Heart of the Desert (10 page)

H
APPY
its work had been done, the desert was silent and finally Ibrahim slept. Unlike on the plane, now, for the first time, he looked relaxed, and as she watched him, it was Georgie who was tense. She was starting to make sense of the strange rules, could see now what Felicity had been saying—that to the people of Zaraq she was still married.

Ibrahim would not mind, she tried to console herself. He would understand, she tried to convince herself, but wrapped in his arms she was unable to face him, felt like a liar, and she rolled over in shame.

At what point should she have said it?

Yesterday, or at the wedding? Was she supposed to walk up to someone and give them so much of herself on contact? But there had been opportunities, her conscience reminded her.

She had tried to tell him last night, but he had halted her, Georgie told herself, then guiltily admitted she had been relieved when he had stopped her, more than pleased to avoid seeing his face when she revealed the truth.

Georgie closed her eyes, and his arm wrapped around her, his warm, sleek body spooned in from behind. There was a possessiveness there that felt tender. There was a beauty in his embrace and a promise in his words that told her this had meant something to Ibrahim, that again they had glimpsed a future, but with what she knew now it was a future that again she might have to deny him. It was an uneasy sleep she fell into, filled with dreams of sacred oils and laughing winds, man-made structures and the sound of an engine.

‘Get dressed.’ His voice was urgent and jolted her awake. ‘Someone is coming. I heard a helicopter.’ The noise hadn’t been a dream. She could hear the whir of the blades slowing. Surely there was time to race back to her room. All she had was a torn nightgown. He threw her a sash of cloth as he pulled on his clothes and she went to dash to her own quarters, but even as she stepped outside, she knew she had left it too late. She stood, shivering and embarrassed in the lounge area, and she couldn’t look at Karim so she turned pleading eyes to Felicity, whose face was as white as chalk.

‘Enjoying your tour?’ Felicity sneered. ‘So where’s your
expert
guide?’ Georgie was incredibly grateful when Ibrahim, dressed, thoroughly together and not remotely embarrassed, appeared from his chamber and took control.

‘Your sister and I intended to return last night. There was a storm …’

‘Enough!’ Karim’s shout was to silence his younger brother, but Ibrahim refused.

‘Georgie, go and get dressed,’ Ibrahim said, his voice supremely calm, ‘and I will take you back to the palace.’

‘Ibrahim,’ Karim warned, but it fell on deaf ears.

‘Go,’ he said to Georgie. ‘I will speak with my brother.’ He eyed him darkly. ‘We have done nothing wrong.’

‘I warned you!’ Karim shouted. ‘I warned you to stay away from her.’

‘And I chose not to listen. How dare you both walk in here with rage in your eyes and shame her? Have you forgotten how you met your wife?’

Georgie watched colour flood Felicity’s cheeks—for their one night of passion had resulted in Azizah. But her sister seemed to have forgotten that fact as she followed Georgie to her room because Felicity was incensed. ‘How could you, Georgie? This is my husband’s family. You’ve been here a few days and you tumble into bed with him.’

‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘Oh, please.’

‘As Ibrahim said, you hardly waited before you jumped into bed with Karim,’ Georgie retaliated.

‘We weren’t in Zaraq!’ Felicity said. ‘Here you play by the rules.’

‘You know what?’ Georgie had had enough. ‘You really are starting to sound like them. What happened to my sister?’

‘She grew up,’ Felicity shouted. ‘She behaved responsibly—but you were never very good at that were
you, Georgie? Bunking off school, running away from home …’ And Georgie could see the years of hurt she had caused in her sister’s eyes, the hurt she had apologised for over and over again.

‘I’ve done everything I can to help you and now you do this.’ Felicity had tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘I paid for your rehab when I couldn’t afford it. Karim has helped too.’

‘And I’m very grateful,’ Georgie said, but she recalled Ibrahim’s words and would not feel beholden.

‘So this is how you show it!’ Felicity shrilled.

Georgie did not break and she did not crumple, because all it was was a row, a confrontation that needed to be had, and no longer was she scared of it. ‘I don’t have to show anything.’ Georgie said, her voice calm. ‘I’m a different woman now; I’m a different person from who I was all those years ago. Ibrahim and I weren’t just having a bit of fun.’ She was sure of that, quite sure.

‘It is fun to Ibrahim! Don’t you get it? All this is to him is a diversion, a bit of fun to pass the time while he’s here.’

‘I don’t have to prove him to you,’ Georgie said.

I haven’t got time for this.’ Felicity shook her head. ‘I have to wash and get changed and get back out there. They’re loading the helicopter.’

‘Can we just talk?’ Georgie begged, because things needed to be said, the air needed to be cleared so they could both move on fully. ‘Felicity please, I really need—’

‘You always
need
something from me, Georgie, yet
you give nothing back.’ Felicity shouted. ‘Right now, I don’t have time for it. There are people who are sick, you selfish cow, and Karim and I need to get back out to them. For once it isn’t all about you!’

And she swept out and left Georgie reeling but angry. How dared her sister dash in and pass judgment? She was sick of them, sick of Zaraq and its so-called mysterious ways that only applied when was convenient.

And Ibrahim was sick of it too.

‘They are the rules!’ Karim roared. ‘Only a king can change them. If you love her, then you stay in London. You have the rest of the world to be the prince of your choice, but here, in this land, you abide—’

Ibrahim could not stand to hear it said again and he interrupted with a shout of his own. ‘Then I leave the land behind.’

‘Ibrahim.’ Karim wished it was that easy. He ached for his brother, physically. ‘You are a royal prince of
this
land—our people are sick. Hassan is with his new baby, he has a fever …’ He saw his brother’s appalled expression. ‘He will be okay, but he was a little premature. Hassan should be there for him. The king is in England, I am needed in the desert. Can you really walk away now we need you to be the ruler you were born to be?’

‘I am not walking away.’ Ibrahim’s voice was hoarse, realisation hitting him. He was being asked to step in and he met that challenge. ‘Of course I will stay while I am needed, and our father will return when he hears the news.’

‘That may not be possible. I have spoken with advisors—they suggest closing the airports.’

‘Fine,’ Ibrahim said. ‘I will step in as leader.’ But as leader Ibrahim had rules of his own and spelt them out. ‘Georgie will be by my side.’

‘No,’ Karim said, for it was impossible.

‘She is mine now,’ Ibrahim said, because for once the rules worked for him. After all, he had slept with her in the desert.

‘She can never be yours.’ Karim took no pleasure in delivering the news, no relish in revealing the secret his wife had shared with him the other night. ‘She is married.’ He watched darkness descend on his brother.

‘No.’

‘She is divorced, but ….’ Ibrahim closed his eyes as his brother continued. ‘You know that does not count here. She cannot live with you here—she cannot be your bride.’ Every word was like a hammer on his flesh but still Ibrahim stood. He sought a solution.

‘She can wait for me in London.’

‘As our mother waits for our father?’ Karim asked. ‘Would you really do that to Georgie?’

Ibrahim shook his head. ‘Then do the right thing by her.’ Karim suppressed a roar. ‘End it with her properly—end it now so there can be no doubt in her mind.’

‘W
ILL
you take care of Azizah for me?’ Felicity asked when Karim said it was time for them to leave.

‘Are you sure I’m responsible enough?’ Georgie responded tartly, but she could not sustain her anger, for she knew how much being apart from Azizah would hurt Felicity. ‘She’ll be fine.’ Georgie said and she took her sister in her arms and gave her a cuddle. For the first time she felt like the older one. ‘She’ll be completely fine.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Felicity was, but Georgie didn’t need her to be.

‘I hurt you,’ Georgie said. ‘All those years I was sick, I know how much it hurt you, and I was too weak then and too fragile for you to say how you felt. I’m not now.’ She gave her sister a smile. ‘Better out than in, so they say.’

‘Felicity,’ Karim called, and as together as Georgie felt, she didn’t go out and face her brother-in-law just yet.

‘You’d better go.’

‘There’s my milk …’

‘I know,’ Georgie soothed. ‘You just head out there and do what you have to do without worrying.’

‘I really am sorry …’ Felicity shivered ‘… for all the things I said.’

‘They’ve no doubt been building for a long time,’ Georgie said. ‘We’re fine now and you don’t have to worry about Azizah and neither do you have to worry about me any more.’

Except Felicity knew that she did have to worry, at least for a little while longer. She could see her husband’s clenched jaw and Ibrahim’s stern features and knew that Ibrahim had been told.

A fully dressed, blushing Georgie forced herself out of her room to say farewell to Karim and Felicity and she and Ibrahim stood in silence as they watched the helicopter leave.

‘I must get back to Azizah,’ Georgie said. ‘How long will the drive take?’

‘A helicopter is being sent.’ He did not, could not, look at her. ‘I need to get back to the people as soon as possible.’ He felt it descend then, the weight of responsibility. ‘I am to stand in as ruler. Decisions need to be made swiftly. There will be a lot of anxiety, a lot of unrest.’

‘You’ll be wonderful,’ Georgie said, and went to touch his arm, but he moved it away. ‘I’ll help in any way I can.’

‘You?’ He could not keep the mirth from his voice.

‘Yes, me.’

‘A four-week course and you’re an expert suddenly in the ways of the desert?’

She couldn’t understand the change in him. ‘I wasn’t applying for the job of your advisor!’ Georgie snapped back at him. ‘So I’m good enough to sleep with, but not good enough to stand by your side.’

‘The people would never accept it.’

‘Oh, please.’ Georgie was sick of it. ‘The people don’t mind Felicity.’ She let out a mocking laugh. ‘Oh, yes, but she was pregnant with a possible heir.’ She watched as Ibrahim briefly closed his eyes, his strong features paling a touch at how very careless they had been. ‘I’m not going to fall pregnant. Don’t panic. I’m on the Pill.’

‘Of course you are.’ And that was the bit for Ibrahim that hurt, really hurt. This was a girl who carried condoms in her make-up bag for just in case, who waited on the street outside nightclubs. This was the divorced woman who could not be his princess, and he was angry, and it showed. ‘Don’t tell me—you’re on the Pill for medical reasons.’

She could have slapped him.

Gone was the tender man who had held her. Back now was the scathing one and she didn’t understand why. As the helicopter hovered, as she turned her head and covered her eyes with a scarf, as they ran beneath the blades and climbed inside and Georgie put on her headphones, she watched the tent where they had found each other disappear in the distance, and all too soon
she saw the palace come into view, but not once did he look at her, not once did he attempt conversation.

As they stepped out and walked to the palace, he still refused to communicate. Elders and advisors were waiting for him and Georgie stood in the hallway a moment as Rina spoke in rapid Arabic, unsure how to behave without Ibrahim or Felicity to guide her. Briefly he glanced in her direction and only then did he speak.

‘She asks if you want a room next to Azizah. If they should move your things?’

‘Please.’ Georgie nodded. ‘Can you tell her for me?’

‘Of course.’ He spoke to Rina and to another maid for a brief moment, and then he turned back to her.

‘All is taken care of. I have asked that they move
Ms
Anderson’s things.’ He hissed the word so savagely that there could be no mistake. He had been told that she had been married, and for a second she was angry at her sister for telling Karim, but she knew the fury was misdirected.

She was angry at herself.

As for Ibrahim, he still hoped his brother was mistaken, wanted her to tell him he was wrong. ‘Is it Miss or Ms?’

‘Ms.’
She croaked the word out, then tore her eyes away, but not quickly enough to miss his look of disgust.

It should have been she who told him first. At least she could have explained things better. Now, looking at his cold black eyes, Georgie wondered if she’d ever get
that chance. ‘Ibrahim …’ There were people everywhere, there was nothing she could say, but she willed him to give her one moment of his time, willed him to pull her aside, for a chance to explain, but he gave her nothing. ‘Can we talk? Just for a moment.’

‘Talk?’ Ibrahim sneered. ‘I have nothing to talk about with you—there is nothing to discuss.

‘And never can there be.’

I
T WAS
the longest day.

All Georgie wanted to do was throw herself on the bed, curl up into a ball, hide and grieve and cry and mourn, but there was Azizah to think of.

Azizah, who hated the bottle that wasn’t her mum, who wasn’t used to the bonier arms of her aunt and cried through the afternoon and long, long into the evening.

Georgie had been pacing the floor with her and had finally sat in the family lounge, where Felicity often did, and Azizah had at last given in, taking the bottle she hated and almost,
almost
falling asleep, until Ibrahim returned from a visit to the army barracks. It wasn’t just her heart that leapt at the sound of him. Hassan, the prince first in line, did too. He came pounding down the corridor to greet his brother.

‘You should have consulted me!’ Hassan was furious. Georgie could hear them arguing as she sat in the lounge. When Ibrahim had returned she had wanted to flee, but the baby had just been settling and she’d sat as the argument had spilled into the living room.
‘You should have spoken with me before closing the airports.’

‘You were with your wife and son,’ Ibrahim pointed out. ‘You are needed there. I am more than capable of dealing with this.’

‘You have closed the airports, cancelled surgery.’

‘Excuse me,’ Georgie said, and perhaps it was poor form to interrupt two princes when the country was in crisis, but the palace was big enough for them to take their argument elsewhere and a restless Azizah was just closing her eyes. ‘She’s almost asleep.’

‘Then take her to the nursery,’ Ibrahim snapped, and it was face him or flee. As Hassan took the phone from a worried maid, Georgie chose to face him, turned her blue eyes on him and refused not to meet his gaze.

‘Hard day at the office, darling?’ she said in a voice that was sweet but laced with acid. ‘Should I make the children disappear?’

‘Just you,’ Ibrahim hissed, because it was hell seeing her and not being able to have her, hell having dared to almost love her and then to find out what she had done. ‘I wish
you
would disappear.’

‘It is our father.’ Hassan handed him the phone. ‘It is you he wishes to speak to.’

And now would have been an ideal time to leave, to slip away, as Ibrahim wished she would, except Georgie wanted to hear, wanted to be there, even if he’d rather she wasn’t.

She could hear the king’s angry voice even from across the lounge, and though Hassan was pacing,
Ibrahim was calm, his voice firm when he responded to his father.

‘I took advice,’ was his curt response, but when that clearly didn’t appease his father, he elaborated. ‘I took advice from experts. You have known about this for days apparently and did little.’ She could see a pulse leaping in his neck. It was the only indication of his inner turmoil as he stood up to the king. ‘The priority is the people,’ he interrupted, ‘not your flight schedule and certainly not Hassan’s ego. His mind is on his newborn son, where it should be, where it can be, because there is another prince more than capable of stepping in. I have spoken with our soldiers, and the army is to open a field hospital to the west. Flights will remain grounded till we are happy this virus is contained. If you move for an exemption from the flight ban, if you feel I am not capable, then of course you must return,’ Ibrahim said, and then his voice rose slightly in warning. ‘And if you do, I will hand the reins back to you.’ For a second his eyes flicked to Georgie. ‘And I will leave Zaraq on your incoming plane.’

‘You—’ he spoke to Hassan when the call had concluded ‘—either take over completely or leave it to me. I am not ringing the hospital and waiting while they pull you from the nursery to make my decisions.’ He eyed his brother. ‘What is it to be?’

‘The people need—’

‘The people need strong leadership,’ Ibrahim said. ‘Which I am more than capable of providing. If you think otherwise, I suggest you ring Jamal and tell her
a helicopter is taking you out to the west tomorrow, as is my schedule, to see first hand how this illness has affected our people.’ He did not relent, he did not appease, he was direct and he was brutal. ‘And perhaps you should check with the pediatrician. We have all been immunized, of course, and if that proves ineffective there are anti-virals, but I would check if they want you in contact with a premature newborn.’

Georgie watched as Hassan paled.

‘So what is it to be?’ Ibrahim pushed. ‘Because if I’m not needed I’m heading for the casino.’ And he would, Georgie knew. He’d head too to another woman, any woman. He was angry and she had provoked it.

‘You have my full support,’ Hassan said. ‘And I thank you for stepping in. I am going to visit my wife and son.’

He nodded goodnight to Georgie and a now sleeping Azizah and finally they were alone.

‘That was low,’ Georgie said.

‘That was common sense.’ Ibrahim snapped. ‘I don’t care how safe it is, how effective the immunisation is, if it were my newborn …’ And he looked at where Georgie sat holding a baby, and he was black with anger, because that morning he had almost envisaged it, not a wife and a baby but a future with someone who was not a stranger to his heart. The role of prince and a return to the desert had seemed manageable with her by his side. ‘I have to work.’ He turned to go, but she called him.

‘Can we please talk, Ibrahim?

‘I don’t wish to talk to you.’

‘Please.’ Georgie said. ‘It was something that happened a long time ago, something—’

‘That cannot be undone,’ Ibrahim interrupted.

‘When did you become so perfect?’ Georgie asked. ‘I don’t get why everything has to change.’

‘Because it has.’

‘It was a few weeks,’ Georgie said. ‘I was nineteen. It was hell at home and I’d lost my job when I got sick again …’ She tumbled out words when he didn’t respond immediately, argued her case while she still had a chance. ‘I thought he was nice.’

‘So you married him because he was
nice.
’

‘There are worse reasons. He was older, he seemed safe, but I see now that he was a drunk like my father. I see now I just ran straight to the same thing.’

‘You think that makes it better. That you tossed everything away for some middle-aged drunk.’

‘It was ages ago,’ Georgie said. ‘I know it’s frowned on here but in London—’

‘I am a royal prince!’ Ibrahim struggled to keep his voice down, for the sake of the baby.

‘Not when you’re there.’ And she watched lines mar his forehead, his hand going up to his face in a gesture of frustration. He was saving her from herself and that she didn’t understand. He thought of his mother, sitting by the phone, waiting. Of a life married to a man who could not always be there, who had children scattered by both geography and allegiance, and he must not, Ibrahim told himself, do that to Georgie. So instead he
did as his brother had suggested, said words that would leave her in no doubt.

‘I’m a royal prince,’ Ibrahim said again. ‘Which means …’ He swallowed before continuing, but she didn’t see it, just heard his low, even voice as he very clearly stated his case. ‘I don’t have to deal in damaged goods.’ If she hadn’t been holding Azizah Georgie would have stood and slapped him, but instead her eyes left his face and she sat holding the baby for comfort, holding her sweet, warm body as she chilled inside. ‘The bride that will be chosen for me will know what is expected. A bride fit for my side is not found outside nightclubs with a smorgasbord of contraception and her divorce papers in her bedside drawer. If you want me to look you up in London, if you’re bored one night—’

‘Never!’

‘Then …’ Ibrahim shrugged ‘… we’re done.’

‘You’re a bastard.’

‘When I choose to be.’ Ibrahim shrugged again. He heard her shocked silence and little Azizah start to whimper.

‘Would you do as you suggested earlier and disappear with the baby?’ Ibrahim said. ‘I’ve got a country to run.’