The Ice Maiden's Sheikh (9 page)

But as the days stretched into weeks, her hopes had begun to dim. Now she just wanted to get home, to the comfort of the family and familiar surroundings, where perhaps the grieving process had already begun.

 

They both greeted the approach to Medinat al Bostan with relief.

As they caught sight of the great golden dome of
the mosque and its picturesque minarets glowing in the hot, bright sunshine, Jalia was suddenly sharply aware of how grubby she was, and began to yearn for a long, warm bath, and her comfortable bed, with a power that had never assailed her on the road.

It was just before lunch when they drove between the gates into the great palace that now housed the Sultan again, after thirty years as a museum.

Jalia clambered out of the car, too tired to be anything but grateful when one of the servants who materialized dived for her backpack as she tried to shoulder it.

“Is there any news of the Princess, Massoud?” she asked, and as she expected, the man sighed gloomily.

“Nothing at all, Your Highness. And you—?”

“We found nothing.” With Latif close behind, she followed Massoud under the arched passageway into the beautiful private courtyard, where she stood for a moment looking around her.

All around the courtyard arches and columns presented the eye with the comfort of perfection. With a delicious babble the fountain tossed diamonds up to be kissed by sunshine in endlessly repeated beauty; trees waved patterns of shadow against the worn tile over which her ancestors' feet had passed for generations; and ripe pomegranates weighted the branches of the tall shrubs, presenting their rich redness invitingly close.

Jalia reached out to stroke the dimpled fruit with a luxurious sigh. Would she ever get used to such beauty? “
Allah,
it's good to be—”

The look in Latif's green eyes made her suddenly conscious, and she choked the word back.

“Home?” he prompted.

“Jalia!” She heard the urgent voice overhead and looked up to see her mother anxiously leaning over a balcony. “Thank heaven you're back!”

Jalia's heart kicked hard. “Has there been news, Mother?”

“Yes—
no,
not about Noor,” her mother cried. She flicked a glance at Latif. “But…”

“For heaven's sake, what is it?” Jalia called anxiously. “Mother, what's happened?”

“Well, darling—Michael rang yesterday.”

So far from her thoughts was her previous life that Jalia only blinked. “Michael?”

Princess Muna cleared her throat. “Your fiancé, Jalia. He's flying out today.”

“Flying out where?” she asked blankly.

“Here. He's coming…”

Latif's eyes were the precise green of jealous fury. She thought she had never seen anything more coldly beautiful, or more compellingly frightening, in her life.

“Here?”
she almost shrieked. “Why?”

Her mother's eyebrows went up. “He said something about your hour of need.”

“What?”

“His flight arrives in two hours,” said her mother.

“T
here is absolutely no reason for you to come with me!”

In dark glasses and with a scarf hiding her hair like a fifties Hollywood starlet, Jalia hissed her continuing protest as she strode into the concourse to wait for Michael's plane. Latif followed as close as her shadow.

“But yes,” Latif Abd al Razzaq contradicted calmly.

“You'll only draw attention to us both. People know who you are, Latif. They're bound to start wondering who I am!”

“I wish to meet Michael,” he said, with an immovability that made her want to sink her nails into something.

“And why can't you wait to meet him at the pal—
at home? This is ridiculous! All we need is for some damned journalist to be here, casting around…”

“I want to meet your fiancé,” Latif repeated.

“He is
not
my fiancé,” she hissed furiously.

“And then I wonder why he has come here.”

“I wonder, too, Latif. But can we get one thing straight? You do not have the right to this little show of jealous possessiveness!” Her hand flattened the air. “I made it clear from the outset that—”

“Do you talk about rights? I talk about love. There are no rights and wrongs. There is only—I want to see this man you tell me is not your fiancé. If you have told me the truth about him, why do you fear my meeting him?”

“I do not fear your meeting him!” she lied fervently, though she didn't know herself why she feared a meeting. Perhaps because she didn't understand Michael's motives in coming here.

The Arrivals doors opened into the small waiting area and in ones and twos the people from the latest flight started trickling out. Jalia licked her lips and nervously began to watch their faces.

“Jalia!” Michael's voice cried, and she turned to see him break away from a small group just emerging through the door, to stride towards her. He had lost none of the attention-seeking flair that made Michael a star amongst the staid university lecturers.

People turned to look, and Jalia instinctively lifted a hand to adjust her sunglasses and dropped her head.

A moment later Michael grabbed her close for a warm, enthusiastic hug.

“Darling, how good of you to meet me yourself
when you must be nearly exhausted. Desperately sorry I couldn't get here sooner!”

“Hello, Michael. This is a surprise! I—”

His arms still tight around her, he gave her a firm peck on her mouth that effectively silenced her, kissed her on each cheek, and lifted his head to smile a warning down into her startled face.

“I'm surprised, too! I certainly wasn't expecting to see you! Your mother said you were out scouring the mountains! When did you get back?”

She was acutely, uncomfortably aware of Latif standing behind her, watching with unblinking attention and restrained fury, a falcon choosing his moment to strike.

“A couple of hours ago. Michael, why on earth—”

“Not a word now, darling!” Michael hushed her with another little kiss, and she sensed his discomfort. He really was not happy that she had met him. “Plenty of time to talk.”

“Yes. Michael, this is Latif Abd al Razzaq,” she said, easing out of the embrace. “He—”

Michael didn't go for the dark, hawklike type, and he scarcely looked at Latif. “Great!” he said, grabbing his hand. “Great to meet you! You look after the Princess, I imagine.”

Latif stood unmoving as a rock, so obviously dangerous that Jalia cowered for Michael. But he was oblivious.

“I take good care of her, as you will see,” Latif murmured.

“Great!” Michael said again. “Any news about Noor, darling?”

“No, nothing new. Let's go, Michael. Is that the
only luggage you brought?” She could see nothing but a leather carry-on bag slung over his shoulder. It looked new and very expensive. Too expensive for an underpaid university lecturer.

“I had no idea what clothes I'd need at the palace,” he explained breezily. “For all I knew I might need a
djellaba!
”

“Michael, could you lower your voice, please?” she murmured. “There might be journalists around. Latif—”

Michael's laughter was long, loud and false. “But of course there are journalists around!” He turned and held out a conjuror's hand towards a sharp-faced young blond woman standing nearby.

“Meet Ellin Black—from the
Evening Herald.
You probably know her name. Ellin, my very own Princess Bride!”

“Great to meet you, Princess,” said Ellin Black, smiling at her with cool, self-possessed assessment. Her eyes flicked to Latif and widened with such an expression of curiosity, interest and female intent that Jalia would have laughed, except that she didn't feel like laughing. “And who are you?”

“I look after the Princess,” Latif said smoothly.

“And John is the
Herald
photographer,” said Ellin, quickly disowning any closer relationship with a fair, heavyset, middle-aged man a few feet away.

John Bentinck lifted his hand away from his face and genially nodded at them before fitting the video camera to his eye again.

 

“Sit down, Michael,” Jalia said crisply, leading the way into her private apartment at the palace an hour
later. She was absolutely furious, and not hiding it well. “What would you like to drink?”

“I'm absolutely gasping for a cup of tea,” he said.

They had driven from the airport in silence, Jalia furious with his betrayal, and Michael almost equally angry because she had refused to let the journalists into the car. At first he had tried to explain how brilliant a coup it had been for him to sign an exclusive with the
Herald,
then had descended into sullen silence.

In the front seat beside the driver Latif might as well have been carved in stone—not that Michael spared a thought for her “bodyguard.” But Jalia had been nervous and edgy all the way, wondering when and how he would pounce.

He never did. On their arrival at the palace, he simply bowed and disappeared, leaving Jalia even more anxious, and faintly disappointed.

Of course she would have to sort this out with Michael privately, and yet—it would have been so much easier if Latif had insisted on staking his claim.

Jalia reminded herself that Latif had no claim. She had told him so herself. What had she been expecting? That he would knock Michael down? Send him packing?

Belatedly, very belatedly, she saw that she should have forced the showdown at the airport before Ellin Black got the wrong idea. Michael had found some way to cash in on the situation, that was clear. And it was going to involve publicity. By not denying their engagement instantly, she had given him a credibility that might now be harder to dislodge.

Why hadn't she seen things so clearly an hour ago?
But she had been so obsessed with avoiding notice, with not causing any kind of public scene that might get into the papers, that she had missed the chance to deliver a short, sharp shock.

It was all Latif's fault! If she hadn't been so worried about what he was thinking, she might have dealt with this better. And if only
he
had said something, Michael might have realized…

She brought herself up short. How could she have such ridiculously contradictory thoughts?

In a cool voice Jalia dispatched the ever-attentive servant for tea and fruit juice, then settled in a chair.

Michael stood in the doorway to the balcony under the arched framework of stained glass, gazing out at the courtyard. Across the way the rows of similar arches lay in picturesque light and shade. The music of the fountain and birdsong were the only sounds that met the ear.

“This is fabulous!” he exclaimed after a few minutes of silent appreciation. “Beats the new palaces all to hell, doesn't it? Look at that tiling—I've been on digs where we've found floors just like that dating from eight hundred years ago! The place must be—”

“Yes, Ghasib had some justification for turning the palace into a museum,” she agreed. “It's still open to the public, of course, except for this wing, where the family live.”

“The family!” Michael said, laughing and shaking his head. “You know, no one was all that surprised. In the Senior Common Room people were joking about how they used to call you the Ice Princess. Did
you know that? They were walking around saying, ‘Well, we always knew!'”

He laughed, but Jalia didn't. The servant returned with a tray, and when he had set it down she quietly dismissed him.

“No, I never knew it,” she said, with a calm she didn't feel. “Come and have your tea.”

He left his admiration of the courtyard from another age and sank onto the sofa opposite her as the door closed behind the servant.

Jalia poured out the amber liquid, passed him the small gold-traced crystal cup and said, “What exactly do you hope to get out of this, Michael?”

He laughed a little anxiously. “Come on, Jalia! There's no need to take that tone! You're getting what you want out of the engagement. Why shouldn't I benefit, too?”

“That's what you call it? You've come here without warning, at a hugely difficult moment for me and my entire family, with a sleazy tabloid journalist in tow—”

“Ellin is hardly
sleazy!
” he said. “And how was I to know you'd take it so hard? What's so terrible if our engagement is publicly known? How does it affect your life, Jalia?”

“I think the point is, how does it affect
yours?
”

He carefully chose a lump of sugar, set it between his teeth, and sipped his tea like an expert.

“A huge difference. You would not believe.” He leaned forward earnestly, the cup held loosely between his knees, but looked down at it instead of at her.

“Listen, Jalia—you know I've been trying for
years for the chance to examine the private antique art collections of the Princes of the Barakat Emirates—and Ghasib's, too, before the Sultan's return.

“You know what a boost it would be for my academic prospects if I succeeded. And do I have to remind you that these are difficult times in the academic world?”

“No, you don't have to remind me,” she said stonily.

Sudden animation lit his features. “Do you remember that Mithra plate forgery Jasmin Shaw published a few years ago, suggesting that the theme had been copied from a genuine original? Do you know there's a rumour making the rounds now that, during the Parvan-Kaljuk War, when he was selling off his treasures, the King of Parvan actually sold King Daud of the Barakat Emirates a Mithra plate? And it's now hidden away in Prince Rafi's private collection? If I could—”

“Michael. What has this got to do with our engagement?”

“Oh, don't be naive,” he challenged irritably. “You're related to these families now, Jalia! Engaged to you, I'm not just an ordinary academic anymore, am I? I'm inside the charmed circle.”

He paused to drain his cup, and set it down.

“The
Herald
has contracted with me for a regular column discussing the antique treasures of the Gulf of Barakat—but it has to include some never-before-seen pieces from the palace collections.

“It's going to put Middle Eastern antiquities on the map, Jalia, and there's talk about my hosting a tele
vision series if it's a success. This represents a huge forward step for my career.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “
Tabloids? Television?
I didn't realize you had ambitions to become a popular art historian.”

Michael, in common with many academics, had always sneered at colleagues who took their wisdom to the
hoi polloi.
Stooping to inform the general public wasn't an occupation for the true scholar. Not even for ready money.

“I didn't realize it myself, till the
Herald
put it to me. But beggars can't be choosers, Jalia. And university budgets are only getting tighter, aren't they?”

Jalia set her glass down with a little
chink.
“And you thought that a fake engagement with me would open all those doors for you?”

“Why not?”

“Because it is
fake,
Michael. It was wrong of me to lie to my parents like that, though I thought I had good reason. But to go on lying and extend it to the Princes of the Barakat Emirates and Ashraf and everyone else would be worse than wrong. It would be an appalling abuse.”

“It doesn't have to be a lie.” She saw the shadow of a haunted desperation in his eyes. “We could get married.”

“What?”

“Just for a short time. What difference would it make to you, Jalia? We could get divorced in a year, say, no hard feelings. We've been good friends, haven't we? This could make me, Jalia. There's such a lot riding on it. More than you know,” he added unhappily.

She stared at him in appalled silence.

“Michael, do you know what you're saying?” she whispered. “What has put the idea into your head?”

“You did, Jalia.”

“But it's out of the question! You must see that it's impossible! I want to end this engagement farce immediately. If you hadn't been on your way here when I got back to al Bostan, I'd have phoned you to tell you so.”

“But why, if it's serving your purpose? Jalia, please consider!”

“It's over, Michael. I'm sorry if it now puts you in the embarrassing position of being publicly dumped, but there's no one to blame but yourself for that. We agreed to tell no one but my parents. And in your heart you
know
you shouldn't have done this without checking with me first.”

There was a long silence while Michael stared at her, stricken.

“Jalia,” he said. “I'm really, really sorry. I really had no idea that you'd react like this. I just didn't know. And I've done something so stupid—it's not going to be as easy as that, I'm afraid.”