Книга - Desert Nights: Falcon’s Prey / The Sheikh’s Virgin Bride / One Night With the Sheikh

Desert Nights: Falcon's Prey / The Sheikh's Virgin Bride / One Night With the Sheikh
PENNY JORDAN


Exotic escapes & the ultimate desert fantasy Falcon’s Prey Penny Jordan’s first Mills & Boon book!When ordinary English girl Felicia agreed to accompany her fiancé, Faisal, to his homeland, there was just one problem – Faisal’s uncle, Sheikh Raschid. Now Felicia’s realising that she might be engaged to the wrong man…The Sheikh’s Virgin Bride Petra is betrothed to a rich, eligible sheikh but she plans to ruin her reputation so he won’t want her. Sexy windsurfer Blaize agrees to be her pretend lover – though soon it’s the truth! Then Petra makes a shocking discovery…One Night With the SheikhWhen a storm left Mariella stranded at Sheikh Xavier’s desert home, passion took over. It was an unforgettable night! Then, having always yearned for a child, Mariella wanted just one more night with him – to conceive a baby…










Celebrate the legend that is

PENNY

JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than 200 books with sales of over 100 million copies!

Penny Jordan’s novels are read and loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. This beautiful collection of six volumes offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of a special selection of her fabulous stories.

As a special treat, each volume also includes an introductory letter by a different author. Some of the most popular names in romantic fiction share their personal thoughts and memories, which we hope you will enjoy.

Desert nights

Available in August 2012 This sizzling collection of Penny Jordan favourites features the renowned author’s first book for Mills & Boon and showcases the intense, passionate heroes she loved to create.


Dear Reader,

Falcon’s Prey was Penny’s first novel published by Mills & Boon and she was always rather proud of it. It’s easy to see why. The story contains all the essential elements which were to become trademark Jordan. The ordinary heroine in the shabby coat. The powerful male who intimidates everyone around him… until he falls hopelessly in love with that very ordinary girl.

Picking up the book today, it’s astonishing to find that it’s just as fresh as when it first came out in 1981. Immediately, the reader is swept up in the story and carried away by it. Penny had that knack of portraying emotion so openly and so honestly that it’s easy to feel instant identification with the heroine. And, of course—to fall in love with the hero! She went on to create this incredible alchemy with every single one of her books—two more of which are also included in this sizzling volume.

So many things have been written since Penny’s untimely death. Words like “legendary” and “glamorous” have peppered her eulogies—both true (and how she might have smiled to hear them!). Many people have pointed out what a fantastic mentor she became to new writers, and what a consummate professional she was. Again, true.

But I shall remember Penny as an animal-mad friend who lived for her writing. Who was as passionate about her hundredth-plus novel as she was about her first. Who poured everything she had into her current story and then found that extra something to pour in a little bit more. That’s the ‘secret’ behind a really great writer.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as millions of others have done.

With warmest wishes,

Sharon Kendrick



About the Author

PENNY JORDAN is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of a hundred and eight-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan: ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire, and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.



Mills & Boon


proudly presents a very special tribute

PENNY

JORDAN

COLLECTION




DESERT NIGHTS


Available in August 2012




WEDDING NIGHTS


Available in September 2012




MEDITERRANEAN NIGHTS


Available in October 2012




CHRISTMAS NIGHTS


Available in November 2012




PASSIONATE NIGHTS


Available in December 2012




SINFUL NIGHTS


Available in January 2013




Desert nights

Falcon’s Prey

The Sheikh’s Virgin Bride

One Night With the Sheikh


Penny Jordan












www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Falcon’s Prey


Penny Jordan




CHAPTER ONE


THE restaurant was well known and expensive, and Felicia had to pretend to be unaware of the waiter’s contemptuous appraisal of her shabby coat as she hurriedly surveyed the occupants of the tables.

Her spirits lifted when she saw Faisal, and the waiter, plainly reviewing his opinion of her when he saw with whom she was to dine, cleared a path for her with an alacrity which she secretly found amusing. It spoke volumes for the power of money, she reflected, as Faisal pushed back his chair and stood up, an appreciative smile lighting his handsome features.

‘I’m sorry I’m so late,’ she apologised as they sat down. ‘I was late leaving the office.’

‘The office! Zut! Have I not told you before to give up this worthless job?’ Faisal demanded with an arrogance that slightly dismayed her.

An attractive girl, with auburn hair that curled on to her shoulders and sombre green eyes that hinted at a natural reserve, Felicia was unaware of the assessing glances of some of the other diners. Although her neat ribbed sweater and toning tweed skirt instantly placed her apart from the elegant creatures in silks and furs who sat at the other tables, she had a lissom grace which automatically drew the male eye.

That Faisal was aware of this was obvious from the jealous looks he gave these other men who dared to look upon his Felicia; but Felicia herself was completely unaware of the slight stir caused by her entrance.

She had known the young Kuwaiti for just six breathless weeks. A mutual interest in photography had led to their initial meeting at night school classes and one or two casual dates had grown into regular thrice weekly meetings, and more latterly dates most nights of the week as Faisal grew increasingly possessive.

With Faisal’s insistence that he take her out to lunch most days of the week, and dates nearly every night as well, it had proved impossible to keep their romance a secret from the other girls in her office. At first they had teased her unmercifully, until they realised that the affair was becoming serious. Then their lighthearted teasing had turned to warnings of a more serious nature as they repeated direful tales of what could happen to European girls foolish enough to take the promises of rich males too seriously. Felicia kept her own counsel. She was sure that Faisal respected her too much to hurt her in the way that they were suggesting, but even so, she had been surprised and then flattered when he began to talk about marriage.

During these talks he had told her a good deal about his family, just as she had told him about her parents, dying so young and so tragically when she was little more than a baby, and leaving her to be brought up by Aunt Ellen and Uncle George in their bleak granite house on the Lancashire moors.

Her childhood had not been a happy one. Uncle George had been a strict and unbending guardian, whose constant rejection had built up in her a lack of self-confidence coupled with the feeling that in failing to gain his love she had somehow failed as a human being. Consequently, in the warmth of Faisal’s readily expressed adoration she had begun to bloom like a plant brought out of the frost into a tropical conservatory.

Faisal’s stories of his own childhood enchanted her, and she often reflected upon how fortunate he had been to be brought up surrounded by the love of his mother and sisters. If only she too might have been part of such a happy family!

She readily admitted that Faisal had swept her off her feet. They had not known one another nearly long enough, she protested when he talked beguilingly of marriage, but Faisal swept aside her protests. They were made for one another. How could she deny it? How could she, when he wrapped her in the protective warmth of his love? She had said nothing of this to the girls at work. Faisal merely wanted her as a playmate to while away his time in London before returning home to make a ‘good’ marriage, arranged by his family, they warned her, but Felicia knew that this was not so.

She and Faisal were not lovers. He had been at first reproachful, and then approving of her refusal to give in to his pleas that she spend her nights with him as well as her days.

Her refusal had nothing to do with being prudish, or a calculated holding out for something more permanent than an affair. The truth was that Felicia was half frightened of such as yet unknown intimacies. In her teenage years Uncle George had been far too strict to permit her to indulge in the usual sexual experimentation of her peers, and as she had grown older she had developed a fastidious hesitancy about committing herself to any purely physical relationship. The first time Faisal had kissed her, he had been gentle, and almost reverent. But more lately, as his desire for her increased, Felicia had to confess to a feeling of nervous, spiralling alarm. And yet what was there to be afraid of? she chided herself. Faisal loved her. He had said so on many, many occasions, and she had agreed to be his wife. At first she had been anxious in case her inexperience made him turn to another, more willing girl, but to her surprise he seemed to approve of her hesitancy, even while he railed against it.

‘It will be different once we are married,’ he had soothed one evening when his emotions had threatened to get out of control, and Felicia had moaned a small protest at the passion of his kiss, but she had been comforted by his words. Even now she could hardly believe that someone actually loved her. After all, she reflected humbly, there was nothing special about her; thousands of girls had creamy skin and red-gold hair; and thousands more had slender, elegant bodies; she was nothing out of the ordinary.

Faisal told her that she was far too modest. He told her that her eyes were as green as an oasis after rain, and her hair the colour of molten sand as the dying rays of the sun scorched it. He likened her body to the movement of a falcon in flight, and told her that with her milk-white skin and soft, vulnerable mouth she was his heart’s delight.

Already, despite her protests, he had bought her a ring—a flashing emerald to match her eyes, and so patently valuable that when she saw it Felicia had caught her breath in dismay.

Ten days ago Faisal had written to his family in Kuwait telling them of his intentions. Over the weeks Felicia had heard a good deal about Faisal’s family—his mother and two sisters, the life they led, but most of all Faisal had talked about his uncle, who, upon the death of Faisal’s father, had become the head of their household. Although it was never said directly, Felicia sensed that there existed a certain amount of constraint between Faisal and his uncle, and guessed that the older man did not always approve of the actions of the younger.

Felicia already knew that through his mother and uncle, Faisal was related to the ruling family of Kuwait and that this uncle had done much for the bereaved family, even to the extent of taking them into his own home and undertaking all the responsibility for the education of Faisal and his sisters.

The tribe to which Faisal belonged had come originally from the desert; fierce, proud warriors with a long history of tribal warfare and bloodshed. As recently as the lifetime of Faisal’s great-grandfather the tribes had waged war upon one another, and Faisal had confided to Felicia that his uncle’s grandmother had been an English girl, plucked from the desert by a hawk-eyed chieftain whose prompt action had probably saved her life. She was the daughter of an explorer, Faisal went on to explain, and as a reward for his timely rescue the desert chieftain had claimed the hand of his pale-skinned hostage in marriage.

Privately Felicia thought the story unbelievably romantic. She had longed to ask Faisal more about the couple, and found it vaguely comforting to know that there was already English blood running through the veins of the family into which she would be marrying.

Nowadays Faisal’s family no longer roamed the desert, for Faisal’s maternal grandfather had founded a merchant bank at the time that oil was first discovered in Kuwait, and now that bank had offices in New York and London, ruling a financial empire so vast and complex that Felicia’s head spun whenever Faisal tried to explain its workings to her. As he had also told her, and not without a hint of annoyance, this empire was directly controlled by his uncle, who was the majority shareholder, and who, therefore, had the power to manipulate Faisal, as an employee, very much like a pawn on a chessboard.

That Faisal should find this irksome, Felicia could well understand. She too had suffered from the dictatorial attitude of an unkind guardian. However, some of Faisal’s sulky observances concerning his uncle she was inclined to take with a pinch of salt. Faisal was an extremely wealthy young man, by anyone’s standards, kept short of nothing that would make his life more comfortable, and if his uncle was insisting that he learn the ropes of their business from the bottom upwards, so to speak, wasn’t this, in the long run, a sensible method of preparing him for the responsibility which would one day be his?

However, today Faisal seemed more inclined than usual to complain about his uncle, and sudden uneasy intuition made Felicia ask anxiously:

‘Have you heard something from Kuwait, Faisal?’

His dark eyes flashed angrily, reminding her for a moment how very young he was—barely twelve months older than her.

‘My uncle thinks we should wait before announcing our engagement,’ he admitted at last. ‘He is doing this deliberately. He does not want me to be happy.’

‘But we have only known one another a short time,’ Felicia soothed. ‘And it’s not as though your family know me at all. Naturally they must be anxious.’ She broke off to stare at Faisal, wondering what had changed his anger suddenly to excitement. ‘What have I said?’ she asked in bewilderment.

‘It is nothing—just that you voiced Uncle Raschid’s own doubts. You have never met my family and because of this he would have us delay our engagement, but I have thought of a way to outwit him, my Felicia, and force him to admit that he is wrong when he says that East and West cannot live in harmony. In his letter my uncle suggests that you might go to Kuwait to see for yourself how we live. Oh, I know what is behind his invitation,’ he added, before Felicia could speak. ‘He thinks that you will refuse—that you are as those other girls who flock around rich men like vultures to meat—but we shall prove him wrong, you and I. Once we are married there will be no need for us to spend much time in Kuwait, and Raschid knows this. Still he insists that you must accustom yourself to our ways. I know what is behind his thinking, but it will not work. Tell me you will go to Kuwait, Felicia, and prove him wrong in his assessment of you.’

Felicia was taken completely off guard. Whatever reaction she had expected from Faisal’s family it was not this! It was becoming increasingly plain that Faisal’s uncle did not want him to marry her. But why not? Didn’t he consider her as worthy of Faisal as a Kuwaiti girl? The thought sparked off instant anger and her chin lifted proudly. If Faisal wanted her to go to Kuwait with him to prove to this uncle just how wrong he was, then she would.

‘When are we to go?’ she asked determinedly, dismayed when Faisal flushed slightly.

‘I cannot go, Felicia,’ he muttered. ‘Uncle Raschid has given orders that I am to start work at the New York office in a week’s time.’

Felicia could barely take it in. ‘A week? But….’

‘Raschid is determined to part us,’ Faisal announced bitterly. ‘He knows I cannot ignore his command. Despite the fact that he is my uncle, I am only an employee until I get my shares—but that is not until I am twenty-five, another three years.’

‘I could come to New York with you,’ Felicia said eagerly, trying to find a way round Raschid’s edict. ‘I could get a job, I….’

Faisal shook his head regretfully.

‘It is not that simple, my lovely one. To get a job you would need a visa, which would not be easily forthcoming. Of course you could simply accompany me, but then Raschid will claim that you are my mistress, and my mother and sisters could then never acknowledge you. No.’ he said bleakly, ‘the only way is for you to convince Raschid that he is wrong, that you are not what he thinks you.’ He grasped her hands, his eyes pleading, and Felicia felt her anger melting. ‘Promise me you will go… for the sake of our future together. My mother will make you truly welcome, and Raschid will be forced to acknowledge his error.’

Unable to deny how pleasurable this prospect was, Felicia still frowned a little. Kuwait—a civilisation away. And yet if she refused. She would go! She would show Faisal’s uncle that English girls could be just as chaste as those of his own race. She would show him just how worthy of Faisal’s love she was! He was Uncle George all over again, she thought resentfully, rejecting her, casting her aside as though she were some sort of inferior being. Well, she would show him!

The rest of the meal passed in a daze for Felicia. A thousand questions clamoured for answers.

Not for one moment did she believe that Faisal’s uncle cared about her accustoming herself to their ways—no, he merely wanted to prove to her how unsuitable she was to be Faisal’s bride. Faisal himself had practically admitted as much. ‘Raschid will never expect you to accept his invitation,’ he said with a good deal of satisfaction, when Felicia conveyed her decision to him.

Invitation! Command, more like, Felicia thought wrathfully. A command to present herself for inspection and rejection. Well, for Faisal’s sake she would ‘present’ herself, but not for one moment was Faisal’s lordly uncle going to be allowed to think that he could pass judgement on her!

‘Come back with me to my apartment,’ Faisal begged her when they had finished eating. ‘There is much I must tell you about my family and our ways….’

Normally Felicia avoided being too much alone with Faisal, but tonight she did not demur, and in the taxi she plagued him with questions about his country.

‘Shall I have to wear a veil or go into purdah?’ she asked him anxiously.

Faisal shook his head.

‘Of course not. The older generation still adhere to those ways, but nowadays our girls are well educated, part of the equalization that has swept our country. Your will love Kuwait, Felicia, as I do myself. Although I must confess that I also love London, for different reasons….’

The sudden passion she saw flaring in his eyes made Felicia glad that the taxi had stopped. Faisal had an apartment in an expensive and exclusive Mayfair block, furnished with a modern décor of stark white walls and carpets, with plushy hide chesterfields in dark leather and a quantity of glass coffee tables and matching display shelves. She admired the apartment, but found it too palatial and immaculate; too impersonal in its stark elegance.

Faisal’s manservant greeted them, offering Felicia coffee which she refused, watching Faisal while he put on some music. The haunting and evocative sound of Felicia’s favorite song swept the room; Faisal pressed a button, instantly dimming the lights, the heavy off-white curtains shutting out their aerial view of London.

As he took her in his arms, Felicia felt herself stiffen slightly. Why couldn’t she relax? she chided herself. Faisal meant her no harm. He was, after all, the man she was going to marry. What was the matter with her? Why could she not abandon herself to the passion she had heard other girls discussing so frankly?

‘What is wrong?’ Faisal whispered, unconsciously reiterating her own thoughts. ‘You stiffen and tremble at my touch like a dove in the talons of a hawk,’ he told her indulgently. ‘When we are parted, I shall dream of the moment when I lift the gold necklace from your bridal caftan and unfasten the one hundred and one buttons, to discover the one thousand and one beauties of your body. Do not worry,’ he assured her confidently, ‘your reluctance is as it should be. You are as chaste as the milk-white doves my mother keeps in her courtyard, and soon my uncle shall know that for himself.’

There was a certain element of satisfaction in his words, but Felicia could not help trembling a little with fear. Faisal seemed so confident that once they were married she would respond with passion to his lovemaking, but what if this should not be so? What if she was incapable of passion? Although her heart thrilled to his words of love, her body felt only nervous fear. Faisal’s desire for her was increased by his knowledge that she had had no other lover, she knew that. But what if this had not been so? Did he love her, or her chastity? She banished the thought as unworthy. This was undoubtedly an after-effect of Faisal’s disclosure concerning his uncle. It was only natural that Faisal should place greater importance on purity in his bride than her own countrymen, it was part and parcel of his upbringing. And yet this admission served only to stir fresh doubts.

‘It is just as well that I am not rich enough to support more than one wife,’ Faisal murmured with a small smile in his voice, ‘for with you in my arms I could want no other, Felicia.’

It was this knowledge to which she must cling in the weeks ahead, Felicia reminded herself—not her own lack of reaction to Faisal’s lovemaking. It was only her inexperience that made her doubt her capacity for response. However, his remark about the four wives permitted to men of the Moslem faith had also disturbed her. It came as a shock to remember that he came from a vastly different culture from her own; a culture that permitted a man more than one wife as long as he was able to maintain them all in equal comfort; a culture that made no pretence of being anything other than male-orientated, and yet the Arab women she had seen were always so serene, Felicia acknowledged, so candidly appealing; so protected from all the unpleasantness of life by their male relatives. There was the other side to the coin, though; harsh punishments for those women who went against the rulings of the Koran, or so Felicia had read, and she could not in all honesty picture herself as merely a dutiful plaything, living only through her husband.

All at once the task ahead loomed ominously. If only Faisal could accompany her to Kuwait, to ease those first uncomfortable and uncertain days when she was still a stranger to his family. How subtle his uncle had been, suggesting this visit; more subtle than she had at first realised. Although Faisal was a comparatively wealthy young man, as he had told her, the bulk of his inheritance was tied up in the family merchant banking empire, held in trust for Faisal by his uncle until his twenty-fifth birthday. Until that time Faisal was virtually dependent upon his uncle both for employment and finance. Discarding the disloyal thought that Faisal could have got round his uncle’s edict simply by finding a job in England as totally impractical, Felicia acknowledged uneasily that at present it appeared that Faisal’s uncle had the upper hand.

Here she was, virtually committed to journeying alone to a strange country, forced to court the approval of a man who, she was sure, was deliberately trying to force her to show herself in a bad light, and would probably never approve of their marriage.

‘Are you sure your mother will like me, Faisal?’ she asked in a small uncertain voice.

‘She will love you as I do,’ he promised. ‘It will not be so bad, you will see. I am to spend two months in New York, and then we shall be together again. Then we shall make plans for our wedding. Perhaps it is as well that you will be with my family. That way no other man can cast covetous eyes upon you. You are mine, Felicia,’ he told her arrogantly, unobservant of the faint shadows lingering in her eyes.

Faisal drove her back to her flat himself in the car he kept parked in the underground car-park provided for the use of the apartment tenants. It was an opulent Mercedes with cream leather upholstery and every refinement known to technological man, from a hidden cocktail cabinet to a GPS system.

Privately Felicia considered that Faisal drove too fast, but on the one occasion she had mentioned this to him he had looked so angry that she had not done so again.

‘As you are a guest of my family, it is only right that we should pay all your expenses,’ he told her when he stopped the car outside the small and rather shabby bedsit that had been her home since she first came to London.

Felicia protested, unwilling for Faisal’s family to think of her as being financially grasping and reminding him that the knowledge that she had not paid for her own ticket would surely influence his uncle against her.

‘He will not know,’ he assured her carelessly, ‘and besides, you will need some new clothes, more suitable for our climate.’

It struck Felicia that perhaps he feared that she would shame him with her small wardrobe, for she was aware of the importance his family placed upon outward show, and so, unwillingly, she allowed him to persuade her to accept the gift of her ticket and save her money for what he termed ‘necessary expenditure’.

The days flew past, with her seeing Faisal every evening. She wanted to learn as much about the country she was going to as she could, and often by the time Faisal took her home her brain was a confused jumble of facts and figures.

Even so, she could not help but admire the tireless energy of the Kuwait Government when she learned just how much had been achieved in such a very short span of time.

Even allowing for the fact that the country’s vast oil revenues had made many types of technological advancement possible, the swift rebuilding after the war left her breathless.

Naturally Faisal was proud of his country’s progress, the more so because his own family had had a large part in it. It was with great sincerity that he told Felicia of their democratic form of government, with the Head of State chosen from amongst the descendants of Sheikh Mubarak al Sabah, who had ruled the country from 1896 to 1915, and was, even now, referred to simply as ‘Al Kebir’—The Great.

Although Faisal deliberately played the relationship down, Felicia was a little dismayed to learn that his family were distantly connected to the ruling house. Faisal assured her that she must not let this overwhelm her, but she was beginning to see why his uncle Raschid might not approve of Faisal’s choice of bride.

Naturally, she was fascinated by this glimpse into another world—albeit a very rich and exotic one; however, whenever she tried to voice her doubts as to her ability to cope with so many changes, Faisal merely laughed, telling her that his family would adore her.

‘Even Raschid will be impressed by your beauty. You have the colouring of his grandmother,’ he told her, eyeing her speculatively. ‘You will surprise him with your innocence and modesty.’

Felicia could only pray that this was indeed so, pressing Faisal to tell her a little more about his own background.

Nothing loath, he described to her the modern town of Kuwait, which had now taken the place of the old mud-brick port. His family had extensive financial interests in the city—their bank had helped finance the erection of a modern hotel in which they held a controlling interest, and there were other buildings, office blocks, apartments, shipping interests; all of which made Felicia uneasily aware of the vast gap that lay between them.

Kuwait had one of the best social service systems in the world, Faisal boasted proudly, with excellent schooling, a hospital system that would have made a Harley Street surgeon pea-green with envy and very much more. Felicia was properly impressed, but Faisal shrugged it all aside. ‘Much is made possible by money,’ he told her. ‘But there is still the huge vastness of the desert, which Uncle Raschid claims will never be tamed. For myself I prefer London or New York, and it is in one of these cities that we shall make our home.’

Felicia was surprised that this should make her faintly sorry.

She noticed also that Faisal was at pains to assure her that although most Kuwaitis were adherents to the Moslem faith, there was no bias against people of other faiths; nor would she be expected to change her own religion when they married.

‘That at least is something Uncle Raschid cannot hold against you,’ he surprised her by saying, ‘for although all of us are of the Moslem faith, because of the great love Raschid’s grandfather bore his English wife, her descendants are of your faith, thus Uncle Raschid himself is a Christian.’

Christian or not, Felicia was not looking forward to making his acquaintance—especially without Faisal’s comforting support. The eventual confrontation loomed unpleasantly on the horizon, but not wanting to burden Faisal with her own worries, she kept her fears to herself, trying to ensure that their last few days together were as carefree as possible.

For Faisal’s sake she would do all she could to make a good impression on his uncle, but her pride would not let her adopt a fawning attitude to an older male relative—no matter how he might disapprove of her independence!

With her seat booked, she handed in her notice at work, and carefully scoured the shops for suitable clothes. Fortunately the early summer fashions were already on display and she had no trouble at all in buying half a dozen pretty cotton dresses and pastel-toned separates.

She hesitated over the purchase of beach clothes, but as Faisal had told her that the beaches off Failaka Island and the surrounding coast were particularly beautiful, she succumbed to the lure of the matching apple-green set of shorts, bikini and jacket. Egged on by the assistant, she added another bikini in swirling blues and greens which complemented her eyes, and a plain black swimsuit for good measure, unaware that its skilful cut emphasised the slender length of her legs and the unexpectedly full curve of her breasts. One evening dress in palest Nile green silk completed her new wardrobe, and although she could barely afford it, Felicia could not deny that the slender slip of fabric was infinitely becoming, tiny diamanté straps supporting the swathed bodice, the skirt falling in folds to whisper seductively round slender legs. Her purchases complete, she allowed herself the luxury of a taxi back to her small bedsit. Faisal was taking her out to dinner and as it would be their last evening together, she wanted to look her best.

As she put away her new clothes, her eyes alighted on the jewellers’ box which contained the emerald he had bought her. Only the previous evening they had quarrelled because she refused to wear it until their engagement had the sanction of his family. He had teased her about being old-fashioned, but she sensed that to flaunt the opulent stone before his uncle would immediately set his back up. She suspected that the older man would hold rigid and old-fashioned views on such subjects, and while she intended in no way to kow-tow to him, she had no wish to deliberately offend against his opinions.

Even so, it was hard not to feel bitter about his obvious contempt of her—contempt he had expressed overtly in his letter to Faisal, and this without knowing the first thing about her! Perhaps it was this bitterness that made her more reckless than usual, choosing to wear a dress which had hung unworn in her wardrobe ever since she had bought it, deeming it too sophisticated and eye-catching.

She had purchased it at the insistence of the colleague with whom she had gone shopping, and afterwards had regretted the impulsive buy, deeming it more suitable for the baby blue eyes and blonde curls of her friend than herself. Not that she had anything against the colour as such. The dress was black, which she knew suited her creamy skin, but it was low-cut, with a pencil-slim skirt, slit up one side to reveal slim thighs, its design emphasising her curves to a degree which made her feel acutely self-conscious. It was just the sort of dress Faisal’s uncle would expect a gold-digging girl to choose, she acknowledged wryly as she zipped it up, and she was in two minds whether or not to change it when she heard Faisal’s knock on the door.

His eyes smouldered with desire when she went to let him in, and she was glad of the long-sleeved jacket which went with the dress, although she could not help noticing how the matt black fabric made her auburn hair seem much more vivid than usual, darkening her eyes to a slumbrous, mysterious jade.

Faisal himself looked extremely smart, dressed in a plum velvet dinner suit—affected on anyone else, but somehow on him exactly right—his complexion somehow more olive and Eastern so that she was immediately reminded of the vast gulf in their cultures.

‘I wish we were eating in my apartment—alone—and not in a restaurant where I must share your beauty with others,’ Faisal murmured huskily, capturing her hands.

She tensed as he kissed her, telling herself that with their parting so very imminent it was no wonder that she felt so nervous. Even so, she was glad when he released her, bending to help her into her fake fur jacket.

‘Why will you not let me buy you a proper fur?’ he grumbled as he led the way to his car. ‘You are very stubborn and foolish. Remember that once you are my wife I shall have the power to compel you to accept whatever gifts I choose to bestow upon you.’

‘Then you may buy me as many fur coats as you please,’ Felicia retorted lightly, wishing she could throw off the childhood training which prevented her from responding to him as lovingly as she would have wished.

Faisal, however, seemed to notice nothing amiss in her response. Felicia knew that he would have bought her the sun, the moon and all the stars if she let him, but she had no intention of accepting expensive gifts from him before their marriage. She knew from listening to his friends’ conversation what they thought of girls who gave their favours so freely in return for a diamond bracelet or a fur, and she wondered if those same girls had the slightest idea of the contempt in which they were held by their erstwhile escorts. Soberly she admitted that Faisal’s uncle might have grounds for doubting her suitability as a wife; but surely Faisal was capable of using his own judgment in these matters? He was not, after all, a child, and her anger at his uncle’s casual dismissal of her burned afresh, bringing a sparkle to her eyes and a faint flush of colour to her cheeks.

Faisal had booked a table at one of the newer Mayfair clubs. The club had a gaming room, which was full of expensively jewelled women and their wealthy companions, but when they had eaten, it was to the dim privacy of the dance floor that Faisal led Felicia, taking her in his arms and holding her closely against him as they swayed to the strains of the latest poignant ballad.

It was stuffy on the dance floor, cigar smoke mingling with the rich perfumes of the women, and Felicia had left her jacket behind at their table. She wished Faisal would not hold her so tightly, nor so closely, but every time she tried to move slightly away, his grip tightened, a look in his eyes that warned her of the effect she was having upon him.

As they danced, she became uncomfortably aware of speculative eyes upon them as an Arab who had been at the gaming tables wandered across to watch the dancers.

She was just about to ask Faisal if he knew the onlooker, when he swore suddenly, releasing her, frowning, as he acknowledged the other man’s presence.

‘What’s the matter?’ Felicia protested, as he attempted to usher her off the floor.

‘Do you know that man? He seems to be trying to attract your attention.’

‘He is an acquaintance of my uncle’s,’ Faisal replied tersely. ‘And he is bound to tell him that he saw us here together.’

‘Does it matter?’ Felicia protested in some bewilderment, unable to understand the reason for Faisal’s annoyance.

‘He is not a man of honourable reputation,’ Faisal explained. ‘I do not wish to introduce you to him, but if I do not, and he tells Raschid, Raschid will think I have not done so because I am ashamed of you. He will also think it not fitting that I bring you to such a place.’

‘But that’s ridiculous!’ Felicia started to protest, falling silent as the Arab suddenly stepped out of the crowd in front of them.

‘By the Prophet! Faisal al-Najar!’ he exclaimed genially, but Felicia was aware of the speculation in his eyes, and flushed with embarrassment at the way they roved her body.

That Faisal was furious she could tell, and despite all the other man’s attempts to draw him into conversation, Faisal stubbornly insisted that they were on the point of leaving and could not delay.

At first amused by his refusal to acknowledge her presence, Felicia’s amusement gave way to annoyance when he persisted in engaging Faisal in further conversation. Listening rather half-heartedly to his description of events which in no way included her, she learned that he had been at the gaming tables when he saw them dancing and that he had lost several thousand pounds. Even without Faisal’s remarks to colour her judgment Felicia knew that she would not have liked him. He was shorter than Faisal and rather squat, with small, narrow eyes which flicked lasciviously over her person to return knowingly to Faisal’s angry face.

‘What’s all this I hear about you going to New York?’ he exclaimed as they were on the point of leaving. ‘Plenty of obliging women there, my friend!’

He gave Faisal a look that made Felicia freeze with resentment, longing to tell him that she was not Faisal’s mistress, but Faisal himself cut him short, exclaiming angrily,

‘I have no interest in the charms of other women. My uncle may have told you that I hope to be married shortly.’

LATER, WHEN they were on their way home, Felicia asked Faisal if he thought it was wise to mention marriage, especially when his uncle had not yet approved it, but Faisal seemed to have lapsed into a brooding silence.

‘That he should dare to look at you so!’ he exclaimed violently, as he swung the car into the road where she lived. His hands were clenched over the steering wheel, and Felicia wondered if he was perhaps thinking that had she been an Arab girl the confrontation would never have been allowed to occur.

‘Our last evening together, and it is quite spoiled!’ In that moment, with his handsome face marred by a scowl, Felicia was hard put not to laugh. He reminded her so much of a small boy, thwarted in some desire.

‘There will be other evenings,’ she consoled him. ‘And I’m coming to Heathrow with you tomorrow. I suppose you’re travelling first-class?’

‘Is there any other way?’ he asked with a touch of hauteur that reminded her once again of the wide gulf that lay between them. He stopped the car, taking her in his arms, and kissing her with a fierce passion that previously he had always held in control. The violence of his emotions unnerved Felicia. She tried not to shrink under the pressure of his kiss, but he sensed her withdrawal, releasing her with a murmured apology.

‘I forget how truly innocent you are. But soon we shall be man and wife, and then I shall teach you to respond to me, my cool white dove. I shall write to you, and you must write to me. You will soon be able to persuade my uncle to relent.’

He sounded so sure, so confident; but Felicia could not share his confidence. She was full of misgivings. Faisal’s uncle would never accept her, and yet somehow she had to find a way of proving to him that she would make Faisal as good a wife as any Moslem girl.

Pride sparkled in her eyes. She would do it. She would find a way. She would show Faisal’s uncle the stuff of which English girls were made!




CHAPTER TWO


BRAVE words! But she was feeling far from brave now, Felicia acknowledged as she stared out of the plane window and down on to the banked clouds below. Unbelievably, she had never flown before, Continental holidays being disapproved of by Uncle George, and outside her slender budget in any case.

The other passengers were obviously well seasoned travellers; businessmen with tired faces and bulging briefcases; Arabs in traditional white robes wearing headdresses held in place by cords she had learned from Faisal were called igals.

Some of the male passengers were displaying a keen interest in the stewardesses, and watching the neatly uniformed girls going about their business. Felicia lost any envy she had ever had of their supposedly glamorous lives; the girls seemed to be little more than glorified waitresses! One of them had made a special point of putting her at her ease, showing her how to use the earphones that tuned into eight different channels of music, or permitted one to listen to the in-flight film.

It was a long flight—six hours, although with the time difference Felicia knew that she would lose another three hours as Kuwait was three hours in front of Greenwich Mean Time, and many of the more seasoned travellers were apparently asleep. Felicia had started to watch the film, but the tight knot of tension that had been steadily taking possession of her insides from the moment the plane took off refused to let her relax, and after a very short time she abandoned the film, devoting her attention instead to her fellow travellers. Faisal had insisted that she travel first-class, and she was grateful for his insistence when she saw the cramped quarters of the economy cabin, full of what looked like entire Arab families, complete with crying babies and restless toddlers.

In the plane’s hold was her shiny new luggage, all neatly labelled, and the small gifts she had purchased for Faisal’s mother and sisters.

She had not bought anything for Faisal’s uncle, quite deliberately so. They would not meet as friends and she was not going to give him the opportunity to hand her gift back to her with sneered accusations of bribery, or of trying to flatter him into acceptance of her.

And yet wasn’t that exactly what Faisal wanted her to do? she asked herself uneasily; use her charm to try and sway his judgment? Her thoughts gave her no peace, jostling this way and that until her head ached with the effort of trying to reconcile her heart with her head. In the end she abandoned her efforts to put herself in the right frame of mind to meet Faisal’s ‘wicked uncle’ and concentrated her thoughts instead on the other members of Faisal’s family.

For his mother, who quite obviously worshipped him, she had bought perfume, and for his younger sister, soon to be married, a luxurious make-up kit with all the latest eye-shadows and lipsticks. His elder sister had been a little more difficult. Felicia knew that Nadia was married with a small child and that her husband was in charge of the Saudi Arabian branch of the family bank, so she had bought her an exquisite glass paperweight which had caught her eye in an expensive London store.

Indeed the paperweight was so beautiful that for an instant Felicia had been tempted to keep it for herself, but her present-buying had already stretched her slender budget to its limits and regretfully she admitted that she could not afford two such luxurious items; not when she had bought herself what amounted to a complete new wardrobe for this trip. Even now the extent of her spending spree dismayed her, but she wanted Faisal to be proud of her, so she had dipped quite deeply into the small nest egg she had been saving ever since she had started work.

When the skies opened out beneath them, and the businessmen began to ruffle their papers, Felicia guessed that they were nearing journey’s end.

In the small washroom she inspected her make-up, hoping anxiously that the heat would not make her nose shine. Her skin was very fair and burned easily. She had deliberately used even less make-up than usual, not wanting to offend against Moslem tradition, and inspected her reflection anxiously in the mirror, hoping that she would not look too pale and washed out in comparison to the dusky Arabian beauties of Kuwait. Faisal had told her that in the Arab world, Kuwaiti women had the reputation of being the most beautiful, and she was dreading letting him down by comparing unfavourably with his countrywomen.

Strained green eyes stared nervously back at her, the length and thickness of her eyelashes startling against her pale skin. A faint flush of natural colour highlighted her high cheekbones, her mouth curving vulnerably beneath its covering of lip-gloss. She was wearing her hair loose, and it curled luxuriantly on to her shoulders, shimmering like raw silk whenever she moved. Should she wear it up in a discreet knot? she agonised, lifting it off her shoulders. It would look much tidier. Outside she heard the metallic request for seat belts to be fastened and realising that there was no time, she let it drop back on to her shoulders, running cold water over her wrists and dabbing on her favourite perfume, before hurrying back to her seat.

‘Chanel Number Five—my favourite,’ the stewardess commented with a smile, as Felicia sat down. ‘Soon be down now.’

Felicia’s stomach clenched as the big jet descended on to the runway. The engines screamed protestingly as the captain applied reverse thrust, then they were taxiing gently down the runway.

AS SHE EMERGED from the aircraft, the heat and noisy bustle of the airport almost threatened to overwhelm her, and then she was anxiously following the other disembarking passengers to have her visa and passport inspected.

The official who took her passport flashed her a warm, appreciative smile, as he glanced from her photograph to her face. There was a tiny scar high on her arm from the mandatory typhoid injection and tucked away in her handbag were the salt tablets Faisal had warned her that she would need as the temperature started to climb into the eighties and nineties.

Everyone apart from herself seemed to know exactly where they were going and what to do. An incomprehensible flood of Arabic washed all round her, punctuated here and there by heavily accented English from the taxi drivers and porters.

Felicia looked round in despair. Faisal had told her that she would be met at the airport, but by whom? Could one of these immaculately uniformed chauffeurs be waiting for her?

She was just debating the wisdom of making enquiries at the Tourist Information Desk, when a tall figure strode towards her, effortlessly parting the milling crowds.

‘Miss Gordon?’

He was tall; taller than Faisal by several inches, and his voice held the certainty of a man who makes a statement rather than asks a question. She probably did stand out like a sore thumb, Felicia acknowledged wryly, but need he make her feel like an unwanted package he had come to collect?

She gave him a faltering smile, instantly quenched as she felt his cool scrutiny. Now, when it was too late, she wished that she had found time to put her hair up. It would have given her some badly needed sophistication. She darted her companion a surreptitious glance. Was he a relative of Faisal’s, or just an employee sent to collect her?

‘My luggage,’ she murmured hesitantly, noticing the impatient manner in which he shot back the cuff of an immaculate pale grey silk suit to glance at the heavy gold Rolex watch strapped to his wrist. The gesture, so completely and arrogantly male, disturbed her, although she could not have said why.

‘Ali is collecting your luggage,’ she was told. ‘Come.’

He took her arm, propelling her through the crowd. Even Felicia, inexperienced in these matters, was aware of his aura of command. His clothes looked expensive, his manner cool and decisive, and she decided that whoever he was, he was obviously a man of some importance, used to giving orders rather than taking them.

Dazzled by the colour and light, she hurried wearily after him to a waiting Mercedes, humiliatingly forced to drop behind him when his pace increased.

There was nothing welcoming in his manner. In fact he seemed to derive considerable mocking amusement from her hot and bothered state.

In the sunshine his hair had the blue-black gleam of a raven’s wing, thick, and long enough to cover the collar of his suit. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses, and Felicia was surprised to see that his eyes were grey and not brown, a cold, hard grey like the North Sea in winter. She shivered suddenly, and a chill ran over her despite the heat.

When she hesitated by the car he raised his eyebrows in silent mockery.

‘A plane leaves for England in three hours, if you have changed your mind,’ he told her.

Changed her mind? Felicia shot him a suspicious glance. Was that what he had been expecting? Was that why he had been so offhand with her? Obviously Faisal’s uncle had confided in him, and her soft lips tightened at the thought of the two of them discussing her disparagingly. No doubt for all his outward Westernised appearance this man was as much a traditionalist as Faisal’s uncle. He had looked her over and found her wanting. She tilted her chin and looked up at him bravely, quelling her fear. Already the sun was dropping over the horizon with a speed that surprised her, used as she was to the more leisurely sunsets of more northerly climes.

‘I am not going back,’ she told him firmly.

In the silence that prickled between them she could almost feel his antagonism and then he was holding open the car door, his expression unfathomable.

‘Please get in, Miss Gordon,’ he requested curtly. ‘It is an hour’s drive to the villa.’

Did he have to make her feel like a stupid child? she asked herself crossly, as she got into the Mercedes. After all, despite his air of authority he could scarcely be much more than thirty-two or -three—a little more than ten years older than she was herself.

The chauffeur—who she guessed must be ‘Ali’—appeared with her luggage, which was stowed away in the trunk, and then they were driving out of the airport and down a wide tarmac road in the direction of Kuwait itself.

Felicia stole a glance at her companion’s impassive face. He must know how strange and nervous she felt, and yet he made no attempt to put her at her ease—very well, she decided mutinously, she was not going to be the one to end the smothering silence. He moved slightly, thick black lashes veiling his eyes as he turned his head suddenly to look at her. Colour flooded her cheeks. Now he would think she had been staring at him! Hateful man!

‘No doubt Faisal has prepared you for the kind of life we live here in Kuwait,’ he drawled coolly in perfect accentless English, which Felicia suspected was the product of an exclusive public school.

‘He has spoken to me of his family, yes,’ she replied equally disdainfully. She paused deliberately, then added, as though it were an afterthought, ‘And of his uncle, of course. You know him?’

‘To judge from the exceedingly challenging note in your voice, you have already come to your own conclusions,’ her companion replied very dryly. ‘But I shall answer your question anyway. Yes, I know him.’

‘And you know that he does not approve of our engagement as well, I suppose?’ Felicia said bitterly.

‘Engagement?’

Did she imagine the faint hardening of those cruel lips as they looked down at her ringless hand?

‘Faisal wanted us to be engaged,’ she flashed back, thoroughly enraged, ‘but I prefer to wait until we can have the sanction of his family.’

‘How very wise!’ he mocked sardonically. ‘But then of course any marriage without Raschid’s approval would result in a discontinuation of Faisal’s extremely generous allowance, as I am sure you already know.’

His words shocked Felicia into momentary silence, and then colour stormed her pale face as she contemplated their significance. Her fingers clenched into small, impotent fists. How dared he insinuate that she had deliberately and calculatedly persuaded Faisal to wait because she was motivated by greed? If Faisal’s uncle thought like this man she would have no hope of persuading him to accept her. The thought made her reckless.

‘I would have married Faisal without his uncle’s sanction,’ she stormed, ‘but he didn’t want to cause a rift in his family. His money means nothing to me. It’s him that I love!’

‘And that is why he has sent you to persuade Raschid? You with your red-gold hair and sea-green eyes? Did he tell you that you bear an unmistakable resemblance to Raschid’s grandmother?’

Felicia’s colour betrayed her, and he surveyed her in silent contempt, his eyes cold.

‘You have come on a fool’s errand, Miss Gordon. Faisal knows that Raschid will not give his consent to any betrothal. Indeed I suspect this is merely another of his attempts to persuade Raschid to release to him the control of his inheritance. How much is he paying you to come here and….’

‘It’s not like that!’ Felicia stormed. ‘I love Faisal and he loves me….’

‘How very touching!’ he mocked, ignoring her distress. ‘But Raschid will never give his consent.’

His arrogance infuriated her.

‘How do you know?’ she demanded incautiously. ‘Who are you to speak for him?’

‘Who am I?’ he repeated softly, his eyes narrowed and watching. ‘Why, Miss Gordon, I thought you must have guessed. I am Faisal’s uncle, Sheikh Raschid al Hamid Al Sabah.’ Mocking irony informed the words, and Felicia was glad of the encroaching dusk to mask her confusion. She supposed she ought to have guessed, she thought tiredly, but somehow she had it firmly fixed in her mind that Raschid would be a much older man. He had deliberately deceived her, she thought angrily, aware of the merciless scrutiny of cold grey eyes that told her how much he was enjoying her embarrassment.

You can’t be Raschid, she wanted to protest. She had expected a man of middle age, with a greying beard and the traditional flowing white robes; this man with his expensive European clothes and elegantly groomed appearance bore no resemblance at all to the Raschid of her imaginings.

He had tricked her into a trap, and she had foolishly helped him, but there was one point at least that she could make clear.

‘I do love Faisal,’ she told him shakily. ‘And I loved him before I knew he was your nephew.’

Green eyes clashed with grey, but it was Felicia’s that dropped first.

‘And what, I wonder, is that supposed to mean?’

At his side Felicia fumed silently. He had already trapped her into enough indiscretion; she was not going to compound her folly by admitting that she suspected he believed her interest in Faisal stemmed from avarice.

They were driving through the heart of the city and she roused herself sufficiently to stare interestedly out of the car window, ignoring the silent disparagement of the man at her side. Faisal had told her that his family lived on the coast between Kuwait and the town of Al Jahrah, although apparently his uncle had a villa at the oasis which had been the original home of their tribe.

‘This is Arabian Gulf Street,’ Raschid informed her dryly. ‘It runs along the coast. If you look carefully you will see the Sief Palace.’

Mutinously Felicia ignored him, staring resolutely through the window. As the car swept down the road a shattering wail broke the silence, jerking her upright to stare wide-eyed out of the car.

‘The muezzin,’ her companion said sardonically. ‘This is the hour of sunset when the faithful must face Mecca and pray, but if you expect to see them do so in the streets as they once did, you will be disappointed, Miss Gordon. Nowadays our lives are ruled by more mundane needs than prayer.’

‘But you’re a Christian,’ Felicia began impulsively, remembering what Faisal had told her, and falling silent when she saw the anger tightening his face.

‘By baptism, yes,’ he agreed curtly. ‘But make no mistake, I live my life according to the laws of my family, laws which Faisal’s wife will have to obey as implicitly as he does himself. Make no mistake, Miss Gordon, my English blood will not incline me to look favourably upon you, no matter what Faisal might have told you.’

Felicia snatched a look at the forbidding line of his mouth, and knew that he meant what he said. Despair filled her. She had promised Faisal that she would do her best to impress his uncle, and yet already she had aroused his anger and, worse, his contempt. Crossly she bit her lip, fuming in silence until they were clear of the town, the powerful car carrying them swiftly through the suburbs, where houses of all shapes and designs jostled one another, the scent of lime trees heavy on the evening air, when Raschid pressed the button to wind down his window and throw out the stub of the thin cigar he had been smoking.

‘Still sulking?’ he drawled when Felicia remained silent. ‘And yet I am sure Faisal impressed upon you the importance of gaining my goodwill.’

‘Which we both know will never be forthcoming,’ Felicia shot back unwisely. ‘I know why you suggested this visit. You wanted to part us, to prove to Faisal that I will not make him a good wife, to make him have second thoughts….’ To her horror her voice wavered and weak tears blurred her vision. ‘Well, you won’t succeed!’ she stormed at him. ‘We love each other, and I would still love him even if he were a beggar!’

Her companion’s mouth twisted sardonically.

‘Woman’s eternal cry when she knows there is little chance of it coming to pass. Faisal could no more live in poverty than you could yourself.’ He looked at the expensive linen suit she had bought for travelling, his eyes mocking. ‘Look at yourself, Miss Gordon. From the top of your undeniably lovely head to the tips of your feet, you evidence expensive grooming. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you would live in poverty with my nephew—a boy who has never wanted for anything in his life?’

But I have wanted, Felicia wanted to throw at him. And I’ve wanted the most important thing of all—love! But she knew better than to expect the man seated opposite her to understand her deep-seated need for that. Money was all he understood, she thought bitterly. Money and power.

‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ she said eventually, ‘but you won’t succeed. You’re a cruel, hard man, Sheikh, and I know you for my enemy!’

In the darkness she saw the white flash of his smile.

‘Enemies?’ His voice was like velvet. ‘Is that what you think? In our country there is no enmity between man and woman.’

‘There is between the hawk and the dove, though,’ Felicia retorted, ‘and that’s what you are—a cruel predator, determined to destroy our love.’

‘And you are the dove?’

He was sneering openly, his eyes contemptuous as they rested on her slender form beneath its linen covering. ‘Vulture would be a more appropriate description, don’t you agree?’

There was nothing to be gained by arguing with him, Felicia thought, blinking away weak tears. The uncle of her imaginings had been bad enough, but the reality was far worse. She, who had never hated anyone in her life, disliked him so acutely that the emotion was almost tangible, filling the silence between them with crackling hostility as the car swept past the oil tank farm, the glare from the oilfields illuminating the distant horizon, a sombre reminder that she changed her world for Faisal’s.

They were travelling parallel to the coast, the sky like a dark blue velvet cloak sewn with diamonds. If only Faisal was with her, Felicia thought unhappily. At this moment she needed the warm protection of his love as she had never needed it before.

‘Don’t bother to assume an air of mock modesty for my benefit, Miss Gordon,’ Raschid advised her coldly. ‘I have already learned how you comport yourself, from a friend who observed your antics on the dance floor with my nephew.’

The words were icy with a disdain that drove the colour from Felicia’s face. Her hands gripped together in her lap to stop them from trembling.

‘Apparently Faisal all but stripped you where you stood,’ the bored voice continued sardonically, ‘and you apparently made no protest at all. Do you honestly believe that is the sort of behaviour I would tolerate in a niece, or is it that having already granted Faisal the privileges of a husband, you feel confident enough to behave exactly as you wish?’

Felicia all but choked in her fury. Hot colour stained her cheeks. How dared he imply…. ‘Your friend!’ she managed to grit at him. ‘I suppose you mean that horrid man who looked at me as though I were a piece of merchandise he was contemplating buying?’

‘Perhaps he was,’ came the uncaring retort. ‘It is a long time since I was last in London, but my friends are amused by the low price your women put upon themselves. The British were once greatly respected, but who can respect a race that allows its women to sell themselves for so little?’

She was going to be sick, Felicia thought wretchedly. She could not listen to any more of this.

‘Faisal and I were dancing—nothing more.’

‘Do you always dance so close to your partner that you could be making love?’ was the biting response.

Felicia suppressed an urge to demand him to stop the car so that she could get out. He was deliberately and relentlessly destroying the fabric of her dreams, but she could not let him see it.

‘It was nothing like that,’ she told Raschid coolly. ‘Faisal respects me.’

Just for a second she thought she saw shock mingled with anger, in his eyes, and then he had himself under control.

‘Does he indeed?’ he drawled speculatively. ‘Then he is even more of a fool that I had imagined.’

The dulcet words held a subtle threat. She had handed him a weapon, Felicia acknowledged unhappily, and one that he would not hesitate to use against her if he ever got the opportunity.

‘If you were so convinced of my moral laxness, why did you invite me here?’ she challenged. ‘Aren’t you afraid that I might contaminate Faisal’s sister with my wanton behaviour?’

Raschid ignored her wild outburst, studying one elegant gold cufflink with apparent absorption for so long that she almost wanted to scream.

‘I have sufficient faith in my niece to know she would not be influenced by you,’ he announced at last. ‘And as to my reasons for asking you here…. You are an intelligent woman, Miss Gordon, what do you think?’

‘I don’t think you wanted me here at all,’ Felicia accused slowly. ‘You never really wanted to get to know me, did you?’

‘Most astute,’ Raschid acknowledged dryly. ‘But now that you are here, let me make one thing quite clear. You are here strictly on sufferance. My sister knows only that you are a friend of Faisal’s—nothing more, and that is all she will know…’

‘Until I can prove that I’m fit to marry her son,’ Felicia interrupted angrily. ‘Well, I don’t care what you think of me, but if it makes Faisal happy I’m quite willing to go through this farce of trying to get your approval. After all, in three years’ time he’ll be free to marry without it in any case.’

His expression warned her that she had angered him deeply. His voice harsh, he said coldly, ‘You are more determined than I realised, but then with good cause. After all, you do not have much to look forward to in England, do you? A very run-of-the-mill job; an aunt in the North of England who may or may not leave her home to you, and very little else….’

‘Must you reduce everything to terms of money?’ Felicia protested bitterly. ‘If I’d merely wanted financial security I could have married before now.’

‘But instead you chose to wait until a more attractive proposition presented itself to you,’ the hateful voice drawled smoothly. ‘How wise of you!’

Wearily Felicia sank back into the leather seat. What was the use of trying to convince him? She was wasting her time. He was determined to believe the worst of her. For a moment she contemplated demanding that he turn the car round and take her back to the airport, but to do so would be to acknowledge him the victor, and that was something she would never do. After all, she knew that she was none of the things he believed, and surely, in time, by just being herself, she would prove to him beyond any shadow of a doubt just how lacking his judgment had been.

This thought was enough to quell her desire to return home. Faisal loved her, and this was the raft to which she would cling throughout the stormy seas of Raschid’s displeasure.

Some hidden well of courage she had not hitherto plumbed enabled her to face Raschid with a composure to match his own, her voice controlled as she said calmly:

‘If you have so little faith in Faisal’s ability to choose a wife for himself, I’m surprised that you didn’t do it for him—an arranged marriage with the bride carefully selected to match up to his uncle’s very exacting standards.’

She had meant the words as a taunt, but something in Raschid’s face warned her that unsuspectingly she had stumbled upon the truth. Pressing a hand to her aching temple, she whispered,

‘Was there a girl? No, I don’t believe it. Faisal would never….’

‘You’d be surprised what folly young men will perpetrate in the name of love, Miss Gordon.’ Raschid’s hard voice cut through her protests. ‘But in this case there was no actual betrothal. I did not consider Faisal mature enough to take on the responsibilities of a wife. You are not the first young woman with whom he has considered himself “in love”, but you are certainly the first with whom he has actually contemplated marriage. The others were content with a more tenuous relationship.’

Felicia refused to believe it. And yet hadn’t she already guessed that Faisal was nowhere near as inexperienced as she was herself? At the time she had smothered the thought, but now it was resurrected, and she was forced to acknowledge that there were parts of Faisal’s life of which he had told her nothing. But what really hurt was that Raschid should so casually condemn her to the ranks of those girls with whom Faisal had enjoyed a brief affair. Surely his own knowledge of his nephew told him that Faisal would never have contemplated marriage unless he was sure of his feelings?

‘Faisal is young, and impetuous,’ Raschid drawled, as though he had read her mind, ‘and the two do not make for good judgment. You have known one another a matter of weeks only, what basis is that for a lifetime together!’

A moment was all it took to fall in love, Felicia wanted to protest, but dismay kept her silent. She was seeing a side to Faisal that she had not known existed. In her eyes he was a protective, although sometimes, admittedly, impatient man. In Raschid’s he was an impulsive boy, falling in and out of love on the whim of the moment. Which of them was right? She gave herself a mental shake. She was, of course. How could she doubt it?

The car swerved off the main road and at her side she felt Raschid move slightly to adjust to the slight sway of the car.

‘Not much farther now,’ he told her coolly. ‘Faisal’s mother and sister have delayed the evening meal to coincide with your arrival. I hope you like traditional Kuwaiti food, Miss Gordon?’

As he stretched lithely, she wondered at the glint of humour in his eyes. Was his amusement at her expense? If so he would be disappointed. Faisal had already assured her that while his mother preferred to stick to the old ways, his sisters had insisted that they eat in the European fashion instead of seated cross-legged on the floor, and that she need have no fears about being offered some choice morsel such as sheep’s eyes, or something equally unpalatable. In fact he had once taken her to a small restaurant in London where they had eaten delicious saffron rice and kebabs, followed by almond pastry and small cups of coffee, and she had thoroughly enjoyed it.

She was well and truly caught between the devil and the deep, Felicia acknowledged as the powerful car purred along. On the one hand, if she flouted Raschid and informed Faisal’s mother of their engagement, she would incur his immediate displeasure, and yet if she said nothing he would take her acquiescence as a sign that she was deliberately trying to court his approval. If only Faisal were not dependent upon his goodwill—but she knew it was useless to dwell on this. Naturally Faisal would want to take his rightful place in the family business, which meant that they would probably not be able to marry until he was twenty-five—aeons away to someone with such a volatile nature as Raschid claimed Faisal possessed. There was no doubt at all in her own mind that Raschid hoped that during their enforced separation Faisal would find himself someone else, and helpless with impotent anger, she stared bleakly out into the darkness, wishing she had never been foolish enough to accept Raschid’s invitation.

They were travelling through empty countryside, with the sea on one side of them, and what Felicia took to be the open desert on the other. Even though Faisal had prepared her for Kuwait’s modern outlook, her first glimpse of the family villa still caught her off guard. She did not know quite what she had expected, but it was not this large, two-storey building, with its painted shutters and white walls, vaguely reminiscent of the Moorish houses of Andalucia; not at least until she remembered the origins of those same Moors.

Without checking, the Mercedes slid through an arched gateway and across a flagged courtyard, decorated with urns of tumbling flowers. Lights shone from several windows illuminating the courtyard and others beyond it, where she could just see the outline of trees, and hear the musical tinkle of fountains.

Raschid opened the car door for her, and she drew in a shaky breath of fresh air spiced with unfamiliar scents.

‘This way, Miss Gordon.’

It was a command, and she responded unthinkingly, wondering at his ability to cloak his dislike of her in such formal politeness.

Her earlier attack of nerves was nothing to what she was experiencing now. What was she going to do if the rest of Faisal’s family were as hostile towards her as his uncle? She tried not to dwell on the thought as the wooden door was flung open and she stood in a rectangle of light.

‘Fatima, this is Miss Gordon,’ Raschid said to the small, plump woman who stood there. ‘Miss Gordon—my sister, Faisal’s mother.’

Felicia’s sharp ears caught the warning beneath the coolly drawled words, as she extended her hand slowly to the woman watching her.

It was taken between two soft, beringed hands, while Faisal’s mother beamed at her, chattering incomprehensibly to the tall man at her side.

‘In English, Fatima,’ Raschid told her. ‘Miss Gordon does not have any Arabic.’

Another black mark against her, Felicia reflected bitterly, but Raschid was wrong. She did know how to say ‘good evening’, thanks to Faisal, although it was difficult to get her tongue round the unfamiliar Arabic words.

‘Massa’a al-Khayr,’ Faisal’s mother responded delightedly, darting a mischievous look at her brother.

‘There you are, Raschid!’ she exclaimed in heavily accented English. ‘She does speak Arabic.’

‘Only a few phrases,’ Felicia protested apologetically. ‘And Faisal laughs at my pronunciation.’

‘Poor Miss Gordon!’ another female voice chimed in prettily. ‘Let her get into the house before you start cross-questioning her about Faisal, Mother.’

‘Zahra, what will Miss Gordon think of you?’ her mother chided. ‘Young people today have no manners.’ She turned to Felicia. ‘Please ignore this foolish child. She teases me because I am anxious about Faisal, but when she has a son of her own, then she will feel differently…’

So this was Faisal’s younger sister, Zahra. Felicia studied her covertly. She was small, plump like her mother, with sparkling dark eyes, and a warm smile that held none of Raschid’s cold reserve. Faisal had neglected to tell her how pretty his sister was, Felicia reflected, relieved to see that Zahra at least seemed to harbour no dislike for her.

‘You will sleep in the room next to mine,’ Zahra explained as she led her upstairs. ‘Mother would stick to the old ways of keeping to the women’s quarters, if she could, but although we use our own sitting room whenever Faisal or Uncle Raschid entertain business colleagues, Raschid does not believe in women being strictly segregated.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘Mother is dreadfully old-fashioned. She hated it when I first started at university, but Uncle Raschid was insistent, thank goodness. I hope you are hungry? Mother has had a feast prepared for you, although I warned her that you might not be hungry, having travelled so far.’

Mentally blessing Zahra for her tactful warning of what to expect, Felicia shook her head. In point of fact she felt exhausted and longed only for a hot bath and a comfortable bed, but it would be bad manners to show anything less than immense pleasure in her hostess’s preparations—she knew enough about Arab protocol to be aware of that!

‘Faisal has written to me about you,’ Zahra confided, eyeing Felicia speculatively. ‘You are to become betrothed…’

‘Perhaps,’ Felicia tempered, remembering Raschid’s warning. ‘Provided your uncle approves of me.’

Her room overlooked the gardens and was quite Western in concept, with a comfortable single bed and modern fitted bedroom furniture along one wall, with hanging space for far more clothes than Felicia had brought. There was a bathroom off it, tiled in deep pink to match the sanitary fittings which all boasted gold taps and wastes, and were quite obviously all of the very most luxurious quality.

‘I hope you weren’t expecting sunken baths with marble pillars,’ Zahra giggled. ‘Uncle Raschid swore you would expect us to live like something out of the Thousand and One Nights.’

‘Well, I did wonder how you managed those flimsy trousers and curly-toed shoes,’ Felicia agreed lightly, earning an approving grin from Zahra.

‘I knew that you would have a sense of humour, despite what Uncle Raschid said!’

And what exactly had that been? Felicia wondered grimly. Plainly Zahra knew about their plans, although she suspected that Raschid had also warned the younger girl not to mention them to her mother.

‘If you do have a hankering to see the old Kuwait, you must ask Uncle Raschid to take you to his villa at the oasis,’ Zahra surprised her by saying. ‘It was built by his grandfather, although he rarely used it. He preferred to travel with his people and live in their black tents. He built it for his English wife. Leave your unpacking,’ she instructed, changing the subject. ‘One of the maids will do that for you. Are you ready to eat?’

Guessing that she had already delayed the family meal long beyond its normal hour, Felicia assured her that she was quite ready.

As they went downstairs, Zahra explained to her that the house was built around the enclosed gardens she had noticed on her arrival, and that it comprised the traditional women’s quarters, with two separate wings; one of which was used by Raschid and the other being set aside for Faisal’s use when he was at home.

‘Not that Raschid sticks rigidly to his quarters,’ Zahra explained. ‘He normally eats with us unless business prevents him. In my father’s time the women never ate with the men, but things are different now, and Uncle Raschid encouraged both Nadia and myself to take advantage of a modern education.’

‘How kind of him,’ Felicia murmured sarcastically. She was surprised to discover that Zahra evidently held her uncle in great affection, but wished she had not given vent to her own feelings for him when Zahra paused to eye her enquiringly.

‘Don’t you like Raschid?’

‘I haven’t known him long enough to form an opinion,’ Felicia countered diplomatically, but Zahra was not deceived, and chuckled, explaining,

‘When we heard you were coming, I think Mother was frightened that you would fall in love with him. All my friends think he’s wonderful, and when he was at university in England he had many girl-friends.’

I’ll bet he did, Felicia thought sourly, and she could just imagine his lordly reaction to them.

‘He is very good-looking, isn’t he?’ Zahra murmured judiciously. ‘Much more so than Faisal.’

‘But not as gentle or kind,’ Felicia responded before she could stop herself.

Zahra’s brown eyes twinkled with amusement.

‘Zut! Kindness! Is that what you look for in a man? I think Uncle Raschid is wrong when he says you are experienced in the ways of men, otherwise you would know that kindness is not necessary between a man and a woman, where there is love.’

She said it so seriously that Felicia could not contradict her, although her own love-starved childhood had taught her that kindness was a precious virtue. Perhaps the harshness of their desert climate bred the need for it out of these people, she reflected. To her amusement Zahra was dressed in jeans and a thin T-shirt, her long hair caught back off her face with a ribbon, and as they entered what was obviously the family dining room, Felicia noticed the younger girl’s mother frowning rather despairingly as her eyes alighted on her daughter.

‘Raschid, you must speak to this child,’ she protested. ‘Look at her!’

‘Mother, everyone at the university wears jeans,’ Zahra laughed, ‘and Uncle Raschid will not forbid me, because he wears them himself,’ she said triumphantly. ‘I have seen him.’

Faisal’s mother looked at her brother, as though seeking confirmation, and although his mouth twitched a little he betrayed no embarrassment.

‘Maybe so,’ he allowed, ‘but not at the dinner table. Tonight we shall excuse you, but in future, unless you come to dinner properly dressed you will eat alone in the women’s quarters.’

Zahra pulled a face, but subsided a little, obviously accepting that Raschid would put his threat into practice if she defied him.

‘Come, we must eat. Miss Gordon….’

‘Oh, call her Felicia, Mother,’ Zahra cried impetuously. ‘And she must call you Umm Faisal.’

Felicia was about to demur, conscious of Raschid’s cool scrutiny, and her own tenuous position in the family, when Faisal’s mother looked anxiously at her, and said something in Arabic to her brother.

‘My sister begs you not to take offence at Zahra’s impetuosity, Miss Gordon,’ he said sardonically. ‘She had intended to ask you herself to do her the favour of calling her “Umm Faisal”, but Zahra has forestalled her. She also reminds me that as I am head of our family it is my duty to welcome you to our home, and beg you to treat our humble dwelling as your own for as long as it pleases you to remain with us.’

While there was no doubting the sincerity of Faisal’s mother’s welcome, Felicia stiffened, knowing that Raschid did not mean a word of what he was saying. His expression told her that much. However, before she could say anything, Zahra caused a minor disturbance by remarking teasingly,

‘Miss Gordon! You cannot call her that, Uncle Raschid, not when she is to… not when she is such a close friend of Faisal’s,’ she amended hurriedly. ‘You must call her Felicia—mustn’t he?’

She turned to Felicia for corroboration, unaware of the cold antipathy in her uncle’s eyes as they skimmed the slender figure of the girl standing in the shadows. Personally she did not care what Raschid called her, although she was sure he had adopted the formal ‘Miss Gordon’ to remind her that he wanted to keep her at a distance. Fortunately no one else seemed to be aware of the antagonism pulsating between them, and Felicia was invited to sit down and help herself to the food set before them. Despite the variety of dishes pressed upon her, she could barely touch a morsel. She did her best, glad of Zahra’s distracting chatter, and answering her many questions as best she could. A curious dreamlike state seemed to have engulfed her, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes open. Her heart felt weighted with despair, and nausea churned her stomach—a legacy of her long flight, and the confrontation with Raschid, she acknowledged wearily.

Once or twice during the long meal she suffered the disturbing sensation of the room blurring and fading, although on each occasion she managed to jerk herself back to awareness.

‘Are you feeling all right, Felicia?’ Zahra asked in some concern, observing the other girl’s increasing pallor, but Felicia shook her head, not wishing to draw the attention of cold grey eyes to her predicament.

Later she was to regret this foolish pride, but as she struggled to swallow another mouthful of almond pastry and drink a cup of coffee she was concentrating all her energy on merely quelling her growing nausea, from one moment to the next.

At long last the ordeal was over. Shakily Felicia got to her feet, swaying slightly as faintness swept her, and from a distance she heard Zahra cry anxiously,

‘Quick, she’s falling!’

And then there was nothing but the blessed peace of enveloping darkness and the strength of arms that gripped her, halting the upward rush of the beautiful crimson Persian carpet she had previously been admiring.




CHAPTER THREE


‘WILL she be all right?’

The anxious question hovered somewhere on the outer periphery of her subconscious, registering in a dim and distant fashion even while its import eluded her. The voice was familiar, though, and Felicia struggled to recognise it. Mercifully, someone else took on the responsibility of replying, a male voice, deep, crisp, with faintly indolent overtones; a voice that sent small feather tendrils of fear curling insidiously down her spine, so that she was tempted to curl up into a small ball and hide away from it.

‘Don’t worry, Zahra. It’s a combination of exhaustion and temperature change, I suspect, coupled with too much rich food on an empty stomach. Now you know why your mother forbids you to go on these ridiculous slimming diets.’

‘Felicia doesn’t need to slim,’ Zahra objected. ‘She looks so pale, Raschid. Don’t you think we ought to send for a doctor?’

Raschid! Now she remembered! Felicia opened her eyes, wincing in the electric light, forcing away the darkness that reached out for her and struggling to sit up. She was in her bedroom—she recognised that much at least—and Umm Faisal was hovering anxiously in the doorway, while Zahra and Raschid stood by her bed.

‘I don’t need a doctor,’ she croaked, disconcerted when all three pairs of eyes focused at once upon her.

‘You’ve come round!’ Zahra exclaimed thankfully. ‘We were so worried about you. What could we have told Faisal if you had fallen ill?’

‘I’m sure Faisal would have agreed with me that Miss Gordon should have told us she was feeling unwell,’ Raschid interrupted unsympathetically. ‘Zahra, find one of the maids and get some fresh fruit juice for our patient. After her long flight she is probably somewhat dehydrated, and perhaps a sleeping pill will help Miss Gordon to get a good night’s sleep, Fatima?’

‘Didn’t anyone warn you that jet travel can be extremely dehydrating?’ Raschid asked her severely as his sister and niece hurried to do his bidding. Felicia closed her eyes, turning her face to the wall, dismayed to hear him drawl mockingly,

‘Still hating me, Miss Gordon? How wise of you not to try to deny it. Your eyes smoulder in a most disconcerting fashion when you are angry, but you had best not let my sister see them. She comes from a generation that believes implicitly in the absolute supremacy of the male.’

‘Then you must be a throwback!’ Felicia muttered unwisely under her breath, shocked when, without warning, Raschid’s fingers grasped her chin, forcing her face round so that she was obliged to endure his cool scrutiny.

‘What can have happened to all your good intentions?’ he mocked unkindly. ‘Were we not agreed that for Faisal’s sake you must seek my approval or are you perhaps foolish enough to believe that this is the way to do so? Allow me to disillusion you. Do not continue this foolish and pointless defiance. I am not renowned for my patience, Miss Gordon, but neither am I the monster of your imaginings. Faisal is an extremely wealthy and spoilt young man. I am his guardian—for my sins—and although I cannot stop him marrying where he chooses, I do have the means to delay that marriage if I am not convinced that it is right for him. If you really seek his happiness you must see the sense of what I am saying.’

‘Is it so difficult for you to accept that his happiness lies with me?’ Felicia countered shakily, determined to withstand the fierce onslaught of his gaze. ‘You talk to me of sense and reason, and yet you condemned me without knowing the first thing about me. Whether you admit it or not you don’t want Faisal to marry me. And yet why? By what right do you take it upon yourself to choose for him? You know nothing about me. How can you say that we won’t be happy?’

‘Zut! Either you are an imbecile or a stubborn fool, Miss Gordon. Faisal is a Moslem—an Arab, with all that the word encompasses. You are British. Even today the two worlds lie far apart. Marriage to Faisal would make you his possession, every bit as much as his car or his home.’

‘Perhaps I want to be,’ Felicia retorted, refusing to be quelled.

Raschid’s expression was sardonic. ‘You may want him to possess your body, Miss Gordon,’ he stated baldly, ‘but, as you will discover if you do marry Faisal, he will own you body and soul.’

‘I thought women weren’t supposed to have souls,’ Felicia commented rather unwisely. ‘I thought they were just men’s playthings; bearers of children. You won’t frighten me by telling me these things. If you honestly believe a woman to be an inferior being, why do you let Zahra attend university?’

‘We are not talking of my beliefs, Miss Gordon,’ he reminded her coolly, ‘but those of my nephew. Do not deceive yourself. For all his outward Westernised views, Faisal is every bit as conservative as his father, and his father before him. He may not expect you to go into purdah or veil yourself, but he will not countenance a loss of face because you, his wife—his possession—refuse to acknowledge his superiority.’

His ears, sharper than hers, caught the sound of feet on the stairs, and he frowned warningly. A hectic flush stained Felicia’s previously pale face. She was so angry that she trembled beneath his suave gaze.

‘This is neither the time nor the place to discuss these matters,’ Raschid told her. ‘We shall talk again when you are rested, but I warn you now that nothing you have said so far has done anything to convince me that you could make Faisal happy. Marriage is a serious business, Miss Gordon, not to be undertaken on a mere whim.’

‘How would you know?’ Felicia muttered bitterly, as Zahra bustled in. ‘You’ve never been married, have you?’

He turned on his heel, ignoring her taunt, and when he had gone Zahra cast a nervous glance at the closed door.

‘Felicia, you have been quarrelling with Raschid, haven’t you?’ she whispered.

‘I think you can guess why. He doesn’t want me to marry Faisal,’ Felicia told her bleakly, driven by the need to confide in someone.

‘I know,’ Zahra admitted. ‘He has spoken of this to me. You must not get upset, Felicia, it is just that Faisal….’ she coloured, patently embarrassed. ‘Well, you are not the first girl he has believed himself in love with, and Uncle Raschid is merely anxious to protect my mother. She does not understand these things. To her a betrothal is as sacred as a marriage, and that is why Uncle Raschid will not allow you to become engaged until he is sure that your marriage will be a happy one.’

In other circumstances Felicia might have seen the wisdom behind these words, but Raschid’s implied criticism of Faisal fuelled her anger, causing Zahra to eye her with growing concern as indignant colour burned her cheeks.

‘You must have patience,’ Zahra soothed. ‘Raschid will come round in time, I am sure of it. You must have siyasa.’

‘Siyasa? What is that?’ Felicia enquired, intrigued in spite of herself.

Zahra laughed. ‘It is what in England you would call tact, but more! It is the art of getting what you want without forcing the other man to lose face.’

‘It is obvious that your uncle does not think me deserving of siyasa,’ Felicia complained. ‘I honestly believe he wants to humiliate me!’

Zahra made a shocked, tutting sound.

‘Never would he be so impolite to a guest,’ she averred firmly. ‘He is merely anxious for my mother. He wishes to protect her, that is all. Marriage is a big step….’

‘So your uncle was telling me,’ Felicia agreed wryly. ‘He seems to be quite an expert on the subject, although he isn’t married himself.’

‘That is because his betrothed died,’ Zahra explained in a low voice. ‘It used to be the custom for a girl to be engaged to her first cousin, and this practice was adopted by Raschid’s father, so that Raschid is my mother’s brother, but he was also my father’s cousin.’

It was all rather difficult for Felicia to assimilate, with an aching head, but she did her best.

‘Raschid is, of course, my mother’s stepbrother,’ Zahra continued. ‘He was the child of my grandfather’s second wife. That is why he is of your religion and we are not. Faisal will have told you something of this?’

‘He told me that your uncle’s grandmother was an English girl—a Christian,’ Felicia admitted, curious, despite her averred dislike of Faisal’s uncle.

‘Yes, that is so,’ Zahra agreed. ‘Raschid’s grandparents met in the desert, when he rescued her from a sandstorm. They fell deeply in love and since Raschid’s grandfather was the head of his family he was free to marry whomever he chose. It was for her that he built the house at the oasis, for despite their love, sometimes she yearned for her old life amongst her own people. Raschid’s mother was their only child, and she was the second wife of my grandfather. That is how Raschid comes to be Christian. It is a romantic story, is it not?’

Felicia allowed that it was.

‘I do not think Raschid will marry now,’ Zahra mused. ‘I think he enjoys his single state too much.’ She dimpled a smile at Felicia. ‘Mother is constantly suggesting this girl or that, for his approval, but he always has an excuse.’

‘Another example of siyasa!’ Felicia commented dryly, wincing when Zahra clapped her hands and laughed.

‘I am going to enjoy having you staying with us, Felicia. Poor Uncle Raschid! He will not be able to stand out against you for long, especially when Faisal comes home. Mother has always spoiled him dreadfully, and I don’t think she would object if he took four English wives!’

Umm Faisal might not, Felicia thought tiredly, but she certainly would. She closed her eyes, trying to relax and ease the tension from her muscles, but Raschid’s darkly sardonic features would keep transposing themselves between her aching head and the peace she sought.

In the end she welcomed Umm Faisal’s entrance, to bear her chattering daughter away and leave her guest a glass of chilled fruit juice and the promised sleeping tablet.

IT WAS THE unfamiliar figure of the maid tiptoeing past the window that eventually woke Felicia. She opened her eyes, disorientated, and wondering where she was, and then the events of the previous day came flooding back. Of course! She was in Kuwait faced with the seemingly impossible mission of trying to persuade Sheikh Raschid to accept her into his family.

The maid threw back the curtains with a shy smile, but in response to Felicia’s questions, she only shook her head and left the room, reappearing several minutes later with Umm Faisal.

‘So! You are feeling better?’ the older woman exclaimed in her slow English, giving her guest a beaming smile. ‘That is good. Zahra has gone to the university, but she left a message to say that she will meet you in Kuwait later in the day. Ali will take you in the car and wait for you.’

‘Zahra has left?’ Felicia sat up and stared disbelievingly at her watch. How on earth could it be eleven in the morning? When she broke into an appalled apology Umm Faisal shook her head, plainly undisturbed.

‘It is the pill,’ she assured Felicia, ‘and you will feel better for the long sleep. My brother has gone to the bank, and so we are alone. Selina will bring you rolls and honey or fresh fruit if you prefer and then we shall drink tea and you will tell me all about my Faisal. Zahra laughs at me, but a mother grows anxious for her only son, when he lives amongst strangers.’

Felicia could only sympathise. She missed Faisal already, and longed for his presence as a bulwark between herself and Raschid.

‘It is a bad time for him to go to New York, just when you are visiting us,’ Umm Faisal acknowledged, ‘but Raschid thought it necessary.’

And Raschid’s decisions must never be questioned, Felicia thought resentfully.

The fresh fruit and delicious warm rolls Selina brought helped to revive her, and after a refreshing shower Felicia dressed in a flattering ice blue linen skirt, attractively pleated at the front, a toning striped blouse, completing an outfit that was both cool and practical. The skirt had a matching jacket, but the morning was so warm that Felicia left it hanging in the wardrobe. Pale blue eyeshadow and soft pink lip-gloss gave her a hint of sophistication, building up her seriously depleted self-confidence.

With a good many nods and smiles Selina led her to Umm Faisal’s private sitting room on the ground floor. The older woman was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, and she rose gracefully when Felicia entered. The room was cool and shadowy, a long divan beneath the iron grille of a window, heaped with cushions covered in vivid silks, the rich crimsons and peacock blues picked out in the jewel-coloured Persian carpet, a vibrant note of colour against the black and white tiled floor. On a small low table stood a brass samovar, bubbling gently, the scent of mint tea wafting towards Felicia as she crossed the room. Above the faint whirring of the air-conditioning she could hear the sound of birds singing.

‘Raschid had an aviary built when we moved to this house,’ Umm Faisal explained. ‘It is pleasant to walk in the gardens in the evening and listen to their song.’

‘I thought I heard fountains playing when we arrived last night, and they sounded wonderful,’ Felicia acknowledged.

‘Ah yes. There is no sweeter sound to the Arab ear than that of water, and even now when we no longer need to fear the dry season I have to force myself not to waste a drop.’ She shook her head. ‘Old habits die hard, and Raschid is constantly chiding me for my folly. He bought this house for us when my husband died—Raschid really prefers the desert, but it is not safe to bring up children so far from medical care even in these days. He gave up much when Saud died—but then Faisal will have told you that.’

Had he? Felicia could remember well enough Faisal’s complaints about his uncle. ‘He must have been very young,’ she murmured now involuntarily, referring to Raschid.

Umm Faisal smiled. ‘Barely nineteen. He was the son of my father’s second wife. My mother bore no sons to my father, so he took a second wife, but Yasmin was never truly happy. She was her parents’ only child and had been educated in England according to her mother’s wish. However, when it came to her marriage her father insisted that it must be in the old tradition. My father was her second cousin, but although she was a dutiful wife, she rarely smiled or laughed. She died when Raschid was three, and I have often wondered if she yearned for her mother’s country. Raschid does not speak of it, but her death saddened him greatly. He has not had an easy life,’ Umm Faisal continued quietly, ‘and it is for this reason that I should like to see him settled with a family of his own.’ She looked at Felicia with contemplative eyes. ‘In Raschid, East and West meet, and I know that he is sometimes impatient of our ways. It was his wish that Zahra and Nadia attend the university—and I think the English part of him yearns for a closer companionship with his wife than Moslem girls are taught to expect. It is for this reason, I think, that he has never taken a bride.’

She pitied the woman who eventually took him on, Felicia thought grimly, but naturally she did not voice these thoughts to her companion.

Today Umm Faisal was dressed in Eastern costume, and Felicia suspected that the Western garb of the previous evening had been donned merely to put her at her ease. Her heart warmed towards this tiny, plump woman whose ways were so very different from her own, but who was plainly willing to welcome her son’s friends into her home. Remembering the gifts she had bought in London—still unpacked—Felicia was tempted to run upstairs and get them, but decided to wait until Zahra returned.

She tried not to feel too dismayed when Ali brought the Mercedes to the door later that afternoon, wishing that Umm Faisal was going with her.

The arrangement was that Ali would drive to the university to collect Zahra and then take both girls back to Kuwait town so that they could look at the shops at their leisure, but when they were driving through Kuwait, Felicia remembered that she had no Kuwaiti money and she persuaded Ali to drop her outside a bank and go on to collect Zahra without her.

‘I shall wait for Zahra here,’ she assured the puzzled servant, gesturing to the large plate glass building behind her.

As she emerged from the interior of the car she was glad that she had changed her striped blouse for a thinner, sleeveless one, with a gently scooped neckline.

The bank cashier was politely helpful, patiently explaining the denominations of her Kuwaiti money and showing her the rate of exchange. He spoke excellent English, and although Felicia doubted that her few pounds would go very far, it was reassuring to have money in her purse.

She emerged from the welcome coolness of the bank into the harsh sunlight, fascinated by the panorama of life passing by in front of her while she waited for Ali to return with Zahra. Hawk-eyed, bronzed men in their white dishdashes; their robes immaculately clean, their headdresses held in place by glinting gold igals.

A group of old men sat cross-legged on the pavement, and to her amusement Felicia realised that they were watching a television in a shop window.

Although men were undeniably in the majority, she noticed several girls walking about unescorted, some wearing jeans and blouses, but there were still plenty of women who retained the traditional black burga, veils covering their faces as they swayed gracefully in the wake of their men. The men were fascinating, Felicia reflected. Even in middle age they retained their upright carriage and good looks. Black eyes glittered curiously at her, hawk noses and thin lips a reminder of their heritage. It was impossible not to admire them in their strict adherence to their way of life, though she liked that Faisal was more gentle by nature, more malleable, ready to indulge and cosset her, the effect no doubt of his Western education, and a result of the close bond that evidently existed between him and his mother. Raschid was cast in a far different mould.

All too easy to imagine him staring down the length of his arrogant nose at some unfortunate female who had incurred his displeasure.

Ali was gone longer than she had anticipated, and she scoured the busy street looking for the familiar Mercedes. A group of youths were approaching her, their eyes bold and assessing, and Felicia was beginning to feel increasingly uncomfortable. So much so that she almost wished for the protection of the enveloping black garments of the other women to hide her from the openly lascivious glances she was attracting.

When she did see the Mercedes gliding to a halt several yards away, she started to hurry towards it, but it was not Ali who got out of the car. It was Raschid himself, his face dark and forbidding as he strode towards her, the thin silk of his shirt open at the neck to reveal the strong, tanned column of his throat. A tiny thread of awareness filtered through her dismay, coupled with the unwelcome admission that these olive-skinned men with their arrogant profiles and lean grace made their English counterparts seem pale and flabby in comparison. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast, her pulses racing, her mouth dry with nervous fear. Instead of going to meet Raschid, she hung back, frozen to the spot like some poor little mouse, petrified by the cruel grace of the falcon on his downward swoop.

Dark fingers, like talons, gripped her arm, swinging her into shocked contact with a hard male body, the scent of male skin filling her nostrils as, momentarily, she was pressed against Raschid’s lean length.

‘Miss Gordon!’ There was exasperation as well as tightly controlled anger in the two words, and Felicia found herself stammering weakly, searching for some means to dispel his wrath:

‘I was waiting for Zahra.’

‘Having told Ali to leave you, completely alone, in the middle of a strange city—Yes, I know,’ he agreed grimly. ‘Fortunately Ali had the good sense to come and tell me.’ His eyes slid over her body; the fragile hip bones revealed by her clinging skirt; the slender curve of her waist below the unexpected fullness of her breasts. Aware of his regard, Felicia went hot and cold all over, suppressing the instinctive desire to conceal herself from him.

‘In this country, Miss Gordon,’ he told her, ‘a woman of good family does not walk the streets alone, with her body on display for the delectation of all and sundry, to be gossiped over and speculated about, as those boys were discussing you. I tell you this—Faisal would not be pleased were he to learn of this escapade.’

Shocked into silence by the censorious words, Felicia bit hard on her lip.

‘I just wanted to get some money,’ she choked, nearly in tears, humiliated by the thought that Raschid was witnessing her distress.

‘You could have applied to me,’ Raschid’s cold voice continued inexorably. ‘Or does that much-flaunted liberation you European women are so fond of mean that you are unwilling even to do that!’

He made her sound so petty and childish that she could have wept. She had simply never thought of asking him to change her few travellers’ cheques for her, but a corner of her mind acknowledged that he had some basis for his accusation, although stubbornly she resisted it.

‘I’m sure it isn’t a crime to walk alone—other women were doing so, and in European dress,’ Felicia said defiantly.

Raschid snapped long fingers, ignoring the challenge in her eyes.

‘Foreigners!’ he announced contemptuously. ‘Women whose families do not have a care for their reputation.’

‘My reputation is my own,’ Felicia snapped crossly. ‘And I’m perfectly capable of taking care of it myself. After all, I’ve been living alone in London for the past five years.’

‘In Kuwait, Miss Gordon, a woman’s reputation is the concern of all her family, and a slur upon that reputation reflects upon all members of that family. Faisal may or may not have told you that Zahra is betrothed to a young man of exceptionally rigid family. The betrothal has only been settled after a good deal of very delicate negotiation. These are sensitive times where the Moslem religion is concerned. The information that a young woman attached to our family—in however nebulous a fashion—is disporting herself as you have been today could have very serious repercussions indeed where Zahra’s future is concerned.’

If he expected her to be cowed and chastened then he had another think coming, Felicia fumed.

‘An arranged marriage? How typical of you!’ she stormed. ‘If you had your way you would ruin Faisal’s life in the same way, and then your life wouldn’t be disturbed by an unwanted English girl whose morals and antecedents you so obviously suspect! I’m sorry to disappoint you, Sheikh Raschid, but I will marry Faisal, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us, even if we do have to wait three years.’

She wondered if it was anger or disgust that made his mouth tighten so forbiddingly. No doubt he thought that girls of good family did not state their intentions so openly, but waited with dutifully downcast eyes for their fathers and brothers to tell them whom they would marry. Poor Zahra! How did she feel about her arranged marriage?

The cruel fingers were still holding her prisoner, while relentless grey eyes swept her from head to foot and back again, so that she was reduced to trembling fury.

‘Let me go!’ she muttered. ‘People are staring at us!’

‘And that offends you?’ His mouth thinned cruelly and for the first time she was aware of its full lower curve, indicating a passion she would have thought foreign to his nature.

‘Do you realise that were you married to Faisal you would have just given him cause to divorce you twice over; firstly by disporting yourself as you did in the street for all to see, and secondly for allowing me to address you so intimately and in full view of anyone who cares to see? Faisal would not like that, Miss Gordon.’

She knew that it was true. There was a certain inflection in the younger man’s voice whenever he mentioned his uncle that hinted at the beginnings of a jealousy which could easily be fanned from a small spark to a blazing conflagration.

‘And I don’t like being stared at as though I were on sale in the market-place!’ Felicia replied tartly, tearing her gaze away from the hypnotic effect of his cool stare.

‘You surprise me. In one respect at least I cannot fault Faisal’s judgment. You are an extremely beautiful woman, but it takes more than a desirable body and a pretty face to make a good wife.’

‘Although they are admirable traits in a mistress? Is that what you mean?’

Raschid’s eyebrows rose quellingly, adding to his formidable air of hauteur.

‘I did not say so,’ he replied positively. ‘Was that your intention when you agreed to come out here? To sell yourself to the highest bidder, knowing that a wealthy Arab would pay well for that lissom white body you conceal so inadequately?’

She would have struck him there and then in the middle of the crowded thoroughfare if he had not transferred his grip from her arm to her wrist, pain stabbing through her tender flesh like a shock from red-hot wires at the ferocity of the fingers clamped round her frail bones.

‘Why do you ask?’ she cried bitterly. ‘Are you thinking of putting in an offer yourself?’

She knew instantly that she had gone too far. His mouth tightened ominously, his eyes condemning as they swept her with thinly veiled contempt.

‘No way,’ he said cruelly, shaking his head. ‘I don’t buy soiled merchandise, Miss Gordon, desirable though it may be superficially. A chipped jade figurine, a flawed carpet, a second-hand woman, they are all worthless!’

His words left her gasping with mingled shock and rage. She tried to pull herself free and suffered the added indignity of being jerked against the hard length of his body, shock driving the breath out of her lungs as she bunched her muscles against the impact. The contact lasted only a second, but as she pulled away and stalked across the pavement to the car, where Zahra was staring curiously from the window, she felt as though the imprint of Raschid’s flesh was burned against her own, and she, who had been held far closer to Faisal, wondered why she should have found that momentary contact with Raschid so intensely disturbing. Long strides brought the object of her tumultuous thoughts alongside her, lean fingers descending over hers, clinical eyes studying the way she flinched away as he grasped the car door, holding it open for her.

The entire episode could have lasted no longer than the space of a few minutes, but Felicia felt for some reason as though it were one that she would never forget. Tense and defensive, she tried to calm her jangled nerves as Raschid closed the door and walked round to the front passenger seat.

Just for a second she had glimpsed the emotions Raschid concealed behind his cool façade, and what she had seen had frightened her. He was as different from Faisal as chalk from cheese, she reflected shakily. He had none of Faisal’s gentle compassion; none of his boyish charm, so why should he linger in her thoughts when she badly needed to cling to the memory of Faisal’s love?




CHAPTER FOUR


THERE was no opportunity for conversation on the return journey to the villa, although once or twice Felicia caught Zahra’s sympathetic eyes on her in a way that made a mockery of her own hopes that the latter had not noticed her uncle’s anger.

When the car stopped in the outer courtyard, she whispered gently to Felicia,

‘Don’t be too upset, I always hate it when Raschid is annoyed with me. That dreadful cold anger of his is far worse than if he actually lost his temper.’

Felicia was feeling far too ruffled to be soothed by the placatory words and only exclaimed shortly,

‘Your uncle may take it upon himself to order your life, Zahra, but he will never order mine. If I want to walk the streets of Kuwait alone, then I shall do so!’

With that she stalked into the house, head held high, Zahra following hurriedly behind.

‘He has made you very angry, hasn’t he?’ she sympathised.

‘Angry?’ Felicia almost choked in her indignation. ‘He practically humiliated me! Treating me like…’ She broke off. There was no point in trying to make Zahra understand her feelings. ‘Oh, what’s the use?’ she said wearily. ‘I’m only glad that once we’re married, Faisal and I can go our own way. I would hate to live here under your uncle’s roof!’

She sounded so bitter that Zahra frowned unhappily, touching her arm.

‘Perhaps it is that Raschid does not understand, Felicia. If I were to tell him that you were upset…. Faisal would not have approved either, you know,’ she added gently. ‘I shall speak with Raschid…!’

‘No! No, Zahra, don’t do that.’ In her mind Felicia was thinking how badly she was failing in the mission Faisal had set her, but Zahra misinterpreted her words, and her face broke into a relieved smile.

‘You are beginning to forgive Raschid already,’ she breathed. ‘I know he didn’t mean to upset you, Felicia. He forgets sometimes how formidable he is!’

Like a falcon forgets its prey, Felicia thought bitterly. Zahra saw her relative through rose-tinted glasses. Forgive him indeed! That was something she would never do! When she remembered what he had said about her, and the look in his eyes….

HER MOTHER normally rested during the afternoon, Zahra explained to Felicia as they went inside. It was a practice she herself would probably want to adopt as the days grew hotter, she added, and because of this it was the custom that the family did not gather for their meal until early evening.

After she had showered and slipped into a refreshingly cool dress, Felicia inspected her reflection in the mirror. Was her appearance ‘chaste’ enough to pass Raschid’s rigid specifications? she asked herself wryly. Her dress had a gently rounded neckline and small puffed sleeves, the neck and hem piped in crisp white scalloping in contrast to the lemon-gold cotton. She had washed her hair and it curled attractively on to her shoulders, more red than gold in the fading light. A thin gold necklace drew attention to the slender column of her throat, a matching bracelet round one delicate wrist, high-heeled, strappy sandals completing her outfit.

For dinner they were served with roast lamb, deliciously flavoured with herbs, pastries stuffed with exotic vegetables, and spicy rice dishes, and Felicia groaned a little to think of the effect of all this rich food on her figure.

When the first course had been cleared away, the maids reappeared with an immense tray of fresh fruit, and more of the frighteningly fattening almond and marzipan tartlets they had had the night before.

Felicia accepted a slice of melon and some fresh, sweet dates, noting that Raschid had the same, although his sister and Zahra tucked into the almond tarts with a cheerful disregard for the consequences.

After the meal a manservant came in with coffee cups and an elegant silver coffee pot, pouring the thick, steaming liquid into the fragile cups and handing them round.

Felicia had brought her gifts downstairs and hidden them under her chair. She had intended to distribute them after the meal when, she hoped, Raschid would retire to his own quarters, but to her annoyance he seemed determined to linger, leaning back in his chair, with a tigerish grace she had never seen in a European, his hair blue-black under the light of the chandelier. She wondered if he had ever sat cross-legged in the tents of his tribe, eating from the communal dish and drinking from the communal cup as Arabian hospitality demanded. In his expensive hand-made silk suit he looked every inch the sophisticated businessman, but she sensed that under the suave façade lurked a man as elemental as the desert which was his natural home.

While Umm Faisal and Zahra chatted, Felicia’s eyes strayed again and again to the shuttered face of the man seated opposite her. The betrayingly passionate curve of his lower lip caught her attention, as it had done before, and she shivered involuntarily, imagining what it would be like to feel that hard mouth against her own; that warm golden skin next to the creamy paleness of her own.

A shudder racked her. What on earth was she thinking? In vain she tried to conjure up the protective image of Faisal’s softer features, as though they were a talisman to ward off the potent effect of Raschid’s masculinity. What was wrong with her? she wondered despairingly; Raschid stood for everything she most despised, and yet here she was comparing him to Faisal, and finding the harsh features had somehow insinuated themselves into her memory, superimposed over Faisal’s more gentle image. It was not to be tolerated. In vain she tried to recall Faisal’s warm smile and liquid eyes, but as though he had worked a spell upon her, all she got back was a mirror image of Raschid’s cold grey eyes and derisory smile. Like one in a trance she tried to shake off her tormenting thoughts, dismayed by her momentary awareness of the man seated across from her. Hurriedly she bent down to retrieve her gaily wrapped packages, her colour high.

‘I’ve brought you both a little something from England—a small token of my gratitude for your hospitality.’

Umm Faisal inclined her head graciously, but Zahra was far less inhibited.

‘A present?’ she exclaimed with shining eyes. ‘Oh, Felicia, how lovely—but you shouldn’t have.’

‘Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid,’ Felicia warned her, remembering the deprecatory words Faisal always used before giving her some shockingly extravagant treat. It was an Arab trait to deprecate their possessions, stemming from the days when to boast of one’s achievements could call down the ‘evil eye’ upon the bragger, and she knew it was still the custom for an Arab to welcome a visitor to his ‘humble’ home, even if that home were a palace.

A little apprehensively she watched Zahra open her present, but the younger girl’s gasp of pleasure obliterated her fears that it would not be well received. Even Raschid was commanded to admire the contents of the make-up box, although he did so with typical male indulgence for so purely a female delight.

Umm Faisal’s pleasure was a little more restrained, but genuine none the less, and Felicia was pleased that she had taken the trouble to ask Faisal what sort of perfume his mother preferred.

‘It’s gorgeous!’ Zahra exclaimed, sniffing the bottle. ‘It reminds me of the one al-Azir mixed for you the last time we were in Jeddah, Mother—do you remember?’

‘I certainly do,’ Raschid interrupted drily. ‘It was extremely expensive.’

Felicia smiled politely at his little joke, and looked up to find Zahra watching her expectantly.

‘Where is Raschid’s present, Felicia? Or are you keeping it from him until he apologises for this afternoon?’ she teased with a smile.

Felicia felt her colour come and go. How could she say that she had not brought a present for Raschid? She bit her lip and then remembered the paperweight she had bought for Nadia, Faisal’s elder sister.

‘It’s upstairs,’ she improvised hurriedly, hating the guilty blush that mantled her cheeks. ‘I wasn’t sure that Raschid would be eating with us.’

‘You have forgiven him, then. I knew you would. Do go and get it,’ Zahra urged Felicia, before turning to her mother, her eyes twinkling. ‘Uncle Raschid was unkind to Felicia this afternoon, Mother. She didn’t realise she could have asked him to cash her travellers’ cheques and she had gone into the bank alone!’

The shocked expression on Umm Faisal’s face told Felicia that Raschid had spoken no less than the truth when he warned her about her behaviour, and she used the diversion created by Zahra’s announcement to excuse herself and slip upstairs to collect the paperweight.

Fortunately it had been wrapped in a silvery striped paper suitable for either sex, and hating herself for the deceit, she hurried downstairs with the small package. When she had decided against bringing a gift for Faisal’s uncle, she had not bargained for being faced with a situation such as this evening’s!

As she handed Raschid the small square box her fingers trembled, accidentally brushing his, the brief contact sending alarm bells jangling along her nervous system, her eyes wide and dismayed in her small heart-shaped face. She knew that it was too much to hope that the man thanking her so urbanely for her thoughtfulness had not noticed the small, betraying gesture.

Nothing escaped those smoky-grey eyes, now sardonic with comprehensive amusement, and Felicia slipped hurriedly back into her chair, wishing that she had waited for a more propitious moment for her present giving.

‘Go on, then, open it!’ Zahra commanded her uncle, her eyes on the package. ‘I’m dying to see what it is!’

‘Then I had better unwrap it quickly, before Miss Gordon accuses me of further cruelty to my family,’ was Raschid’s cool comment as lean fingers made nonsense of the sealing.

When the paper fell away to reveal the dark blue leather box, Zahra expelled an impatient sigh.

‘Raschid, do hurry—it looks very exciting!’

In the growing darkness of the Oriental room with its plain white walls and luxurious, richly coloured Persian carpets; its priceless antique furniture with its glowing patina, the pure beauty of the blue-green glass was a poignant reminder for Felicia of the country she had left behind. The glass was Caithness, from Scotland, where craftsmen took a pride in fashioning the heavy paperweights, imprisoning within the depths of the molten glass, small flowers; petals; sea anemones so that their beauty would live for ever. The one Felicia had chosen held a blue-green sea anemone, and it had been one of a limited range and consequently frighteningly expensive, but she had fallen in love with its cool, remote beauty.

As she watched, her breath caught in her throat, Raschid lifted it out of its white satin bed, balancing it on his open palm. The silence that followed was a tribute to the craftsmen who had conceived and made it.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Zahra whispered, touching it with a delicate forefinger. ‘So cool and fresh—like you, Felicia.’

‘It is a gift any Arab would treasure, Miss Gordon,’ Raschid’s deep voice agreed. ‘The glassblower has captured the quality and colour of the sea in our gulf, and nothing is more precious to our race than water.’

‘It can be used as an ink-holder, or just a paperweight,’ Felicia told them, dismayed by the faint huskiness in her voice. For some subtle reason which she could not define, the gift had taken on an intensely personal aura she had never intended it to have. When she bought it, the salesgirl told her that it was designed to be used as an ink-holder or perfume bottle, and it was for the latter reason that she had deemed it suitable for Nadia, apart from its obvious beauty. Thank goodness she had not bought her perfume, she decided, quelling a nervous giggle; then she would have been placed in an embarrassing position. If she had not been so stubbornly against buying anything for Raschid in the first place, she would not now be in this unpleasant situation, she reminded herself, trying not to notice Raschid’s cool scrutiny both of her and the gift.

‘You are very generous,’ he said at last, silvery-grey eyes holding anxious green ones. ‘More generous than I deserve.’ He placed the paperweight back in its box, snapped the lid down and got up. ‘If you will excuse me, there are certain business matters I have to attend to.’

Felicia had wanted to enquire whether there were any letters for her. She had learned from Zahra that all the mail, irrespective of its eventual recipient, was passed to Raschid, and she was hoping that there might be a letter for her from Faisal. Although she had only been in Kuwait a very short time, Faisal had not written to her since his departure for New York, and she had half expected to find a letter awaiting her arrival. A letter from him would help banish the memory of those tension-fraught seconds when awareness of Raschid had threatened to swamp her, and she badly needed the reassurance that hearing from him would bring.

‘How clever of you to choose such marvellous presents,’ Zahra murmured admiringly later. ‘Especially Raschid’s. Did Faisal tell you that he collected rare glass?’

Felicia shook her head. There seemed to be rather a lot of things Faisal had neglected to tell her about his uncle, and she guessed intuitively that these omissions had been deliberate.

‘You are showing siyasa after all, Felicia,’ Zahra dimpled up at her. ‘Your generosity will surely melt Raschid’s heart.’

That was the last thing it was likely to do, Felicia thought despairingly. If Raschid thought that she was deliberately trying to soften his hostility he would be less likely than ever to view her in a favourable light.

‘It is my name day soon,’ Zahra confided. ‘Raschid has promised that we may go to the oasis for a few days. You will like it. I don’t expect I will be able to spend much time there once I am married, as it is really Raschid’s house, so this is by way of being a special treat.’

It was the first time Zahra had mentioned her marriage and Felicia did not like to pry. However, they were alone, Umm Faisal having excused herself, and Zahra seemed to be in the mood for confidences. ‘They brought the material for my wedding gown this afternoon,’ she told Felicia, wrinkling her nose slightly. ‘Of course, I am not supposed to know anything about it.’

‘Don’t you mind marrying a stranger?’ Felicia asked curiously, hoping that she wasn’t treading on dangerous ground, for she had no wish to upset the younger girl.

Zahra looked shocked and indignant.

‘Saud is not a stranger! Whatever gave you that idea?’ She shook her head.

Feeling rather perplexed, Felicia ventured hesitantly, ‘But when your uncle mentioned to me the negotiations I thought your marriage must be an arranged one.’

Zahra laughed. ‘Well, yes, in a way I suppose it is. Saud and I met at the university, but his family is a very important one and very old-fashioned. Saud was to have married his first cousin, as is customary, but fortunately Raschid was able to discover that the girl wanted to marry elsewhere, and so he was able to persuade Saud’s family to accept me as Saud’s wife. It could have been very difficult, for it would have been an unforgivable insult were Saud to refuse to marry his cousin, and conversely, had the girl objected to him, it would have caused her father to lose face. Our wedding is to take place quite soon, but first must come the formal visits.’ She pulled a face. ‘It is all so silly really, both of us having to pretend that we don’t know one another. I would be quite happy to get married in your English fashion, but Raschid says that sometimes the more roundabout route is actually the shorter.’

Felicia did not know what to say. She had imagined that Zahra was being forced into the marriage for reasons of policy and had even suspected that somehow or other Raschid would benefit financially from the marriage. Now she was being compelled to review her suspicions.

‘Of course Saud’s family demanded a very large dowry,’ Zahra continued matter-of-factly, startling her still further. ‘But Raschid has been very generous. You must ask Mother to show you my bridal chest. It will hold Saud’s gifts to me on our marriage, and it has been passed down through our family for ten generations.’

Felicia was still digesting this unwelcome insight into Raschid’s actions when Zahra excused herself, saying that she had some studying to do. When she had gone Felicia stared out into the darkness of the gardens. It seemed that she had completely misunderstood Raschid’s motives—at least as far as Zahra was concerned, for there could be no mistaking his attitude towards her. Was inviting her here a roundabout way to destroying Faisal’s love for her? With considerable misgivings, she wandered restlessly from the window to the door leading out into the courtyard, tempted by its inviting solitude and fresh air. It was cooler outside than she had expected and she shivered in her thin dress, but the music of the fountains was particularly haunting by night, suiting her mood, and she found herself drawn to where the clean, cool water splashed down into its marble pool. She passed the birds in their aviary and sighed faintly. She was as much a prisoner as they, although there were no walls to her cage other than custom and hostility.

‘Miss Gordon!’

She froze as the dark shadow loomed over her, the sound of her name on those cruel lips sending shivers of apprehension running over her skin. All at once the velvet darkness seemed to press down on her, every instinct warning her to flee as Raschid emerged from the shadows, crossing the courtyard with silent stealth.

She had thought that she had the courtyard to herself, Raschid the last person she had expected to materialise at her side, and she choked back her dismay, forcing herself to say coolly, ‘Sheikh—I didn’t see you. Zahra told me you’d gone out.’

‘So I had,’ he agreed. ‘But now I have returned, and like you I was tempted into the garden to enjoy its solitude.’

Felicia turned, intending to return to the protection of the house, but his fingers grasped her shoulder, forcing her to stand mute under his considering scrutiny. His eyes seemed to strip away her fragile defences, leaving her exposed and vulnerable, her eyes wide and uncertain as she tried to hold his gaze.

‘This meeting is most opportune,’ he drawled at length. ‘I am glad of the chance to speak privately with you.’

‘I thought my presence was yours to command,’ Felicia retorted bitterly. ‘Or are you no longer master in this house?’

He ignored her taunt, his eyes mocking as they pierced the darkness. ‘I was thinking of your embarrassment and my sister’s curiosity were I to send for you privately; not my own ability to command you if I so wished. Fatima tells me that Zahra was to have shown you the town this afternoon, and apparently my appearance on the scene deprived you of this treat.’

When Felicia refused to reply he continued coolly,

‘That being the case, I shall put myself at your disposal later in the week. You know, of course, that Friday is our holy day, but if you will name another, I shall make sure that it is free.’

Munificence indeed, Felicia thought wryly, but being escorted around Kuwait by a disapproving Raschid was the last thing she wanted.

‘There’s no need for you to go to such trouble,’ she assured him quickly—too quickly, she realised, when she saw him curse under his breath, his fingers tightening painfully.

‘It seems that you are determined to quarrel with me,’ he accused. ‘You British have a saying that is particularly relevant, and I suggest that you accept the olive branch I extend. We are extremely dependent upon the olive in our harsh climate, and we never take its name in vain. It is plain that Zahra has taken you to her heart—perhaps the fault for this is mine in not warning her more thoroughly about the type of woman you are— However, the damage is now done, and it will hurt her if she sees that we are enemies. She is to leave us soon, and I will not have her last days with her family spoiled and marred by ill-feeling between us.’

‘A pity you didn’t think of that before you insulted me so grossly this afternoon,’ Felicia reminded him bleakly, dismayed by the bitterness that swept over her.

‘So!’ He seemed to consider her for a moment, his eyes probing the darkness until she shrank under their assessing gleam. ‘Very well. If I cannot gain your co-operation through goodwill, I shall have to gain it in some other fashion.’

A frisson of fear ran over her skin. In the dark the fountain played, but the sound suddenly seemed heightened to her overstrung nerves, emphasising the solitude of the garden.

‘If you’re thinking of bribery,’ she said distastefully, ‘I suggest you think again. There’s nothing you could offer me that would change my love for Faisal.’

‘Nothing?’ Raschid taunted softly, coming towards her like a jungle cat, all feline grace and terrifying danger. Although it was dark she could see the faint sheen of his skin, marred by the dark shadow of his beard along his jawline. It was unfair that any man should possess such arrogant certainty of his own power to compel others to do his bidding, she thought nervously, her tongue wetting her dry lips, as long lashes flicked down over his eyes, hiding his thoughts from her. His touch had become less brutal, his fingers gently massaging the fragile bones of her shoulders, sending a warning screaming through her veins. This man is dangerous, it seemed to say, and with trembling certainty she knew that she had pulled the tiger’s tail and must surely suffer the consequences.

Without her being able to do a thing about it, Raschid slid his hands from her shoulders to her waist, propelling her towards him, his voice a mocking imitation of tenderness, as he murmured softly against her hair, ‘You leave me with very little choice, Miss Gordon. You have continually defied me, and must pay the price. You cannot expect me to believe you are naïve enough not to know how a man will retaliate when you challenge his most basic instincts?

‘Very well then,’ he said harshly, when she refused to answer, ‘let this be your punishment.’

Cruel hands imprisoned her against the hard warmth of his body, his voice cold as he commanded her to abandon her vain struggles to be free, as his mouth descended on hers with a punishing ferocity.

If she had once read passion into that full underlip, there was none now. It was a kiss of bitter anger; a contemptuous punishment of her defiance, breaking through the fragile cobweb dreams she had spun of a moment like this; alone in an Eastern dusk, in the arms of a man who could trace his origins back to the fierce tribesmen who called the whole desert home. But then, of course, she had been thinking of Faisal—not this man who crushed her against the steel wall of his chest, without a thought for the fragility of her own soft curves; who destroyed her dreams as easily as he might tear the wings from a foolish moth.

Furiously resentful, she withstood the harsh pressure of his mouth; rigidly refusing to admit defeat, her lips clamped shut against the demand of his. He might be able to physically restrain her, but nothing could make her respond to him in the way he had obviously intended.

This kiss could only have lasted seconds, but it seemed an eternity before she was released, feeling mangled like some poor creature set free from the talons of the falcons that sheikhs flew from their wrists.

She beat at his chest with ineffectual hands, but he grasped her wrists, smiling down tauntingly.

‘Well, do you still say that you can defy me?’

‘I’ll tell Faisal what you’ve done!’ Felicia all but wept, trembling with humiliation, but Raschid only laughed.

‘You would never dare,’ he told her softly. ‘We have a saying in our country, that it takes two to commit adultery. Mud sticks, Miss Gordon. By all means tell Faisal. I wish you would…!’

Leaving her to digest that remark, he released her so suddenly that she almost fell. Her fingers went instinctively to her throbbing lips, tears blurring her vision.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Raschid added casually, slipping a hand into his jacket and withdrawing the blue leather box that held the paperweight, ‘I suggest you give this to the person for whom it was originally intended.’ And he threw the box towards her. ‘I think we both of us know that you would never have bought such a gift for me, and you insult my intelligence by expecting me to believe that you did. Keep it for Faisal. I am sure he will be far more appreciative—and show it in a more acceptable way!’

He had gone before Felicia could admit that the paperweight had been purchased for Nadia, his anger leaving an almost tangible atmosphere in the cool garden.

He had shamed and humiliated her; mocked her love for Faisal and his for her, and treated her in a way that no man should ever treat a female member of his family, and yet try as she might she could not conjure up the comforting memory of how it felt to be in Faisal’s arms, and it came to her, with shock, that although he had driven her to fury and bitter despair she had not shrunk under Raschid’s embrace as she did when with Faisal. Because she had been too angry, she assured herself, staring down at the box in her hand.

Suddenly she hated the paperweight more than she had ever hated anything in her life. Before she could change her mind she hurled the box as far as she could, barely aware of the small, distant thud as it fell amongst some roses, then she turned her back on the courtyard and sought the sanctuary of her bedroom.

Under the electric light she saw the faint beginnings of what would eventually be bruises from Raschid’s tight grip.

Removing her clothes, she showered, soaping her flesh until it glowed, as though by doing so she could remove for all time the memory of Raschid’s kiss. She hated him! Hated him, she told her flushed reflection defiantly. So why was she crying, silly, weak tears, that would only afford her self-confessed enemy the greatest satisfaction?

She touched a tear-damp cheek with shaking fingers. In the space of a few earth-shaking minutes Raschid had destroyed her illusions and ripped away the veils of innocence which had hitherto protected her, and all because she had dared to flout his authority and walk unattended in the streets of Kuwait.

But as she waited for sleep to claim her, Felicia admitted that it went deeper than that. For the first time in her life she had experienced true fear, and as her eyes closed she fought desperately to remember what it had felt like to be held in Faisal’s arms, investing her memories with a passion they had never possessed in an endeavour to obliterate every last trace of Raschid’s touch.




CHAPTER FIVE


FEMALE voices rose and fell, punctuated with laughter and the rattle of coffee cups. Umm Faisal had invited her friends round to meet Felicia, and judging by the number of women crowded into the room, Felicia suspected that her hostess numbered the entire town amongst her acquaintances.

Most of the visitors were of Umm Faisal’s generation, and from an upstairs window Felicia had seen them hurrying from opulent cars, their bodies draped in heavy black cloaks, glancing neither to the left nor the right. Once inside, though, the cloaks were discarded like so many unwanted chrysalises to reveal Paris couture fashions and jewellery to rival the contents of the Tower of London.

From her cross-legged position on a damask cushion Felicia listened to her neighbour describing a recent visit to America. All the women spoke English, although sometimes with accents which made it almost impossible for her to recognise her native tongue.

This was the first time she had observed the formal ritual of receiving guests, Arab fashion; the gracious welcome and lavish hospitality; and above all the enthusiasm with which the visitors greeted her. Most of them had visited London at one time or another, and they all displayed an almost childlike curiosity about her life there.

The maid, Selina, came round with fresh coffee, and Felicia sighed. Her stomach was awash with the bitter liquid, but since no one else seemed to be refusing, she felt she could hardly do so herself. Umm Faisal caught her eye, smiling understandingly. She whispered something to Selina and to Felicia’s relief the dusky serving girl passed by without filling her delicate porcelain cup.

Marble floors, and damask cushions; they were a far cry from her small bedsit with its second-hand furniture. Felicia found that she no longer thought of the austerity of plain white walls as a strange contrast to the luxurious silks and satins the Arabs used for furnishings. She had grown used to seeing Umm Faisal sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, although most of the rooms were furnished in a more Western style, but she doubted if she could ever come to terms with the segregation of male and female; the absolute and all-embracing dominance of the male. However, Zahra told her that even this was less strictly adhered to than had once been the case, and she was forced to admit that where his family were concerned, Raschid was a very forward-thinking man indeed. A pity that his enlightened views did not extend to include her!

Someone knocked on the door, and instantly women were reaching for their veils, without haste or pretension, slipping them into place, as Selina opened the door. Servants, Zahra had told Felicia, did not need to veil.

‘It is the Master, sitti,’ the girl told Umm Faisal.

‘Ah, yes, he has come to collect you, Felicia. Raschid is going to show Felicia Kuwait,’ she explained for the benefit of her guests, adding something in Arabic that brought a twinkle to more than one pair of dark eyes.

‘She says that it is as well that Raschid is a man of impeccable honour,’ Felicia’s companion whispered. ‘In our day such a thing would not have been allowed, but times change.’ She shrugged as though to say who was to tell whether or not such changes were for the better, laughing when Felicia got unsteadily to her feet. No wonder these women were so graceful and fluid; their limbs would be trained from childhood to accept such a pose, while hers protested agonisingly, pins and needles stabbing painfully through both feet.

After their confrontation in the garden, Felicia had never expected that Raschid would pursue his promise to take her sightseeing—if indeed a ‘promise’ it had been—but pride would not let her back down and refuse to go with him.

She had dressed for Umm Faisal’s guests with special care, but as she opened the door, the horrible thought struck her that Raschid might think that she had donned her attractive outfit for his benefit.

She was wearing a peach linen suit, perfect with her warm colouring, a simple cream silk blouse underneath the neatly fitting jacket. Cream shoes and a slim clutch bag toned perfectly with subtle peach linen, and thin gold bangles chimed musically as she moved. They had been a gift from Faisal, and one which she had tried to refuse until he told her that unless she accepted them the bracelets would be thrown away. She thought of the emerald ring he had bought her—now with him in New York—and his anger when she had refused to wear it until his family accepted their engagement. Now, when it was too late, she wished she had brought the ring with her. Perhaps the sight of it might help to restore some of the high hopes with which she had come to Kuwait.

In Eastern garments she knew that she could never hope to rival the grace of girls who had been wearing them from babyhood, but as she glanced in the full-length mirror set into the wall, she reflected that she had every reason to feel pleased with her appearance, and knowing that she looked her best lent an air of confidence that bloomed in the soft colour of her cheeks and the warm glow of her eyes.

Today she had overcome an important hurdle. Umm Faisal’s friends had accepted her, despite the differences in their cultures—East and West could blend happily, no matter what Raschid said. With the light of battle in her eyes, Felicia went to meet the man waiting for her in the paved courtyard.

Dim light filtered in through the tall narrow windows of the entrance hall, and at first she could not see him. Then he moved and she caught the white flash of his shirt, the cuffs immaculate as he shot one back to glance at his watch. The gesture, so typically male, made her smile, and that was when he turned and saw her, poised in the doorway, the dark wood a perfect foil for her translucent beauty, laughter trembling the generous curve of her mouth, her eyes calm and composed.

He came towards her, his expression unreadable. This time Felicia was determined to retain the upper hand.

‘I’m sorry if I kept you waiting,’ she apologised formally, ‘but your sister’s friends….’

‘You have no need to explain the female of the species to me, Miss Gordon. I’m perfectly conversant with its addiction to senseless chatter.’

His arrogance all but took her breath away.

‘If it’s senseless, it’s because men like you refuse to give them the opportunity to be anything else,’ she retorted, the serenity dying out of her eyes to be replaced by anger, but Raschid merely looked amused.

‘Is that what you have been doing? Lecturing Fatima’s guests on the rights of the liberated woman? You will not be very popular with their husbands, Miss Gordon.’

‘I don’t care whether I am or not,’ Felicia announced recklessly.

‘Foolish of you,’ was Raschid’s only comment. ‘For those same husbands have the power to forbid their wives to have anything to do with you, if they wish, and Faisal would not approve of that. He may appear Westernised to you, Miss Gordon, but he will expect his wife to adhere to the rules of his own society, I assure you.’

Ignoring the warning, Felicia tossed her head, walking past Raschid to where the car was parked. Where once she had wanted to gain his approval for Faisal’s sake, now she seemed to derive intense satisfaction from deliberately needling him—a trait so alien to her personality that she wondered a little bitterly why it had to be Faisal’s guardian of all people who should arouse it within her.

‘Faisal and I will not be living in Kuwait,’ she told Raschid, remembering what Faisal had said.

‘No?’ His sideways glance was mocking. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Miss Gordon?’

She refused to look at him, preceding him across the courtyard, where the scent of early roses already hung intoxicatingly on the warm air.

‘If I am I’m sure you’ll remind me of it.’

‘Exactly so,’ Raschid agreed urbanely. ‘As an employee of the bank—and make no mistake, Faisal is an employee—he has a duty to go where the Board decides he will be of most use.’

‘The Board?’ Felicia queried bitterly. ‘Don’t you mean yourself?’

‘In these circumstances I think I can agree that the two are synonymous.’

His suave satisfaction jarred, like a nerve in an aching tooth probed by an unwary tongue. Felicia hesitated, on the point of refusing to accompany him, but then she remembered Zahra’s approaching birthday, and accepted that there would probably be no other suitable opportunity to buy her a present. Swallowing the words, with her pride, she contented herself with a cold glare in Raschid’s direction.

For the last few days the household had gone busily frantic over the arrangements for transporting Umm Faisal, Raschid, Zahra and herself, as well as the staff and everything that they would require, to the oasis for the duration of the birthday celebrations. Only that morning Zahra had laughingly confided that without Raschid to master-mind the move she doubted if they would get any farther than Kuwait City. Felicia had suggested rather hesitantly that perhaps she ought to return home, in case her presence at such a time proved to be a nuisance, but Zahra’s swift dismay soon reassured her. In point of fact, she and Zahra had become very close, and it was only her growing affection for the younger girl that prevented Felicia from giving full rein to her growing antipathy towards Raschid. As he had so rightly said, it would hurt Zahra if she thought they were quarrelling, and Felicia had as little desire to cast a blight over the birthday festivities as Raschid. For that reason an uneasy—on her part at least—truce had developed between them.

‘A wise decision,’ Raschid drawled suddenly, startling her. She glared at him suspiciously, caught off guard when he said smoothly, ‘Don’t bother denying that you were contemplating refusing my company. I dislike liars almost as much as I despise fortune-hunters.’

The sheer rage engendered by his dismissive tones rendered her speechless, totally unable to retaliate, and it wasn’t until he walked round to the opposite side of the parked car and opened the driver’s door that Felicia realised that Ali would not be accompanying them. Raschid leaned across the passenger seat, unlocking the door and pushing it open.

‘I think I would prefer to sit in the back,’ she said stiffly. ‘Isn’t that what you think good women should do—dutifully take a back seat and leave the driving to their lords and masters?’

‘On this occasion I think we will opt for the Western custom,’ Raschid replied drily. ‘Otherwise I shall be endangering both our lives by constantly having to look over my shoulder to converse with you— Or do you perhaps read a more sinister purpose into my request? Your imagination runs away with you, Miss Gordon.’

If anything his voice had become even more cuttingly unkind, and Felicia flushed painfully, knowing he was deliberately taunting her.

‘Even if such was my desire,’ he continued, ‘which most assuredly it is not, I never, but never make love on the open carriageway between my home and the city. Kuwaiti drivers are not the most polite in the world, nor the most tolerant of dawdlers, as you will soon discover. I am sorry if I don’t match up to the prowess of your previous escorts in this regard, but in the East we prefer to suit the activity to our surroundings.’

Felicia stood by the car, longing to slam the door shut, wishing she could think of a suitably cutting retort to burst for once and for all the complacent arrogance with which Raschid surrounded himself. She had forgotten that even though she was standing by the side of the Mercedes, Raschid could still read her expression quite accurately in the driving mirror, and she jumped when he drawled mockingly, ‘I can almost feel the knife entering my heart, Miss Gordon. Be careful. In this country we believe in taking a life for a life.’

‘Heart? What heart?’ she retorted, too furious to pay much attention to the rest of the sentence. ‘You don’t possess such a thing, Sheikh Raschid!’

‘Get in the car, Miss Gordon, and save your anger to fuel something more profitable than pitting your wits against mine.’

The arrogance of it! Felicia seethed as she slid into the seat, ignoring his smile as he leaned across her to close the door. At such close quarters an aura of taut masculinity emanated from him. She was pulsatingly aware of the warm sheen of his skin, drawn tightly over the narrow bones of his face; the way his eyelashes lay, long and dark against the sculptured bone; silk against satin, she thought irrelevantly, shiveringly aware of him in a way that she had never been aware of Faisal, but underneath lay a core of pure steel.

‘Do I pass muster?’

She flushed as vividly as the roses blooming in the inner courtyard, hating to be caught out paying him any attention, no matter what the reason—and in this case, pure curiosity had drawn her eyes to his face, unwilling admiration keeping them there to wonder at the perfect symmetry of the bone structure underlying the smooth skin, even while the arrogant profile made her anger rise like a river in a flash flood, coming out of nowhere to appal her with its ferocity. How strange it was that a mingling of East and West should have produced this lordly, sensual man, while Faisal’s pure Arab blood had produced a man in a much softer mould.

While she battled with her anger, she told herself that for Faisal’s sake she must learn to tame it, to sit meek and docile under the razor-sharp tongue and probing glance. She had once read that a falcon could focus on its prey from many thousands of feet above it in the sky; so it was with Raschid. Those grey eyes held all the latent power of a modern laser beam.

They took the coast road. The day was deliciously warm, the merest breath of fresh air from the air-conditioning fanning her hair as they sped towards the city. The leather seats reclined to contour the body, and the radio emitted soothing music, but Felicia could not relax. She was as tense as a coiled spring, unwittingly betraying her anxiety in her tightly clenched fists.

‘Relax,’ Raschid surprised her by saying. ‘Or is it merely the fact that you are a passenger rather than the driver which makes you so tense? How you European women rob yourselves of your very femininity by insisting on doing everything for yourselves!’

‘Perhaps because our experience of your sex has taught us how unwise it is for us to rely on them for anything,’ Felicia retorted unwisely, thinking of Uncle George, and how selfishly he had refused to allow either her aunt or herself the slightest little pleasure, begrudging every small thing he had done for them.

‘Is that why you want to marry Faisal?’ Raschid asked astutely. ‘Because you see in him a shoulder on which to lean? Strange—I had not thought of you as a clinging vine; I see I shall have to revise my strategy. Clinging vines are notoriously difficult to remove, but Faisal is weak, Miss Gordon; whoever marries him will need to be mother, lover, and even jailer at times. Are you sure you are able to fulfil all those roles?’

‘It’s easy to list his failings when he’s not here to defend himself,’ Felicia retorted hotly, trying not to acknowledge the truth of what Raschid had said. Hadn’t she sometimes noticed an inclination to adopt the role of helpless little boy by Faisal, when all was not going his way?

‘You are loyal at least,’ Raschid responded in clipped accents, as though the admission displeased him, then changed the subject to draw her attention to the British Embassy. Because he hoped that she would soon be entering that building, asking to be sent home, all her dreams of marriage to Faisal turned to so much dust.

Not for the first time Felicia wondered at her own foolish impetuosity in allowing Faisal to persuade her to come to Kuwait. He had paid for her air ticket; her own slender savings had gone on her new wardrobe, but Faisal had glibly assured her that it would not be long before he was able to join her in Kuwait, taking it for granted that she would remain with his family until their marriage. If that was not to take place until he was twenty-five she would have to return to England. Which meant that she would have to write and ask Faisal for the money for her ticket, for she was convinced that Raschid would never allow him to return to Kuwait while she was there.

As soon as Zahra’s birthday was over she would write to him, she promised herself, comforted by this gesture of independence.

They drove past the Sief Palace, where guards stood stiffly to attention. A flag flew from the tall, square clock tower.

‘His Highness the Emir is holding his majlis,’ Raschid told her.

‘And I’m sure I’m safe in assuming the Emir’s government is overwhelmingly male,’ Felicia could not resist retorting.

‘You seem to have an outsize chip on your shoulder regarding my sex, Miss Gordon—or is it that having gained your independence, you find you no longer want it?’

Felicia turned away from the malice-spiked glance. She had never been an advocate of Women’s Lib, being quite happy to play the role for which nature had intended her; a role which she did not in any way consider to be subservient, however, so she now found herself saying quite heatedly, ‘You do not deny that in your country women often still have to fight for equal status?’

‘And that arouses your crusading instinct? Would it surprise you to know that women do have rights here; that they can vote or run for office?’

‘But they didn’t have those rights until very recently,’ Felicia responded briefly, looking away, suddenly conscious of the insolent appraisal of narrowed grey eyes.

Raschid swung the car over, throwing her heavily against him, his arm brushing against her breasts and leaving her tingling with an awareness she had never experienced in Faisal’s arms. What was this tension that seemed to vibrate in the air whenever she was near him? Whatever it was she did not like it.

‘We are now entering the main souk and banking area, Miss Gordon,’ Raschid informed her. ‘I suggest that I park the car so that we can do the rest of our tour at a more leisurely pace.’

They left the car in a huge underground car-park beneath a towering plate glass and chrome office block.

‘This is where we have our head office,’ Raschid explained. ‘In fact this building was one of our first ventures into the construction industry.’

‘But not your last,’ Felicia commented, remembering Faisal saying that the Bank had helped to finance the building of a hotel, amongst other things.

Raschid’s hand was under her arm, a courtesy she had not expected, and she stumbled slightly as they emerged into the bright sunlight, his hard body taking the full impact of her tensed slenderness as they collided. Even that brief contact was enough to disturb her; the grey eyes cynically amused as they took in her flushed cheeks and angry eyes.

‘No, not our last,’ he agreed. ‘Although this particular venture was extremely profitable. As I am sure you already know, construction finance accounts for some forty per cent of our profits.’ He looked at her averted profile, and gave her another thin-lipped smile.

‘Am I boring you? Surely not. It is my experience that most women find the making of money almost as absorbing as the spending of it.’

‘Well, I’m not most women,’ Felicia replied shortly, pulling up with a start as they rounded a corner.

The wide street in front of them was laid out with trees and flower beds, greenery and tropical colour rioting everywhere. Where once there had been barren desert, fountains played, and instead of walking beneath the scorching glare of the sun, cool shady trees spread their green cloak invitingly over the strolling shoppers.

‘Kuwait’s Bond Street,’ Raschid offered sardonically, as Felicia stared at the bewilderingly exotic display of precious stones in a jeweller’s window.

‘I have no doubt that you would far rather tour this area in Faisal’s company than mine,’ he drawled coolly, intimating that Faisal could have been persuaded to do more than merely glance disparagingly at the glittering diamond display that commanded the front of the window.

‘I would have preferred to. But not for the reasons you suppose,’ Felicia stressed pointedly, peering a little closer into the plate glass in the hope of finding something a little more modestly priced that she could buy for Zahra. Already she had learned of the younger girl’s love of jewellery, and she smiled a little as she contemplated her reaction to the display of gems in front of her. She gave a faint sigh. There was nothing here to suit her slender pocket, and the shops, although luxuriously expensive, were disappointingly Westernised.

‘What did you expect?’ Raschid asked in thinly veiled amusement when she ventured to say as much. ‘Souks in the traditional manner, complete with beggars with alms bowls? At one time the blind men of the city were employed to call the muezzin from the minarets, lest strange male eyes perceived an unveiled woman—such are the wonders of modern science that nowadays the minaret towers are fitted with loudspeakers which do the job far more effectively, and our poor are supported by the State.’

‘Blind men were deliberately employed for such a purpose?’

Intrigued despite her hostility, Felicia hesitated, to turn an enquiring face up to the saturnine dark one above her.

‘You find such safeguarding of the modesty of our women amusing, I am sure. But not so long ago for a man to look upon the face of another’s wife was a gross insult to them both—in your country a worse crime than sleeping with one’s best friend’s wife—although I learn that nowadays such occurrences are commonplace.’

Felicia’s face flushed.

‘Not in the circles in which I move,’ she denied energetically.

Raschid’s eyebrows rose and he shrugged dismissively. ‘It matters little to me one way or the other, so you may save your protestations for other ears. Now, if you have seen enough, I suggest we return to the car.’

‘But I haven’t bought Zahra a present,’ Felicia began in dismay, faltering into silence as Raschid turned to stare at her.

‘That was why you agreed to come? What did you have in mind?’

He looked so bored and remote that Felicia almost stamped her foot.

‘It isn’t what I have in mind, but what I can afford,’ she said bluntly, gesturing towards the jeweller’s window. ‘Certainly nothing in there.’

For a moment she thought she saw his mouth curl in faint, amused condescension.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Sadeer’s is probably the most expensive jeweller’s in Kuwait, and anyway, you could not hope to rival the gifts Zahra will receive from Saud and her family.’

‘It isn’t a question of “rivalling”,’ Felicia stormed, furious at his lack of understanding. ‘It would be embarrassing and impolite if I had no present for her.’

‘Are you asking for my help?’

Was she? She fought against a desire to tell him to go to hell and instead nodded her head mutely.

Was that satisfaction she read in his smile? Seething, she stared across the road, not really seeing the constant stream of opulent cars flashing past.

‘Very well, Miss Gordon.’ He took her arm, guiding her across the road towards a narrow alley, but before they could enter it a young woman hailed them, her eyes heavily kohled and her jeans and thin cotton blouse a replica of the uniform worn by her Western sisters. Felicia judged her to be around her own age, perhaps a little younger. She had the impression that Raschid would have preferred not to acknowledge her, and yet his smile was polite enough, and he listened attentively enough while she talked in rapid Arabic.

‘Yasmin is the daughter of a friend of mine,’ he explained for her benefit, commanding the other girl to speak in English. ‘She was at university in England for a while. Miss Gordon is a friend of Faisal’s, Yasmin, and is staying with us for a while.’

‘While Faisal is in New York?’ She tossed her long, dark hair and eyed Felicia assessingly. ‘I wonder if he knows how friendly you are with his “friend” Raschid, or perhaps he no longer minds sharing.’

She was gone before Felicia could say anything, and Raschid watched her depart in grim silence.

‘If you found Yasmin’s hostility strange, perhaps I should explain that she is one of the casualties of Faisal’s ability to fall in and out of love. They became very close when she was in England, and I suspect she read more meaning into my description of you as Faisal’s “friend” than I would have wished. No matter…. She is hardly likely to broadcast the true nature of your relationship. Not in view of her own feelings for Faisal.’

Yasmin and Faisal! Strange that the thought of them together caused her no jealousy, Felicia reflected. Indeed what she actually felt for the other girl was a vague pity, despite her insinuating remarks concerning herself and Raschid. ‘Sharing’ indeed! If only she knew! A bitter smile curved her mouth. She was the last woman Raschid would want in his life.

Raschid directed her down the narrow alleyway, shadowed and almost secret in the blank face it showed to the world.

Plainly he knew where he was going. He guided her through a labyrinth of narrow streets, some built from the original mud bricks from which the earlier town had been constructed.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked him at one point, alarmed by the sudden transformation from West to East, as cloaked figures shuffled silently past them, and exotic, unrecognisable fragrances filled the air.

Raschid chuckled.

‘Not to the slave market, if that’s what you think. Oh yes, they still have them in the more remote oases, where captured tribes are sold as slaves. It is illegal, of course,’ he shrugged, ‘but by the time the crime is discovered it is often too late to prevent it. All that one can do is to make sure that the unfortunate victims are set free.’

Felicia shuddered, suddenly glad of his tall presence at her side. They were walking through an old-fashioned covered souk, where merchants called to passers-by from their open doorways. Above one hung jewelled Eastern rugs so beautiful that Felicia stopped to stare.

‘They are made by Badu from Iran,’ Raschid told her. ‘They use patterns passed down from generation to generation.’

The merchant called out a greeting, sensing a possible sale, but although Raschid acknowledged his presence, he did not stop.

Eventually he touched Felicia lightly on the arm, directing her footsteps towards an open doorway.

When her eyes had accustomed themselves to the darkness within the small shop Felicia saw that the shelves were stacked with bottles and boxes, the air redolent with cedarwood, ambergris, sandalwood, and other scents too unfamiliar for her to recognise. With dawning delight she realised that Raschid had brought her to the shop of a maker of perfumes.

While she stared round her surroundings in an absorbed trance the two men talked in low undertones. The owner of the shop was as wizened as a walnut, his face dried and seamed by time, but the dark eyes that glanced at Felicia were shrewdly assessing. He said something to Raschid and Felicia saw him shake his head, his expression cold.

‘Will he be able to mix something for Zahra without seeing her?’ Felicia whispered anxiously, wondering what they had been saying.

‘The perfume is for Sitt Zahra?’ the old man asked, betraying a knowledge of English Felicia would not have expected. Under her fascinated gaze the old man ran his eyes along the shelves, at last removing one small bottle. ‘I have here the perfume I made for her the last time she came. If the Sitt cares to purchase some?’

It was dark in the interior of the shop, but Felicia saw Raschid nod his head, as she glanced at him for guidance.

‘Yes, please,’ she murmured.

A wide grin split the merchant’s face.

‘May Allah curse me, I had almost forgotten that the Sitt is to be married shortly. We must add something for fertility, and something else to enhance the womanhood that will shortly be hers.’

While they waited he measured and poured, sniffing occasionally, and then he was transferring the mixture to a small crystal jar.

‘May I smell it?’ Felicia asked eagerly.

To her disappointment he shook his head.

‘This perfume is not harmonious to the Sitt’s beauty.’ He turned to Raschid and said something in Arabic, before saying to Felicia, ‘Your beauty is that of the rose before it opens fully; a bud which has not yet blossomed, and so it must be with your perfume.’

Felicia was glad of the darkness to hide her blushes, as he handed the small package to her. She dared not look at Raschid, fearful of what she might see in his face. And yet the old man had been uncannily correct; she was still a ‘bud’, the petals of innocence furled tightly about her, awaiting the warmth of a man’s lovemaking, before she could blossom into full flower.

In silence she followed Raschid from the shop, dazzled by the bright glare of the sun. It was the hour when the shops closed for the afternoon and everywhere shutters were being placed over windows, and doors closed against the heat. They were just emerging into the street when the perfume blender called something after them, and Raschid turned, glancing back into the scented darkness they had just left.

‘One moment,’ he said curtly, and disappeared back inside.

Felicia hesitated, unsure whether or not she ought to follow him. The two men were deep in a low-toned conversation, and unwilling to appear curious, she hovered in the doorway.

The old Arab was busily searching his shelves, moving jars and bottles. She caught the elusive scent of English lavender, instantly evocative of home, and then a more subtle, spicy scent. The old man pounded something in a wooden bowl with a small pestle and the fragrance of wild violets drenched the air. Fascinated, Felicia watched. Raschid was buying more perfume? For his sister? Then why the low-toned conversation? Some other woman, perhaps? A sophisticated creature with the chameleon ability to make the transition from East to West? A woman who would guard her beauty from curious eyes in public but who had the self-confidence to reveal it without shyness to the man she loved—in private?

‘Miss Gordon?’

How many more times would she have to endure hearing her name called in those bitingly imperious tones?

Her errant footsteps had taken her beyond the confines of the shop and cool exasperation laced Raschid’s voice as he strode towards her.

‘Has all that my sister and I have said to you been as so many grains of sand dispersed by the winds, or is it merely wilful caprice that prompts you into such constant disobedience?’

Disobedience! Felicia spun round, her eyes darkened to jade green with anger. Dear God, she did not want to quarrel with this man, but neither would she let him walk roughshod over her pride, trampling it beneath the fiery scorn of his contempt.

‘I walked away because I didn’t want to intrude,’ she flung at him. ‘Your business was plainly private.’ Anger made her reckless. ‘A gift for some woman who is permitted to share your bed, but forbidden any other part in your life….’

‘You have described the type of person for whom the perfume was intended to a nicety,’ Raschid gritted at her. ‘But the perfume maker does not share my view of you, Miss Gordon. Oh yes!’ He laughed scornfully at her shocked expression. ‘Did you not guess? The old man was making the perfume for you—his own idea, not mine, I hasten to add. Here, take it,’ he commanded, thrusting a small package into her hand. ‘He insists that it incorporates the innocence which he claims is an integral part of your nature. I did not want to tell him that his eyesight must be failing if that is what he thinks. I know my nephew, Miss Gordon,’ he concluded grimly, ‘and I know the type of women who share his life.’

Felicia turned, intent only on escaping from his cruel words, but his hands reached out and stayed her, his expression cautionary.

‘Do not be foolish,’ he advised her. ‘Even nowadays the souks are not entirely free from danger for the unwary. Your careless footsteps might have led you down any one of a hundred alleys and before too long you would have been hopelessly lost—an experience I am sure neither of us wishes to endure.’

She pictured herself, lost and frightened, dependent on this cold, autocratic man for succour, and her chin lifted proudly.

‘You need not worry, Sheikh Raschid,’ she told him. ‘If I were lost, you would be the last man I would want to rescue me.’

She pulled away from him as she spoke and a piece of flint half buried in the sun-baked earth caught her unprotected ankle, lacerating the soft skin. She winced as pain shot through her and blood welled from the cut.

Raschid tensed, frowning as he heard her involuntary protest, then dropped on to his haunches, a muttered curse falling softly into the golden silence of the afternoon when he saw what had happened.

‘It’s nothing,’ Felicia protested unsteadily as lean fingers probed the wound with surprising gentleness.

‘It’s bleeding. It must be washed and cleaned,’ Raschid replied curtly.

There were some moistened tissues in her bag which she used to keep her hands and face fresh and she opened it, removing them.

‘I’ll do that.’

The authoritative tone could not be ignored, and in silence she handed Raschid the moistened pad, flinching a little at its coolness against her throbbing flesh.

‘How one admires the British in adversity,’ Raschid mocked as he straightened up. ‘So cool, so controlled… so prepared for every contingency.’

The light in his eyes reminded her that a few nights ago there had been a contingency for which she had not been prepared, but Felicia ignored it, murmuring lightly, ‘One tries….’

‘Indeed one does. But sometimes we must fail, for the good of our souls.’

Was he warning her that she would fail to convince him to allow her marriage to Faisal? She moved away, wincing afresh as she put her full weight on her ankle. Raschid’s hand on her wrist steadied her; a momentary contact—no more—but in that moment the air between them seemed fraught with some intangible emotion and then she was free, the clean male scent of him fading from her nostrils as quickly as the imprint of his fingers was fading from her wrist.

‘What’s the matter?’

Her eyelashes flicked down, but not in time to prevent him from reading the expression in her eyes. He laughed softly.

‘Ah yes, I see! You thought perhaps I might repeat our romantic scene of the other night. I’m afraid I must disappoint you, Miss Gordon.’

‘Romantic? Is that what you call it?’ Felicia retorted bitterly. ‘Then you have very strange ideas of romance, Sheikh.’ She turned away, anger and resentment flaring simultaneously to heated life, possessed by an urge to escape from this man and his tormenting mockery; a desire to put as much distance between them as possible, heedless of the dangers.

In the empty souk her heartbeat thundered in her ears, steadily increasing as she hurried past shuttered shop fronts, like so many unseeing eyes, disdainful of the folly of the pale foreigner who ran unveiled along the shadowed alley. Pain throbbed through her ankle, but she disregarded it. The thudding of her heart drowned out every other sound bar one—the relentless footsteps behind her, firm and tireless, driving her like a terrified gazelle before the beaters.

He caught her, as she had known he must, his fingers biting into her waist as he swung her back against him, shaking her until she thought her neck must break.

‘You little fool! Don’t you know any better than to run in this heat? Do you really want me to give you a reason to run from me?’

Felicia looked up at the thin line of his mouth, harshly forbidding, and a tremor of something so alien and unwanted shot through her that at first she did not recognise it. When she did the shock was so great that she could barely comprehend that she, a girl who had never deliberately set out to arouse any man, and indeed shrank from physical contact, had felt a thrill of surging satisfaction at the blazing anger in Raschid’s eyes, and a desire to push him over the limits of his control, her own fury fuelled by his.

Common sense warned her that the ensuing conflagration could destroy her totally, but she no longer cared. She wanted Raschid to experience anger as consuming as her own; to endure the lash of her contempt against his pride, as she had been forced to endure his.

‘Well, Miss Gordon?’

‘You have already given me sufficient reason, but in your arrogance you will not admit it.’

His fingers curled round the soft flesh of her upper arms, frightening in their intensity. He smiled without pity when she winced at their crushing pressure.

‘This is the East,’ he reminded her. ‘I could punish you here and now for what you have just said and no man would raise his hand against me, not even if I beat you publicly in the streets. Beware! In every man there lurks the falcon; a streak of ruthlessness and thirst for power.’

His fingers lifted to her throat, trapping the wildly beating pulse she could no longer control. All at once the fight had gone out of her, and where there had been momentary elation there now was dread. He laughed mirthlessly when she shivered under his touch, nervous as the silky-maned Arab mares of the Badu.

‘You see?’ he taunted. ‘At last you realise that a man is not an equal, but an alien force, bent on destruction when he is aroused to anger.’

‘Stop it! Stop it at once,’ Felicia begged him. ‘I won’t listen to you!’ Her voice trembled, caught somewhere between indignation and fear. ‘You don’t deceive me at all. You’re hoping to drive me away; to frighten me into giving up Faisal. You think I’ll be overpowered by that potent masculinity you’re so proud of, like a timid, shrinking Victorian heroine, caught in the trap of her own senses. Well, you’re going to be disappointed! I’m well aware of the difference between my senses and my heart.’

‘Are you indeed?’ he challenged softly, the sensuous movement of his thumb against the silkiness of her neck making her aware too late of her danger. She trembled under the deliberate provocation of the caress and he laughed, deep in his throat.

‘And what do your senses tell you now, Miss Gordon?’

It was too late to pretend that his touch left her unaffected, too late by far to wish she had never allowed fury to betray her into this hopelessly untenable position. She closed her eyes and gritted bitterly:

‘They tell me that sex without love is like the desert without water—an arid wasteland where nothing can flourish.’

‘But that arid wasteland, as you call it, possesses a magic of its own.’

His thumb was stroking along her jaw now, the steel fingers forcing her chin to tilt upwards no matter how much she fought against their pressure. She opened her eyes. His were barely inches away, darkly grey, the sensuously curving mouth smiling thinly.

He bent his head towards her, and she was like the falcon’s prey, transfixed, accepting her fate. His faint breath stirred her hair.

‘Have you experienced the potency of the desert, Miss Gordon?’

Dear God, what was happening to her? With an anguished cry she tore herself free. What was he trying to do to her? Seduce her away from Faisal? Faisal! Why had she not thought of him before now? Why had the memory of his lovemaking not protected her from responding to Raschid?

Gathering the tattered remnants of her pride about her, she stared coldly at the man towering over her.

‘The desert holds no attraction for me, Sheikh Raschid—and neither do you.’




CHAPTER SIX


TALK about the best laid plans of mice and men! Felicia thought ruefully as she dressed for dinner. A cowardly corner of her heart prayed that Raschid would be absent from the meal. She stared critically in the mirror at her too-pale face. She had known from the start that her self-imposed task was hopeless, but after this afternoon she could never hope to convince Raschid that she would make Faisal a good wife. She shrugged bravely. What did it matter, after all? He could hardly swear on the Bible that there had been no provocation! Provocation! Colour washed over her skin as she remembered the sensuous movement of his thumb against her flesh, and the peculiar weakness that had made her legs feel as though they had turned to an unset jelly.

All sheer magnetism, of course. She wielded her hairbrush fiercely for a few seconds until the auburn curls framed her small face in a silky cloud. Raschid had done it deliberately—there could be no doubt about that! Playing on her fears and uncertainties, unleashing the powerful aura of his masculinity. And how near she had come to succumbing!

Slowly she put the brush down, staring at her trembling mouth and wary eyes. There was the crux of the matter. She had been dangerously affected by Raschid’s caresses; so much so that shame scorched her as she made herself relive those seconds in her arms. She had deliberately encouraged him to unleash his anger against her, but she had never dreamed it would take such a damagingly sensuous course, or that she herself would be swept away in its fierce tide. In vain she told herself that it was merely an automatically feminine reaction, trying desperately to drive away the tormenting image of Raschid’s taunting smile by replacing it with Faisal’s loving smile. But for some reason she found it impossible to reconstruct his boyish features; the memory eluded her, as though overpowered by Raschid’s stronger personality. The harder she tried to cling to the memory of Faisal, the more difficult she found it to superimpose his features over Raschid’s. Honesty had always been one of her strong points, and now she was forced to question the strength of her feelings.

Could there be a grain of truth in Raschid’s accusation that her love for Faisal was founded on what he could give her—Oh, not wealth, that mattered little—but security, warmth, the affection and companionship of a family. The more she contemplated this point, the more plausible it became. Faisal had surrounded her in warmth and love, and she had sunk into its security without deeply questioning her own feelings. It had been enough merely to be loved. But would it always be enough? And wasn’t she cheating Faisal as surely as though she had merely wanted him for his money?

She was glad when the dinner gong put an end to these useless speculations. She was bound to have doubts, second thoughts, but once she and Faisal were together again…. Not even in the tiniest corner of her heart was she willing to admit that her real doubts sprang from the untenable discovery that while Faisal’s lovemaking affected her hardly at all physically, Raschid had merely to touch her to send her pulses racing, her body flooded with sexual awareness.

Dislike could be as powerful an emotion as love, she reminded herself, as she zipped up her dress and added a quick touch of lipstick to the soft curves of her mouth. It toned with the pink in her dress, swirls of pink and pale green chiffon, an unusual combination for a redhead, but one that brought an indefinable touch of the exotic to her appearance, darkening the colour of her eyes and highlighting the richness of her hair. A lacy white stole covered her shoulders, although the dress had small cap sleeves and a neckline that was discretion itself. Untouched on the dressing table was the perfume Raschid had given her. She refused to open it; for a moment tempted to dispose of it in the same way as she had disposed of the glass paperweight, but acknowledging that the perfume had come from the perfume-maker and not Raschid. Even so she was reluctant to discover what sort of woman he had thought her, and she pushed the small package to the back of her drawer, unwilling for Zahra’s curious eyes to alight on it.

She was the first downstairs, and on impulse she hurried into the gardens, to where she had thrown the blue leather box. It had been stupid to try to destroy a thing of so much beauty out of momentary pique, but although she searched diligently among the rose bushes she could find no trace of the package and surmised that the gardener must have disposed of it.

Tonight the delicious spicy aromas coming from the dining room did nothing to tempt her appetite. Her stomach muscles knotting with tension at the thought of having to face Raschid, she felt as though the merest morsel of food would choke her.

Zahra greeted her in her normal ebullient fashion, smiling approvingly at the cool picture Felicia made; the fresh green colours of an English spring flowering in the desert.

‘Uncle Raschid will not be joining us tonight—he is entertaining business acquaintances,’ Zahra explained as they sat down.

Felicia relaxed with relief. So at least one of her wishes had been granted. Now all she needed was for her good fairy to wave her wand twice more—once to bring Faisal home and a second time to dissipate Raschid’s dislike—but such wishes were hardly likely to be granted, not if Raschid had anything to do with it.

‘Did your sightseeing tire you?’ Zahra asked solicitously. ‘You look very pale.’

‘A little.’ But it wasn’t her tour of the shops and town that had left her feeling so drained, it was her clash with Raschid and the disturbing thoughts it had aroused. Now wasn’t the time to question the strength of her feelings for Faisal, but for some reason she was finding it increasingly difficult not to compare Faisal to his uncle. Raschid would never allow anyone to dictate his way of life! She was being unfair, she reminded herself. Faisal had very little choice in the matter. Raschid had the whip hand!

‘Has Zahra told you that my elder daughter and her family are to pay us a visit shortly?’ Umm Faisal asked, as Selina heaped Felicia’s plate with savoury saffron rice.

Felicia shook her head and looked enquiringly at Zahra.

‘Yes, it is true,’ the younger girl acknowledged. ‘Nadia is to join us at the oasis. You will like her, Felicia, she looks very much like Faisal.’ She smiled understandingly when Felicia flushed; which only increased her own feelings of guilt, for it had been of Raschid’s darkly sardonic features of which she had been thinking and not Faisal’s.

She toyed listlessly with her food while Umm Faisal and Zahra discussed the arrangements which had to be made for the trip to the oasis. Was the memory of this afternoon’s unpleasantness destroying Raschid’s appetite? Did a mental image of her face torment him? Somehow she doubted it.

Refusing coffee, Felicia excused herself. Her small white lie that she had a headache was not entirely untrue. The beginnings of tension in the back of her neck had spread to her temples and she was glad to lie down on her bed and let her mind wander at will, relaxing under the hypnotic hum of the air-conditioning and the perfumed velvet of the Eastern night.

A tap on the door roused her, and she sat up and smiled reassuringly at Selina when she poked her head round the door.

‘The Sitt is wanted downstairs in Sheikh Raschid’s study.’

At first Felicia thought the girl had made a mistake, and knowing that her English could not always be relied upon, she shook her head kindly. ‘Sheikh Raschid is entertaining some friends, Selina, I do not think he would want me to join him.’

‘Friends all gone,’ Selina replied firmly. ‘Sheikh alone now. Everything quite proper. If the Sitt will come.’

It was obvious that she intended to wait and escort her downstairs, Felicia realised in exasperation. Her dress was slightly creased where she had been lying on it, but there was no time to worry about that now, nor to drag a comb through her unruly curls and wish that tiredness did not give her face such a look of soft vulnerability.

What could Raschid want? A further reiteration of his disapproval? She hesitated, and Selina paused enquiringly at the bottom of the stairs. Giving herself a mental shake, Felicia followed. After all, what could Raschid do? Eat her?

Raschid’s apartments were reached by a corridor linking them with the harem quarters of the house. They had their own private entrance and a large square hall furnished with soft Persian carpets and an intricately carved brassbound chest, plainly of great antiquity. Old-fashioned oil lamps threw a soft glow across the well polished floor.

There was richness here, and simplicity too, the one harmoniously blending with the other to give a feeling of timeless serenity which had the immediate effect of soothing her ragged nerves. The tall, narrow windows were open to the night, and the sharp scent of the lime trees stole in with the dusk.

‘This is the Sheikh’s study, sitt,’ Selina said respectfully, motioning her towards an iron-studded wooden door. Felicia gave her a wan smile, uncertain as to whether she should go straight in or knock. The decision was made for her when the door opened abruptly.

In the half light Raschid seemed to tower above her, and Felicia bit back a gasp. She would never have recognised him. He was wearing a dishdasha—the traditional white flowing robe of the Kuwaitis—his headdress hiding the night-black hair, a dark cloak lavishly embroidered with gold thread worn casually across his broad shoulders.

‘What is the matter, Miss Gordon?’ he asked urbanely as he ushered her into the room.

‘N-nothing,’ Felicia stammered, but her eyes remained glued to the undeniably impressive figure he made, outlined against the starkness of the white walls.

‘When dealing with my compatriots I find it better to wear the traditional garb of our country. In point of fact the dishdasha is more comfortable by far than Western-style suits.’

‘And far more impressive.’ She could have bitten her tongue out, when he turned and stared coolly at her. A frisson of awareness tingled across her skin, and she shivered slightly, despite the warmth of the night.

‘And what, I wonder, does that remark imply? That you think me a posturing fool, practising for a part in The Desert Song?’

Anger underwrote the cold words. Horrified, Felicia stammered a denial. No European could ever have worn the flowing garment with the grace of his Arab counterpart, and her surprise had sprung merely from the fact that this was the first time she had seen Raschid dressed in the traditional manner. Although she would not have admitted it to a soul, when he opened the door to her, for a moment he had embodied every single one of her romantic teenage dreams.

And now to crown all her other follies she had offended Raschid’s pride, touching the most sensitive spot of his personality. She bit her lip, wishing they were on good enough terms for her to explain that he had misunderstood.

‘What? Nothing to say for yourself?’ he asked harshly, surprising her with the raw anger she sensed beneath the words. He moved with the stealth of the desert fox and the sureness of an Arab stallion, coming to stand at her side and spinning her round to face him.

Felicia moistened her lips, wetting them with a nervous tongue, the movement instantly stilled as Raschid’s gaze pounced on the betraying gesture.

‘Why did you send for me?’

He released her, and she could feel her nerve ends quivering with relief as the tension eased.

‘Merely to give you this,’ he replied, handing her an envelope bearing an airmail stamp.

Her heart lurched. It was from Faisal; it must be! With eager fingers she reached for the envelope, and her hand brushed against Raschid’s as she did so. It was like receiving an electric shock. She shrank back, recoiling from the contact, her face pale as she gripped her letter.

‘You may cease the charade, Miss Gordon,’ Raschid mocked. ‘The ordeal is over. You have your letter, which you can take to your lonely bed to read and perhaps remember the nights you have spent in my nephew’s arms. Faisal is no stranger to the delights of the flesh, but then I have no need to remind you of that, have I?’

‘No, you have not,’ Felicia agreed, suppressing her instinctive denial of his accusations. For some reason allowing Raschid to believe that she and Faisal were lovers made her feel safer, although why she could not have said.

She saw his face darken, tightening with anger and contempt. No doubt she had just confirmed his initial impression of her, but she no longer cared. Secretly in the hidden recesses of her heart she was beginning to doubt her own ability to make Faisal happy, but her pride would not allow her to admit her discovery to Raschid. Time enough to know that he had been right when she was safely back in England, away from those mocking grey eyes.

By the time she reached her room she was trembling with a mixture of anger and pain. Feverishly she ripped open Faisal’s envelope, withdrawing the letter with a fast-beating heart. Surely here she would find the reassurance that she so badly needed? Surely the written words of Faisal’s love for her would banish all her doubts?

The letter was depressingly short, barely more than a few scrawled lines, with none of the tender reassurances she had hoped for. Indeed, it struck Felicia, as she read the letter for a second time, that Faisal too might be having second thoughts. He had written more as though to a friend than a lover; the phrases stilted and cautious; one betraying sentence almost leaping off the paper.

‘…. New York is much more fun than I had imagined….’

With a sinking heart Felicia remembered what Raschid had told her about Faisal’s propensity for falling in and out of love. At the time she had thought he was merely trying to upset her, but now she was not so sure. Faisal’s letter was not that of a man deeply in love and committed to that love. Now, when it was too late, Felicia wished passionately that she had not allowed him to persuade her to come to Kuwait, and worse still, to spend her hard-earned savings. With a feeling of sick despair she acknowledged that had it been possible she would have gone straight to the airport first thing in the morning and booked her flight home.

She even toyed with the idea of contacting her aunt and requesting her help with the fare, but she knew she could not. It seemed ironical that the one person who would have been more than glad to finance her return to England was the one man in the world she would never ask.

No, distasteful though it was, she would have to write to Faisal and sort things out. Once he knew that she was no longer expecting to become his wife, he would probably be delighted to pay for her ticket, she thought wryly.

As she switched off the lamp and slid down between the cool sheets, she wondered morosely why the discovery that Faisal no longer loved her should affect her so little. Less than a week ago he had formed her entire world; now all she wanted was to return home. And yet she would miss this land, she admitted. Despite its alienness it had touched her heart, and she felt that she could have adapted had her love for Faisal been strong enough.

Her last thought before sleep claimed her was that at least she was having a small measure of revenge against Raschid. While she slept in the knowledge that she and Faisal would never marry, Raschid was probably lying awake thinking of ways to part them. Strangely enough the thought brought her precious little comfort.

ALTHOUGH SHE FELT no guilt at deceiving Raschid, it was far harder having to pretend with Zahra. She would have liked to have the younger girl as a sister-in-law, she acknowledged, as Zahra waylaid her on the way to breakfast, bouncing up and down in excitement.

‘Look what Raschid has given me as a pre-birthday present!’ she exclaimed, waving a cheque in front of Felicia’s bemused eyes, and gloating gleefully over its size, enlarging enthusiastically on how she intended to spend it.

‘There’s a shop in Kuwait that sells the most dreamy lingerie!’ She rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘How about coming with me this afternoon?’

Felicia hadn’t the heart to refuse her, and Zahra’s grateful hug when she nodded her head was more than reward enough.

Ali drove them into Kuwait, dropping them in the area of Fahd Salim Street, where Raschid had taken her the day before.

As Felicia had half expected, Zahra tended to linger over the glittering displays of jewellery.

‘Those pearls come from the gulf,’ she told an interested Felicia. ‘Until oil was discovered, pearls were Kuwait’s richest source of income.’

Ali hovered protectively behind them, reminding them that they had not come to window-gaze. As before, Felicia was impressed by the graceful boulevard with its trees and flowers.

‘Our government is spending a great deal of money on irrigation schemes and desalination plants,’ Zahra told her. ‘In the fruit markets you will find all manner of fruits and vegetables grown on specially developed farms. The sun, once our greatest enemy, is being harnessed to provide the energy to grow perpetual crops. Saud is studying agriculture at the university,’ she added by way of an explanation for all her knowledge. ‘His family own lands near to our own at the oasis and he and Raschid are hoping to develop a fruit farm there eventually.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘I’m not sure what he loves best—me, or his precious greenhouses.’ She touched Felicia’s arm, motioning towards one of the shops. ‘In here. Ali will wait outside for us.’

The shop was small—no more than a boutique really—the walls hung with pale green silk panels, tiny gilt chairs covered in the same fabric, standing on an off-white deep-pile carpet. No pretensions to Eastern origins here; the boutique was blatantly Bond Street, or Fifth Avenue.

A mouthwatering selection of satin and lace underwear was produced for Zahra’s inspection, and as she fingered a peach satin nightdress lavishly trimmed with coffee lace, Felicia reflected rather enviously on the advantages of possessing a wealthy and generous uncle. Not that she would want Raschid to pay for her trousseau. The thought made her go hot and cold, and the peach satin dropped from her fingers as though it had burned.

‘Something wrong?’

‘What? Oh no—nothing. I think you should have the peach, Zahra, and the pale blue nightdress and negligee set.’

‘What about this one?’

Felicia examined the nightdress she was holding up for her inspection. It was a filmy mist of sea-green shifting to jade, in a silken shimmer of the finest gossamer chiffon.

‘It’s lovely,’ Felicia admitted.

‘And most suitable for a bride,’ the sales assistant pressed.

‘Would you not like something like this for your own marriage?’ Zahra asked, much to Felicia’s embarrassment. She closed her mind to a vision of herself clad only in the whispering chiffon, held in the arms of. Not Faisal, that was for sure, she told herself, shaking her head and handing the nightgown back to Zahra.

Ali was still waiting patiently outside, and something about the set of his shoulders suggested that they had been gone rather a long time.

‘Anything else you want?’ she asked Zahra, and the other girl shook her head.

They were crossing the wide pavement when Felicia saw the familiar figure striding towards them, and her heart gave a double somersault before hammering urgently against her ribs.

‘Isn’t that Raschid?’ she asked Zahra, surprised when the younger girl compressed her lips and immediately turned in the opposite direction.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Didn’t you see that woman with him?’ Zahra hissed.

Felicia had. The woman was tall and dark, dressed with an understated elegance, wrapped in an aura of wealth. Felicia had guessed her age to be somewhere in her late twenties.

‘She must be his mistress,’ Zahra decided. ‘She cannot be a woman of good family, otherwise she would never walk openly in the street with him.’

So Raschid had a mistress! Why should Felicia feel so surprised? She already knew how potently male he was; surely it should not be surprising that there were other women in his life besides his sister and niece. So why had her legs suddenly turned to quivering jelly; the muscles in her stomach cramping in agonised protest? The hypocritical pig! Resentment fanned the flames of her anger. How dared he insult and revile her, when she was quite innocent of all his accusations, and yet openly flaunt his mistress through the streets!

Suddenly she longed to confront him; to sneer contemptuously at him as he had done at her, and when she hesitated, Zahra grabbed her hand, shaking her head.

‘It would embarrass Raschid if he saw us. He could not acknowledge us, while he is with her!’

Embarrassed? Raschid?

Zahra, correctly interpreting her expression, added seriously, ‘He would be embarrassed, as I would myself. Naturally a single man has certain… needs, but….’ She shrugged comprehensively, trying to convey the impossibility of introducing the women who served those ‘needs’ to the sheltered females of his own family. Felicia stared unseeingly ahead. Was that how Raschid thought of her? As the woman who served the ‘needs’ of his nephew? Shame and rage scorched her, and her fingers balled into two small fists.

‘What’s wrong?’ Zahra asked. ‘You look so fierce.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ But she knew she was lying. A queer little pain had lodged somewhere in the region of her heart, but she steadfastly ignored it. Why should she care if Raschid chose to walk side by side with some dusky beauty, his dark head inclined towards her in a gesture of attentive protection? She had no need of his protection, nor his attention. How could she, when all that existed between them was open dislike?

NATURALLY ON THEIR return to the villa Zahra had to inspect her purchases all over again, although Felicia was surprised when she did not unwrap the sea-green chiffon. Perhaps she was frightened of soiling it, she decided. Together they enthused over the peach satin, as Felicia held it against Zahra’s skin.

‘I doubt your Saud will have eyes to spare for anything but you,’ she teased. ‘Which one will you wear on your wedding night?’

‘Neither,’ Zahra replied seriously. ‘Our wedding will be completely traditional. It is my wish and Saud’s. I shall be dressed in my bridal caftan with its one hundred and one buttons down the front, and round my neck will be the gold necklaces given to me by my family and Saud’s.’ When Felicia still looked puzzled, she explained, ‘It is our custom for the bridegroom to remove the necklaces one by one while the bride keeps a modest silence. Then he unfastens the buttons, starting at the hem,’ she blushed a little. ‘You find it strange, perhaps, that I should want to be married in this way, but…’

‘No stranger than the wearing of a white dress in the West,’ Felicia assured her. In point of fact a small lump had lodged in her throat, but the image shimmering in her mind was neither that of Zahra nor Faisal, but another dark, masculine head bent painstakingly over the tiny buttons, lean fingers making nonsense of their many fastenings. A deep shudder trembled through her, and her stomach churned with disturbing sensations. Dear God, what was she thinking? Imagining Raschid of all people kneeling tenderly at his bride’s feet, his normally sardonic expression replaced by one of intimate desire. What was happening to her? She felt sick and dizzy, and had to sink down into a chair to try and gather her composure. If only she could go home. If only she had discovered that gratitude was not and never could be love, before she had come to Kuwait. If she had not left England she would never have discovered that it was possible to respond to the potent maleness of a man without even liking him; that one could be aware of everything about him, and yet still know nothing. Her mouth had gone dry, the strange ache in her heart seemed to grow with every breath she took.

‘Did Faisal tell you when he would be coming home?’ Zahra asked innocently. ‘Last year he flew back from London just to give me my birthday present. Raschid arranged it.’ Her face brightened. ‘Perhaps he will do the same thing this year.’

Felicia shook her head. There was no point in raising the younger girl’s hopes.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Raschid might do something if you went to him and told him how much you are missing Faisal. Why don’t you, Felicia? You must be longing to see him.’

She was. But not for the reasons that Zahra supposed. If Faisal were to return she could ask him to help her get home, but of course she could not say this to Zahra. Thank goodness she had not allowed him to persuade her into wearing the ring he had bought her.

‘I’m sure you could coax Raschid round,’ Zahra continued. ‘He isn’t a complete monster, you know.’

‘That wasn’t the impression I got this afternoon,’ Felicia reminded her drily, remembering the younger girl’s desire not to be seen.

‘That was different,’ Zahra replied promptly. ‘Mother worries because Raschid does not marry. The responsibility of caring for her and us has aged him, I think, although he never lets us see it. Perhaps when I am married he will look for a wife, although it will not be easy. Mother fears that his English blood makes him impatient of our own girls.’ She glanced speculatively at Felicia. ‘Faisal must have told you how like Raschid’s grandmother you are. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have deliberately sent you out here to tease Raschid. When we were little I remember our father saying that Raschid, as a child, had been fascinated by the portrait of his grandmother. I think he has a softness for you, Felicia, even though he hides it.’

A softness for her! Felicia nearly told her how wrong she was, and why. So Zahra thought that Faisal’s motives in sending her to Kuwait might not have been entirely altruistic. Felicia suspected that she might be right. It was obvious to her that there had been differences of opinion between Faisal and Raschid in the past, and she wondered if Faisal had announced their ‘engagement’ to Raschid, in a deliberate attempt to annoy him. It was not pleasant to realise that she might have been used in this fashion, and she was coming to accept that Faisal was not the charming young man he had seemed on the surface.

ONCE AGAIN Raschid did not join them for dinner, and when Umm Faisal explained that he was dining with friends, Felicia smiled rather mirthlessly to herself. Friends, or friend, in the singular? She was tired, and excused herself, going to her room.

Each day the temperature seemed to rise a little more and Felicia had grown quite used to rising each morning to a cloudless blue sky; the muezzin no longer a weirdly unfamiliar sound, but part and parcel of everyday life. She was coming to love this country of stark contrasts, she admitted, and would miss it when she left. She had still not written to Faisal, and she knew that it was a task she must complete, but her pride shrank from having to beg his aid. Sensitive to the opinions of others, she was reluctant to have him think that she expected him to pay her fare home. And yet what alternative did she have?

The scent of the roses reached her from her bedroom window. Throwing a crocheted shawl round her shoulders, she went downstairs, through the silent hall and into the welcome coolness of the garden. They were particularly attractive, these enclosed courtyards with their fountains and shady trees. The sharp, acid scent of the limes mingled with the fragrance of the roses. Doves cooed softly from the dovecote by the fountain. She trailed her fingers in the water, watching the fish slide quickly away. With the moon full the garden was almost as bright as day, the landscape etched in stark silver and black.

She sighed and froze as feet crunched on the gravel.

‘Wishing there was someone to share the enchantment of our evenings with you, Miss Gordon?’

Raschid! Her hand crept to her throat to still the small pulse beating frantically there. He was dressed Arab-fashion once more, one leather-booted foot resting arrogantly on the rim of the pool as he surveyed her. She bit back a sharp retort, swallowing her dismay.

‘As a matter of fact I was,’ she lied lightly, her hands clenching impotently at her sides, as his cool glance slid over her small, flushed face, resting momentarily on the rise and fall of her breasts beneath their thin covering, before lingering thoughtfully on her neat waist and the narrow tautness of her hips. For some reason it had become desperately important to conceal from Raschid the truth about her feelings for Faisal.

His eyebrows rose, and again she bit back the burning anger clamouring for utterance. All her senses were urging her to escape, but she would not let him see her fear.

‘I believe you wish me to arrange for Faisal to come home? Zahra has been soliciting my forbearance on your behalf. Her tender heart aches for what she imagines to be the tragic parting of two star-crossed lovers. Naturally I have had to disabuse her of what is merely romantic fantasy.’

Forgetting her own doubts about her feelings for Faisal, she stared at him, her eyes blazing.

‘By doing what? Giving her your interpretation of our relationship?’

‘Oh, come,’ he mocked mildly, ‘why all the maidenly indignation? You made no demur the other night when I implied that you and Faisal had already shared the delights which Zahra only merely anticipates. You forget that I have lived in your country. I know in what scant regard your women hold their modesty and innocence.’

‘Which, of course, a woman of your race would never do!’

‘And what is that supposed to mean? Or can I guess? If you are referring to my companion of this afternoon—oh yes, I know you saw me, that hair of yours is instantly recognisable—she makes no pretence to being anything she is not.’

Felicia’s lip curled in a fair imitation of his own sneer. ‘Unlike you! I must admit that you surprised me. You don’t look the type of man who needs to buy a woman’s favours, but I suppose when all you can offer is physical gratification, the pill has to be sweetened somehow.’

His incredulous, ‘Why, you little…’ told her that she had managed to slip under his guard, but allied to trembling satisfaction was the certainty that she would be made to pay for that moment of victory.

Retribution came sooner than she had imagined.

‘I sought you out because Zahra was concerned for you. She tells me that you grow pale and do not eat, and she attributes this to the fact that you are missing Faisal. I know otherwise, but I will not be deceived by your playacting. I shall not allow Faisal to return now to be ensnared by you all over again. However, we cannot have you pining for lack of his lovemaking,’ he told her silkily. ‘It is fortunate that Zahra’s window does not overlook this courtyard—she may not approve of the methods I employ to assuage your need of him.’

Zahra wasn’t the only one who did not approve, Felicia thought numbly as her flaying hands were captured and pinned to her sides, as hard masculine lips plundered the trembling softness of her own, parted to voice her fury. She was forced backwards, imprisoned against Raschid’s arm, her throat and the swelling softness of her breasts exposed to his merciless scrutiny. His eyes glittered over the answering fury in her own, fastening on the erratic pulse beating frantically in her creamy throat before lingering on the pale blur of flesh revealed by the V neckline of her cotton dress.

‘Let me go!’ she muttered furiously, her mouth throbbing. ‘Save your kisses for the women who are obliged to endure them in return for some worthless trinket!’

She heard the angry hiss of his escaping breath, hard fingers tightened on her wrists, and her flesh burned from the contact with his.

‘Never worthless, Miss Gordon. I can assure you of that.’

But despite the lazy drawl she knew that his anger was no longer held in check. She had unleashed it with her hasty words. She closed her eyes, against a sudden weak rush of tears, as his hands moulded her hip bones, forcing her against him. She would not cry now! She bit her lip. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her face, and stiffened, willing him to release her.

‘Oh no, Miss Gordon, you will not escape so lightly this time!’

She could feel the tensile strength of his chest muscles against her breasts; the faintly harsh rasp of the dark hairs exposed by the open neck of his robe, so compellingly masculine that reaction flooded through her on a shock wave, making her painfully aware of just how inexperienced she actually was. The contact—which obviously meant nothing to him—suffocated her with its implied intimacy of flesh against flesh, and she struggled to get away, panicking as his lips took their fill of the exposed column of her throat, lingering appreciatively against her skin. If she had once doubted his skill and experience she could do so no longer. The deliberately arousing caresses would have melted ice; but she struggled not to give in; not to admit the drugging sensation of rising desire as his assault of her senses was subtly increased.

There was no affection or tenderness in his touch—she knew that; she knew that all he offered was the hollow sham of sexual need, and that even that was probably counterfeit, but she could do nothing when his free hand slid downward from her shoulder, cupping her breast, and stroking the soft curves.

Fear and indignation shot through her. Not even Faisal had touched her so intimately—nor so insultingly as though her body held no secrets, no pleasures, but merely the familiarity of the oft-known. She shuddered as his fingers found her nipple, coaxing it into hardening desire without exhibiting either haste or urgency; the pain and shock of her body’s betrayal there for him to see in the widening of her eyes and tensed muscles.

Satisfaction gleamed in the night-dark eyes, as they raked her pale, shocked face.

‘Well, now you can join the ranks of those who have known my objectionable touch, Miss Gordon. Although unlike them your reward was not well earned,’ he taunted.

She reeled as he released her, hating the grim comprehension in his voice. There was a parcel in his hand, wrapped in tissue paper, and tied with green ribbon.

‘It seems that Zahra purchased a gift for you on my behalf this afternoon. I only trust you will think of me when you wear it.’

The package was flung at her feet. Speech would have been a complete impossibility, as she stared up at him with hate-filled eyes.

‘Pick it up,’ he commanded inexorably. ‘Otherwise I shall be obliged to deliver it again—in person, and since the gift has been given twice, it will have to be paid for twice.’

‘You’re nothing but a barbarian!’ Felicia choked. ‘I was a fool to think you could ever understand what I feel for Faisal… or any other human emotion!’

She bent down, picked up the parcel, and fled before he could retaliate, clutching the tissue paper in trembling fingers. In her room she flung it against the wardrobe door, and the fragile paper tore on the sharp edge of the handle, releasing a froth of sea-green chiffon.

She paled, staring at the silky fabric. The nightgown! Zahra had bought it for her! With Raschid’s money! She was shivering with reaction and despair. In the mirror she could see the redness on her lips from his kisses. Her neck and shoulder burned from the searing heat of Raschid’s practised kisses and her breast was on fire from the arrogant sureness of his hard caress. Her body stiffened with rage.

How dared he treat her like a woman he had bought for the night! She suppressed a wild sob. He had tainted her—stamped on her pride and destroyed the protective shield she had thrown around herself. Never again could she assert that desire was nothing without love and that she could never experience the former without the latter, because for one fleeting moment she had known desire; and it was that more than anything else that caused the hot tears to roll down her cheeks as her fingers curled furiously into her palms and she found some slight surcease in contemplating Raschid’s muscular body writhing in mortal agony.

As for the nightdress… She stared disparagingly at the fragile silk she had coveted not so many hours ago. She would burn it before she allowed it to come anywhere near her body!




CHAPTER SEVEN


BEMUSED, Felicia asked herself how on earth order would ever result from such chaos. The household was preparing to move to the oasis, and Zahra, lifting yet another armful of dresses from her wardrobe, said impishly that it was no wonder that Raschid had absented himself from the house. His excuse had been that he would go on before them to make sure that everything was in readiness for their arrival, but Felicia believed that if he had the smallest spark of decency he would be as anxious to avoid her company as she was his.

Never, if she lived to be a hundred, would she forget the emotionless destruction of her flimsy barriers, the calculated assault on her senses, and the bitter lessons she had learned. When she slept at night she dreamed of him, of his cold, jeering face, and most of all of his knowledgeable, caressing hands, and she would wake, trembling with anguish, tears cascading down her cheeks.

It was no wonder that she was losing weight. Several times she had started to pen a letter to Faisal, telling him as gently as she could that their love had died, but every time she reached the part where she had to beg him to send her the money for her fare home, her pride stopped her. She was reaching the point where she was contemplating paying a visit to the British Embassy, but Zahra’s delight that she would be with them for her birthday celebrations prevented her from making a move until they returned from the oasis. She could manage for a few more days, she told herself, trying to believe that it was true.

‘It’s a pity that Raschid cannot spare Faisal,’ Zahra mourned. A pity indeed, Felicia agreed, although she knew that the supposed ‘emergency’ that kept Faisal in New York was no more than a figment of Raschid’s Machiavellian imagination.

She was helping Zahra with her packing. She had not imagined that a girl could possess so many clothes at the same time, and said as much.

Zahra grinned. ‘Raschid makes me a very generous allowance.’ She indicated a filmy harem outfit comprising baggy trousers in flame chiffon and a matching sequinned top. ‘What do you think of that? I bought it for a joke. Raschid would be furious if he knew.’ Felicia’s raised eyebrows prompted a defensive outburst. ‘Saud said it was a pity that harem dancers no longer existed, outside the imagination of Hollywood producers, and I thought….’

‘I can see what you thought,’ Felicia murmured drily, amused and touched to see Zahra blushing a little. What business was it of Raschid’s if the younger girl chose to play the harem dancer for her undoubtedly appreciative bridegroom? She folded the outfit briskly.

‘It won’t go in this box, it’s full,’ Zahra complained.

‘Never mind, give it to me. I’ve plenty of room in my case.’ Felicia looked rather quizzically at Zahra. ‘Why do you want to take it? You won’t be wearing it until you are married, I trust?’

‘I daren’t leave it here in case one of the maids sees it,’ Zahra confessed. ‘Mother wouldn’t understand.’

‘I can see why,’ Felicia agreed, thinking of the transparent chiffon. It was obvious that Zahra was very much in love with her Saud, and Felicia wondered a little enviously what it was like to prepare for marriage basking in the warm approval of one’s family. Had she ever anticipated Faisal’s caresses with the enthusiasm with which Zahra looked forward to Saud’s?—and not for the first time she questioned her ability to respond to a man’s lovemaking. Had her uncle’s cold rejection of her as a child destroyed her ability to give and receive love? And yet she had responded to Raschid. But she did not love him. She hated him. He was determined to destroy her, she thought bitterly, gathering up the small pile of garments which would not fit into Zahra’s boxes and putting them in her own case. And he did not care what means he had to use to do so. She straightened up and her breast throbbed pulsatingly as it had done when he had touched her. Her face flaming, she squashed the impulse to place her own hand against her quickening flesh in an effort to eradicate the tingling memory.





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