Her Royal Protector (a Johari Crown Novel) (Entangled Indulgence) (7 page)

“And why don’t you?” Arif asked.

She chewed and swallowed while the grey eyes fixed him with a gaze that reminded him again of his dream. “Why don’t I what?”

“Have twenty-two people here?”

Aly laughed. Her eyes lighted with amusement that was almost mockery, and he thought that if he once made love to her she would not show him such an expression.

“Well, because we are a small charity, with limited funding, and because it’s not every student volunteer, even the most committed, who can afford to spend their summer break not earning money. Even for the sake of living on a beautiful island in the Gulf of Barakat for the duration, even for the sake of saving wildlife from extinction. Ideally we should be able to pay them at least an honorarium, but we can’t. Even so, half a dozen of my students were desperate to do it.”

She took another mouthful of food and chewed quickly. “But getting them out here, setting them up with a camp, feeding them and all that, takes a great deal of money and management. My research grant doesn’t cover even my own expenses on this. The undergraduates who normally volunteer on such projects can’t afford the additional burden of air fare, they’re already struggling under a financial load that will take them years to pay off.”

Arif frowned. “Why didn’t you apply to us for more funds?”

She looked at her watch again, took another hasty bite, shrugged. “We put in an application to your umbrella charity for funds to fully cover Richard, Ellen, and me, six volunteers, a boat, fuel, and all supplies for three months. You came back with a grant that would cover the boat and Richard and Ellen’s flights, a bit over. Turtle Watch raised sufficient additional funds with crowd-funding to cover our food and diesel fuel over six weeks. We did what we could. It’s called cutting your suit to fit your cloth, Your Excellency.”

“Arif.”

“Arif.”

“I knew nothing of this. The project was submitted for my approval only in its final form. No one told me that so much more was needed.”

“Well, I guess that would be why the Sultan sends you for a stint in the mines once a year,” Aly said with a shrug, as if she were inured to such incompetence. “Have you finished? Can we get going?”

His eyes fell to his plate: he’d eaten barely half his meal. He had never met a woman like this one in all his life. She irritated him and intrigued him in about equal measure.

He pushed back his chair and stood. “Let’s go.”

…

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Aly said as they walked on the soft white sand. “Do you know why the turtle is sometimes called
Aswad
? It’s nothing to do with the scientific name, that’s
Cheloniidae johariae
. And informally it’s been called the Johari turtle ever since Noah, as far as I can find. I understand
johar
means
jewel
, and her shell does spark with wonderful jewel colors. But at some point in the nineteen fifties, the Russian scientists started calling it Aswad. They said it was the earliest traditional name, but I can’t find any evidence for that position.”

“And you won’t. The Soviet scientists invented the name, at the time they were expanding their empire into Kaljukistan and Joharistan. The Soviets, I’m sure you know, were always eager to divorce people from their traditions, the better to conquer them.”

“I don’t know much about the politics, I’m afraid.”

Their shadows preceded them on the sand now, one long, one short.

“The Johari turtle is a symbol of sovereignty for the people of Joharistan, and in their state of subjugation by Kaljukistan over the past two centuries, it has become a powerful rallying point. There is a legend among the Johari people that says that, as long as the Johari turtle exists in the islands, the Kingdom of Joharistan must one day be restored.”

Her eyes went wide and she hooted with laughter, clapping her hands over her open mouth. “But we’ve got exactly that tradition at home. The monarchy will survive in Britain as long as there are ravens at the Tower. They actually clip the wings of the Tower ravens nowadays, to prevent them decamping.”

It was Arif’s turn to laugh. “Is it so? Then you will understand why the Soviets were eager to divorce the Johari turtle from its name.”

“Well, I won’t call it Aswad again.” Her eyes had never ceased from combing the sand, from the line of the sea to well above the high tide mark. Arif suppressed the urge to say something that would make her look up at him with that same intent focus. “But now it’s the Kaljuks who are opposed to Johar independence, isn’t it? Why don’t they just let them go?”

“Because Joharistan means ‘Land of Precious Jewels,’ and it is not called that for nothing,” Arif said dryly. “There are massive deposits in the ruby and emerald and other mines in those mountains. And much other mineral wealth, which Kaljukistan sorely needs now that their oilfields are running dry.”

Chapter Seven

They found the first sign of a nest not long afterwards, a line of strange waving tracks leading up the beach and down again, as if left by some kind of moon vehicle. Aly shouted with a noise of profound relief.

“There, look! Oh, how beautiful. Oh, lovely.” She ran and flung herself to her knees.

Arif smiled quizzically. “But isn’t this exactly what you expected to see?”

Kneeling on the sand, pulling tape measure and notebook from her backpack, Aly threw a smile of sheer joy up over her shoulder. “Arif, there are so many natural predators for
Cheloniidae johariae
that it takes
one thousand
new hatchlings making it back into the sea to produce
one
viable adult. It means every single nest is precious. With the sa…with all the added modern problems of pollution and plastics and fishhooks and tourism, I’ve been half afraid… Well, never mind that. At least this wonderful, determined lady made it back home. Can you hold this, please? Don’t step on the nest.”

And with that she shoved the end of the tape measure into his grip, pushed his hand into position above the center of a rough circle of marks in the sand, and set off for the nearest large upthrust of black rock. He stood bemused, watching as she knelt in the sand to make notes, then got up again, called out, “Stay there,” and headed off in another direction.

When she had measured three different trajectories, she returned to him, drawing the tape measure into itself as she approached. “Thanks,” she said briefly, before bending over her backpack again.

Allah
, that butt. Baggy as her clothes were, her rump was well outlined when she bent over, and proved to be a much more female shape than her general demeanor would suggest. As Aly dug purposefully into the canvas backpack, Arif had to push his own hands into his pockets to resist the urge to grab those tilted hips and pull her back into his groin. She would not be so dismissive of him if he did.

He would not be such a fool.

Fortunately, after a few seconds of tossing things onto the sand, she straightened. In one hand she held a short stake. Now she squatted down, set the stake a few inches away from the little mound that marked the center of the nest, and gently worked it into the sand. With a practiced twist she reached into a pocket of her backpack and pulled out a rectangle of stiff red-and-white plastic. This she slid into a slot on the stake.

“The eggs are underneath the sand there?”

“That’s right,” she said, without looking up.

“Won’t the stake damage them?” he asked.

“They’re down well below this, don’t worry.”

She had planted a little red-and-white flag. As she glided to her feet, the contrast between her smooth-flowing expertise here and her gauche awkwardness on the night of the banquet was almost like looking at two different women.

“And what’s this for?” he asked idly, bending to pick up a little metal broom that lay on the sand.

“That’s my Disappearing Broom.” She smiled and took it from him, then went down one line of turtle tracks, obliterating them with quick strokes all the way down to the sea and back up the return track. Now nothing remained in the way of evidence save the little flag. When he looked closer, Arif saw that the white marking was a number: A1.

“Right,” Aly said in satisfaction, and began packing her equipment into the backpack again.

“Why do you wipe the marks from the sand?”

A curious expression crossed her face, but she only shrugged. “So I won’t be distracted by them next time I walk this beach,” she said.

…

Aly saw the seagulls as soon as they rounded the point. Swooping and diving and calling. Her heart twisted with certain knowledge, and she snatched her backpack from Arif’s hand and began to run.

“
Get out!
Get out of there,” she screamed. She was too far away. She tried to dig out her broom, but the backpack was banging against her legs, slowing her down. It was more important to get there. She dropped the pack and cranked up her speed.

Behind her Arif called something, but she had no time for explanations. She was too busy screaming at the gulls. “Get away from them, get
away.”
Her heart was beating ten times too fast already, but she didn’t dare stop.

A gull swooped down with terrible precision, all the way to the sand, and rose again with something in its mouth, and knives of anguish ripped at her gut. “
Off!
Piss off, all of you!” she screamed in helpless fury. She was waving her arms like a living scarecrow, running and staggering over the sand, but it was another twenty yards before the gulls began to take notice of her. As she got closer they cruised higher up, but none of them actually flew off.

She arrived at the nest and saw the flurry of tiny markings in the white sand. But not one hatchling. Her heart contracted to a tight hard knot of grief. Not one little black shape struggling to its home in the sea. She fell to her knees, her breath sobbing with the effects of her wild sprint.

The pack over his shoulder, Arif jogged to a standstill beside her. A gull called above. The smell of the sea was strong in her nostrils.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” Arif asked.

“They’ve been picking off the hatchlings, damn them.” She waved a hand. “It’s been quite a feast, by the look of it.”

He set the backpack down, and she rooted in it to find the broom, stood up
, and waved it uselessly at the gulls. They circled as relentlessly as vultures over a dying man. Bile and tears rose in her throat and she swallowed hard.

“This is a nest?”

She nodded mutely. “A daylight hatch is unusual, but it does happen. You see how they’ve headed towards the sea? I hope some of them made it.” She led the way down to the water, examining the tracks. Too many stopped short of the water in a little scuffle of sand that told its own story.

“They hatch at night, usually, and they’re programmed to head towards the light—moonlight or starlight on the waves. A night hatch protects them from predators and the sun. In a daylight hatch if they lose their way even a little, they’re baked before they reach the sea. Between the sun and the gulls these little ones haven’t had much of a chance, but maybe some of them made it home. And maybe there are more to come. I’ll carve them a path just in case.”

She took out her spade and scraped a little trail in the sand down through the markings, from the nest to the water’s edge.

“There may not be any more,” she said. “But we have to stay and stand guard and be sure.”

Arif glanced up to where the gulls still circled, then at her face, and said nothing.

And a few minutes later she was rewarded with the sight of sand moving at the center of the nest. “Here comes another one,” she cried. “Oh, thank God.”

It was more than one. The nest erupted with activity as they watched, the tiny hatchlings clambering up through the sand in an energetic cluster and heading for the water, some in the track she had made, some spread over the sand, their flippers working to gain the strength they would need.

And more and more.

“Oh, my God, aren’t they beautiful,” she whispered. “Not that way, little one, the water’s behind you,” she murmured, bending to encourage the errant hatchling towards the sea. One by one and then in twos and threes the little turtles clambered out of the sand and headed for the sea. Twenty, thirty, forty—so by no means all had been lost. Thank God she had been here in time.

Aly looked up. The gulls were screaming in frustration. They rose and sank on the wind, but she picked up her Disappearing Broom and shooed at them, and none dared to come nearer.

“Fifty-two,” she counted, as a last errant hatchling surfaced and headed after its siblings down the little track she had made, towards the life-giving sea. She squatted down to add the number to her notes, then stood up and dusted her hands. “That’s probably it. I’m going to watch them into the sea.”

She turned to shepherd the last of the miniature turtles down to the water. The gulls still hovered indignantly while she watched the hatchlings undergo the fierce struggle to get into the water. Time after time the waves washed them back, time after time they forged ahead again, determined and dedicated, until at last, one by one, the water accepted them.

“You do not help them into the water?” Arif asked.

“They’ve got to fight the good fight, or they’ll never survive,” she told him. “They’ve got to do it themselves.”

When the last hatchling had been swept away into its natural home, and it was evident no more were coming up, Aly measured and marked the nest in the usual way, and then they walked on a few yards to where the beach ended in a black cliff face and Arif summoned Farhad.

Aly could hardly contain her joy. Whoever it was at least had not got to this nest.

“You are crying,” Arif noted in surprise, as she splashed out to the dinghy and tossed her backpack aboard.

“Am I?” she smiled, sniffed, and pressed her lips together. “Ah well, bang goes the theory that scientists are cold-blooded, uninvolved observers of phenomena.”

Arif looked as though he wanted to say something, but instead merely got into the dinghy after her. Once at the yacht, Aly grabbed her bag and went lightly up the steps. Jamila appeared in the hatch opening with a tray of drinks and called a question to her boss.

“Drinks on deck?” Arif translated for her.

Aly glanced at the scene around and heaved a sigh. Sunset soon. Bliss.

“Yes, please,” she said. “But I think I’ll take a swim first.”

She stripped off in her cabin, pulled on the faded black tank suit that was her usual swim gear, ran up on deck, and dived into the cool, cool sea.

It was delicious. She surfaced with the salt tasting on her lips and stinging her eyes, and struck out towards shore in a relaxed, easy crawl. Then the sea prickled on her skin and she turned, looking for the source. Arif was in the water a few feet away, pacing her. His strong naked chest and arms were potently muscular as they flashed through the water, and the buzz of his presence zinged all through her. Her whole body seemed to pick up an electric current coming from him through the water.

Aly looked away and floated on her back, gazing up at the sky and trying to forget that he was right beside her. Blue, blue. “This is heaven,” she called, not to Arif, particularly. Just talking to the air, to the place, in gratitude for its beauty.

And his. She could appreciate him without wishing for more, after all. The statue of David didn’t have to come down off his pedestal and make wild love to you before you appreciated its beauty. She would think of Arif as a living statue, or a natural phenomenon, and appreciate him the same way she did the sea. She could do that.

After twenty minutes, the sun was near the horizon, and she swam back to the yacht and went aboard. Arif followed her up the ladder and the buzz was still there, transmitting through the bloody air now, and it was all she could do to keep walking.

So much for statues. The man was a walking electric field.

She scrubbed him off in the shower. She washed him out of her hair. Toweled dry. A clean pair of shorts, a polo shirt, and she was done and dusted.

This time Arif was waiting for her, his wet hair standing up in tufts, a clean white polo shirt making him look very dark. He indicated the seat beside him on the bench facing west. Aly hesitated for only a second. To sit with her back to the sunset would be too much of a confession. She would just have to ignore the buzz.

“Wine? Something stronger?”

“Wine, please.”

Arif reached to fill her glass with a chilled white from a beautiful earthen jar. “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou,” he murmured, and Aly went stiff. That was all she needed, him guessing how she felt and playing games with her.

“Without a doubt,” she said dryly, giving him a look that invited him to stop trying to snow the snowman.

He only laughed. “Why did you say you don’t need an assistant? We have seen today that you do. Who is going to hold the tape measure for you if I don’t?”

She emphatically did not want him to start feeling indispensable. “I’m going to hold it down with a handy rock, what else?”

He took a sip of what looked like scotch on the rocks, and gave her a look that shivered all the way down to her toes. Six weeks. How was she ever going to last six weeks?

…

Aly went to her cabin, leaving Arif to his own work. He carried his papers to the desk by the satellite phone and sat down to read Fouad’s notes before calling him. But his mind wandered to the mystery of the little scientist.

She had gone into the water in a tired black one-piece that would flatter no one, but still it had been revealing—enough for him to see that her body did not need flattering clothes. She was not his type, of course, but a simple objective assessment proved that the lithe body, straight and firmly muscled, the slender, neatly curving legs and rounded butt wouldn’t turn any man from thoughts of how to get those legs wrapped around himself.

Yet she presented with an air that said, “I am well aware that I am not a desirable woman and have no beauty to offer.” All her physical grace, all her natural sensuality, and she had more than her share of both, was unconscious. Whether putting in a stake or swimming in the sea, every gesture softened into a feminine, sensual flow.

What was the cause of this contradiction? What made her so afraid to acknowledge her deeply sensual nature…and what would it take to break down her resistance to seeing herself as she was? It struck him for the first time that she was like a prisoner—of her own misconception about what she was.