Her Desert Dream

CHAPTER FIVE

LYDIA, holding the spray of tiny white flowers, didn’t miss the fact that he’d put the ‘Lady’ back in front of her name. That his voice had taken on a more formal tone.

That was good, she told herself. Perfect, in fact.

One kiss could be overlooked, especially when it was purely medicinal, but it wouldn’t do to let him think that Lady Rose encouraged such liberties.

‘The luggage is loaded.’

He might as well have been done with it and added madam.

‘The pilot won’t take off until we’re clear of the pad. If you are ready?’

It was right there in his tone of voice. It was the one he’d used before he’d started flirting. Before she’d started encouraging him.

She turned to look at the Jeep, where a white-robed servant was waiting to drive them to the cottage. She’d been sitting for hours and, now she was on her feet, wasn’t eager to sit again unless she had to.

‘Is it far?’ she asked. ‘I’d like to stretch my legs.’

He spoke to the driver, who answered with a shake of his head, a wave of the hand to indicate a path through the trees.

Lydia watched the exchange, then frowned.

Kal wasn’t telling the man that they’d walk, she realised, but asking the way. He’d seemed so familiar with everything that she’d assumed he had been here before, but clearly this was his first time, too.

She hadn’t taken much notice when he’d said his family were personae non gratae at the Ramal Hamrahn court.

Court, for heaven’s sake. Nobody talked like that any more. But now she wondered why, for three generations, his family had lived in Europe.

What past crime was so terrible that he and his siblings had never been invited to share this idyllic summer playground with their cousins? It wasn’t as if they’d be cramped for space. Even if they all turned up at the same time.

‘There’s a path through the gardens,’ he said. Then, ‘Will you be warm enough?’

‘You’re kidding?’

Rose had warned her that it wouldn’t be hot at this time of year and maybe it wasn’t for this part of the world. Compared with London in December, however, the air felt soft and balmy.

Then, as a frown creased Kal’s brows, she realised that her response had been pure Lydia. Not quite on a scale with Eliza Doolittle’s blooper at the races, but near enough.

She was tired and forgetting to keep up the Lady Rose act. Or maybe it was her subconscious fighting it. Wanting to say to him Look at me, see who I really am…

‘The temperature is quite perfect,’ she added. And mentally groaned. She’d be doing the whole, How kind of you to let me come routine if she didn’t get a grip.

Didn’t put some distance between them.

In a determined attempt to start as she had meant to go on-before he’d taken her hand, made her laugh-she said, ‘You don’t have to come with me, Kal. Just point me in the right direction and I can find my own way.’

‘No doubt. However, I’d rather not have to explain to Lucy why I had to send out a search party for you.’

‘Why would she ever know?’

‘You’re kidding?’

She ignored the wobble somewhere beneath her midriff as he repeated her words back to her as if he was mocking her, almost as if he knew. ‘Actually, I’m not,’ she said, knowing that it was only her guilty conscience making her think that way.

‘No? Then let me explain how it would happen. At the first hint of trouble the alarm would be raised,’ he explained. ‘The Chief of Security would be alerted. The Emir’s office would be informed, your Ambassador would be summoned-’

‘Okay, okay,’ she said, holding up her hands in surrender, laughing despite everything. ‘I get it. If I go missing, you’ll be hauled up before the Emir and asked to explain what the heck you were doing letting me wander around by myself.’

There was a momentary pause, as if he was considering the matter. Then he shrugged. ‘Something like that, but all you need to worry about is the fact that Lucy would know what had happened within five minutes.’

Not something she would want to happen and, while she didn’t think for one moment she’d get lost, she said, ‘Point taken. Lead the way, Mr al-Zaki.’

The steps were illuminated by concealed lighting and perfectly safe, as was the path, but he took her arm, presumably in case she stumbled.

Rose wouldn’t make a fuss, she told herself. No doubt someone had been holding her hand, taking her arm, keeping her safe all her life. It was what she’d wanted to escape. The constant surveillance. The cotton wool.

As he tucked her arm beneath his, she told herself that she could live with it for a week. And, as she leaned on him a little, that he would expect nothing else.

The path wound through trees and shrubs. Herbs had been planted along the edges, spilling over so that as they brushed past lavender, sage, marjoram and other, less familiar, scents filled the air.

Neither of them spoke. The only sound was the trickle of water running, the splash of something, a fish or a frog, in a dark pool. She caught glimpses of mysterious arches, an ornate summer house, hidden among the trees. And above them the domes and towers she’d seen from the air.

‘It’s magical,’ she said at last as, entranced, she stored up the scents, sounds, images for some day, far in the future, when she would tell her children, grandchildren about this Arabian Nights adventure. Always assuming she ever got to the point where she could trust a man sufficiently to get beyond arm’s length flirting.

Meet someone who would look at her and see Lydia Young instead of her famous alter ego.

The thought leached the pleasure from the moment.

She’d been featured in the local newspaper when she’d first appeared as Lady Rose, had even been invited to turn up as Rose and switch on the Christmas lights one year when the local council were on a cost cutting drive and couldn’t afford a real celebrity.

Even at work, wearing an unflattering uniform and with her name badge clearly visible, the customers had taken to calling her ‘Rose’ and she couldn’t deny that she’d loved it. It had made her feel special.

Here, now, standing in her heroine’s shoes, she discovered that being someone else was not enough.

That, instead of looking at Lydia and seeing Rose, she wanted someone, or maybe just Kalil al-Zaki, to look at Rose and see Lydia.

Because that was who she’d been with him.

It was Lydia who’d been afraid of taking off, whose hand he had held. Lydia he’d kissed.

But he’d never know that. And she could never tell him.

He was silent too and once she risked a glance, but the floor level lighting only threw his features into dark, unreadable shadows.

Then, as they turned a corner, the view opened up to reveal that while behind them, above the darker bulk of the mountains, the stars still blazed, on the far side of the creek a pale edge of mauve was seeping into the pre-dawn purple.

‘It’s nearly dawn,’ she said, surprised out of her momentary descent into self-pity. It still felt like the middle of the night, but she’d flown east, was four hours closer to the day than her mother, fast asleep in London.

She was on another continent at sunrise and, to witness it, all she had to do was stand here and wait.

Kal didn’t even ask what she wanted to do. He knew.

‘There’s a summer house over there,’ he said, urging her in the direction of another intricately decorated domed and colonnaded structure perfectly situated to enjoy the view. ‘You can watch in comfort.’

‘No…’

It was open at the front and there were huge cane chairs piled with cushions. Total luxury. A place to bring a book, be alone, forget everything. Maybe later. Not now.

‘I don’t want anything between me and the sky,’ she said, walking closer to the edge of the paved terrace where the drop was guarded by a stone balustrade. ‘I want to be outside where I can feel it.’

He let her go, didn’t follow her and she tried not to mind.

Minding was a waste of time. Worse. It was a stupid contradiction. Distance was what she had wanted and the old lady with the wand was, it seemed, still on the job, granting wishes as if they were going out of fashion.

She should be pleased.

It wasn’t as if she’d expected or needed to be diverted, amused. She had a pile of great books to amuse her, occupy her mind, and exploring the garden, wandering along the shore should be diversion enough for anyone. If the forbidden delights of Kal al-Zaki’s diversionary tactics hadn’t been such a potent reminder of everything she was missing. The life that she might have had if she hadn’t looked like Lady Rose.

But then, as the mauve band at the edge of the sky widened, became suffused with pink, she heard a step behind her and, as she half turned, Kal settled something soft around her.

For a moment his hands lingered on her shoulders, tense and knotted from sitting for too long, and without thinking she leaned into his touch, seeking ease from his long fingers. For a moment she thought he was going to respond, but then he stepped back, putting clear air between them.

‘You will get cold standing out here,’ he said with a brusqueness that suggested he had, after all, been affected by their closeness. That he, too, was aware that it would be inappropriate to take it further.

‘And you don’t want to explain to Lucy how I caught a chill on your watch?’ Light, cool, she told herself.

‘That wouldn’t bother me.’ He joined her at the balustrade, but kept his eyes on the horizon. ‘I’d simply explain that you stubbornly, wilfully insisted on standing outside in the chill of dawn, that short of carrying you inside there was nothing I could do about it. I have no doubt that she’d agree with me.’

‘She would?’ The idea of Rose being wilful or stubborn was so slanderous that she had to take a breath, remind herself that he was judging Rose on her behaviour, before she nodded and said, ‘She would.’ And vow to try a little harder-a lot harder-to be like the real thing.

‘His Highness, the Emir, on the other hand,’ Kal continued, ‘would be certain to think that I’d personally arranged for you to go down with pneumonia in order to cause him maximum embarrassment.’

He spoke lightly enough, inviting amusement, but she didn’t laugh, sensing the underlying darkness behind his words.

‘Why on earth would he think that?’ she asked, but more questions crowded into her head. Without waiting for him to answer, she added, ‘And why do you always refer to him as His Highness or the Emir?’ She made little quote marks with her fingers, something else she realised Rose would never do, and let her hands drop. ‘Sheikh Jamal is your uncle, isn’t he, Kal?’ she prompted when he didn’t answer.

‘Yes,’ he said shortly. Then, before she could say another word, ‘Someone will bring tea in a moment.’

‘This is your first visit here, too,’ she said, ignoring the abrupt change of subject. ‘Why is that?’

‘Watch the sunrise, for heaven’s sake,’ he practically growled at her.

In other words, Lydia, mind your own business, she thought, unsure whether she was pleased or sorry that she’d managed to rattle him out of his good manners.

Here was a mystery. A secret.

That she wasn’t the only one hiding something made her feel less guilty about the secret she was keeping for Rose, although no better about lying to him, and without another word she did as she was told.

Neither of them spoke or moved again while the darkness rolled back and the sun, still below the horizon, lit up bubbles of cloud in a blaze of colour that was reflected in the creek, the sea beyond, turning them first carmine, then pink, then liquid gold. As it grew light, the dark shapes against the water resolved themselves into traditional dhows moored amongst modern craft and beyond, sprawling over the steep bank on the far side of the creek, she could see a small town with a harbour and market which were already coming to life.

‘Wow,’ she said at last. ‘Double wow.’

She caught a movement as Kal turned to look at her and she shrugged.

‘Well, what other word is there?’ she asked.

‘Bab el Sama.’ He said the words softly. ‘The Gate of Heaven.’

She swallowed at the poetry of the name and said, ‘You win.’

He shook his head and said, ‘Are you done?’

‘Yes. Thank you for being so patient.’

‘I wouldn’t have missed it,’ he assured her as they turned and walked back towards the summer house-such an ordinary word for something that looked as if it had been conjured up by Aladdin’s djinn-where a manservant was laying out the contents of a large tray.

The man bowed and, eyes down, said, ‘Assalam alaykum, sitti. Marhaba.’

She turned to Kal for a translation. ‘He said, “Peace be upon you, Lady. Welcome.’”

‘What should I say in return?’

‘Shukran. Alaykum assalam,’ Kal said. ‘Thank you. And upon you peace.’

The man smiled, bowed again, when she repeated it, savouring the words on her tongue, locking them away in her memory, along with Bab el Sama. He left them to enjoy their breakfast in private.

As she chose a high-backed cane chair and sank into the vivid silk cushions, Kal unwrapped a napkin nestled in a basket to reveal warm pastries.

‘Hungry?’

‘I seem to have done nothing but eat since I left London,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to swim the creek once a day if I’m going to keep indulging myself this way.’

Maybe it was the thought of all that effort, but right now all she wanted to do was close her eyes and go to sleep. Tea would help, she told herself, just about managing to control a yawn.

‘Is that a yes or a no?’ he asked, offering her the basket.

‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,’ she said, succumbing to the enticing buttery smell. ‘I suppose it is breakfast time?’

‘It’s whatever time you care to make it,’ he assured her as he poured tea into two unbelievably thin china cups. ‘Milk, lemon?’

‘Just a touch of milk,’ she said. Then, ‘Should you be doing this?’ He glanced at her. ‘Waiting on me?’

Kal frowned, unable, for a moment, to imagine what she meant.

‘Won’t it ruin your image?’

‘Image?’

He hadn’t been brought up like his grandfather, his father, to believe he was a prince, above the mundane realities of the world. Nor, despite his Mediterranean childhood, was he one of those men who expected to live at home, waited on by a doting mother until he transferred that honour to a wife. Even if he had been so inclined, his mother had far more interesting things to do.

As had he.

His image was not about macho posturing. He had never needed to work, never would, but once he’d fallen in love with flying he had worked hard. He’d wanted to own aircraft but there was no fun in having them sit on the tarmac. He’d started Kalzak Air Services as a courier service. Now he flew freight worldwide. And he employed men and women-hundreds of them-on their qualifications and personal qualities first, last and everything in between.

‘Hanif nursed his first wife, nursed Lucy, too, when she was injured,’ he said.

‘He did?’

‘Lucy has not told you?’

‘Only that he loved her.’

‘He loved his first wife, too.’ The girl who had been chosen for him. A traditional arranged marriage. ‘He has been twice blessed.’

‘Maybe he is a man who knows how to love,’ she said.

Was that the answer?

It was not a concept he was comfortable with and, remembering what Lucy had said about Rose not being able to lift a finger without someone taking a photograph of her, he carried his own cup towards the edge of the promontory and leaned against the parapet. A man enjoying the view. It was what anyone would do in such a place.

The sun was in the wrong direction to reflect off a lens that would betray a paparazzo lying in wait to snatch a photograph. Not that he imagined they would ever be that careless. The only obvious activity was on the dhows as their crews prepared to head out to sea for a day’s fishing.

As he scanned the wider panorama, the distant shore, he saw only a peaceful, contented community waking to a new day, going about its business. He let the scene sink into his bones the way parched earth sucked up rain.

As a boy, his grandfather would have stood in this same spot, looking at the creek, the town, the desert beyond it, certain in the knowledge that every drop of water, every grain of sand would, insh’Allah, one day be his.

Except that Allah had not willed it. His grandfather had followed his heart instead of his head and, as a result, had been judged unworthy. A lesson he had learned well.

He drained his cup, took one last look, then returned to the summer house.

Sparrows, pecking at a piece of pastry, flew up at his approach and a single look was enough to tell him that Rose had fallen asleep, tea untouched, croissant untasted.

And, now that the sun had risen high enough to banish the shadows from the summer house and illuminate her clear, fair skin, he could see the faint violet smudges beneath her eyes.

Clearly sleep had eluded her aboard the plane and a long day, a long flight, had finally caught up with her. This was no light doze and he did not attempt to wake her, but as he bent and caught her beneath the knees she sighed.

‘Shh,’ he said, easing her arm over his shoulder, around his neck. ‘Hold on.’

On some level of consciousness she must have heard him because, as he lifted her out of the chair, she curled her hand around his neck and tucked her head into the hollow of his shoulder.

She wasn’t anywhere near as light, as ethereal as she looked, he discovered as he carried her along the path to Lucy and Han’s seaside retreat. Not an angel, but a real, solid woman and he was glad that the huge doors stood wide to welcome her.

He walked straight in, picking up a little group of women who, clucking anxiously, rushed ahead to open doors, circled round them tutting with disapproval and finally stood in his way when he reached her bedroom.

‘Move,’ he said, ‘or I’ll drop her.’

They scattered with little squeals of outrage, then, as he laid her on the bed, clicked his fingers for a cover in a manner that would have made his grandfather proud-and he would have protested was utterly alien to him-they rushed to do his bidding.

He removed her shoes but, about to reach for the button at her waist to make her more comfortable, he became aware of a silence, a collectively held breath.

He turned to look at the women clustered behind him, their shocked faces. And, remembering himself, took a step back.

That he could have undressed her in a completely detached manner had the occasion demanded it was not in question. But this was not London, or New York, or Paris. This was a world where a man did not undress a woman unless he was married to her. He should not even be in her room.

‘Make her comfortable,’ he said with a gesture that would have done his grandfather proud. Maybe it was the place calling to his genes, he thought as he closed the door behind him, leaving the women to their task.

Then, to an old woman who’d settled herself, cross-legged, in front of the door like a palace guard, ‘When she wakes she should have a massage.’

‘It will be done, sidi.’

Lord…

‘Don’t call me that,’ he said, straightening, easing his own aching limbs.

‘You don’t want to be given your title, Sheikh?’ she asked, clearly not in the slightest bit in awe of him. ‘Your grandfather wanted to be the Emir.’

About to walk away, he stopped, turned slowly back to face her.

‘You knew him?’

‘When he was a boy. A young man. Before he was foolish.’

She was the first person he’d met in Ramal Hamrah who was prepared to admit that. He sat before her, crossing his legs so that the soles of his feet were tucked out of sight.

‘Here? You knew him here?’

‘Here. In Rumaillah. At Umm al Sama. He was the wild one. Headstrong.’ She shook her head. ‘And he was stubborn, like his father. Once he’d said a thing, that was it.’ She brushed her palms together in a gesture he’d seen many times. It signalled an end to discussion. That the subject was closed. ‘They were two rocks.’ She tilted her head in a birdlike gesture, examining him closely. ‘You look like him,’ she said after a while. ‘Apart from the beard. A man should have a beard.’

He rubbed his hand self-consciously over his bare chin. He had grown a beard, aware that to be clean-shaven was the western way; it would be something else the Emir could hold against him.

‘My grandfather doesn’t have a beard these days,’ he told her. The chemo baldness hadn’t bothered him nearly as much as the loss of this symbol of his manhood and Kal had taken a razor to his own beard in an act of solidarity. It had felt odd for a while, but he’d got used to it.

‘They say that he is dying,’ she said. He did not ask who had said. Gossip flowed through the harem like water down the Nile.

‘But still stubborn,’ he replied. ‘He refuses to die anywhere but in the place he still calls home.’

She nodded, ‘You are stubborn, too,’ she said, reaching up to pat his hand. ‘You will bring him home, insh’Allah. It is your destiny.’

‘Who are you?’ he asked, with a sudden sinking feeling, the certainty that he had just made a complete fool of himself.

‘I am Dena. I was found, out there,’ she said with the wave of an elegant hand, the rattle of gold on her skinny wrists. ‘Your great-grandmother took me into her house. Made me her daughter.’

Oh, terrific. This woman was the adopted child of the Khatib and he’d spoken to her as if she were a servant. But from the way she’d settled herself in front of Rose’s bedroom door…

He’d been brought up on his grandfather’s stories, had studied his family, this country, clung to a language that his father had all but forgotten, but he still had so much to learn.

He uncurled himself, got to his feet. ‘My apologies, sitti,’ he said with a formal bow.

‘You have his charm, too,’ she said. ‘When you speak to him tell him that his sister Dena remembers him with fondness.’ Then, ‘Go.’ She waved him away. ‘Go. I will watch over your lady while you sleep.’

His lady…

Dena’s words echoed in his mind as he stood beneath the shower, igniting again the memory of Rose’s lips, warm, vital as they’d softened beneath him, parted for him. His mouth burned but as he sucked his lower lip into his mouth, ran a tongue over it, he tasted Rose and, instead of cooling it down, the heat surged like a contagion through his body.

Do you want me to protect her or make love to her…?

Lucy had not answered his question, but it would have made no difference either way. He was not free. He flipped the shower to cold and, lifting his face to the water, stood beneath it until he was chilled to the bone.

And still he burned.