Kidnapped by the Sheikh (8 page)

“Come, come!” Fatima beckoned, getting up from her seat. “We need to prepare you for your wedding.”

“My wedding? And when do you think that’s going to take place?”

“Today, of course. Sheikh Akbar has waited long enough as it is.” Fatima called out to Onnab to bring some henna for the traditional marking of the hands and feet of the bride-to-be.

“I’m sorry, but I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. I’m not getting married today. I’m just here on a visit.”

“You should’ve been married several weeks ago.” It was Minna.

Sarah hadn’t noticed her come in. She must have slipped in quietly while Sarah was talking to Fatima. Minna now stood directly in front of Sarah, looking down at her. She removed her face veil and while Fatima looked decades younger, Minna looked noticeably older. It wasn’t just the addition of heavy black kohl around her eyes; it was also the fact that she seemed more worldly and less naïve. Maybe it was the effect of marriage.

“Congratulations on your wedding, Minna. I hope it was a huge success.” Sarah tried to smile at the woman, but it wasn’t reciprocated.

“My wedding day, the most important day of my life, was not a huge success,” Minna replied. She remained standing and looked at Sarah with contempt. “By the time I was finally married, the meat was burnt and cold. The woman and children were restless and bored, and some of the men had fallen asleep.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sarah replied. She didn’t understand what had gone wrong at Minna’s nuptials, but was glad to move the topic of conversation away from the ridiculous idea that she was going to get married that day.

“You are sorry!” Minna snorted and then spat into the bowl that contained the date kernels. “If you’re so sorry, why didn’t you come? Sheikh Akbar made us wait all evening and half the night for your arrival. Finally, after it was already very late, he gave his consent for the ceremony to go ahead.”

“I didn’t know I was invited. I didn’t get the message.” Sarah felt that she could hardly be blamed for something she didn’t willingly do.

“You missed your own wedding and ruined mine,” Minna retorted.

“My wedding?”

“Yes, Sheikh Akbar wanted to marry you at the same time and we were all going to share in the festivities, but you never came.”

“Look, I think there’s been some huge misunderstanding here. All of this is the first I’ve heard about marrying Akbar. If there’s going to be a wedding, I think we can wait for him to ask me himself, don’t you?” Sarah stood to leave. She’d had quite enough of hearing about weddings. It was getting late and she needed to get back to the city. “I’m sorry, but I really have to go.”

Fatima came up to her and grabbed her arm. She was extremely strong. “You can’t go. They’re already preparing the wedding feast. You will marry my son and you will marry him today.”

Sarah had heard about women who were forcibly married off to men, including British girls who were flown into the country under the pretence of a holiday and then married off to some relative against their will. Just recently she’d treated a woman at the hospital who was originally from Birmingham. She was surprised to hear someone who looked like a local tribal woman talking to her with a slight Brummie accent. When she asked the woman about it, she said her name was Samantha. Her father was originally from Yazan, but had married a British woman and settled in a suburb of Birmingham. When Samantha was just fourteen, her father took her to Yazan for a holiday to meet his family. At least, that was what he told her they were doing.

On arrival, Samantha’s father took her passport and introduced her to a man called Momed, who was some kind of distant cousin. They were married a week later. As soon as the wedding was over, her father flew back to England, leaving her to cope with life in a foreign country with a stranger for a husband. That had been more than twenty years ago. Samantha hadn’t been back to England since. She explained that she’d gone to the British Embassy, but without any identification, they said that there was nothing they could do to help. Sarah offered to take up her case, but the woman said that she now had six children and after twenty years,Yazan was her home.

Sarah realised that she’d been stupid to accept Akbar’s invitation back to his camp. It was obviously some type of second kidnapping, only this time it was for a wife instead of a ransom. However, she wasn’t going to become another Samantha, forced into marriage and resigned to her fate. She’d escaped once and she was determined to do it again.

After some wrestling, she managed to free herself from Fatima’s grip and ran out of the tent. She looked around for the Jeep, or at the very least, a saddled horse.

“Get her!” Fatima screamed from inside the tent. “The bride is escaping. Grab her!”

Sarah ran towards a cluster of horses by a bank of palm trees behind the encampment, but she was stopped by a group of armed men. They grabbed her arms and led her back to the entrance of Fatima’s tent.

“Get off her at once,” Sheikh Akbar shouted at the men holding Sarah. The sheikh had come out of his tent and was walking towards them. In his hand was the curved dagger that he normally kept tucked into his waistband. “How dare you touch her! You lay one more finger on her, and I’ll slit your throats like dogs.” The men immediately let go of Sarah.

“They were merely trying to stop your bride from escaping,” Fatima explained. She stood at the entrance of her tent with her face fully veiled so that not even her eyes were showing. However, her voice could be heard loud and clear. Next to her was Minna, also veiled, but not as heavily. Sarah could see her dark black eyes boring into her own.

“What’s all this talk about brides and escaping?” the sheikh asked.

“Your mother seems to think that you and I are going to get married today!” Sarah explained.

The sheikh threw his hands up into the air. “What have you been saying to her?” he asked his mother. “I bring a guest here and you insult her like this!”

“Insult her?” Fatima yelled back. “What kind of an insult is it to marry my son, the leader of the Al-Zafirs? You said that she was the only woman you wanted to marry and now you have her, so marry her. If you weren’t planning to marry her, why did you bring back four very fine goats for the wedding feast?”

Sarah looked at Fatima and then at the sheikh.

“The goats were a present and have nothing to do with any wedding. It’s up to me and Dr. Greenwich when, or even if, we get married. I haven’t even had time to consult her about this.” He turned to Sarah and started apologising profusely for what had happened.

“What do you mean you’ll consult her?” his mother interrupted. “Was I consulted when I was married to your father? Did your brother consult Minna when he arranged her marriage? You have the woman you want, so what is there to consult about?”

“I won’t force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Why? Are you not a man? Are you weak? Is that why you don’t fight the other tribes? Is that why you sit here idle while your men polish their guns, waiting for the day to use them?”

“How dare you! Get back to your tent now. I’ll deal with you later.” The sheikh’s face burned red with anger.

Fatima flung back the heavy flap of her tent and strode in without another word. Minna followed her, but not before she had given Sarah a long look of contempt.

“You see,” the sheikh said to Sarah, “even my own mother wants me to go to war against the other tribes. I need a strong woman like you to help me in my fight for peace. However, I’d never make you do anything you didn’t want to do. Like the desert rose, you can’t be forced from the ground, or ripped away; otherwise, you would wither and your beauty would be lost. You must be free to grow and flourish as you please.”

“Thank you.” Sarah felt guilty that she’d ever suspected Akbar of trying to kidnap her as his bride.

“I apologise for my mother’s behaviour. She’s only trying to act in my best interests. She meant you no harm.”

“Is it true what she said about me being the woman you want to marry?”

The sheikh turned away from Sarah and began walking towards his Jeep. “If you’re ready, I’ll take you back to the city,” he called out over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“Is it true?” Sarah repeated.

The sheikh stopped walking. He turned, put his hands on his hips and faced Sarah square on. “Yes, it’s true, but as you don’t feel the same way, I’d be grateful if we didn’t discuss the matter. I’ll take you back to the city and we won’t meet again. Now, it’s late. We must go.”

Sarah knew she couldn’t marry this man today, but the idea of never seeing him again was worse. “How do you know I don’t feel the same way?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re hardly the willing bride and I won’t force you to marry me.”

“I’m just not the willing bride, yet,” Sarah replied.

Sheikh Akbar came up to her and took her hands in his. “So you would be willing to marry me?”

“Yes, but when I’m ready.”

He embraced her so tightly that Sarah was quite out of breath when he let go.

“My desert rose, I’ll give you as long as you need. Now, let us celebrate!” He called out to his men that he was engaged to be married and told them to hurry up and prepare a huge feast.

As soon as Fatima heard the news, she came out of her tent and embraced the pair of them.

“What did I tell you?” she said to her son. “I knew you’d get married. It’s good that it isn’t today, as that will give us longer to prepare the bride. I’ll make her the finest dress that anyone has ever seen in Sakara. It’ll have so much gold thread that it’ll take two servants to lift it onto her.” She then turned to Sarah. “You’re a smart woman. Make the man wait. Don’t appear too keen.” She patted Sarah on the cheek.

Much later that night, after they had all eaten and the younger women had danced while the men sang songs about strong warriors and fair women, Sheikh Akbar slipped away from the campfires and told Sarah to follow him. Then, once they were alone in his tent, he took her to his bed and began the first of a thousand nights of seduction.

* * * * *

Follows Sarah’s story in Parts 2 and 3 of
The Desert Sheikh
series:

    

Available from all Amazon sites, including Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

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From the author

I hope you enjoyed
Kidnapped by the Sheikh,
the first part of
The Desert Sheikh
series. After I wrote my first novel,
The Royal Sheikh
, many of my readers asked me if I could write another Sheikh Romance. However, I decided to write about a different type of Sheikh this time. Unlike Sheikh Rafiq, in
The Royal Sheikh
, Sheikh Akbar is not a wealthy member of the international jet-set. Instead, he comes from the more remote parts of the Arabian Peninsula and rules over a local Bedouin tribe.