Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
S heikh Kadar ibn al-Hadar, King of Sirun got no sleep that night. Somehow the answers to his problems had literally fallen into his arms and he’d made her his. Because that was what she was— his now. And he would not let her go. Everything depended on it. He was driven by duty and it was his duty to ensure his country was no longer riven by discord and enmity. He needed peace, and he’d come to the desert castle to find some of his own so he could figure out what to do. And the answer had been handed to him by God, driven to him on the wings of a storm.
Now, as a pale dawn light seeped in through the wooden shutters, any lingering doubts vanished. For once in his life, his duty and his pleasure had combined. He could get both from this woman. He glanced down at her, still fast asleep, her hair spread across the white sheets like a cloud, her dark lashes fluttering lightly as she dreamed.
He sighed with pleasure. Never in his life had he made love to a woman who had been so responsive, so sexually driven and satisfying. And that this woman could also be the answer to his political prayers only convinced him further of the rightness of his plan. He just wished he could tell her who she was. But that risked everything.
He rose and opened the shutters. Before him, the desert spread, rich in the early light. The storm had blown over and the flat lands looked guileless in the first light of day, as if they were incapable of wreaking such havoc. No traces of the drama of the previous day remained. All was well. He turned as he heard Sarah stir.
“Good morning,” he said, enjoying the sight of her body lying tangled in the sheets. He knew the feel of her intimately now, but it had all been under cover of darkness, or lit by a lantern, so he enjoy looking at her now. She was as beautiful as he remembered. Slight, her dark skin silky in the sunshine, and her long, dark hair glossily tangled and tousled by his hands and lips.
She grabbed the sheet and pulled it over her, blushing. “Good morning,” she said in that husky voice of hers. “Has the storm passed?”
“For now,” he said, imagining the storm—a very different storm—which lay ahead of them.
She frowned and sat up in bed. “You mean there might be more?”
“No,” he said. He had to watch what he said. He needed time to woo her, time for her to realize her future lay with him. “That will probably be the last storm of the season.” He pulled on his robe and glanced back out the window toward the city, where he knew he’d be consumed once more with responsibilities. “All is peaceful now.” He certainly hoped so.
“Good, so then we might be able to find my backpack? You said last night you’d be able to.”
He turned to her with a smile. “Of course. I’ll make a few calls. The phones should work now.”
“Thank goodness. I won’t be going anywhere without my passport.”
He certainly hoped not.
“Leave it with me,” he said.
She frowned and sat up in bed, her arms around her knees. “Do you think you know who took it?”
“No, I know people who will.”
She opened her eyes wide in surprise. “Oh! But then I guess you must know your neighbors well if you live here alone.”
“You could say that,” he said evasively. “How about we have some breakfast and make a start?” He really wanted to change the subject.
But her frown lowered. “Yes, sure, but before we do, I realize I know very little about you.”
“In some ways, we know each other extremely well.” He smiled at her.
She answered his smile with one of her own. And he decided he really needed to get back into bed with her, but before he could make a move, she spoke again.
“In some ways perhaps, but I feel you know a lot about me, and I know next to nothing about you. You did all the questioning, and I gave you all my answers.” She scrunched up her nose. “Feels lopsided.”
“And so you’d like to quiz me a little this morning?” He shrugged. “Fine, go ahead.” This could prove interesting.
“Okay, question number one. Do you live here all the time?”
“No. Next question?”
She held up her finger. “Not so fast, Kadar. I’d like to know what you’re doing here.”
Ah, she’d moved on from the closed-ended questions. Trickier. “I come here from time to time…” He paused, wondering how he could couch his reasons for coming here, without arousing suspicions. Because he didn’t want any of those. Not yet.
“To keep the place aired and ready for the owners?” she suggested.
He smiled. She was going to make this easy for him, after all.
“Something like that. And, I don’t mind. It gives me time by myself to think.”
“Ah, so you don’t live alone?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have a wife, if that’s what you mean. But it is traditional in Sirun not to live alone. We are a nation of community and tribes.”
“So you live with your tribe.”
He nodded slowly. It was true. All his retainers, advisers and prime vizier, were of his tribe.
“Well, that’s great that you can get away when you want.” She gave a small grunt. “My life is the opposite. I live alone and, even when I work, I feel alone.”
“Work?” He hadn’t imagined her working. The women of his tribe rarely worked outside the family. Their work was the family. But this woman was raised in England, he reminded himself. “Ah, you mentioned you were a counsellor.”
She looked sheepish, her lips pressed ruefully together. “Yes, I’ve also done a little modelling,” she said quietly. “I know it seems strange as I’m so petite, but I guess it’s the one place where my difference is appealing. It seems there aren’t that many people who have my dark skin with almond-shaped, hazel eyes.” She shrugged.
There was some strong, macho part which made him dislike her answer. He jumped up and walked across the room, trying to hide his response. But obviously she had become as receptive to him as he’d become to her.
“What’s the matter?”
He decided some version of the truth was required. It would appease his instinctive need for honesty and satisfy her. “I don’t like the idea of people looking at you.”
She laughed and rose from the bed. “I don’t expose my body. Well, not much of it.” She got out of bed and stood naked before him. “Not like this. And, believe me, I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never slept with a stranger.”
He reached out and traced his finger from her cheek, along her jaw, down her chest, across her nipple where he halted, noting her sharp intake of breath and puckering of her rosy flesh. “Good,” he said, looking intently into her eyes. “Your body is breathtaking to look at and to be inside. I would not like to share you.”
“I’m glad you feel like that. Because, no matter how our night began, somewhere it changed and I don’t want to say goodbye yet.”
“Nor me,” he said before pulling her to him, and kissing her. “Nor me,” he repeated before kissing her now open mouth, satisfying her invitation.
Some time later, Sarah lay soaking in the bath as the sun streamed inside the castle. It was a different place from the previous night. Now she could see that although it might be ancient, it had been well-maintained and was quite luxurious in places. Especially the suite of rooms she’d been given. Fit for a queen.
She was alone now, and it felt strange—the opposite of how she’d felt in England. There she’d always been surrounded by people but had always felt lonely. Here, it was the opposite. There was literally no one in the large castle, and she felt content. Kadar had gone to the nearby village, where he believed her backpack would be found. She’d been concerned at first that it might be dangerous, but he’d kissed her fears away before leaving. He seemed to have the knack of instilling a trust in him, which swept away any doubt, any uncertainty. Just as he’d swept her off her feet the day before.
She stepped out of the bath, wrapped herself in a towel and walked over to the window, looking toward the village. It was ridiculous, but she felt a connection to him already. Like a compass point directing her to where he was. He was all she could think about. The passion they’d shared… their instinctive knowledge of each other… It seemed unbelievable, but it had happened. And, it seemed, he wanted the relationship—because that’s what she felt it to be now—to continue. He’d invited her to return to the city with him. And to stay with him until she could re-organize her itinerary. And she stood a much better chance of figuring out how to track down her unknown family—if she had any left—in the city.
All in all, she thought, as she went through the sumptuous wardrobe once more, things were looking up.
Sarah heard Kadar before she saw him. She’d gathered the clothes she’d been wearing the day before, and was at the top of the stairs. She purposely halted so she could enjoy the sound of his voice as he spoke on the phone to someone. The timbre of his voice sent shivers of desire through her. She pressed her hand to her stomach and closed her eyes as she remembered the feel of his lips there, and lower. How he’d whispered Arabic endearments which she’d felt in her soul. But this morning there was no hint of seduction in his voice, only control, only authority.
She opened her eyes and frowned slightly. Again she wondered at the incongruity of such a man being alone in the desert, in this magnificent castle. And for the first time, she wondered who he was speaking to. She understood little of what was being said, as he was speaking in Arabic. But her grandfather had used to speak in Arabic in heated moments, and particularly towards the end of his life, when he seemed to slip back into the past. And some words she was familiar with.
Home. Family.
And a phrase she’d become very familiar with—“leaving Sirun was the only way forward”. But now it seemed Kadar was saying that something else was the only way forward. She looked over the landing down into the hall in time to catch him repeat himself. Yes, he was definitely saying that marriage was the only way forward. That marriage was the solution. Just as her grandfather had referred to their emigration to England as being the only solution. But if marriage was the solution, she couldn’t help wondering whose marriage and what the problem was.
She turned to go and the swish of her white silk abaya coincided with Kadar ending his phone call. He looked up suddenly, and Sarah was surprised to see a guilty expression on his face—as if he’d been caught out.
“Sarah! I thought you were still bathing,” he said, as she came down the stairs to greet him.
“I was anxious to know if you found my backpack,” she said, suddenly more anxious to know why he looked so uncomfortable at being overheard.
“Yes, here it is.”
He handed her the backpack. She rummaged in it and looked up at him bleakly. “There’s no passport!”
He shrugged. “I managed to locate your iPad, phone and a few items of clothing. They weren’t with the backpack. But I encouraged the families to locate them, which they did.”
She looked up, impressed, as she stuffed her clothes into her backpack. “Wow. And they didn’t put up a fight?”
“No,” he said, shooting her a quick, amused look. “Look, don’t worry about the paperwork. We can organize that with the British Consulate office in the city.”
She liked the way he said ‘we’. It made her warm inside and confident that he, like her, was looking for more than a one-night stand.
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I really do. Goodness,” she held up her backpack, “for you even to have got this back is a minor miracle.”
“Minor miracles happen to be my speciality,” he said, pulling her into his arms, his thumb stroking down her cheek as he looked into her eyes.
Her stomach flipped with desire and she would happily have stripped there and then for him with no thought to anything else except he looked away, as if listening for something.
“Time to go,” he said.
And she was suddenly aware of a thrumming sound coming ever closer.
She looked at him, perplexed. “A helicopter? Who is coming here?”
“No one. It’s us who are leaving,” he said, smiling at her confusion.
“By helicopter?”
“Yes, of course. It would take too long to return by car. Come,” he said, putting his arm around her and guiding her out of the hall, towards the front courtyard.
“But, I don’t understand.” She swept her arm around the castle. “What about this place? The doors are open. Don’t you have to go around and secure everything?”
“Things will be secured, I assure you.” He stepped out into the bright light of the courtyard and lowered his dark glasses. “You may wish to wait in the porch because of the sand.”
She did as he suggested and stepped back into the shelter of the porch. “But I don’t understand. Kadar, who will secure it if we don’t?”
He didn’t answer as her words were lost in the helicopter's noise as it came in to land close by. Kadar slid his kaffiyeh up around his mouth as sand filled the air.
Three people jumped out and approached Kadar. But not with the air of people coming to reclaim their home.
The three stopped five paces short of Kadar and bowed. Kadar issued a series of orders—although he spoke in Arabic, the tone was clearly an order—and the three disappeared into the castle.
Kadar turned to her, held out his hand. “Come, it is time.”
She couldn’t move. “Kadar? What…” She gestured with her hand to the three men. “What was all that about? I don’t understand. Who were those men?”
He sighed and turned to her. “They are the king’s men. They will make sure the place is tidied and secure and will return to the city later. Come,” he gestured again.
She walked in a daze beside him as she tried to make sense of his words. But no matter which way around she arranged the logic, it pointed to one thing.
She climbed into the helicopter and buckled herself in as instructed.
She watched as Kadar exchanged a few words with the pilot and then took a seat beside her.
“Is everything all right, Sarah? You look pale.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think it is. Because I don’t understand why the king’s men are here. I mean, who asked them to come?”
“I did.”
“But… That’s really weird.”
He sighed and turned to her. “Not when I happen to be the king, it’s not.”