out what had happened and assuming that they were all ignorant, woman-stealing savages.

Impervious to his extremely bossy manner and commanding stance, because she was immovable when she made her mind up about anything, Molly compressed her lips. ‘I’m afraid not. I want the police. I want your brother...half-brother, whatever he is, prosecuted and punished.’

Taken aback by her complete lack of reaction to his royal poise, Azrael expelled his breath in a measured hiss. ‘There will be no police involved,’ he informed her flatly.

‘I’ve been drugged and kidnapped. I demand justice!’ Molly launched at him full throttle.

‘I must apologise for my inability to meet your demand. My brother is no longer in Djalia to be prosecuted,’ Azrael countered, deciding to pursue another tack.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Molly responded, shocking him with that frank admission, for he had never had the veracity of his words questioned before by anyone. ‘You’re trying to protect him from the consequences of what he’s done—’

‘That is not the case,’ Azrael assured her, and it was the truth because at that moment he would happily have thrown Tahir to the wolves had that been an option but, sadly, it was not.

‘You cannot deny me my rights,’ Molly began, rosy colour mantling her cheeks as fury began to suffuse her, firing through her veins like an intoxicating drug.

His eyes hard as granite, Azrael’s jaw clenched. ‘I can—’

‘You can’t!’ Molly spat back at him in a rage. ‘You can’t deny me my rights. There are international laws protecting women—’

‘Not in Djalia,’ Azrael told her truthfully but without pride.

‘I was drugged and kidnapped—’

‘But Tahir was intercepted as soon as the plane landed and you were immediately removed from his keeping. You are unharmed,’ Azrael reminded her.

‘But I could’ve been the victim of sexual violence!’ Molly shot at him with knotted fists, her temper only rising at his refusal to do a single thing that she asked.

‘I doubt that. Tahir is many foolish things but he’s not a rapist. He thought he could bring you here and shower you with clothes and jewels and that then you would magically find him more appealing,’ Azrael recited with derision. ‘He is infatuated with you but he would never have physically harmed you.’

‘So, in your opinion, it’s basically all right for him to have drugged and kidnapped me?’

‘No, of course it is not right, it is very wrong!’ Azrael proclaimed heatedly, his own temper flaring at her wording. ‘It was a crime and there is no dispute on that issue but we will not involve the police in this matter.’

‘That’s not your decision to make,’ Molly told him angrily, green eyes glittering like jewels, coppery ringlets dancing across her slim shoulders with the livewire energy of her every restive movement.

‘It is my decision,’ Azrael contradicted softly, wondering what colour would best describe that dark red and yet strangely bright hair and furiously repressing the irrelevant thought. ‘And in Djalia my word is law.’

‘Then Djalia must be a pretty backward place!’ Molly hurled back at him loudly.

Azrael froze as if she had thrown a flaming torch at him, every line of his lean, extravagantly handsome face drawn taut with offence and growing anger. ‘I will not discuss this business again with you until you have calmed down and thought it over.’

‘I’m as calm as I’m ever going to be after waking up to see a desert out of the freakin’ window!’ Molly flung hotly and as he turned on his heel, making her realise that he intended to leave again, she was fit to be tied. ‘Don’t you dare walk out of here and leave me!’

‘You are not in a mood to be reasonable—’

‘How blasted reasonable would you be after being drugged and kidnapped?’ Molly shouted after him, and she kicked the door shut with a resounding clunk on his sweeping departure. She hurt her bare toes and cursed and hopped round the room, ineffectually trying to soothe them while boiling with frustrated fury at Tahir’s brother.

Clearly insanity ran in the family! One abducted her to a foreign country and the other wanted her to be reasonable. What century was he living in? What kind of country was Djalia where women had no rights and some good-looking louse could tell her and with a straight face, mind you, that his word was law? Who the blazes did he think he was to talk to her like that? Well, Molly had no intention of standing for that kind of nonsense. His countrywomen might have no rights, but she knew she had hers and she had every intention of exercising them in the UK, if need be, where the crime had taken place. Yes, she registered belatedly, Azrael’s attitude didn’t really matter because she could go to the police at home and report the crime once she got back there. And he couldn’t stop her doing that, could he?

As if she cared about Tahir or what happened to him! She wanted to know that Tahir would be punished and that he could never, ever do to any other woman what he had done to her. As for that assurance that Tahir would never have physically harmed her, Molly was not impressed. Did she look stupid enough to credit that Tahir had gone to such extraordinary lengths merely to offer her new clothes and jewels? No, she would ensure that the British police dealt with Tahir.

Mollified by that idea, Molly greeted the surprised Gamila with a smile when she crept in carrying Molly’s freshly laundered clothes. Thanking the other woman, Molly vanished into the bathroom to put on her own clothes, snapping her bra on again with deep satisfaction and shimmying into her jeans and sweater. Only as perspiration began to gather on her skin and her face did she appreciate that what she had worn for a London winter was quite unsuitable for a desert climate. Crossly she stripped again and put the stupid dress back on because at least it was cool and comfortable.

Leaving the bedroom, she walked out onto a stone corridor and espied a worn spiral staircase, brows climbing at the sight of it. She walked down into a square turreted forecourt of some kind that was crowded with uniformed soldiers carrying guns, all of whom turned to stare at her in the most unsettling way. Taken aback, she coloured and froze and was grateful when a wiry little man in robes hailed her from several feet away. ‘Miss Carlisle? How may I assist you?’

‘I want to speak to Azrael again,’ Molly said, moving towards him. ‘I want to go home.’

‘Of course. Please come this way. I am Butrus. I work for the King.’

‘What king?’ Molly almost whispered.

‘His Majesty, King Azrael of Djalia,’ Butrus proclaimed with clear pride. ‘Our Glorious Leader.’

Glorious Leader? Oh, how Molly enjoyed that label and she would have struggled not to laugh at it in any other mood but her aggression had been swallowed alive by mind-blowing surprise. Tahir’s brother was the King of this country? That was why there had been that portrait hung in the Djalian Embassy, she realised belatedly. But Tahir had not mentioned his big brother’s exalted status, possibly because he lived in a different country. Molly had looked up Quarein on the Internet, not Djalia, and she knew nothing whatsoever about the country she had landed in.

‘I didn’t realise he was the King,’ Molly admitted thinly, not best pleased to accept her own ignorance.

But it didn’t essentially change anything, she reasoned angrily. She now understood why Azrael could declare that his word was law in Djalia and not be carted away to the funny farm. She also understood that he had much more power over the situation than she had initially appreciated. Well, that was good, Molly thought grimly. With his influence, he would surely be able to get her home to London even faster. And she had to get back, had to get home to be available for Maurice should he need her. After all, she was her grandfather’s only relative and his only representative and she needed to be on the spot to ensure that his needs were always met and that he received the best possible care.

CHAPTER TWO

AZRAEL’S HEART SANK when Butrus ushered Molly Carlisle into the library of his desert fortress, where he normally contrived to relax. In truth, while deeply resenting the position he found himself in when he had done nothing wrong, he had had enough of her for one day. But he straightened his broad shoulders, reminded himself of his duty to Djalia and felt ashamed of that momentary shrinking from what had become necessity.

Whether he liked it or not, he had to placate Molly Carlisle. It didn’t matter how much money it cost to buy her silence. It didn’t matter even that bribery of any kind appalled him and contravened his values. Butrus was correct: ‘needs must when the devil rides’, some homely but apt saying the older man had picked up from his Scottish grandmother. But the entire distasteful business might have been more bearable had he found Tahir’s victim less attractive, he conceded grudgingly.

Of course, he couldn’t remember when he had last had sex. That was probably all that was amiss with him: the weight of a celibate life. Not that, strictly speaking, he was expected to be celibate but he could only relax and enjoy his sensual nature outside Djalian borders because to do otherwise could risk attracting unsavoury comparisons with Hashem’s orgies with his so-called concubines. Unhappily for Azrael, the time and freedom to travel abroad where casual affairs were not seized on and dissected did not feature in his current crammed schedule. And he had already learned that nothing he did, nowhere he went and nobody he even spoke to was considered too trivial to provide fodder for the Djalian free press. His every word, his every act was reported on. Only here in the desert at the fortress built by his ancestors was he usually left alone in peace.

And absolutely the very last thing he needed in his sensitised radius was a woman with a shape that even in a long dress was impossible to ignore. She had hourglass curves, an incredibly womanly figure and a luscious full mouth that would put X-rated images into the head of a saint. And he was no saint. At heart he was merely a man like any other with all a normal man’s needs and wants and he really did not wish to be reminded of that exasperating reality when he could do nothing to assuage his libido.

* * *

Mr Gorgeous looked more like Mr Grumpy, Molly reflected, noting the hard lines etched into his stunning features. Sadly, it didn’t detract in the slightest from his male beauty, although she was irritated that his head was covered and she couldn’t see his hair to see if it was as dark as his brother’s. She liked looking at him, no harm in that, she rationalised. It wasn’t as though she liked anything he said or anything he did and finding out that he was a king was downright off-putting because how was someone as ordinary as she was supposed to know how to tiptoe politely round his royal sensibilities? She didn’t like him; he didn’t like her. She could see his animosity in the steely glint in his darker-than-dark eyes, the flare of his classic nose, the challenging angle of his jaw and the set compression of his full male lips.

His hostility wasn’t a problem for her though, she thought ruefully. All she wanted was to go home, back to the life she had been very rudely ripped from, and no haughty, proud royal personage would deflect her from her rights or her wishes.

‘I’m not easily impressed, Your Majesty, but I do apologise if anything I said earlier caused offence.’ Molly trotted out her prepared opening speech, seeing the point of smoothing her way in advance with a little civility. It was surface-thin civility but he didn’t know that, did he?’

Azrael’s lip curled because he could read insincerity at twenty paces and her eyes told him the truth that her voice did not. Even so, he was equally willing to dissemble if it solved the problem. ‘It is forgotten,’ he assured her. ‘How may I help you?’

‘I want to go home...as quickly as that can be arranged,’ Molly admitted.

‘And your desire to see my brother prosecuted?’ An ebony brow lifted enquiringly.

Involuntarily, Molly flushed. ‘Is unchanged but I’ve realised that the crime would be more properly handled where it occurred...in London.’

‘Naturally I do not want that.’

Molly tossed back her head, rich coppery ringlets rippling back from her cheeks. ‘I fail to see why,’ she admitted bluntly. ‘You weren’t involved in what your brother did, were you?’

‘No, but the crime took place in my country’s embassy and at my brother’s request a member of embassy staff illegally acquired the drug used to sedate you. Tahir then brought you here to Djalia, intending to transport you to this fortress, which belongs to me. The reputation of Djalia and my own reputation is thus very much involved in this offensive matter,’ Azrael told her with equal directness. ‘The member of staff has been returned here to face charges of drug abuse and the servant who assisted my brother in his wrongdoing has been dismissed.’

‘How was I transported here?’ Molly queried uneasily.

‘The women in Tahir’s birth country, Quarein, wear full veils. You were veiled and conveyed through the airport in a wheelchair and no questions were asked because my brother holds diplomatic status. You were put in the cabin of the private jet owned by Tahir’s father, Prince Firuz, the ruler of Quarein, and were still there when the jet was boarded at our airport. The steward was so concerned by your unconscious condition that he instructed the female stewardess to remain with you throughout the flight. He also alerted Tahir’s father, who immediately contacted me. At no stage were you left open to any form of abuse.’

Molly swallowed hard on her relief because in the back of her mind she had worried about what could have happened to her body while she was unconscious and had scolded herself for her fears. She breathed in slowly. ‘That is good,’ she muttered a little unevenly as she looked down at the worn mosaic tiled floor, embarrassed by her secret apprehension that she could have been touched while she was unaware of it.

For a split second, she looked so vulnerable that Azrael’s conscience propelled him forward one dangerous step to offer inappropriate sympathy before he stopped himself in his tracks. ‘I do recognise that you have suffered a very traumatic experience,’ he breathed almost harshly. ‘And I deeply regret that a member of my family subjected you to such an ordeal, but be assured that Tahir will be most severely punished. His father is horrified by what he has done—’

‘That means nothing to me,’ Molly broke in quickly, keen to forestall such a shift in their dialogue because Tahir’s family was not her concern.

‘Quarein is much stricter than Djalia when it comes to relations between men and women,’ Azrael extended, royally ignoring her interruption. ‘In Quarein the sexes are segregated and women are very much protected. Men are executed for crimes against women there.’

‘And not here?’ Molly could not resist asking.

‘While Hashem was in power here, men were executed daily for every kind of crime, many for very small crimes and many who were innocent of any crime other than opposition to his regime,’ Azrael told her with gravity. ‘It was an inhumane system.’

‘It’s not my business anyway,’ Molly backtracked hurriedly, wondering how she had got led into such a discussion. ‘My only interest here is in how soon I can go home.’

Azrael opted for honesty. ‘I do not want to release you only for you to return to London to pursue Tahir’s prosecution. I will do almost anything to avoid that happening because I will not have Djalia damaged in the fallout from such an appalling scandal.’

It was his wording that unnerved Molly. Talk of ‘releasing’ her implied that she was not free to leave when she wished. ‘Am I a prisoner here, then?’

Azrael sidestepped that leading question. ‘I am determined to settle this affair for once and all with you before you go home.’

A pair of green eyes inspected him with a level of scorn Azrael had never met in a woman’s gaze before. ‘And how do you plan to settle it?’

Ironically, Azrael was grateful to be urged to that distasteful point. ‘By compensating you liberally for your ordeal in return for your silence.’

Molly was very much taken aback by that declaration. ‘You’re offering me money to keep quiet?’ she gasped in disbelief.

‘Compensation,’ Azrael framed, wishing he could gag her to force her to listen, wishing she weren’t acting shocked because he had been shocked by the concept too until Butrus had laid out all the possibilities before him. He did not wish to see any admirable qualities in her because it only intensified the attraction of something that could never ever be.

After all, in all likelihood he would be married in a few months. He would probably accept the bride from Quarein his stepfather had already suggested to him. Nasira was Prince Firuz’s niece and Azrael had met her when they were both still children, thinking even then that she was rigorously well behaved and very devout. Why did those worthy assets turn him off rather than turn him on? He didn’t want to think about that. He had yet to meet Nasira as an adult and if Prince Firuz’s wishes were followed, he would not get the chance to meet her before marrying her because that was the tradition in Quarein. Worryingly however, a veiled queen would be a retrograde choice in the eyes of his people, whose women had never worn the veil.

‘But money,’ Molly responded in unconcealed disgust. ‘I want justice, not money!’

‘Perhaps in an ideal world,’ Azrael countered. ‘Unfortunately, it is not an ideal world that we live in.’

‘My desire to have your brother prosecuted is stronger than my desire for money,’ Molly assured him fiercely. ‘I am not a forgiving woman.’

‘With respect, I suggest that you consider my offer,’ Azrael advised with icy cool, the hauteur of his finely sculpted features intense. ‘If you do not consider it, we are at stalemate and, as you have already said, you want to go home.’

Something inside Molly just snapped wide open and let out a flood of pent-up anger. Mr Gorgeous was a complete seven-letter word and she was tempted to land him a punch for his nerve in saying that to her. She had been drugged and kidnapped and now pressure was being put on her to accept financial compensation in place of a prosecution! How dared he? How dared he assume that she was the sort of woman who could be bought off? It was true that she was poor and had to work for a living and that more money would certainly come in very handy, particularly with regard to the cost of Maurice’s care, she acknowledged reluctantly, but she also had principles and she knew right from wrong.

‘A crime has to have a punishment,’ she shot back at him, her raised voice reverberating at an embarrassing volume up through the domed ceiling above them. ‘Nothing else is acceptable to me!’

‘If that is the case I am sorry for it,’ Azrael grated, thoroughly tired of the way she shouted at him. She was a hot-tempered virago of a woman, he decided, pleased to have found a fatal flaw hidden at the very heart of such beauty. As a man who rarely lost his own temper, he had little tolerance for those with less control. Furthermore, he hadn’t been shouted at since he was a soldier in training and it was one aspect of military life that he did not miss.

‘And I am sorry that you are a king who does not appear to know right from wrong,’ Molly fired back with an unconcealed contempt that sent Azrael’s stunning deep-set eyes flaring to a scorching rage-filled gold.

But, raised in a much harsher school than she had been, Azrael gritted his teeth and exerted restraint over the teeming volatile emotions he had learned to rise above as a teenager when, innocent of fault, he had been whipped and humiliated. He had taken his punishment like a man to protect his mother. He knew that he could withstand any punishment to protect his country. And what were words? Opinions? Was he so weak that he could even react to such a condemnation from someone who knew nothing of the sacrifices he had been forced to make throughout his life? No, he was not weak.

In a stormy tempest of fury, Molly raced back up the spiral staircase and felt momentarily dizzy, realising then that it was a very long time since she had last eaten. Gamila appeared with another tray while Molly was struggling to decide what to do next. This time, Molly accepted the meal, acknowledging that Azrael was unlikely to be planning to either drug or poison her. Was she being naïve though? Should she be scared? Azrael was determined to prevent her from returning home to report Tahir’s crime and clearly hoping that time would take care of her opposition.